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The Nation News (29/4/99)



COURT BEGINS TRIAL IN PADAUNG CASE

MAE HONG SON- Aprovincial court in Mae Hong Son yesterday opened the trial
of two Thai men on charges relating to the detention and death of a long
necked ethnic Padaung women,who,along with over 30 others of the same
ethnicity,was trafficked into Thailand from Burma two years ago.
The court had time to question only Zaw Thet,one of over 30 witnesses for
the prosecution.Zaw That,an interpreter of padaung and Thai,was among a
group of Padaung villagers in this nothern province who had helped secure
the release of 34 Padaung people from Baan San Ton Doo in Mae Aie district
of Chiang Mai.
The court yesterday set the next hearing for July.
Puduang- commonly known here as the long-necked hill people because the
women normally wear brass necklaces,the number of which increases over the
years-has been a strong tourist attraction in Mae Hong Son.
The group of detained Padaung had been lured and trafficked from their home
village in northeastern Burma into Thailand by a Thai Karen agent, who had
pledged to take them to visit their relatives in Mae Hong Son.
They were trucked to the village in Chiang Mai as soon as they had arrived
in Mae Hong Son.
The police raided Baan San Ton Doo in February last year and rescued the
group after foreign travellers, who visited their village, were requested
to help, on separate occasions, pass audio cassettes and  a letter to their
relatives in Mae Hong Son.The group was letter reunited with their
relatives in Mae Hong Son and are remaining there as witnesses.
The police later arrested Thana Nakluang, a Thai businessman in Chiang Mai,
and Eddie(only one name),a Thai of ethnic Lahu origin, and charged them
over the death of one detained Padaung woman and the smuggling of illegal
migrants into the Kingdom.They were later released on bail.
According to the rescued Padaung, the woman, a mother of two, died in
mid-1997 of exhaustion and heartbreak as she had been long separated from
her children who remained in Burma.
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