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BurmaNet News: October 19



************************** BurmaNet ************************** 
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
************************************************************** 
BurmaNet News: Wednesday, October 19, 1994
Issue #36

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

            We asked the girls what the police did.  They said the police   
            told them to sit down near them.  The men fed the girl with     
            his spoon, the same one that he used, and then he made the      
            girl feed him.  Afterwards, they asked the girls to drink with  
            them and after that, they told them to dance for them.... 

                            Nyi Nyi Myint, a 14 year old Burmese refugee    
                            describing conditions in Thailand's             
                            Immigration Detention Center. 

************************************************************** 
Contents:

1 BURMANET: TRIAL OF TUN LWIN SET TO RESUME TOMORROW
2 BKK POST: PRIESTLY PEACEMAKER PLANS ANOTHER MISSION TO BURMA 
3 NATION: JAPAN ASKS BURMA TO INSTALL CIVILIAN GOVT
4 KHRG: INTERVIEW WITH AN IDC DEPORTEE

************************************************************** 
BURMANET: TRIAL OF TUN LWIN SET TO RESUME TOMORROW
19 October 1994

The trial of Tun Lwin, a Burmese student in the "Safe Area" who was charged
with child molesting is set to resume tomorrow.  Tun Lwin has been held in
jail since the alleged incident some four months ago.  The case has
political overtones because the accusation was levelled immediately after
students in the camp made charges of sexual harassment against Thai
soldiers guarding the camp.  Several students were beaten by people living
near the camp before tensions between students and locals eased.

One observer believes that Tun Lwin is likely to be convicted in the case
in large part because the alleged victim and another girl who claims to
have witnessed the original incident gave convincing testimony in earlier
sessions of the trial.

************************************************************** 
BKK POST: PRIESTLY PEACEMAKER PLANS ANOTHER MISSION TO BURMA 
19 Oct 1994

IN  a world of roving peace-brokers that includes such
heavyweights as former United States president Jimmy
Carter, a quiet Burmese Buddhist monk would seem to lack
the clout for the job. But in a few weeks, 65 year-old Dr
Rewatta Dhamma will continue his attempt to break the
political stalemate in Burma. During U Rewata's last
visit to Burma, he emerged as the unlikely go-between in
bringing together the military junta, which has ruled the
country with an iron fist since a bloody 1988 crackdown,
and Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the pro-democracy
movement who was been under house arrest since 1989.

When highlights of the late September meeting between
Suu Kyi and Gen Khin Nyunt and Than Shwe were broadcast
on the country's evening new, viewers were stunned. Few
details of the meeting have been released but U Rewata's
role in brining it about has been widely acknowledged.
"He's been a symbol of what everyone wants to achieve
through reconciliation. He's a very humble, sincere
Buddhist, and he carries total credibility for that
reason," a friend of Suu Kyi told Time magazine.

The television pictures and an invitation from the
country's rulers for U Rewata to make a return visit in
November, have renewed hopes that a deal can be reached
between the army and its toughest critic -Nobel Peace
Prize winner Suu Kyi, landslide winner of the 1990
democratic election. U Rewata is not alone in wishing to
see Burma come out of its political isolation. He was
sought out by the peace-brokers who work behind the
scenes at the United Nations, including US State
Department officials.

U Rewata has run a spiritual centre in Britain for
the last 20 years, but new the recently-deceased
president of Burma, Dr Maung Maung; was a friend of
deposed premier U Nu, a fellow Buddhist scholar; and had
known Suu Kyi since she was 11 years old, when her mother
was the Burmese ambassador in India. He met Suu kyi again
at Oxford University in 1976. But U Rewata's selection as
a go-between was more than just a case of knowing the
right people. He is nonpartisan and has no ambition for
high political office.

An academic with a doctorate from the Benares Hindu
University in Varanasi in India, he is an author and
editor of many books and Buddhist tenets in Hindi, Pali
and English. He also has experience of international
diplomacy. He was envoy for then-Indian prime minister
Indira Gandhi in peace talks with China in 1974, and
spoke at the UN in 1989, 1990 and 1991. As leader of the
international Buddhist Peace Mission, he visited Cambodia
in 1989 and Sir Lanka in 1990. U Rewata did not have to
wait in the corridors of power to see the leader of
Burmese's military junta. Rather, they came to him. The
first visitor was Gen Khin Nyunt, chief of the
intelligence and a member of ruling (SLORC). U Rewata
quickly established a consensus with the general on what
was good for Burma.

They agreed that their wish was to the country
prosper economically and educationally within A  , says
U Rewata. And they agreed, he adds, that the teaching and
practice of Buddhism must become the heart of daily life
in the country instead of being largely relegated to a
cultural calendar of rituals. These religious values are
essential guidelines for the conduct of political life of
the country, and leaders are responsible for applying the
religion's tenets of loving kindness and compassion, U
Rewata told Khin Nyunt. There is naturally some cynicism
about the likelihood of the introduction of "loving
kindness and compassion" in a country where the most
popular person has been under house arrest for more than
five years, free elections have been disregarded by the
military rulers, and human rights abuses are widely
reported.

U Rewata says Burma's isolation is born of its
misconception and even un-awareness of the evolution of
the ideals of democracy in the rest of the world. He says
there is a nation that if populist democracy replaced the
"father-knows-best" paternalism of military rulers,
anarchy and chaos would ensue. In subsequent meetings
with the ruling officers, u Rewata says, they
acknowledged their respect for Suu Kyi and for her
father, independence leader Aung San, founder of the
Burmese army. They promised to meet her , and the world
watched when they did so.

U Rewata also spent three hours with Suu Kyi in the
home in which she has been locked in since 1989. He said
Suu Kyi showed little concern for herself but was worried
for the safety and wellbeing  of political  prisoners. It
is unclear whether Suu Kyi will be allowed to return to
politic. U Rewata says she spoke on Nelson Mandela's
cohabitation with the White South African establishment
which had practised apartheid so mercilessly not so long
ago, and considered it a possible example for her, her
party and the military. Although the South African model
may by very distant for Burma, U Rewata is intent on
closing the gap a little bit more on his next diplomatic
mission. T.R Kini is London correspondent of the National
Herald of New Delhi. 

************************************************************** 
NATION: JAPAN ASKS BURMA TO INSTALL CIVILIAN GOVT
October 19

TOKYO- Foreign minister Yohei Kono urged Burmese Foreign
Minister Ohn Gyaw on Monday to resolve the problem over
releasing democracy movement leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
transfer the current military junta to a civilian
government. On the release of Suu Kyi, Kono said it is a
symbolic issue and Western countries are closely watch-
ing. Kono also said if her treatment produces  visible 
improvements, they would work possively for the country,
officials said. Ohn Gyaw referred to a meeting between
Suu Kyi and two top officials of the military junta on
Sep 20, and was quoted as telling Kono the government
will continue talks with her, adding the meeting was
conducted in a congenial atmosphere. She met senior Gen
Than Shwe  and Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, secretary of the State
Law and Order Restoration Council, at a Defence Ministry
guesthouse in Rangoon. The junta seized power after
suppressing pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and
placed Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989 for allegedly
endangering public security. 


************************************************************** 
KHRG: INTERVIEW WITH AN IDC DEPORTEE
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
September 27, 1994     /     KHRG #94-28


Thailand's Immigration Detention Centres (IDC's) have become 
internationally notorious for squalid conditions and robbery, rape, and
beatings by Thai police guards.  They are built like high-security prisons:
concrete cells, heavy bars, and armed guards.  But the people in these
cells are not dangerous criminals - they are mostly economic and political
refugees from neighbouring countries and, as the following account shows,
young children.  This is the true underbelly of Thailand's "constructive
engagement" policy with SLORC.  Any refugee at any age who is caught
outside of a refugee camp can end up here, whether a Karen farmer who fled
being taken as a SLORC porter, a pro-democracy Burmese student who fled to
Thailand after the 1988 massacres, a Shan girl who was lured into Thailand
by a brothel procurer's promise of a good job only to end up a brothel
slave, or a labourer who fled Burma's ruined economy seeking a better
chance in Thailand's "economic miracle".  Thai police put all such people
in IDC cells until they can be deported back into the hands of SLORC.  If
SLORC gets them, they are usually put in another cell until they either pay
a heavy bribe or are sent to be frontline porters and human minesweepers
for the military. 

Fortunately, the Thais generally used to take the deportees to within a
kilometre or two of the border and drop them there, which made it possible
for many to sneak back into Thailand to be arrested again later.  However,
now Thailand has clamped down on refugees, and they have recently been
deporting hundreds of IDC inmates every week to the remote border site of
Halockhani, where they have been in the process of forcibly repatriating
several thousand Mon refugees (see other related reports).  They have also
discussed with SLORC the possibility of handing all such people directly to
SLORC military officials at places like Three Pagodas Pass and Myawaddy. 
If this happens, it is horrifying to think of what SLORC will do with these
people.  Even now, when they arrive in Halockhani many of them are
extremely thin, weak, and suffering severe mental and emotional trauma from
their treatment by the Thai authorities.  If this is the effect of the IDC
on hardened adults, imagine its effect on children of 13, or 10, or 8 years
of age.  The 14-year-old girl who gave the following testimony speaks
surprisingly maturely for her age, but never forget that underneath it all
she is still 14 years old.  She was interviewed in early August as she was
being deported through Halockhani. 

She had already fled back to the Thai side of the border together with the
Mon refugees who had sheltered her, when the Burmese Army attacked their
camp on July 21.  Since then the Mon refugees have been forcibly starved
back across the border into SLORC territory once again by the Thai Army,
and she has probably been driven across together with them.  If not, she
may be back in Bangkok, in another IDC cell.

Her name has been changed to protect her.  Please use this report in any
way which may help stop the Thais from treating human beings this way, or
which may help stop the SLORC from causing them to flee their own country
in the first place.
___________________________________________________________________________
_ 
NAME:    Nyi Nyi Myint   SEX: F   AGE: 14           Burman/Indian Muslim
ADDRESS: Pa'an Town (capital of Karen State)
FAMILY:  12 brothers and sisters, mother dead, father still (she hopes)
alive 

"My parents had a small shop in the market in Pa'an.  Then my mother died,
and my father was alone to take care of us.  So I left more than 5 years
ago [no more than 9 years old] with some of my brothers and sisters, and
our father stayed in Burma.  My eldest sister went to Thailand first.  Once
she was okay there, she came back to take me and 2 other brothers and
sisters with her to live in Thailand.  We went by truck from Pa'an to
Kawkareik, then to Mae Sot [in Thailand] and from Mae Sot to Bangkok, step
by step.  We went in a group - in our group there were 21 people.  To get
to Bangkok, we had to pay 200,000 Kyat for the whole group [in bribes].

In Bangkok I stayed in my sister's house.  My sister had a small stand
selling fruits, and I had to take care of the children in her house. 
Eleven people from our group of 21 stayed in her house, and the other 10
people stayed in another house.  Her house only had 2 rooms.  My other
brother and sister were working with cement on a building site.  I learned
to speak just a little bit of Thai, but I couldn't go to school.

A bit more than one year ago I was arrested for the first time. I was
arrested together with a boy from my family.  He was 8 years old.  They put
us in jail [IDC], and I was in jail for 2 or 3 months.  In the evenings, a
policeman came to the cell to ask some women to go with him.  The women
didn't want to go, but the policeman said, "You have to go.  We will give
you some money and we will feed you."  After that, even when the women
didn't want to go he forced them.  He grabbed their hands and took them
with him.  The police took 5 or 6 girls each time.  Then in the morning,
they sent the girls back to the cell.  We asked the girls what the police
did.  They said the police told them to sit down near them.  The men fed
the girl with his spoon, the same one that he used, and then he made the
girl feed him.  Afterwards, they asked the girls to drink with them and
after that, they told them to dance for them.  [Interviewer's Question:
What if the girls refused?]  How could they refuse to do what the police
ordered them to do?!!  They gave the girls some money afterwards.  As for
the rest of us, they wouldn't give us anything even if we begged them. 
[Note: it is quite clear that the girls she talks about were raped before
being sent back in the morning, but Nyi Nyi Myint is very young and clearly
didn't want to talk about that.]  Once when the police called 5 or 6 girls
from the jail they called me too, but I told them I didn't want to go.  The
policeman then said that he would feed me and give me some money, but I
told him I had already eaten.  He said "And was it enough for you?".  I
said "Yes, it was enough", and then he didn't take me.

After 2 or 3 months they were deporting people to Three Pagodas Pass [a
SLORC army post just across the border north of Sangkhlaburi, which is in
Thailand's Kanchanaburi province].  At the IDC jail in Bangkok, they asked
us for 100 Baht each for transport.  Then when we got to Kanchanaburi they
asked us for 50 Baht to sleep there [there is another IDC jail in
Kanchanaburi], and they also asked us for 100 Baht more again.  I only had
50 Baht so I couldn't pay, but a man paid for me.  After that, they took us
by truck to Three Pagodas Pass, and when we got there some people from a
foreign organization gave us some rice.  Then I stayed for 2 months in a
village between Three Pagodas Pass and Sangkhlaburi [in those days, the
deportation trucks usually just unloaded the deportees a short distance
before reaching the border itself, and it was easy for them to double back
into Thailand].  While I was there I did some of the washing, cooking and
helping to take care of the person who was looking after me.  My elder
sister's husband knew I was there, and after 2 months he came and took me
back to Bangkok.

When I got back to Bangkok I did the same as before, just stayed in my
sister's house and looked after the children.  Then I was arrested again. 
I went out with my nephew to buy some water.  While he was buying it, I sat
down outside and the Thai police caught me in the street.  They took me to
the IDC office.  When I got to the lockup a Thai policeman was whipping
some women with a wire cable and a belt because they were drug addicts and
prostitutes, and they had been taking drugs.  This time they kept me in the
jail for 20 days.  I met some of my cousins who arrived in the jail 7 days
after me - they are a family with 4 children.  Now we've met again here at
Halockhani.  This time in the jail the police had 10 girls who they took
every time, 9 Thais, or maybe they were Shans, and one Burmese girl. 
[Shans are racially closely related to Thais.]  The police called them at
about 6 p.m. and sent them back at 5 a.m.  They did the same to them as to
the other girls.  They give them food and they have to drink, sometimes
alcohol and sometimes other things.  Sometimes the police give them money. 
Those girls were already in the jail when I arrived, and now they're still
there.  The police are using them, and I think that's why they don't want
to release them yet.

The police called me too, but I didn't go.  There were 2 or 3 men who were
guarding us, standing by the door.  They were black men.  [The word used
means racially black African - these men may be African IDC
prisoner/warders.]  They said to me, "Don't go with those other girls.  If
you go you'll get troubles."  They also said, "If the Thai police give you
any food, don't eat it.  You can get problems."  The black men guards said
that.  I had 4 or 5 girl friends in the IDC, some girls a little older than
me and some younger than me.  Sometimes the police gave them some extra
food to try to get them to go with them, but most of the time when the Thai
police fed them they wouldn't eat it.  They said they already had enough
food with their rice.

In the IDC there were men who were beaten up, but not the women.  The men
were beaten up because they talked to the women, or sometimes because they
had lost their papers or because they couldn't pay money to be transported. 
There were 2 full rooms of women and 3 full rooms of men.  I don't know how
many were in each room because I never went to the other rooms.  In our
room there were about 90 people.  For one room, there was only one latrine
and one place to shower, so it was very difficult.  We had to take our
baths during the night.  The place was so narrow that it was difficult to
sleep.  We had to sleep on the floor with no mat or anything.  There were
many children who arrived together with their parents.  The small children
slept with their mothers. 
In the IDC there were people from Burma, Laos, China, Cambodia and other
countries, and I think even from Thailand.  There were drug addicts there. 
We only got boiled rice to eat without anything else, no salt and no
spices.

After 20 days I was deported.  This time I didn't have to pay for transport
from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, but from Kanchanaburi I had to pay.  I only
had 50 Baht.  I gave them 50 Baht and I had to stay 2 weeks longer in
Kanchanaburi IDC.  Then they sent me here.  I arrived here about 50 days
ago, nearly 2 months.  First I stayed with a family in Halockhani camp. 
When the Burmese troops attacked we just followed the other people, and
when we got here I had to stay in this IDC shelter [in "New Halockhani" on
the Thai side of the border, many of the IDC deportees were staying all
together in one narrow bamboo and plastic sheet shelter]. Between 20 and 30
people sleep in here, men and women all together. 
I stay beside my relative's family. I want to go back to Burma and stay
with my father.  I haven't heard from him since I left there.  I don't know
if my sister is still in Bangkok or not.  My relatives here want to go back
to Thailand, so I think I will try to go back to Bangkok with them and then
go back to Burma through Mae Sot.  [She will probably find that this is now
impossible because of the Thai clampdown on refugees.]


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ABBREVIATIONS USED BY BURMANET:

 AP: ASSOCIATED PRESS
 AFP: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
 AW: ASIAWEEK
 AWSJ: ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL
 Bt.: THAI BAHT; 25 Bt.=US$1 (APPROX)
 BBC: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
 BI: BURMA ISSUES
 BIG: BURMA INFORMATION GROUP
 BKK POST: THE BANGKOK POST
 BRC-CM: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-CHIANG MAI
 BRC-J: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-JAPAN
 CPPSM: C'TTEE FOR THE PUBLICITY OF THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE IN MONLAND  
 FEER: FAR EAST ECONOMIC REVIEW
 KHRG: KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
 NATION: THE NATION (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK)
 S.C.B.:SOC.CULTURE.BURMA NEWSGROUP
 S.C.T.:SOC.CULTURE.THAI NEWSGROUP
 SEASIA-L: S.E.ASIA BITNET MAILING LIST
 XNA: XINHUA NEWS AGENCY 

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