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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 13,
2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- AP - Moderately Strong Quake Jolts
China
AFP - Thai PM investigates tale of World
War II-era treasure
BBC - Thailand's tough drugs
message
Kyodo News - EU
submits Myanmar resolution to U.N. human rights
commission
The Nation - Bid to
aid refugees on border
NST - 14
illegals tricked out of hiding and into police
van
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Friday April 13, 6:42 PM Moderately Strong Quake Jolts
China
BEIJING (AP) - An earthquake
struck a mountainous area of southwestern China near the Myanmar border,
collapsing homes, killing two people and injuring 190 others, officials said
Friday.
The 5.9-magnitude quake struck Thursday afternoon in Shidian county, an
area of rugged mountains 1,400 miles southwest of Beijing, said local government
and provincial seismological bureau officials.
Reports on the number of people killed or injured in the earthquake varied.
Fu Yongming, a staffer at the earthquake relief command center in Baoshan, the
city closest to the quake's epicenter, said by late Friday two people were
reported killed and 190 injured. Other officials had earlier said they believed
several people had died.
Reports from the three villages most affected by the quake said more than
42,000 buildings were damaged.
``Communications and electricity were also cut off last night but were
restored this morning,'' Fu said. ``The casualties were all caused by collapsing
buildings.''
The number of casualties was increasing as reports were received from
remote areas.
The area, not far from China's border with Myanmar, is sparsely populated.
A quake with a magnitude of 5 can damage homes if it occurs in a populated area.
The region is frequently jolted by earthquakes.
A magnitude-6 earthquake hit the Ganzi region of neighboring Sichuan
province on Feb. 23, killing three people, collapsing buildings and leaving a
massive crack in a dam.
In August, an earthquake in Yunnan's Wuding county, 220 miles east of
Shidian, killed at least one person and injured 211. Official reports said that
quake destroyed 177,457 homes and caused economic losses totaling at least $43
million.
A magnitude-7 earthquake on Feb. 3, 1996, in Lijiang, to the north, killed
255 people and injured 14,000.
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Friday April 13, 7:09 PM
Thai PM investigates tale of World War
II-era treasure
SANGKHLA BURI, Thailand, April 13 (AFP) - Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Friday went on a mission to personally investigate a senator's claims that he had found a treasure trove left by retreating Japanese soldiers after World War II. Senator Chaowarin Latthsaksiri announced late Thursday that after years of
searching, he had finally located 2,500 tonnes of gold and precious items in Li
Jia cave in western Kanchanaburi province, near the Myanmar border.
Although his claims were met with widespread scepticism, Thaksin said a
senior regional police officer had confirmed to him that the gold had been
found.
"To my knowledge a lot of gold has been found over there, police have
confirmed that they have found the gold," he told reporters before departing to
meet Chaowarin at the site.
After the meeting, Thaksin appeared a little less confident, admitting he
had not seen the gold and that he was reluctant to confirm the discovery.
Nevertheless, he ordered checkpoints to be set up around the cave, and for
some 20 police to mount round-the-clock patrols.
And he said that if it turned out to be a false alarm, the site could be
turned into a tourist attraction.
Chaowarin said he would hand his find over to King Bhumibol Adulyadej
because it was a "national treasure".
"I will disclose all the details on April 17 as I am now applying for an
audience with the King," he told reporters.
Chaowarin, a former education minister, launched his search in earnest two
years ago when he found an antique treasure map and became inspired by monks'
visions of gold piled high in the cave's recesses.
But after months of unsuccessful searching he admitted the story of the
gold was probably just a fable.
In February he resumed his search for Thailand's El Dorado after winning
approval from authorities who were keen to end speculation once and for all and
deter any other treasure hunters.
Six Thai gold diggers suffocated and died in the oxygen-poor depths of the
cave last July as they searched for the legendary treasure.
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BBC - Friday, 13 April, 2001, 12:12
GMT 13:12 UK
Thailand's tough drugs message By Jonathan Head in Bangkok
The authorities in Thailand have held a ceremony to burn more than three
tons of narcotics outside the capital, Bangkok, just two days after executing a
convicted drug smuggler by firing squad.
The new Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is trying to send a deterrent
message to the country's growing number of drug users.
Every year, the Thai authorities bring out large amounts of the narcotics
they have confiscated and set them ablaze in a well-publicised ceremony.
However, this year the government is trying to send a tougher message.
One convicted drug smuggler was executed right at the beginning of the Thai
New Year holiday.
Losing battle
The government plans several other initiatives, like giving schoolchildren
tours of prisons to show them how unpleasant life is there.
The reason is that Thailand is losing the battle against drugs.
The latest scourge is methamphetamines, which are made in laboratories just
over the border in Burma and smuggled into Thailand in huge quantities.
The police predict that 800 million of the highly-addictive tablets will
enter Thailand this year - enough to give 12 of them to every person in the
country.
Hundreds of thousands of Thais are already dependent on the drug.
US help
The government has also invited the United States to help train its troops
along the Burmese border.
Details of the operation are sketchy, but it is reported that US special
forces will soon be brought in to help the Thais to curb the flow of narcotics.
Most of the methamphetamines are produced by the ethnic Wa Army, which is
closely allied to the Burmese military.
After he took office early this year, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
declared drugs to be the country's number one enemy.
The range of anti-drug measures now being considered by the government is
clear evidence of its alarm over the serious impact of narcotics on Thai
society.
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EU submits Myanmar resolution to U.N.
human rights commission
GENEVA April 12 Kyodo - The
European Union on Thursday demanded freedom of movement for opposition leaders
in Myanmar, including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and criticized the human
rights record of the military government in Yangon.
An EU draft resolution submitted to the United Nations Human Rights
Commission currently meeting in Geneva, called on the Myanmar government to
release political prisoners and those detained in ''government guest houses''
and to permit ''unrestricted communication with and physical access'' to Suu Kyi
and other political leaders.
It noted that human rights violations such as ''extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions, enforced disappearances, rape, torture, inhuman treatment,
mass arrests'' have continued in Myanmar.
Such human rights abuses have had ''a significant adverse effect on the
health and welfare of the people of Myanmar,'' the draft said.
The EU also said the Myanmar government ''has failed to cease its
widespread and systematic use of forced labor of its own people'' and called on
the country's military rulers to cooperate with the International Labor
Organization, which imposed sanctions on Myanmar last year.
''Concrete legislative, executive and administrative measures to eradicate
the practice'' of forced labor should be adopted, the draft resolution said.
U.N. sources said the draft resolution is scheduled to be taken up by the
human rights commission on Wednesday.
At a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission on Thursday, Chinese
exiled dissident Wei Jingshen, who currently lives in the United States, was
given time allocated to an Italian non-governmental organization to make a
speech.
Wei criticized authorities in Beijing for corruption and called for legal
reforms to upgrade the standing of ordinary citizens in China.
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The Nation - April 13,
2001.
Bid to aid refugees on
border
THE International Organisation of Migration (IOM) has proposed that it be
allowed to establish a presence on Burma's side of the Thai-Burmese border to
monitor the repatriation of Burmese refugees and displaced people to ensure they
are treated correctly.
The proposal was presented by IOM director-general Bruson McKenley to
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai yesterday.
Surakiart said he would discuss the proposal with his Burmese counterpart,
Win Aung, when he visits Rangoon later this month.
"We can't send them [refugees] to a third country because no one would take
them in," Surakiart said. "We can't send them back to their country because they
have nothing to eat. [If someone wants us] to help, well, our economy is in bad
shape."
McKenley proposed that the IOM could make available its micro-credit scheme
to create jobs for the returnees in order to make their repatriation
sustainable, Surakiart said.
More than 100,000 people from Burma, most of whom are ethnic Karens, are
residing in scores of refugee camps along the border on the Thai side. They have
been displaced by the continuing civil war between Burma's military government
and ethnic armies fighting for autonomy.
Human rights groups accuse the Burmese junta of carrying out forced
relocations to prevent villagers from helping the rebel armies.
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New Straits Times - April 13,
2001.
14 illegals tricked out of hiding and
into police van
By Shahrum Sayuthi PADANG BESAR, Thurs. - Perlis Anti-Smuggling Unit officers employed an
elementary trick to lure 14 illegal immigrants out of hiding and into the
Chuping police station today.
Masquerading as tekong darat (land agents), two officers told the group of
13 Myanmar nationals and a Thai that they were there to take the group to their
destination, a construction site in Penang.
The foreigners had scaled the Thai-Malaysian border wall at Kampung Beluka
Laga, Batu Betangkup, and waited in hiding for their "pick up".
Relating the incident, Chuping unit operations commander Chief Inspector
Morad Poro said eight officers went to the area at 10 last night after receiving
a tip-off about a group trying to sneak into the country.
He said the team waited in ambush the whole night but failed to see the
illegal immigrants.
"At daybreak, the officers decided on another approach by disguising
themselves as tekong darat.
"Two of the officers soon detected three illegal immigrants hiding in a
bush at 9am and told them that they were their agents. Convinced, the trio
immediately fetched their friends who were hiding deeper in the bush and they
all jumped into the unmarked van driven by the officers."
Morad was speaking to reporters at the State Anti-Smuggling Unit base in
Chuping where the illegal immigrants were being held.
He said the illegals, aged between 15 and 42 years, were believed to have
paid their agents about 1,000 baht (RM82) each for the trip.
Morad said the illegal immigrants would be sent to a detention centre
before being deported to their home countries.
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