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-------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINES -------------------------------------------------------------- Reuters - Malaysia's Scomi gets Myanmar drilling fluids job Reuters - Thailand floats Myanmar democracy ``road map'' talks Reuters - Singapore key share index ends down for 2nd day AFP - Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi not to attend ceremony honouring father BBC News - Army blamed for Suu Kyi attack IHT - ASEAN should give Burma the cold shoulder Independent - Tourists, temples and torture The Nation - Rangoon weighs Thai 'road map' Kyodo News - No indication of attendance of Myanmar envoy at ASEM dinner -------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday July 17,
8:52 PM -------------------------------------------------------------- Thailand floats Myanmar democracy ``road map''
talks -------------------------------------------------------------- Friday July 18, 5:50 PM -------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi not
to attend ceremony honouring father
YANGON, July 18 (AFP) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held in detention at an unknown location, will not attend a ceremony to mark her father's 1947 assassination Saturday, a family source said. Myanmar's independence hero General Aung San is highly respected both by the ruling junta and the pro-democracy movement, and the annual Martyrs' Day celebrations are a major event on the political calendar. Aung San Suu Kyi attended last year's ceremony after she was released from 19 months of house arrest, but stayed away the previous year despite being invited by the ruling junta, to protest against her detention. "The Aung San family will this time be represented by big brother Aung San Oo who is presently here with his wife as a special guest of the military government," a close friend of Aung San Oo told AFP Friday. The 60-year-old brother, a US citizen, does not get on with Aung San Suu Kyi and the two are engaged in a running feud over the family home in Yangon where the Nobel peace laureate has lived since returning to Myanmar in 1988. "He has not asked to see his sister," the family friend said. Aung San Suu Kyi was taken into custody on May 30 after a violent clash between her supporters and a pro-junta gang during a political tour of northern Myanmar. The incident triggered a wider crackdown on her National League for Democracy (NLD) which has left its entire leadership in jail or under house arrest. Although the junta has insisted that Aung San Suu Kyi is being detained on a temporary basis for her own safety, it has not indicated when she could be released. "Their actions to date would indicate that they're not looking to let her go any time soon," said one diplomat in Yangon, referring to a stream of invective aimed at the opposition leader in the state media over recent days. Saturday's ceremony, to be held amid tight security at the Martyrs' Mausoleum which lies in the shadow of Yangon's golden Shwedagon Pagoda, is expected to be attended by ministers in the Myanmar regime. However, the top three generals who run the nation's affairs are not expected to attend. -------------------------------------------------------------- Army blamed for Suu Kyi
attack
By Christopher Gunness BBC's East Asia Today, northern Thailand The BBC has obtained the first eyewitness evidence that the Burmese army directed and orchestrated the attack in May on the motorcade of the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Until now the incident has been blamed on civilian supporters of the government, rather than the army itself. The attack and subsequent detention of Aung San Suu Kyi sparked international outrage and just this week the US Congress imposed heavy sanctions against Burmese exports. The eyewitness, Chit San, was driving just four cars behind Aung San Suu Kyi when the attack took place on the night of 30 May. He said there were nearly 200 armed policemen and soldiers standing at the edge of the road, shouting instructions to attack and kill those in the convoy. The security personnel were in uniform and armed. The attackers carried iron spears and knives and, according to eyewitnesses, many people sustained severe injuries to the head and upper body. Chit San said he was in no doubt that this was an attack planned and orchestrated by the army itself. The government disputes this and rejects the opposition figure of 70 dead. Rangoon claims just four people died. China 'courting opposition' Meanwhile, a senior National League for Democracy figure in Thailand, Nyo Myint, has told the BBC he has been invited for talks next week with party officials in south-western China. He said this was an indication that Chinese officials are increasingly embarrassed about attacks on Burma's opposition. He said this was a sign that the Chinese Government, which until now has fully supported Rangoon, is building bridges with Burma's democratic opposition. -------------------------------------------------------------- The International Herald
Tribune
ASEAN should give Burma the cold shoulder Philip Bowring IHT Wednesday, June 11, 2003 Shun the generals HONG KONG The violent crackdown by Burma's ruling generals on the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, is highly embarrassing for ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as its members' foreign ministers prepare to meet their counterparts from United States, Japan, China, the Koreas and the European Union at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Phnom Penh from June 16 to June 18. . For far too long ASEAN has made out that Burma's troubles are a minor domestic difficulty. The official ASEAN attitude was summed up recently by the association's secretary-general, Ong Keng Yong of Singapore, who said: "You cannot go in and tell your family member you cannot do this, you cannot do that." If ASEAN is to be more than an _expression_ of geography and mutual admiration, it needs to show that it has some standards. . The common goals of ASEAN nations - such as trade, enshrined in the ASEAN Free Trade Area, and cooperation on fighting disease and drug trafficking - require confidence in one another's conduct and institutions. Yet Burma rejects most behavioral norms common to Asian states, whether they have liberal or authoritarian political systems. . The latest crackdown on Aung San Suu Kyi makes a mockery of well-meaning attempts by ASEAN partners, notably Malaysia, to encourage dialogue between Burma's military regime and Aung San Suu Kyi. It has also been a slap in the face for the UN's envoy to Burma, the Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail, who was finally permitted to meet with the opposition leader on Tuesday morning. . Malaysia and Thailand should now take a lead in putting together a policy which would effectively freeze Burma out of ASEAN activities until it conducts its economic and political affairs in a manner which makes interstate cooperation more viable. . Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia, who is soon to retire, could go out on a high note by using Malaysia's position as chair of the Nonaligned Movement to demand better conduct from Burma. In Thailand, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra should heed the rising tide of criticism of his business-friendly approach to Rangoon. . If ASEAN sends a strong message to Burma, Vietnam would object to any such "interference" in the internal affairs of a member state and even democratic Indonesia would be uneasy. But ASEAN members need to avoid the appearance that the group will put up with behavior such as Burma's, ignoring their own democratic constituencies and leaving official advocacy of open societies in Western hands. . The latest suppression of Burma's opposition appears to have been linked to a surge of unrest caused by economic problems. Much of the private banking system has collapsed, as government directives that loans be repaid and that some accounts be frozen add to the already chaotic condition of the economy. . The regime's promises to encourage a market economy, much touted by ASEAN, have come to little. There was a surge of foreign investment, led by Singapore, but that has largely dried up. Some foreign investment was a means by which drug profits could be laundered for the benefit of the generals and business executives from other ASEAN member nations. This is not an economy with which the other members of ASEAN can or should cooperate closely, let alone one such as Singapore, which has just concluded a free trade agreement with the United States. . ASEAN pressure may not have much practical effect. Burma's generals will continue to get plenty of support from China, and India and Bangladesh have become more accommodating with Rangoon for their own strategic reasons. But ASEAN needs to show that it can be proactive and positive. Its image has already suffered this year when its current chair, Cambodia, declared a verbal war on Thailand. The Singapore-U.S. free trade pact is unpopular with other members of the ASEAN Free Trade Area. Regional peacemaking efforts, such as those of the Malaysians in Mindanao and Thais and Filipinos in Aceh, have all been bilateral efforts in which ASEAN has played no part. . At the very least the other members should tell Burma, thought to be in line to take over the chair of ASEAN soon, that it is not fit to do so. If it wishes to be a hermit state run by military thugs, that may be its affair. But there is no reason for others to accord it the dignity of presiding over an international group. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Independent
(UK)
Tourists, temples and torture To report the reality of daily life under military rule in Burma puts both the reporter and those who help him at great risk, as Phil Reeves discovered. But a handful of picture postcards and a golf shirt helped... 18 July 2003 We understood one another. There were no personal questions. He showed no curiosity about why someone purporting to be a golfer was showing a keen interest in the abuses committed by the military junta running his nation. I did not ask why he was risking imprisonment and torture by talking to me, a foreigner and what Burma's generals would view as a "colonialist stooge", about such issues as the imprisonment of "The Lady", Aung San Suu Kyi. To converse, he had found a quiet place away from Rangoon's main streets, which bustle with soldiers in olive-green fatigues and - his chief concern - ordinary-looking, sharp-eyed men loafing around in longyis and flip-flops. He explained that the country was awash with spies from military intelligence. "They're everywhere: at the bus stops, in the cafés, on street corners. Nowhere is safe." Several months of his life had been spent inside a Burmese prison for his activities as a young man with the National League for Democracy, the Lady's party; he had no desire to serve any more. He came straight to the point. "The trouble is, we cannot do anything internally. The generals have the opposition nailed down. Our leaders are in hiding, or in prison. All the students have been made to sign documents acknowledging that if they take part in illegal opposition activity, their parents will be held responsible and punished." He paused. "We need more external pressure. There should be no foreign investment here; the government will only spend the money on arms. And we need more international pressure on our neighbours China and Thailand, which are doing a lot of business here." Where is the Lady now, I asked? We had heard she was being held in a hut in the grim Insein prison, but was later moved. He shook his head. "We just don't know." Then he left. Note-taking in public was impossible, so that was the gist of his words. The military government does not welcome foreign correspondents to Burma - or Myanmar, as it styles the country. I had acquired a tourist visa through a travel agent in Bangkok by expressing a desire to play at a Burmese golf course and to indulge in some light tourism. This was not entirely untrue. Golf isn't really my game, but I was eager to see Rangoon's breathtaking golden Shwedagon pagoda, the country's holiest Buddhist shrine; to explore the city's silent lakes; to see its bare-footed, pink-swaddled nuns and shaven-headed monks padding the pavements with their alms bowls; to drink in its sheer beauty, the product, in part, of repression and economic retardation. Neither my cover story nor my carefully selected bright red logo-ed golfer's shirt had deceived my friend. He never said so, yet there is not much doubt that he guessed I was a journalist. He wanted to get a message across. We understood one another. People in Rangoon want to talk about the Lady and her pro-democracy movement, but their fear and their desire to express themselves are in unending conflict. Half-remarks are made sotto voce; unfinished sentences trail into an embarrassed laugh; eyes slide off into the middle distance. They particularly want to know what happened on 30 May, when Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy was ambushed north-west of Mandalay. The regime has held her in detention ever since, calling it "protective custody". Two of her supporters turned up in Bangkok this month, saying they had witnessed the attack. After dodging arrest for illegal entry, they appeared before a Thai Senate panel and described an assault by government-backed thugs armed with spears, iron rods, bats and sticks, who pounded the heads of their victims on the stone road. Supporters of the Lady say as many as 70 people were killed. This figure is far from certain, but there is no doubt that the toll was considerably higher than the figure of four put out by the generals. There have been finger-wagging protests from the international community, but limited measures. The generals, accustomed to pariah status, have responded by pouring scorn on her and her foreign sympathisers. The junta's version of the convoy "incident" was conveniently on display in my lodgings at the Kandawgyi Hotel, a cluster of luxurious teak buildings overlooking Rangoon's Royal Lake, designed to persuade tourists that Burma is an idyllic, smoothly run, civilised society. Each morning the English-language edition of The New Light of Myanmar newspaper was placed in the lobby in the hope that the handful of guests might swallow its contents along with their muesli and orange juice. There can be few more Orwellian entities than this organ and the figures in dark glasses and fatigues who strut through its pages. The paper is a distorting porthole on an isolated society, a potentially rich land sandwiched between India, Thailand and China that has drifted into a tragedy of its own making. An edition last week was led by an account of "Secretary-1" opening a new university, omitting to mention that it is part of an exercise in social engineering in which students are being relocated from the city to the countryside, where they can cause less trouble. Was it, one wonders, built by forced labour? Burmese, including children, are still commandeered into building roads and public projects in rural areas. Secretary-2 had met with "responsible personnel" from social organisations in a village to give them the "necessary instructions", said another article. The State Peace and Development Council - newspeak for the military government - has been busy pursuing Myanmar's four social objectives. These include the "uplift of the morale and morality of the entire nation" and increasing the "dynamism of patriotic spirit" - areas doubtless in need of a boost, given Burma's broken-down economy, corruption, repression and huge opium trade. One suspects that even the Belarussian ex-Soviets living under Alexander Lukashenko, the totalitarian former collective-farm director, would giggle at this nonsense. There is nothing laughable about the newspaper's attacks on Aung San Suu Kyi. It has been running a series of articles supposedly from a disillusioned party member who depicts her as an ambitious and impetuous fanatic and blames the 30 May violence on NLD youths armed with sticks and catapults, intent on political chaos. The 7 July edition ran a picture of Suu Kyi meeting the junta's top man, General Than Shwe. The photograph was taken several years ago, when she was free and the two sides were trying to negotiate, but the caption merely said that she had "gotten a chance to have frank and open discussions" - as if these had just happened - but "could not make a peaceful transition to the nation's future". No mention, of course, of the fact that her NLD won the 1990 election, but was barred from taking power. I meet another man, another admirer of the Lady. Again, this is the gist. He favours tougher international sanctions against the government, acknowledging that in the short term this will make life harder for Burma's 48 million people. I ask whether the military government will ever voluntarily cede power to Suu Kyi. He seems doubtful. He says the military men are afraid. He says they worry that one day they might have to answer for the 3,000 students their troops killed suppressing pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. "I think she will be detained for a long time - at least a year." I'm told that some Burmese dream of an American invasion, like Iraq. Some journalists who have slipped into Burma in recent years have chosen to smuggle out their notes and photographs. I decided on a different system - fake postcards to my wife, which might escape notice if my luggage was searched. These would act as a form of record, even though cast only in general terms. "Dear Mandy," began my first, "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here. Last night the phone in my hotel room suddenly rang at about 7pm. A man's voice informed me that my package tour included dinner with a Cultural Show. 'The show starts now,' it added. Something about his reproachful tone made clear that truancy was out of the question. It was held in a cavernous hall, with long tables set for 150 diners. The place was almost empty. There was only one other guest, a chatty French-Canadian woman who the following day was to begin a three-month meditation course under the instruction of Buddhist monks. For the next dozen weeks she will live in silence. Her final night of conversation was spent watching a troupe of lavishly costumed dancers performing to the whistle and clatter of a seven-man Burmese band. The star was a po-faced girl in pink football shorts who had mastered the art of balancing on one foot on top of a milk bottle placed on a bar stool, while juggling a small wicker ball with the other foot... I thought of the Intourist hotel, Moscow. circa 1980. Afterwards I went downstairs to the nightclub, optimistically called Hot Shots. The latter species was nowhere to be seen. It, too, was more or less empty but for half a dozen hookers who looked about 16 (again, more echoes of the Soviets). They flocked around. I hoped they might talk - shedding a little light on their dark corner of this isolated world - but their minds were trained exclusively on the foreign currency in my pocket. Lots of love, etc." "The Burmese are too docile. They'll accept anything." I can tell you no more than that the speaker is a businessman from a neighbouring Asian country, trying to make money in Burma. He reels off Burma's riches - rice, gas, teak, huge tourism potential, talented people - as evidence of the scandal of its mismanagement. "The place is a nightmare to work in. There is no transparency, so it is very hard to draw up business budgets. The military has a hand in everything. And military intelligence is very, very good. You can do what you like - sleep with women and so on - and they will leave you alone, until you conflict with their interests. Then you're finished." "Dear Mandy: Went to the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the centre of Rangoon. If ever there was a little corner of England, this is it. Neo-Gothic, red brick, dark wooden pews, whitewashed walls. At the last service, they sang Hymn No 470, HF Lyte's 'Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven', just as they must have done decades ago, British bureaucrats and mustachioed soldiers blaring away lustily in the name of the Empire. There is a small chapel dedicated to the Brits and other imperial forces who died fighting the Japanese in the Burma Campaign of 1942-45 (during which the Japanese turned the altar into a brewery). Wooden shields of the regiments who lost men - the Blackwatch, East Lancashires, Royal Scots, King's Own, Notts and Derby, Royal Engineers and more - hang on the walls." The caretaker proudly showed me a framed article praising the freedom of worship in Burma under the junta's rule. I thought I would explore this by dropping into another Christian church near by - can't say which. A portly cleric appeared and agreed to show me round. "Does freedom of worship mean that you can preach what you like from the pulpit?" I asked. He threw me a glance full of suspicion. "There's no politics. Any mention of politics and you will be arrested at once." Why, I asked, knowing the answer. The suspicion turned to obvious fear. "Ha, ha, ha" he laughed, looking bleakly out of the window. Why is everyone afraid of foreigners, I asked? "HA, HA, HA." I left, leaving him miserable and cross. The Rangoon street stalls sell the paraphernalia of fantasy, of dreams of better things. You can buy a licence application form for a GSM mobile phone, alongside entry forms for a US green-card lottery, pictures of David Beckham and Manchester United, and powdered monkey's skull for medical purposes. The problem is, one man pointed out in the customary half-whisper, that the government charges vast fees for issuing the licence, and restricts phone access to its friends and supporters. He was in his twenties, a BBC World Service fan who wants nothing more than to get out of the country and explore the world. That's the other problem: there is no freedom of travel here. We talk about getting a visa. He shakes his head despairingly. "Dear Mandy: Today I went for a ride on a suburban train - Rangoon's equivalent of the Circle Line, but above ground. Before I was allowed to board, I was stopped on the platform by some officials and sent to an office for a Sars test. The carriage was dusty, entirely unornamented, wooden, with glassless windows and no doors. Two policemen lounged at one end, separated from the masses by a piece of grubby blue string stretched across the carriage's width. On seeing me, one of them, a sullen young man in a vest, insisted on writing down my name and details in a crumpled notebook with an air of enormous self-importance." After three days, my tour package expires. I have played no golf. As we drive through Rangoon to the airport - past the pavilions, the shabby stores, the half-built luxury apartment blocks, rumoured to be built on the proceeds of drug money - I see a big red iron sign. People must "oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views", it declares. There is not much to gladden the heart here, but it is a gratifying source of hope that, for all the fear and repression, these instructions are so widely ignored. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation
BURMA STAND-OFF: Rangoon weighs Thai 'road map' Supalak Ganjanakhundee Published on Jul 18, 2003 Surakiart says goal of plan is democracy in troubled neighbour Burma is looking over a Thai-proposed "road map" towards national reconciliation and democratisation, but has yet to comment on it. Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai yesterday declined to discuss any details of the plan, but said it had been given to Burmese Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win during his visit to Thailand earlier this month. Khin Maung Win came to Bangkok to brief the government on political developments in Burma after the ruling junta came under pressure from the international community for its arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi. The road map includes no ultimatums, nor does it seek to pressure Rangoon. It was conceived as a way to help achieve positive political developments in Burma and reduce international pressure on the Burmese military government, Surakiart said. "It's up to the Burmese government to decide, we just proposed an idea that gives Rangoon a possible and clear path to achieve a positive end," he said. Thailand will not pressure the junta to accept the road map because Bangkok knows little about the situation inside the country, including the condition of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the minister said. "We will work together as neighbours who can talk to each other on all matters. We need not shout into the faces of our friends," he said, adding that the Thai plan would be the most practical way to achieve the ultimate goal of democracy in Burma. Sanctions imposed by the US, Europe and Japan will make the lives of poor Burmese people more difficult rather than affect the regime, he added. Thailand's road map will complement ideas raised by other countries, including members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which agreed earlier to send a mission to Rangoon to encourage democratisation and reconciliation. Meanwhile, Senator Kraisak Chonhavan said Thailand should include conditions in its policy towards Burma that encourage the junta to respect human rights and make its political structure more democratic. "Thai economic assistance to Burma should not be unconditional, it should depend on respect for human rights and democracy," he said. Kraisak, who is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Thailand was not in a position to impose economic sanctions on Burma because it could cause trouble. -------------------------------------------------------------- No indication of attendance of
Myanmar envoy at ASEM dinner
By Christine T. Tjandraningsih JAKARTA, July 18, Kyodo - There has been no indication yet on the possible attendance of a Myanmar government official at an informal dinner of an Asia-Europe foreign ministerial meeting in Indonesia next week, an Indonesian official said Friday. ''It seems there has been no indication yet that Myanmar will attend the informal dinner,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told a press briefing. On Thursday, an Indonesian diplomat said Myanmar may be represented by a director general-level official at the informal dinner of the fifth Asia-Europe Ministerial Meeting (ASEM) amid growing international concern over detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta said they have not received an invitation for the dinner, adding that, even if invited, the foreign minister cannot attend the dinner because of a domestic engagement. The Myanmar military government has been detaining the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and some members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) since May 30 following what the junta said were violent clashes between NLD supporters and pro-junta demonstrators in northern Myanmar. Issues including postwar Iraq, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, terrorism, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and Suu Kyi will be discussed at the ASEM meeting in the resort island of Bali on Wednesday and Thursday. ASEM consists of 10 Asian countries -- Brunei, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam -- and 15 European Union (EU) member countries and the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU. The EU members are Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. At least seven ministers from Europe have confirmed their attendance. Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, which belong to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will only be invited to the informal dinner as they are not ASEM members. The remaining seven ASEAN countries are all ASEM members. -------------------------------------------------------------- |