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11/02/2004:

"Thai Buddhist Beheaded in Southern Revenge Killing"

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants beheaded a Buddhist village leader in southern Thailand in revenge for the deaths of 85 protesters last week and left the head and trunk two miles apart, officials said on Tuesday.

Local people found the head of a 58-year-old deputy village chief in a fertilizer bag on a road in Narathiwat province with a hand-written note saying the beheading was in revenge for the deaths of Muslim protesters in army custody, officials said.

``A revenge for the innocents of Tak Bai district,'' an official quoted the note as saying in reference to the place where seven protesters were killed and 78 suffocated or were crushed in army trucks after their arrest.

The trunk of Ran Tulae was found on the same road two miles away an hour after the head was found, the official said.

Ran was the second Buddhist to be decapitated since violence erupted in Thailand's largely Muslim south in January. In May, a 67-year-old rubber tapper was beheaded at his plantation in Narathiwat.

The decapitation was the latest incident in 10 months of violence in the south near the Malaysian border in which nearly 450 people have been killed and the first murder linked directly to revenge for the deaths of the protesters.

Islamic leaders and analysts had predicted Muslim outrage would trigger reprisals.

Full Article: nytimes.com