Education Under Attack - UNESCO Islamabad

The aim of some armed groups appears to be to divide society along ethnic andreligious lines, claiming that the southern provinces represent a religious ‘conflictzone’ similar to the Palestinian Automous Territories or Afghanistan, that must bedivided between Muslims and infidels. 57Schools and universities are seen as representing the Thai government and Buddhist-Thai culture. “Insurgents are terrorizing the civilian population by attacking teachersand schools, which they consider symbols of the Thai state,” said Brad Adams, Asiadirector at Human Rights Watch.Not only are they symbols of the state, but they are seen as inculcating the valuesof the state and imposing a national secular curriculum on an area which is 80 percent Muslim. “Schools should be safe zones,’ says Sheldon Shaeffer, then Directorof UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Education in Bangkok, ’but they are highly visibletargets and attacking them does more to grab the attention of the country or theworld than attacking government offices.”As a result, teachers have been singled out for assassination. Since the start of theinsurgency, at least 73 Muslim and Buddhist teachers or education workers havebeen killed, many of them shot on their way to or from school by pillion passengerassassins.Some have been shot in class - in one case insurgents donned school uniforms to getinto the school - or at their lodgings, or during ambushes of security patrols trying toconvoy students safely to their schools. Others have been held hostage with a viewto exchanging them for the release of insurgent suspects from government custody.Many have died in explosions aimed at their transport, some have been attackedwith knives and hammers as they left home. Bombs and remotely-controlled bombshave increasingly replaced firebombings as the weapon of choice.For instance, on 28 September 2006 in Narathiwat, one person was killed and sixinjured when a 10 kg bomb exploded alongside a village road as a teacher protectionunit of the 39th Task Force was making its morning rounds to escort teachers. Theblast left a hole in the ground three metres deep and four metres wide. It overturnedthe soldiers’ armoured vehicle and sent shrapnel 30 metres into the air.Pradit Rasitanin, Director of the Education Ministry’s Inspector General’s Office,said the number of casualties in education was continuing to rise despite tightenedsecurity measures at schools and improved protection for teachers.57 Human Rights Watch press release, 28 November 2006, ‘Thailand: Insurgent Attacks Shut DownSchools in South’.36