Word: buddhists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Unlike Muslims in the Middle East, those in Southeast Asia live in the shadows of large Buddhist, Hindu and Christian communities. Local Muslims have traditionally been moderate and tolerant. As in other regions, terrorism in Southeast Asia is supported only by a minority. But as Southeast Asia has had no indigenous history of terrorism, counterterrorism institutions in the region are weak or nonexistent. So domestic and foreign terrorist groups have been able to operate with relative ease. J.I., for example, is virtually a legal entity in Indonesia. To reduce the terrorist threat in Asia, regional governments must continue to build...
Village chief Boonserm Petchsuan, 49, is one well-armed Buddhist. Holstered under his baggy shirt is a .38-cal. revolver, and at home he keeps an assault rifle to protect his wife and teenage daughter. Boonserm is taking no chances. Two weeks ago, his friend Run Tulae, 59, was abducted from their remote village of Ai Ti Mung in troubled Narathiwat province. His decapitated corpse was found the next day. "I think he was still alive when they cut his head off," says Boonserm...
...Buddhists, too, feel under siege. In recent weeks militants have been targeting not just soldiers, police and government officials but also ordinary Buddhists in what is apparently a campaign of vengeance for the Tak Bai killings. The militants are driving a wedge between communities that used to live in relative harmony. "When I grew up here, Muslims and Buddhists got on like brothers and sisters," recalls a monk at Ba Pai temple near Narathiwat. Today what both sides share is fear, paranoia and a simmering anger that the violence now threatens their homes. In the Buddhist village of Tung...
...With the military stretched thin across the south, some Buddhists have sold up and moved out while others have taken their security into their own hands. In the remote mountainous region along the Thai-Malaysian border, Buddhist villages now resemble fortresses. Most men are armed with government-issued shotguns and assault rifles, and take turns manning checkpoints outside the village. They turn back any car or motorbike carrying Muslims, including those who have traded in the villages for decades. "We can't trust anyone anymore," says Sakarin Chanhon, 52, a member of the militia in Pukhaotong village in Sukarin district...
...Even Buddhist monks and temples have been targeted. Across the south this year, four monks have been murdered (one was beheaded) and temples have been bombed, burned and shot at. Soldiers now routinely accompany monks on their morning alms round. At Pattani's Lak Muang temple, barefoot monks pad past sandbagged bunkers while soldiers keep fit and earn merit by jogging around a giant whitewashed stupa. But monks are quietly fleeing, say local Buddhists, and some soldiers have taken leave to be ordained as monks in a desperate attempt to bolster monastic numbers...