Burma Revolts

Two Burmese rebel groups battling over the right to tax smugglers left hundreds killed or wounded in 11 days of fierce fighting near the Thai border, officials said Wednesday. Two Thai provincial officials said the fighting began July 23, when hundreds of Karen rebels pounded Mon rebels at the village of Ban Chedi, about 175 miles northwest of Bangkok, with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

About 500 Burmese troops clashed with Thai soldiers after crossing the border into northern Thailand to attack a Karen rebel stronghold, a Thai officer said. Other attacking troops, perched on hills on the Burmese side of the border, fired shells on the Kaw Moo Ra camp, setting much of it ablaze in the third day of heavy fighting. About 1,200 guerrillas were defending the camp against 3,000 soldiers, the officer added. Thai forces eventually fired at the attacking soldiers, who later moved on to another area inside Thailand, he said.

Burma said Tuesday that it has released 51 people who were detained during bloody anti-government protests that led to the resignation of President Sein Lwin last week. News of the release came as Burmese authorities, apparently bracing for renewed violence as they prepare to choose their third leader in less than a month, ordered troops and light tanks into central Rangoon.

Aung Naing, a 19-year-old apprentice mechanic with what passes for the punk look in Burma, is in good standing with the law, but he's got a bit of trouble with his parents. The youth, who goes by the alias Ya Coot, took to the streets in nearby Mandalay last summer when anti-government demonstrations swept the country. When the military took power in September, he fled to the jungles, fearing arrest.

Amnesty International quoted witnesses as saying that Burmese troops have killed and tortured rice farmers and other Shan tribespeople in suppressing an insurgency among Burma's largest ethnic minority. The London-based group said the report was further documentation of what it calls "a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights" by the Burmese military.

About 150 Burmese residents of Southern California protested Monday outside the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, calling for an end to the 26-year rule of the Socialist Program Party in Burma. "We want to get rid of the military dictatorship," said U Kyaw Win, 54, a professor at Orange Coast College who marched at the head of the demonstration.

California Congressman-elect Dana Rohrabacher illegally entered Burma on Tuesday and promised more than 800 anti-government Burmese students receiving military training that he would seek U.S. support for their struggle for democracy. "I admire you. I admire your courage, and I admire your goals for your country," Rohrabacher said while standing in an open field near the Thai-Burmese border, which he had crossed without permission.

Congressman-elect Dana Rohrabacher's apparently illegal entry into strife-torn Burma last week was part of an unofficial fact-finding trip designed to encourage "freedom fighters around the world," a former aide said. "He is acting as a private citizen and this is not being paid for at taxpayer expense," said Bob Rule, Rohrabacher's former press spokesman. Press reports indicate that Rohrabacher crossed from Thailand into Burma last Tuesday and promised anti-government students he would seek U.

Burma announced Tuesday that, in the wake of anti-government rioting in which hundreds were arrested, all courts will be closed until April. The military council that seized power Sept. 18 brutally crushed dissent, abolished the old ruling party and judiciary and has attempted to establish a new court system. The state radio also said that Nay Min, a 42-year-old lawyer, had been arrested and charged with feeding falsehoods to the British Broadcasting Corp.

Burmese and Thai officials have disputed a State Department report that as many as 50 Burmese students may have died in police custody. "Rumors about arrests and deaths of students in government custody . . . are absolutely unfounded and malicious," Kyaw Sann, a Burmese government spokesman, told reporters in Rangoon on Friday, commenting on a Voice of America account of the State Department charge.

The United States said Thursday that it has "credible reports" that Burmese students arrested after rebelling against their country's military government died in the custody of authorities. According to recent reports from Rangoon, Burmese students who fled to the countryside when the military crushed their rebellion are being rounded up by the police and army when they return to the capital. Some of the students' families have been told that their loved ones died while in custody.

A force of about 400 Kachin rebels captured a police station and attacked an army regimental headquarters in northern Burma in a series of clashes that left at least 13 people dead and four missing, official Rangoon Radio said. The broadcast, monitored in Bangkok on Friday night, said the fighting began Nov. 27 when two battalions of the Kachin Independence Army launched attacks on the army headquarters and police station in Mohnyin, in Kachin state about 550 miles north of Rangoon.

U.S. Congressman-elect Dana Rohrabacher returned Friday from a controversial tour of Burma and Afghanistan and said he hopes that the trip "will serve me well in Congress." Rohrabacher, a Republican elected earlier this month to represent Long Beach and west Orange County, has said he wants to be appointed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said he will meet with officials from the National Security Council and State Department next week to brief them on the two-week trip.

Congressman-elect Dana Rohrabacher's apparently illegal entry into strife-torn Burma last week was part of an unofficial fact-finding trip designed to encourage "freedom fighters around the world," a former aide said. "He is acting as a private citizen and this is not being paid for at taxpayer expense," said Bob Rule, Rohrabacher's former press spokesman. Press reports indicate that Rohrabacher crossed from Thailand into Burma last Tuesday and promised anti-government students he would seek U.

California Congressman-elect Dana Rohrabacher illegally entered Burma on Tuesday and promised more than 800 anti-government Burmese students receiving military training that he would seek U.S. support for their struggle for democracy. "I admire you. I admire your courage, and I admire your goals for your country," Rohrabacher said while standing in an open field near the Thai-Burmese border, which he had crossed without permission.

Burma announced Tuesday that, in the wake of anti-government rioting in which hundreds were arrested, all courts will be closed until April. The military council that seized power Sept. 18 brutally crushed dissent, abolished the old ruling party and judiciary and has attempted to establish a new court system. The state radio also said that Nay Min, a 42-year-old lawyer, had been arrested and charged with feeding falsehoods to the British Broadcasting Corp.