New lives beckon amid rubble

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SOUTH

Govt will buy land, offer soft loans to residents hit by insurgency

Published: 10 Sep 2012 at 00.00
Newspaper section: News

Owning 78 rai of rubber plantation in Yala, Wanpen (not her real name), 48, and three other siblings used to earn more than 100,000 baht a month. Now, each month they make only 3,000-5,000 baht.

"Before this, whatever brand-new cars we wanted, we could buy them all. But now, we are poorer than even those whom we have helped," said Ms Wanpen, who asked not to be identified by her real name for security reasons.

Since violence in the South flared up again in January 2004, she and her brother and sisters have moved out of their homes in a rubber plantation in Bannang Sata district to live in the city of Yala where their lives are considered safer.

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spiceman
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Discussion 10 : 11 Sep 2012 at 13.1910
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Khun Bern #9, firefighters have learned to perfect the technic of fighting fire with fire for a long time. The foreign jihadists may have beaten us to the Deep South already, which should explain the recent escalation, increase in sophistication, and boldness of the terrorists. The objective here is to put out the "fire" TS started many years ago, and I don't care whether it is with "water" or "fire" or a combination of both, as long as it gets the job done, with least amount of collateral damages.
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bern1005
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Discussion 9 : 11 Sep 2012 at 12.109
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Anger at the cowardly violence is natural but fighting fire with fire usually only results in complete devastation for everyone. The key to reducing the level of violence is to undermine the genuine support that the separatists have. Winning hearts and minds can seem like rewarding the killers, but if we are to avoid an escalation that will pull in true international jihadists, it is essential.
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spiceman
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Discussion 8 : 11 Sep 2012 at 02.088
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Khun Domdunn #7, situation in the Deep South will only worsen to soon affect Songkha, Phuket, and beyond if nothing is done to root out the insurgency. So, you are afraid of terrorists? If they decide to come and fight us on our turf, so are our friends in Israel, the US, and the rest of the civilized world. That's why we call this a Global War on Terror, and we are already part of it, like it or not. What bothers me is the fact that the Deep South is relatively small in size, blocked by the sea on both sides, unlike Afghanistan. If the Israeli or the US is in charge of the operation, it would be cleaned up within a few months. Sadly, the task is proven impossible for incompetent Thai Govt.
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domdunnn
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Discussion 7 : 10 Sep 2012 at 16.467
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spiceman D5

The first whiff of news that the Israelis are involved with the Thai army will send Southerners rushing to join the insurgents and in addition will be a siren call for every jihadist group in the world to come and join the fight. Think before you leap.
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lookmoo
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Discussion 6 : 10 Sep 2012 at 15.026
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Give support to none Muslim settlers.. change the ethnic mix in the province.
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spiceman
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Discussion 5 : 10 Sep 2012 at 13.405
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This is called throwing money at the problem, which will buy us some time but will ultimately fail. The solution is to get rid of the insurgency at all costs in order to restore our Law & Order, in order to create peace, stability, making prosperity possible. And if no one is our Govt know how to do this, it is time to give our friends in the Israeli Embassy a call!
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bluebottle
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Discussion 4 : 10 Sep 2012 at 13.394
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What is the army doing to protect these people.Then start and negotiate but you can not and must not start negotiating whilst on the back foot.
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Eric
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Discussion 3 : 10 Sep 2012 at 11.293
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Dis#1&2, you have very poor knowledge of the ground situation to made the comments. I have close friends in the deep south and my business has a indirect link to the rubber estates. Most of my friends shared similar problems of intimidation and workers to tap the rubber trees due to the violence. These problems drove the estate price down and quess who will turn up and willingly buy. Muslim landlords. It seem that the intimidation has a link in this kind of land grap, nothing to do with the government. The Demo is trying to made capital gain for their own agenda.
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dickemery
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Discussion 2 : 10 Sep 2012 at 09.072
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yes its all about compensation to this regime pay them off see if that might do the trick,as we dont have a proper plan and the ability to find a solution ,the problem is corruption causers more corruption as the the flood payments and rice policy have emerged,its just a matter of time when the people and the coalition partners will rise against this corupt regime
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txapi
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Discussion 1 : 10 Sep 2012 at 08.411
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Instead of actually doing anything about the insurgency, lets just pay people off. I hope that works out as well as their water pushing machines.
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New lives beckon amid rubble | Bangkok Post: news