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News From Today Thai Papers
June 26th, 1997
Bangkok Post
Thailand accused of aiding Karen
Rocket attack leads to letter of complaint
Supamart Kasem
Tak
Burma has accused Thailand of allowing Karen rebels to use its territory
to launch a rocket attack on the border town of Myawaddy.
Myawaddy authorities yesterday sent an aide memoire signed by Lt-Col
Saing Phone, chairman of Burma's Local Thai-Burmese Border Committee,
asking Thai officials to explain why they let Karen National Union
rebels fire from inside Thailand at least four 107mm rockets on Myawaddy
on Tuesday.
Thai TBC chairman Col Chatchapat Yaemngarmriab responded with a letter
saying that no foreign troops were found to have entered Thailand and
opened fire on Burma.
In the letter, Burmese authorities were also told that one of the four
rockets had landed on a border area in Ban Tha Aj, Tambon Tha Sai Luad
of Mae Sot district.
A source who has close ties with high-level KNU staff said Karen
soldiers from the 7th Division led by Maj-Gen Htay Maung set fire to
Myawaddy in retaliation for a recent Burmese attack on KNU forces
opposite Mae Ramat district.
The source also said KNU troops had fired rockets from an area inside
Burma, not from Thai territory as charged by the Burmese.
Four 107mm rockets were fired on Tuesday from an area north of Myawaddy
at 1.30 a.m. Three landed on a market opposite Tambon Tha Sai Luad of
Mae Sot and the other on a plantation in Ban Tha Aj.
According to a border official, the attack prompted Burmese authorities
to step up measures to prevent arms smuggling into Burma from Thailand.
They also cancelled the 16th TBC meeting scheduled for yesterday.
The meeting was aimed at discussing preparations for opening of the
Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge, as well as ways to solve border problems
over Burma's dredging of the Moei River opposite Mae Sot.
Many businessmen in Tak were concerned the situation following the
attack on Myawaddy could further delay the bridge opening and called on
Thai and Burmese officials to be rational in their efforts to solve
existing border problems.
The Nation
Headlines
Two get jail for raping Laotians
TWO of the eight inmates charged with raping three of four Laotian women
in police custody in April were found guilty yesterday and sentenced to
eight-and-a-half years in jail.
According to the verdict at the Rayong Court, Somkhuan Lert-hiran and
Nou Kulsarn confessed that they raped the women in front of the others
but denied a charge that they had collaborated with the others in
gang-raping them.
Their 16-year jail term was cut because they confessed. They were also
sentenced to six months in jail on a drug charge.
The other six defendants Suchart Phasuk, Nikhom Wonghong, Prakit
Jungjai, Samnao Chaisarn, Petcharat Somprasong and Watchara
Kaewrungreoung have denied all charges.
Lawyer acting on the women's behalf, Thongbai Thongbao, said the trial
of the six would resume on July 24. He said another suspect, Prasit
Khamtim, would be questioned this week in connection with the case.
Women's rights advocates in Thailand and women's union groups in Laos
have condemned the crime as inhumane and sought severe penalities for
the inmates and the police officers who were on duty.
Headlines
Illegals caught while working
The Nation
KANCHANABURI A total of 182 illegal Burmese immigrants were arrested
at a factory owned by the president of the provincial industry council
yesterday, police said. Police said 104 Burmese men and 78 women were
found working at the Vitafood factory in Tha Maka district when they
raided the plant.
Investigators said the factory was owned by Sing Tangcharoenchaichana,
president of Kanchanaburi Industry Council and a member of the
Federation of Thai Industries.
Some of the illegal immigrants said they sneaked across the Thai-Burmese
border into Kanchanaburi at the Three Pagodas Pass and paid brokers
Bt3,000 each to take them to work at the factory.
Pol Pot alive and in captivity, Thai military says
posted at 16:07 hrs (Bangkok time)
BANGKOK, June 26 -- Thailand's military said Thursday it had information
shadowy Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was still alive and being held
captive by his feared former chief of staff in remote northwest
Cambodia.
Colonel Reungporn Rojanasaroj, deputy commander of the Thai military
task force in Surin province on the border with northern Cambodia, said
he had intelligence reports the guerrilla chief was very ill.
Reungporn told a briefing at Thailand's military Supreme Command
Headquarters here that Pol Pot was using oxygen from tanks and was
attached to an intravenous drip in an isolated area on Cambodia's Anlong
Veng province.
''We have information that Pol Pot is sick and has to use a drip and
oxygen,'' he told the briefing. ''He is being detained in the Anlong
Veng area,'' he added.
The officer said Pol Pot had been captured in Chong Man Cha in Anlong
Veng on June 20 by feared Khmer Rouge chief of staff, Ta Mok, after a
chase.
''Khmer Rouge forces under Ta Mok chased Pol Pot and his soldiers and on
June 20 they arrested Pol Pot ...,'' he said.
He told reporters that Pol Pot's ''soldiers had deserted him'' in favour
of Ta Mok before he was captured.
Reungporn said he had no idea if or when any deal would be brokered to
send the rebel to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh ahead of any proposed
war crimes trial.
In addition, the officer said Thailand had received reports that Pol Pot
had ''travelled close to the border'' with Thailand at some point since
fleeing his camp after a split on June 9, but denied he had crossed into
Thai territory.
He said the issue was a ''matter of Cambodian internal affairs so we do
not get involved.'' Thailand long held close relations with the Khmer
Rouge during the 1980s, but says it has since cut ties with the radical
Maoists.
But the colonel refused to reveal the exact source of the information or
whether it was based on information from the Cambodian government.
Conflicting reports on the fate of the notorious head of the regime
blamed for the 1970s slaughter of as many as two million people, have
been circulating since Cambodia's first prime minister said last week
that Pol Pot had been captured by a Khmer Rouge splinter faction.
Prince Norodom Ranariddh said Pol Pot was ''very, very ill'' but that
was immediately contradicted by rival and Second Prime Minister Hun Sen
who said he had ''died already.''
Since Pol Pot was first reported captured by his former comrades in a
remote area near the Thai-Cambodian border following a bloody split in
rebel ranks, only a senior government general has claimed to have seen
him.
Deputy chief of staff Nhiek Bun Chhay said he had seen an ailing Pol
Pot, 69, sitting in a house in the rebel base of Anlong Veng, but he had
not talked to him and had not thought to take a picture.
Cambodia's two feuding premiers have both called for an international
war crimes tribunal to set up to deal with the rebel movement's leaders.
They however do not agree over government talks with the rebels that led
to a split in the Khmer Rouge and to Pol Pot's purported downfall.
Reungporn on Thursday also denied rumours that the Thai military had
captured Pol Pot's chief bodyguard who was reportedly carrying a large
amount of money and gold.
''We didn't arrest anyone and there has been no intrusion into Thailand
by any Khmer Rouge figures,'' he told.
Little has been heard of Pol Pot, the architect of Cambodia's 1975-1979
''killing fields'' regime, since the 1970s, although he has constantly
been at the centre of rumours and speculation, often verging on the
fantastic. (AFP)
Illegal drug trade worth $400 bn
The Nation
A UNITED Nations drug agency estimated that global trade in illicit
drugs is worth about US$400 billion (Bt10,400 billion) a year,
equivalent to about 8 per cent of total international trade.
''In 1994, the figure would have been larger than the international
trade in iron and steel and motor vehicles, and about the same size as
the total international trade in textiles," said the 1997 World Drug
Report which is being launched today globally.
The report produced by the UN International Drug Control Programme
(UNDCP) said the production of opium poppy has more than tripled since
1985, with almost 90 per cent of the world's illicitly-produced opiates
originating from two main production sources the Golden Crescent
(Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) and the Golden Triangle (Laos, Burma
and Thailand).
Afghanistan and Burma are the two main countries of illicit opium
production.
It said global opium production was thought to have reached 5,000 tonnes
in 1996, about a third of which was believed to be consumed as opium.
More than 300 tonnes of heroin were believed to have been produced
annually in the 1990s, mostly for export.
Although seizures of most major drugs have risen in the past decade,
illicit drug consumption has also increased throughout the world in
recent years.
The UNDCP estimated that between 3.3 per cent and 4.1 per cent of the
total world population consumes illicit drugs, the most widely consumed
being cannabis which is used by about 2.5 per cent of the global
population. ''This is equivalent to 140 million people worldwide," the
report said.
>From the health perspective, the most seriously abused drug is heroin.
The abuse of heroin and other opiates appeared to be relatively small
and statistics suggested that about eight million people or 0.14 per
cent of the global population is consuming the substance.
In recent years, the most pronounced increase in drug abuse has been in
synthetic drugs. The rise includes the abuse of amphetamine-type
stimulants (ATS). About 30 million people (0.5 per cent of the global
population) consume ATS worldwide.
Drug injection meanwhile has been identified in more than 100 countries
of which 80 report HIV infection among injecting drug users. The Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids, estimated that the global
proportion of HIV infections due to contaminated injection equipment was
five per cent to 10 per cent in 1996, the report said.
The report, which is being launched to mark International Day Against
Drugs, is aimed at providing an overview of the world drug situation and
highlights what is known and unknown about illegal production,
trafficking and abuse of drugs.
The document also hopes to raise public awareness of the scope and
complexity of drug-related problems.
The report is divided into seven sections, including country profiles
that give a more complete picture of the situation in eight selected
countries.
The choice of the ''core countries" Australia, Colombia, Italy,
Pakistan, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States
was restricted for reasons of space and made on the basis of
geographical variation, differences in drug-related problems and
policies, and because the countries concerned regularly collect and
publish data on illegal drugs.
The document touches on various aspects of drug-related problems
including an overview of the recent trends and developments in
cultivation; production, trafficking and consumption of drugs; theories
and interpretations of illicit drug use; the health and social
consequences of drug abuse; drugs and public policy; and strategies and
programmes.
Under the section on the illicit drug industry, the report touches on
the concept of an industry which first developed from a great demand for
the drugs and the extensive and complex process of their production,
manufacture, distribution and investment.
The section also analyses the structure of drug trafficking
organisations, organised crime and money laundering.
The document discusses various related laws and public policies, and the
debate over legalisation. It also describes drug abuse prevention
campaigns, treatments and rehabilitation of drug abusers, various needle
exchange programmes, methadone treatments, as well as anti-trafficking
measures and supply reduction strategies.
UN to target youth in new Aids scheme
The Nation
UNITED Nations organisations will launch the 1997 World Aids Campaign
tomorrow, hoping to raise the awareness of people under 18 to the
magnitude of the HIV/Aids epidemic.
The campaign, with the theme ''Children Living in a World with Aids",
will be launched simultaneously worldwide.
In Thailand, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) and the Joint UN Programme
on HIV/Aids will kick off the campaign at 11 am at the Unicef office
with a panel discussion on major topics of concern, such as children
with HIV, children orphaned by Aids, children in the shadow of HIV risk
and the situation of children living with Aids in Thailand.
Panelists will include representatives from the Health Ministry, the
National Economic and Social Development Board, the Department of
Technical and Economic Cooperation and Unaids, an umbrella UN structure
that includes Unicef, the UN Development Programme, the UN Population
Fund, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the
World Health Organisation and the World Bank.
The campaign is being launched with the aim to increase understanding of
the HIV/Aids epidemic and its global dimensions.
It will emphasise promoting action and sound policies to prevent HIV
transmission and to minimise the epidemic's impact on children, their
families and communities.
Editorial & Opinion
The distorted image of Asians in America
*
In the US media, Asian-Americans are once again being viewed as a
'Yellow Peril', writes Joann Lee.
It is the sign of the ''Yellow Peril": wealthy Asians, with pockets full
of money, lining up to buy favours not from just any two-bit politician,
but the most powerful man in the United States.
The cast of characters is Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indian,
Indonesian, South Korean. There is an operative with access to the
president. There is an immigrant-made-good a restaurateur who rides
the coat-tail of political power from Arkansas right into the White
House. To top it off, an entrepreneur arranges for photos to be taken of
himself with the president, then wangles an invitation to a ''political
coffee", bringing with him a Chinese arms dealer.
There are many disturbing things about this story, but one of the most
troubling is what it says about news coverage of Asian-Americans. In
times of national concern just as during World War II and the Korean
and Vietnam wars the media predictably end up portraying
Asian-Americans as the ''other".
I examined more than 200 newspaper articles published nationwide during
an eight-week period as the Democratic campaign-financing controversy
unravelled. Overwhelmingly, the coverage focused on the ''Asian
connection" with little effort made even to distinguish between
Asian-Americans and Asian nationals.
The three names that kept cropping up were John Huang, Charlie Trie and
Johnny Chung. Linked often enough, their various connections evoked
images in the media of a conspiracy involving cash-and-carry favours.
In serving up this story, the media mindlessly rekindled spectres of the
''Yellow Peril".
Trie, to take one example, was most often described as an ex-Little
Rock, Arkansas, restaurateur (Chinese-American, of course). But he could
just as well have been called a Friend of Bill instead of being linked
to a possible Asian conspiracy. His acquaintance with the president
stems from Clinton's Arkansas days.
Not for a minute am I diminishing the magnitude of the entire affair.
The system of campaign financing and fund-raising is an important story
to investigate.
But when the issue is framed to highlight the Asian connection, the
journalistic task is much easier. There are players identified, huge
sums of money exchanging hands and returned, and backgrounds and
connections to write about.
Is the vortex of this story ultimately the Asian connection? I think
not. The story is about fund-raising by the Democratic National
Committee and a system that is open to questionable practices by anyone
with sufficient means.
Journalists, sensing something rotten, have focused on describing the
odour rather than identifying the source.
The Los Angeles Times reported that as early as a year ago a White House
aide convened an ''Asian-Pacific American working group" of government
and Democratic officials (including Huang) to coordinate an effort to
woo Asian-American votes and contributions. So if there was an increased
Asian-American presence in the White House, it did not pop up only
because certain Asian-Americans with access to large sums of money
insinuated themselves. The increase was a positive response to a
strategic initiative.
The spectre of Asians in the White House is somehow regarded as
inappropriate, as suggested in the tone of a Washington Post article
describing this ''extraordinary cast of characters" including ''an
elegant Taiwanese merchandising mystic ... a gospel-singing South Korean
... a California deal-maker and self-proclaimed great-grand-nephew of
Mohandas K Gandhi ... and a striking Thai businesswoman whose wealthy
in-laws helped develop one of Thailand's most popular brands of
whiskey".
The real story has to do with a pervasive problem that began way before
these people walked into the White House. It is about the hunger for
dollars in presidential election campaigns and the still-invisible
sinews of influence and money that go to the core of the political
fund-raising system.
Conflict may be the most dramatic way to tell a story. But the emphasis
on Huang and the others not only buried the real campaign finance story;
it furthered the distortion in the media of the Asian-American
experience.
Stories about Asian-Americans in the mainstream media tend to be limited
to certain fronts: immigration, race, education, crime, model minority.
Sometimes the stories are about the ''haves" versus the ''have nots",
other times they are about conflict, racism. With this latest
controversy we can throw in political fund-raising, too.
As Asians move into various corners of middle America, mainstream
newspapers reflecting the reactions of their readership often focus
on stories of Asian-Americans in conflict with their new neighbours.
News, after all, is aimed predominantly at the white middle class. But
the reporting of such incidents also mirrors a sense of Asian-Americans
as outsiders disrupting community identity.
It is a one-sided picture that Asian-Americans, poorly represented among
the media work force, have little say in constructing.
News coverage of the ''Asian connection" and campaign finance scandals,
demonstrates that the Yellow Peril mentality still lurks in the deep
waters of mainstream media, surfacing ever so insidiously, unexpectedly,
maybe even unconsciously.
Joann Lee is the author of 'Asian Americans' and has taught journalism
at Columbia University. This article first appeared in Newsday.
"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE. ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION." "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."
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