Thailand Lets Teachers Carry Guns in Restive South

Thailand Lets Teachers Carry Guns in Restive South
Wed Apr 28, 4:09 AM ET

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand gave teachers in its troubled Muslim south permission Tuesday to carry guns in classrooms to help allay safety fears sparked by a four-month spate of attacks on schools and public buildings.

More than 60 people have been killed and scores of public buildings attacked in the restive area since January, when unidentified gunmen stormed an army barracks, killing four soldiers and stealing hundreds of assault rifles.

Along with police and security installations, schools have been a favorite target of arsonists, forcing teachers and students to flee to schools as far as away as Bangkok, more than 1,300 km (800 miles) away.

Schools, which teach in Thai, are easy targets in the mainly-Malay speaking region since they are often located in remote hilly areas.

Defense officials said troops would now provide security at all schools in the three provinces bordering Malaysia, although Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula also allowed teachers to arm themselves.

"I've ordered all three provincial governors to respond to requests by civil servants, including teachers, for pistol-carrying permits promptly because they need them for self-defense," Bhokin told reporters.

Southern Thailand's new school year is due to start on May 3, but many teachers have asked for the term to be delayed because they are too scared to go back to work.

The violence in the region, home to a low-key separatist rebellion in the 1970s and 1980s, shows few signs of abating despite an army and police clampdown against what officials say are mainly disgruntled and disaffected local youths.

A bomb hidden in a shoebox and rigged to a mobile phone blew up a police booth in Yala province Tuesday, just as explosives experts were preparing to defuse it, police said. There were no injuries.

Bangkok says the problem is crime-related and domestic, stemming from a sense of alienation among impoverished Malay-speaking Thais who have few emotional links to the distant capital of the predominantly Buddhist nation.

However, independent analysts fear international militant groups, such as Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network, might find fertile recruiting ground among the region's disaffected Muslims.