The BurmaNet News: October 12, 1999

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The BurmaNet News: October 12, 1999
Issue #1377

HEADLINES:
==========
ECONOMIST: THAILAND'S WAY WITH TERRORISTS
AFP: MYANMAR TROOPS MAY BE PREPARING TO CROSS BORDER
NATION: SYMPATHETIC HOSTAGES ORDEAL AT GUNPOINT
SCMP: BANGKOK SEEKS UN AID TO RESETTLE ACTIVISTS
ECONOMIST: MYANMAR'S TOP EXPORT
NATION: 7,000 REFUGEES RELOCATED
AFP: EU EXTENDS SANCTIONS FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS
*****************************************************

THE ECONOMIST: THAILAND'S WAY WITH TERRORISTS
9 October, 1999

Bangkok -- FIVE young men marched into the visa section of Myanmar's embassy
in Bangkok on October 1st, took out guns from the guitar cases they were
carrying and proceeded to round up everyone in the building. Although the
embassy has often been a target of protesters from among the thousands of
exiles from Myanmar in Thailand, this was the first time violence had been
used. But the ending of the siege was even more surprising than the siege
itself.

After 25 hours of negotiations, the five men, who called themselves the
Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, agreed to release the 89 people in the
building, in return for their own freedom. By then they had faxed from the
embassy a list of demands to the military government in Myanmar, chiefly to
free political prisoners and convene parliament, and had seemingly accepted
that the Thais could do little to further these aims, however admirable.

A group of the embassy hostages, some of them westerners, agreed to
accompany the student warriors to a helicopter pickup point. As the
helicopter took off with the five men inside, the hostages waved goodbye,
some shouting for democracy in Myanmar.

Sukhumbhand Paribatra, Thailand's deputy foreign minister, rode in the
helicopter with the gang, a rifle pointed at his head. It was "rather
tense", he said, but he defended the decision to let the men go. It was a
speedy and peaceful end to the incident, he said. Other Thai officials
sought to play down what had happened. "I don't consider them terrorists,"
said Sanan Kachornprasart, Thailand's interior minister. "They are student
activists who fight for democracy."

The five men were taken to Thailand's border with Myanmar, and are presumed
to have joined a group in Myanmar opposed to the government. They we warned
that if they showed up in Thailand again, they would face prosecution.
That's telling them.

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

AFP: MYANMAR TROOPS MAY BE PREPARING TO CROSS BORDER
10 October, 1999

MAE HONG SON, Thailand (October 10, 1999 7:21 a.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Troops from Myanmar are pouring into border
regions opposite Thailand's northern Mae Hong Son province and may be
preparing to attack refugee camps in Thailand, sources said Sunday.

Ethnic minority leaders and Thai intelligence sources said an attack may be
planned to retaliate for the seizure earlier this month of Yangon's embassy
in Bangkok by pro-democracy student gunmen.

A senior Thai intelligence source told AFP he estimated that the number of
Yangon's troops in the area had increased in recent days from some 10,000 to
between 20,000 and 30,000.

The Yangon junta closed the 1,440 miles border after five gunmen stormed its
Bangkok embassy Oct. 1, holding nearly 40 people hostage for 24-hours.

The gunmen, who initially called for the junta to hold talks with the
democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, were later provided with an
escape helicopter to the border by Thai authorities.

Myanmar officials while thanking Thailand for ending the hostage drama
peacefully have also accused Bangkok of being too soft on the gunmen, and
pressured authorities here to get tough with exiled dissidents.

They say the border camps harbor armed anti-junta forces and called Saturday
for Thailand to use an "iron first" to wipe out terrorism.

Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency Friday said it had completed the movement
of refugees from Huay Kalok camp in northwestern Tak province deeper inside
Thailand to reduce the risk of cross-border raids by junta-backed guerrilla
forces.

Thailand hosts some 100,000 Myanmar refugees, mainly of Karen and Karenni
ethnic origins, who have fled suppression of ethnic insurgencies in
military-run Myanmar.

Last year, several Karen refugees were killed and thousands were made
homeless when guerrilla forces backed by the junta raided camps on Thai
territory.

After the storming of the embassy, Thailand said it would increase security
at diplomatic missions and crack down on several thousand exiled Myanmar
students believed living here.

Bangkok and Yangon have been engaged in an escalating war of words over the
crisis, with senior Thai ministers arguing that the hostage-taking
reinforced the need for democratic change inside military-ruled Myanmar.

But Yangon has angrily denied any responsibility.

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

THE NATION: SYMPATHETIC HOSTAGES ORDEAL AT GUNPOINT
9 October, 1999 by Frank Zeller

The Burmese Embassy hostages needed little prompting to develop the
'Stockholm Syndrome' of empathy with their captors, though they did have
some terrifying moments, writes Frank Zeller of Deutsche Presse-Agnentur.

A week after being caught in the middle of a terrifying Bangkok hostage
drama, a group Western backpackers expressed some sympathy for the cause,
but not the methods, of the exiled Burmese dissidents who put them through
the ordeal.

When the 25-hour siege ended last Saturday with the five gunmen taking off
in a helicopter for the Burmese border, some of their freed young captives
wore red headbands and gave victory signs in an apparent show of solidarity
with their captors.

The Burmese junta, an international pariah for its human-rights abuses, was
quick to label the action a "conspiracy", a claim laughed off by the
hostages. Recounting the fear they felt, they also talked about their mixed
feelings for the "Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors".

Australian Natalie McCoy, 25, one of the last captives free, claimed raising
her fist as the helicopter took off was "a spontaneous reaction of elation.
We were free. We had gone through 25 hours of fear."

Like her friends, she said she supports democracy but not the use of
violence to attain it. "I just hope that eventually the situation may be
changed. I say that from seeing what these warriors went through, what they
were prepared to do to promote their cause"

The siege started when the five dissidents, armed with AK-47 assault rifle
and hand grenades hidden in a guitar case, stormed the city-centre mission
just before noon, taking 38 hostages and raising the "fighting peacock" flag
of the Burmese freedom movement.

"We had just gotten in there to get our visa," said McCoy, a Canberra shop
worker who was eight weeks into a six-month holiday with her Canadian
boyfriend Antoine Marcotte, 31, who was also taken hostage.

"It was nearly 12 o'clock, and we thought we'd have to come back the next
day. Then someone came in with a gun and told everybody to get down, and we
just got down. It was a total shock."

In the first few minutes the hostages were told they would not be harmed,
she remembers, handed red headbands and a one-page pamphlet outlining the
gunmen's opposition to military oppression in Burma.

"We all read it and kind of agreed with the ideas," said Marcotte.

While police surrounded the embassy, the dissidents made their demands: the
Burmese regime should free all political prisoners and acknowledge the 1990
election victory of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy.

"It's not like you were in much control," said McCoy, adding that she had
taken up smoking during the drama. "You cry, you shake, you smile, you
laugh." Once, embassy staff were briefly marched out. "I was very worried
for them," she said. "I just hoped they'd be all right."

Tension rose when the gunmen waved their guns at the hostages and
accidentally dropped hand grenades, which bounced across the floor. Student
leader "Johnny" and others periodically fired deafening bursts of automatic
gunfire into the ceiling.

"You were never quite sure," Marcotte said on Thursday evening at the
Foreign Correspondents, Club of Thailand. "You've got grenades, you've got
shots. It's not a happy place. That guy Johnny's mood kept changing from the
good to the bad."

In general, however, the hostages interviewed agreed that the dissidents had
treated them well, not threatening to kill them, giving them food and drinks
and allowing them cigarettes and toilet trips.

"One of them got a coffee-maker and started making coffee for all of us,"
said Marcottee, a ski-equipment technician from Banff, Canada. "[I thought:]
"These guys have our good interests at heart. If we get out alive, they get
out alive'. It got the tension down quite a bit."

But then, during a late-night telephone interview, the hostages heard a
captor say the chilling English words they feared might seal their fate:
"One every hour from 8 o'clock tomorrow morning".

On Saturday morning, when the students appeared to be wondering whom to
shoot first, Thai pharmaceutical company branch manager Prasert
Luangaramvej, 41, stood up and walked towards Johnny.

"I thought: 'I must do something," said the father of five, who was at the
embassy on company business. "Johnny asked why I stood up to talk with him.
I asked him to cool down and said I will contact the outside, the
government, so no one is hurt, the hostages or you."

Using his mobile phone, Prasert helped negotiate a deal that saw the
dissidents exchange the 38 Asian and Western hostages for Thai Deputy
Foreign Minister M R Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who had agreed to accompany the
gunmen to the safety of the border in a helicopter.

However, after a first attempt to land a helicopter in the palm-studded
compound was abandoned, Johnny vented his frustration by firing a clip from
his AK-47assault rifle at a framed picture of Burmese Prime Minister Gen
Than Shwe.

After more talks, two vans arrived around noon and took the gunmen and many
of the hostages to a nearby school's sports ground. Once more the aircraft
did not land, and tension rose to a new peak.

"That was very serious," said Prasert. "Johnny did not trust me any more. He
said: 'You lied to me.' "From inside one van, a hostage-taker perforated the
roof with bullets.

Canadian hostage Greg Archer, a Toronto chef, said: "Everybody was kind of
hiding their faces, hoping it wouldn't be them who got picked. At that point
you kind of realized this could be the short end to a long weekend."

The Thai government finally resolved the drama without bloodshed, when the
gunmen took off from a nearby sports field and the helicopter later returned
the minister safe from the border area.

Days later the hostages, after discussing the shared experience at length
with their new-found friends, were left with a mixture of delayed shock and
sympathy for the dissidents.

"I don't see it as terrorism," said Marcottee, "more like last-course
activism.  I consider the people of Burma peace-loving and pacifist. It must
take a hell of a lot for them to go through something like that."

Prasert also empathized with the hostage-takers, because Thai students had
also died in the democracy struggle in years past.

"I am happy all the students crossed the border safely," he said. "I told
them: 'You don't need to die here. You'd better go back to your country . .
 . I understand them, but I think you should never use a gun or bomb to do
this."

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

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: BANGKOK SEEKS UN AID TO RESETTLE ACTIVISTS
9 October, 1999 by William Barnes

Thailand asked the United Nations refugee agency yesterday to play a bigger
role in resettling exiled Burmese activists following the storming of
Rangoon's embassy by radical student gunmen.

The move came at a meeting between National Security Council chief
Khachadpai Burusapatana and the head of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangkok.

"We asked the UNHCR to be more active by co-ordinating with [Burma] to take
back some 100,000 displaced persons, and to find third countries to accept
exiled students," said Mr Khachadpai.

So far, only a few countries had shown any interest in sheltering Burmese
activists, he said.

"I want to warn all [Burmese] students to stop any political movements here.
If they want to conduct political activities, go to the United States where
there is 100 per cent democracy," he said.

Earlier yesterday, Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai had criticised the
Burmese junta for its bizarre combination of praise and censure over
Thailand's handling of last weekend's embassy hostage drama.

Mr Chuan said that while the regime had offered comprehensive formal thanks
for ending the 26-hour siege without loss of life, it also censured Thailand
for allegedly handling the hostage-takers with kid gloves.

"They send a letter to thank us, yet their officials also criticise us. The
[embassy hijackers] came to our country because they could not solve their
problems at home. So [Burma] cannot criticise us," he said.

This is unusually sharp comment from a normally cautious premier, but it
reflects increasing Thai irritation with a regime that appears unable or
unwilling to get to grips with political and economic problems that have
flooded Thailand with refugees, exiles and drugs.

Yet Burma's regime also feels that a fellow member of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations and "good neighbour" should not so obviously
sympathise with its opponents.

The junta has spiced its criticism with more than words: it has not only
closed its 2,100km border with Thailand, but also suspended all Thai fishing
fleet contracts for "safety reasons".

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, who yesterday summoned Burma's
ambassador to seek a solution to bilateral tensions, said afterwards: "The
border closure and fishery concession termination contradict our good faith
in relations with [Burma]."

Ambassador Hla Maung said the measures were for security purposes.

Five heavily armed dissidents seized the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok a week
ago yesterday and held 89 hostages overnight until a Thai police helicopter
flew them to a jungle border sanctuary on Saturday afternoon.

Rangoon had initially told Bangkok that it could take whatever measures
might be necessary to end the siege soon after it started.

What it certainly did not expect was that powerful Interior Minister Sanan
Kachornprasert would publicly declare that the hijackers were not terrorists
but students fighting for freedom and that the gang would be given a VIP
ride to freedom still holding their weapons.

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

THE ECONOMIST: MYANMAR'S TOP EXPORT
9 October, 1999

Letter to the Editor

SIR -- Your article on cocaine trafficking from Colombia ("A new class of
trafficker", September 11th) is incorrect to claim that the majority of the
heroin consumed on America's eastern seaboard originates in Colombia. Most
of the heroin used in America comes from Myanmar. The myth of large South
American opiate production is a result of Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
narcotics surveying practices.

The DEA primarily focuses on cocaine and so is heavily staffed with officers
of Hispanic origin. There are very few ethnic Asians among the staff so
intelligence gathering on ethnic Chinese gangs is limited. Generally, DEA
drug buyers go to dealers who are Hispanic to purchase cocaine. When they
purchase heroin they invariably use the same dealers, so often end up buying
heroin of South American or Mexican origin. As a result the purchases are
not representative of the North American heroin trade.

Seizure statistics are also skewed. It is worth noting the statistics for
1996 in the DEA Drug Intelligence Report (the last year available): 179
seizures and 155 purchases, too small a sample group from which to draw any
reliable conclusions. Of the 1996 DEA seizures sample, 67% originated from
either South America or Mexico, while only 17% came from SouthEast Asia. The
statistics are not representative of heroin imports and the DEA admitted as
much in the report. Every year the State Department Narcotics Bureau for
international Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs states categorically
that Myanmar is by far the biggest source of heroin sold in America.

Even estimates of heroin use and addiction are open to question as they are
based on a household survey carried out in 1973, then adjusted according to
some formula that the DEA has never made public. Hospital admissions due to
heroin use increased from 42,000 in 1989 to 76,000 in 1995, an 80% increase,
and that excludes the mid-to-late 1990s explosion in recreational heroin
use.

BRUCE HAWKE
BANGKOK

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

THE NATION: 7,000 REFUGEES RELOCATED
9 October, 1999

THAILAND and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have completed the
relocation of over 7,000 displaced Burmese from Huay Kalok camp to another
site as part of a move to prevent future attacks against the residents there
by pro-Rangoon armed groups.

Authorities have relocated the displaced people, most of whom are ethnic
Karen, to Tak's Phop Phra district, a statement from the UNHCR said
yesterday.

The new site is 13 kilometres away from the border and well protected by the
terrain, according to the authorities.

The process of relocation, which began on Aug 23, was jointly conducted by
the Thai government and the UNHCR. It was completed on Thursday, three days
ahead of schedule, according to the statement.

According to Thai officials and the UNHCR, Huay Kalok was too close to the
border for the safety of its residents.

Huay Kalok was attacked and burnt to the ground twice, in January 1997 and
March 1998, by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a splinter group that
sides with the military government in Rangoon. It was alleged that Burmese
government troops had also taken part in the raids.

The Thai army came under heavy criticism for not providing adequate security
for the refugees in the camp, and the Foreign Ministry issued a strong
statement condemning the attacks.

Over 100,000 Burmese refugees, most of whom are ethnic Karen, are living in
camps along the Thai border. They have fled fighting between armed rebel
groups and government soldiers.

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

AFP: EU EXTENDS MYANMAR SANCTIONS FOR ANOTHER SIX MONTHS
11 October, 1999

The European Union on Monday extended for another six months sanctions
against Myanmar, citing lack of progress on human rights and political
repression.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers here said in a statement it "welcomed the
efforts to establish a meaningful political dialogue with Burma/Myanmar, but
it added it "remained concerned at the lack of a positive response from the
Burmese authorities to the EU efforts."

The statement expressed concern "at the continuing human rights violations
and the repression of the democratic opposition."

And, it called "once again upon the government of Burma/Myanmar to take
early and concrete steps towards respect for human rights, the promotion of
democracy and national reconciliation."

Myanmar officials face a visa ban in Europe under EU restrictions imposed to
punish alleged human rights violations.

The sanctions were first applied in 1996 and effectively blocked
representatives of ASEAN -- the Association of Southeast Asian Nations --
from attending ministerial talks in Europe.

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