Karen rebels against male refugee r

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Karen rebels against male refugee repatriation 
12:24 a.m. Mar 26, 1998 Eastern 
MAE SOT, Thailand, March 26 (Reuters) - The leader of the Karen Nation Union
(KNU) guerrilla organisation said on Thursday he opposed a Thai plan to
repatriate male Karen refugees to Myanmar (Burma). 

``I am totally against the plan to repatriate the male refugees back to
their death. Once they return (to Myanmar) these refugees will be executed
by Myanmar soldiers,'' General Bo Mya told Reuters by telephone from the
border area. 

Bo Mya also denied Thai charges that there were KNU guerrillas hiding in
refugee camps inside Thailand. 

General Chetta Thanajaro, commander in chief of the Thai army, said Karen
men would be removed from the refugee camps along the border and
repatriated, leaving only women, children and old people in the camps. 

Deputy foreign minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra said on Thursday the army was
concerned that there were Karen fighters hidden among the refugees at the
camps. 

``The army chief was very unhappy that there were so many able-bodied Karen
men around,'' he told Reuters. 

``I think the challenge is to sort out the soldiers from the
non-combaters,'' he said. ``We feel the situation is getting out of hand --
the sites are being used by the Karen resistance.'' 

But Bo Mya welcomed Thailand's tentative plan to allow representatives of
the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR greater presence in the camps. 

``The idea of allowing UNHCR is welcome because when the UNHCR comes into
the camps they will find only unarmed civilians are living there. There are
no armed men living in the refugee camps as accused,'' Bo Mya said. 

An army officer based on the Thai-Myanmar border said a unit of Thai
paratroopers staged a pre-dawn weapons search on the Mae La refugee camp.
This is seen as first stage of separating guerrillas from civilian refugees. 

The result of the search of the camp, which houses more than 33,000 Karen
refugees, had not yet been made available, the army source said. 

``We have received the order from the army to separate the men from the
women and children and that is now at the preparatory stages,'' said Colonel
Chatchapat Yaemngamreip, commander of the border task force. 

About 100,000 Karen refugees, many of whom are supporters of the KNU, have
been living in refugee camps inside Thailand after fleeing a decade of
fighting in their homeland. 

The camps have become the prime targets of attacks by the Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army (DKBA). The DKBA, formed in 1994 by a breakaway group of the
predominately-Christian KNU, is supported by Myanmar government troops. 

The DKBA has made several attacks on refugee camps this month and has vowed
to destroy all the camps before Myanmar's Armed Forces Day on March 27.
^REUTERS@ 

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.