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BURMA RELATED NEWS - May 13, 2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - Chirac
concerned about human rights in Myanmar
Bkk Post -
Editorial - The year of living changelessly
Hindustan Times -
AIDS in India alarming, asserts US think tank
JT - From Myanmar
to Mae Sot
Asian Tribune -
Figures show couples wait longer to marry In
Myanmar.
Asian Tribune -
Burmese Refugee on the rise: Unfortunately Thailand does not recognise Shans as
Refugees.
DVB News - The
conditions of political prisoners
DVB News - Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in
Monyin
Mizzima - Exiled
student union federation reports on education in Burma
NMG - Disabled
Refugees in Karenni Camp to be relocated
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Chirac
concerned about human rights in Myanmar
Mon May 12, 15:05 PM ET
PARIS, May 12
(AFP) - French President Jacques
Chirac voiced concern Monday about the human rights situation in Myanmar and an
apparent "unwillingness to implement reforms," during talks with Thai Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Chirac met with Shinawatra, in Paris for a
private visit, to discuss regional cooperation in southeast Asia and the
reinforcement of Franco-Thai relations, the president's spokeswoman Catherine
Colonna said.
During his stay, Shinawatra, the first Thai leader to
visit France since 1989, is also due to meet with Foreign Minister Dominique de
Villepin, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and a group of French business
leaders.
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Bangkok Post - Tuesday 13 May 2003
Editorial - The year of living
changelessly
In the violent and murderous 15 years since
they seized power in Burma, the military junta has consistently lied about its
intentions, and misled the country and neighbours about its actions. The
secretive group of ruling generals has failed either to improve the life of
their own citizens or to build security with its neighbours. Burmese are clearly
worse off today than they were when the generals crushed a democratic revolt in
1988.
It is clearly necessary to remind Rangoon that the privilege of
living in a civilised international society comes with
responsibilities.
It should no longer be acceptable for the Rangoon
regime to promise one thing and do another. Nor is it enough, as Thai Foreign
Minister Surakiart Sathirathai seemed to imply last month, an increased foreign
aid and support for Rangoon would necessarily be helpful.
Mr Surakiart
was right in saying neighbours and international organisations should respond in
kind to progress by the Burmese government. But to try to claim, as he did, that
Rangoon has made noticeable headway on the issues of human rights and national
reconciliation, only raised questions about just what Mr Surakiart has seen in
Burma that others have missed.
The United Nations human rights official
charged with reporting on Burma, Paulo Pinheiro, stormed out of the country six
weeks ago after discovering officials had bugged his conversations. The regime
won't even give a visitor's visa to Razali Ismail, the special UN envoy charged
with negotiating a peaceful end to military rule. Reporters Without Borders
lists 15 imprisoned Burmese journalists, behind only Cuba and Eritrea in the
world.
Two issues in particular should concern Mr Surakiart, and serve as
a measuring stick of the regime's performance, or, rather, lack of it. The first
is a solid year of rejection of political talks with democratic forces in Burma,
especially with the unrivaled leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The other is the refusal
to take positive action against Asia's top drug trafficking gang, exacerbated by
the close personal and political connections the generals maintain with the drug
cartel.
The junta ordered the release of Mrs Suu Kyi a year ago, after
she spent yet another 19 months under arrest without charges. At that time, the
generals undertook to hold talks with Mrs Suu Kyi, and with the political
movement for democracy which she represents. Democrats, after all, convincingly
won the free and fair election the junta held in 1990 and then ignored. That
promise was shamelessly broken. Last week, it emerged the dictators have not
even allowed the Nobel Peace Prize winner to visit places outside Rangoon
without threats and intimidation to those who wish to meet her.
The
generals have simply watched, without comment, a harsh crackdown on drug
peddlers and gangs inside Thailand _ a move they shamelessly demanded of the
Thaksin Shinawatra government. There has been no move, reciprocal or unilateral,
to help the Thai crackdown. The United Wa State Army continues to pump out the
world's biggest supply of methamphetamine tablets, and to smuggle and sell them
around and inside Thailand. The European Union imposes economic and political
sanctions on Burma, and the US and UN also have political and trade
restrictions.
Mr Surakiart is not alone in proposing plans to help Burma,
instead of punishing it. On the face of it, this could be a good idea. But Burma
can win respect only by giving it. When the generals begin helping their
citizens and neighbours, they are certain to win respect and help.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hindustantimes
AIDS in India alarming,
asserts US think tank
Indo-Asian News Service
Washington, May
13
HIV/AIDS in India could spread like an epidemic, posing a
threat to its society, economy and polity, if not controlled with drastic
measures, asserts a US think tank.
A new report by the Washington
DC-based Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) insists that the
crisis will affect not India alone but have a ripple effect in the entire
region.
The report, written by CSIS research scholar Mandavi Mehta, is
published in the current edition of the South Asia Monitor, a publication from
the South Asia programme of CSIS.
The report quotes the US National
Intelligence Council (NIC) to stress that India is one of five "second wave
countries", including Russia and China, where infections of HIV and AIDS is on
the verge of a "breakout" -- a stage when the infection is no longer confined to
"high risk" populations, and breaks out into the general population.
The
report says the Indian government, scientists and non-governmental officials
working together have a chance of reversing the alarming trend.
It says
getting accurate data on the prevalence of HIV infections in India is very
difficult. The social stigma associated with the disease, lack of knowledge
about the disease, uneven disease monitoring capabilities in states, and a focus
on prevention rather than treatment of AIDS, all contribute to chronic
underreporting.
Both the Indian national AIDS control programme and the
joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimate that there were
approximately four million reported AIDS cases in India in 2000-01.
The
NIC report puts the number at between five million and eight million HIV
infected people in 2002. This amounts to 0.90-1.40 per cent of India's adult
population.
The NIC report predicts that there will be 20-25 million HIV
positive Indians by 2010. The Indian government considers these figures
alarmist.
Even if the cost of anti-retroviral drugs continues to fall,
the cost of treating this number of patients, including both paying for drugs
and supervising treatment, will be astronomical, the report
notes.
Malnutrition and pre-existing infectious diseases, including
sexually transmitted diseases, significantly decrease resistance to HIV
infection and life expectancy after the onset of AIDS. India has many of these
risk factors, Mehta says.
The population that is most sexually active and
hence most likely to contract HIV is also India's most economically productive
population --between the ages of 15 and 49. Spreading infection will thus affect
India's per capita productivity and labour supply, the report says.
In
other countries of the region, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have
lower rates of HIV infection but have varying patterns of HIV transmission, some
more threatening than others. Data collection is problematic in all
states.
In Pakistan, HIV transmission is primarily through intravenous
drug use. Bangladesh and Nepal share the combination of high-risk behaviours and
factors that characterised the epidemic in India, Myanmar and Thailand. A large
number of young males and sex-workers from these countries go to work in Indian
cities and travel home frequently.
In Sri Lanka, which has the most
effective health system in the region, infection has been detected in only a
couple of surveillance sites, the report says.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Japan Times: May 13, 2003
From
Myanmar to Mae Sot
Migrants seek, but do not always find, a better
life
By RICHARD
HUMPHRIES
Special to The Japan Times
MAE SOT,
Thailand -- From a distance, the textile factories near Mae Sot, Thailand, loom
like fortified castles. The main buildings resemble fully encased airplane
hangers. Cement walls enclose the compounds, though sometimes these, in a
decorative touch, are plastered with white stucco. Entrance is via sliding gates
of iron grid or sheet metal. Guards keep out the unwanted. Some of the larger
private realms are in the countryside where only the odd hut or grazing animal
hints at habitation.
But behind the walls of individual factories,
hundreds, sometimes as many as 2,000 Myanmarese migrants may live and work. The
conditions and rewards of the work aren't particularly good. The level of
competition between the factories is severe, and their main connection with
local authority is through ritual obeisance and payment of tribute. All that is
lacking are moats to complete a picture of medieval estates, run by lords who,
instead of riding horses, drive pickups with darkened windows.
As many
as 1.5 million Myanmarese may be working in Thailand today and of those, at
least 80,000 toil in the Mae Sot area. Migrants labor in garment and
manufacturing industries, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and in the sex trade.
In Mae Sot, most work in the garment and manufacturing industries, under
conditions that are only good in comparison with the wretched ones of the
migrants' homeland, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Identity cards, if the
workers have them, are turned over to the factory manager for "safekeeping," and
getting them back isn't always easy.
"Those in the factories have it
tough," said a spokesman for the Burma Labor Solidarity Organization (BLSO), a
grassroots group that promotes better conditions for such migrants. "The lowest
paid only receive 40 to 60 baht [100 yen to 150 yen] a day. They have to work
three shifts a day," he continued, "eight to 12 in the morning, one to five in
the afternoon, and six to nine in the evening. They get one day off a month,
after payday." In many factories the first payday comes after 40, rather than 30
days, allowing the owner to withhold some payment until the contract finishes.
Often the worker will not receive this withheld amount.
Sometimes
migrant workers aren't paid, and complaining is difficult. According to the
BLSO, the owner of the textile firm Nasawat Apparel Co. Ltd. withheld workers'
pay for two months. When the workers tried to organize a protest, the owner paid
the police to arrest the workforce, and deport them back to Myanmar.
Occasionally, there are success stories. In 1999, at one large factory 3
km from Mae Sot, the factory owner fired three women and one man. They were told
to immediately leave the premises. According to the BLSO, "They were still there
that night, and four thugs came to the factory. Two of the women were raped and
one man who tried to defend them was killed." Local activists, as well as the
workers at the factory, strongly suspected a connection between the owner and
the thugs. They organized a three-day strike and demanded the arrest of the four
men involved, compensation for the women, and job security of the strike
leaders.
In the end, the owner paid compensation of 20,000 baht [60,000
yen] to each of the women and to the family of the dead man. No one was fired
and the workforce was even paid for the three days they were on strike.
Typically outsiders are not welcome in these businesses, unable to view
what happens behind the walls. Inside one small manufacturing concern -- a fake
diamond factory -- workers, some as young as 12, sat on plastic chairs in a dank
room and ground stones. From above naked, white bulbs provided light. No one had
goggles or other protective gear to deal with the clouds of dust produced by the
grinding process. Accommodation was provided in two other rooms and consisted of
wooden floors where the workers would sleep packed together like sardines. A
single toilet was provided for the 60 to 100 people.
Not all workers
live in factory compounds. Some live with their families in shanty hamlets built
on otherwise vacant land. One such town of about 200 residents in Mae Sot has
rows of connected shacks. The shacks, which are raised a few feet off the ground
to protect them from summer floods, have wooden floors but the walls and
ceilings are of corrugated metal sheets. The overall effect is stifling and
depressing.
However bad conditions may be for the migrants, they are
worse in Myanmar. The authorities in Yangon reported a 13.6 percent rise in
gross domestic product for 2001, but government economic data is most often
described as "whimsical." The reality is starker: some estimates did have a real
GDP growth in 2001, but at 2.3 percent, and inflation was at 20 percent.
Poverty is acute and widespread. Attempts at liberalization by the
military junta since 1988 have not been comprehensive, and in any case have only
benefited a few, such as the senior military command. The country's currency,
the kyat, has depreciated precipitously. The distortion between the official
rate and the parallel one is over 100 to one.
Additionally, the majority
of Myanmar's people are heavily dependent on agriculture, which has suffered
repeatedly from structural distortions, low productivity, excessive regulation
and the vagaries of weather. As a whole, the economy is near collapse. According
to the Asian Development Bank's Outlook 2002, "the prospects for a large headway
in poverty reduction are minimal."
So, while in recent decades Myanmar's
economy has stagnated, Thailand's has boomed by comparison. In economic terms,
Myanmar's poor have voted with their feet. Initially, there were relatively few
complaints as migrants took jobs regarded as "3-D" -- dirty, difficult, and
dangerous. It could even be argued that having a large pool of cheap,
exploitable labor has helped put Myanmar's share of teeth into Thailand's
emerging tiger economy.
Thailand, though itself a significant labor
exporter, began to bristle as larger and larger numbers of Myanmarese crossed
the border, adding to an already large refugee population. Until 1998, official
policy seemed to fluctuate between moves to register at least some of the
migrant labor force, and moves to deport large numbers en masse. Policy did not
always reflect practice since local arrangements often took precedence and
Myanmar was loathe to even acknowledge that a problem existed.
Once the
1998 economic crisis began, calls for action reached a crescendo. A policy of
fines or possible imprisonment for illegal workers was enacted. The government
wanted to deport 300,000 migrants, and within months, the Immigration
Commissioner announced that 70,000 "had voluntarily returned to Burma." In Mae
Sot and other areas there were frequent raids, and at one point those
"voluntarily returning" were being kept in a fenced-off area under the
Friendship Bridge, linking the Mae Sot area with the Myanmar town of Myawaddy.
Deportations could not stem the tide since those deported could simply
wait a day before purchasing a one-day border pass for a few kyat or swimming
across the river that defines the border in that area. The net result was to
force the whole problem further underground and make the migrants even more
vulnerable to the whims, largely financial, of employers and local authorities.
A frequent complaint from migrants concerns the need to pay bribes to
Thai police to avoid arrest. The amount varies from a few hundred baht to a few
thousand, depending on what the officer thinks the person can pay. Failure to
pay the requisite amount of "kha sawatdikan" or "welfare money" can lead to time
in jail and a ride to the border. This can financially ruin migrants, and even
more dangerous, affect activists, who are subjected to the same extortion.
Recently the Thai government has taken a different approach with what is
clearly an evolving policy. It noticed that deportations and imprisonments were
costing money and not addressing the migrant issue realistically. On August 28,
2001, a new law took effect that allowed for work permits in large numbers,
provided the migrants are registered. Some 40,000 permits per year are being
allocated for the Mae Sot area.
One fly in the ointment, however, is the
large registration fee. Workers, or their employers, are required to pay, in two
stages, 4,500 baht (12,000 yen) for a permit that covers two six-month periods.
This is also supposed to include the cost of a health examination. Some
employers, particularly NGOs that employ small numbers of Myanmarese, have paid
for permits. It is difficult to imagine, however, that many factory owners will
pay without some pressure, or that individual migrants will want to give up
what, for many, amounts to two-months wages. However, Thailand continues to raid
factories and deport illegal migrants. The Shinawatra government is especially
committed to doing so and began a new campaign, ironically, on May 1, a day
celebrating labor in many countries. Those now caught in Mae Sot are sent to a
Myanmar-government run reception center in Myawaddy.
On a more positive
note, there are some efforts afoot to improve health care for migrants in the
Mae Sot area. Dr. Cynthia Maung, a Karen refugee who runs Mae Tao clinic, a
well-known facility just outside town, mentioned that local authorities wanted
to include her in an outreach program that will, among other things, increase
the amount of primary health care available to migrants.
There has been
a political thaw in Myanmar that has offered some hope for the future, but this
has appeared to have stalled. In the end, whatever the level of political
progress, the migrant issue is likely to remain for many years to come. It can
only be hoped that politicians do something to improve conditions on both sides
of the border. As the BLSO member said, "Many of our countrymen have come to
Thailand as migrants, so we should all support them as we can. They are a
forgotten people."
--------------------------------------------------------------
Asian Tribune
Date : 2003-05-13
Figures show couples wait
longer to marry In Myanmar.
By Nwe Nwe Aye
Couples are marrying about four years later than 10 years ago and more
women are choosing to remain single, according to figures compiled by the
Maternal and Child Health Division.
"Generally, urban couples get married
at 27 while their counterparts in rural areas marry at 25," said Dr Thein Thein
Htay, an assistant director of the division.
"This is because of life
style changes and the emphasis that urban couples place on developing their
careers," she said.
"We also found that many urban couples delay having
children until two or three years after they marry."
Dr Thein Thein Htay
said the division encouraged couples to have children soon after marriage
because of risks to women of having their first child in their
thirties.
"On the other hand, we recommend that adolescent couples wait
until they are in their twenties to have children because the reproductive
system of adolescent women is not developed enough to have a child," she
said.
Pregnancies in women aged under 18 and over 45 were regarded as
high-risk.
Dr Thein Thein Htay said women who became pregnant within two
years after giving birth or who had many children were also taking reproductive
health risks.
Figures compiled since 2000 also show that more than 50 per
cent of women aged between 15 and 49 had never married, up 10 per cent over the
figure for the 1990s.
In Myanmar, an average urban household has five
members, while in rural areas it ranges from seven to eight.
One of the
reasons why couples in rural areas had big families was to assist in running
their farms, said Dr Thein Thein Htay.
An exceptional case was a
60-year-old woman in Kalaw who had 22 children, she said.
- The Myanmar
Times: May 05 - 11 -
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Asian Tribune
Date :
2003-05-13
Burmese Refugee on the rise: Unfortunately Thailand does
not recognise Shans as Refugees.
Despite recent measures
taken by Rangoon to check the flow of migrants into Thailand, aid workers in
Thailand are witnessing a significant increase in the number of refugees coming
to the border, according to an informed source in Chiangmai.
Beginning
March this year, thousands of people fleeing from Southern Shan State have been
stranded in villages and towns between Mongton and Poongpakhem, opposite
Chiangmai province, by the Army's order to put all non-local travelers to close
scrutiny and interrogation. "Yet, almost 1,300 have arrived in Fang, Chaiprakarn
and Mae Ai," said t an aid worker. "Considering the odds they are facing across
the border, the number certainly is suggestive, because from January to March,
before the ban was announced, the monthly figures averaged at 1,000."
This was due to three major causes, he explained: forced purchase of
paddy from farmers, forced enlistment of new recruits for the Army and newly
enforced relocations in some townships. He further elaborated:
"It
didn't matter whether or not you were a paddy farmer," he said. "Local military
commanders said, you must have paddy to sell, if not money to pay. Any plea you
lodged with them, however reasonable it was, just fell on the deaf ears."
According to him, the second cause was easily exemplified by a recent
arrival's experience.
Sawnanta, 45, of Wanmai, Mongpan Township, was told
that he could become a local militiaman if he wanted to be free from paying
taxes and giving forced labor. "He enlisted and together with 40 others went to
Loilem in February, to receive a 45-day basic military training", the aid worker
recounted. "When he came back last month, he was assigned to the battalion
headquarters at Loi Mawma and issued a Burmese uniform together with the
insignias. Downhearted, he asked for and got a three-day furlough to settle his
domestic affairs. He then brought his wife and three children to the orchards of
Fang."
The source added that military authorities had already notified
the village elders in Mongton and Monghsat, a neighboring township on 10 May, to
pick recruits for them, 200 from Mongton and 250 Monghhsat.
The third
reason adduced was the forced evictions still carried out in some areas,
especially in Kunhing. Villagers on the islets on the Parng, a tributary of the
Salween, were ordered to move out in March. ?Since then, about 50 families have
become homeless," he said. Those who had chosen to remain for one reason or
another were being shot at on the spot by the Army patrols and also seize boats
belonging to the villagers. Army patrols, it is alleged, use to fire artillery
shells indiscriminately, towards the direction where they saw smokes." Among the
arrivals in Fang was Nang Mya, 43, of Kun Pu, a blind woman.
Shans, upon
their entry intoThailand, have to find places where they can get work to support
themselves and their families, because unlike Karen and Karennis, Thailand
refuses to recognize Shans as refugees. It was estimated by the Shan Human
Rights Foundation that a total of 150,000 Shan asylum seekers had arrived in
Thailand since 1996, the year Rangoon unleashed a three-year forced relocation
campaign on an unprecedented scale in Shan State.
- Shan Herald Agency
for News -
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DVB News (11 May 2003)
The
conditions of political prisoners
Recently, some Burmese
political prisoners were released and although the military authorities claim
that inside the prisons, they are allowed to read newspapers and watch TV, the
conditions of political prisoners are still dire.
According to the list
compiled by the NLD's Social Welfare, there are more than 120 political
prisoners with bad heath conditions. Currently, the most serious case is that of
Dr. Than Nyein, the MP of Kyauktan Township, said Dr. Salai Tun Than who was
hospitalised in Insein Prison Hospital and was recently released:
Dr. Salai
Tun Than : Do you know Dr. Than Nyein? He is the brother-in-law of Secretary-1.
And there is U Thu Wei, the president of the Democracy Party. Then, there is U
Ohn Maung, the ex-NLD MP.
DVB : Yes, he is the MP of Nyaunglebin. Please
continue.
Dr. Salai Tun Than : And then there is U Toe Po.
DVB :
He is the NLD MP of Yebyu.
Dr. Salai Tun Than : There are some other
people. I can't remember them. I only know those people as I was in touch with
them daily. There are some more people. Dr. Than Nyein has liver complaints. We
used to walk together in the early morning. He was unable to walk with us
properly. After walking 4 or 5 times, he would go to bed to rest. He is
suffering a lot due to his illness. U Thu Wei's asthma is quite bad. He seems to
suffer a lot.
Although they are not MPs, U Win Tin and U Htway Myint are
two famous political prisoners who are being treated in Rangoon General
Hospital's prisoners' ward. U San Myint Aye, the son of U Htway Myint who visits
him daily at the hospital told the DVB about his condition as follows:
U
San Myint Aye : Yes. Only my father and U Win Tin are remaining in the hospital.
DVB : I was told that prisoners in Insein Prison are allowed to read
newspapers and watch TV. What is the situation at the hospital?
U San
Myint Aye : They are allowed to read religious books and domestic news journals.
We are allowed to give them those. I sent my father some foreign books but it
was not possible. My father and U Win Tin want to read poetry. For example, they
want to read religious, political and historical books in English. I tried to
send them these but I was not allowed to do so.
DVB : They are not
allowed to listen to the radio, I presume?
U San Myint Aye : No, I asked
my father. Shall I bring you radio, I asked. No, you are not allowed to bring it
here, he said.
The immediate release of Dr. Salai Tun Than shows that it
is necessary for the international organisations to know the deteriorating
health conditions of political prisoners and the protests and demands are also
effective. But some political prisoners are not still released despite the
demands from the international community.
The journalist and MP of
Insein U Sein Hla Oo is one of them. His wife, Daw Shwe Zin told the DVB about
his current condition and her hope as follows:
Daw Shwe Zin : My hair
has gone grey from waiting for his possible release and return. As he is not
released, I feel a little bit dejected even if I am not the kind to despair. May
15 is our wedding anniversary. It is going to be our 28th anniversary and I
would be very grateful to the SPDC if they release him as a present to me. It
might be a gift from God. I want my husband home as soon as possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------
DVB News (11 May 2003)
Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi in Monyin
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and team
who have set off to rally people in Kachin State are continuing to Monyin on the
sixth day of the trip. They stopped over in Katha last night and they are
expected to be in Monyin today.
At Monyin, they are expected to raise
the NLD township's office signboard and stop there for the night. To find out
more about the trip the DVB asked the NLD's spokesman, U Lwin but he told us
that because he was unable to have phone contact with her, nothing is known yet.
Nevertheless, during this trip, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to open
seven NLD offices, said U Lwin as follows:
U Lwin : From Katha, they are
going to Monyin. They are expected to raise the signboard at Monyin. There are
seven offices in Kachin State including Mokaung, Tanaing, Phakant, Myitkyina,
Bhamaw and there is one the state office.
During this trip, the
harassments from the authorities have increased, said U Lwin.
As it is
difficult to have telephone communication to Monyin, the DVB talked to a local
resident who is close to the NLD at Myikyina about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's
today's trip:
A Monyin resident : They will be mainly raising the
signboard at Monyin. I don't yet know the details. We can't tell the exact time.
They were supposed to be there last night. As they slept in Katha last night,
they are to be there today. The details of the trip will be known at Monyin. The
situation in Myikyina is quite calm. They are still to come to Myikyina. They
(the authorities) told people not to welcome them and the like. But when they
arrive, the situation will be calm and normal.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and
team are to rest at Monyin tonight and they are expected to be arriving at the
capital of Kachin State within three or four days, said U Lwin.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Exiled student union federation reports on
education in Burma
Mizzima News
13 May
2003
An exiled Burmese student organization released a
report on education in Burma in the year 2002 today.
"We compiled
the report based on information we received from our own sources and other
references on education", said Min Naing, a spoke-person of the Thailand-based
All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU). No details were mentioned about
the sources.
The report highlights on the current situation of
education in Burma and critises the military junta for failing to focus on
educational quality.
" The junta claims that the numbers of
graduate students, school buildings, and new institutes has increased but
numbers just indicate quantities and are hollow" , the report
argues.
The report also underlines the inability of student bodies
to operate freely, finding that "students social groups and their activities are
under the close watch of the government security intelligence".
The
military junta said recently that it is in the process of implementing the
30-year long-term education promotion programme. But the report points out that
the government has failed to provide assistance to students such as
hostels, scholarships, funds and modernized learning aids and
materials.
The report argues that the education situation in Burma
cannot be considered as detached from politics: only a credible democratic
government can solve the problems of the present education situation and
guarantee real educational development.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Network Media Group
Disabled Refugees in Karenni Camp to be
relocated
May 12 (NMG):The disabled refugees in Karenni camp, who
were left last year's relocation, were ordered by Thai authorities on May 7 to
relocate to Karenni Refugee Camp No. 1 before end of this month, said Alexander,
secretary of Karenni refugee committee.
During the meeting between Thai
officials and camp authority, MOI provincial officer Suwatchai told that the
ward including 35 disabled families -- most of them were landmine victims in
refugee camp no. 3, ward 7- was ordered to move to Camp No. 1 before end of May
2003.
Alexander revealed,?On Wednesday, an official from Mae Hong Son
(MOI) called and told me to relocate this disabled ward before end of this
month. They also warned that if they found anybody after that deadline, they
will be arrested and deported back Burma. As far as I know it was Mr
Suwatchai.?
Because these refugees were physically disabled, they are
going to face many difficulties when they are moved to new location, building
new huts and the best plots in new area were already occupied by peoples who
already resided there, he added.
In previous relocation of refugee camp,
though the international humanitarian agencies such as Burma Border Consortium
(BBC) and International Rescue Committee (IRC) assisted some hardware for
constructions and water supply equipments, those refugees had to build their
huts by themselves.
In last year August, Thai authorities ordered Karenni
Refugee Camp No. 3 to relocate and join with Camp No. 2 and named as Camp No. 1,
but Padaung village and disabled-ward were set aside.
In it?s new policy,
though, the disabled ward was ordered to relocate, the ward of Padaung tribes in
this camp who got attention by foreign tourists because of their long neck with
iron-ring, is allowed to stay there.
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