BURMA RELATED NEWS - July 13,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - Myanmar drugs
lord under house arrest
Reuters - S.E.
Asian nations seek to boost regional trade
NSTP - US to
pressure Myanmar
Bkk Post - PM says
wealth gap fuels crime
BBC News - Burma
defends Suu Kyi custody
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Sunday July 13,
3:41 PM
Myanmar drugs lord under house
arrest
BANGKOK (AFP) - Top Myanmar drug lord Wei Hseuh Kang has
been placed under house arrest in the military-ruled country's northeastern town
of Lashio, a Thai drug official said according to a report here.
Wei, an
ethnic Chinese leader of the Yangon-aligned United Wa State Army (UWSA) is one
of the world's most notorious drug traffickers and is wanted by the United
States, which has put a two million-dollar reward on his head.
"Drug
baron Wei Hseuh Kang is under house arrest in Lashio," the offical from
Thailand's Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) was quoted as saying in
Sunday's Bangkok Post.
"He has not been formally arraigned. He is only
restricted from activities," the official told the daily, adding that his
trading company had also been closed.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra has previously threatened to take Wei Hseuh Kang, who jumped bail in
Thailand in 1990, dead or alive. In December 2001, Thai authorities seized
property reportedly worth more than two million dollars from him.
Wei's
brother Wei Hseuh Tang, another UWSA leader, meanwhile reportedly faces trial in
Yangon on drug trafficking charges, the official added without
elaborating.
The 20,000-strong UWSA is accused by the international
community of controlling much of Myanmar's vast opium and methamphetamines
trade.
The group is defended by Myanmar's junta, which signed a ceasefire
agreement with the group in 1989 that granted wide-ranging autonomy.
The
military regime insists that the Wa have renounced their involvement in the
narcotics trade and are earnestly involved in crop substitution programs aimed
at ridding their region of drugs by 2005.
Myanmar's ongoing drugs
production has tested its relations with neighbouring Thailand, the main
destination for the millions of methamphetamine pills, known here as yaa baa or
crazy medicine, churned out of mobile factories along the
border.
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Sunday July 13, 6:16 PM
S.E. Asian nations seek to
boost regional trade
JAKARTA, July 13 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian nations are concerned
that intra-regional trade has not grown as much as expected and have agreed to
put specific countries in charge of boosting trade in individual economic
sectors, a regional group said on Sunday.
Trade ministers from the
group, the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), also
discussed setting up independent panels to resolve trade disputes, one minister
said.
The informal gathering of ASEAN trade ministers was devoted to
brainstorming on ways to boost regional trade, which would be finalised at a
formal meeting in September, officials said at a news conference.
"Intra-regional trade has progressed relatively slowly. The ministers
observed that intra-ASEAN trade increased marginally to 22.6 percent (of total
trade by the group) in 2002 from 19.3 percent in 1993," the ministers said in a
statement.
Brunei Trade Minister Rahman Taib, who chaired the meeting,
said at the news conference that there were "extensive discussions on specific
initiatives".
He said one was the decision for individual countries to
take responsibility for specific sectors "to communicate with the private sector
players of these industries" on how to boost trade.
The Philippines
would take responsibility for electronics, Thailand for airlines and tourism,
Indonesia for wood-based industries and cars, Myanmar for agriculture and
fisheries, Malaysia for rubber and textiles, and Singapore for online and health
care.
Laos, Vietnam, Brunei and Cambodia are the other ASEAN members.
Issues over rules of origin, custom procedures, dispute settlement
mechanisms and standards and conformance were also taken up, Taib said, but he
offered few details on the related proposals.
However, Singapore Trade
and Industry Minister George Yeo told reporters progress was made on the idea of
setting up independent panels to resolve trade disputes.
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New Straits Times
US to pressure
Myanmar
AFP
WASHINGTON, July 12: The United
States confirmed yesterday plans to pressure Myanmar?s military junta for change
using economic measures.
"We are working on an import ban, asset freeze
and a ban on remittances to Burma," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
said.
"We continue our co-ordination with Asean countries and others who
share our deep concern about the situation in Myanmar," Armitage said after a
meeting with UN Special Envoy for Myanmar Tan Sri Razali Ismail.
"We will
continue to support democratic change in Burma through all available channels."
Ismail brokered landmark secret talks between the junta and the National League
for Democracy (NLD) in October 2000 aimed at shifting the country to democracy.
They have now collapsed.
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under
"protective custody" in late May following attacks on her convoy by a
juntabacked mob during a political tour in northern Myanmar that according to
eyewitnesses left dozens dead.
Since then, NLD offices nationwide have
been shuttered, the senior NLD leadership in Yangon has been placed under house
arrest and an unknown number of members have been arrested.
Although the
junta said it was a temporary measure, it has given no indication of when Aung
San Suu Kyi might be released despite intense international calls for her
freedom.
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The Nation
REGIONAL ECONOMIES: PM says
wealth gap fuels crime
Published on Jul 13, 2003
Thai businesses urged to invest in neighbours to curb illicit
economy
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday that Thailand
needed to make efforts to lesson the economic gap between it and its
neighbouring countries in order to strengthen the region.
Speaking on
his weekly radio address, the prime minister said the wealth disparity between
Thailand and its neighbours had helped fuel illicit economies such as drug
trafficking and illegal migration.
The director-general of the Foreign
Ministry's Economics Department, Pisarn Manawapat, yesterday said the government
would encourage the private sector to invest in neighbouring countries.
The topic is to be discussed at a senior official's meeting between
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Burma in Vientiane. A ministerial level meeting is
scheduled for August 1 in Bangkok and a leaders' summit three weeks later in
Burma.
It has been estimated that more than one million immigrants,
mostly from Burma, are working illegally in Thailand. Most take up back-
breaking and dangerous jobs shunned by Thais who opt for higher-paying work in
Taiwan and the Gulf States.
Thai authorities have consistently blamed
neighbouring countries, mainly Burma, for flooding the country with millions of
methamphetamine pills on a weekly basis.
Experts have said that economic
approaches alone would not help solve the drug problem because it is deeply
connected with insurgencies in Burma.
Burmese insurgent groups have long
relied on opium and heroin, and in the past decade methamphetamines, as a source
of income to finance their armies.
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BBC News - Sunday, 13 July, 2003
Burma
defends Suu Kyi custody
By Larry
Jagan
BBC Burma analyst
Aung San Suu Kyi's
detention has caused worldwide outrage
Burma's military government has
launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at blaming the country's opposition leader
for the country's political stalemate.
Burma's top leader, General Than
Shwe, has despatched his two foreign ministers to countries in Asia with
personal letters and an album of photographs of the opposition leader.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained in what the government calls
'protective custody' for more than six weeks.
Her continued detention
has outraged the international community, which has demanded her immediate
release.
In the past two weeks, General Than Shwe's two envoys, Foreign
Minister Win Aung and the Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win, have travelled
around the capitals of Asia.
They have met most of the respective prime
ministers in these countries and handed over a personal letter from General Than
Shwe.
In the seven-page letter, the Burmese military leader accuses the
opposition movement of plotting an uprising that would throw the country into
anarchy and lead to the fall of the government.
Embarrassment
The letter says Aung San Suu Kyi has been trying to encourage
the armed ethnic rebel groups - most of which have signed ceasefire agreements
with Rangoon - to join the planned uprising.
General Than Shwe says the
government was compelled to act in the light of this threat to national
security.
In the past week or so, the deputy foreign minister's
whirlwind tour of the region has taken him to Thailand, Japan, Malaysia,
Indonesia and Singapore, while the foreign minister has visited China,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.
But few Asian leaders will be convinced
by these accusations against Aung San Suu Kyi and they are likely to be
dismissed as paranoia on the part of Burma's top general.
Aung San Suu
Kyi's continued detention in solitary confinement has embarrassed most of
Burma's allies in South East Asia in particular. They know that the reputation
of the regional organisation, Asean, is being tarnished by the military
government's actions.
International pressure on Burma to free Aung San Suu
Kyi immediately and restart the dialogue process with the opposition movement is
bound to increase further.
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