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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HRW - India Must Protect Chin
Refugees
Washington Post - Burma's next move on the chessboard of repression
The Times of India - 417 Myanmar migrants held in Thai factory raids
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BURMA RELATED NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human Rights Watch
India Must Protect Chin
Refugees
(New York, August 17, 2000) Human Rights Watch today called on India to halt expulsions of ethnic Chin refugees to Burma where many could face persecution from the Burmese military. The Chin are an ethnic and religious minority in north-western Burma. According to local sources, police in the northeastern Indian state of
Mizoram are preparing to deport another group of Chin this Friday. Last week
authorities turned over more than one hundred Chin to the Burmese army along the
border and have detained more than 1,000 others pending deportation. The Indian
government claims the Chin are illegal immigrants.
"Any wholesale deportation to Burma without safeguards for protecting genuine refugees is unacceptable," said Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "The general level of repression in Burma should be enough to justify those safeguards. But when the deportees belong to an ethnic minority, and the Burmese army is conducting counterinsurgency operations near their homes, protection becomes absolutely vital." The Indian government should give the office of the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees immediate access to the detainees, she said, so that anyone with a
valid fear of persecution could make a formal claim for refugee status.
At the moment, not only is there no presence of the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees, but there is even concern that local officials may be ignoring the
applicable law, which requires that any potential deportee have a judicial
hearing.
Mizoram State borders on Burma's Chin State, where the Chin National Front
(CNF) has been fighting the Burmese government since 1988. Anyone the government
suspects of having links to the rebels can face arbitrary arrest, detention,
and, at times, torture. Villagers are subject to forced labor, forced portering,
and religious persecution, as many of the Chin are Christians.
Though some ethnic minority Chin have been in India since the 1960s, most
of the Chin refugees now in India fled there to escape abuses after 1988, when
the Burmese government violently cracked down on the pro-democracy movement. An
estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Chin now live in Mizoram alone. Since the Chin have
no access to relief assistance, they are forced to survive by seeking work,
particularly around Mizoram's capital, Aizawl. Work as migrant laborers exposes
Chin refugees to arrest and expulsion for illegal entry.
The Indian government has not signed the 1951 U.N. Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, nor does it have any domestic
refugee law. The Foreigners Act, under which the Chin are being expelled, makes
no distinction between illegal immigrants and refugees. The Indian government
is, however, bound by the international principle of non-refoulement which
prohibits the forcible return of refugees to situations in which they would be
subject to persecution and where their lives and freedom could be
threatened.
The Washington Post Burma's next move on the chessboard of repression Date: 18/08/2000
On reflection the chess metaphor is not a felicitous one. What we are aiming at is a negotiated settlement acceptable to major political forces in our country. Trying to checkmate a protagonist into immobility - or nonexistence - will not promote a peaceful settlement. Most likely, the State Peace and Development Council (formerly known as State Law and Order Restoration Council) does not share our point of view. Public statements made by members of the military regime suggest that the kind of peace they deem perfect would entail the disappearance of the democratic opposition, checkmate in the form of a final, zero-sum solution. Thesaurus entries under "annihilate," "crush" or "extinguish" best describe the declared intentions of the military regime toward the NLD. Members and supporters of the league are persecuted with brutal consistency; arbitrary arrests and imprisonment are daily fare; the authorities organise meetings that citizens are forced to attend, where they are forced to denounce elected members of Parliament or call for the dissolution of the NLD; and the state media make daily announcements of the number of members who have supposedly resigned from our party. (Many have remarked that the seemingly endless resignations must signify an infinitely large membership.) The obsessive need of the regime to try to destroy the NLD is evidence of the support we enjoy and only strengthens our resolve. We are committed to non-violent political activities that will lay a foundation for a healthy democratic state. The NLD believes that national problems must and will be resolved through political negotiations, and we are always ready to accept reasonable compromises. Over the past few years we have agreed to limited forms of dialogue as a prelude to full-fledged political talks, but the military regime did not respond. During the 12 years of struggle for democracy, which was in fact promised by the military regime when it seized power in 1988, Burma has deteriorated economically and socially. Although the junta created some openings for private enterprise and foreign investment, administrative and political practices inimical to a healthy society and failure to adopt a viable macroeconomic policy have pushed the country into an economic and social morass. The World Bank report drawn up last year, recent International Labour Organisation actions and the latest observations of the World Health Organisation provide incontrovertible evidence that lack of good governance is at the root of our country's troubles. This fact must be recognised by those who have concerns about drug production and trafficking, the spread of HIV, political refugees, illegal economic migrants, humanitarian needs and other problems. Unless determined steps are taken to effect political change that will lead to an accountable and transparent administration - a basic requirement for good governance - measures aimed at economic or humanitarian relief will merely be of a stopgap nature, too easily rendered null and void at the whim of the authorities or swept away by administrative inefficiency and social instability. Aung San Suu Kyi is general secretary of the National League for Democracy and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. The Times of India - Aug 18, 2000. 417 Myanmar migrants held in Thai factory raids MAE SOT: Thai authorities arrested 417 migrant workers from Myanmar in dawn raids Thursday on garment factories in northern Thailand, the deputy national immigration chief said. Some 200 border patrol police raided 19 factories in Mae Sot district, 370 km northwest of Bangkok, near the Myanmar border. The arrests were made at three factories. The other 16 factories were found closed, leading to suspicions the owners were tipped off, said Maj. Gen. Chanwud Watcharapoot, who led the operation. He said all the arrested migrants would be deported to Myanmar after details about them were recorded by Thai authorities. Police also arrested three Thai factory managers and would take action against them under Thai law, said Chanwud, without elaborating. Since late last year, Thailand has deported tens of thousands of the estimated one million migrant workers from its poorer neighbors - Cambodia, Laos and especially Myanmar, also known as Burma. Many have sneaked back to Thailand. Paniti Tanpati, chairman of the Tak province chamber of commerce based in Mae Sot, said he would meet Wednesday in Bangkok with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Korn Dabbarangsi to ask the government to let local businessmen hire more Myanmar laborers. At the moment, just 3,000 migrants are authorized to work in Tak in construction and farming, he said. Many more are thought to work in the province illegally. Numbers staying in Tak have in the past been estimated at more than 100,000. Many are thought to stay in hiding making it difficult to establish a reliable figure. Thai businessmen value the migrants as a cheap source of labor, working for around 70 baht ($1.75) per day or less, compared with the minimum wage for Thais of 162 baht ($4.05). (AP)
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