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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- December 21, 2002.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------ AP - Myanmar, Thailand to build
hydroelectric plant
WT - Ne Win's legacy: Burma in
shambles
IB - Editorial - Myanmar
ties
Bkk Post - Army chief adamant on
patrols with Burma
Xinhuanet - Indian fleet
calling Myanmar port
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Report: Myanmar, Thailand to
build hydroelectric plant
Sat Dec 21, 2:59 AM ET YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Myanmar and neighboring Thailand have agreed to jointly build a hydroelectric power plant in Myanmar to supply electricity to countries in Southeast Asia, a state-run newspaper reported Saturday. A Thai conglomerate and Myanmar electricity authorities will build the Tasang hydroelectric plant on the Salween river in southern Shan state, the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said. The plant is expected to have a maximum capacity of 7,110 megawatts, according to the deal reportedly signed Friday by Myanmar's Director General of Hydroelectric Power, Win Kyaw, and Swarng Champa, managing director of Thailand's MDX group of companies. The report did not mention the amount to be invested by either side or when the plant was scheduled for completion. Thai government officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Electricity from the plant will be used domestically and sold to Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, the report added. The 2,400 kilometer- (1,491 mile-) long Salween river flows from China through Myanmar and into the Gulf of Martaban. Myanmar faces an energy shortage due to rising demand and a lack of foreign exchange reserves to buy fuel for generators. The country's total electricity output is 580 megawatts an hour _ about 220 megawatts short of its needs, according to official statistics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ne Win's legacy: Burma in
shambles
By Richard S. Ehrlich THE WASHINGTON TIMES December 21, 2002 BANGKOK ? The death this month of Gen. Ne Win, Burma's elderly ex-dictator, ended the life of a bizarre, brutal leader who used superstition, military repression and economic mismanagement to turn a prosperous Southeast Asian nation into a pauper and pariah. "The former military dictator of Burma, Gen. Ne Win, has died while under house arrest, according to reports citing family sources," the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Dec. 5. "Family members said the 91-year-old died at 0730 local time at a lakeside house he has been held in, along with his daughter, since March 7," the BBC said. The Associated Press reported that Ne Win's remains were cremated the afternoon of his death in a private ceremony lacking the military honors befitting a general. Only about 25 relatives and friends ? but no government representatives ? attended, and Ne Win's passing was ignored in Burma's official media. Ne Win's health deteriorated over the past few years, culminating in a heart attack in September 2001 and a secretive trip to Singapore for medical treatment. The late ex-strongman was named Shu Maung ? "apple of one's eye" ? when he was born in Paungdale, central Burma, then part of British India, on May 24, 1911. His father was a civil servant. After seizing power in a bloodless 1962 coup, Gen. Ne Win proudly announced his xenophobic reign as "the Burmese Way to Socialism." He was largely responsible for turning the relatively wealthy, rice-exporting nation nearly the size of Texas into a ruined, repressive land. Inspired by Marx and Stalin, he kicked out foreign corporations and nationalized their businesses. The hermit-minded leader dreamed up eccentric economic policies based on his superstitious belief in numerology. In 1987, he canceled the Burmese kyat currency and introduced new notes in denominations based on his personal lucky numbers ? 15, 45 and 90. Many people were bankrupted overnight when the previous currency was declared invalid. People were suddenly given new 90-kyat notes, and told they could only make change with new 45-kyat and 15-kyat bills. "He was said to have bathed in dolphins' blood to regain his youth, and his dedication to numerology was legendary," the BBC reported. Ne Win set up a powerful, politicized military regime. According to the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and other human rights groups, the Ne Win government tortured prisoners and carried out extrajudicial killings to keep Burma's people in line. Ne Win was forced aside in 1988 after the military killed thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators during a failed uprising in Rangoon, the capital of Burma, which Ne Win's successors renamed Myanmar. From 1988 to 2002, the regime allowed the aged ex-despot to dwell in oblivion as a wealthy recluse in Rangoon, where he spent much of his time and fortune building a Buddhist pagoda in hopes of ensuring a happy afterlife. But last March, his world crumbled. Ne Win's favorite, business-savvy daughter, Sandar Win, and her husband and their three adult sons were arrested by the military junta. Sandar Win's husband and sons were charged with attempting a coup ? which surprised diplomats, who suspected the real problem was the family's attempt to profit from its status by ignoring the military's monopolistic commercial regulations. The Ne Win family was said to have been insulted at not receiving special privileges to continue exploiting Burma's wrecked economy. As evidence for the coup accusation, the military regime produced weapons, uniforms and other items allegedly amassed by Gen. Ne Win's family. The authorities also said they found "a golden embroidery" illustrated with a crowned peacock, a tiger, a lion, a fish, three swords and a harp. The "peacock represents Ne Win ... the emblem forms part of a royal regalia, and it seems as if they were creating a royal family," reported the government-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper. "It seems that if they managed to seize state power, they would establish the monarchy and try to maintain family power for life," the paper added. The purported evidence for this included three small dolls representing the regime's top leaders ? Gens. Than Shwe, Maung Aye and Khin Nyunt ? purportedly used in black-magic rituals by the Ne Win family. In September, a court sentenced to death Ne Win's son-in-law, Aye Zaw Win ? husband of Sandar Win ? and the couple's three sons, Aye Ne Win, Kyaw Ne Win, and Zwe Ne Win. The four men have appealed. Several military officials and other influential people were also imprisoned. The aged Ne Win and his daughter, Sandar, were put under house arrest, where he remained until he died. During the trial, many Burmese expressed delight that Ne Win's family was suffering harsh treatment like that he meted out to his countrymen while in power. Some said the trial was reminiscent of one 25 years ago, when Ne Win had the masterminds of a suspected coup plot against him executed. Today, Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world. The economy is reeling under U.S. and international sanctions put in place to force the regime to allow democracy. Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990, but the military regime refused to let the elected parliament convene. Though his life ended in disgrace, Ne Win's 1962-1988 reign formed much of recent Burmese history. Burma was subjugated by the British in three 19th-century wars and ruled as part of British India until 1937, when it was separated from the latter. In 1941, hoping to break Britain's grip, Ne Win traveled to Japan, trained under the Japanese Imperial Army and helped Japan invade Burma. After Burma's occupation, Ne Win decided Japan wanted to keep his country, so he plotted against the puppet government and undertook a guerrilla campaign, enabling the British to return in December 1944. After India and Pakistan attained independence in 1947, Britain granted Burma the same in January 1948. Ne Win commanded the Burma National Army from 1943 to 1945 and, after World War II, commanded the Burma 4th Rifles, where he established ties with many of his future regime officials. From 1949 to 1950, he was minister of defense and interior and also commander in chief, a post he held until 1972. In that position, he took over Burma's faltering government as a caretaker leader in 1958-60 and staged a coup in 1962, arresting the former prime minister, U Nu. Ne Win was rumored to have died in 1997, but showed up in Indonesia alongside President Suharto, who was a close friend. Upon his death this month, the French newspaper Le Monde summed up the general's legacy by saying Ne Win dominated Burma with an iron hand for more than a quarter-century of unenlightened rule. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Independent-Bangladesh
Editorial - Myanmar ties 21-12-2002. Bangladesh-Myanmar trade relations is on a new track. In the trail of the official visit of the Myanmar Head of Government in Dhaka, the Commerce Ministers of both the countries finalised an agreement to establish a Joint Trade Commission. Bangladesh also received from Myanmar draft documents for Account Trade arrangement that would allow two-way trade transactions without any hard currency cover. Earlier during the visit of Bangladesh Commerce Minister to Myanmar in March, the two countries came to an understanding for setting up coastal shipping lines. A draft Coastal Shipping Agreement has in the mean time been sent to Myanmar authorities by Bangladesh. Under the border trade agreement signed in 1994, trade began in 1995 and is steadily growing in volume. All the three agreements are scheduled to be signed in March next when another single-country fair of Bangladesh products, like in March last, is going to be held in Yangon. Through Myanmar, with the expansion of bilateral trade, Bangladesh expects its products to reach remote ASEAN markets on the one hand and upcountry markets in mainland China next Myanmar and Indochina as well. Both formal and informal trade are bound to grow, apart from possible tourist traffic, by coastal shipping and accounts trading facilities. The failure of SAARC countries to negotiate free trade under SAFTA fast enough, to implement SAPTA to its full potential in preferential trade, or even to lift discouragement of high tariff, para-tariff and non-tariff barriers has made it imperative for overpopulated Bangladesh to look for trade opportunities eastwards in South East Asia. Myanmar offers us the bridge head not only for South East Asian nations, but also for land route access to China. Bangladesh needs this type of opening to a larger market to be able to undertake mass production of its possible manufactures, knowledge-based, agro-based or natural resource based as may be peculiar to our particular country-conditions at any particular time. The idea of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation as initially mooted by Bangladesh arose essentially from that compulsion. But in reality, SAARC so far has survived only as a dream of music-makers. Whether the eastward opening for expansion of trade and traffic through Myanmar may actually offer an adequate alternative to SAARC potentials, it is worth a try as Bangladesh does neither have time nor the holding power to await a sea-change in intra-SAARC relations that is but a precondition for the region's leap out of the poverty trap. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Saturday 21 December 2002
Army chief adamant on patrols with Burma Wassana Nanuam Army chief Gen Somdhat Attanand has confirmed he will seek
to persuade his Burmese counterpart, Gen Maung Aye, to consent to joint patrols
aimed at stemming the flow of drugs across the common border.
Gen Somdhat said he would broach the subject during an upcoming meeting with Gen Maung Aye in Rangoon. Meanwhile, the government had been asked to consider amendments to security laws to enable the military to carry out drug suppression operations around the country, he said. Gen Somdhat rejected criticism the army did not take its drug suppression responsibilities seriously, saying traffickers had become increasingly more violent in their attempts to avoid arrest by authorities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Indian fleet calling Myanmar
port
Xinhuanet 2002-12-21
00:13:15
YANGON, Dec. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A fleet of Indian naval vessels arrived at Myanmar's Thilawa Port in Yangon Friday evening, beginning a three-day visit at the port, diplomatic sources here said on Saturday. The Indian naval fleet comprises of a submarine and two destroyers. It is the first time for an Indian naval fleet to visit Myanmar port since a similar call at the country's Yangon port by a Pakistani naval fleet in April 2001, which was the first time for Myanmar to permit a foreign naval fleet to visit the country in several decades. In recent years, especially after Myanmar's entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in July 1997, India has strengthened its bilateral relations with Myanmar in all fields as part of its "look-east" policy. During the past eight years, exchange of visits between military authorities of the two countries amounted to 20 times, with Myanmar military delegations going to India for eight times. The 12 tours to Myanmar by Indian military delegations included those made by the Chief of the Army Staff, Chief of the Air Staff and Chief of the Navy Staff and Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee. According to the Indian News Annual published by the Indian Embassy here, in recent years, there has been a further intensification of relations between defense forces of the two countries with a progressively large number of Myanmar defense personnel going to India for training and the border units of the two armies meeting twice a year at the border to ensure peace and tranquillity along the 1,400-kilometer-long front. Meanwhile, since April this year, Myanmar and India have been jointly conducting oceanographic study in the Andaman Sea under the first ever program of its kind of the two countries. |