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BRIDGE INAUGURATION
Bombing greets Abhisit and Najib in the South


Both leaders promise to address grievances

Narathiwat - Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Malaysian counterpart, Najib Razak, made a historic visit to the southernmost province of Narathiwat to rename a bridge between the two countries.

The visit came amid a flurry of bomb attacks in the restive region where nearly 4,000 people have died since January 2004.

The two leaders arrived in a helicopter in Waeng district to commemorate the Thai-Malay Friendship Bridge over the Sungai Kolok River, a natural boundary that cuts through a Malay-speaking region where most people on either side are related.

"With so many people and goods crossing this bridge every day we are strengthening our bonds," Abhisit said at the ceremony.

"I have no doubt that this Friendship Bridge will serve its noble purpose," Najib added.

The Malaysian premier's three-day visit to Thailand was billed as a model of how the two countries, despite the security challenges along their common border, could cooperate.

One of the subjects both sides agreed upon was eliminating the dual citizenship held by people along the border by first exchanging personal bio-data of residents, such as fingerprints.

The leaders also visited a public school, an Islamic school as well as a handicraft village and a "widows' village" occupied by some 140 families affected by the unrest.

Security forces were mobilised in the thousands in areas visited by the leaders, but the violence-wracked region lived up to its reputation and greeted them with a higher-than-usual spate of violence.

Four bombs went off in Yala's provincial capital yesterday morning, with one killing a forensics police officer and three security officials, while another wounded two soldiers and a policeman assigned to a security detail for teachers.

Earlier in the day, Thai marines were wounded in a bomb and gun attack in Narathiwat as they tried to collect banners criticising Abhisit's policies on the South.

Banners posted throughout the three provinces in both Jawi (Arabic script) and Rumi (Roman script) read "Patani sebahagian daripada Malaysia" or "Patani is part of Malaysia".

"They could have been posted with the intention of annoying the delegations," Pattani Senator Worawit Baru said, pointing out that militants often spray-painted "Patani Merdeka" (Free Patani) on building facades.

On Tuesday a bomb killed two soldiers along a road in Narathiwat that Abhisit and Najib were scheduled to travel through.

In a related development, the Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), a long-established group of separatists, said they welcomed the statement from Najib and Abhisit saying the grievances of Malays in the South would be addressed and that a political solution to the conflict would be sought.

"It is important for the government to speak to the people of Patani, including the Patani Malay movement that has been forced to resort to armed struggle, to ensure that the voice of the people can be heard and their grievances taken into account," Pulo said in a statement yesterday.

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