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Burma Related News - March 05,
2002.
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Headlines
-------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Thai police find 13 murdered Myanmar
nationals
AFP - Myanmar junta frees five political
activists, 24 women prisoners
AFP - Brutal repression mars rights picture
across much of Asia: US
Reuters - Thai police find 13 bodies on
Thai-Cambodia border
Reuters - PTTEP up 2.5 pct on hopes of gas
payment
AP - Peace Prize Exhibit Shows History
AP - Myanmar frees 24 female prisoners
BBC - China and Burma denounce US
report
VOA - Burma's Military Government Releases 24
More Female Prisoners
VOA - Thai Police Finds 13 Bodies at a Waste
Site
Bkk Post - Repatriation of workers to be discussed
The Nation - Bodies of
13 Burmese found
-------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 5, 4:49 PM Thai police find 13 murdered Myanmar nationals BANGKOK, March 5 (AFP) - The
bodies of 13 Myanmar nationals including three children were found murdered and
dumped in sacks on a roadside in Thailand's eastern province of Prachin Buri,
police said Tuesday.
The dead included six men, four women, a girl and two boys. The adults were
believed to be illegal workers from the military-run state.
"They were Myanmar illegal workers, and were hit on the head and
strangled," Prachin Buri police deputy commander, Colonel Somnuk Purami, told
Police also found one Myanmar passport and Myanmar currency with the
bodies.
Somnuk said investigators believed the 13 were killed elsewhere, possibly
in an area close to the Myanmar border, and then dumped in this eastern
province.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 5, 2:06 PM
Myanmar junta frees five political activists, 24 women prisoners (AFP) - Myanmar's military
junta said it has freed five more political activists and 24 women prisoners in
the latest releases since a UN envoy last month called for all political
prisoners to be freed.
Some 120 mothers or expectant mothers, who had been held in jail on
criminal charges, have been released over the past week, including the 24 freed
Tuesday, a junta spokesman said Tuesday.
The regime late Monday also announced the release of five activists -- Yin
Htwe, Thaung Htike, Tint Swe, Zaw Aung and Kyaw Oo Nyo -- who had been held at
Tharawaddy and Myaungmya prisons.
The five were all student activists, and at least two of them -- Tint Swe
and Kyaw Oo Nyo -- were known to be affiliated with the Burma Communist
Party.
They were "detained for illegal activities and unlawful connections with
the armed outlawed groups," the spokesman said, without elaborating on their
affiliation.
"They are all in good health and back together with their respective
families," he added.
A prominent person in the group is Yin Htwe, one of 24 activists whose
original sentences were extended for having written a letter from jail to the
former UN rapporteur for human rights on prison conditions.
Current UN human rights envoy, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, visited Myanmar late
last month and renewed calls for the junta to "release all political
prisoners."
After completing his third trip to the military-ruled state, Pinheiro said
prison conditions were better here after some 150 missions by the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Jean-Michel Monod, the ICRC's Asia, Pacific and Latin America regional
representative, was also in Myanmar for a visit earlier this month.
Among the earlier releases, five members of opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) were freed from jail last
Friday.
Though Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for over a year, the
NLD and the ruling State Peace and Development Council embarked on secret talks
in October 2000 aimed at paving the way for democratic reforms.
Some 236 political prisoners have been released since the talks began,
according to the junta.
The release of the women prisoners appears to be a "merit-making" gesture
linked to the consecration of a massive Buddha image in Yangon last week.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 5, 5:05 PM
Brutal repression mars rights picture across much of Asia: US (AFP) - China has failed to
improve its human rights record and remains quick to suppress any group seen as
a threat to the government, the US State Department said in a report that also
slammed rights abuses in Myanmar and Vietnam.
"Citizens who sought to express openly dissenting political and religious
views (in China) continued to live in an environment filled with repression," it
noted in its annual survey of human rights around the world Monday.
The report also decried abuses such as "extrajudicial killings, torture and
mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention,
lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process."
Harsh prison conditions, forced prison labor, coercive family planning
policies, severe restrictions on freedom of assembly and of the press, and
China's attitude toward its minority Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs were
also criticized.
"They have chosen to label all those ... that advocate greater freedom as
terrorists, and we don't think that's correct," said Lorne Craner, assistant
secretary of state for human rights, on releasing the survey.
The 2001 Country Reports on Human Rights also gave poor grades to Myanmar
and Vietnam as well as mixed reviews to Indonesia and Cambodia.
In Vietnam, "the government's poor human rights record worsened in some
respects and it continued to commit numerous, serious abuses," including
arbitrary arrests and beatings, the report charged.
The government significantly restricts freedom of speech, the press, and
assembly, and continued to not tolerate most types of public dissent.
Moreover, it said, the authorities continued to deny citizens the right to
change their government.
The report equally condemned Burma's "extremely poor" human rights record
and severe repression of its citizens, who are subject to "the arbitrary and
sometimes brutal dictates of the military."
As in Vietnam, citizens do not have the right to change their government,
and are arbitrarily arrested for expressing dissenting political views, it said.
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, continued to be held under house detention
throughout the year.
While acknowledging that the government had halted its campaign to
intimidate independent lawyers, the report still criticized the government for
its continued infringement on citizens' privacy rights, with security forces
systematically monitoring people's movements and communications.
Indonesia continued to make progress in some areas of its transition from a
long-entrenched authoritarian regime to a more pluralistic, representative
democracy, the report said, but still described the government's rights record
remained "poor".
"Security forces were responsible for numerous instances of, at times
indiscriminate, shooting of civilians, torture, rape, beatings and other abuse,
and arbitrary detention in Aceh, West Timor, Papua (formerly known as Irian
Jaya), and elsewhere in the country."
In Cambodia, the report said the government generally respected the human
rights of its citizens. However it slammed the failure of the government to
prosecute political and non-political killings by police and military
forces.
In contrast, Hong Kong and the Philippines were seen as making strides
towards establishing the rule of law and individual rights.
In the Philippines, the government was in general respecting human rights,
the report said, making a distinction between the government and "members of the
security services" which it said were responsible for extrajudicial killings,
disappearances, torture, and arbitrary arrest and detentions.
As to the conflict in the country, where US troops are deployed in support
of local army troops, the report said: "a number of armed clashes took place
during the year; several involved human rights abuses by insurgent, separatist,
and government forces."
Hong Kong, the former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in
1997, "enjoys a high degree of autonomy except in defense and foreign affairs
and remains a free society with legally protected rights," the survey
said.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 5, 7:03 PM
Thai police find 13 bodies on Thai-Cambodia border BANGKOK, March 5 (Reuters) -
Thirteen corpses, believed to be of murdered migrant workers from Myanmar and
Cambodia, were found Tuesday morning in sandbags in a deserted quarry near the
Thai-Cambodian border, Thai officials said.
Boonsanong Boonmee, a senior official at Prachin Buri provincial office,
told Reuters on Tuesday victims appeared to have been murdered elsewhere and
dumped at the quarry, 140 km (87.5 miles) northeast of Bangkok.
"It seems the bodies were taken from somewhere else by truck," he said.
Police told reporters some of the bodies, five male and eight female, had
broken necks. Several bodies carried Myanmar identification cards or border
passes for entering Thailand via Mae Sot on the Thai-Myanmar border on March 2.
The bodies were taken to Bangkok's police forensic department for
examination. Police gave no other details.
Last month, 20 corpses, believed to be of murdered Myanmar tribespeople,
were found floating downstream in a river along the Thai-Myanmar border at Mae
Sot, 500 km (312.5 miles) north of Bangkok.
Thailand, far richer than most of its neighbours, is seen as a haven for
poor labourers from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, China and Bangladesh.
Last October, the Thai labour ministry registered around 560,000 of an
estimated two million illegal workers in an effort to control the flow.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday March 5, 5:13 PM
PTTEP up 2.5 pct on hopes of gas payment BANGKOK, March 5 (Reuters) -
Shares in Thai upstream oil and gas firm PTT Exploration Production (PTTEP) rose
2.5 percent on Tuesday on hopes the firm would soon receive payment for selling
natural gas to its parent company PTT Plc, analysts said.
PTTEP is expected to receive $100 million under a
"take-or-pay agreement" this month after the company sold its natural gas
in Myanmar to PTT.
A source at PTT told Reuters the company was due to pay PTTEP
$100 million on March 1, but had yet to do so.
By 0900 GMT, PTTEP shares were up three baht at 121.00 baht, while the
benchmark SET index <.SETI> lost 0.9 percent.
This year PTTEP has outperformed the Thai energy sector by 1.3 percent, but
underperformed the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index by 13.5 percent.
"PTTEP will receive a take-or-pay payment from PTT Plc in the next two or
three weeks... Investors always pick up PTTEP shares whenever there is news
about that," said Supakorn Sujiratthanawimol, an analyst at UOB
Securities.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Peace Prize Exhibit Shows History
Tue Mar 5, 1:44 AM ET BY EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Nelson
Mandela releases a white dove. Mikhail Gorbachev stands beside a remnant of the
Berlin Wall. Aung San Suu Kyi looks out a window. Yasser Arafat holds a picture
of the late Yitzhak Rabin.
Photographs of these Nobel Peace Prize winners reflect what U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the newest peace laureate, calls "a century of
savage loss and bloodshed, but also one of extraordinary progress and
vision."
The new exhibit at U.N. headquarters commemorating the centennial of the
Nobel Peace Prize opened Monday and continues through March.
Annan said the exhibition illustrates the debt to previous winners, "who
worked so hard and took such risks, over the past century, to save humanity from
the scourge of war."
Some like Mandela, who was instrumental in ending apartheid in South
Africa, and Gorbachev, the Soviet leader key to ending the Cold War,
succeeded.
Others like Suu Kyi, who has been struggling to bring democracy to Myanmar
and has been under house detention since September 2000, and Arafat, the
Palestinian leader currently confined by Israel to the West bank town of
Ramallah, have not.
The exhibition includes the first Nobel peace laureate in 1901, Jean Henri
Dunant, the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Arafat is pictured holding a photo of Rabin, the slain Israeli prime
minister who shared the 1994 prize.
The caption says, "Bethlehem heralded an eternal message to the world:
'peace on earth and good will toward mankind.' Let the year 2000 be a
transition, for the realization of the dream of all people: peace, love and
brotherhood everywhere on earth."
Next to Arafat's image is that of the third winner that year, Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, with a dove flying above him.
He wrote: "While previous human history was written in red ink, the color
of war; we hope that the future history will be written in green color, the
color of hope."
In his portrait, Annan holds a white dove while looking at a globe.
The caption from his December lecture says: "Peace is not the sole
responsibility of any individual, institution or nation but the responsibility
of each and everyone."
-------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar frees 24 female prisoners
Tue Mar 5, 5:58 AM ET YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -
Myanmar's military junta released 24 female prisoners Tuesday on "humanitarian
grounds," an official statement said.
The women, who were detained at Yangon's Insein prison on various criminal
charges and were accompanied by their young children, had been reunited with
their families, it added.
The releases brought to 120 the number of female prisoners released since
Feb. 22. Thirty-nine of them were pregnant.
Last week, the government freed five political prisoners, members of
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.
Their release brought to 228 the number of political prisoners freed since
closed-door talks between Suu Kyi and the military began in October 2000 to end
the country's 12-year political standoff. Neither side has divulged the content
of the talks.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962.
The current group of generals came to power in 1988 after leading a bloody
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
The junta called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results when
Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.
Instead, hundreds of opposition activists were jailed. Suu Kyi, who won the
1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful democracy struggle, has herself been
under house detention since September 2000.
-------------------------------------------------------------- BBC - Tuesday, 5 March, 2002, 14:45
GMT
China and Burma denounce US report China and Burma have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the US State
Department's annual report on human rights which highlights the two countries as
among the biggest offenders of last year.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Bejing Kong Quan said the report contained
lies.
He also accused the US of using double standards in the fight against
terrorism.
In a statement, the Burmese Government also dismissed the US report as
outlandish and incorrect.
The report said China used the excuse of the campaign against terrorism
last year to justify its actions against Uighur separatists in the western
Xinjiang province.
The findings also highlighted what it called China's harsh and
comprehensive campaign against the banned Falun Gong spiritual group.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
-------------------------------------------------------------- Asia Pacific Burma's Military
Government Releases 24 More Female Prisoners
VOA News 5 Mar 2002 12:06 UTC Burma's military government says it has released 24 more female prisoners
on humanitarian grounds.
A government spokesman says 120 mothers or expectant mothers have been
freed from prison in the past week, including the latest releases, announced
Tuesday.
Monday, the government separately announced the release of five political
prisoners who had been arrested for associating with outlawed groups.
Since beginning landmark talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in
October, 2000, Burma's military government says it has released nearly 250
political prisoners.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Asia Pacific Thai Police Finds 13
Bodies at a Waste Site
VOA News 5 Mar 2002 12:08 UTC Thai police say the the murdered bodies of 13 teenagers have been found
dumped at a waste site in northeastern Prachin Buri province.
The bodies, partly covered by dirt and fertilizer, are said to have been
discovered by villagers living near the site.
Police say the five male and eight female teenagers appeared to have been
migrant workers from Burma.
Last month, about 13 people believed to be Burmese migrant workers were
killed and had their bodies dumped in an area close to the Burma-Thai
border.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - Tuesday 05 March 2002
Repatriation of workers to be discussed
Rangoon seeks list of affected labourers
Achara Ashayagachat
The government hopes to make progress in talks later this week in Phuket on
negotiating with Burma for the ``quick and effective repatriation'' of illegal
Burmese workers.
Tej Bunnag, permanent secretary for foreign affairs, will co-chair the
second inter-agency talks on Thursday and Friday with Khin Maung, Burma's deputy
foreign minister, on the repatriation of cross-border migrant workers.
Rangoon agreed to take back all Burmese working illegally in Thailand
during the joint commission on bilateral co-operation held in Phuket in
January.
The first follow-up talks were held in Rangoon during Foreign Minister
Surakiart Sathirathai's visit to Burma early last month.
Burma asked Thailand to send a list of workers to be repatriated before
sending them to the ``agreed holding centre'' in Myawaddy.
In the latest talks, Thailand would use the meeting to ask for more
specific endorsement of the timeframe for the repatriation. The two sides will
also discuss possible participation of international organisations in the
repatriation process. ``We cannot talk about the post-repatriation scheme at the
holding centre until we reach a deal on how to send the workers back to Burma,''
sources said.
Thailand has said the migrant workers would be sent to a holding centre on
Burmese soil where occupational or agricultural training could be arranged for
them with assistance from certain international organisations. But Burma has
remained noncommittal to this idea.
The Thai side has also proposed the opening of two other holdings centres
in areas near Ranong and Chiang Rai's Mae Sai district.
The Labour Ministry and the Social Welfare Office for the Administrative
Commission on Irregular Immigrant Workers has set March 25 as the deadline for
re-registration of the 450,000 migrant workers, who were issued work permits
since last September.
Those who fail to re-register within the deadline and those who could not
pass health tests, including HIV/Aids checks, would be sent back to Burma.
-------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation
Bodies of 13 Burmese found
Published on Mar 6, 2002
Police suspect victims were beaten, drowned; children among dead
Police yesterday launched an investigation into the brutal killings of 13
people - including five children and some with heavily bruised bodies - who were
found in rice sacks on a waste site in Muang district.
Police rushed to scene after being alerted by a local villager.
Provincial deputy police commander Pol Col Pinit Satcharoen said that some
of the victims had broken necks and severe bruises, while others appeared to
have drowned.
Their clothes were still wet and their bodies bore no trace of gunshot or
knife wounds, Pinit said, adding that some were also suspected of having been
poisoned.
The victims were a man, seven women, three boys and two girls. They were
believed to have been dead for at least eight hours but less than 24 hours
before being discovered, Pinit said.
The rice sacks containing the bodies were dumped under sacks of fertiliser
and animal waste.
"We are still looking for more evidence at the scene," Pinit said.
Police found tyre track traces near the scene, leading them to believe the
victims were murdered elsewhere and moved to the site by truck before being
dumped.
Police suspect those killed were Burmese immigrants as they wore longyi
-Burmese sarongs. A note written in Burmese and Burmese bank notes were found
among the bodies.
Several local villagers told police that the dead were possibly workers
from a nearby construction site.
Police said they were transporting the bodies to the Police Hospital in
Bangkok for autopsies.
Prachin Buri Governor, Chaijit Rattakajorn, said the sacks were produced in
Samut Prakan and were imprinted with a logo from the Krungthep Animal Food
Co.
The murders come at a time when the government is trying to encourage
employers of Burmese workers to join a registration programme, allowing the
government to better ascertain the number of Burmese workers in Thailand.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said he
believed the victims were Burmese nationals working illegally in Thailand.
Last month, 20 corpses, believed to be of ethnic Burmese, were found
floating downstream in a river along the Thai-Burmese border in Tak's Mae Sot
district.
Last October, the Labour ministry registered around 560,000 of an estimated
two million illegal workers in an effort to control the flow.
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