Islamonazis Shut Down Schools in Thailand
Back when I was a young pup and the snow would start falling, I remember excitedly sitting around the radio with my older sister as we listened intently for news that our school had been closed down on account of snow. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that other kids someday would be sitting around listening for school closings on account of terrorists!
Even though the writer of the following news item states that the teachers are seen by the Islamonazis as representatives of the government, I am going to go out on a limb here and disagree with that analysis.
There is something even more sinister going on here. It seems to me that whenever Islamonazism takes root in a community, the teachers are the first to go because an uneducated society is easier to control than a well educated, free thinking society…
Teacher slayings shut Thai schools
November 25, 2006
CNN
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Hundreds of schools in Thailand’s restive south will shut their doors in response to increasingly vicious attacks by suspected Muslim insurgents against teachers and schools, an official said Saturday.
The closure, which begins Monday, affects all 336 primary and secondary schools in the province of Pattani, where two teachers were fatally shot by suspected insurgents in the past two days.
In one of the killings, attackers shot a school principal Friday, and then set his body on fire. The principal became the 59th teacher or school official killed in three years of violence, said Bunsom Thongsriprai, president of the Teachers’ Association in Pattani.
“Teachers can’t bear what has happened,” Bunsom said. “They are paranoid, worried and afraid.” He said the province’s schools, which teach about 100,000 students, will reopen when teachers feel safe.
More than 1,800 people have died from violence in Thailand’s three southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces — Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat — since an Islamic insurgency flared in January 2004.
Teachers have always been occasional targets, seen by insurgents as representatives of the government and easy targets. But recently, teachers and schools have been attacked on an almost daily basis.
On Thursday, 96 schools across Yala were ordered closed as a safety precaution after a school was burned down the day before. It was one of several schools in the province recently targeted by arsonists.
The Yala schools were initially scheduled to reopen Monday but school authorities have decided to keep them closed until further notice, said Sanya Suwannapho, head of the Association of Teachers in Yala province.
Thailand’s new military-installed government has pledged to make peace in the south a priority, and reverse the hardline policies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a Sept. 19 coup.
Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtat said Friday that insurgents had stepped up violence to keep residents from accepting new peace overtures from the authorities.
“They have intensified violent attacks to intimidate and terrify people,” Boonrawd said, adding that the shadowy groups behind the violence have not accepted government offers to hold talks.
