Paul’s Work as a Journalist
I worked as a correspondent for United Press International for more than 14 years. During those years I was a news editor in Hong Kong, Correspondent for Thailand in Bangkok, Southeast Asia Regional Manager in Singapore, Chief Correspondent for South Asia based in New Delhi and Bureau Chief for Thailand and Indochina, based in Bangkok.
Those were exciting years. I covered the cultural revolution in China, the Communist insurgency in Thailand, elections in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, the tragedy of Cambodia, the suppression of popular dissent and ethnic insurgencies in Burma, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the anti-Sikh riots and the Bhopal disaster in India, the civil war in Sri Lanka, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the flood of refugees into Thailand, the war in Afghanistan and much more. I also wrote travel pieces about the temples of Pagan, the art of Jogjakarta and the volcanoes of Java.
I had great role models among the UPI correspondents and editors I worked with, especially Al Dawson, Leon Daniel, Sylvana Foa, Mike Keats and Al Kaff. They gave me the freedom to write what I saw as I saw it and helped me develop the skills to write it well. I benefited greatly from the talents and hard work of unsung local stringers in places like Bhopal, Kathmandu, Colombo and Rangoon where their contacts, local knowledge and language skills made my reporting far better.
My journalism work gave me the opportunity to meet extraordinary leaders such as Mother Theresa, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir Mohammed, Rajiv Gandhi, Prem Tinsulanonda, Moshe Dayan, Võ Nguyên Giáp and Chuan Likpai. But I also got to meet ordinary people doing their best in difficult circumstances — aid workers in Thailand’s refugee camps, nurses and doctors in Bhopal, volcano watchers and batik artists in Indonesia, entrepreneurs in Communist Vietnam, student protesters in Burma and Thai villagers caught up in a brutal insurgency. Many struggled against undeserved calamity.
Journalists depend on their sources and I was fortunate in finding useful sources. They included the Thai spy chief who enjoyed giving out tidbits of scandal on important people over lunch, the Union Carbide employee who showed me how the company violated its own safety procedures before the poisonous gas leak and the Thai district officer who led me to refugees being forcibly repatriated by the army.
One source who was particularly impressive was Nguyen Xuan Oanh. Now largely forgotten, Oanh had served as South Vietnam’s prime minister and head of the central bank, but he was left behind in the hasty US evacuation from Vietnam. After enduring years of communist ‘re-education’ camps, he managed to emerge as an advocate of market reforms that eventually won support from Vietnam’s Communist rulers. Working behind the scenes, he was a key architect of the capitalist economic changes that helped Vietnam escape from stagnation and famine. Despite being abandoned by the Americans and facing real risks to himself from hardline security officials, he was generous with time, contacts and information to this American reporter. Like the many other sources who helped me over the years, Oanh provided me with information and insight that informed my reporting.
As a news agency correspondent, I was driven by the breaking news of the day. Covering stories on a “deadline every minute” in competition with the Associated Press and Reuters was my main job. I tried, however, to step back whenever possible and take more in-depth looks as the political, economic and social currents that were changing Asia.
Here is a random selection from the hundreds of stories I wrote for UPI published in newspapers around the world. Many of the stories I remember writing, on the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the murder of Benigno Aquino, the civil war in Sri Lanka and the Vietnam-China War for example, are missing. Those that remain have survived as yellowed and tattered clippings that I have scanned and attached below in hopes they may be of some historical interest. Please accept my apologies for the quality of the scans, limited by the size of my desktop scanner and the poor condition of the originals.
1977-79
This was one of the first stories I wrote for UPI while I was still on a traveling fellowship for the Columbia School of Journalism. It was part of a series on the insurgency in Thailand. Unfortunately, most of those stories seem to have been lost.
1979
1980
1981
1982-83
1984
OCT. 31, 1984
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated Wednesday by two...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated Wednesday by two Sikhs on her own security force, the Press Trust of India reported. She was 66.
'Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi is no more,' the domestic news agency reported in a flash bulletin.
An official police spokesman said two bodyguards hit the prime minister in the chest and stomach with automatic gunfire at 9:40 a.m. (11:10 p.m. EST Tuesday). She was reported dead less than four hours later.
Gandhi was rushed to the operating room at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
'We are sure she is dead,' Uni Krishnan, the joint general manager of the Press Trust, told UPI.
An emergency session of Cabinet was called, the official All India radio said. Indian President Zail Singh is expected to name an interim leader from among senior Cabinet members.
A special plane was sent to bring Gandhi's son, Rajiv, to the capital from Calcutta.
In Washington, Assistant White House Press Secretary Anson Franklin said President Reagan was notified of Gandhi's death at 3 a.m. EST and 'expressed his deep personal sorrow.'
Franklin said a formal statement would be issued later at the White House.
Hospital sources said Gandhi was bleeding profusely when she entered the operating room in 'very, very critical condition.'
The Press Trust reported she was shot at least eight times by two members of her security force as she walked from her residence to her office in an adjoining building.
The assailants gunned her down with a burst of bullets from an automatic weapon and a revolver, according to witnesses quoted by the Press Trust.
The gunmen immediately raised their arms and surrendered to other security guards, and police said they were undergoing interrogation.
The Press Trust said the assailants were Sikhs -- one wearing the traditional beard and one clean-shaven. Gandhi had been the object of threats by radical Sikhs who blame her for ordering an army attack on the Golden Temple of Amritsar -- the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion - in June.
The temple attack, which left at least 600 people dead, was an attempt to halt a separatist terror campaign masterminded by Sikh militants barricaded inside.
Earlier this month, police arrested four Sikhs who said they were on their way to New Delhi to assassinate national leaders.
After receiving news of the shooting, thousands of people gathered outside the Institute where doctors were operating on the prime minister.
Gandhi, prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and 1980 until her death, often said she did not fear assassination.
'No, I'm not afraid,' she told United Press International in an interview this month.
'I am frequently attacked,' she said. 'Once a man poked a gun at me, another time in Delhi someone threw a knife at me.'
In 1967, she was hit by a rock that bloodied her face, but Gandhi simply pulled up her sari to hide the blood and continued to speak from the podium.
Gandhi, the only child of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, had become symbol of a strong, unified India to many of the country's 700 million people.
She lost a re-election bid in 1977 but regained the prime minister's post in 1980. Gandhi was expected to seek yet another five-year term in elections due by January 1985.
NOV. 1, 1984
Hindus rioted across northern India Thursday, attacking Sikhs with...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Hindus rioted across northern India Thursday, attacking Sikhs with swords and clubs, burning buildings and besieging Sikh temples in an explosion of rage over the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
At least 148 people were reported killed and 1,000 injured in 19 cities in 12 states only a day after two Sikh bodyguards killed Gandhi in a hail of submachinegun fire, plunging the world's largest democracy into chaos.
Army troops moved into nine of the hardest hit cities, clamped a 24-hour curfew in New Delhi and 21 other cities and ordered troops to shoot on sight to halt rioting that sent black smoke from scores of fires mushrooming over the capital.
As her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi met in emergency session with the Cabinet, Gandhi's flower-covered body lay on a bed of ice at her childhood home, the Teen Murthi House.
Gandhi's funeral was set for Saturday. Among those scheduled to come were Secretary of State George Shultz, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Tikhonov.
Police swinging clubs and firing tear gas pushed back crowds of mourners who tried to push through barricades for a glimpse of the body, setting off a stampede in which 70 people were reported injured.
The assassination of Gandhi, who ruled her nation of 720 million people for 15 of the past 18 years, sent thousands of Hindus into the streets of cities across India to seek revenge against members of the nation's minority Sikh religion.
In the holy Sikh city of Amritsar, police announced the arrest of Tarlok Singh Bajwa, 50, father of Satwant Singh, one of the two Sikh bodyguards accused of assassinating Gandhi.
Police said the father was being held for questioning. Satwant Singh was shot and wounded and his accomplice was killed by other members of Gandhi's security detail.
The government banned newspapers in Punjab, home of most of India's 14 million Sikhs, from publishing reports on the violent backlash against the sect in an attemp to avoid inflaming the Sikh majority with news of Hindu attacks.
The United States and Britain warned travelers to avoid India because of spreading religious violence.
Truckloads of fatigue-clad troops in battle gear poured into the capital, where at least 15 people were killed and 700 others wounded.
Helicopters flew overhead to locate rampaging mobs who left the streets of New Delhi littered with the smoking shells of scores of automobiles, buses and trucks.
Troops also moved into Calcutta, Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow, Benares, Ranchi, Argartala and Jabalpur to stem the Hindu-Sikh violence.
'The prime minister has given very strict instructions to all agencies concerned with law and order that on no account should we allow these sort of incidents to continue,' said government spokesman M.K. Wali.
'The police are under strain and are overburdened. That is why we called in the army -- to strengthen the hand of the civil police. Helicopters have been dispatched to survey the city for rioters,' Wali said.
In the city of Bokaro, 150 miles west of Calcutta, police opened fire on Sikhs and Hindus battling in the streets, killing four people, the Press Trust reported. Thirty-two other people were reported injured in the clashes.
In Tiruchiappalli, 1,200 miles south of the capital, a 24-year-old Hindu railway worker killed himself by pouring kerosene over his head and lighting a match, shouting 'Indira Gandhi Zindabad' -- 'Long live Indira Gandhi.'
One man was shot to death by police in the West Bengal city of Calcutta, where crowds reacted to news of Gandhi's death by occasionally attacking travelers and halting traffic.
In central New Delhi, Sikhs besieged by furious Hindus at the Rakabganj temple beheaded one man in a crowd attempting to force its way into the sanctury.
The mob seized two Sikhs, doused them with kerosene and set them afire. One man was pulled back into the temple, witnesses said, but the other burned to death, his body left smoking.
Sikhs inside the temple fired automatic weapons sending the surrounding mob and approaching policemen diving for cover. Police moved in later to rescue the besieged Sikhs and found two charred bodies, the Press Trust said. Another frenzied mob pursuing a Sikh man rampaged into the house of a member of Parliament, set it afire, burning the Sikh to death.
Thousands of Hindu youths roamed the capital burning cars, buses and buildings believed to belong to Sikhs. Fire brigade officials estimated more than 500 fires were set in the capital.
There were no official reports of violence in northern Punjab state, where most of India's 14 million Sikhs live and militants have waged a bloody campaign for autonomy.
Punjab has been under army occupation and press censorship since last June, when Gandhi ordered troops to storm the Golden Temple, the Sikhs' holiest shrine, to oust armed separatists. At least 600 people died.
Thursday's violence erupted on the first day of an official 12-day period of mourning for Gandhi, who had assumed leadership last year of the 101-nation Non-Aligned Movement.
The body of the diminutive woman was carried in a flag-draped gun carriage to lie in state at Teen Murthi House, where she had romped as the only child of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Thousands of mourners formed a line more than a mile long as they waited to py their last respects to Gandhi, whose bullet-ridden body was draped in the white, green and safron Indian flag.
upi.com/4619422
NOV. 3, 1984
Swirling flames from a roaring funeral pyre engulfed the...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Swirling flames from a roaring funeral pyre engulfed the flower-draped body of slain Prime Minister Indira Gandhi today in ancient Hindu rites following a somber procession through crowded, dusty streets of New Delhi.
Wrapped in a deep red sari and covered with red and white flowers, the body of the woman who dominated the politics of the world's most populous democracy for nearly two decades was placed upon a 1,100-pound, two-tier pyre by her son and successor, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
A Hindu priest sprinkled the body with holy water.
Rajiv Gandhi walked around the body seven times with a flaming torch and then set the pyre of sweet-smelling sandalwood ablaze by igniting a 'fireball' of oil-soaked wood in the mouth of the corpse, symbolizing the final break from the world of the living.
The white-clad Rajiv watched, tears streaking his cheeks, as flames leaped from the pyre, consuming his mother's body.
A priest chanted Sanscrit hymns over a loudspeaker and Indian Air Force jets roared overhead.
A crowd estimated at about 200,000 stood in silence watching the ceremony from the grassy cremation ground of Shanti Vana -- Woodland of Peace -- on the banks of the holy Yamuna River.
Gandhi was assassinated Wednesday by two Sikh security guards apparently seeking revenge for her crackdown on militant Sikhs in northern Punjab province.
The only Sikh visible at the funeral was India's president Zail Singh, who has condemned the killing.
The cremation site is between the places where Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's father and India's first prime minister, and Indian independence leader Mohandas K. 'Mahatma' Gandhi were cremated on the banks of the Yamuna.
The body was taken from Teen Murthi House, where it had lain in state since Thursday, for the solemn ride down the broad Rajpath (Kingsway), a 7-mile procession route lined by about 400,000 Indians.
The funeral procession moved slowly to the muffled drumbeats of a red-turbaned Rajput regimental band.
Three lines of army, navy and air force men pulled the funeral car with long, twisted ropes of blue and red cloth. The body was draped in the safron, white and green Indian flag, placed atop a gun carriage and covered in flowers.
The new prime minister, his Italian wife Sonia and their two children led the motorcade that followed his mother's body.
Sonia sobbed uncontrollably as the procession began. She had been the only family member present at the residence where her mother-in-law was killed.
More than 60 presidents and prime ministers were among delegations from about 100 countries who paid final respects to the once-shy housewife who eventually led her 720 million people and the 101-nation Non-Aligned Movement.
The dignitaries at the somber funeral included British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Tikhonov, Pakistan President Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq and Secretary of State George Shultz.
Although millions of people watched a live telecast of the procession, the crowds along the route were far smaller than the 2 million mourners originally expected. The numbers apparently were reduced by fears of renewed rioting.
Even so, soldiers had to struggle to keep emotional crowds from crashing through barriers to touch the flower-draped gun carriage that bore the body to Shanti Vana.
Several times the people, many of them barefoot and ragged, pushed up against the guards until driven back by waving clubs.
As the cortege turned into the cremation ground, honor guards leveled their rifles at the crowd to keep it back.
'Indira Gandhi amar rahe (Indira Gandhi is immortal),' the crowd shouted as the procession passed.
NOV. 5, 1984
Thousands of mourners packed railway stations and airports across...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Thousands of mourners packed railway stations and airports across India Tuesday to view the ashes of slain Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as the nation tried to recover from religious clashes that left 1,100 people dead.
Gandhi's ashes went on display in cities throughout the country. After her cremation Saturday, the ashes were placed into 40 urns and transported from New Delhi by trains and planes for viewing in all 22 states by India's 720 million people.
Tens of thousands of people jammed airports and train stations from Bombay to Kashmir to get a glimpse of the ashes before they are scattered by aircraft over the snowy Himalayas on Sunday.
Gandhi's assassination last Wednesday by two Sikh members of her security force unleashed a wave of violence in northern India that left an estimated 1,100 people dead -- about half of them in New Delhi.
Three more people were killed Monday in a shooting in central Delhi.
Sikhs who survived attacks by Hindu mobs charged Monday that workers for Gandhi's ruling Congress Party led rioters against Sikh communities and police watched without acting.
Most of the dead in the sectarian violence -- the most widespread since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 -- were members of the minority Sikh faith, killed by Hindu mobs seeking to avenge Gandhi's murder.
Although the rioting had largely subsided by Monday, the government of new Prime Minister Rivaj Gandhi, Indira's son, was faced with an enormous refugee problem.
Thousands of homeless Sikhs, many in need of medical care, were huddled in makeshift camps, schools and police compounds throughout the capital. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa visited some of the Sikhs in refugee camps.
Gandhi late Monday approved funds to assist and rehabilitate riot victims. A government announcement said those whose houses were destroyed or whose next of kin was killed would receive $835.
Some Sikhs said the government had done nothing to help them and others vowed to seek revenge on Hindus, the majority in India. India's Sikhs, who number 14 million, are a small percentage of the country's population but are among its most prosperous groups.
'We were made beggars,' said one Sikh. 'Why? Because we are Sikhs, they don't give us the safety they give Hindus.'
In New Delhi, journalists reported they were subject to increasing harassment, believed intended to restrict their reports on the violence.
Three photographers working for foreign news organizations were attacked and beaten by a mob Monday as about 60 policemen stood by without acting, the photographers and witnesses said. One photographer said a police inspector pushed him back into the mob after he broke free and ran for help.
Interviews with dozens of Sikh refugees revealed a picture of the post-assassination violence. Many said the Hindu mobs that attacked them were led by low-level political workers while police refused to intervene.
'All the people who come here say the same thing -- this was done by Congress (party) and the police,' said Udham Singh, 42, elected leader of a Sikh refugee camp in West Delhi.
'If the police did not help in the attacks, then they did nothing to stop them,' he said. 'Many of the mobs were egged on by local political party leaders, first from the Congress and then by others.'
The rioters and looters appeared to have come mostly from slums. They apparently were encouraged by well-organized gangs of hoodlums, known as 'goondas,' who Indian officials say in recent years have been increasingly used by political parties as enforcers and have even infiltrated the police force.
Several Sikh victims interviewed in refugee camps said the mobs were brought in by trucks from squatter areas, assembled in public parks and directed to particular houses owned by Sikhs.
'How did these strangers know exactly which houses to burn? They must have been given directions,' said Balwinder Singh Oberoi, 36, who had both his arms broken and his house razed by Hindu attackers.
Another Sikh, who asked not to be named, said he was a Congress I official himself and he recognized some of the mob who attacked his house as people he had worked with on political campaigns.
'These are the low level types who help get out the vote,' he said.
In the Trilokpuri area of east Delhi, Sikh refugees said the army moved to quell the violence only Sunday, three days after the mass killings of Sikhs began.
'They assembled in the big park in front of my house with police watching,' said Gurdip Singh, 50. 'A Congress politician from our area was directing them from behind the trucks that brought them in.'
'They were shouting 'Indira Gandhi Zindabad' -- Long live Indira Gandhi and 'Sikhs Murdabad' -- Death to Sikhs, and they came for my house first.
'They dipped a cloth in gasoline and then pushed it with a stick through my window and the house began to burn,' he said.
Gurdip said he escaped onto the roof of the house and watched as the mob pulled three Sikh men out of the houses on the block, beat them, poured gasoline in their mouths and set them afire.
'There was a truck full of bricks following the mob as they went from house to house, providing ammunition for the rioters to hurl at the houses.
'It was organized -- that was plain,' said Gurdip, who said he is president of his local Sikh temple organization.
The Sikhs' bitterness has been multiplied by the government's failure to help refugees. Most of the camps packed with Sikhs have received little or no food, water or medical aid.
'We will get guns, we will get revenge,' said one Sikh.
upi.com/4700898
NOV. 20, 1984
Gandhi faces sister-in-law in election
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi filed today to oppose his estranged sister-in-law for his old Parliament seat in India's upcoming national election.
The Prime Minister, who succeeded his slain mother Indira Gandhi three weeks ago, left the capital early today to file his nomination papers for Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh state, 380 miles southeast of New Delhi.
Gandhi won the seat in a 1981 special election after the air crash death of his brother Sanjay, elected to the seat in 1980.
Sanjay's widow, Menaka Gandhi, has announced she also will seek the Amethi seat as head of her opposition party, Rashtriya Sanjay Manch.
Menaka, 28, broke with her mother-in-law in a bitter family squabble after Sanjay's death and formed the opposition party named after him.
Menaka has called Rajiv 'immature' and charged that his campaign is based 'not on policies or philosophies but on the grief generated by Mrs. Indira Gandhi's death.'
Most observers believe a wave of sympathy over Indira Gandhi's slaying Oct. 31 will sweep her Congress-I Party back to power in elections set for Dec. 24, 27 and 28.
Nominations opened for 514 seats in the Lok Sabha, the powerful lower house of Parliament.
Even as the weeklong nominations started, opposition leaders were still mired in discussions aimed at coordinating the election fight against the ruling Congress-I Party.
Two well-known opposition figures already have squared off against each other.
Former Prime Minister Charan Singh, who heads the Dalit Majdoor Kisan party (Workers and Laborers Party) faces a former associate, Raj Narain, the socialist who defeated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 1977 general elections.
Several attempts to form a unified opposition party already have failed, and in meetings today, opposition leaders were focusing on electoral understandings so votes are not split in three-way fightsagainst the Congress-I Party.
Most balloting will be held Dec. 24, but further voting is scheduled for Dec. 27 and 28 in large states and in remote areas. Gandhi's party currently holds more than 330 of the 543 elective seats and is not expected to hold onto such a wide margin.
But analysts say the party is likely to win a safe majority if it can sustain the sympathy generated by the assassination through the nearly five-week campaign.
DEC. 29, 1984
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his ruling Congress-I Party...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI -- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his ruling Congress-I Party laid claim to a record two-thirds majority in Parliament today in a landslide that gave the former airline pilot a resounding mandate to succeed his slain mother.
The massive victory was a personal mandate for Gandhi, who was sworn in only hours after his mother, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards Oct. 31.
Gandhi said would appoint a new cabinet in a few days and call the next session of Parliament in the third week of February.
Official returns showed Gandhi's Congress Party had won 355 of 433 seats decided in the election to fill 508 seats in Parliament. The three major opposition parties -- which defeated Indira Gandhi in 1977 -- won only 12.
With the party leading in most other races, it was assured of bettering its previous record of 357 seats, won in 1957 when the party was headed by Gandhi's grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister.
Rajiv Gandhi was his mother's handpicked successor. She had singled out his younger brother, Sanjay, as her political heir but when Sanjay was killed in a stunt plane crash in June 1980, she called on Rajiv, then an airline pilot.
He won a special election to succeed his brother in Parliament and took his place at his mother's side.
Gandhi himself easily defeated his sister-in-law, Menaka Gandhi, for the Parliament seat in Amethi, east of New Delhi.
'We have many problems and difficulties before us but, with the strength you have given me and the party, we will be able to meet the challenge,' Gandhi told a cheering crowd outside his residence.
Party workers draped the 40-year-old prime minister with garlands of flowers as he thanked the voters for the unprecedented support and pledged that 'under Congress rule, India will prosper.'
'This puts Gandhi in a position to deal with some of the country's very serious problems ... without worrying too much about his own power base,' said one Indian analayst.
The three-day election in the world's largest democracy -- a nation of 730 million -- was marred by bomb-throwing and shooting battles between rival political groups that cost 35 lives. It ended Friday night in relative peace.
Further balloting will be held next year in 34 constituencies where voting was postponed because of civil disorder or the deaths of candidates.
'This is a vote for stability, a strong central government and a dynamic leader,' said K.C. Pant, a winning Congress Party candidate in New Delhi.
In New Delhi, thousands of Congress supporters danced in the streets, pounded on drums and set off firecrackers to celebrate the victories.
Jubilant Congress supporters, including some Sikhs, gyrated to the Bhangra, a Punjabi dance, while others lit up their homes with colored lights.
India's major opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Dalit Majdoor Kisan Party and the Janata Party, who together defeated Indira Gandhi in 1977, were swamped and some of their top leaders were toppled.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, head of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a respected former foreign minister, conceded defeat to Congress Party candidate Madhavrao Scindia, the son of the former Maharajah of Gwalior.
'As a Democrat, I accept the verdict of the people of Gwalior,' Vajpayee said in a statement. 'I must add, however, that the maharajah's victory has in no small measure been due to money, muscle power and ministerial power.'
Janata Party President Chandra Shekhar also fell to a Congress Party candidate in the northern Hindi-speaking belt that has traditionally been an opposition stronghold.
Election officials estimated that between 57 percent and 60 percent of the 378 eligible voters cast ballots in the election.
upi.com/4040261
DEC. 5, 1984
Smoke from funeral pyres shroud Bhopal as death toll rises
By
PAUL WEDEL
BHOPAL, India -- Smoke from funeral pyres shrouded Bhopal and bodies heaped about the city posed a threat of epidemic today as the death toll from a poison gas leak passed 1,600 and some 50,000 people sought medical care.
Officials of Union Carbide said an initial investigation showed more than 25 tons of methyl isocyanate spewed into the air over the central Indian city after a 'runaway chemical reaction' caused pressure to rise in a storage tank and a safety valve to open at the pesticide plant.
'The amount of gas overwhelmed a scrubber meant to neutralize the gas,' Union Carbide spokesman Vijay Avasti said.
The Union Carbide chief medical officer, Dr. L.D. Loya, said proper medical treatment could have saved many of the victims, but the sheer volume and extent of the gas release had overwhelmed facilities.
Search teams today looked for more bodies in mud huts in the dozen shanty towns surrounding Bhopal, and doctors said another 1,000 people who inhaled the deadly gas -- most of them children -- were in critical condition and in danger of death.
The final death toll for Monday's gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant will not be known for days.
Official reports set the death toll at more than 1,600. State Chief Minister Arjun Singh told a news conference the government had recorded 620 deaths but acknowledged his figures were incomplete.
Singh vowed the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal is 'never going to start functioning here -- never again.'
The number injured by the gas -- used in manufacturing a widely used pesticide -- was estimated at 50,000. In addition to the 1,000 victims listed in critical condition, 2,000 were listed in serious condition.
Health officials said today that unburied bodies and thousands of decaying carcasses of water buffalos, goats and other animals littered the slum area around the plant posed the threat of epidemics that could further inflate the death toll.
At the hospital morgues, people stood in long, winding lines waiting their turn to identify the dead that lay, in rows, on the ground, covered with white sheets that left only the faces visible.
Tens of thousands of people were overcome by methyl isocyanate gas that seeped from the Union Carbide plant, enveloping Bhopal and a 15-square-mile area in a deadly cloud.
Some victims were killed as they slept. Others, eyes burning and lungs bursting, fled into the wintry night and died in the streets or made their way to packed hospitals.
A quarter of Bhopal's 800,000 people fled from what witnesses described as the 'silent, white cloud.'
Most of the victims were poor country folk who moved to the lakeside city 350 miles south of New Delhi in search of jobs, building mud hovels near the pesticide plant. Many found employment at the plant, built seven years ago on the northern outskirts of Bhopal.
Rescue workers today began searching the slums surrounding the plant. Officials said they expected scores of bodies would be found -- especially in the hardest hit area, a collection o4547ud huts and hovels extending south from the plant's edge nearly to the shore of Lower Lake.
There were signs around the mud huts near the plant of the haste and fear in which their residents fled. A coarse red blanket trailed out of one and near the door of another. A child's sandal lay forgotten.
In an open area in front of several huts, six bodies lay wrapped in woven matting for retrieval by the slatted trucks picking up corpses all over town. Out of one tiny bundle poked the thin hand of a child.
People wandered the streets carrying bodies wrapped in white shrouds for cremation. Funeral pyres cast a red glow on the sky over the city Tuesday night.
And, at hospitals, the injured kept coming.
'We have been working non-stop to treat the people and still they are coming,' medical volunteer Satish Chavan said Tuesday. 'They came choking on their own vomit and unable to open their own eyes. It was horrifying, like nuclear war.'
Dr. N.R. Bandhari, medical superintendent at Hamidia Hospital, where many of the injured were taken, said the most of the victims suffered 'eye pain, nausea and pulmonary edema -- that means their lungs are filling with fluid and they are choking to death on it.'
'It comes and goes -- the lungs may fill up, then improve only to worsen again,' he said. 'Then there is the possibility of renal (kidney) failure after that. These could be long term problems.'
Five Indian supervisory officers of Union Carbide India Ltd. were under arrest for 'causing death by negligence.'
Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson arrived in India from the company's headquarters in Connecticut today to join the investigation of the accident.
upi.com/4216508
1985
JAN. 5, 1985
Indian scientists studying the effects of the Bhopal gas...
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Indian scientists studying the effects of the Bhopal gas leak today reported widespread defoliation of trees and warned of possible brain damage to babies of pregnant women exposed to the gas.
Dr. A.K. Sharma of Calcutta University proposed a long-term study of possible genetic effects of the gas, as was undertaken for victims of the nuclear bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, according to the Press Trust of India.
Dr. S.V. Chandra of the Indian Toxicological Research Center said the poisonous gas, released from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal on Dec. 3, may have affected children in the womb when their mothers were exposed to the gas, the Press Trust reported.
'The possibility of brain damage in embryos of pregnant mothers who inhaled the toxic methyl isocyanate gas is a cause of concern,' Chandra told the Indian Science Congress in Lucknow, 250 miles east of New Delhi, the Press Trust said.
She said scientists from the research center plan to set up a laboratory in a central Indian city for a follow-up study of the effects of MIC on babies born in the next 12 months.
Doctors in Bhopal said the MIC attacked the lungs and affected the flow of oxygen to the bodies of many victims -- an effect that could be particularly dangerous to the developing brains of babies in the womb.
Dr. B.K. Roy of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute presented slides to the Science Congress showing the defoliation of trees near the site of the gas release in Bhopal.
Reporting the results of field studies, he said leaves of mustard, mint coriander, castor, jasmine and pomegranate were affected while other species were spared, the domestic news agency said.
Roy said that some vegetables turned color and wheat stored in a government storehouse in Bhopal showed chromosomal damage.'But we are not sure if the damage was due to MIC gas or due to the storage itself,' he said.
Another scientist, Dr. S. Beg of the Toxicological Research Center, said only 15 of the 85 species of vegetation studied in Bhopal remain unaffected while the rest suffered damage ranging from discoloration to defoliation.
Beg said the research center will do further studies to see whether the affected vegetation revives or degenerates.
The precise long term effects of exposure to MIC are not known because the accident was the first large-scale release of MIC into the air.
The toxic gas cloud drifted into Bhopal at night, killing more than 2,500 people and injuring thousands.
upi.com/4079677
MARCH 29, 1985
India blames Union Carbide for Bhopal disaster
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- The Indian government said today it has 'adequate evidence' to establish that Union Carbide Corp. was to blame for a December gas leak n Bhopal that killed 2,500 people and injured 200,000.
'There is adequate evidence to establish, in a convincing manner, the culpability of the Union Carbide Corp. of the United States for the Bhopal gas disaster,' Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Veerendra Patil said in Parliament.
It was the first time the Indian government had so bluntly blamed the U.S. company for the accident.
The statement followed nearly four months of investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, whichis expected to present its report next month.
Patil declined to detail the evidence against Union Carbide, saying the government 'shall present all the facts in this regard at an appropriate forum.'
The CBI, the Indian equivalent of the American FBI, moved in quickly after the Dec. 3 accident, seizing company records and correspondence between the Indian subsidiary and its U.S. parent corporation.
Patil sharply criticized a report issued by Union Carbide in the United States that suggested the accident was caused by local operating personnel and the parent company could not be responsible.
'The reported conclusions in the so-called technical report of the Union Carbide Corp., USA, are apparently based on insufficient evidence and, therefore, are speculative,' he said.
The report released by Union Carbide last week said water 'inadvertently or deliberately' was allowed to contaminate an underground chemical storage tank at the plant.
The mixture started a runaway chemical reaction that spewed a cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate gas over Bhopal, killing more than 2,500 people and injuring 200,000.
upi.com/5684648
MARCH 29, 1985
India has 'convincing' evidence in gas leak
By
PAUL WEDEL
(0)
NEW DELHI, India -- India rejected a Union Carbide Corp. report on the Bhopal gas leak Friday and said it has 'convincing' evidence the U.S. firm was solely responsible for the accident that killed some 2,500 people.
It was the first time the Indian government had so bluntly blamed the American company for the accident.
'There is adequate evidence to establish, in a convincing manner, the culpability of the Union Carbide Corp. of the United States for the Bhopal gas disaster,' India's Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Veerendra Patil told Parliament.
The statement followed nearly four months of investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's equivalent of the FBI, which is expected to present its report next month.
The CBI moved in quickly after the Dec. 3 accident, seizing company records and correspondence between the Indian subsidiary of Carbide and its parent corporation in the United States.
Patil declined to detail the evidence against Union Carbide, saying the government 'shall present all the facts in this regard at an appropriate forum.'
On Wednesday, Parliament passed a bill giving the government 'exclusive right' to file suit against Union Carbide. Pretrial hearings are scheduled to open in a New York City court April 16.
Patil sharply criticized a report by Union Carbide that suggested the accident was caused by local operating personnel and that the parent company could not be held responsible.
'The reported conclusions in the so-called technical report of the Union Carbide Corp., USA, are apparently based on insufficient evidence and, therefore, are speculative,' Patil said.
The report released by Union Carbide last week said water 'inadvertently or deliberately' was allowed to contaminate an underground chemical storage tank at the plant.
The mixture started a runaway chemical reaction that spewed a cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate gas over Bhopal, killing more than 2,500 people and injuring tens of thousands.
'It doesn't seem like something inadvertent,' Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson said of the accident.
Patil said the Union Carbide report was 'based on inadequate data' and the statements by Union Carbide officials appeared motivated to protect the company.
'The statements reported to have been made in the press by the officials of the Union Carbide Corp., USA, regarding responsibilities for the unfortunate leakage, while releasing the so-called technical report, are unwarranted and unjustified,' he said.
JULY 25, 1985
Militant Sikhs reject accord
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Militant Sikh leaders Thursday rejected an agreement between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and moderate Sikhs aimed at ending four years of bitter strife in a bloody autonomy campaign.
Sikh youths shouted slogans and demonstrated at the Golden Temple of Amritsar -- the Sikh's holiest shrine -- against the 11-point pact, calling the leaders who signed the agreement Wednesday 'traitors.'
The agreement was signed in an effort to end the violence that led to an army attack on the Golden Temple and the assassination of Gandhi's mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, by two Sikh bodyguards last year.
The United Akali Dal, a breakaway faction of the main Sikh political party the Akali Dal, rejected the agreement. The United News of India quoted a party spokesman as saying the agreement was 'a sellout.'
The Press Trust of India said another radical organization, the All India Sikh Students Federation, also condemned the pact signed by Gandhi and leaders of Akali Dal, which has been seeking more political and economic autonomy for Sikhs in prosperous northern Punjab state.
Supporters of the two radical groups demonstrated against the accord in Amritsar, 250 miles north of New Delhi. Moderates shouted back at the demonstrators, but no violence was reported.
In New Delhi, Sikhs offered prayers in temples and traditional sweets to Hindus as a mark of friendship after hearing of the accord announced by Gandhi following 32 hours of negotiations with the Akali Dal led by Harchand Singh Longowal.
'Mr. Gandhi did not allow a personal tragedy to stand in the path of reconciliation,' said the Tribune newspaper published in Punjab.
Longowal 'acted with rare courage in the face of threats from Sikh extremists,' the newspaper said.
Under the agreement, the government will reduce the scope of special anti-terrorist courts, give Punjab full sovereignty over its capital Chandigarh, ensure no discrimination against recruitment of Sikhs into the armed forces, and pay compensation to those affected by the violence in the state.
The agreement, however, did not include a Sikh demand for withdrawal of the army from the state, which shares a border with India's traditional foe, Pakistan, and is home to 52 percent of India's 15 million Sikhs.
The Punjab crisis reached a peak in June 1984 when Indira Gandhi ordered the army to storm the Golden Temple. The attack was intended to crush Sikh extremists using the temple as a sanctuary.
More than 600 people, moy Sikhs, were killed in the attack. The army arrested more than 2,000 Sikhs, including many moderates such as Longowal.
In retaliation for the army action, two Sikh security guards assassinated Mrs. Gandhi on Oct. 31, 1984, outside her home, sparking anti-Sikh riots that left almost 3,000 people dead.
FEB. 10, 1985
Gandhi launches political campaign for 11 states
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, facing a possible rebellion within his Congress-I Party, Sunday launched 11 state legislative election campaigns expected to test his popularity after three months in office.
At his first campaign stop in Shahabad, 175 miles east of New Delhi, Gandhi appealed to hundreds of Congress-I members dropped as candidates by the party leadership to remain loyal.
He promised to provide opportunities for them to work for the party in other capacities.
The elections were expected to be an early test of whether Gandhi's popularity remains strong following his landslide victory in general elections at the end of December.
The former airline pilot succeeded his mother, Indira Gandhi, after her assassination Oct. 31 by two Sikh bodyguards.
About 1,000 Congress-I members and 70 ministers in the states where elections are scheduled March 2-5 have been dropped as candidates in favor of other contenders. Elections will be held in 11 of the country's 22 states and one territory.
Many of those eliminated were said to be inefficient or suspected of corruption, but some have complained of nepotism and favoritism by the state party leaders who helped draw up the candidate lists.
In some states, those left off the ballots have threatened to run for election as independents to take votes away from Congress-I.
In New Delhi, Congress-I spokesman Srikant Verma said he expected most of the rebel candidates to withdraw and warned they would be 'dealt with' if they did not.
In his speech at Shahabad, the 40-year-old Gandhi said he had taken strong steps to stamp out corruption in the government.
He cited legislation passed last month to bar legislators from switching parties after election and efforts by the Congress-I to select candidates who were honest and competent for the state balloting.
'India would make rapid progress if the country had a clean political life and a corruption-free government,' he said.
JULY 8, 1985
Three Sikhs charged with killing Indira Gandhi
By
PAUL WEDEL
NEW DELHI, India -- A judge Monday formally charged three Sikhs with conspiracy and murder at the opening of their trial in the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The defendants pleaded innocent.
Defense lawyers immediately protested that the charges, leveled by trial Judge Mahesh Chandra, showed he had prejudged the case.
The public was barred from the trial being held in a heavily guarded room of New Delhi's maximum security Tihar Prison, but reporters and relatives of the accused were allowed into the small, stuffy courtroom.
Gandhi was shot to death last Oct. 31 by three of her Sikh bodyguards as she left her home in New Delhi and walked to her office. She died on a hospital operating table of multiple gunshot wounds. Hours later, her son Rajiv was sworn into office as her successor.
The three blue-turbaned defendants -- Satwant Singh, accused of firing the shots that killed Gandhi, and two alleged co-conspirators, Balbir Singh and Kehar Singh -- sat in a box of bullet-proof glass.
The charge sheet said the trio 'on and before 31 October, 1984 entered at New Delhi into a criminal conspiracy and agreed to do and ask to be done an illegal act, to wit, the murder of Shrimati (Mrs.) Indira Gandhi.'
The charges said Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, a fellow security guard at Gandhi's residence, 'committed the murder of Shrimati Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India, by shooting her down with your service firearms.'
Beant Singh was killed by other guards after he surrendered.
Satwant Singh, who survived multiple gunshot wounds after he killed Mrs. Gandhi, was also charged with attempted murder and 'causing grievous bullet injuries' to a bodyguard hit during the shooting.
If found guilty, the three defendants face sentences of death by hanging or life imprisonment.
Chandra said the defendants had a clear case to answer and ordered them to stand trial.
The full-bearded Balbir Singh, who had been taking notes during the reading of the charges, rose to say he would be ready to plead guilty if someone would 'satisfactorily explain what I have done wrong.'
His attorney, P.P. Grover, quickly quieted him and all three defendants entered innocent pleas to the charges.
But Grover objected that observations made by the judge showed he believed the defendants were guilty.
'You have made up your mind before the trial even begins,' Grover said.
There is no jury trial system in India and the verdict is to be delivered by the trial judge.
Pran Nath Lekhi, lawyer for Satwant Singh, charged prison officials had bugged the defendant's cell during consultations and demanded that the makeshift courtroom be certified free of bugging devices. The judge ordered prison officials to ensure no listening devices were in the room.
MAY 15, 1985
Thousands suffering in Bhopal
NEW DELHI, India -- More than five months after the Union Carbide gas leak, about 11,500 victims are listed as critically ill and thousands more suffer from respiratory ailments, the government announced Wednesday.
Yogendra Makwana, minister of state for health, told Parliament that 200,000 people were injured by the Dec. 3, 1984, gas leak from Union Carbide Corp.'s pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal.
The government says 1,700 people were killed by methyl isocyanate gas that leaked over the city that night. Other reports have put the death toll as high as 2,500.
Of those who were injured by the toxic gas, 20,000 are still suffering from respiratory diseases and 11,500 are 'critically ill,' Makwana said.
Medical tests showed that those affected by the gas had unusually high levels of thiocyanates in their urine, Makwana said.
Thiocyanates, compounds of cyanide, can cause diseases of the thyroid glands -- the organs affecting the growth rate -- and may cause abnormal growth of the fetus. The chemical is a product of methyl isocyanate.
A recent medical survey discovered that Bhopal's main water supply contained more than four times the normal level of thiocyanates.
The survey conducted in March by doctors from Bombay's King Edward Memorial Hospital found 'unusually high levels' of thiocyanates in blood samples taken from 569 people in and around Bhopal.
During the seven-day survey period, the doctors found their own blood thiocyanate levels also had increased.
An official commission of inquiry set up to investigate the Union Carbide gas leak ordered the local government Wednesday to analyze Bhopal's drinking water supplies to determine the thiocyanate levels.
The Indian government has said the air and water in Bhopal is safe and a Cabinet subcommittee set up to supervise aid to the Bhopal victims recently said it had found no defects in 500 babies born after the gas leak.
The government has filed suit in the United States against Union Carbide, seeking compensation on behalf of the victims.
APRIL 25, 1985
Ethnic troubles bring peace to Sri Lanka's ancient capital
By
PAUL WEDEL
(0)
ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka -- It is a paradox the Buddhist rulers of Sri Lanka's ancient capital might have appreciated -- the violence between the country's two main ethnic groups has brought tranquility to the fourth century B.C. city on the boundary between the Sinhalese south and the Tamil north.
The disappearance of the tourists who once flocked to Anuradhapura has made the city that much more attractive to those who do venture into the heart of Sri Lanka.
Anuradhapura, 128 miles north of Colombo, is most easily reached by train. The northern express, with its first class, air-conditioned coaches, is now often canceled due to the fighting, but slower trains run at least twice a day. A second-class ticket costs less than $2.
The slow train gives the traveler an intimate look into the backyards of rural Sri Lanka -- villagers bathing in streams that pour down from the mountains, cooking in the open-door kitchens of their thatched dwellings or lazing in a hammock watching the trains go by.
Part of the pleasure is the friendliness of fellow passengers -- who often speak excellent English -- that inevitably results in an invitation to visit their homes.
In Anuradhapura, the place to stay is the Tissawewa Rest House, the town's first hotel. It was converted from the bungalow of the British political agent who administered the region.
The 118-year-old structure, filled with Sri Lankan art and memorabilia, has a broad veranda lined with potted plants and rocking chairs. Two cool string beds with canopies provide a resting place for those too mellow to rock. Even on the veranda ceiling fans twirl slowly overhead.
The veranda overlooks Tissawewa Tank -- a small lake dug centuries ago to store water for agriculture -- and a flower-filled garden where a troop of monkeys whoop at sunset.
Unlike most of the hotels that have followed it, the Tissawewa is right in among the ruins of the ancient city -- designated a sacred area.
One drawback is that because of the sacred nature of the ruins, the hotel cannot serve alcohol. No one objects, however, if you bring your own and slip a little gin into a Tissawewa fresh lime and soda.
But be warned, the Tissawewa is the highest priced hotel in Anuradhapura. A single room costs all of 418 rupees, including supper and service -- but that is less than $17 and with a bit of bargaining, the rate can come down.
The Tissawewa, like the rest of the tourist industry, is suffering through a severe drop in business due to the communal strife that has plagued the districts north of Anuradhapura, although the city itself has been untouched.
Once it was necessary to book weeks in advance to stay at the Tissawewa, but on a recent weekend only three of its 25 rooms were occupied.
The dearth of tourists gives a serenity to the Buddhist monuments spread among the groves and lawns of Anuradhapura.
Legend says the city was founded in the 4th century B.C. and served as the capital for 118 kings before it was abandoned. It was reclaimed from the jungle in the early 19th century.
The traveler can meditate under a sacred bo tree said to have been grown from a cutting of the tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment, orinspect the mighty 300-foot dome of the Ruwanveliseya. Also open to wanderers are the 1,600 stone pillars of the Brazen Palace.
Fighting between the Sinhalese and the minority Tamils forced the abandonment of the city in the 9th century. Today, the same thing seems to be happening, bad news for local businesses but a boon to the adventurous tourist.
DEC. 31, 1987
Vietnamese leave for new lives in U.S.
By
PAUL WEDEL
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Nearly 400 Vietnamese, including dozens fathered by American servicemen during the Vietnam War, left Vietnam Thursday on their way to new lives in the United States.
The 65 young people of American-Vietnamese descent, 91 relatives and 226 other Vietnamese joining family members in the United States were the first group to leave Vietnam under new procedures that ended a 22-month freeze in a resettlement program.
The Vietnamese, arriving at Bangkok airport on four aircraft, waved small American flags handed out by U.S. Embassy personnel and were greeted at Bangkok airport by U.S. Ambassador William Brown.
'This is going to be a very exciting new year as you get to know your new country, its people and its language,' Brown said.
He said the new procedures, meant to speed resettlement of Amerasian children and other Vietnamese with relatives in the United States, were working well so far, 'But the job is far from complete. There are more or less 9,000 cases (of Amerasian children) still in Vietnam.'
The new arrivals will stay at a Thai immigration center for up to 12 days until medical checks and paper work are complete. They then will go to the Philippines for six months of language and cultural training before actually setting foot in the United States.
Many of the Amerasians, ranging in age from 14 to 21, have been waiting years to go to the United States as the U.S. and Vietnamese governments argued over procedures and priorities for their resettlement.
'All I know about my father is that his name was Louie Lee,' said Huynh Thi Nguyet, a 21-year-old Amerasian accompanied by her husband and her two children, Lam Guang Tien, 6, and Lam Guang Sinh, 4. 'I would like to see him and tell him that he is now a grandfather.'
Tran Thuy Anh, 14, a light-haired girl wearing her first Western-style dress, came clutching a tattered picture of her father, Lt. Michael L. Drickey.
Her mother, Lam Cam Tai, said Drickey had sent money and had written to her for two years after he returned to Oklahoma in 1973, but 'then he moved and we lost track.
'At one time I would have been very happy to see him again,' she said, 'but by now he must be married. I don't want to cause trouble.'
Like many of the new arrivals, Tai, a former secretary at a U.S. military headquarters, said she decided to leave Vietnam with Anh and another daughter by a Vietnamese husband who was killed in the war 'so they will have a future.'
Tai said the girls, despite top grades, were not allowed to continue their schooling because the government did not want to waste education on people who would be leaving for the United States.
Several children described harsh childhoods with single parents trying to survive in an economically depressed country that sees their faces as reminders of war, which ended in 1975, and foreign aggression.
Pham Hung Huy, 15, said he hoped to find his father despite knowing only his name, Teddy Cooper. He said he looked forward to living in the United States, where his light brown hair and Caucasian features would not look different.
'Sometimes the other children would tease me,' said Huy 'but it was not so bad, you just learn to live like that.'
1986
UPI ARCHIVES
JAN. 27, 1986
Cambodia says America not responding on MIA issue
By Paul Wedel
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Cambodia has had 'some results' in the s earch for Americans listed as missing in action but Washington has not responded to its 'good will,' the official Cambodian news agency said today.
Foreign Minister Hun Sen said 'the People's Republic of Kampuchea (Cambodia) has had some results from investigations in a number of places where Americans were reported missing,' the official news agency SPK said.
'But so far, the American party has not responded to the good will of the PRK'in searching for 91 American servicemen and civilians listed as missing in action (MIA) in Cambodia, the report said.
Hun Sen's remarks were made in a recent interview with several correspondents in Vientiane, Laos, where he attended the 12th conference of the foreign ministers of the three Communist Indochinese countries, the report said.
At the end of the meeting on Saturday, a joint communique said the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government was 'ready to cooperate in this (MIA) matter.'
'It is regrettable that the American side has not shown any interest in this humanitarian matter,' the communique said.
A U.S. official involved in the MIA issue said he was not aware of an offer of specific information from Cambodia.
'We have made it known to the Vietnamese that we would appreciate any information possible (on MIAs in Cambodia),' said the official who asked not to be named.
'The Vietnamese urged us to make direct contacts with Phnom Penh,' he said.
The United States does not have diplomatic relations with the Cambodian government and has opposed the seating at the United Nations of the government installed by Vietnam in 1979.
A total of 91 Americans -- eight civilians, 14 Marines, 46 from the Army, 21 from the Air Force and two from the Navy -- are listed as missing in action in Cambodia.
Among the missing were four American journalists believed captured by the Khmer Rouge during their war against the U.S.- backed government of President Lon Nol.
At least 17 other reporters -- from Japan, France, Australia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland -- are also missing.
Another eight foreigners -- six Americans and two Australian -- were listed as missing after the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975.
Information released unofficially after the Vietnamese toppled the Khmer Rouge government showed that all eight were tortured, charged with spying and executed.
upi.com/4585404
Cambodia seven years after fall of Pol Pot
By
PAUL WEDEL
(0)
BANGKOK -- Vietnamese tanks rolled into Phnom Penh seven years ago to topple one of the most brutal governments in history in a blitzkrieg invasion.
But the fall of the capital Jan. 7, 1979, did not end the war.
Seven years later, the ousted 'Democratic Kampuchea' government is still recognized by the United Nations and with new Western-backed allies, is still battling the Vietnamese army.
About 160,000 Vietnamese troops are tied down in Cambodia and efforts to find a political solution seem no nearer success.
The defeated Khmer Rouge, which staggered into Thailand in 1979, has been rebuilt into a hardened guerrilla army. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who terrorized the Cambodian people during his 3 years of radical rule, is believed to remain in control of the group, although he has officially retired.
Under Pol Pot's effort to transform Cambodian society into a pure communistic state, all cities and towns were forcibly evacuated, industries were abandoned, temples were destroyed, money was declared valueless and the population was herded into communes.
Cambodia became a vast work camp where disease, torture and execution were commonplace. It is said that at least 1 million Cambodians died under the Khmer Rouge.
So harsh was Pol Pot's system that the one-party communist regime installed by Vietnam seems benevolent and stable by comparison. It has not, however, been able to gain full control of the countryside or build up an effective army of its own.
Despite calls from all sides for a political settlement, the Vietnamese have given no indication they are prepared to leave Cambodia until the resistance is eliminated and their hand-picked leaders are firmly in control.
But even with major problems plaguing the tripartite rebel coalition, it appears unlikely Vietnam will be able to crush it.
China provides generous supplies of arms and money to the Khmer Rouge, the largest and most powerful of the three groups that form the rebel coalition, which commands more than 50,000 guerrilla forces. The United States has supported the two non-communist groups in the coalition.
The largest of these, the Khmer Peoples National Liberation Front, is now mired in a bitter internal dispute and all three groups last year lost major bases to a Vietnamese offensive along the Thai border.
But the guerrillas' sanctuaries in Thailand make it nearly impossible for the numerically superior Vietnamese army to crush them completely.
Resistance officials say there has been an upsurge recently in unrest by nationalistic Cambodians against the Vietnamese forces, including a number of mutinies within the fledgling army of the Phnom Penh government.
Cambodians have a long history of dislike and distrust of the Vietnamese but seven years has not dimmed their memory of the Khmer Rouge's bloody rule.
Even followers of the Khmer Rouge's coalition allies might not want the Vietnamese to leave if they were only to be replaced by the Khmer Rouge.
upi.com/4064324
1987
DEC. 1, 1987
Vietnam accuses exiles of trying to set up anti-communist base
By PAUL WEDEL
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam --Vietnam charged 18 Vietnamese exiles with treason and banditry today, claiming they attempted to set up an anti-communist base with the support of Thai and U.S. intelligence agencies.
The leader of the anti-communist group, former South Vietnam Adm. Hoang Co Minh, was to be tried posthumously. A picture of his body was displayed at the municipal theater, the venue for the trial heard by five judges on a floodlit stage.
The indictment said the recent capture of the group was 'a major victory of the armed forces and peoples of Laos and Vietnam.' It said Minh led more than 200 men, of whom more than 100 were killed and 77 captured.
'Criminal activities undertaken by Hoang Co Minh and his accomplices are aided and abetted by the U.S. imperialists,' the indictment said.
It said there was clear evidence of assistance to the group through 'Thai secret services working in close collaboration with American intelligence agencies.'
The indictment charged that Thai authorities, beginning in 1981, had allowed Minh's group to set up an office in the Thai capital of Bangkok, recruit members from refugee camps in Thailand, establish a base south of the northeastern Thai town of Buntarik, and operate an anti-communist radio station called 'Vietnam Resistance.'
'The UNFLVN (United National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam) headed by Hoang Co Minh is nothing but a product of the policy of destabilization and subversion pursued by the U.S. imperialists throughout the world and in Southeast Asia,' the indictment said.
The indictment said the 18 defendants were guilty of 'high treason and banditry,' crimes officials said were punishable by sentences ranging from 10 years in prison to execution by firing squad.
The prosecutor's report said the remaining men in the group would be further investigated and possibly prosecuted later.
Brief biographies of the defendants showed that all but one were recruited by Minh from refugee camps in Thailand. The sole exception, identified as Dang Quoc Hung, was said to have been resettled in Denmark before joining the resistance.
Several hundred people gathered in front of the theater to listen to the proceedings broadcast by loudspeaker.
'This is a political event in Vietnam,' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Trinh Xuan Lang.
Several hundred officials and soldiers of the toppled U.S.-supported South Vietnam government are believed to be labor camps, 12 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
Communist Vietnamese officials have hinted at their release to the United States but have sought guarantees that they will not be allowed to organize into an anti-communist force.
NOV. 26, 1987
Spies, blunders plague shadowy Vietnamese 'contras'
By PAUL WEDEL
BANGKOK, Nov. 22 --More than 12 years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War continues on a slow burn.
Far from the headlines, it is a secretive struggle by small groups of Vietnamese exiles based in Thailand and the United States. Plagued by internal dissension and tracked by communist spies, however, the exiles' efforts often have ended in betrayal and death.
'We will be the first country to be able to kick out a communist regime after coming under their control,' confidently predicted Pham Van Lieu, overseas leader of the United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, in a 1983 leaflet.
'But first we have to unite our opposition forces. All we oppressed people have to get together as the communists did and fight them as the common enemy.'
Since then, however, unity has been elusive.
A Vietnamese academic in close touch with the exile groups said resistance movements blossomed after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978, when Hanoi's troops swept eastward all the way to the Thai border.
There are now at least three main Vietnamese resistance groups and several smaller ones active in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, the source said. Very little is known of any resistance wholly inside Vietnam, although communist authorities recently swept up an organization it charged were foreign-linked counter-revolutionaries.
By 1985, Pham's United Front, with former South Vietnamese admiral Hoang Co Minh heading its operations in Southeast Asia, was the top exile group. A slick fund-raising campaign using direct mail appeals, newsletters and impressive videotapes of resistance activity had garnered between $5 million and $7 million in donations.
But evidence has emerged that some of the videotapes included faked scenes.
One participant in the videotaping recalled that signs were painted to make it look like the resistance was operating in Vietnam, when actually all the taping took place in Laos. Many of the troops identified as Vietnamese resistance fighters were actually members of an anti-communist Lao group hired to play the parts, the source said.
By 1986 Minh and Pham had split and many Vietnamese who had contributed to the movement were demanding to know what was being done with their money.
A 1982 Front political program proclaimed: 'The NUFLVN shall fight in all fields, shall build up armed combat units and armed propaganda teams and shall combine armed struggle with political struggle in order to prepare all our people for the General Insurrection to eliminate the enemies.'
But the movement never seemed to get beyond preparations and fund-raising.
Resistance sources said Minh had set up a camp holding about 200 men in a heavily jungled area about three miles inside the Lao-Thai border east of the town of Soukhouma.
One source who said he had hiked into the camp said most of the force there was Lao rebels, supplemented by about 60 Vietnamese.
They were led by a committee of 12 exiles including Minh. At least six of the leaders held American citizenship, two were French and one held a Japanese passport, the source said.
Other expatriate Vietnamese were believed to have joined the force later.
'I think the Lao Communists must know where the camp is, but they never moved against it because the group wasn't doing anything, and it would have cost the Lao too much to attack it through the jungle,' the resistance source said.
But in July of this year, in an apparent effort to counter their reputation for ineffectiveness, Minh ordered a large part of the group on a trek across the thin southern panhandle of Laos to Vietnam.
The objective was to link up with the internal Vietnamese resistance, particularly the hill tribe forces in the central highlands, the resistance source said.
'They just had to do something to show their supporters they were not just eating and sleeping, so it must have seemed worth the risk,' he said.
But tragedy lay ahead. According to Lao government radio, the column of 200 men was detected soon after it crossed the Mekong River, about 15 miles from the camp.
But some resistance workers said the move may have been detected earlier by communist spies monitoring the group's supply and communication lines in Thailand.
There are an estimated 60,000 Vietnamese in northeastern Thailand, and Thai police officials in the northeast said many are loyal to the communists.
A resistance source said about 200 Vietnamese agents operate along the border, reporting to the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok.
Adding to the exiles' problems last month, Laos said its provincial forces attacked the anti-communist Vietnamese and their Lao allies.
'We launched 23 major and minor attacks against the enemies, killing 104 of them and capturing 65 others, capturing 80 firearms of various types, two radio transmitters and a large quantity of other equipment and gold bars, the government radio said.
The radio said the group commander, whom it identified as Houang Qu Vinh, was killed in the fighting.
Vietnamese resistance sources and Western diplomats said the report was referring to Hoang Co Minh, but that there are indications the goateed military leader did not personally accompany the column.
One source said Minh was now in Hawaii, but none of the reports have been confirmed. Some resistance workers theorize he is keeping under cover for his own reasons.
The sources also say the Lao figures of dead and wounded appear exaggerated.
Vietnamese government officials, however, have told journalists in Bangkok and Hanoi that the captured Vietnamese resistance fighters are expected to go on trial in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), in December.
That would follow a pattern set by Hanoi in 1985 and 1982 it succeeded in capturing resistance leaders inside Vietnam.
In 1982, a Vietnamese effort to score a propaganda victory at the trial of Vo Dai Ton failed when Ton, a 46-year-old resistance leader, was brought before a collection of foreign reporters to name his associates and implicate the CIA and Thai government in his organization.
Instead, Ton defiantly refused to name anyone or admit any links with foreign governments.
Ton was later reported to have been executed, as were three resistance leaders after a trial in 1985.
More recently, Vietnam last month sentenced an 81-year-old Catholic priest and his assistants to life imprisonment for propaganda against the regime and disturbing public security. Hanoi charged the priest was supported by a Catholic church in the United States.
The difficulties of armed Vietnamese exile resistance groups shows the futility of such overtly military tactics, said the leader of a group that focuses on political and propaganda activities.
'The failure of these efforts show that this 'Rambo-type' resistance is inappropriate,' said the man, who like other members of exile resistance groups, spoke on condition he not be further identified.
'It fits very well with the mentality of these former soldiers - they are obsessed with weapons, but they do not do their political work,' he said.
'How can you beat the communists -- the experts in the armed struggle -- at their own game? he said.
'We must try to kill the idea of communism, not kill people,' he said.
The exiles' repeated failures have not completely discouraged the resistance, however.
Some resistance people have pinned their hopes on Vietnam's faltering economy and ideological confusion. Last year, Hanoi shuffled its senior leaders and embarked on a painful 'renovation' of outmoded policies.
'The people have now had 12 years of communism and they know it is not as advertised,' one resistance figure said.
Ironically, it is the example of the long communist struggle for power that inspires some of the resistance members.
'Ho Chi Minh started with only a few and fought for 40 years,' said one resistance worker.
'Our struggle is greater than theirs,' he said, 'and we are just as determined to win it.'
DEC. 3, 1987
Eighteen Vietnamese expatriates convicted in Vietnam's Peoples Court on...
By PAUL WEDEL
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- Eighteen Vietnamese expatriates convicted in Vietnam's Peoples Court on charges they tried to overthrow the government with Thai and U.S. intelligence backing were sentenced today to prison terms ranging from three years to life.
Judge Tran Tuang Si handed down the sentences from the stage of the Municipal Theatre of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. He declared all 18 defendants guilty of high treason, banditry and other crimes committed as members of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam.
One defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment and others received prison sentences ranging from three years to 19 years in jail. Only one defendant was given clemency.
Si, head of the five-judge tribunal hearing the case, said the group was formed in California in 1980 and established bases in northeastern Thailand that were supplied and guided by 'Thai intelligence officers working in close collaboration with U.S. intelligence agencies.'
Defense lawyers had said the defendants, who all pleaded guilty, should be given lesser sentences because they were mostly immature youths coerced into joining the anti-communist group to avoid what were described as 'hellish' conditions in Thai refugee camps.
The 18 defendants were among 77 men captured in August after Vietnamese and Lao troops fought a six-week running battle with a force of about 200 men said to belong to the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam.
Each of the expatriates addressed the tribunal, admitting they had committed high treason and pleading for mercy. The defendants said the rebel force planned to infiltrate through Laos to the central highlands area of Vietnam to promote anti-communist activities.
Defense lawyer Trieu Quoc Manh said the leader of the group, former South Vietnamese Rear Adm. Hoang Co Minh, expected to foment a mass uprising against the communist government by 1992.
Manh said recommendations for lighter sentences came because the men on trial were all low-ranking members of the group. The prosecution said Minh and the other top leaders in the force had been killed in the fighting in Laos.
Manh said the group was backed by 'warlike hawks in the United States and Thailand.' He said there was evidence of contact with Minh by former U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, R-Ill., and a former U.S. military commander in Japan.
The lawyer said the defendants should be treated leniently because 'they were in Thai refugee camps where they were beaten and tortured and starved for weeks by Thai military policemen if they refused to join Hoang Co Minh's group.'
'Because they were living in such hellish conditions, the defendants succumbed to the coercion,' Manh said.
The prosecution named three Thai military men as contacts for the group, which it said was based in Ubol Ratchathani province in northeast Thailand. It also alleged that Thai and U.S. intelligence agents supported and guided the rebels.
The evidence presented over three days of hearings, however, gave little detail or confirmation of the charges. The prosecution did not present the full names or descriptions of the officials allegedly involved.
The defense summation indicated that this was because 'the trend in Southeast Asia now is for dialogue, not confrontation,' an apparent reference to peace talks going on in Paris this week between leaders of the two sides in the Cambodian conflict.
Instead, both the defense and prosecution dwelled on the group's actions against its own members -- executing those who tried to desert and killing the sick or wounded to avoid capture during the fighting.
The sentences proposed by the prosecution were far milder than in a similar case in 1984 when five resistance leaders were sentenced to death -- three of whom were subsequently executed.
1988
1989
JAN. 24, 1989
Cambodian leader in unprecedented visit to Thailand
By
PAUL WEDEL
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen headed for Bangkok Tuesday for informal talks with his Thai counterpart, Chatichai Choonhavan, in the first such meeting since Vietnam installed the Cambodian regime in 1979.
Official Phnom Penh radio said Hun Sen also wanted to meet U.S. officials in Bangkok to discuss returning the remains of some of the 83 Americans listed as missing in action in Cambodia.
'Hun Sen, People's Republic of Kampuchea Council of Ministers chairman and foreign minister, departed this morning for Bangkok at the invitation of Thai Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan,' the radio broadcast said.
In Bangkok, Chatichai confirmed the visit and told reporters he was ready to listen to the 37-year-old Cambodian leader's thoughts on a solution to the Cambodian conflict.
'We have listened to the other three (Cambodian) factions for a long time, so now we want to listen to the fourth faction,' he said.
Chatichai said he was meeting Hun Sen as one of the leaders of the four Cambodian groups, but the meeting did not constitute recognition of the government installed by Vietnam Jan. 7, 1979.
Thailand recognizes the coalition government made up of the three resistance groups as the legitimate government.
Phnom Penh radio said Hun Sen was accompanied by Vice Prime Ministers Tie Banh, Dit Munti, and Kong Sam-ol, who is also defense minister.
Chatichai said the Cambodian officials were likely to meet with Thai army commander-in-chief Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh and Foreign Minister Siddhi Savetsila.
He said the meetings would be held at a private home or at a local hotel and not on government property.
'I don't want to talk about this too much because the atmosphere is not good,' Chatichai said in reference to domestic criticism of the visit.
An official in the government of former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda criticized the visit in a newspaper interview published Tuesday.
'Bringing Hun Sen out for display without consulting our friends in ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will lead to more difficult problems instead of leading to an easy solution,' Prem's former secretary-general, Prasong Soonsiri, told the Matichon newspaper.
Prasong said the meeting with Hun Sen could lead to Thailand getting involved in fighting with the communist Khmer Rouge, the most militant of the three Cambodian factions.
Chatichai declined to give details of Hun Sen's schedule during the visit.
Official Phnom Penh media quoted Hun Sen as saying he was 'prepared to hold talks with U.S. officials on the issue of Americans missing in action.'
In a 1987 interview with Cambodia's official SPK news agency, Hun Sen said his government had the remains of 'a number of Americans missing in action.'
The agency quoted Hun Sen as saying he was ready to return the remains to the United States 'if the American administration's demand is addressed directly to Phnom Penh.'
The United States, like Thailand, does not recognize the Hun Sen government.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Ross Petzing said Tuesday a reaction to the suggestion of possible MIA talks with Hun Sen was being prepared.
A total of 83 Americans are listed as missing in Cambodia from the war period, including five American journalists.
OCT. 14, 1989
Dissident Burmese warn of stepped-up guerrilla war
By
PAUL WEDEL
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Dissident Burmese leaders threatened Saturday to boycott next year's elections and warned that the Rangoon government would face more bombings and airline hijackings unless the military ended its harsh political repression.
The Democratic Alliance of Burma, a grouping of more than 20 ethnic insurgent groups and dissident political parties, said it would boycott and possibly disrupt elections scheduled for next year unless the government took concrete actions to make the polls more democratic.
Alliance leaders, speaking to a small group of reporters on condition that the location of the meeting not be disclosed, said at least two bombings of government installations in Rangoon were carried out by a member group. They would not deny that last week's hijacking of a Burma Airlines plane was also masterminded by one of the groups.
'We cannot rule out the possibility that the Burmese people will express their anger at the military's repression in even larger ways,' said Tin Maung Win, general secretary of the alliance when asked about the possibility of more bombings and hijackings against the Burmese government.
Gen. Bo Mya, president of the Alliance and leader of the ethnic Karen National Union, said his group had carried out two bombings in Rangoon, including a bomb at Rangoon City Hall that killed three people.
He said the bombing was not a terrorist act, but a military attack on government troops stationed at City Hall.
'It is proper for the DAB to conduct guerrilla warfare inside Burma ... because the Rangoon military conducts warfare against us,' Mya said.
Win said the DAB was not directly connected with the hijacking which ended peacefully in Thailand last Saturday but that some of the student groups which belong to the Alliance might have been.
'All our groups have freedom of action,' he said.
The leaders, following a meeting of the Alliance central committee last week at Manerplaw, 130 miles east of Rangoon, issued a seven-point statement that outlined reasons why general elections set for May next year were unlikely to be free or fair.
'If elections are to be free and fair it is good for us and for the people, but up to now there seems no likelihood of free and fair elections,' Mya said. He pointed to restrictive election rules, government control of the media and widespread arrests and torture of political activists as reasons to doubt the fairness of the elections.
The statement said that election procedures failed to guarantee the right to vote for ethnic minorities who represent 35 percent of the population. No polls will be held in areas where ethnic dissident political groups are active and anyone suspected of connection with them may be denied a voting registration card.
It said there were no provisions for international observers to view the elections, no assurance the polls would lead to a transfer of power from the military, no guarantee of the free functioning of the political parties and no guarantee there would not be another military coup if the armed forces were not satisfied with the results of the elections.
'If the demands in our document are met, then the DAB will rethink and adjust our plans,' said Brang Seng, vice president of the alliance and leader of the Kachin ethnic minority group.
However, if there are no changes, the Alliance will boycott the polls, he said. The leaders said it was still too early to say whether they would actively try to disrupt the polling.
Win said it was clear the military's actions were designed to ensure the victory of the National United Party, the renamed remainder of the military-backed Burma Socialist Program Party which ruled Burma from 1962 until military officers seized direct power in September last year.
The ethnic minorities have been fighting the central government for nearly 40 years, demanding regional autonomy and protection for their languages and cultures. They were joined by ethnic Burmese political groups last year after the military crushed a nationwide movement demanding democracy.
1990
SEPT. 27, 1990
Buddhist monks effectively excommunicate Burmese military
By
PAUL WEDEL
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Eighteen governments are protesting intensified political repression by Burma's military junta, which has detained and interrogated Burmese citizens working at foreign embassies, a senior diplomat said Thursday.
Inside Burma, meanwhile, Buddhist monks upset over the deaths of two monks shot by security police have effectively excommunicated military families in a move that is having a 'major impact,' the diplomat said.
Earlier, official Rangoon radio announced the arrests of three people for writing and distributing poetry ridiculing the military junta, which has so far refused to turn over power to a legislature elected in May.
'A large number of governments, an increasing number of governments, view with horror what is continuing to happen in Burma,' said a Rangoon-based diplomat who asked not to be identified.
The diplomat said the 12 European Community nations, joined by the United States, Japan, Sweden, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, recently issued a tough verbal protest against Burmese military repression in Rangoon.
The protest cited the recent arrests of the leaders of the National League for Democracy which swept 80 percent of the seats in the elections, continued repression of free speech, and moves away from a promised return to democracy.
It also protested the detention and interrogation of Burmese staff working for foreign embassies and raids carried out by armed troops on embassy compounds in violation of the Vienna agreements on diplomatic rights.
In the past 10 days, Burmese staff from the U.S., British and Australian embassies have been taken away for as much as four days of interrogation in a prison north of Rangoon, the diplomat said.
The questioning, he said, focused on the activities and opinions of embassy officials and their contacts with civilian political leaders.
The detentions were part of a campaign to intimidate the Burmese people to allow the military to maintain its 30-year domination of Burma despite the opposition party' s overwhelming election victory, he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the four U.S. Embassy employees, all Burmese, were 'detained and interrogated about embassy operations and personnel.'
'We regard such harassment as a serious contravention of accepted international behavior and as totally inconsistent with international law,' Boucher said.
Rangoon radio, in a broadcast Wednesday night, said Sein Hlaing, 35, Myo Myint Nyein, 38, and Nyan Paw, 36, were arrested earlier this month for commissioning distributing or writing 'poems that criticize, slander, and ridicule the leaders of the Defense Services.'
The diplomat said the arrests were part of the repressive campaign that has included torture, beatings, intimidation and firing into crowds of protesters.
'Their repression of their own people is continuing at exactly the same level, if not intensified, as compared to before the election,' the diplomat said.
The military, however, has been shaken, he said, by the action of the Buddhist leadership to effectively excommunicate all military families by refusing to perform marriages or alms ceremonies for them. The Buddhists are protesting the deaths of at least two monks shot by security police in Mandalay last month.
'This is having a very major impact on the rank and file of the military,' he said.
Tuesday Maj. Gen. Tin U, a junta member, warned Buddhist monks against becoming involved in politics.
'Venerable abbots and monks should only practice their religion and work for religious affairs,' he said in a radio broadcast. 'Arrangements are being made to enable the venerable monks to do this.'
The diplomat said Buddhist protests against the regime have spread from Mandalay to nearby cities.
'We do not believe that the Burmese people will continue to put up with this totally undemocratic, brutal military regime forever,' he said.
He said there were signs some officers in the military were disquited by the junta's tough policies and would support negotiations with the civilian political parties on power-sharing arrangements.
But the key leaders in the junta have made it clear 'they have no intention of handing over power.'
