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AP Reuter and other news 3-4 July 1



Subject: AP Reuter and other news 3-4 July 1996

Bomb Explodes in Burma Capital: State Media
 
   RANGOON (AP-Dow Jones)--A bomb exploded in the center of the Burmese capital
under a government-erected billboard denouncing pro-democracy activists, state
media said Thursday. 
   A radio and television announcement said the explosion occurred Wednesday
afternoon in a park fronting the U.S. Embassy. No casualties or arrests were
reported. 
   The bomb went off under a billboard with slogans attacking foreign
interference in Burma's internal affairs and 'stooges of foreign elements.' 
   The board had been put up June 9 along with others in Rangoon criticizing a
pro-democracy movement headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. The military-run government
also organized mass rallies to attack her and alleged connections of her
organization with foreigners. 
   The television report showed a 7.5-centimeter hole in a concrete wall caused
by the explosion. No other details were given. 
   Tension between Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the ruling
military has risen over the past two months. 
   While allowing to hold weekly rallies at her Rangoon home, the regime
arrested 262 of her followers in May and has kept up a barrage against her in
the state-controlled media. 
   The current military leaders seized power following a bloody pro-democracy
uprising in 1988. They put Suu Kyi under house arrest that was to last six
years and annulled a landslide victory by Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy in 1990. 
   (END) AP-DOW JONES NEWS 03-07-96
   0217GMT

Thai police raid Golden Triangle heroin refinery
    MAE HONG SON, Thailand, July 4 (Reuter) - Thai authorities
raided a heroin refinery on Thailand's northwestern border with
Burma on Thursday and seized a large quantity of opium, heroin
and drug-making chemicals, police said.
    Some 75 paramilitary border police and narcotics suppression
agents swooped on the refinery hidden in a ravine on the slopes
of Doi Lichi mountain.
    The Thai police clashed with gunmen guarding the drugs
factory who were believed to be remnants of Burma opium king
Khun Sa's guerrilla army, but no-one was wounded in the brief
gun battle. The guards fled across the border into Burma.
    Police seized about 15 kg (33 pounds) of heroin, 50 kg (110
pounds) of opium, 160 litres of acetic anhydride and almost
1,000 lites of other chemicals used in the refining of opium
into heroin.
    The refinery was on the undemarcated border between
Thailand's Mae Hong Son province and an area of eastern Burma's
Shan state which used to be under the control of Burma's
so-called "opium warlord" Khun Sa.
    The area is in the heart of the Golden Triangle opium-
growing region which includes northern Thailand, northeastern
Burma and northwestern Laos.
    Khun Sa surrendered to the Burmese government at the
beginning of the year along with some 10,000 members of his
powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) guerrilla force.
    Thai narcotics suppression agents said remnants from Khun
Sa's MTA were still involved in the drugs business.
    Burma is the world's largest producer of illegal opium and
its refined form heroin, with an annual opium crop of more than
2,000 tonnes, enough to produce more than 200 tonnes of heroin.
 REUTER
0346 040796 GMT


 Eds: Second take expectable at 0900 GMT and third take at 1100 GMT.
Contains items from Australia, Japan, Burma and India 
   
   RANGOON, Burma (AP) _ Nearly dlrs 6 million worth of jade is
available today to local and foreign merchants at a special auction
by the state-owned Myanmar Gems Enterprise, local papers reported
Thursday.
   More than a hundred foreign buyers and 27 local merchants
inspected 750 lots of raw jade stones on Wednesday and will submit
bids Thursday, the state-owned New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
   Bids will be opened on Friday.
   Burma, also known as Myanmar, is rich in deposits of rubies,
sapphires and jade. The Myanmar Gems Enterprise holds an annual
sale of gems, pearls, jewelry and jade, but occasionally hold
interim sales of raw jade stones.
   Most jade comes from mines in the rugged, isolated northern
Kachin State which borders China.
   Merchants from Hong Kong are usually the chief buyers of Burmese
jade.
 ___ 
 Bomb Explodes in Burmese Capital 
   RANGOON, Burma (AP) _ A bomb exploded in the center of the
Burmese capital under a government-erected billboard denouncing
pro-democracy activists, state media said Thursday.
   A radio and television announcement said the explosion occurred
Wednesday afternoon in a park fronting the U.S. Embassy. No
casualties or arrests were reported.
   The bomb went off under a billboard with slogans attacking
foreign interference in Burma's internal affairs and ``stooges of
foreign elements.''
   The board had been put up June 9 along with others in Rangoon
criticizing a pro-democracy movement headed by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The military-run government also organized mass rallies to attack
her and alleged connections between her organization and
foreigners.
   The television report showed a three-inch (7.5-centimeter) hole
in a concrete wall caused by the explosion. No other details were
given.
   Tension between Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and
the ruling military has risen over the past two months.
   While allowing to hold weekly rallies at her Rangoon home, the
regime arrested 262 of her followers in May and has kept up a
barrage against her in the state-controlled media.
   The current military leaders seized power following a bloody
pro-democracy uprising in 1988. They put Suu Kyi under house arrest
that was to last six years and annulled a landslide victory by Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy in 1990.
   
Burmese capital calm after small bomb attack
    By Aung Hla Tun
    RANGOON, July 4 (Reuter) - The Burmese capital was calm on
Thursday with no obvious increase in security the day after a
bomb attack on a propaganda billboard opposite the U.S. embassy
in central Rangoon caused minor damage.
    The military government blamed the Wednesday afternoon
incident, the first bomb attack in Rangoon for seven years, on
"destructionists" intent on speading fear.
    The small device, planted at the base of the billboard,
caused no injuries and failed to topple the sign but damaged the
concrete base of an adjacent fence, state-run media reported.
    "Pessimist destructionists, bent on marring stability and
peace in the country and hindering positive developments caused
an explosion...in a bid to scare the public," the New Light of
Myanmar newspaper reported. "Authorities, in cooperation with
the people, are searching for the culprits."
    The "destructionists" were not identified but the term is
used by the government to describe all opposition including
democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for
Democracy (NLD), as well as ethnic minority guerrillas fighting
for autonomy.
    "It wasn't a loud blast but it was louder than when a car
backfires," said one Rangoon resident, Ko Aye Than, who was
about 150 metres (yards) away when bomb went off.
    "Many passers-by went over to have a look, including me, and
a little while later some police arrived to survey the damage,"
he told Reuters.
    The sign was put up on June 9 and carried slogans in English
saying it was the "peoples' desire" to "oppose those relying on
external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views".
    The billboard, across the street from the U.S. mission, also
said it was the desire of the people to "oppose foreign nations
interfering in the internal affairs of the state" and called on
the people to "crush all internal and external destructive
elements as the common emeny".
    Similar signs have been put up throughout the country though
most of them are in the Burmese language.
    Officials at the U.S. embassy were not available for comment
on Thursday, America's Independence Day holiday.
    There have been no bomb attacks in Rangoon for seven years
although the government blamed Karen guerrillas for a blast on
the railway line between Rangoon and Burma's second city
Mandalay in late May which killed nine people.
    The Karen guerrilla army, which opened peace talks with the
government late last year, denied responsibility for the attack.
    Political tension in Burma increased in May after Suu Kyi
called a meeting of her NLD and more than 250 party members were
arrested in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the gathering.
    Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her
peaceful campaign for democracy, has since then been regularly
attacked as a "stooge of foreigners" and a "destructionist" in
speeches by military officials and in the state-run media.
    The last bomb attacks in the Rangoon area were in July 1989,
a year after troops crushed a pro-democracy uprising, when one
exploded at an oil refinery near Rangoon. Several days later
another went off outside Rangoon City Hall killing one person.
Those attacks were blamed on anti-government dissidents.
 REUTER
0729 040796 GMT


Sanwa Bank opens office in Myanmar+
     TOKYO, July 4 Kyodo - Sanwa Bank opened a representative office
in Yangon on Thursday, becoming the fifth Japanese commercial bank to
set up a business base in Myanmar's capital, bank officials said.
     The office will gather business information in Myanmar, which is
expected to post strong economic development in the future, the
officials said, adding that at present Japan is the biggest importer
of goods from Myanmar.
     With the new office, Sanwa Bank's overseas offices now number 25
worldwide.
==Kyodo
Bomb explodes under Yangon gov't billboard+
     YANGON, July 4 kyodo - A bomb exploded Wednesday afternoon under
a government billboard carrying posters denouncing pro-democracy
activists, causing minor damage but no injuries, government
television and newspapers reported.
     The 20-meter-long billboard with slogans in English calling for
the crushing of ''internal and external destructionists,'' known as a
code for pro-democracy activists and foreign countries which support
them, is located in a park facing the U.S. Embassy.
     The government announcement said ''destructionist elements''
caused a minor explosion under the government billboard at 2 p.m.
Wednesday ''to cause alarm among the people.''
     Television showed the damage at the foot of billboard.  But the
billboard itself was intact.
     The Myanmar junta has been carrying out a campaign of
denunciation in the state-controlled media of pro-democracy leader
Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who defied the junta by holding a congress of her
National League for Democracy (NLD) at the end of May.
     In a bid to prevent the congress, the junta arrested hundreds of
NLD members and later banned Suu Kyi from giving public speeches at
her Yangon home.  She has defied that ban, too.
==Kyodo
Thai police raid Golden Triangle heroin refinery
    MAE HONG SON, Thailand, July 4 (Reuter) - Thai authorities
raided a heroin refinery on Thailand's northwestern border with
Burma on Thursday and seized a large quantity of opium, heroin
and drug-making chemicals, police said.
    Some 75 paramilitary border police and narcotics suppression
agents swooped on the refinery hidden in a ravine on the slopes
of Doi Lichi mountain.
    The Thai police clashed with gunmen guarding the drugs
factory who were believed to be remnants of Burma opium king
Khun Sa's guerrilla army, but no-one was wounded in the brief
gun battle. The guards fled across the border into Burma.
    Police seized about 15 kg (33 pounds) of heroin, 50 kg (110
pounds) of opium, 160 litres of acetic anhydride and almost
1,000 lites of other chemicals used in the refining of opium
into heroin.
    The refinery was on the undemarcated border between
Thailand's Mae Hong Son province and an area of eastern Burma's
Shan state which used to be under the control of Burma's
so-called "opium warlord" Khun Sa.
    The area is in the heart of the Golden Triangle opium-
growing region which includes northern Thailand, northeastern
Burma and northwestern Laos.
    Khun Sa surrendered to the Burmese government at the
beginning of the year along with some 10,000 members of his
powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) guerrilla force.
    Thai narcotics suppression agents said remnants from Khun
Sa's MTA were still involved in the drugs business.
    Burma is the world's largest producer of illegal opium and
its refined form heroin, with an annual opium crop of more than
2,000 tonnes, enough to produce more than 200 tonnes of heroin.
 REUTER