Thai troops to replace teachers in violent south
Wed 13 Jul 2005
By Panarat Thepgumpanat
BANGKOK, July 13 (Reuters) - Thailand will replace 3,600 civilian teachers wanting to leave schools in the violent Muslim far south with graduate soldiers and police, Deputy Education Minister Rung Kaewdaeng said on Wednesday.
Only 1,000 of the mostly Busddhist teachers -- who have requested transfers after the deaths of more than 800 people in daily attacks -- will actually leave region.
The rest will move to town schools from remote areas of the region, which was annexed by Thailand a century ago and has been prone to periods of anti-government violence. The latest troubles in the far south, where separatists fought a low-key insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s, began in January last year and show no sign of slackening despite the presence of at least 30,000 soldiers.
"Everyone in the deep south, military or civilian, now carries a backpack containing some weapons," Rung told state-run Radio Thailand. "So when they hear the first gunshot, they can return the fire or shoot into the air for help."
FREE FLAK JACKETS
Education Ministry data showed about 1,000 teachers have already left the region, where schools have been frequent militant targets as symbols of the government of predominantly-Buddhist Thailand in faraway Bangkok.
As incentives to stay, the Education Ministry is offering 3,000 free flak jackets and faster licences for 1,700 teachers waiting to buy pistols in the most dangerous parts of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces.
Rung said the government would raise special hardship allowances, double life insurance coverage to 2 million baht ($48,000) and promise faster promotion.
Despite being guarded by soldiers to and from work, teachers have been attacked by militants when off-duty in the region of fewer than 2 million people, 80 percent of whom are Muslim.
Another school principal was killed late on Tuesday in Narathiwat, but the army said the incident was motivated by personal conflict, not militants.
The government has imposed martial law on parts of the region and set up a panel led by a former prime minister to seek ways to resolve the conflict.
But the violence has raged on, with 10 people beheaded -- killings some top officials say have been inspired by Iraqi insurgents -- in recent months, and officials say thousands of locally-born people, many of them Buddhists, have moved out.
On Tuesday, the cabinet agreed a 2.8 billion baht ($67 million) budget to buy 25,000 rifles and machine guns and seven attack helicopters over the next three years.
"More than 60 percent of these weapons will be used to strengthen our operations in restoring peace in the south," Army spokesman Acra Tiprote said. ($1=41.74 baht)
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