Thailand risks losing 200,000 visitors after attacks – Deep south hit by fresh blasts

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NARATHIWAT, Thailand, Aug 15, (Agencies): Fresh explosions rocked Thailand’s deep south seriously wounding one soldier on Monday, days after a spate of bomb and arson attacks struck multiple tourist resort towns. Last week’s attacks have heightened concerns Thailand’s long-running but local southern Islamist insurgency may have spread after years of stalled peace talks — a suggestion the kingdom’s junta has been keen to deny. A string of overnight attacks have highlighted how the insurgency continues to rage in the three Muslim majority provinces bordering Malaysia. “One soldier was seriously injured from a bomb buried under the road” on Monday morning, Police Captain Wiroge Boonkae, from Bacho police station in southern Narathiwat province, told AFP. Police said a further three blasts struck neighbouring Yala province, though no injuries were reported.

Violence

The area, which was annexed a century ago by Thailand, has been battered by 12 years of violence between the Buddhist-majority state and shadowy Muslim rebels seeking greater autonomy. Near-daily shootings and roadside bombs have left more than 6,500 dead since 2004, most of them civilians. But the violence has largely remained local with militants loathe to spark international outrage by targeting Western tourists. Last week’s attacks hit tourist resort towns further north — a highly unusual assault in a country where foreign visitors are rarely caught up in political violence. The attacks bore many hallmarks of the southern insurgents, who never claim their operations, including coordinated multiple strikes and the type of devices used.

Four people died and scores were wounded, including many European tourists. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing spree but Thai authorities have ruled out international terrorism and say the culprits are “local saboteurs”. But they have dismissed any suggestion southern insurgents were behind the attacks. “It is not right to say it is an extension of the deep south insurgency,” deputy junta chief General Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters on Monday. With southern insurgents ruled out by the junta, official suspicion has fallen on militants within the so-called “Red Shirt” movement loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The Red Shirts have denied any suggestion of involvement and accused the junta of using the bomb blasts to roll out a fresh crackdown against them.

Analysts have been cautious about the capability of militant Red Shirts to carry out such a sophisticated attack. Away from the deep south Thailand has been battered by a decade of political unrest, driven by a bitter power struggle between the military-allied elite and populist forces loyal to ousted democratically elected governments run by the Shinawatra clan.

The blasts are seen as an affront to a military government that prides itself on having brought some stability to Thailand since its 2014 coup. The bombings in top tourist destinations threaten a vital source of income for tropical Thailand. The sector accounts for at least 10 percent of an economy the military government has struggled to revive. Thailand could lose up to 200,000 foreign visitors and $293 million in tourism revenue this year, the head of its tourism authority said on Monday, after a series of deadly blasts in tourist towns last week.

The wave of attacks in places including the seaside town of Hua Hin and the island of Phuket, is the biggest challenge to an industry that has weathered more than a decade of instability and bounced back from violence over recent years. Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the state Tourism Authority of Thailand, said the attacks could result in longterm losses in terms of tourist revenue and arrivals, mainly from other Asian countries. “By the year end, there could be about 100,000 to 200,000 travel cancellations,” he said in a statement. “That would cost about 5.08 billion baht ($146 million) to 10.16 billion baht ($293 million).” Tourism accounts for 10 percent of Thai gross domestic product and is one of the few bright spots in an economy that has struggled under the stewardship of a military government that seized power in a bloodless coup two years ago.

The Southeast Asian nation had been expecting a record 32 million visitors in 2016, with expected revenue of 2.41 trillion baht ($70 billion). Narongchai Wongthanavimok, chief financial officer at national carrier Thai Airways, Thailand’s national carrier, said on Friday the bombings would hurt business and consumer confidence. No group has claimed responsibility for the Thursday and Friday attacks that killed four people and wounded dozens, some of them tourists. Police said on Monday said they had arrested one man for arson.

Embassies in Thailand have warned their citizens to stay vigilant and some have warned that there could be more attacks. A bomb attack on a Bangkok shrine on Aug 17 last year, killed 20 people, more than half of them Asian tourists, but it did not seriously undermine the industry. Within hours of last week’s deadly bomb and arson attacks in Thailand, police and senior officials publicly ruled out any link to foreign militants and insisted the perpetrators, as yet unidentified, were homegrown. But they also doubted the involvement of Thailand’s most violent homegrown militants: the Malay-Muslim insurgents fighting a bloody separatist war in the country’s three southernmost provinces, where similar bombings are grimly routine. The official denial was unsurprising, said security experts.

Admitting that southern insurgents could be involved in last week’s attacks would have serious economic and security implications for Thailand. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the wave of bombings on Thursday and Friday that killed four people and wounded dozens, including foreign tourists. But some security experts have noted that southern insurgent groups have a track record for carrying out coordinated bombing attacks.

Since 2004, a low-intensity but brutal war between government troops and insurgents has killed more than 6,500 people in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat that border Malaysia. Most people there are ethnic Malay Muslims, who for decades have chafed under the rule of Buddhist-dominated governments in faraway Bangkok.

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