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BurmaNet News: June 15, 1995 [#184]






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"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: June 15, 1995
Issue #184

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BURMANET: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE SLAMS SLORC
BKK POST: RANGOON GETS TOP BUSINESS HOTEL
BKK POST:CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL CROSSING INTO BURMA
BKK POST:BEYOND BAN HIN TAKE
THE NATION: SURIN TERMS MOEI BRIDGE SNAG AS TECHNICAL
NATION: LETTER---IN US HANDS
BKK POST: BURMESE TROOPS ARREST 19 THAI VILLAGERS AT BORDER
NATION: IRATE VILLAGERS THREATEN PROTEST OVER STOPPAGE OF WORK
          ON MOEI RIVER BRIDGE

                  
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BURMANET: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE SLAMS SLORC
By a special correspondent 
     
The Joel Swerdlow article thrashing slorc in National
Geographic
is just out.   The full title is "Burma, 
The Richest of Poor Countries" It's Vol. 188, No. 1. July 1995
     
This is the one that the Slorc thought was going to be a travel 
article for visit myanmar year!!  SURPRISE!!
     
There'll be a live discussion group with the author about this
article on America-on-line sometime in the future. Details
posted on A-0-L.  
     
The email for National Geographic is NGSforum@xxxxxxxx  Their
email is read by all the higher ups.  I recommend anyone who
feels strongly about the article to please write in to their
email, this will be a vote of confidence for this type of
article.  It was a challenge for the author to get the magazine
to include 1) such a controversial  article and 2) get to call
Burma "Burma" instead of you know what.

Their 800 number is 1-800-NGS-LINE for those who want to phone.
     




===== item =====


RANGOON GETS TOP BUSINESS HOTEL
15 JUNE 1995

The Summit Parkview, Rangoon's first international-class business
hotel, officially opened last week. The six-storey, 250-room
hotel, built at a cost of US$40 million, has been welcoming
guests since its soft opening last December.

Stewart Yen, chairman of Summit Parkview, attributed the record
construction time of only 13 months to two factors; the use of
prefabricated methods and components, and the fact that the
decision-making process was tightly controlled.

The owner, designer, builder and operator of the hotel are one of
the same. "Our people worked closely as a team with a common
objective; and that was to complete the project on time and
within budget," he said.

Summit Parkview is owned by Regional Hotels, a Singapore partner
ship including government-linked Singapore Technologies, property
investment company Timas, Singapore Technologies is also develop
ing the Bintan Beach International Resort in Indonesia.

Summit Parkview features a state-of-the-art fitness centre, along
with a novel entertainment concept for Burma in the form of Club
Hollywood, which features live entertainment, private karaoke rooms
and a games room with electronic arcade games.

Other facilities include a beauty salon, 24-hour clinic, function
rooms and gift shops, in addition to a business centre, banquet
and meeting facilities, restaurant and 24-hour room service.

Burma's Minister of Hotels and Tourism, Lieutenant-General Kyaw
Ba, said the completion of the Summit Parkview was timely since
the country is preparing for an expected surge of visitors during
Visit Myanmar Year in 1996.

"Summit Parkview certainly wants to play its part, no matter how
small, in the continued development of the market economy of
Burma," Mr Yen said. (BP)

CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL CROSSING INTO BURMA
15 JUNE 1995

People are still crossing into Burma via checkpoints which the
provincial authorities have closed for security reasons, Deputy
Interior Minister Pairote Lohsunthorn said yesterday.

He said the president of the Chiang Rai Chamber of Commerce has
informed him of the illegal crossings and he has asked the au
thorities to enforce the closure order more strictly.

Mr Pairote was speaking after inspecting the Thai-Burmese border
at Mae Sai District, including the temporary checkpoint at Ban
Muang Daeng which was closed after the fighting between Burmese
government troops and Khun Sa's Mong Tai Army.

All border checkpoints in the province have remained closed,
despite the fact that the situation in Burma has returned to
normal.

Mr Pairote acknowledged that the closure of the checkpoint at Mae
Sai, across the border from Tachilek, had caused losses of at
least two billion baht. (BP)

SURIN TERMS MOEI BRIDGE SNAG AS TECHNICAL
15 JUNE 1995

Acting Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan yesterday said a halt in
the construction of the Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge over the
Moei River was caused by technical, not political, problems.

Surin reaffirmed that both Thailand and Burma were willing to
complete construction of the bridge and that the halt would be
temporary.

He said both sides first had to clear up an allegation by Burmese
authorities in Myawaddy concerning land reclaimed by Thai villag
ers in Tak province's Mae Sot District.

The bridge is being funded by the Thai government at a cost of
Bt70 million and is 95 per cent finished.

"The Bridge is essential to the development of transportation
networks between the two countries," Said Surin, who chaired the
Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge Committee.

"Thailand wants to see Burma achieve national reconciliation, and
Burma wants to use the development of its border region to settle
internal problems [with an armed ethnic insurgency]," he said.

Surin said Burmese Ambassador to Thailand Tin Maung Win last week
agreed to convey Thailand's proposal for a quick settlement of
the matter at a committee level.

Surin said both Thailand and Burma wanted to clarify boundary
matters so as to prevent any further disputes that might disrupt
other planned cross-border transportation routes. Both sides are
in the process of opening border checkpoints in Mae Sot and
Ranong.

Burmese authorities last Wednesday asked for the suspension of
construction work on the bridge linking Myawaddy with Mae Sot to
protest against land reclamation by Thai villagers on the Moei
River which the Burmese said had changed the flew of the river
and affected the national boundary in those areas.

Countering the Burmese protest, Thai villagers accused the Bur
mese of investing nothing for the bridge and yet siphoning con
struction materials and rocks and soil from Thailand to build
their border roads.

Informed sources said the Burmese concern was the building of
structures on the reclaimed bank by Thai villagers and merchants.
The sources said Thai construction companies involved in the
bridge had already withdrawn cranes and construction materials
from the reclaimed lands.

"I am confident that there will be no scrapping of the construc
tion work. It is just a temporary halt to allow for the investi
gation into the matter until the end results please every side,"
Surin said.

Surin said Thailand had no intention to change the geography of
the river bank as claimed. (TN)

BEYOND BAN HIN TAKE
15 JUNE 1995

Once a stronghold of drug warlord Khun Sa, Ban Hin Taek today has
a new name. But it maintains a frontier identity befitting a
place that is about as far away from anywhere as one can get in
Thailand. Donald Wilson and David Henley of Crescent Press Agency
write.

Ban Hin Taek-the "Village of Broken Stone" has not always been an
easy, or welcoming, place to get to. Located on the far northern
frontier of Thailand, even beyond Doi Mae Salong, in a narrow
lobe of Thai territory protruding deeply into Burma's Shan State,
its very name is a symbol of remoteness.

Just 134 years ago, a visitor to Hin Taek-had he or she been
allowed to proceed that far would have found the village an armed
camp flying the yellow-green-and-red flag of Khun Sa's Shan
United Army (now the Mong Tai Army), rather than the red, white
and blue of Thailand.

A description of Hin Taek from that time describes the settlement
as a vest armed camp, spread over several square kilometres: "A
protective perimeter had been constructed from tightly-woven
fences of bamboo stakes, rolls of barbed wire and trenches which
surrounded each fortified hill."

Radio antennae sprouted from the closely-guarded headquarters,
and barracks for the well-armed troops competed for space with
several sports grounds. Hin Taek was part of Thailand in name
only. Under the iron fist of Khun Sa it was a state within a
state, a law unto itself.

All this changed suddenly at the end of January 1982, when a
large force of Thai rangers and Border Patrol Police, acting on
the orders of then Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda, attacked the
SUA fiefdom. After several days of violent fighting Thai forces
used planes and tanks the SUA was pushed out of Thai territory.

More than a thousand Shan guerrillas withdrew across the frontier
into Burma, while Khun Sa was forced to abandon his elegant villa
and swimming pool located a few kilometres to the north of the
main camp. Thailand had taken back Hin Taek, but the village
remained remote and wild, joined tenuously to Chiang Rai province
by a narrow and difficult dirt track.

Over the intervening years, major steps have been taken to im
prove Hin Taek's links with the outside world and to improve the
living standards of the people who live there. The track leading
to the settlement, though still unsurfaced has been graded and
improved, and the village has been given a new, less menacing
official name. Today its official designation is Ban Theuat Tai_
"Village to Honour Thailand". To the locals, however, it's still
Hin Taek, and likely to remain so.

The road to Hin Taek starts at Ban Basang, about two kilometre
north of Mae Chan on route 110 between Chiang rai and Mae Sai. A
narrow, surfaced road Route1130 leads west into the mountains,
destined ultimately for the Yunnanese-Kuomintang village of Doi
Mae Salong (another re-named settlement, Mae Salong is officially
designated Santikhiri, or "Hill of Peace", though scarcely any
body calls it that). Before reaching Mae Salong, the road now
transformed into the easily-remembered Route 1234 divides at a
point known simply as Sam Yaek (three ways).

The surfaced road continues to Mae Salaong, about 13 kilometres
distant. because of its proximity to Mae Salong, Sam Yaek is a
rather c





ommercialised village, populated almost entirely b Akha
hill people. The narrow road to Mae Salong is lined with stalls
selling a wide variety of hilltribe goods, as well as products
orginating in nearby Burma cheroots, colourful sarongs, and
sometimes exotica such as "Padaung Whisky".

To the north of the surfaced road, unnoticed by most lowland Thai
and foreign visitors, a dirt track leads off toward the Burmese
frontier. This is the unsealed track to ban Hin Taek. Until
recently and even now, during the height of the rainy season it
is no route for vehicles lacking four-wheel drive.

Hin Taek is remote perhaps the most remote settlement in Thailand
and must be approached with a spirit of caution, unless the
traveller wishes to spend a night marooned beneath the stars.
S.ASIA NEWSGROUP
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