| ï
Assalamualaikum
It is about
time OIC made its stand rather than being silent all this while and let the kufr
dictates how Muslim should be treated.
As for going
forward, OIC should be playing much more ACTIVE role rather than being
reactive.
Islahonline
From:
Mohammed Fauzi
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:44
AM
Subject: Thailand to Explain
ÃâÅHarsh PoliciesÃâ to OIC
Thailand to Explain "Harsh Policies" to
OIC
Ihsanoglu expressed "serious dissatisfaction at the persisting
bloody
acts of violence perpetrated against Muslims in southern
Thailand".
BANGKOK, March 1, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - With analysts
seeing little
chance of the Thai PM to change his hawkish policies,
Thailand said it
was sending envoys to meet with the head of the
Organization of the
Islamic Conference (OIC) to explain its policies in
the
violence-wracked Muslim-majority south.
Thailand will dispatch
three special envoys to the OIC following a
strongly worded statement from
the 57-member body condemning the
government's hard-line policy towards the
Muslim-majority South, Thai
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said
Monday, February 28,
according to Malaysian daily The Nation.
The
OIC has appealed to the government to end "persistent bloody acts
of
violence" against Muslims in southern Thailand.
In a recent statement,
OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu
expressed "serious
dissatisfaction at the persisting bloody acts of
violence perpetrated
against Muslims in southern Thailand".
The appeal was made in a
statement that followed a meeting between
Ihsanoglu and Malaysian Prime
Minister Abdullah Badawi, chairman of
the 10th Islamic Summit Conference to
be held in Saudi Arabia later
this year.
Ihsanoglu had said violence
against Muslims continued despite appeals
made by the OIC and the
international community to the Thai government
to end the violations that
have claimed the lives of hundreds of
people.
He also called for a
"a just and urgent investigation into the causes
of these incidents and to
put an end to them".
The Thai envoys, two Muslims and a Buddhist, are
Charan Maluleem, a
government adviser on Islamic affairs, Nissai Vejjajiva,
an adviser to
the foreign minister, and former ambassador to Tehran Mahadi
Wimana.
Nissai said he considered problems in the South an "internal
affair",
but fell short of saying the OIC has no right to voice its point
of
view on the subject, according to the paper.
The decision to
dispatch envoys is the government's latest effort to
prevent problems in
the restive region from spilling over into the
international arena, the
paper added.
Thaksin has vowed Thursday, February 17, to crush
"separatist revolt"
in the predominantly-Muslim south within four years,
saying his
government would cut off aid to villages who help separatists
there.
But the plan drew fierce criticism in the region, with Muslim
leaders,
academics and politicians saying it would encourage support for
a
separatism in which more than 500 people have been killed since
it
erupted in January last year and would further damage
business
confidence.
Representatives of several civic groups signed
an open letter to
Thaksin demanding him to scrap his recent order to divide
some 1,500
villages into "red", "yellow" or "green" zones according to
their
level of alleged sympathy for rebels or support of
authorities.
Unlikely Change
Analysts Doubt Thaksin is
likely to change his harsh strategy. (Reuters)
Within the same
context, analysts and Muslim leaders said Tuesday,
March 1 that although
the Thai Prime Minister has sought rare advice
from critics of his tough
stance towards unrest in the Muslim far
south, he is unlikely to change
tack, according to Reuters.
Normally intolerant of any criticism,
Thaksin has surprised his
opponents by inviting academics and villagers to
come up with
non-violent proposals to end the violence, it
added.
However, few believe that Thaksin, fresh from a landslide
second
election victory, will heed their words.
"The government has
created an image that it is willing to listen to
others and ready to let
them join its effort in solving the problem in
the south," political
scientist Bukhoree Yeema of Rajabhat Songkhla
University told
Reuters.
"But I doubt if the Prime Minister will sincerely listen to
them and
implement some of their advice, or whether he will just listen and
say
those non-violence methods won't work so he needs to continue with
the
hawkish approach."
Religious leaders in the region, where four
out of five people are
Muslim, said villagers were tired of voicing their
opinions to a wide
variety of government officials who seldom did anything
about them.
"We've made suggestions to officials from a deputy prime
minister to
provincial governors and district heads, but we've never seen
concrete
implementation of our plans," Narathiwat Islamic council
chief,
Abdulrahman Abdulsahad, told Reuters.
"We've wasted so much
time giving them so many opinions and so much
advice," Abdulrahman said,
adding people were still living in "fear
for their lives".
He also
urged the government to be more open and accessible, as
suggested Monday by
Prem Tinsulanonda, a former prime minister and
chief adviser to revered
King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
"Whichever organizations want to settle the
problem must know what is
really going on. They must also know correctly
the problem they are
going to resolve," Prem, who served as prime minister
from 1980 to
1988, told a recent seminar on the thorny south
problems.
Thaksin won elections, but not a single seat in the
Muslim south. (Reuters)
Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist nation
but about five percent of
the population is Muslim, and most live in the
five southern provinces
bordering Malaysia.
Pattani, Yala and
Narathiwat are the only Muslim majority provinces in
Thailand, where
Muslims have long complained of discrimination in jobs
and education and
business opportunities.
On October 25, a total of 87 Muslims died after
Thai troops broke up a
protest at Tak Bai in the southern province of
Narathiwat with tear
gas, water cannon and gunfire.
The majority of
victims suffocated or were crushed after being bound
and left for hours on
trucks.
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