A new study tour planned for next week

A new study tour planned for next week

Thai project for Wa 

As border tensions with Burmese-Wa forces continue, Thailand is planning to make yet another visit to the controversial Yawngkha project site opposite Chiangrai Province during the next week, an official source told S.H.A.N. on Monday.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the new survey team from the Doitung Royal Project from Mae Fah Luang District would be made up of up to 20 members, compared to 9 in January when the first trip was made.

The official, however, offered no further details except that current tensions had had no effect on the ongoing Thai efforts to reshape the adjacent border area into a drug-free zone. "We won't be able to decide what's best for the people until we've studied the living conditions in the project site," he said.

The initial agreement between Rangoon and Bangkok to develop Nayao, renamed by the Wa resettlers as Yawngkha, was made during Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's ground breaking visit to Rangoon last year.
According to a human rights report due to be published by the end of the month, the three-year resettlement program that began in 1999 had moved more than 125,000 Wa from the Chinese border to the areas opposite northern Thailand by the end of 2001.

It had resulted in the displacement of 25,000 original inhabitants along the border areas, according to the report.

Thailand and Burma has been embroiled in a border dispute since the skirmish between Wa and Thai patrols on 25 March that left 2 dead on the Wa side and 1 on the Thai side.