by Paul Peachey
HAT YAI, Thailand, Aug 24 (AFP) - Thailand's army chief has been removed from his post amid a failure to halt deadly violence in the troubled south, it was announced Tuesday as a deputy premier declared the unrest Thailand's worst for 50 years.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his cabinet also approved the transfer out of the region of two governors whose provinces have become battlegrounds in the Islamist separatist insurgency that has rocked the region this year.
Thaksin said he is transferring General Chaisit Shinawatra to the inactive post of supreme commander of the armed forces in a semi-annual military reshuffle which goes into effect October 1.
The reshuffle "is considered normal as many officers were due to retire in October," Thaksin said from Prachuab Khiri Khan province, where he was beginning a five-day trip to the south.
"There is no change (in policy) but the implementation depends on the new army chief," he told reporters, speaking of the government's handling of the insurgency which has cost more than 280 lives this year.
The top spot will be taken up by General Prawit Wongsuwon, the current assistant commander-in-chief.
Thaksin, who has admitted the southern insurgency is the biggest crisis of his tenure, did not elaborate on why he transferred Chaisit. The general is one year away from the mandatory retirement age of 60.
But on Monday, after a spate of weekend bombs blasts injured a dozen people, the premier let his frustration show as he acknowledged the deteriorating conditions in the southern provinces.
"Bomb attacks have been part of the campaign of unrest and have intensified so far that they are almost too much to tolerate," he said.
Chaisit, who is the premier's cousin, was promoted to army commander last October amid critics' cries of nepotism, but Thaksin at the time insisted he was the best man for the job.
Cabinet also approved the transfer of Pattani Governor Sanor Chandra, who recently had heart surgery, and Narathiwat Governor Vichong Thongsong, who was moved to Nakhon Si Thammarat in the upper south.
Governor Boonyasit Suwanarat of violence-wracked Yala was asked to retain his position although Thaksin had reportedly expressed concern that the governor faced excessive stress due to the unrest.
Thaksin replaced his defense and interior ministers in March for their failure to end the violence that erupted in January.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh described the bloody separatist insurgency as the kingdom's worst unrest in 50 years.
"I have been working to solve many conflicts and I have not seen any conflict worse than this," Chavalit told reporters before a weekly cabinet meeting. "The insurgency is the worst since I have been working."
Chavalit, a former premier, defence minister and army commander, first served in the military as a second lieutenant in 1954, and played a key role in ending a decades-long communist insurgency that dragged on until guerrillas disarmed in 1982.
A Muslim insurgency raged in the south until the 1980s but the movement fragmented and attacks dropped off until January, when a raid on a Narathiwat arms depot killed four soldiers and triggered a new wave of violence.
Thaksin has said militants were stepping up their campaign of bomb attacks culminating in the series of blasts at the weekend.
Attacks on security officials, civil servants, teachers, village chiefs and even Buddhist monks have sparked fears the conflict could broaden into major strife between Muslims in the south and Thailand's mainly Buddhist population.
Major General Chalor Kingthong of the Fourth Army command responsible for security in the south, however, played down the extent of the violence.
"People in southern Thailand live their normal lives. It looks violent because of the police reporting every incident, and newspapers reporting it, but it seems more violent than it really is," he told reporters in the south.
"It's also a strategy of insurgents to create news every day."