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NEWS - Rights Group: Myanmar Food S



Subject: NEWS - Rights Group: Myanmar Food Shortage

Wednesday October 20 10:43 AM ET 

 Rights Group: Myanmar Food Shortage

 By MARCOS CALO MEDINA Associated Press Writer 

 HONG KONG (AP) - Myanmar's government has caused food shortages in the
country through misguided economic policies that placed
 military strength before the proper allocation of resources, a human
rights group said Wednesday.

 Farmers have been systematically pushed out of their farmlands,
arbitrarily taxed for their crops or coerced into selling rice to
Myanmar's
 military at less than half the market price, the Asian Human Rights
Commission said in a report.

 ``This is one of those reports where those who put it together wish
they could be proven wrong,'' Mark Tamthai, professor of philosophy at
 Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, told a press conference.

 The 145-page report was culled from interviews with 26 witnesses who
traveled across Myanmar for three years, gathering data, photographs,
 and video clips of the areas under military control, said Tamthai.

 Tamthai was part of a tribunal convened by the independent human rights
group that interviewed the witnesses and published the report. The
 Asian Human Rights Commission released the report in Hong Kong, where
it is based.

 Late Wednesday, the Myanmar government said in a fax that the report
accusing the army of reselling food stolen from villagers, and
 confiscating rice and livestock was made up of ``groundless
accusations'' and ``regretful.''

 But the human rights group, citing information given by refugees who
have crossed into Thailand, said the army was arbitrarily expropriating
 cash and construction material or imposing heavy fines in areas of
suspected rebel activity.

 Soldiers were burning houses or forcing farmers to work in government
infrastructure projects such as building roads and dams, said H.
 Suresh, a retired High Court judge from Bombay, India, who interviewed
some witnesses.

 Suresh would not say how many people have been affected or how much
damage the military has caused but said ``a large number of farmers
 have fled their homes because they can't grow rice in a traditionally
rice-producing country.''