FT-Military accused of precipitatin

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Subject: FT-Military accused of precipitating famine 

Financial Times Oct -21, 1999.
World News / Asia-Pacific
BURMA: Military accused of precipitating famine
By Rahul Jacob in Hong Kong

Misrule and expropriation by the military junta has pushed parts of Burma to
the brink of famine, a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organisation says.

Voice of a Hungry Nation, a report published yesterday by the Asian Human
Rights Commission, details a harrowing picture of widespread food scarcity
among farmers in Burma's rice-growing heartland because peasants are forced
to sell their crop at prices well below market rates and crops are being
destroyed as retribution by the army, which is fighting insurgents.

"This amounts to a crime against humanity. If the United Nations could
intervene in East Timor, why can't it intervene here?" asked Justice H.
Suresh, one of three members of the tribunal that compiled the 170-page
report. It said the military had appropriated every function of the state,
from tax collection to infrastructure development.

Despite the worsening food shortages, increasing quantities of Burmese rice,
often procured at gunpoint or under the threat of land confiscation, are
being sold on the export market. Exports of Burmese rice surged from 15,328
tonnes in 1997 to 86,233 tonnes in the first 11 months of 1998, the report
says, quoting US Department of Agriculture data.