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| Sunday, 28 March 2004 |
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Motorcycle bomb wounds 30 in Thai Muslim south BANGKOK, March 27 (Reuters) A bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded outside a hotel in Thailand's largely Muslim south wounding about 30 people, including Malaysian tourists, a police spokesman said on Saturday. He told Reuters the bomb exploded outside a bar and hotel in Sunghai Golok district of Narathiwat province, which has been under martial law since an armed raid in January on an army camp in the region in which many weapons were stolen. State radio said one person had died in the blast when the motorcycle parked outside the Top Ten karaoke bar next to the Marina Hotel in the border town popular with Malaysian tourists, but police on the spot said there were no deaths. At least two of the wounded were seriously injured and there were several Malaysians in the Top Ten bar, police spokesman Champol Chaiyadej said from the scene, but it was not immediately clear how many tourists were wounded. Police said they suspected the bomb had been detonated remotely. More than 60 people have been killed in the region, where many of Thailand's six million Muslims live, since the January army raid, in which four soldiers were killed. Many of the killings have been carried out by people on motorcycles. Some officials believe the violence may be part of a resurgence of a low-key separatist war in the 1970s and 1980s. The government blames a mixture of separatists and mafias in a region also notorious for smuggling arms and drugs. Muslim leaders have asked the government to lift martial law, which they say is disrupting economic life in a region heavily dependent on rubber tapping and fishing, which involves moving around at night. The government says it is imposing martial law with as light a hand as it can and issues frequent appeals for people to come forward with information on who is behind the killings. But the government also has the problem of the disappearance of a prominent Muslim lawyer, Somchai Neelaphaichit, who was defending Thai Muslims on trial for membership of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islaimiah. Critics at home and abroad have suggested security officials might be responsible for the disappearance of Somchai, last seen on March 12, but the government has denied that adamantly and says it is doing everything it can to find him. On Thursday, a court issued arrest warrants for a Muslim lawmaker of the ruling party and eight others accused of treason by plotting the unrest in the south. The legislator, Najmuddin Umar, denies any involvement and only a parliamentary vote to lift his immunity would allow him to be arrested. Parliament rarely votes to lift the immunity of its members to criminal charges. |
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