Asiaweek: Updated news about Burma

[MSoe9872@xxxxxxx]

 Myanmar    

Week of November 26, 1999
YANGON Change brewing? The junta says it will reconsider allowing World Bank 
officials to visit the country and possibly engage in restructuring talks. 
Burma-watchers also predict imminent personnel changes at top government 
levels accompanied by economic reforms and possibly moves toward introducing 
a new constitution.

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Week of November 19, 1999
BANGKOK CAME UNDER FIRE for forcibly returning tens of thousands of illegal 
workers to Myanmar. The concern came after reports that Myanmar troops 
threatened to shoot the returnees while blocking their passage across the 
border. The cross-border push also resulted in allegations of 15 incidents of 
rape - all charges which Yangon rejects. Critics say the repatriation drive 
couldn't have been launched at a worse time - relations between Bangkok and 
Yangon are at a low ebb in the wake of October's hostage-siege in Myanmar's 
embassy in Bangkok.

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Week of November 12, 1999
INDIAN NEWSPAPERS REPORT THAT Pakistan is interested in building an air base 
at Haka in Myanmar's Chin State. The Asian Age says Pakistani military teams 
are making frequent visits to Yangon. 

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Week of November 5, 1999
YANGON Food shortages caused by misrule and bad agricultural policies are 
common in rice farming areas, according to the Hong Kong-based Asian Human 
Rights Commission. The government dismissed the group's accusations that the 
army resells food stolen from villagers and confiscates rice and livestock as 
"groundless" and "regretful."

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Week of October 29, 1999
BANGKOK Newspapers report growing resentment along the Myanmar-Thai border by 
villagers against exiled Myanmar students and activists following the Oct. 2 
hostage incident at Yangon's embassy in Bangkok. PM Chuan Leekpai reinforced 
the sentiment after a group of students briefly held five UNHCR officials 
captive at a camp along the border on Oct. 18: "If such problems arise in the 
future, Thailand may ask other countries to share the burden of Burmese 
exiles," he warned. Australia, Canada and the U.S. say they will accept 3,000 
of them, but it appears many do not want to leave.

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Week of October 22, 1999
BANGKOK A few days after Thailand threatened to round up exiled Myanmar 
students and send them to a third country, the U.S. offered to help resettle 
some of them. The Thai decision came after five gunmen, claiming to be 
pro-democracy Myanmar students, raided Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok and took 
38 people hostage. The Yangon government accuses the Thais of allowing exiled 
activists in Thai camps to launch campaigns into Myanmar.

YANGON A North Korean delegation attended the World Health Organization 
meeting in Yangon. It is the first group from Pyongyang in nearly two decades 
- since the 1983 terrorist bombing of a Buddhist shrine that killed 18 
visiting South Korean cabinet ministers in an assassination attempt on 
President Chun Doo Hwan.

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Week of October 15, 1999
YANGON Alvaro de Soto , a U.N. assistant secretary-general, will again travel 
to meet with junta leaders this month, his fifth visit. He is trying to 
persuade the government to negotiate with the opposition National League for 
Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi. In exchange, the U.N. has held out the 
promise of financial aid.

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Week of October 8, 1999
YANGON Police blocked roads to the headquarters of the opposition National 
League for Democracy in preparation for the party's 11th anniversary. 

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Week of September 24, 1999
YANGON A visit slated for mid-September by U.N. assistant secretary-general 
Alvaro de Soto, aimed at unblocking Myanmar's political stalemate, was 
indefinitely postponed. The U.N. is considering linking World Bank aid to 
political reform in a bid to encourage the junta to engage in talks with 
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Week of September 17, 1999
YANGON Military police arrested Londoner Rachel Goldwyn, 28, for singing a 
revolutionary song and chanting pro-democracy slogans. News of her arrest 
came only days after that of another British human rights campaigner. James 
Mawdsley, 26, was jailed for 17 years. British embassy officials are still 
waiting to see Goldwyn, who they think is being held at a Yangon police 
station. 

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Week of September 10, 1999
YANGON The military regime arrested six high-school students for distributing 
pamphlets urging the public to join an anti-government uprising on Sept. 9. 
Another 29 students who took part in a revolt against the ruling regime on 
Aug. 12 have been charged under an emergency law and face seven years' jail 
with hard labor.

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Week of September 3, 1999
YANGON During his first trip to Myanmar as Thailand's Foreign Minister, Surin 
Pitsuwan met with military leaders in Yangon and co-chaired the fifth 
Thai-Myanmar Joint Commission meeting with his Burmese counterpart Win Aung. 
Cross-border suppression of narcotics and crime formed the basis of the talks.

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Week of July 2, 1999
YANGON The government accused Britain of leading a campaign to oust it from 
multilateral groups such as the International Labor Organization, which all 
but expelled the regime on June 17. The ILO denounced the military government 
for inflicting on workers what it called "nothing but a contemporary form of 
slavery," including forcing laborers to work on infrastructure projects and 
as porters for the army. Meanwhile, a U.S. court in Massachusetts struck down 
a law that penalized companies for doing business with Myanmar. Such 
legislation interferes with the federal government's right to make foreign 
policy, the court ruled.

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Week of June 11, 1999
YANGON The U.S. embassy will not confirm her appointment, but Priscilla 
Clapp, who was most recently deputy chief of mission in South Africa, will 
become the Americans' highest ranking diplomatic official in Yangon. Clapp 
will serve as chargÈ d'affaires - the U.S. has not had an ambassador there 
since it downgraded relations after the regime refused to honor the 1990 
election results.

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Week of June 4, 1999
BANGKOK Myanmar officials sat silently at the first EU-ASEAN talks since a 
row erupted two years ago over Yangon's human-rights record. Myanmar's 
passive role was the compromise between the two blocs over the country, which 
joined ASEAN in 1997.

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Week of May 21, 1999
YANGON Seven MP-elects of the National League for Democracy have denied 
claims by the party's hierarchy that they were forced by the government to 
recommend opening a dialogue with the regime. NLD leaders around party 
secretary-general Aung San Suu Kyi condemned the group as "lackeys of 
military intelligence." But Tin Tun Maung, one of the MPs calling for talks, 
said they had done nothing wrong: "Our motive was to seek another solution to 
the political impasse and we harbor no guilty conscience in this matter."

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Week of April 16, 1999
MYANMAR'S EMBASSY IN COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, apparently speaking for the Yangon 
government, expressed its sadness on hearing of the death of Michael Aris, 
husband of oppositionist Aung San Suu Kyi. The announcement also expressed a 
willingness to help her to return to England to attend Aris's funeral - which 
Suu Kyi had already rejected for fear she would not be allowed to return to 
her homeland. The next issue is whether her two sons will be allowed to visit 
her.

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Week of April 2, 1999
BANGKOK A compromise giving Myanmar a "passive role" at May's Joint 
Cooperation Committee meeting between ASEAN and the E.U. makes way for the 
first meeting between the two blocs in two years. The agreement allows 
Myanmar to be present at the meeting as an observer along with Laos, which 
also joined ASEAN in 1997, and possibly Cambodia, which is still waiting to 
become an official member.
THE GROUP OF SEVEN countries are considering waiving all their development 
aid loans, worth some $20 billion, to 41 low-income, heavily indebted 
countries - mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Vietnam, Laos and 
Myanmar would be the Asian beneficiaries.

Week of March 19, 1999
CHIANG RAI PM Chuan Leekpai hosted Myanmar's generals Than Shwe and Khin 
Nyunt for a two-day state visit. At the top of the agenda was pressure from 
Chuan for more cooperation in fighting cross-border drug trafficking.


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Week of March 5, 1999
YANGON Interpol went ahead with its three-day conference on the narcotics 
trade despite a boycott by Western critics of the Burmese government. Home 
Affairs Minister Tin Hlaing minced no words when he criticized some of those 
absent:"As two of the largest markets for heroin in the world, the U.S. and 
Britain bear special responsibility to work with the rest of the 
international community in every way possible," he said at the opening 
ceremony.

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Week of February 12, 1999
ON JAN. 31, THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the start of the Karen uprising, General 
Bo Mya, head of the Karen National Union, lashed out at ASEAN for propping up 
the Yangon government. Around 93,000 Karen refugees shelter in a string of 
holding camps along the Thai frontier with Myanmar most of whom are believed 
to be loyal to Bo Mya Mya.''

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Week of January 15, 1999
YANGON Rumors that the military junta would deport oppositionist Aung San Suu 
Kyi before Independence day on Jan. 4 proved unfounded. It is doubtful any 
country would aid the government by taking Suu Kyi, the daughter of 
independence leader Aung San.