Unfazed by bombs, Thaksin says he feels more welcome in Thailand’s deep South

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he is not worried by bombings in the deep South during his visit to the region as four previous bids to assassinate him had failed to scare him.

Thaksin was responding to a series of bombings in Yala province on Saturday night and at Narathiwat airport in Narathiwat province on Sunday morning when his plane was about to land.

“Someone might want to frighten me but my heart is strong. I felt indifferent to four previous assassination attempts. Regardless of any kind of reception, I can take it all,” Thaksin said in Narathiwat on Sunday.

He called the bombing at Narathiwat airport a symbolic act.

Thaksin said that people in southern border provinces gave him a warmer welcome during his visit on Sunday than the tense looks he received at the private schools in the region he visited two decades ago.

The present attitude of local people was a good sign for solutions in southern border provinces, he said.

He said that international cooperation would increase to solve the problems in the southern Thai border provinces, and that Indonesia had promised to help.

“I expect progress this year,” said Thaksin, who is the father of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

There would be more international cooperation to tackle the people who had more than one citizenship and crossed the border to launch terror attacks, Thaksin said.

There would be negotiations to convince wrongdoers to return to Thailand and contribute to national development, he said.

On the same occasion, Thaksin apologised for losses in the Tak Bai massacre in Narathiwat in 2004 when he was prime minister.

He said he was fully concerned about people but mistakes were made in work procedures. He said Muslims were taught to forgive and he would like to apologise for his mistake.