Daily News-November-15-Wdenesday-2000

  • For Burmese, Repression, AIDS and Denial
  • Burmese student activist reportedly abducted
  • Student Leader Sentenced in Thailand
  • Monks Used to Recruit Forced Labor
  • Rewriting History
  • Burma Govt Quietly Publishes Anti-Forced Labor Measure
  • India, Burma to Discuss Enhancing Trade in Nov 17 Meet
  • India accords red carpet welcome to Burmese general
  • Dialog plans to tap Burma oil and gas sector
  • Burma Withdraws from World Cup

    • For Burmese, Repression, AIDS and Denial
    source : The New York Times

    YANGON, Myanmar - To inoculate themselves against any outbreak of democracy, the generals who run this hermit dictatorship have undertaken two urgent missions of self-preservation.

    Seeking support from the Buddhist majority in what used to be called Burma, the junta is sprucing up old pagodas and building new ones at a pace and on a scale that experts say is without precedent.

    Nearly every day, a top general travels by armed motorcade to a recently restored pagoda. As state television records his piety, the general removes his shiny shoes and inspects a newly gilded Buddha.

    The junta has a rather more robust Plan B. In an autumn that has been unkind to autocrats - Slobodan Milosevic failed to steal an election in Serbia and the youngest son of Indonesia's ousted president, Suharto, was convicted of corruption - the generals here are taking no chances. They have locked up nearly all their political opponents.

    In late September, they again ordered the house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader whose party won a huge victory in a 1990 election that the generals ignored. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has spent more than 6 of the last 11 years under house arrest.

    Senior leaders of her party have been imprisoned or placed under house arrest. Two of the most influential monks, who wrote letters that begged the generals to talk to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, are being watched by military intelligence.

    The army halted huge pro-democracy demonstrations 12 years ago by killing several hundred people and jailing thousands more. Since then, the generals have doubled the size of the armed forces, to more than 400,000, though Myanmar, with a population estimated at 50 million, faces no serious foreign threat and has made peace with most of its armed ethnic minorities.

    Military analysts say the buildup, which coincides with a steep decline in spending on schools and health care, is primarily aimed at preventing or, if need be, crushing civil unrest. Large numbers of troops are stationed in or around major cities.

    In the last five years, the junta has forcibly resettled tens of thousands of potentially restive poor people from city centers to distant slums. It has closed most urban universities and sent students off to remote rural campuses. Labor unions and private civic associations are banned. No elections are scheduled; none seem likely.

    The generals have made it a crime to own a computer modem, send e-mail, sign on to the Internet or invite a foreigner into a private home.

    Since seizing power 38 years ago, the military dictatorship has renamed the country, renamed this capital (formerly Rangoon) and renamed scores of other cities, towns and religious shrines. Every few years, the generals rename themselves.

    After the 1988 retirement of the founding dictator, Gen. Ne Win, his handpicked successors decided to call their junta the State Law and Order Restoration Council, known inside and outside the country as Slorc. In 1997, as the generals opened the country to foreign investors and tried to soften their image, the name was changed to the State Peace and Development Council.

    S.P.D.C., though, has not caught on. People seem to relish calling their self-appointed leaders "Slorc."

    The generals have also stopped allowing foreign journalists into the country, especially Americans. But Slorc, starved for foreign currency, began admitting sizable numbers of tourists after 1996, which it proclaimed "Visit Myanmar Year."
    Burmese student activist reportedly abducted
    Source: Democratic Voice of Burma, Oslo, in Burmese 1245 gmt 12 Nov 00

    Text of report by Burmese opposition radio on 12th November

    It has been learned that Ko San Naing alias Ye Thiha, the leader of the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors [VBSW], has been arrested by the Thai Military Intelligence which is on friendly terms with the SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] Military Intelligence.

    This was noted in yesterday's VBSW statement. Ko San Naing was instrumental in forming the VBSW that staged a siege on the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. Thai and SPDC intelligence personnel believed that Ko San Naing was the mastermind behind the sieges at the Bangkok Burmese embassy and the Ratburi Hospital. That is why Thai Intelligence has been making a very strenuous effort to arrest him.

    According to one VBSW member, Ko San Naing has disappeared since the first of this month while hiding and moving from one place to another in Thailand. He said while going to Bangkok on an errand Ko San Naing disappeared and he never reached Bangkok.

    The same VBSW member who wished to remain anonymous told DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] that until the disappearance the members always have contact with each other.

    He also attributed Ko San Naing's arrest to information provided by pro-SPDC Thai Intelligence and SPDC spies. He added that Ko Johnny, the leader of the Burmese embassy siege, was also tricked by pro-SPDC Thai Intelligence who said they would provide medical treatment for his wounded leg and he was never heard of since.

    Yesterday's VBSW statement noted that Ko Johnny is believed to have been silenced by the pro-SPDC Thai Intelligence. The statement declared that it is not known whether Ko San Naing will be handed over to the SPDC or meet the same fate as Ko Johnny.

    The statement cited that all those who are responsible for such lowdown acts in the disappearance of Ko San Naing and Ko Johnny will face dire consequences. The statement also affirmed that the VBSW will continue their struggle in the fight against the SPDC military government and their supporters.
    Student Leader Sentenced in Thailand
    source :Irrawaddy



    A Thai court has sentenced Moe Thee Zun, a well-known student leader during Burma’s 1988 pro-democracy uprising, to 8 months in prison for travelling on a false passport.

    The 38-year-old former deputy chairman of the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), who had earlier been held for ten days following his arrest at Bangkok’s Don Muang International Airport in March this year, was released on bail shortly after sentencing. His lawyer said that he would appeal the decision and hoped to have the sentence reduced to probation.

    Sources close to Moe Thee Zun said that the October court decision and the March arrest en route to a conference in North America came as a surprise, as many dissidents are known to travel on false Burmese passports. Some observers have noted, however, that the student leader may have irked Thai authorities by attending a memorial service for ten anti-Rangoon rebels killed by Thai commandos in January.

    He also reportedly gave a speech in honor of the dead gunmen, who had seized a hospital in the border province of Ratchaburi to demand medical assistance for casualties of a conflict with Burmese troops.

    Moe Thee Zun, along with other senior leaders, recently resigned from the ABSDF and was said to be planning to rejoin the Democratic Party for New Society, a party he founded shortly after the Burmese military coup in 1988.
    Monks Used to Recruit Forced Labor
    source : Irrawaddy

    As the UN’s International Labor Organization continues its review of the forced labor situation inside Burma, the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) appears to be experimenting with new means of recruiting unpaid labor for infrastructure projects.

    According to reliable sources, military authorities in Karen State have been turning to local Buddhist abbots to recruit villagers for road-building and other construction projects. The sources added that sizeable donations were being offered to the senior monks in exchange for their cooperation.

    In one recent case, authorities made an offering of one million kyat (US$ 2,400) to the abbot of a monastery in the village of Mae La Ma, Kawkareit Township, following a request for his assistance in recruiting laborers for a 24-km long road being built about 32 km from the Thai-Burma border. According to one villager from the area, however, local people complained after the abbot called on them to work on the road. "People from Mae La Ma and the five neighboring villages were very upset about being called on by the abbot to do road construction at the expense of their daily work," he said.

    Although the SPDC has often claimed that workers "donate" their labor on construction sites as an act of religious merit making, it is unusual for the military regime to actually seek the cooperation of abbots in carrying out such projects. This latest development may be part of a move to lend more credence to its claims that villagers are volunteering their labor. So far, however, the results have been disappointing for the regime: resistance from villagers, as well as security concerns, have delayed construction on the Mae La Ma road, which Karen rebels claim is being built for military purposes.
    Rewriting History
    source : Irrawaddy

    The wife of former dictator Ne Win was in Tokyo recently to conduct research for a project to "rewrite modern Burmese history," according to a report from Radio Free Asia’s Burmese-language service. Ni Ni Myint, who is also the director of the Historical Research Center in Rangoon, was accompanied by several other historians on her trip to meet Japanese experts on Burmese history. This was her second visit to Japan in two years.

    Other Burmese scholars have greeted news of Ni Ni Myint’s new project with skepticism. "My concern is that whenever they do research, Ni Ni Myint and other historians (inside Burma) always approach those who are likeminded," remarked Prof Min Nyo, a Burmese historian based in Japan. He added that the group would be working according to a pre-conceived plan that was not likely to challenge the official version of recent historical events.

    Ni Ni Myint’s reputation as a scholar has suffered as a result of her marriage to Ne Win, whose dictatorial rule shaped much of Burma’s post-independence history.     In a recent interview with Hong Kong-based Asiaweek magazine, however, she angrily denied that her work would be a whitewash of Ne Win’s political legacy, which reduced Burma to one of the world’s most impoverished nations. "It will be balanced and objective," she insisted.

    Ni Ni Myint is not the first woman associated with a major historical figure to look to Japan for clues about Burma’s past. Aung San Suu Kyi, who for the past twelve years has also been attempting to rewrite Burmese history, was a visiting scholar at Kyoto University in 1985-6, where she researched the role of her father, Gen Aung San, in Burma’s independence struggle against British colonial rule.
    Burma Govt Quietly Publishes Anti-Forced Labor Measure
    YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--The military government has made forced labor a criminal offense, amending a colonial-era law after the International Labor Organization said it was considering sanctions against Myanmar.

    The Home Ministry issued the order Oct. 27, a day after a visiting ILO team left the country after receiving a draft law from the government.

    But the order was not published in the official media, and only reported in the Nov. 10 issue of the weekly Myanmar Gazette, which carries official announcements. The issue became available Wednesday.

    The ILO, which has repeatedly expressed concern at the military junta's failure to stop forced labor in Myanmar, was expected to vote on taking sanctions against Myanmar this week.

    Myanmar had tried to appease the ILO in May 1999 by issuing an order asking authorities not to exercise powers under the 1908 Towns Act and 1907 Village Act, which were enacted by the British colonial government. The two acts empower authorities to impose compulsory labor on residents to assist government officials in the execution of duties.

    But the 1999 order did not spell out the consequences of disobeying it.

    The Oct. 27 order rectifies that shortcoming and makes requisitioning of forced labor punishable by a maximum of one year in jail and a fine under section 374 of the Penal Code.

    The Myanmar government had long maintained that forced labor was part of community service that residents provided voluntarily.

    Critics of the military regime say that it is purposely limiting domestic circulation of the new measure to keep its existence unknown to the public at large. The gazette is not sold at newsstands and not easily available.
    India, Burma to Discuss Enhancing Trade in Nov 17 Meet
    NEW DELHI, Nov 15 Asia Pulse - Leading chamber body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said India and Myanmar (Burma) should try to enhance bilateral trade focusing on information technology (IT) and biotechnology.

    Apart from these two potential areas, there were tremendous potential in other sectors like agro and food processing, infrastructure, paper and pulp, power generation equipment, machine tools, and textile machinery, the chamber said in a release.

    Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council vice chairman General Myaung Aye, accompanied by a high level delegation, will discuss potential areas of co-operation at a CII organised meeting on November 17.

    The potential of bilateral trade between the two countries would be discussed in detail during the meeting with General Maung Aye, who holds second highest command equivalent to Vice President, CII said.

    Gen Maung heads three important trade bodies of Myanmar and they are National Trade Committee, National Industrial Development Committee and National Agricultural and Economic Development Committee, it said.
    India accords red carpet welcome to Burmese general
    NEW DELHI, Nov 15 (AFP) - India is giving a red carpet welcome to the number two in Myanmar's junta, General Maung Aye, whose visit has stirred up controversy over New Delhi's policy towards the military regime on its border.

    General Aye is the highest-ranking member of the Myanmar junta to visit India in the past 10 years.

    The general flew into the eastern city of Patna late Tuesday and was scheduled to visit the southern IT showcase city of Bangalore before being accorded an official welcome in New Delhi on Friday.

    The fact that the trip has been billed as a "state visit" has raised a few eyebrows here. Aye, who is also Myanmar's army chief, will be formally welcomed by Indian Vice President Krishna Kant in the forecourt of the presidential palace in Delhi.

    India's dilemma over how to deal with the military regime stems from the fact that New Delhi has been seeking Myanmarese support in stamping out separatist insurgency in India's northeast.

    The Indian and Myanmar armies have conducted joint operations against militant groups belonging to the United Liberation Front of Assam and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland, along the border and in Myanmar.

    India is also interested in building stronger ties with Myanamar to counter China's growing ties with Yangon.

    However New Delhi is also sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. In 1995, India had conferred a prestigious civilian honour on the opposition leader.

    India's Defence Minister George Fernandes is a strong supporter of Aung San Suu kyi and a stern critic of the military junta.

    "We as a country are committed to democracy. We are also for non-interference in the internal matters of other countries," said one Indian official.
    Dialog plans to tap Burma oil and gas sector
    By Ahmad Zuber Ibrahim

    Dialog Group Bhd, which provides support services for the petroleum and petrochemical industry, plans to tap into Myanmar's oil and gas industry as part of its expansion into the Asean region.

    According to Dialog chairman and group managing director Ngau Boon Keat, Myanmar will turn out to be a good market in the long term.

    "We are still at the initial stage of exploring the Myanmar market, looking for opportunities through our agent over there. Our people actually went over to Myanmar only two weeks ago,'' Ngau told reporters after Dialog AGM in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

    He said, however, that the company was not setting any specific targets for Myanmar, stressing that the recent trip was more of a fact-finding mission to identify the business opportunities and potential customers, especially the foreign oil companies, in Myanmar.

    "Myanmar, which produces some 50,000 barrels of petroleum daily, offers many business opportunities. Petronas Carigali and oil companies from the US and Britain are already there,'' he said.

    Ngau said that the venture would only see returns over a long period. He said that as in China, it would probably take the company five years to land its first contract in Myanmar.

    Dialog's core business lies in marketing and technical services. In addition to being an engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) service provider, it also provides plant maintenance services, centralised tankage facility services and petroleum retail services in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry.

    Currently, Dialog has offices in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. It also has done business in Brunei and the Philippines. Ngau said the overseas market could contribute between 20% and 25% to the group's overall growth in the current financial year.

    In August, Dialog was awarded a RM170mil subcontract by Kvaerner Petrominco Engineering Sdn Bhd for construction and procurement services to the butanediol complex project in Gebeng, Kuantan, for BASF Petronas Chemicals Sdn Bhd.
    Burma Withdraws from World Cup
    The Associated Press, Tue 14 Nov 2000

    ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) — Myanmar withdrew from the qualifying rounds of the 2002 World Cup without giving a reason to soccer's governing body.

    FIFA said Tuesday it had received a fax from the national association of Myanmar. The country, also known as Burma, was to have competed in the Asian Football Confederation.

    Myanmar's first game was to have been against Tajikistan in Iran on Nov. 24. That group now has only three teams — Iran, Tajikistan and Guam.

    FIFA said the case would be submitted to the World Cup organizing committee for ``appropriate action.''

    A team that withdraws after March 1, 2000, loses its entry fee of $1,700 and can be fined up to nearly $23,000.

    The 2002 World Cup will be played in Japan and South Korea.