A surge of violence in southern Thailand has cast a shadow over tourism in the 'Land of Smiles', writes Richard S. Ehrlich in Bangkok
Muslim guerrillas have told the "people of the world" not to visit southern Thailand, where Thai troops killed more than 100 Islamic militants in Pattani this week. Australia and the United States have since advised their citizens against unnecessary travel to the region. But the stark guerrilla warning included Phuket island, a wealthy, tourist playground off the south-west coast, popular with Irish visitors.
Phuket island is graced by lavish, expensive, self-contained resorts cooled by gigantic "infinity pools" and "jungle pools" set among meticulously coifed foliage, rustic wooden bridges, stone paths and palm trees. Nightlife on the island includes discos and sidewalk nightclubs teeming with prostitutes and souvenir sellers seeking to attract the millions of annual tourists.
Wealthy foreigners and Thais have bought so many of the island's exclusive homes that a real-estate boom has started to clog Phuket's extravagant splendour. "Despite violent unrest in southern Thailand, Phuket developers are upbeat and have recently raised prices by 10 to 25 per cent, as interest from overseas buyers continues to spur new projects," the Nation newspaper in Bangkok reported yesterday.
But in a harsh wake-up call, the unprecedented warning specifically included Phuket island and was signed by the United Front for the Independence of Pattani - a feared guerrilla group usually referred to as Bersatu, which means "united" in Malay language.
It was posted on the "official website" of the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO), which forms part of the united front, along with the Mujahideen Pattani Movement and two smaller rebel groups.
The unusual, one-paragraph "message from Bersatu" said: "Dear people of the world, persons who plan to visit Thailand NOW are warned not to travel to Pattani Raya Region - Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Satun, Songkhla - and the neighbor provinces \ Phuket, Pangnga, Krabi, Pattalung. Pattani people are not responsible for anything \ happens to you after this warning."
Thailand's worst day of bloodshed in decades occurred on Wednesday in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Songkhla, where Thai troops clashed with Islamic militants, killing at least 107 alleged assailants. Pattani's small Krue Se mosque became a blood-spattered slaughterhouse when Thai troops panicked and killed all 32 people inside. Three police and two soldiers also died in the scattered clashes, bringing the one-day death toll to at least 112.
Bersatu's naming of Narathiwat and Satun provinces completes the list of five southern provinces where most of Thailand's four per cent minority Muslims live, and where insurgents have long fought for an independent Pattani Raya, or Pattani Kingdom.
Phuket island is northwest of that troubled area, and is Thailand's jewel, a place so prosperous that it enjoys a virtual parallel economy compared to the rest of the country, allowing it to bask in pampered luxury even when Thailand led Asia into an economic meltdown in 1997. Pangnga and Krabi also attract tourists, including countless international backpackers who revel in the cheap paradisiac splendour, strange rock formations along the coast, and hedonistic outdoor parties.
The insurgents' warning was not dated and did not indicate why it was posted, but apparently Wednesday's bloodshed angered the shadowy, illegal group.
Thailand's Islamic guerrillas are too weak to occupy any permanent territory, so they unleash surprise attacks and rapidly disperse, hitting targets in the south such as police and army posts, government buildings, Buddhist temples, plantations and nightclubs, often killing people at the sites with machetes or other light weapons.
They have burned dozens of government schools which teach a Thai curriculum loathed by the minority ethnic Malay rebels, who prefer the Yawi dialect of Malay and religious lessons in Arabic to memorise the Koran.
A handful reportedly learned to fight in Afghanistan alongside the US-financed mujahideen against the Soviet occupation - when Washington endorsed an Islamic "holy war" against "godless communists" - or with Taliban Sunnis and al-Qaeda before that regime was chased out by the 2001 US-led invasion.
"All of us were sacrificing ourselves for God," said an arrested alleged militant, Mana Matiyoh, on Thursday while describing the attacks to journalists in Pattani.
The militants, who display increasingly sophisticated synchronisation in simultaneous multiple attacks, emphasise theirs is a fight between Thailand's persecuted minority Muslims and trigger-happy majority Buddhists.
The government denies such allegations and fears the Islamic militants' cause will become "internationalised", attracting unwanted inspection by foreign governments, human rights organisations and the United Nations, as well as cash, weapons and training from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and its "global jihad".