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BURMA RELATED NEWS - May 13,
2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Riches of the sea whet adventurers'
appetites in Myanmar
L.A Times - Seized Drugs Go Up in Smoke as
Myanmar Stages Crackdown
The Nation - Kid
gloves don't work with Burmese junta
The Nation - This
pandering tojunta must stop
Bkk Post - Clashes 'caused by unclear
messages'
Xinhuanet - KNU Fire Kills One Person in
Myanmar
New Jersey online - Myanmar drug burn is more than a dog-and-pony show
People's Daily - Myanmar Seizes Large Amount of
Stimulant Drugs
The Economic Times - Gem
casting
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday May 13, 9:43 AMRiches of the sea whet adventurers'
appetites in Myanmar
MERGUI, Myanmar, May 13 (AFP) -
For many years Myanmar has dreamed of reclaiming its vast fishery resources,
which until now have been far more ably exploited by neighbouring
Thailand.
But a French colonel-turned-businessman, who has established close links
with the generals in Yangon, promises to change all that by building the first
deep sea port along the military-run nation's 2,800 kilometres of
coastline.
Jean Pichon, an old Indochina hand who settled in Yangon in the early
1990s, has a grand vision.
In Mergui, a picturesque archipelago of 800 islands in the south of
Myanmar, the old soldier turned business mercenary plans to construct the
"biggest fishing port in Asia".
Vice-chairman and CEO of Myanmar Fisheries International (MFI), he says
there is "an abdundance of marine resources in Myanmar's seas even though others
around it have become depleted."
"Myanmar's fish are the only ones in the world which die of old age," he
quips.
Ground was broken on the project a year ago and the first phase of
construction is already completed at a cost of some 10 million dollars.
The site covers a 55-hectare (150-acre) industrial zone which within
another 12 months time, if all goes to plan, is destined to host a processing
factory and a container port that will be linked with the local airport.
According to the grand design it will eventually be transformed into a
complex integrated facility complete with customs, immigrations services, banks
and other infrastructure.
The icing on the cake is a planned 120-kilometre (75 mile) "highway" which
in three years would link Mergui with the southern Thai port of Bang
Saphan.
The Thai capital Bangkok, with its established markets and teeming tourist
industry, will then be less than six hours drive away.
All up, the project is worth some 70 million dollars, representing the
biggest private investment ever to land in the laps of the military regime which
runs the woefully underdeveloped country.
Pichon -- a former colonel in the French marines who has no qualms about
his involvement with the pariah government -- controls 60 percent of the project
trough his company Setraco, in association with an unnamed "powerful Singaporean
partner".
The fisheries ministry holds 30 percent and a Myanmar businesswoman Kyawt
Kyawt Lwin controls the remaining 10 percent.
Today, a 225 metre long jetty, bristling with 21 cranes, stands waiting to
welcome its first visiting vessels which are due to begin sailing in at the end
of this month.
Meanwhile, A dozen trawlers busily unload empty barrels on the pier in a
dry run aimed at ensuring everything goes smoothly when the fish begin pouring
in to the facility.
"Opposite the jetty, a "international auction room" sprawls over 20,000
square metres. Very soon, Pichon dreams, it will be alive to the cries of prices
being set for fish destined for Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and elsewhere.
"If it works, there will be a second one," says 58-year-old engineer
Jean-Robert Behar, who is supervising the work.
The idea is to encourage the use of Mergui to process fish from Myanmar
waters which until recently have been offloaded at the Thai port of Ranong,
depriving Myanmar of profits estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars a
year.
"The advantage of Mergui is its proximity to fishing zones, which are a
maximum of eight to ten hours away," says Pichon, adding that the project is
also more ecologically friendly.
"Before, there was appalling wastage. Now the Myanmar government has given
us the right to control the marine resources with its coast guards. All the
trawlers will be equipped with the Argos geo-positioning system to monitor their
movements."
"We hope for the first time to monitor the stocks," says oceanographer
Jacques Marcille, 57.
Yet some observers in Yangon are sceptical about Pichon's motives as well
as the predictions of a fortune in fish out there for the taking, which they say
is not backed up by scientific data.
They put the whole scheme down to the megalomania and empire-building of an
old soldier.
But, say Pichon's friends and fellow adventurers, "all that's just
jealousy."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Los Angeles Times
Sunday, May 13, 2001 | Print this story
Seized Drugs Go Up in Smoke as
Myanmar Stages Crackdown
YANGON, Myanmar--Nearly a billion dollars' worth of opium, heroin and
amphetamines was set on fire Saturday as authorities in Myanmar sought to
impress foreign governments and media with the seriousness of their efforts to
stamp out the illicit drug trade.
The destruction of seized drugs was staged to coincide with a regional
meeting designed to coordinate the anti-drug efforts of Cambodia, China, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The three-day meeting, held under the auspices of the U.N. International
Drug Control Program, ended Friday, but many delegates stayed on to see
Myanmar's efforts in the field.
Drug burnings have become a ritual in Southeast Asian nations, making a
public relations virtue out of the necessity to dispose of the drugs. Myanmar
has conducted 15 such events.
On Saturday, the seized drugs were laid out along tables set end to end for
about 66 feet.
The drugs--including 2,862 pounds of opium, 255 pounds of heroin, 968
pounds of marijuana and 2.7 million amphetamine tablets--were mostly in their
original packing: brown paper wrapping, plastic bags and jute sacks.
Gasoline-soaked wood for kindling lay beneath the tables.
The total street value of the drugs in the United States would be $920
million, officials said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation - May 13,
2001.
SIDELINES: Kid gloves don't work with
Burmese junta
Sopon Onkgara
As Prime Minister Thaksin and his team are still busy with a series of workshops for setting the agenda and policy direction on domestic affairs, they continue to face the thorny issue of the worsening relationship with Burma following long-running border problems. The latest armed clash, involving a duel of mortars and artillery fire
between Thai forces and a combined unit of Burmese and Wa troops, saw a larger
scale of border conflict, mixed with a frequent war of words. Now the military
junta in Rangoon has accused the Thai forces of using jet fighters to attack
targets inside Burma. Defence Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh countered that the
loud noises were just sonic booms to scare the Wa fighters.
It does not matter who is right or wrong in the on-and-off border
conflicts, which have led to border closures at various points, hurting the
trade on which the peoples of the border depend for income. The latest incident
flared up just after Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai returned from
negotiations with his counterpart in Rangoon.
The effectiveness of diplomatic negotiations between Thailand and Burma has
always been questioned. Too many parties on the Thai side want to have a hand in
the relationship with Burma. Under the Thaksin administration, there is even
more confusion and blurred direction.
The prime minister himself wants to get tough with Burma so that Rangoon
will come clean about its policy on the Wa. All along it has been perceived that
the rulers in the capital have turned a blind eye to the tribe's profitable
production and distribution of the so-called mad drug, with Thailand as the main
outlet.
Of late General Chavalit has been making loud noises and his presence felt
in diplomacy towards Burma, for reasons best known to himself. The former army
chief has even been at odds with the Third Army Region commander Lt-General
Wathanachai Chaimuanwong, who has been talking and acting tough with the Red Wa
and their supporters in Rangoon.
Prime Minister's Office Minister General Thammarak Israngkun also has a say
in the way Thailand deals with the conflict. So there are at least four parties,
not to mention the National Security Council and the Defence Council for that
matter. Diplomatic niceties mixed with tough talk have boiled down to confusion
for the people at home. Who is the boss, and what should be done in the way we
negotiate with Burma?
The pattern of the bilateral relationship with Burma shows that Rangoon has
never shown eagerness to seek negotiations during normal times or after
conflicts have flared up. It has always been the Thai side, especially the
military led by its chief representative Chavalit, in different positions, who
is perceived as the person who understands the mentality of his counterparts in
the junta.
History shows that if he had such clout with the junta leaders, bilateral
relations would not have been rocky and strewn with periodic conflicts that are
getting worse. In the view of his compatriots, Chavalit has been surprisingly
soft on Burma, even after many border clashes that have resulted in casualties
for the Thai side. Again, this is evidence that his style of schmoozing,
chortling and chummy diplomacy does not work.
Let us conclude then that kid-glove diplomacy with the Rangoon junta will
never produce long-lasting peaceful neighbourliness. Is it perhaps time to talk
tough with them? This will be the subject of long debate before the proper means
are found.
One thing the Rangoon military junta must enlighten the Thai side on when
next both meet in its capital is how the Red Wa have been able to finance the
rapid expansion and high-cost development of Mong Yon near the Thai border,
which serves as the main hub for narcotics production and trafficking.
The Burmese junta should also tell the world how the Red Wa have been
earning income for all their development projects, including a hydroelectric
dam, making the whole area more like an autonomous city. The area is a far cry
from other towns in Shan State, which have been targets for repression by the
central government for decades.
Can we presume that the Rangoon junta never believed us when we insisted
that the Red Wa community was the main source of the methamphetamine supply and
that the tribe had the blessing of the central government? If this is not so,
what plausible explanation can they produce? Is it time we dealt from strength?
If, that is, we have it.
Let's not forget that the Burmese government is a military dictatorship,
which resorted to cheating the lady who won the general election and has now
been under house arrest for nearly a decade. If they could cheat her, they
should not be expected to behave like gentlemen and keep their word after what
are supposed to be frank and sincere diplomatic negotiations with us.
Before Prime Minister Thaksin leads a delegation to Rangoon, he should come
up with a clear direction and sort out the different approaches among the
members of his government and the agencies concerned. Another of his workshops
on the Burma issue would certainly do no harm.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation - May 13,
2001.
This pandering tojunta must
stop
John Francis Lee
CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
I love Thailand. I've visited the Kingdom a half dozen times. I'd love to come live in Thailand. Reading The Nation and the Post over the Internet, and watching Thai politics over the past five or six years, it seems obvious to me that Chavalit Yongchaiyudh constantly coming to the defence of the military junta in Burma as he does, has a special affection for the Burmese dictators. Does he have financial interests in the various "enterprises" his
counterparts in Burma so lucratively engage in?
Why do the Thai armed forces exist if not to protect the Thais?
Do the Thai people really not notice? Why are journalists in Thailand
afraid to investigate such obvious questions and to go after Chavalit?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - May 13,
2001.
Clashes 'caused by unclear
messages'
Chavalit puts blame on minority rebels Cheewin Sattha in Chiang Mai
Unclear messages and lack of good communication lines between Burmese border troops and the miltary leadership in Rangoon had led to Thai-Burmese border clashes, Defence Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said yesterday. Gen Chavalit made the comment after he was briefed on the latest situation
at Hua Lone hill in Fang district, Chiang Mai, the scene of heavy fighting
between Thai troops and guerrillas of the United Wa State Army, which has the
support of Burmese border troops.
Gen Chavalit said Thai-Burmese border tensions often resulted from unclear
messages sent by Burmese border troops to their superiors in Rangoon.
A good example was the incident at Hua Lone hill, he said. Burmese troops
at the border had made an unfounded claim that Thai air force jets had fired
missiles at them on Thursday.
Rangoon then sent a letter to Bangkok protesting against what it described
as an air strike by two Thai F-16 jet fighters that wounded six people and
killed three head of cattle inside Burma.
"We have not dropped a bomb or fired any missiles," Gen Chavalit
said.
He also said a border clash in February at a Thai military outpost at Ban
Pang Noon, Mae Fah Luang district, Chiang Rai, could have been avoided had the
Burmese military commander been aware that his order for his men to withdraw
from the area had been ignored.
The outpost, located about 500m inside Thailand, was seized by some 200
Burmese troops who used it as a springboard to launch assaults on a Shan rebel
base straddling the border.
Gen Chavalit said the Burmese commander did not know that his forces
remained on Thai territory even after he had ordered them to withdraw from Ban
Pang Noon by the 4pm deadline set by the Thai side.
The Burmese intruders suffered heavy casualties after fierce shelling by
the Thai side after the deadline expired.
Burmese forces then retaliated by firing mortar rounds into Chiang Rai's
Mae Sai border town.
Gen Chavalit said there was no real conflict between Thai and Burmese
border troops.
The real cause of Thai-Burmese border trouble was Burma's ethnic minority
rebels operating along the common border, he said.
Meanwhile, two Thai soldiers were reported wounded yesterday when they
stepped on a booby trap planted at Hua Lone hill by Wa soldiers before their
retreat.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- KNU Fire Kills One Person in
Myanmar
2001.05.13 12:59:27 YANGON, May 13 (Xinhuanet) --
One person was killed and six others including a monk wounded in a launcher
attack by the Kayin National Union (KNU), the largest anti-government
ethnic armed organization, on a bus running in Myanmar's southeastern
Kayin state on Friday, according to Sunday's official newspaper The
New Light of Myanmar.
The 40-member-strong KNU fired launchers and small weapons on the bus
leaving Kawkareik for Myawaddy in the state.
On hearing the gun fire, local government troops exchanged fire with the
KNU who ran away after the incident, the report said, adding that the
government troops are in hot pursuit of the KNU.
Meanwhile, there had also been instability in other areas of Myanmar
with bomb attacks by other anti-government armed organizations
recently.
According to an earlier official report, a bomb explosion occurred on
May 4 in a major market, Zaygyo, in Mandalay, the country's second largest
city, wounding eight persons.
The government charged the Shan United Revolutionary Army, another
anti-government ethnic armed organization, with planting the bomb.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Jersey online
May 12, 2001.
Myanmar drug burn is more than a
dog-and-pony show
By GRANT PECK
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Close to a billion dollars in opium, heroin and
amphetamines went up in smoke Saturday as authorities in Myanmar sought to
impress foreign governments and media with the seriousness of their efforts to
stamp out the illicit drug trade.
The destruction of seized drugs was staged to coincide with a regional
meeting held to coordinate the anti-drug efforts of Cambodia, China, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The three-day meeting, held under the auspices of the United Nations
International Drug Control Program, ended Friday, but many delegates stayed on
to see Myanmar's real efforts in the field.
Drug burnings have become a ritual in Southeast Asian countries, making a
public relations virtue out of the necessity to dispose of the dangerous drugs.
Myanmar has conducted 15 such events.
On Saturday, the seized drugs were laid out along tables set end to end for
about 66 feet.
The drugs -- including 2,862 pounds of opium, 255 pounds of heroin, 968
pounds of marijuana and 2.7 million amphetamine tablets -- were mostly in their
original packing: brown paper wrapping, plastic bags and jute sacks. Below the
tables was gasoline-soaked wood for kindling.
The total street value of the drugs in the United States would be $920
million, officials said.
At each of these drug burning events, foreign drug experts are invited to
test random samples.
A typical program includes slicing open a bag and dropping a sample into a
test solution: amphetamine turns the solution orange, heroin a shade of purple.
Observers are then motioned back for the big moment. A button ignites a
fire that engulfs the table, burning the packets and sending white powder
spilling to the ground.
The opium burns slowly, like peat. Heroin, its derivative, burns slightly
faster. The marijuana burns like the dry leaves it is. Amphetamines send flames
high into the air, burning fiercely with huge heat and billowing black smoke.
Afghanistan and Myanmar are the top two producers of opium and heroin.
Hoping to shake off its unsavory reputation, Myanmar is eager to show off its
drug-fighting efforts.
While Myanmar's military government has curbed opium production
considerably, the country has in recent years become a major source of
methamphetamine, the cheap and popular stimulant that is wreaking social havoc
in several Asian nations.
Police Maj. Gen. Soe Win, secretary of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse
Control, said Myanmar cannot be blamed entirely for methamphetamine production
because other countries supplying the raw materials have an obligation to
tighten their law enforcement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- People's Daily Online - May 12,
2001.
Myanmar Seizes Large Amount of Stimulant
Drugs
The Myanmar authorities seized 390, 000 tablets of stimulant drug in
Tachilek, the country's eastern Shan state, last month, state-run newspaper The
New Light of Myanmar reported Saturday.
The seizure was made by a combined team comprising local intelligence unit
and the police force when they searched traffic passing by in the area on April
28.
Three people were arrested in connection with the case, the report said.
According to official statistics, in 2000, the Myanmar authorities
confiscated 26.6 million tablets of stimulant drug along with 1.52 tons of
opium, 158 kilos of heroin and 590 kilos of marijuana.
During the year, the authorities also exposed a total of 3,535 drug-related
cases, punishing 4,881 drug offenders, the statistics show.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Economic Times - May 13,
2001.
Gem casting
Hugh & Colleen Gantzer THERE is the image and then there is reality. We braved the image to
discover a reality that still casts its spell over us.
The image of Myanmar is that of a rigid, military ruled state, full of
grey, morose, people. The reality is delightfully different.
We flew into the capital Yangon, which most of the world still knows as
Rangoon, from Calcutta, which some people now call Kolkota. We breezed through
customs and immigration in their international airport, once they had
established that we were travel writers and not political journalists.
We drove down clean, disciplined streets to our ship-turned-hotel, berthed
on the Yangon river.
The river was a cafe au lait flood, thick and heavy with richness. And
carried on its swell, a skiff bobbed past, its boatman standing and rowing with
two oars: jerk-creak! Jerk creak! Jerk creak! This was the very first time in
our traveling careers that we had lived in one, and we enjoyed every minute of
it.
Interestingly, most of the staff were gracious young women dressed in
western clothes. We checked into our cabin with its attached bathroom, and then
unwound on the garden deck.
We sipped cool, draft beer nibbled at satay, and listened to a guitarist
sing sad country and western songs while the flower scented breeze blew cool air
over the open deck.
Later, when we drove out of our ship hotel, and into the capital, we were
stopped briefly by a policeman. He set a flag car drive out of a gate and then
waved us on. In the car was a senior army officer, but there was no yowling
sirens, blackcats, or traffic obstructing convoys.
The old parts of Yangon had tiled and wooden houses with balconies and
festoons of bright laundry. Then there were the colonial mansions set in
bougainvillaea flaring gardens, and business establishments still breathing a
certain imperial grace.
Also apartment blocks of the 30s; replicas of Churchgate’s A Road in
Mumbai. And inevitably, hawker stalls doing brisk delectable business on the
pavement. But everything is cantonment clean: no garbage, no grime, no
splattered smears though pan is popular.
So are gems. Shopgirls and wiatresses wear rubies and diamonds on their
fingers. Most precious stones from jade to emeralds, sapphires and rubies to
diamonds, are apparently mined in Myanmar.
These treasures of the earth winked and glittered and scintillated around
us as we walked through the Gems museum and the three lower floors run by
private jewellers and served by fine boned people like the mythical bird
guardians of ancient legend. There are bargains to be had, here.
In the heart of Yangon we ascended the four stage escalator to the hillock
of the Shwedagon Pagoda. It was heart stopping, breath catching: a great golden
bud encircled by four lesser buds, encircled by still smaller golden buds.
Kipling rightly called it: ``A beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the
sun.’’ Devotees prostrated in reverence to the eight enshrined hairs of Lord
Buddha; prayed and offered flowers to golden Buddhas serene in silver filigree
shrines; radiant against the fractured images of mirror mosaic walls. It is
customary to walk anti-clockwise around pagodas in Myanmar.
There are many other interesting shrines in Yangon but we were particularly
impressed by the Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda with its gigantic reclining Buddha filing
a hall as vast as a railway station. Then there was the Kaba Aye Pagoda with a
museum of the Exaulted. One’s life featuring a rainbow bridge with celestials
descending to our Himalayas.
India is not only the Holy Land of all Buddhists, it is also of great
historical importance to the countries of South and South East Asia. Many of
them were ruled from India during the days of the Raj.
In 1886, Myanmar was made a province of India; a year earlier, the Burmese
King had been exiled to Ratnagire in India; and in 1858, India’s last Mughal
Emperor had been exiled to Rangoon.
Grey, rock pigeons rose in a fluttering cloud at the entrance of the tomb
of Bahadur Shah Zafar, and his empress, in Yangon. The two men in white skull
caps rocked in prayer, and lights shimmered on the gold embroidered chaddar
covering the tomb.
A portrait of the ascetic looking Emperor hazed and cleared as clouds of
incense swept across it like transient memories. Yesterday and today blend
effortlessly in Yangon. Responding to globalisation, the Myanmarese have been
quick to cash in on the tourist dollar even though their market driven economy
is fairly new.
Virtually every beautiful view has a toll contractor ready to extract his
viewing fee, and that included the one on the banks of the Royal lake. Here,
when sunset glided the Royal Barge on the lake, we watched ethnic dancers and
dined in the Royal Garden Restaurant.
Their fried sea prawns with dry, red chillies, and Royal Roast Chicken,
were delectable. Myanmarese food is very acceptable Burmese dish which is
pronounced cowsway in India.
Its actual name is Ohn No Khort Syea: noodles of two types, egg and other
garnishings, and chicken floating in a gravy thickened with the milk of three
coconuts.
Inevitably, like good Indians after a good meal, we went in quest of good
shopping. Apart from the Gems Museum, our favourite was the British era Scott
Market.
Its been renamed the Bogyoke Aungsan Market and we browsed through shops
offering silver jewellery more delicate than the silver wire work of Bhuj and
Cuttack. There were also boxes, trays, vases and bowls in lacquer, glowing with
a soft inner fire, delicately understated.
Here too, we spotted some unusual glazed pottery in shades of olive green,
burnt umber, teak and coffee brown. Many of them were embellished and embossed
with cutout designs and they made unusual presents to take back home. And think
- home is only a 1 hour 45 min flight away.
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