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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- November 27, 2002.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reuters - U.N. says vast populations
mask Asian AIDS crisis
AFP - Suu Kyi wraps up
lengthy trip to Myanmar's Shan state
AFP - Rights group slams Lauda
Air for launching Myanmar route
AFP - Singapore says suicide
element increases ASEAN terrorist threat
Bkk Post - Four mega-projects
win approval from Rangoon
Bkk Post - EDITORIAL -Drug
trade is not to be scoffed a
Mizzima - The 4th ASEAN
Think Tank Dialogue
SHAN - Wa Druglord's
brother takes over as commander
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday November 27, 8:11 AM
U.N. says vast populations mask Asian AIDS crisis By Dan Eaton BANGKOK (Reuters) - The vast populations of China, India and Indonesia are masking an explosion in Asia's deadly AIDS epidemic, a United Nations report said on Tuesday. Low national prevalence levels in some of the world's most populous countries blur the picture of a virus that killed nearly 500,000 people in the Asia-Pacific last year, and may be contracted by 11 million more by the end of the decade, the joint UNAIDS and World Health Organisation report said. "Both China and India...are experiencing serious, localised epidemics that are affecting many millions of people," said the report, entitled "AIDS epidemic update December 2002" and released to mark World AIDS Day on December 1. Werasit Sittitrai, UNAIDS director for project development, said although only three countries in the region had HIV infection rates of over one percent -- Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia -- in localised parts of India and China the incidence of HIV was as high as 10-20 percent. "The situation is very alarming," he said at the Asian launch of the report in Bangkok. The report said almost one million people in the Asia-Pacific acquired HIV, the infection that leads to AIDS, in 2002, bringing the total number in the region living with the virus to an estimated 7.2 million, a 10 percent increase on 2001. Despite having an HIV prevalence rate of only one percent, some 3.97 million Indians had the virus, the second highest figure in the world after South Africa, the report said. It said that unless Chinese authorities responded rapidly with education and other prevention measures, some 10 million people in that country could contract HIV by the end of 2010, from an official figure of just one million now. In Indonesia, where injecting drugs was almost unknown 10 years ago, there has been a sharp rise in the practice -- and with it the risk of a major AIDS epidemic, the report said. "DISASTER HAS STARTED" Data indicate that up to 50 percent of injecting drug users in the Indonesian capital Jakarta may be HIV positive, compared with none in 1998. The report said upwards of 50 percent of injecting drug users had also acquired the virus in parts of Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and in Manipur state in northeast in India. "In the past when making reference to the Asia-Pacific we talked of a low prevalence rate that could become terrible," said Sandro Calvani, United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention representative, at the launch. "I think it is now appropriate to say the disaster has already started." The report said Cambodia, the country in Asia with the highest adult HIV prevalence, had reported stabilising levels of infection, along with decreasing levels of high-risk behaviour. It noted Thailand's progress in combating the spread of AIDS, but said transmission there had changed from being mainly driven by the commercial sex industry to high growth among wives and sexual partners of men infected several years ago. "There are also indications that unsafe sexual behaviour is on the increase among young Thais," the report said. It said homosexual behaviour featured significantly in the epidemic in Asia. "Countries that have measured HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men have found it to be high -- 14 percent in Cambodia in 2000 and roughly the same level among male Thai sex workers." The report said globally 42 million people were living with HIV and 3.1 million are estimated to have died of AIDS this year. It said the world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic was in Eastern Europe and the Central Asian Republics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Suu Kyi wraps up lengthy trip
to Myanmar's Shan state
YANGON, Nov 27 (AFP) - Myanmar's pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi left Shan state for home Wednesday, wrapping up her longest political trip outside the capital since the military junta first placed her under house arrest 13 years ago. "From a political organization point of view, it was quite successful," U Lwin, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), told AFP of the mission on which the opposition leader was often greeted by throngs of supporters. "She is on her way back to Rangoon," he said, calling Yangon by its former name. By mid-day she had reached the oil town of Yenangyaung, on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River some 370 miles (590 kilometres) north of Yangon, U Lwin said. She was due to arrive late Wednesday, but heavy flooding in the north threatened to delay her arrival by a day. The Nobel peace laureate took full advantage of her May freedom from house arrest, spending two weeks criss-crossing the restive state known for its simmering ethnic rebellions. She presided over the re-opening of four NLD offices in Shan state, bringing to 72 the number of offices reopened since an easing of restrictions on the NLD. More than 230 remain shuttered, however, U Lwin said. On several occasions Aung San Suu Kyi was met by large numbers of supporters who lined roads and congregated in villages where she stopped. "We did not expect such huge crowds to greet her," U Lwin said. A cheering crowd of about 30,000 gathered in Lashio, the capital of northern Shan state, to hear her speak despite what U Lwin described as "warnings by the authorities that no one should come and greet her." Aung San Suu Kyi has made several political trips around the country since she was released in May from 19 months under house arrest with a guarantee that she would have complete freedom of movement. Her trips have gone off smoothly, although Yangon is informed of her movements in advance and dispatches a security detail for her "protection" wherever she goes. In Shan state she met with the state's major nationalities in efforts to engage various ethnic groups who till now have been excluded from national reconciliation talks between the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the democratic opposition. "This trip was very important because this is the area with the most ethnic diversity," U Lwin said. It came at a sensitive time for Shan state, which has been in the spotlight recently with the release of a report alleging systematic sexual abuse of ethnic minority women there. Two UN envoys, Razali Ismail and human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, visited Myanmar recently but both cancelled their scheduled trips to Shan state. Ethnic Shan rebels who oppose Yangon rule said that Myanmar government troops had attacked one of their positions during Aung San Suu Kyi's visit and accused them of attempting to disrupt her trip. Aung San Suu Kyi was already considering her next political trip, U Lwin said, though he did not offer a destination. "There are many more places to go," he said. Aung San Suu Kyi was first placed under house arrest in 1989, a year before her NLD party won a sweeping election victory that was never recognized by the junta. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rights group slams Lauda Air
for launching Myanmar route
BANGKOK, Nov 27 (AFP) - Human rights monitor Forum-Asia on Wednesday criticized Austria-based Lauda Air for launching flights between Vienna and Yangon this month, saying the deal ignored Myanmar's "human rights crisis". "The decision to open this service between Austria and Burma is based on purely commercial economic interests," the Bangkok-based group's secretary general Somchai Homlaor said in a statement. On November 6 Lauda Air inaugurated a non-stop service to Yangon from Vienna -- the first direct flight to Myanmar's capital from a European city -- with the return routing via the Thai resort island of Phuket. But Somchai rejected the notion that engaging Myanmar by opening the service would assist the troubled country. "To claim the move will benefit the people of Burma in any way is to ignore the political and humanitarian realities, and the human rights crisis in Burma," he said, calling the country by its former name. "ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has been engaging Burma for years now and there has been no improvement in the humanitarian or human rights situation in the country." Forum-Asia said it demanded to see "substantial improvement" in key areas of human rights and democracy, including the release of political prisoners, and an end to alleged abuses such as forced labour and rape of ethnic minority women, before supporting commercial engagement of the military leadership. Several Western nations including the United States and the European Union continue to impose strict sanctions on Myanmar, whose economy has been decimated in the four decades of military rule. Myanmar's tourism industry is in its infancy, and the country's efforts to boost it have been dogged by the wide-ranging sanctions. Myanmar has been widely criticised for its human rights performance and refusal to hand over power to the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, which won an overwhelming election victory in 1990. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Singapore says suicide element
increases ASEAN terrorist threat
SINGAPORE, Nov 27 (AFP) - Indications of a suicide element among Muslim extremists in Southeast Asia significantly increased the terrorist danger in the region and required firm action, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said Wednesday. "There are grave challenges for ASEAN," Goh warned. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments "will have to take firm action to neutralise extremists, while taking care not to alienate the majority of their Muslims." Police investigating last month's terrorist attack on the Indonesian island of Bali believe at least one of the two explosions which killed at least 190 people involved a suicide bomber. Australian police said Wednesday the bomber was part of a five-strong team who had formed a suicide pact. The presence of suicide bombers "would represent a significant increase in the dangerous nature of the terrorist threat," Goh said in a speech to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. "Political Islam is therefore a challenge for secular governments, especially in those ASEAN countries with large Muslim populations." The Bali bombing has been linked to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an extremist organisation allied to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, and said to be planning a pan-Islamic state across Southeast Asia. Singapore has detained 31 JI members accused of plotting to blow up local and foreign targets here, including the US embassy and crucial water-supply pipelines from Malaysia. Malaysian officials said Wednesday that four JI members arrested there last week were also involved in plans to attack US embassy and the pipelines. Many of the JI members are said to have been trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda before the September 11 terrorist atrocities in the United States. Goh said there was evidence of "a greater Islamic religiosity" throughout Southeast Asia, with Muslims "becoming more rigid and intolerant" in the practice of their religion. "How the governments deal with this sensitive political conundrum will have a profound influence on Southeast Asia," he said. The Singapore leader said neighbouring Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, faced the greatest challenges. Although President Megawati Sukarnoputri has begun taking action against terrorists and extremists "it will be some years before she is able to restore political equilibrium," Goh said. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Wednesday 27 November 2002
Four mega-projects win approval from Rangoon Wassana Nanuam Rangoon has given the go-ahead for four mega-projects by Thai firms in Burma, Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said yesterday. They are the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Salween river by MDX company, a coal mine in a Burmese town opposite Prachuap Khiri Khan, a port project in Tavoy and a Mae Sot-Rangoon road project. Gen Chavalit was speaking after a meeting of the Thai-Burmese Cultural and Economic Cooperation Association, which is coordinating the projects with approval from the Rangoon government. Gen Chavalit co-chairs the association with Air Marshal Kyaw Than of Burma. He said Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council first secretary Gen Khin Nyunt had given approval for the association to lead Thai businessmen to invest in Burma. ``Joint development will make border areas more open and help eliminate bad people, minority people and bad things hidden along the border and ensure greater security,'' Gen Chavalit said. Drug production would decline if minority people were cleared from border areas through peaceful means. He agreed with Rangoon that the Thai military's estimate that one billion methamphetamine pills would be trafficked through Thailand in the next year was excessive, given Burma's collaboration with Bangkok in drug suppression. ``I am certain that Thailand and Burma will be best friends forever. From now on, we will have no conflicts or problems stemming from different viewpoints,'' Gen Chavalit said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Wednesday 27 November 2002
EDITORIAL -Drug trade is not to be scoffed at Rangoon's ridiculing of a Thai army forecast that up to one billion methamphetamine pills are expected to cross the border into Thailand next year is not surprising. The damning disclosure by Maj-Gen Naris Srinetr, chief of staff of the Third Army, obviously touched a raw nerve with the Burmese junta, as it promptly issued a denial and questioned the credibility of the prediction. They may have a point, but the Burmese generals are in no position to deny the open fact that the bulk of the speed pills flooding this country originate from Burma and were produced by its ally, the United Wa State Army, quite possibly with the connivance of senior-ranking Burmese military officers. Based on the rule of thumb that for every speed pill seized nine more get through and end up in the hands of drug users, Thai narcotics agencies estimate that up to 700 million tablets could be smuggled from Burma, many possibly through Laos, into Thailand this year. The Thai army forecast of the methamphetamine influx next year represents a 42% increase. The figure is alarming but hardly improbable given the resources of the UWSA and the many laboratories it has moved deeper inside Burma to better protect them. In the final analysis, it does not matter whether the final figure is closer to 700 million or one billion. Either number is huge and so many speed pills pose a real security and social threat to this country. No government, no matter how irresponsible, can sit by and treat this threat as routine. We expect action and, sadly, this government's record to date on the methamphetamine problem has been a major disappointment. Despite the full knowledge that the methamphetamines consumed by our population come mainly from Burma and are produced by the UWSA, this government appears unwilling to take up this issue directly with Rangoon. Is it really so worried that frank and open discussion on a matter so vital might hurt our good neighbourly relations? Why is so much time spent on discussing cooperation to eliminate opium crops when the Wa-controlled laboratories located not that far from the opium fields churn out millions of the far more insidious speed pills each day to supply the ever expanding Thai market? The porous border which divides Thailand and Burma stretches more than 2,000km along mostly barely penetrable terrain, making it easy for traffickers to sneak across undetected. Sealing the entire border is the stuff of dreams, and even simply policing known trafficking routes is a task requiring many more troops and far more modern equipment than the Thai army can comfortably afford. This is the sad reality, and so it is all the more frustrating that the only Thai army unit fully equipped to intercept drug caravans from Burma, Task Force 399, has recently had its role cut back by a government all too ready to appease a Rangoon which has accused the unit of carrying out cross-border forays. Thailand will never truly be able to win the battle against the methamphetamine scourge without the help of Rangoon. This will require that our government leaders engage the Burmese government leaders in open, frank discussion. This does not mean confrontation, but it does mean that those people we have elected to represent our interests do not shy away from stating some home truths. Rangoon should realise that turning a blind eye to the crimes of the UWSA against the Thai people and denying outright that any problem exists is wholly unbecoming of a good neighbour. But more importantly, having an ally like the UWSA, which wallows in drug money and is very capable of becoming a major militant force, could one day come back to haunt the generals and their people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 4th ASEAN Think Tank
Dialogue
Mizzima News November 26, 02: Under the heading of the ?EU-ASEAN Integration and Solidarity?, the 4th Asian Think Tank dialogue (the 3rd was in Bangkok) was kick off at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, from the 25th to 26th. It was sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the European Institute of Asian Studies (EIAS) and was attended by about 80 delegates, diplomats and scholars mainly from the IISS (Institute of International Strategic Studies). It has four sessions, the first is about ?the advanced countries and Regions in EU and ASEAN?, the second is about the ?Political and Strategic Dimensions?, the third is ?the EU-ASEAN Perception on WTO Doha Development Round? and lastly it touched on the ?ASEAN-EU Relations with China?. Among the many problems the most conspicuous one is Burma, because Burma was in the ASEAN group the EU has refused to talk with ASEAN and for five successive years, the EU-ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting has been terminated. The think tank deliberated on this to bring together once again on the two groups but without much success. The Malaysian ambassador Dato Deva Md, Ridzam, representing the ASEAN Brussels committee insisted that the EU should adopt the name of Myanmar instead of Burma and should be called in its proper name. At this the Burmese academic Prof. Ba Thann Win, explain the difference between, Myanmar and Burma. He explains in length why the word Myanmar is politically and phonetically wrong. He also pointed out that since the conference is communicating each other in English it should us recognize the country?s name in English and not in other languages, such as Deutchland for Gemany, Espania for Spain, Chung Gao for China and Myanmar for Burma. In the EU common position it always wrote as Burma/Myanmar, that does not tantamount to legitimizing the Burmese Junta. He then challenged the ASEAN countries to follow the footsteps of EU to close the gap between the two regional organizations by compromising and adopting the EU common position by using Burma/Myanmar. Ethnic cleansing, the flood of illegal and refugee outflow together with narcotic production cannot be construe as an internal affairs of Burma as it is affecting the whole region of ASEAN and the world at large. The keynote speaker was Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi, the director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Based in Geneva and spoke in length of coherence and globalization. He is endeavoring to put the human face in the WTO by tackling the common disease of HIV, Malaria and TB. He will also put up the status of the LDC (Least Developed Countries) such as Nepal and Cambodia into the WTO with a special status so that they could also share the benefits of WTO. In the closing session Dr Willem van der Geest of Germany challenge the ASEAN countries to come up with something tangible concerning since they have taken the risk of welcoming Burma into their fold. This albatross is hindering the Integration and Solidarity process of the two groups. It was decided that the next 5th EU-ASEAN think tank in 2003 should be at Singapore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shan Herald Agency for
News
No: 11 - 09 26 November 2002 Wa Druglord's brother takes over as commander Wei Hsuehying, younger brother of Wei Hsuehkang, who is wanted by the United States and Thailand on drug charges, has recently been appointed as commander of the United Wa State Army's 171st Brigade, said several sources from the border and northern Shan State. Hsuehying a.k.a Sophon Jandee, 52, is currently in Panghsang, the Wa capital near the Chinese border, to attend an emergency meeting called by the Wa leadership that followed after a surprise visit by a general from Rangoon on 5 November. Some local and border sources believe joint offensive against the Shan State Army could be the top agenda. (The 171st, with 15 battalions under its command, is based in areas opposite Maehongson, Chiangmai and Chiangrai province). Of the three brothers, Hsuehlong, 66, handles Panghsang's finances, while Hsuehkang 56, known in Burmese intelligence circle as U Sein Win, continues his "unofficial position as the Wa's remote control," said an informed source from northern Shan State. "Owing to his notoriety, Panghsang could not confer on him an official position," said the source. "He is not only wanted by the Americans and Thais, but also by the Chinese. His presence in Panghsang, therefore, would greatly embarrass his hosts." He spends most of his time traveling between Rangoon and Mandalay. "These days he is rarely seen in Tangyan where he has a 2,000 acre land granted to him by Gen Khin Nyunt last year," said the same source. The land, where he has an agricultural project, is at Tawniu Village in Nawng-moeng Tract, 7-8 miles east of Tangyan. Apart from military affairs younger brother Hsuehying, whose arrest warrant has been issued by Thailand since 1984, is reported to be responsible for the brothers' business interests in the south, where they had a company called Green Light, according to a veteran source. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |