The BurmaNet News: April 15, 1999

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 "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: April 15, 1999
Issue #1251

Noted in Passing: "Does such a government deserve a 'carrot' or a 'stick'?"
 - Moe Aye (see THE NATION: TIME TO REWARD THE BURMESE JUNTA?)

HEADLINES:
==========
KHRG: UPDATE 99-U2 - KARENNI 
TV MYANMAR: THAN SHWE EXPLAINS AGRICULTURAL PLAN 
VOICE OF AMERICA: BURMA-CENSORSHIP 
THE NATION: TIME TO REWARD THE BURMESE JUNTA? 
SIERRA CLUB: DEFENDING THE EARTH'S DEFENDERS 
****************************************************************

KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP: UPDATE 9-U2 - KARENNI (KAYAH) STATE: CONTINUING
FLIGHT OF VILLAGERS TO THAILAND 
14 April, 1999 from khrg@xxxxxxxxx

INFORMATION UPDATE

An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group

Information Update is periodically produced by KHRG in order to provide
timely reporting of specific developments, particularly when urgent action
may be required.  It is produced primarily for Internet distribution.
Topics covered will generally be reported in more detail in upcoming KHRG
reports.

Karenni (Kayah) State:  Continuing Flight of Villagers to Thailand

In mid-1996 the State Law & Order Restoration Council (SLORC) military
junta ruling Burma broke a ceasefire with the Karenni National Progressive
Party (KNPP) by launching a military offensive aimed at gaining complete
control over areas of Karenni (Kayah) State near the border with Thailand.
To support this military campaign, at the same time the junta launched a
mass forced relocation campaign against rural villagers throughout the
state, hoping to undermine the KNPP by removing or wiping out the entire
civilian population in rural areas.  Since then over 200 villages covering
at least half the geographic area of the entire state have been forcibly
relocated, burned and destroyed by Burmese Army troops under the command of
the SLORC, which was renamed the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC)
in November 1997.  There is no accurate census data available, but most of
the villages only have 10 to 50 households and estimates of the number of
villagers affected range between 30,000 and 50,000.

The SLORC/SPDC ordered all villagers to move into Army-controlled
relocation sites within one to two weeks, after which anyone seen in their
home areas would be "considered as enemy", i.e. shot on sight, and all
houses and belongings found in villages would be confiscated or destroyed
by the military.  Over the following year relocation camps were established
at several sites, including Shadaw and Nwa La Bo in northern Karenni,
Ywathit, Daw Tama, Baw La Keh, Tee Po Kloh, Kay Lia, Mar Kraw She, and Daw
Tama Gyi in central Karenni, and Mawchi and Pah Saung in southwestern
Karenni.  Several hundred people were ordered to move into each of the
smaller sites, while several thousand people were ordered into larger sites
like Shadaw.  On arrival at the sites they were provided with nothing, and
many people began to starve and die of disease.  They were not allowed to
farm, though some were allowed to return to their villages to retrieve some
food supplies.  Many used this opportunity to flee into hiding in the
forests, joining others who had hidden in the forests rather than go to the
relocation sites.


Since 1997 there has been a steady trickle of families escaping from the
relocation sites back to hide in the forests surrounding their home
villages. According to reports from some of these villagers, conditions in
the relocation sites have steadily deteriorated since the beginning.
Villagers in the sites were provided with nothing at first, though once
many of them started to starve the Army began giving small rations of rice
in some sites. This rice, which was most likely confiscated from farmers in
other areas, was quickly cut to less than half what people need to survive.
 People only have access to medicines if they can pay inflated prices for
them and bribe the government medics, so many have died of treatable
diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and dysentery and other infectious
diseases are widespread.

According to villagers who fled the sites recently, in response to
starvation the Army now allows villagers in Shadaw relocation site to plant
food, but the area of land allocated is very small and the soil is bad so
the villagers have only been able to grow a small quantity of corn and
nothing else.  At the same time, villagers in Shadaw relocation site are
still being used for forced labour both inside and outside the relocation
site.  The Army forces them to maintain Army facilities and a school, and
also to maintain roads.  There are reports that they are now being used to
build a new road as well, though it remains unclear where this road is going.

According to escaped villagers, at Nwa La Bo relocation site north of
Loikaw the Army is using the interned villagers as forced labour on an Army
rubber plantation.  There is no school, hospital or clinic in the camp, so
those who get sick can only get treatment if they can get a pass to go to
Loikaw town and pay for transport and treatment.  Villagers also report
that at Daw Te Her, a newer site north of Loikaw, boys aged 13 and above
have been taken away in groups of 20 for military training, and that none
of them have been seen since.

People who have recently fled the Mawchi area in southwestern Karenni claim
that in Mawchi relocation site villagers have been forced to hand over all
of their rice to the Army.  Their rice is stockpiled in a church under Army
guard, and they can only obtain a 3-day's supply at a time. There have also
been reports that relocated villagers around Mawchi as well as Mawchi
townspeople are being used as forced labour on the new road being built
from Mawchi to Toungoo.  This road winds through rough terrain for
something like 160 kilometres / 100 miles, and is following the route of an
old destroyed pre-war British road.  The report, as yet unconfirmed by
KHRG, claims that the villagers have been forced to work on the road within
8 miles of Mawchi.  Near the other (Toungoo) end of the road, Karen
villagers have already been used as forced labour clearing the route and
laying the roadbed since early 1998 [for more details see "False Peace:
Increasing SPDC Military Repression in Toungoo District of Northern Karen
State"  (KHRG #99-02, 25/3/99)].


In towns such as Mawchi and Loikaw it appears that the townspeople are
also living under intense restrictions.  KNPP sources say that there are
now 4 SPDC Battalions based in and around the state capital of Loikaw, and
that townspeople have to obtain passes in order to leave the town limits.

Townspeople, villagers in the relocation sites and those in hiding in the
forest have all been affected by the drought which caused the failure of
the 1998 rice crop.  Some estimates claim that the combination of the
drought and the SPDC campaign of village destruction has caused the crop
for the entire state to be no more than 10% of normal for this year.  It
appears that because of this the Army is now freely allowing people to flee
the relocation sites, and many people have taken advantage of this to flee
back to the forests surrounding their home villages to try to survive
there.  It is difficult to obtain reliable information on how many people
remain in the relocation sites, but there are probably still one or two
thousand people in Shadaw, the largest relocation site, and several hundred
up to a thousand in most of the other sites.

Many people have been living in hiding in the forests for 2 to 3 years now,
and they are regularly joined by more who are fleeing the relocation sites.
SPDC patrols have destroyed almost all of the 200 or more villages which
have been relocated, but people still try to live in small shelters in the
forest and grow small amounts of food in their old fields or in patches of
cleared ground.  In northern and eastern Karenni, the KNPP says that there
are 3 SPDC platoons currently doing most of the sweeps to eliminate
villagers.  These patrols pass through destroyed villages as often as every
week or two to hunt out and destroy shelters and food supplies and shoot on
sight any villagers that they find.  According to the KNPP, the SPDC
patrols have also placed landmines and booby-traps in some of the villages
they have destroyed because they know that the villagers in hiding
regularly revisit their destroyed homes.  In Mawchi area of southwestern
Karenni, the patrols only come through every two to three months but when
they come they are much more thorough than their counterparts in the north,
covering every village and all the surrounding territory.  When the
relocations first started in 1996 many people in the area northwest of
Mawchi simply ignored the orders and managed to stay in and around their
villages, but in 1997 and 1998 SPDC troops razed villages throughout the
area and physically drove people into the relocation sites.  Now many of
the villagers from Mawchi area have moved southward to the forests along
the border with Karen State and have been trying to survive there.

For the people in the forests throughout Karenni the situation has been
desperate for some time now.  They have to regularly flee SPDC patrols,
survive on little to no food and no medicine, and many of them have died of
treatable diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and dysentery.  Some
villagers from the area around Mawchi say that many in the forests there
have already died of diarrhoea.  The villagers in the forests long ago
exhausted whatever food supplies they had hidden before the relocations
began, and the drought and crop failures of 1998 have hit them very hard by
wiping out whatever small quantities of food they were growing to survive.
As a result of the complete lack of food and the continuing sweeps by SPDC
troops, many more of them have been forced to consider the difficult and
dangerous flight to refugee camps in Thailand.


Up until mid-1998 the SPDC troops were actively trying to block escape
routes to Thailand, but it appears that the food situation and a shift in
military thinking may have changed this.  While still hunting out and
killing villagers in the forest, they also seem to be allowing more
villagers to head for the Thai border.  The military may be thinking that
forcing people into relocation sites is no longer viable because there is
no food, and that if people flee to Thailand then this still clears the
area of civilians, which is one of their main military objectives.

For people in northern and central Karenni the flight to the Thai border is
extremely difficult and dangerous; it takes several weeks travelling with
the entire family, there is little or no prospect of food being available
along the way, and there is always the possibility of encountering an SPDC
patrol.  However, many have been making the trip.  Immediately following
the first wave of relocations in mid-1996, about 3,000 people arrived at
existing Karenni refugee camps in Thailand.  A few months later another
1,300 arrived, and then the flow decreased to a trickle as most people
settled in to live in hiding in the forest or were effectively blocked from
escape by SPDC troops.  However, since January 1999 approximately 1,200
people have arrived in the refugee camps, most of them fleeing the Shadaw
area of north-central Karenni.  Some have been living in hiding in the
forest for one to three years and fled because they could no longer produce
or obtain any food.  Others recently fled relocation sites back to the
forests around their villages, but quickly found that there was no food to
be had there and that SPDC patrols posed a constant danger.  Most of the
new arrivals are in very bad physical shape when they reach the border,
sick, weak from the journey and emaciated from lack of food.  There have
also been handfuls of new arrivals from the Mawchi area; many more from
this area would like to flee, but it is twice the distance of the trip from
northern Karenni and twice as difficult and dangerous to travel, and there
are few or no people available who can guide them along the way.

Most of the new arrivals have been accepted into the refugee camps by Thai
authorities, though most of them are in a site called Karenni Camp 2 and
there are serious concerns over the safety of this site.  The camp is just
20 minutes' walk from an SPDC Army post just across the border, and has
been attacked before by SPDC-backed forces.  The attack occurred on January
3rd 1997; three refugees were killed and nine others were wounded, and
there was no attempt by Thai forces to defend the camp.

Further details on the current situation in Karenni and interviews with
some of the affected villagers will be presented in an upcoming KHRG
report.  For more background on the Karenni forced relocations from 1996 to
1998, see the KHRG reports "A Struggle Just to Survive:  Update on the
Current Situation in Karenni" (#98-06, 12/6/98), "Update on Karenni Forced
Relocations" (#97-01, 5/3/97), and "Forced Relocation in Karenni" (#96-24,
15/7/96). 


****************************************************************

TV MYANMAR: THAN SHWE EXPLAINS AGRICULTURAL PLAN
7 April, 1999 

[Excerpted and translated from Burmese.  TV Myanmar is the SPDC-run
television network.]

Sr. Gen. Than Shwe, State Peace and Development Council chairman and
Defense Services commander in chief, met with departmental personnel and
authorities from Mandalay, Sagaing, and Magwe Divisions in the Central
Regional Command Headquarters' conference room in Mandalay at 0810 on 6
April. Sr. Gen. Than Shwe gave guidance on development of agriculture at
the meeting. [passage omitted on attendance]

Speaking at the meeting, Sr. Gen. Than Shwe said agriculture is the main
economic base of the country and that multi-faceted development based on
agriculture would be undertaken. He said agriculture sector was developed
effectively during the Four-Year Plan for 1992-1996. However, in the
current Five-Year Plan, which started in 1996, the agriculture sector falls
behind target despite yearly improvement.

He said the country's expansive agriculture is related to many sectors and
that limitations were experienced in the development endeavors. However,
various methods are being employed to meet the target. In this endeavor,
national private entrepreneurs, who have the technology and capital, were
invited to become new agro-business resources. He said the private
entrepreneurs are now actively involved in the agricultural development in
Irrawaddy, Yangon [Rangoon], Pegu, Magwe, and Tenasserim Divisions. He said
although these entrepreneurs have the technology and capital, they lack
experience. Therefore, agriculture departmental personnel from the central
level down to the basic levels are urged to give assistance to the
entrepreneurs. As other sectors will develop only when agriculture is
developed, assistance should be given to the entrepreneurs who are
investing in agriculture. Development endeavors will be successful only
when the government, the Defense Services, and the people cooperate. Joint
efforts should be made for success of the agriculture development scheme to
increase cultivation acreage and per acre crops production.

He urged the authorities to work for agriculture development by organizing
local entrepreneurs, expanding agriculture, and assisting and giving
guidance to local farmers in states and divisions where private
entrepreneurs have not invested. He said capital earned from the
agriculture sector would be used in developing the industrial sector of the
country. A modern and developed nation can be established only when
agriculture and industry are integrated into development. Sr. Gen. Than
Shwe added that while efforts are being made for national development,
there are elements who are undermining and hindering these efforts.
However, success is being achieved in the development endeavors due to
coordinated and concerted efforts. He said these efforts will provide
adequately to the needs of the future generations. We should not deprive
our country of the good future because of the obstructions. [passage
omitted on reports presented at the meeting]


****************************************************************

VOICE OF AMERICA: BURMA - CENSORSHIP 
15 April, 1999 by Laurie Kassman 

Intro:  The London-based  International Center Against Censorship -- known
as Article 19 -- has issued a report condemning Burma's continuing abuse of
civil rights and freedom of expression.  VOA correspondent Laurie Kassman
reports from London

Text:  The Article 19 report on Burma lists a wide range of what it calls
violations of basic civil rights by a succession of military governments.
The abuses range from censorship of the media, books, song lyrics, and
movies, and restrictions on computer use to the harassment of political
opponents of military rule.

An editor of the report, Malcolm Smart, says the case of opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi is just one example.

///  Smart act one  ///

The Burmese military regime operates one of the most strict and severe
censorship regimes, which has really stunted the country's political,
social and economic development over the years.

///  end act  ///

Mr. Smart says it is time for Burma's neighbors to pressure the military
rulers to end the repression there.

///  Smart act two  ///

And we're looking particularly to obviously the western democracies, but
also to countries in the region -- The Association of South East Asian
Nations, which recently admitted Burma to its association.  This sent the
wrong signal, we think, to the generals. And the Asean countries too have a
responsibility.

///  end act  ///

Article 19's 43-page report on censorship in Burma, called Acts of
Oppression, coincides with the UN Human Rights Commission review of the
situation in Burma. 

****************************************************************

THE NATION: TIME TO REWARD THE BURMESE JUNTA? 
13 April, 1999 by Moe Aye 

After the callousness shown by the Burmese junta towards Aung San Suu Kyi
and her late husband, Moe Aye asks if it is logical to give any "carrots"
to these rulers at all.

Not only in the Burmese way of life but in every way of life, any normal
person knows not to disturb someone mourning a family member. Yet according
to the National League for Democracy's (NLD) statements and sources inside
Burma, the junta has been creating major annoyances for the lady, instead
of showing compassion and sharing her sadness.

Before her husband's death, after realising that the lady would not leave
the country, it did not allow her to say goodbye to her husband, even over
the telephone. After his death, the generals sent a condolence letter to
the lady, and seem to believe this will compensate for their wrongdoing.

Military intelligence officers are now trying to disturb the lady in many
ways. U Tin Oo, vice chairman of the NLD, said, ''Condolence books have
been opened at her lakeside residence at University Avenue and at the NLD
party headquarters in the capital. But people who had come to sign the book
are being photographed and asked to identify themselves.''

In reality, not only Aung San Suu Kyi but also many activists are treated
in such a way. One of many examples is the treatment of Kyaw Gyi
(Democratic Party of New Society -- DPNS). In 1991 he was sentenced to 15
years imprisonment for peacefully demonstrating, and he is still in prison.
In 1997 his dying mother requested the authorities to allow her to meet
with her son in prison, but her final desire was not fulfilled. Mother and
son were both in Rangoon. Does such a government deserve a "carrot" or a
"stick"?


Forty diplomats from various interested countries, including five
Rangoon-based ambassadors from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, the
United Kingdom and the United States, debated this last year. They took
part in an informal meeting at Chilston Park in the southeastern town of
Kent in England to try to break the political deadlock in Burma. After
agreeing that it was time to give some carrots to the junta to open a
dialogue with the NLD, their offer of a package from the UN and the World
Bank worth US$1 billion was made public.

Many analysts wrote opinions about the "carrot or stick" policy towards the
Burmese military regime. Many voices regarding humanitarian aid and
technical assistance to Burma burst forth around the world. Some government
and international organisations, especially from Japan and including
Interpol, actively claimed that Burma deserved assistance of all kinds. The
UN general secretary also stated that he hoped that the ''carrot from
Chilston'' would help resolve the political deadlock in Burma.

But the junta's foreign minister declared at an Asean conference in Hanoi
that, ''we welcome any assistance from anywhere that is offered with
goodwill and sincerity. And we will consider it when it comes. But for us,
giving a banana to the monkey and then asking it to dance is not the way.
We are not monkeys.'' After this the debate about the carrot from Chilston
slowly died away.

At the same time, debate about Burma's participation in the EU-Asean
meeting planned for Berlin became deadlocked. This was followed, however,
by the emergence around the world of Dr Aris' tragic story. Before his
sorrowful death, the world thought it was a great chance for the junta to
open dialogue with the NLD, especially Aung San Suu Kyi. But as usual, the
junta, always thinking of the lady's deportation from Burma, refused to
fulfil the dying man's wish. Burma's history had to record another tragedy
in its books on March 27, Burma's anti-fascist revolution day, when the
British professor died. The hope that the situation might offer a chance
for the commencement of dialogue between the NLD and the junta also dispersed.

Philippines President Joseph Estrada hammered home that point after hearing
of Dr Aris' death. He said that by not allowing Dr Aris to visit Suu Kyi,
Burma had lost a chance to build confidence. Before Dr Aris' death, Estrada
had said that the Philippines had been quietly making representations with
Rangoon for the issue of a visa to Dr Aris as a compassionate and
humanitarian gesture. His words intimate that the junta lacked compassion
and humanity in its denial of the dying man's wish. However another chance,
perhaps the last chance, is available to the junta. Although it didn't
display humanitarian spirit in the past, it could now inquire of the lady
how it can assist in her religious ceremonies for her husband, and how it
can help in providing visas for her sons to reunite the rest of the family.
Even though it is reluctant to open political dialogue with the lady, it
can open a social dialogue -- if it wants to.


''We hoped that the junta would for once show goodwill to the lady, the
daughter of the founder of the military, on this year's 'Armed Forces Day'
[March 27], by allowing Dr Aris to meet his wife. Instead, Dr Aris died on
this historical day without seeing his wife. This is another black spot on
the junta's history of more than ten years of oppression,'' said a retired
Rangoon University professor who declined to be named. ''I really don't
understand why they didn't allow Dr Aris to meet his wife. This is not
behaviour that human beings should adopt. The junta seemed to want 'give
and take' from the outside world, especially to have a seat in the Berlin
meeting. In reality, it is the junta that played Dr Aris' case as a
political tool.''

His view highlights the junta's real inner attitude. The junta claimed,
regarding the $1 billion package, that it was not a monkey. If so, the
question of what it actually is must be answered. In the eyes of some,
Burma is nothing more than an investment opportunity. Sorrowfully,
Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, just before his three-day
visit to Burma, stated that Asean's constructive engagement policy towards
Burma was a long-term process dictated primarily by domestic interests and
less by external factors. He also claimed that if more trade links and
investments were established, the junta's perspective would probably shift.
The junta may see that things should evolve to secure a more sustainable
long-term position.

''We don't understand the Singaporean government's policy towards our
country. But we do understand that Singapore will take any advantages and
profits that it can from our land by cultivating a cordial relationship
with the junta. I am surprised, however, that Singapore also accuses
western countries of using neo-colonialism. And they seem to think that the
more they invest, the more the junta will reduce its repression. I'm not
sure whether or not they know the junta's theory that the more it
oppresses, the more it will get assistance from outside,'' said Ye Taize, a
prominent student leader. His comments raise the question of which policy
is "neo-colonialist" -- supporting Burma's democracy movement or Asean's
constructive engagement policy. The junta's economic czar, General David
Able, has made it clear that the regime's commitment to reform in exchange
for aid is minimal at best. Gen Able, commenting on reports of the carrot
from Chilston, said in an interview, ''There is some substance to the
report but nothing concrete has yet been offered in financial terms. Even
if it had, it would need to be a lot bigger than one billion and come
without any political conditions. In reality, the country needs more than
three billion. We might not have the good things in life, but we are better
off than we were ten years ago and we can still continue''.

Most Burmese would not look upon the last decade as any improvement. Ten
years of denying human rights and democracy have served to make the junta
accomplished at denial [sic]. The vindictive denial of a visa for Michael
Aris means that what would otherwise have been a private tragedy has become
a symbol of countless acts of oppression. The world community must decide
whether any good can come from offering carrots at this time to such a regime.


****************************************************************

SIERRA CLUB: DEFENDING THE EARTH'S DEFENDERS 
May/June, 1999 by B.J. Bergman

Volume 84, Issue 3

"When I fled Burma in 1988, I knew nothing about the environment," said Ka
Hsaw Wa. During 11 years of exile, he has risked his safety by returning
repeatedly to his homeland to interview victims of the military
dictatorship's brutality. "More and more, these people are talking about
issues that directly implicate the environment as well: the woman whose
baby was killed when a soldier kicked her into a fire during a forced
relocation for the pipeline; the boys and girls who were forced at gunpoint
to labor on the logging road; the fisherman who lost his traditional
livelihood when international trawlers forced him out of the sea."

Ka Hsaw Wa, slight and boyish looking, could easily pass for the college
student he was more than a decade ago. Now, though, he understands both the
"deadly partnership" between multinational oil magnates and the Burmese
generals -- who are leveling forests for a massive natural gas pipeline --
and the "intimate connection" between human liberty and ecological health.
"We have a chance to join hands and stop the abuse at its sources," he
said. "Those who have been previously committed to protecting human rights,
and those who have focused on the environment, must recognize that we work
at cross purposes if we do not work together."

Ka Hsaw Wa, who now lives in Thailand, spoke at the Sierra Club's San
Francisco headquarters in January to bless an alliance between the Club,
the nation's largest grassroots environmental organization, and Amnesty
International USA, its counterpart in the human-rights arena. At his side
was Dr. Owens Wiwa, whose brother, Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, was executed
with eight others by the Nigerian military in November 1995 for speaking
out about toxic oil spills and government repression. Wiwa fled days later,
and now lives in Toronto.

The Club and Amnesty, which together have nearly a million members in the
United States alone, have previously collaborated on behalf of the Ogoni
and Russia's Alexander Nikitin, charged with espionage for blowing the
whistle on dangers from decommissioned nuclear submarines. Their three-year
"Defending the Defenders" campaign will bring more such cases of
persecution to broader attention via first-person accounts by indigenous
activists on the Internet and annual "Environmental Defender" reports, and
through the two organizations' extensive communications and activist networks.

There is, sadly, no shortage of worthy candidates. William Schultz,
Amnesty's executive director, noted that just days earlier, 1991 Goldman
Prize winner Wangari Maathai, coordinator of Kenya's Green Belt Movement,
and other protesters had been hospitalized after being clubbed for trying
to plant seedlings at the gates of a forest slated for development. As a
participant in a morning roundtable discussion observed, however, "We don't
have to go abroad to find examples of corporate abuse." To cite just one,
Navajos are struggling to defend their sacred homeland in the Arizona
desert against expansion of Peabody Coal's Black Mesa mine.


The "Defending the Defenders" campaign aims to turn up the pressure on the
U.S. government for its part in human-rights abuses. Carl Pope, the Club's
executive director, criticized Democrats and Republicans alike for
supporting a foreign policy he described as "see no evil, hear no evil."
Appearing at a news conference to announce the campaign, he promised to
"press our government to insist that corporations based here, marketing
here, and raising money here, develop and implement credible human-rights
and environmental protection policies wherever they do business."

"It should no longer be acceptable," said Pope, "for corporations to say,
'we have complied with the law where we are doing business,' if that law
does not recognize basic environmental and human rights."

The San Francisco-based Goldman Fund is underwriting the Club/Amnesty
alliance and is also providing support for a variety of other advocacy
groups to stop human-rights abuses and hold corporations accountable. In
the previous two weeks, Wiwa said, the Nigerian junta had killed at least
two dozen activists in its reign of terror on behalf of multinational oil
interests there. By defending the defenders, "this coalition will help
ensure that such things never happen again."

"If anything happens to us, we will not die in vain," Wiwa said,
unavoidably evoking the memory of his martyred brother. "A lot of people
are watching."

****************************************************************