"...On January 28, 1994 SLORC planes passed over the headquarters area of the New Mon State Party and sprayed a yellow powder which covered everything. The New Mon State Party says this has happened before, but the effects are not clear, no proper analysis has ever been done, and no one is quite sure what the SLORC is spraying. Now in the past 8 months in Karen areas hundreds of people have died of a disease like cholera or shigella, which has broken out in two different areas - only days after SLORC planes flew over the areas and dropped mysterious "radiosonde" electronic weather devices. [For details, see "Is the SLORC Using Bacteriological Warfare?", KHRG 15/3/94]. Nothing is certain, but more evidence is forthcoming. What is the SLORC doing? At least one of the Karen disease areas, in Thaton District, is the same area where SLORC?s notorious 99 Division has been unsuccessfully using terror for the past 2 years to drive the entire civilian population either into camps or out of the area. The disease is now helping that to happen. For the moment, the situation still presents more questions than answers, such as if there is no connection between the air drops and the disease, then why is the SLORC dropping strange devices in an area which they do not even control? If no one else can answer these questions, then the SLORC should - and it may be up to foreign governments to make them do so..." "...The UNHCR has always refused to acknowledge the existence of ethnic refugees from Burma in Thailand for its own political reasons. In the crisis the refugees are now facing, as one diplomat in Bangkok put it, "The UNHCR is going to need a lot of pushing to do anything. They?ve got a sweet deal with SLORC on the Bangladesh border, and they don?t want to mess that up by doing anything for refugees on this side." Who is the UNHCR supposed to be working for, refugees or SLORC? Their absolute refusal to do anything at all to prevent a possible mass forced repatriation and the resulting human disaster is nothing short of criminal. If Commissioner Sadako Ogata, once a UN Special Rapporteur on Burma herself, doesn?t care about the lives of 100,000 refugees from Burma in Thailand, then she should be sacked and replaced with someone who does. Unfortunately, she would have to be sacked by the UN Secretary-General, the very same Boutros Boutros-Ghali who was told to intervene in Burma by the General Assembly almost 5 months ago and hasn?t even uttered a word about Burma since. If the UN High Commissioner for Refugees isn?t answerable to refugees and the UN Secretary-General isn?t answerable to the United Nations, then their job descriptions are sorely in need of an overhaul..."