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BurmaNet News: September 20, 2000
- Subject: BurmaNet News: September 20, 2000
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 03:45:00
______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
_________September 20, 2000 Issue # 1624__________
INSIDE BURMA _______
*Reuters: Burmese Suu Kyi vows new trip
*The Manila Times: Modern Art in Myanmar
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*President Bill Clinton: Kennedy Center Speech??The defenders of human
rights need our support in Burma?
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*CP: Canadian companies take advantage of lax Canadian controls, says
watchdog
*Mining Watch Canada: Canadian Mining Companies Profit from Burma's
Misery *Ivanhoe Mines: Statement rebutting Mining Watch report on
environment, drugs?? no evidence that forced labour was used?
OPINION/EDITORIALS _______
*The Age: What's to be done about Serburmia?
The BurmaNet News is viewable online at:
http://theburmanetnews.editthispage.com
__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
Reuters: Burmese Suu Kyi vows new trip
Pro-democracy opposition leader to venture out Thursday
RANGOON, Burma, Sept. 20 (REUTERS) ù Burma pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi will make another attempt to travel outside the capital Rangoon
on Thursday, her National League for Democracy (NLD) party said. THE
MOVE is almost certain to provoke another confrontation with the ruling
military, which stopped the 55-year-old Nobel laureate just outside the
capital when she tried to leave last month and forcibly returned her
home nine days later, sparking a barrage of international criticism.
In a statement, the opposition NLD said Suu Kyi and senior NLD leader U
Tin Oo would venture out of the city Thursday but gave no details of
their intended destination.
ôU Tin Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to upper Burma on Sept. 21 in
order to inquire about the restrictions on the activities of the NLD,
the closing of NLD offices and the removal of NLD signboards,ö the
statement said Wednesday.
Suu Kyi has stepped up her efforts to challenge and embarrass Burmese
military rulers in recent weeks, prompting a backlash from the
government. Suu Kyi and senior NLD members were held in de facto
house arrest for almost two weeks earlier this month after the roadside
protest was ended, with their telephones cut and no diplomatic access
allowed.
CLINTON HAILS SUU KYI
On Tuesday, U.S. President Bill Clinton praised the ôwords and the
brave example of Aung Sung Suu Kyiö and said the world was watching
developments in her country.
ôThose who rule Burma should know ... all of us are watching carefully
what happens,ö Clinton said at the debut of a play by Chilean-born
writer and former political prisoner Ariel Dorfman. Burmese
treatment of the NLD sparked heavy criticism elsewhere, and has thrown a
planned meeting of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
European Union foreign ministers in Laos in December into doubt.
BurmeseÆs military government imposes heavy restrictions on Suu Kyi and
the NLD, which won the countryÆs last general election in 1990 but has
never been allowed to govern. Suu Kyi was under house arrest for
six years until 1995 and many of the partyÆs members of parliament have
been arrested or detained.
Suu Kyi last attempted to leave Rangoon on Aug. 24, accompanied by her
driver and about a dozen NLD members, but the group was stopped just
outside Rangoon by police and then refused to return home, leading to a
nine-day stand-off.
Suu Kyi promised on Sept. 15 to make another journey outside the capital
ôwithin the next 10 days.ö ôWe are nowhere in a satisfactory position
at the moment. We are back to abnormal,ö she told a news conference at
the time.
ôAs I am not legally restricted in any way, we have decided that it is
time for us to make this clear. I shall be traveling outside Rangoon
within the next 10 days. It will be an organized trip and we will do it
openly,ö she added.
BurmeseÆs military government has denounced Suu Kyi as a saboteur and
has said the last roadside protest showed she was dangerous and could
not get along with BurmeseÆs armed forces.
ôIt is very clear that she is a saboteur sent by a Western colonialist
group,ö said a commentary Monday in the official Kyemon and Burma Alin
newspapers, which are regarded as mouthpieces of the regime.
The NLD has further angered the authorities by vowing to draft a new
state constitution to try to hasten the transition to democracy in the
impoverished country.
____________________________________________________
The Manila Times: Modern Art in Myanmar
Sep 19, 2000.
ItÆs incredible how political our perspective can become about a country
if we donÆt get ônormalö kind of information about it in the media.
Take Myanmar (formally Burma). The only thing we hear about it is the
bad treatment the ruling military men of SLORC are giving the democratic
opposition. Burmese democrats had actually won the last elections but
the SLORC rulers prevented them from holding office and keeping them in
jail or under house arrest.
I had been to Burma as a travel writer. And I found that country
lovable. But that was before SLORC times. For many years now, I
havenÆt been giving much thought to Burmese matters other than what you
see in the media about the political situation there. When I see the
word ôMyanmarö I think of how awful the SLORC have been to Aung San Suu
Kyi and nothing else.
Then recently I had to do some research on modern art in the region. I
tried getting some stuff from various websites. A young Burmese in
Malaysia had just built a site. He didnÆt have anything about art and
artists, though. Other sites could give you some material about
shopping and tourist spots. You can get that from Myanmar embassies.
Imagine how happy it made me to get hold of a long pieceùnot on the
Internetùby a Burmese, writing from inside Burma, discussing who in his
opinion the top ten ôcontemporary artistsö in his country are. I canÆt
tell you his name because IÆm not sure he wants to be identified. He
has very sardonic comments about the rulers that will pass an
inattentive censorÆs reading.
ôModern art in Myanmar,ö the author says, ôis mainly found in Rangoon
(Yangon) and Mandalay, the countryÆs two largest cities.
ôMost modern paintings sold are in oil or watercolor. For the most
part, contemporary paintings depict scenes of rural villages and
Buddhist temples and pagodas. These are the most popular among
tourists.ö
It seems that without getting any publicity, some Burmese artists are
painting modern and even abstract works. But only a few of them dare to
experiment.
Some of the famous artists are: ôU Lun Gywe, MPP Ye Myint, Myint Swe,
Sann Myint, Maung Di, Aung Myint, Khin One, U Hla Han, Kyee Myint Saw,
Pe Nyunt Way, Than Hla Han, U Min Kyi, U Khin Shwe, Maung Hlaing, Paw Oo
Thet, Khin Maung Yin, Bo Kyi, Ma Theingi, San Minn, Tin Maung Oo, Mote
Thone, Win Pe, Paw Thame, San Naing, Linn Wunna, Nyein Chan Su, and Soe
Naing.ö
The writer did not arrange the names according to greatness of their
art, fame or seniority. It is a mosaic of the older and the younger
generations of contemporary artists.
The experimenters, among whom are people earlier mentioned, are not
profiting from their labors. ôBut that is a fundamental characteristic
of contemporary art in Burma. The artists know it is not profitable and
entails a lot of sacrifice and risks.ö
That is true of oppressive regimes everywhere, isn?t it? The artist
will go on doing his-or her- lonely craft. Until the knock on the door
comes.
How blessed the artists of the Philippines are. Many of them can sell
their works for great sums, some for millions.
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
President Bill Clinton: Kennedy Center Speech??The defenders of human
rights need our support in Burma?
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
September 19, 2000
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT KENNEDY CENTER "SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER" PERFORMANCE
Eisenhower Theater
Kennedy Center
Washington. D.C.
8:28 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. President Arias, first
let me thank you for your presence here tonight and your remarkable
leadership.
And, Kerry, I want to join this great throng in telling you
how grateful we are that you have undertaken this project with such
passion and commitment. I know that in spite of the fact that half the
seats tonight are filled by your family -- (laughter) -- there are a lot
of people here who feel just as strongly about you as Andrew and Ethel,
and your mother-in-law, Matilda, and Senator Kennedy and the others who
are here. You are an astonishing person, and we thank you for
amplifying the voices of the human rights defenders who have honored us
by their presence here tonight.
These men and women have carried on against unimaginable
obstacles, knowing the truth once spoken can never be completely erased;
that hope once sparked, can never be fully extinguished. They have seen
injustice aided by apathy. In spite of all the nice things you said
about me tonight, a full half dozen of them were prodding me along
tonight before I came out here to do even better, and I like that a lot.
They have carried on knowing that even a single act of courage can be
contagious, and their courage, and that of so many others around the
world, has indeed proved contagious.
More people live in freedom today than at any time in human
history, and in 1999 more people around the world won the right to vote
and choose their leaders than was in even the case in 1989, the year the
Berlin Wall fell. From Bosnia to Croatia to Kosovo, we are no longer
struggling to stop crimes against humanity, but instead, working
steadily to bring perpetrators to justice and to create the conditions
of humane living. From South Africa to Chile, people are confronting
the injustices of the past so that their children will not have to
relive them. And all over the world, people finally are recognizing, as
Hillary said in Beijing, that women's rights are human rights.
(Applause.)
Yet for all the brave work that is captured in this
magnificent book and that will be honored tonight, freedom's struggle is
far from over. And I think it is appropriate tonight that we all ask
ourselves at this magic moment of prosperity and peace for our country,
what are our responsibilities to advance the struggle? How can we use
this global age to serve human rights, not to undermine them?
Globalization is not just about economics. It has given us a
global human rights movement, as well. Whether activists are fighting
for press freedom in Ivory Coast, or the rights of children in America,
they can talk to each other, learn from each other, and know they are
not alone. Indeed, maybe the most important lesson of this evening is
to say to all of them, whom we honor, you are not alone.
Global economic integration can, if done right, make it harder
for governments to control people's lives in the wrong way. Information
technology can be one of the most liberating forces humanity has ever
known.
Twenty years ago it was a great victory if we could smuggle a
handful of mimeograph machines to dissidents in Poland or Russia. When
I went to the Soviet Union 30 years ago, young people would come up to
me on the street and try to figure out if there was some way I could
smuggle a book back in to them. Now, hardly a government on Earth, in
spite of all their best efforts, can stop their much more
technologically wise young people from using the Internet to get
knowledge from halfway around the world.
But for freedom to prevail, we need to do more than open
markets, hook up the world to CNN, and hope dictators are driven out by
.coms. Real change still depends upon real people, on brave men and
women willing to fight for good causes when the chance of success is
low, and the danger of persecution is great -- men and women like those
we honor tonight. Globalization on the whole, I think, will prove to be
a very good thing, but it is not a human rights policy. To advance
freedom and justice, we have to support and defend their champion.
Today, the defenders of human rights need our support in
Serbia, where the democratic opposition is stronger than ever, heading
into critical elections this weekend. Mr. Milosevic has stepped up his
repression. Surely, he is capable of stealing the election. But if he
does, we must make sure, all of us -- not just the Americans, and
certainly not just the American government -- that he loses what
legitimacy he has left in the world, and the forces of change will grow
even stronger. We must keep going until the people of Serbia can live
normal lives and their country can come back home to Europe.
The defenders of human rights need our support in Burma, as
well. Their only weapons are words, reason, and the brave example of
Aung San Suu Kyi. But these are fearful weapons to the ruling regime.
(Applause.) So last week they confined her again, hoping the world
would not hear or speak out. But voices were raised, and her struggle
continues.
Those who rule Burma should know, from this place tonight,
with all these people we honor, all of us will watch carefully what
happens, and you can only regain your place in the world when you regain
the trust of your people and respect their chosen leaders.
In these and so many other places, those who fight for human
rights deserve our support and our absolute conviction that their
efforts will not be in vain. All human rights defenders are told in the
beginning they are naive, they are not making a difference, they are
wasting their time. Some have even been cruelly told they are advancing
some sort of Western cultural notions of freedom that have no place in
their country. They are all laughed at, until one day their causes
triumph and everyone calls them heroes.
The same has been said of almost every human rights policy our
nation has pursued in the past. Kerry talked about East Timor. A few
years ago, how many people would have predicted it could become
independent? A dozen years ago, how many people believed the Baltic
states would be free? But all those people who came out for Captive
Nations Week, year in and year out, and were literally ridiculed in the
'60s and '70s, would be right, and all the hard-headed realists would be
wrong.
The men and women we honor never gave in to repression,
fatigue, to cynicism, or to realism which justifies the unacceptable.
And neither should America. (Applause.)
Hina Jilani, who has worked for women and human rights in
Pakistan, and is with us tonight, said, "I never have a sense of
futility because what we do is worth doing." If you believe that every
person matters, that every person has a story, and a voice that deserves
to be heard, then you must believe that what all human rights defenders
do everywhere, is worth doing.
Let us never develop a sense of futility, for the people we
honor tonight have proved the wisdom of Martin Luther King's timeless
adage, that the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
END 8:40 P.M. EDT
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
Mining Watch Canada: Canadian Mining Companies Profit from Burma's
Misery
September 18, 2000
The largest single mining investment in Burma is a company registered
in the Yukon to take advantage of Canada's generous tax breaks for
foreign exploration and development.
Neither the mining industry itself, the Canadian stock exchanges, nor
the laws governing corporations in Canada, currently provide any
safeguards against the impacts of irresponsible mining on communities
and the environment in conflict-torn countries like Burma, Sudan and
Sierra Leone.
The military coup in Burma took place 12 years ago today, on September
18, 1988. Burma continues to be ruled by an illegal military
dictatorship that continues to prevent Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi's democratically elected NLD from taking office. This new report on
mining in Burma, written by internationally renowned mining expert
Roger Moody, is being simultaneously released in Ottawa and Whitehorse
by Canadian Friends of Burma and MiningWatch Canada.
Entitled Grave Diggers, the report exposes the shocking state of mining
in Burma, where regulations are lax and environmental standards absent.
It is the first systematic investigation into mining in Burma, naming
the companies involved, their relationship with the ruling regime, and
in some cases, the situation of miners, local people and the general
population.
"Grave Diggers makes it clear that Canada is complicit in maintaining
the dictatorship in Burma, through its unjust tax and corporate laws,"
said Joan Kuyek, National Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada.
The report describes the particularly dangerous wastes associated with
open pit mining and heap leach extraction of copper - methods employed
by a subsidiary of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.; incorporated in the Yukon and
registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Ivanhoe's Monywa mines are
the largest single mining investment in Burma.
Reports from people in the area indicate severe environmental damage
and the use of forced labour in building roads to the mine. The
repressive regime in Burma is a 50% owner of the Ivanhoe mines, and
gains considerable income from them.
Canadian and Yukon tax rules support these mining companies in Burma.
In the Yukon, there is no requirement for a corporation to have any
directors resident in Canada.
Ivanhoe is eligible for Federal and Yukon Foreign Exploration and
Development Tax Credits, which enables the company and its subsidiaries
to pool all their expenses. Each year, they can deduct an amount up to
their foreign resource income from this pool, and - if they have little
or no foreign income - they can deduct up to 10% of the pool against
their Canadian income. They are also eligible for the Capital Cost
Allowance and Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance - a provision that can
mean they pay no income tax at all.
The release of the report follows a historic resolution from the
International Labour Organization (ILO) asking its members from
business, government and unions to review all their activities and
relations with Burma in light of the extent and severity of forced
labour there.
CP: Canadian companies take advantage of lax Canadian controls, says
watchdog
OTTAWA (CP) September 18, 2000 -- Canadian companies are taking
advantage of lax federal controls to exploit workers and the environment
in Myanmar, helping prop up a corrupt military regime in the process,
says a mining watchdog.
The group Mining Watch Canada says Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.,
incorporated in the Yukon and registered on the Toronto Stock
Exchange, is raping the environment and using forced labour to build
roads in the country once known as Burma.
Canada imposed limited sanctions on the country in 1997, but not on
investment. Activists urged Canada on Monday -- the 12th anniversary of
Myanmar's military regime -- to sanction investors.
Myanmar's are the "worst set of mining regulations that I have ever seen
from
a social and environmental point of view," said Roger Moody, an
anti-mining
campaigner.
"There is no question that human-rights abuses are now being attached
to the exploitation of mining in Burma," said Moody, who released a
78-page
report on mining in the Southeast Asia country, including a list of more
than a
dozen Canadian companies that have conducted operations there.
"In particular, concern is being raised about the expansion of the
Ivanhoe
(copper) mines."
Myanmar's regime, which owns 50 per cent of Ivanhoe's operations there,
has
identified mining as critical to providing foreign exchange and income,
said
Moody.
Ivanhoe president Dan Koonz called the Mining Watch report a "deliberate
misrepresentation of the facts" by an anti-mining zealot.
"He's far from an independent," Koonz said from Boise, Idaho. "He
basically
has some agenda that's anti-mining, anti-big company."
Koonz denied the most charges but acknowledged that Ivanhoe's Myanmar
operations are a joint venture with the country's mines ministry.
The National League for Democracy won Myanmar's last elections in 1990
by
a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. A repressive military
junta
has remained in power since 1988. "There are 146 different tribes and
ethnic groups that have een at civil war for decades and decades," Koonz
said. "It's complicated.
"The military government, unfortunately, is probably the only form of
government that can deal with such a complex problem."
Moody said people have been forced to work and were driven from their
land to
make way for expansion of Ivanhoe's Monywa mine. Koonz, who says he's
been to Myanmar hundreds of times, denied it.
The mine, he said, was functioning for a decade before Ivanhoe took
over.
"We've paid very good wages. There was never any forced labour."
Foreign Affairs spokesman Francois Lasalle said Ottawa has no
confirmation
of forced labour in Myanmar.
Moody said local water supplies have been contaminated and health
problems
are evident.
Koonz said Ivanhoe is using technology that's environmentally superior
to that
used in 70 per cent of world copper production. Ivanhoe, owned by
Canadian Robert Friedland, was incorporated in the Yukon where laws do
not require directors to be resident in Canada and Ivanhoe can profit
from lax foreign-income controls.
Several Ivanhoe board members are Canadian residents, said Koonz. "I
think the suggestion is that since we incorporated in a place where we
get some advantages, we're bad boys," he said. "But if you look at a
roster of who's incorporated in the Yukon, we will not be alone.
"There are hundreds of companies there." Ottawa has repeatedly
discouraged companies from investing in Myanmar, but the law makes it
difficult to cut off all Canadian investments there, said Lasalle.
"It requires 'a grave breach of international peace and security that
results or is likely to result in a serious international crisis". said
Lasalle.
"Although the situation there is deplorable and tragic, it doesn't meet
that
requirement."
Ivanhoe Mines: Statement rebutting Mining Watch report on environment,
drugs?? no evidence that forced labour was used?
STATEMENT BY DANIEL KUNZ, PRESIDENT OF IVANHOE MINES LTD.
Canadian Friends of Burma and MiningWatch Canada distributed a document
on Monday, September 18, 2000, which purports to be a report on mining
in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The two groups, which commissioned
the report, also issued an executive summary of the report and a news
release as part of their campaign against companies with business
interests in Myanmar.
References to Ivanhoe Mines and its Myanmar copper project within the
three documents contain blatant falsehoods. The documents are
contradictory, bizarre and defamatory. They cite alleged events which,
in truth, never happened. They have the wrong companies in the wrong
places in the wrong deals. Where there are no facts to support their
authors' agendas, the documents resort to suggestion and innuendo in
their determination to disparage companies with legitimate investments
in Myanmar.
The purpose of the documents is to try to influence decision makers in
Canada and to try to hoodwink media. It is political advocacy gone mad.
Addressing Ivanhoe's 50%-owned Monywa Copper Project, the documents make
particularly serious allegations which are untrue and unsupported by any
evidence. One document claims evidence of serious human rights
violations, serious groundwater pollution and deplorable safety
standards at Monywa. This is a double falsehood on all three counts. No
such failures have occurred at, or been caused by, the Ivanhoe project.
And, in fact, the actual report offers not a shred of tangible evidence
to support the outrageous allegations that were made in public in a
calculated attempt to alarm and mislead, and that now have been widely
distributed by media.
Such allegations are a monstrous slur against the hundreds of skilled
men and women who work for Ivanhoe Mines, in Canada and
internationally, and the thousands of public holders of the company's
stock. The false allegations should be condemned by all those whom Mr.
Moody and his sponsors are seeking to influence and they must be
publicly withdrawn by the Canadian Friends of Burma and MiningWatch.
As a principal sponsor of the report, Canadian Friends of Burma rejected
offers by Ivanhoe Mines and Ivanhoe Capital to assist with fact checking
on the contents of the report, prior to its release. Ivanhoe offered
its assistance in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the possibility of
damaging errors being distributed to unsuspecting readers. To our
knowledge, no attempt was ever made by the author, Roger Moody, by
Canadian Friends of Burma or by MiningWatch Canada to check the many
false references in the report.
Mr. Moody, the report's author, has no recognized credentials as an
independent, objective authority on mining and has no first-hand
knowledge of the operation of the Ivanhoe Mines joint venture Monywa
Copper Project in Myanmar. Mr. Moody admits that the purpose of his
report is to provide ammunition for "pro-Burma activists" in a campaign
he wants to incite against mining in Myanmar. Mr. Moody is well known
for his anti-mining views and is a founder of the group, People Against
Rio Tinto Zinc and Subsidiaries.
In a preliminary response to the documents, Ivanhoe Mines specifically
challenges Mr. Moody and his sponsors on the following additional
points:
Mr. Moody indulges in grotesque propagandizing in part by questioning
whether mining companies in Myanmar are providing "a cover for drug
profiteering," then acknowledges only that "hard evidence seems almost
totally lacking." We challenge Mr. Moody to produce evidence, or to
withdraw the insinuation.
The documents falsely claim that environmental standards are "absent" in
Myanmar. In fact, the Ivanhoe Mines joint venture in Myanmar has adopted
an internationally recognized standard of best practice environmental
management and of employee safety and health. Earlier this year, the
Myanmar mine recorded the notable achievement of two million hours
worked by its 540 employees without a disabling injury. The safety
program and measurement techniques employ internationally recognized
procedures. This achievement, in part, gives lie to the Moody report's
false and unsubstantiated claims of "deplorable safety standards" at
the Monywa project. The Monywa project is committed to obtaining
certification to international standard ISO 14001. The mining
operation's performance in meeting its objectives is subject to annual
review by independent experts, whose reports will be made public. The
first such report has just been completed.
The sponsoring groups' news release falsely claims that the Ivanhoe
project has caused severe environmental damage. No such damage has been
caused. Ivanhoe challenges the sponsors to produce proof of their
claim, or to withdraw it. The truth is that the technology employed by
Ivanhoe at Monywa is advanced and environmentally superior to that used
to produce more than 70% of the world's copper. With its long-term
environmental plan in place, Ivanhoe will even improve the existing
conditions at the site which it did not create, but which are the
result of earlier mining and different recovery processes operated at
the site years before Ivanhoe established operations in Myanmar.
While the accompanying documents claim that the Moody report describes
the dangerous wastes and hazards associated with the copper recovery
process at Monywa, the report in fact contains no such descriptions.
The Ivanhoe environmental program is effectively managing all
conditions at the site -- one of many facts which Mr. Moody studiously
avoids reporting.
There is no evidence that forced labour was used in building roads to
the Monywa project or that local people were forced off their land
during Ivanhoe's involvement with the site, as claimed by Mr. Moody and
his sponsors. The Moody report offers no specifics to support such
claims. Ivanhoe Mines does not accept the use of forced labour, and
challenges Mr. Moody and his sponsors to produce proof of these most
serious allegations, or to publicly withdraw them. (A copper mine was
established on the Monywa property about a decade before the Ivanhoe
joint venture was formed in 1996 and built its new copper recovery
infrastructure with a well-paid workforce in 1997 and 1998).
A news release accompanying the Moody report implies that irresponsible
mining is causing harmful impacts on communities and the environment in
Myanmar. Ivanhoe Mines deplores the use of such unsupported smear
hetoric and challenges the author and the sponsors of the Moody report
to produce evidence of "irresponsible mining" by Ivanhoe Mines in
Myanmar, or the withdraw the allegation. The true record shows that the
Ivanhoe copper mine has, directly and indirectly, created jobs for more
than 1,000 Myanmar people and has become a vital economic mainstay of
several towns and villages near the mine.
The Ivanhoe Monywa project has been responsible for: new equipment and
improvements at two area hospitals serving tens of thousands of people;
improvements to community drinking water, sanitation, housing, schools
and local infrastructure;
improved reliability of electricity supply to more than 500,000 people;
and introduction of an employee pension plan and skills training at all
job levels at the mine. Ivanhoe is committed to being a model of
engineering and development excellence and international corporate
responsibility.
The Moody report falsely claims that Daewoo provided finance for the
first phase of the Monywa Copper Project.
The report falsely claims that Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings is a subsidiary
of Ivanhoe Capital Corp.
The report falsely claims that Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings announced plans
in 1996 to raise money to finance an oil field in Indonesia; Ivanhoe
Myanmar has never had oil interests, anywhere.
The report falsely claims that Ivanhoe Mines shares moved to the Toronto
and Australian stock exchanges in 1999; in fact, trading on those
exchanges began in 1996.
The documents' suggestions that Ivanhoe may be ignoring basic labour
rights, wage rates and health and safety standards are false and
repugnant, and should be withdrawn. The false suggestion that there is
no pending auditing or environmental assessment also should be
withdrawn.
The suggestion in the documents that the Ivanhoe joint venture may be
high-grading, by mining only premium ore, is completely false.
Contrary to the suggestion in the sponsoring groups' news release,
several of the members of the Ivanhoe Mines Board of Directors are in
fact residents of Canada.
The documents state that the regime in Burma is a 50% owner of the
Ivanhoe mines, and "gains considerable income from them."
These are the facts:
1) A joint venture was formed to develop the copper resources at Monywa
between the Mining Enterprise No. 1 (ME-1) and Ivanhoe Mines.
2) ME-1 is a long-standing mining division of the Ministry of Mines and
is responsible for a variety of mining projects in Myanmar.
3) Neither ME-1 nor Ivanhoe Mines has received a single dividend payment
from the joint venture company. While the joint venture company records
accounting "profit" on its books, the joint venture must repay its
project loan before any capital can be returned to ME-1 or Ivanhoe
Mines. This will take years. The report incorrectly claims that the
government of Myanmar is receiving a 4% royalty on copper sales; in
fact the current royalty is just 2%.
An official with Canadian Friends of Burma said on September 18th that
the Moody report on mining in Myanmar being distributed to media that
day was only "in draft form." None of the documents given to media and
the public declare that the material is only in draft form and subject
to future change. If true, the media and the public are being misled by
Mr. Moody and his sponsors through their distribution of unchecked,
incomplete materials which contain blatant and damaging falsehoods and
misrepresentations.
Website: www.ivanhoemines.com
_________________OPINION/EDITORIALS________________
The Age: What's to be done about Serburmia?
By TIMOTHY GARTON ASHa (fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, and of
the Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
The Age,Tuesday 19 September 2000
Basking on the east coast of Australia this August, then watching the
Olympic rings go up on Sydney Harbor Bridge, my reveries were disturbed
by news from two less fortunate countries that I know and have come to
care for.
While I snorkelled over the Great Barrier Reef, Burmese opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi was stopped at the side of a dusty road, under
makeshift cover against the burning sun, in a stand-off with Burma's
military police state. While I walked in the tropical rainforest, the
Serbian opposition at last found a credible common candidate for
president, Vojislav Kostunica, and was fighting bravely to try to unseat
Milosevic in the elections scheduled for next weekend.
After a few bottles of Castlemaine XXXX, the two almost merged into one
distant problem country: Serburmia. And so we come back to the old
question: how should we deal with places like this? What's to be done
about Serburmia?
Burma and Serbia are thousands of kilometres apart and different in so
many ways. Yet the two have cordial relations, recently cemented by an
exchange of visits by their foreign ministers. And the face of
dictatorship, wherever you find it, displays a remarkable family
likeness.
There is, for example, the endless lying in the state-controlled media.
The New Light of Myanmar, the ridiculous Burmese regime newspaper, said
Suu Kyi had been stopped for her own good, because she was in danger
from armed bandits. Transparent balderdash. Serbian state television
said Kostunica was a lackey of the West and had not criticised the NATO
bombing. In fact he criticised it repeatedly, and was at the time
reported on that same Serbian state television doing exactly that.
Here's a rewriting of history that for once merits that overused term
Orwellian.
There is the violence behind the lies. The Burmese opposition leader has
now been taken off by armed police and reportedly padlocked into her
villa compound. One of the more admirable figures of old Yugoslavia, and
a former patron of Milosevic, Ivan Stambolic, was kidnapped while out
jogging. Young activists from the Serbian student movement Otpor
(Resistance) are regularly rounded up and beaten.
Then there is the sheer intractability of countries that cut themselves
off from more civilised neighbors, in a world that still places a high
value on state sovereignty as a foundation stone of international order.
These rogue states are so close. They are so small. And still we can't
change them.
There is the unpredictability that comes with a silenced people who one
day will cry: Enough! Of course we must hope for peaceful change. But
the chances are, in Serbia and in Burma, as in all Serburmias, that
change will finally come only with some violence.
One day, the Burmese regime will overstep the mark in its treatment of
Suu Kyi - a heroine, almost a living deity, to millions of her
compatriots. Or ordinary Burmese will simply rise up in despair at their
worsening material conditions.
In Serbia, no one can imagine that Milosevic will step down peacefully
after an honestly lost election. A disillusioned member of his ruling
Socialist Party is already quoted as saying privately "the government is
ready to steal votes in these elections". And, surreally, 500 Serbian
ballot boxes are waiting to be stuffed under the noses of NATO troops in
the Serb enclaves in Kosovo.
The real question is: what happens then? Will the people finally come on
to the streets in outrage? In both cases, as in all Serburmias, the
answer is unknown - and unknowable.
Finally, there is the fact that such regimes can usually rely on the
disunity of their critics. Often it is their political opponents at home
who are divided, as has been the case for years in Serbia.
Only the leadership of Suu Kyi has largely avoided that danger in Burma.
But, above all, there are the divisions of the free countries that deal
with them. This is understandable, even inevitable, with large, powerful
dictatorships like China, where liberal democracies have major national
interests, not least economic interests, in getting on well with the
rulers. In the case of countries like Serbia and Burma it is much less
understandable. Yes, there are a few oil companies involved in Burma, a
few business contracts in Serbia, but these hardly add up to vital
national interests. Yet still we can't agree.
America and Britain have advocated a hard line, with outspoken criticism
and sanctions directed against both Serbia and Burma. France inclines to
a rather softer line, with a preference for "quiet diplomacy" in both
cases, and a well-reasoned desire to lift sanctions against Serbia.
Australia, an important regional power, is pursuing its own little
policy of "constructive engagement" in Burma, including the rather
absurd project of human rights seminars for middle-level activists of
the military regime.
I'm almost inclined to say that it matters less what we do than that we
do it together. For the last comfort of tyrants lies in the divisions of
the free. This is why the coordination of policy between member states
of the European Union is so important, for all its inevitable tendency
to produce fudge. If we could do the same with the US, Canada and other
free countries (especially in Asia), we would be laughing - and the
tyrants weeping. Of course it would be still better if we all agreed on
a good policy rather than a bad one.
In the event, I think the American-British line is much more right for
Burma than it is for Serbia. The reason goes back ultimately to two of
the common characteristics of all Serburmias: intractability and
unpredictability. The truth is that, if such a regime decides to cut
itself off and cock a snook at the world, then we have relatively little
leverage anyway. Moreover, the impact of what little leverage we have is
highly unpredictable because the whole repressed but deeply unstable
political situation is unpredictable.
So what do you do? "If you don't know what to do," said Mark Twain, "do
the right thing." But what is the right thing in such conditions?
To say "the thing most in accord with our values" is part of the answer,
but not enough. The vital supplementary is that we should be guided by
the people on the ground in the country concerned, who know conditions
there better than we ever can and who are fighting for those values (or
something close to them) at the risk of their lives. Be guided by the
oppositions.
In Burma, the opposition is united behind sanctions and wishes external
pressure on the regime to be stepped up. In Serbia, by contrast, the
opposition is united for the lifting of sanctions, at the right moment
and in the right way. So that's what we should do about Serburmia.
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