Videoconference with government, Democrats to discuss southern insurgency
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A videoconference between opposition Democrat Party and senior security officials will be held to share opinions on violence in Thailand's insurgency-torn southern border region, Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung said yesterday.
Chalerm’s remarks followed Tuesday’s meeting between Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cabinet members with Opposition Leader Abhisit Vejjajiva and Democrat Party MPs for the southern border provinces to resolve the long-standing problem in the ethnic-Malay, Muslim-majority South, especially in Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani.
Chalerm said that an additional 4,500 police had been deployed in the restive region and that he would invite deputy Democrat leader Thavorn Senneam and General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, former deputy prime minister and ex-army chief, to join the teleconference with local officials, residents and religious leaders.
Chalerm added that the Democrats’ proposal was in the same direction as that of the National Security Council.
He also reaffirmed that the newly set-up Operation Centre on Solutions to Problems in Three Southern Provinces would not duplicate the work of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC), as feared by the opposition.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister General Yuthasak Sasiprapha reaffirmed that the government was willing to hear the nine-point proposal of the Democrats as both shared some similar ideas.
Yingluck heeds Abhisit’s recommendations and is willing to improve the government’s performance to tackle unrest in deep South, Yuthasak said, adding that the prime minister wanted to raise the issue southern unrest in the national agenda, which needs participation from all parties.
Yuthasak said a similar meeting between the government and the opposition would be held again if there were any “secret agenda” that required discussions between political parties, while development issues would be discussed by concerned MPs.
Meanwhile, a bomb squad successfully defused a 5-kilogram bomb found in a litter bin in the Yala provincial capital yesterday morning.
A patrol unit found the suspicious object left in a plastic box while on foot patrol at Tuboh Intersection in Sateng Nok subdistrict. They alerted the police bomb squad, who responded to the scene. The squad cut all telecommunication signals before defusing the bomb, so that it could not be set off by mobile-phone or radio signals.
Police investigators said they believed the bomb was intended to kill army rangers from the 43rd Rangers Regiment who usually manned a checkpoint to monitor suspicious vehicles at the intersection.
