February 8, 2005

Army hiring bikers as informers

WASSANA NANUAM

Narathiwat _ The army is hiring motorcycle taxi drivers in Sungai Kolok

district of Narathiwat for 4,500 baht a month to report on unusual and

suspicious movements to identify insurgent activity in the southern

border tourist town.

The 36th infantry task force has organised a ``Stop the Bombing in

Sungai Kolok'' campaign, employing over 1,000 local motorcycle taxi

drivers to support its intelligence work. They are all considered as

employees of the Southern Border Provinces Peace-building Command

(SBPPC).

``The motorcycle taxi drivers already know restoring security is the

duty of not only soldiers and police since every bomb also affects them

and has caused their income to drop from 400 baht to only 100-200 baht a

day,'' said Col Songwit Noonpakdi, the task force commander.

The colonel said the bombings had to stop in Sungai Kolok because it

was a tourist town. Any more such attacks would damage the image of all

the three southern border provinces.

Bombs have been placed in the past at entertainment venues and in

crowded areas and have injured a number of people, including Malaysian

tourists, he said.

Col Songwit's unit is also seeking similar cooperation from locals.

Public cooperation was necessary because Sungai Kolok was a town and not

a rural area. It was the first network to seek public participation on

security issues in the deep South, he said. Soldiers meet with locals

every day to build up relationships and gather information.

Meanwhile, a task force sent from Bangkok two months ago has deployed

its soldiers on six small speedboats to patrol the Kolok river which

runs along the border for 95km between Thailand and Malaysia.

Gen Sirichai Tunyasiri, director of the SBPPC, approved a 600,000-baht

budget to purchase the speedboats from Malaysia.

The intensified border patrols along the narrow, shallow river and

along the 56km-long inland border in Narathiwat operate around the clock

to prevent militants from moving back and forth across the frontier.