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THE IDPs IN BURMA



WRITTEN TUE 18 JAN 2000; 6:00AM

THE IDPS IN BURMA

There has been current United Nations Security Council debate on whether
international protection and assistance be extended to the
internationally displaced people (IDPs). 

Burma believed to have a large number of IDPs mainly as a result of
government's counter-insurgency operations over the years. In true point
of fact, the IDPs in Burma may be considered as "the refugees who still
have not crossed international border". Ideally, in regards to
provisions for in-country protection and assistance by international
bodies, such as UNHCR, there should be no reason in distinguishing
returnee/refugees and the IDPs. Once UNHCR and NGOs get unhindered
access to Burma, the assistance etc should certainly be extended to
these people.

Internationally, however, the issues regarding IDP are very
controversial subject. IDPs appears whenever there is major
armed-conflict, such as Chechnya for example. It remains to be seen how
much US and UN can make a head-way on this subject. Such general debate
at UN can heighten the awareness about the plights of IDPs throughout
the world. However, the improvement to a specific situation of IDPs and
refugees, of course, needs substantial political commitment: in the case
of Burma, we still have not seen any sign of UNHCR and Security Council
taking actions about situation of refugees in Thailand/Bangladesh etc.
[By the way, there have been a very good collection of report about IDPs
and, especially, humanitarian situation by recent issue of BURMA DEBATE,
VOL VI, NO 3, 1999. I would recommend our friends to look at that
report. Burma Debate can be contacted burmad@xxxxxxxxx, Post: P.O.Box
19126, Washington, DC 20036 (Mary Pack is the editor)].

SPDC/SLORC IN A LATEST TWIST ON IDP IN SHAN STATE 

There has also been a report about SPDC/SLORC relocating opium-growing
Shan hill farmers to government designated areas. The move is, at its
worst, to be seen as SPDC/SLORC trying to soften international criticism
on government's forced relocation programs. At its best, this move may
be seen as SPDC/SLORC's feeble attempt to draw international attention
to the government's counter-narcotics efforts.

It is important to note that the criticism on government's forced
relocation program are principally based on (1) the lost of livelihood
for the displaced and (2) authorities' lack of attention to humanitarian
situation of the displaced. Such criticism on government's  forced
relocation programs will continue regardless of these programs had been
undertaken in the context of "counter-narcotics efforts" or
"counter-insurgency campaigns". The proper way to avoid the criticism is
government to allow unhindered access for all international humanitarian
organisations, such as UNHCR and NGOs, to the displaced population.   

REFUGEE PETITION IN THAILAND

When turning to the refugee situation in Thailand, as of last week, the
UNHCR in Bangkok as well as Karen Refugee Committees were still not
receiving/unaware about the reported petition organised by the chief of
one of the refugee camp. Since putting forward such petition to UNHCR
has been a right move, grassroots initiatives such as that of organising
petition will be very helpful whenever we make request for help to UN
Security Council. It will certainly be helpful to send few petition to
UNHCR at Bkk as a start. Such petition are to be promoted principally as
the refugees expressing interests in voluntary repatriation. Perhaps,
work of collecting petition from refugees can be taken as ongoing
activity by refugee leaders.

REPATRIATION AS UN-CONTROVERSIAL PLAN

Since the successful resolution of Kosovo crisis, the organised mass
repatriation of refugees with supervision of UNHCR become less
controversial. It was not quite so few years ago: any talk of
repatriation of refugees being considered controversial by most NGOs and
met with considerable resistance. Thanks to the UN and international
community for their work on Kosovo refugee situation. The international
community's "Kosovo Message" against the oppression on civilian
population now been heard by all dictatorial governments. How much of
this "Kosovo Message" is reaching to the refugees on the ground is still
remain to be seen. From our part as activists, it's about time for every
available avenues being used to get attention of UN Security Council and
international community on this matter.

UNCERTAINTY IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Despite our grassroots efforts and the best of advocacy, there can still
be no action forthcoming from UNSC in this year too. One of the thing in
international politics is that the difficulty to gauge available support
for any action. In international politics, there appears to be too many
factors that is unknown and unpredictable (for example, we have no idea
at this time last year about East Timor may become a free and
independent state!!). For this, we must prepare to wage a more tactical
fight in this year if Security Council unable to make a move on Burma. 

This year is also an election year in the United States. President
Clinton is certainly not seeking re-election. Regardless of who is
incoming president (Democrat of Republican), the overall US policy on
Burma will unlikely to bechanged. However, when an administration is
changed, there will be discontinuity of detailed policy on Burma that
can be affected. I would prefer, if UNSC cannot make move on Burma's
refugee problem, it should impose international investment ban on Burma.
That would atleast safeguard our leverage on SPDC/SLORC.

With best regards, U Ne Oo.

*************
AAP 2000
UN-REFUGEES US: SECURITY COUNCIL TACKLES DEBATE OVER WHO IS
A REFUGEE 
DATE: 18:04 14-Jan-00 
 US: Security Council tackles debate over who is a refugee UN refugees
 By Nicole Winfield

 UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 AP - The United States is rekindling an old
debate at the United Nations  over the definition of a refugee, arguing
that anyone who flees fighting should be granted the same  protection
and care.

 The United Nations, for a variety of political and financial reasons,
distinguishes between refugees who  have crossed international borders
to escape conflicts and those who leave their homes but remain in  their
countries.

 These so-called "internally displaced people" often fall through the
care cracks and receive less aid than  refugees, who are protected under
well-established humanitarian conventions.

 Yesterday at the request of the United States, the Security Council
held an open debate on the issue,  which has grown more contentious in
recent years as the number of internally displaced surpasses the  number
of refugees across the globe.

 The United Nations estimates there are between 14 million and 15
million refugees worldwide. Another  20 million to 25 million are
internally displaced people, or IDPs - half of them in Africa.

 "These are people. And to a person who has been driven from his or her
own home by conflict, there is  no difference between being a refugee or
an IDP in terms of what happened to them," US Ambassador  Richard
Holbrooke told the council.

 "They're equally victims, but they're treated differently."

 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was created 50 years ago
specifically to care for and protect  refugees. At the time, refugees
from Cold War-related conflicts between countries fueled mass 
population shifts across borders.

 Today, however, most conflicts are internal and the population shifts
occur within individual countries.

 While the internally displaced enjoy many of the same protections as
refugees, UNHCR's mandate and  resources - already stretched thin caring
for refugees - enable it to care for only about 5 million of the 
world's internally displaced.

 Other UN agencies, such as the World Food Program and UN Children's
Fund, often work in ad hoc  arrangements with the International
Committee of the Red Cross to care for uprooted people who don't  leave
their countries.

 But even these arrangements don't always work. Governments may for
political reasons be unwilling to  accept international assistance, as
is the case in Burma, Turkey and Algeria, Roberta Cohen, a guest 
scholar at The Brookings Institution, told a press conference.

 In these cases, the government may consider the civilians to be part of
the conflict, and citing its  sovereignty, deny them international aid.

 "Their own state authorities or rebel forces in control are frequently
the very cause of their  predicament," British Ambassador Jeremy
Greenstock told the council.

 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, told council
members that urgent action must  be taken in Central Africa in
particular "to compensate for the lack of protection mechanisms for 
internally displaced people."

 Holbrooke went a step further calling for the United Nations to "erode
if not erase" the distinction  between refugees and internally displaced
people and put responsibility for both under a single agency.

 "I recognise that the distinction raises complex legal issues of
international sovereignty," Holbrooke  said. "But let us remember that
individual lives are at stake."

 China's UN ambassador Qin Huasun alluded to those legal issues, saying
international aid should be  given only "on the basis of respect of
sovereignty, territorial integrity and noninterference into internal 
affairs."

 China consistently stresses the rights of countries to manage their own
affairs, fearing international  intervention in Tibet and Taiwan.

 Canada's deputy UN Ambassador, Michel Duval, however, said such
arguments didn't hold up.

 "Where countries cannot or do not want to provide necessary assistance
to their populations, they  nevertheless have responsibility to provide
full access to them for others so that their basic needs can
 be met," Duval said.  AP ts 
********************
BURMA ANNOUNCES MASS ANTI-DRUG MIGRATION
DATE:18:15 16-Jan-00
By Dan Eaton
WAN HONE, Burma, Jan 16 AFP- Fifty thousand villagers will be uprooted
from their homes in lucrative opium growing areas in Burma in an
unprecedented mass migration project designed to cripple heroin
production.

Burmese officials and members of the former insurgent group, the ethnic
United Wa State Army (UWSA) unveiled the program late yesterday in
remote Shan State, in the far north of Burma to invited foreign
reporters.

They demanded international financial assistance for the project, and
insisted Burma, one of the world's largest producers of heroin, was
sincere in its bid to wipe out narcotics production within 15 years.

UWSA liaison officer Khin Maung Myint told reporters villagers would be
moved to areas suitable for crops other than the poppies which cling to
the sides of Shan State's rugged mountains and valleys.

"We intend to relocate 50,000 villagers in the next three years," he
said, claiming some 10,000 people had already moved from the hill tops.

Military officers and UWSA men dressed in green battle fatigues refused
to describe the operation as a "forced relocation" but insisted all
target villagers will have to leave their homes.

Officials said United Nations International Drug control Program (UNDCP)
or other agencies had not yet been informed of the project. No immediate
comment was available from human rights groups or Burma's political
opposition.

No independent verification of the government's or Wa claims was
possible.

Early arrivals from the mountains sat in a grubbby transit camp of straw
huts scattered among smouldering stumps of a slashed and burned forest
outside Wan Hone village, 15km from the Thai border.

Under the gaze of heavily-armed soldiers and members of the UWSA, which
made peace with the junta in 1989, most were unwilling to comment on
their fate or their removal from land occupied by their ancestors for
centuries.

The UWSA, branded by the US State DEpartment as a leading drugs
trafficking syndicate, was allowed to retain its weapons under the
ceasefire and controls large areas of northern Burma.

Crop substitution programs, seen by many anti-drugs campaigners as
essential to stamping out opium production, often fail to take root on
remote wind-whipped uplands guarding Burma's borders with China and
Thailand.

"Up north, it is very difficult to grow crops other than poppies," said
Khin Moung Myint, whose native Chinese dialect was translateed by an
interpreter employed by Burma's military.

Wan Hone farmstead will produce longans, a tropical fruit encased in a
spine encrusted shell. Each household will be given two hectares already
planted with the fruit, and the farm will eventually produce other crops
and rear livestock.

Officials here were vague as to potential markets for new produce. In
the past, some crop substitution programs have foundered--one producing
sugar cane fell victim to a flooded market in neighbouring China.

Burma's top anti-drug official Colonel Kyaw Thein told reporters the
government would support those who move from the hills with enough rice
for six months.

"We have been blamed so much, so now we are taking much more serious
moves," he said, adding the government had spent 10 billion kyats, ($A3
billion) in official exchange rates to counter narcotics in eastern Shan
State in the last decade.

"This is an unprecedented movement of people. I am not very optimistic
of help or any other assistance -- some countries will not be funding us
because of their own political agenda," he said.

Burma is treated as an international pariah by many Western states due
to its human rights record and refusal to cede power to the elected
opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Critics of Burma's vaunted efforts to fight drugs, accuse the government
of turning a blind eye to trafficking in exchange for ceasefire deals
with ethnic groups.

They say generals have syphoned off drug money to support their military
state apparatus and harbour drug lords like notorious Shan State kingpin
Khun Sa.

Some agencies argue that cooperation with former drugs lords and the
government is the only way to cut opium flowing through the notorious
Golden Triangle region of Burma, Laos and Thailand to western cities.

Interpol's director of criminal intelligence Paul Higdon described such
cooperation as "a pact with the devil" at a conference in Yangon last
year, delivering an endorsement of Burma's anti-drug policies.

Meanwhile the Associated Press reported Burma's Colonel Kyaw Thein had
told reporters up to 10 senior Burmese military officers and hundreds of
lower ranking soldiers had been jailed in the past two years for
involvement in the illegal drug trade.

He said that the most recent case was made a month ago against a
lieutenant colonel posted along the border with India.

The highest ranking to have been jailed were colonels, Kyaw Thein said.

His comments confirmed a United States government report on Burma's
drugs trade that involvement existed among corrupt unit commanders,
especially in border areas where opium and methamphetamines are produced
and smuggled to other countries. AFP/AP bm


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