Border police may teach in South : Officers could be sent to fill vacancies

Border police may teach in South : Officers could be sent to fill vacancies.

BANGKOKPOST & AFP

Border patrol officers from around the country could soon be teaching in schools in the restive South if the cabinet agrees to the proposal when it discusses the idea at its weekly meeting on Tuesday. Chalit Phukpasuk, commander-in-chief of the air force, said the rotation of military and police border patrol officers would help shore up a shortage of teachers in the South.

Thousands of teachers have fled the violence-plagued provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat since a decades-old separatist insurgency resurfaced in January 2004.

The border patrol officers, who currently double as teachers at border schools across the nation, would work in rotation in the deep South.

The rotation will also give civilian teachers in violence-plagued districts a greater sense of security, he said.

ACM Chalit said the proposal would prove a success as the border patrol forces were more skilled at counter-insurgency tactics and could defend themselves better than unarmed teachers.

However, before being despatched to the ''red zones'' officers will undergo counter-insurgency training, he said.

Malaysia's military said yesterday that an explosion which injured four soldiers at a base near the Thai border was an accident, and not the work of attackers as reported earlier.

Malaysia's Defence Ministry had said that two grenades were hurled into the Ban Di Samoe outpost in northern Kedah state before dawn on Wednesday.

''It was all made up,'' Defence Ministry spokeswoman Fadzlette Othman Merican told AFP.

''This was an accident and maybe in the initial report they (the troops) were scared and so they could have created a story to cover up the accident,'' she said. ''We are still investigating the report.''

Deputy army chief Lt-Gen Muhammad Ismail Jamaluddin had said earlier that the soldiers spotted seven gunmen after the attack as they cleared a landing strip near the base.

But later he issued a statement saying the incident was in fact not the work of intruders, and that the hand grenades that exploded belonged to the Malaysian army.

''The army regrets the confusion caused over the incident,'' he said, adding there had been an ''accidental discharge of explosives'' during routine operations at the outpost.

''No intrusion whatsoever took place at the Ba Din Samoe post,'' he said.

Thailand's army had offered a different explanation, saying that it was an accident that took place as some 50 Malaysian and Thai soldiers conducted a joint patrol. But Malaysia said no joint operations were being held at the time.

Violence continued across the South yersterday.

In Yala, a 37-year-old firefighter was killed in a drive-by shooting at a clock tower behind Bannang Sata district office.

In Pattani, Pol Sgt-Maj Pak Phetmalai, 47, was shot dead on the Sai Buri-Panare road in Sai Buri district by assailants on a motorcycle. The officer was on his way to work.

Bangkok Post
Sunday January 14, 2007