[burmanet2-l] Burma Related News - Dec 21, 2002.

["TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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BURMA RELATED NEWS - December  21, 2002.
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HEADLINES
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.