Burma News Update, No. 97

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Open Society Institute
The Burma Project

Burma News Update No. 97
13 November 1999



Refugees Forced into Burma
  
People who fled persecution in Burma are among the thousands 
of Burmese being deported from Thailand against their will, 
Amnesty International said in a statement on 10 November. The 
human rights group expressed concern for these refugees and 
other people now facing hardships and danger on Burmese soil. 
The expulsions come at a time of severe strain in Thai-Burma 
relations, which began after Thailand allowed safe passage for 
student activists who staged a 24 hour occupation of the Burmese 
Embassy in Bangkok at the beginning of October. Thailand has 
refused refugee status for people fleeing Burma, classifying them 
as "illegal immigrants." Burma's army junta has denied reports 
that its troops have raped some of the newly-arrived deportees. 
[The Thai government is threatening to expel 750,000 Burmese 
citizens working illegally in Thailand, the "BBC" reported on 11 
November. Over 100,000 more Burmese nationals, most of them 
ethnic Karen people, who have fled fighting inside Burma, are in 
camps in Thailand near the Burmese border-Ed.]
	
Bangkok, "Agence France Presse," 11 November



Student Resettlement
   
Burmese students who fled to Thailand as long as eleven years 
ago may soon be resettled in up to 16 countries, a United Nations 
High Commissioner for Refugees official in Bangkok said. The 
United States may accept about 1,000 [of an estimated 2,000] 
students, most of whom fled to Thailand after the bloody suppression 
of Burma's pro-democracy movement in 1988. Somchai Homlaor, 
head of the Thai NGO, Forum Asia, urged the Thai government to 
allow Burmese student exiles to remain in Thailand and to offer them 
opportunities to study at Thai universities.

"Bangkok Post," 09 November 
 


Wahid Urges Burma Democracy
   
Indonesia's new democratically-elected President Abdurrahman 
Wahid asked Thailand to work with Indonesia to help bring democracy 
to Burma and to other Association of Southeast Asian Nations 
(ASEAN) countries. A Thai government spokesman said President 
Wahid made the request in a meeting with Thai Prime Minister Chuan
 Leekpai in Bangkok on 07 November, after arriving from Burma as part 
of a tour of ASEAN capitals. "As ASEAN members and fellow ASEAN 
members who are democracy advocates, we will try every way we can 
to support Burma along the route towards improvement in every way 
possible," the Thai spokesman said. [President Wahid's request marked 
a sharp change in Indonesia's previous support for the Burmese junta, 
and could raise pressure from within ASEAN for democratic reform in 
Burma-Ed.]

Bangkok, "Reuters," 07 November



Rights Reality Gap
   
European Union diplomats in Bangkok say there is no visible 
improvement in Burma's human rights situation, despite the ruling 
junta's repeated public pronouncements claiming progress toward 
democracy. "From all the information available there is not much 
movement, no major steps towards opening up the country, moving 
into the democratic path or marked improvement in the human rights 
field," Finnish ambassador Tauno Kaaria said, adding that ministerial 
talks between the junta and the EU were not possible at this time. EU 
sanctions against Burma first imposed in 1996 were prolonged for a 
further six months in October.

Bangkok, "Agence France Presse," 09 November



Drought Hits Opium
   
Opium production in the Golden Triangle area of northern Burma 
has been hit hard by drought, UN officials say, but drug lords are 
compensating by increasing methamphetamine production in the 
region. Even with a sharp drop in the opium crop indicated by data 
released by the US government, Burma could still produce 100 
tons of heroin. Burma's army junta is claiming credit for reducing 
opium cultivation, claming crop substitution programs have reduced 
opium planting by 60 percent. However, "It doesn't make an awful lot 
of difference," said Bengt Juhlin, head of United Nations Drug Control 
Programme's Asia-Pacific  regional center in Bangkok. "There are 
still a lot of drugs going out of Burma and the decrease in production 
of opium and heroin has more than been made up for by the increase 
in production of methamphetamines.'' 

Bangkok, "Reuters," 11 November

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