By Lee Xin En

BANGKOK, THAILAND - Asela Dorotae, a 14-year-old girl from Yala province, saw her father being kicked off his motorcycle, shot and stabbed by insurgents two years ago.

The ninth-grader, who lives in a high-level violence red zone, has also lost two uncles since the unrest began.

In a soft voice, she says she misses her father and uncles 'all the time' and talks about being embarrassed to ask her mother, the sole breadwinner, for study materials because money is now tight.

Yet although she has much to be angry and vengeful about, Asela says she does not harbour any thoughts of revenge or violence.

Instead, she aspires to work for a non-governmental organisation to help people in southern Thailand regain trust in one another.

Asela is not alone in her courageous capacity to forgive. A recently launched United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report on children in southern Thailand shows that although most children in the far south have witnessed violent incidents such as beheadings and shootings, or even lost a loved one in the conflict, a large majority do not harbour any desire for revenge against any particular group.

In fact, the findings indicate that none of the children surveyed expressed a negative view of other religions or referred to religion as being a cause of the unrest, suggesting that the violence could avoid becoming an intergenerational problem.

Children blamed the unrest on the shadowy insurgents, who are depicted in their drawings as young men who dress fashionably, carry weapons and consume drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.

Despite cases of abuse by military personnel in the south, children also appeared to make no judgments on soldiers as a group, preferring to judge personal characteristics rather than reacting simply to their uniform.

The UN agency surveyed 2,357 Buddhist and Muslim children in Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala and four districts of Songkhla between 2006 and 2007.

The report - Everyday Fears: Children's Perceptions Of Living In The Southern Border Area Of Thailand - is the first study to give children a channel to directly express their perceptions of the violence and its impact on their lives.

Between January 2004 and December last year, an estimated 30 children were killed and 92 injured because of the unrest in the provinces. In the same period, 92 education personnel were killed, while 88 were injured.

Many schools are currently guarded by armed defence volunteers as insurgents often attack these places to force children not to attend government schools. They believe that the schools are part of the Thai government's strategy to impose the Buddhist Thai culture on a region that is mainly Muslim and Malay.

Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces were part of a Muslim sultanate until they were annexed in 1902 by predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Around 80 per cent of the population in these provinces are Muslims of Malay ethnicity, and speak a Malay dialect.

To counter the problem, Unicef's representative in Thailand, Mr Tomoo Hozumi, recommended designating schools as 'zones of peace' to ensure that the quality of education is not affected, but conceded the difficulty in implementing this plan.

Although there has been a lull in attacks in the past few weeks, Asela is fearful of the silence, which she describes as 'a precursor to more bloodshed'.

Nevertheless, she dreams of the day when she can have lessons without interruptions, saying: 'I hope that the teachers will come to school regularly, and that we can have full-time classes from 9am to 2pm without interruption.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on December 13, 2008.