Myanmar returns Chinese held for illegal logging

BEIJING, June 18 (Reuters) Myanmar has repatriated 427 Chinese who had been arrested in the country for illegal logging and illegal entry into the country, a state newspaper said today.

Most of the Chinese, from the border province of Yunnan, had been sentenced to up to 12 years in jail, the Beijing Evening News said.

But they were released after spending only about eight months in prison because the Chinese government reached an agreement with Myanmar, the newspaper said.

Some of the repatriated Chinese were covered in mosquito and flea bites after being kept in poor conditions in jails in the Myanmar cities of Myitkyina and Bhamo, it added.

''If they had really completed their 12 year sentences, it is hard to imagine that they would have returned home alive,'' the newspaper said.

In March, the official Xinhua news agency said that the government would clamp down on illegal timber imports from the former Burma and had ordered all illegal Chinese workers to leave the country.

Environment groups say China is at the heart of a global trade plundering forests in Southeast Asia for lumber it sells to markets in the United States and Europe, and charge that much of its plywood exports come from illegal logging.

China has traditionally had a close relationship with Myanmar, valuing not only its timber, but its gas resources and military bases that give it access to the Indian Ocean.

But analysts say it has also been increasingly concerned about drugs and HIV/AIDS flooding across the border and is keen to stop instability in Myanmar, which has endured decades of military rule, from impacting on China.

Reuters CH GC1339