Tension in the Maneeloi Safe Area between the Mon and Burmese refugee students.

Report by  Brother John Beeching, Bangkok

10/28/1999

Nai Min Sai Root, NI # 2431. Chairman of the Mon Students Commission
in the Maneeloi Safe Area.

On Sunday a group of Mon and Burmese students were in a sort of saloon,
across from the camp, where the students sometimes go to drink. Two Mon
students were using a hand phone to call a friend and were speak in Mon
language. The Burmese students told them to stop speaking in Mon and to
speak in Burmese. This immediately led to a fist fight between the Mon
students and Burmese students who were present. Inititally it was a fight
between four persons--two Mon and two Burmese. (The Mon have asked me to
write down that the Burmese started fighting with them first.) The Mon then
went to get reinforcements. They returned with a couple of Mon students who
were friends of theirs, and the fight continued. Two of the Mon slashed two
of the Burmese students with knives. The slash wounds were on the head and
hand. They then fled to the safe area. They told the other Mon students
that there was a problem with some Burmese students, and a large group of
Mon students, numbering somewhere around sixty, accompany them, and returned
to where the Burmese students were drinking and had been slashed. The Mon
had armed themselves with sticks and some had knifes. The Burmese numbered
only about twenty students--the Burmese backed off.

The Burmese students, although they didn't fight when they saw the armed
Mon reenforcements, then went about the camp and told the Karen students
that some of the Mon students were actually Burmese army intelligence. They
invited the Karen students to join them in fighting against the Mon. The
Burmese and Karen group eventually number nearly a hundred individuals.

The Mon, now seeing themselves out numbered, back off. The Burmese and
Karen students then went and destroyed the Mon school and took one Mon
students prisoner with them. His name was Layet Mon. Nai Min Sai Rot (who
is writing this report) did not see this happen. He says he was told the
Mon student, Layet Mon, was slightly stabbed in the side by a Burmese
student with a knife. All the Mon students moved away from the Burmese
students and returned to the building in which they are housing. Nothing
further happened that evening.

Monday the 25th, about 6:00 am, two Burmese students came to the room where
the Mon monks stay (two monks stay there, a sort of Kuti). Nai Min Sai Root
was sitting at the Kuti at the time, with the two monks. The two studens
asked told Min Sai Root that the Burmese students wished to meet with him to
discuss resolving the problem of the previous night. He accompanied to the
Burmese student office (BSA). Upon his arrival at the office he could see
four Burmese students and one Mon student.

Nai Min Sai Root says a group of Burmese students then went and brought the
Mon students one by one to the Burmese Student Office, until about twenty
Mon students had been assembled inside the office. The outside of the
office was surrounded by about seventy or more Burmese students.

The Burmese students then tied up (hands behind his back) Nai Min Sai
Root--and then proceeded to tie up the other Mon students. The then
blindfolded them. Nai Min Sai Roots says he was then taken outside the
office, still bound and blindfolded, to a wooded area in the camp. They then
accused him of being Burmese intelligence and began beating him. The
beating started about eight in the morning and continue close to midnight.
He was hit with sticks wrapped with cloth, with shoes, was struck with fists
and kicked in the back. He was kneed. (He was badly bruised--I had him
examined by Doctor Irene at the Bangkok Nursing Home Hospital and she has
noted his injuries.) Min Sai Root says he was released about midnight and
that the Burmese students asked to be forgiven for having beaten and
mistreated him. He estimates that about twenty Mon students were likewise
beaten.

Most of the Mon students fled the camp area. (I presently have a second
student Nai Lawi Marn--he has not NI # and is not officially recognized, but
was a Mon who was in the camp at the time. He sustained some minor injuries
from his beating (but there may be some internal injury) , and I have sent
him to the hospital for an examination and a record of this injury.

The Mon refugee students and the Monk refugee monks are trying very hard to
meet with the Burmese Students in the camp and resolve the problem. They
are likewise seeking to avoid media attention or to make the problem worse.
At the same time, they are quite concern over the future safety of the Mon
in the camp.

This report was given to me by Nai Min Sai Root. I asked Phra Panya and
Phra Sila Nanda, both from Wat Prok, and both fluent in English, to act as
interpreters for this report to you. They are not involved in any way with
the refugee students or monks.

__________________________________________________________________________