Burma Related News - June 3, 2000.

[TIN KYI <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reuters-WIRE:06/02/2000 17:46:00 ET
U.S. Moves to Isolate 12 World Drug Suspects

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday put 12  suspected international drug kingpins, including six Mexicans,  on a new government blacklist that aims to disable drug dealers  and their associates financially. 
The list, sent by the White House to Congress on Thursday  night and issued by the Treasury Department on Friday, included  two sets of Mexican brothers: Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix  and Jose de Jesus and Luis Ignacio Amexcua Contreras. 

 

The United States also named two other Mexicans, Rafael Caro  Quintero, who already is in jail, and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. 

 

Treasury officials said naming the alleged drug bosses was a  first step in notifying all U.S. banks and financial  institutions that Americans were strictly forbidden to do  business with them or any businesses they controlled. 

 

Sometime later, the Treasury Department will issue a second  list, of names of companies and businesses that the suspects  control. Any American who does business with them could be  imprisoned or incur a big fine, and U.S.-controlled companies  that do so could also be fined. 

 

 "WHERE RUBBER REALLY HITS THE ROAD" 

 

"I think the second-tier list (of company names) is going  to be where the rubber really hits the road," a senior Treasury  official told reporters after conceding that the United States  was unsure whether the alleged drug dealers themselves had any  assets in the United States that could be seized or blocked. 

 

The 11 men and one woman on the list were a who's who of the  murky world of international narcotics and other illicit drugs. 

 

They include Myanmar's Chang Chi-fu, also known as Khun Sa,  who surrendered to the military government there in 1996 and has  since lived free in the capital, Yangon. Khun Sa was the main  narcotics producer in the Golden Triangle, where Myanmar  (formerly Burma), Laos and Thailand meet. 

 

Also named was warlord Wei Hsueh Kang, a leader of the  United Wa State Army (UWSA), a rebel Myanmar group that has  reached a cease-fire with Yangon. Narcotics experts say the UWSA  has stepped into Khun Sa's shoes in the Golden Triangle. 

 

The other people on the list were Noel Timothy Keith and  Glenroy Vincent Matthews, both of St. Kitts-Nevis, and a  Nigerian husband-and-wife team, Oluwole A. Ogungbuyi and Abeni  O. Ogungbuyi. 

 

The White House sent the list to Congress late on Thursday  night to meet a June 1 deadline set in the Foreign Narcotics  Kingpin Designation Act. The law, passed last year, obliges the  U.S. government to name the world's top suspected drug dealers  every year. 

 

 U.S. ASSETS CONSIDERED UNLIKELY 

 

A senior Treasury Department official, in response to  questions, said it was unlikely that those on the list had  assets in the United States in their own names that could be  seized. 

 

But the official added, "What it does is provide a  framework for naming the companies they own or control and  forbidding Americans from doing business with them." 

 

A similar U.S. blacklist, aimed at Colombian drug dealers,  has been in place since 1995. Seven suspected dealers are on  that list, and 526 businesses and individuals have been named as  controlled by or associated with them, thus putting them out of  bounds for American business dealings. 

 

"This is a companion or complementary program," a Treasury  official said in reference to the new list. "We will continue  to administer the Colombian program as well." 

 

U.S. lawmakers who pushed for the drug kingpin law said it  added a powerful new tool to the bid to dismantle increasingly  sophisticated global cartels. 

 

"By targeting the cartels directly, we can avoid  country-to-country conflict and go right after the true  culprits, regardless of nationality or location," said Sen.  Paul Coverdell, a Georgia Republican. 

 

AIMS TO USE ECONOMIC POWER 

 

"The objective of this law is to use U.S. economic power to  undercut the financial base of the drug cartels," Coverdell  added. An updated list of suspected drug kingpins must be sent  to Congress every year by June 1. 

 

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on  Intelligence, Florida Republican Porter Goss, said blacklisting  should prove a potent weapon by helping to bankrupt dealers. 

 

"To put these drug kingpins out of business, we have to hit  them where it hurts the most: in their wallets," Goss said. 

 

U.S. officials tiptoed around the issue of whether Mexico  might be offended at having so many of its citizens on the new  list and said they were confident of receiving cooperation in  fighting drug dealing. 

 

"We are respectful of the sovereignty of nations as an  important ingredient in our counterdrug efforts, and we are  extremely pleased at growing multilateral and bilateral efforts,  including sharing of information and enforcement," Barry  McCaffrey, director of White House national drug policy, said in  a statement. 

 

In a statement issued in Aachen, Germany, where President  Clinton was traveling, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said  that naming the suspected drug dealers under the kingpin law  showed U.S. determination to counter damage caused by illegal  drugs. 

 

"This action underscores our determination to do everything  possible to fight drug traffickers, undermine their operations,  and end the suffering that trade in illegal drugs inflicts on  Americans and people around the world," the statement said.

 

WIRE:06/02/2000 13:40:00 ET
Myanmar minister says taking steps on forced labor

 

GENEVA (Reuters) - The labor minister of Myanmar, whose  military government stands accused of modern day slavery, has  pledged that it is taking steps to stamp out forced labor, an  ILO report said Friday. 
Experts from the International Labor Organization (ILO), who  visited Myanmar last week to investigate allegations of  widespread forced labor, called for abolishing the practice. 

 

Their report, issued in Geneva, urged the Asian country to  take comprehensive "legislative, executive and administrative  measures" to ensure that forced labor is illegal. 

 

The findings are to be debated this month by ILO's 174  member states, who could call for further international action  to sever ties with Myanmar. 

 

A year ago, members banned Myanmar from the Geneva-based  agency after a 1998 ILO commission of inquiry found the country  violated a global treaty banning forced labor. Trade unions have  estimated more than 800,000 Burmese are conscripted into forced  labor with little or no pay. 

 

But Myanmar's Labor Minister, Maj.-Gen. Tin Ngwe, met the  ILO experts and told them that the need for porters for military  operations had been greatest prior to a 1990 insurgency,  according to the 20-page report. A government order of May 1999  had amended legislation to halt forced labor and no complaints  had been received since then, he added. 

 

Tin's subsequent letter to ILO director-general Juan  Somavia, published as an appendix to the report, appeared to  mark the first time that the junta has indicated a readiness to  work with the U.N. agency on the controversial issue. 

 

He declared that Myanmar was "sincere in its efforts to  resolve the issue of the allegations of forced labor. 

 

"I would also like to take this opportunity to inform you  that we have taken and are taking the necessary measures to  ensure that there are no instances of forced labor in Myanmar,"  the labor minister wrote. 

 

"Allow me to say that Myanmar would take into consideration  appropriate measures, including administrative, executive and  legislative measures, to ensure the prevention of such  occurrences in the future." 

 

The ILO's selection committee, composed of 28 key government  delegations as well as workers and employers representatives, is  to discuss the report June 8-9. It is to make recommendations to  the annual conference, meeting in Geneva through June 15. 

 

The full conference could urge governments and international  organizations, including U.N.-affiliated financial organs like  the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to "review  their relationship" with Yangon. 

 

The United States, whose latest annual human rights report  accused Myanmar of using forced labor to support tourism and  military operations, is expected to take a strong stand in the  debate. Britain, which has also denounced Myanmar's poor rights  record, has pushed its European partners to take a harder line. 

 

The ILO team also met Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate  and general secretary of the opposition National League for  Democracy. Her party swept an election in 1990 but the military  ignored the result and has detained many of its members. 

 

"She stressed the continuing gravity of forced labor,  particularly in the light of its use by the military, and the  extreme form that it could take with the enlistment of child  soldiers," the ILO report said.

 

AP-Saturday, June 3 4:48 PM SGT

Myanmar Leader Recovering From Undisclosed Ailment-Report

YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--Gen. Than Shwe, who heads Myanmar's ruling military council, appears to be recovering from an undisclosed ailment, with the official press reporting Saturday he had met a delegation from China.

The 67-year-old general was seen in public Friday for the first time since it was announced May 29 that his scheduled visit to Bangladesh was being postponed on the advice of doctors.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said Than Shwe met Chinese State Councilor Ismail Amat and his delegation at the Parliament building. A front page photograph showed Than Shwe, who heads the State Peace and Development Council, shaking hands with the visitors.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since a 1962 coup.

The Straits Times - June 3, 2000.
Myanmar junta leader recovering from illness

 

YANGON -- Myanmar's supreme leader Senior General Than Shwe is recovering from an illness which forced him to postpone a rare foreign visit, informed sources said yesterday.

 

The secretive junta leader was gradually recovering from his illness, a blood-pressure problem which had worsened after he made a strenuous tour within the country in April, a source close to him said.

 

His Bangladesh visit, which was to have begun last Monday, was cancelled, according to a Yangon government spokesman, ""due to the medical recommendation given by Than Shwe's physician''.

 

The general, who is military commander-in-chief, Prime Minister and Defence Minister, would have been the first top leader from Myanmar to visit Bangladesh since it won independence from Pakistan in 1971.

 

Myanmar was among the first countries to recognise the new state.

 

The two countries had planned to discuss the demarcation of a sea boundary, road and shipping links, expanding bilateral trade and combating armed groups operating on their common border. --AFP

 

Bangkok Post - June 3, 2000.

PTT ready to take blame for dead trees

The Petroleum Authority of Thailand has admitted that its Yadana gas pipeline project might have killed trees along its route but denied the situation was worsening.

"Those trees are too close to the pipeline course and probably their roots were too damaged to recover," said Songkiat Tarnsamrit, PTT public relations director.

A recent probe found that soil, which was dug up to prevent landslides along the route, might have suffocated the trees.

He dismissed allegations by the Kanchanaburi Conservation Group that all the trees along the route died.

He said the company would heed suggestions put forward by Apichart Kaosa-ard, head of Chiang Mai University's Department of Forest Resources, who blamed the wind and loss of moisture due to the clearing.

Mr Songkiat said if it could be confirmed that the pipeline did kill the trees, PTT would take full responsibility. He said the study would be finished in a month.