The BurmaNet News: October 14, 1998

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------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------
 "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: October 14, 1998
Issue #1117

HEADLINES:
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NCGUB: CONDEMNATION OF RECENT ARRESTS
REUTERS: MASS RALLY OPPOSING NLD HELD
REUTERS: SUZUKI MOTOR TO MAKE CARS, MOTORBIKES 
XINHUA: CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 
REUTERS: RIGHTS GROUP PREPARES TO SUE CHEVRON
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NCGUB: CONDEMNATION OF RECENT ARRESTS 
9 October, 1998 

Statement of U Bo Hla Tint, NCGUB Minister for American Affairs:

These most recent allegations are almost as bizarre as similar allegations
last year by the regime that the U.S. Government was funding the American
Refugee Committee, the International Rescue Committee, and the American
Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to carry
out terrorism in Burma.

Once the more delusional accusations are stripped away -- such as the
specter of an armed Jesuit invasion from Thailand--three basic charges
remain.  The regime accuses the National League for Democracy of "pursuing
a course...to realize their expressed goal of convening parliament."  In
short, they are accusing elected politicians of engaging in politics.   If
this is a crime, we are all guilty.  They accuse the NCGUB of seeking
international support for the National League for Democracy and the
Parliament elected in 1990.  If this is a crime, we are guilty.  They
accuse those of us in Burma's democracy movement of advocating Political
Defiance, which is based on the non-violent teachings of teachers such as
Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We endorse Political
Defiance because we believe that the solution to Burma's problems must come
through political struggle, not armed struggle-that we must talk with our
opponents, not shoot them.  If this is a crime, we are guilty.

Because the regime has made itself a pariah in international community and
is condemned by the media and people around the world, they accuse us of
orchestrating an international campaign.  In doing this, they both
overstate our role and overlook the reasons they are isolated and reviled.
The regime has made Burma a place where it is a crime to win an election,
where the schools are closed because the generals are afraid of the
nation's children, where the government depends for its revenue on the
heroin trade it fosters, where millions toil in slave labor and where
millions more will die because the regime spends half the nation's
resources on guns and none on medicine.   These are the real crimes in
Burma and it is the generals who are guilty. 

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REUTERS: MASS RALLY OPPOSING NLD HELD IN MYANMAR - MILITARY
11 October, 1998 

BANGKOK, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government said on Sunday
that more than 22,000 people attended a rally in the west of the country at
the weekend against the pro-democracy opposition.

A government statement said the gathering on Saturday in Magway, about 320
km (200 miles) northwest of the capital Yangon, was attended by people "of
various strata of life."

"(They) expressed their genuine desire to oppose the activities of the
National League for Democracy which is detrimental to national security and
national interest," it said.

It was the sixth anti-opposition rally reported by the government since the
NLD leadership announced last month that it would act for a parliament
elected in Myanmar's last general election eight years ago.

Previous rallies have called for the deportation of NLD leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

The military ignored the results of the 1990 election when the NLD won by a
landslide.

It has dismissed the party's demands for a parliament and instead cracked
down hard on opposition in recent months. The party says nearly 1,000 of
its members have been detained since May.

On Wednesday the government said 54 people, including 23 NLD members, had
been detained for sparking student unrest and demonstrations in August and
September.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has condemned the detentions as
"outrageous." 

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REUTERS: SUZUKI MOTOR TO MAKE CARS, MOTORBIKES IN MYANMAR 
13 October, 1998 

TOKYO, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Suzuki Motor Corp said on Tuesday it will invest
$10 million in a joint venture in Myanmar to start making cars and
motorcycles in January 1999.

Suzuki will own 70 percent of the venture, to be known as Myanmar Suzuki
Motor Co, while Myanmar Automobile and Diesel Engine Industries, a
government entity, will own the remaining 30 percent.

A Suzuki Motor spokesman played down any concerns about political risks or
international criticism related to the project, despite recent arrests of
pro-democracy activists in Myanmar that drew criticism from the U.S.
government and international human rights organisations.

He noted that Suzuki, which has moved aggressively into emerging markets
with its expertise in making small, inexpensive vehicles, launched plans
for operations in India and Hungary when those countries were still under
socialistic regimes.

"There may be some who would make political statements about our engaging
in local production, but our projects are strictly on a private-sector
basis, and are necessary for people's livelihoods and economic activity in
those countries," he said.

Suzuki and the Myanmar government were scheduled to sign a contract later
on Tuesday.

The company plans to initially produce several hundred motorcycles and
automobiles per year, although this will eventually be increased to 25,000
motorcycles and 3,000 cars. The automobiles will be assembled from parts
imported from Japan and Southeast Asia, a Suzuki spokesman said.

Several other Japanese companies, including trade house Mitsubishi Corp and
electronics manufacturer Fujitsu Ltd, earlier this year announced plans for
plants or projects in Myanmar.

In March, Japan ended a 10-year moratorium on soft government loans to that
country by extending a credit to the military-led regime for a new airport.

In contrast to Japan's policy of engagement, the United States has
maintained sanctions against Myanmar's military regime since May 1997,
including a ban on new U.S. investments in that country.

The United States has been seeking to step up pressure on Myanmar's
military regime since the recent detention of hundreds of members of the
opposition National League for Democracy. 

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XINHUA: CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 
12 October, 1998 

YANGON (Oct. 12) XINHUA - The Union of Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (UMCCI), a major trade organization of its kind in the country,
has signed 12 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with its counterparts
from nine countries since May 1989, seeking economic cooperation with them.

According to the recent issue of the Myanmar Business News published by
UMCCI, these foreign chambers of commerce include four from Japan, two from
Bangladesh and one each from Germany, Israel, South Korea, Nepal, Singapore
and Thailand.

There are 35 different chambers of commerce in Myanmar now. Private
enterprises operating in Myanmar numbered 25,151 at the end of June this
year, of which exporters and importers were 9,250, business representatives
2,092, partnership firms 1,218, Myanmar companies 11,214, foreign companies
and branches 1,219, Myanmar-foreign joint ventures 123 and chambers of
commerce 35.

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REUTERS: RIGHTS GROUP PREPARES TO SUE CHEVRON OVER NIGERIA DEATHS 
12 October, 1998 by Tony McAuley 

NEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Lawyers for Nigerian human rights activists
are preparing to file a lawsuit in the United States against Chevron Corp.
(CHV.N), alleging that the U.S. oil giant was complicit in the deaths of
two protesters in an incident on an offshore oil platform last May.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm, is reviewing the
case with a view to filing suit on behalf of the families of those killed
and injured in the incident. The CCR won a landmark decision last year when
a California court ruled that another U.S. oil company, Unocal
Corp.(UCL.N), could be sued in a U.S. court for its alleged role in human
rights abuses in Myanmar.

"With the decision against Unocal, and a similar fact pattern in the
Chevron case, it appears that there is a very strong claim against Chevron
for complicity in human rights violations," said Jenny Green, a CCR lawyer
litigating the Unocal case. "There is a very strong interest here" in
bringing the Chevron suit, she added.

Oronto Douglas, a Nigerian lawyer and head of the CHICOCO movement, a
leading environmental pressure group representing various activist groups
in southern Nigeria, said he would support a suit.

"We are thinking seriously of encouraging the families of those killed in
the Chevron incident to sue," Douglas said.

The case stems from an occupation of the Chevron-operated Parabe offshore
oil rig in the Niger Delta in late May by about 100 demonstrators, one of a
growing number of actions in the oil-rich region by groups protesting
pollution by the oil companies and their exploitation of the area's
resources without due benefit to the local population.

Chevron strongly denies that it was complicit in the deaths and injuries of
the protesters. A Chevron spokesman said the company would have no comment
specifically on the lawsuit until it was filed.

But representatives of the protesters and Chevron do agree that the unarmed
protesters occupied the rig on May 25. They also agree that Chevron
negotiated with the protesters but that on May 28, Chevron informed the
authorities and military and armed police were flown in on Chevron
helicopters, with Chevron Nigeria's head of security James Neku on board
one helicopter, to end the occupation; it quickly turned violent and two
protesters -- Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu -- were killed and
several others wounded.

There are three principal areas of contention.

Protesters contend that they were in the middle of negotiations with
Chevron's representative over reparations for environmental damage and jobs
when the company abruptly called in the military and police. They contend
that the military and police opened fire without provocation. The activists
and their supporters also allege that Chevron paid the military and police
the customary "special duty pay" for their activities.

The issue of paying the police directly is perhaps the most contentious
one, though it is widely accepted in Nigeria that foreign companies and
embassies pay "special duty" compensation to military and police for
security service.

In a news magazine programme broadcast on Sept. 30 on Pacifica Radio, a
publicly funded network in the U.S., Chevron Nigeria Ltd.'s spokesman Sola
Omole, when asked if Chevron gave "special duty pay" to the naval officers
who took part in the action, says: "Those guys were working for the
contractor. I guess you have to ask the contractor that."

The contractor providing support services to the rig was French company
ETPM Globe Star Services. ETPM area manager Bill Spencer is heard on the
Pacifica programme phoning his colleague, Habib Fadel, head of security for
ETPM, and asking who arranged for the military and police who shot the
protesters on Parabe.

After the call, Spencer says: "They were not ours. They were paid, they
were supplied, by Chevron."

Michael Libby, spokesman for Chevron at corporate headquarters in San
Francisco, agrees that Omole was speaking for Chevron in the interview, but
says of the Spencer conversation: "Our reading of it is it's ambiguous. The
only people we pay are our own security force. We categorically deny we
paid a dime to any law enforcement representative. As a matter of Chevron
corporate policy, we would not pay any law enforcement agency representative."

Chevron also disagrees that it had any control over the decision to send in
the naval officers and the notorious "mobile police," both with reputations
for brutality. And Chevron disputes the protesters' account that they were
surprised early in the morning on May 28th and that the Navy and police
opened fire and began bayonetting without warning.

Libby of Chevron said: "We negotiated with people on the platform for three
days before we reported to law enforcement agencies. We were concerned
about the safety and health of employees who'd been under this siege for
three days.

"When police arrived...the description of what happened is that protesters
instigated a melee by throwing everything they could get their hands on.
Police fired teargas; in the confusion, protesters grabbed a gun from
police and then the shooting started...It is not our position to blame
anybody on either side," Libby added.

Oronto Douglas said the oil companies have consistently refused to talk
with the local groups to try to resolve the pollution and compensation
disputes peacefully, instead resorting to the military and police to break
up protests, often leading to violence.

"We do not believe in using violence as an option," Douglas said in a
telephone interview. "We are calling on the oil companies themselves not to
use violence against our people as we have seen with Shell in Ogoniland and
Chevron in Ilajeland."

Douglas is in the United States to try to organise pressure against oil
companies to resolve the disputes.

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