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BURMA RELATED NEWS - NOV - 14, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NYT - For Burmese, Repression, AIDS and
Denial
AFP - Myanmar laments lack of cooperation
in fight against drugs
AFP - Piracy could undermine East Asia's
economic miracle, expert warns
AFP - Aga Khan diamonds crown Geneva
jewellery auctions
The Age - Toll
rises in Burma's hidden war
Bkk Post - Five Burmese troops killed in clash
with Shan fighters
Xinhua - Regional Drug Law
Enforcement Agency Heads Meet in Myanmar
AP - Report: Chinese police
arrest Myanmar soldier in drug bust
ABC online - Thai
authorities plan evacuation of border area
Bkk Post - Canvassers
join Wa in drug deals
Kyodo News - ILO session under way on
Myanmar forced labor issue
The New York Times
November 14, 2000 For Burmese, Repression, AIDS and Denial By BLAINE HARDEN YANGON, Myanmar — To inoculate themselves against any outbreak of
democracy, the generals who run this hermit dictatorship have undertaken two
urgent missions of self-preservation.
Seeking support from the Buddhist majority in what used to be called Burma,
the junta is sprucing up old pagodas and building new ones at a pace and on a
scale that experts say is without precedent.
Nearly every day, a top general travels by armed motorcade to a recently
restored pagoda. As state television records his piety, the general removes his
shiny shoes and inspects a newly gilded Buddha.
The junta has a rather more robust Plan B. In an autumn that has been
unkind to autocrats — Slobodan Milosevic failed to steal an election in Serbia
and the youngest son of Indonesia's ousted president, Suharto, was convicted of
corruption — the generals here are taking no chances. They have locked up nearly
all their political opponents.
In late September, they again ordered the house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, the opposition leader whose party won a huge victory in a 1990 election
that the generals ignored. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1991, has spent more than 6 of the last 11 years under house
arrest.
Senior leaders of her party have been imprisoned or placed under house
arrest. Two of the most influential monks, who wrote letters that begged the
generals to talk to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, are being watched by military
intelligence.
The army halted huge pro-democracy demonstrations 12 years ago by killing
several hundred people and jailing thousands more. Since then, the generals have
doubled the size of the armed forces, to more than 400,000, though Myanmar, with
a population estimated at 50 million, faces no serious foreign threat and has
made peace with most of its armed ethnic minorities.
Military analysts say the buildup, which coincides with a steep decline in
spending on schools and health care, is primarily aimed at preventing or, if
need be, crushing civil unrest. Large numbers of troops are stationed in or
around major cities.
In the last five years, the junta has forcibly resettled tens of thousands
of potentially restive poor people from city centers to distant slums. It has
closed most urban universities and sent students off to remote rural campuses.
Labor unions and private civic associations are banned. No elections are
scheduled; none seem likely.
The generals have made it a crime to own a computer modem, send e-mail,
sign on to the Internet or invite a foreigner into a private home.
Since seizing power 38 years ago, the military dictatorship has renamed the
country, renamed this capital (formerly Rangoon) and renamed scores of other
cities, towns and religious shrines. Every few years, the generals rename
themselves.
After the 1988 retirement of the founding dictator, Gen. Ne Win, his
handpicked successors decided to call their junta the State Law and Order
Restoration Council, known inside and outside the country as Slorc. In 1997, as
the generals opened the country to foreign investors and tried to soften their
image, the name was changed to the State Peace and Development Council.
S.P.D.C., though, has not caught on. People seem to relish calling their
self-appointed leaders "Slorc."
The generals have also stopped allowing foreign journalists into the
country, especially Americans. But Slorc, starved for foreign currency, began
admitting sizable numbers of tourists after 1996, which it proclaimed "Visit
Myanmar Year."
Tuesday, November 14 8:01 PM SGT
Myanmar laments lack of cooperation in fight against drugs YANGON, Nov 14 (AFP) - Myanmar
Tuesday reiterated complaints that the international community was doing nothing
to help it fight the drug trade, as it opened a four-day regional anti-narcotics
meeting here.
Delegates from 19 countries as well as Interpol and the UN Drug Control
Program attended the 24th Asia Pacific Heads of Law Enforcement Agencies
meeting.
Home Minister Colonel Tin Hlaing make a thinly veiled attack on the United
States' refusal to work with the military regime over the issue, noting that
"some responsible countries" had decided to boycott the meeting.
"In this connection I'm sad to say that (they) do not harbour sincere
intentions for cooperation with other countries," he said.
Hlaing said Myanmar was willing to work "with whoever wants to work with us
and help us."
"This this end we have the doors wide open and are ready to show our
efforts, our achievements as well as our shortcomings and to welcome the sincere
assistance and cooperation of the international community."
However, critics of the regime say that Myanmar is turning a blind eye to
the massive drugs industry within its borders, in return for fragile ceasefires
with the ethnic armies who now control the trade.
Myanmar and Afghanistan are considered to be the world's top heroin
producers, but newer and more profitable substances are fast becoming the stock
in trade for Myanmar's drug lords.
Thailand is becoming increasingly alarmed at the flood of methamphetamines
which is making its way across the porous border and causing a massive addiction
problem among its youth.
More than 600,000 young Thais are believed to be hooked on "ya ba".
A top Thai National Security Council official said last month that it was
disappointed at the results from its cooperation with Myanmar in the battle
against trafficking along the border.
However, Myanmar has ignored the criticisms, insisting that it is making a
sincere effort to control the drugs trade.
The junta's first secretary, General Khin Nyunt, said at a meeting of the
national drug abuse control committee earlier Tuesday that Myanmar was facing
"one-sided accusations" despite its efforts to combat drugs.
"Some countries are hatching plots designed to discredit Myanmar among the
international community," he was quoted as saying in the official
media.
Tuesday, November 14 2:58 PM SGT
Piracy could undermine East Asia's
economic miracle, expert warns
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 14 (AFP) -
Rampant piracy in East Asian waters -- often organised by international
syndicates -- could undermine the region's economic development , an expert
warned Tuesday.
Inter-Asian shipping is now busier than the transatlantic route, said
Hiroshi Terashima, executive director of Japan's Nippon Foundation.
"However, the vital role played by marine transport is now being threatened
by international criminal syndicates, something that could undermine the basis
for development in each country and affect individual people all across Asia,"
he told an anti-piracy conference.
Some 40 experts from 13 countries began a two-day meeting to discuss
greater cooperation to combat piracy.
The focus is on the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, one
of the world's busiest shipping lanes with 600 vessels a day and also the
world's most pirate-infested channel.
The Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Centre has said the number of
attacks in the strait is at "an all-time high" this year due to political
instability in Indonesia.
Malaysian marine police have reported 52 actual or attempted attacks in the
strait in the first 10 months, up from only five for the whole of last
year.
The conference, which follows earlier meetings this year in Singapore and
Tokyo, is organised by the Malaysian government with support from the Nippon
Foundation -- a non-profit group which supports shipbuilding and funds maritime
safety measures.
Officials from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam
are taking part.
Debate will centre on strengthening regional cooperation, the feasibility
of setting up a regional focal point or intelligence network, and legal issues
on maritime navigation.
Malaysia's Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung told reporters his
government is committed to fighting piracy but needed help.
"We require genuine cooperation with Indonesia and Singapore. We need a lot
more political will from neighbouring countries," he said.
Japan's delegation chief said force alone would not end attacks.
"We need a social and economic approach," Shogo Arai, a Coast Guard
commandant, told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.
Many pirates, he said, live in poor coastal villages in Indonesia and face
numerous social problems. Indonesia is the world's most pirate-prone nation.
Abdul Rahim Hussin, director of Malaysia's Maritime Security Policy unit,
agreed that economic assistance and job opportunities could reduce the
threat.
"If we can fill their stomachs, they will not embark on piracy activities,"
he told AFP.
Japan, whose economic lifeline is the Malacca Strait, has expressed deep
concern at mounting attacks.
Arai said Japan would not mount its own patrols in the waterway but was
willing to provide other assistance such as joint training and exchange of
intelligence.
On Wednesday Malaysian marine police will hold a sea drill on board a
Japanese coast guard vessel in the strait.
Abdul Rahim suggested Japan pass on some of its older communications
equipment and other gear to other Asian nations to stamp out piracy.
"We must not allow them to thrive. We must nip them in the bud," he
said.
The Piracy Reporting Centre said in its latest report that piracy worldwide
is set to hit a 10-year high this year.
It listed 294 actual or attempted attacks in the first nine months compared
to 300 for the whole of last year.
The centre, part of the International Maritime Bureau, said seven areas
shared more than two-thirds of the total -- Indonesia (90), Bangladesh (32), the
Strait of Malacca (32), India (23), Malaysia (15), the Red Sea (8) and Ecuador
(8).
Tuesday, November 14 12:11 AM SGT
Aga Khan diamonds crown Geneva jewellery auctions GENEVA, Nov 13 (AFP) - A
sumptuous collection of jewels, including a diamond ring worth up to four
million dollars (4.6 million euros), belonging to the last wife of the
fabulously rich Aga Khan III, are among the gems up for sale this week in
Geneva's autumn jewellery auctions.
A 51.85-carat diamond, set in a platinum ring, signed by Harry Winston and
worth an estimated three to four million dollars (3.5 to 4.6 million euros), is
considered the "crown jewel" of the Begum Om Habibeh's 19-piece collection being
auctioned by Sotheby's on Wednesday.
The proceeds from the auction will go to the Aga Khan Foundation, created
in 1967 to support development in the heavily populated regions of southern and
central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The late Begum started life as Yvette Blanche Labrousse and, after winning
the title of Miss France, in 1994 became the fourth wife of Sultan Mohamed Shah
Aga Khan, grandfather of the current Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the Ismaili
sect of Shiite Muslims.
Southeby's will hold two other jewellery auctions Wednesday, one including
a rare 32.67-carat ruby from the Mogok region of northern Myanmar. The
evenly-colored flawless jewel is thought to be worth between 3.1 to four million
dollars.
The other auction, titled "Au courant" ("Up to date"), features 50
"designer" jewels made for the occasion by names including Della Valle, Chanel,
Lorenz, Baumer and Gimel.
Southeby's expects to make between 39 and 49 million dollars (56.9 million
euros) from its three auctions.
Christie's Tuesday auction, meanwhile, will celebrate the 1945-1965
post-war era in an auction of 150 pieces by the greatest creators of the
period.
Breaking away from art deco style, the Chritie's jewels -- made at a time
when both materials and labor were in short supply -- are nevertheless bold in
their use of colour and natural designs, including flowers, birds and
animals.
The designs are characteristic of the period in which jewels were "rather
garish and marked by an obsession with the machinery of war," said Christie's
Evelyne de Proyart. Several bracelets have a tank-track motif and some of the
the broaches have a "V" for "victory."
Christie's will also sell 400 pieces of fine jewellery, including a
60.19-carat pear-shaped diamond in a spiders-web design broach, worth an
estimated 3.4 million dollars.
The whole jewellery sale is expected to earn Christie's 22.5 million
dollars.
Phillips auction house will sell two rare diamonds, one yellow and the
other blue, Tuesday. The diamonds come from a private collection and are on sale
for the first time.
The yellow diamond is worth an estimated 1.3 to 1.8 million dollars and the
other 700,000 to 900,000 dollars.
The Age
Toll rises in Burma's hidden war By CRAIG SKEHAN SOUTH-EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT MAE SOT, THAILAND Tuesday 14 November 2000 Ten-year-old Klay is small for his age. Sometimes he cannot manage to talk
at all and he cries a lot.
But the story of this boy, one of more than 100,000 people from Burma who
have fled to refugee camps in Thailand, speaks powerfully of the continuing
misery in the far-flung regions of a country under harsh military rule.
Wearing a T-shirt bearing pictures of Bam Bam and Pebbles from The
Flintstones, Klay tells of how seven members of his family were lined up in
their village and shot.
First, there were whistles and gunfire. Then Burmese Government soldiers
dragged out his mother, grandmother and cousins from their thatch house. Klay
watched from under the ladder to the front door. His four-year-old brother, in a
sling on his mother's back, died with the others.
"After the killing, I went back into the house and waited," the traumatised
boy told The Age at a refugee camp near the Thai border town of Mae Hong
Son.
His father, who was wounded while escaping, returned two days later and
buried the dead.
"Before, it was a happy village," Klay said. "My mother grew corn and fruit
and we had a stream where she would catch fish and frogs to eat."
That village is now deserted - having been fiercely punished for allegedly
giving food to secessionist insurgents.
Members of the more than 20 families who lived there are refugees in
Thailand or among Burma's hundreds of thousands of internally displaced
people.
They hail mostly from the Karen, Karenni and Mon ethnic groups in border
areas, where conflict over autonomy or independence demands has fluctuated for
more than 50 years.
Only a small percentage of the very ill inside Burma are reached by brave
"barefoot medics" based in Thailand, who use elephants or carry heavy loads of
supplies on their backs along jungle tracks.
They tell stories of scores of villages burnt by government soldiers in
order to deny sanctuary to the rag-tag ethnic armies. The insurgents cannot win
clear military victories, but they ambush government patrols.
In the past fortnight, hundreds of civilians have fled into Thailand
because of clashes.
Humanitarian aid groups say Thai troops have in several areas pushed
would-be refugees back across the border or kept them at temporary holding sites
pending repatriation.
New refugee arrivals in Thailand have given detailed accounts of the
military's continuing use of forced labor - notwithstanding a United Nations
ultimatum for the abuses to stop.
A report compiled by Burma's Federation of Trade Unions includes
photographs of young men who were taken by force from villages and prisons in
recent months and put to work doing heavy laboring or portering.
The report includes stories of beatings and murders and accounts of
hardship caused by the disruption of work on family farms.
A 55-year-old mother of eight testified that on September25, Burmese troops
raided her village. "They started arresting male folks, accusing the village of
having connections with the Mon insurgents," she said. "Many were beaten and
taken as porters."
Not all Burmese soldiers are monsters; insurgent groups have also been
guilty of rights violations, including the summary execution of prisoners. Often
the ordinary government foot soldiers themselves are roughly treated and given
insufficient rations.
Their poor circumstances, combined with anger over rebel attacks,
contribute to an ethos in which gross human rights abuses go unpunished.
As well as violence, there is a growing toll from illness. In the town of
Mae Sot, in Thailand's Tak Province, Dr Cynthia Maung has for more than 10 years
run a medical clinic treating refugees and illegal migrant workers and their
families.
"The situation in Burma is getting worse," says Dr Maung. "The patients we
are seeing are on the whole sicker than before. In the past, we mainly saw
children with malnutrition, but now we see it in adults."
More are crossing the border with malaria and tuberculosis and there is a
growing prevalence of hepatitis B. Work at the clinic is unrelenting and
resources are being stretched by a rising tide of HIV/AIDS.
Many poverty-stricken members of Burma's ethnic minorities sacrifice
themselves to the sex trade to support their families. In other cases, girls and
boys as young as 12 are duped or sold into prostitution in Thailand.
Studies have put the rate of HIV infection among Burmese sex workers in
Thailand at 26 per cent. Sometimes we contact families in Burma and ask them to
come to pick AIDS patients up and sometimes they die here," Dr Maung said.
In the trauma ward, medic Htun Htun Oo treats a Karen National Liberation
Army soldier, 28-year-old Sein, who was wounded mid-last month when he tried to
neutralise a landmine.
Sein, now blind in one eye and with only limited sight in the other, said
the independence movement has to lay landmines because Burmese Government forces
do. Most of the estimated 1500 people killed or seriously injured by mines each
year in Burma are civilians.
As well as treating victims of the conflict, Htun Htun Oo has to deal with
the results of industrial accidents at sweatshops that mainly employ women and
girls from Burma. There are an estimated 40,000 illegal Burmese factory workers
in the Mae Sot area alone.
In crowded slum barracks, used to house illegal workers, drugs and alcohol
contribute to violence, including stabbings. A lack of educational facilities
for the children of migrant workers acts as an incumbator for social problems
down the track.
On another level, instability in the border region is reflected in the
massive trafficking of methamphetamine and heroin by the United Wa State Army
(UWSA), which cut a peace deal with Burma's military junta. Wa gangsters supply
the bulk of the heroin sold in Australia.
The drug traffickers of the UWSA are able to ply their trade with virtual
impunity because of their cosy security deal with the military regime and
corrupt links with regional army officers and civilian officials.
Already, methamphetamine is a problem among men and boys in the refugee
camps as well as among young Mon, Karenni and Karen soldiers.
At 13 refugee camps dotted along the Thai side of the border, makeshift
thatched huts dot hillsides and valleys.
The large-scale refugee flow grew from late 1988 when thousands were killed
in Burma in the bloody suppression of a student-led popular revolt against
military rule. High birth rates have created a new class of stateless
children.
The Thai Government, stung by United Nations criticism last month of
overcrowding and a lack of basic facilities in some camps, has vowed to press
ahead with mass repatriations within three years.
The inmates of the camps widely state that they want to return to their
homeland, but will resist doing so until there is democracy and peace.
However, a clampdown since the middle of this year on the democracy
activist Aung San Suu Kyi, including the reimposition of her house arrest, has
deepened pessimism about prospects for an end to military rule.
Mon, Karen and Karenni ethnic leaders vow to continue with their resistance
despite the high humanitarian cost, arguing that only freedom can bring a better
life.
At a Karen National Liberation Army camp on the Burmese side of the border,
local commander Thu Hai, 38, said his troops had been involved in three clashes
in the past month. In one episode, they had ambushed a Burmese Government patrol
on the banks of a creek, killing three and wounding four others.
The KNLA claims to have about 12,000 soldiers, but independent analysts say
the real figure would be closer to 4000. And since major Karen rebel bases fell
at the end of 1994, the insurgents have been unable to engage in standing
battles.
Karen independence leader Mahn Sha complains: "It has not been easy to get
weapons and ammunition since the end of the Cold War. The international
community is no longer willing to support armed struggles, so it is very
difficult."
He criticised the Australian Government for a new policy of greater
diplomatic engagement with the Burmese military regime, including the conducting
of a recent series of human rights seminars for officials in the capital,
Rangoon.
He said Burma's rulers had no intention of improving human rights, but
rather saw the seminars as a propaganda exercise.
The Karen are seeking to widen cooperation with the broader democracy
movement, despite fears that Suu Kyi might backtrack on promises of full
autonomy if she was to come to power.
In the Thai border province of Mae Hong Son, rather than drawing grand
strategic plans, 33-year-old Dwee spends his days in a modest workshop making
artificial limbs for landmine victims.
Dwee, himself an amputee, says government troops last year tortured one of
his brothers to death with a knife and dumped his body on the outskirts of their
village.
His elderly parents had both been imprisoned for four years, apparently in
retribution for the pro-independence stand of their children.
At the artificial limb workshop there are albums filled with photographs of
landmine victims, many of them children. Rows of moulded plastic legs are in
various stages of production. Many more will be needed.
Bangkok Post - Nov 14,
2000.
BORDER - Five Burmese troops killed in clash with Shan fighters Soldiers slain while delivering speed pills Mae Hong Son Five Burmese soldiers were killed yesterday in a clash with Shan State Army
troops near the Shan state border, opposite Pang Ma Pha district.
A source said Burmese soldiers and an SSA anti-drug team exchanged fire for
almost an hour opposite Ban Mai Lan border pass.
The SSA ambushed some 30 Burmese soldiers from the 316th Battalion who were
delivering speed pills to Thailand from a drug plant in Ban Khai Luang. A large
quantity of speed pills and two guns were seized, the source said.
The attack was part of the SSA's anti-drug drive targeting the United Wa
State Army and Burmese troops, who smuggle drugs to the border areas of Shan
state for redistribution.
Army chief Gen Surayud Chulanont yesterday visited 33 border villagers in
Pai and Pang Ma Pha districts, which will be declared self-defence and anti-drug
zones.
In Tak, authorities plan to evacuate some 3,000 border villagers as
fighting between Burmese troops and ethnic rebels is expected to escalate.
Mae Sot district chief Satawat Sanmuk said Rangoon had sent some 2,000
fresh troops to the area over the weekend after losing a base to the Karen
National Union.
- A senate sub-committee studying problems of ethnic refugees has urged
talks on repatriation of Burmese refugees. Udon Tantisunthorn, its chairman,
said Bangkok, Rangoon and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
should move to expedite repatriations since fighting in Burma had ceased.
Regional Drug Law Enforcement Agency
Heads Meet in Myanmar
YANGON (Nov. 14) XINHUA - The
24th meeting of heads of national drug law enforcement agencies of the
Asia-Pacific region opened here Tuesday.
The four-day meeting, organized by the U.N. Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and hosted by Myanmar, is attended by delegates from nearly 20 countries from the Asia-Pacific region including China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Azerbaijan as well as those from Interpol and the U.N. Development Program. The meeting will discuss practical issues and problems on drug law
enforcement in the region to find ways and means on better cooperation between
state governments and the UNDCP.
The discussions will cover illicit heroin trafficking and abuse, electronic
crimes or cyber crimes affecting drug trafficking strategy, maritime drug
trafficking and control of stimulants in addition to reviewing the
implementation of decisions taken at the previous meeting.
Speaking at the opening session of the meeting, Myanmar Minister of Home
Affairs Colonel Tin Hlaing warned that the illicit trafficking of drugs has
become a major transnational crime committed in the Asia-Pacific region,
pointing out that the huge profits generated by the drug trade has triggered
such incentives to traffickers that they do not heed anymore even to the death
penalties prescribed in national legislation fro drug crimes.
Tin Hlaing, who is also chairman of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse
Control of Myanmar, warned that drug trafficking crimes have not only seriously
undermined the economy, political and social fabrics, but also the stability of
community peace and tranquillity and national security of country states.
He expressed welcome of the initiatives taken by all member states and the
U.N. in drafting the U.N. Convention against Transnational Crimes in Vienna to
be signed next month at Palermo, Italy.
He maintained that the fight against drug trafficking could neither be
fought nor won by one country alone nor by leaving out one country, pointing out
that drug traffickers take footholds in countries that lack or have weak
anti-drug legislation, irrelevant enforcement strategies and outdated
interdiction tactics.
He said Myanmar has been committed to working together particularly with
neighboring countries in the region, citing some bilateral agreements which have
been reached with Vietnam, the Philippines and the Russian Federation as well as
a tripartite agreement with Laos and Thailand.
Report: Chinese police arrest Myanmar
soldier in drug bust
BEIJING, Nov 13, 2000 (AP) --
Police in southwestern China arrested a Myanmar soldier after finding 66
kilograms (about 150 pounds) of drugs hidden inside a jeep, the government's
Xinhua News Agency said Monday.
The arrest came on Sunday, when police in the city of Lincang found the
drugs - a form of methamphetamine known on the street as ice - stashed in the
jeep's gas tank and tires, Xinhua said.
The soldier was not identified. Lincang is near China's border with Myanmar
and the so-called Golden Triangle, an area also including parts of Thailand and
Laos that is notorious as a center for global narcotics production.
Meanwhile, a court in Beijing on Monday sentenced a 31-year-old Chinese man
to death for trying to sell heroin, Xinhua said.
Police arrested Han Youfu in December at a hotel in Beijing. A search of
his room turned up 3.5 kilograms (about eight pounds) of the drug, the report
said.
ABC online - Nov 14,
2000.
Thai authorities plan evacuation of border area Thai authorities say they're planning to evacuate thousands of villagers
living on the Burmese border if fighting between the government and rebel troops
escalates.
The district chief in Tak province says Burma has sent 2,000 more troops to
the area over the weekend, after losing a base to the rebel Karen National
Union.
Nearly 3,000 Thais live in two villages directly opposite the area where
conflict has raged for nearly two weeks during the annual dry season offensive.
The KNU says six Burmese soldiers were killed and 10 injured in clashes on
Sunday night and Monday morning.
Bangkok Post - Nov 14,
2000.
Canvassers join Wa in drug deals Speed output boosted ahead of polling day Post Reporters Canvassers for some politicians are helping the United Wa State Army flood
the market with methamphetamines to raise funds to buy votes.
The canvassers, mainly in the North and in Bangkok, are facilitating the
smuggling operations of the world's largest producers of drugs, who are offering
them credit, authorities say.
The Wa have seized the opportunity to boost their market by banking on the
need of some candidates to raise money ahead of the general election.
Theeraphat Santimathaneedol, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the
Narcotics Control Board, confirmed the alliance and said the Wa were boosting
output to meet demand.
The agency was aware of the role of canvassers and was keeping a close
watch. Scores of drug dealers have been killed in recent months in the North, as
conflicts of interest intensified.
A senior narcotics police officer who requested anonymity, said
investigators were aware of the role of canvassers in the drug trade and were
keeping a number of them under surveillance.
Thamnu Sirising, director of ONCB's northern office, said the inflow of
speed was likely to surge ahead of Jan 6, and there were signs canvassers were
involved.
The link between producers and canvassers has come to light amid growing
indications money will again be a decisive factor in the contest.
In Nakhon Ratchasima, a researcher predicted that up to eight billion baht
will be dumped in the Northeast.
Somkiat Pongpaiboon of the Rajabhat Institute said sums of up to 100
million baht were likely to be dumped in big constituencies, particularly in the
districts of Nakhon Ratchasima, Khon Kaen, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, Amnat
Charoen, Buri Ram and Chaiyaphum.
Candidates are expected to dump 50 million baht each in the region's 137
single-seat constituencies, said Mr Somkiat, who was confident gift-giving would
fade after the dissolution as they could be used as evidence.
In Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima, a candidate needs at least 80,000
votes and 8,000 campaigners to win what will be a two-horse race, he said.
An organised network of campaigners would be needed to ensure the money
goes to the desired target and not to the authorities.
While voters would be offered 100-500 baht, campaigners would pocket as
much as 5,000 per meeting, not to mention the fact they had to be dined and
wined too.
"A campaigner will be responsible for 10 voters. In the past a campaigner
was supposed to handle 50," said Mr Somkiat. "Money will decide the result but
candidates can't afford to be careless."
Based on these figures, he said, parties would spend as much as 20 billion
baht nationwide. "With 400 constituencies, 20 billion baht would do. In
Thailand, it is cash democracy," he said.
Mr Somkiat called on the Election Commission to red card cheating
candidates before Jan 6 so as to deter others.
"If five or 10 are red-carded, others will think twice before breaking the
law," he said. "Make them know heads will roll. The evidence is there but the
question is if the commission and its local panels have the guts to do
it."
Calling on voters to report violations, he said: "Don't take the money and
simply shut up. Political reform won't go anywhere unless you co-operate."
Sawat Chotepanich, an election commissioner, said evidence against some
candidates indicated the reform drive has passed many politicians by.
In Nakhon Ratchasima, one party has given out emergency flood relief bags
the government distributed three months ago. Elsewhere, clothes, rice, watches,
cash and even life insurance policies were being handed out.
Provincial panels have been compiling evidence and would use it when the
time was right, he said.
GENEVA, Nov. 14 Kyodo News
LEAD: ILO session under way on Myanmar forced labor issue The Governing Body of the International Labor Organization (ILO) opened a
four-day session Tuesday, with the issue of whether to impose sanctions against
Myanmar over forced labor practices high on the agenda.
The panel, the ILO's second highest decision-making forum, is also expected
to adopt a recommendation on whether members of the National Railway Workers
Union (Kokuro) were discriminated against during the privatization process of
now defunct Japanese National Railways (JNR).
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