Speak up for the Karen refugees!

[carol@xxxxxxx]

SPEAK UP FOR THE KAREN REFUGEES!
<from Burmese Relief Center--Japan>

SLORC, continuing its campaign of ?preserving the union? by exterminating
the opposition, is attacking Karen refugee camps with virtual impunity.
Thai army officials and teak traders in the border area, meanwhile, have
taken foreign policy into their own hands.  Defying international law, they
are dividing Karen families, forcing unarmed men back across the border at
Htee Kee to face the advancing Burmese army and herding women and children
into logging trucks for ?safe? passage back into Burma?and into danger.
These Thais have steadfastly refused local NGOs and diplomats access to the
refugees yet have feebly stood by as a foreign army attacked those same
refugees on Thai soil.

Now is the time to speak out against Thailand?s complicity in SLORC?s
persecution of Karen refugees.  Also note that Thailand has never signed the
UN Declaration on Refugees yet holds a seat on the UN standing committee on
refugees?a seat from which it should step down.  Burmese Relief Center?Japan
urges you to protest Thailand?s failure to protect Karen refugees and its
efforts to forcibly repatriate them to Burma in an e-mail to the following:

* Gen. Chaovalit Youngchaiyuth, Prime Minister of Thailand, c/o Government
Spokesman <govspkmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

* Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs <webmaster@xxxxxxxxx>

* Thai newspapers:  Matichon Newspaper <mati-1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, The Nation
<editor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Bangkok Post <postbag@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> or
<webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

* Your own country?s head of state, foreign minister and local media