Yet another teacher victimized in southern unrest ...
Some scary things going on down south -- and I was actually once considering looking for a teaching job down there!From The Bangkok Post, 8-Feb-2006
Another teacher was killed in Yala yesterday, the fifth attack on a teacher in the province in less than a week, as the prime minister announced he would visit the area in the next few days. Rangsarit Dokmai, 42, of Thammawitthaya Foundation School, was travelling home from school on a motorbike when he was shot dead near a fresh market in the province's urban centre about 9.30am by two teenagers on another motorcycle.Rangsarit, who converted to Islam from Buddhism, was the fifth teacher to be killed at the school which was founded by Sapae-ing Baso, who tops a most-wanted list of separatist insurgents.Mr Sapae-ing has a 10-million-baht bounty on his head, the largest the government has offered for any alleged insurgent leader.''Rangsarit was Buddhist, then converted to Islam after he was recruited from Bangkok by Sapae-ing to teach here in 1988,'' a colleague said.Several teachers and students at Thammawitthaya, a high school of 6,000 students which teaches both Islam and general subjects, have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the insurgency, police said.Mr Sapae-ing has been named by security agencies as a leader of the BRN Coordinate, one of the groups behind the violence in the region, and they say he is believed to be hiding in Malaysia.Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday he plans to visit the restive South this week to offer moral support to the teachers.''I will go there to give the teachers moral support and inspect the situation,'' he said in Chiang Mai. It will be the prime minister's first visit to the violence-wracked southern provinces since October.Rangsarit was killed after he and other teachers took students to an anti-violence rally on Monday in Yala, where more than 130 schools suspended classes this week.On Friday, three teachers were shot and seriously injured when a pick-up they were riding in was attacked by gunmen. On Monday, a school director in Narathiwat was wounded in an ambush.There was also a rumour that militants planned to kill 40 other teachers.Sanya Suwannapho, chairman of the Yala Teachers Federation, said the federation met yesterday to discuss the murder of Rangsarit. Schools would be allowed to extend their suspension of classes until the situation returns to normal.Pol Lt-Gen Adul Saengsingkaew, commissioner of Police Region 9, said security agencies met yesterday to adjust safety plans for teachers following the first school closures in Yala.Meanwhile, a mobile phone-triggered bomb targeting a police patrol unit went off in Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok district yesterday. No injuries were reported.The bomb, hidden in a bush opposite a coffee shop, exploded shortly after three police officers left the shop.
posted by Mister Ray @ 2/09/2006 07:19:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home