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HEADLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NSTP - National: Illegal immigrants' travel plan
foiled
Xinhua - Myanmar Ends Breasting-Feeding Week
Oil & Gas Journal -
Petronas, PTT consider building Myanmar NGL
plant Bkk Post - Six suspects held in precursor
seizure
BBC - Pro-democracy official bitten by Myanmar
military dog
The Japan Times - EDITORIAL
- Nowhere for tyrants to
hide
Reuters - Drought, ban push up opium prices in
Afghanistan
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BURMA RELATED NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Straits Time
Thursday, August 10 6:50 PM SGT National: Illegal immigrants' travel plan foiled BUKIT KAYU HITAM, Wed. - Anti-Smuggling Unit officers foiled an attempt by
53 illegal immigrants from Myanmar to travel to Penang early today when they
were caught aboard a small lorry along the North-South Expressway.
The arrest was made about 2.30am at KM10.3, near Changloon, after members of the unit tailed the lorry and a car for about three kilometres. The limited space in the covered lorry had forced some of the illegal
immigrants, aged between 15 and 35, to remain in standing position throughout
their journey, which is about 140km.
While a few of them were in possession of Myanmar identification cards, all
did not have travel documents.
Changloon Anti-Smuggling Unit commander Assistant Superintendent Jamaludin
Hussein said the foreigners were smuggled into the country via Felda Bukit
Tangga.
Myanmar Ends Breasting-Feeding Week
YANGON (Aug. 8) XINHUA -
Myanmar ended its launching of this year's annual world breast-feeding week
Monday with a coverage of 268 hospitals and 49 townships in the country,
according to the Myanmar Ministry of Health.
Aimed at promoting dissemination of breast-feeding information and
education, the breasting-feeding week activities were carried out from August 1
to 7 by the ministry in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund.
The week, which featured activities including essay, painting and poster
contests, talks and training courses on breast-feeding, was also joined by the
Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association, a non-governmental organization.
According to the ministry, 97 percent of mothers in Myanmar breast-feed
their babies, but only 70 percent are methodical.
The ministry called for systematic breast-feeding habit to get benefits
derived from the feeding.
Official health indicators show that infant mortality rates in Myanmar are
47.1 per 1,000 live births in urban areas and 48.6 per 1,000 live births in
rural areas.
Meanwhile, maternal mortality rates are 1 per 1,000 live births in urban
areas and 1.7 per 1,000 live births in rural areas.
Myanmar began launching the annual world breast-feeding week since
1992.
Bangkok Post - Aug, 10, 2000.
FOCUS / TAKING CARE OF THE DISPLACED Isn't it enough to give shelter? No one can question Thailand's just treatment of the hundreds of thousands
who have sought refuge here, so should there be any haste for it to join the UN
refugee agency? Will the refugees be better off?
Bhanravee Tansubhapol Twenty-five years after allowing the United Nations refugee agency to set
up offices here, Thailand remains reluctant to accede to the UN convention on
refugees. And it finds good reason in the lingering problem of the displaced
Burmese.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees began assisting Thailand
in mid-1975, only a few months after the fall to communist rule of Cambodia and
Vietnam which triggered a massive refugee exodus. The fall of Laos in December
the same year was another reason why the Thai government allowed the UNHCR to
set up a permanent office here in July 1977. The fall of the Khmer Rouge in
Phnom Penh in 1979 and a further 14 years of civil war in that country made the
UNHCR's presence compelling.
But it has taken almost 25 years to resettle or repatriate most of these
Indochinese-671,000 Cambodians, 360,000 Laos and 160,000 Vietnamese. The
entrenched 100-odd hilltribe Laos still at Ban Napho in Nakhon Phanom province
attest to the difficulty of solving this problem.
The lingering presence on Thailand's western border of more than 100,000
Burmese who fled the crackdown which followed Burma's pro-democracy uprising in
1988 and sporadic armed conflicts ever since have stoked Thailand's reluctance
to accede to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Of the many reservations cited by the legal experts at the Foreign
Ministry, the strongest relates to the convention's broad definition of refugees
as people who flee their country due to a well-founded fear of persecution for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a
particular social group.
"The definition is very broad and we want to be clear about the scope
allowed for the term 'persecution' as we don't want to have to take victims of
every kind," one ministry expert said.
The government also wants a clarification of its obligations to the
refugees in terms of the economic, political and social rights it would have to
grant them. Their rights to work and education, to own property, and to set up
labour unions or other peaceful assemblies also have to be spelled out, he
said.
Gen Sanan Kachornklam, the defence ministry spokesman who was involved in
refugee affairs through the Cambodian crisis during the 1980s, said Thailand had
to ensure that the refugees enjoy basic civil rights and non-discrimination, and
an assurance that their needs are met. He doubted whether Thai society, which
has its own poor and underprivileged, could accept this.
The foreign ministry expert said Thailand also would have to consider
granting citizenship to some refugees and wanted air-tight protection against
potential troublemakers.
Vientiane's lingering suspicion of the Thai position on "ill-intentioned
persons", ex-refugees, using Thai soil as a springboard for disruptive
activities in Laos is one good reason, analysts said. The uneasy experience of
integrating Vietnamese refugees from the Dien Bien Phu era half a century ago is
another.
Other reservations find backing in the current Burmese problem. The
problems Bangkok has had with Burmese dissidents have kept alive the Thai wish
to keep open the option of repatriation, rather than be bound to the
convention's principle of non-refoulement (or a veto against forced
repatriation).
Still faced with a huge caseload after 15 years, Thailand also wants a
commitment from the UNHCR to solve the refugee problem-through repatriation or
third country resettlement-within a set time.
"We don't want to tie ourselves to any convention while Thailand is not
violating any policy towards refugees," the expert said. "The record has proved
itself beyond the written document."So far, 138 countries, or 50 short of the
188 UN-member states, have acceded to the refugee convention, UNHCR officials
say.
As part of the UNHCR's campaign to encourage accession, Foreign Minister
Surin Pitsuwan received a letter from Mrs Sadako Ogata, the refugee agency's
boss, last year.
Manaspas Xuto, who as the Thai ambassador to Geneva signed the agreement in
1977 with UN High Commissioner Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan permitting the agency
to set up a permanent office here and assist "displaced persons" from Indochina
in Thailand, maintains that the government has co-operated well with the
international agency despite not being a party to the convention.
"Personally, I think it's immaterial now whether we accede to the
Convention because we have been practising what's in there already," he
said.
"The last 25 years of our conduct pertaining to refugees and displaced
persons should provide ample proof of our norm, which is not any less than that
set out in the Convention."Jahanshah Assadi, the UNHCR regional representative
for Thailand and Cambodia, admitted recently that some Asian signatories to the
Convention had treated refugees less well than Thailand despite their smaller
burden.
But he stressed that states and refugees benefit from signing on as they
are virtually guaranteed international support for any refugee influx they may
face. States also would be protected from criticism by their neighbours.
Mr Assadi said Thailand was bound by its own constitution to accede to all
relevant international conventions and hoped it might consider acceding to the
refugee convention.
Vitit Muntarbhorn, a lecturer in law at Chulalongkorn University, said
accession would ensure the more transparent screening of refugees from
non-refugees.
Mr Manaspas said Thailand had always contended that refugees were an
international problem requiring international assistance.
In dealing with the first and second refugee influxes, of Laos and
Cambodians, and of Vietnamese boat refugees, Thailand made clear to the UNHCR
that it would only accept two of three "durable solutions" the agency
prescribed: third country resettlement and repatriation, not integration in
Thailand, he said.
War, internecine conflict, religious rivalry, political repression and
persecution, lack of opportunity for a better life, famine and deprivation are
some of the root causes which drive people from their homeland.
"So long as the root causes over which we have no control are there, across
the border, the refugee or migration problem will remain even with the UNHCR's
presence and assistance," Mr Manaspas said.
"So long as the conditions in Burma remain unchanged, the Burmese problem
will continue unabated."Central to the problem is Rangoon's refusal to take back
the refugees. In response to criticism that the UNHCR has not done enough to
secure a foothold in Burma in order to advance this, Mr Assadi said the question
was raised in March during a visit to Rangoon by Jessen Petersen, the UNHCR
assistant commissioner. But Rangoon maintained that the timing was not yet
right.
Mr Vitit said the Thai government needed to inform the public who are
refugees and who are dissidents, as the storming of the Burmese embassy in
Bangkok last October and the occupation of the hospital in Ratchaburi in January
has increased public dislike for refugees.
Mr Manaspas said the government had to deal with other problems beyond the
mandate of the UNHCR, such as economic migrants and illegal workers. It was not
lacking in compassion, he said, but tolerance does have its limit.
BBC - Thursday, 10 August, 2000, 14:31 GMT 15:31 UK
Pro-democracy official 'jailed in Burma' The Burmese pro-democracy party led by Aung San Suu Kyi says a leading
opposition figure has been jailed for twenty-one years.
It says Aye Tha Aung who's secretary of the Committee Representing the
People's Parliament was arrested in April and jailed in June, but the news has
only now emerged.
There's been no comment from Burma's military leaders.
It's not clear what charges Aye Tha Aung faced.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
The Japan Times: Friday, August 11,
2000
EDITORIAL - Nowhere for tyrants to
hide
Old age for Chile's former strongman Augusto Pinochet and Indonesia's
former President Suharto looks much different from anything they had probably
envisaged. These two distinguished men, each of whom fashioned himself as the
savior of his country, are now rethinking their retirement plans. Instead of
basking in the glory of a job well done and receiving the thanks of a grateful
nation, they both face trial.
Neither is likely to be punished with imprisonment, however. It is more
likely that age and infirmity will shield both of them from prosecution. And if
legal proceedings are set in motion, it is doubtful whether either man would
survive them. Nonetheless, human-rights activists and democrats the world over
have reason to celebrate -- and dictators have reason to be fearful. A simple,
essential principle has prevailed: No one is above the law.
Mr. Pinochet's hopes for a quiet retirement were upset this week when
Chile's supreme court voted 14-6 to strip him of his immunity from prosecution.
That privilege -- given to him as an unelected senator for life in Chile's Upper
House of Congress -- was granted by the constitution he wrote before leaving
office. Mr. Pinochet now faces charges associated with the deaths and
disappearances of more than 3,000 people during his 17-year rule.
Mr. Pinochet may still avoid trial. He is 84 years old, and Chilean law
stipulates that all defendants over the age of 70 must undergo a mental
examination to ensure that they are fit to stand trial. The president's family
has said that it will fight that indignity, which promises another procedural
wrangle and another delay. Mr. Pinochet was sent home from Britain, where he was
first detained, for "humanitarian reasons" when doctors there determined he was
unfit for a sustained legal ordeal. He suffers from diabetes and has a heart
pacemaker. His doctors also claim that he has "irreversible brain damage" that
was caused by two strokes suffered during his prolonged stay in Britain.
Half a world away, Mr. Suharto was feeling the reverberations of the
"Pinochet Precedent." On the same day that the Chilean Supreme Court handed down
its ruling, the Jakarta government formally filed charges against the former
president. In them, Mr. Suharto was accusing of embezzling $571 million from
state-run foundations that were operated in his name during his 32 years in
power. Prosecutors believe that Mr. Suharto probably took even more money than
that, but they are focusing on the charities to build the strongest possible
case.
Protesters are unlikely to be happy with the outcome of this case. The
Indonesian government seems reluctant, at best, to prosecute. The former
president may also be declared unfit for trial. He is reportedly unable to
remember details and cannot contribute to his defense. President Abdurrahman
Wahid has said that he would pardon Mr. Suharto if he is convicted of abuse of
power. (That language leaves open the intriguing possibility that a conviction
on charges of corruption would be another matter.)
Some victims and their families complain that the two men are getting off
easy, and that they benefit from legal protections they denied their enemies.
They miss the point.
Punishment is not the issue; justice is. These two men considered
themselves above the law. They have been brought back to earth. Even if they do
not face trial, they have been forced to suffer the indignity of being examined
and labeled incompetent. If they are faking, then the sting is real. If they are
not, then leniency is just.
Mr. Pinochet's case has set a powerful precedent. Tyrants now know that
they cannot hide from crimes they commit while in office. Mr. Suharto is the
first to feel the shock waves of the historic ruling by the British Law Lords.
While the point of law itself was not applicable, opponents of his regime were
inspired and emboldened by the decision. Other strongmen have very good reasons
to be worried. Human-rights groups have drawn up procedural guides to help
prosecutors bring these offenders to justice.
The rule of law has been strengthened. That is the real victory. Democratic
activists now have a potent new tool with which they can prod governments, no
matter how reluctant, to act. Victims and their families will find solace in
knowing that the perpetrators of crimes against them have been condemned for
their acts. Some will be punished. Others will not, but they will no longer
sleep as soundly as before.
(How is Ne Win, Khin Nyunt & etc;)
WIRE:08/09/2000 10:15:00 ET
Drought, ban push up opium prices in Afghanistan KABUL (Reuters) - Opium prices
have jumped sharply in Afghanistan, the world"s largest producer of the drug,
because of a severe drought and an announcement of a total ban on poppy
cultivation by the ruling Taliban, dealers said on Wednesday. "A kilo (2.2
pounds) of opium is now $67 while it sold for $32 before the Taliban order," one
dealer said. "The price of heroin has more or less followed the same trend," he
added. Supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar in late July ordered a total ban on
poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, beginning from the growing season starting
next spring. It was the first time the Taliban had called for a total ban on the
cultivation of poppy which is processed into morphine and then heroin. Last
year, Omar issued an edict calling for poppy cultivation to be cut by one-third,
but that decree was greeted by skepticism by Western anti-drug experts because
Afghanistan"s opium crop more than doubled last year to 4,600 metric tons from
2,100 in 1998. But even before the ban call, opium output had been expected to
plunge because of Afghanistan"s worst drought in 30 years had dried up poppy
fields in the eastern and southern regions of the country. The Taliban has in
the past demanded international aid for outlawing poppy growth, saying
Afghanistan"s wrecked economy had forced poor farmers to grow the lucrative
crop. Anti-drug experts say that Afghanistan has far surpassed Myanmar, formerly
Burma, as the world"s largest producer of opium, accounting for more than 75
percent of output. Dealers reported that since the ban announcement, traders
have been paying farmers large sums of money if they agreed to ignore the ban
and sow poppy. "People are badly off here and they will do anything to survive
and opium is lucrative. Either the Taliban have to feed these people or the ban
will be forgotten," another dealer said.
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