Wired News on March 3, `95

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on March 3, 1995
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      BANGKOK, March 3 (Reuter) - More than 9,000 ethnic minority Karen
refugees have returned to Burma from camps in Thailand in recent months,
Burma's state-run Radio Rangoon reported. 

    The radio, in a broadcast monitored by the British Broadcasting
Corporation late on Thursday, said 2,500 Karen people returned to an area
near the former Karen guerrilla headquarters at Manerplaw that day. 

    ``Furthermore, after learning about the genuine goodwill of the
government...Karen national families have been trickling back to Myainggyingu
village,'' the radio said, referring to the headquarters of a Karen splinter
faction which mutinied against the Karen guerrilla leadership in December. 

    The radio said the 2,500 who went back on Thursday took the total who
have returned so far to more than 9,000. 

    Relief workers in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border say
several thousand refugees, most of them the family of members of the splinter
faction, have gone back to Burma since December. 

    Up to 10,000 Karen refugees crossed the other way to escape a Burmese
government offensive against the guerrillas which began in December. 

    Meanwhile, another senior Karen guerrilla official was seized at gunpoint
from a Thai refugee camp and taken back into Burma, Karen refugee officials
said on Friday. 

    The official was seized on Thursday by suspected members of the rebel
splinter faction - the Democratic Kayin Buddhist Army (DKBA). 

    The official, identified as Kyaw Rei, was the former leader of a Karen
guerrilla camp on the Burmese side of the border who took refuge at a Thai
camp at Mae Thaw Wa after the Burmese army launched its offensive. 

    It was the third time in a month that members of the DKBA, who joined
forces with Burmese government troops after their December mutiny, have
seized a senior guerrilla official. 

    Karen refugee officials said the Burmese government wanted to pressure
the seized officials to join them and then appeal to the refugees in Thailand
to go back to Burma to undermine the support of the main-force rebel group. 

    Thailand lodged a complaint with Burma over the first incident, saying
the displaced Karen are Thailand's responsibility while they remain on its
side of the border. 

    Last week, a Thai driver and two women refugees were shot and killed when
suspected DKBA members ambushed them as they were moving from a camp on the
border to a new one deeper in Thailand. 

    The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said in a
statement this week that it was gravely concerned for the safety of the Karen
refugees in Thai camps. 

    There are more than 60,000 Karen refugees in Thailand.


Transmitted: 95-03-03 06:14:15 EST
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      RANGOON, March 3 (Reuter) - Burmese authorities destroyed a large
quantity of various kinds of illegal narcotics in an anti-drugs ceremony on
Friday watched by government ministers and Rangoon-based diplomats. 

    At the ceremony, the ninth in recent years, more than 1,455 kg (3,200 lb)
of opium and 145 kg (319 lb) of heroin, were put to the torch. 

    In addition 312 kg (686 lb) of marijuana went up in smoke in bonfires lit
by the ambassadors of Russia, Malaysia, India and Italy. 

    The Burmese section of the Golden Triangle opium-producing region, which
also includes northern Thailand and northwestern Laos, is the world's largest
source of illicit opium and its refined form heroin, Western narcotics
suppression agencies say. 

    In addition to the opium, heroin and marijuana, hundreds of bottles of
various types of cough medicine, which are taken by some people as a
narcotic, and ampoules of morphine were crushed with heavy rollers. 

    Altogether more than 12 tonnes of opium, 1.5 tonnes of heroin and large
amounts of other narcotics have been destroyed since the current ruling
military body was set up in September 1988, officials said. 

    More than 40,000 men and more than 8,000 women have been convicted of
narcotics offences during the same period. 

    Asked about the situation regarding Burma's rebel drug kingpin Khun Sa,
senior military intelligence officer, Lt-Colonel Kyaw Thein, said Khun Sa and
his guerrilla army would eventually be wiped out. 

    ``Our attitude toward Khun Sa will never change. As repeatedly
asserted... We will never negoatiate with this man,'' Kyaw Thein told
reporters.


Transmitted: 95-03-03 05:28:22 EST
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      BANGKOK, March 3 (Reuter) - Thai police and social workers rescued 23
young women and girls, some as young as 15 years old, from a brothel in the
northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, social workers said on Friday. 

    The raid on the brothel followed complaints from authorities in southern
China's Yunnan province that a 15-year-old Chinese girl had been lured to
work in the brothel, a worker at the Centre for the Protection of Children's
Rights said. 

    Twelve of the young women and girls were foreign, with one from China and
11 from Burma, 10 of them from the Shan ethnic minority, the rights worker
said. 

    The foreign women would be sent back to their homelands, the worker for
the non-governmental agency said. 

    Four brothel managers were arrested in the early Thursday raid. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-03 01:50:08 EST
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      BANGKOK, March 3 (Reuter) - A Thai court on Friday began an extradition
hearing for 10 persons suspected of being heroin traffickers wanted for trial
in the United States. 

    Thai and U.S. anti-narcotics officials say the 10 are key lieutenants in
Burmese drug lord Khun Sa's international heroin network who smuggled more
than two tonnes of heroin into the United States over the past 20 years. 

    The public prosecutor submitted evidence supplied by U.S. officials and
the court accepted a defence request to try six of the suspects seperately. 

    All 10 were remanded into custody, and two will appear again on March 16,
court officials said. 

    None of the 10 was allowed to speak in court during the hearing but one
of their lawyers told reporters afterwards'': ``These people are ordinary
people who have nothing to do with the heroin trafficking.'' 

    If any of the 10 are extradited, they will be the first Thais sent abroad
to stand trial. 

    The 10 were picked up in a joint sweep by Thai and U.S. agents in
northern Thailand and Bangkok in late November. 

    There is some question as to their real nationality. All of them are
ethnic Chinese, born in China. Some are suspected of acquiring Thai
citizenship illegally while others are naturalised Thai citizens. 

    Thai anti-narcotics authorities have suggested revoking their citizenship
to clear the way for extradition to the United States. Government officials
say such action is still under consideration. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-03 04:31:01 EST
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