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Rights Group: Myanmar Food Shortage (r)
- Subject: Rights Group: Myanmar Food Shortage (r)
- From: c04061998@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 13:59:00
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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