Waedueramae Mamingchi was educated for eight years in Saudi Arabia, studying Arabic and the precepts of Islam before returning to his home in southern Thailand. The Saudi stint greatly enhanced his standing among his community. But in the fear-filled post-9/11 world, Muslim leaders like Waedueramae say schooling and spiritual guidance in the Middle East has made them suspect in the eyes of the Thai government as it battles an Islamic separatist insurgency in the south. "When we go to learn abroad, they say we went to learn to be terrorists," said Abdulraman Abdulsamad, another respected Muslim leader. "They accuse us of going to train to be terrorists."
Prejudices, say local Muslims, were in evidence in early February when army rangers raided the grounds of an Islamic school owned and run by Waedueramae after a soldier was shot to death about 800 yards away. "The soldiers continued to search, and this is why we got upset. Villagers came and watched this," Waedueramae, who lives on the premises, said. Heavy-handed government attempts against escalating violence have sharpened tensions between Muslims — a majority of the population in Thailand's southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala — and officials, recruited mainly from Thailand's Buddhist majority. The government denies it is targeting Arab-educated Muslims. "That is not true," government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said. "If that were the thought of the government, all students who go abroad to further their education would be barred." |