Thailand: Hot for teacher...

Violence against schools and teachers in Thailand continues unabated. Teachers in Thailand's restive southern provinces seeking transfers...by the thousands.

Several thousand school teachers in Thailand's three troubled southernmost provinces have asked for transfers to posts elsewhere in the country, a senior teacher said Friday.

Why? Insurgents/Militants (read Muslims) attacks have increased.

There are more than 1,600 schools in the troubled provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat at present. Security measures for schools in the three provinces and some districts in nearby Songkhla province have been revised in order to better protect teachers, with military units from the Fourth Army Region, responsible for providing security in the South, being assigned to the schools, Mr Sa-nguan said earlier. However, given the continuing daily toll of death and destruction, it would seem that the added security is not effective. (ed. note: No sh^8, Sherlock.)

Zachary Abuza's fine post, A Week in Southern Thailand up at the Counterterrorism Blog, reports what happened just in ONE week:

Five soldiers on teacher protection detail were wounded when a bomb hidden in the ceiling panel of the teacher’s room was detonated. Seven soldiers on teacher patrols were killed by a bomb or shot by insurgents after being thrown from their vehicle... in another case militants opened fire on a “pickup truck school bus” wounding two, including a student. In one of the more planned ambushes, a 10-man police convoy for teachers was ambushed, wounding one, and a roadside IED placed for the group of soldiers coming as reinforcements, detonated wounding one...Two schools and a sub-district office were arsoned.

And about that security? He adds this:

The security presence in the south was minimal. In five days of driving, last week, I rarely witnessed patrols. The vast majority of security forces, including army, police, rangers, and border patrol police were in fixed static positions, usually behind sandbags and concertina wire. Checkpoints are unmanned during the days, and only once was my vehicle stopped and searched. The security forces tend to go out only in reaction to events, rather than on active patrols. In only one case, did I see five soldiers on foot patrolling/searching. Most of the soldiers who are killed or wounded are on security detail for teachers; hence they do not like to leave their barracks. Despite the fact that there were two schools arsoned that week, and more than 200 altogether, I did not see a single security detail in front of a school. Not one school had even the slightest deterrent to attack.