Burma Related News - July 29, 2000.

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HEADLINE

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The Guardian - Burma deserves a boycott

Reuters - Thailand pokes fun at Southeast Asian diplomacy

AFP - Taliban appeal for global help to cope with poppy ban aftermath

The Australian - Burma pledges to meet drug deadline

Xinhua - ASEAN Customs Officials' Meeting Opens in Myanmar

Kyodo - Japan-ASEAN fund established for cooperative relations

Bkk Post - Army enlists locals to check drugs menace

Bkk Post - Karen relocation plan runs into strong local opposition

The Nation - EU to give Burma more time

The Nation - Asean ministers tackle full agenda

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INTERNATIONAL PROTEST AGAINST JAPANESE GOVERNMENT ON AUG 8.

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The Guardian

Burma deserves a boycott

The democracy movement wants tourists to stay away and we should

Glenys Kinnock
Friday July 28, 2000

It's holiday season, and as we buy factor 15 suncream and dig out our beach towels, the Guardian's Maggie O'Kane revealed yesterday how a UK company, Premier Oil, is linked to a pipeline built with slave labour in Burma.
Some people are asking tourists not to go to Burma at present. They're not extremists but a democratically elected party that won a general election for a parliament that has never been allowed to convene. These people - the National League for Democracy, led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi -specifically ask visitors to stay away until the brutal military junta which rules the country allows them to take up their rightful place in government.

About 8m men, women and children are forced to labour on construction projects, including those linked to tourism, every year, according to estimates given to the UN International Labour Organisation. And hundreds of thousands of Burmese people have been forcibly relocated from their homes in order to develop the country's infrastructure, much of it created to boost tourism. And what is the response in Britain to these horrors? Many individuals, some tour operators and the UK government have respected the call not to visit Burma. The British foreign minister John Battle and the late Derek Fatchett have played an admirable role, and have urged tour operators to heed the NLD's request. But amazingly, many in the media and the travel industry have argued vociferously for tourism to Burma to continue.

"Is it really such a crime to seek out somewhere where you can simply enjoy yourself?" wrote another Guardian columnist Dea Birkett. She was reacting to a campaign asking people not to buy Lonely Planet books until they withdraw their new Burma guide.

"It's censorship!" say Lonely Planet and Birkett, bizarrely. They should understand that in Burma many who have questioned the regime are languishing in prison, including San San who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence after she participated in a BBC radio interview. Aung San Suu Kyi's personal doctor and family friend died in prison after being found guilty of owning a fax machine.

The Burma guide contains misleading inaccuracies and a loaded debate about ethics which concludes that "the positives of travel to [Burma] outweigh the negatives". But Lonely Planet, unlike many Burmese publishers, is at complete liberty to continue to publish ad infinitum if they really want to. People will make up their own minds.

Critics of the boycott campaign also question where to draw the line - China, Indonesia, and Turkey all have terrible human-rights abuses, they rightly point out. But they forget that the democracy movements within those countries have not asked for a travel boycott. The Dalai Lama, for instance, has said he feels tourists should witness the oppression in Tibet. But in Burma we have been asked by those who lead the movement for democracy to stay away. How can we justify placing our opinions higher than theirs?

Lonely Planet insist that publishing their guide, given current low visitor numbers, is financially disastrous. But it is of course astute business sense in the long run. When tourism to Burma does increase, their up-to-date guide will be waiting to drop into millions of backpacks. As Aung San Suu Kyi herself has said: "Guide book writers should listen to their consciences and be honest about their motivations. Profit is clearly their agenda."

I was lucky enough to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, after travelling under cover of a tourist visa obtained in Bangkok. Her courage and heroism is breathtaking. She is a remarkable woman, with a fierce determination to bring about freedom in Burma, and a phenomenal sense of calm given the personal suffering she endures. She and the NLD are trying to work out non-violent strategies.

One night, I found a scrap of paper on my pillow in my hotel bedroom in Rangoon. It was inscribed with her name - nothing more. It had presumably been put there by a brave hotel worker, trying to communicate support for her to me. That simple act took infinite courage. The Burmese people want freedom from a regime of killings, rape, genocide and the perpetration of relentless misery. We must respond to this terrible human suffering.

Aung San Suu Kyi asks a simple thing. She hasn't asked for us to be courageous, she hasn't asked for money, she hasn't asked for military help. She's asked for sanctions so that the junta will be starved out of existence. We can impose our own sanctions and not go on holiday to Burma. And we should certainly not buy from publishers that suggest we should.

• Glenys Kinnock is Labour MEP for South Wales East

WIRE:07/29/2000 01:02:00 ET
Thailand pokes fun at Southeast Asian diplomacy

BANGKOK, July 29 (Reuters) - Question: "How many senior officials does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "Ten -- to reach a consensus that the room is dark." Of all the jokes about the indecisiveness of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the grouping"s Bangkok meetings this week, those of senior Thai diplomat Kobsak Chutikul were the harshest. The director general of the Thai Foreign Ministry"s economic affairs department marked the close of a week of diplomatic talks on Saturday with a light-hearted jab at perceptions of ASEAN as an ineffectual talking shop. "How many ministers did it take to change a lightbulb?" Kobsak asked in the Bangkok Post on Saturday: "None -- they just redefined darkness as an ASEAN core principle." Other gems from the Thai official included: "For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision," and "Hangover: the wrath of grapes." Host Bangkok spearheaded efforts by ASEAN -- which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- to streamline decision-making to respond more quickly to crises. But the Thais ran into resistance from more conservative countries in the bloc, whose members include monarchies, a military dictatorship, Communist states and fragile democracies.

Saturday, July 29 7:24 PM SGT
Taliban appeal for global help to cope with poppy ban aftermath

KABUL, July 29 (AFP) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban appealed Saturday for millions of dollars in aid to save opium poppy farmers from "famine and starvation" after the Islamic militia banned the crop's cultivation.

Shah Mahmood Mangal, information officer at the Taliban's Anti-Drug Commission, said millions of dollars spent annually by the West in the fight against drugs could be channelled to Afghan farmers.

At a time when the country is suffering its severest drought in 30 years, he predicted hunger, death and widespread poverty unless the West was prepared to underwrite the push to eradicate opium farming.

"Instead of giving the money to Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to reinforce their borders against drugs, the western countries should give it to Afghan farmers," Mangal said.

Referring to Friday's ban on cultivation, he added: "We did our job. Now the world is obliged to save our people from famine and starvation."

As part of such poverty allevation, said Mangal, the West could help rebuild Afghanistan's shattered infrastructure, devastated by 20 years of war, first against the Soviet Union and then a civil conflict between the Taliban and opposition forces.

Mangal added the flow of drugs to the West would dry up when poppy cultivation was fully eradicated in Afghanistan.

Opium produced in the south leaves Afghanistan via Iran and Pakistan and that from the north is mainly exported through the former Soviet republics of central Asia.

The final destination, after a tortuous route through Turkey, is mainly Europe and the United States. There, after refining en route into morphine then heroin, an initial kilogram of opium will fetch some 160,000 dollars.

Mangal added the international community would now have one less stick with which to beat the Taliban.

The militia is currently only recognised by three countries -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- and is on a quest for international respectability. Even their main backer Pakistan has admitted the Afghan drugs trade is a major headache.

"This ban in fact robs them of this excuse," said Mangal.

Afghanistan is currently the world's largest producer of opium, last year producing a record 4,600 tonnes, three quarters of all global output and far outstripping the Golden Triangle region in Myanmar.

Production was already predicted to fall this year partly because of a result of the drought and partly due to earlier Taliban restrictions.

In a decree in September, the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, ordered farmers to reduce the amount of land dedicated to poppy cultivation by 30 percent in 2000.

The authorities also this year destroyed poppy plantations that were close to harvest in an area between the eastern provincial town of Jalalabad and the Pakistani border.

On Friday Omar extended restrictions to a total ban across the country, including areas controlled by opposition forces. The decree came two months ahead of the next sowing season.

Omar, referred to as "king of the faithful" by his followers, warned farmers would be severely punished and their crops destroyed if they grew poppies.

The ban made no mention of any action against calendestine heroin manufacturing laboratories along Afghanistan's borders with Iran and Pakistan.

The Islamic militia, which controls most of the country, has attracted international condemnation for allowing a boom in the opium business.

The number of poppy fields has increased every year under the Taliban. A farmer can earn several times as much for the same piece of land if he grows poppies rather than any other crop.

Several nations, particularly the United States which accuses the Taliban of supporting terrorism, have questioned the good faith of Afghanistan's rulers, who impose a tax of 10 percent on the harvest.

The Australian

Burma pledges to meet drug deadline
STORIES IN THIS SECTION
By South-East Asia correspondent PETER ALFORD -29jul00

BURMA'S Foreign Minister, Win Aung, claimed yesterday that his country, a massive producer of heroin and amphetamine-type stimulants, could eliminate its narcotics problem by 2014 – one year inside the target date set by the Association of South-East Asian Nations to rid the region of drugs.

Mr Win Aung devoted his entire speech at yesterday's ASEAN post-ministerial conference with its 13 dialogue partners, including Australia, to a comprehensive defence of the Burmese Government's much-criticised efforts to combat the drug menace within its borders.
Burma was reckoned last year to be the world's second-largest producer of heroin, although the UN's International Narcotic Control Board has acknowledged a major decrease in production there.

"Cultivation of opium has been declining steadily, from 151,200 acres in 1997-98 . . . to only 90,437 acres in 1999-2000," Mr Win Aung said.

"Since last year we have been implementing a 15-year plan to totally eliminate the cultivation, production and abuse of narcotics by the year 2014."

The ASEAN foreign ministers this week advanced by five years to 2015 their target date for a drug-free ASEAN region, in particular urging a joint effort against the recent major problem of methamphetamines and other amphetamine-type stimulants.

Burmese ethnic minority groups, particularly Wa fighters who control Burmese border territory next to Thailand's north-western border provinces, have been blamed for a massive upsurge in production of methamphetamines in the past two years.

Thailand, which is flooded with most of the output, estimated border methamphetamine factories produced 600 million tablets last year and could treble that output by 2001.

The Thais seized about 50 million methamphetamine tablets last year, and Mr Win Aung said the Burmese authorities had intercepted about 36 million tablets in 1999 and so far this year. Nevertheless, the massive proliferation of amphetamine drugs has caused a near panic in Thailand and mounting concern in countries from Japan to Malaysia and Australia. With the Thai market nearly saturated, these countries fear the producers are seeking to create mass markets further afield.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia, with an estimated 80 per cent of its heroin coming from Burma, acknowledged it had more work to do to cut down on the demand.

However, Mr Downer responded coolly to Mr Win Aung's claim that Burma was doing all it could to combat its drug production problem.

"I think there's been progress . . . but there's still a significant problem and a great deal more work to be done," Mr Downer said.

ASEAN Customs Officials' Meeting Opens in Myanmar

YANGON (July 28) XINHUA - A meeting of directors-general of customs of member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) opened here Friday.

The two-day eighth meeting is the first of its kind hosted by Myanmar, attended by delegates from 10 ASEAN member nations and Japan and officials of the ASEAN Secretariat.

The directors-general will discuss the main objectives set in the ASEAN Customs Agreement approved by finance ministers of the ASEAN member countries.

Speaking at the opening session of the meeting, Myanmar Minister of Finance and Revenue U Khin Maung Thein stressed the importance of development which emerged during the recent years, saying that the Northeast Asian countries -- China, Japan and South Korea share a common destiny with ASEAN member states.

He anticipates that interaction between the ASEAN and these three nations will be developed further in the future following areas of cooperation between them were agreed upon at the first meeting of ASEAN economic ministers and their counterparts from the three nations held in Yangon last May.

Meanwhile, ASEAN finance ministers met in the same month in Chiang Mai, Thailand where the ASEAN +3 decided to establish another important milestone called the "Chiang Mai Initiative" designed to provide financial assistance to the ASEAN region as a whole.

The Myanmar minister also emphasized that all endeavors for the economic development of his country are being made from its own resources, pledging that Myanmar will continue its dedication to the economic development in the region and looking forward to closer cooperation among ASEAN countries in the new millennium.

Myanmar became involved in the customs cooperation as an observer before it joined ASEAN by attending the fifth meeting of the ASEAN directors-general of customs held in Brunei in May 1997.

When Myanmar was admitted into the grouping later in July that year, Myanmar signed a total of 12 agreements including the ASEAN Customs Agreement.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

LEAD: Japan-ASEAN fund established for cooperative relations
By: Sarah Suk (EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

BANGKOK, July 28 (Kyodo) - Japan on Friday established a fund, worth some $2.5 million for the first year, to promote cooperative relations with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien signed a document in Bangkok to launch the Japan-ASEAN General Exchange Fund (JAGEF), which aims to help the less developed ASEAN members become more fully involved in the regional group, the official said. Vietnam is the current coordinator for ASEAN's relations with Japan.

''Japan believes the dynamic development of ASEAN in overcoming the differences in political systems and economic disparities is important to Japan too, and will make every effort to that end,'' Kono reportedly told ASEAN foreign ministers at a Japan-ASEAN meeting.

The JAGEF will pay for projects aimed at narrowing the economic disparities between original and new members of ASEAN -- particularly Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, which joined the group in the 1990s, the official said.

The fund will also help strengthen the functions of the ASEAN secretariat in Indonesia and promote further support by Japan for ASEAN members, including economic assistance, transfer of technology, trade and exchanges, the official said.

ASEAN groups Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. The first five countries are original members from the time of ASEAN's launch in August 1967.

Kono told participants at the meeting, which began with the signing ceremony for the fund, that for the first year Japan is considering projects such as the establishment of a telecommunications network connecting the ASEAN members, the ASEAN secretariat and Japan, the official said.

He said another project could involve the training of foreign affairs officials from the new ASEAN members, according to the official.

The fund will help provide human resources training to enable countries such as Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia to increase their ASEAN bureau staff within their foreign ministries, according to a Japanese Foreign Ministry press release.

The money will also go toward supplying computers to those countries, to allow them to communicate with fellow ASEAN members and the secretariat by e-mail, it said.

The JAGEF will be managed by the ASEAN secretary general, a Japanese representative and the coordinator country for ASEAN's relations with Japan.

Vietnam will shortly be replaced by Myanmar as coordinator country for ASEAN's relations with Japan on a three-year rotating term.

The establishment of the fund serves as a follow-up on the late former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's commitment, announced during a summit between Japan and ASEAN countries in Manila last November, to help new ASEAN countries and the ASEAN secretariat.

Bangkok Post - July 29, 2000.
BORDER
Army enlists locals to check drugs menace
Emphasis placed on the community

Supamart Kasem

The army and the local administration yesterday launched an anti-drugs campaign to boost community awareness and co-operation.

About 100 villagers of Ban Mae Komen in Mae Sot district were the first to join the campaign aimed at halting the spread of drugs in border communities.

Maj-Gen Tomorn Kittisopon, chief of the Naresuan task force, said the authorities needed "strategic partners" to help fight drugs.

So far, authorities have been able to confiscate only 400,000 out of millions of methamphetamine pills smuggled into the country in the past three months, he said.

A three-point measure now in use was not effective enough, Maj-Gen Tomorn added.

Under the new campaign, participants are encouraged to serve as informants and to mete out punishment to offenders, he said.

A border source said the United Wa State Army had increased drug production and was using a border passage near Ban Mae Komen as a smuggling route.

The United Wa State Army was also granted a concession to provide bus services on several routes, including that linking Rangoon with Myawaddy border town opposite Mae Sot, the source said. The buses, not subject to official inspection, were believed to be used for transporting drugs, the source added.

Tak provincial authorities have called on operators of vegetable transport trucks to keep a close watch on their vehicles since there have been reports some of the trucks were being used by drug smugglers.

Governor Nirat Vatjanaphum said close co-operation from all concerned was vital since police alone would not be able to check all trucks leaving the province.

Bangkok Post - July 29, 2000.

Karen relocation plan runs into strong local opposition
Cheewin Sattha in Mae Hong Son

A public hearing will be held on the planned relocation of 13,000 Karen following strong opposition from people living near the new site who fear the refugees might cause them trouble.

Thanee Phukcharoen, chief of the Mae Sot administration office, said the relocation from the Salween forest was prompted by fears of logging by refugees in the pay of local timber traders.

Mr Thanee, who also heads a working group planning the relocation, said it was agreed the refugees would be moved to a holding centre at Maela Maluang and another site at the Maela mine in Sop Moei district.

However, the relocation plan was being delayed by strong opposition from some 1,000 villagers living near the new sites, he said.

The locals feared the refugees would encroach on their farmland or fell trees in their community forests.

The local population would also be outnumbered once as many as 13,000 Karen refugees moved into Sop Moei district, they said.

Sources said Sop Moei has a population of 20,000 people now, and there are already some 9,000 refugees housed in the Maela Maluang holding centre.

The Nation - July 29, 2000.

EU to give Burma more time

THE European Union is giving Burma more time to undertake political reforms before it makes a decision on whether to allow the country access to the Asean-EU assistance programme, a diplomatic source said yesterday.

The source said the EU would next year evaluate if there had been any improvement in the overall political and human rights situation in Burma, also known as Myanmar.

The message was conveyed at a bilateral closed-door meeting yesterday between Burmese officials and the European Union.

Burma is the only Asean country that has yet to sign the Asean-EU Cooperation Agreement, which covers bilateral cooperation in trade, economic and development matters. Laos and Cambodia signed the agreement yesterday, a move which allows them to take part in all the bilateral activities between the two regional groupings. The EU is Asean's oldest dialogue partner.

The EU yesterday repeatedly urged the Burmese junta to end human and labour rights abuses and to open a dialogue with pro-democracy leaders.

The junta has denied the abuse charges, saying it would welcome an EU fact-finding team to see the situation on the ground. Earlier this year, the EU disclosed a list of at least 140 Burmese officials who have been denied visas to enter EU countries. Asean and EU foreign ministers are scheduled to hold their annual talks, known as the Asean-EU Consultative Committee meetings, in Vientiane in December. Having signed yesterday, Cambodia and Laos will attend the meeting as participants. Burma will also attend but will not enjoy access to any of the development assistance agreed at the forum.

The Vientiane meeting is expected to discuss access to the EU market, intellectual property rights and sustainable development in Southeast Asia.

n Deutsch Presse-Agentur yesterday quoted European Commissioner for External Affiars Christopher Patten as describing the inclusion of Cambodia and Laos in the agreement as "a further sign of the durability of the EU-Asean partnership".

He added, "This relationship has had its occasional ups and downs, but I think now the relationship is solidly back on track."

Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan remarked at the signing ceremony that he hoped Burma would be able to join the Asean-EU agreement soon.

In April, the EU compromised on the Burma issue, allowing a Burmese delegate to attend the upcoming Vientiane meeting, while at the same time intensifying sanctions against high-ranking members of Burma's military regime.

However, high-ranking EU officials continue to claim that their tough stance against Burma's ruling junta is essentially the same.

The Nation - July 29, 2000.
Asean ministers tackle full agenda

ASEAN ministers and their dialogue partners started the Asean Post Ministerial Conference yesterday with a pledge to put poverty, drug trafficking, infectious disease, the digital gap between rich and poor nations and traffick in women and children high on their agenda of issues to tackle.

"Today these issues are undermining human security and threatening the well-being of society in this and other regions of the world," Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said in his opening remarks on the first day of the two-day conference.

Surin, the outgoing chairman of the Asean Standing Committee, said these problems were rooted in the development gap between the rich and the poor and continued to widen with globalisation.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright applauded the regional grouping's decision to advance the date for a drug-free Asean from 2020 to 2015 and expressed the US's willingness to help.

Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aung used the forum to defend his government's ties with ethnic Wa and Kokang opium warlords, saying the armed narcotics-trafficking groups were now committed to developing their areas to become drug-free.

Win Aung said that Burma had always welcomed the opportunity to work with the international community in the fight against drugs, adding that his country had not been given the respect it deserved for its efforts to curb the flow of drugs coming out of the country.

For years Rangoon has come under attack for not doing enough to curb the trafficking of narcotics and allowing drug lords Kun Sa, Pao Yu-qiang and Lo Hsing-san to operate freely in the country.

According to a diplomatic source, during the closed-door meeting yesterday, Albright blasted her Burmese counterpart over the absence of political dialogue between the ruling junta and the opposition National League for Democracy Party.

In her prepared speech, Albright warned the region not to overlook the danger of HIV/Aids, saying the epidemics in Burma and Cambodia were growing at an alarming rate. In Thailand alone, Albright said, at least a million adults are HIV infected.

"There is no greater danger to the health and security of this region," she said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan stressed the issue of sovereignty, warning his counterparts that theories such as "human rights overriding sovereignty" and "humanitarian intervention knowing no boundaries" have threatened the norms governing international relations and threatened the sovereignty and security of developing nations.

Tang called on Asian countries to strengthen economic cooperation and urged developed countries to "share the benefits of globalisation".

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer meanwhile announced yesterday it was providing 200 million Australian dollars (Bt4.8 trillion) for the next six years to combat the spread of HIV/Aids. He also announced a new phase of Australia's economic development cooperation with Asean worth A$45 million aimed at boosting trade.

On the economic side, Surin, speaking to reporters, said a full recovery in the region depended on the opening of markets in the US, the European Union and Australia. He said Albright had promised to relay his message to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) that the high oil price was not benefiting anyone.

On the development side, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien, who will take over chairing the Asean Standing Committee after Surin, called on Asean's dialogue partners to help bridge the gap between the rich and poor Asean members through development programmes.