Daily News-January 25 - 2001- Thursday

  • Warnings that HIV/Aids will destroy 'entire races'
  • ILO assumes credit for new political dialogue
  • Admit sanctions don't work: Swiss
  • New man in BKK could be a good business deal
  • Poppies being harvested across the border
  • Banned U.S. activist hopes for reprieve from Thai government
  • Nasaka on Indo-Burma border
  • Burma junta releases U Tin Oo, 19 youth members
  • Thai Rak Thai deputy leader Pitak favours closer ties with Burma

    • Warnings that HIV/Aids will destroy 'entire races'

    source :City Press SA

    Yangon - A senior military leader in Myanmar (Burma) has acknowledged in a published article for the first time that HIV/Aids poses a threat to his country, official sources disclosed on Tuesday.

    "HIV, Aids. It's a national cause. If we ignore it, it will be the scourge that will destroy entire nations," said the junta's First Secretary Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt in    an interview with the Myanmar Times, a weekly newspaper.

    Khin Nyunt's statement was in stark contrast to his remarks in October, 1999, when he claimed the Aids scare was being used by the junta's political enemies to "attack Myanmar".

    Myanmar's ruling military regime has been widely criticised for its stance of "denial" about the spread of HIV/Aids, especially in its border areas where drug abuse and prostitution are common.

    While the UNAIDS programme has estimated that more than 440 000 people in Myanmar have the virus, the government's estimate is close to 25 000.

    Khin Nyunt, in his interview with the Myanmar Times, acknowledged that the government had faced problems in getting an anti-Aids programme going.

    "We are a very conservative, religious society, and it was rather against our culture to put condoms on show as a means of prevention," said Khin Nyunt.

    He said that recently the Health Ministry had taken a more enlightened approach in teaching HIV awareness to villagers.

    And, in what appeared to be an appeal for more international aid, Khin Nyunt added, "To be frank, monitoring infected cases is difficult. We have no means of getting exact data on how many cases there are. To test each person would cost around 2 dollars, and we really can't afford it."

    The interview was published in the partly privately-owned Myanmar Times at a time when the junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council, has reportedly initiated talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

    United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has welcomed the "breakthrough," although most Western observers have taken a "wait and see" attitude towards the talks.

    The junta has refused to pass over power to the NLD, which won the 1990 general election, for a decade, citing the need to preserve peace and security in the country. -Sapa-DPA
    ILO assumes credit for new political dialogue

    source :The Myanmar Times

    A KEY representative of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the labor rights body at loggerheads with the Myanmar government over allegations of forced labor, said last week that its sanctions had helped pressure the Myanmar government into opening a political dialogue with the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).“It’s presumptuous to say we brought this about, but I think there’s a connection,” the ILO’s director of operations in Southeast Asia, Ian Chambers, told Associated Press last week.“It shows the international community is prepared to take action”.

    As reported in Myanmar Times last week, United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan announced – in the wake of the visit by his Special Envoy, Razali Ismail – that high-level dialogue between the Government and the NLD had been underway since October last year.But Yangon business leaders were sceptical of the link between that development, and the imposition of ILO sanctions against Myanmar.

    “The ILO placed its sanctions at the end of November, yet the political dialogue started in October, so I don’t really see how there could have been a link,” said a high-ranking executive of the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce.Jean Pichon, president and CEO of Setraco, was more blunt.“The ILO has lost its credibility, especially here in Asia, with its unjustified measures last year against Myanmar workers,” he said.

    “Now they are presumptuous and silly enough to think that there’s a ‘connection’ and that they brought this [dialogue] about.“This internal Asian affair must and is going to be settled the Asian way through the goodwill of Asian people.”Jerzy Wilk, managing director of Uniteam Marine Limited, said the causes of political developments here lay elsewhere.

    It [the ILO’s sanctions] could be seen as some kind of influence but I don’t think they have been the main cause of the talks,” he said. “I think the time for talks had come after the ASEAN heads of state meeting in Singapore.“Malaysia and Singapore both made it known that they were looking to expand economic ties with Myanmar.“Then Dr Mahathir and Special Envoy Mr Razali, two Malaysians, made recent visits here, wheeling and dealing.“If anything has happened here, it has been initiated by Asians.“I don’t know that the ILO boycott had much effect anyway,” Mr Wilk said.

    “I haven’t heard of any real disadvantages to Myanmar businesses as yet.“Besides, most of Myanmar’s trade is regional and I think most Asian countries close their eyes to these ILO sanctions.“Look, this country has weathered so many boycotts for so many years. The government and the people have always adapted.“The west simply hasn’t been able to force Myanmar to take the measures it wants.” A senior Yangon diplomat said that the ILO sanctions and recent political developments were not intrinsically linked.
    Admit sanctions don't work: Swiss

    source :The Myanmar Times

    THE United States' incoming Bush administration might be more likely than its predecessor to see the "true picture" of sanctions against Myanmar, but significant foreign policy change in Washington could only come from a change of heart of the people and opinion-makers of North American society, a Yangon meeting has been told.

    The meeting was organised by the Office of Strategic Studies, and attended by high- ranking military officers and intellectuals, to consider the new US leadership's likely policy towards Myanmar.Its guest speakers were two Swiss political specialists.

    One of them, Philippe Maegerle from the right-wing Zurich-based think tank, the European Foundation, told the meeting that US sanctions had failed against Myanmar, just as they had failed against other countries subject to US embargoes.

    "The question now is when the American people might realise that sanctions can never be an effective tool for forcing any government to commit," Mr Maegerle said.

    "I'm sure they know it by this stage, but they have difficulties in admitting it," he said. But both the Swiss guests and their Myanmar hosts agreed that there could be a rhetorical softening in the official US position.

    "The chances are better for the Bush administration to see the true picture of sanctions than the previous government," Mr Maegerle said, observing that sanctions had not and probably would not force the hand of Myanmar's military government.

    "We can judge the new American president only by what he says – we don't know what he will do." But he said it was opinion leaders, in particular the media, which influenced US foreign policy makers,rather than elected politicians – although he speculated that Vice President Richard Cheney might "understand the problem".

    Until mid-last year, Cheney was the chief executive officer of Halliburton Co, a Texas-based Fortune 500 energy services company which, under his leadership, became the biggest oil-drilling, engineering and construction services provider in the world, with a 1999 revenue near $20 million.

    Last year the company provided logistical support to the Yadana gas field and Yadagon off-shore project in Myanmar, undertaken by the Premier and Total companies respectively

    In a speech to a business function in the US last year, Mr Cheney said many oil companies today were "more comfortable dealing with the below ground risk like drilling and reservoir performance than they are with the above ground political risks".

    He cited US economic sanctions as one example of such political risks.

    A senior officer in the Myanmar military said the international community should not expect too much from Uncle Sam.
    New man in BKK could be a good business deal

    source:The Myanmar Times

    THE likely new administration in Bangkok is to take office amid growing signs of improving Thai-Myanmar business ties.Figures from the Thai Commercial Council office in Yangon showed that total bilateral trade between the two countries last year reached US$700million, representing export growth of 100 per cent and import growth of 30 for Myanmar.

    Thailand, according to Myanmar Investment Commission figures, is Myanmar's third biggest investor after Singapore and the United Kingdom with US$1200m invested here.Trade with Myanmar accounts for just 0.67 percent of Thailand's external trade, as shown by Thai Commercial Council Office statistics, but there has been increasing legitimate activity by Thai traders located close to the border.

    And there have been other, positive signs of increased economic cooperation in the future.What impact the change of government in Bangkok will have on that situation is one which continues to invite speculation in Yangon.The Union of Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industries, the official mouthpiece of the Myanmar business community, is still watching and waiting.

    A chamber official told Myanmar Times the group was talking with its Thai counterparts on this issue and waiting for clear economic policy pronouncements from Bangkok before making any public comment. The Minister-Counsellor at the Thai Commercial Affairs Office in Yangon, Mr Sriwat Suwarn, said he was optimistic about improving business ties between the two countries under the new Thai government-in-waiting, led by Thaksin Shinwatara, compared to that of Chuan Leekpai's outgoing administration.

    "As a businessman Mr Thaksin know how to handle business very well," Mr Suwarn said ."We think business ties with the neighbouring countries are very important."

    Mr Suwarn said such ties could also promote a reduction in conflict along the border. "If wealth comes to their region, armed groups might consider to live a peaceful life, rather than persuing their armed struggle," he said.The Thai Rak Thai party and its chief, Thaksin, are not totally unknown here.

    The Thaicom telecommunication company owned by the likely new PM has conducted business with the Myanmar Government in the past.And the man who would become the country's next Foreign Minister, Surakiart Sathirathai – who also served as a Finance Minister in the mid-'90s Banharn Silpaarcha government – visited Myanmar last year to pledge cooperation with the government.

    The economic plan unveiled by Thaksin two weeks ago has been seen as an attempt to get the best of both worlds of economic policy.It includes loosely socialist components, such as proposed massive spending schemes for low wage workers and financial support for poor Thai villages.

    Its market components require further elucidation, but will include tax reform to pay for the next government's big spending program.Thaksin has been criticised for failing to explain how he will tackle the country's financial system and restore the solvency of the banks, seen as the prerequisite for full recovery from the financial crisis, but he has claimed he still has plenty of time to work out the detail.The result of the Thai election has not yet been made official.
    Poppies being harvested across the border

    source :Shan Herald Agency - Jan. 23, 2001 :

    The Season's harvest of opium across the border is expected to be complete soon, said sources in Chiangmai Province.

    Many hilltribes people in Thailand, where law enforcement is relatively rigorous, have gone to the other side of the border to grow poppies in the Shan State where war, corruption and economic hardships have made a joke on the rule of law, they said.

    "We pay K. 500 per field to the Wa," said a Lahu from Mornpin Tract, Fang District, Chiangmai Province. "And we are not forced to sell our produce. Instead, we can sell it to the buyers right in our fields or in Nakawngmu (Mongton Township, Monghsat District, Eastern Shan State) at prevailing market price."

    The area under Wa control just across Fang alone is expected to yield at least 5 tons of opium, "since there are at least 600 acres of poppy fields and each produce an average of 5 viss (1.6 kg per viss)." The current prince of opium is B. 20,000 (US$ 500) per viss.
    Banned U.S. activist hopes for reprieve from Thai government

    Jan. 23, 2001

    BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ An American social worker barred from Thailand after helping the needy for more than two decades hopes the country's new government will withdraw the ban, his lawyer said Tuesday.

    Max Ediger, 53, was stopped from entering Thailand after he returned on Dec. 31 from a trip to the United States, apparently because of his involvement with illegal Myanmar refugees.

    He was told by immigration officials that he was on an Interior Ministry list of foreigners declared persona non grata, said the lawyer, Somchai Homla-or of the Law Society of Thailand. Somchai said Ediger and his supporters were hoping Thailand's new government, which is expected to take office next month following its Jan. 6 election victory, would lift the ban on Ediger's entry.

    He said they would lobby ``to try to let the new government know he is a good man.'' Somchai said it appeared that Ediger's sole right to formal appeal expired 24 hours after he was denied entry at Bangkok's international airport.Ediger, who went to Hong Kong after being turned away from Thailand, cold not be reached for comment.

    He came to Thailand in 1978 after doing social work in Burundi and Vietnam. He has worked with prostitutes, slum dwellers, drug addicts and refugees. A native of Turpin, Oklahoma, Ediger has spent most of his adult life abroad.

    In the early 1990s, began helping refugees from military-run Myanmar and seeking to promote nonviolent solutions to that country's political deadlock. He helped found Burma Issues, a research and publication group.

    Ediger's work with Myanmar refugees is sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee a pacifist U.S.-based Christian group.Thai police raided the Burma Issues office which also served as Ediger's home in February last year and found Myanmar people living there.

    Ediger was given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine equivalent to dlrs 250 after he pleaded guilty to a charge of harboring illegal aliens. The court suspended the prison sentence after determining Ediger to be of good character and his work ``beneficial to Thai society and the people.''

    The raid came after a Burma Issues publication was found on the body of one of 10 young Myanmar rebels who raided a hospital in the western Thai province of Ratchaburi, holding patients and staff hostage for 22 hours before being killed by Thai commandos. The same group had in October 1999 seized the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok, letting all their hostages free after being granted safe passage to the Myanmar border. The two incidents caused the Thai government to tighten its controls over the hundreds of thousands of Myanmar refugees here, especially the former students who are politically active in opposing their country's military regime.
    Nasaka on Indo-Burma border

    Moreh, Manipur, January 24, 2001
    Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)

    The Nasaka, a border control unit composed of personnel from army, police, immigration, customs, and intelligence, has now come to the Indo-Burma border and the previously stationed customs and immigration forces at Tamu-Moreh border are being replaced with the Nasaka.

    Since the beginning of this month, the Nasaka forces have been put into work at the border trade-gates No. 1 and No. 2. There are at present about 40 Nasakas at Tamu only.

    The Nasaka have been active in the Thai-Burma border and Bangladesh-Burma border areas for sometimes. In Bangladesh-Burma border, its headquarters is situated at Maung Daw township in Arakan State and they work not only along the land border but also in the Bay of Bengal.
    Burma junta releases U Tin Oo, 19 youth members

    Rangoon, Jan 25 (AFP)

    Burmese authorities have released National League for Democracy (NLD) vice-chairman U Tin Oo and 19 members of the party's youth wing who were taken into detention four months ago, NLD sources said Thursday.

    "This is welcome news and we feel that this may be a gesture of goodwill ahead of the European Union delegation's visit later this month," the source told AFP, referring to the January 29-31 mission.

    "We hope that more will follow," the opposition source said, adding that officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross informed them of the release which took place late Wednesday.

    NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and party chairman Aung Shwe remain under house arrest after attempting in September to travel to the northern city of Mandalay in defiance of a ban on travel outside the capital.

    A total of 86 young NLD supporters who went to Rangoon's railway station to see off the group were rounded up and held without charge at Insein jail.

    After the release Wednesday of 19 of the group, including nine women, 67 remain in detention.
    Thai Rak Thai deputy leader Pitak favours closer ties with Burma

    Source : Bangkok Post

    Closer ties are needed with Burma, says Thai Rak Thai deputy leader Pitak Intrawithayanunt.

    He told Nitya Pibulsonggram, the permanent secretary for foreign affairs, that he was in favour of the ministry enhancing its economic role, sources said.

    The two met over lunch on Monday. Mr Nitya yesterday briefed senior officials, telling them to follow news about Mr Pitak's possible nomination as foreign minister, the sources said.

    Two other deputy leaders, Surakiart Sathirathai and Pracha Gunakasem, an ex-career diplomat, are also seen as contenders.

    Mr Pitak stressed the need for more contact with Burma, saying ordinary people as well as government officials should be in touch.

    If no improvement was possible, there should be no deterioration either, he said.

    He also urged a crackdown on cheats and smugglers, stressed the need to create an atmosphere of mutual trust, and for Thailand to put its house in order to raise credibility.

    Mr Pitak said the public expected the Foreign Ministry to have economic interests, the sources said.

    This was in response to Mr Nitya's remark that the work of diplomats was to contribute to policy-making and explore trade opportunities, rather than to compete with a ministry which has expertise in this field.

    Mr Pitak's remarks come as the ministry considers who should be director-general of the economic affairs department to replace Kobsak Chutikul, who ran at number five on the Chart Thai party list and is likely to be an MP.

    Mr Pitak recently said he was in favour of promoting relations with Latin America.