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Burma News Update, No. 97 (r)
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
BURMA NEWS UPDATE is a publication of
the Burma Project of the Open Society Institute.
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