BurmaNet News: January 21, 2000

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--------------- The BurmaNet News ---------------
January 21, 2000
Issue # 1444
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HEADLINES:
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Inside Burma-
 BBC: BURMESE BAN ON POLITICAL WEBSITES
 REUTERS: GENERAL SAYS NO AIDS CATASTROPHE IN MYANMAR
 SHAN: 50,000 FAMILIES NOT 50,000 PEOPLE: INSIDER

International-
 REUTERS: U.N. HITS AT PAKISTAN, MYANMAR MILITARY SPENDING
 TELEGRAAF (Amsterdam): SYDNEY INVOLUNTARILY HOSTING DRUG STATE
 BURMA
 RCI: CANADIAN HELP SOUGHT IN PERSUADING FARMERS TO SWITCH FROM
 OPIUM-GROWING
 BBC: BURMESE REBELS DENY INDIAN ROBBERY


****************
BBC: BURMESE BAN ON POLITICAL WEBSITES
BBC Thursday, 20 January, 2000, 13:40 GMT
Burmese ban on political websites

Burma has strict controls over internet use

By regional analyst James Miles
The Burmese authorities have banned the country's internet users from 
issuing material of a political nature.

Burmese television said the country's only authorised internet 
serviceprovider, Myanmar Post and Telecommunications, had outlawed the 
use of sites
which were - as it put it - detrimental to government policies.

The regulations will come as no surprise in a country that has been 
among the most hostile in Asia towards the internet revolution.

 Government control
 Owning a computer without a licence means years in jail
 Government decides on what is detrimental
 Anti-government material on websites outside Burma

Burma has lagged behind even some of Asia's most authoritarian countries 
such as China and Vietnam in its embrace of the internet. The issuing of 
tough regulations on internet use by the Burmese Government
coincides with snail pace moves by Myanmar Post and Telecommunications 
to extend access to the general public.

At present, government departments and authorised businesses are the 
main users.

A so-called cybercafe opened last year in the capital Rangoon, but its 
computers offered no access to the internet.

Burma is clearly determined that as it bows to the inevitable and allows 
the new technology in, there will be none of the unwanted political 
side-effects that have been conspicuous in neighbouring China for 
example, where dissidents now routinely use the internet to exchange 
information and access
news that is censored by the Chinese media.

Rules

The new regulations ban the posting of any material on the internet 
deemed by the Burmese Government to be harmful, directly or indirectly, 
to its policies or security.

Internet accounts are only to be used by those who have been officially 
granted them: a rule that could jeopardise the development of internet 
cafes.

Internet users are also banned from creating web pages without official 
permission. And no material relating to politics is allowed to be 
posted.

Anti-government activists in Burma, however, smuggle information outside 
the country where it is posted on websites maintained by Burmese exiles.

And the government itself runs a website containing mainly information 
for tourists and businesspeople.
****************
ASIAWEEK: WHY WERE EAGLE'S WINGS CLIPPED? 

Jan. 21, 2000

   Here is some more information on the shutdown of Eagle IT, Myanmar's 
only independent Internet service provider (see INTELLIGENCE, Dec. 
31-Jan. 7). According to a knowledgeable professional source, the 
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) closed Eagle because the 
company would not transfer to the ministry the final domain initials mm, 
denoting Myanmar in Internet addresses. Eagle says it wanted to make the 
transfer but could not due to snafus between its officials and the 
registering body in the U.S. Eagle also told various ASEAN 
telecommunications entities that it had the sole rights to provide 
private e-mail and Internet access in Myanmar -- a claim that apparently 
exacerbated the MPT's pique once it mastered the ins and outs of 
Internet protocol. Right now, only the MPT provides e-mail service -- 
and it is unreliable and over-extended.

****************
REUTERS: GENERAL SAYS NO AIDS CATASTROPHE IN MYANMAR
03:01 a.m. Jan 20, 2000 Eastern
BANGKOK, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Myanmar's powerful intelligence chief says 
Myanmar's fight against AIDS is gaining momentum and the disease is not 
the catastrophe for the country that critics maintain.

Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt told the opening session of the annual
conference of the Myanmar Medical Association only 23,669 HIV infections 
and 3,195 cases of AIDS had been detected in Myanmar between 1988 and 
June 1999.

``Therefore, AIDS is not growing as a catastrophic threat in Myanmar as 
alleged by those who do not want to see the nation progress,'' he said 
in his capacity as chairman of the National Health Committee.

The U.N. Aids programme and the World Health Organisation estimate, 
based on a survey in 1997, that Myanmar has about 450,000 people with 
HIV.

Officials of both organisations said the figures Khin Nyunt gave were 
for those who had actually been tested positive for the virus and the 
disease.

``This is the opinion of the government, not the WHO,'' said a WHO 
official in Yangon when asked about Khin Nyunt's remarks.

U.N. officials have said military-ruled Myanmar has appeared to be in 
``denial'' about the extent of its AIDS problem.

Khin Nyunt said data on AIDS sent by ``destructive elements'' to the 
international community had been totally false and disparaged Myanmar's 
dignity.

He said the military had made progress in the health sector since it 
came to power -- spending 3.09 billion kyats in the year to March 31, 
1999 against 464 million in the year to March 31, 1988.

At the free market exchange rate of about 350 kyats to the dollar,
government health expenditure for last year in the country of 47 million 
totalled just $880,000. At the official rate of six to the dollar it was 
about $51 million.

The kyat traded at five to the dollar officially in 1988 and at about 88 
on the black market.

According to a recent World Bank report health spending in the year to 
March 31, 1999 represented just two percent of government spending, 
against 32 percent for defence.


****************
REUTERS: U.N. HITS AT PAKISTAN, MYANMAR MILITARY SPENDING
09:24 a.m. Jan 20, 2000 Eastern
By David Brunnstrom

BANGKOK, Jan 20 (Reuters) - U.N. officials hit out at Asian states like 
Pakistan and Myanmar on Thursday for boosting military spending at the 
expense of education and other basic social services.

Kul Gautam, the United Nations Children's Fund Asia-Pacific director, 
told a news conference after a regional education conference that global 
military spending had fallen since the end of the Cold War, but spending 
on arms in Asia had risen.

``It's often a question of resources, but it's also a question of
priorities,'' he said. ``If governments so choose they can give a high 
priority to education.

``How come countries with similar GNP per capita have widely varying 
achievements in education? Pakistan has a higher GNP than Vietnam, but 
Vietnam has three times the literacy -- or Myanmar and Vietnam?'' he 
said.

``So it's not a matter that we are too poor but where we put the
priorities,'' he said.

``Some of the countries that are actually reducing expenditure on health 
and education are increasing expenditure on the military. Obviously 
there is enough money but it is not going to the right place.''

While global arms spending had fallen from $1 trillion in 1990 to $700 
billion last year, ``in Asia, military expenditures have gone up from 
$95 billion to $130 billion,'' he said.

At the same time, some Asian countries like Vietnam and Thailand had set 
good examples in reducing military expenditure and prioritising 
education, he said.

A recent World Bank report on military-ruled Myanmar, which kept its 
universities closed for much of the last decade to prevent student 
unrest, spent 32 percent of its budget on the military it its last 
fiscal year, versus 14 percent on education.

DISSIDENTS URGE PRESSURE ON MYANMAR

Myanmar dissident exiles called in a letter to the conference -- one of 
five regional meetings ahead of a global meeting on education in Dakar, 
Senegal, in April -- to pressure Myanmar to fully reopen the 
universities.

Koichiro Matsuura, newly appointed Japanese director-general of the U.N. 
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, said he had not had a 
chance to read it carefully.

But Victor Ordonez, UNESCO's Asia-Pacific director, said the closures 
were ``unacceptable to the world community,'' even though some classes 
had restarted.

``We have expressed explicit concerns about the future of the 
universities in Myanmar,'' he said, adding that Yangon's Education 
Minister Than Aung had been invited to the conference but had not come.

``More and more the government of Myanmar is being made aware about the 
concerns of the international community about the sad state of 
universities there,'' he said.

Kul Gautam said the problem was not confined to university level and 
extended to basic education too.

``Myanmar was quite a star in education in earlier years. Myanmar needs 
to give high priority to education at all levels from primary schools to 
opening up the universities.''

Matsuura said the Bangkok conference resolved that all children 
worldwide must have access to ``good quality'' education and this would 
be a global priority in the next 10-15 years.

He said Asia had achieved greater successes than some other regions in 
meeting the goal of the last global education meeting in Jomtien, 
Thailand, 10 years ago -- ``Education for All.''

``Don't assume the Asia-Pacific as a whole is a miserable failure,'' he 
said.

He said some of the setbacks that had occured could be attributed to 
political instability, economic difficulties, as well as population 
growth which had obscured some progress in terms of statistics.

***********************
SHAN: 50,000 FAMILIES NOT 50,000 PEOPLE: INSIDER
Shan Herald Agency for News
20 January 2000

No: 1 - 19

Forced Relocations of Wa People A reliable source claimed today that the 
projected number of people coming down to the Thai border was 50,000 
families.

The source, who requested anonymity because "I'm making a living there," 
told S.H.A.N. that 50,000 households were projected to be transferred 
from the Wa region to the Monghsat area opposite Chiangmai and Chiangrai 
 provinces of Thailand.

"Calculated at 5 members per household, it will eventually amount to  
250,000 people in Monghsat at the end of the project". He dismissed the 
figure, 50,000 people, as reported by Khin Maung Myint, the Was' liaison 
 officer on 16 January, by saying, "It has already past that figure by 
the end of 1999".

The figure, 90,000, as reported by a Thai paper, was not far-fetched, he 
said. "There are about 40,000 in Wanhung (Banhoong), 30,000 in Site 46 
(halfway between Wanhung and Mongyawn), and 20,000 in Mongyawn already 
now".

He, however, could not say which part of the Wa region the villagers 
came from. There are reportedly 6 townships there, namely, Mongmai, 
Pangwai, Manhpang, Nahparn, Pangyang and Mangseng.

The road from Pangsang, the Was' capital, passes through Mongpawk, 
Mongkhark, Mongngen, Nawngkhio (near the headwaters of Sim River, a 
tributary of the Salween), Mongpiang, Mongkied (near the Sim) and 
Monghsat, he said. He saw about 50 vehicles coming to and fro: 25 
Chinese 6 wheelers, 15 Burmese UD Nissan 6 wheelers and 10 Thai 6-and 10 
wheelers.

"The Chinese trucks could carry about 50 people each, while the Burmese 
and Thai, about 80", he said. "The Thai company that won a contract for 
this venture is from Chiangmai".

He put the ratio of Wa and Chinese new settlers at 7:3, while another 
source at 6:4. "Most of the Was are poor people, while the Chinese look 
well fed and prosperous. Most of them are said to doctors, teachers, 
instructors, technicians and traders".

The Chinese also appeared to be coming to the Thai border voluntarily, 
while many Was complained openly about the compulsory measures taken by 
the Wa leadership, he told S.H.A.N..

"They said they had left their homes and fields behind. They were told 
by their authorities that land and loan for a whole year were 
guaranteed".

He didn't think, however, that everybody was unhappy to be moved here. 
"I think some like Monghsat better, because the soil there is more 
fertile than in most Wa area, according to some of them".

As to the reason for the forced exodus, the Wa officers told the source, 
"We won this area from Khun Sa. And according to the Burmese promise, 
this shall be decreed as a new area under our administration. But we are 
soldiers,and soldiers by themselves, without civilians, cannot establish 
a nation which we are planning to do".

Sao Sengsuk, leading Shan politician, from the Shan Democratic Union and 
the Shan State Organization, commented:
"The Wa region up in the north shall certainly be depopulated, and the 
question is who are the most ready to fill up the vacuum created by this 
forced relocation?"

"I have, on several occasions, counselled the Thai authorities that the 
Was are merely pawns in this so-called War on Drugs, where the big wheel 
is in Beijing and the foreman in Rangoon".

The Wa population, according to Hideku Takano, freelance Japanese 
researcher, is 500,000. 

***********************
TELEGRAAF (Amsterdam): SYDNEY INVOLUNTARILY HOSTING DRUG STATE BURMA
20 January 2000

By Menzo Willems

* translation  from Dutch -

Amsterdam, Thursday - 
The invitation to the Sydney 2000 Oympic games of East Asian Burma, 
number two in the top 25 list of narco-nations, has greatly appalled 
both the host nation Australia and international human rights 
organizations.

Personally invited by IOC boss Antonio Samaranch, to take part this 
summers Olympic Games in Sydney. His friendship with and invitation to 
this dictatorial junta regime, nowadays Myanmar (land of the happy) but 
once called Burma. Means that Australia will receive it's illegal 
'house-dealer' - (providing 86 % of the 'in the land down under' 
circulating heroin) - as an official guest.

Australian parliamentarians have already alerted Michael Knight, the 
Minister responsible for "Syd 2000". But all he could give as an answer 
to their questions was "If Samaranch invites the junta, then I cannot 
prevent that."

For the time, European governments have not protested against 
participation of Burma, after Afghanistan the world's largest producer 
of opium. Where a ruthless military junta rules with iron hand. And 
earns gold and cash over the heads of poppy cultivating farmers from the 
export of hard drugs. The capitals of Europe refer to Brussels when an  
issue is a possible sportsboycott of Rangoon. On which a weapon embargo 
is already in place. But before a policy from this European capital will 
be effective, all EU members must comply with such a boycott.
To the international Human Rights organization MIHRA the invitation of 
Samaranch, who on top of all is campaigning against doping, is so 
heavily condemned by evidence that the IOC boss is an unreliable, 
corrupt figure, is a double standard policy. 

"How can one pursue an anti-doping policy if Burma is admitted to the 
Games", says MIHRA spokesperson Roger Bunn from London. "Such politics 
is merely a farce when the largest producer of hard drugs is not being 
targeted."

MIHRA does not rest it's case. Under the slogan "Burma Out!" Roger Bunn, 
a 57 year old ex-musician that campaigned successful for sports 
sanctions against South Africa in the days of the apartheid, and his 
organization launched a campaign  against the participation of the 
East-Asian country to the 'Millennium Olympics'. The main place of 
protest activities will be Sydney, but there will also be demonstrations 
in the Swiss Lausanne, headquarters of the IOC.

"In Australia there is a lot of support from the unions. They are 
planning demonstrations in the spring against participation of Burma", 
says Bunn.  The activist admits that there are more narco-nations 
participating in the Olympic Games. There is no representing team from 
Afghanistan, exporting country number one, but countries like Columbia 
are participating.  "Unfortunately we can only concentrate on one 
country at the same time", says Bunn, who played bass in the band of 
Marianne Faithfull in the early sixties. "After the Games we will lobby 
the international football organization FIFA to prevent the 
participation of Colombia in the World Championship in 2002.

In the meantime the junta in Rangoon continues to attempt to convince 
the world of the fact that the drugs economy in Burma is being tied 
down.  A number of journalists were proudly taken on a tour recently to 
a mega project in which 50 000 opium farmers in a period of three years 
will be forced to leave their homes at the Chinese border and live to 
grow longan-fruit, some 160 kilometers further in the area close to 
Thailand. The Wa State army, with whom the junta maintains a cease fire, 
will take care of the transportation of the farmers and their families. 
Roger Bunn is most skeptic about this operation. "It's uncontrollably. I 
doubt  whether such policies can be  effective, while by so doing, the 
whole social structure of the country is being damaged. The military 
regime at times burns down some poppy fields. But in the meantime enough 
are left over. The whole Burmese economy floats on drugs. Without opium 
production, the junta could not exist."

***********************
RCI: CANADIAN HELP SOUGHT IN PERSUADING FARMERS TO SWITCH FROM 
OPIUM-GROWING 

Radio Canada International

Montreal, in English 1200 gmt 19 Jan 00 
 
Excerpts from report by Radio Canada International on 19th January 

Burma is calling on Canada for help in providing alternative crops for 
opium farmers. Opium from Burma is one of the main sources of heroin 
around the world and the Burmese government has long been under pressure 
to stamp out opium production. (?Patrick Brown) has details. 

[Brown] ...Tens of thousands of hill farmers have been moved to more 
fertile areas where they can grow crops other than opium. The head of 
Burma's anti-drug programme, Col Kyaw Thein, says this is an opportunity 
for Canada to follow up on last year's promise to explore ways of 
cooperating against drugs... 

Experimental projects under way include a pig farm, a fruit plantation 
and a vineyard. Burma is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to 
develop alternative sources of income for the farmers, saying if they do 
not get it they will have no choice but to go back to opium production. 
Canadian diplomats say talks on cooperation with Burma are still at the 
exploratory stage.
***********************
BBC: BURMESE REBELS DENY INDIAN ROBBERY
Wednesday, 19 January, 2000, 22:29 GMT

A spokesman for a rebel fighting group fighting for independence in 
Burma, the Chin National Front, has said his group was not responsible 
for the theft of more than one million dollars from a bank in the 
north-eastern
Indian state of Mizoram.

Earlier, police said they had arrested three of the seven members of the 
group whom they suspected of the robbery.

The chief minister of Mizoram province also doubted the involvement of 
the Chin National Front, saying the robbery was probably committed by a 
group of ordinary Indians and Burmese who were acting only for monetary 
gain.

The robbery took place at a state bank in Lawntlai in Mizoram.


***End*****************


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