The BurmaNet News: April 23, 1998

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The BurmaNet News: April 23, 1998
Issue #990

HEADLINES:
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BKK POST: JUNTA ACCUSED OF NEW HARASSMENT CAMPAIGN
BKK POST: TROOPS RAID DRUG LABS ON CHINA BORDER
THE NATION: COOPERATION IN FISHERIES
MOTHER JONES: LOBBYING CAMPAIGNS AGAINST SANCTIONS
THE NATION (LETTER): GENERALS HIRE PR 
BURMANET: SUBJECT-MATTER RESOURCE LIST 
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BANGKOK POST: JUNTA ACCUSED OF NEW HARASSMENT CAMPAIGN
23 April, 1998

Opposition welcomes EU motion on abuses

The government's jailing of a prominent National League for Democracy (NLD)
leader indicates it is resuming its harassment of the opposition, a senior
opposition leader said yesterday.

The 25-year jail term given to San San, 60, for breaching conditions of an
amnesty granted for an earlier treason charge, signaled a new crackdown may
have begun, NLD deputy secretary general Tin Oo said.

"The sentence signals the resumption of political harassment and a
crackdown on the opposition to deter us from doing our duty," Tin Oo said
in a telephone interview.

Several other NLD members who had been released from detention on condition
that they avoid political activities had also been rearrested and
sentenced, he said, declining to give details.

The NLD is led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and has complained
bitterly in the past that the junta is curbing its political activities and
harassing its members.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) sentenced San San to
the stiff jail term after she was found to have participated in a British
Broadcasting Corp interview, an exiled Burma students group said on Tuesday.

The SPDC denied her sentence was related to the interview and said she had
been jailed for breaching conditions tied to her release in 1992 from a
previous 25-year sentence she was serving for treason.

Tin Oo said San San had not breached those conditions but was forced to
talk with foreign media because the telephone lines of other opposition
leaders were frequently disabled by the SPDC.

"She answered questions from the media because the telephone numbers of
other leaders, like mine, have been put out of order and made
uncontactable," he added.

San San, formerly deputy chairwoman of the NLD's Rangoon division, was
active but carried out her political duties quietly and transparently, Tin
Oo said.

NLD legal experts were trying to appeal her jail sentence, he added.

"I don't know why the punishment is so harsh ... 25 years ... we wonder
about it. But we will do our best through the legal process to get her
relief from her sentence," he added.

Tin Oo also welcomed a European Union motion condemning Burma that was
adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva on t
Tuesday.

The motion expressed concern at human rights abuses by the ruling military
junta, including extrajudicial executions, torture, and repression of
ethnic and religious minorities.

"We welcome the UN statement which is very favourable to us. The statement
was very strong and comes at the right time while the military government
resumes its human rights abuses and starts harassing the opposition," Tin
Oo said.

San San, elected to parliament in the 1990 election swept by the NLD but
never recognised by the military regime, was arrested with seven other NLD
members in connection with trips to suburban party offices in October 1997.

The seven others were sentenced last December to between six and eight
years' imprisonment.

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BANGKOK POST: TROOPS RAID DRUG LABS ON CHINA BORDER
23 April , 1998

Rangoon -- Burmese government troops made large seizures of narcotic drugs
near the Chinese border last month, including 140 kilogrammes of opium and
a kilogramme of heroin, reports said yesterday.

On March 23, in an operation in Hae-Mo-Lone region in Muse township on the
Burma-China border, troops overran a drug refinery and seized those drugs
plus 12 kilogrammes of brown opium dust and 1,140 litres of chemical
precursors and various paraphernalia. 

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THE NATION: COOPERATION IN FISHERIES
23 April, 1998

Rangoon -- The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations sees
the need to strengthen international cooperation and coordination in
fisheries conservation and management in the Asia Pacific region, a meeting
has heard.

The Senior Officers Meeting (SOM) of the 24th FAO Regional Conference, held
in Rangoon on April 20-22, reviewed the current status and increasing
demand for fish and agreed that greater attention should be given to
fisheries management.

It is estimated that the demand of food-fish for direct human consumption
in the region by 2010 would amount to 24 million tons more than the current
level of production. This amount, FAO said, is unlikely to be met from
significant increases in marine fishery production as most coastal
resources in the region are over-exploited or depleted. 

"Urgent action is, therefore, required to promote responsible fisheries in
both nearshore and offshore areas, and development of sustainable
aquaculture should be accelerated," FAO officers said.

About 85 per cent of the world's fisheries are concentrated in Asia and the
Pacific, 52 per cent of world fishery production in 1995. Income fishery
exports from Asia also increased to more than US$19 million in the same year.

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MOTHER JONES: MOTHER JONES EXPOSES LOBBYING CAMPAIGN AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS
SANCTIONS
20 April, 1998

Company Press Release

Documents Indicate State Department Officials Conspired With Corporate
Lobbyists

San Francisco /PRNewswire/ -- Internal memos obtained by Mother Jones
magazine -- and released today on the Web at
www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/mj98/silverstein.html -- expose a
successful lobbying campaign by the nation's largest exporters - including
Boeing, Caterpillar, and the oil industry -- to restrict trade sanctions
against countries with poor human rights records. Insiders with the
campaign's front group, USA*Engage, appear to have actually drafted a bill
currently in Congress that would weaken trade sanctions.

According to one of the memos, the group received advice from two State
Department officials on how to defeat a sanctions bill, the Freedom from
Religious Persecution Act, which enjoyed support from religious groups and
Republican leaders.  State Department officials, according to the memo,
suggested that USA*Engage convince religious leaders to oppose the bill.
USA*Engage then strategized in the memo to approach key leaders, including
the Rev. Billy Graham and a top representative from the Catholic Church --
both of whom later came out against the bill.

USA*Engage's campaign is detailed in a six-step guide in the Mother Jones
article, ``So You Want to Trade With a Dictator,'' by contributing writer
Ken Silverstein. The campaign started in early 1997, when the National
Foreign Trade Council hired Democratic lobbyist Anne Wexler's firm, The
Wexler Group, to push the organization's agenda. By April 1997, Wexler had
launched USA*Engage, whose members include Boeing, Unocal, Mobil, Texaco,
Caterpillar, and other corporations that do business with dictatorial
regimes with records of human rights abuses, such as Nigeria, Burma, and Iran.

Friends on the Hill

The Enhancement of Trade, Security, and Human Rights through Sanctions
Reform Act was sponsored by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and Sen. Richard
Lugar (R-Ind.). In an interview, Wexler conceded that her staff ``worked
closely'' with members of Congress who worked on the legislation, but said
``That bill was written on the Hill.'' But a USA*Engage lobbyist memo
obtained by Mother Jones suggests otherwise. In a September 4, 1997 memo,
the Wexler Group's Erika Moritsugu wrote an IBM lobbyist that he would be
receiving more information as soon as ``we work to finalize the bill
language.'' According to the memo, Wexler's people were also planning ``a
target date for introducing the bill'' and even drafting the ``Dear
Colleague'' letters that lawmakers send out to their peers to build support
for legislation. Hamilton introduced the bill in the House on October 23,
and Lugar followed suit in the Senate in November.

The Campaign Against Wolf-Specter

The Freedom from Religious Persecution Act was introduced last May by Rep.
Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). The bill would place
mild sanctions on nations that persecute religious groups.

A USA*Engage memo obtained by Mother Jones details a meeting between
coalition member Don Deline and two State Department officials - Deputy
Assistant Secretary Bill Ramsay and David Moran, the director of the Office
of Economic Sanctions Policy. According to the memo, the State Department
officials were ``constrained for obvious reasons'' in how active they could
be in opposing the bill but suggested that ``religious leaders and
organizations should take the lead for best results.'' Ultimately, Congress
deferred further consideration of the bill and rewrote it this year,
weakening its provisions. A USA*Engage letter to its members, sent in
February, boasted that `USA*Engage is widely credited for the failure of
[Wolf-Specter] to come to a vote in 1997.''

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THE NATION: GENERALS HIRE PR TO OVERCOME BURMA'S NARCO-STATE IMAGE
23 April, 1998
By Myint Thein
Senior Advisor to the Burmese Resistence, Dallas, Texas

Letter to the Editor

The Washington Post (Feb 24) reported that the former assistant secretary
of state for narcotics control, Ann Wrobleski, was paid an annual retainer
of US$400,000 plus an additional $100,000 for expenses to represent the
Slorc/SPDC generals in Burma.

The public relation services provided by Wrobleski included arranging
visits to Rangoon by American journalists. One of these journalists
reported in the New York Times (April 19) that a western diplomat said
"what this government wants to do is perpetuate itself in power. They know
it has got a bad image. They looked at drugs and found this is one asset
they have. They'd like to use whatever they've done to improve their image
and try to get the sanctions lifted".

It will be impossible to hoodwink the tough and able Secretary of State
Madelaine Albright. The only way the Burmese generals can show that they
are negotiating in good faith is to honour the American extradition request
and let druglord Khun Sa stand trial in the US District Court in New York.
Of course, Khun Sa can disclose damaging information about several of the
generals.

According to junta spokesman Colonel Hla Min, 720 Burmese soldiers were
killed and 2,300 were wounded by Khun Sa's army. Yet Khun Sa is treated
like a visiting Asean head of state in Rangoon and Hla Min even admitted in
February that "the government has even loaned money to Khun Sa".

The Jan 23 issue of Asiaweek was right -- Burma is Asia's first narco-state.

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