Over 3300 people have died in Thailand's southern provinces over the past five years of separatist insurgency at the hands of the military and militants. The violence has claimed the lives of mostly the innocent and successive governments have resorted a a varied of tactics to quell the rebellion including the former PM's airdropping 1,000,000 paper birds onto the restive South. My wife's brother-in-law is a border ranger attached to a frontier outpost in the jungle. He gets 1000 baht per month extra for combat pay. His wife prays he comes home alive and for the first time since the former PM started the conflict by evicting farmers off land he had promised to a political ally, the rebels have surfaced to propose a truce or pak-rop.
A video from a previously unknown Muslim group, United Southern Underground,
announced their call for a truce to end the armed uprising in the South from July 14 onward. Various Thai TV stations broadcast the declaration by two semi-disguised men first on the Army channel, however experts were quick to note that attacks have not cease in either Yala or Pattani. The government has deigned not to react to this peace offering until after the weekend's Buddhist holidays, although the former army commander for the troubled region said that the truce might be the result of "unofficial negotiations".
"This is considered a good sign and I'm confident the situation would improve compared to before." The former defense minister is obviously hoping for the best, since the worst has yet to rear its ugly face.
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