Muslim rebels light fuse in Thailand

Jason Burke reports from Su So, Thailand, whose football team died in an ugly little war waged between Islamic militants and the police and fuelled by religious, ethnic and economic rivalries  

Colonel Chamlong looks out at the rain and smiles. In front of him are 42 men sitting in ranks. Washed and changed after clambering over a muddy assault course, they are now preparing to be lectured on their nation's culture, history and religion. 

But they are not soldiers. They are being detained as suspected militants who have launched a guerrilla campaign in Thailand aimed, as far as anyone can tell, at securing the independence of the three Muslim-dominated provinces on the country's southern border. 'They are misguided men. We want to change their minds,' Chamlong, 51, says. 

The colonel runs a benign boot camp. It is the first of its kind - and the first shown to a Western journalist - in Thailand. How many of the men there are genuine militants is unclear, as all claim to have been unfairly accused. 'A rival told the authorities I had accepted an invitation to join the guerrillas by a man in my village. But I refused,' said Abdul Halim, 18. Others did not refuse. 

Fifty miles from the boot camp by the coast is Su So. The village, set on a ridge surrounded by forest, is dominated by the football ground's concrete grandstand. But few play football in Su So any more. The best side in the village was TR Sports, and all 19 of its players died when they launched a dawn attack on a police post in a nearby town on 28 April. 

The men had machetes and knives, the police M-16s. The team's only survivor was the coach, Pittaiya. His brother, Kamaruddin, top scorer and captain, was killed. 'He was a normal man, a nice man, very quiet,' Pittaiya said last week. 'They were all normal men. I still can't understand how this happened.'

On the day TR Sports was wiped out, 89 other local men also died in a series of attacks on police or army positions. 

There are no clear explanations why more than 100 poorly armed villagers launched themselves against automatic weapons. Some blame religion, others 'outside influences' that convinced the men they were invulnerable. But what is clear is that the attack was part of a wider pattern that has brought the vicious little conflict in the south of Thailand, which has claimed 300 lives already this year, to a new level of intensity. 

Last week two policemen, a school bus driver, a railway official and two village administrators were shot dead. One was Sawan Khaosee, who worked in Su So. When The Observer visited the village office, a few hundred yards from the football stadium, Khaosee's desk remained piled with the papers he had been working on in the hours before his death. Khaosee was a Buddhist, like nearly 95 per cent of Thais. The villagers of Su So, like most of the people in the three provinces where the violence has been concentrated, are Muslim.The fighting that has surged there is often, by outsiders at least, said to be based in religion. 

Islam is a strong element. Ever since the Sultanate of Pattani, a local Islamic kingdom, was annexed by an expansionist Buddhist monarchy more than a century ago, some have fought central rule and called for a separate Islamic state. Revolts in the 1970s and early 1980s were put down with great brutality. 

The most recent violence also has a strong religious flavour. On the day that TR Sports died, another group of men attacked a police post on the outskirts of the town of Pattani after praying at a historic mosque near by. According to Niseng Nilaeh, an eyewitness, the leader called on local people to join the battle to 'sacrifice themselves for God'. Later the police found a 30-page tract arguing that it was a religious obligation for Muslims to fight for the 'lost land' of the Pattani sultanate. 

Religious radicalism has been growing in the south for several years. More conservative, intolerant styles of worship have been imported from the Middle East. Certainly, many of the TR Sports players had been educated in government-registered religious schools and at least two ran their own Islamic study groups. Some had studied in the 200 new medressas -independent Islamic colleges devoted purely to religion - that have sprung up in the past decade. There are some links to a Saudi-funded hardline religious college. 

According to Rawsedee Lertariyapongkul, the president of the Association of Thai Muslim Youth, world events may have angered the footballers. 'People see what is happening in Palestine and Iraq and Kashmir and feel that Muslims are being treated very badly everywhere. They want to fight for justice,' he said. 

But there is no real evidence of any link between the separatists and al-Qaeda or its local affiliates. And for every one of the TR Sports team who appeared devout, there are others who were not. The youngest in the side, 18-year-old Samit Suthonehh, had left a religious school three months earlier because he didn't like it. Four others had just completed their compulsory military service. 

Nor did the players ever show any interest in, or knowledge of, international affairs. There is no satellite dish in Su So. 'The guys were never interested in religion or politics,' said Pittaiya. 'They just liked to play football. All their favourite players were from Brazil or England.' 

Many say the problem is ethnic.The southern provinces are mainly Malay, not Thai.The assailants who decapitated a Buddhist monk in May left a note saying: 'If you continue to arrest innocent Muslims, we will kill innocent Buddhists.' But those who wounded two policemen last week threatened to 'kill innocent Thais' if 'innocent Malays' were harmed. 'That demonstrates how confused these issues are,' said one Thai intelligence expert. 

Others point to socio economic factors. Thailand's economic growth has left the southern provinces trailing. Su So's village elders complain of a lack of electricity, public transport and water pumps. The government has launched major development plans - in Su So there is scheme helping women to stitch clothes for export - but many locals still feel they are treated as second-class citizens.The police are almost entirely Buddhist Thais and abuse human rights. Alleged activists, including a human rights lawyer, frequently 'disappear'. Witnesses, who did not want to be named, said that the young men of TR Sports were executed after surrendering. The 32 men attacked in Pattani appear to have been killed in cold blood. 

The final complicating factor in the south is crime. Smuggling - of arms, people and drugs - generates hundreds of millions of dollars and penetrates every part of society, including the civil administration and security authorities. Much of the violence, including a recent bomb outside a bar, is likely to be connected to business disputes. No one knows exactly who looted a huge amount of explosive from a quarry or stole 380 automatic weapons from a barracks earlier this year. But the means for massive violence are clearly available. 

Locally, mosquito coils are used as fuses for bombs. Currently in southern Thailand, no one knows how long there is left to burn.