Inside China
China Signs Navigation Treaty with Thailand, Myanmar, Laos
BEIJING, Apr 25, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) China and the southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos have agreed to expand their trade along the Mekong River which runs through all four nations, state media reported Tuesday.
Representatives from the four countries have signed an open navigation treaty which opens 12 ports along the Mekong to allow their merchant ships to jointly ply the river.
"The treaty provides for favorable duties and tax rates, as well as easier customs and inspection procedures and more convenient services for ships from the four countries," the China Daily said in a report.
The treaty signed in the Myanmar city of Tachilek on Friday, required the countries to adopt uniform navigational standards and clean up their portion of the river by April 20, 2001, the report said.
Ships from Simao in the southwestern province of Yunan would be able to reach the other countries in a day.
On the same day, China, Laos and Thailand agreed that highways under construction linking China's Kunming, the capital of Yunan province, to the Thai capital of Bangkok would be open to motorists by 2004, the report said.
An 850-kilometre section of one of the highways stretching from Bangkok to its border with Laos had already been completed, it said. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)
Bangkok post - April 26, 2000.
Suppression officers are being 'misled'
Sao Hser Harn, a leader of the Shan State Army,
operating opposite Mae Hong Son, said Burmese ethnic groups were not the sole
producers of methamphetamine sold in Thailand. Domestic producers, among them
influential figures and politicians, were playing a major role, he said. Furthermore, Thais were also supplying chemicals being used in their
production in Burma, he said. "Burmese production bases along the border amount to a handful," he said. "In
fact, production bases exist in Thailand. The Thai authorities are getting lost
in the suppression by deploying many forces in border areas," Sao Hser Harn
said. Surachai "Bang Ron" Ngernthongfu had a production base near Bangkok and was
able to flee abroad with help from military officers, he added. The Nation - April 26, 2000.
Army chief quells attack rumours
ARMY chief Gen Surayudh Chulanont yesterday dismissed an intelligence report
claiming a Burmese rebel group planned a terrorist attack in Chiang Mai during
the upcoming the Asian Development Bank conference.
Surayudh said he had received the report, but insisted the public should not
be concerned. There was no movement of troops or activities among other
dissident groups operating along the Thai-Burmese border, he added.
The report alleged the God's Army group, a small band of Karen rebels with no
more than scores of armed men, planned to launch an attack during the bank
meeting in Chiang Mai, between May 6-8.
The God's Army group was brutally crushed in January by an all-out offensive
from three battalions of Burmese government troops, with help from the Thai
Third Army Region's 9th Infantry Division, which conducted a four-day shelling
of the messianic group's stronghold, Karmarplaw, across from Ratchaburi's Suan
Phung district.
The Thai troops' shelling prompted the self-styled Vigorous Burmese Student
Warriors, a radical armed group which took refuge with the God's Army rebels, to
storm Ratchaburi hospital in January.
The Nation. The Nation - April 26, 2000. DKBA threat to attack Mae Sot
MAE HONG SON - An armed ethnic group allied with the military government of
Burma has threatened to carry out terrorist attacks in the border town of Mae
Sot unless Thai authorities release three members of their group who are being
held for drug trafficking, a senior army officer said yesterday.
The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) sent a letter to Thai authorities
over the weekend demanding the release of three people arrested by police for
trafficking in amphetamines. The group has threatened to burn Mae Sot to the
ground if its demand is not met, according to Col Chainarong Thanaroon,
commander of Special Task Force 4 of the Third Army Region.
Mae Sot is a major commercial town in Tak province. It is adjacent to the
Burmese town of Myawaddy.
Chainarong has placed Thai troops on high alert after learning about the
threat from the DKBA, which in recent years has launched a number of bloody
attacks on refugee camps on the Thai side of the border.
The DKBA split from the Karen National Union in the early 1990s and has sided
with the junta.
Last year Thai police seized 44 million amphetamine pills, most produced
along the Thai-Burmese border by warlords and drug armies, some of whom are
allied with the junta.
The Burmese government has consistently denied allegations that it is not
doing enough to curb the flow of drugs, saying neighbouring countries are also
to blame for the rise in drug trafficking. It has pointed to the fact that
amphetamines can easily be produced anywhere as long as the precursor chemicals
are available.
Thai authorities and a number of Western governments have accused Rangoon of
turning a blind eye to the trafficking in exchange for cease-fire deals with
ethnic rebel groups such as the DKBA and the United Wa State Army, reportedly
the world's largest armed narcotic-trafficking group.
Meanwhile Mae Sariang district chief Saowarat Yinrungroeng yesterday warned
residents living in the border district of possible kidnapping by armed Burmese
groups amid uncertainties about the safety of two local Karen villagers abducted
by Burmese government troops in recent weeks.
Saowarat urged local residents and merchants to be extremely careful,
especially when using the Salween River.
The warning came days after two ethnic Karen villagers from Baan Mae Samlap
village were kidnapped by Burmese troops while they were out fishing on the
Salween.
Their safety and whereabouts remain uncertain, Saowarat said.
The two victims have been identified as Ah-sun, 25, and Hla Mack, 30.
The Nation. The Nation - April 26, 2000. Finland to take in 100 Burmese
FINLAND will take 100 Burmese student exiles from the Maneeloy Holding Centre
this year as part of an ongoing international effort to relieve Thailand of its
refugee burden, a spokesman of the Finnish Embassy in Bangkok said yesterday.
"At this moment we consider it opportune to accept 100 [exiles] for the year.
It's a goodwill gesture from the Finnish government," the spokesman said.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees yesterday welcomed the
decision. "This announcement is especially laudable as it represents some 15 per
cent of Finland's worldwide quota for this year," UNHCR regional representative
Jahanshah Assadi said.
Some 275 refugees from the Maneeloy Centre in Ratchaburi have been resettled
in other countries since October last year. The most recent group, of 13 people,
left for Australia early this month.
As of last month, a total of 1,704 Burmese exiles were living at the Maneeloy
Centre.
The Thai government has sought assistance from developed countries to help
relieve its refugee burden. Most of the refugees are former students who fled
after the bloody crackdown by the military government in Rangoon.
The Nation. Wednesday, April 26 11:07 AM SGT
BANGKOK (Dow Jones)--Myanmar's military regime must loosen its iron grip on
the economy if the Southeast Asian state is to develop, the Asian Development
Bank said in a report Wednesday. "Given its rich resource base, Myanmar has the economic potential to grow at
a high rate," the bank said in its annual Asian Development Outlook.
"However, the economy remains highly controlled and has yet to adopt sound
economic policies to exploit its potential and sustain economic growth," the
report added.
Myanmar's junta made an initial step toward liberalizing the economy in 1988,
the year it crushed a student uprising calling for a more democratic system.
But progress in reducing the monolithic state's role in the economy has
stalled in recent years, the ADB said.
Since 1988, the military has tightened its grip on the economy and
government, annulling a democratic election in 1990 that should have propelled
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to power.
Suu Kyi, who won the Noble Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to promote
democracy and human rights in Myanmar, was under house arrest for six years, and
the military still severely restricts her movements.
Myanmar's government must move away from supporting inefficient state
enterprises and allow private companies to play a greater role in the economy,
the ADB said.
"This could shift Myanmar to a higher growth path, and help alleviate
poverty," the report said.
Despite real economic growth of about 4.5% last year compared with 1998,
Myanmar is among the poorest countries in the world, due to government policies
that have effectively shut out much-needed foreign investment.
Currently, the military imposes restrictions on external trade, preventing
the private sector from exporting the country's resources, which include rice,
sugar, rubber, mineral and gems, the bank said.
The government controls external trade through state enterprises. It
maintains the kyat currency at an artificially high level to help these state
concerns import cheaply, and then sells to Burmese consumers at higher prices.
Myanmar is also known as Burma.
Such exchange rate distortions favor state industries at the expense of
private companies and agricultural workers, which account for two thirds of
Myanmar's workforce and produce almost half of the national income, the ADB
said.
Inflation is soaring in Myanmar, with consumer prices doubling on year in the
capital Yangon in 1998, the last year for which statistics are available, the
ADB said.
The government's policy of fixing prices for staple foods, and agricultural
and industrial inputs from state enterprises, has helped push up prices across
the board, it added.
Myanmar's central bank has also had to drastically increase the money supply
to cover the government's budget deficit, which was ramped higher by the cost of
keeping the state sector afloat.
A huge rice subsidy for all state workers is making the deficit
unsustainable, the report says.
Rather than improve its tax collection system, Myanmar's central bank printed
more money to fund around 70% of last year's budget deficit, pushing up prices.
Asian Development Bank, which is based in Manila, said Myanmar should make
the central bank more independent of the government so it can move to curtail
inflation.
Myanmar's Junta Must Liberalize Econ-Asian
Development Bk
Government Shuts Out Private Sector
Inflation Poses Threat