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The BurmaNet News: September 2, 199 (r)



Subject: The BurmaNet News: September 2, 1999

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The BurmaNet News: September 2, 1999
Issue #1350

HEADLINES:
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AFP: JUNTA HAS CAUSED FOOD SHORTAGE - RIGHTS GROUP 
AP: US SENATOR MEETS MYANMAR LEADERS 
AP: BRITON ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN MYANMAR 
NATION: KHIN NYUNT "DISTURBED" BY INCURSION 
BKK POST: RANGOON TO LOOK INTO RENEGADE RAID 
BKK POST: TAK FIRMS TO DISCUSS PLAN TO RELOCATE 
BKK POST: BURMESE EXILES STIR UP SUPPORT FOR RALLY 
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AFP: JUNTA HAS CAUSED FOOD SHORTAGE - RIGHTS GROUP 
1 September, 1999 

Burma is suffering from a serious food shortage partly due to the
displacement of millions of rural people on the orders of the military
junta, a rights group here claimed on Wednesday. 

"Food scarcity is a general phenomenon in Burma due to the displacement of
people under the government's militarization measures," said Mr. Sanjeewa
Liyanage, executive officer of the Asian Human Rights Commission. 

Under the scheme, millions of villagers have been driven from their
farmlands and sent to areas where they are forced to grow crops they have
no experience with, Mr. Liyanage said. He said forced labour and crop
procurements for the Army were also causing hardship. 

"The scheme requires farmers to give 80 per cent of their crops for the
military to feed the Army," he said. Full details of the food shortage
situation will be made public in a report to be released next month by the
rights group, based on testimony gathered by a tribunal it held this year,
he said. (AFP)
 
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ASSOCIATED PRESS: US SENATOR MEETS MYANMAR LEADERS
31 August, 1999 

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - U.S. Senator Richard Shelby met with Myanmar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, the first day of a four-day
official visit by the Alabama lawmaker. 

Shelby, a Republican member of the Senate's powerful appropriations
committee, met earlier with a top member of Myanmar's ruling junta, said a
U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

No details were announced about the meeting with Suu Kyi, head of the
National League for Democracy, or the one with Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, the
third-ranking general in the ruling regime. 

The United States has frosty relations with Myanmar because Washington
disapproves of the junta's poor human rights record and failure to hand
over power to a democratically elected government. Suu Kyi's party won a
1990 election, but the military never allowed parliament to convene. 

Sanctions imposed by Washington bar top junta members from being granted
visas to the United States, and Myanmar - also called Burma - has a
tit-for-tat policy. 

Shelby travels Wednesday to Mandalay, the country's second biggest city. He
departs Friday. 

Shelby is on a tour of Southeast Asia. He last visited Myanmar in 1993. 

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ASSOCIATED PRESS: BRITON ACTIVIST ARRESTED IN MYANMAR 
31 August, 1999 

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A young British activist who is opposed to the
military regime in Myanmar was arrested Tuesday for illegally entering the
country. 

Myanmar state television reported that James Mawdsley, who has already been
twice deported for anti-government protests, had been arrested at a market
in the northeastern city of Tachilek. 

Entry requirements at Tachilek, a trading center on the border with
Thailand, are less stringent than other entry points into Myanmar, also
called Burma. 

Mawdsley, 26, who lives in Lancashire, England, and also holds Australian
citizenship, was previously arrested in April 1998 and September 1997. 

He served almost three months of a five-year jail sentence in Yangon's
infamous Insein Prison for his 1998 infraction before being freed and
expelled on humanitarian grounds after appeals from his parents. 

The television report described him as a ``mercenary terrorist'' and said
this time ``severe action'' would be taken against him. 

In previous interviews, Mawdsley has indicated he believes in nonviolent
resistance. 

``It's only through persistence that these sorts of actions are going to
have an effect,'' he told Associated Press Television News earlier this
month. ``I need to keep making the point to (the Myanmar government)
because they continue to torture my brothers, rape my sisters, and while
that goes on I am not going to be intimidated and remain in England.'' 

The military government of Myanmar is condemned by many human rights
organizations and Western governments for its record of human rights abuses. 

Mawdsley also told APTN that he accepted that he would probably end up in a
Myanmar prison. 

``It takes some time to adjust to it - it's absolute hell, inhuman
conditions,'' he said. ``But I'm quite sure I'll get over that ... because
you know you are not bowing down to this intimidation, but you're fighting
for something you believe in.''
 
*****************************************************

THE NATION: KHIN NYUNT "DISTURBED" BY INCURSION
2 September, 1999 

BURMA'S security chief Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt was "disturbed" by a recent
incursion into Thailand by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and
ordered his men to hunt those responsible, a senior Foreign Ministry
official said yesterday.

Khin Nyunt described the Aug 28 incident in Tak's Mae Sot border district
in which a Thai was injured as "undesirable", ministry spokesman Don
Pramudwinai said.

"The message was conveyed in a letter signed by Burma's Foreign Minister
Win Aung to his Thai counterpart, Surin Pitsuwan. The Burmese Ambassador to
Bangkok, Hla Muang, handed over the letter on Tuesday," Don said.

The ministry regarded Khin Nyunt's quick reaction to the incident as a good
indication of restoration of peace along the Thai-Burma border.

"This is the first time that the Burmese general has given a personal and
quick reaction to an incident," Don said.

In the latter to Surin, Win Aung quoted Khin Nyunt as saying that the
incursion was contrary to the spirit of good neighbours and was against
Burma's aspirations and commitment to making the Thai-Burma border
harmonious and friendly. Thai-Burma relations have been affected by
repeated incursions by the DKBA, particularly during the dry season. The
DKBA, which defected from the Karen National Union, has made several
attacks on Thai border camps for displaced Burmese.

An informed source said that it is the first time that Burma had identified
the perpetrators as DKBA soldiers, it usually referred to them as armed
groups over which it had no control.

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THE BANGKOK POST: RANGOON TO LOOK INTO RENEGADE RAID 
2 September, 1999 by Bhanravee Tansubhapol

Burma has ordered an investigation into a weekend attack on a Thai border
village by guerrillas of the pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army,
the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

Surin Pitsuwan, the foreign minister, was yesterday informed of the order
given by Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, first secretary of the ruling State Peace and
Development Council. The information came in a letter from Mr Surin's
Burmese counterpart Win Aung, which was delivered by Burmese Ambassador Hla
Maung.

A Thai shop-owner was wounded in the attack over the weekend by an
estimated 20 guerrillas who crossed the border into Ban Rai Don Chai,
tambon Mae Dao of Mae Sot district.

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

THE BANGKOK POST: TAK FIRMS TO DISCUSS PLAN TO RELOCATE 
1 September, 1999 by Supamart Kasem 

Businessmen eyeing Burma as location

Entrepreneurs from Tak will today meet the Burmese ambassador in Bangkok
for talks on the feasibility of relocating their industrial plants to Burma
in the wake of labor shortage.

Panithi Tangphati, Tak's Chamber of Commerce chairman, said deputy
director-general of the Foreign Trade Department Pitsanu Rianmahasarn will
lead entrepreneurs and industrialists to meet Ambassador U Hla Maung in
Bangkok today to seek information about Rangoon's investment policies.

The move followed last week's seminar on border trade problems in which
many participants agreed to consider a proposal to relocate factories from
Tak to Myawaddy to ensure the availability of raw materials and Burmese labor.

After the seminar, the participants inspected a 10,000-acre plot marked as
Burma's border economic zone in Yi Poo, a village in Myawaddy, about 5km
from the border.

Mr. Pitsanu, who chaired the seminar, said local Burmese officials would
help Thai entrepreneurs with the relocation of factories from Thai border
areas to the now economic zone.

"Should the Burmese policies and conditions prove favorable, Thai
entrepreneurs would be ready to move there. This will enable Thai factories
to find ample raw materials and labor.

Planning to relocate include furniture, jewelry, garment and leather goods
industries," the deputy director-general added.

The industrial factory relocation plan is in line with the Thai-Burmese
industrial co-operation programme along the Mae
Sot-Myawaddy-Moulmein-Rangoon route.

According to Mr. Pitsanu, the Chuan government has a policy to target a 4%
growth in exports and plans to boost exports to regional markets amid the
dwindling orders from erstwhile major export markets like the United
States, Japan and Europe.

In another development, Somphop Thirasarn, secretary-general of
Kanchanaburi's industrial council, said Rangoon had agreed to allow the
private sector to set up job placement companies to find overseas jobs for
Burmese and ethnic Mon.

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

THE BANGKOK POST: BURMESE EXILES STIR UP SUPPORT FOR RALLY
2 September, 1999 

More than 100 exiled outside their embassy yesterday to support calls for a
mass uprising next month against the country's military rulers.

The National Students League vowed to stage a sit-in outside the embassy
until Sept 9, the date of the planned uprising.

The protesters were closely monitored by authorities as they carried
placards and shouted anti-junta slogans in a vocal but peaceful
demonstration. Exiled pro-democracy activist groups in Bangkok have been
calling for a mass uprising against the junta on Sept 9, or 9/9/99, a day
of numerical significance for many Burmese. On Aug 8, 1988, or 8/8/88,
hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down and a junta took
power.

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