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BURMA RELATED NEWS - May 23,
2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- CNN - Religious riot rips Myanmar
town
AP - UN Envoy To Visit Myanmar To Help Suu
Kyi-Junta Dialogue
AP - Thailand Says Myanmar Shelling Of Royal
Proj "Deliberate"
AP - Aid Groups Critical Of UN Goals For
Poorest
AFP - UN envoy Razali to return to Myanmar as
talks enter critical stage
AFP - Asian and European ministers to meet in
China with US in background
Reuters - U.N. envoy to visit Myanmar amid fears
of stalled talks
Reuters - ASEAN
ministers, ARF to meet in Hanoi late July
The Times of India - Myanmar, Singapore to
hold economic talks
UPI - Thais protest after Myanmar
attack
The Nation - Burmese
shelling a 'deliberate act'
Bkk Post - Four Muslim leaders die in clashes
Bkk Post - Shan seek world
attention
Bkk Post - Ruling junta invites envoy to
Rangoon
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Links Sovereignty to
Development
SCMP - Religious violence sparks
curfew
WP - Blue-Eyed Battler for Democracy in Burma
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- CNN - Religious riot rips Myanmar
town
May 22, 2001 Posted: 6:15 PM HKT (1015 GMT) YANGON, Myanmar -- A curfew has been imposed in a northern town of Myanmar
where simmering tensions between Buddhist and Muslim residents erupted into
rioting last week.
Members of the two communities in Toungoo attacked each other with sticks
and stones, while several mosques were set on fire, a Yangon resident who
returned from Toungoo said.
The resident who fled to neighboring Thailand spoke to the Associated Press
on condition of anonymity. The resident said the Buddhists monks and laymen
killed 4 Muslims and set fire to about 140 Muslim houses and 14 mosques.
Those Muslims killed including a 60-year-old woman. Eight mosques were destroyed. Telephone lines to the town were disconnected, and the account could not be
independently confirmed. A terse Myanmar government statement said "some clashes
took place . . . after a brawl started between some locals last week."
Religious clashes
The Associated Press said a curfew has been imposed, and the "situation is
under control and contained. An official investigation is in progress," the
statement said, without elaborating.
Muslims comprise 3.9 percent of Myanmar's 51 million people, while
Buddhists form nearly 89 percent.
Myanmar's military junta allows freedom of worship to all faiths, but
clashes between people of different religions are not uncommon.
Toungoo, a trading town known for its betel nut crop, is on the highway to
Myanmar's second largest city, Mandalay, and is 155 miles north of the capital,
Yangon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 7:00 PM
UN Envoy To Visit Myanmar To Help Suu
Kyi-Junta Dialogue
YANGON (AP)--A special United
Envoy will visit Myanmar next month to facilitate ongoing negotiations between
the ruling military junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, officials said
Wednesday.
Razali Ismail, the special U.N. envoy to Myanmar, will be in the country
from June 1 to June 4, a Foreign Ministry official said on customary condition
of anonymity.
Razali was responsible for initiating the first face-to-face talks in six
years between the junta and Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi. The talks began in
secret in October after Razali visited Myanmar.
However, the talks were announced by Razali only in January after he again
visited Myanmar and met with Suu Kyi and government leaders. The timing of the
announcement indicated progress in the talks.
But since then, little news has emerged. However, last month the government
denied that the talks were stalled and Foreign Minister Win Aung said the
negotiations were not merely a "publicity stunt" to appease the West. Last week,
the government denied that Razali was refused permission to come to Myanmar.
The junta has come under widespread criticism, mainly by the West, for
refusing to hand over power to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party,
which won the 1990 general elections.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 1:14 PM
Thailand Says Myanmar Shelling Of Royal
Proj "Deliberate"
BANGKOK (AP)--Myanmar gunners,
in a "deliberate act of provocation," have fired mortar shells into a royal
development project in northern Thailand, the Thai military said Wednesday.
The alleged incident was one of a series of recent shellings and clashes
along the Thai-Myanmar border sparked by frontier disputes, ethnic minority
rebels and drug trafficking.
Col. Akadet Thongwarawit said he dispatched a protest note to Myanmar
counterparts charging that Myanmar forces intentionally fired at least five
mortar rounds into the Doi Angkhang royal project in the province of Chiang Mai
on Tuesday.
He said Thai gunners retaliated with warning shots across the border,
adding that Thai troops would retaliate in the event of further border
violations.
Doi Angkhang is locating near Hua Lone Hill, which the Thai army recently
bombarded in an effort to dislodge Wa ethnic minority fighters who occupied what
Thailand says is its territory.
The project is one of numerous development efforts by King Bhumibol
Adulyadej to improve rural incomes and get hilltribe people to grow coffee,
vegetables and other crops instead of opium.
Given the king's great popularity, the shelling was likely to spark tension
and resentment against Myanmar, Krisada Boonraj, the local district chief, said
in a telephone interview.
He said one shell landed less than 100 meters from a royal villa on the
grounds of the project, which includes crop demonstration plots, seed banks and
other facilities to help local farmers.
In addition to the borderline dispute, Thai forces are attempting to stem a
flood of narcotics into the country from Myanmar.
The Wa, which are allied with the Myanmar government, are accused of being
the major drug producers and traffickers along the frontier.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 10:21 AM
Aid Groups Critical Of UN Goals For
Poorest
BRUSSELS (AP)--In the wake of a
weeklong United Nations anti-poverty conference, international aid organizations
question if a lofty plan to help the poorest of the poor will actually make a
difference.
The conference endorsed a plan -adopted by world leaders last year -to
halve global poverty by 2015.
"We are nowhere near attaining that," said Andrew Pendleton of Christian
Aid, a British-based charity that operates in 60 developing countries.
Like other groups, Christian Aid questions how the U.N. conference has
helped the world's 49 "least developed" countries, or those with a per capita
income of under $900 a year. The countries lack sufficient investment in health,
nutrition and education despite receiving 8 billion dollars in aid from
international donors in 2001 alone.
The record speaks for itself -the number of the world's poorest nations
under the U.N. criteria has grown from 25 to 49 since 1971.
Of the poorest countries, 34 are in Africa, nine in Asia, five in the
Pacific and only one, Haiti, in the Western Hemisphere. The countries share a
past -and sometimes a present -of conflict and corruption. Some also face
drought or epidemics of AIDS or other diseases. Despite the billions given these
countries, U.N. officials say the amount of aid has dropped by 45% since 1990.
Today, more than 630 million people, roughly the populations of the 15
European Union nations plus the United States, live on less than a dollar a day.
Delegates at the U.N. conference, which ended last Sunday, issued a 60-page
"action plan" to halve this number by 2015.
It commits rich countries to provide more aid and debt relief for the 49
poorest of the poor, boost trade and investments, set up trust funds to improve
food safety, and ensure duty- and quota-free access to their goods.
Additionally, the conference called for a $10 billion global fund to fight
AIDS and other diseases.
But David Earnshaw from Oxfam International, which is active in aid
programs in more than 100 countries, said the so-called action plan mostly
resurrects past formulas for fighting poverty.
"There is very little that is new," he said. "Almost everything announced
last week was there long before."
Significantly, he added, no targets have been attached to such promises as
greater market access for poor nations or cancellation of their debts.
Aid groups have called for immediate market access, full debt cancellation
for all 49 of the poorest countries and substantial increases in development
aid.
After the conference, several participants voiced their concern that the
session -the third of its kind since 1981 -would only end up repeating the
practice of offering various commitments without implementing them.
"We are justified to be skeptical," said Mats Karlsson, vice president of
the World Bank. "Everything is in the implementation."
Criticism also focused on the fear that the U.N. conference would only add
to reports and studies already widely available without actually tackling the
issues that plague poor countries, such as corruption and human rights
violations.
Rubens Ricupero, head of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development -the
event's organizer -defended the anti-poverty action program as a step forward.
"It is a beginning," he said. "We were looking for realistic if not modest
outcomes."
Added Rwandan Finance Minister Donald Kaberuka, "We have to be
realistic....We are talking about incremental steps that add up."
The 49 nations are: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Lao People's Democratic
Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania,
Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Pincipe, Senegal,
Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, United
Republic of Tanzania, Vanuatu, Yemen and Zambia.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 8:11 PM
UN envoy Razali to return to
Myanmar as talks enter critical
stage
YANGON, May 23 (AFP) - UN special envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismail is to visit Yangon next week at a critical stage of the eight-month-old dialogue between the junta and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sources said. "He will come from June 1 to 4," a source in Yangon told AFP. "His program
is not known but he is likely to see Aung San Suu Kyi."
The green light for the Malaysian diplomat's fourth trip to Myanmar comes
after months of delays which had raised concerns about the future of political
reforms in the military-run country.
Razali, who brokered landmark talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the
military regime which began last October, has been denied permission to visit
since January as the dialogue entered a delicate decision-making phase.
Sources close to the secret talks said earlier this month that the process
had ground to a halt as dissenting factions within the junta began to baulk at
the prospect of ushering in far-reaching reforms.
Diplomats in Yangon said it was too soon to know whether the junta's
decision to allow Razali into the country was an indication that the national
reconciliation process was back on track.
"This is a good sign but we will have to see what kind of feedback he gets
when he gets here," one said.
"Certainly, coming after the indications that his next visit would not be
on the cards for several more months, if they have decided to let him in there
must be a little bit more flexibility."
Razali's visit ends just a day before the International Labor Organisation
(ILO) convenes its annual meeting where it is expected to roundly condemn the
Yangon junta's record on forced labour.
The ILO's governing body last November issued an unprecedented call for its
members to review their ties with Myanmar -- a move aimed at tightening the
sanctions load that has already helped cripple the economy.
Bitterly disappointed, the junta shot back by declaring it would "cease to
cooperate" with the ILO, in an apparent declaration that a technical mission
which had visited in October would not be allowed to return.
However, a four-man team again led by Francis Maupain of France was allowed
to travel to Yangon last week to negotiate an accord on the eradication of
forced labour with the junta, the ILO confirmed Wednesday.
The team was permitted to visit between May 17 and 19 to negotiate the text
of an accord under which the military government will independently monitor the
eradication of forced labour.
The renewed contact with the ILO is another sign that a political shift is
under way in Myanmar, and that the junta is willing to take some modest steps
towards improving its relationship with the international community.
An ILO official in Bangkok said the mission was likely to return to Yangon
within the next few months to implement the guidelines developed during the May
visit.
"In late summer or early fall they will go back and follow up and implement
these terms of reference," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 4:41 PM
Asian and European ministers to
meet in China with US in background
BEIJING, May 23 (AFP) - The United States has not been invited to this week's gathering of European and Asian foreign ministers in Beijing, but the world's only superpower is likely to loom large over the meeting. The agenda facing the 26 members of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is broad
and varied, ranging from human trafficking to the digital divide and
developments on the Korean peninsula.
More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, many governments in Asia
and Europe are uncomfortable with the new world order that has emerged, where
the United States calls many of the shots.
"This could be an opportunity for commiserating with each other about how
difficult it is to cope in a world where there is such a high degree of American
unilateralism," said David Zweig, a political scientist at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology.
ASEM is made up of 10 Asian countries and 15 European Union countries, as
well as the European Commission.
Senior officials from the ASEM members started two days of talks on
Wednesday, while the foreign ministers will gather for a working dinner late
Thursday, followed by a full day of meetings on Friday.
The meeting takes place at a time when policy-makers from Madrid to Manila
are still reading the signs coming out of Washington for clues about new
directions in US policy under President George W. Bush.
Europe, meanwhile, is making its most ambitious push for greater influence
in Asia in several generations.
In one indication of more assertive policies in Asia, a high-powered
delegation from the European Union visited reclusive North Korea earlier this
month.
The more active stance has come about under a new breed of leaders who are
born too late to have personal reminiscences of the colonial past and striving
to find a political identity for Europe to match its economic clout.
"The Europeans are promoting their single market, and may gradually achieve
bigger economic potential," said Roger Buckley, a professor of international
relations at Tokyo's International Christian University. "They hope astute
diplomacy might promote trade."
No country in Asia has a bigger interest in improving ties with Europe than
host nation China, which has seen its relations with the United States
deteriorate rapidly since Bush moved into the White House.
Trouble spots on the strained Sino-US bilateral agenda range from the
American spy plane stranded on Hainan island to the Chinese detention of
Chinese-American scholars and US arms sales to Taiwan.
"I'm sure China would like alternative options to their dependence on the
United States," said Zweig, the Hong Kong-based political scientist.
A Chinese foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
denied the deterioration in Sino-US ties had directly translated into a wish to
improve relations with Europe.
"About the relations between China and Europe, I believe they have always
been very good," he said. "If you look at contacts between China and European
partners, you'll see a steady growing trend. It's not a recent sharp
trend."
Such explanations notwithstanding, the option of playing the European card
against the United States is likely to be tempting for China, analysts
said.
Adding to that attraction is the fact that Europeans have previously been
easy targets for Chinese efforts to play up business opportunities in the
world's most populous country, they said.
"Europe seems to forget about Tiananmen a little bit more easily than the
United States," Zweig said, referring to the crushing of the 1989 pro-democracy
movement by the Chinese military.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday May 23, 3:32 PM
U.N. envoy to visit Myanmar amid fears
of stalled talks
By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - The U.N.
envoy to Myanmar who helped broker historic talks between the military
government and opposition will visit the country next week amid fears the
dialogue has stalled, officials said on Tuesday.
Razali Ismail would visit from June 1 to 4, the Myanmar foreign ministry
said. Diplomats said he would meet senior government leaders as well as
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been kept confined to her house
since September.
Razali announced earlier this year that Myanmar's ruling generals had been
holding a secret dialogue with Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for
Democracy (NLD) which won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been
allowed to govern.
The news raised hopes that the political stalemate that has gripped Myanmar
for more than a decade could finally be broken.
Concern is growing, however, that the talks have hit an impasse. Foreign
diplomats in Yangon say they believe the dialogue has been stalled in recent
months.
Razali, a veteran Malaysian diplomat, last visited Myanmar in January, and
said then his next visit was planned for March.
His failure to visit since January has fuelled fears the talks were
blocked.
Myanmar this week denied that the delay in Razali's visit was because he
had been refused an entry visa.
A well-informed source in Yangon told Reuters Suu Kyi held a meeting on May
17 with Major-General Kyaw Win, deputy director of the Directorate of Defence
Services Intelligence.
The source said it was the fourth meeting this year between Suu Kyi and
Kyaw Win, who has been representing the ruling military in the dialogue.
The government and NLD have agreed to keep the content of the dialogue
confidential.
But some NLD members and representatives of Myanmar's many ethnic groups
have been getting increasingly frustrated about the lack of news on the talks.
They have been calling for another visit by Razali to reassure all sides in
the dialogue and prevent the process unravelling.
Foreign Minister Win Aung last month denied that the talks had stalled, and
insisted they were not a "public relations stunt" by the government to improve
its international image.
But he said there was no timeframe for the process.
Diplomats say that while the government faces no serious internal political
threat, the country's precarious economic situation is the main factor pushing
the military towards dialogue with the opposition.
The military says it is committed to building a democracy in Myanmar, but
it says the country could disintegrate if the process moves too quickly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday May 22, 8:35 PM
ASEAN ministers, ARF to meet in
Hanoi late July
HANOI, May 22 (Reuters) -
Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will
hold their annual meeting from July 23-24 in Hanoi, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry
said on Tuesday.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement the
gathering would be followed by the eighth meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF) on July 25 and a Post-Ministerial Conference from July 26-27.
Senior officials from the ARF member countries met in Hanoi last week to
prepare for the July meetings.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The ARF, which focuses on security and defence, comprises ASEAN, the
15-member European Union, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, North and
South Korea, Australia, Canada, India, Mongolia, New Zealand and Papua New
Guinea.
Secretary of State Colin Powell is due represent the United States at the
July ARF meeting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Times of India
May 23, 2001.
Myanmar, Singapore to hold
economic talks
SINGAPORE: The top economics minister from Myanmar's military regime will
hold talks with Singapore's trade minister this week, the Singapore government
said on Tuesday.
Wealthy Singapore is Myanmar's largest foreign investor. In 2000, Singapore
had dlrs 1.51 billion invested in the country - 21 percent of the total
investment in the Myanmar.
Brigadier General David Abel, a Myanmar government minister, will meet
Singapore's Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo in Singapore on Friday for
the fourth Joint Ministerial Working Committee between the nations, the
government said in a statement.
The first such meeting was held in 1996 and has led to projects in
agriculture, tourism development, transportation and trade development, the
statement said, adding that over 1,000 Myanmar officials had participated in the
joint programs.
Asian companies have continued to invest in Myanmar despite calls from
human rights groups to boycott the country to protest against its human rights
record.
Myanmar is also known as Burma. (AP)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- United Press
International.
Wednesday, 23 May 2001 3:41 (ET)
Thais protest after Myanmar attack BANGKOK, Thailand, May 23 (UPI) -- The Thai military issued a strong protest
after Myanmar forces fired five rounds of artillery across the
border into a royal agricultural project in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, reports said Wednesday. The Nation newspaper quoted Thai Third Army Commander Lt. Gen.
Wattanachai Chaimuenwong as saying the attack on Tuesday prompted return fire
and a
strongly worded protest to the Myanmar government. He said no one was injured in the artillery barrage when the shells
exploded in a peach orchard on Angkan Mountain in Fang district, less than a
mile from the border and 400 miles north of Bangkok.
The area is the site of a crop replacement project, aimed at weaning
hill tribe people away from opium-growing, sponsored by Thailand's revered royal
family.
"It was a deliberate act," Wattanachai said. He added that there was no
fighting going on across the border that could have cause an accidental
spillover of fighting between Myanmar and ethnic rebel troops.
Such spillovers have caused frequent tension between the two
countries, with both sides accusing the other of using ethnic rebels as
proxies.
Gen. Wattanachai said a formal protest against the shelling had been
sent to Myanmar members of the Township Border Committee, which was set up by
Bangkok and Rangoon to ease chronic border tensions.
The Thai general has been outspoken in his accusations that Yangon
has been using ethnic Wa rebels to attack Thailand and to flood the kingdom with
methamphetamines.
Burma's ruling junta, meanwhile, has accused the Thai army of using
ethnic Shan rebels to foment rebellion in Myanmar.
The Myanmar military was particularly angry that Thai celebrities,
including a popular actress and a pop singer, entertained members of the Shan
State Army at the rebel group's "national day" celebrations last weekend.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation - May 23,
2001.
Burmese shelling a 'deliberate act'
Commander Wattanachai says shells were fired to incite and distract
Army
Five artillery shells were intentionally fired across the border from Burma
yesterday, landing in the compound of the Royal Project at Doi Angkang in Chiang
Mai's Fang district, according to Third Army Commander Lt Gen Wattanachai
Chaimuenwong.
This prompted return fire and a strong protest from the Thai military, he
said.
Wattanachai said the shells landed in the peach orchards of the Royal
Project, which is situated near Hua Lone Hill, the scene of recent fighting
between the Army and troops from the United Wa State Army (UWSA). There were no
reports of casualties or serious damage.
"It was a deliberate act," said Wattanachai, adding that it was the first
time that shells had fallen into the Royal Project, which is less than a
kilometre from the border.
The commander said that the Army had returned fire with eight rounds of
artillery in the direction from which it suspected the shells were launched. It
also issued a strong protest about the violation of Thai sovereignty to the
Burmese members of the Township Border Committee.
Wattanachai said there was currently no fighting on the opposite side that
could have spilled-over into Thailand. He said the area was now under Burmese
control after the retreat of Shan rebels who had moved to other positions. He
said he suspected that Burmese troops had intended to incite the Thai military
in order to distract their attention from other border spots.
However, he said the overall border situation remained calm due to the
rainy season.
Meanwhile, actress Preeyanuch Panpradab and her boyfriend, TV producer
Noppol Komarachun, denied going to Loi Tai Lang, opposite Chiang Mai's Pang
Mapha district, to join the Shan rebels' Resistance Day on Monday.
Preeyanuch said she was shooting a new TV series in Pathum Thani on Monday.
"I never thought of going there. How could I join the party, when I dare not go
even to the border," she said.
Preeyanuch, whose novel Pai Keb Paen Din Thee Sin Chat (Liberation of the
Lost Home) was inspired by the struggle of a Burmese minority group,
acknowledged that she had received numerous letters from Shan and Karen people
following the airing of the TV series Keb Paen Din, which was based on her
novel.
She denied that her new TV series about the drug cartels would include
scenes filmed in Shan territory.
Returning from Loi Tai Lang yesterday, veteran singer and songwriter
Surachai Chantima-thorn said his trip had nothing to do with the dispute between
Thailand and Burma.
"I joined them as one of their friends who sympathises with their struggle.
I see nothing wrong with my trip. Everyone has freedom of thinking," he
said.
He and a few friends from Caravan, the legendary folk-blues band, performed
for the Shan soldiers for three hours. "It was a very vibrant party, joined by
several thousand people," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - May 23,
2001.
Four Muslim leaders die in clashes
Supamart Kasem At least four Islamic spiritual leaders were killed in Burma and hundreds
of Muslims forced to flee after clashes last week between Buddhist and Islamic
residents.
One Muslim, who managed to escape, said a curfew was imposed in Pegu
division after riots in Toungoo district on Friday and in Swa and Pyu districts
on Sunday.
The fighting erupted after Buddhist monks and their followers raided 14
mosques in Toungoo district while Muslims were praying, a source said.
Four spiritual leaders died when the raiders cut their throats and the
owner of a nearby restaurant was beaten to death.
Four mosques and more than 100 houses and shops in the town were burnt
down, forcing all Muslims to flee to nearby Kyauktaga, Zeyyawaddy, Yeni and
Myohla districts.
Buddhists also attacked Muslim passengers on Rangoon-Mandalay buses
arriving in Toungoo and set fire to more than 100 houses owned by Muslims
outside the town.
A curfew was imposed on Toungoo and security forces were sent to control
the situation.
The source said nearly 1,000 Muslims became homeless after their houses
were burnt down in similar riots in Thagaya and Pyu districts on Sunday. A
curfew was then enforced all over Pegu division.
On Monday, a Muslim spiritual leader in Rangoon told BBC Radio the
situation had returned to normal and riots followed the destruction of an
ancient mosque in the town.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - May 23,
2001.
Shan seek world
attention
Gravity of situation is in Burma, they say Subin Khuenkaew and Nauvarat Suksamran
A Shan State Army leader has called on the world community to help stamp
out drug production in Burma and end the problem once and for all.
Col Yod Suek, chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State, made the
call during celebrations to mark Shan Resistance Day at a base opposite Mae Hong
Son's Pang Ma Pha district.
While praising the world community for helping Thailand in its fight
against drugs, Col Yod Suek said they should focus on drug manufacturing in
Burma.
"It is good to help Thailand, but it is just a transit point. The gravity
of the situation is in Burma where the drugs are produced.
"However, our campaign against drugs, a means to total independence from
the Burmese junta, hasn't received any support," he said.
The SSA was willing to co-operate with any country that wanted to stamp out
drugs, he said. His forces had been successful so far in their fight against
drugs.
Col Yod Suek said it had always been the SSA's policy to combat drugs and
border clashes with Burmese troops were part of that campaign.
"We were fighting drugs before Thailand stepped in, and we'll continue
doing it," he said.
Singer Surachai Chantimathorn showed up at the Shan base for the
celebrations, attended by almost 1,000 people, to sing them nationalistic
songs.
Mr Surachai, also known as Nga Caravan, said he was there to lend moral
support and study the life of Shan people who have been fighting suppression for
decades.
"I've been performing in Indochina for a long time. I express what I've
seen through songs and writing," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - May 23,
2001.
Ruling junta invites envoy to
Rangoon
Razali expected to push for peace talks Post Reporters
UN special envoy Razali Ismail is expected to visit Burma on June 1 to
pursue his bid for reconciliation between the military junta and pro-democracy
forces.
A diplomatic source said Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, first secretary of the ruling
State Peace and Development Council, took steps towards inviting Mr Ismail about
two weeks ago.
A Malaysian diplomat, Mr Razali last visited Rangoon in early January, and
observers were concerned about the long lapse.
Appointed UN special envoy in April last year, he had visited Rangoon in
late June and October last year.
But the breakthrough came after his January trip, when he announced that
Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt and Aung San Suu Kyi, of the opposition National League for
Democracy, began talks late last year.
Mr Razali's success is largely attributed to Malaysia's influence over
Burma as a key advocate of its induction into Asean in July, 1997.
In addition, it was widely regarded as significant that Mahathir Mohamad,
the Malaysian prime minister, was in Burma on a separate visit about the same
time as Mr Razali's latest trip.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar Links Sovereignty to
Development
2001.05.23 19:36:28 YANGON, May 23 (Xinhuanet) --
Myanmar can exist as a sovereign nation only when its economic, political
and social sectors develop on all fronts, said Wednesday's official
newspaper The New Light of Myanmar.
Quoting the country's senior leader General Maung Aye, the paper
pointed out that there are independent countries, sovereignty of which is
not firm or perpetual.
Meeting with local administrative officials of Western Rakhine state
during his inspection tour on Monday, Maung Aye, Vice- Chairman of the Myanmar
State Peace and Development Council, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the
Defense Services and Commander-in- Chief of the Army, said his government is
striving on all fronts to enable the country to stand firmly as a
sovereign nation and to protect it from falling under the domination of the big
nations.
He warned that his government will not let an inch of the nation's
territory be lost, saying that at the same time it has no wish to intrude into
or occupy other's territory.
He also pointed out that at present, the practice of hegemonism is existing
in the world with the big nations applying various means to dominate the
small nations by giving human rights, democracy and drug elimination as
excuses.
He pledged that Myanmar is exerting its utmost efforts to stand firmly on
its path and get abreast with other nations, while building all sectors
including the political, economic and social fields.
He reaffirmed Myanmar's foreign policy that it maintains its cordial
relations with other countries in accordance with the Five Principles of
Peaceful Coexistence and the ten principles of Bandung Conference.
Myanmar regained independence and became a sovereign nation in
1948.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- South China Morning Post
Wednesday, May 23, 2001
BURMA - Religious violence sparks
curfew
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Rangoon A curfew has been imposed in a northern town where simmering tensions
between Buddhist and Muslim residents erupted into rioting last week.
Members of the two communities in Toungoo town attacked each other with sticks and stones on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, while several mosques were set on fire, said a Rangoon resident who returned from Toungoo on Monday. A Muslim resident of Toungoo, who fled to the neighbouring Thai border town
of Mae Hong Sot, said Buddhist monks and laymen killed four Muslims, including a
60-year-old woman, identified only as Safura, who was beaten to death on Friday.
The Toungoo resident said the Buddhists set fire to about 140 Muslim houses
and 14 mosques, eight of which were destroyed. Telephone lines to the town were
disconnected and the account could not be independently confirmed.
A terse Burmese government statement said "some clashes took place . . .
after a brawl started between some locals last week".
A curfew had been imposed and the "situation is under control and
contained. An official investigation is in progress", it said.
The Rangoon resident said a 7pm-to-7am curfew had been in force in Toungoo
since last Wednesday.
He said troops were patrolling the streets and were also seen on the
highway to Toungoo, apparently to prevent Buddhists from other areas coming to
the town.
He said the cause of the violence was not known, but he quoted some Muslim
residents as claiming that it started when Buddhist monks demanded that a mosque
situated near a popular temple be relocated.
But Buddhist residents blamed the Muslims for starting the violence,
claiming some men had teased Buddhist women, he said.
The BBC quoted the chairman of the national Muslim association, U Thein, as
saying yesterday that anti-Muslim sentiment had been high in Burma since
residents saw on satellite television the destruction of two Buddha statues by
the Islamic Taleban regime of Afghanistan in March.
But a Buddhist monk in Rangoon said this was unlikely since only a handful
of people had access to satellite television in Burma, where the media are
strictly controlled. Official newspapers had never reported the destruction of
the statues.
Toungoo, a trading town known for its betel nut crops, is on the highway to
Burma's second largest city, Mandalay, and is about 250km north of the capital.
It has a large Muslim minority community, but the majority of the town's
people are Buddhists.
Muslims comprise 3.9 per cent of Burma's 51 million people, while Buddhists
make up nearly 89 per cent.
Burma's military junta allows freedom of worship to all faiths, but clashes
between people of different religions are not uncommon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Washington Post
Blue-Eyed Battler for Democracy in Burma
By Nora Boustany Wednesday, May 23, 2001; Page A28 In a suit, this young man with short ginger hair and an impish smile could
be a lawyer or banker forging his future in the corridors of material
gain.
But James Mawdsley, 28, has spent much of the last four years in Burma
defying its military government. Steeled by his Roman Catholic faith, he baited
authorities three times to arrest him to protest the treatment of minorities and
the lack of democracy and human rights.
The British citizen became interested in Burma in the mid-'90s while
traveling in New Zealand, where human rights activists showed him pictures of
atrocities in the Southeast Asian country. He decided to see for himself.
As he recounted in an interview here Monday, he began by teaching English
at a school in Minthamee, a jungle enclave of the Karen people, a minority of
300,000. But it was overrun by government troops in 1997 and he fled to
Thailand, along with many Karens. He returned to Burma the following year with
the intention of making a political statement against the military government.
He brought leaflets and pro-democracy tapes and chained himself to a gate. He
was deported.
Soon he was back again, this time to be jailed for 99 days, then deported.
His father asked him if he had had enough, to which he responded: "No, Dad, I
have only just begun."
When he reentered Burma from Thailand in August 1999 for his third
confrontation, he walked for days and ate wild honey in the lush green jungles.
In a border town, Tachilek, he headed to its crowded market and got arrested
within minutes. Each time, he had Burmese friends on the lookout to report back
through media channels in Thailand.
"It was all planned," he explained. "Otherwise you disappear."
Mawdsley said he planned his arrests so he could look Burmese authorities
in the face and question them about what was happening. This third time, he was
kept in solitary confinement for 416 days. He was handcuffed, blindfolded, and
punched in the stomach and genitals with fists and boots.
"You can't fight a regime like that if you are afraid of losing something,"
he said. "You have to be prepared to lose everything. If I'm not afraid of the
worst -- then they can't control me. I became a liability to the junta."
Toward the end of his confinement, he was beaten by 15 guards, his nose was
broken and he suffered internal bleeding and some broken ribs. What kept him
going, he recalled, were notes scribbled on toilet paper and passed on by
prisoners who were assigned to scrub the rust off his bars. They thanked him for
supporting their cause.
He cannot forget the humanity of a fellow prisoner who kept eye contact
even when he was in trouble with the guards. "I know what it is like now if
someone offers you a ray of hope, a smile, some food," Mawdsley said. "When a
prisoner senses solidarity, he is sustained for a long time."
"The experience opened up the Bible to me and made my faith a lot more
solid," he added.
David Alton, a member of the House of Lords and founder of the Jubilee
Campaign, a Christian human rights organization that lobbied in Mawdsley's
behalf, said: "He is one of the most outstanding young people that Britain has
produced since World War II. He is fired by a mixture of idealism, gallantry and
deep religious faith."
Mawdsley was in Washington to thank U.S. senators and House members who
circulated letters on his behalf, wrote to the Burmese authorities and generally
stepped up international pressure for his release. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)
and Reps. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), were among
those who took up his cause.
News of his ordeal was first greeted with "bewilderment" in the press and
in British political circles, said Mark Rowland, who led a campaign to get
Mawdsley released. "He was caricatured as naive, crazy and misguided," Rowland
said by telephone from London. "It took the interest of U.S. senators and
congressmen and the threat of a takeover of the case of a British subject to
stir interest."
"It was easier to tell the story of a blue-eyed British boy in a Burmese
jail, but much harder to tell the story of an ethnic minority," he added.
Ko Min Aung, a Burmese student in Ithaca, N.Y., who met Mawdsley in the
Karen enclave in 1996, said that if a Burmese had dared to take similar actions,
he would have been killed.
Mawdsley talked about how, in a wretched muddy cell, solitude strengthened
his faith and made "the Scriptures burn in my heart." When Burmese authorities
finally allowed him books he asked for the Bible and "Imitation of Christ" by
Thomas a Kempis. He is writing his own book, "The Heart Must Break," about his
experience.
"This is what he allowed himself to do and others are not prepared to do:
to have his heart broken," Rowland said.
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