Word: thais
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...This year's summit was preceded by some rare fireworks. The group has a decades-old policy of "nonintervention" in each other's affairs. Last week, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra threatened to walk out of the meetings if anyone tried to discuss his country's problem with Muslim insurgents in Thailand's south. "If there is any attempt to raise the issue," he told reporters, "I will fly straight home." Burma's Soe Win may have been hoping that the prisoner release would prevent awkward discussions on the fate of Suu Kyi and her supporters. According to opposition groups...
...military trucks ferrying them to an army camp. Since then more than 30 people have been killed by unknown attackers in what Buddhists fear is an escalating campaign to drive them from southern Thailand. In response, Buddhists are arming themselves?and not just in the villages. Every Sunday a Thai businessman drives his armor-plated car to a navy firing range outside Narathiwat town, where he and other local Buddhists practice how to shoot. While a bank manager and a bookshop owner blast away with sleek Italian-made shotguns, the businessman?who doesn't want to be named?takes...
...country's poorest regions?who have felt marginalized and persecuted. Although they form the majority here, they own less than 30% of the region's businesses. Unemployment forces tens of thousands of men across the border to work in Malaysia's rubber and fishing industries, despite a Thai government affirmative-action program to boost Muslim numbers in certain professions. Allegations of abduction, torture and other abuses by elements of Thai security forces have fueled Muslim resentment. Some analysts believe that unidentified Islamic separatists, inspired by the global jihad, are exploiting this anger to launch attacks against the state. Others caution...
...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...
...Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra appeared to be listening, too. Though he has said that he regrets the deaths of the protesters in October, Thaksin has not apologized for the military's actions. But last week he agreed to meet a group of Bangkok academics and human-rights advocates pushing for more sensitive policies in dealing with the region's woes. One suggestion he has embraced is a plan to mobilize the nation to fold 62 million origami paper "peace" doves that will be dropped on the south by military aircraft on Dec. 5, the King's birthday. Since hearing...