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Rights Group: Myanmar Food Shortage (r)



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.''

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