AP-Kick out animals from Burma and

[tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: AP-Kick out animals from Burma and save people

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.''