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Bangkok post(28/4/99)



<center><bold>Renegades take headman hostage 

</bold></center>	

	Tak-Pro-Rangoon Karen rebels yesterday freed an assistant village
headman whom they kidnapped from Mae Sot on Sunday night, but held a
village chief hostage instead after half of the ransom money was paid.

	Maung Pe Pansithong, assistant head of Ban So Khlo in tambon Mae Song,
was freed after Lator Ratamnuay, the headman, crossed into Burma to pay
half of the 200,000-baht ransom to the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

	After releasing Maung Pe, the renegades held Mr Lator and promised to
release him after another 100,000 baht was paid.

	Col Chayuti Boonparn, commander of the Fourth Infantry Regiment Task
Force, said the kidnap was an act of revenge as Maung Pe's son, Anuwat
Pansithong, had refused to pay money to Tu Li, a renegade, for the rent
of an elephant four years ago.

	Mr Anuwat had reportedly sold the elephant for 150,000 baht.

	As Mr Anuwat was not in the house when the kidnap took place, Tu Li's
band took his father across the border.

	A team of Tha Song Yang police and Border Patrol Police were put on full
alert at the opposite the renegade base.

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<bold>New pact in joint effort to control precursors 

</bold>

Bhanravee Tansubhapol

	Thailand, Laos and Burma yesterday agreed to launch by the year 2000
programmes for planning and evaluating joint projects designed to control
narcotics and precursor chemicals.

	The three countries are expected to discuss the programmes in Bangkok
later this year, a Thai official said.

	The agreement was reached at the end of a two-day meeting on cooperation
to control drug abuse.

	The programmes will mark the first joint effort among the three
neighbours. They plan to call for concrete support in terms of technical
and financial assistance from the international community, according to
the Thai official.

	In a joint declaration made yesterday, the three countries also urged
the states which are the sources, transit and destination countries of
precursor chemicals to set up effective controls against precursors used
in the illicit production of narcotic drugs.

	Laotian Minister to the President's Office Soubanh Srithirath yesterday
said Laos was increasingly attractive as a transit route for drug
trafficking.


	"Seizures indicate that traffickers now operate with a mixed portfolio
smuggling both heroin and amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) at the same
time," he said.

	Mr Soubanh said these stimulants created more problems than poppy
cultivation as they required Vientiane to spend some US$4-6 million a
year to eliminate them.

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