Word: separatist
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...also raise another grim specter: the possibility that the militants might turn their sights on the millions of foreigners who flock to Thailand's beach resorts, dealing a body blow to the country's chief source of foreign currency, its $7 billion-a-year tourism industry. Ominously, one Islamic separatist group that had been quiet for decades, the Pattani United Liberation Organization (P.U.L.O.), published a warning to foreign tourists on its website within 24 hours of the killings. The message, addressed to "Dear People of the World," said: "Persons who plan to visit Thailand NOW are warned not to travel...
...escalation of violence will depend, of course, on the leadership, organizational ability and funding of the handful of small separatist groups in the south. But even the most basic information about these groups?the size of their memberships, how much they cooperate with one another, what links they have to international militant Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah (JI)?remains largely a mystery. "Most of the groups have been dormant for years," says a Malaysian intelligence official in Kuala Lumpur, so they have largely fallen off the radar. But, he adds, while relatively few in numbers...
...succession of events has combined to breathe new life into the dying embers of the southern Muslims' separatist cause. First came the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and the accompanying global revival of radical, jihadist Islam, fueled by the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Coupled with that was a crackdown in Malaysia that saw many militants fleeing back across the notoriously porous border into southern Thailand. But the biggest factor, say critics of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has been the central government's hardball approach to the south since he came to power...
...highly respected [Muslim] people in the community. That really feeds anger and resentment against the government." Vairoj Phiphipakdee, an opposition lawmaker and Muslim from Pattani who has met with gangs that have shot policemen and burned schools, says he has observed a marked change in the separatist cause over the past two years. Back then, he estimates, there were fewer than 20 hard-core separatists in the south. Now, he says, "I believe it's a full-blown separatist revolt involving hundreds of people?and it came about because of mistakes in government policy...
...Human Rights The Indonesian military has brutally suppressed separatist rebels in the western province of Aceh since martial law was declared there last year. Widespread human-rights abuses have been reported. Elsewhere in Indonesia, antigovernment protesters have been detained or jailed and press freedom has come under assault