Abuse of Burmese refugees in Thaila

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Subject: Abuse of Burmese refugees in Thailand is unconscionable

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HEADLINES
(1) Bang Ron reported to be with Red Wa Army
(2) No evidence Anwar's brother sodomised
(3) Investors turn heel for home
(4) Rohingya repatriation postponed
(5) China sends 2 dissidents to labor camp
(6) Abuse of Burmese refugees in Thailand is unconscionable
(7) Junta miffed by US data on opium output


NEWS
(1) Bang Ron reported to be with Red Wa Army 
Chettha says Burma wants to return him 

Wassana Nanuam
Thai fugitive and alleged drug dealer Surachai Ngernthongfoo is now reportedly
with the Red Wa Army.  Former army commander-in-chief Gen Chettha Thanajaro
said the Burmese military government had traced him and was now seeking to
return him to Thailand.

Gen Chettha, who is Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart's adviser on
security, said the Burmese military was negotiating with the Red Wa Army.  Mr
Surachai, alias Bang Ron, was being held in the 361st Red Wa's stronghold
opposite northern Thailand.  The former army chief added he had accepted an
invitation to visit Burma in April. 

Meanwhile, army commander-in-chief Gen Surayud Chulanont, who is scheduled to
pay an official visit to Burma in February, said he had ordered all army units
on the Thai-Burmese border to ready themselves for Rangoon's dry season
crackdown on minority groups. 
Bangkok Post - Dec 29, 98
 -----------------------

(2) Doctor: No evidence Anwar's brother sodomised 

A Malaysian doctor appearing as a prosecution witness in the trial of the
former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says there is no evidence that Mr
Anwar's adopted brother, Sukma Darmawan, had been sodomised. 

Mr Sukma and Mr Anwar's speechwriter, Munawar Anees, were convicted in
September of allowing themselves to be sodomised by the former deputy premier
between March 1993 and April 1998. They were both sentenced to six months in
jail a day before Mr Anwar was himself arrested. 

But on Tuesday Dr Zahari Noor said he found "no evidence of anal intercourse"
when he examined Mr Sukma in early September.   Dr Zahari said he had seen "no
evidence of any injuries whether recent or old" and concluded there was no
medical evidence that Mr Sukma had been penetrated by a "blunt object". 

The revelations add yet more salacious details to a trial that has gripped
Malaysia - a normally conservative country that frowns upon even the mildest
public displays of affection. 
'No evidence of intercourse'.  So in layman's terms, you're saying there seems
to be no history of homosexual relations," asked defence lawyer Christopher
Fernando.   "I would say there was no evidence of anus intercourse," Dr Zahari
confirmed. 

Mr Anwar is currently on trial on four counts of corruption related to
allegations that he used his position to cover up claims of heterosexual and
homosexual misconduct. He denies all the charges. 

Questionable methods 
Earlier, Dr Zahari testified that police had used "highly questionable"
procedures in collecting DNA samples from Mr Anwar's blood.   He said police
did not request samples for DNA testing until two and a half months after
blood had been taken to test for a range of sexually transmitted diseases. 

The prosecution is expected to call DNA experts to testify that samples taken
from Mr Anwar matched semen stains found on a mattress produced as evidence
two weeks ago. The defence is now trying to prove that Mr Anwar never gave
permission for DNA samples to be taken.   On Monday defence lawyers suggested
that hair and semen samples may have been taken from Mr Anwar while he was
unconscious following a police beating that he says took place shortly after
his arrest.
BBC - Dec 29, 98
 -----------------------
(3) Investors turn heel for home
It was seen as a last business frontier, but along frontiers all too often
lurk dangers - in Burma's case the snowballing economic crisis.

Nussara Sawatsawang
The plummeting Burmese economy has shaken the confidence of Thai investors and
they are packing their bags and leaving, or at least freezing, projects in a
country they once saw as Southeast Asia's new business frontier.

Loxley, after supplying telecoms equipment to Burma for five years, has
decided to call it quits next year after losing faith in the economy,
according to a senior officer.  "We have to leave the country," said the
officer, who requested anonymity.

Before Loxley reached its decision, several other Thai firms, engaging in
activities as varied as port and road construction to cement production, had
already abandoned or put on hold multi-billion-baht projects in the country.
But the hardest hit has been the banking sector. Rangoon once could boast
having the representative offices of six Thai banks, but now there is only
Krung Thai Bank.

Part of the Thai withdrawal stems from the insolvency of parent companies at
home after the battering of the 17-month-old financial crisis and its
devastating effect on the corporate and banking sectors. But there is no doubt
that the poor state of the Burmese economy, which has been further weakened by
the domino effect of the regional crisis, is making matters worse.
Loxley, for example, which also runs a trading business in Burma, is uncertain
about the ability of the Rangoon government to repay its debts because of a
shortage of hard currency, said the officer.

The Burmese economy has depended largely on foreign direct investment since
the country adopted a market-oriented policy in the early 1990s. Investments
from member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, led by
Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, top the chart, together accounting for more
than 50 percent of all foreign direct investment in Burma.
Unlike their Asean counterparts, Western firms were discouraged from investing
by their governments and public opinion at home over the military regime's
failure to respect human rights and democracy.

Similar to Thai companies, many investors from Malaysia and Singapore, which
too have been hard hit by the regional crisis and Burma's own economic
problems, also are on their way out.
"Burma is now at the crisis stage. [This is because] Asean investors have
withdrawn or delayed their investment," said one Thai commerce ministry
official.  Burma and Laos were admitted to Asean last year, joining Brunei,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

In addition to the decline in investment, Burma is suffering trade problems.
Its heavy reliance on the import of capital goods such as machinery and
equipment, and its reduced earnings from the export of primary products, means
Burma has notched up huge trade deficits in recent years.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the deficits rose steadily from
$570 million (20.5 billion baht) three years ago to $1.02 billion (36.7
billion baht) in 1996 and S$1.19 billion (42.8 billion baht) last year.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council hoped sales of gas to the
Petroleum Authority of Thailand under the Yadana natural gas project -
eventually expected to produce annual incomes of $180 million-$200 million
(6.5 billion-7.2 billion baht) - would correct the imbalance.  But this
opportunity is diminishing due to the delay in gas delivery while the PTT
tries to negotiate with developers for a relaxation of late-acceptance
penalties while work on the power plant in Ratchaburi is still to be
completed.

The Yadana development consortium, led by Total of France, is to develop 525
million cubic feet a day from a gas field located about 240 km south off the
Burmese coast in the Gulf of Martaban. The PTT has yet to pay for an estimated
five million cubic feet of gas it has received since July.  Despite the grim
outlook, the [Thai] Export-Import Bank remains confident in Burma's business
future and is willing to finance independent projects there.

Burma will regain its economic momentum because its human resources and legal
system are more developed than those of some other neighbouring countries,
according to Nampung Wongsmith, the first vice-president of the state-owned
bank's export credit insurance and foreign investment department.

"If Burma gains, we also gain," she said. "This will also improve relations
between the two countries."  While acknowledging that the two-tiered foreign
exchange regime posed setbacks, Ms Nampung said the bank preferred investment
projects that would generate hard currency.
The official exchange rate in Burma is six kyat a dollar, but the market rate,
which is commonly used for daily businesses, is about 360 kyats.

One negative repercussion of the current drop off in Thai investments in Burma
could be the hampering of Thailand's attempt to use economics as a leverage in
its relations with Burma.
Foreign policy makers in Bangkok subscribe to the idea that economic interests
can facilitate political cooperation and can eventually but gradually bring
about political change in Burma. They played a part in convincing Thai
investors to go to the country.

One analyst said the decline in Thai investments and the delay in the gas
purchase could upset hardliners in the ruling junta, who may not see any use
in respecting mutual economic interests that no longer exist. They could
eventually turn aggressive towards Thailand on sensitive matters.  This could
lead to a renewal of conflicts previously kept at bay, including border
disputes, drugs and other security issues, he warned.  "When the ebb-tide
comes, the stump emerges," he said, referring to a Thai proverb which means
wrongdoings emerge when the truth is revealed. "The Thai government cannot
ignore these sensitive problems."

Ill-defined demarcation of the 2,400-km-long Thai-Burma border has long caused
suffering for Thailand in terms of casualties, raids and influxes of refugees,
now numbering about 100,000 on Thai soil, when the Burmese army launches
offensives against minorities.  But Chaiyachoke Chulasiriwongse, a Burma
expert with Chulalongkorn University, doubts whether the shrinking of the Thai
economic presence in Burma will prompt Rangoon to resurrect long-standing
political problems.

Thai bargaining power is unlikely to be affected by the crisis, he said,
because Burma has few alternative partners and recognises its long-term
economic interdependence with Thailand.
Bangkok Post - Dec 30, 98 

 ------------------------
(4) Rohingya repatriation postponed 
The operation to repatriate from Bangladesh thousands of Burmese refugees --
drawn from the Rohingya ethnic group -- is being suspended for a-month. 

Officials in Bangladesh say some of the refugees who had previously agreed to
return to Burma are now refusing to do so because they've been receiving
threats.  Burma has agreed to take back seven-thousand of an estimated twenty-
one thousand Rohingya refugees, who fled to Bangladesh in the early 1990's.
But correspondents say only around a-hundred of them have so far returned to
Burma.   From the newsroom of the BBC World Service - Dec 29, 98

 -----------------------------

(5) China sends 2 dissidents to labor camp
Exiled activist says West too soft on China
December 29, 1998
BEIJING (CNN) -- Two U.S.-based Chinese dissidents who had secretly returned
to China were caught by police and sentenced without trial to three years of
forced labor, China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. 

The sentencing was part of a recent crackdown against anti-government
activists. Leading exiled dissident Wei Jingsheng said the upsurge in arrests
of dissidents and pro-democracy supporters was the direct result of the West's
soft stance toward China. 

In the first official word on the whereabouts of U.S.-based dissidents Zhang
Lin and Wei Quanbao since they slipped into China seven weeks ago, the Foreign
Ministry said police had arrested them on November 12 in the southern city of
Guangzhou in a barber shop operating as a brothel. 

The ministry said the two men confessed to hiring prostitutes and evading
border police by hiding inside a truck from Hong Kong the day before their
arrest. 
For those alleged crimes, police sentenced both to three years of "labor
reeducation" -- the maximum sentence police can order without a trial. 

18 imprisoned for illegal publications
According to the official People's Daily newspaper, Chinese authorities have
imprisoned 18 people for up to 13 years on charges of printing or selling
illegal publications in a crackdown predominantly on politically sensitive
books. 

Most of the arrests took place in northern Hebei province, after the
authorities seized printing plates and 50,000 copies of a pirated political
book, the People's Daily reported on Tuesday. 
China has launched a nationwide crackdown on dissent and what it considers
subversion, targeting activists, book and magazine publishers, authors, music
producers, film makers and computer programmers. 

Exiled activist speaks out
Exiled pro-democracy activist Wei, speaking before a meeting with Taiwan
President Lee Teng-hui during a visit to the island, urged Western leaders to
return to a tougher stance.  Wei said stiff prison terms meted out by Beijing
recently to outspoken democracy advocates were the fruit of Western nations'
policy of soft engagement with China.  "This is the consequence of the West's
wrong policy," Wei told Reuters Television in an interview in Taipei. 

"It eased its pressure on China and allowed the Chinese communists to make an
unbridled crackdown on the democracy movement. The democracy movement has
suffered a major setback over the past two to three months. Many Western
politicians are responsible for that," he said. 

One prominent dissident recently put behind bars, Xu Wenli, has raised his
voice in a letter from prison. The letter was dated Monday and made available
to international news organizations. 
Xu criticized his 13-year prison sentence for trying to form an opposition
party as "political persecution."   He said he would not appeal his sentence
out of contempt for the judicial system that prosecuted him last week. 

"My so-called open trial was in truth nothing but a means of political
persecution," Xu wrote in the letter. "First, I will not answer any questions.
Second, I will not defend myself. Third, I will not appeal to a higher court.
This is a silent protest against political persecution." 
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
CNN - Dec 29, 98

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(6) Abuse of Burmese refugees in Thailand is unconscionable
I, too, am writing to express my concern over the protracted silence of the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Bangkok in the face of ongoing
abuse of Burmese refugees by the Thai Government, Army and police force, and
in particular the recent abuse of 27 refugees by Thai police and immigration
authorities. 
UNHCR in Bosnia or in parts of Africa have no difficulty finding a public
voice to express their concerns over the mistreatment of refugees. However,
here in Bangkok we can only gather from the protracted silence that Emilio
Bonifacio has her own agenda, and refugee recognition and protection are
obviously not a part of it. 
It's not as if it hasn't been pointed out to UNHCR that there are gross
shortcomings in the area of refugee protection on its part and that of the
Thai Government. Non-government organisations attempting to assist the Burmese
refugees in Thailand have time and again expressed their dismay privately to
UNHCR in Bangkok over the issue of a lack of recognition and protection for
these refugees. 
This year concerns went public in the publications of a number of Global NGOs
working with the refugees. In fact, the issue of a lack of protection and
recognition for Burmese refugees in Thailand has become so pressing that Human
Rights Watch, a highly respected monitor of human rights abuses, felt called
upon to write a lengthy report entitled Unwanted and Unprotected: Burmese
Refugees in Thailand. 
That report documents a long standing policy of large scale forced
repatriation of Burmese refugees by Thailand as a part of economic cooperation
between Thailand and the Burmese dictatorship. The report cites the Thai Ninth
Army Division as the primary offender, and goes on to say that the appalling
treatment of refugees in this region [south of Three Pagoda Pass] appears to
be linked to the construction of the Unocal--Total gas pipeline. 
The silence of UNHCR in Bangkok in the face of overwhelming evidence of
refugee repression and refoulement is shameful. It is obvious that UNHCR is
unable to recognise or protect the refugees from Burma -- or they are simply
unwilling to do so. In either case, it is time for a change of personnel and
of policy. Since UNHCR in Bangkok has decided not to address the concerns, it
is time that people make them known to the High Commissioner, Sadeko Ogata, in
Geneva. The message needs to be simple and clear: ''In the face of mounting
concern over the lack of recognition and protection of Burmese refugees in
Thailand, there needs to be a change of personnel and policy at the Bangkok
level.'' 
As for the Thai Government, it is time to let it know unmistakably that
efforts to profit economically by abusing refugees is unconscionable. Since it
appears that forced labour, forced relocation of people, and now forced
repatriation of refugees are strongly linked with the gas pipeline project,
there needs to be consideration of a voluntary international boycott of Thai
products if Thailand takes delivery of the gas. To fuel its industry while
handing the Burmese military dictators US$400 million a year to buy yet more
weaponry to use against villagers, is no more acceptable practice than
investment in Burma by corporations which are not under boycott in a number of
US cities. 
An overlooked refugee from Burma
The Nation (Mailbag) - Dec 30, 98

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(7) Junta miffed by US data on opium output 
BURMA by WILLIAM BARNES 

Could Afghanistan - not Burma - after all be the real mother lode of the
global heroin trade? 
That is what the junta in Rangoon is claiming, accusing the US Government of
grossly overestimating opium production in Burma.  The claim is hardly
surprising for a dictatorial Government that also has the chutzpah to reckon
it is working towards a multi-party democracy. 
But some Western narcotics officials admit the US figures are controversial. 

"There has been a long debate. There has been a suspicion that the American
figures for Myanmar [Burma] are overestimates and the figures for Afghanistan
underestimates," an expert on the region said. 

The regime, in its first stab at a comprehensive survey for a decade,
calculates that poppy planting covers 64,000 hectares. This is about the same
figure as in 1988. 
The Americans use satellite photography and say the area of poppy cultivation
is more than 2.5 times that. 

The Burmese authorities also deny the US claim that opium production doubled
in 1989, the year after the junta was formed, extending military rule since
1962.   "Production may be up but it can't double," Colonel Kyaw Thein, a
narcotics spokesman, told the Asian Wall Street Journal. 
Critics of the regime claim that heroin output in the troubled Shan state has
exploded because the army has made "don't ask, don't tell" ceasefire deals
with the major drug trafficking groups. There is evidence that Burma's economy
has been propped up by laundered narcotics profits and army personnel have
taken bribes. 

But if the regime can throw doubt on the higher US figure, it will make its
relatively puny drug seizures look brighter and undermine Western claims that
it is conniving with drug barons. American officials stand by their production
figures. They say that several times in recent years US narcotics agents have
run joint inspections of the Shan state with the Burmese.  One observer said
the US estimates were "elaborate, but still a desk job. Ultimately, we really
don't know". 
The solution, he said, was for the satellite survey to be backed up by
thorough ground research. 
The United Nations Drug Control Programme is making a start by attempting to
survey areas around its pilot schemes for poppy crop substitution. 

Bad weather will show in the upcoming US State Department world drug survey to
have brought opium production down to about 1,700 tonnes, after hitting 2,500
tonnes in 1996. 
Afghanistan produced 1,230 tonnes in 1996, according to the US report. Poppies
covered 38,000 hectares that year, compared with Burma's 163,000. 

But the yield per hectare is up to 10 times higher in Afghanistan than in the
Shan state thanks to better irrigation, fertiliser use and, perhaps, more
skilled producers.
South China Morning Post - Dec 30, 98

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