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Bangkok Post (1,2) &The Nation(3) 2



Subject: Bangkok Post (1,2) &The Nation(3) 25-8-99

Karen moved  ( Bangkok post)
Tak-A first batch of 200 Karen refugees was moved from a camp in Mae Sot to a
shelter in Phop Phra district on Monday.
The Karen are among 8,000 to be moved for their own safety from Huay Kalok
to a
deteriorating forest reserve at Ban Um Piam-Mai in a 40-day operation
involving
20 trucks.
More than 100 Thai officials and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
staff are engaged in the operation supervised by a Fourth Infantry Regiment
task force.
The army proposal to move refugees at least 10km from the border and the
threat
of renegade attack was supported by the National Security Council, the
Interior
Ministry, the UN refugee agency and NGOs.
--------------------------------------------------
Thailand, Burma to join fight  (Bangkok post)

Thalland and Burma agreed yesterday to strengthen border controls and step up
joint anti-narcotics efforts, four days after a Thai dru g
fighter was killed in an ambush on the border. 
Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan and his Burmese counterpart, Win Aung said
after a meeting that increasing border security was needed to curtail drug
smuggling and human trafficking. 
A Thai officer was killed and another went missing on Friday after an
ambush by
drug traffickers along the border. 
That followed the arrest by Thai officials of two members of an ethnic rebel
group in Burma.          
The mountainous border lies in the notorious Golden Triangle, where huge poppy
plantations are cultivated by drug traffickers and guerrilla groups for the
illegal production of opium and heroin. 
Thai officials have accused the Burmese military of collusion with rebel
groups
in the drug trade- a charge vigorously denied by Rangoon. 
Mr Surin yesterday said cross-border trading between the two countries
amounted
to US$267.9 million (about 912 million baht) during the first half of 1999, a
27% increase over the same period last year. 
The two also said Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai would soon visit Burma. 
Tensions are high in Burma as the ruling State Peace and Development Council
has, cracked down on opppsition groups in fear of an uprising on Sept 9, or
9-9-99. 
At least 36 people have been arrested for alleged involvement in an uprising,
which opponents in numerology obsessed Burma hope will succeed, where a so
called 8-8-88 rebellion failed 11 years ago. 

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Suu Kyi supports rebel campaign for uprising  (The Nation )

RANGOON - Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has accused the ruling
junta of using a clampdown on a new protest campaign as a pretext to
tighten its
grip over the country, 
But she has refused to disown dissidents campaigning for a mass uprising on
Sept 9. 'I think they are using it,as an excuse for cracking down," she
said in
an interview late on Monday. 'The authorites  should not try to find victims
for what will arise out of their shortcoming" she
added,                            . i"' 
The junta has lashed out at dosidents for waging a campaign of
"disinforrnation" to create unrest on Sept 9,or 9.9. 99. The symbolic date has
led  to be known as the Four Nines Movenient. 
Aung San Suu Kyi said her National League for Democracy (NLD) had not
masterminded the "four nine campaign, but said she would not abandon
dissidents
calling for a general uprising, 
'Thic is not a campaign that we started but our policy has always been  very
clear on ouch things - we will never disown any of our allies who have fought
for democracy," she said. 
'What we are sure of is that the people are generally discontent and it would
not surprise me If there is discontent in some form or other, but when it will
come out we cannot predict," she said. 
'If there is a general uprising it will be because of the discontent of the
people, because of the hardships that our people are having to face," she
said.

The military junta has confirmed it has arrested 87 people in connection with
the 'four nines" movement, but said there was no support for a mass uprising
and the planned unrest was destined to fail. 
Aug 8 this year marked the Ilth anniversary of an uprising in which
hundreds of
pro democracy were gunned down by the army and a junta took power  from a
strongman Gen Ne Win
That anniversary passed peacefully, but dissident groups have said Burmese
people have an "appointment" with Sept 9 to repeat the events of 1988 and end
the military's 37-year domination of politics.