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Exiled Myanmar students clash with



Subject: Exiled Myanmar students clash with Thai police

SOURCE:LEXIS-NEXIS

                        November 16, 1999 15:25 GMT

SECTION: International news

LENGTH: 543 words

HEADLINE: Exiled Myanmar students clash with Thai police

DATELINE: BANGKOK, Nov 16

BODY:
   Dissident students opposed to Myanmar's military government clashed with
security forces at a tightly-guarded camp in western Thailand late Tuesday,
exiles and police sources said.

A member of the Burmese Students Association claimed that several students
had been wounded.

"There was a clash between students and security officers," he told AFP
from inside the Maneeloy camp.

He said a student identified as Nawe Aung was shot in the leg and another
identified as Minn Lwin suffered a blow to the head.

Most of the shots fired by security forces were directed into the air, he
said.

Police in Ratchaburi province near the volatile Thailand-Myanmar border
denied shots were fired and said there were no casualties.

"There was a quarrel at around eight o' clock this evening between Burmese
students and police -- nobody was killed or injured," said an officer who
identified himself as Lance-Corporal Winai at Pakthor district police
station.

"It was not a big incident."

Political authorities in the province could not be immediately reached for
comment.

Thailand ordered the resettlement in a third country of more than 1,000
students at Maneeloy after five gunmen, some former camp residents, seized
the Myanmar embassy here along with 38 hostages last month.

The incident sent Thai relations with Yangon into a nosedive after
officials here allowed the gunmen to escape to the Myanmar border in a
helicopter in a deal which ended the 24-hour siege.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been seeking
new homes for the dissidents and has started a registration program.

The dissident spokesman, who requested anonymity, said anger had reached
boiling point on Monday after a clash between a student and a villager.

Both the injured students were still in the camp late Tuesday, he said and
fellow students were outraged at the incident.

The camp has been tense for weeks. In one incident last month students
locked up UNHCR workers at the camp in a dispute over allowances.

Thailand warned exiles after that episode that they should not abuse its
hospitality after fleeing the jurisdiction of Myanmar's military
government.

A number of governments have agreed informally to accept students,
including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several
European states without a long tradition of accepting refugees, the UNHCR
has said.

Thailand has said it would like all the students classified as political
refugees by the UNHCR to be sent to third countries within three years.

The UNHCR has stressed that resettlement is voluntary and that it has
already helped to resettle 2,000 Myanmar refugees who fled to Thailand.

Around 1,000 students were originally at Maneeloy camp and will be
registered for voluntary resettlement, the UNHCR said.

A further 900 have registered as refugees in Thailand but are not in
contact with the agency. Eight to nine hundred more are expected to head
for the Maneeloy camp shortly.

Exiled students at Maneeloy, come from ethnic Burmese, Karen, Karenni and
ethnic Mon groups.

The resettlement program has been taking place in parallel with another
Thai drive to repatriate thousands of illegal immigrants to Myanmar.

bur/col/kf

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999