BurmaNet News: January 5, 2001

[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

CORRECTION: Yesterday?s issue of BurmaNet carried an article from 
Channel News Asia on Aung San Suu Kyi dated January 2, 2001.  The 
article, in fact, wasn?t from the second, or January, or even 2001.

BurmaNet carries articles from a range of news sources and those sources 
are responsible for their own accuracy?or lack thereof.  BurmaNet, 
however, is responsible for accurately attributing sources and 
reproducing articles unaltered (or at least noting any  edits or 
abridgements we introduce).  

There are enough inaccurate things in print on Burma already.  I 
apologize for adding another by egregiously postdating the CNA article 
yesterday.

?Strider

______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
        An on-line newspaper covering Burma 
         January 5, 2001   Issue # 1704
______________ www.burmanet.org _______________


NOTED IN PASSING:  ?local people call it Na Wa Ta disease?

Kanbawza Win on AIDS in Burma.  Na Wa Ta is the acronym is Burmese for 
the SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Committee.  See Mizzima: 
Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease


INSIDE BURMA _______
*AFP: UN Envoy Razali Arrives in Burma To Broker Talks for Opposition, 
Junta
*AFP: Mahathir visits south Myanmar after talks with leaders 
*AFP: Junta, opposition lawyers wrangle over Suu Kyi property case
*United Press International: Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache 
Brothers
*Xinhua: Myanmar's Yangon Population Reaches 3.85 Million

REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*PAP (Poland): Helicopter firm says 1990s deal with Burma legal 

HIV/AIDS__________
*CBC TV: AIDS in Myanmar
*The Washington Quarterly: the Regional Impact of Hiv and Aids?Burma 
excerpt
*Mizzima: Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease

ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*The Nation: Burma Allows Use of Baht in Border Trade
*The New York Times: Thai Gas Imports Stepped up

_____

Editor?s Note?Due to the number and length of articles on HIV/AIDS in 
Burma, BurmaNet is adding a separate section on that subject in today?s 
issue.


__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________


AFP: UN Envoy Razali Arrives in Burma To Broker Talks for Opposition, 
Junta


YANGON, Jan 5 (AFP) - The UN special envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail, 
arrived in Yangon Friday on a five-day mission to try to bring the 
Myanmar junta and opposition together in a historic dialogue. Razali was 
greeted at Yangon airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win and 
then went into a meeting with Foreign Minister Win Aung. No details of 
his schedule were available and it was not known whether he would be 
permitted to see opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held 
under house arrest since September. He last met with the Nobel peace 
laureate on a visit to the country in October. 

Razali is to spend five days here on his third trip since UN Secretary 
General Kofi Annan appointed him in April with the aim of breaking the 
country's decade-long political impasse. UN sources say this visit will 
squarely tackle the task of building a bridge between the opposition 
National League for Democracy and the junta which has done its best to 
destroy the party. Sources in Yangon and Bangkok have hinted contacts 
between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta have already begun, with 
diplomatic circles abuzz with such rumors for months. 

But with the junta characteristically tight-lipped and the opposition 
leader and several senior NLD members also under house arrest since 
September, such speculation has remained unconfirmed. Diplomatic sources 
say that even if Razali does not manage a breakthrough, he may at least 
kick-start a reconciliation process with enough momentum to develop 
under its own steam. They are cautiously optimistic the skilful and 
experienced diplomat, who has seemingly won the confidence of both 
sides, may find success where envoys before him failed. "The Razali 
process is extremely important right now," said one Asian diplomat in 
Yangon. "We hope he will bring about tangible effects and results." 

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad arrived in Yangon Wednesday on 
an official visit that included talks with junta leader Senior General 
Than Shwe. The two trips, while not officially linked, have raised 
suggestions Malaysia could play a key role in breaking the deadlock. 
"Mahathir can prove that he can make a difference in Burma, or at least 
encourage the junta to adopt economic reforms and engage the outside 
world," the Nation daily said in an editorial this week. Mahathir's 
mixed six-day working and holiday visit took him Thursday to a group of 
islands in the Andaman Sea just off Tenasserim on Myanmar's west coast.


___________________________________________________


Agence France Presse: Mahathir visits south Myanmar after talks with 
leaders 

YANGON, Jan 4 

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday visited southern 
Myanmar as part of a mixed six-day working and holiday visit, officials 
said. 

On Wednesday, Mahathir held talks with members of the country's ruling 
military junta, they said. 

Details of the hour-long meeting were officially unavailable, although 
foreign ministry sources said topics included furthering economic 
cooperation and boosting trade. 

The official Malaysian Bernama news agency had reported Mahathir was 
scheduled to hold talks with General Than Shwe, chairman of Myanmar's 
State Peace and Development Council. 

Malaysia is the sixth largest investor in Myanmar with more than 594 
million dollars committed to 26 projects over the past 10 years. 

Mahathir is currently touring a group of islands in the Andaman Sea just 
off the western Tenasserim coastal division. 

According to business sources he will be examining the feasibility of 
Malaysian entrepreneurs establishing edible-oil and rubber plantations 
in the area. 

Mahathir is accompanied by his wife and foreign ministry officials. 



___________________________________________________


AFP: Junta, opposition lawyers wrangle over Suu Kyi property case 

YANGON, Jan 5 (AFP) - 

Lawyers for Myanmar's junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi 
wrangled Friday over whether the government was right to allow her 
brother to bring a lawsuit laying claim to half her Yangon home. 

 Aung San Suu Kyi's legal team said the home ministry had no right to 
issue Aung San Oo the waiver he needed, as a US citizen, to lay claim to 
the property. Only the foreign ministry is empowered in these cases, it 
said. 

 However, lawyers for the military regime said in the 45-minute hearing 
at the Yangon divisional court that any ministry concerned was able to 
issue an exemption to the law that prohibits foreigners owning property 
here. 

 Presiding Judge U Soe Thein said he would deliver his verdict on 
January 15. 

 In January 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi and her brother Augn San Oo signed an 
agreement stating joint ownership of their late mother's house. 

 The agreement included a provision that allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to 
live there as long as she pleased, according to her mother's wishes, 
until both decided to sell it and share the proceeds. 

 Critics say the case is a veiled attempt by the ruling State Peace and 
Development Council (SPDC) to evict Aung San Suu Kyi and hamper her 
National League for Democracy (NLD). 

 Although not overtly political, Aung San Oo is far less critical of the 
junta than his sister and the two are not close. 

 Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for more than three months 
since attempting to leave Yangon for the northern city of Mandalay with 
a group of senior NLD members. 



___________________________________________________


United Press International: Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache 
Brothers 

Thursday, 4 January 2001 7:21 (ET)

Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache Brothers

By CALUM MacLEOD

 MANDALAY, Burma, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- "I will show you my slave-driver," 
offers
Lu Maw of Mandalay.

 This could be a revealing moment in Burma, whose military regime is
notorious for press-ganging civilians into perilous labor projects. Lu's
oppressor soon appears, dressed to kill, in the traditional finery of a
Burmese princess.

 "All day she tell me what to do, but every night I get my revenge!" 
laughs
the comedian, before inviting his audience to select difficult dances 
from a
manual of classical moves. His 40-year-old wife then performs each piece
with textbook style and grace.

 Sporting his trademark handlebar moustache, Lu Maw has gags aplenty to
entertain the few foreigners who reach the district he dubs the Broadway 
of
Mandalay. But any Burmese visitor to Lu's home-cum-theater would 
instantly
spot something amiss as the "a-nyeint" form of vaudeville requires more 
than
just one funny man.

 In their prime, the three-man Mustache Brothers troupe bore comparison
with the legendary Marx Brothers. "A-nyeint" embraces everything from
slapstick and dance to drama and opera. Yet Chico is singing solo these 
days
-- both Groucho and Harpo are "in the slammer."

 Lu has a passion for colloquial English. "They let cat out of the bag, 
and
spill the beans" is his explanation for the 7-year prison sentences 
earned
by elder brother U Par Par Lay and cousin U Lu Zaw. More specifically, 
they
took their acclaimed show to the Rangoon home of beleaguered Nobel Prize
Winner Aung San Suu Kyi in January 1996.

 During a 2-hour performance, the pair bravely upheld the a-nyeint
tradition of contemporary satire.

 "In the past, thieves were called thieves," commented Par Par Lay. "Now
they are known as co-operative workers."

 There followed a predictable humor failure by the junta that ignored 
Suu
Kyi's landslide election in 1990.

 Back home in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, soldiers from
Myanmar's dread military intelligence dragged the comedians from their 
beds.
Par Par Lay was interrogated, tortured and even lost his drooping 
whiskers.

 "That made him really angry," says brother Lu, who did not perform in
Rangoon. "He never shaved his moustache."

 Worse lay in store after a closed-door court despatched the comic duo 
to a
labor camp in the northeast state of Kachin, breaking rocks for 
government
roads. They were the only political prisoners among 900 drug offenders 
and
violent criminals, and the only inmates whose feet were bound by a 
1-foot
iron bar.

 After two months, they were moved to regular prisons. When their 
families
eventually discovered their whereabouts, they also found they were 
denied
access. Ever since, Par Par Lay's wife has made a lonely pilgrimage 
every
two months to his prison, one and a half days' train ride from Mandalay. 
She
hands her food parcel to the guards and is shown her husband's signed
receipt, the closest contact they have had since September 1996.

 While Par Par Lay has grown back his moustache, the 53-year-old's 
health
has reportedly declined over the past five years. Amnesty International
estimates that more than 1,700 political prisoners are held in harsh
conditions throughout Myanmar. The government boasts of recent 
improvements,
such as allowing Red Cross visits, but most observers remain sceptical.

 "Conditions in prison are still terrible," believes one former 
political
prisoner, a veteran of several establishments, who now lives in Rangoon. 
"If
I go in again, I know I won't come out alive."

 The families of Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw share a very real fear that they
will not appear on their release date in 2002. Many prisoners are held 
long
after their sentences have expired. The fear partly explains the 
families'
quiet determination to keep their loved ones' names alive, in a country 
that
brooks no dissent.

 "I am skating on thin ice every day," Lu admits, but there is little 
else
he can do.

 His troupe is blacklisted from the festivals and ceremonies where they
used to make their living. For almost 30 years, they had toured villages
nationwide, gathering the news of the day, and countless warnings from 
the
authorities.

 "The government is afraid of comedians as they tell the truth," 
explains
the former political prisoner. "When comedians get on stage, they are 
not
afraid."

 People who saw Par Par Lay in action, or the popular bootleg video of 
his
1996 performance, recall his belief that comedy was for the public, not 
for
flattering the regime, like the state-approved comedians they see today.

 "We share the suffering of the people," he often said. "We must care, 
'why
are they poor?'"

 Now his family's world has shrunk to the chaotic confines of their 
house
theatre, where 13 relatives crowd together. Reliant on the slim pickings 
of
the tourist trade, Lu Maw politely disagrees with Suu Kyi's advice to
foreigners to boycott her country, lest their dollars profit the regime.
While government-sponsored and organised tours avoid the Mustache 
Brothers,
Lu Maw credits independent travellers on the Lonely Planet trail with
keeping his troupe in business, and his family fed.

 If you ever take the fabled "Road to Mandalay," which writer Rudyard
Kipling himself never did, make tracks for the only Mustache Brother 
still
at large. His show offers a window into Burmese culture, and the hidden
courage of its proud and sadly misruled people.



___________________________________________________


Xinhua: Myanmar's Yangon Population Reaches 3.85 Million

YANGON, January 5 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's population in the capital of 
Yangon reached 3.85 million as of the year 2000, 1.05 million or 37.5 
percent more than that in 1988 when it was 2.8 million, according to a 
latest official statistics. The population of Yangon registered in 2000 
increased by 3.23 million or 520.9 percent as compared with that in 1948 
when the country regained independence, the figures show. Meanwhile, 
Myanmar is endeavoring to develop Yangon to meet the international 
standard with high-rise buildings and modern houses appearing at the 
places where squatters occupied in the past. 

New satellite towns have also been built to lessen the congestion of the 
city and plans are underway for the emergence of industrial towns in the 
sub-urban areas of the city. In addition, city roads have been extended 
to four-lane or six- lane highways, and city circular roads have also 
emerged in and around the city. According to the Myanmar Ministry of 
Immigration and Population, the country's population grows 2 percent 
annually, reaching 50.12 million as of 2000. The population density of 
Myanmar is 74 persons per square- kilometers.





___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
				

PAP (Poland): Helicopter firm says 1990s deal with Burma legal 

January 05, 2001, Friday 

PAP news agency, Warsaw, in English 1622 gmt 3 Jan 01 

Lublin, 3 January: Mieczyslaw Majewski, chief executive officer of the 
PZL Swidnik helicopter manufacturer in Swidnik, southeastern Poland, 
said on Wednesday [3 January] that the plant's supplies of helicopters 
to Burma were legal. "The helicopter contract was signed with the 
Burmese government by my predecessors, probably still at the turn of the 
1980s and 1990s. I do not know the details, but the deal was certainly 
legal because I remember that this was checked at a later date," 
Majewski told PAP. 

On Wednesday, the French daily Liberation wrote that Poland had sold 24 
helicopters to Burma between 1991 and 1992, at a time when Burma was 
under a EU embargo. According to the daily, the mediator in the sale was 
a French arms dealer whose activities had been connected to the elder 
son of France's former president Francois Mitterrand, currently under 
arrest on illegal arms trade charges. 

Majewski refused to comment on the French daily's reports. "All this is 
just press speculation. I do not know anything about the affair. For me 
the important thing is that the sale proceeded in accord with binding 
laws and to the advantage of both sides," he stated. 




__________________HIV/AIDS___________________



CBC TV: AIDS in Myanmar

[BurmaNet adds?spelling of Chris Beyrer?s name corrected from Barrer to 
Beyrer throughout this transcript]

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation   
 

THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE ( 10:30 AM ET ) 


January 4, 2001, Thursday 

GUEST: DR. CHRIS BARER; OWEN WRIGLEY; STEVEN HONEYMAN. 

ANCHORS: PETER MANSBRIDGE 


PETER MANSBRIDGE: As the world works to confront the AIDS epidemic, it's 
always the less fortunate countries that are hit hardest. That's very 
much the case in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, where AIDS has spread 
virtually unchecked. The CBC's Patrick Brown reports. 

PATRICK BROWN: This fertile countryside yields two rice crops a year. 
But the ranks of the people who sow and reap the rice are about to be 
decimated as HIV/AIDS reaps its own grim harvest. This field has been 
planted ten times since the government last released reliable AIDS 
figures while the epidemic has been spreading largely unchecked. A 1995 
survey predicted half a million people would be infected by the year 
2000. 

DR. CHRIS Beyrer: Unfortunately epidemic is exactly the right word. 

BROWN: Dr. Chris Beyrer is a leading expert on AIDS in Asia. 

Beyrer: It is much more on the order of 700,000 or 800,000 cumulative 
infections and there probably already have been 50,000 to 100,000 if not 
many more deaths. 

BROWN: The official position of Myanmar is a rural conservative country 
with a religion and culture which rule out the possibility of a 
widespread epidemic. Outsiders are trying to tarnish Myanmar's image, 
says this Deputy Health Minister. 

DEPUTY HEALTH MINISTER: It is very much exaggerated. According to our 
figures, it is about 30,000. 

BROWN: The government's message is contradictory. There are HIV/AIDS 
programs like this class for girls and AIDS is described as a national 
concern. But everyone is expected to deny the problem is a serious one. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Is it dangerous? 

It is a rule and it is our culture that we don't have sex before 
marriage usually. 

BROWN: Myanmar's public health system is one of the poorest in the world 
with a total budget of less than 50 cents per person per year. 
Conditions at this showcase hospital on the outskirts of Rangoon are the 
exception, not the rule. Most AIDS patients in Myanmar don't even know 
what it is they're dying of. The government was shocked by its 1995 
survey. 

Beyrer: Those figures were found to be disturbing. The government didn't 
want to accept them, didn't want to deal with them and they essentially 
stopped looking rather than face up to what was there. There's been a 
tremendous amount of death already from AIDS and it tends to be recorded 
as death due to tuberculosis, death from diarrhea, death from a fever of 
unknown origin. 

BROWN: Organizations working here have to cope with two particular 
difficulties. The military regime's reluctance to deal with the true 
scale of the epidemic and the rest of the world's reluctance to deal 
with the military regime. 

Most countries and charitable foundations refuse to fund projects in 
Myanmar, says Owen Wrigley of the UNDP. 

OWEN WRIGLEY: Donors have decided that this country should not be 
involved and so many of the regional programs specifically exclude 
Myanmar. This is truly a massive mistake. The future of this country is 
at stake and the donors really need to respond to the situation here. 

BROWN: HIV/AIDS often spreads along truck routes. Educating truck 
drivers is a top priority for Population Services International -- 
P.S.I., a humanitarian organization with programs in Myanmar. 

P.S.I. has built a nationwide network distributing subsidized condoms. 
As P.S.I. director, Canadian Steven Honeyman's biggest headache is 
fundraising. To work in a pariah state which needs tens of millions of 
condoms. 

Do you have a bigger size?, he says. Whether or not Myanmar needs big 
condoms, it certainly needs huge quantities. P.S.I.'s newest venture is 
the love boat. 

The boat brings P.S.I. teams to remote villages on the river. 

STEVEN HONEYMAN: Many of them don't have, don't have access to them by 
the road. So we came up with this idea. Let's reach them how they reach 
themselves which is on the river itself. 

BROWN: It's like a traveling theater which brings safe sex information, 
the condom campaign and entertainment to isolated corners of the 
country. 

HONEYMAN: How much time before we start? Are the four speakers working? 

There is not clear rules of how to move forward with the humanitarian 
assisted projects and so we feel our forward. And in some cases, 
approvals come very quickly and other cases, they do not. 

BROWN: Approval to show happy travelers in villages was a breakthrough. 
Ten part soap opera P.S.I. made for television. One episode was shown on 
TV last year but censors still haven't passed the other nine. Even the 
word condom is too sensitive to broadcast. Official sensitivities also 
make it difficult to promote condoms at a nearby festival. 

Men who dress as women play a key role in two religious festivals held 
at temples in Mandalay. They are meccas for gay men from across the 
country. 

HONEYMAN: At the moment it's highly controversial. We've had limited 
access to those kinds of activities. But we found other ways. I mean, 
our job is to wake up every morning and find other ways to reach these 
high risk individuals in these high risk groups. 

BROWN: The authority's attitude isn't unique. Many governments have 
found it hard to be completely open about AIDS, but few are so 
completely cut off from humanitarian assistance. 

HONEYMAN: The people of Burma should not suffer because of the political 
stripes of the current regime. And I feel quite strongly that Canada and 
other countries should be responding to the AIDS epidemic in Myanmar and 
leave development assistance and private sector development perhaps to a 
later date. 

BROWN: Neighboring Thailand has 50 times more funding than Myanmar. 

WRIGLEY: The total funding package in Myanmar last year was about $2.5 
million. If Thailand has $150 million for the year, we're looking at two 
percent of the resources that a country this size should have. 

BROWN: Hiding their faces, these sex workers are part of a peer 
education program. Their job is to carry the message of safe sex to 
other prostitutes. 

This woman says few insist their clients use condoms. They know, she 
says, but they don't listen. I try to educate them to use condoms to 
protect themselves. Burmese women are working in brothels across Asia. 
They're easy victims of gangs which traffic in women. Myanmar is the 
epicenter of a regional epidemic. 

Beyrer: The real impact, people getting sick and dying has begun and 
even if there were effective programs to stop new infections, over the 
next decade there is going to be a steadily rising tide of deaths. 

BROWN: The devastation has scarcely begun as an epidemic that Myanmar 
won't admit and the rest of the world won't help. For The National, I'm 
Patrick Brown in Mandalay. 

MANSBRIDGE: Still ahead on The National. The winds die down but the 
fires keep burning in southern California. 


____________________________________________________



The Washington Quarterly: the Regional Impact of Hiv and 
Aids--accelerating and Disseminating across Asia 

Published by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology   


2001 Winter 

[Excerpt]

Vol. 24, No. 1; Pg. 211

Chris Beyrer. Chris Beyrer, M.D., M.P.H., is a public health analyst at 
the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. 


After sub-Saharan Africa, Asia is the world's most HIV/AIDS-affected 
region, with an estimated 7.2 million cumulative HIV infections in 2000. 
n1 Given the enormous populations of the region, this figure, with a few 
exceptions, does not generate population infection rates approaching 
Africa's catastrophic burdens. One-fifth of Asia's infections occurred 
in 1999 alone, however, and more than half of those were in Asians under 
the age of 25. HIV/AIDS is spreading with unprecedented speed across the 
region. The Asian epidemics that have occurred in India; Cambodia; 
Burma; Thailand; the Russian Far East; and in the south, southwest, and 
north of China have been explosive, were not well predicted, and 
generally have been poorly managed. With the exception of Thailand, and 
a handful of positive trends in a few other states, Asian governments 
have been slow to respond to the threats of AIDS. They have largely 
failed to contain the spread of the virus among their peoples. The 
result: The face of AIDS in 2000 is changing, and it is increasingly 
Asian... 
  
BURMA (MYANMAR) 

Burma has the highest population prevalence of HIV in Asia after 
Cambodia, with as many as 1.0 -- 1.2 million cumulative infections, 
although estimates are highly unreliable. Burma is perhaps the most 
likely to become like an African country in terms of the spread of the 
virus. There are several factors contributing to this scenario: official 
denials on the part of the ruling junta; lack of political will; a 
collapsing health sector; and unclean blood supply; very high rates of 
HIV infection in drug users; a growing sex industry; a large, poorly 
educated, and unpaid army; multiple refugees as well as migrant 
populations from Thailand, India, and Bangladesh; and large numbers of 
internally displaced persons -- estimated at 1 -- 2 million persons last 
year. The national HIV prevention budget for 1998 was estimated at $ 
50,000 for a population of 48 million people. Data suggests that more 
than 90 percent of drug users in some states in Burma are infected with 
HIV which is among the highest infection rates ever reported anywhere. 
n13 

Burma's epidemic has spread well beyond injection drug users, however. 
Access to family-planning services is extremely low, with only 18 
percent of women receiving basic services. Sexually transmitted disease 
(STD) cases are on the rise. n14 

Burma's narcotics-based economy and the international trafficking of 
women and girls has become a regional threat to HIV/AIDS control and to 
regional security in general. The highest HIV rates in India, China, and 
Thailand are all to be found along their respective borders with Burma. 

Despite mounting evidence of the threat, the junta has thus far proved 
unable or unwilling to respond. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1990 
elections, has shown courage and candor about AIDS and delivered a 
keynote address at the 2000 World AIDS Conference in Durban, South 
Africa, calling for openness in dealing with the disease, its victims, 
and caregivers. But she and her party have been forcibly restrained by 
the junta -- the real leaders of the country -- in their efforts to 
respond nationally to AIDS. 
  

Asia's Future HIV Challenges 

The Asian experience with HIV/AIDS is diverse, rapidly changing, and 
poses new challenges for peoples, governments, donors, and regional 
groupings. Several consistent themes emerge that will demand response. 
  
HIV SPREAD RELATED TO DRUG USE 

Increasing opium, heroin, and amphetamine production in Burma, 
Afghanistan, and Laos and the availability of drugs throughout region 
will remain a major challenge for the foreseeable future. 
  
LACK OF DRUG TREATMENT AND PREVENTION 

Asia lags severely in dealing with both drug treatment and HIV 
prevention for drug users. Thailand has voluntary drug detoxification 
services, but does not currently allow methadone maintenance. Vietnam 
and the Russian Far East (with support from Medecins Sans Frontieres and 
the Soros Foundation) are virtually the only Asian states with active 
harm-reduction programs for drug users. 
  
THE TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS 

Trafficking in women for the sex industry occurs across the Asian region 
and has made HIV prevention a complex and politically sensitive issue. 
Destination countries of these females include Thailand, China, 
Cambodia, India, Russia, Sweden, the United States, and the European 
Union. Trafficking and sexual slavery are human rights abuses and 
crimes, and all of the countries listed above (save the United States) 
are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which 
explicitly bars both trafficking and child sex work. Yet in 2000, the 
trafficking industry appears to be, if anything, increasing. A social 
and personal harm in its own right, this is a major potential source of 
an HIV epidemic, and one that will require regional and international 
cooperation to resolve. 

  
LABOR AND SOCIAL MOBILITY 

Asia has large populations of internal migrants, migrant laborers, 
internally displaced persons, refugees, and workers in industries 
requiring mobility, including fisheries, shipping, and trucking and 
trade. As in Africa, social mobility has helped spread HIV and is likely 
to be a growing source of vulnerability. Crucial populations at risk 
include the 1.0 -- 1.2 million Burmese in Thailand; the 3 million 
Afghans in Pakistan; Burmese refugees and migrants in China, India, 
Bangladesh, and Malaysia; and migrant and/or overseas workers from 
Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, and other states. Asia's 
labor and migration laws have lagged given the mobility of these 
populations in 2000. Policies for workers and migrants with HIV are 
contradictory, punitive, and are often barriers to providing preventive 
services and care. 

  
MILITARIES AND SECURITY FORCES 

The armed forces play a major role in preventing HIV among their troops 
and face important security issues if they fail. The UNTAC experience, 
where HIV spread considerably among troops stationed in Cambodia, should 
stand as a warning. 
  
What Must Be Done 

With the various barriers to reining in the HIV epidemic facing Asia, 
there are many steps that must be taken, and taken quickly, if the 
continent is going to avoid the degree to which AIDS has become a 
scourge in Africa. 

* There must be an end to official denials. Political will is needed to 
make policy changes and forge partnerships with nongovernmental 
organizations, civil society groups, and the international community. 

* Asian countries must reform and expand their drug treatment programs. 
Harm reduction methods must be employed for injecting drug users. 

* Cultural taboos must be overridden so that frank sexual health 
initiatives for adolescents, young adults, and women and men of 
childbearing age can be established. 

* Blood collection policies must be redefined. Blood safety and supplies 
must be effectively regulated and monitored to provide the basic, 
universal precautions found in health care settings in other parts of 
the world. 

* Both international and national armed forces and police, particularly 
those involved in peacekeeping, must be trained in prevention measures. 

* There should be regional and transnational cooperation to reduce the 
trafficking of women and girls in the Asian sex industry. When this is 
not possible, sex workers' rights must be recognized, with unionization 
and licensing measures established where feasible. 

* People living with AIDS and their families must be protected against 
discrimination and be granted access to education and employment. 

* The extensive highways, bridges, and infrastructure projects that will 
dot Asia in the coming years must include assessments of what impact 
these projects will have on the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prevention programs 
must be built into these projects as well. 

The HIV virus spreads faster where educational levels, especially among 
women, are low; where public health systems are inadequate; where other 
sexually transmitted disease programs, blood banking, and medical 
services are poor; and where political will to face the epidemic is 
lacking. Although a handful of affected developing countries have 
mounted impressive efforts, many affected countries have not had the 
political or social will to deal with HIV. Asia does not yet face the 
same crushing AIDS burdens as much of Africa but there is evidence that 
many states already have severe epidemics, and more are undergoing 
explosive phases of early transmission. The window of opportunity to 
respond to HIV in Asia is narrow and closing. The time for immediate 
action is now. 
  
Table I: Prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Asia in 1999

Country HIV/AIDS cases HIV rate (%) AIDS deaths 
   in 1999 

Southeast Asia 
Cambodia 220,000 4.04 14,000 
Burma * 750,000 -- 1,000,000 2.00 -- 5.00 unknown 
Thailand 755,000 2.15 ** 66,000 
Malaysia 49,000 0.42 1,900 
Philippines 28,000 0.07 1,200 
Laos 1,400 0.05 130 
Indonesia 52,000 0.05 3,100 



* Burma (Myanmar) estimates are higher than UNAIDS figures, estimated at 
530,000 infections in 2000, but based on incomplete reporting since 
1995. 



  

___________________________________________________



Mizzima: Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease  

[Abridged]

By Kanbawza Win, January 5, 2001 


Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com) 

The international community recognized this scourge as Human 
Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV/AIDS but, in rural areas of Burma, the 
local people call it Na Wa Ta disease. There are two reasons for this. 
The first one is that during the Ne Win administration of Burmese 
Socialist Programme Party days, Burma boasted about not having a single 
AIDS patient in the country. True, because the country was a hermit 
kingdom and its closed door policy had effectively shut out not only 
AIDS but also trade and tourism not to mention foreign investment. But 
when the Burmese army took power in 1988 under the name of Na Wa Ta (in 
English it is known as State Law and Order Restoration Council now the 
SPDC), killing some 20,000 people, it changed its policy to the Burmese 
Army Way to Capitalism and opened up the country. HIV/AIDS was among the 
first to come in. Most Generals are poorly educated to run a country. 
Being bumpkins in health affairs, they obviously did not take any 
necessary precautions, justifying their approach as part and parcel of 
opening up the country. Now HIV/AIDS has reached an epidemic proportion. 
 

The second reason is that General Ne Win, the great helmsman, has a 
great appetite for sex, having five official wives (Daw Tin Tin, 
Mrs.Taunggyi known as Daw Khin May Than, Daw Ni Ni Myint, Yadana Nat Mai 
and back to Daw Ni Ni Myint, other unofficial  wives are not accounted 
for). He looks the other way when his soldiers commit sexual offenses, 
especially in ethnic areas because the generals construe this as 
implementing the Mahar Myanmar race policy. This is tantamount to 
encouraging the soldiers to commit rape. As HIV/AIDS is related to sex U 
Ne Win automatically became the father of AIDS in addition to being the 
father of the Burmese army. Since Na Wa Ta is one of his creations the 
people jokingly call AIDS the Na Wa Ta disease as more than 10 percent 
of the soldiers (about 4,400,00) are infected.
  
AIDS is now orphaning children, wrecking the people?s lives in 
unprecedented numbers and undoing what little development had being 
achieved. HIV positive persons will die within a decade which is also 
the fate of the impoverished average Burmese. Worst of all,  there is no 
cure. The rich will be condemned to a life preserving cocktail of 
powerful drugs. In eastern and northern Burma, the AIDS virus lurks and 
spreads everywhere. We are sure that the numbers incubating HIV who will 
probably die of AIDS is far larger than what Burmese army killed in 
1988.  

 . The current military Junta has already broken the record of its 
predecessor regime when the WHO ranked Burma as second last among the 
191 nations in the quality of health care (Sierra Leone was last) while 
the Burmese Socialist Programme Party only achieved the least developed 
country status. The Generals often argue that the civilian figure of 
over 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases estimated by the researchers of the World 
Bank was just a political ploy to discredit the regime. The Junta claims 
that only 40,000 were affected by Na Wa Ta disease. 
 
Fanned by cheap heroine and the booming sex trade the AIDS crisis has 
spun out of control. Exporting young girls to Thailand an action 
indirectly encouraged by the government, and the returning prostitutes 
from the neighboring countries have compounded the problem. Dr. Frank 
Smithuis of M S F ( Medicins Sans Frontieres) who has spent six years 
working on HIV/AIDS prevention in Burma cited the figure as between 
200,000 to one million.  

          "It is hard to give a good estimates and is probably  higher 
than has been thought taking into consideration for those who have died. 
It is high and is rising and  nobody is doing anything about it." 

The Junta could not admit it for obvious reasons, instead rely on 
conservative social mores. Their hypothesis is that extramarital sex is 
rare while the cultural value of the girl is to preserve her virginity. 
It also used to point out the absence of a sex industry, such as found 
in Thailand and Philippines However it did not take into consideration 
the economic factor where young girls have to sell their bodies just to 
survive.  

The new fear for the Burmese was worse than the Junta is AIDS. Huge 
populations are at risk and Burma will soon top the list of Asian 
countries in AIDS cases The invisible cases under reported in a climate 
of denial that unsafe and promiscuous sex is rife. It appears that the 
virus has passed out of the world of commercial sex to thrive among 
pregnant women who have had sex only with their husbands. It will soon 
paralyze the nation if this denial goes on.  


 ...Prominent medical doctors in Burma have to tell the world what the 
Junta want them to say but in private they admit the hopelessness of the 
situation. Counseling is virtually nonexistent; condoms, which were 
banned by the Generals until 1993, are prohibitively far expensive for 
most people. Free AIDS testing is rare, and most people cannot afford 
the $10 (nearly Kyats 5,000) test to determine if they have this Na Wa 
Ta disease. Once a patient is diagnosed, the doctors said, he or she 
dies within three months. There are virtually no anti HIV drugs in the 
country. Besides there is an acute shortage of antibiotics. 
 
The virus is also spreading in jails where a prisoner can obtain a 
little extra food for a blood donation and where transfusion equipment 
is often reused without cleaning. Far worse the disease is spreading to 
the monasteries. Many infected young men, shunned by their friends and 
family have moved into the monasteries to die. Several of the monks are 
also infected by AIDS. They have contracted the disease by shaving the 
heads with the razors shared among them.  
A combination of ravaging Na Wa Ta disease, an atrocious health-care 
system and the Junta?s refusal to admit these medical problems has 
condemned the Burmese to a life- expectancy of less than 45 years for 
the next two decades or so. It seems that even if the Burmese military 
Junta goes its partner AIDS or Na Wa Ta disease will continue to stay in 
the country for quite some time.    




_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
 

The Nation: Burma Allows Use of Baht in Border Trade

Jan. 5, 2001


BURMA'S Commerce Ministry has sanctioned the use of baht in addition to 
US dollars for border trade transactions, effective January 1, said 
Karun Kittiastaporn, director general of the Foreign Trade Department.
 
However, other border trade regulations are unchanged and exporters must 
still pay a 10 per cent tax on the total export value of their goods. 

The Burmese move follows Thai pressure for permission to allow 
transactions in baht and the Burmese kyat, after the Chinese yuan and 
Indian rupee were authorised for border trade with China and India on 
November 16 last year. 

Karen said that the move would boost transactions between Thailand and 
Burma. 
Thai-Burmese border trade increased 106 per cent in the first 10 months 
of 2000, compared with the same period of 1999. Imports from Burma 
totalled Bt5.02 billion, a 337.6 per cent increase, while exports to 
Burma were up 60 per cent.


___________________________________________________


The New York Times: Thai Gas Imports Stepped up 

January 5, 2001

By Wayne Arnold 

Thailand's state-controlled oil company, PTT Exploration and Production, 
said yesterday that it expected to begin receiving additional gas from a 
project in neighboring Myanmar that it co-owns with three foreign oil 
companies -- Petronas of Malaysia, Premier Oil of Britain and Nippon Oil 
of Japan -- and with interests in Myanmar, whose ruling junta has been 
accused by human rights activists of using forced labor to build gas 
pipelines. Thailand is obliged to buy gas from the project and another 
in Myanmar involving TotalFina Elf and Unocal, even though the power 
plant it was meant to fuel is unfinished; a new pipeline that opened 
last month carries the gas elsewhere.   Wayne Arnold



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