Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called on Thailand's 62 million people Tuesday to each make a paper dove to promote peace in the violence-wracked Muslim-majority south. Thaksin said the paper birds would be dropped out of the back of military aircraft over the worst-hit southern provinces where more than 540 people have died this year in a separatist-inspired insurgency.
The premier has been strongly criticised by the opposition in Thailand and by rights groups abroad for his hard-line approach to the insurgency and over the deaths of 87 Muslim demonstrators when troops and police broke up a riot on October 25.