PHOTO: Piyarat Chongchaoren

Myanmar’s ethnic Mon civilians continued pouring across the border into Thailand yesterday, fleeing from the fighting between Burmese troops and rebels on the border near the western province of Kanchanaburi.

The fighting began on Wednesday morning in Myanmar’s Bo Yeepun village, about 2km from the Three Pagodas border pass in Sangkhla Buri district. More than 700 people have fled so far. The fighting died down Wednesday afternoon and all was quiet overnight, according to birder officials. But civilians continued streaming across the border yesterday.

The Bangkok Post reports that there were 447 Mon civilian refugees sheltering at Wat Tao Than in Sangkhla Buri, visited by Kanchanaburi’s governor, together with the commander of the 9th Infantry Division. They were led by Red Cross officials to distribute rice and other food

Another 117 Burmese said they wouldn’t stay at temporary shelters, worried about their belongings and wanting to get back home.

The fighting occurred after Burmese troops claimed that two houses near the Bo Yeepun stronghold were encroaching on government territory. The Three Pagodas border pass has been closed since the fighting erupted and authorities are preventing Thais from crossing over. Shops around the border have been also been closed since Wednesday.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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PHOTO: Facebook\Day SA

About 300 ethnic Mon people have fled from Myanmar into Thailand to escape fighting near their village, between Burmese troops and Mon rebels, according to a border source.

Joint forces of Myanmar’s army and the Karen Border Force on Wednesday engaged the rebel army near the Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai border. The incident happened in the morning when the Tatmadaw (Army) tried to check the border at an area controlled by the Mon National Liberation Army. The Burmese troops apparently failed to inform the MNLA.

Some of the refugees from Myanmar’s Ban Bo Yeepun village, about two kilometres from the Thai border, are staying with relatives in Kanchanaburi province’s Sangkhla Buri district. Others are sheltered in Ban Rassadorn Thai, along the border road, according to the source.

Fighting broke out after about 15 Burmese soldiers tried to enter the village and were resisted by Mon troops. One Mon villager was reportedly injured in the fighting and was taken to hospital.

The army has been ordered to stay alert at the Thai-Myanmar border.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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PHOTO: Reuters

Myanmar is ignoring a convention banning chemical weapons and may have a stockpile left over from the 1980s… this claim coming out of Washington.

A senior US State Department official told the annual meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that Myanmar may still have weapons at a “historic” facility where mustard gas was once produced.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar military is denying the US’ claims that it may have “a stockpile” of chemical weapons, saying it has no ambitions to possess such arms.

Myanmar officially joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2015. The Convention bans the production, storage and use of chemical arms.

“The US has serious concerns that a chemical weapons stockpile may remain at Myanmar’s historical weapons facility,” according to Thomas DiNanno, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

Washington claims it has information that Myanmar “had a chemical weapons program in the 1980s that included a sulphur mustard development program and chemical weapons production,” he added.

“The US certifies that Myanmar is in noncompliance with the CWC for its failure to declare its past chemical weapons program and destroy its chemical weapons facility,” DiNanno says.

But Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, a Burmese military spokesperson, told The Irrawaddy yesterday that the military hasn’t had any program relating to chemical weapons before or after the country’s ratification of the CWC.

“Not only chemical weapons, we have had no production, storage or testing of nuclear or biochemical weapons either.”

Myanmar has previously faced similar accusations of storing and using such weapons.

In 2005, London based rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide accused the former military junta of using chemical weapons against rebels from the Karen community.

In 2013, Burmese police were accused of using phosphorus against protesters at a Chinese-run copper mine in the upper part of the country, causing severe burns. But Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun rejected that and said it was just tear gas, of the type used internationally.

“Burning can occur when it interacts with water.”

In 2014, five Burmese journalists were sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour for an article that accused the military of making chemical arms.

Myanmar’s then “civilian” government denied using chemical weapons against rebels from the Kachin ethnic minority during clashes in 2013.

A US official says Washington has held talks with Myanmar’s government and military over the issue and “stands ready to assist Myanmar” to destroy the weapons.

SOURCE: The ASEAN Post

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