BANGKOK, FEB 12 – The cabinet today approved an Interior Ministry proposal to assign 2,700 territorial defence volunteers to Thailand’s far South to help maintain peace and security in the insurgency-plagued region.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra instructed the recruitment of southerners for the volunteer forces so that they could work closely with the southern authorities and people.
The Interior Ministry promised to dispatch the defence volunteers to the region as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, leader of the opposition Democrat Party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, called on the government, which contemplates imposing curfew in risk-prone areas in the far South, to learn from a similar lesson in 2005-2006 when curfew was declared in the South to gauge the impact of the measure.
If the government believes a curfew is efficient in solving the southern unrest, it should communicate with people in the region for common understanding and acceptance, he said.
