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NEWS - Camp to be rid of trouble-ma



Subject: NEWS - Camp to be rid of trouble-makers

BANGKOK POST - November 18, 1999

Camp to be rid of trouble-makers
Unruly exiles will be kept at police school

Trouble-making Burmese students at the Maneeloy holding centre will be
separated from the rest and detained at the police private school in
Bang
Khen, an Interior Ministry source said yesterday.
Security at the camp in Ratchaburi province was stepped up and students
were
banned from leaving the centre without permission. Officials also
speeded up
the installation of barbed wire around the camp.
Two incidents took place on Tuesday night involving Burmese student
exiles
from the camp, according to reports from camp authorities.
In one, a student was shot and wounded after he allegedly stole a duck
from
a villager. He is now being held on a theft charge.
The shooter surrendered to police and applied for bail, while the
wounded
student is still in hospital.
In another incident, village defence volunteers fired two rounds into
the
air after a scuffle with students who refused to be searched. The
volunteers
demanded a search after seeing one with a gun, which turned out to be a
toy.
Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai said the scuffle between Burmese students
and
volunteers resulted from more stringent controls on the students'
movements.
The students might not yet be used to the stricter measures, he said.
In Nakhon Si Thammarat, Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan stressed that
the
Burmese students were living in Thailand because of the mercy of its
people
and the international community.
The Foreign Ministry's international organisations department chief,
Surapong Posayanond, is to hold talks with the representative of the
United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees very soon, he said.
The UNHCR assists about 1,000 Burmese refugees living at Maneeloy.
"If these [Burmese] people do not want to settle down and get prosperous
or
further their education in a third country, they will have to stay put
in
the holding centre without causing further disturbance to their hosts,
particularly Thai officials," Mr Surin said.
He said such problems would lead to quicker processing of Burmese
refugees
seeking resettlement in a third country.
Sources said most of the 1,000 Burmese exiles at Maneeloy had registered
for
third-country resettlement. But there remain an additional 1,700 Burmese
refugees waiting to be processed.