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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- October 06 - 07, 2002.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Malaysia pushes for
ASEAN-plus-three secretariat
AFP - UN warns Asia of HIV/AIDS
threat to economic growth
AFP - Myanmar dissidents urge
international community to withhold aid
AFP - WHO seeks 300 million dollars a
year to fight tuberculosis
Asia Pulse - Aung Suu Kyi, India's
Ramakrishna Mission Receive Unesco Awards
Reuters - Asia lags Africa in dealing
with AIDS, faces big risk
Reuters - Thai refuge highlights
Asia's human trafficking pain
AP - Myanmar opposition leader
says Australia should limit ties with ruling junta
AP - Myanmar troops clash with
rebels, kill two
AP - Thai leader urges Asian
self-sufficiency to avoid financial crisis
AP - China and five other countries engage in widespread repression of
religion
The Age - Suu Kyi attacks
Downer policy
The Age - Burma's iron
butterfly
Bkk Post - Editorial - Mekong
is not only a source of energy
The Nation - Officer may have
been executed for spying in Burma
AP - Asian Officials Fear
Fallout of War
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday October 6, 2:51 PM
Malaysia pushes for ASEAN-plus-three secretariat KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 (AFP) - Malaysia has pushed for ASEAN approval to house a secretariat for the dialogue process between the 10-member Southeast Asian grouping and China, Japan and South Korea, which was rejected last July by some member countries. "Malaysia believes there should be a secretariat to handle bigger issues beyond ASEAN. At the moment, the ASEAN secretariat (in Jakarta) is certaintly very overloaded," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters Sunday. Earlier, Abdullah held a dialogue session with some 30 young ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) leaders on the sidelines of the three-day East Asia Economic Summit. "I am looking at the ASEAN-plus-three cooperation as a special cooperation. If the secretariat is in Kuala Lumpur, it can concentrate more on certain projects that need to be undertaken. At the moment we cannot get the (ASEAN) consensus. "We all supported Singapore to provide the secretariat for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), so this is just distributing our responsibility so that it can lighten the burden (of the ASEAN secretariat)," the deputy prime minister said. Abdullah said Malaysia felt that for the dialogue process between ASEAN and the three East Asian countries to be meaningful, a secretariat should be established to carry out follow-up activities. "To make ASEAN-plus-three effective there must be a secretariat to do follow-up work," he told the participants. Abdullah said the new body should work closely with and complement the existing ASEAN secretariat. "It should not undermine it. The ASEAN secretariat will in fact benefit from being spared the burden of servicing the ASEAN-plus-three process, whose agenda will no doubt mount in the years ahead," he said. Among the countries that were strongly against Malaysia's proposal were Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. They fear a new secretariat would undermine the existing one in Jakarta. China, Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, are said to have given tacit backing to the Kuala Lumpur plan. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Asia's longest serving leader, has been fervently calling for an East Asian grouping. For now, ASEAN ministers have agreed to allow an ASEAN-plus-three unit under the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta. ASEAN groups Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 7, 2:51 PM
UN warns Asia of HIV/AIDS
threat to economic growth
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (AFP) - The United Nations warned Monday that HIV/AIDS could hamper economic growth in Asia with "tens of millions" infected over the next decade if the region failed to move fast to curb the epidemic. There are now some seven million Asians infected with HIV/AIDS but the epidemic is spreading "very fast" in the region due to denial and inaction especially in rural and provincial areas, said UN AIDS chief Peter Piot. "What I am seeing in many Asian countries is that the top leadership speaks about it, knows about it, is aware and wants to act," he told AFP on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's East Asia Economic Summit. "But when you go down to the bureaucracy, there is resistance either for religious reasons or conservatism or because it's a difficult issue to tackle or to talk about sex or to deal with drug users." Piot said India has the most HIV/AIDS cases in Asia with some four million sufferers, the second highest in the world after South Africa. Some states in India have now about two percent of their adult population or one out of 50 who are HIV-positive and the problem is growing, he said. But Southeast Asian nations -- Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar -- have the highest percentage of infections compared to their overall population. Piot said the situation has improved in Cambodia, which now has fewer new infections than it did five years ago, and in Thailand after awareness campaigns, but infection "continues to go up in a way that is quite dramatic" in Myanmar. "If business continues as usual in Asia, then we will go to tens of millions (infections over the next 10 years)," he said. "In China alone, one can say safely that there will be at least 10 million, maybe 15 million... but my point is that it doesn't have to be that way if governments and businesses start behaving like they have done in Thailand and Cambodia and go for it." Piot urged the corporate sector to shoulder the cost of fighting the epidemic after government funds dwindled in the aftermath of the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. Earlier at the summit, the UN launched a program to engage the private sector in the HIV/AIDS battle in the Philippines and Indonesia. "It's time to act now... the longer one waits, the more expensive the bill will be and more lives lost," Piot told a news conference. He said the problem in Asia was that HIV/AIDS programs through government and community initiatives were too small-scale and their challenge was to expand it to the whole population, especially to youths. Otherwise, the epidemic had a "destabilising effect" in the workplace which would eventually filter down to the economy, he warned. Malaysia also announced plans to launch a program to get businesses to raise awareness among staff, avoid discriminating against those infected and to provide treatment for them. Health Minister Chua Jui Meng told the news conference that the government may also consider drawing up regulations to prevent discrimination of HIV/AIDS victims in the workplace. As of June, there are some 42,600 HIV/AIDS sufferers in Malaysia, while some 5,000 have died. Chua said the government estimated a 441 million ringgit (116 million dollars) loss of future income due to the premature deaths, most which occurred at the age of 30. Malaysia had spent some 84 million dollars on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and support between 1993 and 2001. John Kivits, Standard Chartered Bank's chief executive in Malaysia, said the HIV/AIDS epidemic was a "big economic issue" for businesses and could translate into significant costs. In Africa for instance, he said the bank recorded an average 10 percent absenteeism daily by its staff due to HIV/AIDS related matters and its operation costs in Zimbabwe had risen by 11-13 percent due to the disease. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday October 6, 05:20 AM
Myanmar dissidents urge
international community to withhold aid
BANGKOK, Oct 6 (AFP) - Myanmar dissidents Sunday urged the international community to withhold aid from the military-run country until the ruling generals commit themselves to democratic reforms. The Thailand-based National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), the leading umbrella organisation of dissident groups including ethnic minorities and exiled activists, said aid only worsened the situation in the country. "We strongly believe that international aid is used by the regime to create legitimacy where there is none," it said in a statement. "Indirect aid frees the regime of its responsibility to the well-being of the people of Burma. Public expenditure on health and education, always minimal under the regime, has actually decreased in the last few years." Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to soften her stance on the issue in August, telling Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi she would no longer oppose foreign aid provided it fell within strict guidelines. Since the Nobel peace laureate's release in May from 19 months of house arrest, she had indicated a new willingness to engage with the generals, with an eye to the start of a landmark political dialogue. But in recent weeks, with the dialogue process apparently stalled, the opposition's olive branch on aid, which would have opened the door to foreign-funded infrastructure projects, appears to have been withdrawn. Japan -- the biggest creditor nation and aid donor to Myanmar -- has already said it stands to increase aid once the generals and Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) strike a deal on how to receive the assistance. But the United States -- the leading proponent of economic sanctions that have helped cripple Myanmar's economy -- has said it will not consider increasing aid until it sees concrete steps towards reform. Most other western governments are also holding back at least until the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which has so far made only minor concessions, commits to fully fledged political reconciliation talks. The NCUB said that international sanctions and pressure had helped secure the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi's and hundreds more political prisoners who have been released from jail over the past two years. "Now is the time to escalate the pressure and sanctions to make good these small steps towards political dialogue for change," it said. "Therefore we call on the international community to withhold aid, especially through Rangoon, until there is a transitional arrangement for nation-building process as a result of meaningful tripartite dialogue." Dissident groups have repeatedly called for the dialogue between the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi to be expanded into a tripartite process including Myanmar's ethnic minorities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday October 6, 00:59 AM
WHO seeks 300 million dollars
a year to fight tuberculosis GENEVA, Oct 6 (AFP)- The World Health Organization (WHO) needs an extra 300 million dollars a year to reach its goals in the fight against tuberculosis, a WHO statement said on Sunday. "Tuberculosis experts working with WHO estimate that the total cost of tuberculosis control worldwide is 1.2 billion dollars every year," the statement said. "Three quarters of that total is already covered by countries, donors and other sources. The remaining 300 million dollars each year is urgently needed if the targets are to be met by 2005", the statement added. The target is to detect 70 percent of estimated tuberculosis cases wordwide, up from 30 percent today, using the established DOTS programme, by which visitors to clinics with tubercular symptoms are given a spit test and offered a standard six- to eight-month course of treatment if the disease is confirmed. "Tuberculosis is an entirely curable disease," said Doctor J W Lee, director of WHO's STOP TB Department in Geneva. The 22 countries most affected by tuberculosis are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 7, 8:47 AM
Aung Suu Kyi, India's Ramakrishna Mission Receive Unesco Awards PARIS, Oct 7 Asia Pulse - Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader of Myanmar, has been selected for UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence while India's Ramakrishna Mission receives Honourable Mention. "Aung San Suu Kyi was the laureate of the 1991 Nobel [Peace] Prize for having attempted to establish democracy in Burma. An international symbol of peaceful resistance to oppression, she is still pursuing her non-violent struggle for democracy and tolerance in Myanmar," a UNESCO press release Friday quoted the the jury as saying. The Ramakrishna Mission has been selected for the Honourable Mention "for its unrelenting efforts to promote the principles of tolerance and non-violence in assisting disadvantaged groups," it said. The international jury for the coveted prize, including former Prime Minister I K Gujaral, unanimously selected Suu Kyi, UNESCO Director-General Konchiro Matsuura said. The UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence will be presented in a ceremony at Organization Headquarters on Nov 16, International Day for Tolerance which is also the anniversary of UNESCO's foundation. The $100,000 prize is dedicated to advancing the spirit of tolerance in arts, education, culture, science and communication. It is awarded every two years to an individual or an institution for exceptional contributions in the field of tolerance promotion. The Prize was created in 1995 noted Indian philathrop, writer and diplomat Madanjeet Singh. He is also a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 7, 8:56 PM
Asia lags Africa in dealing with AIDS, faces big risk KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Asian countries lag African nations in addressing the threat of HIV/AIDS and risk major social and economic woes if they fail to act, business and health experts said on Monday. Seven million Asians carry the HIV infection, including four million of India's population of more than one billion and high per capita rates in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, but public and political knowledge are sorely lacking. The United Nations estimates 60 million people have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, since the epidemic struck two decades ago. John Kivits, chief executive officer and managing director of Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia , said there was greater awareness of the issues in Africa, where Standard Chartered has 5,000 staff in 13 countries. Kivits said his bank has first-hand experience of the effect of HIV/AIDS on a business and its employees. "On any one day, 10 percent of those staff are absent on AIDS/HIV-related matters. Either they're ill, or they're attending to relatives or they're attending funerals, so clearly it's a huge socio-economic issue for us," he said after a World Economic Forum conference session on the issue. "I don't find the same levels of awareness in Asia. I think there's a lot of work to be done on that," said the bank executive, who has been in Malaysia just six months. Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations programme UNAIDS, picked out Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia as having particularly high infection rates but warned against complacency elsewhere. "There isn't a single country today where HIV is not present," he told a news conference, adding that governments had some good programmes in place but not nearly enough. UNAIDS has said China, with up to 1.5 million people carrying HIV at the end of last year, could see the figure rise to 10 million by the end of the decade if there is no effective action. Standard Chartered plans shortly to extend its African HIV/AIDS staff awareness programme across its global operations, including Asia, boosting staff education and running a non-discrimination policy to protect infected employees. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday October 7, 9:46 AM
FEATURE-Thai refuge highlights Asia's human trafficking pain By Katie Hunt NONTHABURI, Thailand, Oct 7 (Reuters) - In some respects 14-year-old Rak is like any other teenage girl. She takes aerobics classes and hopes to be a hairdresser. But two years ago, Rak was taken, along with six other children, from her village in southern Laos. A woman had convinced her mother that Rak could help her impoverished family by working at a fruit farm just over the border in Thailand. There, Rak was forced to work 20 hours a day as a maid -- beaten with plastic sandals if she fell asleep and given just half a packet of instant noodles to eat. She has not seen her parents for over two years and doesn't know when she will see them again. "Mum told me I would be away for a few months and back before Songkhran (new year festival)," said the wide-eyed teenager, now in a refuge. "But Songkhran has already passed twice." ISLAND REFUGE Perched on an island on the Chao Phraya river, a short drive from Thailand's capital Bangkok, the Kred Trakarn protection centre is home to hundreds of women and girls, including Rak, who were victims of human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar business across Asia. Firm figures are hard to come by but the U.S. State Department estimates at least 700,000 people are trafficked each year in Southeast Asia. Most victims are women and children. "The best policy is for the women and girls to return home to their families," Yanee Lertkrai, the Thai centre's director, told reporters before a United Nations conference to help combat trafficking, which is being held in Bangkok from Monday to Wednesday this week. "But it's not easy. The most difficult cases are when we cannot identify the family. It's heartbreaking." Foreign women and girls, mainly from Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Southern China, make up nearly half the centre's 242 residents. Lured to Thailand by brighter economic prospects, their dreams have turned sour -- around 70 percent of the foreign women at the shelter have been sexually exploited. REPEAT CASES One teenager, thought to be from China, was rescued from a brothel in northern Thailand. Mentally scarred by the experience, she has been at the centre for over a year and there is little chance she will return home. "She doesn't really say anything, she just smiles," said Monthip Kityingsopon, a social worker at the centre, as her hand rested on the girl's shoulder. "She once told someone she was from Yunnan, but we just don't know. The border is very unclear up there." The centre is home to Cambodian children as young as three who have been found begging and selling flower garlands on Bangkok's traffic-clogged streets. "Some kids have been here more than once. Their families just send them back. Begging is a way of life for them," Yanee said, adding the children are taken to Thailand by organised gangs. According to the International Labour Organisation, trafficking in children in Thailand is a trade worth $11.53 billion -- a racket more profitable than illegal drugs. The Kred Trakarn centre hopes to provide a way out of the grinding poverty that forces women to seek work in the sex trade. The government-run centre offers vocational training in its white-washed classrooms, which stand a metre above the ground to escape frequent flooding. Classes are available in hairdressing, foot massage, aerobics, weaving, computing, batik and English classes. "We aim to give them certain skills so they can fend for themselves. We want them to be independent," Yanee said. Despite the secluded island location opposite a picturesque Buddhist temple, security is a concern. Ten years ago, a group of pimps bent on revenge tried to poison residents with laced chilli paste. Before that, brothel owners attempted to smuggle out former workers by speed boat. MODEL REFUGE With its stress on training and school-like atmosphere, Jean D'Cunha, a specialist in gender and globalisation from the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said the centre, one of four in Thailand, could serve as a model for the region. "It doesn't have that prison feeling that many places in South Asia have. It's taking the right approach." D'Cunha said. As for Rak, who must stay in Thailand while her former employers face charges, the big question is when she will be allowed to return home to Laos. Court proceedings are lengthy in Thailand and Rak has been at the centre for over a year. Last month, she received compensation of 17,000 baht ($390) from her former employers but Rak, who wears the centre's dark blue uniform, has no plans to treat herself. She is saving the money to give to her rice-farming parents and her sister. "We barely had enough to eat. Despite what happened, I want them to have the money," she said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar opposition leader says
Australia should limit ties with ruling junta
Mon Oct 7, 5:06 AM ET CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia should support international sanctions aimed at restoring democracy in Myanmar ? instead of trying to influence the ruling junta through closer diplomatic ties ? opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview published Monday. Suu Kyi, who heads Myanmar's National League for Democracy party, said Canberra should limit its contacts with the regime and support tough U.S. and European Union sanctions until the junta resumes stalled on political reform. "If everybody were to take a united stand it would be far more effective than some people thinking that their way is better than others," the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner told Australia's Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. Her comments come less than a week after Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer spent two days in Myanmar to promote talks between the military junta and pro-democracy groups. He met with Suu Kyi and senior government officials, including junta leader Gen. Than Shwe. Australia takes a more conciliatory line toward Myanmar than other western countries. It does not impose sanctions, and conducts human rights courses for officials as part of an aid program. Suu Kyi urged Australia to scrap the courses. "I don't think they have achieved anything," the Herald quoted her as saying. Myanmar's military junta came to power in 1988. It held elections in 1990, but refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's party won. Closed-door talks between Suu Kyi and the junta, which began in October 2000, have stalled despite Suu Kyi's pleas for them to resume. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relief workers: Myanmar troops
clash with rebels, kill two
Sat Oct 5, 07:44 AM ET MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) _ Myanmar troops attacked a remote village after clashing with ethnic Karen rebels, killing two villagers and burning houses and crops, relief workers who traveled in the area said Saturday. The soldiers skirmished with members of the Karen National Union, or KNU, on Sept. 28 near Kyauk Kyee township in southern Myanmar, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of the border with Thailand. One government soldier was killed and another injured, said the Myanmar relief workers, speaking on condition of anonymity. Later that day, the Myanmar troops accused villagers in nearby Mae Le Khee of supporting the ethnic rebel group and opened fire on them, said the relief workers, who arrived late Friday at the Thai border. The workers quoted villagers as saying that a Karen couple _ Saw Wei Moe, 29, and his wife Naw Mae Lar, 25, were killed, and the woman's body mutilated. Four other people were injured. The soldiers allegedly then burned crops in four other villages in the area. Human rights groups say that Myanmar soldiers often raid Karen villages, accusing residents of giving sanctuary to the KNU, which has been fighting for greater autonomy since Myanmar, also known as Burma, achieved independence from Britain in 1948. Myanmar military regime denies mistreating the nation's ethnic minorities. Some 120,000 people displaced by the conflict live in Thai border camps, most of them Karen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thai leader urges Asian self-sufficiency to
avoid financial crisis
Sun Oct 6, 05:46 AM ET KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra urged East Asia on Sunday to lessen dependence on the world's largest countries to prevent another economic crisis, and suggested setting up a regional bond market. Charting development ``should no longer be left to anyone but ourselves,'' Thaksin said in a speech at the annual East Asian Economic Summit, a regional conference of government and business leaders organized by the World Economic Forum. The ``twin calamities'' of Sept. 11 and the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 ``are choking the two main growth engines of the world, the United States and Japan, in such a way that they may not be able to restart the engines over the short term,'' Thaksin said. Thaksin suggested that Asia could grow stronger by setting up a regional bond market, with each country mobilizing 1 percent of its financial reserves. The market would help Asia's growth potential and ``prevent exploitation of our reserves by others against the interests of ourselves,'' Thaksin said. Thaksin has adopted a less Western-oriented approach to economic matters than previous Thai governments. His theme at the conference echoed remarks by Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whom Thaksin admires. Mahathir has complained that Western-based institutions like the International Monetary Fund let Asia down during the regional crisis five years ago. Mahathir, who has led Malaysia since 1981, has long championed the idea of a regional East Asian economic bloc to counter the weight of the United States and the European Union. Asia has moved in fits and starts toward a loose grouping. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations now meets regularly with the three Northeast Asian powerhouses _ Japan, China and South Korea _ on economic issues, and has discussed moving toward an East Asian free-trade area. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- China and five other countries engage in
widespread repression of religion
Mon Oct 7, 10:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) _ China and
five other countries engage in widespread repression of religion, seeing
religious worship as a threat to the dominant ideology, a new State Department
report says.
The department's 2002 report on international religious freedom, released Monday, puts Myanmar, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam in the same category as China. It acknowledged that repression of religion exists in a number of other countries. In China, the report says, ``Unapproved religious and spiritual groups remained under scrutiny and, in some cases, harsh repression.'' It said the government continued to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship. The government also continued to control the ``growth and scope of the activity of religious groups to prevent the rise of possible sources of authority outside of the control of the government,'' the report said. The report's finding on the other five countries: Myanmar: The government continued to view religious freedom in the context of threats to national unity. Cuba: Citizens worshipping in officially sanctioned churches often were subject to surveillance by state security forces. Laos: The government inhibited religious practice by all persons, especially those belonging to minority religions, particularly Christianity, that fall outside of the mainstream Buddhism. North Korea: Religious freedom and human rights groups in general that outside the country provided numerous reports that members of underground churches have been beaten, arrested, or killed. Vietnam: There were credible reports that in past years Hmong Protestant Christians in several northwestern villages were forced by local authorities to recant their faith. The report listed Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as countries which are hostile to certain minority religions. The report credited only Afghanistan with making a significant improvement in the area of religious freedom over the past year. This, it said, was brought about by the fall of the Taliban and the subsequent establishment of an interim government. ``The ultra-conservative, Islamic state system created by the Taliban collapsed following the onset of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001,'' the report said. ``In its place, an interim governing body now administers a far more tolerant regime.'' the report added. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Age
Suu Kyi attacks Downer policy October 07 2002 By Mark Baker- Asia Editor Rangoon, Burma Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has attacked Australia's engagement with the country's military regime and urged a united international stand to help bring a return to democracy. Ms Suu Kyi said Australia should endorse a tough regime of economic and political sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union and limit its contacts with the regime until it honoured promises to start talks on political reform. She described a controversial Australian program of human rights training courses for Burmese officials as pointless and a waste of money. "If everybody were to take a united stand it would be far more effective than some people thinking that their way is better than others," the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner told The Age. "I've always thought that a coordinated approach is much better than each country doing its own thing." Her comments are a rebuke to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who last week became the most senior Western official to visit Rangoon since the National League for Democracy leader was released in May after 19 months under house arrest. Mr Downer held talks with senior members of the regime, which crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988, killing thousands of civilians, denied the NLD's 1990 landslide election victory and kept Ms Suu Kyi under house arrest for eight of the past 14 years. He also met Ms Suu Kyi. The US and the EU continue to refuse high-level contact with the regime and have imposed crippling sanctions on trade, aid and investment, but Mr Downer argues that Australia can better influence a return to democracy by communicating with the generals. Unlike the US, Australia maintains normal diplomatic relations, neither encourages nor discourages Australian companies doing business in Burma, has not imposed a blanket ban on visas for senior government officials and continues a modest aid program. "Australia is of interest because we have taken a different, a unique approach to dealing with Myanmar," Mr Downer said while in Rangoon. "So we have some contacts with them in a way that people like the British and the Americans at the other extreme don't have. We are perceived to be a so-called Western country, albeit a regional country . . . and I think that gives us a bit more leverage than would otherwise be the case." But Ms Suu Kyi repudiated suggestions that such a policy could achieve results. "We don't agree with some of the ways the Australian Government uses in order to bring about democratic change. We do agree on the need for democratic values to prevail in Burma." She urged Australia to scrap a program, recently extended, under which hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent running human rights workshops for middle-ranking Burmese civil servants, including police and magistrates. Ms Suu Kyi said foreign governments should limit contacts with the regime until it took steps to begin talks on political reform, and the NLD would oppose foreign aid, investment and tourism until then. "We cannot change on matters of policy until such time as political dialogue is in place," she said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Age
Burma's iron butterfly October 07 2002 By Mark Baker - Asia Editor Rangoon She sits on an old wooden chair with a simple floral cover in the cramped room that has become home to a nation's desperate ambition for peace. Lines have appeared on a face that once seemed eternally young and there is a tiredness in the famous dark eyes that betrays a burden that grows only heavier as the years slip by. It is 14 years since Aung San Suu Kyi came home to Burma from England on what she expected to be a brief visit to nurse her dying mother - only to be caught up in the maelstrom of a bloody democracy uprising that transformed her into the embodiment of her people's hopes and an international emblem of courage. Now she is 57 and a grandmother twice over, and still the struggle drags on. In May, when Suu Kyi was released from the second round of her eight long years under house arrest, there was international celebration at the prospect of a breakthrough that would lead Burma out of four decades of military dictatorship. In a public statement that echoed private promises of an early start to talks on national reconciliation, the regime declared: "We shall recommit ourselves to allowing all our citizens to participate freely in the life our political process while giving priority to national unity, peace and stability." Five months later, the world and Aung San Suu Kyi are still waiting. "Intentions are not enough. We think that the time is ripe, over ripe, for concrete steps to be taken," she says, backing warnings by diplomats and aid agency officials that stonewalling by the generals on political change, combined with rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Burma, could trigger a fresh eruption of public protests. "I see this in all the places I've been in recent months. People are increasingly unhappy about the whole situation, not just about the economy but about the state of education, about the state of health care, about many things. There's a lot of frustration, there's no doubt about it. That is why I think there is a need for speedy change. It's not enough just talking about change, there has to be change." While she stops short of endorsing predictions that popular anger and resentment could lead to a reprise of the 1988 pro-democracy protests that triggered a brutal military crackdown in which an estimated 10,000 civilians were killed, there's an implicit warning: "Let's just say this frustration is building up to an unhealthy level. I don't know that I would go as far as to say a dangerous level, but certainly it's undesirable and unhealthy that there should be so much frustration among the people." We meet at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy, the party that won 82 per cent of seats in the 1990 elections the generals were sure they could control but refused to honour when they were repudiated overwhelmingly by the people. It's a ramshackle old shopfront house not far from the gilded spire of Rangoon's famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The foyer, crowded with party workers, is decorated with political posters and huge portraits of Suu Kyi's father - the hero of Burma's struggle for independence from the British, General Aung San - and eight other members of the cabinet assassinated in 1947. There's a stall selling shirts and postcards that carry one of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner's most famous quotations: "There will be change because all the military have is guns." In the upstairs conference room that doubles as Suu Kyi's office, she struggles to project the confidence of that statement in the face of mounting evidence the regime has no intention of relinquishing power any time soon. "Of course we have made progress in the past 14 years, there's no doubt about it, but it's not fast enough for the country," she says. "We have managed to survive and that's something. I believe we are closer to achieving democracy. It's closer, but it's not close enough. There is so much that needs to be done in this country and we can't afford a moment's delay." She concedes, almost defensively, that she has been given no indication of when the regime might finally move on its promises of reform, promises repeated during last week's visit to Rangoon by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. "There are no secret deals, if that's what you mean," she says. Senior diplomats believe her talks with the regime during her most recent period in detention have dried up. Suu Kyi has just finished a long meeting with a large group of women - the wives and mothers of some of the more than 700 NLD members and supporters still imprisoned for their activism. There have been dozens of fresh political arrests in recent weeks, suggesting that more, not less, repression lies ahead. The party has been able to reopen about 60 of more than 300 former offices around the country, but has had difficulty finding land and willing landlords. Party workers and supporters are still subjected to the harassment and intimidation that discourages many Burmese from risking involvement in politics or even assisting the democracy movement, despite indications that the vast majority of Burmese still see the NLD and its leader as the only hope for their future. "Certainly there is fear and nervousness," says Suu Kyi. "There are many people who think they should not get involved in politics because it will get them into trouble, but I think there are also those who just don't know what they can do, or who think that they are totally powerless and that they have no control whatsoever over what is happening in this country. What we do try to do is teach them about the power of the powerless. "We get a lot of support from the international community, but our people must realise that we have to bear the main responsibility for bringing change to this country and everyone can contribute to that in their day-to-day lives. I welcome foreign support but, at the same time, it's up to us in Burma to do everything we can to make sure that the right change comes as fast as possible." Suu Kyi is now allowed to travel, but is still followed wherever she goes. Her family's house beside Rangoon's Inya Lake and the party offices are kept under close surveillance and her telephones are monitored. There is still no Internet or unrestricted facsimile transmission in this military police state with its vast network of spies and informers "So far I've been able to go where I want to go, but I'm not unwatched. I'm aware of the fact that I'm followed, because sometimes I do see cars parked at crucial corners. I know that I'm watched and I'm followed, but that doesn't particularly bother me." Asked how she copes with the unending pressures of leadership and the growing demands on her time, she simply says: "I keep busy. I go from day to day. I've got very supportive colleagues. I'm very fortunate." She insists the ending of her detention has made little difference to her personally. "I've always felt free. I don't think I felt less free because I was under house arrest. Freedom is a state of mind. Of course, I can move about a lot more easily than I've been able to do for many years, but I don't think I feel any different really. I've always felt free within myself." But the long struggle continues to exact a heavy personal price, a price that she has often been reluctant to discuss. Her husband, Tibetan scholar Michael Aris, died of prostate cancer in 1999, four years after his last visit to Rangoon. In another of the regime's innumerable cruelties, Aris was denied a visa to make a final visit to see his wife. Suu Kyi also missed his funeral, recognising that if she left Burma she would never be allowed to return. Her sons, Alexander, 29, and Kim, 25, have both grown up without their mother and have been able to visit Rangoon only a few times over the past 14 years. Now their children are growing up without a grandmother. While Kim visited Rangoon with his son last year, Suu Kyi has yet to see her youngest grandchild, born this year to Alexander and his wife. "I haven't seen my sons since my release. That's not necessarily because the authorities have put any obstacles in their way," she says. "It's just that the time has not been right for them to come. And let's see, when the time is right, whether they'll be able to come." Judging by the Burmese junta's recent moves, it could be a long wait. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - Monday 07 October 2002
Editorial - Mekong is not only a source of energy What will be left of the wild spirit of the upper Mekong river after it is bottled up in a series of dams in the highlands of China's Yunnan province? Two dams have already been completed and the construction of another was begun in January this year. China plans eight dams in all in Yunnan. Many more are in the works for the lower stretches of the river as it flows between Burma and Laos, Laos and Thailand, and across Cambodia and Vietnam. More than 100 large dams have been proposed for the Mekong basin by international development institutions over the past 10 years. Some have already been built. Most of the dams have been planned without the participation of the people who will be most affected by them, who will have their homes flooded or their means of survival threatened. There has also been almost no public debate in any of these countries on the fate of one of their greatest sources of natural wonder and recreation, or on whether individual dams are really necessary. Public participation in major infrastructure projects is a basic and internationally recognised right. In the case of large dams, this right should be extended to people in countries downstream of the proposed projects. There is probably very little that the people or the government of Thailand can do to influence the outcome in China, but it is quite a different story along the lower Mekong basin. Thailand is learning the hard way about the value of public participation in the planning of energy generation schemes. After all the controversy that has dogged the Pak Moon dam, it is doubtful another large dam will be built in Thailand without full public participation. Two studies conducted after the government ordered dam gates opened for a year concluded that the dam has had a major ecological impact on the river. Many species of fish which had disappeared returned to the river after the gates were opened. One of the studies, by Ubon Ratchathani University, found that decommissioning the dam would have no effect on power supplies due to a surplus of energy reserves in the system. The Electricity Generating Authority (Egat) disputes this finding. Thailand may have learned some lessons on how to proceed on mega-projects at home, but it is involved in projects outside its borders which may bring the same kinds of problems to its neighbours. A case in point is the proposed Nam Thuen 2 dam on a tributary of the Mekong, the Xe Bang Fai river in Laos, which is being developed in part by Egat to export power to Thailand. Aviva Imhof of the International Rivers Network reports that the project does not comply with six of the seven priorities outlined by the World Commission on Dams, an independent body sponsored by the World Bank and World Conservation Union. These priorities include ``gaining public acceptance'' and ``sustaining rivers and livelihoods''. Studies also have indicated that, when the dam is completed somewhere around 2008, Thailand will be paying a high rate for power it doesn't need. It is often joked that the people who complain about energy projects will scream as loudly as everyone else if nothing happens when a light is switched on, but this misses the point. Hydropower no doubt is important in supplying the energy needs of the future, but is every one of those 100 dams really necessary, and what are the alternatives? The current energy surplus may not last forever but it does give enough time to think out a clear energy strategy, with public and hopefully transboundary participation, that revolves around the principles of sustainable development that all the world's governments claim to support. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation
Officer may have been executed for spying in Burma Published on Oct 7, 2002 MAE HONG SON - The commander of a government paramilitary unit in this northern province said yesterday he had no idea what happened to a member of the group who went missing on a mission inside Burma nearly two weeks ago. The man's wife has been told he was executed as a spy. Thongkham Kaewkongma, 30, a member of the 1st Territorial Defence Company based in Mae Hong Son, was last seen in the Burmese border village of Ban Na Mon on September 25 while on a narcotics intelligence mission. His wife Wanna Srisuwan said yesterday that Thongkham was executed for spying after being caught by Burmese rebels on September 25. Wanna said that Maha Cha - who controls drug baron Khun Sa's former stronghold of Ho Mong - ordered the execution of Thongkham after he admitted under torture that he was a Thai spy collecting intelligence information about narcotics production. "His body was buried in Maha Cha's stronghold, about 20 kilometres from the Thai border," Wanna said without disclosing where she got her information. Worachet Janyod, the commander of the militia company, said that Thongkham had not contacted with the command post since September 25. and reports indicated he was last seen in Ban Na Mon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Asian Officials Fear Fallout of
War
The Associated Press, Sun 6 Oct 2002 KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) ? Asian leaders fearful of a U.S. attack on Iraq urged more cooperation and better ties to defend against economic erosion and hedge against any potential fallout. ``No matter how much we predict, how much we try to extrapolate the figures ... this war is going to threaten, to negate all prospects and all plans for future growth anywhere in the world, especially in Asia,'' Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said Sunday. Rafidah, speaking to business leaders on the opening day of the East Asia Economic Summit, an annual conference organized by the World Economic Forum, warned that fallout from a new war in the Middle East could be widespread. It could push up oil prices that are already bumping up against $30 a barrel, harm shipping and derail key economies such as the United States and Japan, which are many Asian nations' biggest trading partners. As President Bush talks about regime change in Iraq, Asian countries and companies should move closer to ``try to make Asia work for Asia,'' Rafidah said. Japan's financial services and economics minister, Heizo Takenaka, said a key issue facing the region is dependence on the U.S. market, leaving exporters here exposed to fluctuations in American consumer demand. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra agreed that Asian nations should work more closely, noting that the ``twin calamities'' of the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 and the Sept. 11 attacks were ``choking the two main growth engines of the world, the United States and Japan.'' Although Asian nations are less integrated than members of the European Union ? most of whom share a single currency, the euro ? Thaksin suggested Asia establish a regional bond market. The market would serve ``as a financial instrument to help in maximizing our continent's potential and prevent exploitation of our reserves by others against the interest of ourselves,'' Thaksin said. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi called for a regional secretariat to forge stronger ties between the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China, Japan and South Korea ? an informal group dubbed ASEAN Plus Three. Other ASEAN countries have proffered a lukewarm reception to the proposal, noting it could interfere with the functions of ASEAN's secretariat in Indonesia. Abdullah said any meaningful reform of global financial institutions ? which many in Asia view as culprits in the last economic calamity ? is unlikely unless the West runs into serious economic trouble on its own. Separately, Takenaka said he hopes to announce by the end of October a framework for cleaning up bad bank loans that have plagued Japan, Asia's largest economy, for more than a decade. Japan needs to ascertain whether banks have accurately counted their assets, whether there is enough money in the banking system, and whether bank executives are practicing adequate corporate governance, Takenaka said. ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |