No Subject Given

[GGalanek@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Open Society Institute
>Burma Project
>
>Burma News Update No. 65
>03 September 1998
>
>
>Junta Threatens Suu Kyi Arrest
>A Burmese military spokesman told the British Broadcasting Corporation on
01
>September that the ruling army junta would not rule out jailing
>pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi if she persisted in calling for a
>"People's Parliament" to convene this month. State-controlled media
>denounced the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) plan,
>threatening that the army would not "stay idle if the NLD starts aggressive
>campaigns." The NLD won an overwhelming victory in May 1990 elections never
>honored by the military regime. Daw Suu Kyi returned to Rangoon on 24
August
>after spending nearly two weeks on a roadside outside Rangoon where
military
>authorities had stopped her from traveling to see NLD  members. The NLD
said
>that seven party members who sought to check on Daw Suu Kyi's health have
>been detained by the junta.
>Rangoon, BBC, 01 September; Reuters, 28-31 August
>
>Students Protest; Unrest Forecast
>Renewed unrest was forecast in Rangoon after security forces broke up the
>city's biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly two years on 24 August.
>Hundreds of students took to the streets near Rangoon University, shouting
>anti-junta slogans and handing leaflets to supporters who crowded around
>them. Riot police dispersed the protesters, and troops were deployed around
>sensitive areas in the capital. 
>Bangkok, Agence France Presse, 25 August
>
>Rebel Groups Forge Alliance
>Ethnic Karen rebels announced a loose alliance with another rebel group
>whose peace talks with the military junta have collapsed. The Karen
National
>Union (KNU) said its alliance with the Karenni National Progressive Party
>would allow military cooperation in the groups' "struggle to protect the
>rights of Burma's minority peoples." The KNU added that lines of
>communications with the Burmese army were still open, but no meetings had
>been held. 
>BBC Asia-Pacific Service, London, 27 August
>
>Thais Fear Drugs Avalanche
>Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai has voiced extreme concern at reports
that
>200 million amphetamine pills will be smuggled into Thailand this year. At
a
>Thai Defence Council 
>
>meeting, Prime Minister Leekpai ordered increased interdiction measures.
>According to Thailand's Narcotics Suppression Bureau, large quantities of
>amphetamine were expected to be smuggled into Thailand from Burma. 
>Bangkok Post, 28 August
>
>Forced Labor Abuses Rampant-ILO
>An International Labor Organization Commission of Inquiry on forced labor
in
>Burma reported on 20 August "a saga of untold misery and suffering,
>oppression and exploitation of large sections of the population... by the
>Government, military and other public officers," according to an ILO news
>release. After reviewing over 6,000 pages of documents and hearing 250
>eyewitnesses in Geneva and Southeast Asia, the Commission concluded that
>women, children and elderly persons, as well as persons otherwise unfit for
>work, are among the forced laborers. "Porters, including women, are often
>sent ahead in particularly dangerous situations as in suspected minefields,
>and many are killed or injured this  way," the Commission stated.
>Geneva, ILO News Release, 20 August 
>
>Myanmar Exiles Tell of Torture
>Nine former political prisoners in Burma offer detailed accounts of
physical
>and psychological torture by the country's ruling junta in a book just
>published in Bangkok. Tortured Voices: Personal Accounts of Burma's
>Interrogation Centers, recounts prisoners' mistreatment in the early 1990s,
>since which time human rights groups report that prison conditions are
>unimproved. Kept in dungeon-like cells, prisoners were denied food, water,
>sleep, and toilet use for days on end, and guards inflicted daily beatings,
>electric shock torture, and made rape and death threats.
>Bangkok, Associated Press, 26 August 
>
>Ericsson Hangs Up in Burma
>Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson announced it is ceasing all
>business operations in Burma because of what a company statement said were
>"concerns expressed in the United States, which potentially could damage
the
>company." [Ericsson has been barred from doing business with almost two
>dozen US cities and states, and was subject to a growing consumer boycotts
>in the US and Europe, because of its ties to Burma-Ed.] 
>Stockholm, Business Wire, 01 September
>
>
>     BURMA NEWS UPDATE is a publication of the Burma Project of the Open
>Society Institute.
>400 West 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019 tel: (212) 548-0632
>Website:www.soros.org/burma.html
>