The BurmaNet News: August 13, 1999

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 "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: August 13, 1999
Issue #1336

Noted in Passing: "We're ready for ceasefire talks with the Burmese
anytime. But it must be understood that we will never surrender out arms."
- Gen. Bo Mya (see THE NATION: REBELS VOW TO CONTINUE RESISTANCE) 

HEADLINES:
==========
BKK POST: NEW ARRESTS IN BAGO DENIED BY RANGOON 
AWSJ: CAUTIOUS DIPLOMACY MAY HELP BURMA 
THE NATION: MONEY CAN CHANGE A GOVERNMENT 
ASIAWEEK: DIPLOMATIC MUSICAL CHAIRS 
MAINICHI: BURMA'S ANONYMOUS REBELS FIGHT ON 
THE NATION: KAREN REBELS VOW TO CONTINUE RESISTANCE 
*****************************************************

THE BANGKOK POST: NEW ARRESTS IN BAGO DENIED BY RANGOON 
13 August, 1999 

A Burmese opposition group claimed yesterday that there has been a new
round of arrests of anti-government activists in Bago (sic also known as
Pegu), where 19 other activists were reportedly detained last month.

About 40 persons in the Bago area, 65km northeast of the capital Rangoon,
were detained recently, said a news release from the National Council of
the Union of Burma.

The council is a coalition of exile political and ethnic minority groups
opposed to the military government of Burma. A Burmese government spokesman
denied the claim.

The opposition news release said that a large number of small-scale
demonstrations and other protest activities have taken place in the past
few months in Bago. 

*****************************************************

ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL: CAUTIOUS DIPLOMACY MAY HELP BURMA
10 August, 1999 by David Steinberg 

The political stalemate between Burma's military junta and the opposition
has been so prolonged that any foreign initiative to alleviate conditions
seems almost quixotic, some believe even counter-productive. The United
States position has consistently been that no action should be taken until
the military honors the results of the May 1990 election overwhelmingly won
by the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi. The NLD is skeptical of any initiative or accommodation that might
lower foreign or domestic vigilance against the military or provide them
with any added political legitimacy.

In the face of such sentiments, the Australian government has taken a bold
and positive step that should be welcomed as both innovative and
potentially helpful. Between Aug. 1-4, Australian Human Rights Commissioner
Chris Sidoti visited Rangoon and met with a wide range of senior military
officials and the opposition. His discussions focused on the possibility of
setting up an independent institution on human rights in Burma, also known
as Myanmar, similar to those in other Asian countries, and related to the
work of the seven-member Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights
Institutions of which Australia is a member. 

According to Mr. Sidoti, the Burmese minister for home affairs was
interested in pursuing discussions, and the attitude of the government was
positive. The Burmese authorities characterized the visit as "fruitful and
successful," and one that could lead to "better understanding and
cooperation."

The opposition, according to Mr. Sidoti, was less negative than might have
been expected, although they were skeptical about the Burmese government's
motivation and the possibilities for improvement in the deplorable human
rights situation through this action. To the opposition, negotiating with
the military on these issues might simply provide added international
recognition for a regime they regard as illegitimate, and result in no
progress.

No one, including Mr. Sidoti, is expecting immediate change. This
initiative is, as Mr. Sidoti said, "barely dipping the toe in the water."
But the hope is that successive talks will lead not only to the setting up
of a human rights body in Burma, but also the development of curricula for
the training of government officials, the military, and others in human
rights issues, and the exchange of officials on this subject.

In response to the cynics who believe no positive result is possible and
say that any such activity would be used as propaganda by the military
regime, Mr. Sidoti has pointed out that under President Suharto in
Indonesia, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission defied its critics and
played a positive role even under an authoritarian administration.
Observers of Burma recognize that there are currently no independent
institutions of significance in Burma; starting in 1962 the military
effectively eliminated civil society by placing private groups autonomous
of the state under state authority or surveillance. 

So the very existence of a human rights body in Burma, should it be
established, would be progress. If formed, it would likely be ineffective
for some time, but it could begin to chip away at some abuses at first less
threatening to the regime, and then, as we have seen elsewhere, assume a
more, proactive role.

The Australian effort is important because in effect it recognizes that the
attempted isolation of the Burmese regime has failed. Burma's entry into
Asean, strongly opposed by the United States, forces Burma into dialogue --
a dialogue that may be prolonged, but one that may ultimately improve
conditions inside the country. Australia, perhaps because it appears less
threatening to Burma's military rulers, is able to play a positive role.

Foreign observers of Burmese affairs recognize how slow and tedious the
process of change and liberalization in Myanmar is likely to be. Just
bemoaning conditions is not sufficient, however. Despite all the dangers,
of which the Australian government is well aware, this initiative should be
welcomed as a small positive step. 

MR. STEINBERG IS DIRECTOR OF ASIAN STUDIES AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY IN
WASHINGTON, D.C.

*****************************************************
 
THE NATION: MONEY CAN CHANGE A GOVERNMENT 
13 August, 1999 by Win Htein 

With Burma's economy worse than last year, there are signs the
powers-that-be are softening their stance against outside help while
dissidents are looking to a significant '9-9-99'.

With the Burmese junta facing a critical lack of foreign reserves, it
recently allowed a few foreign missions into the country, such as the
four-member EU mission and Australian Chris Sidoti's human rights team. Is
the junta relaxing its iron grip on this very poor country to gain funds
from abroad? 

A few weeks ago Kyaw Kyaw Maung, the chief of Burma's central bank, said in
a report: We have no more foreign reserves for the next two months, and
have proposed [to seek] help from the World Bank and the IMF. Inflation is
over 40 per cent every year. We may face a financial shortage in the near
future." 

In addition, last week a report said that foreign investment in Burma has
fallen from US$ 777.4 million to just $29.5 million this year. The junta
has also announced that Burmese can work abroad as long as they pay US
dollars in tax to officials. It also declared that consumers must pay US
dollars for overseas telephone calls in Rangoon. Is this junta so hungry
for foreign funds?

Although the military leaders allowed foreign delegations to come to
Rangoon, their mouthpiece, Win Aung, is still denying any possibility of
outside intervention. He said angrily: "We are not monkeys. We cannot
change our policies for the supply of money. Even though we are facing
problems, we can solve them our own way. We lived for 26 years under
socialism without any outside aid."

Dr Khin Maung Kyi, a senior Burmese economics professor from Singapore
University, commented in an interview with the Democratic Voice of Burma.
"The country's economic situation is worse than in 1988. There are no
exports, just imports from abroad. For example, last year's exports were
just US$968 million while imports were over US$2,300 million. The country
cannot solve its financial crisis without help from the World Bank or the
IMF." He explained that there are three main areas of concern. The first is
the imbalance between imports and exports. The second is that the generals
are spending far in excess of their income. The third is high inflation
because the junta prints unlimited money.

Over the last decade inflation has run at over 500 per cent. Now one US
dollar is worth 380 kyat, up form 70 kyat in 1988. But the official
exchange rate has not changed, fixed at 6.50 kyat.

The generals have a dream that income from the controversial Yadana gas
project will fix their financial shortage. But the natural gas project is
late in delivering its predicted $400 million per year.

"The country needs a good government which the people support. The SPDC is
just soldiers, it will never be a good government. All over the world we
have seen that soldiers cannot solve financial problems. They must hand
over power to the National League for Democracy, which is the elected
government from 1990. There is just one way to solve this case," said Tin
Maung Win, vice chairman of the National Council for the Union of Burma.

"People face a lack of electricity in Rangoon while the generals declare
they are building a modern country. There are over a million workers and
over 100,000 refugees on Thai soil. Hundreds of millions of amphetamine
pills flow into Thailand from Wa State, backed by the SPDC. Do you call
this a modern country?" he said.

Meanwhile, some residents of Rangoon say that people are collecting food,
as they are worried about possible shortages in a coming 9999 (Sept 9,
1999) uprising. There is also the problem of rising prices, for example, a
kilogram of rice is 220 kyat, up from 190, and a kilogram of cooking oil is
710 kyat, up from 620 kyat, in Rangoon, Mandalay, Sagaing, Pegu and Hinthata.

The latest rumour in Rangoon market is about plastic rice. This fake rice
kills those who eat it after four weeks, and is causing people to fear
more. A source said that some poor people have rioted for rice in the rice
mill in South Dagon and Shwepyitha, Rangoon's poorest quarters.

Last week, the Office of Strategic Studies (OSS), which is run by the MIS,
warned: "If Burma's economy collapses or the country becomes unstable, the
entire region will suffer the consequences." If the military loses power in
the coming 9999 uprising, all Asean countries will be war zones, the
statement added.

A report from Rangoon says that Burmese banknotes with 9999 stamped in
indelible red ink have begun circulating throughout the country in recent
weeks. This seems to have been timed just before the anniversary of the
8888 uprising. Moe Thee Zun, a popular student leader in the 8888 uprising,
claimed, "The whole political situation is ripe. People are just waiting
for a spark. Now the economic condition is that spark for a 9999 uprising." 

However, there is hope amid the latest foreign mission. The United Nation's
deputy secretary, Alvaro De Soto, plans to visit Rangoon this month. He
will try to encourage a meaningful dialogue between the SPDC and the NLD,
with the backing of US$1 billion from the World Bank and the IMF. Now is
the best opportunity for such a move, while the military regime faces a
reserve shortage. If not, there is no way to prevent the coming 9999
uprising. 

*****************************************************

ASIAWEEK: DIPLOMATIC MUSICAL CHAIRS 
13 August, 1999 

[Excerpt]

Call it coincidence or blame the alignment of the planets, but it amounts
to a changing of the guard. Around Asia several new American ambassadors
and consuls are moving into position. There are few surprises - most of the
newcomers are career diplomats. But it will take a while for them to settle
in, so in the short term the Americans might have to scuffle to stay ahead
of the fray. 

[ ... ]

In June, Priscilla Clapp took up the hotseat in Yangon as chargé d'affaires
(Washington pulled its ambassador from the country nine years ago).
Reportedly a personal choice of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
Clapp is quite anti-junta, an attitude that might reduce her effectiveness.
But she is expected to get on well with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi. Last week Clapp's predecessor, Kent Wiedemann, arrived in Phnom Penh
to begin his ambassadorial tour. His nomination had run into trouble in the
U.S. Senate - he was seen as being too soft on Yangon's generals - but
sources say he was rescued by Suu Kyi, who wrote to senators on his behalf. 

[ ... ]

*****************************************************

MAINICHI DAILY NEWS: BURMA'S ANONYMOUS REBELS FIGHT ON 
12 August, 1999 by Michael Hoffman

"The Burmese soldiers came to my village. It was last August. I was five
months pregnant. I couldn't escape. I had my 2-year-old son with me, and I
was suffering horribly from morning sickness. They took me away with
nothing but the clothes on my back. They were rounding up villagers to work
as porters. They tied my hands in front of me. On my back I carried
military hardware, and my son." 

A 32-year-old Karen woman named Muk is talking to photojournalist Shuko
Ogawa, on assignment for Sapio (8/11). 

"The army advanced slowly. We only walked a few hours a day. But even when
we stopped, they made us keep the baggage on our backs so we wouldn't run
away. They gave us nothing to eat. I picked green bananas growing wild by
the side of the road. When my son cried I gave him some." 

It was three days before the party reached their destination, a village
called Wamiklaw. "The Burmese soldiers robbed every village they came to.
They took food, clothing. When they caught me they took the 100 chickens
I'd been raising. They took longyis, they took pots ... ." 

Muk never learned the purpose of the army's march, or was too distracted to
care. They stayed four days. Then began the trek back. Ill and
half-starved, Muk collapsed. They left her. Some local villagers took her
in and nursed her to health. As soon as she was able to walk, she and her
son plodded on toward her home village. They found it a smoldering ruin.
They kept going. 

Muk has an aunt living across the border in Thailand, and she may have been
thinking of going there. Instead she ended up at a Karen refugee camp
called Melaptaw. She found her husband. Her son came down with malaria. The
baby was born, very small and weak, but alive. Muk's breasts give no milk.
Powdered milk is unavailable. She must feed the baby rice gruel. 

Melaptaw is in Burma's Karen State, on the Moei River that marks the border
with Thailand, 500 kilometers east of Rangoon. The first refugees began
straggling in last August, around the time the pregnant Muk was being
marched with weapons, ammunition and her little son on her back. In the
year since, writes Ogawa, the camp's refugee population has swollen to some
5,000 -- Karen villagers, most of them, whose villages have been
incinerated by government troops come to quell rebellion, forage for food,
and recruit forced labor. 

Revolt against the military regime that rules in defiance of a humiliating
1990 electoral defeat is not, Sapio points out, limited to Aung San Suu Kyi
and her National League for Democracy. Suu Kyi may be the most compelling
symbol in the world today of resistance to the illegitimate government, and
she is certainly the sharpest thorn in the junta's side, but the Karen, the
only ethnic group the government has failed to woo into its fold, are as
persistent as she is -- and less committed to nonviolence. 

They battle on, however, under pathetically adverse circumstances. The
separate peace agreements the junta negotiated with other disaffected
ethnic groups gave it more firepower to aim at the Karen. The capture in
1995 of the Karen "capital" of Manerplaw highlighted the odds the rebels
face. Bo Mya, the notorious 71-year-old leader of the Karen National Union
(KNU) guerrilla force, remains triumphantly defiant. That may keep the
fight going, but it seems unlikely to win it. 

How deeply his buoyant optimism penetrates the rank-and-file is hard to
say. It is not in evidence among the people Ogawa talks to for her Sapio
report. Samuu, 23, was, like Muk, impressed as a porter. Unlike Muk, she
says she was raped every night by as many as four soldiers at a time. After
supper, Ogawa hears from a Karen refugee worker who spoke to Samuu, the six
or seven female porters would be dragged at knifepoint to separate places,
where they could hear each other scream. Samuu escaped after 10 days with
some male porters and slipped across the border. At a Karen camp in
Thailand, she was given a medical check which found her three months
pregnant. She soon miscarried. An AIDS test, Ogawa adds, was not
administered. 

The nine refugee camps on the Thai side of the river are supported by
nongovernmental organizations and international aid agencies. Even so, the
subsistence level is bare minimum. The nine Thai camps have a combined
registered population of 86,000 -- compared to 10,000 15 years ago. In
Burma, there are an estimated 300,000 refugees. 

Melaptaw, a two-hour walk from a Burmese Army base, is a refuge of doubtful
security. Still, Ogawa writes, many Karen prefer it, and others like it, to
the safer camps in Thailand. Muk and her husband are among them. Thai camps
are run along lines entirely removed from traditional village routines.
"And here," Muk says, "there are people from our own village." 

There is a degree of independence and self-sufficiency that Ogawa says the
Thai camps don't allow. At Melaptaw, residents gather food in the
mountains, and even clear land for fields. 

"The reason they don't want to go to Thailand," says a Karen refugee
worker, "is that in the Thai camps there is no freedom. You can't go into
the woods, you can't grow crops. There is no work. Some people have
actually slipped back across the border into Burma because they couldn't
get along with the Thai camp superintendents." 

>From Melaptaw, Ogawa proceeds to a nearby KNU base where she sees two
children -- "fighters" -- bent over their automatic rifles, assembling and
disassembling them. It's part of their training. They are brothers, aged 14
and 12. They arrived in January 1998, refugees from a torched Karen
village. Their mother, a widow, was killed in the gunfire that accompanied
the torching. 

The boys work with the single-minded concentration of children -- or of men
with a mission. They attend lessons at the camp school, and dream of
growing up to be soldiers. "The Burmese government soldiers set my village
on fire," says the elder boy. "That's no lie. There are photos. Ask the
commander to show them to you. It's true." 

Sapio is right. Burmese resistance is not just Aung San Suu Kyi. It's also
this 14-year-old child, and thousands of others like him, determined some
day to make somebody pay for their suffering. 

*****************************************************

THE NATION: KAREN REBELS VOW TO CONTINUE RESISTANCE 
13 August, 1999 by Don Pathan 

VALAY KEE, Burma - Ethnic Karen rebels yesterday celebrated their Martyr's
Day 47th anniversary by vowing to fight on in the face of growing
difficulties.

"We honour this day by commemorating our fallen leaders and all those who
have sacrificed their lives in the resistance, in defence of Karen people
and Karen land," said Gen Bo Mya, the fourth leader of the Karen National
Union (KNU).

Speaking to soldiers and local Karen villagers, some of whom came from
refugee camps on the Thai side, the greying, burly general who has led the
union since the 1970s urged his people to "continue to struggle on in order
to free our people from oppression, tyranny, injustice and domination".
Yesterday's event took place on the bank of a small creek that separates
Tak province form Burma's Karen State. Similar events took place at other
National Union camps, most of which are scattered along the rugged
Thai-Burmese border. 

"There are eight to ten million Karens scattered throughout Burma. It is
essential that these people have their own nation, and are not subjected to
the oppressive rule of the ethnic Burmese, Bo Mya said.

Over 100,000 Burmese refugees, mostly Karen, have fled to Thailand over the
years to escape what they say is an ethnic cleansing campaign by the
Burmese junta.

Bo Mya insisted that the morale of his army is still strong despite
setbacks in recent years when splinter groups emerged and a number of the
rebel's top brass defected or laid down their arms. The Burmese junta,
which opened up its once hermit country to foreign investments a decade
ago, has been slowly gaining acceptance in the international community with
its admission in 1997 into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

In the past five years, the Burmese government has launched successive
offensives against the Karen, overrunning its long-time headquarters at
Mannaplaw and other major positions and forcing them into a guerrilla war. 

Though the guerrillas have been doing well for the rebel army, Bo Mya said
he still would like to build a main stronghold. 

"We could have taken Mannaplaw back but the Thai army refused to return our
weapons," he said.

According to a KNU senior officer, Thai troops had seized over 500 assault
rifles from KNU soldiers as they retreated across the border when the
government troops overran the stronghold five years ago. Nevertheless, the
junta is still unable to finish off Bo Mya's battle-hardened men.

A number of ceasefire talks were initiated over the past years but have so
far produced no results.

"We're ready for ceasefire talks with the Burmese anytime. But it must be
understood that we will never surrender out arms," Bo Mya said.

The latest round of ceasefire talks was held last year between the Karen
leaders and the junta, headed by Col Kyaw Thein, a senior official under
the command of the powerful security boss Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, but no real
progress has been achieved, Bo Mya said.

The 72-year-old leader said he has no plans to retire and insisted that the
splinter group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, no longer poses any
problem for the KNU.

Bo Mya dismissed a recent statement from the authorities in Kanchanaburi
province who claimed that the United Wa State Army, one of the world's
largest armed drug trafficking groups form the Golden Triangle, has set up
positions near his area. 

"Narcotics are the work of the devil," Bo Mya said. Yesterday's event
commemorated the death of the KNU's first leader, Saw Ba U Gyi, who was
gunned down by Burmese soldiers.

The KNU came into existence in 1947 and an armed struggle began in 1949.
The group has established military alliances with other armed rebel groups,
including the Shan State Army and the Karenni National People's Party.

*****************************************************