From: apakabar@IGC.ORG (Indonesia Publications/Task Force)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Subject: Rohingyas Coming Home?
Date: 9 Apr 92 21:09:20 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
X-To:         seasia-l@msu.edu


    Reuter, Dhaka, Atiqul, April 9 - Burma has told a senior United Nations
official that it will take back all its nationals who have fled to
Bangladesh to escape alleged torture by Rangoon's army, a senior Dhaka
official said on Thursday.
    Burma's decision came on Monday in a meeting between Rangoon's
military leaders and visiting U.N. Under Secretary General Jan Eliasson,
said A.H. Mahmud Ali, additional foreign secretary in charge of Burmese
affairs.
    Eliasson visited Burma from April 2 to 6 after a three-day trip to
Bangladesh to investigate the plight of more than 215,000 Burmese
Moslems, known as Rohingyas, who have fled to Bangladesh from alleged
brutalities by Rangoon's army.
    "This is a positive sign and we welcome this development," Ali said.
     Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw would visit Bangladesh from April
23 to 28 at the head of a 14-man team to discuss the repatriation of
refugees, he said. The team would include Information Minister
Brigadier-General Myo Thant and a senior immigration official.
    Earlier, Burma's junta said the Rohingyas were illegal aliens who
would not be allowed to return.




   DPA, Teknaf, Bangladesh, April 8 - Scores of Moslems were killed in a
mosque in a Burmese town during the Islamic Eid al-Fitr festival on
Sunday, refugees arriving in southern Bangladesh claimed Wednesday.
   Burmese Moslems in Dhuapanoff Refugee Camp in the Bangladesh border
town of Teknaf said about 300 people died and over 150 others were badly
injured in the carnage in the main mosque of Mangdaw town close to the
Bangladesh-Burma border on Sunday.
   The official Bangladesh news agency BSS quoted intelligence reports
saying at least 100 people were massacred on the first day of the
festival in the town's Sikderpara Moslem district.
   Refugee sources said troops surrounded the mosque with heavy
artillery guns after Moslems broke the lock of the prayer hall to hold
an Eid congregation inside. The mosque had been sealed by the
authorities in November after allegations that it was being used as a
hideout by Moslem rebels fighting for autonomy in Arakan province.
   Ali Zoha, 45, a Moslem refugee who crossed the border into Bangladesh
said troops opened fire on the praying Moslems with field guns and
lobbed three grenades inside the mosque. Many children were among the
3,000 persons who were present in the mosque.




    Reuter, Strasbourg, France, April 9 - The European Parliament called
on Thursday for a U.N. arms embargo against Burma to protest against
alleged human rights abuses.
    A resolution passed by members of the European Community (EC)
assembly said the parliament was appalled by reports of military
persecution of Burmese Moslems, known as Rohingyas.
    More than 215,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh from the army's
alleged brutalities, which are being investigated by the United Nations.
    The parliament called on EC member states to offer maximum aid to
Bangladesh to help it to cope with the refugees.
    It suggested imposing multilateral trade sanctions on Burma, urged
EC pressure to delay aid programmes and said other Asian countries
should stop importing Burmese timber, saying the exports financed
Rangoon's arms purchases.
    The EC assembly also called for the immediate release of Nobel Peace
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for
Democracy, and other political prisoners.

    EP SESSION NEWS PRESS RELEASE
    DOCUMENT DATE: APRIL 9, 1992
    Parliament calls for sanctions against Burma
    Thursday, 9 April - Following the warning by the UN
Secretary-General that the repressive policies of the Burmese
authorities were threatening the destabilisation of the whole region and
appalled by the reports of the persecution of minorities resulting in
the flight of many tens of thousands of refugees to Bangladesh and
India, Parliament adopted a resolution which states that the time has
come for the EC and its member states to take the lead in imposing
sanctions, starting with a mandatory ban on the supply of arms to Burma
via the United Nations.
    Parliament would like to see multi-lateral trade sanctions against
Burma and postponement of UN aid programmes, with the exception of
UNICEF action.  The possibility of establishing 'safe havens' in
Bangladesh for refugees is also mooted. Finally, the resolution strongly
reiterates the call for the immediate release of the Nobel and Sakharov
Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners.



Remark: Scanned from FBIS.  FBIS output is read Monday-Friday
throughout the entire official US foreign affairs community.

Thai Paper Cites Diplomatic Source on Arakan Tour

BKO204013592 Bangkok THE NATION in English 2 Apr 92 p A4

[Text] Muslim villagers in Burma's Arakan state told diplomatic visitors on
a brief visit that atrocities committed by Rangoon troops, discriminatory
persecution and restrictions on their daily lives have forced about 200,000
people to flee across the border to Bangladesh.

The Rangoon-based diplomats, who were taken on a two-day tour on March 29-30
to Burmese border villages in Arakan State, were secretly handed papers
describing 13 forms of maltreatment suffered by the local Muslims, according
to a diplomatic source who was on the trip.

Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw led 17 mission heads and 11 military
attaches, as well as 20 local correspondents and one from a Chinese news
agency, to Kyeinchang village in Buthidaung township and Khamaungzeik in
Maungdaw township of the southwestern state, while most Western envoys
boycotted the organized trip.

The source said some of the villagers who talked to the visiting diplomats
were later chased and beaten before their eyes by Burmese military
intelligence officers, and in one case a group of diplomats saw "military
intelligence personnel in civilian clothes drag them (villagers who had
talked with the diplomats) away.  One military intelligence officer held a
pistol to the belly of a man who had talked to an Asian ambassador in Urdu,"
added the source.

The ruling junta's State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) arranged
the diplomatic trip amid growing international concern and criticism over the
continuing flight to Bangladesh of Burmese Muslims who have accused Rangoon
of persecution and atrocities.

The villagers' papers stated, among other things, that Muslims' freedom of
religious belief and activity is being restricted, and that Muslim men are
being forcibly conscripted as porters for the Burmese Army and for manual
labour at construction sites.  Muslim Imams (religious leaders) were not
exempt from the forced labour.

Unlike the Buddhist population, the movements of the Muslims in Buthidaung
and Mangdaw are strictly restricted, leaving them trapped within the two
towns, according to the source, who added that many Muslim villages have been
destroyed by Rangoon and replaced with army camps.  "Villagers are being
robbed by the (Burmese) soldiers and are told to go to Bangladesh,' the
source cited from the papers.

The villagers also demanded that they be given "first class citizenship as
Rohingya", and that the refugees be allowed to return to Burma only "with full
respect and assurance of regaining their houses, property and human rights."
They also demanded that SLORC release all political prisoners and hand over
power to the politicians chosen in the May 1990 election.

The source said Rangoon had failed to force the local people "to toe the
SLORC line," thinking that they would not dare speak out freely and that they
would not be able to communicate with the diplomats.

But some diplomats managed to communicate in local dialects with the Muslims,
said the source, who added that after the trip many diplomats shared the same
views and "are convinced that the Muslims are being very badly treated and
persecuted".

The diplomats also noticed "a complete uneasy calm and an atmosphere of fear
and terror prevailing over the whole area", and some feared the consequences
to befall those who had spoken with them during the visit.



Remark: Scanned from FBIS.

20,000 Muslims Gather on Thai Border

BKO704020792 Bangkok - BANGKOK POST in English 7 Apr 92 p 1

[Text] About 20,000 Burmese Muslims fleeing persecution by Burmese forces
have massed on the Thai-Burmese border, apparently in a desperate bid to win
outside help.

Col Tin Muang That, chairman of the All Burma Muslim Union, a rebel
organisation under the Democratic Alliance of Burma, said yesterday the
plight of Muslims in eastern Burma is as serious as that confronting the
Rohingyas in Arakan State to the west.

Tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas have sought sanctuary in Bangladesh
where their plight has gained worldwide attention.

The exodus to Bangladesh has also provoked expressions of concern in some
ASEAN capitals.

Col Tin said the Burmese Muslims, assembled in separate groups in
Karen-controlled areas on the Burma-Thai border, had been deprived of basic
rights and their houses were raided and set ablaze by Burmese soldiers.

He said he was deeply disappointed with the poor response from Muslim
countries, especially Saudi Arabia, towards the suffering of the Muslim
refugees.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Z. Masum Hasan                         
Dept. of Computer Science             
Office: (519) 885-1211 x3287         
Home  : (519) 725-0377                 
e-mail: zmhasan@watdragon.waterloo.edu 
				      
A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.

When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy.  When
planets do it we say they are orbiting. 

Many dead animals of the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be
oil.  - school kids answering science questions.

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