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Wired News on Feeb. 3 & 4, '95



Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on February 3 & 4, 1995
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Khun Sa's army says sinks Burmese army boat   

    BANGKOK, Feb 4 (Reuter) - The Mong Tai Army (MTA) of Golden Triangle
opium warlord Khun Sa sank a Burmese army boat loaded with soldiers and
heading for their headquarters, rebel sources said on Saturday. 

    The guerrillas opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades on two boats
carrying about 20 soldiers each in the Mae-haw canal in northeastern Shan
state late on Friday, they said. 

   The soldiers were apparently heading for MTA headquarters at Ho Mong, the
sources said. 

    ``We sank one of the boats and believe at least 10 enemy were killed,''
the rebel source told Reuters. 

    He said the incident took place about 25 km (15 miles) west of Ho Mong. 

    Khun Sa has been indicted in the United States for heroin trafficking but
denies the charges. He says the 8,000-strong MTA is fighting for the
independence of the Shan state from Burma but U.S. and Thai narcotics
suppression officials say the MTA functions as a private army to protect his
drug business. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-02-04 04:33:58 EST
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Burma says will step up Rohingya repatriation   

    COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Feb 3 (Reuter) - Burma told Bangladesh on Friday
it was ready to handle a larger repatriation of Rohingya Moslem refugees, a
Bangladesh official said. 

    The assurance came at a meeting of Bangladeshi and Burmese officials in
west Burma's Maungdaw township, Bangladesh's rElief and Refugee Commissioner
Khandaker Fazlur Rahman told reporters. 

    He said more than 155,000 refugees had returned to their homes in west
Burma's Moslem-majority state of Arakan, bordering Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar
district, as of Friday, and that over 95,000 were still living in 13 camps. 

    Currently, up to 4,000 refugees return home each week, officials said,
adding that the repatriation would speed up if Rangoon increased its handling
of returnees. 

    More than 250,000 Moslems, called Rohingyas, fled to Bangladesh in early
1992 to escape what they said was military persecution in Arakan.
Repatriation began in September of that year after an agreement between Dhaka
and Rangoon. 

    Repatriation officials say they have recorded more than 20,000 births in
the camps, but they did not actually add to refugee counts because almost a
similar number of Rohingyas had fled the camps. 

    Police said they believed the camp-jumpers might have used fake travel
documents to migrate to other countries, or have resettled with local
Moslems. 

    The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, supervising the repatriation,
earlier said it expected all the refugees to return home by end of 1995. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-02-03 12:21:10 EST
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Fm:Zz