Reuter's news on Nov. 10

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders


U.N. rights envoy visits Burmese railway site

    BANGKOK, Nov 10 (Reuter) - A United Nations special rapporteur on human
rights has visited a railway construction site in southeast Burma that
critics of the Rangoon junta say is being built with forced labour, Burma's
state-run media said. 
    Japanese professor Yozo Yokota visited the railway site near the town of
Ye on Wednesday, the report said. 
    He met and interviewed people from three local villages who said they had
volunteered to work on construction of the railway, the media said late on
Wednesday. 
    Refugees fleeing the area to the Thai-Burmese border have complained that
military authorities have forced tens of thousands of people to work without
pay on the new 120 km (75 mile) railway line linking the coastal towns of Ye
and Tavoy. 
    Yokota, who has made two previous trips to Burma to assess the human
rights situation there, met Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw for talks on
Tuesday, Burmese media said. 
    In his last report on Burma released earlier this year Yokota said he was
``still concerned about the serious restrictions imposed upon people in the
enjoyment of civil and poltical rights. 
    ``I am also gravely concerned at the continued reports of forced
porterage, forced labour, forced relocation, arbitrary killings, beatings,
rapes and confiscation of property by army soldiers which are most commonly
occuring in the border areas where the Army is engaged in military operations
or 'regional development projects,''' he wrote. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 94-11-10 06:12:21 EST
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Thai police seize missiles destined for Khun Sa

    BANGKOK, Nov 10 (Reuter) - Border police in northern Thailand arrested
two weapons smugglers and seized two surface-to-air missiles allegedly bound
for Burma's opium warlord Khun Sa, police said on Thursday. 
    One of the smugglers, both of whom are Thai, was wounded in a brief
gunfight when police made the arrest at a highway checkpoint in Chiang Mai
province late on Wednesday. 
    Police stopped the smugglers, who were both driving light trucks, after
they received a tip-off that the missiles, apparently purchased from
Cambodian soldiers on the Thai-Cambodian border, were going to be delivered
to Khun Sa's men on the Thai-Burmese border, police said. 
    Khun Sa's guerrilla force is known to have several surface-to-air
missiles for use against the Burmese government air force. 
    Burmese government forces began a coordinated offensive against Khun Sa's
guerrillas in Burma's Shan state late last year. 
    Hundreds of guerrillas and Burmese troops have been killed in the
fighting which is expected to intensify again in the coming dry-season
months. 
    Khun Sa has been labeled a major heroin trafficker by Western narcotics
suppression agencies but he denies the charge saying he only taxes opium
traders to support his drive for the indepedence of Shan state from Rangoon. 
    The Burmese junta has vowed to crush Khun Sa and his guerrilla army. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 94-11-10 02:58:25 EST