wfn.org | NCC official calls for sanctions against Burma

[DISCNEWS.parti@ecunet.org]

in wake of border violence against refugees
Date: March 31, 1997
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: Clifford L. Willis
Email: CWillis@oc.disciples.org
on the web: http//www.disciples.org

97b-19
                             
     NEW YORK (NCC) -- A Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ) leader with the National Council of Churches recently
returned from Southeast Asia with reports of violence against
refugees on the border between Burma and Thailand and
reissued a call for the United States to impose sanctions on
Myanmar (Burma).

     "Burma is a pariah government and no one should do
business with them," said the Rev. Larry Tankersley, director
of the Southern Asia office of the NCC Church World Service
Unit. "While I was there, the military Burmese 
government---the State Law and Order Restoration 
Council---had begun attacking refugee camps, burning 
them down and committing atrocities against the people, 
causing them to flee into Thailand," he said.

     "People were fleeing in panic, their houses, food and
everything destroyed," Tankersley said. Since returning to
the U.S., Tankersley said he receives regular reports about
continued incidents of violence on the border. Eyewitnesses
initially reported the Thai army had refused entry to all
male refugees, sending them back into a war zone. An
international outcry led to better treatment from the Thai
government, but the refugees burned out of their camps remain
unprotected and without adequate shelter.

     The Disciples minister said he opposes the Thai
government's proposal to put the displaced people into large
camps contained by barbed wire. "Not only would this be akin
to putting the refugees in concentration camps, but it would
lead to greater public health hazards," he explained.
Currently, refugees are spread out in a number of small camps
up and down the border.

     "It is ironic that this is happening during the
 Ecumenical Year in Solidarity with the Uprooted,'"
Tankersley said.

     Also at issue, according to Tankersley, is the treatment
of the democratic opposition in Myanmar (Burma). In February,
Nobel Peace Prize winner and democratic advocate Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi appealed for international sanctions, saying there
was a "large scale repression of the democracy movement"
underway. On March 4, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi complained of the
new arrests and intimidation tactics.

     Tankersley and other church leaders were turned away
from a meeting with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi on Nov. 16, leading
them to conclude that she was still essentially under house
arrest.

     Several U.S. officials agree with this assessment. A
bipartisan group of seven senators has circulated a letter
calling on President Clinton to impose sanctions on new
investments in Myanmar in keeping with a law signed over five
months ago that calls for the administration to ban all new
American investment in Myanmar if its military steps up
repression of the democratic opposition. However, the Clinton
administration is still divided over whether the conditions
of the law have been met.

     "It seems to me that all of the conditions (for
sanctions) have been met," Tankersley said. "Nothing else
seems to be helping."

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DISCNEWS - inbox for Disciples News Service, Office of Communication, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), PO Box 1986 Indianapolis, IN 46206, tele. (317) 635-3100, (DISCNEWS@ecunet.org) Wilma Shuffitt, News and Information Assistant; (CWILLIS@oc.disciples.org) Cliff Willis, Director of News and Information; (CMILLER@oc.disciples.org) Executive Director