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BURMA RELATED NEWS - OCT - 15, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
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CNN - Myanmar media blasts Western diplomats'
actions
Bkk Post - UN project a 'must', US tells Wa
Army Bkk Post - Editorial - Friends don't let friends
do harm
The Nation - Burma pipeline foes say shares should be free
The Nation - Funerals for 10 young
dissidents
The Nation - Letters - Ceausescu, Milosevic:
Burmese junta next?
ABC online - Burma closes
several universities
CNN - Myanmar media blasts Western
diplomats' actions
October 14, 2000 Web posted at: 7:01 AM HKT (2301 GMT) YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's pro-junta newspapers Friday accused U.S.
and British diplomats of encouraging opposition leaders to complain to a
visiting U.N. envoy about the government.
Razali Ismail, the special U.N. envoy, left Myanmar Thursday after a
four-day visit aimed at ending the political deadlock between the military
government and the pro-democracy opposition party of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Before Razali's arrival, British and American diplomats visited the
National League for Democracy headquarters several times and told NLD members to
complain about government repression, the Myanmar-language Myanmar Alin
newspaper said.
The embassies did not immediately respond to the accusations. Calls made
from Bangkok, Thailand, to the embassies went unanswered.
The Myanmar Alin article said the diplomats told the NLD members that "they
would try diplomatic means to call for international pressure and to expel
Myanmar from the United Nations" and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The NLD -- even without outside urging -- has frequently complained about
the government, which has imposed severe security restrictions on Suu Kyi and
other top party members.
Suu Kyi has been under virtual house arrest since Sept. 22 when she tried
to travel outside Yangon for party work.
Razali met with Suu Kyi at her house twice and held talks with government
leaders.
At the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday, deputy
spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said Suu Kyi appeared to be in good health
when she met with Razali.
Razali "underlined the necessity for national reconciliation" and urged
both the government and Suu Kyi to start a political dialogue "as soon as
possible," Almeida e Silva said.
The government has said in the past that it would talk to the NLD but not
with Suu Kyi.
It also refuses to hand over power to the NLD, which overwhelmingly won the
1990 elections. The government has blocked Suu Kyi every time she has tried to
leave Yangon and put her under formal house arrest from 1989 to 1995.
A commentary in Myanmar-language Kyemon daily accused the diplomats of the
two countries of sending fabricated information to foreign broadcasters like the
BBC and Voice of America.
The government had been "very tolerant" in dealing with Suu Kyi and her
followers and the interference by some "dishonorable" diplomats, it said.
"In other countries, such interference by diplomats will not be tolerated
and will be strongly protested," the newspaper said.
Bangkok Post - Oct 15, 2000.
DRUG TRAFFICKING UN project a 'must', US tells Wa Army Only way to become legit, says official Nusara Thaitawat The United States says the United Wa State Army must allow a United Nations
crop substitution project to go ahead in the area it controls.
"I advised them that this project has to proceed and to meet its original
goals because if they ever, in the long run, hope to become legitimate and get
out of narcotics, they have to allow the international community to work
unimpeded," a senior US official said. James Callahan, director of the Office of
Asian, African and European Programmes of the Bureau of International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement, US State Department, earlier visited a UN development
project on the southern tip of the northern Wa area in Burma's eastern Shan
state.
He is the most senior US anti-drug official to be allowed into that
area.
Mr Callahan said he met the deputy secretary-general of the Wa Army and
other senior leaders, but not the top leader. He said he did not expect to meet
them, but they were eager to pass on a message.
"They told me they weren't involved [in production of methamphetamines],"
he said.
Mr Callahan said the Wa leadership had its own idea of development and it
had invested heavily in the construction of roads, electricity and water supply.
"The UN project was designed to assist people in the highlands. It has worked in
Thailand and Laos, and there is no reason why it cannot work in Burma.
"Any attempt to try to force the project to re-orient itself to meet the
goals of the Wa would meet with the rejection of donors and the project would be
brought to an end," he said.
The Wa army has been moving people from the highlands into the south, where
it has bought land.
Wa leaders say they have moved 30,000 people so far.
Mr Callahan said not all of them had been directed to the Wa's southern
military command on the Thai border, where most methamphetamine flooding
Thailand is made.
"This might lead one to think that there is some validity to claims that
they're doing this for economic reasons," he said.
The UWSA said it planned to move 100,000 people.
"They gave me a little speech in which they laid out their concept of
development and the impossibility of developing alternative crops in the
highlands as far as they were concerned.
"They have acquired this area in the southern military command. They see it
as a place they can move people into.
"I would think that there are multiple motives in that, not just to get
people out of the depressed areas, but also to establish a better claim to that
area by having people in it," he said.
The United Nations project is worth US$15.5 million over five years, and
began in 1998.
Bangkok Post - Oct 15,
2000.
Editorial - Friends don't let friends do harm There is always a slight, transient advantage to holding a well-organised
conference against drugs. The issue deserves to be kept at the forefront,
deserves constant discussion and consideration. The media, including this
newspaper, publicise the battle against the drug traffickers. They describe the
successes and, more often lately, the failures.
In the past couple of years, Thailand and neighbours have been badly hurt
by a conspiracy of criminals, the like of which we never have seen before. The
rapid and crippling rise of the pill pushers has threatened our country like few
previous invasions. Last week's conference methodically outlined the causes and
effects of this insidious intrusion. In the sense that people became more aware
of the problem and dangers, last week's conference was modestly
successful.
Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai opened the discussion among 34 nations and the
United Nations International Drug Control Programme. His keynote set the tone.
Thailand in particular, and the region in general face a serious problem from
massive smuggling and sales of stimulants. Methamphetamines and similar pills
have drugged far too many of our people and children. They have corrupted large
segments of the country.
There are two steps that can be taken to help to defeat this threat to our
very national security. The first is to identify the major players who make,
smuggle, sell and protect the drug dealers. The second is to pursue them across
the national borders they use to protect themselves. Neither Thailand nor our
friends have taken firm enough steps on either of these necessary issues. Last
week, however, there was modest progress on both.
Burma sent a senior intelligence officer to the conference. Col Kyaw Thein
heads the Office of Strategic Studies for the military dictatorship. He repeated
the old refrains. Burma is not responsible for drug smuggling. Burma does not
make the chemicals or machines necessary to manufacture methamphetamines, so it
can't be Burma that is culpable. Burma can't patrol all the vast regions of the
nation. And finally, Burma has a master plan to eliminate drugs by 2014. Rangoon
can't disclose the secret plan, and won't address the contradictions in Col Kyaw
Thein's claims.
China, on the other hand, has been taking drugs seriously for some time
now. Beijing is concerned at the effects drugs have had. They include an Aids
epidemic in the south, near the Burmese border. Just last month, as concerned as
Thailand, China began a nationwide campaign against methamphetamines.
The Chinese delegate, Liu Jieyi of the foreign minstry, announced that
Beijing will be taking trans-national crime and corruption to this week's
Asia-Europe Meeting, known as Asem. In Seoul, 25 heads of government from Europe
and Asia will discuss further co-operation-and funding-on fighting international
criminals.
There remains, however, a missing link in these welcome Chinese proposal.
China correctly wants to fight international crime. But it proposes no way to
identify or to punish those responsible. China is the closest thing to a friend
that Burma has. China has helped Rangoon in various ways, both diplomatic and
economic. It is time for Beijing to show that friendship works both ways.
Friends don't let friends deal drugs. The Burmese regime is badly tainted
and closely identified with heroin and methamphetamine dealers, smugglers and
traffickers. The head of the ruling military dictatorship, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt,
has publicly embraced the region's drug kingpin and head of the United Wa State
Army, Wei Hsueh-kang. China considers its battle against drugs a critical issue.
It should intervene with Burma, forcefully, and convince Rangoon to move away
from the drug dealers. China will do itself much good, and greatly help the
cause of battling trans-national crime.
The Nation - Oct 15,
2000.
Burma pipeline foes say shares should be free KANCHANABURI - Residents affected by gas pipelines running from Burma to
Ratchaburi Power Plant should receive free shares in the soon-to-be listed
utility, not the right to buy them at par price as has been proposed by the
authorities, the leader of a local group opposed to the pipeline said yesterday.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) has been unfair to
residents, who were originally urged to sacrifice their rights for the national
good because the plant belonged to the state, said Pinan Choterosseranee.
Offering shares at par price can never make up for the suffering residents
went through living near the pipelines, Pinan said.
The Nation - Oct 15,
2000.
Funerals for 10 young dissidents RATCHABURI - Police yesterday released the bodies of the 10 Burmese
dissidents shot dead by Thai forces in January in a controversial raid at the
provincial hospital which the dissidents had seized to draw attention to their
cause.
The police released the bodies to a local foundation for funerals after
their relatives failed to claim them.
Nine were cremated in a Buddhist ceremony, and the other was sent to a
local mosque for a Muslim ceremony.
The 10 youths were killed when Thai forces stormed the hospital to free the
hundreds of patients taken hostage. Allegations were made that some of the
hostage-takers had surrendered before being shot.
The Nation - Oct 15,
2000.
Letters - Ceausescu, Milosevic: Burmese junta next? The downfall of Yugoslavia's dictator Slobodan Milosevic once again tells
the world that global democratisation is unstoppable and dictatorship is a dead
end.
I wonder what the Burmese military junta are thinking about their own
position right now. A little bit chilly, I suppose?
The Burmese top brass must double-check on their rank-and-file soldiers day
and night. Otherwise they might get back at them with people's power. Milosevic
and [former Romanian leader Nicolae] Ceausescu earlier on have simply gone the
way things should be.
Cherry Yap
BANGKOK
ABC online - Oct 15,
2000.
Burma closes several universities
Burma's military regime has reportedly closed several universities in the
capital Rangoon, after anti-government posters were found on their walls.
According to a report on the opposition radio station, the Democratic Voice
of Burma, the government shut Dangon university and teacher training colleges
under the emergency act.
The report said the closure of the schools occurred after police found wall
posters referring to opposition to the regime's education system and
administration.
Burma's universities were reopened last month after being suspended in the
wak of a 1996 student uprising.
(22:31:03 AEST)
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