|
----------------------------------------------------------------
BURMA RELATED NEWS - June 27,
2001.
----------------------------------------------------------------
HEADLINES
---------------------------------------------------------------- AP - 300 Myanmar People At Thai Refugee Camp
Face Legal Action
AP - China/Anti-Drug Day : At Least 59 People
Executed
AFP - ASEAN told to make "dynamic changes" to
compete with China in WTO
IRNA - Myanmar fined and banned by FIFA
Bkk Post - Border panel to work on mending
ties
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Highly Appreciates Thaksin's
Visit
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Seizes More Amount of
Stimulant Drug in June
Foreign and Commonwealth
Office - STATEMENT BY THE FOREIGN SECRETARY ON
BURMA
Asia Intelligence - Signs of change in Myanmar India Express - 24 Myanmarese caught trying to cross over to
Pakistan
Electronic Telegraph - Ex-headhunters guard Burmese 'speed'
factories ---------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday June 27, 12:34 PM 300 Myanmar People At Thai Refugee Camp
Face Legal Action
BANGKOK (AP)--A camp for
Myanmar refugees will be closed down this year, and about half of its inmates
will be prosecuted for entering Thailand illegally, a Thai official said
Wednesday.
About 300 of the 600 inmates at Maneeloy holding center in Ratchaburi
province "will face legal action in accordance with the Immigration Act,"
Khachadpai Burusapatana, the secretary general of the National Security Council,
told reporters.
The center was established in 1995 to house Myanmar dissident students who
were given refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Several hundreds have already been resettled in third countries, Khachadpai
said.
However, over the years many more Myanmar people have sneaked into the camp
illegally and haven't been recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, he said.
"The center will definitely close by the end of this year, and the
immigration division will deal with those who entered illegally before the camp
closes," Khachadpai said.
If convicted, they face fines, jail or deportation.
A UNHCR official in Bangkok said the people who are in the camp illegally
may apply for refugee status with the High Commissioner. Some may have already
applied and been rejected, the official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
The UNHCR grants refugee status to those who are persecuted in their
country on the basis of nationality, race, political opinion, religion and
membership of a social group.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday June 27, 2:02 AM
China/Anti-Drug Day : At Least 59 People
Executed
BEIJING (AP)--China executed at
least 56 people for drug crimes and staged mass rallies nationwide Tuesday to
mark a U.N. anti-drug day.
Thousands of people attended a rally at a stadium in Kunming, capital of southwestern Yunnan province, where 20 alleged drug traffickers were sentenced to death, said a city police official. Using remote-control detonators, government officials ignited 2 tons
of confiscated heroin placed in large metal pans and doused with gasoline. State
television carried the spectacle live on its noon news broadcast.
The executions were carried out immediately afterward at a separate
location, the Kunming police official said.
Separately on Tuesday, eight people in the central city of Wuhan and five
people on the southern island of Hainan were executed for drug trafficking.
Yunnan police also executed Li Shaoju, a citizen of Myanmar, on Monday for
smuggling more than 300 pounds of heroin, opium, and morphine from Myanmar to
China, newspapers reported.
In coastal Fujian province, five Taiwanese citizens were executed on Monday
for attempting to smuggle crystal methamphetamine - also known as "ice" - across
the strait to Taiwan. Eighteen heroin traffickers were also executed Monday in
Chongqing in southwestern China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
China has detained 15,000 suspected drug dealers and seized 2.2 tons of
heroin, 1.2 tons of opium, and 2 tons of "ice," in the first five months of the
year, state media reported.
In particular, "ice" and ecstacy are being produced in larger amounts, Jia
Chunwang, the Minister of Public Security said in comments published in the
English-language China Daily.
The number of registered drug addicts in China has risen from 681,000 in
1999 to 860,000 in 2000, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Police have carried out hundreds of executions since April under a renewed
crime crackdown that allows speeded up trials and broader use of the death
penalty. Executions are usually carried out by a gunshot to the back of the
head.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday June 27, 3:48 PM
ASEAN told to make "dynamic changes" to
compete with China in WTO
KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 (AFP) - Southeast Asian nations must make "dynamic changes" to meet strong trade competition from China after it joins the World Trade Organisation, the WTO's next chief said Wednesday. "We need to make dynamic changes now because China will become more
competitive in all fields in the future," said Supachai Panitchpakdi, referring
to member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
"We will suffer if we take things lying down... but we all realise the need
to be more competitive," Supachai told a press conference on the sidelines of an
economic forum.
"With China in WTO it means we need to be more speedy in restructuring our
economies. It's a good thing."
Chinese negotiators meet WTO members in Geneva Thursday for what is likely
to be one of the last rounds of talks before Beijing's entry into the global
trade body.
The incoming WTO director general said ASEAN must gain greater access to
the Chinese market and the two should become more closely integrated.
The original six ASEAN members are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar have
also joined in recent years.
Supachai said new ASEAN members "would not gain outright" from China's WTO
entry but the six original members and China could complement each other.
"Malaysia can still compete in terms of electronics although we still need
to make plans ahead," he said, noting China's "significant" spending on research
and development.
Thailand could still compete in electronics and food processing and the
Philippines in petrochemicals and food products.
Asked what Southeast Asia could do in the face of the global economic
slowdown, Supachai said: "I think we have to bite the bullet.
"We should not slacken or slow down our reform process but we have to step
it up.
"We need to keep up the momentum on trade liberalisation efforts. This
(economic) slowing down will be only temporary."
Supachai also welcomed the bilateral trade deals which Singapore has
reached or is discussing with the United States, New Zealand and Japan.
Malaysia has criticised the deals, saying they could give other countries a
back door into ASEAN.
"In principle I cannot find any fault with this kind of arrangement," said
Supachai.
He said ASEAN should be watchful that the deals did not give other
countries back door access without offering reciprocal trade privileges.
But rules of origin and regulations on local content requirement could
address the problem, he said.
---------------------------------------------------------------- FIFA-Myanmar
Football: Myanmar fined and banned by FIFA /SPT/ Kuala Lumpur, June 27, IRNA --
The Organising Committee of the 2002 World Cup Korea/Japan decided that
Myanmar, who withdrew from the qualifying tournament, would be fined 40,000
Swiss Francs.
The Committee further decided that Myanmar would be barred
from competing in the next FIFA World Cup competition, according to
the Asean Football Federation (AFF) on Wednesday
.
AFF said the organising committee, which discussed Myanmar's late
withdrawal at its meeting recently, took into considerations the various facts
before reaching its
decision.
However, the Committee felt that article 9.4 of the FIFA Regulations for
the 2002 World Cup must be respected and as such Myanmar was liable to a
fine of 40,000 Swiss
Francs.
The Committee also noted that article 9.7 of the same regulations had been
breached and as a result, Myanmar would be disqualified from competing in the
next World
Cup.
AFF stressed that the Myanmar FA were informed of the
Organising Committee's decision in a letter from FIFA General Secretary
Michel Zen
Ruffinen.
Myanmar announced their withdrawal from the World Cup
qualifying tournament in November last year during the Tiger Cup in
Thailand. Myanmar had a disappointing run in the Tiger Cup.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - June 27,
2001.
Border panel to work on mending
ties
Wassana Nanuam The Regional Border Committee will meet in Pattaya in August in a bid to
restore Thai-Burmese relations.
Maj-Gen Prasart Luewattananon, head of the Joint Operation Command-103
Centre, said Burma's Regional Triangle Commander Maj-Gen Thein Sein and Third
Army chief Lt-Gen Watanachai Chaimuanwong would be present. A recent Township
Border Committee meeting agreed the generals would meet unofficially over a game
of golf in Chiang Rai beforehand, and that the TBC would meet twice a month, he
said.
Relations would return to the state they were in before Thai-Burmese border
skirmishes in February.
All temporary border checkpoints and crossings in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai
had been reopened, except San Ton Du checkpoint in Chiang Mai opposite the Red
Wa's Mong Yawn town, and San Ma Khet checkpoint in Chiang Rai.
The Mae Sai-Tachilek checkpoint reopened last week but a change of Burmese
officials there has caused problems for goods moving from Thailand into
Burma.
Meanwhile, a military source said Burma was going ahead with plans to build
a power plant in Tachilek, despite concerns of residents.
Burma said modern technology would ease pollution concerns and that there
were no plans to sell power from the new plant to Mong Yawn.
Television commercials for a brand of tonic drink depicting ancient
Thai-Burmese battles at Bang Rajan village were withdrawn after Burma protested,
the source said.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar Highly Appreciates
Thaksin's Visit
2001.06.27 17:33:55 YANGON, June 27 (Xinhuanet) --
Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Khin Maung Win said Wednesday that his
country highly appreciated Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's recent
visit to Myanmar, describing it as a significant and successful one with
tangible results.
Meeting with the press at the guest house of the Defence Ministry
here, U Khin Maung Win noted that Thaksin's visit has brought about the
normalization of the two countries' spoiled ties due to border clashes over the
past four months since February.
He pointed out that a follow-up visit of Myanmar Foreign Minister U
Win Aung to Thailand 48 hours after the end of Thaksin' s to Myanmar has further
brought about an agreement between the two countries to maintain and
promote the momentum of understanding derived through Thaksin's
visit.
He disclosed that the Myanmar side had already formally reopened on
June 24 its Tachilek border point connecting Thailand' s Maesai to normalize the
border crossing and trade. The Tachilek point was closed since February
out of the border clashes.
Thaksin paid a two-day official visit to Myanmar on June 19-20, which was
the first Thai prime minister's visit to Yangon in more than three years
and also Thaksin's first visit to the country since he became the prime
minister early this year.
During the trip, Myanmar and Thailand reached a memorandum of
understanding (MOU) on cooperation in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances
and precursor chemicals control.
At the end of Thaksin's tour, the two countries also issued a joint
communique, pledging to further enhance the traditional friendship and
cooperation between two countries in the spirit of goodwill, friendship
and mutual understanding, guided by the principles of mutual respect for
each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and the settlement of
disputes by peaceful means.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar Seizes More Amount of
Stimulant Drug in June
2001.06.27 11:14:17 YANGON, June 27 (Xinhuanet) --
The Myanmar authorities seized 410, 000 more tablets of stimulant drug in
Kengtung, eastern Shan state of the country, in the middle of this month after
they had confiscated 131,600 tablets of such drug in Tachilek of the
same state earlier in the same month, according to the
country's Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control Wednesday.
The seizure was made by a combined team comprising local intelligence
unit and the police force when they searched a car passing by at a
checkpoint in the area on June 13.
Two people were arrested in connection with the case, the report
said, adding that they were punished under the country's Narcotic Drugs
and Psychotropic Substances Law.
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 kilograms (kg) of heroin and 590 kg of marijuana.
Besides, during the first four months of this year, the authorities
exposed a total of 1,017 drug-related cases, seizing 391.7 kg of opium and
23 kg of heroin and punishing 1,435 drug offenders involved in the cases,
the statistics show.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Foreign and Commonwealth
Office
June 26, 2001.
STATEMENT BY THE FOREIGN SECRETARY ON
BURMA
'I am grateful to Mr Razali for calling on me today to give his personal
account on how his work for national reconciliation in Burma is progressing. The
United Kingdom fully supports his efforts. I think there are grounds for
cautious optimism. I welcome the news from Burma that permission has been
granted for the reopening of 18 township offices of the NLD, the democratic
party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
'I also welcome reports that a number of political prisoners have been
released in Burma. They have been incarcerated for far too long. This will
provide a boost for the voices of freedom and democracy.
'We now look forward to further releases, as part of the confidence
building measures we hope the regime will take in support of its dialogue with
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.'
Notes for Editors
1. Talks between the Burmese regime and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi began
last October, but until now there have been few signs of significant progress.
However, permission has now been granted for the NLD to re-open 18 township
offices, and 13 political prisoners have been released over the past fortnight
(eight on 14 June, a further five on 21 June). This appears to be in response to
the demand for more releases handed over by UNSG Special Envoy Razali on behalf
of Aung San Suu Kyi during his visit to Burma earlier this month (1-4 June).
2. Those released include ethnic minority leaders Saw Mra Aung (Chairman,
Arakanese League for Democracy) and Chin Siang Thang (Chin Zomi leader). Also
released were NLD MPs Pa Swe, Han Zaw, Thein Myint, Maung Aye, Myo Win, Aung Soe
Myint, Pike Chon, Nyan Win, Dr Thein Lwin and Win Naing, as well as Aung San Suu
Kyi's cousin U Aye Win.
3. Some 1800 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Burma.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Asia Intelligence - June 27,
2001.Signs of change in
Myanmar
Development: Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has
recently released 13 political prisoners and reopened 20 offices of the
opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) in Yangon.
Assessment: The recent relaxation of the SPDC's attitude towards
pro-democracy activists is partly attributable to international opprobrium
towards the military regime. In early June the UN special envoy to
Myanmar, Razali Ismail, met with the SPDC to try to convince it to restart talks
with NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which had stalled since a positive start last
October. Although the regime has demonstrated it can crush any political
challenge from the NLD, the precarious economic situation in Myanmar might be
sufficient motive for it to seek some form of democratic legitimacy in return
for economic aid.
However, there is no reason to suppose the release of 13 prisoners and the
opening of a few NLD offices represent any sea-change in the SPDC's
stance. Amnesty International estimates around 1,850 political prisoners
remain behind bars. The NLD's three main leaders - Suu Kyi, Aung Shwe, and
Tin Oo - are still under house arrest. Local analysts suggest any deal
between the SPDC and the NLD would have to guarantee the military a role in
politics, grant amnesty to the current regime for any past abuses of human
rights, and prohibit the involvement of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burmese
politics. In addition, it is inconceivable that the SPDC, if it is
planning to develop democracy (as it claims), would allow a repeat of the 1990
elections in which the NLD scored a landslide victory.
The relaxation might help to endear the military to the international
community while allowing it to weaken the NLD and strengthen its own chances in
an elective system, thereby legitimizing the regime. Last week the SPDC
Chairman Than Shwe called for war veterans to be more politically active -
perhaps preparing them to enter elective politics on behalf of the
military.
But the pace and direction of change depend on the resolution of factional
differences within the SPDC. There is significant rivalry over who is to
succeed Than Shwe, with the moderate intelligence chief Khin Nyunt being
challenged by the anti-democracy second-in-command Maung Aye. Should Khin
Nyunt become the next SPDC chairman, he is more likely to push for an elective
system (similar to the one that elected Hun Sen in Cambodia in 1998 - with
international approval) while Maung Aye might roll back the limited concessions
the SPDC has already made.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Indiaexpress
24 Myanmarese caught trying to
cross over to Pakistan
20.21 IST 26th June 2001 Twenty-four Myanmarese, including six women and nine children, were
arrested by the paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) while they were trying
to cross over to Pakistan from a village in Sriganganagar district in Rajasthan
on the Indo-Pak border on Monday, the BSF said.
After interrogation, the arrested were handed over to the police, said BSF
Gujarat-Rajasthan frontier headquarters sources in Jaisalmer.
During questioning, the Myanmarese said that they wanted to go to Pakistan
while an unknown middleman from Delhi took them to the village but on the
pretext of talking to the officials for their onward journey ran away from the
scene, the sources said.
When he did not turn up, they themselves moved towards Pakistan border but
were apprehended, the sources said.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Electronic Telegraph
Wednesday 27 June 2001
Ex-headhunters guard Burmese 'speed'
factories
By Alex Spillius in Doi Kew Hung SCAN even the most detailed map and you will be lucky to find the town of
Mong Yawn. There is certainly no hint of a bustling community with its own army
and barracks, a school, a hospital, a casino and a hydro-electric power plant.
Yet the town, in the heart of the notorious Golden Triangle, is one of the region's biggest success stories. The reasons are clearly visible to the Thai soldiers peering through high-powered binoculars across the border into what is nominally Burma. Clearly visible in the valley ringed by craggy mountains are a pair of large, shed-like buildings where, the Thais claim, up to 300,000 pills are manufactured every day. Consisting chiefly of caffeine and the common cold cure ephedrine, the
pills are sent across the border into Thailand's Chiang Mai province, carried by
ant armies of smugglers along hundreds of forest trails. Burmese officials claim
that the buildings are rice warehouses. If so, it must be a particularly
expensive strain of rice. Until recently little more than a simple bamboo
settlement, like the surrounding villages that it now dwarfs, Mong Yawn now has
a population of some 60,000 and is expected to grow to 80,000 within two years.
The Thais and international experts estimate that one billion pills will
leave Mong Yawn and about 30 other factories in Burma this year. Two thirds of
them will be consumed in Thailand, which is fast becoming a nation on "speed".
Mong Yawn is controlled by an obscure guerrilla force, the United Wa State Army,
a segment of the small but ferocious Wa tribe that gave up headhunting only a
generation ago.
They were never mastered by the British colonial authorities or by the
military regimes of independent Burma. Now the Thais are finding them equally
hard to defeat in a war against the drug methamphetamine. A Bangkok-based expert
describes the UWSA's operation as a "country within a country" and the Wa as the
new kings of the Golden Triangle, the mountainous region where Burma, Thailand
and Laos converge.
For Thailand, the effects are horrendous. The press is filled with stories
of unemployed men wild on yaa baa (crazy medicine), as methamphetamine is known,
committing serious acts of violence. Schools have introduced urine testing to
combat rampant abuse, while a tenth of novice monks have sought help for
addiction. An infuriated Thai army has reinforced its border patrols, seizing 18
million pills this year and provoking serious clashes with the UWSA and regular
Burmese forces, who have pledged to defend the guerrillas against Thai
"incursions".
Last week, Thaksin Shinawatra, the Thai Prime Minister, ended a two-day
visit to Burma which he described as "very successful" with an agreement jointly
to fight drug production and to resolve border tension. But there is a lot of
patching up to do. The two sides have engaged in months of mutual recrimination,
with senior officers of both armed forces accusing each other of profiting from
drugs.
The Thais have accused Rangoon of turning a blind eye to the UWSA's
activities as a reward for ending their guerrilla war 12 years ago. For all the
commitments of both the Thais and Burmese to wiping out narcotics, Wei
Hseuh-kang, the mastermind of the UWSA, travels freely between the two
countries, is a citizen of both and is able to exploit corrupt officialdom on
either side.
He also has a large house in Chiang Mai, the northern Thai capital.
Whenever he leaves Mong Yawn, he can rest assured that an army of 20,000,
equipped with automatic weapons, artillery and heat-seeking surface-to-air
missiles remains to protect his interests.
"We would like to arrest him," said a Thai army intelligence officer, "but
somehow it is difficult."
---------------------------------------------------------------- |