------------------------- BurmaNet --------------------------- "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" -------------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: 25 June 1995 Issue #190 Contents: NOTED IN PASSING: "They are human rights violators of the first order. We are going to bed with the heavyweight champions of repression.'' Representative Bill Richardson, US Congress From the air, the Bakyan mountain ridge looks astonishingly like a flashback to the Vietnam War, right down to the "Huey" helicopters circling anxiously through the mist and the foxhole-scarred firebases hacked into lush mountaintop vegetation. Yet appearances are deceiving. This is not Vietnam but Burma, renamed Myanmar by its military rulers. The driving force behind this conflict is not cold-war ideology but cold cash and hard drugs. The fortified bases in Bakyan, captured only a few weeks ago from drug warlord Khun Sa, are being shown off to foreign journalists by Burma's ruling military junta in order to boost its antidrug image. The junta, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, hopes the message will be heard in Washington. That is not an unreasonable expectation: after years of taking second place to cocaine as America's "drug of choice," heroin is staging a comeback, and more than 60% of the new supply hitting U.S. streets--purer than the 1960s version and at a fraction of the price--comes from Burma. But the U.S. is in a bind. Though it clearly has an interest in stopping Burmese heroin, Washington wants nothing to do with SLORC and its odious reputation. The junta jails political opponents, coerces Burmese peasants into unpaid labor and has kept the country's most popular political figure, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest since 1989. "Until Aung San Suu Kyi is released," says a foreign diplomat based in Burma, "there is not going to be any relationship with SLORC." Maybe not. But with the threat of a new heroin boom, some U.S. foreign-policy experts are beginning to question how long Burma can safely be ignored. When the country gained independence in 1948, its annual output of opium was 30 tons. Now satellite image--based assessments by the U.S. of opium poppy fields put this year's harvest at 2,500 metric tons. Profits are enormous, and they've helped make Khun Sa's 15,000-man Mong Tai army better equipped than Burma's troops. "The longer nothing is done to stop the warlords," says a foreign diplomat, "the stronger these groups are going to become." Indeed, SLORC's main motive for striking at Khun Sa is political. Having smashed resistance from Karen rebels earlier this year, SLORC is eager to bring other fractious ethnic minorities under its control. But Khun Sa, the self-styled leader of the Shan State as well as one of the world's major drug dealers, is an elusive target whose forces often pass through Thai territory. A few months ago, U.S. drug-enforcement experts were boasting that Khun Sa was on the run. Several of his key henchmen were arrested in Thailand and are in the process of being extradited to the U.S. Under heavy American pressure, Thailand finally sent troops to seal off key infiltration routes to and from Burma. An intercepted letter from Khun Sa to contacts outside Thailand pleading for money seemed to indicate that the drug lord was suffering severe cash-flow problems. The border turned out to be much more porous than American experts realized. Burmese intelligence reports that Khun Sa moved groups of 600 and 800 men through Thailand on chartered tourist buses in March. The routes taken were along major highways deep inside Thailand. Brigadier General Kyaw Win, the Burmese regional commander, claims that on one occasion Khun Sa's men made cash payments of $26,000 to Thai border police to guarantee free passage. The Burmese were even more outraged when one of Khun Sa's raiding parties shot up the border town of Tachilek in mid-March. Television newsmen had been tipped off to the raid and filmed it from the Thai side of the border. The Burmese assault on Khun Sa's positions in Bakyan came in late April, several weeks after the Tachilek raid. Heavy mortars and recoilless rifles had to be carried in by foot on a three-day forced march along treacherous mountain paths. In the end, most of Khun Sa's men simply melted away. Without air transport and with logistics lines stretched to the limit, Burmese troops were unable to give chase. SLORC has been arguing that if the U.S. really wants to stop Khun Sa's narcotics activities, it is going to have to provide military hardware and support. U.S. diplomats disagree. Why, they ask, have the 32 planes and helicopters supplied by the U.S. for antidrug operations back in the '80s never been used against the drug lords? And what about the deal SLORC has cut with the Wa tribal minority allowing it to continue trafficking in opium and heroin in exchange for recognition of the junta's authority? SLORC insists it is merely giving the Wa time to find cash crops to replace opium, but experts point out that the tribe's production has passed Khun Sa's. Crop substitution appears to be a sound heroin-fighting strategy, but as a foreign military attache puts it, "Opium doesn't weigh much, and the buyer comes to the farmer. If you want to get a bulky crop like potatoes to market, you need roads." The U.N. has started a modest program to help build roads and provide alternate crops that peasants can grow. Some observers in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), the capital, see a recent Japanese grant of $11 million for roads and similar projects as the opening wedge to normalization of relations with the rest of the world. But the amount of aid needed to get quick results is not likely to materialize until SLORC agrees to release Aung San Suu Kyi. With both sides at an impasse on that issue, the one safe prediction is that heroin will continue flowing out of Burma. KRC: STATEMENT ON THE PRESENT SITUATION AND THE QUESTION OF REPATRIATION June 20, 1995 STATEMENT OF THE KAREN REFUGEE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT SITUATION WITH REGARD TO THE KAREN REFUGEE PROBLEM AND THE QUESTION OF REPATRIATION In light of the present situation and the views expressed by certain quarters on possible repatriation of the Karen refugees, the Karen Refugee Committee, is obliged to express its views on the situation with regards to the Karen Refugee problem and define its stand on the question of repatriation. The Committee begs to refer briefly to the situation in 1984 when through the permission of the Royal Thai Government and the kind auspices of the Coordinating Committee for services to Displaced persons in Thailand (CCSDPT), a simple but effective relief operation began with the support of a small group of NGOs to provide for the need of some 10,000 Karen who fled into Thailand because of heavy fighting that broke out then along the Moei stretch of the Thai-Burma border. The Karen Refugee Committee has a small role since then in this relief operation with a system that ensured that basic needs were met but self reliance and self-respect maintained. The number of refugees grew steadily during the past ten years or more and the total numbers of refugees in the various Karen refugee camps in Thailand is 69,348 as of May 1995. The system of providing assistance has been maintained and expanded proportionate to the need. Review of the current situation ------------------------------- Following the series of attacks on Karen refugees camps in Tak and Mae Hong Son provinces during the summer of 1995 by armed intruders directed and actively supported by the SLORC, the Karen situation has come under review, especially the question of how to provide security for the refugees. The Thai authorities have now taken a new measure to consolidate the refugee camps in larger locations which can more easily be made secure. The Karen Refugee Committee is of the same opinion that security has become a very urgent issue and thus it is cooperating with the Thai authorities in resettling the refugees in larger and more controlled camps where security can be better and more effectively provided. The Committee is however greatly concerned about the question of repatriation as SLORC has made it known that it believes that the refugees should be returned to Burma and the question is being asked in Thailand as to how long the refugees should stay on in the camps before they return to Burma. The situation is now more complicated because of the internal conflict of the Karens and some refugees have returned to Burma. The Karen Refugee Committee has made it very clear to everyone in the camps that they are free to choose between going or staying. It has cautioned them however to be more careful in making decisions. Cause of the refugees problems ------------------------------ The Karen Refugee Committee wishes to state clearly its belief that it is in the best interest of the refugees that they should ultimately return to Burma. The Committee has never attempted to prevent refugees from returning to Burma but it believes that the return must be voluntary and it must be to a situation of safety. This raises the question of how the safety of returning refugees can be assured. The Committee has stated on various occasions that fighting in Burma is not the only reason why refugees leave their homes and flee into Thailand. In fact, lack of respect for human rights and activities associated with it had caused tens of thousands of civilians from even outside the war zones to flee from the their country. They had suffered incidental as well as systematic persecutions under the country's military rulers. This is shown by the fact that refugees continue to stream into Thailand even during periods of little or no actual fighting. People free from their homes and villages in Burma for many others apart from actual fighting. Some of the reasons most commonly attributed to the cause of their flight into Thailand for refuge are: -Persecution, brutality and intimidations; -Consistent demand for so-called voluntary labour and forced labour; -Extortion of money and property; -Lack of respect for the lives and property of the civilian populations; -Lack of respect for the fundamental rights and privileges of individual or groups; -Forced relocation. The Karen Refugee Committee believes that the Karen refugees have fled from systematic persecution and they qualify as refugees with the rights of refugees as recognised by the international community. Consequently, safe voluntary repatriation of the refugees to Burma can be achieved only with the ending of this systemic persecution. In it recent consideration in March, 1995, of the question of human rights abuses in Burma, the UN Commission on Human Rights, once again expressed its grave concern at the violation of human rights in 'Myanmar' which remains extremely serious, in particular the practice of torture, summary and arbitrary executions, forced labour, including forced portering for the military, abuse of women, politically motivated arrests and detention, forced displacement of the population, the existence of important restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms including the freedom of expression and association, and the imposition of oppressive measures directed, in particular, at ethnic and religious minority groups. Conditions for safe, voluntary repatriation ------------------------------------------- Given this view of the current situation in Burma, the Karen Refugee Committee would therefore like to propose the conditions which should be met in order that the safe, voluntary return of Karen refugees to Burma can be achieved. 1. The refugees must have access to reliable information about the situation inside those areas of Burma from which they came and, or to which they would return. 2. There must be effective protection and support for the refugees after they have returned to Burma. 3. There must be a real possibility of the refugees returning safely to their place of choice with access to assistance through which to reconstruct their sheltered communities. 4. There must be a continuing access to refuge in Thailand if they are subject to attack or further persecution. Proposal of the Karen Refugee Committee --------------------------------------- The Karen Refugee Committee therefore proposes that in order to allow for the safe voluntary return of Karen refugees to Burma, the following steps should be taken. 1. An appropriate independent body must be designated or created with the possibility of systematically monitor the situation inside those areas of Burma from which the refugees came and to which they would return and systematically provide to the refugees the information obtained. 2. When it becomes clear that on the basis of such information there are refugees clearly willing to return to Burma, there should be a careful, stage by stage process of moving willing refugees to temporary camps inside Burma, where they can be provided with assistance and protection as a means of building confidence. For this to be achieved, there should be a formal guarantee from SLORC that the refugees will not be attacked or harassed, there should be provision of humanitarian support from across the border similar to that provided to the refugee camps in Thailand, and there should be continuing monitoring of their situation by the independent body. There should also be a clearly expressed willingness by the Thai authorities to allow the refugees access to refuge in Thailand should they be attacked or harassed. 3. When it becomes clear that SLORC is willing to cooperate and the refugees have confident to return further inside Burma, there should be a process of identifying specific areas from which refugees have fled and to which they are willing to return and which are considered safe by the independent monitoring body. Provision should then be made to resettle the refugees in these areas with continuing guarantees of food supplies until they can become self-sufficient as well as the support necessary for rebuilding their farms and villages. Provision should be made for their access to basic health and educational services. Again, there must be provision for monitoring the well-being of the these refugee area by the independent monitoring body and to provide assistance to such refugees communities from across the border in Thailand until such time as it can be shown that such assistance can be provided satisfactorily from inside Burma. The Karen Refugee Committee sees monitoring inside Burma as the key to establishing whether SLORC is sincere regarding its stated desire for the refugees to return to Burma. For its part the Karen Refugee Committee would welcome the presence of an appropriate independent monitoring body in the camps in Thailand with the responsibility of informing the refugees concerning the situation inside Burma and establishing which refugees are willing to return. In Closing, the Karen Refugee Committee humbly expresses its sincere gratitude to the Thai authorities and to the people of Kingdom of Thailand for their kindness in granting refuge to the Karens and other displaced people from Burma who are in trouble and need. The Committee is fully aware of the fact that this kindness and understanding is vital for the survival and welfare of these people during their time of refuge in Thailand. This noble gesture of goodwill is sincerely appreciated and will always be remembered by the Karens of Burma. The Committee also expresses its gratitude to the individuals and agencies for their help and support in many ways through these long years to keep the relief operation from coming to a halt. The commitment of all those concerned in this mission of mercy is also appreciated. NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES IN AUSTRALIA REFUGEE AND MIGRANT SERVICES: NCCA CALLS FOR GOVERNMENT ACTION ON THAI-BURMA BORDER CRISIS MAY/JUNE 1995 [Following report is from National Council of Churches in Australia Refugee and Migrant Services May/June 1995. This newsletter is available from the NCCA National office, Jodie Trimble, Administration/Information, Private BAg 199, QVB Post Office, Sydney 2000. Tel (02) 299 2215, Fax (02) 262 4514. I post this without their knowledge, but sure the RMS wouldn't mind. U Ne Oo] ------------------------------------------------------------ Following recent attacks by SLORC and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army on Burmese refugee camps inside Thailand, the National Council of Churches in Australia has called on the Australian Government to take immediate steps to pressure the Thai authorities to prevent any further incursions and ensure the protection and security of the refugees concerned. Bands of up to 200 Junta and rebel Karen fighters were attacking the camps and refugee sources report that camp inhabitants were being forced to flee into nearby jungles to escape. Presently there are 77,107 official ethnic minority refugees from Burma in 20 refugee camps inside Thailand. Each camp has a population of between 4,000 and 5,000 people many having fled Burmese Army persecution in December, 1984. The Coordinator of the National Council of Churches' Refugee and Migrant Services, Hermine Partamian, said, "The NCCA is gravely concerned that the present crisis is disrupting delivery of vital assistance by partners and other non-government organisations." Mrs Partamian also warns that the possibility of the Thai military pushing refugees back into Burma could lead to genocide. These anxieties were not allayed by comments attributed to Thai military General Wimol Wongwanich in the April 30 edition of the Bangkok Post. According to the report, General Wimol said,"If we were not afraid of being criticised by the world community on humanitarian grounds and if it would not give the country problems, then this army chief would take only one week to push them all out, regardless of how many hunderds of thousands of Karen were now in the country." "I used to do this with over 40,000 Cambodian refugees. If we were able to do the same with Karens, I would finish the task in just one week." ******************* Burma Perspectives ******************* BURMA AT A GLANCE (Burma named Mynamar by SLORC government.) POLITICS: State Law and Order Restoration Council(SLORC) military dictatorship. Democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi (National League for Democracy Party) under house arrest since 1990. HUMAN RIGHTS: Execution, torture, detention without trial, forced labour on development projects, army porters and human minesweepers. 40,000 women trafficked into sex industries in neighbouring countries. ECONOMY: GNP per capita US$150 ($10 black market rate). EXPORTS: Fish forest products, base metals, ores. Burma now produces more heroin than any other country. IMPORTS: Most are smuggled in and sold on the black market. Thailand and China are major trading partners. SLORC encourages foreign investment through state-based joint ventures managed by its Department of Defence and would like to secure foreign aid for priorities assisting the maintenance of SLORC control. POPULATION: 44 million CULTURE: Most Burmans are Theravada Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim minorities. ETHNIC GROUPS: Chinese, Indians, Karens, Shan, Chins, Kachins, Mons, Arakanese and Karenni. REFUGEES: 250,000 fled to Bangladesh (5,000 repatriated to Burma weekly). 93,600 in Thailand, 15,000 in China, 6,000 in India. Half million people displaced within Burma. (Source: Burma NGO forum) ********** Burma Background ---------------- Civil war has plagued Burma since 1948. At any one time there have been up to twenty different groups fighting for increased autonomy form the burmese military government. Many of these are ethnic groups such as the Karen and Mon who live in mountainous regions on the border of Burma and Thailand. In 1962 the Burmese military over threw the democratically elected government and has remained in control ever since. Under military misrule what was once most prosperous country in Asia has plunged into poverty and stagnation, the United Nations recognising it as one of the world's "Least Developed Countries" in 1987. Burma has one of the most repressive state security systems in the world. In 1988 there were nationwide pro-democracy uprisings against the military and it looked as if their twenty six years of mismanagement and oppression was about to end. However the military brutally suppressed the uprisings and declared a new junta called the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Following the military crackdown approximately 10,000 mostly young, democracy activists fled to the Thai/Burma border where they joined ethnic independence groups in the jungle. Some joined a huge refugee population in Thailand of 70,000 Karen and Mon families who had fled the Burmese military's annual offensives. Despite an election in 1990 where the National League for Democracy Party of opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won 82% of the people's vote, the SLORC continues to hole an iron grip. It has discarded its socialist rhetoric for the free market allowing foreign business to flow in benefiting the army officers, their families and friends who have had three decades to entrench themselves in the positions of economic dominance. The picture for ethic and democratic opponents of the Junta remains bleak. In January 1995 the SLORC broke a two-year-old ceasefire with one of the main ethnic opposition groups, the Karen, storming the opposition headquarters of Manerplaw. Thousands of villagers fled tthe violence, many with horrific tales of abuse, being used as human mine sweepers and bearing scars of forced labour. The total number of refugees on the border soared to over 90,000 people. The majority of these people are seeking refuge in temporary shelters and are relying on NGOs for the provision of food and basic medicines. As these people are not recognised as refugees by the Thai government, they are living with the constant fear of being pushed back across the border into SLORC controlled areas. Conditions along the border have become much more difficult with the latest influx of refugees. In crowded camp conditions, disease can easily spread and there are only limited medical supplies. The All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) is also based in border camps. ABSDF comprises of young, dissident students who fled from Burma in 1988 with the aim of resisting the Burmese military government. When the SLORC launched the recent attack on Manerplaw, ABSDF headquarters was also attacked and the student troops were forced to withdraw with no alternative but to relocate on the Thai side of the border. As a result of the SLORC's brutality and inability to keep their own self-declared ceasefire, thousands of people have geen forced to leave their homes and are now living with fear and uncertainty for their future. they are now relying on the aid agencies operating at the border but their safety is ultimately dependent upon the cooperation and goodwill of the Thai Government. As the Thai Government is not signatoru to the United Nations Convention of Protocol ensuring protection to refugees, the Burmese are considered "illegals". In a recent report in the Bangkok Post, the ABSDF and the opposition government to SLORC, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) expressed concern for the safety of refugees on the Thai/Burma border following an incident in late February when Burmese troops attacked Karen refugee on Thai territory, leaving two Karen women (one of whom was pregnant) and a Thai driver dead. Ten other people were seriously wounded including four childern. The NCGUB urged the Thai government to provide more security for the refugees "... given the ease with which the armed SLORC troops can enter refugee camps in thailand...". It appears that refugees are more than justified in their fears for their security. In a response to the situation, a programme was established by the Australian Government for the resettlement of displaced Burmese in Thailand who are subject to substantial discrimination in Burma. For the 1993/4 period, 50 places were made available and this number has been increased to 100 for the 1994/5 period. Burma has had a low media profile and only now the Australian public is aware of the Burmese refugee crisis. The participation of church groups in needed to bring awareness of the human rights violations, to pressure the Australian government to address the situation in Burma and to be involved in the resettlement of reufgees admitted to Australia under the Special Assistance Category (SAC). Your community can assist by direct sponsorship or by contributing funds to a loans schemen established by the National Council of Churches. For further information please contact the RMS representative in your state - see back page for details. Teresa O'Shannassy and Marc Purcell Burma Support Group, Melbourne. ******************* Hidden Behind the Human WAll ---------------------------- The following report is written by James Isbister, the Refugee and Migrant Services' Policy/Education officer. He recently visited the Thai-Burma border on behalf of the National Council of Churches to monitor aid programs providing basic needs to refuges in camps along the border. My recent visit to the Thai-Burma border followed the well publicised attacks on the refugee camps along the border by the rebel Karen group the DKBO (Democratic Karen Buddhist Organization). The DKBO broke away from the main Karen army, the KNU (Karen National Union), at the end of last year and have now been shown to have close ties to SLORC. SLORC is believed to be responsible for financing and arming the DKBO, and encouraging them to attack the KNU in Burma and refugee camps along the border. SLORC forged this split within the Karen movement so the international community and the Burmese people would see the fighting along the border as factional infighting amongst the ethnic Karen. However, since the end of the Second World War various Burmese regimes have been trying to crush the many ethnic groups in Western Burma who have been struggling for greater self determination. These recent incursions and attacks by the DKBO on the refugee camps inside Thailand, follow the heavy attacks by the DKBO and SLORC on the KNU strongholds in Mannerplaw and Kawmoora last December and February. These attacks forced a further ten thousand refugees to flee into Thailand for protection. Last month's DKBO attacks on refugee camps involved the kidnapping and killing of many Buddhist and christian religious leaders. A number of the camps were either partially or completely burnt down, rice stores for the rainy season and hundreds of houses were destroyed. SLORC AND THE DKBO'S RATIONALE IS TO TRY AND FORCE THESE REFUGEES BACK INTO BURMA THUS OVERCOMING THE BURMESE JUNTA'S EMBARRASSING POLITICAL SITUATION WHERE THE BORDER SITUATION IS A CONTINUAL REMINDER TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF THE HORRENDOUS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES OCCURRING INSIDE BURMA. While I was at the Thai-Burma border thousands of refugees were being forced to move up to 50km to relocate their camps after losing everything in the attacks. Along the road I saw thousands of refugees carrying their rice provisions for the next few weeks and necessary building materials such as bamboo and thatch. In expressing to one women my horror of their present situation she shocked me in responding "we are used to this, in Burma we often have our villages attacked and burnt by SLORC". The Burmese military often enters camps and forces many fo the boy and men to act as porters for them, carrying their munitions and proviwions. It is also common for the military to enter and destroy villages they feel could be sympathising with ethnic or other dissident groups in the area. Hearing stories from the refugees and camp leaders and seeing the evidence of human rights abuse by the Burmese military, only further highlighted to me the immediate need for change to occur within Burma. However desperate the situation on the border is , however urgent the need to provide security, shelter and essential foods, the larger issue of the reason behind the movement of refugees and the military's human rights abuses only kilometres inside Burma must be the ongoing focus of the international communities work. This most recent refugee crises must not be left, as too often happens due to the media portrayal, as another refugee crisis where little more can be done than sending money and supporting those organisations presently assisting on the bord4er. The refugees themselves are asking the international community to look behind their human wall stretching along the border. There is evidence enough from this tragedy to emphasise to us the urgency in finding a solution to the oppressive situation inside burma today. There is no question that we must continue to assist and fund agencies working on the border, nevertheless the medium to long term focus and action for Australian churches and communities is to work for a change in the political situation within Burma. With the recent arrival in Australia of Burmese students involved in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising it is a real opportunity for many church and community groups to work with Burmese effected by the regime on campaign calling for democracy in Burma. There needs to be more lobbying of the Australian Government and other international organisations, such the UN to pressure SLORC to adhere to the results of the democratic elections in 1991. /END