Thesun 2009-02-05 Page08 Migrants Scars Back Thai Abuse Claims

8

theSun

news without borders

| THURSDAY FEBRUARY 5 2009

250,000 civilians trapped in S. Lanka combat zone EPAPIX

‘Migrants’ scars back Thai abuse claims’ IDI RAYEUK (Indonesia): Wounds and welts on the bodies of nearly 200 Myanmar migrants plucked from seas off Indonesia this week support claims they were beaten by the Thai military, health workers said yesterday. “The injuries we’ve seen on them are consistent with their claims that they had been abused by the Thai military,” said Zulfikry the head of the Idi State Hospital in Aceh, where 68 of the migrants are still being treated. “There were several marks on the skin which were likely the result of being hit with blunt objects like sticks or rope. One of them had scars from being whipped with a rope on his body,” Zulfikry said. A nurse at the hospital, Herman, said separately: “Many

have scars from being caned at the back, the wounds have dried up and there are visible welts on their skin.” The 198 migrants from Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, who were rescued at sea off Sumatra on Monday, have said they were detained and beaten before being set adrift with few supplies by Thai soldiers after washing up on the country’s shores late last year. The boat people are the latest of hundreds of Rohingyas of an estimated 1,000 who the migrants have said were abused by Thai soldiers. Rights groups believe scores are still at sea, feared dead. The scandal has become a major embarrassment to the Thai government. – AFP

Girl, 4, dies in freak accident LOS ANGELES: A four-year-old Californian girl who climbed into a washing machine died after her 15-month-old brother turned it on by accident, sheriff’s officials said on Tuesday. Orange County sheriff’s and coroner’s investigators said the girl died from blunt force trauma after being thrown around inside the front-loading machine for around two minutes. Sheriff’s spokesman

A refugee from Myanmar shows the wound on his back as others receive medical treatment in Idi Cut Hospital, West Aceh yesterday.

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s president predicted yesterday the total defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels within a few days, as the United Nations reported 52 civilians had been killed in a single shell attack. As many as 250,000 civilians may be trapped in the combat zone, according to UN agencies. In a national day address, President Mahinda Rajapakse said the “shadows of terrorism have almost been wiped out” with the last remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cornered in the jungle. “I am confident that the Tigers will be completely defeated in a few days,” he said. A military offensive over the past year has dismantled the Tigers’ mini-state in northern Sri Lanka, where the rebels have lost 98% of the territory once under their control. But amid continuing fierce clashes, UN spokesman Gordon

Weiss said that at least 52 civilians were killed in one shelling attack on Tuesday evening. “We don’t know who is responsible or how many shells hit, but we have this report from our staff,” he said. He added the region’s only hospital was evacuated early yesterday after 16 hours of shelling that included a cluster bomb attack. Foreign governments, including the island’s key backers, said the bloodshed must end. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her British counterpart David Miliband called on Tuesday for a “temporary no-fire period” to evacuate casualties and allow relief in. “Both sides need to allow civilians and wounded to leave the conflict area and to grant access for humanitarian agencies,” they said after meeting in Washington. The joint US-British statement came after the quartet of Sri Lanka’s

international backers – the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – called on the rebels to negotiate terms of surrender to avoid a bloodbath. The quartet, known as “CoChairs,” had backed Oslo-led peace moves and in April 2003 co-hosted a donor conference that raised US$4.5 billion (RM16.5 billion) in support of efforts to end ethnic bloodletting in the South Asian nation. “There remains probably only a short period of time before the LTTE loses control of all areas in the north,” they said in a statement. “The LTTE and the government should recognise that further loss of life of civilians and combatants will serve no cause,” they added. There was no immediate reaction from the Tigers and the quartet said their efforts to persuade the LTTE to allow civilians to flee the fighting had failed. – AFP

Vatican orders Holocaust row bishop to recant ROME: Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson must “unequivocally and publicly” change his views before he can be admitted to office in the Roman Catholic

Jim Amormino said the controls to the machine were around 51cm off the ground, close enough for the boy to reach. – AFP

Kyrgyzstan moves to close US airbase BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan began moves yesterday to close a US military air base in the former Soviet republic which is vital for supplying US-led troops fighting in Afghanistan. The decision by a traditional Russian ally in

Central Asia sends a tough signal and challenge to new US President Barack Obama as he plans to send additional troops to Afghanistan. The base is an important staging post for the US-led military campaign against the Taliban and its role has been heightened as Washington seeks to reinforce supply routes that bypass Pakistan, where supply convoys face security risks. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced the base would be shut after securing Russian financial aid at talks on Tuesday in Moscow. – Reuters

Church, the Vatican said yesterday. Marking a major U-turn for under-pressure Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican statement also said that Williamson’s remarks were “not known” to the German pontiff “at the moment of lifting the excommunication” of the Englishman and three other renegade bishops last month. Williamson is on record as denying that the Nazis used gas chambers to eliminate millions of Jews during World War II, saying only 200,000-300,000 Jews were killed in concentration camps. His remarks were made in an interview broadcast on Swedish television on Jan 22, the day after a papal decree lifted his excommunication but two days before the pope’s decision was made public. Growing pressure from Jewish and Catholic organisations turned overtly

political Tuesday when German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first world leader to attack her compatriot’s handling of the row. Merkel said that the pope’s move could not be allowed to pass “without consequences” and called on the Vatican to “clarify unambiguously that there can be no denial” that the Nazis killed six million Jews. Merkel’s comments prompted the Vatican to deny any ambiguity in the pope’s stance, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi saying the pope’s condemnation of the bishop “could not have been clearer”. Lombardi said that “the pope’s thoughts on the subject of the Holocaust were expressed with great clarity in the Cologne synagogue,” in August 2005, and “in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on May, 28, 2006”. – AFP