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BURMA RELATED NEWS - July 01,
2001.
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HEADLINES
---------------------------------------------------------------- Hoovers - Burma: Khin
Nyunt warns customs staff over misconduct, graft
The Boston Globe - Message to Burma
AsiaWeek - A Settlement Looms in Myanmar
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Hoovers Burma: Khin Nyunt warns customs staff
over misconduct, graft
June 30, 2001 10:36am
Source: Radio Myanmar,
Rangoon, in Burmese 1330 gmt 28 Jun 01
Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council
[SPDC], met with staff of Customs Department at the Ministry of Finance and
Revenue at 1400 [local time] today. Firstly, Finance and Revenue Minister U Khin
Maung Thein explained the organizational set-up of the ministry, background
history of the Customs Department, staff structure and strength, departmental
programmes, objectives, and other salient points.
In his speech SPDC Secretary-1 Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt said; in implementing the
national economic policies in accord with the market-oriented economy, the
country is giving priority to the progress of the nation's international
economic and trade relations, proportionate development of exports and imports,
acquiring of international techniques and investments and emergence of national
entrepreneurs who will contribute to the progress of the national economy.
Promotion of international trade relations has led to development of the
transport and flow of goods. Furthermore, launching of regular trade and border
trade with the neighbouring countries has increased the number of border
checkpoints, the trade volume, and entries and exits...
At the present, collecting of taxes is to earn revenues for management
tasks and national development projects of the nation. But the tax collectors
and tax payers are required to clearly understand that the aim of collecting
taxes is not only to earn revenues for the State. The basic principles of tax
collection is for ensuring the proportionate budget system, controlling
inflation, and adjusting the domestic consumption, investment and savings...
The secretary-1 next explained the authority of the Customs Department
which include seizure and taking action against smugglers. As the State has
invested them with the duties and authority with trust, the customs officers
should be loyal to the State, should use their authority only in the service of
national interests, and should restrain from abusing power. He warned the staff
about misconduct, abuse of authority, and the practice of bribery as a norm.
Due to the market-oriented economic system currently being practised, the
number of commercial activities and export and import activities have increased
as well as the participation of private businessmen. Just as importers conduct
their business in accord with the laws, rules, and regulations to ensure the
smoothness of increasing commercial activities, to make commodity flow smooth
and swift, and to fulfil the requirements of private business and production
sector, the Customs Department is to work exactly and correctly in accord with
the laws. Laws, rules and regulations are not designed to have a detrimental
effect on public interests but are aimed at promoting public interests...
Khin Nyunt then advised the customs employees who are dealing with the
public to have high moral standard and to safeguard national interests with
patriotic spirit. They are to prevent the entry of commodities into the nation
with clear national outlook from the health, educational, cultural, moral,
security and administrative points of view...
In conclusion, the secretary-1 urged all those present to contribute to
development of national economy and foreign commercial activities by carrying
out customs tasks correctly and swiftly; to perform the tasks with national
outlook for the sake of national defence and security and national interests; to
provide services for the people to be able to do commercial activities freely
and peacefully; to strive to earn more foreign exchange by providing proper
services and to assess customs duties in accord with the laws and rules and
regulations; and to contribute to the flourishing of the market-oriented
economic system. Afterwards, the ceremony came to a close.
---------------------------------------------------------------- A BOSTON GLOBE
EDITORIAL - Message to
Burma
7/1/2001
WITH HIS new legislative effort to prevent the state's $30 billion pension
fund from buying stock in any company doing business in Burma - where an
illegitimate narco-junta commits the vilest human rights abuses - state
Representative Byron Rushing is defending the right of the people of
Massachusetts to decide what may be done with their money.
Rushing's earlier selective purchasing act was overturned last year by the
US Supreme Court on the narrow grounds that it had been preempted by federal
sanctions on the junta that were imposed a year after the Massachusetts law was
passed. Both that earlier law and the current bill were modeled on the precedent
of an executive order by which the Commonwealth had divested from the apartheid
regime in South Africa.
Fittingly, it was South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bishop Desmond
Tutu who first gave Rushing the idea to craft legislation that would free the
people of Massachusetts from complicity with Burma's thuggish military junta.
Tutu was acting in solidarity with his fellow Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu
Kyi, who has been held under house arrest as the leader of the party that won 80
percent of the seats in Parliament in Burma's last free elections, in 1990.
The junta has not only thwarted the voters' will, but has collaborated in
the trafficking of heroin and methamphetamine, has forced villagers to porter
for the army across minefields, and has been sanctioned by the International
Labor Organization for its persistent exploitation of forced labor.
The current bill requiring the state's pension fund to divest from Burma is
markedly different from Rushing's earlier selective purchasing law. The
overturned 1996 law prevented some companies from selling their goods or
services to the state. Rushing's new divestment bill applies only to the buying
of stocks by the state's pension fund, and it will be hard to argue that stock
prices might thereby be improperly depressed or that this bill conflicts with
federal sanctions on the junta.
The state's pension fund is already divested of all tobacco stocks. The
Rushing bill to divest from Burma derives from the deepest moral source of the
American attachment to government that represents the people.
---------------------------------------------------------------- AsiaWeek - Wednesday, June 27,
2001
A Settlement Looms in Myanmar
The two sides will be shaking hands by the end of the year By ROGER MITTON Visiting Myanmar recently, it became evident that a political breakthrough is imminent. I had suspected this some time ago, but was prevented from checking it out because the military regime refused to give me a journalist's visa. Apparently, some of my stories had incurred displeasure, notably one about the mistreatment of National League for Democracy MP-elects in Pathein and another about the regime's business cronies. For more than six months, I could not get in. Then, toward the end of April, the authorities relented. I booked a flight immediately. As usual, once in Yangon, I sought to speak to people both in the regime
and in the National League for Democracy (NLD), as well as businessmen,
diplomats, NGO representatives, lawyers, doctors, journalists, religious leaders
and members of the ethnic minorities. All of them, without exception, were
thrilled that the regime was engaged in discussions with the NLD leader, Aung
San Suu Kyi, aimed at ending the political stalemate. I learned that Maj.-Gen.
Kyaw Win, the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Studies at the Ministry
of Defense, was meeting regularly with Suu Kyi. I sought to find out more about
him.
It was not easy. Kyaw Win is a private person and does not give interviews
to the press. One thing is certain: He is not a typical military man. Kyaw Win
is a respected painter (his works are often exhibited at one of the galleries in
Yangon's trendy Golden Valley suburb), an avid photographer (earlier this year,
he was scouting round for a good digital camera) and a keen sportsman (once a
month, he brings together all the military attachés at the foreign embassies to
play tennis, badminton, golf or some other sport).
Kyaw Win's interest in arts and culture is one of several things he has in
common with Suu Kyi. Intriguingly, they are both the same age, 56, and both lost
their father at a very young age. Hers, the modern nation's founder, Gen. Aung
San, was assassinated when she was two years old. Kyaw Win's died soon after he
was born, and he was raised with the help of monks in Mandalay. Both then
attended school in Yangon at the same time -- she at the Methodist School, he at
St. Paul's. It is said that the two get along well. In 1995, when Suu Kyi was
released from house arrest, Kyaw Win told her: "I believe I'll be the one to
negotiate with you sometime in the future." He has said that he finds her
"congenial and nice," and that their "discussions on transition are going very
well."
Certainly, he appears well suited to the negotiator's art, having studied
psychology at the University of Yangon. He was there during the student protests
of July 1962, when troops shot dead a large number of students. After
graduating, he attended officer training school in Yangon. He then saw
anti-insurgency action in the field and likes to joke that an abdominal scar
resulting from a botched appendix operation is a war wound. He was later
assigned to the intelligence corps and became an acolyte of Than Shwe, now the
nation's paramount ruler.
Kyaw Win's dialogue skills were honed during the early 1990s, when he was a
key figure in the talks that led to landmark ceasefire agreements with all but
one of the nation's warring ethnic minorities. Now deputy head of the
intelligence services -- only Khin Nyunt ranks higher in this department -- he
has been entrusted by Than Shwe to deal with the Suu Kyi negotiations. If they
reach an accord, it will be a tremendous achievement for both him and Suu Kyi.
It is now nine months since they began talking. Admittedly, that is a very
short time to resolve the political morass that this nation of almost 50 million
has sunk into after half a century of misrule. But they are making progress --
if they were not, the talks would have been cut off long ago (both Suu Kyi and
Kyaw Win are principled, no-nonsense types, who would not waste time talking
unless something substantive were being achieved). The external signs are
favorable. Since the dialogue began, large numbers of NLD members have been
released from detention (including a new batch last week). In addition to its
busy HQ on Yangon's Shwegontaing Road, the NLD has reactivated other branch
offices. An apparent rapprochement with the International Labor Organization
over the use of forced labor seems to be on the horizon, with the regime likely
to allow the ILO to station a delegation in Myanmar to carry out first-hand
checks on alleged abuses in sensitive border areas. Some Western governments
have also been reassessing the effectiveness of their economic blockade, with
the new U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell saying that in broad terms he has
doubts about the efficacy of sanctions policies anywhere in the world. Even now,
multinationals are studying Myanmar for opportunities and already Canada's
Ivanhoe Mining has announced a $400-million investment plan.
Ralph "Skip" Boyce, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state and
incoming ambassador to Indonesia, visited Suu Kyi in February with the head of
the American mission in Yangon, Priscilla Clapp. Later, Clapp said there were
"rays of hope" for an end to the political stalemate. Soon after, the United
Nations Human Rights rapporteur, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, paid a call on Suu Kyi.
Afterwards, he said: "There are several signs that indicated evolution leading
to an eventual political opening." Translated from diplospeak, that means:
Prepare for a breakthrough. If that were not enough, Boyce said a few weeks ago,
when passing through Bangkok: "[The dialogue] has been going on for eight
months. We expect to see a concrete result in a short while." Such statements
from top U.S. officials would have been tantamount to sedition a year ago.
Meantime, ASEAN has been forging ahead and the fruits of the Thai Prime
Minister's visit last week show that a new mood is in the air. Trade tariffs
between Myanmar and Thailand will be cut to foster trade, a key northern border
crossing has already been reopened, and steps to combat the drug trade were
agreed upon. If this pace continues, it is almost certain that before the end of
the year, the world's press will carry pictures of Than Shwe and Suu Kyi shaking
hands. As the saying goes, you cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps. Suu Kyi
and Kyaw Win have had the courage to take a massive leap. They deserve to reach
the other side. And they will. Soon.
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