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BurmaNet News: October 24, 2000
- Subject: BurmaNet News: October 24, 2000
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 22:33:00
______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
_________October 24, 2000 Issue # 1647__________
INSIDE BURMA _______
*AFP: ILO mission to Myanmar running "as planned": team leader
*Daily Telegraph: Freed Burma Campaigner Tells of Rats and Beatings
*The Observer: Fugitives tell of Burma's jungle reign of terror
*Burma Courier: Junta Basks in Reflected Glory of Burma's Scholars
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Mizzima: Land mines exploded in Bangladesh-Burma border Land mines
exploded in Bangladesh-Burma border
*The Independent (Bangladesh): Nine more fishermen abducted by Nasaka
*Mizzima: Burmese fishermen to be repatriated in two months, say embassy
representative in Calcutta
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*Xinhua: Myanmar's Fish, Prawn Exports Up in Six Months
*Dow Jones: UN Commodities Fund Aids Asia Pacific Meat Plant Upgrades
OPINION/EDITORIALS _______
*The Times: No charity in Burma under stupid regime
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__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
AFP: ILO mission to Myanmar running "as planned": team leader
YANGON, Oct 24 (AFP) - An International Labor Organisation (ILO) team
visiting Myanmar to assess the junta's efforts to stamp out forced
labour said Tuesday its mission was running "as planned".
The team of experts which arrived last Friday was expected to stay in
the military-run country for a week, depending on the progress they made
during that time.
"The mission is continuing as planned. Discussions are continuing," its
leader Frances Maupain told AFP Tuesday through a spokeswoman for the
organisation in Bangkok.
Myanmar has been in the ILO's sights since 1998 when a commission of
inquiry found that forced labor, which is considered a form of slavery,
was "extremely widespread in the country".
The ILO has given the ruling generals until the end of November to act
on the issue or face an unprecedented review of relations with the
body's member states and organisations which could be extremely damaging
to the regime.
If it is ostracised by the ILO, Myanmar risks attracting further
international sanctions, adding to the load that has already helped
cripple its economy.
The junta has indicated it is taking the threat seriously and has
already said it is "ready to cooperate with the ILO."
Labor Minister General Tin Ngwe promised to carry out the necessary
reforms in a letter written in May after the ILO delegation's first
visit, implicitly acknowledging for the first time that the problem
existed.
A senior spokesman for the regime in Yangon expressed optimism over the
ILO visit on the eve of the mission's arrival last Friday.
"The team is made up of legal and technical experts and they will be
working from that point of view. They are quite aware of the situation
here and are not as critical as the media are saying," he told AFP.
Maupain's team is to submit a report on its mission to the ILO's
governing body which will meet next month to decide whether to invoke
sanctions against Myanmar.
____________________________________________________
Daily Telegraph: Freed Burma Campaigner Tells of Rats and Beatings
by Alex Spillius and Adam Lusher in the Daily Telegraph
Sunday 22 October 2000
LONDON -- The human rights campaigner James Mawdsley returned to England
a free man yesterday and told how he feared going mad during 415 days
solitary confinement in a Burmese prison cell.
After being arrested for distributing pro-democracy leaflets in August
last year, he was watched constantly by guards at Kengtung prison and
allowed out of his cell for only an hour a day. The glare from a
striplight deliberately left on all night by his jailers damaged his
eyes to the point where he was unable to read.
"I wanted to protest against solitary confinement before I went
crackers," said Mr Mawdsley, 27, who served 14 months of a 17-year
sentence. "I wasn't crackers but I knew I would be in a few months.
Prison is hard. Physically you can adapt, but mentally it's a battle."
During the 12-hour flight from Bangkok to London, Mr Mawdsley - who had
lived on a diet of rice and fish paste in jail - was able to enjoy a
traditional English breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato and sausages. On
the flight from Rangoon to Bangkok he had refused a celebratory glass
of champagne, fearing the effect it would have on him.
After his long months in solitary confinement, Mr Mawdsley spent most of
the long flight in conversation with his mother. The campaigner, who had
been denied even a radio while in jail, was able to catch up with
current affairs by watching in-flight BBC World news and sport.
Mr Mawdsley's cell in Kengtung was a converted warder's office 27ft by
23ft, with only bare boards to sleep on. When the devout Roman Catholic
from Ormskirk, Lancashire, was handed over to British officials earlier
in Rangoon, he refused to sign an undertaking to stop criticising the
junta. He has however said he will not risk returning to Burma.
Still wearing his prison flip-flops, the 27-year-old former Bristol
University student said yesterday: "My cell was pretty dirty and had
lots of wildlife - toads, bats and rats."
Successive protests earned him three beatings on consecutive days, the
most brutal being on the third. "They just sent the boys in. They burst
in and before I could say a word they were into me. It doesn't take
long with five guys hitting you with clubs before you go down. After I
fell, two carried on but the others stopped them."
Mr Mawdsley said an atmosphere of terror permeated the prison. Convicts
were frightened to look him in the eye for fear they would be beaten.
His guards were determined there should be a light on him every second
of the day. When power failures blacked out the neon light, they would
connect it to a car battery. Consular staff from the British embassy in
Rangoon supplied an airline mask, but the rats ate it.
He was only allowed to write one letter a month to his family, but none
was ever received.Prison censors deemed the autobiography of Nelson
Mandela and the works of Solzhenitsyn acceptable.
Mr Mawdsley landed in England at 5.08am and immediately had a tearful
re-union with his father David, sister Emma and twin brother Jeremy, a
captain in the Royal Artillery.
____________________________________________________
The Observer: Fugitives tell of Burma's jungle reign of terror
Sunday October 22, 2000
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Idealistic young Britons have risked their freedom to campaign against
Rangoon's repressive regime. Yesterday James Mawdsley flew home after
his release from jail. Last month another former prisoner, Rachel
Goldwyn , returned to the region to record the destruction of a
persecuted hill tribe. This is her poignant account
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I scrambled through the mud towards the refugee camp, the sounds and
scents overwhelmed me. I could hear logs being chopped, children
playing, pigs squealing, cockerels squawking, and could smell the
woodsmoke and the wet jungle. Memories came flooding back and I found
myself terribly anxious. Would people remember me? Would they be happy
to see me? But my welcome at the camp in Thailand, near the Burmese
border, could not have been warmer. Many of the students I had taught
English now had children. One was named after me, born while I was in
jail. 'Gold Rachel' was delightful and, unlike most Karenni babies,
didn't scream at the sight of a white face.
And then there were the new arrivals, with terrible tales of persecution
and suffering. They had been living in the jungle for several years,
having fled the relocation decreed in the Nineties by Burma's military
dictatorship, one called 'Slorc' and now known as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC).
Their individual stories formed a picture of genocide. In the jungle
they had to move five or six times a year, and slept without a roof over
them. Their hiding place was discovered when their fifth child had just
been born. Samuel is a skinny, unusually tall Karenni. 'The placenta
hadn't even come out yet. I was terribly worried about my wife, I
carried her through the streams as I was afraid about her walking
through the cold water. But when we got to the border I couldn't carry
her as we had to walk in the stream a long way. Now she gets migraines
all the time.' The family walked for three weeks. They had to evade not
just troops but mines and had to rely for guidance either on hired
guides or resistance army soldiers.
The Karenni are among the many persecuted ethnic minorities in Burma.
Those that have no ceasefire agreement with the dictatorship have had
their areas declared free-fire zones. Human rights abuses are rampant
and hundreds of villagers victimised in an attempt to turn them against
the resistance. The so-called 'Four Cuts' campaign tries to stop food,
recruits, information and money reaching the resistance armies.
Forced relocation began in 1974 in Karen and Chin State. In 1996 the
scale of relocations increased dramatically, with 25,000 people forced
into 'relocation centres' within Karenni State: roughly one eighth of
the Karenni people torn from their ancestral lands in 12 months.
Many areas of Karenni State, as well as other parts of Burma, have been
cleared: 30,000 people used to live in an area approximately 100 miles
by 30 miles in eastern Karenni, now it is completely depopulated.
Escapees described to me the appalling conditions in relocation sites.
There was no access to clean water, no land to cultivate, no materials
for housing. Troops were everywhere.
The old villages were burnt down and the remains mined to stop people
returning, animals were slaughtered, and those determined to stay in
their homes were burnt alive. Torture, beating and arbitrary execution
accompany the SPDC soldiers wherever they go.
When Paw Moo, now in her thirties, decided to go to a relocation camp,
they had five days to vacate their own village four kilometres away.
They had to do forced labour at the military base.
She said: 'About six months ago the soldiers called all the villagers
together, and arrested all the men. They took some as forced porters and
others to Loikaw - the capital of Karenni State. Some managed to escape,
others were put in jail, about 20 men disappeared. My husband hid in the
jungle, many men did. After they arrested the men, they called the women
together and said "if we hear gun shots or that rebel groups are in the
area, then we will kill you".' When she and her family made the
treacherous journey to Thailand, many of the men were still in jail.
Sonny, from the same village as Paw Moo, confirms her story. 'The SPDC
arrested 32 men and one woman because of fighting near the border. The
resistance troops came near to our village, but they didn't come in or
get food.'
As we sat in the early-morning mist, Mee Reh told me his painful story.
He was a subsistence farmer relocated from a village called Wha Lo. 'In
1995 the SPDC burnt down our village. Some people were killed, we ran
away.' The years of sleepless nights and desperate poverty were written
on his face. His youngest child, now two but the still the size of a
six-month-old baby, will never fully develop, physically or mentally.
They dodged troops, hiding in the jungle or in a cave. Often the sound
of shooting kept them awake all night. They drank rice water and ate
bamboo shoots. Because of malnutrition a child died. 'I became very
depressed.'
Mee Reh's wife breastfeeds her underdeveloped child. His infant features
sit uncomfortably on his baby-sized face. She describes the story of her
cousin's family, also in hiding, camped on the riverbank. They were hit
by a flash flood.
'All the children and Htoo La Paw were washed away, but two children
were thrown to safety on the land. Htoo La Paw was badly injured. Later
they found the elder girl under a log, her feet were sticking out from
the freshly deposited sand and mud. They dug out her body, her head was
crushed. The youngest daughter they found hanging in the bushes, dead,
after the flood receded. They have been internally displaced people for
five years, and want to come here. Everything they had was washed away,
so they have no money to pay for a guide, or to be able to buy food on
the way.'
Mee Reh's wife reflects on how lucky they are that her eldest child is
attending school. The village school in Wha Lo was closed by the SPDC
before the village was burnt down, and there are no schools in the
jungle for those in hiding.
Villagers are forced to work without payment on government 'development
projects' like building roads and barracks, farm clearance and
cultivation.
Mary was only 19 years old. She had been forced to work for the soldiers
20 days per month, mainly in digging and building projects. She was
terrified, particularly after two women in her village were raped by
soldiers. They asked her father, an old man, to fetch bamboo and beat
him with their gun butts. They had to leave him behind because he was
too old and frail to walk. Mary was clearly depressed by her feelings of
helplessness. 'I'm not happy here, but I feel better than in my village.
Our life is just waiting and eating donated rice.'
For villagers asked to carry arms and supplies, it was a terrifying
prospect. Tired porters are beaten or killed. Many of them never return.
One escaped porter showed me the scars on his shoulders from the
tremendous weight he was forced to carry. Porters are often marched in
front of advancing battalions as human minesweepers. Gang rape of women
porters is common.
Bor Reh was forced to be the village headman, as he was the only person
who could speak Burmese, and so translate the labour demands of the SPDC
to the locals. The village head was once a pres tigious post to hold,
now it is a responsibility better avoided.
The SPDC's General Aung Gyi, head of Light Infantry Battalion Number 54
operating in this area, is infamous for his cruelty in punishing
villagers, and for administering the punishments personally. Brutality
against ethnic minorities is commonplace. Regular taxes, in the form of
money and rice, are collected by SPDC troops, who also demand free food
and alcohol when passing through the village. Curfews are often imposed.
Deforestation, initially from low-impact logging by the Karenni but now
widescale by the SPDC, has led to decreasing rainfall, which also has
had impacts on rice yields. All these compound major food shortages for
even those who still have land.
Kyaw Te's trembling hands spoke of his life of fear in hiding. 'When we
stayed there we were afraid all the time. The Burmese government, they
want to destroy our people, to kill us all off.'
The refugee camp is an increasingly insecure haven. Thailand's attitude
to the ethnic minorities is changeable. Previously considered as a
necessary buffer zone between Thailand and its aggressive neighbour,
Burma, the resistance forces and the asylum-seekers are now deemed a
nuisance in the growing closeness between the two nations.
Hundreds of asylum-seekers have been forcibly repatriated, and new
arrivals find it increasingly difficult to enter. Thailand and Burma
have brokered a number of huge cross-border projects, fostering closer
relations through economic ties. Two major gas pipeline projects, Yadana
and Yetagun, including Total (France) and Premier Oil (Britain), are
already complete and functional in an area south of Karenni State.
Their impact on the local area has been devastating. There are plans
afoot to dam and divert the Salween river that flows through Karenni
State, feeding it into Thai waterways and starving three million people
in downstream Burma of water. Among them are the Karenni.
Last year I went to Burma to make a solidarity action for the many
peoples of Burma. It was a simple act of defiance: to sing songs about
democracy and freedom. The military response was rapid. I was arrested
within 13 minutes.
____________________________________________________
Burma Courier: Junta Basks in Reflected Glory of Burma's Scholars
Based on news from NLM and DVB: Updated to October 20, 2000
RANGOON -- In a bid to catch a little reflected glory from the
achievements of some of Burma's brightest scholars, the military regime
has staged a public ceremony to honour the conferring of degrees on
doctoral candidates from three university academic centres.
News media in the capital highlighted the ceremony held Thursday at the
Diamond Jubilee Hall in Kamayut township where nine doctorates were
conferred on graduates from Rangoon University, the Rangoon Institute of
Medicine-1 and the recently established Rangoon Technological University
.
Reports said that as many as 249 students were enrolled in doctoral
programs at Rangoon and Mandalay universities and 21 at the Institute of
Economics in Rangoon. At the Technological University 211 persons were
listed as enrolled in doctorate programs in applied science while
another 53 were studying in engineering and architecture courses. The
Institute of Medicine has 130 persons registered in seven courses
leading to DMSc degrees. An article in last week's edition of Asia Week
claimed that more than 7,000 students were pursuing graduate studies on
the campus of Rangoon University.
On Tuesday, readers of state-controlled newspapers were presented with a
schedule naming educational institutes in Rangoon and regional centres
where exams for correspondence students registered the national
University of Distance Education are to take final exams for the
1999-2000. The UDE has functioned as a kind of substitute alma-mater
for college and university level undergraduates during three and half
years from 1996 to 2000 when undergraduate education at the country's
main campuses was shut down.
News reports on Monday denied that Dagon University and teacher training
colleges in an eastern suburb of the capital had been closed, as claimed
by DVB radio in a broadcast over the weekend. The opposition station
claimed that the government had shut down the study centres after
finding anti-regime posters and spray-painted slogans on walls at the
education centres. But a government spokesman told news agency
reporters that the closing was due to semestral examinations for the
students.
However, the disclaimers did not refute reports by DVB that a lecturer
at the Rangoon Cultural University on the same campus had been dismissed
for talking about politics in his classroom. The radio news bulletin
said that academic U Tin Shwe had written to authorities appealing his
dismissal.
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
Mizzima: Land mines exploded in Bangladesh-Burma border Land mines
exploded in Bangladesh-Burma border
Dhaka, October 22, 2000.
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)
On October 16, two Bangladesh nationals were seriously injured due to a
land mine explosion at a remote forest place in Bangladesh-Burma border.
The duo stepped on a land mine while cutting trees in the forest area,
which borders Nat Chaung Sayee of Bangladesh and Nantha hill of Rakhine
State of Burma. The two villagers, later confirmed, belong to Thet
nationality, and residents of Painhne Chaung village of Nat Chaung Sayee
township in Bangladesh.
One of them got his right eye seriously wounded and the other suffered
half of his body burnt. Two dogs accompanying them died on the spot.
On April 20 this year, one Na Sa Ka (Burmese border forces) Captain told
some Bangladesh nationals that over ten thousands land mines have been
placed in various places in the forest of border area. He assured the
villagers not to worry of the danger of the insurgents as these land
mines are China-made and could last long about 70 years under the ground
without ruining, said a Bangladesh villager who went to Burmese side to
have a look at for the resettlement in Rakhine State.
At a press conference in July this year, one Bangladesh association,
which looks after the disabled people said that more than five hundred
Bangladesh nationals had already died due to land mines in the forest
between the period of 1995 and 1999 while they were cutting trees and
bamboos in the forest inside Rakhine State of Burma.
Between 1998 and 1999 alone, over 120 Bangladesh nationals had become
disabled persons due to land mines while 26 wild elephants died, besides
24 Rakhine people from Burma died due to land mines in the forest.
____________________________________________________
The Independent (Bangladesh): Nine more fishermen abducted by Nasaka
October 23, 2000, Monday
The Myanmar security force Nasaka abducted nine more Bangladeshi
fishermen with one fishing boat from near St. Martin's island in Teknaf
upazila on October 15. A total of 15 Bangladeshi fishermen with two
fishing boats were abducted by the Nasaka from near St. Martin's
recently. Another five Bangladeshi fishermen with a fishing boat were
abducted 36 Rifles Battalion, Teknaf Mohammad Hashem of Sahaporirdip
village in Teknaf upazila informed police and BDR that his fishing boat
with nine fishermen were catching fish in the Bay of Bengal near St.
Martin's island on October 15. At one stage a contingent of Nasaka force
numbering about 15 with a speed boat rushed to the fishermen and
abducted nine fishermen with fishing boat. The abducted fishermen are
Jafar Ahmed, Lal Miah, Shafiqul Alam, Mohammad Ishaq, Abdur Rahim, Imam
Hossain, Noor Mohammad, Mohammad Hossain and Abul Kashem. The abducted
fishermen are residents of Sahaporirdip village in Teknaf upazila. BDR
personnel sent a protest letter to Nasaka for early return of the
Bangladeshi fishermen.
____________________________________________________
Mizzima: Burmese fishermen to be repatriated in two months, say embassy
representative in Calcutta
Calcutta, October 22, 2000
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)
The Burmese authorities are expediting the process of taking 58
fishermen who are languishing in two West Bengal jails back to Burma but
it may take some more months. The Burmese embassy representative in
Calcutta Mr. .B Chowdhury said that he had sent the residential address
(in Burma) of these fishermen to the Burmese authorities eight months
ago but he is still waiting for the official response from Rangoon.
He hopes that the fishermen will be repatriated in about two months.
These 58 fishermen who are in Alipore Central Jail and Presidency Jail
were arrested from Thai-owned fishing boats in 1997 in the Indian Ocean.
They were charged under Section 14 of ForeignerÆs Act for illegal entry
to India but acquitted by the Indian courts in September 1999. The
fishermen continues to languish in the jails for the last one year as
their government back home does not call them yet.
There are a number of Burmese fishermen who face similar situation,
being imprisoned in various jails of Indian port cities as they crossed
the Indian water territory while travelling or fishing in the sea
without any ôdocumentö. Many of them are waiting to be repatriated to
Burma after completing their prison terms.
It usually takes about one and half year for the Burmese authorities to
take them back to Burma due to slow and ineffective verification process
of whether they are Burmese citizens or not. During that period, the
fishermen continues to be in prisons with little support as Indian
prison rules say that those prisoners who completed their sentence get
less food and other rations.
On 16th of this month, total 79 Burmese fishermen were repatriated to
urma from Port Blair of India. There are currently nearly 300 Burmese
fishermen being imprisoned for the same offence in Port Blair jail
alone, said Mr. P. B. Chowdhury.
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
Xinhua: Myanmar's Fish, Prawn Exports Up in Six Months
Xinhua, Rangoon, 23 October 2000. Myanmar exported 26,900
tons of fish and prawn in the first six months of this year, 9.3 percent
up compared with the corresponding period of 1999, according to the
figures issued by the country's Central Statistical Organization.
During the period, export earnings from the fish and prawn reached 74
million U.S. dollars, increasing by 30.5 percent compared with the
corresponding period of 1999.
Of the exports, fish accounted for 19,100 tons, while prawn represented
7,800 tons.
Myanmar annually produces over 910,000 tons of fish and
prawn which include fresh-water and deep-sea ones and
exports 58,900 tons of them.
There are 40,480 hectares of fish and prawn breeding ponds in Myanmar at
present and more such ponds, especially the prawn-breeding ones, are
being extended in the country's seven states and divisions under a
three-year plan from 2000 to 2003.
Fishery sector is the third largest contributor to the country's gross
domestic product (GDP) after agriculture and forestry, sharing 7.3
percent of the GDP.
The sector also stands as the country's third largest foreign exchange
earner after agriculture and forestry.
Myanmar's per capita fish and prawn consumption is 18 kilos annually.
Meanwhile, since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such
investment in the livestock and fishery sector has so far reached 283
million dollars in 20 projects, according to official statistics.
____________________________________________________
Dow Jones: UN Commodities Fund Aids Asia Pacific Meat Plant Upgrades
Dow Jones, Friday, October 20 10:49 PM SGT
LONDON (Dow Jones)--The U.N.'s Common Fund for Commodities said Friday
it will partly fund a $2.3 million project for the upgrading of meat
processing plants in the Asia Pacific region. It said it plans to
partly finance meat plant upgrades in the Philippines, Thailand,
Bangladesh, Burma and Samoa.
The CFC's project aims to address the "imbalance between supply and
demand of meat products in Asia/Pacific which leads to imports of
products from developed countries", it said in a press release.
The CFC will contribute with a $831,095 grant and a $100,000 loan. Other
contributors include the governments of the Philippines, Burma,
Bangladesh and Germany, as well as the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture
Organization and several other non-governmental organizations.
The Netherlands-based CFC was set up to assist developing countries
which are dependent on the production of primary commodities. Its
financial commitment to projects range from $1 to $5 million.
_________________OPINION/EDITORIALS________________
The Times: No charity in Burma under stupid regime
THE TIMES, MONDAY OCTOBER 23 2000 UK
MEP for Wales (Labour) Sir, James Mawdsley has, thankfully, been
released from jail in Burma. The regime has claimed that this is a
ôcharitable gestureö on its part. Without doubt no such gesture will be
made to the estimated 1,500 political prisoners who suffer regular
brutal treatment in Burma. Neither will it be extended to the
democratically elected leader of that country, Aung San Suu Kyi. She
remains under house arrest without communication with the outside world.
Let us, therefore, not be led to believe that anything has changed; or
that strong measures against the military junta, including sanctions,
need not be put in place.
Yours sincerely,
GLENYS KINNOCK
(Group of the Party of European Socialists),
European Parliament,
Rue Wiertz, B1040 Brussels.
October 20.
____________________________________________________
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