Daily News-December-01-Friday-2000

  • Activists urge total ban on investments in Burma
  • Burma to remove mines planted on border
  • Local Populace Against Expected Shan-Wa War
  • MAI Press Release : Region Air takes 49% Stake in Myanmar Airways International
  • Major Chinese Company to Help Burma Expand Telecom Network
  • Burmese Writer-critic flees and seeks asylum in west
  • Thai Army on alert ahead of Rangoon offensive
  • Burma Free Pro-Democracy Party Executives, But Not Suu Kyi
  • Tokyo slates meeting with Burma

    • Activists urge total ban on investments in Burma
    New Delhi, November 30, 2000
    Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)

    Pro-democracy activists of Burma urged the international community to step up pressure against the Burmese regime, which they said has failed to eliminate forced labour in the military-rule country.

    In launching a "Global Action Day against Forced Labour in Burma", members of Burma pro-democracy activists based in Australia, India, Japan and Thailand have today urged the UN agencies and the tripartite constituents (governments, employers and workers) of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to follow up the ILO's recent decision by taking up punitive actions against the junta.

    The ILO has adopted punitive measures, which takes effect from today, against the Burmese government. The measures include calls for UN agencies, governments, employers and workers to review relations with Burma.

    The Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has recently accused that more than a million Burmese are still subjected to forced labour, toiling on construction sites for roads, railways, military installations and tourist infrastructure.

    In a joint statement issued today, the Burmese activists also urge for the withdrawal of the multinational companies investing in Burma and cancellation of all the planned trips of tour operators to Burma, which is alleged to "perpetrate daily horrific human rights abuses against its own people".

    The statement was issued by Free Burma Action Committee (Australia), All Burma Students League (India), League for Democracy in Burma (Japan), Burma Labour Solidarity (Thailand) and Burmese Students' Association (Rachburi, Thailand).

    As a part of their campaign against the Burmese regime, the activists have planned to organize pickets in front of Burmese embassies on November 30 in various countries.

    Meanwhile, about 50 Burmese democracy activists under the banner of All Burma Students League (ABSL) today held a demonstration in New Delhi, demanding the governments to cease relations and cooperation with the Burmese military junta for failing to curb forced labour in the country. The demonstration was held at Janta Mantar in New Delhi this morning and lasted for one hour.
    Burma to remove mines planted on border
    Source : Dailystar(Bangladesh)

    COX'S BAZAR, Nov 29: Myanmar agreed in principle to remove landmines planted on the 'no man's land' along the border that killed a number of people, reports UNB.

    The assurance came from the Myanmar border security force NASAKA at a meeting with Bangladesh Rifles at Ghumdhum BDR Outpost near Naikhangchhari border on Tuesday. Officials here said the delegation of NASAKA said they would apprise their higher authorities of the matter. They, however, accused the Arakanese rebels of planting mines on 'no man's land.'

    "The flag meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere aiming to defuse tensions heightening in the border areas," said an official.

    In the meeting, both sides admitted that at least seven people of the two countries were killed in last two weeks in landmine explosions.
    Local Populace Against Expected Shan-Wa War
    Source : Shan Herald Agency

    People in Mongton township of southern Shan State have expressed their opposition against the probable war between the Shan State Army and the United Wa State Army, said sources coming across the border recently.

    "I thought the war between Wa and Shans fighting for the benefits of Rangoon was over with Khun Sa's surrender (in 1996)", said a trader coming from Mongton. "Now for whose good are they going to war against each other again?"

    Several agreed with the trader.

    "We've been risking ourselves and our family's lives by supporting the SSA all through these years," said another. "I hope Sao Yawdserk doesn't let us down".

    Many voiced a dialogue between the two "before things go out of control".

    Since mid-November, units of the UWSA had been pouring into Mongton township, stopping and spotchecking both travelers and vehicles along the Mongton - BP1 road.

    The SSA also reported 5 battalions of the UWSA's 171st Division of Wei Xiaokang moving in to set up bases in Nakawngmu, Mongtaw, Monghta, Khailong and Namkad. The first three locations are opposite Chiangmai Province and the remaining two opposite Maehongson Province.

    Shan elder, Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, meanwhile commented: "In terms of strategy, it is totally disadvantageous for Sao Yawdserk and the Shan State... (but) I guess he has to do what he has to do, in order to survive, if only for immediate survival... He is involved in a game where he has no leverage".
    Region Air takes 49% Stake in Myanmar Airways International (MAI) and will Also Manage Airline in a Long-Term Joint Venture Agreement
    Source : Myanmar Airways International Press Release

    On 29th November 2000 Myanmar Airways International signed a long-term joint venture agreement with Region Air, a Singapore based company engaged in the business of leasing, buying and selling of aircraft and also in the maintenance and operation of aircraft for airlines. Under the terms of this agreement Region Air has taken a 49% stake in MAI and will also provide management, marketing, accounting, finance strategy and cost control, technical and operations management. This arrangement comes into effect on 1st Jan 2001.

    Chairman of MAI, U Maung Maung Ohn remarked. "We are extremely pleased to have Region Air as an investor and partner. They have a very successful track record in assisting airlines in developing and newly developed countries all over the world. We have every confidence that they will apply this good experience to make MAI a premier Asian airline".

    Chairman of Region Air Myanmar, Mr George Yin Soon added, " MAI is a lesser known but good airline as it is. What we want to do with the help of our Myanmar partners is make a good airline into an even more well known and even better airline. We will look into upgrading systems and procedures and in introducing new technology which will allow better inventory and yield management and load factors."

    " We have also not forgotten the people factor and one of the objectives we have set ourselves is to provide opportunities for the many well qualified and talented Myanmar nationals to be further trained to fill key positions over a period of time."

    The new MAI management team is presently being identified and will be put in place in the next few weeks. They will assume office on 1st Jan 2001. An announcement will be made in the next few weeks. It is expected that apart from a few senior expatriate positions, all other positions will be occupied by Myanmar nationals.

    There are presently 2 aircraft in the fleet, the 146 seat Boeing 737-400 aircraft. They are flown by expatriate pilots with Myanmar cabin crew. This arrangement will continue for the moment. A full fleet and crew evaluation will be carried out in the next few months and details will be announced after this study.

    Directors from Region Air on the MAI board are Chan U Seek, Pritam Singh, Prithpal Singh and George Yin Soon.
    Major Chinese Company to Help Burma Expand Telecom Network
    Source : XINHUA NEWS AGENCY

    Rangoon(Dec. 1) -- A leading Chinese modernized telecommunication and information enterprise, the Shanghai Bell Co. Ltd., reached the largest whole-set high-technology export contract with the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications authorities here Friday for improving and expanding the telecommunication network in four major cities in Burma.

    On behalf of respective parties, President of the Shanghai Bell Co. Ltd. Gunther Strobel and Director-General of the Myanma Posts and Telecommunications U Maung Maung Tin signed the contract.

    Attending the contract signing ceremony were Chinese Ambassador to Burma Liang Dong and Burmese Minister of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs Brigadier-General Win Tin.

    The contracted project, worth nearly 20 million U.S. dollars, will cover expansion of the telecommunication network in Rangoon, Mandalay, Pyay and Toungoo.

    Under the contract, the products supplied by the Chinese company cover a 55,000-line digital switching system, transmission equipment, outside plant cable and integrated services digital network.

    The project is scheduled to complete in two years and the telecommunication infrastructure of Burma is expected to take on a new look after implementation.

    Shanghai Bell, a Sino-Belgian joint venture established in 1984, has acquired the largest market-share in the Chinese domestic market and over the past decade, it has developed its international business in more than 20 countries and regions including the United States, Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Norway, Australia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Russia, Iran, Jordan, Iraq, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Japan and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
    Burmese Writer-critic flees and seeks asylum in westv
    Source : Bangkok Post

    Tin Maung Than, Burma's well-known journalist, writer and social critic, is seeking political asylum after fleeing to Bangkok.

    The former chief editor of Thintbawa (Your Life) is seeking asylum in the west for himself and his family, according to Irrawaddy, a Chiang Mai-based monthly magazine.

    In August Rangoon soldiers took the Harvard-educated writer in for questioning on suspicion he was secretly distributing speeches by former minister Zaw Htun.

    Brig-Gen Zaw Htun, a deputy minister for national planning and economic development, was forced to step down after accusing the government of economic mismanagement.

    Military intelligence officers suspected Tin Maung Than and a group of Burmese writers were spreading the word.

    Fearing arrest and intimidation, the writer said he and his family could no longer live in Burma.

    Hailed as one of the most influential writers of the last 20 years, Tin Maung Than was no stranger to censorship.

    In one notorious incident, a 1996 issue of his magazine, Thintbawa, lost 58 of its 160 pages after coming under scrutiny of Rangoon's Press Scrutiny Board.

    In the annals of censorship, critics said it was crude even by Burmese standards. Despite the clampdown, copies of the article, comparing the colonial and national education system, were widely distributed among Burmese dissidents. Tin Maung Than, a physician graduate of Mandalay Medical University, has written several articles on HIV/Aids, education and social problems facing military-ruled Burma.
    Thai Army on alert ahead of Rangoon offensive
    Source : Bangkok Post

    The defence minister has told the army to be on the alert near the Thai-Burmese frontier as the anticipated relocation of Red Wa from northern Burma is likely to spark fierce fighting in border areas.

    Defence spokesman Lt-Gen Banchorn Chavalsilp said Chuan Leekpai had given the order because Rangoon forces are expected to launch a dry-season offensive against minority rebels in border areas opposite Tak, Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai.

    Military intelligence suggested the Red Wa would move down to these areas resulting in increasing drugs production and arms trade, he said.

    Army chief Gen Surayud Chulanont, meanwhile, said border forces would retaliate against any stray shells from Burma landing on Thai soil.

    The army chief also confirmed he would not join the supreme commander's Dec 12-13 trip to Burma. The visit is to introduce the new navy and air force chiefs to Burmese military leaders, but Gen Surayud said he is no longer a newcomer.
    Burma Free Pro-Democracy Party Executives, But Not Suu Kyi
    Source : AP / Reuters

    Burma's military government on Friday freed from house arrest six top members of the opposition National League for Democracy, but said party leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her two top lieutenants would remain in confinement.

    The nine active members of the NLD's central executive committee had been under restriction since Sept. 22, after Suu Kyi defied the government's wishes by attempting to travel to the countryside for political organizing.

    The announcement of the lifting of restrictions came in an information sheet distributed by the government.

    "The temporary restriction on six NLD central executive committee members has been lifted since 5:30 p.m. today and (they) are resuming their normal activities," said the announcement.

    The brief announcement also said that party chairman Aung Shwe, vice chairman Tin Oo and secretary general Suu Kyi "are requested to continue their stay in the present position for the time being."

    The three are the most outspoken and most senior party executives.

    Even though opposition members have been held virtually incommunicado and allowed visits only by close family members, the government has always described the detention order as a "request."

    Last week, the human rights organization Amnesty International called for the government to release Suu Kyi and the other party leaders.

    It described them as "prisoners of conscience, arrested solely for their peaceful political opposition activities."

    The lifting of restrictions on the six NLD members comes shortly before a planned meeting of foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union in Laos on December 11-12.

    Burma's treatment of the NLD, which won elections by a landslide in 1990 but has never been allowed to govern, has threatened to derail the meeting.

    The EU has boycotted ministerial-level meetings with ASEAN since Burma was controversially admitted in 1997, and this year's crackdown on Suu Kyi has done nothing to ease hostility.

    Most EU states have said they will only send junior ministers or diplomats to the Vientiane meeting, and some frustrated ASEAN members have been pressing Burma to make concessions.

    Diplomats in Rangoon said the easing of restrictions on the six NLD committee members, while welcome, was unlikely to impress EU countries if Suu Kyi and her senior colleagues stayed locked up.

    Suu Kyi and the other party officials were put under virtual house arrest Sept. 21 after she was blocked from traveling upcountry by train. She has been similarly stopped on several occasions in the past.

    Burma's ruling military, which kept Suu Kyi under formal house arrest from 1989 to 1995, refused to hand over power to the NLD after it overwhelmingly won a general election in 1990. In the wake of the polls, it has harassed and arrested hundreds of NLD members.

    Suu Kyi's latest standoff with the government began Aug. 24 when she tried to drive out of Rangoon for party work. On being stopped, she became locked in a nine-day roadside standoff that ended when she was forcibly brought back to Rangoon and kept under virtual house arrest for two weeks. Her ordeal brought worldwide sympathy and harsh criticism of the junta from Western nations.

    When those restrictions were lifted, Suu Kyi and Oo tried to make their trip outside the capital by train. They were told tickets had sold out.

    The U.N. Secretary General's Special Envoy for Burma, Razali Ismail, was able to meet with Suu Kyi twice at her house during his visit to the country in October. The U.N. is trying to forge a dialogue between the government and opposition.

    The 55-year-old Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, is facing a concerted crackdown against the NLD.

    The party has been threatened with eviction from its Yangon headquarters, and Suu Kyi's estranged U.S.-based brother has filed a lawsuit with a Burma court demanding the right to half of her Rangoon residence.
    Tokyo slates meeting with Burma
    Source : The Japan Times

    In defiance of mounting international pressure, Japan appears firmly determined to go ahead with technical assistance for Burma.

    A fledgling joint panel of Japanese and Burmese government officials and private-sector experts will meet in Tokyo as early as next week to discuss ways to resolve structural problems that have hobbled the impoverished Southeast Asian country's economic development, informed sources said Thursday.

    It will be the second time for the joint economic panel to meet; the panel was inaugurated earlier this year and held its first meeting in Rangoon in June.

    Japan's decision to host a second meeting is expected to draw flak from the United States and other industrialized countries in Europe as well as from human-rights activists both at home and abroad.

    The meeting comes amid escalating international criticism of Burma's military regime for its violations of human rights and democratic principles.

    At its board meeting in Geneva on Nov. 16, the International Labor Organization, a key body of the United Nations, decided to impose sanctions on Burma over its widespread use of forced labor. The sanctions, applied under an article of the ILO constitution that had never been used, took effect Thursday.

    Burma's military regime has long denied the existence of forced labor, insisting that civilians work voluntarily to promote the development of the country, especially its poorer rural areas.

    Unlike U.N. Security Council sanctions, which spell out limits on trade and other punishments, the ILO is leaving it to the some 170 individual member governments to determine specific measures to take against Burma.

    A senior government official said there is no conflict between the ILO action and Japan's going forward with its policy of "constructive engagement."

    "Japan's technical assistance for Burma's economic reforms does not run counter to the ILO decision, because the ILO sanctions call on its member governments to stop any economic aid that may encourage the use of forced labor in Burma," the official said, requesting anonymity.

    The meeting also comes amid a continuing tug-of-war in Burma. The military regime has recently entered into a showdown with prodemocracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

    The junta -- which now refers to itself as the State Peace and Development Council -- and Suu Kyi's NLD began knocking heads in early September. That's when the SPDC forced Suu Kyi to end a nine-day roadside protest just outside the Burmese capital of Rangoon, forcibly returned her to her Rangoon home and confined her there.

    Although she was released from effective house arrest 13 days later, she was again placed under effective incarceration after she made another failed attempt to travel outside Rangoon.

    Foreign diplomats stationed in the Burmese capital have not been allowed to visit Suu Kyi.

    The military has been in power since 1988, when it staged a coup. Two years later, it nullified the results of an election that handed Suu Kyi's NLD a landslide victory. The NLD leader was then placed under house arrest until the summer of 1995.

    The U.S. and other industrialized countries in Europe have toughened economic and other sanctions against Burma during the past decade, and since the coup Japan has frozen large-scale economic aid for new projects.

    But while joining the U.S. and Europe in calling for improvements in human rights and democratic principles, Japan has taken a much softer approach toward Burma's military regime.

    Tokyo has argued for "constructive engagement" with the junta instead of ostracizing it from the international community.

    But the U.S. is becoming increasingly critical of this policy. At a meeting with her Japanese counterpart, Yohei Kono, in New York in mid-September, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright implicitly urged Japan to abandon its policy toward Burma and fall into line with the U.S. and Europe.

    The U.S. has also objected to the joint economic panel, claiming that it will only spoil the SPDC by signaling that Japan condones its lack of progress on democratization and human-rights.