By Max Constant
BANGKOK
One policeman died and 11 other people were injured in a series of bombings that rocked Thailand's southern province of Pattani overnight just weeks before a government-proposed truce is due to start.
Police Lieutenant Preecha Prachumchai of Napradu police station confirmed the death to Anadolu Agency, adding that four police officers and seven soldiers had been injured in the blasts
“Late Saturday seven soldiers were inspecting road 409 in Khokpo district of Pattani province when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a tree overlooking the road exploded and injured the seven," he said.
At dawn Sunday, a second bomb exploded as a police team inspected the location.
Prachumchai said the blast killed a police officer on the spot and injured four others.
He added that police suspect separatist insurgents to be behind both bombings.
The incident happened soon after the Thai junta extended an olive branch to Muslim separatists.
Local media reported Tuesday that the military has invited rebels presently living in exile to return to their homes in the south without fear of arrest during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
"The army will permit rebels who have gone to live in Malaysia to visit their home and practice religious activities," Colonel Somdej Yotha, a local officer acting on behalf of the army regional commander, told Khaosod on May 25.
He added that certificates would be delivered to the separatists to guarantee their safety during their visits.
Army officers also met Tuesday with former members of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate, or BRN-C, one of the most active separatist movements on the ground.
The former separatists were told to convey the invitation to the leaders of rebel groups living in Malaysia.
Among the insurgency leaders targeted by the invitation were Hasan Taib, a core leader of the BRN-C who was the main rebel negotiator during peace talks with the government in 2012 and 2013.
Kastori Mahkota, a leader of the Pattani United Liberation Organization -- a separatist group created in the 1960s that is comparatively less active on the ground -- was also invited.
Taib is reported to live in Malaysia, while Mahkota is a long-time resident in Sweden.
The Thai junta is preparing a new round of negotiations with representatives of the two rebel groups, either at the end of this month or the beginning of June.
The three southernmost Thai provinces -- Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat -- constituted an independent Islamic sultanate with great religious influence in the Southeast Asian Muslim world until it was incorporated into Siam after a 1909 Anglo-Siamese agreement.
Great Britain was then the colonial power in Malaysia and was exerting a degree of control over the region.
From 1938, a virulently nationalistic campaign organized by Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram government tried to impose Thai cultural norms onto the Malay Muslims, who reacted by asking for some degree of political and cultural autonomy.
