Myanmar doesn't regret freeing British activist
YANGON, March 30 (AFP) -"Tremendous pressure" by the democracy lobby has forced a British campaigner to go back to attacking the Yangon regime, despite a promise to drop confrontational politics which won her freedom from a notorious jail here, a Myanmar official said.
"We can understand that she is under tremendous pressure, we don't feel sorry that we released her, we wish her all the best," a junta spokesman told AFP in an interview late Wednesday.
"She was brave enough to say the way she felt when she came back ... after two months she had to change her tune," he said.
Rachel Goldwyn, 28, was freed from prison in Myanmar last year, two months into a seven-year sentence handed down for singing pro-democracy songs in a Yangon market.
She caused a furore among Myanmar democracy campaigners by refusing to condemn the junta after returning home from Insein prison, but has since returned to anti-Myanmar camp.
Goldwyn has been lined up to speak at a pro-democracy conference run by the Free Burma Coalition in Washington from Saturday, according to a group press statement.
Goldwyn initially refused to condemn the junta when she returned home to London, sparking speculation that she had bought her freedom by promising to remain silent.
She asked reporters at London's Heathrow airport in November to understand that one of her conditions of bail was "not to interfere in the internal affairs of Myanmar."
"I am still committed to democracy, but am now going to take on a dialogue role rather than a confrontational role," she said.
Democracy activists in London branded Goldwyn's silence a "selfish betrayal" of the Myanmar people.
Another British activist, James Mawdsley, 26, is still serving a 17-year jail term imposed by Myanmar authorities in September for illegally crossing the border from Thailand carrying anti-government pamphlets.
British diplomats said earlier this month that he had launched a hunger strike.
Myanmar is condemned by many western nations for alleged gross human rights abuses and its refusal to hand over power to the democratically elected National League for Democracy, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Goldwyn and Mawdsley were arrested in the weeks leading up to September 9, when exiled Myanmar democracy activists had called for a nationwide uprising to end 37 years of military rule. That day passed without major incident.
Thursday, March 30 3:17 PM SGT
Singapore-Myanmar Double Taxation Agreement Takes Effect
SINGAPORE, March 30 Asia Pulse - An agreement between Singapore and Myanmar to avoid double taxation and prevent tax evasion came into effect today, the Singapore government said.
"The main objective of the Agreement is to provide a framework to facilitate greater cross-flows of trade, investment, technical know-how and expertise between Singapore and Myanmar thereby strengthening bilateral economic links for the benefit of both countries," the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
To provide relief from double taxation, Myanmar will allow tax paid in Singapore as a credit against Myanmar tax on income derived from Singapore.
Singapore will also allow tax paid in Myanmar as a credit against Singapore tax on income derived from Myanmar.
The agreement was signed in February 1999 but only came into effect Thursday following the completion of ratification formalities, the Ministry said.
ASIA PULSE
The Irish Time
HUMAN RIGHTS IN BURMA
Sir, - On behalf of Burma Action Ireland, I would like to express a very sincere thanks to the Lord Mayor, Cllr Mary Freehill, and the Dublin City Council for conferring the Freedom of the City on the Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi. A special thanks to the media, and particularly The Irish Times for its very comprehensive coverage of the event. She said that she hoped her being made a free woman of Dublin would lead to closer ties between Ireland and Burma as it struggles to free itself from military rule.
Since it was set up in May 1996, Burma Action Ireland has continued to raise awareness of the current oppressive situation in Burma and the repressiveness of the ruling military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Burma has one of the worst human rights records in the world. On August 8th, 1988, the Burmese people joined peaceful demonstration across the country, demanding food and basic human rights.
The military responded with brutal suppression, killing thousands of people and imprisoning others under very harsh laws. In 1990, the military was forced by international pressure to hold democratic elections. The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a overwhelming majority, taking 82 per cent of the total seats. Shocked by this election result, the military junta imprisoned newly elected MPs and forced others to flee the country. Aung San Suu Kyi, a truly remarkable and courageous woman continues to be the icon of hope for the Burmese people.
With the awarding of the Freedom of the City of Dublin to Aung San Suu Kyi, her plea to the world not to forget Burma has not gone unheeded. It is therefore important that Ireland, as part of the international community, continues to be a voice for a return to democracy in Burma. I therefore urge people to write to our Minister for Foreign Affairs, requesting him at the highest level of the United Nations, to press for a total ban on arms, foreign trade and investment in Burma. Sanctions against the current military junta are important.
Aung San Suu Kyi has also said that education of Burmese in exile is crucial. Burma Action Ireland has launched The Michael Aris Scholarship fund to sponsor Burmese students living in exile in Thailand and India to complete their undergraduate with a view to returning to a free democratic Burma with the necessary skills, when the time comes. Readers are most welcome to contribute to this fund. - Yours, etc.,
PAT RALEIGH SSC, Chairperson, Burma Action Ireland, St Columban's, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co Meath.By Vincent Cabreza
PDI Northern Luzon Bureau
BAGUIO CITY--Four female members of the exiled Burmese Karen guerrilla outfit slipped in and out of the country this month to seek out ''old veterans'' of the 1986 Edsa Revolution.
The rebels met with the INQUIRER here last week to drum up Karen interest in the social progress made here following the Edsa uprising ''that was led by a woman (former President Corazon Aquino).''
The Karen guerrillas, who identified themselves only as Ten, Naw, Nan and Paw, entered the country under assumed names. They left Thursday after meeting with some Filipino supporters.
''There are many Karen refugees still hiding in the southern Philippines,'' said Ten, 31, a health worker stationed at the Mae Sot area near Thailand.
Over 7 million ethnic Burmese had been exiled to Mae La Camp in Thailand since the 1948 independence movement cast out ethnic Burmese to the Thai borders.
Aggressive Karen rebels, calling themselves members of ''God's Army,'' had been staging guerrilla attacks against the military junta that rules Burma, now called Myanmar.
Ten said the guerrilla activities worsened ties with the Thai border authorities, which have started hunting down Karen rebels and attacking refugee camps.
''We want to learn from (Edsa veterans) to find a way out of this predicament. We want to find out how your women helped you (survive) the crisis,'' she said in halting English. ''Karen believes it is the only rebel movement left in Asia which has not achieved independence like the Philippines.''
Ten said Karen had been more impressed by the Edsa Revolt than the recent social changes in East Timor.
This is despite a similar ethnic campaign for Karen independence marked by nearly 50 years of clashes after British colonial rule ended in Burma in 1948.
Karen is the largest of 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar, Ten said.
Christine Harmston, an Australian activist who accompanied the rebels here, said the controlled media in Myanmar had not been feeding Burmese enough information about the United Nations-backed independence movement in East Timor.
''But an alternative Burmese government fighting the junta had already stationed a special mediation office in East Timor. Many other Asian rebel movements have taken the same tack as a successful independence movement even as it undergoes social and physical restructuring by UN forces,'' Harmston told the INQUIRER.
''As it is, their only real memories of independence had been the Edsa Revolution in 1986,'' she said.
The Philippines now leads a UN security and rehabilitation team stationed in East Timor. It is headed by former Philippine Military Academy superintendent, Maj. Gen. Jaime de los Santos.
Bangkok Post - 30 Mar, 2000.
Burmese daze
It has come as a shock to our nation's defenders,
but their brethren in uniform across our western border just don't appear to be
playing the game by the established rules. u Gen Mongkol's dance card is fast
filling up, but our serving supreme commander is not too sure he can afford all
this attention from the political suitors. u The young bloods at the NAP are
baying for blood.
The chaps in uniform all the way up to the supreme
commander Gen Mongkol Ampornpisit have finally realised that things are not as
they should be when it comes to relations with out neighbour to the west,
boorish Burma. They are upset that the generals across the way have been
"insincere" and "two-faced" in their dealings with poor Thailand.
The lads want a review of the security policy in the hope that this will shift things more our way along the border.
The upper ranks are a mite put out with the junta's less than co-operative spirit in handling border problems, especially the deluge of drugs flowing from west to east, and have asked Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, informally, for a review of the ways things are done.
"The premier so far has not responded positively to the idea," said one member of the uniformed classes, who also thought Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan was not at all supportive of the idea.
The general drift is that our civilian leadership do not see eye to eye with the armed forces on this matter.
A recent seminar attended by senior security people and the top brass echoed with a general frustration with Rangoon's hypocrisy and its unwillingness to work with our people in preventing the flood into Thailand of Made-in Burma methamphetamines produced in areas controlled by the United Wa State Army, internationally detested as now the largest drug trafficker in the Golden Triangle.
Burma has been asked time and again to help stem the flow of drugs but simply insists that it has no control over the Wa people and their private army, whose sole income comes from drug trafficking.
Thailand adopted a policy in the early 1990s which brought an end to its support for minority groups at war with Burma. The areas occupied by these groups had been used as a buffer zone along the border. It went further later by pushing for Burma's membership of Asean, which it joined in 1997.
"What we have now is just more border problems and an inflow of hundreds of millions of methamphetamines to poison our youth and undermine our society," said one senior armed forces officer. The officer was also critical of Rangoon's lack of interest in settling the question of the thousands of refugees from inside its borders who now are housed in camps up and down the border.
One general said it would almost be impossible to stem the flow of drugs in border areas without the co-operation of Burma since all the production houses were deep inside Burmese territory.
"We still hope Burma will one day co-operate to help us tackle the drug trafficking," said another general.
He then went on to muse, saying either Burma would have to fall into line and act the good neighbour or bilateral ties would be hurt. And this would benefit no one.
The Nation - 31 Mar, 2000.
District chief fears for refugees
MAE HONG SON – The Mae Sarieng district chief expressed concern yesterday about the presence of ethnic Burmese refugees living in the nearby Mae Kongka refugee camp. District chief Saowarat Yimrungreung said the refugees would serve as a target for Burmese government troops who are likely to step up their offensive in the coming weeks as the dry season approaches.
He said that Mae Kongka, which houses more than 10,000 refugees, mostly from the Karen ethnic group, has a high chance of coming under attack by Burmese troops and their allies, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA).
Saowarat said he has told the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) about his concern.
An official at the UNHCR said the decision to relocate the refugees would be up to the Interior Ministry. The UNHCR, he added, was aware of the concern by the district chief, but it was not part of the agency’s mandate to carry out the relocation.
The DKBA, with the help of Burmese government troops, have crossed into Thai territory in the past to carry out attacks against refugee camps on the border.
The Nation
BBC-Wednesday, 29 March, 2000, 23:04 GMT 00:04 UK
Poachers are continuing to kill the world's remaining tigers, despite progress in reducing the use of the animals' bones in traditional medicine.
A report by the Traffic network, the wildlife trade monitoring programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), says the poaching is continuing "unabated".
A recent WWF survey in Indonesia found that at least 66 Sumatran tigers had been killed in the last two years alone.
This represents almost 20% of the wild Sumatran tiger population. Of the total lost, 37 animals were killed in national parks.
WWF says the discovery in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, of a pet shop with two tiger cubs on open sale in 1998 "demonstrates how blatant the tiger trade has become in some countries".
Progress undermined
The report says there has been progress in reducing the use of tiger bones in Chinese medicines, because of tougher laws and enforcement, and because substitutes are increasingly accepted.
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Tiger skins find ready
buyers |
The report, Far from a Cure, says: "Disturbingly large markets for tiger skins persist, and other large cats, such as leopards, are poached as substitutes for tiger bone."
In the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it says, a raid last December resulted in one of the largest seizures of recent times, including the skins of four tigers and 70 leopards, and 18,000 leopard claws.
In the spotlight
The Traffic researchers say all range states (countries with wild tigers) and countries which use parts of the animal should get tougher on tiger crime, introducing and enforcing stronger laws to deter poaching and illegal trade.
They say there were markets in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma and Laos during the last few months of 1999.
WWF is demanding immediate action from these states, which it says will be in the spotlight at the CITES (UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) meeting in Kenya in April.
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Cubs are found on open
sale |
He told BBC News Online: "We think it is realistic to demand action from range states, even though they are poor countries.
"They do have the capacity to stop the open sale of tiger parts. It's simply a question of a police officer walking the street and preventing the sale of skins, or cubs.
Applying pressure
"It's not rhetoric. We've seen examples in the past where action under CITES has produced results.
"Indonesia has a huge wildlife trade in things like reptile skins, coral and songbirds.
"If countries like that feel the pinch in other areas, a low-level issue like tigers will come right up the agenda."
The number of wild tigers, thought perhaps to have been as high as 100,000 a
century ago, is now put at around 6,000.