NEWS - There would be no refugees i

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Subject: NEWS - There would be no refugees if the Burmese Regime quit

There would be no refugees if the Burmese Regime quit

  Thousands of people on the eastern and western borders escaped
persecusion, rape, murder, torture, forced labor, forced relocation and
now death squads when they entered Thailand and Bangladesh.


Bangladesh Says Refugees Straining Economy

               Reuters
               05-MAR-99

               DHAKA, March 5 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of
refugees from
               Pakistan, Myanmar and India are putting unbearable
strains on the
               Bangladesh economy, a senior official involved in
repatriation efforts said on
               Friday. 

               "It has been an enormous burden on us and it is becoming
unbearable.
               There is no sign they will go home soon," the official
said. 

               Around 450,000 refugees are living in poverty-stricken
Bangladesh, whose
               economy has been strained by last year's catastrophic
floods and repeated
               opposition-led strikes. 

               Relief and repatriation officials said the majority have
been waiting for
               repatriation for decades while others want a permanent
home in the country. 

               "The Bangladesh government has been involved in intensive
talks with the
               respective foreign governments trying to send the
refugees back but with no
               luck," the official told Reuters. 

               Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged her Pakistani
counterpart Nawaz Sharif
               on Wednesday to repatriate some 400,000 Urdu-speaking
"Bihari" Moslems
               who have been living in squalid refugee camps, some of
them since
               Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, became independent in
1971. 

               The stranded Pakistanis are better known as Biharis
because they migrated
               to Pakistan from India's Bihar state following the 1947
partition of India. 

               Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad earlier asked Yangon
authorities to
               take back some 21,000 "Rohingya" refugees who fled to
Bangladesh in 1992
               from west Myanmar's Arakan province to escape alleged
military
               persecution. 


               Repatriation of Rohingyas stopped in April 1998 and the
U.N. High
               Commissioner for Refugees later asked Bangladesh to give
them permanent
               refuge. Dhaka turned down the request. 

               "Pakistan's unwillingness to take back the Biharis has
left a huge burden on
               impoverished Bangladesh on account of feeding and looking
after them," the
               official said. 

               He could not immediately quantify the cost of feeding the
refugees. 

               Officials said thousands of Indian tribespeople had been
living in deep
               jungles of Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong Hill
Tracts. India says none
               of its nationals has trespassed into Bangladesh.