Thai send Burmese refugees back to

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Subject: Thai send Burmese refugees back to danger zone.


	THAI send Burmese refugees back to danger zone
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	Karenni refugees who fled into Thailand to escape troops of the 
	Burmese State Law and Restoration Council (SLORC) have been 
	ordered back to border areas where fighting has raged recently.
	
	Thai security officials ordered about 2000 Karenni refugees, most 
	of them women and children, to move from a camp seven kilometres 
	inside Thailand to a new site close to Burmese army positions.
	
	General Aung Myat, the commander of Karenni guerrillas who have 
	been fighting for independence since 1948, siad Burmese troops last 
	week demanded to search Karenni refugee camps in Thailand and 
	threatened to shell them.
	
	The commander speculated that Rangoon had asked Bangkok to put 
	pressure on the Karenni refugees. "The pressure came right after Thai 
	delegates returned from Rangoon. "I only hope that Thailand, which is a 
	democratic country, will not eventually send the refugees back to Burma 
	where there is no democracy.

	General Aung Myat said his fighters would continue their war 
	against the Rangoon Government despite the loss of their hilltop 
	positions in recent fightind. "Military speaking it is true, we have 
	lost all our positions," he said at his jungle hide-out near the Thai 
	border.

	"But our soldiers are very brave and we will continue to fight 
	the SLORC army with guerrilla-warfare tactics."

	The 48-year-old guerrilla commander said his men lost 12 hilltop 
	positions to Government troops during three months of fighting.

	He said about 500 Government soldiers were killed or wounded in the
	fighting while the losses in his rebel army, which he said was 
	2000 strong, were minimal.

	"Karenni soldiers are very brave and have a lot of experience in 
	guerrilla warfare. We fight only when we think we will win, 
	that's the reason why we lost very few soldiers."

	A ceasefire agreed last year by the SLORC and the Karenni nationalist
	guerrillas collapsed when Goverment forces moved into their small
	zone between the Salween river and the Thai border.

	General Aung Myat said the gueerillas had tried to restore the 
	truce but their attempts had been ignored by the junta.

	(By SUTIN WANNABOVORN, Burma, Thursday)
	[Reuter]

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	Typed by M Aye.

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