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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- December 07, 2002.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------ AP - Buddhism summit wraps up with
plea against war in Iraq
AP - Geneva Group Works on Sumatra
Peace Plan
AP - ASEAN to discuss Howard's stance
on pre-emptive strikes
The Guardian - General Ne Win
NZZ Online - Twilight Over Burma's
Poppy Fields
Himal South Asian - Ne Win and two
?Burma boys?
The Nation - NE WIN'S PASSING:
No condolence from Bangkok
Asian Tribune - The passing
away of General Ne Win is diplomatically a non-event.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Buddhism summit wraps up with
plea against war in Iraq
Sat Dec 7, 2:44 AM ET PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Buddhist clerics on Saturday called on U.S. President George W. Bush not to wage war against Iraq as they wrapped up a three-day international meeting. The World Buddhism Conference, the third since 1998, brought together about 2,000 Buddhist leaders seeking tolerance and compassion as a means for solving violence and conflicts around the globe. "Too many people throughout the world would not support a war against Iraq," said the Venerable Ajain Brahamavamso, 51, a Buddhist monk from Australia. "We've had enough wars already." "If only Mr. Bush could actually go and live in Iraq and go to an ordinary person's home to know their fears, their root problem, then I think there would be an end to all this violence in the world," Brahamavamso added. Conference participants also discussed ways to promote Buddha's teachings of "the middle path" in helping to solve conflicts. While world peace was the conference's dominant issue, Buddhist leaders also discussed ways for reasserting their religion's influence, which they said is weak compared to Christianity and Islam. "Buddhism is in decline" due to different trends among its followers in different countries, Venerable Kori Shinkai, president of Japan's Nenbutsushu Buddhist sect, said. He called for Buddhists across the world to work together "to make stronger the unity and influence of Buddhism in the world." The Buddha's teachings should become a foundation for working for global "peace and tranquility," he said. The next Buddhism summit will be held in 2004 in Myanmar, also known as Burma, organizers said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geneva Group Works on Sumatra
Peace Plan
Sat Dec 7, 1:50 AM ET By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) - The elegant little villa surrounded by carefully tended parkland just yards from Switzerland's Lake Geneva is a world away from the guerrilla war being waged in the steamy jungles and wild mountains of Indonesia's Sumatra island. But the little-known humanitarian organization hosting wrap-up negotiations this weekend says that the discreet location, and their subtle approach, have proven to be a crucial combination in resolving the bloody, decades-long conflict between government forces and separatist rebels in Aceh province. "This is a place that quiets everybody down," said Johanna Grombach Wagner, program manager at the Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. "Geneva is neutral, it isn't a threat to anybody." For the past three years, the Center has focused on facilitating negotiations and a series of "humanitarian pauses" ? all of which eventually collapsed ? between Jakarta and the Free Aceh Movement. Last month, the mediators announced a crucial breakthrough in the bitter war ? considered one of the world's most intractable armed conflicts because of the rebels' insistence on independence and the government's vow never to allow separation from Indonesia. Insurgents have been fighting for independence since 1870, when Dutch colonialists occupied the sultanate. They assisted Indonesia's successful 1945-49 war against the Dutch, but launched a decade-long uprising in the early 1950s ? this time against Jakarta's rule. The current rebellion began in 1976. At least 12,000 people have died in the conflict in the past decade. Under intense international pressure, the warring sides finally consented to a deal involving a cessation of hostilities, buttressed by a political arrangement providing for wide autonomy for the province of 4.1 million people, including free elections for a regional government involving the rebels in 2004. Although many analysts remain skeptical that the deal will actually translate into a durable peace in the resource-rich province of 4.1 million people, the two sides have agreed to sign a peace accord Monday. In the meantime, the combatants will meet to iron out remaining differences, including details about the fate of the rebels' arsenal and the withdrawal of Indonesian forces. "The (Henry Dunant Center) played an incredibly important role in facilitating dialogue for the first time ever between the government and rebels," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. "They've had to overcome enormous obstacles ... and should get a gold medal for sheer persistence in managing to do the impossible by winning the confidence of both sides," said Jones, an Indonesia specialist. The Henry Dunant Center, which has a staff of only 20, is one of the newest and smallest bodies dedicated to conflict resolution in a city packed with international organizations, such as the International Red Cross, the World Trade Organization and numerous agencies of the United Nations. It was set up in 1999 by a group of philanthropists and the city of Geneva ? which donated the Villa Plantamour for its use ? with a mandate to promote "humanitarian dialogue." Although it has no institutional links to the Red Cross, the center adopted the name of that organization's founder to honor his work for the victims of war. The center's initial engagement was an effort to bring together the government side and Hutu rebels in Burundi. It also has reached out to Colombia's murderous right-wing paramilitary gangs, "whom nobody wanted to talk to," Wagner said. Another current project is an effort to start dialogue between the military government of Myanmar, or Burma, and the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Still, Wagner said, 90 percent of the center's capabilities are devoted to ensuring the success of the peace process in Aceh. Experts say that if the center's formula for Aceh proves successful, it could provide a blueprint for the resolution of Indonesia's other major separatist crisis in Papua, at the eastern end of the country. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASEAN to discuss Howard's
stance on pre-emptive strikes
Sat Dec 7, 06:19 AM
ET
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ Southeast Asian foreign ministers will meet to discuss Australia's ``damaging'' comments that it would consider pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in other nations, a minister said Saturday. Australian Prime Minister John Howard whipped up a diplomatic storm earlier this week when he called for the U.N. Charter to be changed to permit pre-emptive attacks against terrorists. Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the meeting by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was important as Howard's statement threatened the sovereignty of countries in the region. He did not say when or where the meeting would be held. ``Howard has hurt the sensitivities of ASEAN countries,'' the national news agency Bernama quoted Syed Hamid as saying. ``He should not be touching on the question of sovereignty.'' Howard on Thursday said he would not apologize for his stand. About half of the victims of the Oct. 12 bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed nearly 200 people were Australians. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which are struggling to curb Islamic militancy, have criticized Howard. Most vitriolic has been Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who said an Australian military strike on Malaysian territory would be an ``act of war.'' Mahathir, who has cracked down on Muslim extremists in his country, has threatened to break off counterterrorism cooperation with Australia unless Howard stopped behaving like ``the white-man sheriff in some black country.'' On Saturday, Syed Hamid described the Australian leader as ``recalcitrant'' and said his stance on the pre-emptive strikes could have adverse impact on the economies in the region. ``We must all fight together against terrorism,'' Bernama cited Syed Hamid as saying. ``But it does not give any right to any state to come into another country and decide to do what it wants to do.'' ASEAN is made up of Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Ne Win
Burmese military strongman whose increasingly obtuse dictatorship reduced his country to poverty Martin Smith Friday December 6, 2002 The Guardian During the second half of the 20th century, General Ne Win, who has died aged 91, dominated the political landscape of Burma (which became Myanmar in 1989). After his seizure of power in a 1962 coup, he led the country into a 26-year era of isolation from the outside world. Indeed, so hermetic did it become under his unique "Burmese way to socialism" that, in 1978, he withdrew from the non-aligned movement. But Burma was to pay a heavy cost for his dictatorial rule. By the time he stepped down in 1988, the country had collapsed to become one of the world's 10 poorest nations. Born by the name of Shu Maung, to a Sino-Burmese family at Paungdale, Ne Win's early career reflected many of the key episodes in Burma's independence struggle. Always a bluff military man, he never displayed the political subtleties of his contemporary, Aung San. Friends remember his initial passions were for sport, especially football. Having failed exams to study medicine at Rangoon University, he became a postal clerk. From the 1930s, he became increasingly caught up in the anti-British agitations of the time. Through his uncle, Thakin Nyi, he joined the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association), and, in 1941, accompanied Aung San as one of the famed "30 comrades" who travelled to Hainan island for military training by imperial Japan. Renamed Ne Win (Brilliant as the Sun), he returned home a few months later as an officer in the newly-formed Burma independence army (BIA). By 1943, he was its commander-in-chief. Dissatisfaction with the Japanese occupation soon set in, and, in March 1945, the BIA leaders turned against the Japanese as British forces reinvaded Burma. But while Aung San and many colleagues now resigned to enter politics, Ne Win stayed in the military. During these years, he worked closely with the British - as a delegate to the 1945 Kandy conference with Lord Mountbatten and, later, as commander of Burmese forces in Operation Flush, to drive out communist insurgents from the Pyinmana hills. But, in private, Aung San had begun to express concerns about his wartime comrade, which his daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, referred to many years later. "My father didn't build up the Burmese army in order to suppress the people," she said. A labyrinthine sequence of events now catapulted Ne Win to the national forefront. The 1947 assassination of Aung San gave tragic warnings of the turbulence to come. In a country known as the Yugoslavia of southeast Asia, the transition to independence was always likely to be fraught. Communist insurrections and army mutinies in 1948 were followed by rebellions that quickly spread among the Karens, Mons and other ethnic groups. As fighting raged on the doorstep of Rangoon, the parliamentary government of U Nu only just survived. In February 1949, Ne Win replaced the Karen, Smith Dun, as army chief-of-staff, and using his old regiment, the 4th Burma Rifles, as the nucleus, began to rebuild the Burmese armed forces. It was his finest hour. But in the 1950s, with resistance continuing, he became increasingly dissatisfied with what he saw as the failure of politicians to overcome factionalism in government and insurgencies in the field. From 1958 to 1960, he briefly assumed power as prime minister during an interim military administration. Then, in 1962, as ethnic tensions increased, he seized power in a military coup and brought to an end the short era of democracy. "Federalism is impossible," he claimed. "It will destroy the union." For 26 years, Burma disappeared behind a bamboo curtain. In effect, Ne Win's strategy was two-fold: to build up a monolithic system of government under the Burma Socialist Programme party, while launching all-out offensives against insurgent groups in the countryside. Foreigners were expelled, the economy nationalised, hundreds of political leaders imprisoned, and, when students protested at Rangoon University in July 1962, the union building was dynamited, with dozens killed or wounded. Ne Win's political ideas, however, were always vaguely sketched. Close friends believe that his inspiration for power came on a visit to China in 1960 to sign a border agreement with Zhou Enlai. In later years, he showed house guests a fading film clip of his meetings, which he thought put him on a par with Chairman Mao and the Chinese leaders. "Chairman" Ne Win soon became his favoured title. But there was never any real evolution to Ne Win's "Burmese way to socialism", an admixture of Buddhist, Marxist and nationalist principles outlined in just one thin book, The System Of Correlation Of Man And His Environment. Burma's restive minorities, in contrast, saw it as simply a guise for "Burmanisation". Far from quelling opposition, Ne Win's tactics created a new cycle of insurgencies. At one stage, the deposed prime minister U Nu also took up arms with the Karens and Mons in the Thai borderlands, while Beijing lent military backing to the Communist party of Burma in the mountainous northeast. Moreover, the attempt to create a social ist economy, in international isolation, badly failed. With the black market rampant, economic statistics in Burma, said a World Bank visitor, were a "modern-day fairytale". Everything from jade and opium to medicines and luxury goods were daily smuggled across the frontiers. As the years went by, Ne Win's behaviour became increasingly obtuse. Many of his actions were decided by omens and astrological predictions. Most bizarrely, in the 1980s he twice demonetised the Burmese currency, wiping out the savings of millions of citizens overnight and reintroducing notes in awkward 45 and 90 kyat denominations. As everyone knew, nine was his lucky number (4+5 = 9), and it increasingly recurred in official pronouncements. Ne Win's family life was also the subject of much speculation. Officially, he was thought to have been married five times: to Daw Tin Tin in the 1930s, Kitty Ba Than in the 1940s, June Rose Bellamy (an Anglo-Burmese) and Daw Ni Ni Myint, a history professor whom he married twice. Through these marriages, he had five children and gained five stepchildren. In particular, friends say that it was after the death of Kitty Ba Than in 1972 that his character most changed. But according to the Buddhist abbot, Venerable U Rewata Dhamma, it was never money, but power, that corrupted him. All the time, the economy was sinking to the brink of bankruptcy. In July 1988, the 77 year-old Ne Win suddenly resigned, triggering pro-democracy protests across the country that were crushed that September when his loyalists seized power in the present-day state peace and development council (SPDC). In his resignation speech, Ne Win had ominously warned: "When the army shoots, it shoots to hit." Subsequently, he retired from public life, although he remained a figure of influence within the Burmese armed forces. Much of his time was spent in Buddhist meditation, and, in one of his last public appearances in 2001, he offered lunch at the Sedona hotel to his auspicious number of 99 Buddhist monks. Few people were expecting substantial changes for Burma until after his passing. Early this year, however, there was a final twist, when the SPDC arrested Ne Win's favourite daughter, Sandar Win, with whom he was living, along with her husband and their three sons, and accused them of plotting a military coup. By now in his 90s, Ne Win was not publicly accused, but he was placed under house arrest with Sandar. His son-in-law and three grandsons received the death penalty, which is presently subject to appeal. The post-Ne Win era had started. A Tito or Franco-like figure, he had done much to keep his country together in the difficult post-independence years. One confidante described him as the "last great Asian despot," who would be proud if his epitaph was to have kept Burma free from the crises of modernisation and international power struggles that affected its neighbours. He left Burma, however, facing a very uncertain future and, in a country that has become synonymous with human rights abuses, it is unlikely that the historic judgment will be so forgiving. · Ne Win (Shu Maung), Burmese military strongman, born May 24 1911; died December 5 2002 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ
Online)
Twilight Over Burma's Poppy Fields Search for Alternatives in the "Golden Triangle" Manfred Rist Myanmar is among those countries in which opium is still being produced. The curse of narcotics is contributing to the international isolation of this Southeast Asian land. Its government is willing to gradually cut back the cultivation of opium poppies. But the success of that policy will depend on cooperation from former rebel leaders who are traditionally rooted in the drug trade. At this time of year, the poppy fields cling to the slopes like small brown patches and only a few farmers bother to hoe the clumped soil. After the end of the rainy season, which runs from June to September, most Burmese devote themselves to harvesting the rice which has sprouted in endless tones of green from the monsoon-drenched earth. It will not only provide Myanmar (formerly Burma) with the most important basic foodstuff without which this isolated country could not survive, a good deal of it will also find its way abroad, where about half a million tons of Burmese rice is generally sold each year. Packed in Vegetable Leaves But just a few weeks later, in November, many farmers in the Shan Mountains dig the seeds of "papaver somniferum" out of sacks and plant their often tiny fields with opium poppies. Because of its high altitude and climate, Myanmar's plateau on the border with Laos and Thailand offers ideal conditions for growing the poppies. In March, a harvest of about 12 kilograms per hectare (2.47 acres) of raw opium can be expected. The sticky mass, which is produced in laborious manual work by slicing open the tulip-shaped seed pods and provides the raw material for the production of heroin, can be easily stored and then, wrapped in vegetable leaves and plastic, turns up on local weekly markets. In Mong Pawk, a hamlet in the Wa district, where only an overgrown airstrip indicates that anyone was ever interested in past harvests, colorfully dressed market women keep the dark brown substance veiled in pieces of cloth. The large, much-worn Indian rupee coins that serve as currency here point back to the colonial past, and their years of issue (the oldest are dated 1904) show that time moves more slowly in Burma's mountain region than elsewhere. Opium is traded in small quantities here, since it is a substance found in every household, if only for medicinal purposes. Given the lack of proper medical care, opium is often the only "miracle drug" that can be used against all manner of illness and pain, and as a tranquilizer. Medium of Exchange and Rice Substitute The fact that the drug is part of everyday life here is also linked to the climate and composition of the soil. Those factors permit only one rice harvest per year, so that three quarters of the mountain people have to buy rice during the summer months. Since opium can be harvested precisely during that dry season, it can serve as the ideal medium of exchange on local markets. In one UN survey, 95 percent of the farmers here said that they planted opium poppies more or less as a substitute for rice. The government in Yangon (Rangoon) estimates that some 300,000 farmers are now economically dependent on growing opium poppies. And since there are always traders, dealers and consumers willing to buy opium and its derivatives both within Burma and beyond its borders, all the way to major Western cities, the drug has established itself in the course of decades as a commercial supplement to farm incomes. The extent of poppy farming can be seen from the air. With the aid of satellite photographs it has been calculated that the poppy fields in Myanmar cover an area of 78,000 hectares (nearly 193,000 acres), which means a yearly harvest of between 800 and 900 tons. By this measure, Burma last year accounted for more than 60 percent of opium production worldwide and 90 percent of Southeast Asian production. The main area of cultivation is in the Shan State, an area half the size of Germany situated in the northeastern part of Burma. Thanks to extensive autonomy agreements with local rulers and warlords, the Shan State is a kind of "lawless zone" largely free of outside control. Its feudal power structures, the financial needs of its many rebel armies, and the lax controls along its "green borders" with Laos, Thailand and China, have been major factors in helping the so-called Golden Triangle to achieve global importance as a production site for opium and heroin. Signs of Change But there are unmistakable signs that a kind of twilight has begun settling over Burma's poppy fields. According to statistics from international sources and from the government of Myanmar, the area under cultivation and the sales of opium poppies have declined. The staff of the UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) are predicting that the 2002 harvest will be down to 670 tons, and the Myanmar government's anti-narcotics authority (CCDAC) is projecting 630 tons. By next year, the CCDAC believes the poppy harvest will drop to about 400 tons. That is still quite enough to keep addicts and their miseries going worldwide. But Myanmar's production is down to well below the record levels achieved in 1995-96, when it is believed that more than 2,000 tons were marketed. Back then, the now-defunct Mong Tai Army headed by the notorious druglord Khun Sa, as well as other former rebel chiefs, unscrupulously kept the market flooded with opium. Among the factors apparently contributing to the decline of opium production in Burma are a rigorous anti-narcotics policy in neighboring China, the return of Afghanistan to the ranks of major opium-producing countries after the fall of the Taliban, and the rapid spread of synthetic "designer drugs" which have become fashionable worldwide, and production of which can be kept hidden from the probing eyes of satellites. The two officers at Yangon's Interior Ministry who explain the Burmese government's drug policy to us do not fit the stereotypical image of the notorious military junta which has ruled the country with an iron fist for the past four decades. Eloquently, in perfect English and with the aid of modern computer technology, they describe a strategy which, greatly compressed, might be described as follows: After years of fighting with rebels, which brought suffering and destruction to the entire country but especially to the opium-producing border regions, and after the uncontrolled expansion of poppy growing during the 1990s, emphasis is finally being put on other agricultural projects and economic alternatives. Myanmar, the officers declare, does not expect the West to lift its economic sanctions right away; all it expects at present is support in its anti-narcotics efforts by way of such things as exchange and advanced training of experts, better border controls and aid projects, all of which would help the country move away from the old scourge. In the Burmese view, the center of production of the new scourge - synthetic drugs - is located on Thai territory; this is quite in keeping with the usual exchange of blame between these two traditionally hostile countries. A Strategy of Expulsion While the rapid spread of synthetic drug production in China, India and Thailand requires totally new antidrug methods and border controls, there are signs in Burma of a broad consensus in the battle against poppy farming. Aid organizations, the largely autonomous local rulers in the poppy-producing parts of the country, and the government in Rangoon, are all agreed that alternative forms of livelihood must be made available to the rural populace and that the country must be gradually guided out of the league of major opium-producing nations. The moves being taken in that direction are not always gentle. For example, with the support of the Rangoon government the administration of Wa Special Region 2 has begun to expel whole village communities from the classic opium-growing regions in the mountains. The people thus displaced are assigned new valleys at lower altitudes, where year-round rice growing is possible. The image of confused, uprooted people trying to gain a foothold in malaria-infested lower locations contrasts cruelly with that of idyllic mountain villages whose only flaw, at first glance, is their accursed poppy fields. The UN Drug Control Program, the only aid organization operating in Wa Special Region 2, which borders on China, is pursuing a different path in its effort to combat opium production. In the pilot effort known as the Wa Alternative Development Project, launched in 1998, an attempt is being made to familiarize the local populace with new farming and irrigation methods. The idea is to show them that safe crops - such as summer rice, maize and vegetables - can be grown in the dry season too. The resulting decline in the acreage dedicated to opium poppies is encouraging. But only the future will show whether this pilot project can serve as a successful model. According to those involved in the effort, its future development will depend in good measure on whether local rulers, still rooted in feudal social structures, will follow the path leading away from opium or will content themselves with mere lip service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Himal South Asian -
2002 December
Ne Win and two ?Burma boys? Peter J Karthak, Lalitpur The following stories of two ?Burma boys? may supplement the Himal October 2002 issue on Burma, by way of providing personal sagas and individual traumas suffered by Burmese men and women subjected to General Ne Win?s no-win, lose-all Burmese path to socialism. This story begins in 1962 at St Joseph?s College, North Point, Darjeeling. I was a freshman at North Point, a cosmopolitan college with 14 nationalities of teachers and students at one point. Among the foreign students, the ?Burma boys? were among the richest and the best. They were brainy, they had the latest clothes and fashions, had the best guitars and amplifiers, their families sent them the latest records and magazines. This, in an India of Nehruvian socialism, where even information and entertainment were meagrely doled out, and people had to tune in to the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation and their ?Binaca Hit Parade? and ?Binaca Geet Mala? to listen to the week?s top 10 international hits and top film songs. In this dry and dreary landscape, at North Point the Burma boys were beacons of light. As a junior student and a budding musician, I looked up to two senior Burma boys in the college. I borrowed their newest records and fine guitars. To say the least, they were generous and kind, especially to a local freshman who had the guts and necessity to beg for their help in nurturing his tender musicianship. The two Burma boys were Desmond Aye and Bobby Leong. If Desmond was the Elvis of North Point with his guitar-slinging pelvic gyrations and Blue Suede Shoes pouts and pirouettes supported by such musicians as Louis Banks and Austin Plant, Bobby was the Cliff Richards of our college. Both had a large fan following, and they employed secretaries to reply to their mail, each letter accompanied by autographed photographs. They were the fabulous teen pop idols of Burmese television ? yes, Burma had TV as early as that! Burma also had the best football team in Asia then, years before the North Koreans made waves at the World Cup. Burma was a surplus rice exporter, its teeming forests had the best and strongest teak, oak and mahogany, and the mines were rich in ores and minerals, precious and semi-precious stones. In short, Burma was Will Durant?s utopia: its dynamic economy steered by English-literate capitalist captains of industry, commerce and businesses sustaining the country?s rich culture, literature, arts, music, sports and providing for modern needs and necessities. Young and rich, Desmond and Bobby in their early 20s represented such a Burma at North Point, and I enjoyed their patronage. The year 1962 brought a turning point at North Point, and for me. It was the year of the Indo-Chinese conflagrations. ?Hindi Chini bhai bhai? turned out to be empty rhetoric, for the Chinese attacked India along the borders, entered Indian territory at places, and then left. Amidst the Indo-Chinese tensions, the students from Bhutan and Burma disappeared overnight from the college one day. People said it was due to the war, and because all able-bodied men had been recalled by their governments to defend their countries. The Bhutanese students returned after two or three weeks: they had no geopolitical problems with China. But, the Burmese students did not return to North Point ever again, not a single one of them. Desmond and Bobby too disappeared. I had borrowed Desmond?s Xavier Cugat long-playing (LP) record. The Cugat LP remained with me long, worn, torn and finally forgotten. Those were the last notes of 1962. General Ne Win had taken over Burma. That was the reason for the disappearances of the Burma boys from North Point and my life. Fast forward to the year 2002. 40 years down the line, many North Pointers from Bang-kok to Bangalore, from Calcutta to California, from New Zealand to Nepal hatched the idea of holding college reunions. An NP website was floated, which supplied the email addresses of many NP alumni. I chanced upon Bobby Leong?s Canadian e-address. He said he did not remember me as it was ?40 years ago and memory doesn?t serve me right at this point of time?. While reacquainting myself with him, I also thanked him for his past kindness. That was the beginning of some discoveries. For those, back to 1962 again. Desmond Aye?s father lost his banking empire to General Ne Win?s nationalisation. Bobby?s family lost their holdings all over Burma. These young men, not yet 22, were dispossessed, deprived, and displaced in their own land. From princes and heirs, they became confirmed paupers and were rendered destitute. With his generations-old lifestyle undone by a single dictatorial sweep, Desmond became the victim of his own disillusionment and disorientation. Among many things, he was charged with knifing his girlfriend and tried in the Burmese military courts. Suddenly Desmond is discovered in Bangkok, trying his Elvis act in hotels and restaurants when Elvis is already long passé. He has transformed into a violent, drunken and brawling man, cantankerous and temperamental. He finally settles down in Chiang Mai with a Thai wife. The gentle, friendly, rich and civilised Desmond of Darjeeling, with his Bond Street apparel and umbrella, and the previous day?s The Statesman tucked under his arm is thus but a distant memory. When Bobby Leong met him in Bangkok sometime in the 1970s, Desmond asked him to send him books and materials on guerrillas and guerrilla warfare. Perhaps he was planning to reclaim Burma from Ne Win and his military junta, and Bobby killed contact with him for obvious reasons. Desmond, not yet 60, had long become impossible, and he died just a few months ago in his adopted Thailand amidst his impossible dreams and delusions. One of Ne Win?s victims perished in this way, as a refused Burmese and a refugee. Bobby Leong and his wife Bela, five months pregnant then, also eventually decided to leave their beloved Burma. They trekked along eastern Burma from Rangoon by night and entered Thailand many days later. They trudged along Indochina?s tracks and trails in what were to later become the notorious ?killing fields?. Their getaway from a closed Burma was possible only because a kind and understanding Pakistani diplomat had agreed to smuggle out their papers and whatever cherished belongings they decided they would need. Bobby furthered his technical education in Bangkok and migrated to Canada where he has been working for a Chinese tycoon?s Husky Oil Company. His last email to me said, ??however, our children don?t understand what we went through to be where we are now?. This is what Ne Win won by losing Desmond Aye and Bobby Leong, two prime Burma boys among many who lived and have spent two-thirds of their productive lives outside Burma. ?Let us remember Desmond Aye for the noble qualities he had at North Point?, wrote a friend from Los Angeles when I proposed that a memoriam dedicated to Desmond Aye be produced. Perhaps the other Burma boys will do it one day, perhaps very soon. After all, Desmond Aye?s fantastic 1962 ditto of Elvis Presley?s Blue Suede Shoes is still a living memory and legend at St Joseph?s College, North Point, Darjeeling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nation
IN BRIEF: Published on Dec 7, 2002 NE WIN'S PASSING: No condolence from Bangkok Thailand refrained from sending a message of condolence yesterday to Burma following the death of former dictator Ne Win, but Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai expressed his personal sorrow. The Thai reaction departed from diplomatic protocol which would normally call for a message of condolence to be sent following the death of a former head of state in a neighbouring country. "The Thai government did not send an official condolence message," Surakiart told reporters at the Foreign Ministry. "This was because Ne Win did not hold a post in the government when he died." "But from my personal point of view, I feel sorry because General Ne Win was a senior figure in Burma for a long time," Surakiart added. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asian Tribune
Date : 2002-12-07 The passing away of General Ne Win is diplomatically a non-event. There are no condolence messages forthcoming from head of states, even from any ASEAN countries on the passing away of General Ne Win, the former head of state of Burma. The passing of Ne win is considered an unusual event, as the event is so far not officially announced by the Burmese government. The diplomats in Rangoon are nonplussed over the passing away of General Ne Win, an autocrat ruler who ruled Burma from 1962 to 1988. Though the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) of Burma underscored the passing away of Ne Win as a non-incident, yet many diplomats were not sure whether they should meet somebody in person from SPDC and convey their message of condolence on behalf of their government. Also, many of these diplomats stationed in Rangoon are unable to advise their respective governments on the death of Ne Win and his cremation as there was no official word about the passing of the former head of state by the SPDC. Diplomats told that this was an unusual situation where unusual measures have to be taken. They said that for record they have informed their respective countries of the passing away of Ne Win, but would maintain silence, a diplomatic exercise, always followed in case of "accidents" of this nature. Unusual events are always termed as accidents in the diplomatic parlance. Meanwhile, according to "The Nation," the English language daily from Thailand, it came out with a single column news, in the inside page, with a head line: Ne Win?s Passing- No Condolence from Bangkok. The news item states, ? Thailand refrained from sending a message of condolence yesterday to Burma, following the death of the former dictator Ne Win, but foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai expressed his personal sorrow.? ? The news item further added: ?The Thai reaction departed from diplomatic protocols, which would normally call for a message of condolence to be sent, following the death of a former head of state in a neighboring country.? According to the news item, ?The Thai government did not send an official condolence message ? Surakiart told reporters at the Foreign Ministry. ?This was because Ne Win did not hold a post in the Government when he died.? Surakiart further added in that news item: ?But from my personal point of view, I feel sorry, because General Ne Win was a senior figure in Burma for a long time.? It is likely that the other ASEAN countries in the region would follow suit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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