The BurmaNet News: March 23, 1998

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The BurmaNet News: March 23, 1998    
Issue # 964

HEADLINES:    
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ASIAWEEK: TECTONIC SHIFT IN MYANMAR
ASIAWEEK: CALL OF THE KAREN
THE NATION: NEW HOTEL IN RANGOON DESPITE LACK OF TOURISTS
BKK POST: SO WHEN DOES THE NEW BURMA BEGIN?
BKK POST: JUNTA DETAINS LAWYERS, MONKS
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ASIAWEEK: TECTONIC SHIFT IN MYANMAR

March 27, 1998

Now that Myanmar is an ASEAN member, it is coming under pressure to fall
into line with other member-countries' notions of acceptable behaviour _
although ASEAN diplomats insist they do not interfere in each other's
internal affairs. But there is increasing activity, and possibly some
movement, to break Myanmar out of its internal political stalemate. 

Between February and April, five senior ASEAN government officials will have
made the trek to Yangon. Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi last
week accompanied PM Mahathir Mohamad, meeting with members of the ruling
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and later with four top leaders _
including Aung San Sun Kyi _ of the opposition National League for Democracy
(NLD).

There is growing evidence of strong divisions in the NLD, with Suu Kyi
wavering but leaning toward a group that favours some sort of rapprochement
with the SPDC. Last month, she did not deny the possibility of a
power-sharing arrangement with the generals. But exiled student leaders and
other hardline oppositionists (including, some say, the 40 alleged activists
arrested a few weeks ago), are said to be vehemently against cutting any
deal with the junta.

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ASIAWEEK: CALL OF THE KAREN

March 27, 1998

"There have been no complaints so far," said a European medical aid worker
early this month as truckloads of weary, dust-coated Karen refugees arrived
at the sprawling Mae Hla refugee camp in Thailand, near the Myanmar border. 

But privately, many of the 30,000 refugees bemoaned the lack of water, the
overcrowding _ and most of all, the possibility that this was the first step
toward the eventual repatriation of an estimated 100,000 Karen refugees who
fled Myanmar following a crackdown on their minority community in the early
1980s. The plight of. the refugees at Mae Hla worsened last week when
guerrillas of a pro-Yangon Karen faction rained mortar shells on the camp.
There were no reports of casualties.

The Thai army has been rounding up Karen refugees and sending them from
small camps scattered along the border to a handful of large camps. In one
area, authorities decided to send 12,000 refugees from six camps to a center
built for only 1,000 people. Hoping to evade that future, entire families
fled to the most isolated of the six camps. Many others hid in the densely
forested Salween National Park.

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THE NATION: NEW HOTEL IN RANGOON DESPITE LACK OF TOURISTS

March 23, 1998

Agence France-Presse

BURMESE and Thai officials have officially opened a new luxury hotel in
Rangoon, despite the failure of a high profile effort to attract tourists to
the isolated nation, a report said yesterday.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar said former Thai premier Gen Prem
Tinsulanonda opened the 303-room hotel, which was built with 100 per cent
Thai investment and estimated to have cost US$38 million.

Located in downtown Rangoon over looking Kandawgyi Lake, the Nikko Royal
Lake Hotel is the latest addition to the city's top-grade hotels built the
expectation of a rush of tourist arrivals.

Prem, who is now a privy councillor, was accompanied by Army chief Gen
Chettha Thanajaro.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Burmese Hotels and Tourism Minister Maj
Gen Saw Lwin said the military junta had given priority to developing the
tourist industry during the current economic downturn.

Without giving figures, he said investment in the sector was on the
increase. Latest official statistics show about $7 billion to have been
invested in Burma since it opened its economy in 1988.

However, Burmese authorities have been forced to indefinitely extend their
"Visit Myanmar Year 1996" campaign as it failed to draw significant numbers
of foreign visitors despite the country's high hopes.

The capital is littered with nets hotels built to accommodate the expected
influx of visitors, which have so far remained largely empty.

But most construction goes on despite a decline in business which has forced
several big hotels, including the Sedona Hotel and Traders Hotel, to cut
back on staff.

Military authorities recently closed down 135 of the country's estimated 600
tour companies, saying they were engaged in unauthorised activities.

"We are going for quality rather than quantity," a source in Rangoon said,
adding about $34 million had been earned by active companies from the
tourist trade.

According to the source, the firms were shut because they were avoiding
taxes in addition to taking advantage of their status, which entitles them
to international phone lines, taxes, cellular phones and business passports.

Burma expects over 200,000 tourists drying the 1997-1998 season, an increase
of about 10 per cent over last year despite the ongoing economic crisis in
the Southeast Asian region.

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BKK POST: SO WHEN DOES THE NEW BURMA BEGIN?

March 23, 1998

Editorial

Burma has spent the past year trying to get a new image. It has joined the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, changed the name of its regime, and
even attempted to welcome tourists for a year. It has promised democracy and
courted foreign businessmen. The new clothes haven't improved the appearances.

Ever since it seized power in 1988, the Rangoon regime has served as our
region's worst example. By entering power over the dead bodies of hundreds
of Burmese, the military junta had serious work to perform before its image
could be more attractive. Approaching 10 years in power, however, the
leadership remains largely a pariah. 

The recent border violence is only the latest of a long series of stunts by
Rangoon. The junta has raised, trained and employed a group of heavily armed
thugs called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army. It has used this DKBA to
penetrate Thai territory, and to kill and terrorise Thai villagers and Karen
refugees. The unprovoked attacks on the Tak province refugee camps would be
denounced as acts of war under some circumstances, with Thais killed along
with Karen women and children refugees.

Thailand has bent far over backwards to avoid escalating these cross-border
attacks. Diplomatic notes to Rangoon have been rejected out of hand, without
discussion. The Thai army has fired warning shots at DKBA intrusions _ many
of them with blank shells. There has been no suggestion that anti-Burmese
Thai territory.

Last week, Rangoon again resumed work on the controversial concrete dyke on
the Moei River. The river is the Thai-Burma border in the region near Mae
Sot. In recent years, Burma has been trying to erect what is in effect a
concrete shoreline. It would regain a few square metres of eroded border.
And it would spit on a Burma-Thai agreement to discuss the border instead of
taking unilateral action.

Since 1988, the Rangoon junta has devolved into yet another brutal
dictatorship. When free elections produced a democratic parliament, Slorc
simply ignored them. When voting produced a genuine democratic heroine,
Slorc began one of the most vicious campaigns of vilification upon Aung San
Suu Kyi.

Last year, Slorc finally seemed to recognise that the very name of its
regime conjured up visions of evil. Advised by a public relations firm,
Slorc became the State Peace and Development Council. The propaganda last
November indicated the name change could result in actual new policies.
These have failed to materialise.

The regime's new face is to promise democracy. Just two weeks ago, there was
Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt doing it again. The senior junta leader said his regime
has finished half its work towards establishing a multi-party democracy. A
new constitution is on the way. The only problem with this rosy view is that
the constitutional convention is in recess. It has been there since 1996,
when several delegates timorously suggested changes in the draft document.

Last week came news that yet another member of Ms Suu Kyi's democracy group,
Thein Tin, had died in the notorious political wing of Insein Prison. As
usual, the report was accompanied by credible details of torture and
mistreatment. There also have been new details of the killing of Ms Suu
Kyi's godfather and friend, James Leo Nichols, an honorary consul in Rangoon
for several European nations. Leo Nichols, the reports say, was deprived of
sleep and medicine until he died, in 1996. Mr Nichols was in prison because
he owned a fax machine _ not for using it, but for owning it.

Esteem is withheld from Burma because of its support for drug barons and
terrorism by its DKBA goons. The Rangoon regime will no courtesy because of
a name change or vague promises to clean up its act. The former Slorc, needs
to respect its own citizens d neighbours. Then others will respect Burma's
rulers.

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BKK POST: JUNTA DETAINS LAWYERS, MONKS

March 23, 1998

Security crackdown sees hundreds jailed

Agence France-Presse

Burma's military authorities have arrested 50 lawyers as well as Buddhist
monks and student leaders in the latest crackdown on political opposition,
sources in Chiang Mai said yesterday.

The Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS), an exiled Burmese opposition
group, said five monks were among hundreds recently arrested by military
intelligence squads.

"The State Peace and Development Council [SPDC] still continues its attempts
to crack down on the activities of opposition members and pro-democracy
activists in Burma by mass arrests," a DPNS statement said.

Those arrested include members of the All Burma Federation of Students
Union, the chief librarian at Yangon University and a well-known writer, it
said.

Earlier this month the ruling SPDC said it had arrested 40 people on charges
ranging from conspiracy to bomb public buildings to "subversive activities"
such as spreading rumours against it.

Sources in Rangoon said security forces had heightened their presence in the
capital before Armed Forces Day on Friday. 

The statement came as senior officials of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean) decided against Burma attending the forthcoming Asia-Europe
meeting in London.

Asean, with Thailand taking the lead, had earlier pressed for its inclusion
despite European opposition.

But Philippines Foreign Undersecretary Lauro Baja, chairing a meeting of
senior Asean officers outside Manila, said the moratorium on new
participants in the Asem gathering starting on April 2 would be observed,
effectively blocking out Burma.

"There is a moratorium [on new participants] while the question of
membership will be discussed. There was an agreement that [there will be] no
new members of Asem," he said. 

Mr Baja also said they were considering issuing a statement on "the
financial situation" in East Asia at Asem.

The senior officials' meeting, on its second day yesterday, is focused on
preparations for meetings with Asean dialogue partners like China, Japan and
the United States.

European nations have shunned official contacts with Burma, citing its poor
human rights record and were not expected to allow officials from Rangoon to
take part in the Asem meeting.

Since Burma joined Asean last year, however, the regional grouping has
pushed for its inclusion in all meetings involving Asean members.

Meanwhile, Britain reportedly hinted earlier it may allow Rangoon to send
envoys to informal meetings between the EU and Asean.
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