End of an era as Thai rubber tappers flee violence
Sat 23 Jul 2005
By Sasithorn Simaporn
YALA, Thailand, July 24 (Reuters) - For the last 100 years, rubber tappers like Weerachart Suwanchatree have been getting up in the middle of the night to do the rounds of latex plantations in southern Thailand.
That is, until they became unwitting targets in a shadowy insurgency in the three southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces which has killed more than 800 people since January 2004.
When his parents, both of them Buddhists, had their throats slit by suspected Muslim separatists as they worked the dawn shift in the family plantation last month, Weerachart's simple life fell apart.
"I'm devastated," the 27-year-old said. "The day after they were killed, nobody in the village dared leave their homes to go tap rubber." http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=BKK168452