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Wired News on October 25 & 26, 1995



Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on October 25 & 26, 1995
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Talks to end Burma's war with rebels nearing end

      (Adds more querrilla quotes) 

    By Robert Birsel 

    MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct 25 (Reuter) - Talks between the Burmese government
and Karen guerrillas are inching towards a conclusion, and the guns in
southeast Burma might fall silent for the first time in 47 years as early as
next month, guerrilla officials said on Wednesday. 

    But 70,000 Karen refugees now living in makeshift camps on the Thai side
of the border will need more than an end to the fighting before they feel
safe enough to return to their homeland, Karen refugee officials said. 

    Karen National Union (KNU) leaders have met government intermediaries
several times this year to try to end one of the world's longest-running
guerrilla wars. 

    A deputy of Burma's military intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin
Nyunt attended the most recent talks earlier this month. 

    ``So far it's talking, talking, but there's no conclusion, no
resolution,'' a senior guerrilla source who declined to be identified told
Reuters. 

    ``But if they are sincere, I think we can get something, stop the
fighting. We hope so,'' said the official, speaking on the Thai-Burmese
border. 

    A high-level meeting is tentatively scheduled for early November in the
southeast Burmese town of Pa-an when an agreement to halt military action
might be reached, the sources said. 

    The guerrilla officials said the November talks will be the first
``official'' meeting after the preliminary talks which have taken place so
far and it was hoped the two sides could reach an understanding. 

    ``Before it was only middlemen, only discreet meetings,'' another
guerilla official said. ``We may be be able to reach a ceasefire but so far
there's been nothing on solving the political problems.'' 

    The agreement, if and when it comes, will bring a fragile peace to
virtually all of Burma, with the exception of northeastern Shan state, where
Burmese government forces and their allies are battling opium warlord Khun
Sa's powerful Shan guerrilla army. 

    Karen troops fought alongside the British after Japan's World War Two
invasion of Burma. Burmese nationalists, who at the time were allied with the
Japanese, massacred hundreds of Karen civilians in revenge attacks. 

    Karen guerrillas first took to the hills in 1949, one year after Burma
gained independence from Britain. Their original fight for independence was
later changed to a demand for autonomy in a federal Burma. 

    At the beginning of their war, Karen troops nearly succeeded in marching
on Rangoon but they were held off and have been steadily pushed back to
remote corners of southeastern Burma ever since. 

    Over the years, the Burmese army forced the KNU back towards the Thai
border. The fighting has steadily increased the number of Karen civilians
crossing the frontier in a bid to escape hostilities. 

    Karen refugee officials said the decades of warfare have left the 70,000
refugees now in Thai camps deeply suspicious of the Burmese army. 

    ``It will take a lot of convincing for people to feel it is really
safe,'' Robert Shwe, a Christian pastor who heads the Karen Refugee Committee
told Reuters. 

Reut09:56 10-25-95
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Burmese opium lord, government agree to cease-fire

      BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuter) - Burma's opium warlord Khun Sa has reached
a tentative cease-fire agreement with Burmese government forces, a Thai army
officer and a guerrilla official said on Thursday. 

    The loose agreement, reached earlier this month, might avert a
long-expected Burmese army offensive against the notorious Shan guerrilla
commander, the Thai officer said. 

    ``Khun Sa's delegates met the Burmese army eastern commander in early
October and both sides agreed to halt their military operations,'' said the
Thai officer who declined to be identified. 

    ``Khun Sa ordered his commanders to halt operations from Oct. 15,'' the
officer told Reuters. 

    Khun Sa commands the powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) guerrilla force which
operates in northeastern Burma's Shan state. 

    Condemned by the Rangoon government as a drug-trafficking ``terrorist,''
Khun Sa says he is a Shan nationalist fighting for the independence of the
state. He says he only taxes opium caravans passing through his zones of
control. 

    Burma's military government has vowed to crush him and his guerrilla
force and has on several occasions ruled out any chance of a negotiated
settlement with the half-Shan, half-Chinese warlord. 

    An official from Khun Sa's MTA confirmed the report but said as far as he
knew the cease-fire was limited to eastern Shan state. 

    ``The MTA eastern commander Chao Sulai exchanged letters with the Burmese
regional commander and they agreed that both sides will halt military
operations, at least for the time being,'' the MTA official said. 

    But the Wa guerrilla force, allied to the Burmese government, was
continuing to attack Khun Sa's forces, the MTA officer said. 

    ``The Wa continue to fight us. There is intermittent fighting in the Mong
Yon area (of southern Shan state),'' he said. 

    Khun Sa's MTA and the rival United Wa State Army are responsible for most
of Burma's opium production, as well as production of its refined form,
heroin, Thai and western anti-narcotics officials say. 

    The Wa are an ethnic minority from northern Shan state. They used to make
up the rank and file of the Communist Party of Burma's miltiary wing but
mutinied against their leaders in 1989 and reached a cease-fire with the
Burmese government. REUTER 

Reut11:07 10-26-95
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Amnesty says rights violations continue in Burma

      BANGKOK, Oct 26 (Reuter) - Burma's human rights situation remains
critical despite the July release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
Amnesty International said in a report released on Thursday. 

    ``While we welcome some positive steps made by Myanmar's (Burma's)
military government, thousands of political prisoners still remain behind
bars -- among them at least 50 prisoners of conscience,'' the London-based
human rights organisation said. 

    It defines a prisoner of conscience as someone sentenced for the peaceful
expression of his views. 

    ``The military government's actions this year amount to giving with one
hand while taking away with another,'' said the report which looked at human
rights in Burma after seven years of military rule. 

    Amnesty said less than two weeks before Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi was
released from six years of house arrest, three veteran politicians were
sentenced to seven years' imprisonment -- apparently for meeting with
foreigners and criticising the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC). 

    ``Political arrests remain a major tool of repression used by the Myanmar
government to suppress any criticism of its policies and practices,'' the
report said. 

    ``The military continues to arrest people whom it deems a threat to
'national security', but Amnesty International believes that those people are
only peacefully attempting to express their political views.'' 

    The report also said conditions in prisons and labour camps remain
extremely harsh and prisoners are subjected to beatings and other forms
ill-treatment. 

    It said human rights violations occur throughout the country, with
civilians in the border regions, where large populations of ethnic minorities
live, at risk of arbitrary arrest. 

    The army continues to seize members of ethnic minorities for forced
portering and labour duties, holding them in unhealthy conditions for weeks
or months and mistreating them, it said. 

    Amnesty called on the SLORC to release all prisoners of conscience, and
to review the cases of all political prisoners. It also urged the government
to abolish the practice of seizing civilians for forced labour and portering.


    The group also called for the international community to continue its
commitment to protect human rights in Burma. 

Reut03:31 10-26-95
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Japan to give Burma grant aid for nursing school

      TOKYO (Reuter) - Japan will extend grants-in-aid worth $16 million to
Burma in its first aid package to the country since Rangoon released
democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.


    Japan provided grant-in-aid packages to Burma even before Suu Kyi's
release from six year house arrest in July and the package is the second
earmarked for Burma this year. 

    Notes for the latest grant package will be signed in Rangoon next Monday.
It will be used to finance the expansion of a school for nurses, the ministry
official said. 

    Shortly after Suu Kyi was released, Japan said it would consider resuming
full-scale financial aid to Burma, in the form of yen loans. 

    Yen loan packages are normally tens of times larger than grant packages
and form the bulk of Japan's official aid to developing countries. 

    Japan suspended yen loans to Burma after the Burmese military's bloody
suppression of a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. 

    Suu Kyi has urged Japan and other countries to be cautious about resuming
full-scale aid, saying they should wait for real changes in Burma's human
rights situation. 

    Japan has said it will decide whether to resume yen loans by carefully
monitoring progress of democratic reforms in Burma. REUTER 

Reut10:46 10-26-95
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