Burma Related News-May 5, 2000.

[TIN KYI <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

WIRE:05/05/2000 07:29:00 ET
Myanmar arrests four more opposition members

YANGON, May 5 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government has  arrested four more members of the pro-democracy opposition,  including one member of parliament, for protesting against moves  to strip MPs of their status, official newspapers reported on  Friday. 
The Kyemon, or Mirror, said the four from Mandalay Division  in the centre of the country faced legal action after making  "false allegations that threatened peace and stability." 

 

The MP arrested was Than Lwin, aged 62, of the opposition  National League for Democracy, and his colleagues were Kyaw  Shwe, Kyein Maung and Tin Aung Lay. 

 

Than Lwin was elected to represent Madaya Township  constituency in Mandalay Division in Myanmar's last election in  1990, which the military ignored when the NLD won a landslide. 

 

Than Lwin was arrested for writing letters of protest after  "99.01 percent" of voters in his constituency signed petitions  expressing no confidence in him to the local election committee,  the paper said. 

 

The four were accused of "launching fabricated accusations  against township organisations, making instigations to threaten  peace and stability...and illegally organising villagers without  the permission of the respective local authorities," it said. 

 

The NLD, which is led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu  Kyi, estimates there are 2,000 political prisoners in Myanmar,  most of them its members. It says more than 40 have been  arrested in the past month. 

 

On Thursday Myanmar's Supreme Court dismissed an NLD appeal 

 

concerning law suits it brought against the country's military  rulers for abuse of power.

 

WIRE:05/05/2000 07:08:00 ET
Myanmar opposition urges ADB not to help military

BANGKOK, May 5 (Reuters) - A Myanmar opposition group urged  the Asian Development Bank on Friday not to provide loans to the  country's military rulers, saying they would only prolong  oppression. 
The All Burma Students' Democratic Front said Myanmar, an  ADB member, had requested ADB loans and technical assistance for  drug eradication and development programmes. 

 

But the group based on the Thailand-Myanmar border said the  funds would not be used for these purposes. 

 

"Instead, future 'development' programmes will function to  consolidate oppressive military control over the people." 

 

The opposition group is made up of activists who fled when  the military killed thousands to crush a student-led  pro-democracy uprising in Myanmar in 1988. 

 

It said the cash-strapped military government was not in a  position to repay future loans granted by the ADB, as shown by  its inability to service existing debts. 

 

"As democratic participation by civilians, including women,  is a pre-requisite to sustainable development...(the) military  dictatorship should not be provided with loans and assistance  from the ADB," the group said. 

 

Denying loans to Yangon, it said, would increase pressure  for democratic change in Myanmar. 

 

The ADB has granted no new loans to Myanmar since 1986 and  no technical assistance since 1987. 

 

Yangon says this is due to a U.S. policy of blocking aid  through all lending institutions, including the World Bank and  IMF, over human rights issues in Myanmar. 

 

The military ignored the result of Myanmar's last election  in 1990, when the opposition National League for Democracy won  by a landslide. It has since tried to stifle dissent through  arrests and intimidation. 

 

On Thursday, the country's powerful military intelligence  chief Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt said the military would  stick to a 15-year plan to eradicate narcotics production --  with or without outside help. 

 

Myanmar is the world's second largest producer of opium and  its derivative heroin.

The Straits Times -MAY 3 2000

Where the Net is banned

By LEE KIM CHEW
IN YANGON

YANGON throbs with life, but it is also a city of fear. Fear of the military, whose agents are said to be everywhere. When a dissident gets caught, his family members suffer too. They risk losing their jobs.

Businessman Sein Lwin says: "If you ask me what I want, it is the freedom to choose our own leaders, and freedom from fear."

The monks are getting restive. Last November, senior abbots in Mandalay wrote letters to Senior General Than Shwe, the country's leader, former strongman General Ne Win, and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, saying they were "sick at heart" of the political stand-off.

They urged them to "let bygones be bygones, wipe the slate clean and work towards peace". One outspoken abbot in Bagoh told intelligence chief Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt that Myanmar was in a state of decay.

Such talk angers the military leaders.

Restrictions have been placed on the movements of the offending abbots, according to Mr Tin Oo, the National League for Democracy (NLD) vice-chairman.

Young militant monks in Mandalay have set May 26 as the deadline for the government to start a dialogue with the NLD.

They have threatened to organise strikes and protest marches.

Says Mr Nyunt We, a senior NLD official: "We have offered our olive branch all along. It has not been accepted until today. I don't see any sign from the government that it is prepared to work on a peaceful solution in the next six months."

NLD leaders say they welcome a dialogue with the generals. But what sort of dialogue? Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's talks with them had come to nothing. Government spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Hla Min says she is "incapable of listening".

Mr Tin Oo says: "They are soldiers. They just give the commands and expect them to be followed." Like when they summarily ordered NLD leaders to appear before a minister to be told a litany of their political sins.

Like when senior NLD members who fought for the country's independence in 1948 were called up and given a reading of Myanmar's history by officials young enough to be their sons.

"That's their idea of a dialogue," says Mr Tin Oo.

The NLD has withdrawn from the national convention, now in long recess, to rewrite the country's Constitution. It won 392 seats in the 1990 elections, but only 86 NLD MPs were allowed to take part in the convention. The other 700 members were handpicked by the generals.

There is no real discussion on the new Constitution, says Mr Tin Oo. Instead, the MPs are given directives on what to do to enshrine the military's leading role in government.

"There is no real dialogue. If the government is sincere, it should release the political prisoners and allow the NLD to operate freely as a political party. It should convene Parliament," he says.

Myanmar has little roots in democracy. Except for one period, the country has been governed by the military since 1962.

Mr Tin Oo says: "The people detest the military. They want a civilian government that is elected by the people."

Like it or not, military rule in Myanmar is a reality. The generals are in charge, but they are not popular. A minister who retired recently told friends that he found life in retirement rather restrictive because of his small social circle. These days, he spends most of his time at home.

Abroad, the government has been on the defensive because of its poor human-rights record, its harsh treatment of political opponents, and its disavowal of the NLD's right to rule.

One bright spot in an otherwise dismal picture of the government's relations with the outside world is its recent decision to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the country's notorious prisons.

This has led to an improvement in prison conditions. Political prisoners are allowed to see their family members face to face for the first time in years.

Myanmar joined Asean in 1997 to end its self-imposed isolation. But it remains cocooned in a real sense. Beyond Asean and China, it has few friends.

The regime's mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, accuses the Western countries regularly of meddling in the country's domestic politics. Ms Aung San Suu Kyi is rarely mentioned by name.

In its columns, she is "that so-called party general-secretary woman", "an axe handle", a "traitor" and a "subversive" in the service of foreign powers.

The vilification, a daily fare, passes the people by. Says a Western diplomat: "It's the same thing every day. It's a newspaper of a regime that talks to itself."

The military's heavy hand is evident. Its exhortations are blunt. "Don't smoke", New Light tells its readers. A hoarding in the city's outskirts barks out: "Obey the law".

Giant billboards tell the people to oppose and crush the regime's enemies.

In the old days, the government jammed BBC and VOA broadcasts. Not anymore. Satellite dishes, prohibited officially, pop up on the roofs of those who can afford them.

They get CNN, CNBC, HBO, ESPN, Star Sports, Thai television, Indian channels, NHK -- the works.

Myanmar Television offers cultural fare and "songs to uphold national spirit", but people prefer foreign videotapes. Last month, the government torched a load of uncensored tapes, VCDs and objectionable publications which, it says, sully Myanmar culture.

The Internet is banned, save for the privileged few and foreign missions in Yangon, because it has become a domain of the dissidents who use it to attack the regime from abroad.

Access to fax and e-mail is also restricted. The law prescribes a seven to 15-year jail term for unlicensed ownership of a computer modem.

But Myanmar people are not starved of news. They listen to foreign broadcasts. They have tea shops everywhere -- and the rumour mills. In the absence of a credible local media, news often spread by word of mouth.

"This is why it can be hard to know the truth in Myanmar," says tour operator Niang Niang.

Myanmar's military is so well-entrenched it will take something cataclysmic to force it out of the government.

Some of its opponents hope the regime will be swept out like former Indonesian president Suharto's. But the Myanmar military has more armed troops now than at any other time. In the past decade, the army has more than doubled to 400,000 men.

The cash-strapped government, perpetually in deficit, spends a third of its budget on defence, nine times the money it spends on health, or twice the expenditure on education.

Myanmar is among the world's poorest countries with a per capita of US$300 (S$510), but the government rejects any aid that is linked to political reforms. Stories about abject poverty in the rural areas are dismissed by Brigadier General David Abel, an economics minister, as isolated cases and fairy tales. A miracle has happened, he says. The people are living far better that they used to 10 years ago.

If that's the case, why are the people not happy with the government?

"Then they are not contented. But in Myanmar, we have contentment," he says. Will Myanmar accept foreign aid that is linked to political reforms?

"We've closed our doors for 26 years," Brig-Gen Abel says.

That has not done Myanmar a jot of good.

"Yes, it hasn't been good, but it's very good now," he says.

Time is not on Myanmar's side.

He dismisses this as naive. "Haste makes waste," the minister says. "The world's changing fast, but who's coming out of it in one piece? Who's benefiting from it? Not us."

So what if Singapore opens up its telecommunications industry to benefit from globalisation. He says: "Singapore is trying, but you will be beaten. You open your doors to information technology, all your companies will be bought out. Singapore will not be Singapore's property."

[The writer is Chief Regional Correspondent of The Straits Times. This is the second of four articles.]

The Straits Times -MAY 4 2000

Myanmar loses hold on foreign investors

By LEE KIM CHEW
in YANGON

FOREIGN investors shun Myanmar because of its bad politics and red tape.

They face many difficulties, from domestic restrictions and corruption to foreign sanctions and consumer boycotts in the West.

New foreign investments approved last year plunged to US$29.5 million (S$50.5) from US$777 million the previous year, down from US$2.8 billion in 1997.

Britain and the US are putting the squeeze on companies to get them out of Myanmar. Baker Hughes, the giant American oilfield-services firm, pulled out last month.

Pepsi Cola has long gone, the fizz having disappeared after hopes that Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest signaled a change of heart in the military regime came to nothing.

FOREIGN FIRMS LEAVING

THE backbone of Myanmar's foreign investments, apart from property development and hotels, are the extractive industries.

France's Total oil company is staying put. So, too, is Unocal, which built the Yadana gas pipeline to Thailand. These are the exceptions to the many who have left. Their departure has dashed hopes that Myanmar's entry into Asean would lead to a revival of the country's moribund economy.

The incomplete building projects in Yangon stand testimony to the political gridlock that has impoverished the country. Many new hotels have been built, but the small number of tourists trickling into the country is not enough to fill them up.

Brigadier-General David Abel, one of the regime's longest serving economic ministers, is undaunted about the sharp plunge in foreign investments. Things will get better, he says.

He will not reveal where the new investments, if any, are coming from. But he points to what he says are successful ventures, like cigarette company Rothmans, and Tiger beer brewery, in Myanmar.

Fact is, the successful foreign investors are few and far between.

Singapore entrepreneur Albert Hong's grand plan to turn a part of the capital into an industrial powerhouse remains unfulfilled. He came to Yangon in 1994 with an ambitious blueprint to develop a new millennium township.

From 140 sq km, the plan got scaled down to 12 sq km. The squatters have since been resettled and land has been cleared, but his consortium has stopped putting money into a project which has no early prospects of economic returns. A Singapore businessman says: "It's a difficult operating environment. There are all sorts of restrictions. Corruption is another enduring problem. You need to have the right connections to make it work."

NTUC Fairprice's dream of building a supermarket chain was rudely shattered when it pulled out of the country in frustration. Its supermarket, set up in 1994 as a Singapore-Myanmar joint venture to cater to an expatriate clientele and rich locals, was not allowed to import foreign products a year after its opening.

The rules were changed by a government which is perpetually short of hard currencies. So it restricted imports and imposed controls to prevent the outflow of capital.

Said NTUC Fairprice chairman Chandra Das: "We can't import, we can't operate. It's as simple as that. At first, we tried selling local produce, but it didn't work. We had no choice but to close down and cease operations."

This happened shortly after Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's visit to Yangon in March 1998. NTUC Fairprice kept a small trading office in Yangon until it pulled out of Myanmar totally last February.

Not just foreign investors, Myanmar businessmen face a tangle of red tape.

The archeology department prevented an enterprising trader from making bronze replicas of Burmese cultural artifacts for export. Conditioned in the old and outdated thinking that Myanmar is self-sufficient, the instinctive reaction of its leaders is to maintain control. Myanmar's return to the regional mainstream has thus not brought it economic gains.

The government talks about a free market economy but in reality, it has not moved far from its autarkic and socialist past.

Its fundamental precept is that "the initiative to shape the national economy must be kept in the hands of the state and the national peoples."

BELIEF OF SELF SUFFICIENCY

MANY of Myanmar's top leaders or their families are involved in business, and the government-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, the country's largest company, has complete control over foreign investments.

With foreign capital drying up, more Myanmar workers are seeking work abroad. Their flight of professionals and the closure of the universities have left the country bereft of the very skills it needs to put the economy to work.

Said Mr Aung Thien, a businessman: "The only manufacturing plant that is working full time in Myanmar is the mint. The government has increased the salaries of civil servants by five times. Where is the money coming from?"

There was no word of the pay rise in the official media because the government feared that wide publicity would spark off a new round of runaway inflation. But the news spread by word of mouth, and prices rose in anticipation of the bigger pay packets at the end of this month.

The government had earlier rounded up the rice traders, edible-oil companies, fishery associations, livestock federations, and told them to hold back price increases.

In the past, speculators and profiteers were thrown into prison. Now, it was just a call for cooperation. No threats. Not yet.

The government also opened up new makeshift tax-free markets for vendors to sell meat, fish and vegetables at low prices.

desperately poor. The disparity between the privileged few and the swelling ranks of the deprived is more obvious these days.

The World Bank has found much that is wrong Like much of what the regime does, the tax-free market is a stopgap measure to control inflation, now at running at about 30 per cent. People fear that the prices of essentials will skyrocket when the supplies run out in a few months. There are no shortages now.

So what if laundered drug money fuels the economy. This cash-strapped government, which has built 101 major bridges, 104 dams, 43 hospitals, 350 primary schools and 3,700 miles of road, has few sources of income. It needs all the money it can get to build its way to political legitimacy. Ten years ago, the decrepit Yangon airport did not have a luggage conveyor belt. Today, its spanking new passenger terminal, beside the old one, comes with electric belts and more -- duty-free shops, air-conditioned tour buses, limousines.

But this is only one side of the picture.

The rich have arrived, but the poor remain with the Myanmar economy, and it has proposed radical structural reforms, like doing away with the fictitious official exchange rate, reforming state enterprises, and re-ordering the budget priorities to move funds from defence to health and education.

This means a wholesale revamp of the moribund economy.

According to Mr Bradley Babson, a senior adviser of the World Bank, Myanmar's current policies "will not yield long term stability and development unless it adopts a more pro-people stance."

Current government spending in education as a share of national income is among world's lowest. But the government has rejected the World Bank's findings and its proposal to tie foreign aid to political reforms.

Says Foreign Minister Win Aung: "We've had not received foreign aid for a long time. Everything we did, we had to depend on ourselves. We're not going to cry and ask for help."

[The writer is Chief Regional Correspondent of The Straits Times. This is the third of four articles.]

The Straits Times -May 5 - 2000.

Myanmar's military talks tough love

By LEE KIM CHEW
IN YANGON

UNLOVED at home and castigated abroad, Myanmar's military government gets little foreign aid. Japan provides it on the quiet, for fear of angering its Western partners.

Whatever little Myanmar gets is always a subject of controversy. The Australian government, which has come round to believing in engagement with the regime, is preparing to resume aid to Yangon, and this has caused a political row in Canberra.

Asean's constructive engagement, in its passivity, has not brought about any material changes in the regime's repressive policies. Nor has the sanctions-based approach adopted by Britain and the United States.

The Myanmar government is fighting back vigorously to dispel what it says are misconceptions about the country's true situation. It has churned out new literature to explain its policies.

To the International Labour Organisation's charge that it uses forced labour, it admits that this happened in the past because the country's laws "inherited" from the British colonialists allowed the practice.

"There were instances where the armed forces of Myanmar had to employ civilian labour to transport equipment and supplies over difficult terrain in the remote areas during military operations against insurgent groups," it admits. It no longer does this now, the government says.

Last May, it ordered "all authorities concerned not to exercise the powers" any more.

What about National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political status? The government explains: "She had resided abroad for 28 years. Married to a British citizen, she enjoyed the rights of UK citizenship. Besides, her two children hold British citizenship."

It trots out a 1989 law, "which prohibits any person who is under any acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign power from contesting in the election".

This provision, it says, was drafted and written into the country's first Constitution of 1947 by Ms Suu Kyi's father, General Aung San, and "the same provision was written into the Election Law to prevent an individual under foreign influence from occupying the office of national importance".

Predictably, these explanations have been brushed aside in the West. Britain is at the forefront of new attempts in the European Union to put more pressure on Yangon's generals to cede power to the NLD.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook visited a Karen refugee camp at the Thai-Myanmar border last month and roundly condemned Yangon's generals for persecuting such "gentle and kind people" as the Karens.

Foreign Minister Win Aung fumes at the sudden British interest in the Karens, who have been waging an insurgency war against the central government in Yangon for five decades.

His tirade against the British, past masters of his country, is scathing. "The British had made us suffer since the last century and are still trying to do it to us. They had enslaved us. They had treated us like slaves in the past...

"Robin Cook says the Karens are gentle. They are our own people. Are we not gentle and kind? Go to the pagodas. Meet our soldiers, our officials, our people. Are we rude and arrogant?"

But the generals have been ruthless to their political opponents.

"Do you think so?" he retorts. "To start an uprising, plant a bomb, or to incite the people and create instability in the country, these are against the law, democracy or not... We take action only when they breach the law. Taking up arms underground, synchronising with above-ground activities, these are against the law."

What about Ms Suu Kyi's non-violent opposition?

"Non-violent activity which is trying to start a violent act has to be prevented... Small flames have to be put out before they become big... Like treating cancer. You have to dissect out the cancerous cells before they grow bigger."

Sadly, it is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

The government has been far more successful in putting down the insurgency than in reconciling with Ms Suu Kyi and the NLD. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

"Only if they change their position," the minister says. "Stop confronting whatever the government does. They oppose and threaten the government with utter devastation. They are using pressure tactics. These are not helpful. "We need sincerity on both sides. We have offered our olive branch to them. They brushed it off. They thought that by opposing the government they can win. They cannot." Both sides use the same language, but they mean different things and speak on different wavelengths.

When will the military leaders step aside for civilian rule?

"When everything is secure and they solve the country's problems," says Mr Win Aung, a career diplomat. "Aung San Suu Kyi wants to convene a parallel parliament. Because of this, the situation cannot be stabilised.

"The government wants to hand over power to the people as soon as possible. The question is whether the situation is secure and timely. The only government which can hold the country together is this one."

Myanmar's political stalemate will continue for a while yet. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Malaysian envoy Razali Ismail, an outspoken diplomat, as his new special representative on Myanmar.

Yangon's rulers expect him to be a passive, if not inactive, UN representative, not least because he comes from an Asean member state.

At home, Myanmar's generals wield absolute power for now. They hold the world at bay and rule over a people cowed into submission. For how much longer, no one can tell. Ms Suu Kyi is fighting back. No one is in a listening mood.

The generals are determined never to allow a repeat of the nationwide revolt in 1988 that nearly swept them out of power. They operate a closed system that is built on loyalty.

The generals are said to have differences over how to deal with Ms Suu Kyi, but self-preservation holds the secretive leadership together. Personal rivalries aside, they are united in getting rid of her.

They see the world through the spectrum of their battlefield experiences. The military regime has a harsh edge. There is also another side to it. Myanmar is also a land of meditation.

At the end of two hours, the fuming minister Win Aung turns quietly philosophical and contemplative. He ruminates about the impermanence of life. "We are all travellers," he says. "Whatever we have, whatever position we attain, in the end when we die, it is finished."

From hard, cold, unforgiving politics to being and nothingness. Life is change, perhaps in an endless cycle, as in reincarnation. Nothing is permanent. Could this, too, be said of the status quo in Myanmar?

[The writer is Chief Regional Correspondent of The Straits Times. This is the last of four articles. ]

The New Straits Times

Friday, May 5 10:31 AM SGT

Penang keen to revive barter trade with Myanmar, Sumatra

PENANG is keen to revive the once thriving barter trade with neighbouring Myanmar and Sumatra.

Before the Federal Government curbed barter trade activity at Penang Port in 1993 to stop smuggling and entry of illegal immigrants, the barter trade was generating about RM300 million in revenue a year for the port.

"If this effort to revive the trade takes off, we can generate about RM600 million in trade yearly," Penang Port Sdn Bhd executive chairman Ahmad Ibnihajar told reporters in Georgetown yesterday.

He had earlier chaired the Penang-Aceh Business Match-Making session. About 20 Aceh officials and 60 businessmen from the province led by the deputy Governor of Aceh Bustari Mansyur are here for a four-day visit.

The barter trade activity at Penang Port today is a fraction of its past, when 300 to 400 boats from Myanmar alone arrived monthly at the barter trade jetty compared with about 15 currently. Since the curb, the barter traders have shifted their operations to Singapore.

The Penang business community and the port have welcomed the Government's move to revive this trade since January last year.

Penang has started trading with Myanmar and Belawan barter traders but is now exploring the possibility of starting direct barter trade with Aceh.

Currently products from Aceh are shipped via Belawan and both Aceh and Penang traders are keen to establish the direct link which makes the goods to be competitively priced.

The sailing time between Penang and Aceh is about six hours direct, but if via Belawan, it takes another eight hours.

Penang cargo trade with Belawan amounts to 300,000 tonnes a year of which 100,000 are vegetables, and 30 per cent of that are from Aceh. The barter trade between Penang and Belawan amounts to RM3 million monthly.

Ahmad said a business delegation from Penang visited Aceh last month, and from that visit, the Malaysian businessmen are keen to import agriculture produce such as coffee, cocoa, betel nut, fisheries products and jungle produce which are competitively priced for the Malaysian market or for re-export.

"There is certainly potential for Penang to play its role as a transhipment and trading centre by importing such goods and repacking them for export as a produce of Penang," he said at a news conference.

"There are two issues which we have to be sorted out. Firstly, what are the goods the Acehnese traders want to buy from us? - maybe food stuff such as milk, sugar and beverage drink such as Milo."

For the Myanmar traders, we know they want to import palm oil.

"Secondly, we have to get the cargo ships suitable for such trade. Barter traders do not need containerships to bring their goods," Ahmad said.

Nutrajaya Shipping (M) Sdn Bhd managing director Datuk Shaik Ibrahim, a member of the Penang business community, said the company has identified a 1,000 tonnes standard cargo vessel with refrigerated facilities for the trade. His Acehnese shipping counterpart will also source a vessel of 500 to 1,000 tonnes for the trade.

He said Penang Port has also recently upgraded the facilities at the Barter Trade Centre with a wharf length of 100 metres at Swetteham Jetty at the cost of RM103,000.

Penang Port Commission general manager Datuk Captain Abdul Rahim Abdul Aziz said Penang Port has the facilities to accommodate the Acehnese barter traders' needs such as godowns, refrigerated facilities and supplies.

He said government agencies such as Immigration and Customs have agreed to facilitate the barter trading activities.

The Times of India-Friday, May 5, 2000.

US suspends economic aid to Myanmar

WASHINGTON: The US has taken a series of punitive measures against Myanmar for its military regime's continued repression of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the country's largest opposition party, and attacks on its leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the state-controlled press.

President Bill Clinton, in a report to Congress on the situation in Myanmar as required under US law, said the US had responded to the regime's "continued failure to end its repression and move towards a "democratic government" with strong measures.

The measures include suspension of economic aid and withdrawal of Myanmar's eligibility for trade and investment programmes, an arms embargo, blocking of assistance from international financial institutions, downgrading US diplomatic representation to charge d'affaires, visa restrictions on senior officials and their families, and a ban on new investment by Americans.

The report said the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Myanmar's ruling military junta, dominates the political, economic and social life of the country in the same oppressive, heavy-handed way that it has since seizing power in September 1988, after harshly suppressing massive pro-democracy demonstrations. The regime's economic mismanagement is the chief cause of the continuing downward spiral in Myanmar's economy.

New foreign investment has virtually dried up and foreign firms continue to withdraw from the country due to the poor business climate. The SPDC has demonstrated little will to implement economic reforms or to respond substantively to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank recommendations, the report said.

It said the US has engaged in sustained multilateral diplomacy to encourage the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other European and Asian groupings to work in concert to pressure the regime to address key areas of concern.

"The European Union has implemented a range of sanctions similar to ours, including an arms embargo, visa restrictions, and the withdrawal of generalised system of preferences (GSP) benefits," the report noted. Japan has maintained the suspension of much of its bilateral aid programme."

During the current review period (September 1999-March 2000), it pointed out, the Myanmar regime showed no sign of willingness to cede its hold on absolute power. It continued to refuse to negotiate with the NLD and other pro-democracy forces for a genuine political settlement to allow a returnto the rule of law and respect for basic human rights.

It also refused to cooperate with the efforts of the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for Myanmar, who visited Yangon in October 1999 seeking to achieve a dialogue between the regime, the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities, the report noted.

Myanmar remains the world's second leading producer of illicit opium and accounts for about 80 per cent of Southeast Asian production, the report said. While there is no evidence that the government is involved on an institutional level in the drug trade, there are continuing reports that corrupt army personnel may be aiding traffickers, it added.

The report said the government implicitly tolerates continued involvement in drug-trafficking by ethnic insurgents who have signed cease-fire agreements. These cease-fires have the practical effect of condoning money laundering as the government also encourages former drug traffickers to invest their ill-gotten gains in the legitimate economy, it said.

The US and other donors continued working with the UN Drug Control Programme to develop counter-narcotics programmes while insisting that the world body continuously apprise the NLD of its activities. Last year, the US obligated $555,000 to fund two UNDCP projects that target opium cultivation through demand reduction programmes and infrastructure and extension services.

(India Abroad News Service)

Bangkok Post - May 5, 2000.

Development of high-voltage Thai-Burma link planned

Financial and other aspects being studied
Supamart Kasem in Tak

Thailand and Burma plan to complete a high-voltage link from Mae Sot district to Pegu in 2003 under a development co-operation project.

A source on the technical staff of the Electricity Generating Authority said a Thai panel was studying financial and engineering aspects of the 230-kilovolt link.

Viravat Chlayon, the authority's general manager, said Rangoon was seeking a supply of 100-150 megawatts until it completes four power plants with a combined capacity of 5,555 megawatts. On July 4, 1997, an accord was signed in which Thailand would help Burma develop a capacity to generate enough power to meet domestic demand and to export at least 1,500 megawatts to Thailand in 2010.

After that, a joint panel to run the project was set up and met in April 1998 and January 1999.

Mr Viravat yesterday declared open a 115-kilovolt power plant in Mae Sot as part of an initiative to end frequent blackouts in Mae Sot, Mae Ramat, Tha Song Yang and Phop Phra districts.

The Provincial Electricity Authority's Mae Sot branch is responsible for supplying the districts and Myawaddy, Burma. The plant is part of a 245-million-baht upgrade.

BBC-Friday, 5 May, 2000, 12:23 GMT 13:23 UK

Burmese arrests continue

Reports from Burma say the arrest of opposition activists has continued.

Four members of the opposition National League for Democracy are said to have been held in Mandalay Division in central Burma.

Among them is, Than Lwin, who was elected as an MP in the NLD's 1990 electoral victory, which was ignored by the military.

Burmese press reports said local constituents had expressed no confidence in him, and the others were accused of threatening peace and stability.

Yesterday, the Burmese Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by the NLD in a court action accusing the country's military rulers of abuse of power.

The NLD says that since 1990, about two thousand people have been detained for political reasons and more than forty have been arrested in the past month.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service