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BURMA RELATED NEWS - February - 04, 2001. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AP - Malaysia Trade Group To Visit ASEAN
Countries Mar -Agency
Southnexus - Nobel Peace Prize winners to
celebrate centennial
The Times of India - Bangladesh, Myanmar
agreement eases border tension
Bkk Post - Sabotage fear
forces troop boost
FEER - Political Prison For
Burma's Far North
Sunday February 4, 8:51 PM Malaysia Trade Group To Visit ASEAN
Countries Mar -Agency
KUALA LUMPUR (AP)--Malaysia's
trade and industry minister will lead a delegation to four member countries of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in March to seek new markets for
Malaysian products, according to a report Sunday.
Rafidah Aziz told the national news agency Bernama that she will visit
Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand.
She said the visits were in preparation for the implementation of the ASEAN
Free Trade Area in 2003.
"Through AFTA, we have to open up our market to the other countries. But
what is more important is that we must also sell our products to other
countries," Rafidah was quoted as saying.
Southnexus
Nobel Peace Prize winners to celebrate centennial OSLO, Feb 04: Shimon Peres, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu will be among some 30 Nobel Peace Prize winners to converge on Oslo in December for the centennial celebration of the coveted award, the Nobel Institute announced on Friday. "It will be the largest gathering of Peace Prize recipients ever," said
Geir Lundestad, the director of the institute.
Of the 40 prize winners still alive, 32 have said they will attend,
including representatives of the aid organisation Medicines sans Frontiers
(Doctors Without Borders), which won in 1999 and Northern Ireland peace brokers
John Hume and David Trimble, who were awarded the prize in 1998.
Among the notable absentees however will be former South African President
Nelson Mandela, the 1993 Nobel Peace prize winner, who has said he will not
attend.
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who won in 1991, will not be at
the party as she remains under house arrest in her homeland but "the other
Nobels will certainly make a gesture on her behalf given her situation," said
Lundestad.
South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, who won in 2000, as yet to accept the
invitation for the December 4-11 celebration, along with former Polish President
Lech Walesa, the 1983 recipient, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (1990
winner) and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who won in 1994.
Seminars will be held in various Swedish and Norwegian universities to mark
the centennial, and a conference on resolving conflicts will be held from
December 6 to 8. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2001 will be awarded on December
10.
The Times of India - February 4,
2001.
Bangladesh, Myanmar agreement eases border tension DHAKA: A month-long period of border tension between Bangladesh and Myanmar
has been defused after the two sides signed an agreement about a disputed river
embankment construction, security officials here said Saturday.
"Yangon has agreed to suspend the construction of the embankment on the Naf
river and the situation there is fast returning to normal," the official of the
Bangladesh Rifles border (BDR) told AFP.
He said the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on
Friday.
"The Myanmar side has admitted in a different way that their attempt to
build the structure was not lawful," Janibul Haque, a senior Bangladeshi home
ministry official, was quoted as saying by the official BSS news agency after
signing the agreement.
The construction a month ago of the embankment by Myanmar on the Naf river,
which border the two countries, sparked a shoot-out following which villagers
near the border fled their homes.
Bangladesh has maintained the embankment construction was illegal under a
1966 border treaty.
A week after the shooting border guards agreed to maintain a cease fire and
stop the construction as talks between Dhaka and Yangon continued. (AFP)
Bangkok Post - February 04,
2001.
BORDER - Sabotage fear forces troop boost Refugee camps could be target for attacks Security has been stepped up at four refugee camps to prevent the
possibility of attacks by border insurgents.
Mae Hong Son governor Pote Uthana, as director of the province's
Thai-Burmese border centre, said he ordered tighter security to guard against
the possibility of sabotage attacks by guerrillas.
The shelters are Ban Nai Soy in Muang district, Ban Mae Surin in Khun Yuam
district, Ban Mae Khongkha-Sala in Mae Sariang district and Ban Mae Lama Luang
in Sop Moei district.
Some foreign troops were thought to be operating along the border and
likely to storm Ban Nai Soy and Ban Mae Surin shelters, he said. Meanwhile,
officials were reportedly questioning a suspected Burmese spy who was recently
arrested at Ban Nai Soy shelter.
They said he posed as a monk to spy for Burmese troops stationed opposite
Ban Nai Soy after five Burmese soldiers were killed by a group of Karenni
National Progressive Party guerrillas.
Far Eastern Economic Review
Issue cover-dated February 8, 2001 INTELLIGENCE - Political Prison For Burma's Far North Burma's military government appears to be building a new prison for
political prisoners in the remote far north of the country, local people and
dissidents say. The facility is being constructed near the town of Putao, which
nestles among the highest mountains in Southeast Asia and must be reached by air
from the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina.
Local people have seen prisoners working on the construction of the jail
and say the warden told them they were political detainees. Burmese dissidents
note that the International Committee of the Red Cross has had access to all
inmates in the country's prisons for more than a year.
The Burmese government, by isolating political prisoners in the north,
would make Red Cross access more difficult, they add. The ICRC would effectively
be confined to visiting only convicted criminals.
There are believed to be at least 1,000 political prisoners languishing in
Burma's jails. The military, which refused to accept the opposition National
League for Democracy's landslide election win in 1990, denies it holds political
prisoners.
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