[IMC-Editorial] [India Thinkers Net] CHRO updates Dec 23rd

[India Thinkers Net at Zinester.com]

#1
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, PRESS RELEASE

AI Index:ASA 14/002/2003 (Public), News Service No:290, 23 December 2003

Bhutan: International observers should be given access to Indo-Bhutan border

Amnesty International is seriously concerned about reports that civilians have been caught up in a military offensive by the Royal Bhutanese Army (RBA) targeting camps belonging to the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO), separatist groups from northeast India with military bases in southern Bhutan.

The organization understands that parts of the border between Bhutan and India have been sealed, and a five kilometre zone on each side of the border established where entry is denied.

"The Bhutanese and Indian authorities must allow immediate access to the border area to international observers and relevant humanitarian
agencies," Amnesty International urged.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that non combatants including at least 30 named women and their children, formerly living in the camps, have
surrendered to the RBA and may be handed over to the Indian authorities.

Amnesty International is concerned that no information has been made publicly available about their whereabouts or the conditions in which they are being detained.

According to unconfirmed press reports, a senior ULFA spokesperson has indicated that it will initiate attacks on Bhutanese civilians living in northeast India if the Bhutanese authorities do not agree to call off the military offensive.

"Both sides to the conflict should strictly adhere to international humanitarian law, in particular Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which promotes respect for civilians in times of conflict," Amnesty International said.

"Parties to the conflict should ensure that civilians are able to have safe passage from the area where the conflict is taking place," the organization emphasized.

Background

The ULFA, NDFB and KLO are separatist groups operating in northeast India. The Bhutanese Government has held a series of talks with leaders of the groups, who set up camps in southern Bhutan in 1991, to persuade them to leave the country. In the latest developments in 2003, they ignored a 30 June deadline set by the government of Bhutan to vacate their camps or face military action.

At the Government of Bhutan's National Assembly meeting, held between June and August 2003, it was agreed that King Jigme Singye Wangchuck would make a last attempt at dialogue to persuade the leaders of the separatist groups to dismantle their camps and leave the country but if that failed,Bhutan would take military action with the support of the Indian government. 

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#The Statesman, December 23, 2003, Tuesday

Erotic Buddha book raises ire in India

Sudeshna Sarkar in Kathmandu

Dec. 22. - Whenever the Baileys propose to launch a book in India, the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena seem to dispose. Mr Jack Bailey, former 
resident of Sheffield, United Kingdom, and now a globe-trotting guru with ashrams in the USA, UK, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Australia and Japan, along with his literary as well as living partner Ms Claire Marie Bailey, a former Salvation Army member, have become the newest targets of the two organisations.

Rather, it is the "autobiography" penned jointly, Diary of a tantric priestess, that has made the Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena create a bonfire of it, even though the book in the world's only Hindu theocracy, Nepal, passed without any controversy.

Mr Bailey, a septuagenarian who claims he mastered the art of Buddhist tantric sex by meditating for years in the freezing caves of the 
Gangotri region and can cure patients of all diseases including cancer and even AIDS, has narrated how he achieved "enlightenment" and 
prescribed a nine-day tantric sex session and "coin meditation", a psychic breathing exercise for physical healing and spiritual awareness.

Ms Claire Marie, the 43-year-old mother of seven, claims being cured of bulimia and stomach cancer by the "White Guru" as he is known, and transformed into a tantric practitioner with now her own group of devotees in the US. In the book, estimated to have sold 300,000 pre-publication copies on the Internet, she narrates their life in Sri Lanka and sexual encounters with various people as a result of which they were cured of their ailments.

The book was recently launched in Kathmandu in the presence of a former Miss Nepal without any untoward incident. But the publishers ran into 
trouble in India where the Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena took umbrage, reportedly at the book jacket showing Buddha sitting in the lotus position and in a sexual union with a naked woman, reminiscent of the Khajuraho erotic sculptures. The publishers, Pilgrims Publishing, has decided to redesign the cover and the launch in India is on hold till then.

This is the second time the authors have evoked the ire of Indian organisations, the first time being about five years back, when they wrote a similar book that raised the hackles of the Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal because of some reportedly sexually explicit passages. Copies of it were burnt at the Gateway of India. But Mr Bailey, who now calls himself Swami Krishna Chaitanya, is unfazed. He spoke about how several Indian magazines, had "belittled" his "art".


for CHRO
Mukundan C. Menon
Secretary General

CHRO
3, Rams' Cottage
Ambalathumukku
Pettah
Thiruvananthapuram-695 024
(Ph.: 0471-2476262)


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