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83.
-
The army's action which provoked the flight of the Muslims from Arakan after which it stated that it had only been attempting to stamp out illegal immigration from Bangladesh may be seen in the context of the revolutionary government's policy of consolidating
consolidating production and trade principally into Burmese hands. Whatever the precise rationale of the army's action, aproximately 200
200 000 people, all Muslims, fled the country in April and May 1978, reaching Bangladesh in need of emergency relief assistance.
84.
Upon receiving an appeal for help from the Government in Dacca, the UN Secretary-General designated UNHCR
as co-or- dinator of assistance from the international community. A detailed relief programme was rapidly drawn up in close consul tation with the Government of Bangladesh, UNICEF, UNDP, WFP, WHO and voluntary organizations, in particular the League of Red Cross Societies. Thirteen camps were established along eastern section of the Chittagong Hill Tracts district which borders on Burma, to accommodate the refugees until they could return home.
85.
Despite a sharp deterioration in relations between the two governments concerned immediately following the flight of population, talks between them began in June 1978 and on 9 July, the two parties concluded an agreement providing for the vol- untary repatriation of the refugees. Over 36 000 people returned in the first six months and the remainder in the course of 1979, under a returnee programme assisted by UNHCR.
1978
NICARAGUA (THE REPUBLIC OF)
homeland.
86.
During the last years of the Somoza régime, massive and flagrant violations of human rights were observed and came to be condemned in international fora, for example the General Assembly (8 December 1978) and the Commission on Human Rights
1978) (13 March 1979). By 1978, measures of repression implemented by the National Guard
Guard had intensified: murder, arbitrary arrests and torture already described an Amnesty International two years earlier in a detailed report on Nicaragua became so common that few could
could any longer feel safe in their According to information submitted to
to the
the Sub-Committee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1979 (document E/CN.4/Sub. 1/426) in August 1979,
1979, at least five thousand civilians
civilians were believed killed in the 12-month period ended April 1979, three thousand disappeared in the first six months of 1979 and countless Nicaraguans underwent torture. From late 1978, when the opposition groups realigned and the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) drew up a concerted military strategy to overthrow the Somoza régime, civil strife reached hitherto unknown proportions.