Thai PM in paper peace bid
About 50 air force planes have swamped the largely Muslim south of Thailand with millions of paper birds as a symbol of peace for the region where nearly 500 people have been killed since January.
Villagers stared into the sky awaiting the deluge of an estimated 100 million paper birds, one of which was signed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and carried the promise of a scholarship or a job for the finder.
Children ran in excitement in one village as the plane appeared several thousand feet overhead at the time promised and, although the unloading of the birds was invisible to the naked eye, the paper birds descended.
Unfortunately the wind blew them beyond the village.
“I’m really disappointed,” said 11-year-old Fatima Sulhong. “All I saw was the plane flying over.”
Thaksin’s bird campaign, just weeks before a general election, caught the imagination of the predominantly Buddhist country, even in Bangkok where sympathy for the Malay-speaking south is limited.
Everywhere people huddled in groups to fold birds – they were meant to be doves, a symbol of peace, but most turned out to look more like cranes – after Thaksin called on all 63 million Thais to make one.
In the end, an estimated 120 million birds – made out of everything from bank notes to plastic – were crammed into five Hercules C-130 military transport planes and flown to southern airports for reloading on to smaller planes.
Not much impact
The gesture, carried out this weekend to mark the birthday of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has done little to mollify the Muslim leadership of the region, once an independent sultanate that still chafes under the rule of remote Bangkok.
 |
|
Muslim spokesman: The birds are |
“The paper birds are not a traditional symbol for us,” said Abdullaham Abdulsamad of the Narathiwat Islamic Council. “It’s a different culture. Our people do not understand what the birds stand for.”
Even so, hundreds of people in villages throughout the region, who spend much of their lives trapped fearfully between aggressive soldiers and determined separatists, turned out to stare upwards.
“I am very impressed that the Thai people around the country would fold birds for us,” said Malorya Benarlawee, a 30-year-old Muslim in a region of rubber-tappers and palm farmers where development lags behind much of the rest of the prospering country.
“At Friday prayers we ask for peace.”
Deaths
Possibly the biggest single airdrop of paper in history was meant to sow peace, harmony and goodwill in the three southernmost provinces, where an insurgency began in January with a raid on an army camp in which 300 assault rifles were stolen.
 |
|
Up to 85 Muslims died in police |
The mood in the region, where a low-key separatist insurgency was fought in the 70s and 80s, soured yet further in October after at least 85 Muslims died after a demonstration.
Most died of suffocation or were crushed in army trucks in which they had been bound and stacked.
The paper bird drop came just days after police said they needed greater powers to fight the separatists.