SMH-Canberra to lift intake of anti

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Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: SMH-Canberra to lift intake of anti-junta activists 

The Sydney Morning Herald
Nov 10, 1999.

Canberra to lift intake of anti-junta activists

By CRAIG SKEHAN, Herald Correspondent in Bangkok

Australia is preparing to increase its intake of Burmese student
pro-democracy activists now living as refugees in Thailand.

Well-placed sources said the Immigration Minister, Mr Ruddock, would make an
announcement later this month that a humanitarian program would be expanded
to allow several hundred Burmese students into Australia.

Officials said Australia would almost certainly refuse asylum to five gunmen
who on October 1 stormed Burma's Bangkok embassy, demanding an end to
military rule in their homeland.

Following the embassy siege, the Thai Government asked foreign nations to
help resettle 2,700 Burmese student activists living in the Maneeloy holding
camp near the country's border with Burma.

The request came partly because camp inmates' protests against the Burmese
junta have exacerbated bilateral tensions between Bangkok and Rangoon.

At least some of the five-member group who took control of the Burmese
Embassy were from the Maneeloy camp.

The Thais maintain the pro-democracy militants are now on Burmese soil, but
have undertaken to arrest them if they surrender or are found in Thai
territory.

A front page report in Thailand's The Nation newspaper yesterday, headed
''Burmese gunmen seek haven in Aust'', quoted an associate of the
hostage-takers saying they wanted resettlement in a third country,
preferably Australia. But Australian officials said there was ''virtually no
prospect'' the five would be granted asylum or refugee status