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New Burma Newsletter: The BurmaNaut




*************************** BurmaNet *****************************
  "Appropriate Information Technologies--Practical Strategies"
******************************************************************

++++++++++++++++++++++++ THE BURMANAUT +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++ The newsletter for the Burma on-line community +++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Incorrect ideas and opinions which do not accord with the times"
++++++ Issue #1 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ March 28, 1994 ++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++ strider@xxxxxxxxxxx +++++++++++++++++++++++

The BurmaNaut is distributed over the soc.culture.burma and reg.burma
newsgroups and the SEASIA list.  In the future, copies will be available via
gopher at igc.apc.org.  The BurmaNaut may be redistributed without
restriction.
____________________________________________________________________

IN THIS ISSUE:

 1  WELCOME TO THE BURMANAUT

 2  NET TIPS: THE "ANONYMIZER"

 3  reg.burma-l, BURMA-RELATED INFORMATION VIA A NEW MAILING LIST

 4  THE ETHICS OF TOURISM IN BURMA

 5  ON THE ROAD TO...The Three Pagodas Pass

 6  NEWSLETTERS ON LINE

 7  IN THE NEXT ISSUE
________________________________________________________________

                     WELCOME TO BURMANET
________________________________________________________________            


Welcome to the first issue of the BurmaNaut, the only on-line All-Burma
newsletter.  The BurmaNaut will appear periodically to cover the on-line
Burma scene and aims to bring you what SLORC's Press Scrutiny Board calls
"incorrect ideas and opinions which do not accord with the times."  To do
this, the BurmaNaut will offer tips on how use the Internet for Burma-related
activism and how to find Burma-related material on the Internet.  It will
publish announcements of events, and serve as a way to keep people informed
about the events and news concerning the peoples of the Union of Burma.  

The BurmaNet Letter is a publication of BurmaNet, an independent information
and technology project.  BurmaNet seeks to bring information about Burma to
the net and regularly posts stories from some of the world's major news
magazines and newspapers.  Letters or articles concerning Burma and/or the
net are welcome and should be addressed to strider@xxxxxxxxxxx

________________________________________________________________

                    NET TIPS: THE ANONYMIZER
________________________________________________________________

Because there is no Internet connection in Burma, the fact that you are
reading this means you are somewhere SLORC isn't.  As such, you probably
don't need to worry about your personal safety.  But some people who still
have family in Burma have a well-founded fear that their family will be
persecuted if they are known to oppose SLORC.  Some Burmese on the net are
reluctant to post to newsgroups or use email to discuss events in Burma for
fear that someone may be watching.  If this applies to you, you can protect
your privacy while still being able to post.  The simplest way would be to
have your user id be something other than your name.  Your system operator
can change your user id quite easily.  To ask about this, send a letter to
your system operator at sysop@xxxxxxxxx or postmaster@xxxxxxxxx  Once your
user id has been changed, simply use a pseudonym when you post.  

If you want a greater degree of privacy, you can send email with complete
anonymity.  There are several anonymous servers, aka anonymizers, on the net. 
Mail sent to these servers have your return address stripped off, after which
the mail is forwarded to its destination.  Here is an excerpt from an article
explaining "The Anonymizer," in greater detail.  To get a complete copy of
this article, send an email message to:

    help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

You don't need to put anything in the message section or on the subject line.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

                 THE ANONYMIZER, A MODIFIED EXCERPT.
 
                   (Original by Johan Helsingius)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


So what does an anon server really do? Well, it provides a front for
sending mail messages and posting news items anonymously. As you send your
very first message to the server, it automatically allocates you an id of
the form anNNN, and sends you a message containing the allocated id. This id
is used in all your subsequent anon posts/mails. Any mail messages sent to
your-id@xxxxxxxxxxxxx gets redirected to your original, real address. Any
reply is of course anonymized in the same way, so the server provides a
double-blind. You will not know the true identity of any user, unless she
chooses to reveal her identity explicitly.

In the anonymization process all headers indicating the true originator are
removed, and an attempt is made to remove any automatically-included
signatures, by looking for a line starting with two dashes (--), and zapping
everything from there on. But if your signature starts with anything else,
it's your own responsibility to remove it from your messages.

There are two basic ways to use the system. The easiest way is by sending a
message to recipient@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:

     To: soc.culture.burma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

     To: an74593@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

     To: help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

You can also post to soc.culture.burma via the following addresses:

     To: soc.culture.burma.usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

     To: soc.culture.burma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Of course, in the case of mailing to a known user, you have to use addresses
of the form user%host.domain@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, or the pretty obscure source
addressing construct of @anon.penet.fi:user@xxxxxxxxxxxx These constructs are
not necessarily handled properly by all mail systems, so I strongly recommend
the "X-Anon-To:" approach in these cases. This works by you sending a message
to "anon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx", including a X-Anon-To: header line containing the
desired recipient. But this really has to be a field in the message header,
before the first empty line in the message. So:

     To: anon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
     X-Anon-To: soc.culture.burma@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, an74593@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

     To: anon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
     X-Anon-To: an74593@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 ....If you intend to mail/post something that might cost you your job or
marriage or inheritance, _please_ send a test message first. The software
has been pretty well tested, but some mailers on the way (and out of my
control) screw things up. And if you happen to find a problem, _please_ for
the sake of all the other users, _let me know asap_.

And _please_ use the appropriate test newsgroups, such as alt.test or
misc.test. Yes, _you_ might get excited by reading 2000 "This is a test.."
messages on alt.sex, but I warn you that most psychologists consider this
rather aberrant...

And remember this is a service that some people (in groups such as
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery) _need_. Please don't do anything stupid that
would force me to close down the service. As I am running my own company,
there is very little political pressure anyone can put on me, but if
somebody starts using the system for criminal activities (that is, things
that would be criminal in Finland), the authorities might be able to order me
to shut down the service. I don't particularly want to find out, however...

If you think these instructions are unclear and confusing, you are right. If
you come up with suggestions for improving this text, please mail me!
Remember, English is my third language...

Safe postings!

     Julf

- - - ------------------------------------------------------------------- -
- -
Johan Helsingius     Kuusikallionkuja 3 B 25   02210  Espoo  Finland    
Yourpnet: julf@xxxxxxxx   bellophone: int. +358 0400 2605  fax: int. +358 



________________________________________________________________

                  BURMA NEWS BY MAIL LIST
________________________________________________________________

In response to several enquiries, BurmaNet is setting up a mailing list to
distribute Burma-related news.  This will be done by setting up an echo for
the reg.burma newsgroup which is accessible on the APC networks.  This
mailing list will only be for people who do not have access to
soc.culture.burma and are not in the U.S., Europe or Australia.
(Exception: If you absolutely can't afford to subscribe to an APC network and
still want to be on the list, let me know and we'll work something out.)

If you want to subscribe to reg.burma-l, send a request to:    

    strider@xxxxxxxxxxx

Subscription is not automated so please send me a message with your name and
email address.  It will be three weeks to a month before this list is on-line
so please be patient.

reg.burma-l is being made possible by the people at the Alliance for
Progressive Computing (APC), a non-profit Internet provider that caters to
the NGO and activist community.  If you are in the U.S. or Europe and want
Burma-related news, you should consider subscribing to one of the APC's
networks (Peacenet in the U.S., Pegasus in Australia, Nordnet in Northern
Europe).  The APC networks are cheap and so far as I can tell, carry more
Burma-related information than any other provider.  The APC networks carry
soc.culture.burma, reg.burma and bitl.seasia-l, the USENET echo of the SEASIA
list.  In addition to these, the ai.general (Amnesty International),
reg.seasia, labr.asia, hrnet.asia-pac newsgroups carry a fair amount of
material concerning Burma.

BTW, I'm not getting paid for this endorsement. They've been extremely
helpful in getting Burma stuff on to the net and I'm happy to return the
favor by telling people about their service.  In that vein, the gopher at
igc.apc.org will soon by storing Burma-related information.  Stay tuned for
the details.

For information about subscribing to one of the APC networks, email them with
a request for info.  Their email address is:

   subscription@xxxxxxxxxxx

________________________________________________________________


                THE ETHICS OF TOURISM IN BURMA
________________________________________________________________


This is a response to a question posted in reg.burma by Mike iiec@xxxxxxxxxxx
The response has already been posted in reg.burma, soc.culture.burma, seasia-
rec.travel.  If you've already seen it, sorry.


/* Written  3:54 pm  Mar 14, 1994 by iiec@xxxxxxxxxxx in igc:reg.burma */
/* ---------- "Tourism in Burma" ---------- */
>Hello.  I'm not sure if this is relevant to this group, but I wonder what
>you all think about visiting Burma as a tourist.  While I'm aware of the
>government's repression, I don't know if that should preempt my visit or
>not.  Surely it was contact with Westerners, Americans in particular, that
>fueled the democracy movement in China.  On the other hand, the money that
>tourists spend in Burma contribute to the economy that is ruled by the
>undemocractic regime.  So what do you think?  I have the Lonely Planet
>guidebook to Myanmar, and was thinking of visiting Rangoon, Mandalay,
>Bagan, and perhaps some other places.  As of today, tourist visas are
>available for 4 weeks, up from the previous 2 week limit.
>
>Mike at IIEC

Mike,

Yes, your question is very much of interest although you will get different
answers depending on who you ask.  The sentiment of many people involved with
pro-democracy groups or human rights NGOs is that tourists shouldn't go. 
Income from tourism only makes it possible for the government to buy the guns
and bullets it uses against its own people.  You accurately summarize another
argument that says tourists should go visit because somehow Western pro-
democracy ideals will somehow rub off on the Burmese people.

My own advice is in short, don't go.  The people already detest their
government and don't need to learn that from outsiders.  You also will not be
able to make any meaningful contacts with individual Burmese because the
climate of fear makes the Burmese people censor themselves.  If you do go,
try to engage anyone in a conversation longer than 15 minutes and see how
nervous they start to become.  If you do find someone who will talk to you
for longer than a "Hello, nice weather we're having" conversation, that
person will probably be interrogated by the authorities.  That does no one
any favors.

If you've gone so far as to buy a tourist guide to the place, you will
probably go whatever I or anyone else advises.  Fair enough, but if you must
go, try this.  Take a few lessons from eco-tourism, which teaches that if you
must go into an ecologically threatened area, do no harm and if possible, do
some good.

In practice, this kind of tourism (wanna call it Demo-tourism?) might look
like this:

First, don't get any Burmese in trouble.  Don't bother trying to teach them
how wonderful American democracy is.  They already know how bad the Burmese
regime is and they probably know a lot more about your country than you do
about theirs.

Second, if possible, spend your money in small shops, guest houses etc.,
rather than in fancy hotels and shops that try to cater to tourists.  Most
places that have permission to take foreign guests are probably connected to 
or paying off someone in the military, so it may be hard to spend your
dollars "cleanly" there.

Third, learn something about the recent history of Burma before you go. 
Bertil Lintner's book "Outrage" is a good, easy to digest source, but there
are others.  If you go to Burma to see pretty temples and peaceful people,
you've missed most of what is happening in that country.

Finally, consider doing something a little less passive.  Bring a copy of
foreign newspapers or news magazines and leave them in a tea-shop or
someplace.  Since it is a safe estimate that 90% of the people hate their
government, the odds are it will be found by someone who is anxious for
uncensored news.  They can get BBC and VOA on short-wave radios but good
printed news from outside is a different story.  English language proficiency
is also very common.

You might also consider bringing along a copy of Aung San Suu Kyi's book,
"Freedom from Fear" and leaving it behind.  I can get you an order form for
a Burmese-language copy that would probably be very welcome in Rangoon, but
English would be OK too.

Instead of only going to Shwe Dagon Pagoda or any other pretty-as-a-postcard
places, consider seeking out some other interesting places.  Try to find the
Sanda Win Tea-shop on Insein Road where the 1988 uprising began.  Look for
White Bridge on Peo Road where several hundred students, children really,
were shot and bayoneted in the first of a series of massacres that year. 
Visit the Kyandaw Crematorium where the regime burned the bodies so people
couldn't count them.  Drop by Ne Win's house on Inya Lake (don't expect to be
invited in for tea) or walk by the Main Campus of Rangoon University.  You
won't be able to get past the guards with the machine guns (what does it say
about a country that must operate its universities and schools like they were
concentration camps?)

Remember, don't give "subversive material" directly to anyone.  You only risk
getting them in trouble.  Just leave it behind and trust whatever gods there
may be to get it into the right hands.

If you are a little more bold, consider wearing a "Free Aung San Suu Kyi"
tee-shirt.  I can get you the address of someone who will, for $15 or $20, 
send you a tee-shirt with a Burmese pro-democracy slogan. A word of caution
on this.  If you were Burmese and did this, you would certainly be jailed,
possibly worse.  As a foreign tourist, you are in a unique position to get
away with dissent that could get other people killed.  That's not to say its
safe, just less risky.  The first reaction you would get from the authorities
would be shock that someone would do such a thing.  They might not even say
anything to you.  Eventually, they might get round to telling you to take it
off.  It's probably a good idea to obey.

As long as you don't get too ignorant on them, the worst thing that is likely
to happen to you is that you get deported.  That could mean a free ticket
back to the Bangkok or Singapore and while you couldn't visit Burma again
anytime soon, at least you would have had one hell of an adventure.

If you don't mind causing trouble and have a bit more flair, find Aung San
Suu Kyi's house (56 University Road).  Visit a local market, pick up some
flowers and leave them on Suu Kyi's doorstep (anyone know what she's partial
to?).  Yes it's illegal, but you can get close to the house now and there's
not TOO much risk to this.

If you go there as a tourist and behave politely, but also publicly display
opposition to the regime, you put SLORC on the horns of a nasty dilemma. 
They are trying to cultivate a kinder, gentler image and they desperately
want tourists to come.  They also want to prevent any hint of their
illegitimacy from being conveyed to the people.  If they punish tourists for
walking around with an Aung San Suu Kyi tee-shirt, they risk poisoning their
nascent tourist industry.  If they do nothing, they look soft in the eyes of
their people (who will be watching closely).  If they kill off their own
tourist industry, that is probably no great loss (as long as they don't kill
any tourists in the process).  If they relax enough to allow foreigners to
dissent, you may have accomplished something.

To bring this to a close--if I haven't persuaded you to risk pissing off
SLORC because you think the risk of wearing a tee-shirt or bringing a book
along is too great, what are you going to Burma for anyway?  There are
problems and fear enough in that country as it is.  They don't need one more
rich and timid foreigner coming over to get thrills from seeing how people
suffer under a dictatorship.  If this applies to you, save your money and
spend it at Disney World.

Regards,

  Strider

________________________________________________________________

           ON THE ROAD TO..... THE THREE PAGODAS PASS
________________________________________________________________

ON THE ROAD TO... will be a regular part of the BurmaNet Letter.  Readers are
invited to send their own stories about travel through Burma.

In this issue is a story by an American traveller who recently visited the
Thai/Burma border at the Three Pagodas Pass.

******************************************************************

-Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai/Burma border

The Pass is at the end of the road coming up from Bangkok along the road
originally built by the Japanese alongside the "Death Railway," made famous
by "The Bridge on the River Kwai."  It's about six hours from Bangkok and 12
kilometers past Sangklaburi, the last town on the Thai side of the border. 
In years past, the trading post at Three Pagodas Pass was an interesting and
exotic place.  You could watch caravans of water-buffalo-drawn carts coming
out of the hills of Burma piled high with furniture, teak, gems or anything
else of value that could be carted to the border.  They would return piled
high with refrigerators, electronic devices and consumer goods purchased from
Thai traders.  In 1990, the Tatmadaw, the Burmese Army, wrested Three Pagodas
Pass from the ethnic Mon army that had held the place for some years.

The Mon are still in the area and make up a large slice of the population of
Sangklaburi.  Their village, on the opposite side of the lake from
ethnically-Thai Sangklaburi, is linked to the town by the longest hand-made
wooden bridge in the world and is part of what makes Sangklaburi attractive
to the few western tourists who make it this far out.

If you're looking for a place to stay in Sangklaburi, the choices are few. 
There is a Thai hotel (the Sri Daeng) in town at fairly reasonable rates, but
most foreigners end up at one of the two guest houses.   The P Guesthouse is
run by a Mon family and besides offering fairly good and cheap lodgings, the
proprietors are fiercely anti-SLORC.  Unlike most guest houses where you'll
only find posters for places someone wants you to go, you'll find posters on
their bulletin board asking tourists to reconsider going over the border. 
The posters, but up by a Bangkok-based organization, implore backpackers not
to cross the border because the 130 baht you have to pay for the privilege
goes straight to SLORC.  One word of warning about the P Guest House, don't
use the phone and be careful on the elephant rides they organize.  Their
telephone surcharge is a rip-off and their last tour-guide for the elephant
rides was just killed by a rogue elephant he shouldn't have been feeding
(Feb. 94).

Just down the road at the Burmese Inn, proprietor Armin Hermann sees things
in Burma differently.  Armin, a young Austrian married to a Thai woman, is no
more sympathetic to SLORC than the proprietors of the P Guest House, but if
you ask him, he'll tell you that your 130 baht won't make any difference.  He
argues that the logging companies and Thais going over to buy furniture pump
so much money into Burma that your 130 baht just doesn't matter.  Therefore,
it's better to go see for yourself what the Burmese are doing.

If you are going up to Sangkla, your choices are:

Burmese Inn
Sangklaburi
phone: 034 595 146

P Guest House
(sorry, don't know it)

Sri Daeng Hotel
phone: 034 512 996

There isn't much in the way of restaurants in Sangkla except some noodle
shops around the corner from the Sri Daeng and the guest houses.  The noodle
shop around from the Sri Daeng with the blue paint doubles as one of the
town's whorehouses.  Like most brothels outside of Bangkok, they are really
hard to spot unless you're a local.  Again, like most of them, it's Thais
only so don't bother trying to go in.  On a slow evening it might be worth
coming here for noodles to see what kind of low-life is heading upstairs
(hint, most of the local low-life is in uniform).

If you decide to go over the border and don't have your own transportation,
you can join a tour bus going up to the border or rent a motorcycle through
one of the guest houses.  I rode a motorcycle up from Kanchanaburi with a
friend, so I didn't check out the rates here, but I hear they are cheap.

The pass is 12 kilos up the road from Sangklaburi and is a disappointment in
a few ways.  The famed three pagodas are just squat little stupas no higher
than a man's chest.  On the Thai side, there are just a few shops along the
newly hard-topped road.  The road turns to red dirt on the Burmese side, just
past the border check point.  To cross the border you don't even need a
passport.  If you are a westerner, you sign a "guest register" and pay 130
baht (US$5).  In another case of screw-the-westerner, Thais get in for only
10 baht.  I resisted the temptation to sign in as "Aung San Suu Kyi" and rode
on.

On the Burmese side of the border is dusty little town called Payathonzu.  It
was burned during the fighting here in 1990 but has been rebuilt as a series
of wooden shops alongside the only road.  Dust and rain have aged the wood
fast and it already looks like a set from a Hollywood western.

Most of the people crossing the border are Thais coming over to buy teak
furniture manufactured in back of the shops along the road.  There are
several small sawmills imparting the smell of freshly cut wood throughout the
town.  I suspect the whole town is one decentralized saw mill.  

In the market you can find all manner of furniture, Burmese tea, cheroots,
and longyis.  You will also find cases of Coke, Thai kitchen products and
almost anything you would find at a market on the Thai side.  It seemed a bit
odd to see so many non-Burmese consumer goods for sale there as the only
people buying were Thais and a few westerners, especially since you who can
find the same goods on the safer side of the border for less.

Foreigners are allowed to travel two kilometers into Burma to a junction in
the road.  There, you'll find a checkpoint manned by several guards carrying
American M-16s and German G2 assault rifles.  They appear none too alert when
you ride up but if you ignore them when they wave you off, they wake up in a
hurry.

As you turn around from the checkpoint and head back to the market and the
border, there is a low ridge line up on your left.  I turned the bike off the
main road on to a narrow track leading up to some buildings on the top of the
ridge.  There, another checkpoint was manned by a boy who looked all of about
15.  He looked a bit surprised to see westerners go by on a motorcycle but
just gave us a puzzled smile as we rode by.

It wasn't til we passed the barbed wire perimeter and rode past bunkers and 
machine gun pits that we realized where we were.  There were several
buildings in the center of the compound and a sign on one them removed any
remaining doubts to our location: "Tatmadaw barracks-Payathonzu."  The
disconcerting part of riding into a Tatmadaw base was that few people seemed
to be awake and no one challenged us.  After poking around for a couple of
minutes, a middle-aged Burmese man wearing a longyi walked out of one of the
buildings and started to approach us.  Figuring that discretion might be
called for, we cycled back down the hill and out the gate before he reached
us.  The last we saw of the base was the man in the longyi, walking down the
hill with a gait common to soldiers who've held their rank for awhile.  He
was headed towards the sentry post where the boy with the rifle was still
smiling dumbly and seemed just as surprised to see as go as he had to see us
come.  Maybe the soldier in the longyi was only coming to chat with the boy-
soldier, but I did kind of worry that I'd gotten the kid in trouble.  

A couple of things were odd about the base.  For being less than 20
kilometers from the closest KNU positions, it's defenses were not well kept. 
Aside from the rusty wire, they'd let bushes grow up in front of and along
the barbed wire perimeter.  Any unwanted visitors could probably get all the
way up to the wire without being seen, which would be an extremely rude
surprise.  It's not that the Burmese are poor soldiers (although they have
been drafting lots of boys too young to shave).  If anything, the poor upkeep
at the base gave the appearance of people who didn't expect to fight any time
soon.  If so, this fits with SLORC's recent efforts to cut a cease-fire with
the Karen.  Time will tell.

__________________________________________________________________________

To submit a travel story for the BurmaNet Letter, send a message to:

strider@xxxxxxxxxxx

__________________________________________________________________________




________________________________________________________________

                     NEWSLETTERS ON LINE
________________________________________________________________

As of March 1994, two Burma newsletters were being published regularly on the
net.  "Burma Focus," published by the All-Burma Student's Democratic Front
office in Europe has been coming out for about a year.  "Burma Issues,"
published by an NGO of the same name, has been coming out over the net for a
couple of months.  Look for at least two more newsletters to start being
released on the net within the next few weeks.

________________________________________________________________

                         IN THE NEXT ISSUE:
________________________________________________________________

  How to post to soc.culture.burma, reg.burma and the SEASIA list
  Data encryption with PGP
  On the Road to...Manerplaw
  More on Demo-tourism in Burma