Reuters, 18 March 2000
Ireland Honors Myanmar's Suu Kyi, Rock Legends U2
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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland paid tribute to human rights and rock music on Saturday, bestowing the honorary freedom of Dublin on Nobel prize winning Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Irish rock legends U2.
``In honoring Suu Kyi, we are acknowledging the personal sacrifices this brave woman has made for the people of Burma (Myanmar) and highlighting the unacceptable human rights violations carried out by the military regime there,'' Lord Mayor Mary Freehill said at a ceremony, part of the city's St Patrick's festival.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her work for democracy in Myanmar. She won the country's last election in 1990 but was never allowed to take office.
Her son, Kim Aris, accepted the award on her behalf.
``My mother would like to say that she is greatly honored. We feel that it is an especially touching award as it is symbolic of the city opening its heart to her,'' he said.
The four members of U2 -- Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen -- and their manager Paul McGuinness were honored for their musical achievements and for their work for good causes and the people of Dublin.
``I'd have thought people would be sick of U2 by now,'' Bono said before the band performed an impromptu concert to thousands in Dublin's Smithfield market. ``It's still moving to come home and see the amount of goodwill toward us.'
By David Brunnstrom
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Asian governments must overcome resistance to AIDS prevention programs for drug users if they are to prevent explosive epidemics among addicts spiraling out of control in the rest of the community, a leading expert warns.
Nick Crofts, deputy director of the Macfarlane Burnet Centre in Melbourne, Australia's largest virology and communicable disease research institute, told Reuters drug abuse had been critically important in development of Asia's AIDS epidemics.
``But it's been so hard to get governments in Asia to respond to the problem of HIV and AIDS among injecting drug users.
``There's been a terrific response in other areas -- sexual transmission and so one -- but injecting drug users are usually at the bottom of everyone's list and usually not on anyone's list,'' he said in a weekend interview.
Crofts, also director of the Centre for Harm Reduction, which aims to reduce damage caused by illegal drugs, was in Bangkok to launch the ``Manual for Reducing Drug-Related Harm in Asia.''
The free 350-page manual is the culmination of more than 10 years' research and offers advice to policy makers and others in the fight against AIDS in Asia. Details are available from the Asian Harm Reduction Network at www.ahrn.net
Crofts said the key problem in Asia was many governments -- and U.N. agencies -- were opposed to programs adopted successfully in some Western countries, like needle exchanges, on the grounds they appeared to condone or encourage drug abuse.
``We need to look at culturally appropriate and politically acceptable ways of ensuring that if people do inject illicit drugs, they do it with clean needles,'' he said.
Other approaches included providing methadone as a heroin substitute, community education and joint programs with police.
Crofts said programs intended to wean addicts from drugs were generally ineffective. ``They're not much better in the rest of the world, but terribly ineffective in Asia.''
Amphetamine Abuse To Worsen Problem
Adding to the problem was a surge in Asian amphetamine abuse.
``No one has a clue how to deal with amphetamines. More people using amphetamines means more unsafe sex and HIV reaching groups which would not otherwise have been at risk.''
The alternatives to concerted action were horror stories like those seen in military ruled Myanmar, where up to 80 percent of injecting drug users have tested HIV positive.
``Generally you find the more the repressive the approach the more the HIV problem and Burma is at the top of the league on the repressive approach and therefore top of the league with HIV.''
Crofts said the major response of most Asian countries -- jailing drug users -- only made matters worse.
``They still inject drugs, but with less equipment. They share more and when they're released they go back to home with HIV and form the nucleus of explosively rapid outbursts of the virus.
``Approaches to drug problems should recognize AIDS is the worst harm associated with it. You have to have a balanced approach of reducing supply, reducing demand and reducing harm.''
This had been shown by the fact that while there had been some success say in reducing the traffic of drugs from Myanmar through Thailand this has simply led to a shift in trafficking routes and new HIV epidemics to China and India.
The pressing need for free needles was seen in the frightful phenomenon of ``shooting galleries'' in countries like Vietnam and Myanmar.
``In Vietnam you have professional injectors who fill a big syringe with a drug and you go along and buy so much and they'll inject you with that much then move on to the next person with the same needle and syringe. That might involve up to hundreds of people being injected with the same equipment.
``In example after example, country by country, you go from having almost no HIV among users to having 40, 50, 60, 70 to 90 percent of drug users infected within a few months.''
The tragedy was this was so easily avoidable.
``We know how to do it. It's not a technical matter but a frame of mind -- a matter of political will. One of the big barriers to getting political will is that they say well they're only drug users so it doesn't matter.
``It can be even more extreme, as I've heard in Malaysia -- that addicts and drug use will solve each other.
``But they don't realize the economic effects -- that drug users form a nucleus for the spread of HIV to other sectors of the community and in most countries in Asia are the start of the national epidemic.''
Reuters, 19 March 2000
Hundreds of Thai Teens in Copycat Breakout
By Vithoon Amorn
BANGKOK (Reuters) - More than 400 young offenders, some armed with sticks and iron bars, broke out of a juvenile remand center in Bangkok on Sunday morning in a copycat version of a mass breakout at a detention center the previous day.
Local radio quoted officials of the center at Chaeng Wattana on the northern outskirts of Bangkok as saying that about 420 youths aged between 16 and 18 escaped after breakfast.
The officials said many had been recaptured but about 230 remained at large. A Reuters photographer saw groups of youths rounded up and returned to the center in police pickup trucks. Others were brought back by relatives.
Deputy Permanent Secretary for Justice Bandid Rachatanan told reporters youths climbed over fences to get out of the center and some had threatened taxi drivers with metal bars and sticks to force them to take them away.
``It's a copycat act after yesterday,'' he said.
On Saturday, at least 600 teenagers protesting against harsh treatment broke out of an overcrowded juvenile detention center at Bangna on the eastern outskirts of Bangkok and battled riot police with rocks, sticks and iron bars.
Officials said they managed to head off another copycat protest on Sunday, at a drug rehabilitation center in eastern Bangkok housing 700 juveniles, by negotiating with inmates.
Bandid said the Chaeng Wattana center, about eight km (five miles) from the city's international airport, housed nearly 1,000 youths awaiting trial. Thai television said many of the inmates appeared younger than 16.
Youths Allowed Home After Riot
Saturday's incident was diffused after six hours when the authorities released more than 1,000 youths their into their parents' custody for five days while repairs were made to fences at the center.
``We watched the incident on TV last night and wondered why we were not entitled to a five-days leave,'' said a youth who joined Sunday's breakout and then gave himself up. ``Actually I didn't want to escape, I just wanted five-days leave at home.''
In Saturday's clashes, several police officers and inmates were injured, but none seriously. Riot police responded to the missiles thrown with tear gas, water cannon and dog teams.
Inmates told reporters the rioting had been provoked by ill-treatment by guards. Some complained they were beaten with spades until they bled for minor infractions like spilling food.
Vicha Mahakun, a judge who handles juvenile cases, said the center was overcrowded with three times as many inmates as it should have had due to a recent surge in drug abuse cases.
Thailand has been suffering from a surge of abuse among youths of amphetamines produced by armed ethnic groups on the Myanmar side of the ``Golden Triangle'' drug producing region formed by the juncture of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.
Child rights experts warned of further breakouts unless the problems of overcrowding and abuse by warders at detention centers in Thailand were solved.
Bangkok Post, 19 March 2000
Remittance law to be scrapped
Outrage may cost minister his
job
Ralph
Bachoe
Burma is to revoke its recent
ruling that nationals working overseas must remit home, in foreign currency, 50%
of their annual income.
However, they must still register with the Directorate of Labour and pay 200 FEC (Foreign Exchange Certificate) dollars to a non-refundable account of the Overseas Employment Registration Screening Board. This has to be done on their return to the country.
The decision, soon to be officially announced, follows outrage from Burmese expatriate workers, including diplomats and other officials on government assignments whose children hold part-time jobs in countries like Britain and the United States.
Children of these officials, out on work visas, are actually furthering their studies while working part-time in places like McDonald's.
Burma does not issue student visas.
Some officials have threatened to leave their children behind on completion of their assignment overseas.
In the wake of the controversial law, sources in Rangoon said Maj-Gen Tin Ngwe, the labour minister instrumental in implementing the unpopular ruling, may be dismissed. It is said that the government was not involved in the salary remittance issue and it was a decision taken independently by the labour minister. However, some are sceptical of this explanation.
Washington Post, 19 March 2000
Burma Business
Outlook staff
Sunday, March 19, 2000; Page B05
Burmese government troops killed thousands of protesters that year and jailed countless others; since then, the junta has used torture, forced labor, detention and abduction to maintain its rule. International outrage at the human rights abuses has driven many foreign investors away. The process was accelerated by actions like that of Massachusetts, which requires any companies operating in Burma to bid for state business at a 10 percent disadvantage, effectively eliminating them from competition. In 1996 and 1997, Congress and the Clinton administration instituted their own sanctions, prohibiting any new investment in Burma by U.S. companies.
Levi Strauss, Eastman Kodak and Hewlett-Packard are among the many U.S. businesses that have pulled out of Burma; the largest of the handful that remain is California-based Unocal, which is a major partner in a 416-mile natural gas pipeline leading out of Burma's Yadana gas field.
The lawsuit to be argued this week was filed by the National Foreign Trade
Council, a business coalition that opposes all unilateral sanctions. Relatively
few of its members actually have much to do with Burma; as the U.S. Commerce
Department has noted, "While trade with Burma"--as opposed to new
investment--"is not prohibited under U.S. law, there is little about the current
business climate to recommend it."