Mon state news

OGATA PROPOSES UNHCR PRESENCE IN MON STATE
Sources: The Nation, AFP, DVB, MRDC: Updated to October 19, 2000

BANGKOK -- A proposal made by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees,
Sadako Ogata, to senior members of the Burmese military junta in Rangoon
this week has led to speculation that the Three Pagodas Pass area could be
the location for an experiment which would allow the international refugee
body to establish a presence inside Burma.

The UNHCR chief revealed that she had made the proposal during separate
meetings with Head of State Than Shwe and Gen Khin Nyunt of Burma's ruling
military council while on a brief visit to Rangoon on Monday. She said she
had asked that the UNHCR be allowed access to areas, such as Mon state,
where no fighting is taking place, so that the it could help repatriate
refugees from Thailand. "They did not deny. They did not negate. They said
they would examine," she told reporters in Bangkok, adding that Myanmar's
military is still very much concerned about security along the country's
eastern border.

"We should be able to be there and see the situation," she said, citing the
repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh
to Arakan state in western Burma as an example of her agency's work. She
said this could be a good start for expansion of UNHCR's presence in
eastern Burma and hoped it would be allowed within two to three years.

A report on DVB radio this week indicated that the Myanmar army will again
attempt to assert its control over the important road between Thanbyuzayat
and Three Pagodas Pass, the entry point where a UNHCR presence would need
to be established. The bulletin said that Maj-Gen Thura Thiha Thura Sit
Maung, the junta's newly appointed commander of the army's southeast
region, had put twenty battalions on the alert to move into the area and
the southern Dooplaya region in Karen state.

Earlier this year, dry season operations by the Myanmar army, targeting
guerrilla bands of the KNU's 6th brigade along the road and the Zami valley
in Kya-in Seikkyi township, drove hundreds of villagers from their homes in
the area, the Mon Relief and Development Committee (MRDC) reports. Some of
them made their way to the MRDC's Halockhanee camp in territory controlled
by the New Mon State Party (NMSP).

The MRDC lists the presence of nearly 15,000 persons in the three camps
that come under its supervision in the mountainous terrain along the Thai
border in Ye and Yebyu townships. Headquarters for the New Mon State Party
is close to Beeree, the most inaccessible of the three sites. There is also
a Karen camp, Htee Wah Doh, close to Halockhanee, but on the Thai side of
the border. A third Mon resettlement site, known as Tavoy, is in the area
north of the border crossing point for the Yadana gas pipeline.

The availability of land for crop cultivation is too limited to be able to
provide for all the families who have crowded into the three sites, the
MRDC reports. Only 25-30% of the families in the campsites have their own
plots for paddy planting and vegetables. The rest rely on occasional
labour or income from other sources. In its September report the MRDC said
that a study showed that people at all three locations were still dependent
on international aid for at least 50% of what they needed to survive.

Almost 40 per cent of those living in the resettlement sites have arrived
within the last two years. Villagers arriving from both Ye and Yebyu
townships report that restrictions on their movements by Myanmar army
battalions 25 and 273 have made it virtually impossible to live on their
farms or visit their plantations. Many say they have been beaten and
tortured by soldiers of the two battalions and accused of providing food
and shelter to a Mon resistance group that has separated from the NMSP.
The MRDC estimates that as many as 3,000 villagers have left from their
villages and are displaced in many parts of Ye and Yebyu township area.
Over sixty families have arrived at the remote Tavoy resettlement site in
recent months.

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