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The BurmaNet News: August 18, 1998



------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
----------------------------------------------------------

The BurmaNet News: August 18, 1998
Issue #1076

HEADLINES:
===========
AWSJ: SEPARATELY, YANGON ANNOUNCED CORRUPTION
THE NATION: BURMESE JUNTA ISSUES THREAT TO FOREIGN ACTIVISTS
THE NATION: SUKHUMBHAND TO VISIT BURMA
BKK POST: BURMESE EMBASSY SECURITY BEEFED UP
BKK POST: TOLERANT BURMA
BKK POST: WHO'S THE MONKEY
THE ECONOMIST: THE LADY'S NOT FOR TURNING
ANNOUNCEMENT: STUDENTS IN KAREN TOWN ABANDON STUDY DUE TO FORCED LABOUR
ANNOUNCEMENT: " DR $B!% (JWIN NAING*S PRESS CONFERENCE IN TOKYO,JAPAN "
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THE ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL: SEPARATELY, YANGON ANNOUNCED CORRUPTION

17 August, 1998

Separately, Yangon announced corruption charges against three cabinet
members will be taken up by a board of inquiry formed last month.

The three were removed from office during a cabinet reshuffle last
November. Silence following an investigation led analysts to believe it had
derailed.

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THE NATION: BURMESE JUNTA ISSUES THREAT TO FOREIGN ACTIVISTS

18 August, 1998

Agencies

THE Burmese military junta yesterday issued a veiled threat of violence
yesterday against any foreigners intent on repeating the pro-democracy
leafleting campaign carried out by 18 activists last week.

"The people of Burma want to live in peace and are angry with the 18
foreigners," wrote Maung Pyi Tha, a pseudonym for a government official, in
a commentary in yesterday's state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

"The next time any destructionists or saboteurs try to disrupt the country
they will face not only the laws but the people who are ready to prove
their sense of duty," he wrote.

Burmese government officials frequently speak of "annihilating" and
"crushing" the democratic opposition led by 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner
Aung San Suu Kyi.

Meanwhile, diplomats in Rangoon said that the leafleting campaign by
foreign activists against Burma's junta had resulted in no significant
impact in the country and attention remains fixed on Suu Kyi, the National
League for Democracy leader.

Although praised by rights groups when they were deported to Bangkok on
Saturday after six days' detention, the 18 foreign pro-democracy activists
were branded "na?ve" and "irrelevant" by some diplomats, including a number
whose governments firmly oppose the junta.

"They might have won a lot of support overseas but it was all pretty
irrelevant in Burma," said one western diplomat.

The activists were detained on August 9 after they tried to hand out
leaflets in central Rangoon promoting human rights and democracy.

"I don't think anyone kept the leaflets," another western diplomat said,
citing reports by witnesses. "They would've dropped them straight away even
if they were interested in the first place."

The activists were rounded up while handing out pamphlets urging people to
remember the 10th anniversary of a bloody military crackdown on
pro-democracy demonstrators on August 8, 1988.

The detainees included three Thais, six US nationals, three Malaysians,
three Indonesians, two Filipinos and one Australian.

Although the protest drew international media attention, Suu Kyi ignored
the activists.

The Nobel peace laureate launched her own demonstration on Wednesday,
making her fourth failed attempt to visit supporters in the provinces in
little more than a week.

Meanwhile, Philippines Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said threats of
Western trade sanctions against Burma will not work to resolve the conflict
in Rangoon.

Siazon said getting involved at the moment would only be senseless
"political posturing" that would heighten the tension in Burma, where Suu
Kyi yesterday began the sixth day of a roadside stand-off with the
country's junta.

He said "economic sanctions do not work" and the best way to deal with
Burma was through negotiations with its government through Asean, citing
the release of 18 activists last week as an example.

"Someone has to deal with them, talking with them all the time," Siazon
said. "The non-Asean countries are not inside the same house so they have
to shout to be heard. Asean countries are inside and we just have to
whisper [to each other] and we know our problems."

He said Washington's sending of a special envoy to lobby for the release of
the foreign activists never would have worked if Asean members had not
intervened.

Asean members "have a better ability to engage [Burma] and to have very
good talks and make constructive suggestions", he said.

"If Burma had not been a member of Asean today, you would still have 18
people serving five years of hard labour there, I guarantee you that,"
Siazon said.

Siazon advised western countries to be patient while Asean members were
undergoing reforms.

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THE NATION: SUKHUMBHAND TO VISIT BURMA

18 August, 1998

DEPUTY Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra will visit Burma to mark the
50th anniversary of Thai-Burmese diplomatic relations on Aug 24.

Informed sources said minister is scheduled to meet Burmese officials
during his three-day official visit starting on Aug 23.

He will be the first foreign government official to visit Burma after the
ruling military junta suspended the five-year sentence the 18 foreign
activists including three Thais had been given for handing out
pro-democracy leaflets in Rangoon last week.

His visit will come just as tension builds up as the country approaches the
Friday deadline opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had set for convening
the parliament whose members had legitimately won the 1990 general elections.

Even though Sukhumbhand has been a critic of the Burmese junta he stood
against last week's campaign held by the 18 activists.

Sukhumbhand helped craft a Thai proposal for flexible engagement with Burma
which drew a serious debate at Asean ministerial meeting last month and
finally sailed through in a less controversial version of "enhanced
interaction".

Army Commander-in-Chief Gen Chettha Thanajaro meanwhile warned Thai
activists to think before they attempt to enter Burma and campaign for
democracy again.

"It should be evident if such a move is right or appropriate. If they think
it's right, then there is no problem with that," Gen Chettha said.

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BKK POST: BURMESE EMBASSY SECURITY BEEFED UP

18 August, 1998

Security has been stepped up at the Burmese embassy following an on-going
rally by human rights activists, said the deputy foreign affairs minister.

M.R. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said he has asked police to beef up security at
the embassy to prevent any violence against demonstrators who are calling
for political change in Burma.

He said the government must provide security for embassies while
recognising the rights to freedom of speech. M.R. Sukhumbhand brushed aside
the activists' criticisms of Thailand and other Asean members for failing
to take a tougher line with Burma.

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BKK POST: TOLERANT BURMA

18 August, 1998

Letter to the Editor

Burma-bashing really is the flavour of the month at the moment. A group of
people go into an independent country deliberately planning to break the
laws of that country and wonder why, when they are caught, they are punished.

They are lucky they decided to do this in a country with a tolerant
government like Burma. Perhaps next time they can have a go in Afghanistan
and see what happens to them then.

PATRICK TAYLOR

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BKK POST: WHO'S THE MONKEY

18 August, 1998

Letter to the Editor

As an ardent supporter of the Burmese junta, Singapore's Strait Times has
reprinted an article from the New Light of Myanmar referring to Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi as a trained monkey with a long tail that has to do according
to the owner's wishes.

Now 18 foreign activists had the guts to go into Burma to commemorate the
10th anniversary of the Burmese revolution and were sentenced to jail for
five years but were released immediately, I am wondering who is the monkey?
And why is this kind of logic not highlighted in the island republic.

Kanbawza Win
Winnipeg, Canada

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THE ECONOMIST: THE LADY'S NOT FOR TURNING

15 August, 1998

BANGKOK

THE DEMOCRACY STRUGGLE IN MYANMAR IS TAKING A WORRYING NEW TURN

THE soldiers who run Myanmar, the calendar must look rather like the map of
a minefield. The potentially explosive tenth anniversary on August 8th of a
bloodily suppressed uprising was sidestepped. But other dates still loom
worryingly large. And it is not safe even on the unmarked squares. The
36-year stand-off between a military regime and a poor, angry but usually
cowed people, is now in one of its dangerous phases.

The latest unmapped event was another sortie from her home in the capital,
Yangon, on August 12th by Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader. As on
July 24th, she set off to visit supporters in the town of Bassein. As
happened last month, soldiers stopped her. Last time Miss Suu Kyi sat it
out in her car for six days, refusing to turn back to Yangon as instructed.
Having failed to starve her into returning, the soldiers finally hijacked
her car. The junta was widely criticised. Now she is in a van, equipped for
another long vigil.

The junta also faces a dilemma over 18 foreign activists -- from Asian
countries as well as America and Australia -- who were detained on August
9th. They had been distributing tiny leaflets with a message of support for
democracy, and a reminder of the August 8th anniversary. "The scheme",
opined the junta's paper, the New Light of Myanmar, "went berserk for the
folly of its ill intent", which was "tantamount to incitement to riot, with
street violence, bloodshed, etc etc." But what to do with the culprits? To
keep them in detention risks even worse relations with their countries
which include such South-East Asian partners as Thailand and Indonesia. To
let them go soon might encourage more to come. As the paper says, "cheap
scapes [sic]" are "available a dime a dozen".

These are hazardous times. On August 18th, examinations begin for students,
whose universities have mostly been shut since a series of protests in
December 1996. The tests will be held in the students' home towns. But the
generals seem nervous even at that coming together. On August 21st, a
deadline set by Miss Suu Kyi for the convening of the elected parliament
expires. Since the election, held in 1990 and easily won by Miss Suu Kyi's
party, has never been honoured, the generals are unlikely to give way.
Thereafter, say exiled students, small protests within Myanmar will be
stepped up, but will disperse quickly to avoid provoking the army.

Some exiles worry less whether the opposition can mobilise people than
whether it can restrain them, despite the pervasive repression of military
rule throughout the country. Hardship is spreading, as the regions'
troubles infect Myanmar's weak economy. Many imports have stopped coming in
this year; border trade with Thailand and China has dried up. Inflation is
running at about 50% a year-and double that for imported products.

But thousands of people died in 1988, and Miss Suu Kyi is calling not for
confrontation but for dialogue. Some people are encouraged by signs of
splits within the army leadership -- over such issues as how to handle Miss
Suu Kyi's outings. But, in the past, the armed forces have always pulled
together when challenged. The army now portrays that challenge as coming
from Miss Suu Kyi, foreigners, and a handful of local "axe-handles"
(so-called because they are made of wood from the tree they smite). But it
is much more than that. As one diplomat in Yangon puts it, the regime is an
"anachronism". It will be "dragged down by its own incompetence, its
stupidity and the hatred of its people." Even he concedes that this could
take some time.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: STUDENTS IN KAREN TOWN ABANDON STUDY DUE TO FORCED LABOUR 

August 17, 1998 from: <Burmese@xxxxxxx>
 
Two-thirds of all high school students in Papun Township, Karen State, have
had to abandon their study this year as a result of being regularly forced
by the Burmese authorities to provide labour for the Army. >>

Dear Activists,

Above treatment clearly show how much athnic minorities have to suffer just
to live a simple life in rural area when the sold out guy like Win Naing
stand up and try to cover up his ass in Japan.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: " DR $B!% (JWIN NAING*S PRESS CONFERENCE IN TOKYO,JAPAN "

Date ......... Aug. 17, 1998
Time ......... 4:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m
Place ........ Myanmar Embassy, Tokyo, JAPAN
***************************************************************************

                         "Bio-Data"

Name: ........................................  Win Naing
Date of Birth:  .........................  25 March, 1959
Education ..................................  Ph.D (Information Science
- 1989)
Granted refugee status on ......... 11 March, 1992
Refugee status serial 
number   .................................... 198
Membership and posts assumed
In various organizations -       
                            (1) Burmese Association in Japan (BAIJ).
                                General Secretary, 1988  to 1989.
(2)   Burmese Association in Japan (BAIJ)
    Chairman, 1989 to 1995.
(3)  Burmese Association in Japan (BAIJ)
                                Executive Committee Member,
                                1995 to 1996.
                            (4)  Resident Representative of the NCGUB,  
   1992 to 1995.
**********************************************************************

        Declaration (A Personal Viewpoint)
                          ( English Translation ) 

                                                      Dated  17 August,
1998

1.   The United Nations Charter in its definition on refugees status in
effect, that should a citizen of a nation be liable to arrest or any
form of oppression by his or her government for professing opposing
religious, racial or political convictions, then, it is the bounden duty
of all member nations
that have ratified the Charter, to give refugee to any person so
persecuted. On the cognizance of this pledge, I, (Win Naing) was granted
refugee status, serial number 198, by the government of Japan on 11
March, 1992.  This was indeed the very first time that Japan had granted
refugee status to an ordinary Myanmar citizen, such as I, along with his
family.  But I would like to publicly announce at this point in time,
that I have completed all official procedures to legally relinquish my
status as a political refugee.  This is also the first time in the
history of Japan for a person already granted refugee status to
voluntarily surrender it.

2.  If two opposing sides continue to confront each other over 
" which is white and which is black or which is right and which is
wrong" then it would be the people who would really suffer.  To bring
about changes and establish a certain level of democracy and democratic
conditions, rapprochement and dialogue are of the utmost necessity.  I
took the opportunity of submitting a motion for rapprochement to both
local and overseas opposition activists at Manerpalaw.  I proposed that
if the present Government would guarantee liberty for Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi and  democratization, then similar assurance would be given for the
allotment of a certain number of seats in parliament for the military. 
I also stated that the present economic policies of the Government
should be maintained and continued.  My statements were reported in the
Japanese Asahi Evening newspaper , issued on 17 November 1994.  My sole
purpose in making these assertions was for the sake of " the material
and spiritual happiness and well being of each and every citizen and for
the future development and progress of Myanmar."

3.  It is my considered view that the present Myanmar government having
made a thorough study and appraisal of the diverse circumstances, has
been assiduously making every effort for the future progress of Myanmar
despite the fact that it has been beset with many difficulties.  " The
fact that it made
all endeavours to gain entry to the ASEAN, which is an international
organization, is in my opinion, proof that there has been a change
within the Government, and that it now has the will to change * * ."  I
also understand and accept the fact that though the Government has been
directing its efforts
towards change, much more needs to be done, and still further
improvements to be made for our Motherland, Myanmar.

4.  With regard to the Myanmar Government which has begun to initiate
change * * * , in fact , the Myanmar Government that is making great
efforts to change, there are two options open.
1)  To deplore and criticize it for failing to make adequate 
    changes.
2)  To take a constructive stand and render assistance as far   
    as possible to do what still needs to be done to bring  
    about further changes.
So far as I am concerned, in accordance with the position I have adopted
as stated in paragraph 2 of this Declaration, * * I have chosen the
second option to take a constructive stand and give every possible
assistance.

5.  There is a saying that the other person is simply a mirror image of
one*s own self, in much the same way that your reflection in the mirror
will smile back only if you smile at it.  So also, if the opposition
factions, in the interest of the future welfare of Myanmar, should
pursue a more flexible
approach (instead of persisting in confrontation with the Government), I
sincerely believe that the Myanmar Government in turn will extend a warm
welcome.  On the basis of this conviction, I, (Win Naing), in the
post-1996 period, requested the opposition groups to act in a more
pliable manner.  I,
(Win Naing), who was once a leader of the opposition, have, on my part,
"taken action to suit my words" and have given concrete proof of my
faith in, and adherence to a flexible policy by relinquishing the
political refugee status I had gained from the Japanese government.  I
have also resolved to continue to
abide by the dictum that " the other person is one*s own mirror image"
and persevere in my appeal to opposition groups to pursue a more
moderate line of action in the future interest of the country and of the
people.  I shall continue to urge them to give up their uncompromising
position, which calls for the government to accede to all their demands.

6.  Some of my old comrades in the Government opposition movement have
often asked me the question - "  We believe that the results of the 1990
general elections should be adhered to and implemented, * * * What Win
Naing is your stand on this matter?  My view is that, * * * if
unyielding attempts to enforce the results of the elections should lead
to adverse effects on the future of the country and the people in the
long term, then we should cease such action.  I believe that top
priority should be given to doing everything possible to fulfill
conditions, necessary for the material and spiritual well being of the
individual citizen and for the progress and advancement of the Myanmar
nation.

7.  The respective Myanmar and Japanese proverbs, " A person can be
moral only on a full stomach " and " No matter how large an army if food
supplies are cut off and the troops are hungry, then it can win no
battles. "  give  lessons on human weakness in practical everyday life. 
I, Win Naing, who is merely an
ordinary man, have a deep respect for  " human rights " and acknowledge
their importance.  But viewed either from the perspective of one man or
from the collective perspective of the country*s more than 45 million
people, to live and to exist, " human rights " is not necessarily the
sole important factor.
To fulfill the food, clothing and shelter needs for each human being, *
* * for each citizen, " the economy ", I believe, is also a matter of
great importance.  On the basis of this belief, I have resolved to do my
level best to help in any way I can to increase " sound and honest
economic investments " for the " future prosperity and progress of
Myanmar and its people."

8. The responsibility for the future progress and well being of a
country lies not in the hands of the Government alone.  It is my firm
conviction that each citizen also has a share of responsibility.  So my
fervent wish at present, is to share in this responsibility in the
spirit of at least " carrying a single brick or even a single grain of
sand " in building up my Motherland, Myanmar, into a prosperous and
developed nation.  I would further like to declare and reaffirm to all
here and now, that I shall, to the best of my ability, resolutely do my
duty for the future welfare of my country.

(Win Naing)
171-23, Akazawa, Ito-shi,
Shizuoka-ken, Japan
Tel.    (+81)-40-850-2738
Fax.    (+81)-557-53-3754 
E-mail  win9@xxxxxxxxx
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