NEWS - Myanmar Dissident Students R

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Subject: NEWS - Myanmar Dissident Students Reject Thai Deadline

Myanmar Dissident Students Reject Thai Deadline

BANGKOK, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Leaders of the main group of Myanmar
dissident student exiles in Thailand said on Monday their members would
not register for resettlement in third countries, despite the risk of
arrest if they failed to do so. 

Thailand's National Security Council (NSC) set a November 21 deadline
for the Myanmar activists to register with the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) after armed dissidents took over the Myanmar
embassy in Bangkok for 25 hours last month. 

Those who failed to register would be treated as illegal immigrants, the
council has said. 

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) rejected the deadline. 

"The ABSDF will not register because we do not want resettlement in
third countries. We are fighting for democracy in our homeland," ABSDF
chairman Naing Aung told Reuters on the Thai-Myanmar border. 

ABSDF General Secretary Aung Thu Nyein said Thailand was the best place
for dissidents to conduct their struggle against military rule in
Myanmar, formerly Burma. "It's close to Burma and there are many Burmese
immigrants here," he said. 

He said about 600 ABSDF members living on the border and another 100 in
Bangkok had not and would not register for resettlement. Naing Aung put
the number of ABSDF students who would not register at around 2,000. 

Aung Thu Nyein said the ABSDF was worried those in Bangkok could face
arrest and surveillance if they did not register. 

THAIS WANT QUICK RESETTLEMENT 

NSC Secretary-General Kachadpai Burusapatana reiterated on Monday that
those who did not register by November 21 would face legal action. 

"The point is we want to have these people resettled in third countries
as soon as possible," he told reporters, adding he expected the first
batch of students to leave by the year-end. 

Thousands of Myanmar dissidents fled to Thailand after Myanmar's
military crushed a student-led pro-democracy uprising in 1988. About
2,700 have registered as refugees with the UNHCR, of which 1,000 live in
Maneeloy holding centre west of Bangkok. 

UNHCR has said a process would begin this week to encourage the
remaining 1,700 registered students to enter the centre. 

Some eight or nine countries, including the United States, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and some European nations, had expressed willingness
to take some of the students, the UNHCR has said. 

Thailand is anxious to patch up its relationship with Yangon, which was
soured when Bangkok granted the embassy attackers free passage to a safe
border area after all 89 hostages in the October 1-2 siege had been
freed unharmed. 

In protest Yangon closed its frontier with Thailand, hitting cross
border trade and leaving some 100,000 Myanmar workers employed in Thai
factories with uncertain futures.