REPOST: Wildlife groups collude wit

[TheTruth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: REPOST: Wildlife groups collude with Burma's slaughtering Junta

Date: 25 Mar 1997 11:01:37
>From: Tim.Nunn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Reply-To: Conference "reg.burma" <burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Errors-To: owner-burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx
>To: Recipients of burmanet-l <burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>From: Tim.Nunn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Timothy Nunn)
>
>[please excuse any errors. I have not had time to properly proof read
>this. Tim Nunn]
>
>Observer, London
>Sunday 23rd March 1997
>
>by David Harrison, London
>Cathy Scott-Clark, Adrian Levy, Rangoon
>
>cover
>Wildlife groups collude with Burma's slaughtering Junta
>
>WORLD-renowned wildlife organisations are working with Burma's military
>regime on huge conservation projects on sites being cleared by the
>systematic slaughter of the Karen ethnic minority. Human rights groups
>yesterday condemned the conservationists collaboration in Burma's 'killing
>fields' and demanded their immediate withdrawal.
>
>The Burmese army has murdered 2,000 people and driven 30,000 from their
>homes to prepare for the nature reserves. Thousands of others are being
>used as forced labour on the projects, according to eyewitness accounts
>obtained by the Observer.
>
>Two of the world's most prestigious conservation bodies are involved: the
>Smithnian Iinstitution in Washington and the New York based Wildlife
>Conservation Society which has projects in 52 countries. They are the
>first charities, to work with the Burmese State Law and Order Restoration
>Council (SLORC) since it massacred 3,000 demonstrators in 1988.
>
>The Worldwide Fund for Nature also has links with Buma. Last month it held
>an elephant conference in the capital, Rangoon, and it plans to do research
>on Burmese tigers.
>
>The ruling Burmese junta is delighted to have support from such prestigious
>organisations. They hope the reserves - one of which will be the biggest
>in the world - will attract millons of tourists and improve Burma's
>appalling international image, shaped by one of the worst human-rights
>records in the world. Josh Ginsberg, the Wildlife Conservation Society's
>science director, said: 'We do ont sanction forced relocation or killings
>but we have no control over the government. We are in Burma because it is
>one of the highest biodiversity countries.'
>
>The Smithsonian siad: 'We are there to do important conservation work. We
>may disagree with a regime but it is not our place to challenge it.'
>
>Robin Pellew, WWF-UK director, said WWF International had discussed one of
>the nature reserves projects, on Lambi island, with the Burmese authorities
>but had decided not to get involved.
>
>Faith Doherty of the South Asian Information Network, said:
>'Environmentalists should not be involved with Burma at an level.'
>
>page 9
>Burma's Junta Goes Green
>Save the Rhino, Kill the People
>Rangoon wants a nature reserve. So do conservationists. But first they have
>to get rid of villagers.
>Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark in Burma and David Harrison report
>
>WE FOUND them deep in the Burmese jungle, east of the Tenasserim river.
>About 2,000 of them, hungry, exhausted and fearing for their lives. They
>have no money, no change of clothes, and they eat what food they find.
>They sleep under palm leaves propped teepee-style against the trees. A
>sickly child is crying. An old woman sobs endlessly, Saw Lyi, 56, holds
>out his hands: 'We do not know what to do. We do not know what will happen
>to us.'
>Saw Lyi knows he will not be going home. He, and thousands of the Karen
>ethnic group, a gentle, cultured and religious people, have been driven out
>of their homes by the Burmese army. He also knows that in a strange way he
>is lucky, because he made it to the jungle, starving and homeless but
>alive.
>Hundreds of people, including Saw's son, a father of six, have been
>murdered in the two months since the army launched its offensive to crush
>the Karen, according to human rights groups which base their evidence on
>independent research, including hundreds of eyewitness accounts. Tens of
>thousands have been forced to work, unpaid and unfed, building roads and
>railways, and 30,000 have fled into the jungle or across the border to
>Thailand.
>
>Why? Because the Burmese army is clearing the Karen area, razing entire
>villages, killing, raping, enslaving, to make way for the biggest nature
>reserve of its kind in the world. Dwarfing' the Masai Mara and the
>Serengeti, it is home to rare flora and fauna, tigers, elephants and the
>Sumatran rhinoceros. It will attract millions of tourists. Most
>importantly. it will be a sign to the world that Burma, shunned because of
>its appalling human, rights record cares about endangered wildlife and the
>environment.
>
>
>ALL the Rangoon govemment needed was a few major international conservation
>organizations to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed against an
>irksome ethnic minority. It got them from the top drawer of wildlife
>protection: the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the
>Smithsonian Institution in Washington. It also claimed to have 'an open.
>channel of communication' with the Worldwide Fund for Nature International,
>whose patron is Prince Philip.
>The junta running Burma was thrilled - as we discovered when, after our
>dispiriting trek into the jungle, we made for Rangoon to see if a Minister
>would talk about the project and the role of those conservation giants.
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