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Burma aid offer excludes money



Pakistanis' arrest puts press on mat
IMMIGRATION police chief Chidchai Wannasathit on Wednesday blamed the press,
especially a Thai-language paper, for a news story suggesting that four
Pakistani men arrested on Monday were terrorists preparing to disrupt the
Asian Games. 
The officer also denied that the four men were coerced during interrogation
and that their injuries were deliberately inflicted by his subordinates who
arrested them from a rented house in Pravet district on Monday evening. He
said, however, that he had ordered all the officers involved investigated. 
''I am shocked that reporters were also invited to join in to witness the
arrest. This is very inappropriate and against basic police rules regarding
the policy of secrecy,'' the officer said in a telephone interview with The
Nation. 
''The Office of Police Immigration cannot be held responsible for the news
report that suggested the four suspects were terrorists or were preparing to
disrupt the Asian Games,'' said Pol Lt Gen Chidchai. 
Adding to the blame on the press, assistant police chief Thawatchai Phailee
said police had never distorted any information regarding crime suppression.
''I would like to say to the press that releasing such an inaccurate news
report could damage the country's image,'' he added. 
Thawatchai, quoting the results of lengthy questioning of the four and
additional intelligence from the military, said that Ahmed Bilal, Najeeb-ur-
rehman, Shaukat Ali, and Akhlaq Ahmed, were businessmen who had overstayed
their visas. 
Earlier, Pakistani Ambassador Sher Afgan Khan alleged that Najeeb-ur-rehman
was badly beaten up when he refused to sign a confession, and that the other
three men had signed under duress. 
''Innocent people should not be arrested just to put feathers or achievement
in your cap. You can't jump to any conclusions, but four innocent people have
just been taken out of their house.'' 
A spokesman for the embassy said: ''We are 99 per cent sure it is a frame-
up.'' 
Khan added that the embassy had contacted the Thai Foreign Ministry about the
arrests but was having trouble securing adequate police cooperation. 
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kobsak Chutikul declined comment on the arrests,
but said the Pakistani Embassy had contacted the ministry on the issue. 
The four men, including Najeeb-ur-rehman who received treatment for his
injuries, have been detained at Pravet station and charged with having
explosive-related devices without permission and overstaying their visas. 
Giving further details, Thawatchai said that the alleged bomb-making material
found in the house were part of detonation devices used in mining, and which
belonged to a former tenant who had left it behind before the four moved in
eight months ago. 
He added that all the fake gems and jewellery found in the house belonged to
the original owner of the house, who has leased it to the current landlord. 
Thawatchai said the four had frequently travelled between Pakistan and
Thailand for years on business trips, and that one of them even has a Thai
wife who is pregnant. 
The owner of the house, Akkharawong Phayakul, said he had long known the four
men and said the news report, or police speculation, that they were terrorists
was impossible. 
BY CHAIYAKORN BAI-NGERN AND PREECHA SA-ARDSORN 
The Nation

Shrimp farming a hazard
THE resolution of the Agriculture Ministry's panel to study the environmental
impact of inland shrimp farming confirms that the business is hazardous to the
country's rice bowl even if it is run in a closed-system. 
The resolution showed that inland shrimp farming caused soil salinity. 
The panel, said a source, had also proposed that the prime minister's order of
a complete ban on the business should remain. The resolution will be submitted
to the Agriculture Ministry's permanent secretary tomorrow and will be
officially announced next week. 
Even though the panel supported the ban, it also suggested that areas which
have already suffered from salinity be allowed to continue with inland shrimp
farming, like Prachin Buri's Ban Sang district. 
The Nation

Gang-rape suspect offers to wed victims
ONE of the five students of Buranapon Technic School who have been charged
with gang-raping two underaged girls wrote a note to his lawyer during the
hearing on Wednesday telling him to seek a compromise by letting him take the
two girls as his wives. 
Nathanan Artrit, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said Praphansak
Surisan Praphansak wrote to him saying ''deny and admit in part, request for
bail, seek compromise by saying I'll take the two girls as my wives and seek
leniency''. 
The five students on Wednesday confessed to all charges during their first
testimony in Nonthaburi Court. 
They were charged last month with gang rape, sexual assault, detaining the
girls against their will, child abduction and carrying arms in a public place.
The five included Chatchai Saengsawang, Praphansak Surisan, Songsak
Luengsanit, Channarong Suksabai and Vijit Kongwuth. 
If found guilty the suspects may be given the maximum penalty of a death
sentence because they are over 18 years old. 
The lawyer said he would not follow Praphansak's request to admit and deny in
part because it would not do any good for the suspect because the court would
have no mercy. 
''If the five suspects insist on fighting the charges, I will withdraw from
the case,'' he said. 
The public prosecutor Walai Chutinon said the five suspects had confessed to
all the charges and had retracted their earlier statement with the police when
they denied their actions in part. 
There has reportedly been an attempt by the defence lawyer to present the case
as a single wrongdoing and not five separate charges in a bid to lessen the
penalty. 
Nonthaburi chief public prosecutor Assadang Chiewthada said if the judge
considered the alleged gang rape as one wrongdoing, not as five, the suspects
may not be subjected to the maximum penalty. 
Nathanan said that during the trial, he did not cross-examine the public
prosecutor's witnesses because he had decided to submit the suspects'
confessions. 
Parents of the girls said they had come to accept the reality, even though
they were infuriated at first. ''We have to let the matter rest under the hand
of the law and try to think positively that our daughters were lucky not to be
killed,'' a father said. 
The hearing was off-limits to the public as well as the media because the
girls are minors. The two girls, 14 and 17 years old, also testified on
Wednesday and three investigators and one physician will testify today. 
Since the suspects have confessed to the charges, the judge is expected to
hand down a verdict within this month, Wilai said. 
The Nation


Burma aid offer excludes money
DEPUTY Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra said on Wednesday that the
United Nations and the World Bank had offered Burma ''technical assistance''
but not money in exchange for political dialogue. 
''The United Nations and World Bank want to give technical assistance to
Burma. They never discussed financial aid,'' Sukhumband said. 
He rejected a recent press report that the two organisations had proposed a
billion dollar lifeline to Burma in exchange for dialogue between the junta
and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. 
A junta official said in a statement last week that the report in the
International Herald Tribune was ''making everybody jumpy'' but it was
''premature to make any comment at this stage''. 
Aung San Suu Kyi led the National League for Democracy (NLD) party to a
landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta -- the State Peace and
Development Council -- has refused to recognise the result. 
Political talks have stalled over the junta's refusal to negotiate with Aung
San Suu Kyi about the formation of the elected government. 
Sukhumbhand said the technical aid offering depended on the reconciliation of
all political groups in Burma. 
He said Thailand did not support the idea of giving Rangoon financial aid, but
he said technical assistance would ''make the Burmese government realise that
reconciliation is worth it''. 
''We do not support extending a huge loan to Burma, and the World Bank and the
United Nations have never discussed any amount of money,'' he said. 
The UN General Assembly's human rights commission last month sharply
criticised ''continuing violations of human rights'' in Burma and called on
the junta to hold talks with the opposition. 
The European Union and the United States, among others, enforce trade and aid
sanctions against the junta over its poor human rights record and its refusal
to recognise the NLD's election victory. 
Agence France-Presse


Mailbag 
No immunity
John Watgase asked what Thais will do with the two formers dictators in
relation to the incident of General Pinochet (Letters, Dec 1). Well, we should
tell them to travel to England at their own peril because the amnesty laws
that they passed for themselves in Thailand will not apply there. 
Aroon Suansilppongse 


A water supply management crisis, not water crisis
It was amusing to read the parroting by Peter Paul van Dijk of the National
University of Ireland's Zoology Department of the standard Electricity
Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and Royal Irrigation Department (RID)
excuses for Thailand's now perennial dry-season water shortages (Letters, Nov
30). 
Yes, yes, Mr van Dijk, we who live in Thailand have heard it all before --
''water used by Egat simply flows downstream ... for irrigation, drinking
water supply and saltwater extrusion'' -- ad nauseum. The fact is, Egat and
the technocrats of the Office of National Water Resources Committee have, to
use van Dijk's words ''precisely and efficiently'', managed to significantly
worsen the water supply crisis facing the people of the central plains and
Bangkok in the next six months. 
On Oct 30, the Bhumibol dam's reservoir had 1,700 million cubic metres of
water for use, while the Sirikit reservoir had 2,800 million cubic metres of
storage available. The Agriculture Ministry wants the area of this year's
second rice crop decreased by half -- from last year's 4 million rai to under
2 million rai -- because of insufficient water in the dams built to supply the
central plains. 
Amazingly, between June and September, Egat's hydroelectricity generation
released 541 million cubic metres from the Bhumibol reservoir and another 767
million cubic metres through the Sirikit dam (see ''Important Information for
Administrators'' monthly reports June to September, Egat Public Relations
Division.) This at a time when Egat had ample electricity generation capacity
from other non-hydroelectric sources to supply the country's decreasing
electricity demand and at a time when the rains were falling and no water was
required or released from these dams for irrigation. 
Egat did not have to use the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams for electricity
generation. It did, while the RID and the Office of National Water Resources
Committee stood idly by and watched as Egat released more than 1,300 million
cubic metres of precious water into the flooding Chao Phraya River basin --
water that, if not released would have increased the amount of irrigation and
drinking water supply available in the Bhumibol and Sirikit reservoirs to the
farmers of the central plains and the people of Bangkok during the coming dry
season. 
Thailand does not have so much a water crisis as a crisis in water supply
management. Zoologist apologists from Ireland aside, the technocrats have had
their day, and they have failed miserably. Thai society needs and deserves a
water supply management system that gives farmers and other water consumers a
central and effective voice in the use, conservation and management of our
water. 
Witoon Permpongsacharoen 
General Secretary, Foundation for Ecological Recovery
Aides meet protesters for talks

JAKARTA: Two senior aides of Indonesian President B J Habibie met a group of
student protesters yesterday as thousands more demonstrated outside the
presidential palace and around the capital. 
It is the first time pro-democracy protests have been allowed outside the
palace, in central Merdeka (Freedom) Square, and the first time senior
presidential aides have met a student delegation. 
The talks took place in the state secretariat next door to the palace. Mr
Habibie refused to meet the group. 
About 1,000 students demonstrated peacefully on the road outside the two
buildings during the 30-minute meeting with military secretary Budi Santoso
and cabinet vice-secretary Erman Rajaguk. The protesters later dispersed
peacefully. 
Scattered protests were staged elsewhere in the capital, demanding Mr Habibie
and armed forces chief General Wiranto quit and the president's disgraced
predecessor, Suharto, be tried for abuses during his harsh 32-year rule. 
But in their meeting with Mr Santoso and Mr Rajaguk, the 17 students also
demanded Gen Wiranto accept responsibility on behalf of the military for past
human rights abuses. 
Earlier, Mr Habibie urged protesters to get off the streets and push for
reforms through the political system. 
``It is impossible for us to achieve reform on the streets,'' he told a
community group. ``We must all take the same path. 
``As a nation which loves unity and peace, and fights injustice and poverty .
 . . we must choose the constitutional way.'' 
Thousands of students held separate demonstrations around Jakarta, targeting
the attorney-general's office, parliament and trying again to march on the
home of Mr Suharto. 
However, there were no reports of violence. 
As they do daily, heavily armed riot troops stopped a group of several hundred
students within about a kilometre from Mr Suharto's home. 
About 1,500 more gathered outside the attorney-general's office demanding a
full and open inquiry into the Suharto family's wealth, estimated by some at
US$40 billion (HK$312 billion). 
Mr Habibie, Mr Suharto's hand-picked successor, has ordered the attorney-
general to investigate the former president's wealth and has promised a
separate independent probe. 
The capital was calm yesterday, with no signs of a feared Muslim backlash
after rampaging Christian youths torched several mosques and other buildings
in the town of Kupang on Monday. 

HONG KONG STANDARD - DEC 03, 98

University offers courses on killing 

ROGER MAYNARD in Sydney 
Want to learn how to be a serial killer? Then Sydney University has just the
course for you. 
Or courses. So many people have registered for a place that the organisers may
have to create more classes to meet public demand. 
The course will cover some of the most notorious serial killers this century,
including the Australian backpacker murderer Ivan Milat, the Boston Strangler
Albert de Salvo and Jeffrey Dahmer, the so-called Cannibal Killer. 
The university's continuing education guide explains that the six-week course
will examine "the complex labyrinth that is the mind of the serial killer". 
The guide warns prospective students of the "explicit detail" likely to be
discussed, but lecturer John Clarke says anyone going along just to enjoy the
blood and gore will go away disappointed. 
"This is a legitimate area of study that fascinates lots of people and the
material will be presented in a professional academic way," Mr Clarke insists.
He admits he has been surprised by the response. He believes public interest
in the topic has been fuelled by recent fictional and non-fictional accounts
of mass murders. 
So what sort of person signs up for a crash course on killing? Apart from
those with an interest in the macabre, according to Mr Clarke, evidence
suggests that serial killers especially like to learn more about serial
killers.