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HEADLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WP - Why Burma Must Change - by Aung San Suu
Kyi
WP - Editorial - Burma's True Leader AFP - Myanmar ethnic armies lay down weapons to
battle disease: source
AFP - France vows to boost Europe-Asia ties during EU presidency IT - Thailand battles against plethora of
Myanmar drugs
ST - Thailand fears drug lord war in
Myanmar
BBC - Chinese VP in Burma
Bangkok Post - Drugs influx threat
Asiaweek - The Freedom Bloc
Washington Post
Sunday, July 16, 2000; Page B07
Why Burma Must
Change
By Aung San Suu Kyi Foreign visitors and journalists often ask what the National League for
Democracy intends to do about the political "stalemate" in Burma today. I
sometimes explain that just because the game has not yet reached checkmate, it
should not be seen as stalemate: Moves are being made that may not always be
discernible to observers.
On reflection the chess metaphor is not a felicitous one. What we are
aiming at is a negotiated settlement acceptable to major political forces in our
country. Trying to checkmate a protagonist into immobility--or
nonexistence--will not promote a peaceful settlement. Most likely, the State
Peace and Development Council (the erstwhile State Law and Order Restoration
Council) does not share our point of view. Public statements made by members of
the military regime suggest that the kind of peace they deem perfect would
entail the disappearance of the democratic opposition, checkmate in the form of
a final, zero-sum solution.
Thesaurus entries under "annihilate," "crush" or "extinguish" best describe
the declared intentions of the military regime toward the National League for
Democracy. Members and supporters of the league are persecuted with brutal
consistency; arbitrary arrests and imprisonment are daily fare; the authorities
organize meetings that citizens are forced to attend, where they are forced to
denounce elected members of Parliament or call for the dissolution of the
National League for Democracy; and the state media make daily announcements of
the number of members who have supposedly resigned from our party. (Many have
remarked that the seemingly endless resignations must signify an infinitely
large membership.)
The obsessive need of the regime to try to destroy the National League for
Democracy is evidence of the support we enjoy and only strengthens our resolve.
We are committed to nonviolent political activities that will lay a foundation
for a healthy democratic state, and we take all possible measures to establish
the necessity for the rule of law. It is in this spirit that we have notified
the State Peace and Development Council and the Multi Party Election Commission
of our intention to file suits against them in accordance with the Specific
Relief Act, although we are aware of the stranglehold that the military junta
has on Burma's judicial processes.
The National League for Democracy believes that national problems must and
will be resolved through political negotiations, and we are always ready to
accept reasonable compromises. Over the past few years we have agreed to limited
forms of dialogue as a prelude to full-fledged political talks, but the military
regime did not respond. The appointment of a citizen from a member country of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as the United Nations secretary
general's special envoy has raised hopes that a way might be found to a peaceful
transition to democracy in Burma. However, the success of the special envoy's
mission depends on cooperation from forces within the country as well as
committed action on the part of other nations and multilateral
organizations.
During the 12 years of struggle for democracy, which was in fact promised
by the military regime when it seized power in 1988, Burma has deteriorated
economically and socially. Although the junta created some openings for private
enterprise and foreign investment, administrative and political practices
inimical to a healthy society and failure to adopt a viable macroeconomic policy
have pushed the country into an economic and social morass. The World Bank
report drawn up last year, recent International Labor Organization actions and
the latest observations of the World Health Organization provide
incontrovertible evidence that lack of good governance is at the root of our
country's troubles. This fact must be recognized by those who have concerns
about drug production and trafficking, the spread of HIV, political refugees,
illegal economic migrants, humanitarian needs and other problems.
Unless determined steps are taken to effect political change that will lead
to an accountable and transparent administration--a basic requirement for good
governance--measures aimed at economic or humanitarian relief will merely be of
a stopgap nature, too easily rendered null and void at the whim of the
authorities or swept away by administrative inefficiency and social
instability.
The writer is general secretary of the National League for Democracy and
recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
Washington Post
Sunday, July 16, 2000; Page B06 Editorial - Burma's True Leader IF JUSTICE and right always triumphed, the author of an opinion piece on
the facing page, Aung San Suu Kyi, would be one of the world's best-known
leaders. As head of her country's National League for Democracy, she won an
astounding 80 percent victory the one time competitive elections were held in
her southeast Asian nation of Burma. But a handful of corrupt generals in her
country refused to acknowledge their compatriots' wishes in 1990 and have
retained dictatorial power ever since. Aung San Suu Kyi, who lives under house
arrest and with many of her supporters in prison, managed with difficulty to
transmit her article.
What is remarkable about it, under the circumstances, is her moderation.
Writing with the confidence of a leader who knows she enjoys popular support,
Aung San Suu Kyi continues to call for nonviolence from her supporters and
dialogue with her tormentors. Unfortunately, her tolerance is not reciprocated.
The junta, which operates with the bullying insecurity of leaders who know they
are not popular, has pressured and terrorized some 50,000 supporters into
renouncing the National League for Democracy. Last week the regime threatened to
ban the organization altogether. It routinely press-gangs impoverished peasants
into forced and dangerous labor, according to the International Labor
Organization. It seeks comfort among a few like-minded regimes around the world:
Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, the Politburo ofBeijing.
The results, for the 48 million or so Burmese, have been disastrous. The
country ranks 190th among 191 nations in health services, according to a recent
World Health Organization report. Despite ample natural resources and what was
once an educated population, the nation sinks ever deeper into poverty, as the
junta--again out of fear of its own people--has kept its universities shuttered.
The few multinationals who do business in Burma, such as Unocal of the United
States and Total of France, succeed only in enriching themselves and the corrupt
leadership.
Burma continues to be an embarrassment to its would-be defenders: to its
Association of Southeast Asian Nation neighbors, who admitted the country into
their organization in hopes of moderating the junta's repression and
encouragement of drug dealing; and to Japan, which lacked the principle recently
to join in a 257 to 41 vote censuring Burma's modern-day practice of slavery.
When leaders of the top industrialized nations meet in Japan this week, and when
ASEAN leaders gather a few days later in Thailand, they should speak out on
behalf of the beleaguered National League for Democracy and its courageous
chief.
Sunday, July 16 3:09 PM SGT
Myanmar ethnic armies lay down weapons
to battle disease: source
BANGKOK, July 16 (AFP) -
A deadly malaria epidemic and heavy rain have forced a brewing turf war
between the armies of two Myanmar ethnic groups to be postponed, Thai military
sources said Sunday.
The United Wa State Army (UWSA) has for the last two months been advancing
on Shan State Army (SSA) territory just inside the Thai border, north of Chiang
Mai, the military officials said.
The Wa, the most powerful and feared of Myanmar's ethnic groups, were
reportedly given the go-ahead to move in on their rivals by the military junta,
with whom they have established a fragile ceasefire.
"The Wa are good fighters and the Myanmar authorities are using them to
move down to the SSA's territory and help the government clean out the Shan,"
the source on the border told AFP.
Both groups are widely accused of producing heroin and amphetamines, and
the Wa reportedly plan to move some of their drug refineries south into Shan
territory.
Foreign critics charge that Myanmar agreed to turn a blind eye to the Wa's
drug trafficking business in return for the peace agreement.
However, the brewing battle, which threatened to send thousands of refugees
over the border into Thailand, has not materialised because both sides are
battling bad weather and disease.
"According to initial reports, 500 ethnic Wa have died of malaria in the
past two months," in their stronghold of Maung Yawn province, the source
said.
The Shan were also known to be affected but it was not known how many had
died.
The epidemic has also hampered the groups' ability to produce and smuggle
drugs across the border into Thailand, he said.
Unusually heavy wet-season rains had made the roads inside Myanmar
impassable to trucks, and drugs had to be moved out of the jungle on
motorbike.
"Their first priority is to survive and that's why production has fallen
off now," the military source said. "The amount of drugs flowing into Thailand
has lessened."
However, he noted that the two sides would inevitably square off against
each other once the crisis passed.
And once they were back on their feet, drug production would be redoubled
to pay for the weapons needed for the imminent battle, he said.
"We believe there will be fighting and it won't go on for long because the
Wa are good fighters," he said.
Reports last week said Thai troops had secured the northern border region
where the armies were poised to take each other on.
Thai task force sources told the Bangkok Post that rebel troops had
intruded into Thai territory as they moved reinforcements along a track that
cuts back and forth across the border.
The report said the SSA, with about 2,000 soldiers, was outnumbered by the
UWSA which was sending more troops into Shan territory.
The Shan are one of the only major armed factions left in Myanmar that has
yet to agree to a ceasefire with the government in Yangon.
The Wa army, cobbled together from the remnants of the Communist Party of
Burma, has become the most powerful of several ethnic rebel groups, allegedly
thanks to profits from the drugs trade.
Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium as well as a major
source of amphetamines.
Sunday, July 16 12:20 PM SGT
France vows to boost Europe-Asia ties during EU presidency MANILA, July 16 (AFP) -
Fresh from taking over the European Unionpresidency, France has pledged to strengthen links between Europe and Asia even as it maintains a firm stand on issues like human rights. France will use the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and ASEAN forums to bring
the continents closer during its six-month term as head of the EU, the country's
foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, said in an interview here with AFP.
France took over the rotating presidency from Portugal on July 1.
"The main difference is going to be the intensity of the relationship,"
Vedrine said when asked how France's approach will differ from other EU nations
which have held the presidency in stepping up ties with Asia.
Speaking during a stopover in Manila after attending a Group of
Eightmeeting in Tokyo, Vedrine said a series of high-level Asia-EU political and
economic meetings during France's leadership would ease the task of forging
greater cooperation.
The French presidency will be marked by three landmark summits -- the
EU-Japan summit in Tokyo on Wednesday, the ASEM summit in Seoul on October 19-20
and the EU-China summit in Beijing on October 23.
France will also be in the driving seat of the European body when its
foreign ministers meet their Association of Southeast Asian Nationscounterparts
in Bangkok as part of the Southeast Asian grouping's dialogue with top trading
partners later this month.
Around the same time, European nations will also be key participants in
Asia's premier security talks, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which will be
significant with the admission of North Korea.
At these meetings, Vedrine said France would push for greater Asia-Europe
trade and investment, security and political cooperation, which he stressed
should not be sidetracked by discussions on human rights and other issues
regarded as sensitive in Asia.
"We can reconcile all this if you involve yourself in a whole process,
where no one thinks that they have a perfect democracy or even a perfect market
economy," Vedrine said.
The EU has been a strong critic of China and Myanmar for alleged human
rights abuses, but Vedrine said France believed the issue could be resolved
through dialogues, not confrontation.
He said that, for example: "We haven't changed our opinion on the Burmese
(Myanmar) regime but we have found a compromise so that the dialogue with ASEAN
as a whole would not suffer from it."
There are also plans to resume at the end of this year ministerial meetings
between the EU and ASEAN which have been suspended since 1997, when the
Southeast Asian group accepted Myanmar as a member against the EU's strong
objections.
Apart from Myanmar, ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
French diplomats said a second EU "troika" mission would be sent to Myanmar
in September or October for a dialogue with the military junta. A similar
mission last year spent several days in the country but was tight-lipped about
its aims.
Beijing and the EU are also currently engaged in a dialogue on China's
human rights record, which Amnesty International has called worse than
ever.
Vedrine said that as president of the EU, France would strive to give more
meaning to the political dialogue among the 15 European and 10 Asian nations
atttending the upcoming ASEM summit.
France also wants to seek common ground on multilateral trade issues at the
summit and support an initiative to put financial regulations and financial
crime on its agenda, officials said.
Asia will be represented at the third ASEM summit by Brunei, China,
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.
Apart from France, the Europen participants are Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain.
The Times of India - July 16,
2000.
Thailand battles against plethora of Myanmar drugs BAN MAE LA NA, Thailand: In its opium-growing days, this mountaintop,
frontier village was the target of a campaign to wipe out narcotics. Now, its
residents, rifles in hand, are helping wage Thailand's latest war on drugs -
against a deluge of methamphetamines and heroin from neighbouring Myanmar.
As in other areas of the so-called "Golden Triangle" in Thailand, the
fields where colourful but deadly opium poppies once bloomed were converted to
rice, soybean and corn cultivation under a successful, foreign-aided effort.
"Domestic drug supply has been stopped, but the menace persists because supplies
keep coming from next door Myanmar," says Phornchai Khamkhiew, headman of this
village astride a narcotics smuggling route. "We can't let problems brought in
by outsiders ruin our community."
In one attempt to halt the inflow across a long, rugged and porous border,
the Thai army has trained villagers in 29 remote areas to take up weapons
against the traffickers. Fifteen men at Ban Mae La Na, 650 km northwest of the
Thai capital Bangkok, have been trained to use weapons and patrol the
forests.
But it's a David and Goliath struggle, Goliath being ethnic minority groups
like the United Wa State Army, which mass produces heroin and methamphetamines
at laboratories inside Myanmar and speeds their penetration into Thailand.
The United States, Western Europe and others in the world community are
deeply concerned because much of the heroin makes its way through Thailand to
addicts on their own streets. The Thais, while also battling heroin, are
focusing on metamphetamines widely abused by everyone from pampered teenagers to
slum dwellers and poor farmers.
The Office of Narcotics Control Board estimates that 600 million of these
"speed pills," worth 50 billion baht, have been smuggled into Thailand from
Myanmar this year. It places the number of just teen-age abusers at some
260,000, and the cost to Thai society in suppression and medical treatment at
more than 100 billion baht.
"Trafficking in and abuse of metamphetamines have become Thailand's top
drug problem in recent years, supplanting heroin," said Pol. Lt. Gen. Komrit
Patpongpanich, the police force's top anti-narcotics cop, in an interview.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, and its military regime is branded as the
culprit by Thailand and other nations. The US State Department says Myanmar is
the world's no. 2 producer of illegal narcotics, after Afghanistan, and
describes the Wa army as the world's largest drug-trafficking
organisation.
Thai officials believe a relocation early this year of some 50,000 Myanmar
people who lived in prime opium-growing areas near the Chinese border controlled
by the Wa to a region near Thailand has increased cross-border
trafficking.
"We all know what the problem is, but can't go across the border to get rid
of the source," said Lt. Gen. Wattanachai Chaimuanwongse, who heads narcotics
suppression in northern Thailand, which together with adjacent areas of Laos and
Myanmar forms the drug-drenched "Golden Triangle."
Although firefights with Myanmar traffickers and Thai pushers are not
uncommon, Wattanachai and others stress that force will never win the war. Also
needed is diplomatic effort with Myanmar, cooperation with villagers along
trafficking routes and domestic social programs to stop addiction.
A recent drug raid in Bangkok illustrated the difficulties. Before dawn, 30
armed plainclothes policemen and three sniffer dogs, accompanied by an
Associated Press reporter, scoured a fetid slum known to be awash in drugs and
pills. "My younger brother was an addict but he quit several months ago," said
Arunee Yodpet, 29, when the police barged into her home but came away
empty-handed. "This community is full of drug abusers and pushers," she added.
"I tell my young son not to go and play far from the house because I'm afraid
that someone might give him pills to try."
A few doors down, the police finally made a seizure - three pink pills -
and hauled away a 21-year-old suspect. "Metamphetamine abuse is widesread in
Bangkok's slums. Poor people take it to escape from the hardship in daily life,"
said one of the sympathetic raiders. "Suppression alone is not enough to solve
the problem." (AP)
The Straits Times - July 16,
2000.
Thailand fears drug lord war in Myanmar The drug-pushing United Wa State Army has reportedly taken over bases near
the border with Thailand -- an area controlled by Shan rebels
By JAMES EAST
STRAITS TIMES THAILAND BUREAU BANGKOK -- The Yangon-backed United Wa State Army (UWSA) -- the
20,000-strong force responsible for pumping millions of amphetamine pills into
Thailand -- has reportedly taken over bases relinquished by Myanmar's government
soldiers along the border with Thailand.
In doing so, the Wa soldiers are moving south into an area controlled by
pro-independence Shan rebels, and claim the junta in Myanmar has ordered them to
upgrade a border road.
Shan sources based in Thailand believe the border road opposite Chiang Dao
district, 110 km north of Chiang Mai, will be improved and ease the trafficking
of drugs by the Wa -- which pays for its weaponry by pushing heroin and
amphetamine into Thailand.
The Wa army is watched closely by American anti-drug agency operatives and
there is a US$2-million (S$3.5-million) bounty on the head of battalion
commander Wei Hsuen Kang, the group's most infamous drug runner.
Thailand's army commander General Surayud Chulanont is also being kept
abreast of the situation by the Third Army, which is responsible for the border
area opposite Myanmar's semi-lawless Shan state.
Soldiers with the Thai army's Pha Muang task force fear hostilities will
break out between the two ethnic groups and have reportedly begun strengthening
positions.
The ethnic-Chinese UWSA has reportedly been sending troops into the area,
particularly to Homong, the former stronghold of now-retired drug lord Khun Sa.
Although the UWSA has a ceasefire agreement with the Yangon government --
and has been left to get on with drug-dealing activities unchallenged -- it must
also deal with the 2,000-strong SSA force.
The SSA continues to oppose Myanmar's junta and has publicly condemned drug
dealing, burning opium crops and destroying drugs in the presence of the foreign
press.
One Shan source did not think war would break out but said the Wa army was
moving to control the drug-dealing network, much of it once overseen by Khun Sa
until 1996, and this could be a potential source of friction.
Three 250-strong Wa battalions have moved into the area close to the Thai
border, informants told the Shan Herald Agency for News.
The agency, an information-gathering body, also learnt that the Wa is now
forcing villagers to apply for UWSA licences if they wish to wholesale the
drugs, a move that could upset Shan villagers who are used to dealing
themselves.
Shan traders also have to go through syndicates that were set up by Myanmar
nationals with Wa and Chinese involvement, said the source. They sell at the
same price and share the profits.
The Wa could also want to get their hands on opium poppy growing areas in
the Salween river area, which produces high-grade heroin.
A senior Thai army source said he is anxious that war does not break out
between the groups. Fighting will mean refugees fleeing to Thailand.
And while the Commander of the Third Army Area is very worried about Wa
expansion, he said no extra troops have been deployed to the border region.
The Thai army is already concerned by junta plans to relocate 50,000 Wa and
ethnic Kokang groups from near China into the northern Thai border area.
The Myanmar authorities say the move is designed to encourage the groups to
grow substitute crops instead of opium -- but Thai troops fear the drugs output
of the Wa will only increase.
Myanmar's part of the Golden Triangle -- an area that includes Laos and
Thailand -- is thought to be the second-biggest producer of heroin after
Afghanistan and the Wa will pump an estimated 600 million speed pills into
Thailand this year.
BBC - Sunday, 16 July, 2000, 12:05 GMT
13:05 UK
Chinese VP in Burma The Chinese vice-president, Hu Jintao, is in Burma at the start of a
five-nation visit.
On arrival in Rangoon, he said that relations between the two countries
were gaining a good momentum of development at the start of the new century.
Mr Hu will also visit Thailand, Indonesia, Belarus and Kazhakhstan.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
Bangkok Post - July 16,
2000.
Drugs influx threat The current confrontation between two ethnic minority groups in Burma may
result in an influx of drugs into Thailand, the Third Army commander said in
Chiang Mai.
Lt-Gen Wattanachai Chaimuanwong was referring to the deployment of the
171st Battalion of the Rangoon-backed United Wa State Army along a 100-km border
stretch between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son.
The Wa soldiers are opposed to the Shan State Army, and fighting between
the groups is thought to be imminent.
AsiaWeek
JULY 21, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 28 |
The Freedom
Bloc
In the campaign to spread democracy, some words of advice Some proponents of the "Community of Democracies" have big ambitions for
the new global grouping of more than a hundred countries which signed a
declaration in Warsaw last month. "The plan," says former U.S. envoy Mark
Palmer, "is to eliminate all dictatorships by 2025." That iron-fisted gallery of
nations without elections presumably includes nuclear-tipped China and Pakistan;
absolute monarchies Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Brunei; and embargo-hardened Cuba,
Iraq, North Korea and Myanmar. But since the world's democracies have gone from
30 in 1974 to some 120 today, the chances of 35 or so autocrats seeing the light
or the exit seem good.
France opted out of the June 28 communique, saying that international
pressure might not be the best way to promote freedom. Many in Asia would also
be wary of a democratic bloc targeting dictators. For one thing, it could become
a tool for a big power to pressure its enemies. That has happened at the U.N.
Human Rights Commission, where the U.S. constantly lobbies to censure China, but
never offenders it doesn't want to displease, like Saudi Arabia and
Turkey.
Moreover, multinational efforts to defend rights and establish democracy in
recent years have had catastrophic results. NATO's Kosovo strategy ended in
wholesale carnage by the Serbs, while the U.N.'s rush to hold an East Timor
referendum last August led to an orgy of mayhem by pro-Indonesian militias.
While Serbs and Indonesians are most to blame for these tragedies, NATO and the
U.N. have to ask themselves whether their zeal for democracy may have blinded
them to the risks that their actions would impose on the very people they aimed
to protect.
One organization now questioning its past efforts to make countries adopt
so-called globally accepted policies is the International Monetary Fund. After
visiting Asia in May, new IMF managing director Horst KOhler said the Fund
should focus on speedily restoring investor confidence during crises, instead of
arm-twisting governments into drastic reforms with little relevance to their
urgent financial woes. In 1998, an IMF bid to get Jakarta to dismantle state
subsidies and crony capitalism helped create the economic disaster and ethnic
strife which will burden Indonesia for years. KOhler is now more careful. "Some
say that the Fund has acted like a Trojan horse to impose the economic system of
the West," he said last month. "There may be more of a possibility [today] for
countries to find their own path."
Besides tempering lofty ideals with on-the-ground realities, the emerging
Community of Democracies should recall how their ranks swelled in the last
quarter-century. Most threw out despots after years of growing prosperity,
learning and interaction with the world through trade, travel and media. Those
trends are liberalizing even a place like China, where affluence and education
are making people more assertive. Hence, the freedom bloc should always think
hard before imposing sanctions that condemn a country to poverty, ignorance and
isolation. Democracy rarely thrives in such conditions.
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