BurmaNet News March 30, 1997

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Subject: BurmaNet News March 30, 1997 (2)

------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------  
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"  
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The BurmaNet News: March 30, 1997  
Issue #680  (SPECIAL ISSUE: UPDATE ON KAREN SITUATION)

HEADLINES:  
========== 
BURMANET: UPDATE ON KAREN SITUATION 
AFP: BURMA'S SUCCESSES BRING ETHNIC CIVIL WAR  TO THAI BORDER
THAILAND TIMES: THE LAST BASTION FALLS TO SLORC ONSLAUGHT
BKK POST: REFUGEES SAY THEY WON'T GO BACK
AFP: KAREN REFUGEES ESCAPE BURMA
THAILAND TIMES: CHOLERA KILLS ONE CHILD IN KAREN 
KSNG: LETTER FROM A KAREN STUDENT ON THE BORDER
KNU PRESS RELEASE NO. 9/97                
THAILAND TIMES: OVER 1,000 KAREN REFUGEES RETURN TO BURMA
NLM: SECRETARY-2  MET STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF AZIN 
ANNOUNCEMENT: PICTURES OF REFUGEES AND BURNED CAMPS
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 

BURMANET: UPDATE ON KAREN SITUATION
March 30, 1997

The situation along the Thai-Burma border continues to be unstable, with 
Thai authorities in some camps attempting to intimidate refugees into going 
back to Burma while new refugees are still pouring over the border wherever
they can.  As articles in this issue indicate, sickness in the camps is becoming
a serious problem, partly because NGOs have had difficulty obtaining access 
and  providing sanitation in some of the camps.  Moreover, in some camps,
 the Thai authorities have refused to allow the refugees to build raised huts
and they are still living on the ground under tarps.

At the same time, camp leaders and KNU officials have been ordered to 
sign letters saying that the Karen will voluntarily repatriate.  In one instance
earlier this month, a Thai businessman and former unofficial 
advisor to the National Security Council, participated in a meeting in which
a KNU official was ordered to sign a letter saying that the male refugees
who were sent 
back across the border into an active fighting did so willingly. 
 
Shortly afterward, this Thai businessman turned up in Washington D.C. where 
he held a meeting with representatives of NGOs working with groups in
Thailand.  
At this meeting, he insisted that the refugees had gone back voluntarily, the 
SLORC had promised to treat the refugees well, and certain key KNU leaders 
should  not be involved in any future negotiation process.   

The SLORC is attempting to get the leaders of the KNU's 4th Brigade 
(through which will pass both the pipeline and the planned road to Tavoy) to 
sign a separate ceasefire.  The Thai and Burmese governments want to eliminate 
the refugees along the Kanchanaburi-Sangklaburi border (opposite the KNU's 
4th Brigade) for two reasons.  First, the mere presence of refugee camps 
indicates that there is a serious problem which has not been resolved.  
Companies are more reluctant to invest in an area which is so obviously 
messy.  Second, the refugee camps could provide support for Karen 
guerrillas operating in 4th Brigade, threatening the pipeline and road 
projects.

Further north, in the KNU's Sixth Brigade area (opposite Tak Province), some
Karen refugees who originally went to Nupho refugee camp have gone back.  
For some, they cannot bear living in such crowded conditions in a camp of 
15,000 people with no prospects of income generation and the belief that sooner
or later they will be repatriated anyway.  

At the same time, the SLORC has been holding members of families and 
villages hostage and sending representatives to Nupho refugee camp to bring 
others back.  Many have been threatened.  If they do not bring others back, 
those being kept behind will be killed.

The Thailand Times article states that over 1000 refugees who are related to
soldiers from the KNU's Sixteenth Battalion in Sixth Brigade have gone 
back to Burma. The SLORC has announced that the former 16th Battalion 
Commander, Lt-Col Tameuhae will be appointed as a member of the National 
Convention.  He will also be made the head of Karen State.  Tameuhae had 
been unhappy with KNU leaders for personal reasons.  When he led his troops 
toward the SLORC troops during the recent offensive, they thought they were 
going to fight.  Actually he was going to surrender.  Several column commanders 
became suspicious along  the way and  brought their troops back to the KNU.  

The SLORC has not used the DKBA in the recent offensive, and there have
been reports that the SLORC has executed some of the senior DKBA leaders,
because the SLORC is having difficulty controlling them.  It will be interesting
to see if Tameuhae is appointed the head of the DKBA or if  the SLORC will
dismantle the DKBA and create a new organization.  And will Tameuhae be
any different?  KNU members who knew him said that even though he had
problems with some KNU members, he hated the SLORC.  

****************************************************************

AFP: BURMA'S SUCCESSES BRING ETHNIC CIVIL WAR  TO THAI BORDER
March 30, 1997

BANGKOK, March 30 (AFP) - Burma's military government appears
to have gained the upper hand in its 49-year civil war with ethnic
minorities, but fighting continues along most of the Thai border,
official and ethnic sources say.

As thousands of soldiers marched to celebrate Armed Forces Day
amid tight security and communal unrest in the capital last week,
thousands of ethnic Karen refugees streamed across the border
into Thailand's Ratchaburi province.

Rangoon has taken control of long stretches of the Thai border in
the past two years for the first time since Burma gained independence in 
1948, most recently in an ongoing sweep through the last Karen strongholds.

The junta has signed ceasefire agreements with 15 armed ethnic groups, 
allowing them to retain their arms and engage in certain business enterprises.

Clashes occur regularly, however, in four of the five Burmese states and 
divisions, as they are called, along the the mostly undemarcated 2400-kilometer 
(1450-mile) Thai border, according to ethnic sources on the border.

A spokesman for the military's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council 
(SLORC) in Rangoon confirmed most of the reports, but said they were only 
"skirmishes."

The Karen National Union (KNU), the Shan United Revolutionary
Army (SURA) and the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP)
have been chased out of most of their bases, but guerrilla warfare
continues, the border sources said.

Most ethnic groups say they seek greater autonomy in a federal
and democratic Burma, but the SLORC says the military must have
a major role in a future centralized government to prevent the
disintegration of the country.

The junta's military successes, however, come as UN and other groups 
report soaring heroin production in areas controlled by ceasefire groups, 
serious economic problems, malnutrition in the slums, and massive human 
rights abuses.

Armed Forces Day celebrations, meanwhile, were marred by communal 
unrest many analysts say is an expression of discontent with the junta among 
the 400,000-strong Buddhist monkhood.

Rajsmoor Lallah, a UN rapporteur, said in a report released in March that 
Burma's military had forcibly relocated and essentially detained or forced into 
labor more than one million people without compensation.

Most were cleared out to make way for development projects or evicted in the 
course of ongoing military campaigns against ethnic groups -- said to rely on 
torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention as porters, the burning
and 
looting of villages and rape.

Shan refugees were uncountable, border sources said, as most of them joined the 
several hundred thousand Burmese nationals working illegally in Thailand, while 
only about 100,000 Karen and Karenni were registered in the camps.

Despite the surrender of opium druglord Khun Sa a year ago, remnants of 
his Mong Tai Army (MTA) in Shan State have refused to lay down arms.

At least one group of remnants has an unofficial ceasefire with Rangoon, while 
another Shan group has an official agreement, but former MTA under the SURA 
were in active opposition.

"The SURA is still fighting almost every day," a Shan source said. A military 
source in Rangoon told AFP that skirmishes may have taken place in Shan State 
with MTA remnants as government troops patroled the area.

He also confirmed that "skirmishes have taken place with the KNU
during mopping up operations in those areas."

KNU officials, however, vowed to re-establish bases lost in Karen
State and Tenasserim Division in the coming rainy season, while
reporting dozens of government casualties and the routing of remote 
military outposts.

The smaller KNPP, which signed a ceasefire in 1995 that fell apart
within a few months, and was driven out of its bases last year in a campaign 
that uprooted most of the villages in Kayah (Karenni) State, also reported 
continuing irregular clashes.

Thailand has said that if the fighting in Burma subsides, the refugees in 
the camps will be repatriated.

"Well, it looks like (the fighting) is not going to die down," a
Karenni source said.

The official source in Rangoon, however, said the KNPP could only launch 
its attacks from Thailand.

"Clashes take place occasionally when they cross over into Myanmar territory 
to attack villages in the area," he said, using the SLORC's official name for 
Burma.

But observers said Thailand has so far appeared more anxious to clear out 
refugees in its Ratchaburi and Kanchanaburi provinces, south of the Karenni 
areas, where several joint infrastructure projects are planned with the junta.

*****************************************

THAILAND TIMES: THE LAST BASTION FALLS TO SLORC ONSLAUGHT
March 30, 1997

And so, one of the world's longest civil insurgencies waged since
the end of World War II, seems to be nearing its end. The sound
of guns and the smell of cordite in and around the Burmese-Thai
border area will soon diminish and be absorbed into the
environment. The scores of thousands of Burmese youth, who laid
down their lives for the glory of a nation of their own, one may
feel did so in vain.

Inevitably, curtains will be soon be drawn over the tragic drama
of disillusioned and disorganized Karen National Union (KNU)
resistance fighters. The "Last Post" may not have been sounded
yet, but the eventual out come is a foregone conclusion. The last
of the liberation forces that challenged SLORC rule will be
stilled, and the flood of people demanding freedom, ethnic
identity and democracy will have been scuttled.

The KNU situation may have been a strategic military victory for
the State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc) in Rangoon,
it may have also given some generals political chips on their
shoulders, but democratically and morally it exposes how totally
bankrupt the regime is morally.

Slorc may now have the upper hand over ethnic insurgents, but the
fact remains, it has been the primary cause of human misery, has
made hundreds of thousands of ethnic Burmese homeless and has
persecuted refugees in bordering countries, especially, in
Thailand.

The attacking and setting alight of refugee camps near the border
of the two countries, and the recent controversial refusal to
accept both young and old males by the Thai authorities, only
confirms the belief which has stood throughout the ages; that
wealth and monetary factors in most instances, if not habitually,
take precedence over human suffering and over what is morally and
democratically right.

Worse still, when it is done by an unelected regime which refuses
to hand over power to the elected people's representatives,
forcibly doing what it does with the point of a gun.

The tendency to create wealth amongst individuals, merchants and
even government is as natural as we depend on rain for water. But
there are some among the trio who are blind to rational factors
and human priorities in the process chosen to reach the desired goals.

The controversial Singapore Elder Satesman and Senior Minister
without Portfolio Lee Kuan yu was one of the first leaders from
Southeast Asia to have voiced that a stable government with a
prevailing administrative structure is preferable to a divided
democracy with no proper bureaucracy for economic development> In
other words he meant a known devil is better than an unknown angel.

The situation in Burma, also illustrates how neighbors could also
be guided or rather misguided by the wealth creating process that
considers everything else including moral behavior as secondary.
It is a classic example of how individual and national vested
interests take priority over human woes and moral considerations.

On the one hand democracy is oppressed by the military junta.
Democratic structures have been weakened to an extent that they
eventually were destroyed and collapsed by themselves. Slorc has
made no secret of its intentions. Not surprisingly, it not only
delayed but later reneged and dishonored its pledge to the people
to transfer power to the elected representatives in 1988 when the
opposition won by a landslide. In other words. Slorc leaders
created the conditions that forced Burmese people belonging to
several ethnic nationalities and movements to try to restore
democracy, to rebel and rise up against its designs and
decisions. Seemingly, to justify the need to create the so-called
State Law and Order Restoration Council and thereby take control
of government itself.

The Burmese junta may have been somewhat encouraged when not one
country in the region objected or reprimanded it for its illegal
behavior. Most surprisingly, ASEAN members stood arms folded and
watched the military dictatorship systemically destroy all
opposition to its regime. It not only destroyed and jailed
several thousands people who were calling for democracy and
freedom, but took a further step to eliminate ethnic insurgency
in the country.

With democracy  itself suppressed in Burma, Slorc turned its guns
on the separatist groups that have been waging a never ending war
for over half a century. With political manipulation, intrigue
and stealthy diplomacy, the military junta have subdued all
pockets of opposition to its regime, with the full knowledge of
neighboring countries and the world community.

Ironically, Southeast Asian nations, especially Indonesia and
Singapore have led the way in creating the conditions for others
to follow and give much needed legitinacy to the Slorc regime.
Investment, economic development and Business partnerships have
taken place with the military clique" as partner.

Furthermore, the trend was substantiated by the, apparent
competition between British, American and other European private
sectors to invest, in spite of legislation in the United States
to prevent this. The moral vacuum and hypocritical rhetoric on
human rights against Burma in the world community, as well as
against members of ASEAN, with a threat to withdraw prevailing
special trade preferences have triggered a race in ASEAN itself
to invest in Burma under the Slorc rule.

Thus, it seems ASEAN had only waited on the fringes until the
Slorc dictatorship took full control of the whole country. It is
not hypothetical to assume that the eradication of the ethnic
menace may well have been a prerequisite for ASEAN membership. To
that extent Slorc has had cooperation and good will from Asean
members countries. As July gets nearer, the last bastion has
fallen and been taken over by the Rangoon army. Burma's place in
Asean is now assured and it seems as though it is business as usual.

**************************************************************

BKK POST: REFUGEES SAY THEY WON'T GO BACK
March 29, 1997
AP

In an open letter to a Thai army officer who has been pressuring
them to go back to Burma, Karen refugees said yesterday they will
face terrible abuses from the Burmese army if they are sent home.

The 2,700 refugees at Pu Muang camp in Kanchanaburi near the
Thai-Burma border said Colonel Manat of the Thai Army's 9th
Division subjected them to a three hour lecture today on the
merits of returning to Burma and pressured them to agree to go
back immediately.

"We cannot lay our trust upon any promise given by (the Burmese)
regarding safety," the refugees said in the letter.

They said the fighting in their homeland had not yet ended and
cited the Burmese military's record of raping, killing, torturing
and using ethnic minorities for forced labour and as human mine sweepers.

Aid workers said the officer threatened to send the refugees back
against their will.

The Karen and other refugees at Pu Muang are part of an
estimated 1 5,000 people who fled a massive Burmese military
offensive aimed at wiping out Karen resistance to the government
in Rangoon.

Aid workers said this week that 1,700 of those at Pu Muang are
ill, suffering from diarrhea, malaria and other maladies. The
Thai army has refused the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
access to the camp.

The Karen have been fighting for autonomy since 1949, and
Thailand supported them as a buffer between themselves and the
Burmese anti recently.

But the government of General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh has with
drawn support for the Karen in a bid to bolster business ties
with Burma's military regime and profit form border trade
formerly controlled by the Karen.

Thailand has been criticised by the United Nations, Western
governments and human rights groups for forcibly repatriating
hundreds and possibly thousands of refugees into the war zone.

Prime Minister Chavalit and his generals have denied forcing
anyone back, but the refugees, Thai village militia and some Thai
soldiers told AP that refugees had been repatriated against their will.

In addition, Thai police have raided the officers of Burmese
student exiles in Bangkok, allegedly stealing computer equipment,
demanding payoffs and sent dissidents back to Burma.

Thai government and miliary officials have repeatedly denied that
Karen civilians have been repatriated, forcibly or otherwise, or
that fighting age men have been forced back.

********************************************************

AFP: KAREN REFUGEES ESCAPE BURMA
March 28, 1997

BANGKOK, March 28 (AFP) - A stream of ethnic Karen refugees
fled Burma into Thailand Friday when advancing forces of the
junta were reported to be only one hour's marchaway, witnesses said.

The refugees escaped the Karen village of Meh Pya Kee inside
Burma early Friday and crossed into Suan Phung district of Thailand's 
Ratchaburi province, where they were sheltering about eight kilometres 
(five miles) from the frontier.

A 76-year old man who had left his home at Amoe in territory
formerly held by the rebel Karen National Union, said he had been
walking for three weeks to escape the Burmese government
offensive, a witness said.

Witnesses estimated there were 2,000 refugees, mostly women,
children and elderly.

The Thai military said that according to latest reports, between
2,000 and 3,000 Karen refugees had gathered at the border but
had not yet crossed into Thailand.

Forces of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
were only one hour away when the villagers left Meh Pya Kee at
9:00 a.m., the elderly Karen man reported.

Some of the refugees were reported to be suffering from malaria
and diarrhoea. Many of the children were coughing, witnesses said.

***************************************************

THAILAND TIMES: CHOLERA KILLS ONE CHILD IN KAREN 
REFUGEE CAMP IN TAK
March 28, 1997
by Assawin Pinitwong

TAK: An outbreak of cholera in a refugee camp has killed at least
one child and left hundreds of refugees suffering from diarrhea,
relief workers said.

Beatrice Dumont, 30, an American volunteer doctor at Nupho
refugee camp in Umphung district here sheltering Karen refugees
form Burma, yesterday said at least 36 refugees in the camp were
stricken with cholera during the past week. The victims have been
hospitalized at a mobile medical unit in the camp.

The doctor said more than 100 refugees each day have been coming
to her seeking treatment for diarrhea.

Yun Thin, 28, the village chief of Zhone Kyaw Kyi said an acute
water shortage forced many refugees to use water from a creek.
Since the outbreak, refugees have been ordered to allocate a
place every house to serve as a toilet in an effort to prevent
the spread of the epidemic.

Despite the rapid spread of the disease, the doctor said  the 
outbreak could be curbed.

There is only one doctor and one nurse at the camp's mobile
medical unit. However, the doctor said she had trained some
refugees in the camp in order that they could educate other
refugees as to how to prevent the disease.

Nupho camp houses about 15,000 Karen refugees fleeing clashes
between Burmese government troops and the anti-Rangoon Karen
National Union (KNU). At present it is divided into five zones
with part of it under construction.


*****************************************************************

KSNG: LETTER FROM A KAREN STUDENT ON THE BORDER
March 29, 1997

The following is a translation of a letter that was received by the KYO-USA
from a Karen student from the border. In the furture we will post slected
letters from Karen students as Karen Studen Network Group (KSNG Journal).

KSNG Journal 3/97-1

The SLORC and Thai army are working hand in hand in order to
eliminate all the Karen people along the border.  The Thai army has been
releasing report in which it says that there are no more fighting at the
border and the refugees are being forced to enter into Thailand by the
Karen troops.  This is a political maneuvering and misinformation being
disseminated to the international communities by the Thai army.  Even
though the report stated that there is no fighting at the border, heavy
skirmishes between SLORC and Karen troops occurred at least twice on March
22 and 23, 1997, while the Thai Ninth Army Division Commander and his
operational commanders were meeting with their Burmese counterparts at Min
Htaing Kee village.  The Thai army officials themselves are the witnesses
to the ongoing fighting at the border.

        Presently, there are about 3,500 to 4,000 refugees who are grouping
themselves at Huay Su, coming from Htaw Ma Pyo, Htaw Ma Maw and Kae Ma Kee
villages.  Although the Thai 9th army Division is promising international
communities to help the Karen refugees, they themselves have helped
transferring rice sacks that were donated by BBC for the Karen refugees to
the Burmese army at Baw Ya Ka on March 20, 1997. Regardless of its repeated
promise to help accommodate Karen refugees on humanitarian ground, the Thai
9th army Division is fully cooperating with the SLORC in annihilating the
Karen people.  Witnesses reported that some illing refugees who attempted
to go to local hospital for medication were blocked by the Thai border
patrol police at the check point.

        SLORC is conducting its massive offensive against Karen civilians
in order to promote its business ties with companies such as Italian-Thai
Development Public Company Ltd. and PTT of Thailand.  As a result of this
offensives, tens of thousand of innocent villagers became homeless and had
to flee from their villages and become refugees in Thailand.  Many female
villagers are being raped and some of them are tortured to death by the
Burmese army.

        Please help us appeal to the international communities, the Thai
people and the United Nations to help us on humanitarian ground, and to
pressure the Thai government not to repatriate us unless safety is guaranteed.

*************************************************************

KNU PRESS RELEASE NO. 9/97                
REGARDING THE 1997 SLORC OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE KNU
March 25,1997


Human Rights violations have increased drastically against the Karen in the
northern Papun District. These violations include random arrests, forced
portering, torture, rape, looting and destruction of property, and an
alarming rise in arbitrary killings.

On 13.3.97, Slorc LIB 59 shot and killed two villagers, Saw Kaw Hay Mu (age
70) and his son, Saw Per Kaw (age 32) from Da Baw Kaw Der village.

On 14.3.97, Slorc LIB 341 arbitrarily shot and killed a villager at Pler Leh
Der village (Age and name unavailable)

On 15.3.97, Slorc LIB 341 entered Klo Tho Hta village and killed three
villagers. Saw May Ha (age 48) from klo Tho Hta, Saw Bo Lweh (age 42)
visiting from Thay Keh Mu Der village, and Saw Pah Klay Day (age 40) visiting
from Hsa Law Pu village. They also arrested Saw Po Nya Kay (age 43) and
forced him to leave with them.

On 16.3.97, Slorc LIB 341 shot and killed Po Htaw Ku Tha (age 30) from Lay Pu
Der village. 
                   Slorc LIB 53 and LIB 439 attacked See Day village and
burned down five (5) houses in the northen part of the village.

On 17.3.97, Slorc LIB 341 arrested Maung Pan Shwe from Lay Pu Der village and
forced him to leave with them.
                   Slorc LIB 53 and 439 continued their destruction of See
Day village. They burned down an additional fifteen (15) houses in the
western part of the village. They also burnt a Karen Bramaso temple. In the
evening, they completed their destructio by burning down the remaining
houses, barns, plantations and any rice field found near the village.

On 18.3.97, Slorc LIB 57 and LIB 59 entered Naw Yo Hta village. They shot and
killed three villages. Saw Maw Ray Heh (age 50), his daughter, Naw Hla Sein
(age 26) and his nephew, Saw Maung Say (age 32). They wounded his son, Saw Yo
Tha (age 22) and his youngest daughter, Naw Paw Eh wa (age 10). These two
managed to later escape.
                    Slorc LIB 53 and 439 destroyed another barn in See Day
village. This barn contained the village harvest of 240 baskets of rice. They
then continued onto Baw Lay Der village and burned down twenty(20) houses.

On 19.3.97, Slorc LIB 53 and 439 entered Kleh Mu village and burned down
nineteen (19) houses, one Christian church, and twenty (20) rice fields. They
occupied the village until 22.3.97 burning and destroying in their path.

Slorc troops operating in the northern Papun area have been capturing women
and children to be used forcibly as porters. On 21.3.97, thirty (30) of these
captive porters escaped and were sheltered by KNU troops. Among the escaped
porters, one woman was pregnant. These porters were captured from the Mone
Township, Ta Kaw Pwa village, Way Sweh village, Po Thaung Zu village, and Pa
Na Wah village.
        
******************************************************

THAILAND TIMES: OVER 1,000 KAREN REFUGEES RETURN TO BURMA
March 30, 1997
by Assawin Pinitwong 

TAK: Around 1,500 Karen refugees sheltering in a camp in Tak's
Umphang district yesterday returned to Burma, allegedly
voluntarily, according to a Thai military source.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said the refugees
from Ban Nu Pho camp, most of them women, children, and the
elderly, crossed the border to settle near the Burmese town of Myawaddy.

The refugees are reportedly family members of former soldiers
form the Karen National Union (KNU)'s 6th Division's 16th
Battalion, who were forced to surrender and hand over their arms
to the Burmese troops at Kya Inn Seik Gyi in February.

Their return follows promises by the junta that the refugees will
be well provided for if they come back to their homeland, an
assurance over which many Karens and human rights monitors have
expressed suspicion. Reports form Burma indicate that the junta
is keen to win the surrendered soldiers over to their side, and
have agreed to appoint Lt-Col Tameuhae, the former commander of
Battalion 16, as a member of the National Convention.

The junta also apparently has plans to allocate the leadership of
Karen State to Tameuhae as a reward for his capitulation to the regime.

A source from Myawaddy said the former KNU soldiers are now
working alongside the Burmese troops as volunteer police officers 
and soldiers, patrolling Karen State where fighting between the
KNU and the junta remains intense.

The source claimed that the volunteers are provided with money
and food  by the Burmese troops.

He also reiterated calls for KNU soldiers still fighting the
regime to surrender, saying that the junta will welcome them with
open arms and ensure that they are given assistance.

***********************************************************

NLM: SECRETARY-2  MET STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF AZIN 
REGION IN KYA-IN  SEIKKYI TOWNSHIP 
March 26, 1997 (The New Light of Myanmar)  

(*BurmaNet Editor's Note: Azin is located close to the Thai-
Burma border south of Myawaddy and was controlled by the KNU until
last month.  Now it is under SLORC control. )
  
                                        
     YANGON, 25 March-Secretary-2 of the State Law and Order Restoration
     Council Lt-Gen Tin Oo met students and teachers of Azin
     region in Kya-in Seikkyi Township at the hall of battalion in South
     Okkalapa Township this morning.
     
     Present were Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement
     Maj-Gen Soe Myint, Chief of Staff (Navy) Commodore Nyunt Thein, Chief
     of Staff (Air) Brig-Gen Kyaw Than, Vice-Adjutant-General Brig-Gen
     Than Tun, Vice-Quartermaster-General Brig-Gen Thein Tun, Director of
     Public Relations and Psychological Warfare Brig-Gen Aung Thein,
     senior military officers, Officer on Special Duty at the Office of the
State 
     Law and Order Restoration Council Lt-Col Than Tint and officials.
     
     The Secretary-2 said there were misunderstandings among the national
     brethren and they lived far apart due to divide-and-rule tactics of
     the colonialists and such an excursion trip forged close friendship
     among them.

********************************************

ANNOUNCEMENT: PICTURES OF REFUGEES AND BURNED CAMPS
March 27, 1997

Dear Friends,

I selected 17 pictures from the video that Larry Dohrs sent me of the 
refugees and the burned camp. They are posted at

http://users.imagiware.com/wtongue/refugees.html

The colors and image quality lead me to believe these pictures are 
converted PAL format. Their impact, however, is in no way lessened by the 
changes they have been through on their way to you.

The 17 pictures displayed are those I made myself select from the 87 I 
wanted to post. If you want to see the rest, contact Larry for a copy of 
the video ($10!). My thanks to him for making this invaluable resource 
available.

Peace and Courage,
Wrightson

*******************************************************