Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 15:24:15 PDT
From:         "Indonesia Publications/Task Force" <apakabar@IGC.ORG>
Subject:      Arakan 'Tour' Backfires
X-To:         seasia-l@msu.edu

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.
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