Burma Related News - Nov 29, 2000.

Bangkok Post - Nov 29, 2000.
BORDER - Burmese shoot into crowded market
Supamart Kasem

Burmese troops yesterday fired shots from across the border into a Thai market, forcing hundreds of tourists, vendors and locals to flee for their lives.

No casualties were reported during the brief shooting, which followed yesterday's raid by a team of 50 Thai border patrol police and immigration officials on a gambling den located on a disputed islet in the Moei river.

Six gamblers-a Thai and five Burmese-were arrested. More than 10 other Burmese gamblers fled across the river to the Burmese border town of Myawaddy.

Police identified the six arrested as Somjit Khampor, Maung Suu, Arh Poe, Ta Huat, Thi Oo and Than Aung.

The shooting prompted the Fourth Infantry Regiment task force to send troops to safeguard the border.

Mae Sot district chief Samart Loy-fa defended the raid on the disputed islet, saying both Thai and Burmese authorities were allowed access to the area to suppress illegal activities.

Besides gambling, the islet has served as a rendezvous for contraband traders and drug dealers, Mr Samart said.

The Local Thai Border Committee has sought an explanation for the shooting from Burmese authorities.

ASEAN Warns EU to Ease Its Burma Boycott
Michael Richardson International Herald Tribune Wednesday, November 29, 2000

SINGAPORE Southeast Asian countries have told the European Union they will abandon high-level talks with the EU if it continues to press for Burma's exclusion on human rights grounds.
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Diplomats said during the weekend that the warning by the Association of South East Asian Nations would further sour the atmosphere between the two sides before a meeting next month in Vientiane, Laos.
.
The EU has boycotted ministerial meetings with ASEAN since Burma was admitted to the Southeast Asian group in 1997.
.
With senior Burmese officials banned from entering EU countries, ASEAN sought to revive the ministerial meetings by offering to hold the next one in Southeast Asia, instead of in Europe as scheduled.
.
But with Burma's military government under continuing international criticism for violating political and labor rights, four out of the 15 EU countries have reportedly decided not to attend the meeting in Vientiane.
.
Most of the other countries will send only a deputy minister or an ambassadorial-level representative, rather than a minister.
.
Among those staying away are Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of Britain and his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, diplomats said.
.
ASEAN leaders discussed the issue at their annual summit meeting, which ended Saturday.
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Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore, who lead the talks, said afterward that the group would deal only with the EU if it agreed to include Burma, also known as Myanmar.
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"We would go so far as to say that if the EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called off, then let it be called off," Mr. Goh said.
.
"We can't allow an external organization to dictate who should be in ASEAN when we have such a dialogue." Burma's military regime is shunned by many Western countries for its treatment of the opposition, which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern.
For Related Topics See:
Asia/Pacific

< < Back to Start of Article SINGAPORE Southeast Asian countries have told the European Union they will abandon high-level talks with the EU if it continues to press for Burma's exclusion on human rights grounds.
.
Diplomats said during the weekend that the warning by the Association of South East Asian Nations would further sour the atmosphere between the two sides before a meeting next month in Vientiane, Laos.
.
The EU has boycotted ministerial meetings with ASEAN since Burma was admitted to the Southeast Asian group in 1997.
.
With senior Burmese officials banned from entering EU countries, ASEAN sought to revive the ministerial meetings by offering to hold the next one in Southeast Asia, instead of in Europe as scheduled.
.
But with Burma's military government under continuing international criticism for violating political and labor rights, four out of the 15 EU countries have reportedly decided not to attend the meeting in Vientiane.
.
Most of the other countries will send only a deputy minister or an ambassadorial-level representative, rather than a minister.
.
Among those staying away are Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of Britain and his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, diplomats said.
.
ASEAN leaders discussed the issue at their annual summit meeting, which ended Saturday.
.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore, who lead the talks, said afterward that the group would deal only with the EU if it agreed to include Burma, also known as Myanmar.
.
"We would go so far as to say that if the EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called off, then let it be called off," Mr. Goh said.
.
"We can't allow an external organization to dictate who should be in ASEAN when we have such a dialogue." Burma's military regime is shunned by many Western countries for its treatment of the opposition, which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. SINGAPORE Southeast Asian countries have told the European Union they will abandon high-level talks with the EU if it continues to press for Burma's exclusion on human rights grounds.
.
Diplomats said during the weekend that the warning by the Association of South East Asian Nations would further sour the atmosphere between the two sides before a meeting next month in Vientiane, Laos.
.
The EU has boycotted ministerial meetings with ASEAN since Burma was admitted to the Southeast Asian group in 1997.
.
With senior Burmese officials banned from entering EU countries, ASEAN sought to revive the ministerial meetings by offering to hold the next one in Southeast Asia, instead of in Europe as scheduled.
.
But with Burma's military government under continuing international criticism for violating political and labor rights, four out of the 15 EU countries have reportedly decided not to attend the meeting in Vientiane.
.
Most of the other countries will send only a deputy minister or an ambassadorial-level representative, rather than a minister.
.
Among those staying away are Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of Britain and his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, diplomats said.
.
ASEAN leaders discussed the issue at their annual summit meeting, which ended Saturday.
.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore, who lead the talks, said afterward that the group would deal only with the EU if it agreed to include Burma, also known as Myanmar.
.
"We would go so far as to say that if the EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called off, then let it be called off," Mr. Goh said.
.
"We can't allow an external organization to dictate who should be in ASEAN when we have such a dialogue." Burma's military regime is shunned by many Western countries for its treatment of the opposition, which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. SINGAPORE Southeast Asian countries have told the European Union they will abandon high-level talks with the EU if it continues to press for Burma's exclusion on human rights grounds.
.
Diplomats said during the weekend that the warning by the Association of South East Asian Nations would further sour the atmosphere between the two sides before a meeting next month in Vientiane, Laos.
.
The EU has boycotted ministerial meetings with ASEAN since Burma was admitted to the Southeast Asian group in 1997.
.
With senior Burmese officials banned from entering EU countries, ASEAN sought to revive the ministerial meetings by offering to hold the next one in Southeast Asia, instead of in Europe as scheduled.
.
But with Burma's military government under continuing international criticism for violating political and labor rights, four out of the 15 EU countries have reportedly decided not to attend the meeting in Vientiane.
.
Most of the other countries will send only a deputy minister or an ambassadorial-level representative, rather than a minister.
.
Among those staying away are Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of Britain and his French counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, diplomats said.
.
ASEAN leaders discussed the issue at their annual summit meeting, which ended Saturday.
.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore, who lead the talks, said afterward that the group would deal only with the EU if it agreed to include Burma, also known as Myanmar.
.
"We would go so far as to say that if the EU wants to exclude Myanmar and the dialogue is going to be called off, then let it be called off," Mr. Goh said.

The Times of India - Nov 29, 2000.
2 Myanmar editors awarded press freedom prize

PARIS: Two imprisoned Myanmar editors were awarded Tuesday the Golden Pen of Freedom award for their devotion to press freedom and democracy.

The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN), which hands out the award annually, said San San Nweh and U Win Tin had been recognised for their "outstanding contribution to the cause of press freedom".

The editors, who are serving long prison sentences, "have suffered unspeakable hardships and both are in poor health," WAN said in a statement.

It said authorities in military-ruled Myanmar had offered to release them if they renounce all political activity but both had refused.

"We honour their sacrifice and hope their dreams of Burmese democracy will soon be fulfilled," WAN said. "Their imprisonment is a deep blemish on the international standing of Burma which can only be erased by their release."

San San was arrested in Yangon in August 1994 and sentenced two months later to 10 years in prison for "publishing information harmful to the state."

Prior to her arrest she edited several woman's magazines and was politically active in the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

The 56-year-old reporter, who has also published 12 novels as well as short stories and poems, has struggled against illness and isolation since her imprisonment.

U Win Tin was arrested in 1989 and sentenced by a military court to 14 years in prison for allegedly being a member of the banned Communist Party in Myanmar.

He was later sentenced to five years in prison and kept for nearly a year in solitary confinement on charges of allegedly smuggling letters out of his prison cell.

Wan said the writer, who was editor of the daily Hanthawati newspaper, has reportedly been crippled by prison guards and is near death. (AFP)

Time
WEB-ONLY EXCLUSIVE
Burmese Democracy Leader Faces New Threat
Aung San Suu Kyi has been a prisoner in her own home for years. Now she may lose it after a legal suit brought by her U.S.-based brother
By ROBERT HORN

November 27, 2000
Web posted at 3:05 p.m. Hong Kong time, 2:05 a.m. EDT

Talk about spite. First, Burma's military government told pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that she couldn't leave Rangoon. Then they told her that she couldn't leave her house. Now, they want the house.

According to Burmese exiles and observers in Rangoon, that's the real story behind a lawsuit filed by Suu Kyi's estranged older brother, Aung San Oo, demanding half of the house where Suu Kyi has lived since 1988. She has been detained there since Sept. 2, when troops forcibly dragged her back home after she tried to leave the capital to meet supporters up-country. A government spokesman said Suu Kyi would be allowed out to plead her case, but she didn't show up in the Rangoon court where the suit was being heard last Tuesday morning. It isn't known whether she chose not to attend, or was prevented from doing so. The judge postponed opening arguments until Nov. 27, and said if Suu Kyi didn't appear then, the case would proceed without her.

Suu Kyi's two-story, monsoon-stained mansion has been her jail, her de facto political headquarters, and her fragile sanctuary from the military. Between 1989 and 1995, Suu Kyi was kept under arrest inside the creaky, lakeside house for leading a campaign to end military rule. In 1990, while confined to her home, her political party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory in national elections. The military, however, refused to honor the result. In 1991, while still under house arrest, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. After her release, she gave speeches to thousands of followers who gathered every weekend at her blue metal gate. So the military threw up barbed wire barricades and blocked the street. And government personnel occupy the house across the road from where they monitor Suu Kyi and her visitors.

Now it seems that's not quite enough. "This is not just bad for Aung San Suu Kyi personally, it's bad for our country's politics," says Khin Maung Win, a member of the Burma Lawyers' Council, a group of exiled Burmese jurists in Bangkok. He says that if Aung San Oo wins the case, he'll probably donate or sell his share of the house to the military government. "Then they can go in there anytime they want."

Et tu, brother? Why would Aung San Oo turn against his sister and side with the one of the world's most reviled regimes? Legally, if Aung San Oo wins the case, he can't even keep the house. He's a U.S. citizen, an engineer who lives in San Diego, California, and under Burmese law foreigners are not allowed to own land or houses. But relations between the two surviving children of General Aung San, Burma's independence hero who was assassinated in 1947, have been frosty at best for years. According to some observers in Rangoon, neither approved of the other's choice of a spouse. Maybe it's just sibling rivalry.

In any case, the house in question was originally the property of their mother, Daw Khin Kyi. After she suffered a stroke in early 1988, Suu Kyi, who had never relinquished her Burmese citizenship despite marrying an Oxford professor and living in England, returned to Rangoon to care for her. It was while she was in Burma that the nation erupted in revolt against the military, which had abolished democracy in a 1962 coup and driven the resource-rich country into economic ruin. Aung San is still revered in Burma, and many protesters hoped that his son Aung San Oo would return to lead them. But he had no interest in assuming that role, and instead, it was Aung San Suu Kyi who took up their cause.

When Daw Khin Kyi died in December 1988, her will left the house to both her children, with the provision that if they sold, it must go to a charity. It would be simple enough for Aung San Oo to sell his share to a government-run charity, giving the military the access it apparently wants. In the 12 years since Daw Khin Kyi's death, Aung San Oo never showed any interest in the property, until a few weeks ago. His sudden desire to take possession of the house may have more to do with his wife, who in recent years has made frequent trips to Burma. "We believe his wife is influencing him," Khin Maung Win says. "She has been doing business and is seeking business opportunities from the junta." Burmese exiles and Rangoon residents who have had contact with Aung San Oo and his wife, support that view.

Suu Kyi may not be out on the street, yet. According to various experts in Burmese law, should the court decide in favor of Aung San Oo, by rights she should still have the first opportunity to buy her brother's half. "But the courts in Burma are not independent," Khin Maung Win says. In fact, Burma's courts are a farce. Their record leaves little doubt they are under the complete control of the military. Even if Suu Kyi is given the chance to buy her brother's share, it's not clear what the value of the house is, and if she has enough money to keep it. While under house arrest she was forced to sell her furniture to buy food. And the million dollars that came along with the Nobel Prize has reportedly gone to families of political prisoners.

Word around Rangoon last week was that Suu Kyi was seeking to hire a lawyer. Not many lawyers in Rangoon would probably want the government's chief nemesis as their client. "They even arrested her dentist," said Kyi Maung, the former vice chairman of Suu Kyi's party, during a wave of mass arrests of democracy activists in 1996. "If she had a dog, they would arrest her veterinarian." But as one Rangoon-based diplomat said, "She may never show up in court at all. She might just ignore the whole thing and dare them to come into her home and take it."

Late last year, former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto visited Burma and met with the generals. Burma's military is anxious for Japan to resume aid to their country, which it cut off when soldiers gunned down thousands of democracy demonstrators in 1988. Hashimoto gave the generals this advice when it came to dealing with Suu Kyi and her followers: Don't back her into a corner.

The generals, it appears, aren't listening.

Bangkok Post - Nov 29, 2000.

JAILBREAK

Ten more warders in trouble
Weapons smuggled into prison in parcels

Ten more staff at Samut Sakhon prison have been implicated in last week's Burmese jailbreak and will be transferred to facilitate a strict disciplinary investigation.

Siva Saengmanee, the Corrections Department chief, said Thinnakorn Pojprasart, a C-6 trainer, was also transferred.

All were believed to have smuggled in weapons that enabled the Burmese inmates to take hostages and escape. The convicts were killed by commandos while trying to flee to Burma.

Speaking at the funeral of Udom Chidthongpan, the Buddhist lecturer shot during the escape, Mr Siva said Mr Thinnakorn could be subject to criminal action.

It was thought the weapons were brought into the facility in parcels.

Investigators were considering if prison staff were aware of the contents of the parcels and if they were party to the escape, Mr Siva said.

The department was also investigating the whereabouts of one inmate, who vanished during the escape.

Because of overcrowding, some inmates were transferred to nearby Samut Songkhram and a floor plan was ordered for all prisons for use in emergencies.

Metal and weapon detectors would also be used to screen visitors, he said.

Cabinet has allocated 50.27 million baht to the Interior Ministry to tighten security at prisons.

Minister Banyat Bantadtan said part-time prison staff would be hired so warders could concentrate on inmate supervision.

Vatana Asavahame, deputy interior minister in charge of the Corrections Department, said the inquiry would be done quickly but prison reforms were difficult because of crowding and a lack of staff and funds.

Bangkok Post - Nov 29, 2000.
Dateline Bangkok
Get down to solutions

The breakout at the Samut Sakhon jail that ended with the death of all nine Burmese hostage-takers highlights the problem of illegal workers in this country.

The nine Burmese prisoners had entered Thailand as illegal workers and were later convicted of serious crimes. They shot dead a lecturer in Buddhist at the jail and took the prison governor and other staff hostage. They were shot dead in Kanchanaburi province in a hijacked vehicle just short of the Burmese border.

An investigation must be held into how the prisoners were able to arm themselves with guns and grenades for use against the prison staff. Was this due to laxity on the part of prison staff, or did a warder(s) turn a blind eye or furnish the prisoners with their arms?The investigation must get to the truth behind this daring escape, and anyone found to have been involved must be severely punished.

It is equally important to look into the problem of illegal Burmese workers in our country. Many of these illegal workers already are criminals or stoop to crime to make ends meet.

The government has tried to solve this problem systematically, but its best efforts have been undermined by local business operators who exploit the cheap labour. They are aided and abetted by corrupt civil servants who turn a blind eye or even help to transport the Burmese factory fodder across the border.

Our national security is being placed at risk. The government must do something. Business operators must stop using illegal staff. Many of their workers have engaged in crime and have brought infectious diseases to our country.

It is time we all put the national interest first and help address this problem.

Editorial from Daily News