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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BURMA RELATED NEWS - NOV - 28, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Singapore breaks silence on
Wahid's tirade
The Times of India - Rights group wants Myanmar isolated
Xinhua - Myanmar Media Stresses Importance of ASEAN Unity
Xinhua - Singapore Becomes Myanmar's Largest Trading Partner
Bkk Post - REFUGEES - Maneeloy
camp to be shut down after repatriation
BBC - Two Burmese win press
freedom award
Tuesday, November 28 7:01 PM SGT
Singapore breaks silence on Wahid's tirade SINGAPORE, Nov 28 (AFP) - Singapore on Tuesday broke its
silence on a tirade by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid but avoided
commenting on his threat to cut off the island-state's water
supply.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's office issued a rebuttal of
Wahid's comments to Indonesian journalists at the end of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum in Singapore on Saturday.
However, there was no direct reply to Wahid's comments
that Indonesia should cooperate with Malaysia to choke Singapore's water supply,
which is being piped in from Johor.
Nor did the government reply to scathing remarks made
about Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
And, the Indonesian president's comments that Singapore
was only interested in profit for entering into a bundle of free trade pacts
outside of ASEAN were not addressed.
On Wahid's complaint that his suggestion to admit East
Timor and Papua New Guinea into ASEAN was ignored, Goh's office said the
Indonesian president never tabled his proposal at the summit
itself.
Wahid only recounted his encounter with Senior Minister
Lee outside the ASEAN meeting during which Singapore's elder statesman
reportedly told him that East Timor and Papua New Guinea would burden
ASEAN.
Had Wahid tabled his proposal, "ASEAN practice requires a
consensus on the admission of new members," Goh's office said in a
statement.
"It is not a matter that can be decided by one or two
countries," it said.
Wahid had also complained that Goh never mentioned
Indonesia as a host to planned ASEAN trade fairs and said there was no need to
follow a decision during the summit to master the English language in order to
keep pace with developments in information technology.
He said it was Singapore who made the suggestion on the
use of the English language.
But Goh's office said the decision taken at the summit was
to rotate hosting of the trade fairs among ASEAN capitals and the advice to
master English was made by Malaysian Prime Minster Mahathir Mohamad, not by the
host, the statement said.
On Wahid's accusation that the summit ignored the southern
part of ASEAN and focused more on the Mekong river basin, Goh's office said it
was the consensus among the leaders that integrating Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and
Myanmar was crucial to ASEAN's consolidation.
"The ASEAN leaders and also the leaders from China, Japan
and Korea focused on projects in the Mekong Basin countries," the statement
said.
It was the Singapore prime minister who proposed that the
ASEAN summit in Brunei next year should discuss help to ASEAN's eastern regions
comprising of the Philippines, Kalimantan, East Malaysia and
Brunei.
Indonesian officials, politicians and analysts have played
down Wahid's remarks.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Times of India - Nov
28, 2000.
Rights group wants Myanmar isolated HONG KONG: Governments should refrain from dialogue with
Myanmar's repressive military junta until it stops committing human rights
abuses, an activist group said Monday.
"Critical dialogue (on human rights) with Myanmar is very
long on dialogue and very short on critical. It only encourages brutal regimes,"
said Baroness Caroline Cox, president of the British-based Christian Solidarity
Worldwide.
"The situation in Myanmar is one of deep concern and
deserves more pressure from the international community.
"The strongest possible measures should be taken to
ostracise Burma (Myanmar) until it gets its act together," Cox told reporters in
Hong Kong.
This should also include governments boycotting the
upcoming meeting between the European Union (EU) and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) because Myamnar was a member of the 10-nation
group, she said.
However ASEAN leaders last week took a firm stand at their
annual summit to reject any dialogue with the EU if it excluded
Myanmar.
The decision came amid concerns that an ASEAN-EU
ministerial meeting in Laos next month might not push through because the
European grouping was mainly sending junior officials.
Cox, who has just returned from a visit to the
Thai-Myanmar border, slammed the junta for the human rights abuses committed
against the Karen and Karenni ethnic minorities.
She recounted the tale of one heavily traumatised
11-year-old Karenni girl now living in a Thai refugee camp, who witnessed all
the male residents of her village being skinned alive by government troops.
(AFP)
Myanmar Media Stresses
Importance of ASEAN Unity
YANGON (Nov. 27) XINHUA - Monday's state-run newspaper The New
Light of Myanmar stressed the importance of the unity of member nations of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN), stressing that ten hands can
achieve what a single hand cannot carry.
The world today faces more challenges than it did when ASEAN was founded, the paper noted in its editorial hailing the recent successful ending of the Singapore Fourth ASEAN Informal Summit. "The expanding ASEAN has proved that what single nation
cannot alone achieve on their own, ten can," it said, adding that by putting the
ten altogether, which are not equal like the ten fingers, they are well able to
grasp what they might grasp and prove the strength of unity.
The paper warned that no nation, whether it be ASEAN
member or that of any other, can cope alone to catch up with global development
in terms of information and education.
Myanmar was added to the ASEAN in July 1997 which also
groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.
Singapore Becomes Myanmar's
Largest Trading Partner
YANGON (Nov. 28) XINHUA - Bilateral trade between Myanmar and
Singapore amounted to 448 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of this
year, dominating Myanmar's total foreign trade in the period which registered at
2.027 billion U.S. dollars, according to the latest data published by the
country's Central Statistically Organization.
Of the bilateral trade in the half-year period, Myanmar's import from Singapore was worth 392 million U.S.dollars, while its export to Singapore was only valued at 56 million U.S. dollars. Following Singapore, other major trading partners with
Myanmar were serially lined-up as China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and
Malaysia respectively having bilateral trade of 224 million, 204 million, 159
million, 143 million and 135 million U.S. dollars during the
period.
Singapore is not only Myanmar's largest trading partner
but also its largest foreign investor. Since Myanmar opened to foreign
investment in late 1988, Singapore's contracted investment in the country has so
far reached 1.504 billion U.S. dollars.
The two other major foreign investors followed were
Britain and Thailand with 1.371 billion and 1.264 billion U.S.dollars
respectively.
Bangkok Post - Nov
28, 2000.
REFUGEES - Maneeloy camp to be shut down after repatriation Burmese students to go to United States Yuwadee Tunyasiri Maneeloy Centre in Ratchaburi will be shut down early next
year when half of the 2,000 Burmese students housed there are sent to third
countries, the National Security Council chief said.
Kachadpai Burusapatana discussed the matter yesterday at
Government House with assistant US secretary of state for refugee affairs Julia
Taft.
The NSC secretary-general said 1,095 Burmese students were
sent to third countries, 455 were granted permission to settle in third
countries and 555 were awaiting repatriation interviews.
The US is expected to take the bulk of the students, he
said.
Ms Taft said Washington was ready to help as many as
102,000 war refugees in Thailand if requested by Bangkok.
Mr Kachadpai said Rangoon was showing signs of considering
the repatriation issue and urged the US and the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees to help send the refugees home.
Mr Kachadpai allayed Ms Taft's concerns by assuring her
refugees repatriated in the last two years were safe and encouraging concerned
nations to continue their support. The authorities are looking for new shelters
to house 10,000 war refugees living in Salween forest.
BBC - Tuesday, 28 November,
2000, 13:28 GMT
Two Burmese win press freedom award Two imprisoned Burmese journalists have been awarded an
annual press award.
The French-based World Association of Newspapers said that
San San Nweh and U Win Tin had been given the Golden Pen of Freedom award
because of their outstanding contribution to the cause of press freedom.
San San Weh was the editor of several women's magazines,
and a member of the National League for Democracy.
She was sentenced in 1994 to ten years in prison for
publishing information harmful to the state.
U Win Tin was the editor of a daily newspaper Hanthawati;
he was sentenced in 1989 to fourteen years in prison for allegedly being a
member of the banned Communist party. His sentence was extended by five years
for smuggling letters out of his prison cell.
The association said both editors are in poor health.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
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