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BurmaNet News: April 8, 2001



______________ 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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