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BurmaNet News: September 26




************************** BurmaNet **************************
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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BurmaNet News: Monday, September 26, 1994
Issue #24

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Contents:

BKK POST: ASEAN, JAPAN FOCUS ON INDOCHINA AND BURMA
NATION: LETTER TO THE EDITOR CONCERNING KACHIN CEASEFIRE
NATION: MYANMAR CLAIMS HUGE FIND OF SMUGGLED JADE ON WAY TO CHINA
BKK POST: SLORC FOES CAUTIOUS ABOUT TALKS
KHRG: SLORC IN SOUTHERN SHAN STATE, PART 2 OF 2

*************************************************************
BKK POST: ASEAN, JAPAN FOCUS ON INDOCHINA AND BURMA
September 26

ASEAN and Japan are expected to merge ideas and coordinate efforts towards
the reconstruction of Indochina and Burma today at the annual ASEAN-Ministry
of International Trade and Industry (MITI) meeting.

The ASEAN economic ministers will propose a permanent ASEAN-Japan Working
Group on Economic Cooperation and Development in Indochina and Burma be set
up, while MITI will propose and ad hoc Round Table of experts.

Economic ministers will emphasise market reforms, while MITI will focus on
industrial cooperation.A source close to the issue told the Bangkok Post the
working group idea gained momentum during Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai's
visit to Japan earlier this month.

He said both MITI and Thailand had drafted a concept paper. Thailand's paper,
which for the first time includes Burma, was endorsed by the economic
ministers on Thursday, according to Deputy Prime Minister Supachai
Paitchpakdi.

The source said Burma is one of the ten countries of the original ASEAN
vision, but Thailand made it clear to Japan that ASEAN understood the
sensitivities of the issue, and it was up to Japan to decide whether to
accept the package.

"We wrote the paper in very broad terms. The inclusion of Burma is optional. 
It's not an aggressive position," the source explained.

A Japanese observer predicted that because of economic reasons, MITI would
want to go along with ASEAN, but it will express some reservation because of
Japanese foreign policy towards Burma's State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) and its human rights record.

Japan currently maintains a trade embargo against Burma, extends limited
humanitarian assistance to the SLORC and at the same time, supports ASEAN's
constructive engagement policy.The source added that the economic ministers
will not press for a decision on Burma from MITI today, giving it time to
consult with concerned agencies in Tokyo.

"We have to do the same on the ASEAN side, " he said. According to the Thai
concept paper, the working group would contribute to the rapid economic
transformation and reconstruction in Indochina - Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
- and Burma.

The working group would include one or two representatives from the
government, academic, and private sectors of the six ASEAN countries; Japan;
the three Indochinese countries; and Burma.

ASEAN-Japan cooperation concentrates on industry and investment, trade
cooperation, to harmonise customs practice, extend trade preferences, and in
technology transfer, legal reforms, and human resource development.

The source said MITI has seen the paper and has accepted key points, but
there are differences between the two papers, and the two approaches will
have to be merged during today's talks.

Other topics to be discussed during the meeting of the ASEAN economic
ministers and MITI this morning include the influence of yen appreciation,
the ASEAN Free Trade Area, post-Uruguay Round issues, market access, and the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. 

*************************************************************
NATION: LETTER TO THE EDITOR CONCERNING KACHIN CEASEFIRE


WHILE there appears to be subtle yet determined pressured on the Mons and
Karens to negotiated with Slorc, it might be prudent for these elements to
ponder carefully the changes that have taken place in the Kachin State where
a ceasefire currently is in place. By all accounts, the minuses far outweigh
whatever promise such a political arrangement is supposed to engender. 
Consider:

1.   Slorc has doubled the strength of the Burma Army in Kachinland by
     approximately 30,000 men.

2.   Slorc has forbidden the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) to
     recruit.

3.   The KIO can no longer collect taxes.

4.   The Kachin public is barred from making contact with the KIO by the all
     pervasive Article 17/1 of the criminal code.

5.   The mass migration of Burmans and Kokang Chinese to Kachinland.

6.   Increase in racism and religious intolerance.

7.   Burmanization and monopolizing of civil service.

Under such straightjacket caveats, the KIO is rendered helpless to implement
any programme for reconstruction and development, a major provision of
ceasefire. The public is disappointed and angered by Slorc's unwillingness to
rein in the military that openly provokes the other nationalities to defy the
KIO, the destruction of Christian church properties and the dispersal of KIA
forces.

Roads are being constructed not for improving the infrastructure but for
strategic military advantage. The highly effective drug eradication programme
of the KIO is now being blunted by Slorc's dismantling of KIA checkpoints
along the well-travelled routes. In the absence of the often draconian
punishments meted out to drug offenders by the KIA before, the drug lords
today ply their trade with impunity. The flow of drug related traffic from
Burma proper and the Golden Triangle has reached alarming proportions
resulting in the highest reported cases of hardcore drug addiction in the
urban centres of Kachinland.

In the matter of trade and commerce, the KIO is supposed to be unfettered to
attract and invite both domestic and foreign investment capital. In reality,
the investor has to contend with Slorc's prior approval including agreeing to
desist from paying tax to the KIO.

Against this dismal backdrop, the erosion of citizen confidence in the
ceasefire is further exacerbated by the interregnum of KIO leadership
following the death of their chairman Brang Seng. Unless otherwise rectified,
the situation in Kachinland can hardly be considered conducive to the climate
of peace nor an encouragement to others to engage in any meaningful
negotiation with Slorc. 

*************************************************************
NATION: MYANMAR CLAIMS HUGE FIND OF SMUGGLED JADE ON WAY TO CHINA
September 26

Yangon - Myanmar security officials seized nearly 8,000 kilogrammes of raw
jadestones hidden in three vehicles heading for Muse on the border with China
earlier this month, a government newspaper reported at the weekend.

Security officials at Lashio, 700 kilometers northeast of Rangoon, checking
traffic heading for Muse, on Sept 8 found nearly 3,000 kg of jade stones
concealed in a truck's spare gasoline tank, the New Light of Myanmar said.
Another 2,000 kg of jade stones similarly concealed were found in another
truck the following day.

On Sept 11 at the same check point, security officials found yet another
3,000 kg of jade stones concealed in a spare gas tank and a false bottom of
the driver's seat of yet another truck. The drivers and the alleged owner of
the contraband from Mandalay, central Burma, were arrested.

Lashio security officials also seized 14 gold bars, weighing 4 kg, from a
passenger of a bus coming from Muse to Mandalay on Sept 7. 

*************************************************************
BKK POST: SLORC FOES CAUTIOUS ABOUT TALKS

OPPONENTS of Burma's military government cautiously welcomed the first direct
meeting for five years between the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi in Rangoon on Tuesday.

The head of a jungle-based government-in-exile greeted the talks and called
on Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to follow
up with action, while others cautioned it could be an elaborate bluff.

"We have said right from the start that the way to solve Burma's problems is
through dialogue, not with force," Dr Sein Win, leader of the exiles, told
Reuters here. 

Sein Win, who has been refused a Thai entry visa and cannot rejoin
compatriots on the Thai-Burmese border, was speaking by telephone from
Maryland, US. "Since this is the first meeting, we should not set
preconditions, but they should give Aung San Suu Kyi access to the media,'"
he said.

Burmese state television carried pictures of the meeting which it said had
taken place in a cordial atmosphere at an army guest house in Rangoon on
Tuesday.

It was the first time Suu Kyi, daughter of Burmese independence hero General
Aung San, had been allowed to leave the compound of her lakeside home in
Rangoon, where she had been under house arrest since July 1989 for
"attempting to endanger the state."

State television and radio gave no details about the discussion, nor did they
day how long it had lasted. Television viewers saw brief pictures of a
smiling and relaxed Suu Kyi talking to the generals across a table decorated
with flowers.

Diplomats in the Burmese capital could not immediately be reached for comment
on the unexpected encounter, between Suu Kyi and junta leader General Than
Shwe and military intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt.

In an apparent softening of its stand on the 49-year-old Nobel Peace Prize
winner, Khin Nyunt told a visiting reporter in July that she was not
considered an enemy and the junta was willing "to work hand in hand with
politicians who have opposed us in the past."

Asked whether the announcement of the meeting had taken him by surprise, Sein
Win said: "We heard that it was about to happen, before or after the United
Nations General Assembly."

Aye Saung, information secretary of the Democratic Alliance of Burma, an
umbrella organisation of guerrilla groups fighting the junta, suggested that
SLORC would make political capital out of the meeting.

"We know nothing about what they discussed but of course the SLORC will get
benefit from this, by showing the international community this goodwill," he
told Reuters by telephone from the Thai-Burmese border.

In a rare departure from its isolation, Burma was invited to attend
ministerial talks of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as
the guest of host nation Thailand in July.

Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, echoing earlier calls by international
leaders, used the occasion to urge Rangoon's foreign minister Ohn Gyaw to set
free Suu Kyi as the key to solving the rest of his country's problems.

"It was perhaps a one-sided meeting, " Aye Saung said of Tuesday's talks.
"She had no one there to support her or to oversee the meeting. It would be
more fair if she was allowed to meet with her supporters and the press," Aye
Saung said. "We are worried that she might be tricked or pressured in some
way," he added.

A Thai-based Burmese exile, who asked not to be identified, said: "We think
it's a bit of a bluff to reduce complaints by the international community in
the run-up to the United Nations General Assembly."

Burma is regularly condemned at the General Assembly for alleged abuses, said
by human rights groups to include detention without trial, torture, deaths of
detainees, suppression of ethnic minorities and forced labour.

San Aung, health and education minister in Sein Win's government-in-exile,
said it was too early to judge whether Tuesday's meeting was a breakthrough.
The parallel government was formed in late 1990 by members of Suu Kyi's
political party who had won seats in a landslide election victory earlier
that year which SLORC ignored.

"If there is genuine political dialogue it is good, but if they just talked
about the weather it would be no use," he told Reuters.

BKK POST: BURMESE  PROGRESS OR NEW JUNTA DIVERSION?

THE elected leader of Burma met last week with the top two military officers
of her country. When the meeting was over, Aung San Suu Kyi remained a
prisoner and it was the two officers who walked out in freedom to resume
their jobs. Optimists point to the  fact that a meeting between leaders of
the Slorc and the heroic Mrs Suu Kyi took place at all. She has been an
unaccused captive of the Burmese junta for more than five years and has had
few visitors of any kind. Other accused Slorc of hypocrisy. and claim the
Rangoon regime is conducting a burlesque of political bargaining while
refusing to yield a shred of power.

The reactions to the meeting between Mrs Suu Kyi, Slorc chairman Gen Than
Shwe and junta strongman Gen Khin Nyunt shows how polarized Burmese politics
have become. The current regime sized power by killing hundreds of
pro-democracy protesters on the Rangoon Streets in 1988. Since that traumatic
event, affairs in Burma have been on a roller-coaster. The regime called
democratic election, but jailed Suu Kyi in her home when it became clear her
party would win. Burmese voters elected her and members of her NLD by a
landslide. The regime honoured no part of the election. Instead, it embarked
on a terror campaign, jailing, torturing, harassing, exiling and even killing
popular political leaders.

During the past 18 month, Slorc has taken a new tack, which some critics have
called more ominous than the previous oppression. The junta first called a
sham constitutional convention where all criticism was suppressed. Mrs Suu
Kyi herself, in a rare meeting with foreign visitors, called the convention,
rightly, "an absolute farce" and unrepresentative of the people's wishes. She
is correct. Just for starters, this new constitution, if it ever is enacted,
will forbid Suu Kyi from taking part in the political process. 

More recently, however, Slorc has won some faint praise with what seem to be
- and may indeed prove to be - peaceful overtures to many of its political
opponents in the Burmese countryside.

Thus far, neither the rigidly controlled state media nor other sources have
indicated Slorc is willing even to share power, let alone to give it up to
Burmese democrats. The only report of the meeting between the military
leaders and Suu Kyi was on a brief Rangoon television report. The videotape
showed only that Suu Kyi appeared healthy and smiling. The fact she appeared
in traditional flowing Burmese dress was the most newsworthy item apart form
the meeting itself. What of importance was discussed, if anything, remains
unknown.

It is far too early to show confidence in a goodwill of Burma's rulers. The
junta must show it is willing at least to discuss a transition of power
before it can win accolades form its people or form the world community. By
remaining quiet after the meeting with Suu Kyi, Gen Than Shwe and his
supporters only have increased the impression they intend to resist national
reconciliation, rather than to embrace it. Talk, as the cycle says, is cheap.
Burmese have waited since the army sized power in 1962 for some sign that
their oppressors have mellowed.

There is little to respect in the argument that the Burmese leaders are not
killing or torturing as many of their people as in the recent past. The Slorc
will prove its good intentions when it negotiates with Suu Kyi instead of
only meeting with her. It will win plaudits when it acts democratically and
introduces laws and policies giving more freedom to its citizens. A small but
important step in that process would be to free Suu Kyi from her house
arrest. When the elected leader of Burma meets with the military leader
voluntarily rather than under armed escort, then the junta will deserve some
trust. Until Suu Kyi can act of her own free will, she remains a prisoner,
and also do her fellow Burmese. 

*************************************************************
KHRG: SLORC IN SOUTHERN SHAN STATE, PART 2 OF 2
An Independent Report by the Karen Human Rights Group
August 20, 1994     /     KHRG #94-24

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

NAME:     Sai Lone  SEX: M    AGE: 29   Shan Buddhist, day labourer


ADDRESS:  Tachilek area, southern Shan State
FAMILY:   Divorced, 1 daughter aged 3 who stays with her mother

Sai Lone fled to Thailand after spending a year in a SLORC prison.

I lived in M---, near Tachilek.  In the winter of 1992/93, some
of my friends said I should go with them to Ho Mong [headquarters
of the MTA] and help them play music at the closing ceremonies
of the military training there.  So I went there as a drum leader
with a team of girl dancers from my village, and they paid me
money.  When I was practicing with my team in Ho Mong, I got a
message that the local SLORC authorities at home were calling
me back.  A Burmese man in my village had told them I'd gone to
Ho Mong.  The message said if I didn't return my parents would
be arrested, so we had to go back.  When I got home, they called
me in every day for a week to answer their questions.  I knew
they were going to arrest me, so I ran away to Chiang Mai [in
Thailand].  I worked there for awhile and saved some money, so
I went back to my village to give it to my parents and then the
Burmese arrested me.  One of the commanders of 359 Battalion came
in a car with his men and arrested me on 15/4/93.

After I was arrested they accused me of being a member of the
MTA, and of taking a band to Ho Mong to play.  They put me in
the main prison at Tachilek and interrogated me for 1 week.  They
kept me sitting in a chair with my hands tied to the chair, tied
high up behind my head, and my legs tied to another chair in front.
 They slapped me in the face, and they hit me in the face with
the butt of a revolver, hit, hit, hit, hit!  I was going "Aw!
Aw!", and I went dizzy.  They hit me in the temple, and it was
cut open and bleeding.  They were Army men, 4 of them: one interpreter
[Shan to Burmese], two officers and one NCO [Non-Commissioned
Officer, such as corporal or sergeant].  They asked me if I was
a member of Khun Sa's army and they said I must answer Yes, but
when I didn't say Yes they beat me.  They told me, "If you say
Yes you'll get a lighter sentence, but if you say No you'll be
dead."  They wanted me to answer "Yes", but I never answered "Yes".

After one month and 10 days in the prison I was called into the
court by an NCO.  There was nobody in the court except him and
the judge.  The judge was a civilian named U Tay Aung.  Before
that I had seen a lawyer, but he wanted too much money and I couldn't
afford to hire him.  In court they let me talk, so I said I wasn't
MTA.  But then they asked me if I thought the young girls who
went with me should all be arrested and imprisoned like me, so
I said No, I would take the responsibility for all of them.  So
I was sentenced to 1 year in prison.

After that I had to stay another 24 days in Tachilek Prison, then
I was sent to Kengtung Prison.  I had to stay over 5 months there.
In Kengtung Prison I saw many kinds of people; bandits, addicts,
Chinese, Shans, all sorts of people.  Some people died in prison
because there wasn't proper food and we were undernourished. 
We didn't even have salt, just plain cooked rice.  People got
sick.  I saw many people die who were from near the Chinese border.

They were in jail for being illegally in Burma.  Most of them
were from China, they went through Shan State to Thailand, then
the Thai authorities arrested them and sent them back to Burma,
so they were put in prison.

There were usually about 200 people in Kengtung Prison, but there's
no limit.  I was in a cell about 7 or 8 feet wide and about 100
feet long, with about 70 other people.  Our only job was fetching
water for the families of the prison authorities.  We weren't
given any blankets for sleeping.  The floor was wooden planks
and we just had to sleep on that.   For a toilet there were a
couple of oil drums sawed in half with 2 planks on top [to squat
on] and we had to use these.  Some prisoners were given the duty
of cleaning out those drums once a day.  We just had to go to
the toilet right there, and eat in the same cell.  

At 8 a.m. they gave us a bowl of rice and yellow-bean soup.  In the 
evening we were given some rice and rotten vegetables, rotten papaya 
or something inedible like that, and some green leaves.  Every day people 
got sick because of malnutrition.  People died of malaria, diarrhoea
and other diseases.  There's a hospital in the compound but they
don't look after the prisoners there, and there's no medicine
there.  People are only sent to the hospital when they're about
to die.  Every 2 or 3 days someone died.

After more than 5 months there I was sent to work on the hydroelectric
project at Mong Kwan.  They took us on trucks, 50 of us at a time.
It took us from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. to get there because it was
still the end of rainy season, so the truck kept getting stuck
in the mud and we had to push it.  At Mong Kwan we were given
a little bit more food than in the prison, but it still wasn't
enough.  

We had to stay in thatch huts, but the roofs were very leaky 
and it was very draughty.  We had to work in chains.  We had 
to carry rocks, and whenever we weren't quick enough or if the 
rocks were too heavy for us to carry, we were hit with a bamboo
stick.  They beat me so hard with it sometimes that I just wanted
to die.  We also had to carry bags of cement, and when we couldn't
carry them we were beaten.  Some men were beaten until they were
unconscious, then they were left laying there the whole day like
that.  In front of my own eyes I saw two old men beaten to death.

One of them was 52 and the other was 57.  I knew the 52-year
old man because he was my friend in prison - his name was Loon
Ye, he was Palaung.  He had been sentenced as a drug smuggler.

I don't know if he was guilty, because we didn't talk about it.
All I know about the other man is that he had an 8-year sentence,
but it had been reduced to 3 years.

I was working at Mong Kwan from 11 November 1993 until 26 February
1994, then I was sent back to Kengtung Prison, and on March 1
I was released because I'd served my time.  I was released a little
bit early for good behaviour.  Six of the Burmese prisoners were
released with me.  While I was in prison my parents had come across
into Thailand, so I followed them, and I won't be going back.

If the Thais try to send me back I'll run away somewhere.  I
feel bitter and I want revenge for what the SLORC did to me. 
I've thought of joining the MTA because of it, but I don't think
I will.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NAME:     Sai Shwe  SEX: M    AGE: over 60        Shan Buddhist, trader
ADDRESS:  Kengtung, southeastern Shan State
FAMILY:   Divorced, 1 daughter aged 3 who stays with her mother

Sai Shwe is a businessman who constantly travels in southern Shan
State.

The fighting is affecting trade indirectly, because whenever there's
fighting all the civilians, even merchants and old people, have
to flee being taken as porters by SLORC.  So of course this affects
trade.  The Burmese want the Shan people to leave the land so
that they can take it.  Whenever new SLORC troops come to set
up camp in the Kengtung-Tachilek area, they force the civilians
to build a camp and buildings for about 2,000 soldiers, but then
only 100 or so might come.  They use the rest of the buildings
for pigs and chickens.  The people have to build it all with their
own labour and at their own expense.  Then if the soldiers have
no pigs, the people have to buy them.  Then if there's no food
for those pigs, the people have to provide that too, and if there
is no one to feed the pigs then the people are forced to do that.
Then after the pigs are sold, all the money is taken by the Army.

Wherever there are soldiers there has to be food, so if there's
a SLORC army camp then the surrounding farms will be confiscated.
Then the people are forced to provide all the seedlings and all
the labour until the crop is harvested, and then the Army sells
the produce for itself and the people have nothing.  Whenever
they need anything, they make the people provide it.  

Sometimes they confiscate farmland, divide it up into blocks and then 
sell it, just for profit.  People have to suffer being taken as porters,
and they're not allowed to go home for a long time.  They're tied
up together and they have to carry heavy loads, then when they
get to the firing line the soldiers make the porters wear their
uniforms while they wear the porters' clothes, so the people die
because they're mistaken for soldiers.  When they're taken away
nobody knows where they've gone, when they die nobody is told,
and their families don't even get any compensation.  

But even if the soldiers don't need porters they take people along 
with them and keep them for 2 or 3 days, even if it's only 2 or 3 
miles from the peoples' village.  They tell them all that they have
to pay 3,000 or 4,000 Kyat if they want to go home.  They just
want ransom money.  If they're paid then they release the villagers
- but then after only 2 or 3 days back home the troops come and
they're taken again.  They take men, women, even pregnant women,
and sometimes they go into labour and deliver their babies along
the way.  So people can't stay in their homes anymore, and they
have to run away and go to Thailand.

As a businessman I have to pay money whenever they demand it -
we have to bargain over it.  If I can't pay then I can't do business.
If you run a shop you'll have to pay.  Whatever you want to do
you have to pay.  Even if you want to cross the border you have
to pay.  I can't say how much because it's always up to them.

If anyone wants to be a merchant, trader or shopowner he has
to have a permit, so depending on how much capital he's going
to invest he has to pay a certain percentage to them.  There's
a limit on investment, because when they made it a Socialist state
if you invested more than 2,000 Kyat it was confiscated.  Still
now, if you invest too much it will be confiscated.  It's still
a Socialist state.  It's all just talk and stories in the paper
that they're making it an open market for business.  Now is just
like the old days.

When soldiers buy things, it depends on the individual soldier
but usually they won't pay the cost.  For example, some Thai people
used to go to Tachilek to sell petrol or diesel fuel, but all
the soldiers come and fill their cars or motorbikes.  They don't
pay, they just go away when their tank is full.  So those Thais
couldn't make any money and they had to give up and go back to
Thailand.  Here in Mae Sai you can buy 100 Kyat for 20 Thai Baht
[official SLORC exchange rate is 1 Kyat equals 4 Baht].  

If you go across the border bridge into Shan State, even the SLORC 
soldiers won't take Kyat.  It's 5 Baht to cross the bridge, and if you
give them 5 Kyat they won't accept it.  In Kengtung, merchants
accept both - Baht or Kyat.  They ask you whether you'll pay in
Baht or Kyat, and the price differs.  Thai Baht is used as far
up as Xishuangbanna, which is inside China.  In the hills the
villagers trade with rupees [Indian silver rupee coins, left over
from British colonial days].  The big businessmen also use Chinese
money, but the local people can't afford to do that.  Then if
you're dealing with somebody who's a civil servant and you happen
to ask for payment in anything but Kyats, you can be arrested.

If they arrest you and you give them enough money to make them
happy, then you'll be released.  If not, it's up to them.  They
can do to you whatever they like.

You can't do business openly or legally unless your capital is
very small  If you want to invest a significant amount then you
have to do business secretly.  I've heard about this Economic
Quadrangle, about how they're building these roads [the Economic
Quadrangle is a Thai/Chinese concept involving building roads
and opening up borders to strengthen trade between Thailand, China,
Burma and Laos].  First the Thais negotiated with the Burmese
commander and they made agreements that a road would be built
from there to there and how wide it would be and so on, but when
the time came to build it the Burmese had changed commanders and
the new one said "Oh, no, not like this, you must do it like that."

So the plans keep changing and being cancelled, and most of the
Thai contractors have given up and gone home.  For example, the
previous military commander in Tachilek made building agreements
with a Thai contractor named Kay Lian, so he sent some of his
trucks and bulldozers across but the new commander said "No, you
can't do that", and he had to bring all his equipment back.  The
new commander also cancelled all the plans for the new bridge
across the border that had already been agreed.  To make friends
with the Burmese is very difficult.

They have a policy in Shan State: any Burmese soldier who marries
a Shan lady gets a 500 Kyat reward.  If he marries the daughter
of a village tract headman or someone like that, he gets 1,000.
If he can marry the daughter of a Pra [petty prince] he gets
2,000, and for the relative of a prince he gets 5,000 to 10,000.
I don't know if the amounts are still the same, but that's what
they used to be.  Twenty years ago my own younger sister was forced
to marry a Burmese soldier at the point of a gun because of this.
He was just an NCO.  His men surrounded the house and drove away
any man who wasn't related to her.  For about a year no man was
allowed into the house and soldiers went with her if she went
out.  Then he married her.  

Even if she's not happy in her marriage, she has to pretend to be 
happy.  She has 3 children with this Sergeant, all girls.  The 
government policy is that all their children must be considered Burmese.  
Now all her daughters are married to Burmese men.  They still have 
this policy, so the Burmese soldiers are always trying to marry Shan 
women any way they can. I think the Burmese are trying to commit 
genocide against the Shans.

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

NAME:     Sai San Loi    SEX: M    AGE: over 50        Shan Buddhist
ADDRESS:  Southern Shan State

Sai San Loi was elected as a Shan Nationalities League for Democracy
(SNLD) Member of Parliament in the 1990 general election.  He
is from southern Shan State near the SLORC/MTA fighting, but for
his safety we must omit to say exactly where.

I'm still living in my home town.  The soldiers are everywhere
and the Shan people don't dare stay there anymore, so many people
have left.  They're running away because they're afraid of the
Burmese, because the Burmese have confiscated their land, they
make them do labour without payment, take them as porters, loot
and rape everywhere - so the people don't dare live there anymore.
 Many are running to Thailand, but they have to get in secretly.
 If you get caught by the Thai border police or immigration, they'll
arrest and deport you.

In March this year, the local Burmese soldiers had a fight among
themselves and one of them shot and killed another.  Then he took
4 guns and left the military post, so the SLORC grabbed all the
villagers around there and ordered them to tell where the man
had gone.  They were beaten, but they didn't know anything because


the man had surrendered the 4 guns to the MTA and gone into hiding.
 The SLORC detained all the people in 4 or 5 villages, several
hundred people altogether, and beat them at the army camp.  The
soldiers ordered them to buy 4 new guns to replace the 4 that
were lost, and ordered them to go search for the man.  They said
if those people didn't get the man then they'd kill them all.
 When the MTA heard about this they went and negotiated with the
local SLORC and gave back the 4 guns.  Only then the people were
released.

All the villagers are used by SLORC as porters, hard labourers,
to work in the fields and to work at the army camp washing clothes,
fetching water and so on.  The MTA too sometimes use the people
as porters and demand food from villagers, but the SLORC is worse
- they even force the women to go as porters.  When there's fighting
the villagers feel a little bit hopeful, because if SLORC men
die then there are fewer of them to make trouble for the villagers,
and if MTA men die then there might be less trouble for them as
well.  The people have to do things for both sides, so they don't
see much difference.

Because I'm an elected MP I can go about more freely than most
people and they don't usually make trouble for me.  But even I
don't dare go back to my home town anymore - when I leave here,
I'll go somewhere else.  If they're arresting porters, they might
know I'm an MP but they wouldn't spare me because of that.  They
even take pregnant women, so they'll certainly take me.

Now the world doesn't know that the Shans and other people in
Burma are suffering so much, and the world doesn't understand
that the people will continue to suffer like this until we can
get rid of SLORC.  Now the people have elected a government but
SLORC won't give power to those who were elected - they're robbing
the people.  If the world thinks the SLORC is okay despite that,
we can't help it.  It's quite obvious that the SLORC has robbed
power from the people, but still they say they are legal.  So
what can the people do?  The people have suffered so much and
sacrificed so much.

I haven't been invited to the SLORC's National Convention, and
I haven't decided whether I would go if I were.  I'm not satisfied
with the SLORC.  The country is not prosperous, but the people
in power are prosperous, and getting richer every day.  All the
companies, even the companies going overseas like the shipping
line, they're all owned by the military.  The military buys everything
the people have produced and pays almost nothing for it, so the
people are only getting poorer.  If every government in the world
acted like SLORC, what would happen to the world?  I'm worried.
 In Burma, even Aung San Suu Kyi has been imprisoned in her own
home for going on 6 years.  We don't know what to do with a government
like this.  So if the world still thinks the SLORC is legal and
the people aren't good enough to form the government, then that's
up to the world.  But I want to ask the world to accept the people.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NAME:     Sao Pala Dhamma     SEX: M    AGE: 53        Shan Buddhist monk
ADDRESS:  from Mong Nawng, Southern Shan State, now living in Thailand

Sao Pala Dhamma has been living in Thailand for 28 years, but
has just returned from a trip to his native southern Shan State
and central Burma.

I've been a monk since I was 12 years old, now I'm 53.  That's
41 years.  I've been in Thailand for 28 years.  On June 15 I left
here.  At that time there was fighting at Tachilek.  I went by
plane from Bangkok to Rangoon.  From there I went to Taunggyi


for 4 days [capital of Shan State], then to Laikha [just over
100 km. northeast of Taunggyi], then back to Taunggyi and flew
back to Rangoon.  Then I led the pilgrims north to Prome, Pagan
and Mandalay, then to Taunggyi again.  Then we went back to Rangoon,
and south to Kyaikto [in Mon State].  Then I flew back to Thailand
from Rangoon.  The first half of the trip I was on my own, and
the rest was a pilgrimage.

I was very discouraged by what I saw in Shan State.  I saw the
people suffering too much.  If anyone could help them to liberate
Shan State within the next few years, then there is hope.  If
not, within 10 years there will be little left that is Shan. 
All the Shan will either leave or be slaves.  I've seen and heard
that the people there now have to serve the SLORC as porters and
for all kinds of labour.  As porters they are taken to the frontline,
and when they get there they are forced to put on uniforms and
sent in front of the troops to be killed.  If there are 100 soldiers
they'll take 200 porters, and put them around the soldiers so
they'll be killed.  The Shans are being wiped out in ways like
this.  I didn't hear any news of the MTA doing anything like this,
only the SLORC.  At night they keep them tied up to a long bamboo,
and if one person has to go to the toilet they all have to go
along.  They treat the people just like animals.

When the SLORC needs land they confiscate it from the people.
 On the whole trip I heard this news and saw it.  They're doing
it everywhere.  They confiscate the people's land and then use
part of it to set up a military camp.  They don't build the camp
themselves - they make the people bring all the bamboo and wood
and build it.  They make military farms to grow rations for the
Army, and they make the people work on this land without payment.
 They tell the owner, "This land is owned by the SLORC", so if
he wants to get it back he has to buy it from SLORC to stay there.
 You can go and see the people suffering like that in Tachilek
too.  In Tachilek the SLORC confiscates the paddy fields, divides
them into blocks and then sells them back to the people or to
their own officers.  For a block as small as 40 by 60 feet they
charge 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 kyat, etc.  The people can't
afford to buy their land back, so they have to move away somewhere
and make or buy a new plot for themselves.  I don't know where
the people go or how they survive.  They have to send their children
to work in Thailand to survive [this is how many young girls and
women from Shan State end up trapped as brothel slaves in Thailand].

I didn't see any direct repression of religion, but they build
pagodas in some places, and they force the people to contribute
money to build them and all the materials they need.  They look
at how much money each family has and say "You, 3000", and so
on.  This is how they take part in religion.  They are also trying
to wipe out Shan language and culture - they don't let people
learn it in the schools.  They only let the students learn Burmese
literature, Burmese history, etc.  If there were no monasteries,
then by now the Shan language and culture would have already been
wiped out.  The Burmese soldiers are also forcing Shan women to
marry them.  The people of the world should take pity on the Shan
people and come to help us, or else all the Shan people will be
wiped out.  When there's fighting, the people feel a little bit
encouraged because they think that maybe they will finally be
freed from the Burmese.  But now there's fighting and both sides
are drafting people into their armies, so the people are in even
more trouble.

In central Burma in some areas, the army is confiscating the farmland
and forcing the people to grow corn or soybeans.  Then the Army
just sells it as they like,  and the people get nothing for their
own.  Not only that, but if the crop in the field fails then the


people have to bear the burden of that too - they have to pay
the money for the crop to the Army.  If they don't have it, they
have to sell whatever they have to get the money.  It is a must.
 That's why people have to run away to other places.  In Shan
State, there are places people can run to [the revolutionary areas
or Thailand].  But in Burma, I don't know where the people can
go.  The Army is just making its own business.  They have plenty
of soldiers who could do the work, if they didn't want to trouble
the people they could do it themselves.  But they don't.  They
won't let the people do any business either.  All the companies,
shops and department stores are owned by their people.

Now they're building and repairing roads, and they force people
to build walking platforms along the roadsides.  If a platform
goes in front of your house, you're forced to pay the army for
that segment.  If you can't, you're driven out of your house.
 You have to pay taxes for electricity and water even if you don't
have electricity or water.  The state electric company says that
even if you don't have your own lights, you see lights on the
street or in other places so you have to pay for that.  They also
make money by running the power very low, then suddenly jacking
it up so everyone's fuses and things blow, and then they have
to pay the state electric company to fix or replace them.  The
SLORC is also still stealing a lot of money from people's bank
accounts for their projects in faraway areas.  They just take
the money out and then you get a statement that the money was
taken as your obligation toward such-and-such a project.  That
way they're robbing both the people and the banks.

Most of the people have no faith in SLORC and want it to be replaced.
 But they wouldn't dare rise up again like in 1988, because now
if there's even a slight suspicion the SLORC will shoot them.
 Now in the schools SLORC says the teachers must take responsibility
for their students and the parents for their children, and if
any students try to demonstrate then both their parents and teachers
will be arrested.  If you try to demonstrate they'll kill you
on the spot.  The people are desperate, and that's why they feel
encouraged when they see the MTA fighting SLORC.  If they all
had arms and ammunition, even the Burmese would rise up and overthrow
SLORC.

When the SLORC leaders are on television bowing and making offerings
to monks, those are only token gestures.  The reality is very
different than what they show on TV.  They look very humble on
TV, but if any monk opposes them they'll arrest him.  A lot of
monks have been arrested and are still in prison.  Many monks
have died after being arrested, but they just disappear and nobody
knows what happened to them.  On this trip, the monks at the monastery
at Po Pa [in central Burma] told me about one of their monks who
died.  His name was U Parama Won Na Di Ki.  He died not because
they imprisoned him, but because they forced him to leave the
monkhood.  It was during Saw Maung's regime [before mid-1992,
Saw Maung was SLORC chairman].  He was forced to disrobe but he
couldn't bear to leave the monastery, so he stayed but he could
only be like a holy layman.  This mental torture killed him. 
He just died of unhappiness.  He was about 50 years old.

If there is no outside help for the people, the SLORC will remain
as it is.  The religion will continue, it won't vanish.  But as
for the SLORC leaders, they should remember that in return for
oppressing the people and treating the monks like that, Saw Maung
went mad.  They will all go that way.  I think this is why Khin
Nyunt [Secretary 1 of SLORC and chief of Military Intelligence]
is now trying to be seen paying respect to the monks.  On television
we see them acting so humble and respectful to the religion, going
to holy places and making donations, but actually they're still
behaving the same as ever.  You'll only see these things on television.
They don't act like that except in front of the camera.


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

ABBREVIATIONS USED BY BURMANET:

 AP: ASSOCIATED PRESS
 AFP: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
 AWSJ: ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL
 BBC: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
 BI: BURMA ISSUES
 BIG: BURMA INFORMATION GROUP
 BKK POST: THE BANGKOK POST
 CPPSM: COMMITTEE FOR THE PUBLICITY OF THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE IN MONLAND
 DA:  DEPTHNEWS ASIA
 FEER: FAR EAST ECONOMIC REVIEW
 NATION: THE NATION (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK)

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