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BurmaNet News: April 8, 2001
- Subject: BurmaNet News: April 8, 2001
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 01:49:00
______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
April 8, 2001 Issue # 1773
______________ www.burmanet.org _______________
INSIDE BURMA _______
*The Daily Telegraph (London): The Burma question
*AP: Myanmar?s Drug War
*AP: Myanmar Gets Set For Third International Airport
*Xinhua (PRC): Myanmar's Sanctuaries Area Increases
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Jiji Press (Japan): Japan will give $24 million aid to Myanmar
*Translator's Note on Japanese Aid to Burma
*The Daily Telegraph (London): Burmese tourism boycott shunned
*BBC: India releases jailed Burmese fishermen
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*Reuters: Yangon wants to boost food output, exports
OPINION/EDITORIALS_______
*Bangkok Post: Honour promises for lasting goodwill
OTHER______
*Cambridge University Press publishes The Making of Modern Burma
__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
The Daily Telegraph (London): The Burma question
By Christopher Hope
I was in Rangoon, walking through the great Shwedagon Pagoda, listening
to a Burmese friend. You might imagine, given the idiocies of military
dictatorship - censorship, jail, slogans - for which "Myanmar" is
notorious, that Burmese citizens shy away from foreigners.
Not at all. In 10 days travelling across Burma people bent my ear in
bars and cars, on riverbanks, in villages; they talked so much I feared
for their safety. They were funny, bitter, rueful and touchingly
friendly. Totalitarian countries are lonely places.
"Thank you for coming," people kept saying, "talking to oneself sends a
person mad." Burma is pitched somewhere between police state and
paradise. An Orwellian land, governed by a cabal of generals from whom
you wouldn't buy a used cap badge.
Once upon a time they called themselves the SLORC, or the State Law and
Order Restoration Council. But being dictators they soon gave Law and
Order a bad name by locking up the opposition. So the SLORC rebranded
itself, and now goes under the name of the State Peace and Development
Council. Gentlemen may or may not prefer blondes; generals always prefer
euphemisms.
The leader of the Burmese junta stands in a long line of Big Brothers:
The Great Helmsman, The Number One Peasant, Dear Leader. The Burmese
incarnation is known simply as "Secretary One". He is everywhere.
Photographs of the great golden stupa that caps the Shwedagon Pagoda
show Secretary One - uniformed and watchful - after he has been hoisted
up into the roof struts of the gilded umbrella that tops the stupa. The
message is clear: not only do the generals run this world, they keep a
sharp eye on the next.
"Old men should retire," said my friend as we walked in the pagoda.
Trouble was, the junta that ran the country weren't simply old, "they
think they're immortal". He sighed, the Buddhas watched us serenely. He
brightened. It was rumoured that the generals were talking to the Lady -
maybe they would strike a deal? What did I think?
I heard that phrase over and over again - "the Lady"; sometimes she was
"the democratic Lady". No one used her name: Aung San Suu Kyi. The Lady
may have been under siege by the army since she was robbed of her
election victory in 1990, but her presence is widely felt. And I heard
again and again the refrain: "And Burmese people love her very much."
Burmese Buddhism mixes the sacred and the secular with great equanimity.
>From the pagoda we went to the pub. The Strand Hotel in Rangoon is a
good watering-hole for hot and thirsty travellers, and I'd collected a
gaggle of thirsty friends by then, all of them wanting to talk about
faraway places.
"Is it true that Buckingham Palace is infested with rats?"
"Is it true that the traffic roundabout is an art form in England? We
still preserve a few roundabouts in Rangoon, to remind us of British
rule." You have to love a people who see the roundabout as an art form.
Even the SLORC is not all bad - after all, it produces a Party
propaganda sheet called The New Light of Myanmar. This is one of the
great comic documents of our time and speaks the lost lingo of the old
Stalinist regimes: "Oppose foreign nations interfering in internal
affairs of the state/ crush all internal and external destructive
elements as the common enemy."
In The New Light of Myanmar, the generals are seen tirelessly inspecting
sewage works, pagodas, paddy fields and potting sheds; they arrive, they
are photographed, they "issue instructions", then they leave, and The
New Light records their passing. Its other job is to attack enemies of
state and army and people - those "ignorant sons of nymphomaniacs".
No one believes any of this stuff. Not since I used to travel in the old
Soviet Union have I been in a country where people were less persuaded
by the stream of official propaganda. Everyone I met in Burma seemed to
listen to the BBC or Voice of America - "because we need to know what is
going on. 'Turn it down!' my Mother says - but she listens, too".
I flew to Pagan next day with copies of The New Light of Myanmar in my
baggage. Newspapers - even party newspapers - are hard to get hold of.
"I see you're carrying the Nightmare of Myanmar," said my next Burmese
friend when we went walking through old Pagan, where medieval Buddhist
stupas litter the baking plain like mushrooms after the monsoon. Still
devoutly worshipped in Burma, the painted figures of the Nats - guardian
spirits of hearth and home - stand on either side of the city gate. They
are endearingly named Mrs Golden Fish and Mr Handsome.
Through new Pagan town, there came a long caravan of well-wishers
celebrating the approaching enrolment of two small boys as monks. Their
rich parents led a procession of dancers, archers, handmaidens, cannons,
musicians and a pantomime elephant. Somewhere, a sign was held aloft
which my Burmese friend translated: "Video now available! Manchester
United v Arsenal."
Some people believe you shouldn't visit Burma because its regime is
uniquely awful. But in south-east Asia, if you insist on being pure when
you tour, where will you safely go? The student of rocky regimes newly
emerged from the long night of the commissars is spoilt for choice. In
Laos the revolutionary Pathet Lao starved the Royal Family to death and
forced thousands of ordinary Lao into ghastly "re-education" camps. In
Vietnam there is no opposition and little sign of one emerging. In
Cambodia leaders of the present government were once close to Pol Pot
and the Khmer Rouge. In China political and religious dissenters are
routinely beaten in Tiananmen Square, in view of passing tourists.
Burma does a lot of banning. Burma bans books, newspapers, mobile
phones, computers - and yet holds seminars on "e-business". Nowhere is
the perfume of the absurd more pungent. There are people who would ban
tourists, too.
The official opposition asks foreigners to keep out. I remember in South
Africa, under apartheid, the ANC asked people not to visit the country.
It had a strange effect. Large tour groups still came, and sports teams,
legal or not; insufferably self-important CEOs of large companies
arrived with depressing regularity, and dodgy wheeler-dealers eager to
invest. Those who did not come were visitors willing to ask questions,
to speak up.
So it is in Burma. The normal double standards apply. The English
Premiership visits every week, courtesy of state-run Myanmar TV. You may
watch it just after the nightly propaganda news service, read in
English. But no one has called for its banning. Manchester United is
available in Burma, and DHL, and Lux Soap and Coca-Cola. Germans, Swiss,
French groups come without qualm. British and American travellers stay
away. And you seldom see individual travellers - those who might
encourage people to believe they are not alone in the world.
In a village near Pagan, I got talking to a defunct socialist
politician. If today's military dictatorship is cruel and stupid, the
socialist dictatorship it replaced was useless: "Ask me what I think of
the government?"
I asked him.
He put his hand on his heart: "All governments are good!"
I was still smiling when I got on the boat to sail up the Irrawaddy
River to Mandalay. The RV Pandaw is a rarity - a flotilla of just one
ship. All 650 of the old flotilla that once plied the Irrawaddy were
scuppered in 1942 to deny them to the Japanese. The Pandaw is a lovely
ghost of its sunken sisters; she was built in Scotland in 1947 and she
sails the great broad brown Irrawaddy as if she owns it.
This is by far the best way of getting to Mandalay. Despite what Kipling
said, the road to Mandalay is dreadful. I think George Orwell caught the
sharp, irreverent spirit of Burma far better. His little poem on
Mandalay is worth giving in full: "When I was young and had no sense/ In
far-off Mandalay,/ I lost my heart to a Burmese girl/ As lovely as the
day./ Her skin was gold, her hair was jet,/ Her teeth were ivory, /I
said, 'for twenty silver pieces,/ Maiden, sleep with me'./ She looked at
me, so pure, so sad,/ The loveliest thing alive,/ And in her lisping,
virgin voice,/ Stood out for twenty-five."
Mandalay . . . the poetry of its name outstrips its dusty streets. A
modern town, built in 1857, it burnt down twice - most of its British
colonial buildings are gone - and it is being sold off to Chinese
moneymen. There is a very good new road out of Mandalay to the Chinese
border, built, it is whispered, to speed the traffic of drugs, guns and
laundered money.
Mandalay does have two things that stop the heart. The Maha Muni Buddha
is one of the most extraordinary things I've seen anywhere. It is
dressed in a bulky suit of gold leaf, inches thick, and new leaf is
being added constantly by the visiting faithful. He looks like a gilded
astronaut. Mandalay also has the Mustache Brothers who run a political
cabaret in their front room. Some time ago, a good joke about the
generals earned the elder of the brothers, U Par Par Lay, seven years in
jail. The brothers don't do much political joking these days.
I flew from Mandalay with some relief, heading for the Shan Province and
Inle Lake. A large crowd of Italians stormed the aircraft and took all
the best seats. I unfurled The New Light of Myanmar and cursed them for
ignorant sons of nymphomaniacs.
Inle Lake is a great sheet of shallow water lying in a ring of serrated
mountains like pale blue milk in a saucer. The leg-rowers of the lake
are very beautiful. The fisherman balances one-legged on the prow of his
boat, while curling the other leg around his oar.
Because the bottom of the lake is full of weed, the fisherman must hunt
the catfish by its bubbles. He lifts his conical net, like an inverted
shuttlecock, and drops it into the water. Then with a long trident he
begins stabbing the mossy carpet to flush out the fish. Often he catches
nothing but catfish bubbles.
The feeling of peace is overwhelming. I knew that on the nearby Thai
border, Burmese and Thai artillery had been swapping shells for days. In
the mountains above Inle Lake separatist Shan tribes fight the Rangoon
government for independence. And yet the lake somehow dissolves
everything into a blue haze. At the end of the day, the setting sun
turns the colour of betel juice.
In the muddy canals cut from the rice paddies into the lake, small boys
are riding a water buffalo. It is a lot of fun, taking a buffalo for his
bath. You sit between his horns and go diving off his nose. You grab a
submarine ride, holding tight to his ears.
On the placid surface of Inle Lake are drifting mats of sedge. The lake
people stitch them together into floating gardens where they grow
cucumbers and tomatoes. But the gardens are so light they drift apart,
so they must be tethered to the bottom of the shallow lake with long
bamboo staves, driven deep into the mud. And that is Burma, too, a
shifting, shimmering, fragile beauty with sharp stakes driven though its
heart.
Burma
This is the last month of the dry season in Burma and the weekend will
see some localised tropical downpours - many of these growing into
thunderstorms. All other parts of the country, including the capital,
will have hazy blue skies and sunshine, temperatures climbing to between
35 and 38C (95 and 100F) both afternoons. The coastal fringes will be
very humid, whereas inland areas will be much less so.
___________________________________________________
AP: Myanmar?s Drug War
April 8, 2001
Apichart Weerawong
Loi Tai Liang, Thai-Myanmar Border
>From their base on a mountain ridge at the border, 120 Myanmar rebels
march through the forest to the drug-producing heartland of Southeast
Asia's Golden Triangle.
Clad in khakis marked with the tiger-head symbol of the rebel Shan State
Army, they head for an opium poppy field in Myanmar, 20 kilometers (12
miles) to the east of their headquarters. When they get there, with a
Thai television crew in tow, they chop the poppies down.
The event is part of the Shan State Army's campaign to win international
support for its independence struggle by convincing the world it doesn't
do what Shan rebels have always done to finance their cause: produce and
traffic drugs.
Not everyone buys the story.
An annual U.S. State Department report issued March 1 named the rebels'
leader, Col. Yawd Serk, as a leading drug trafficker of Myanmar.
According to the State Department, Myanmar is the world's second-largest
source of opium, the raw material of heroin, after Afghanistan.
Yawd Serk once fought under the region's most notorious drug warlord,
and some of his men say privately that the Shan State Army raises money
by taxing drugs passing through its area, but the leader contends he is
sincere in his anti-drug campaign.
''They might think that I have my army here to protect the (drug)
business. Never mind. One day they will understand,'' the 42-year-old
rebel told a small group of journalists invited to his headquarters.
''Narcotics are not only the problem of the Tai,'' he added, using the
term that Shan people use to describe themselves. ''It's an
international problem.''
He said his troops are destroying opium poppies cultivated by the Wa,
another minority group in Shan State that Thailand's government blames
for most of the drug trafficking over the border.
The United Wa State Army, which enjoys virtual autonomy in Shan State,
has succeeded the Mong Tai Army as the biggest drug army in the Golden
Triangle, the region where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet.
Yawd Serk's base at Loi Tai Liang, which means ''The Mountain of Shan
Hope,'' is spartan. About 300 rebels and their families live in wood and
bamboo shacks scattered on either side of a dirt road. Other guerrillas
live on surrounding hilltops.
At the base, there's a market, a school, a rudimentary 10-bed hospital
and a generator providing electricity for a few hours every evening. The
only water supply is a trickling stream at the foot of the mountainside.
Skepticism about the Shan State Army grew last year after it abruptly
declared it was giving up armed rebellion, only to recant a couple of
weeks later, claiming it was a ruse to confuse the Myanmar regime.
Yawd Serk claims to have 12,000 guerrillas scattered in southern
Myanmar, but probably has far fewer than that.
A myriad of Shan armies have fought rule by Myanmar's military regimes
for four decades. Locally grown opium has bought the rebels' guns.
The Shan State Army announced three years ago that it was going on an
anti-drug drive, and claims to have destroyed 16 heroin and
methamphetamine laboratories along the Thai-Myanmar border. It says it
has seized 89.2 kilograms (196 pounds) of heroin, 196 kilograms (431
pounds) of raw opium and 1.7 million tablets of methamphetamines.
On occasion, the Shan State Army has even handed over seized drugs and
suspect smugglers to Thai authorities in an embarrassment to Myanmar's
government, which has faced heavy international criticism for failing to
crack down on key drug producers within its borders.
In the State Department report, the United States put Myanmar on its
drug blacklist, accusing it of not cooperating with Washington to combat
drugs. Myanmar called the action politically motivated.
Maj. Khamleng, a veteran guerrilla who heads the Shan State Army's drug
suppression force, claimed Myanmar government soldiers take a 20 percent
tax on the sales of raw opium in the region.
''I don't want to chop the opium poppies, but I'd like to chop the heads
of the growers down,'' said Khamleng, who uses only one name.
The Myanmar military denies it is involved in drug trafficking.
The State Department, however, said there are ''persistent and reliable
reports'' that corrupt army personnel in remote areas are either
directly involved in drug production and trafficking or are paid to
allow others to engage in drug activities.
Yawd Serk and many of his guerrillas used to fight for the Mong Tai Army
of warlord Khun Sa, once reputed to be the world's biggest heroin
smuggler. Khun Sa surrendered to Myanmar's army with 13,000 of his
fighters five years ago and retired to Yangon, the capital, promising to
keep out of the drug trade.
Eager to distance himself from his old boss, Yawd Serk contends the Shan
State Army's cause is financed only by taxes and donations from rich
Shans overseas.
However, sources within his command have said that while the rebel army
shuns drug dealing, it does tax others who traffic in narcotics.
___________________________________________________
AP: Myanmar Gets Set For Third International Airport
Saturday, April 7 6:24 PM SGT
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--The cornerstone has been laid for the terminal
building at Myanmars planned third international airport near Bago, 80
kilometers north of Yangon Construction of the new airport is scheduled
to be completed in four years, the state-run New Light of Myanmar
newspaper reported Saturday.
Speaking at the cornerstone-laying ceremony Friday, Transport Minister
Maj. Gen. Hla Myint Swe said the facility, to be called "Hanthawaddy
International airport," would boost tourism, reported the newspaper.
Hanthawaddy is the ancient name for Bago, which is also called Pegu.
The new airport will have the capacity to simultaneously serve 1,000
arriving and 1,000 departing passengers, said Hla Myint Swe at the
ceremony, which was attended by Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, a top member of
Myanmar's ruling military council.
The Department of Public Works has been working on the 12,000 foot long,
200 foot wide runway since 1994, and 22.94% of the earthwork has been
completed, said the newspaper.
Construction of the airport building and related facilities such as the
control tower, taxiway and power system will be undertaken by the South
Korean company Archon Co., said the transport minister. The cost of the
construction project wasn't reported.
Myanmars second international airport opened last year in Mandalay, the
country's second largest city, 560 kilometers north of the capital. The
country's main airport in Yangon has been renovated over the past few
years.
___________________________________________________
Xinhua (PRC): Myanmar's Sanctuaries Area Increases
[Editor?s Note: Xinhua, or the New China News Agency, is part of China?s
state press. Xinhua serves in part as a propaganda tool and also as an
intelligence agency for the PRC.]
April 9, 2001
YANGON, April 9
The area of sanctuaries in Myanmar has now increased to 3.2 percent of
the country's total area from 0.7 percent in 1988, according to sources
at the Myanmar Ministry of Forestry.
There are 28 sanctuaries in Myanmar.
Plans are being made to expand such area up to 5 percent, an official of
the ministry said.
Meanwhile, a well-known botanical garden, established in 1917 in Pin Oo
Lwin in the country's northern Mandalay division, has been transformed
into a National Kandawgyi (big lake) Garden to enable people for
relaxation, giving education, conducting research and promoting
eco-tourism, the official added.
According to official statistics, Myanmar's forest area accounts for 50
percent of the country's total land area, of which 18.6 percent are
reserved and protected public forest.
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
Jiji Press (Japan): Japan will give $24 million aid to Myanmar
5th April 2001 (unofficial translation)
It is revealed on 4th April that the Japanese government is to provide
aid for repairing an old power plant in Myanmar. It will be executed
within the year and total 3.0 billion yen to 3.5 billion yen. ($24
million to $28 million.) It will be the largest aid since the beginning
of Japanese sanction against the country in 1988. Japan wants to use the
aid to support a move of national reconciliation, that is, resumption of
the "political dialogue" between the junta and opposition groups led by
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.
___________________________________________________
Translator's Note on Japanese Aid to Burma
April 7, 2001
By Tetsu Hakoda
The plant mentioned here (see previous article) is the Baluchaung
hydroelectric power plant in Kayah state. It was built in 1960 by
Japanese war compensation for Burma. In 1981 and 1986 Japan gave yen
loans of Baluchaung related project. In 1981, 16 billion yen was funded
for the first plant, and in 1986, 3.53 billion yen for repair work of
the second plant.
The Japan Times covered the issue on 14th February 2001 in an article
'Japan readies fresh ODA for Myanmar.' According to it, A Japanese
government sources said, "Japan will carefully consider the timing of
any ODA for the Baluchaung power project while keeping a close watch on
political developments in Burma and on international circumstances
surrounding the Southeast Asian country." Jiji's report shows that
Japanese government has stepped up its procedure to the aid. It is said
that Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also deeply involved in the decision
making process.
The issue once appeared four months ago on Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese
rightist opinion paper. It reported on 18th December that JICA (Japanese
International Cooperation Agency; an governmental aid agency) sent the
inquiry mission to Burma in January 2000. It stayed for three months and
made a research on Baluchaung power plants.
The mission report urged the necessity of emergency repair works, and if
not, it said "the power plants will not work properly in the near
future." Japan was trying to provide the money with SPDC as a
humanitarian aid, however the project had been stopped in the face of
the political deadlock in Burma, the article said.
Interestingly, Sankei reported that the repair project was estimated by
the Yugoslavia government at $33 million in the last year. The
government would finance the money, and "a source said that Yugoslavia
and SPDC reached the basic agreement on the aid in the beginning of
December."
Sankei, well known as its extremely hostile attitude to China, also
expressed anxiety that Chinese government would give financial support
for Yugoslavia by using Japanese ODA money to China, since Yugoslavia
didn't seem to afford to the whole aid money by itself.
It's not sure if China will provide the money with Burma through
Yugoslavia. It seems to reflect, however, concern among anti-Chinese
Japanese policy makers, for some Japanese government officials and MPs
have been very sensitive to China's growing influence to Burma. A part
of Japan's involvement in Burma, such as the meeting of Japan's support
for Burma's economic structural reform held last December, has been done
for the purpose of lessening China's influence to Burma.
The Sankei's article ended with nationalistic antagonism against China,
"if Japan ignores the situation, it is possible that hydroelectric
plants build by Japanese money will raise another nation's flag, and the
result of Japanese aid project will be snatched [by China]."
Anyway, it is clear that Japanese government is heading for the first
fresh aid to the junta since 1998. At that time, they justified the aid
for upgrading the runway at Rangoon's Mingaladon airport as a kind of
'humanitarian' aid, which secured the safety of passengers. Ironically,
All Nippon Airways (ANA) pulled out of Burma in March 2000. And now
there are no direct flights between Rangoon and Kansai or Narita.
Now the Japanese government uses the same maneuver as in 1998. It calls
the aid for Baluchaung repairing project as a 'humanitarian' aid, and
also says that the aid will stimulate a move for 'political dialogue'
between NLD and SPDC, whose exact content is still unpublicized.
Nobody knows where the 'dialogue' goes, so the international community
watches the current situation with cautious optimism, for example EU
still holds the sanction policy. ILO sanction is still on because of
SPDC's complete failure to tackle forced labor problems.
In addition, there are still a lot of problems in the border area,
number of refugees and IDPs has increased fleeing from SPDC's offensive
against ethnic forces, killing, rape, forced labor, forced relocation,
or other serious human rights abuses.
Considering of these problems, it is hardly impossible to say that SPDC
is heading for true national reconciliation. It is policies and concrete
activities of the junta that make 'humanitarian' assistance necessary to
the people inside and outside Burma.
Japanese government must review the project-oriented involvement in
Burma with plentiful evidences of SPDC's failure to tackle almost all
kinds of problems in Burma, and urge the junta to stop human rights
abuses against its people and, first of all, to release all political
prisoners, including Daw Suu Kyi.
___________________________________________________
The Daily Telegraph (London): Burmese tourism boycott shunned
April 07, 2001, Saturday
BYLINE: By Rosemary Behan
BODY:
A former member of the Burmese National League for Democracy (NLD), the
party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, owns and runs a hotel in Burma and openly
encourages tourism there, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
His stance is at odds with that of pressure groups in Britain concerned
with Burma, which have successfully discouraged tourists from visiting
the country because of its military regime. The groups, which include
the London-based Tourism Concern and the Burma Campaign UK, have argued
that tourism props up the dictatorship.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph last year, published as part of our
debate about tourism to the country, Tricia Barnett, director of Tourism
Concern, said: "Aung San Suu Kyi and the party that the Burmese people
have overwhelmingly chosen to represent them, the democratically elected
National League for Democracy, have asked all tourists not to visit
Burma until democracy is restored."
But this week, U Ohn Maung - who was elected as an NLD member for the
Yawngwe area of the Shan State in 1990 and both owns and runs the Inle
Princess Hotel, on the eastern shore of Lake Inle - said he had resigned
from the party three years ago to concentrate on tourism. Mr Maung did
not want to be quoted, but a spokesman for the hotel said: "Tourism to
Burma is growing. It is good."
Myo Myo Myint, who works for Balloons over Bagan, a ballooning company
based in Rangoon, said she, like most of her peers, took part in
demonstrations in 1988 to bring about democratic elections. "I was angry
for almost two years and then I finally realised that nothing was
changing," she said. "I had to keep educating myself and earn a living
for my family. I welcome tourists for the exposure, income and
employment that they bring."
But this week Barnett, who also encouraged a boycott of Lonely Planet's
latest guidebook to Burma, said that, while she "respects and
understands" the desire of some Burmese people to receive tourists,
"this will not help them in the long run". "Until the NLD advises us
otherwise, we will continue to support the party's wish that tourists do
not visit until such time as democracy is restored."
Anna Roberts, a spokeswoman for the Burma Campaign UK, took a similar
line: "Tourism doesn't help the vast majority of the population, who are
farmers. It helps to sustain the government and gives it legitimacy.
There is at least one incidence of a hotel that was built using forced
labour."
But Andrew Brock, managing director of Andrew Brock Travel, based in
Uppingham, Leics, said he had been using the Inle Princess Hotel for 18
months and "had no doubt" that it helped local people. "It is the area's
best hotel and employs local people. While time has stood still for the
Burma action groups over here, people over there are finding that it
would be nice to make a little money."
Paul Strachan, who owns the Irrawaddy Flotilla company, said money from
tourism had been used to fund local schools and orphanages.
___________________________________________________
BBC: India releases jailed Burmese fishermen
April 6, 2001
Fifty-nine Burmese fishermen have been released from an Indian jail, two
years after they were cleared of trespassing in coastal waters.
The authorities in West Bengal say the delay in releasing the men was
due to the Burmese government carrying out checks to ensure that they
were all Burmese citizens who were entitled to return home.
The men were arrested four years ago on two Thai trawlers in waters
south of Calcutta.
During their time in captivity the men staged a series of hunger strikes
to protest against conditions in jail.
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
Reuters: Yangon wants to boost food output, exports
April 8, 2001
Kuala Lumpur
Military-ruled Myanmar wants to boost exports and food production to
tackle inflation and a thriving black market in its currency, a senior
government official with responsibilities for economic management has
said.
He said Myanmar's economy was estimated to have grown "at least eight
per cent" in the fiscal year to March 2001, fuelled by the agriculture
and energy sectors, but gave no comparison for 1999/2000. The growth
came off a very low base, however.
Western analysts say the country's economy is far from robust.
Myanmar's ruling generals took tentative steps to open up the economy,
after 26 years of isolation and central planning, at the end of the
1980s, after they suppressed a pro-democracy uprising.
But the country, which is rich in natural resources and was once one of
the region's top rice producers, remains one of the poorest in Asia.
Many foreign aid donors and investors are reluctant to get involved in
Myanmar because of its poor human rights record.
Among the country's economic problems are hyperinflation and the
collapse of the kyat currency, analysts say.
The official exchange rate is six kyat to the US dollar, a revel fixed
for more than 30 years, but the black market rate is near 600.
"We are aware there is a large gap between the official exchange rate
and the prevailing market rate," the official said on the sidelines of a
meeting of southeast Asian finance ministers in Malaysia's capital.
"In order to lessen the speculation as well as to increase the foreign
exchange reserves, the focus is now on export promotion," he said.
He said the government had permitted cross-border trade to be conducted
in kyat and the currencies of neighbouring countries, as well as US
dollars. Earlier, such trade was allowed only in dollars.
But the time was not yet appropriate to introduce a unified rate of the
kyat, he said, with limited forex reserves a factor.
Government figures show inflation has fallen sharply to about 3.4 per
cent, from a peak of 30 per cent in the mid-1990s, he said.
"In order to (further) contain inflation, the government has taken
measures which include cutting unproductive expenditures and increasing
sales of Treasury bonds."
Cheap loans to spur large-scale agriculture projects and the making of
import-substitution goods are another step.
_______________OPINION/EDITORIALS_________________
Bangkok Post: Honour promises for lasting goodwill
April 6, 2001
Honour promises for lasting goodwill
Given the hostility between Thailand and Burma, the recent fierce border
skirmish and the personal animosity between key military commanders and
their war of words through the media, the Regional Border Committee
meeting in Kengtung this week, the first in two years, has gone much
better than expected.
Lt-Gen Wattanachai Chaimuenwong, the tough-talking commander of the
Third Army, has been labelled a "war monger" by the Burmese for his
hard-line position, but he proved at the meeting that he also can be a
diplomat when he headed the Thai delegation. He wore a smile and adopted
a conciliatory tone all the while he was in Burma. The Burmese, for
their part, received him warmly and treated him like a long lost friend.
Although the substantive success of the trip was rather limited, it
helped relieve the tension that has gripped the two countries in a
dangerous confrontation. Such decidedly unneighbourly acts as lobbing
artillery shells at each another should stop now the two sides have
agreed to re-establish regular border committee meetings. The commanders
of the two sides will be more likely to reach for the phone, rather than
the gun, when problems arise if they can keep this momentum going.
Thailand will pull back its troops from the Mae Sai-Tachilek pass area.
And although the territorial disputes at Doi Lang in Chiang Mai and
Kuteng Nayong in Chiang Rai remain unresolved, it was agreed to discuss
them at the ministerial level.
Other problems remain unsettled, the most important being the drug
problem. This is the root cause of the hostility between our two
countries. It threatens to cause bitter hatred that could lead to other
normally manageable border disputes degenerating into armed conflict if
left unattended.
Burma has vowed to destroy any drug factory identified by Thailand on
its territory. This is welcome news, but it remains to be seen if
Rangoon will follow through. The prospects are not great. As soon as he
made the promise, Maj-Gen Thein Sein, Lt-Gen Wattanachai's counterpart,
virtually ruled out the Red Wa as a potential target. He insisted that
the United Wa State Army, widely recognised as the biggest producer of
methamphetamines in this part of the world, had nothing to do with the
drug trade, and that Mong Yawn, the booming Wa township, was not built
with drug money but special development funds provided by Rangoon
because it is part of a "special administration zone".
This sounds a lot like a tall tale. Several billion baht is estimated to
have been spent developing Mong Yawn and its infrastructure, including
public utilities, a dam, a hospital and other facilities. This is money
the junta does not have. Maj-Gen Thein Sein's statement also
contradicted a Wa claim that the construction was funded by profits from
sales of diamonds and rubies mined locally.
Once you rule out the Wa as drug producers, who else is there to
suppress? Who is producing the 600 million methamphetamines expected to
flow into Thailand this year? Gen Maung Aye, the Burmese army chief,
totally absolved Burma of any links to the drug trade, saying the raw
material, chemical percursors and tools for producing drugs all come
from elsewhere. Drug factories, he told Lt-Gen Wattanachai, can be
situated anywhere, not just Burma, since it takes just one square metre
to set up a factory.
These claims cast doubt on how serious the Burmese junta is about
helping Thailand suppress drugs. Unless it is sincere, any goodwill that
has been established this week will be short-lived and relations between
the two countries will sour again before very long.
______________________OTHER______________________
Cambridge University Press publishes The Making of Modern Burma
The Making of Modern Burma, by Drr. Thant Myyint-U is available in
bookstores throughout the UK and through www.amazon.co.uk. There is a
hardcover edition as well as a paperback edition for approximately 11
pounds. It will be published in the US next month.
The book is the first comprehensive history of Burma from the late
eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries and aims to provide
readers with an entirely new background to the contemporary situation.
It also presents readers a portrait of a lost society, the Burma just
prior to the British occupation, and describes in detail a little-known
but fascinating chapter in Burma's history - the often visionary
attempts by the Burmese government from 1854-1885 to modernise the
country. More information about this book both on amazon.co.uk and at
this website:
http://uk.cambridge.org/areastudies/catalogue/0521780217/default.htm
Thank you very much for your kind help and please do not hesitate to let
me know if you would like any further information.
Dr Thant Myint-U
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