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[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
        An on-line newspaper covering Burma 
         June 26, 2001 Issue # 1832
______________ www.burmanet.org _______________


NOTED IN PASSING: "ominous silence?

Dr. Chris Beyrer?s description of the regime?s response to the AIDS 
epidemic in Burma.  See NY Times: AIDS Hidden in Myanmar, Expert Says

INSIDE BURMA _______
*NY Times: AIDS Hidden in Myanmar, Expert Says
*The Times: Fading faces of Burma-With family in tow, Joey Bieber went 
to record a vanishing way of life 

MONEY _______
*Digipresse/Yahoo.fr: A Burmese trade unionist thanks Total for 
acknowledging its use of forced labour
*Xinhua: China, Myanmar Cooperate To Develop Transport On Int'l River

GUNS_____
*Shan Herald Agency for News: "Chemical weapons" were tear-gas bombs, 
said Yawdserk 
*Shan Herald Agency for News:  Shan army facing financial difficulty

REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Bangkok Post: Intelligence gathering poor - Chavalit says efforts being 
made to ensure improvement
*The Nation: Refugees to gain from FM's idea 

EDITORIALS/OPINION/PROPAGANDA________
*Letter: ?Portrait? of Suu Kyi by Levy and Scott-Clark ?unfair 
and...untruthful?
*New Light of Myanmar (SPDC): SBS Myanmar radio programme under control 
of rowdies 

OTHER_____
*The Burma Fund: Position Announcement--Program Assistant - DC
*Karen Human Rights Group: KHRG releases largest set of SPDC orders to 
date
					
__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________




NY Times: AIDS Hidden in Myanmar, Expert Says

June 25, 2001 


By BARBARA CROSSETTE

      
An American expert on AIDS in Southeast Asia says that the military 
government of Myanmar is falsifying statistics to hide evidence that the 
disease has reached epidemic levels there. 

The specialist, Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins 
School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, has just completed a 
study concluding that 3.46 percent of adults are infected with the virus 
that causes AIDS. 

Dr. Beyrer's study will be presented Monday during a special United 
Nations General Assembly session on AIDS. 

Although this percentage is well below the worst levels of some African 
nations, it would make Myanmar the second-worst case in Southeast Asia, 
which has the highest reasonably confirmable rates in all of Asia. 
Cambodia, for instance, has a rate of infection of about 4 percent of 
adults.  

Medical experts classify a disease as an epidemic when the level of the 
population affected reaches 2 percent or more. 

"The bottom-line issue here is that people who know about the H.I.V. 
epidemic in the region are very concerned about the situation in Burma," 
Dr. Beyrer said in an interview, using the country's traditional name. 
He described the response of the military government as "ominous 
silence." 

The conclusions of Dr. Beyrer, who has worked as a consultant for the 
World Health Organization in Myanmar, are broadly supported by the 
findings of United Nations AIDS experts. Unaids, the coordinating body 
working on the disease within the organization, estimates that 48,000 
people in Myanmar died of AIDS in 1999, the year on which Dr. Beyrer and 
his team based their study. That year, the Burmese government officially 
reported 802 AIDS deaths. 

In the mid-1980's, Myanmar began to follow Thailand's example and take 
regular measurements of the spread of H.I.V. infections. Dr. Beyrer 
added that Health Ministry officials compile accurate numbers   which 
international agencies get and pass on to experts abroad   only to have 
them brushed aside by the country's military leadership. 

In conducting the Johns Hopkins research, Dr. Beyrer and his team looked 
at the government's own figures collected at clinics and hospitals.  

Among Burmese men aged 20 to 44, the researchers calculated, the 
infection rate is about 5.3 percent. The infection rate for women 
nationally was below 3 percent, except in the Shan states. In general, 
the study found, 1 in every 29 adults in Myanmar carries H.I.V. 




_________________________________________________



The Times (UK): Fading faces of Burma-With family in tow, Joey Bieber 
went to record a vanishing way of life 

June 26, 2001
 
BY JOANNA PITMAN 
 
Joey Bieber looks and sounds so resolutely, domestically English on her 
Sussex farm, surrounded by children and animals, that you would never 
guess at her taste for exotic adventure. Two years ago, towards the end 
of a three-week journey through rural Burma with her husband and four 
children aged nine to 14, she found herself stranded one night on the 
edge of the Irrawaddy River with her brood and a large pile of 
suitcases. They had driven in a rattling bus through the previous night 
and day over unmade roads and mountains and had missed the last ferry. 
We were stranded. So we commandeered a boat which delivered us to the 
far shore with our piles of luggage. We had one suitcase each, plus a 
huge medical bag, plus several more bags for cameras and other equipment 
and presents for the locals. So there we were sitting on the other 
shore, wondering what to do next when people from the village noticed us 
and began wandering down to look. Soon the entire village had gathered 
to stare at us as if we were some kind of exhibit. Theyd never seen 
westerners before, let alone fair-skinned children. We didnt know what 
to do, so John Biebers husband and I started singing Oh I do love to be 
beside the seaside. The children were so embarrassed, but the villagers 
thought it was marvellous. 

Sterling stuff. You can just picture the little tribe of rather grubby 
and weary Brits making the best of a rotten situation. Bieber would 
probably have been perfect material for keeping outposts of empire 
together. She is resolute, resourceful and has a pungent sense of 
humour. 

Bieber also happens to be a powerful photographer. An exhibition of 56 
of her images taken on that trip opens at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS in 
London on July 12. In essence it is a documentary study of the people of 
remote, rural Burma, the mothers and children, the labourers, monks, 
nuns and others she and her family came across. Travelling with four 
children, a mixture of blondes and redheads, clearly did Bieber no harm 
at all. Several of the images capture groups of Burmese, eyes popping in 
amazement at the sight of a gang of western children. 

As a photographer, Bieber seems to work apart from the photographic 
consensus of the moment; she tends to be reflective rather than 
militant, romantic rather than sceptical. Everywhere she goes she 
searches for humanity, focusing in on it largely to show her children 
(They saw humanity, believe me!) and in the process she finds a 
remarkable spirituality in the Burmese. For a country which has been 
bullied, beaten and subdued by a brutally totalitarian military regime 
in recent years, it is fascinating to see the spiritual resilience of 
these people shining through. 

The routine acts of daily village life are revealed to be full of grace, 
pathos, humour and surprise. A nun in a wrapped headdress and frayed 
jacket sits at the entrance to a temple, sucking at a fat cheroot; not 
very holy, but a nun nevertheless, her begging bowl sits in front of 
her, never quite empty but never quite full. 

A monk is pictured descending the steps of the holy mountain, Mount 
Popa. Above him hangs a banner emblazoned with the loops and swirls of 
the Burmese script. The architectural lines of the wall beside him, the 
door frame behind and the pockmarked ledge to his side all stretch the 
image very tight towards two dimensions, taut as a drum. On this surface 
appears the figure of the monk, his robes and blanket spreading in waves 
away from an extraordinarily intense moon-shaped shaven head, with a 
face that looks waxen in its gently gleaming perfection. 

Biebers strong graphic eye is seen at its best in the image of two water 
buffalo hauling teak logs from the river on to the muddy banks of the 
Irrawaddy. The two half moons of their horns are linked by a heavy log 
yoke, their smooth bodies mirrored by the hunks of dense wood hanging 
silently in the water. A maze of straw huts floats behind them, their 
roofs furred with soft thatch, and chopstick-thin people give the image 
vertical co-ordinates as fine as calligraphic brush strokes. In the 
background a long low boat floats by, a boy paddling serenely at its 
bow. The picture was the result of instant recognition of subject and 
form. 

Many of these images will acquire nostalgic value as Burma changes and 
develops under the ongoing influence of tourism, foreign investment and, 
one day, democracy. I wanted to capture Burma and its people before 
changes happened, says Bieber. 


Melting the Stars is at the Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and 
African Studies, Russell Square, London WC1 from July 12 to December 7. 
The catalogue is available on special offer for Times readers for 12.95. 
Tel 0207 3892242 or www.bieberco.co.uk 
 



______________________MONEY________________________



Digipresse/Yahoo.fr: A Burmese trade unionist thanks Total for 
acknowledging its use of forced labour

[Translation from the French original by Info Birmanie--Birmanie-Total : 
un syndicaliste birman remercie Total de reconnaitre le travail forcé () 
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/010619/108/1de7l.html]



"Thank you, Total" declared Mr Than Lwin, a leading member of the 
Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB, the only -free and 
underground- Trade Union in Burma), in Paris on June 19. Mr Than Lwin, 
Administrative Executive Officer of FTUB, was reacting after the 
petroleum group recently acknowledged the use of forced labour linked to 
the construction of its pipeline in Burma. The trade-union member had 
been invited for a European tour of information by several European 
trade-unions affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions (ICFTU). Digipresse met him in the offices of France Libertes, 
Danielle Mitterrand's foundation in Paris, where he had been invited by 
Info-Birmanie. After the interview, Mr Than Lwin was to take part in a 
demonstration held by Total's French trade union members outside the oil 
geant's head-offices at 5 km west of Paris. In his interview with 
Digipresse the Burmese trade-union leader was explicitly refering to a 
declaration by Jean-Pierre Cordier, president of TotalFinaElf's Ethics 
Committee. On June 14, during a debate "For or against a boycott of 
Burma" organised by the leading Paris bookstore FNAC St Lazare, Mr 
Cordier had stated: "When a case of forced labour is brought to our 
attention, we make every effort to offer compensation". The group' s 
head of public relations, Mr Delaborde, attended the debate and did not 
deny his colleague' s declaration. This public recognition, by a member 
of TotalFinaElf's management, of the use of forced labour linked to its 
Burmese pipeline construction will have long-lasting effects. This 
reaction by the FTUB leader is just a beginning. 
Mr Than Lwin continued (listen to video) pointing out that this 
recognition will have to be considered in the appeal of burmese 
plaintiffs against Unocal* pending in a federal court in California

Re Unocal

*Unocal, Total's American partner in the construction and exploitation 
of the Burmese pipeline, is being sued by Burmese forced labour victims, 
and various human rights violations in an American court of justice. The 
case was initially brought against both partners, Total and Unocal. 
However in September 1997 the French government intervened with a Brief 
Amicus Curiae declaring the Los Angeles tribunal incompetent with 
regards to Total.  At present, although Unocal was found not guilty in 
first instance, conclusions by the judge have paved the way for the 
pending appeal procedure.  In Paris, beside Mr Than Lwin, one of the 
Burmese plantiffs against UNOCAL was facing the French journalists for 
the first time, and joined the demonstration with French oil union 
members. 

Vincent Riou et Francis Christophe 

c digipresse, translated by Brigitte Revol 









Xinhua: China, Myanmar Cooperate To Develop Transport On Int'l River

KUNMING, June 25 , 2001 14:41PM 
  
Southwest China's Yunnan Province is increasing cooperation with Myanmar 
to develop a road-water transportation line for more efficient trade. 

The province and the country expect a portage to be completed in the 
near future between a road in the province and the waterway of the 
Irrawaddy River in Myanmar. 

The 2150-km river originates on the Tibet Plateau and flows through 
Yunnan and Myanmar and empties into the Indian Ocean. 




_______________________GUNS________________________




Shan Herald Agency for News: "Chemical weapons" were tear-gas bombs, 
said Yawdserk 

June 25, 2001

In reply to S.H.A.N.'s question concerning reports of Rangoon's 
employment  of chemical weapons during the Pakhee Battle, 22 April-3 
May, a Shan army  leader acknowledged that they were actually tear-gas 
bombs. 

"The bombs were fired onto Honok (near Pakhee, Mongton Township, 
opposite  Fang District of Chiangmai) on 30 April," he told S.H.A.N.. 
"They exploded  in mid-air, emitting a black smoke that changed into 
white. Many of our men  went dizzy and some of them unconscious."

One officer who witnessed the event added, "At first, we thought they 
were  dead, but after some time they regained their consciousness." 

The Pakhee Battle, where Shans captured nearly 200,000 pills of  
amphetamines from the Burmese outpost, further strained the relations  
between Thailand and Burma.









Shan Herald Agency for News:  Shan army facing financial difficulty

June 25, 2001

The only Shan group that is actively fighting against Rangoon has been  
under severe financial constraints since its anti-narcotics principle 
came  into force in 1998, according to Shan resistance quarters. 

During a meeting of army officers that was held on 22 June, 1900-2300,  
chaired by Col. Khurh-ngern, Vice  President, Restoration Council of 
Shan  State and Chief of Staff, Shan State Army, a list of the army's 
unsettled  bills was read out. (For reasons of security, the figures 
shall not be  quoted).

"That is the burden for trying to live up to our principles," said  
Khurh-ngern.

One participant agreed. "The Burmese have been accusing us all along of  
Thai support for Shans. They should have seen our list."

Khurh-ngern, however, was confident the army would be able to overcome 
the  present difficulty through revenue totally unrelated to drugs. 
"Financial  problem is nothing new for us," he said.

The meeting was attended by several prominent leaders, including Lt. 
Col.  Wanli, Commander of the crack 198st Brigade and Maj. Oomliang,  
Officer-in-charge of the Chief-of-Staff office. Col. Yawdserk left a day 
 earlier from Loi Taileng, opposite Maehongson's Pang Mapha District, on 
a  trip.


___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________


				
Bangkok Post: Intelligence gathering poor - Chavalit says efforts being 
made to ensure improvement

June 26, 2001

Post Reporters 


The government wants to make intelligence an effective deterrent against 
foreign terrorist acts in Thailand.

Defence Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said intelligence collection was 
inadequate, but improvements were on the way.

Gen Chavalit, who is leading a delegation comprising military leaders 
and the defence permanent-secretary to Burma at the end of July, said 
authorities were always one step behind rebel groups from neighbouring 
countries operating in Thailand against their own governments.

Security agencies had failed repeatedly to prevent sabotage in the South 
by separatist movements based in Malaysia.

Last week, the Free Vietnam Movement left two home-made bombs in front 
of the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok.

Gen Chavalit and defence staff yesterday discussed measures to deal with 
terrorist movements, as well as border problems, with people from the 
Interior and Foreign ministries.

He said co-operation would be sought from the home countries of 
suspected rebels as well as nations that naturalised them to keep a 
close eye on their moves.

"We need to have information before they come in," Gen Chavalit said.

The government would "put things in order" at Wat Tham Krabok in 
Saraburi, a major shelter of Hmong refugees who opposed the Lao 
government, he said.

A clear policy was needed on whether to allow the Hmong to stay or to 
send them back.

Deputy Interior Minister Sora-at Klinprathum said the meeting agreed to 
set up a special committee which would have power to act when border 
troubles occur.

The panel would be chaired by the National Security Council 
secretary-general and comprise the defence, interior and foreign 
permanent secretaries, the supreme commander and chiefs of the three 
armed forces.

Surakiart Sathirathai, the foreign minister, said NSC secretary-general 
Kachadpai Burusapatana would act as co-ordinator working closely with 
the Foreign and Defence permanent secretaries, the supreme commander and 
national police chief.

The Interior Ministry would lead negotiations with Thailand's neighbours 
on ways to tackle transnational crimes, on borders and permission to 
open checkpoints with Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Malaysia, said Mr 
Surakiart.

He urged all sides to build sustainable relationships with Burma after 
the Mae Sai-Tachilek checkpoint re-opened last Saturday.

On the lignite power plant planned for Tachilek, the minister said both 
Thailand and Burma saw it as a private matter.

But he added that Bangkok might ask Rangoon whether the plant would harm 
the environment and that Thailand was ready to share knowledge on 
environmental protection gleaned from its plant at Lampang's Mae 
Modistrict.


___________________________________________________



TheNation: Refugees to gain from FM's idea 

June 26, 2001

Thailand yesterday approached Japan to join in its endeavour to create 
jobs inside Burma to support Burmese refugees once they returned home.

The idea was floated yesterday by Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai 
during his meeting with Japanese Ambassador Nobutoshi Akao. Surakiart 
had earlier proposed to the International Organisation of Migration 
(IOM) that it set up an office in Rangoon to help the refugees earn a 
living after their return.

According to Surakiart, Japan has agreed in principle to his initiative 
and he will discuss it further when he visits Japan in August.

The minister said US-based Unocal and the Petroleum Authority of 
Thailand were keen to develop self-supporting communities inside Burma 
to help the refugees resettle in their homeland. Both 
petroleum-suppliers are partners in a controversial pipeline project in 
Burma that supplies Thailand.

He said Thailand would help Burma find a market for products from these 
community projects.

He added that if negotiations with Rangoon on the return of Burmese 
refugees were successful Thailand, other friendly states and the IOM 
would proceed with the self-supporting community idea. 

During Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's fence-mending visit to Burma 
last week, Rangoon repeated its position that it was willing to allow 
refugees to return provided they were proven to be genuine Burmese. 
Thailand is housing more than 100,000 Burmese refugees, mainly ethnic 
minorities, at sprawling camps along its border with Burma.

Meanwhile the Mae Sai-Tachilek checkpoint was yesterday bustling with 
Burmese rushing to buy Thai consumer goods. The immigration office at 
Mae Sai has recorded nearly 3,000 Burmese visitors since the checkpoint 
reopened on Sunday after being closed for five months.

Deputy chief of the Mae Sai Customs Office Veerapong Pannaratch said 
export orders for Thai goods had reached more than Bt700,000 on the 
first day of opening. He said Burma had started to take in cement and 
iron rods while strategic goods like petrol and vehicles that had been 
banned were still on the order list but not yet exported.

However, a group of villagers who have resisted the construction of a 
lignite-based thermal power plant in Tachilek yesterday expreseed its 
concern that the reopening of the checkpoint would make it easy for 
machines for the plant to get into Burma.

In a related development, the Thai-owned Regina and Gold hotel in 
Tachilek reopened yesterday, offering customers up to 50 per cent 
discounts on room rates to stimulate demand following its closure as a 
result of the border seal. But the hotel, which includes a casino, only 
managed to draw a small number of customers.





___________EDITORIALS/OPINION/PROPAGANDA__________



Letter: ?Portrait? of Suu Kyi by Levy and Scott-Clark ?unfair 
and...untruthful?


June 26, 2001

Dear Sir,

The "Portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi" by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark 
[carried in yesterday?s BurmaNet] was a very negative piece of writing. 
You were right to bring it
to the attention of your readers. Aung San Suu Kyi would be the last 
person to even suggest that she was a "St Joan" or any other saint. 
However she is a very remarkable woman trying to do a very hard job 
surrounded on all sides by a recalcitrant army junta and by some 
apparent time-servers. It is not surprising that she should lose her 
temper at times, but to suggest as these writers do that she is 
autocratic and aloof is unfair and I think untruthful. She is a woman 
with a mission and presses ahead to her goal. And if some lesser people 
cannot keep up with her or share her vision, then in the manner of 
things, they have to fall behind.

This piece of writing further suggests that these writers have absorbed 
a well known Burmese ( and Australian)trait- that of cutting down like a 
tall poppy anyone brave enough to stand taller than they. Or in another 
way- "Put two Burmese into a room together and when they come out they 
will have formed three political parties".

Whilst criticism is always to be welcomed it is a pity that these 
writers were so concerned to write only negative things about Aung San 
Suu Kyi that they ignored the tremendous things she has done. Like her 
or hate her- she is the only bright hope for Burma.

Dr Paul Webb
Darwin Australia



___________________________________________________





New Light of Myanmar (SPDC): SBS Myanmar radio programme under control 
of rowdies   

[Abridged]

Part 1, May 24, 2001.  Part 2, May 25, 2001

Part I

As Australia encourages the system of diverse ethnic peoples and 
cultures, it  permits the setting up of radio stations of the languages 
of multiple races  in order to promote the religion, literature and 
culture of these peoples who  have settled in the nation. 
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) was set up as a radio station of  
Independent Statuary Authority in 1978 under the broadcasting act of 
1991.  The duty of SBS is to broadcast news and entertainment programmes 
of multiple  races and cultures. Broadcasting of one-sided political 
views and statements  injurious to others are being prohibited under the 
departmental broadcasting  policies. 

 However, the SBS Myanmar radio programme has become a tool of 
expatriate  Myanmar politicians who are totally against the aims and 
policies of the SBS  and are blindly opposing Myanmar. If the 
announcements of the SBS are  analyzed objectively, they never really 
represent any of the political  organizations. 

 The Myanmar radio programme is dominated by the opinions of the 
in-charge  of the programme or the views of his closely associated 
political circle.  Especially, its announcements are based on random 
policies of an individual  person. For example, the articles compiled by 
the one, Maung Ye Khaing, are  based on hearsay that are the slanderous 
news gathered from different  corners. Without having any consideration 
for the journalism codes of  conduct, he is announcing the views which 
are his own creations.  

The programmer, the columnist, the regular announcers should have moral  
conduct and real goodwill towards the public and should always keep in 
the  fore the interests of the entire people. Moreover, they greet the 
listeners  with a sweet and auspicious voice. However, as the SBS is 
dominated by  uneducated, stubborn and random rowdies, it is always 
overwhelmed by the  abusive language. 

There is a prescription in Australia that the in-charge of a SBS radio  
programme should be at least a graduate of an Australian university. 
Because  it is accepted and believed that only the educated and 
thoughtful persons can  produce an unbiased and a pleasant radio 
programme that serves the people's  interests in accord with the rules. 
Kyaw Tun Aung, the Myanmar radio  programmer of the SBS, is a settler 
who arrived in Australia in 1971. Apart  from his fluency in English, 
for he has been in Australia for long, let alone  getting a degree from 
any university in Myanmar or Australia, he even didn't  pass the 
matriculation examination. In addition to his low education level,  he 
has less knowledge. His programmes are worse and he does not deserve the 
 programmer job. 

Only the two women part-time announcers are skilled in radio programming 
and  can produce programmes that help promote the general knowledge of 
the Myanmar  people. But Kyaw Tun Aung's programmes are overwhelmed by 
the abusive  language which is totally against the Myanmar culture, have 
many duplicates  from other radio stations (for example, some of his 
programmes are the carbon  copies of BBC), and are full of random 
opinions of his political associates.  Though he is said to be giving 
priority to the politics, he is not a  politician. As he left Myanmar at 
about 1970, he has no connection with the  politics of Myanmar. He is 
just an opportunists. He is just a swaggerer  acting on his hearsay 
knowledge on the four 8s and the four 9s incidents.  
He is using some of the Myanmar expatriate politicians to make himself a 
 swaggerer. He formed alliance with Kenneth Oo and his group and founded 
All  Young Burmese League (AYBL) to win the support of ethnic Myanmar 
groups as a  means to consolidate his position at SBS. When he gained a 
foothold in SBS,  he kicked Kenneth Oo and his group out.


Author : Maung Sydney ( Australia) 

Part 2

(Continued from 24-6-2001) 

It is tantamount to stabbing in the back of Myanmar. It can have a  
detrimental effect on the strengthening of ties of friendship and the  
promotion of understanding between the two nations. Therefore, the 
Australian  government should keep a tight rein on SBS Myanmar programme 
which has become  a place where organizations holding negative views are 
broadcasting their  propaganda programmes. 

 It is because SBS Radio is not the one run privately but the one backed 
by  the government according to the law of the Australian government. Ye 
Khaing  (a) Ye Naing, the follower of Kyaw Tun Aung, is helping Kyaw Tun 
Aung to have  his own way. With the help of Ye Khaing, Kyaw Tun Aung 
managed to marry  runaway student Mi Mi. Ye Khaing was conceited so much 
so that he no longer  has a sense of respects to the Buddha, religious 
sermons and elders. He is  praising himself as a ABSDF hero or literary 
hero. 

In fact, he has to lead a life of a runaway after robbing warehouses 
during  disturbances. The news about him is circulating among the group 
of Myanmar  people. One rowdy characteristic of Ye Naing is that he 
wrote by comparing  another person with a cow, and as a result, another 
group has been thrown  into fury. Likewise, on a certain Myanmar 
political occasion, Ye Naing spoke  so-called ideological words after 
getting drunk. Very recently due to Ye  Naing, the Sydney show of 
runaway Tin Moe was almost in disorder.  


 ...All the  Myanmar people in Australia pinned their great hope on SBS 
Myanmar programme  when it was allowed. However, they amazed at the 
appointment of Kyaw Tun Aung  as an announcer, Chairman of AYBL, All 
Young Burmese League, who cannot speak  Myanmar language well. 

They didn't even believe it. They forecast that it could not become a  
broadcasting station representing the group of Myanmar people. As 
forecast by  the group of Myanmar people, Kyaw Tun Aung, who has become 
the programmer  thanks to ABC (All Burma Council), has broadcast the 
ideology of their  association and groundless political news. It is 
deplorable to note that  although the Australian government has spent 
money for the interests of the  group of Myanmar, their plans has become 
fruitless due to opportunist  politicians bent on seeking 
self-interests. The present SBS Myanmar programme  does not represent 
the group of Myanmar people in Australia but programmer  Kyaw Tun Aung 
and his group. It rejects writings which give knowledge to the  group of 
Myanmar people. It broadcast lies. 

 It broadcast false news and invented news, thereby insulting listeners. 
 Stories are manufactured on the basis of gossip under the name of an 
article  writer. The rowdy persons are brazenly abusing SBS Myanmar 
programme. They do  not pay any regard to the group of Myanmar people. 
They are carrying out  activities which tarnish the pride and prestige 
of the group of Myanmar  people. It is the duty of the group of Myanmar 
people in Sydney to put the  right man in the right place of SBS Myanmar 
programme. 



Author : Maung Sydney ( Australia) 




______________________OTHER______________________



The Burma Fund: Position Announcement--Program Assistant - DC

Position Announcement - Program Assistant, Washington D.C. 
Please check the following URLs for complete information:

://www.washingtonpost.com/wl/JS_JobSearchDetail.shtml?value=7230366&TS=9 
93189382769

http://www.burmafund.org





Karen Human Rights Group: KHRG releases largest set of SPDC orders to 
date

June 25, 2001

The most recent Karen Human Rights Group report, SPDC & DKBA Orders to 
Villages: Set 2001-A, is now online at www.khrg.org .  This report 
presents direct translations of over 500 SPDC order documents and 
letters sent to villages by SPDC military units and authorities in 6 
different regions from late 1999 through January 2001.   It is by far 
the largest order set yet published by KHRG, showing that in the rural 
areas there has been no abatement whatsoever in the SPDC's repression of 
the civilian population.  Over 300 of the orders contain demands for 
forced labour, negating the SPDC's claims to have put a stop to the 
practice.  Others were used to restrict the movements and activities of 
villagers, demand crop    quotas, extortion money, food and building 
materials without payment, and order villagers to cooperate with SPDC 
occupation troops in several different ways.  Many of them threaten to 
arrest and detain village elders, shell villages with mortar fire, shoot 
villagers, or pillage, burn or relocate villages if they fail to comply. 
 This report, our longest in almost 10 years of human rights 
documentation, is part of KHRG's ongoing project to translate and 
publish these orders as evidence (previous sets can be seen in "SPDC & 
DKBA Orders to Villages: Set 2000-B" and other earlier reports); even as 
it went to print, we had already obtained over 300 newer order documents 
which we are currently processing for upcoming release. 





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Burma News Summaries available by email or the web

There are three Burma news digest services available via either email or 
the web.

Burma News Update
Frequency: Biweekly
Availability: By fax or the web.
Viewable online at 
http://www.burmaproject.org/burmanewsupdate/index.html
Cost: Free
Published by: Open Society Institute, Burma Project

The Burma Courier 
Frequency: Weekly 
Availability: E-mail, fax or post.  To subscribe or unsubscribe by email 
celsus@xxxxxxxxxxx
Viewable on line at: http://www.egroups.com/group/BurmaCourier
Cost: Free
Note: News sources are cited at the beginning of an article. 
Interpretive comments and background
details are often added.

Burma Today
Frequency: Weekly
Availability: E-mail
Viewable online at http://www.worldviewrights.org/pdburma/today.html
To subscribe, write to pdburma@xxxxxxxxx
Cost: Free
Published by: PD Burma (The International Network of Political Leaders 
Promoting Democracy in Burma)




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