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Wired News on March 16 & 17, '95



Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on March 16 & 17, 1995
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Japan says aid not endorsement of Burma military   

    TOKYO, March 17 (Reuter) - Japan formally decided on Friday to provide
Burma with a grant to promote food production, but Foreign Minister Yohei
Kono said the decision was not to be taken as a shift in its policy towards
the military junta. 

    Tokyo will provide a grant worth one billion yen ($11.1 million) to be
used to buy fertiliser and farming equipment, which it hopes will help
relieve extreme poverty. 

    Kono said it was humanitarian aid, and should not be seen as illustrating
a new Japanese policy towards Burma. 

    ``Japan has not made a policy shift,'' Kono told reporters. 

    ``Unfortunately Ms Aung San Suu Kyi has not been released, but efforts at
a dialogue continue,'' he added. 

    Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been
under house arrest without trial since 1989. 

    The Japanese government has said that it will work patiently for the
promotion of democratic reforms and an improvement in the human rights
situation in Burma. 

    Tokyo is also wary of being seen as violating its own guidelines on
overseas aid, which call for reviewing aid provided to countries accused of
blatant human rights abuses or those seen increasing military spending too
fast. 

    Japan stopped providing loans to Burma after the 1988 military
suppression of a pro-democracy uprising. 

    But grants to Burma have continued. They amounted to 6.2 billion yen
($68.8 million) in fiscal 1993/94. 

    Of this, only 18 million yen ($200,000) was used as purely humanitarian
aid, and over six billion yen ($66.6 million) was provided to relieve Burma's
debt burden. 

    The foreign ministry official acknowledged that the one billion yen grant
represented a jump from previous years. 

    But he said it was a demonstration of Japan's strong interest in
promoting democratic government in Burma. 

    Kono said Tokyo wanted Burma to understand that the grant did not
represent a new Japanese policy. 

    ``I am using various channels to tell (the Burmese government) that this
assistance does not mean Japan approves of the situation in Burma.'' 

    ``It is a message, rather, that we want Burma to push democratic
reforms,'' he said. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-17 02:02:06 EST
***********
Japanese Cabinet approves 1 billion yen in farm aid to Myanmar   

    Knight-Ridder  

    Tokyo--Mar 17--Japan's Cabinet today approved a grant of 1  billion yen
to Myanmar for food production, despite strong US appeals  that an
international freeze on aid should be maintained until the  military-ruled
country's human rights record improves.  

    Foreign Minister Yohei Kono stressed the grant should not be  interpreted
as paving the way for a full resumption of official  development assistance
to Myanmar. ODA has been suspended since the  military seized control in a
1988 coup.  

    "This is not a shift in Japanese policy," Kono said, explaining  that the
freeze on large-scale aid for infrastructure and other  projects will
continue.  

    The 1-billion-yen grant is aimed at helping minority groups  living along
Myanmar's border obtain agriculture equipment and  fertilizer for boosting
local food supplies.  

    US officials have lodged objections to the move in private  discussions,
and Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck recently  stated publicly in
Geneva that the farm grant would be a "mistake."  

    "We occasionally agree to disagree," a senior Foreign Ministry  official
said, adding he does not expect the matter to strain  bilateral ties with the
US.  End  

    By Bill Clifford, Knight-Ridder Financial News  

    Tel: (813) 3230-3852  

    (NOTE: Comments or suggestions about this item or any other  aspect of
KRFN's news coverage can be sent via the Internet to the  following address:
krf.news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)  



Transmitted: 95-03-16 23:36:41 EST
*************
Khun Sa fighters say attacking Burmese surrounded   

    By Robert Birsel 

    SHAN STATE, Burma, March 16 (Reuter) - Guerrillas loyal to Burma's opium
rebel Khun Sa have surrounded some 600 Burmese government soldiers who
launched an attack on a rebel base area, guerrilla officers said on Thursday.


    Fighting erupted late on Thursday afternoon as Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army
(MTA) fighters attacked Burmese army reinforcements who were attempting to
relieve their trapped colleagues, the guerrillas said. 

    ``They are trapped. We can wipe them out in two or three days,'' said one
guerrilla officer at an MTA outpost in southern Shan state near the border
with Thailand. 

    Burmese forces began their push against the rebel zone some 25 km (18
miles) west of the Burmese border town of Tachilek on Tuesday. 

    Heavy fighting broke out early on Wednesday and continued throughout the
day as the guerrillas attacked the advancing government troops and managed to
cut them off in a valley overlooked by mountain-top rebel strongholds, the
rebel officers said. 

    The current fighting in Shan state is the heaviest since last year when
Burmese forces launched a sustained offensive against Khun Sa's zone of
control. 

    The MTA officers said they were determined to hold their eastern
stronghold near Tachilek and said they were confident they could do so. 

    ``If they (Burmese government troops) get displaced they can continue
west towards the Salween River, this is the first place they have to take,''
said the MTA officer who declined to be identified. 

    One guerrilla official said the Burmese army wanted to clear the MTA away
from the bustling government border town of Tachilek, and from the main road
linking it to central Burma and to China. 

    ``The road is important to them for economic reasons. While we are here
we can put pressure on them,'' the guerrilla said. 

    Burma's ruling military body says Khun Sa is an opium trafficking bandit,
and it has vowed to crush him and his guerrilla force. 

    Khun Sa says he is a Shan nationalist fighting for the independence of
Shan state. He says he only taxes opium traders moving through his zone in
the Golden Triangle opium-growing region. 

    Shan political sources say despite Khun Sa's reputation as a drug
trafficker, Shan nationalists have rallied to him as he is the only person in
Shan state commanding a viable force opposing Burma's military government. 

    Hundreds of ethnic minority villagers have fled the fighting to the
border or across it into Thailand in the past two days. 

    ``We are afraid that airplanes will come, we don't want to stay in our
homes,'' said one woman camping out in forest just inside Burma. She was with
a group of about 100 Shan, Akha and Lisu people, mostly women and children,
sitting among their bundles of possessions. 

    Thai authorities on the border said on Thursday Thai forces have been
ordered to stand by in case more fighting sparks a refugee flood across the
frontier. 

    There are already some 70,000 refugees from Burma, mostly ethnic minority
Karen, in Thai camps along the western border with Burma. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-16 11:14:19 EST
*************
Karen refugees abandon camp in fear   

    MAE SOT, Thailand, March 16 (Reuter) - About 8,000 Karen refugees fearing
reprisals from Burma have fled from one camp on the bank of the Moei river to
another deeper inside Thailand, refugee officials and police said on
Thursday. 

    Carrying their belongings on their backs and shoulders, the Karen
streamed out of Mae Tha Waw camp in Tha Song Yang district and trudged 20 kms
(12 miles) to Sho Klo camp, a Thai Border Patrol Police officer told Reuters.


    ``They are very scared of the DKBO revenge,'' a police officer said. 

    Police said most refugees decided to abandon Mae Tha Waw after the
discovery of the bodies of four members of the pro-Burmese Democratic Kayin
(Karen) Buddhist Organisation (DKBO) on a nearby hillside. 

    Police said it was not clear how the four men had died, but noted they
were found at the site of a clash between Thai border police and a band of
DKBO guerrillas on Wednesday. 

    The DKBO, which split from the mainstream Karen National Union (KNU) in
December and joined Burmese government troops, have mounted raids across the
Moei river at camps housing KNU supporters in Thailand. 

    At least six Karen leaders have been kidnapped and forced to return to
Burma at gunpoint, while at least five people were killed and six wounded in
the past two months. 

    ``The refugees are moving further away from the current violence to Sho
Klo camp,'' a Karen refugee official told Reuters by telephone. 

    Sho Klo was intended to house 8,000 but the population has now doubled as
newcomers keep arriving, KNU sources said. 

    More than 70,000 Karen refugees live in 20 camps on the Burmese-Thai
border, including about 8,000 who fled when Burmese troops aided by the DKBO
overran the KNU jungle headquarters of Manerplaw in late January. 

    The DKBO grew out of a mutiny by Buddhist rank-and-file guerrillas
against the KNU Christian leadership in December. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-16 10:09:54 EST
************
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