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HEADLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Straits Times - It's back to college for Myanmar students The India Times - UN envoy arrives on first visit to Myanmar AP - UN Envoy Meets Top Myanmar General, Opposition Leader Toledoblade - Editorial: Foreign policy limits Bkk Post -Stolen ammo intended for Wa rebel army The Straits Times - June 30,
2000.
It's back to college for Myanmar
students
University classes have resumed after more than three years of closure,
amid tight security to prevent renewed protests by students
YANGON -- Myanmar universities and colleges have reopened after they were
closed for the past three-and-a-half years because of student protests against
the military regime.
Yangon residents said final year university classes started again
nationwide this week and first, second and third year classes are to open across
the country on July 24.
""We must welcome the reopening of any school in Burma,'' said a statement
from a Thai-based coalition of Myanmar dissidents known as the Campaign
Committee to Open Schools.
Myanmar was formerly known as Burma.
Institutes of higher education were shut after anti-government student
demonstrations in December 1996.
The students protested against police brutality and demanded the right to
set up a students' union.
Students have historically been at the forefront of political protest in
Myanmar including the 1988 uprising, when thousands of demonstrators were gunned
down by the military.
The military ignored the 1990 election victory of the pro-democracy party
of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Dissidents said that universities have been open for only 30 months since
the current crop of generals took power after the 1988 crackdown because of the
regime's fears of renewed unrest.
Selected classes have restarted over the past year, particularly at
postgraduate level, but there is huge backlog of undergraduates waiting to
complete their studies or commence higher education.
Only those who finished high school in 1996 will be enrolled as first year
students when undergraduate courses start next month.
The Campaign Committee to Open Schools said only universities and colleges
in northern Myanmar had been reopened and ""tight security measures'' were in
force.
It urged the Myanmar government to allow students to study a full academic
year rather than a four-month shortened term.
Official media have not announced the reopenings, but education authorities
have sent letters to students.
In Yangon, ward chiefs have announced that buses are available for
students.
Most students in the capital will now study at campuses set up on the city
outskirts in an apparent effort to prevent students from congregating to
demonstrate.
Only postgraduates and undergraduates in courses with few students are to
be taught at the main Yangon University campus in the city centre, now dubbed a
""museum'' by local people as it is almost deserted. --AP
The India Times - June 30,
2000.
UN envoy arrives on first visit to Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar: A United Nations special envoy arrived in Yangon for his first visit to Myanmar to study the situation in the politically deadlocked military state, officials said. Razali Ismail, appointed earlier this year as the envoy to Myanmar of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to hold talks with Foreign Minister Win Aung Thursday and other officials on Friday. It was not immediately known if Razali would meet with prodemocrat leader Aung San Suu Kyi whose party swept general elections in 1990 but was prevented from taking power by the military. The regime has since jailed hundreds of NLD members and rejected Suu Kyi's calls for an unconditional dialogue. His predecessor Alvaro de Soto visited Myanmar six times, the last time in Oct. 1999, but made no headway in breaking the political stalemate. Razali's appointment was welcomed by Win Aung who told reporters in May that Razali could have a better understanding of the Myanmar situation as he was Asian. It was not yet clear how long Razali, a Malaysian diplomat, would stay in Myanmar. During his visits, de Soto met with officials from both sides, including Suu Kyi and Lt. Col. Khin Nyunt, the third-ranking general in the regime. He also met representatives of Myanmar's ethnic minorities. (AP) Friday, June 30 9:27 PM SGT UN Envoy Meets Top Myanmar General, Opposition LeaderYANGON, Myanmar (AP)--A U.N. envoy investigating human rights in Myanmar met the military state's third-ranking general and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday, diplomats said. Razali Ismail, on his first visit to Myanmar as the envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, called on Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, Secretary One of the ruling State Peace and Development Council. He also met for an hour with Foreign Minister Win Aung. Razali also held a two-hour meeting with Suu Kyi at her Yangon lakeside residence, also attended by the chairman and vice chairman of her National League for Democracy, party sources said on condition of anonymity. The NLD swept 1990 general elections in Myanmar, also known as Burma, but the military, which has ruled since 1962, refused to hand over power. It has jailed hundreds of NLD members and refused Suu Kyi's calls for dialogue. Razali, who also met with the ambassadors of France and Japan on Friday, was to visit the northern city of Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest, during his stay, diplomats said. Toledoblade Editorial: Foreign policy limits
June 29, 2000
The U.S. Supreme Court correctly shot down a Massachusetts law that barred that state's government from contracting with firms doing business with Myanmar, remembered as Burma to Americans of a certain age. In a unanimous vote the court upheld the President's right to make U.S. foreign policy, and his right alone. It also said that a federal sanctions law, passed after the Massachusetts statute, pre-empted it. The court's opinion, viewed as narrow, never said states must avoid all actions with possible foreign policy implications. The Massachusetts law imposed sanctions against the very repressive regime in that country, and it was probably enacted under pressure from anti-Myanmar lobbies that found the state easier to influence than the Congress or the presidency. There's good reason for that. State governments and their officials have no broad foreign policy vision and little insight into consequences. The restraints the law imposed weren't unique. State and local governments - Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and others - have been readily moved to refuse to do business with firms with commercial ties to politically objectionable nations. China, Cuba, Nigeria, and Sudan are current bad guys. It wasn't so long ago that state and local governments, and even boards of college trustees, were cutting ties and investments with firms that did business in South Africa. Though those actions weren't challenged, some experts think they'd not survive an attack like that mounted in this case by the 550-member National Foreign Trade Council, which had 34 members affected by the Massachusetts law. Myanmar, wedged between India and China to the north and the Bay of Bengal and Thailand to the south, has for 38 years been run by a military dictatorship that has cruelly thwarted efforts to unseat it. It remains a poor nation whose name has become synonymous with human rights abuses, labor problems, and drug trafficking. Pressure must be brought on it to change its ways. This decision says only who may apply it. Still, it proved a catalyst for the anti-global crowd, which barked a lot after the European Union and 15 member states, in a brief, argued against the state law. It also proved a victory for Unocal, America's largest investor in Myanmar. The international energy firm has been lambasted for its 28 per cent interest in a natural gas production and pipeline there. For strategic, economic, and defense reasons Americans must cherish its presence there, even as they deplore Myanmar's evil excesses. Bangkok Post - June 30,
2000.
CRIME
Stolen ammo intended for Wa rebel
army
A former soldier has been charged in connection with the attempted theft of
20,000 rounds of M-16 assault rifle ammunition from the police ordnance
division.
Investigators believe the ammunition had been destined for the United Wa
State Army in Burma.
Warrant Officer Peerasak Netsuwan was arrested by Dusit police at a wat in
Chai Nat town with 270,000 baht in his possession.
W/O Peerasak, 50, denied involvement and said the money was fees collected
from passenger vans operating on a provincial route, where he worked as a van
dispatcher.
Earlier this week, guards at the gate of the ordnance division on Sethsiri
road in Bangkok tried to stop and search a pick-up truck leaving the compound.
The driver instead drove back to a warehouse and abandoned the vehicle.
A search of the truck revealed 11 boxes containing more than 20,000 rounds
of M-16 ammunition.
The driver, Pol L/Cpl Sakren Akkatrakul of the ordnance division, was
arrested. Information he gave led to the arrest of Pol Sgt-Maj Chalerm
Banchongplian, of the same division, and Yoswat Ruangsri, a former policeman,
who admitted being a middle man and said the ammunition was meant for W/O
Peerasak. |