In Asia Security Monitor
- From: "PEN Nearovi" <nearovi@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 12 Jul 2005 16:51:23 -0700
Asia Security Monitor No. 132, July 12, 2005
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
http://www.afpc.org
Editor: Ilan Berman
Associate Editor: Lisa-Marie Shanks
HOMELAND SECURITY, THAI STYLE;
SOUTH ASIA'S MARXISTS ON THE MARCH
July 3:
International fears are mounting that North Korea could be facing a
famine as
severe the one it experienced in the mid-1990s. The Los Angeles Times
reports
that Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons has isolated it from
the international
community, causing a steep decline in humanitarian aid. South Korea,
angry at the
North's withdrawal from the six-party nuclear talks, recently
delayed its promised
shipment of fertilizer for agrarian use. The United States, for its
part, intends to
donate some 50,000 tons of food this year, but the UN World Food
Program has
hinted that it may have to cut 80 percent of its assistance to the
country's
estimated 6.5 million aid recipients.
July 6:
The escalating campaign of violence in Thailand's restive south has
forced the Thai
government to resort to a new homeland defense tactic: the arming of
teachers.
The International Herald Tribune reports that government-run schools
and their
teachers, who are considered high-profile members of the community,
have
become the latest targets of bombs and attacks by regional rebels.
Over the past
year and a half, dozens of schools have been damaged or destroyed by
arson, and
some 18 teachers have been killed. In response, the country's
Education
Department has been forced to offer teachers hazardous-duty pay and
to buy used
pistols, so that teachers - who are being trained by Thailand's
military - can
defend themselves.
According to Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD), the
government in
Rangoon has released 249 political prisoners. The move comes at a
time when
Burma's military junta has come under renewed international
pressure over its
undemocratic practices, reports the BBC. Citing the country's
spotty human rights
record, the United States and the European Union have protested
Rangoon's
plans to take over the rotating chairmanship of the Association of
South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) next year. Officials from regional human rights
groups have
dismissed the prisoner release as a government ploy intended to
appease foreign
critics.
In a new twist in the escalating war of words between Islamabad and
Kabul,
Pakistan has accused the government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan of
inadequate security measures that have facilitated the resurgence of
Taliban
fighters. Asia Pulse reports that Pakistan's Federal Minister for
Information,
Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, has accused the Afghan government of concealing
massive
security failures, declaring that "most Afghans are disillusioned
with the incumbent
government is a patent reality."
July 8:
Nepal's Maoist rebels have begun receiving logistical training and
strategic support
from the Tamil Tigers, the South Asia Tribune reports. One Maoist
operative has
revealed to the Asian daily that the Sri Lankan terrorist group is
helping form
human bomb squads for suicide missions, and aiding in the recruitment
of women
and teenagers for the ranks of the Nepalese irregulars. Training
camps of the Tamil
Tigers have reportedly been established in Nepal's Narkatiaganj and
Ghorasahan
districts.
The involvement of the Tamil Tigers mirrors another transformation
underway in
Nepal's insurgency. According to the rebel leader, since last
October, Southeast
Asia's Maoist rebels have begun operating in a loose-knit regional
alliance. As
part of this change, insurgents in India and Nepal have expanded
their contacts,
and now have begun carrying out joint terrorist operations.
Copyright (c) 2005, American Foreign Policy Council
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