Thai army helicopter crashes
The officers were to inspect troops on the border
It crashed in bad weather near the Ninth Army Division base at Tha Manao in Kanchanaburi, about 125km (80 miles) west of Bangkok.
Colonel Somkuan Sangpataranetr said the cause of the crash, which occurred at around 9am (0200 GMT), may have been related to poor visibility in the area.
The aircraft crashed only 15 minutes after taking off on a routine inspection of troops posted along the tense Burmese-Thai border.
Burmese troops had fired shots across the border at a Thai army helicopter on Sunday, but in an area much further north, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported on Monday.
Attack feared
Thai television carried an interview with the head of the army civil affairs directorate, Lieutenant General Lertrat Ratanavanich, who said he had received a report that there might have been an explosion while the helicopter was still airborne.
Eight or nine bodies had been found near the wreckage of the shattered helicopter, he said.
Witnesses told local media the helicopter exploded in a ball of flame before hitting the ground.
Tense situation
The area near Kanchanaburi has been tense since last month, when Burmese troops started an offensive against an ethnic rebel splinter group known as God's Army.
Thai military efforts to keep the ethnic guerrillas from crossing the border included shelling which, according to the rebels, killed civilians.
The commander aboard the helicopter, Major General Sanchai Ratchatawan, last month played a leading role in handling security when a group of rebels took over a hospital in Ratchaburi.
All 10 guerrillas were killed when Thai security forces burst into the hospital to rescue the hundreds of people they had taken hostage.Friday February 25 12:53 AM ET
Eleven Killed in Thai Army Helicopter Crash
By Sutin Wannabovorn
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai military helicopter crashed in the western province of Kanchanaburi on Friday shortly after take off from an army base, killing all 11 people on board, a military spokesman said.
It crashed in bad weather in an open field near the Ninth Army Division base at Tha Manao, about 80 miles west of the capital Bangkok.
``All the 11 bodies, including seven senior officers of the Ninth Army Division and four crew, have been retrieved,'' Lieutenant General Lertrat Rattanawanit, deputy army chief of staff, told reporters.
``The crash occurred just a few kilometers from the base in bad weather. This is quite a big loss for the army... They were making a routine inspection trip to see Thai forces stationed at different points along the Thai-Myanmar border,'' Lertrat said.
Witnesses to the crash told a local radio station the helicopter exploded in a ball of flame before hitting the ground.
He believed the crash was due to technical problems. The helicopter had tried to make an emergency landing because of bad rains but it exploded before it could land.
Lertrat said the army would investigate the accident.
Among the officers killed in the crash were the commander of the Ninth Army Division, Major General Sanchai Ratchatawan, and other top brass from the division, he added.
The Ninth Army Division is in charge of border security along the western Thai border with Myanmar.
Sanchai last month played a leading role in handling security when a group of ethnic Myanmar Karen guerrillas stormed and took over a hospital in Ratchaburi.
All the 10 guerrillas who held hundreds of patients and staff hostage were killed when Thai security forces entered the hospital to rescue the hostages.
Helms, Gilman Chide Mexico on Drugs
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees accused Mexico on Thursday of unsatisfactory cooperation with U.S. counter-narcotics efforts and said relevant U.S. laws should be applied against that country.
``The situation is Mexico continues to deteriorate rapidly,'' said House International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
Gilman and Helms outlined their views to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a letter sent less than a week before the State Department is due to issue its annual report on the counter-narcotics performance of drug transit and drug source countries.
The process involves an examination of 26 countries, and those found not to be fully cooperative can be subject to economic penalties.
In the letter, Gilman and Helms do not specifically ask that Mexico be ``decertified'' as non-cooperative but their respective spokesman said both recommend that designation.
``The letter lays out the case for decertification,'' said Marc Thiessen, a Helms' spokesman.
The two chairmen said the Clinton administration has ``failed to apply the law faithfully'' against Mexico for many years.
``We respectfully call your attention to the following salient facts: Mexico's counter-narcotics efforts are hamstrung by over-centralized decision making, by astonishing inefficiency and by rank and file law enforcement corruption,'' they said.
They added that there has been ``no major progress in uprooting the drug cartels that do business with virtual impunity in Mexico.''
The State Department declined immediate comment but Albright signaled a month ago that Mexico will be fully certified this year as it has every year since Congress ordered annual reviews of drug problem countries in 1986.
During a visit to Mexico on Jan. 16, Albright said U.S.-Mexican cooperation on drug matters was at a ``very good level.''
``Our problems are not as much with each other as they are with those who are trying to undermine what we are trying to do,'' she said.
A 1999 State Department report on drug trafficking patterns worldwide said well-entrenched trafficking organizations based in Mexico ``have built vast criminal empires that produce illicit drugs, smuggle hundreds of tons of South American cocaine and operate drug distribution networks across the continental United States.''
Last year, 28 countries were evaluated by the State Department as part of the certification process. Most countries were fully certified and a few were decertified but were spared economic penalties on national security grounds.
Only Afghanistan and Burma were decertified without a national security waiver. But economic penalties were not imposed against them because both are already under comprehensive sanctions for reasons unrelated to drug trafficking.South China Morning Post
The weekly tabloid, which claims to be the first "truly free press" in Burma for more than three decades, will publish its first edition early next month.
"Am I going to start out by pushing people's buttons? No I'm not," Dunkley said.
He also said it would "probably not be appropriate at this moment" to try to solicit the views of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi or her colleagues.
Nevertheless, the creator of the successful Vietnam Investment Review said that, after Hanoi, working in Rangoon was "incredibly refreshing".
The Myanmar Times has so far produced one trial issue. "We don't have censors. Some people have looked at our pages and just corrected spelling mistakes."
The Vietnam Investment Review, in comparison, had to endure a seven-signature censorship process.
"The level of corruption in Vietnam is really becoming a big drag on development. Frankly, it has been incredibly refreshing to come here," he said.
Dunkley said that he in no way represented any kind of reforming, liberalising faction within the regime.
Nevertheless he argued that in time the paper may be able to stretch the editorial writing to gentle criticism of the Rangoon junta.
"I don't want to turn down good stories. I will argue the case for them, push for them," he said.
The publication has been sponsored by the military intelligence establishment.
The only English-language daily is the New Light of Myanmar.
The only other regular English-language publications are the business magazine IT Myanmar, established with Malaysian money, and the tourist-orientated Today Magazine.
Dunkley said his biggest problem was trying to find competent staff among a population that has suffered extended closures of schools and universities and where knowledge of English remained generally weak.
"I am trying to get Burmese graduates to write in English, even if its very simple English. I had thought we could handle copy in Burmese but by the time its translated and edited it seems to lose the original meaning," he said.
The editor denied that the Australian money invested in the Myanmar Times joint venture with a local businessmen came from media magnate Kerry Packer, who bought Vietnam Investment Review in 1998.
He explained that Mr Packer had seen the Vietnam publication as primarily a way of getting into that country's electronic media; an ambition that has so far been stymied by the cautious communist authorities.
BBC-Thursday, 24 February, 2000, 18:11 GMT
Burma opposition in
court alleging harassment
The Burmese opposition group,
the National League for Democracy, the NLD, has attempted to revive legal
proceedings which allege the military government is destroying the party.
Their initial case accused top government officials of involvement,
including the military intellignce chief, Khin Nyunt.
It said that party
members had been intimidated into resigning, and branch offices had been shut
down.
The case was dismissed by the Supreme Court in a closed hearing
late last year.
The NLD leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, attended a four-hour
court hearing in the capital, Rangoon, to appeal for the dismissal to be
overturned.
In a rare show of defiance, chanting NLD members waited
outside the hearing. There was no indication of when the court would decide the
matter.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
BBC-Friday, 25 February, 2000, 11:55 GMT
Thai commanders
killed in helicopter crash
A helicopter belonging to
the army in Thailand has crashed with a number of senior army officers on board.
The accident occurred near the border with Burma, shortly after the
helicopter took-off from an army base in the province of Kanchanaburi.
All eleven people aboard the craft, including the commander of the Ninth
Army division which controls the long and sensitive border with Burma are
reported to have been killed.
Some reports suggest that poor visibility
may have been a factor in the crash.
Other accounts quote witnesses as
saying there was an explosion while the helicopter was still airborne.
The BBC South East Asia correspondent there's no suggestion so far that
the crash was anything other than an accident. In recent weeks there has been an
upsurge in military activity along the border, with Burmese troops conducting an
offensive against a small ethnic Karen rebel group.
From the newsroom of
the BBC World Service
BBC-Friday, 25 February, 2000, 00:09 GMT
Woodward: Help
overseas prisoners
Karyn Smith, Louise
Woodward, and Rachel Goldwyn
Former au pair Louise Woodward has joined other British nationals who were
jailed abroad to urge the government to do more to help people in trouble with
the law abroad.
Ms Woodward, who was convicted of killing a baby in her
care while working in the US, and Karyn Smith, who was jailed for 25 years for
drug smuggling in Thailand, said they felt not enough was done to ensure Britons
arrested abroad received a fair trial.
The women were speaking at a
reception to celebrate the granting of charitable status to the Fair Trials
Abroad Trust, which campaigned on their behalf.
The reception was also
attended by pro-freedom campaigner Rachel Goldwyn, who was recently freed from
jail in Burma.
Ms Woodward, who was later freed and is now studying law
in London, said she had received little help from the British Consul when she
was arrested.
'No power'
"They said they were monitoring
the situation but that doesn't mean anything.
"I'm sure they were aware
of me, President Clinton was aware of me but that was no help.
"I'm a
vegetarian - they couldn't get me a vegetarian diet in prison. That's why I put
on so much weight because I ate so much chocolate."
Karyn Smith said she
faced a similar situation while she served three years of her sentence before
being granted a pardon.
She said: "I was stuck in a hole and that was
that. The British Consul did as much as they could but they didn't have the
power."
Fair Trials Abroad Trust director Stephen Jakobi said he
believed that the government was now more willing to help Britons who ran into
trouble abroad and ensure they received justice, but he warned: "It's the nature
of the beast they can never do
enough."