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BURMA RELATED NEWS - SEP 12, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AP - Diplomat Denied
Visit to Suu Kyi
Reuters - Defiant
Myanmar Vows to Crush 'Destructive Groups'
THE BOSTON GLOBE - EDITORIAL - Repression
in Burma
AP - British diplomat says he is barred
from visiting Suu Kyi
AP- Myanmar steps up attacks on Suu Kyi, United
States
AFP - AIDS scare among troops in India's
troubled northeast
The Independent-Bangladesh - 'Myanmar junta
helping drug smugglers'
Business Recorder - Myanmar paper says end of
opposition "not far"
The Australian - Burma needs friends, not
lectures
The China Times - Taiwan Troops Offspring from Thai-Burmese Border Call for
Help
The Burma Fund - The
Burma Perspective
Time - From Bad to Worse
Asiaweek - Back to School in
Myanmar
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday September 12 3:00 AM ET
Diplomat Denied Visit to Suu Kyi YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar
authorities barred a British diplomat from visiting pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi at her home, where she has been kept under virtual house arrest for
12 days, the diplomat said Tuesday.
``I tried to visit Aung San Suu Kyi Monday but I was not permitted,'' the
diplomat, who asked not to be named, told The Associated Press. He said he was
politely turned away by a security officer at a roadblock on Yangon's University
Avenue, where Suu Kyi's lakeside home is located.
``I don't see why we should not be given access to her,'' he said. ``I
shall continue to go on a regular basis.''
Myanmar's military government did not immediately comment on the
incident.
Suu Kyi has been confined to her home since Sept. 1, following a nine day
standoff with the government in a Yangon suburb.
She was stopped Aug. 24 while en route to the countryside with 14 party
colleagues for a meeting of her National League for Democracy. They camped
outside and refused to return to the city but were finally forced back on Sept.
1.
Suu Kyi and eight other top party leaders are now confined to their homes
while the government investigates what it says are the party's links with
terrorists.
The leaders are not allowed any visitors, and they have not been seen in
public. Their phone lines are also cut. The NLD's Yangon office has been raided
by authorities and remains off-limits.
British and U.S. diplomats tried to visit Suu Kyi after she was forced back
to Yangon, but they were told by Myanmar's deputy foreign minister, Khin Maung
Win, not to try to make contact with her.
Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her peaceful struggle
for democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma, which has been ruled by its
military since 1962. She spent six years under house arrest between 1989 and
1995.
The current crop of generals came to power in 1988 after a bloody crackdown
on a nationwide uprising for civilian rule. The uprising catapulted Suu Kyi to
political prominence. In 1990, the NLD won national elections but was prevented
by the military regime from taking power.
The latest restrictions on Suu Kyi's movements have drawn vehement
international criticism, mainly by the United States and Britain. They accuse
the regime of blatantly violating the Myanmar democracy leader's political
rights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday September 12 3:04 AM ET
Defiant Myanmar Vows to Crush 'Destructive Groups' By Aung Hla Tun YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) -
Myanmar unleashed another stinging attack against its opponents Tuesday as
foreign diplomats said fears were growing that the military regime may try to
destroy the pro-democracy opposition once and for all.
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been confined to her home and barred
from all contact with the outside world since September 2, while the Yangon
headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) remains closed and
guarded by police.
All official newspapers reported a Monday speech by one of Myanmar's most
powerful ruling generals, Lieutenant-General Tin Oo, pledging stern action
against ``destructive elements.'' Tin Oo is Secretary Two in the ruling military
council.
``At a time when all-out efforts are being made to ensure national
development and everlasting existence with dignity among the world community,
remnants of above-ground and underground destructive elements still exist
outside the areas of national unity,'' he was quoted as saying.
``Therefore, these destructive groups must be crushed.''
At the weekend, one official newspaper said the end of the NLD was ``not
far.'' The NLD, headed by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, won elections by a landslide
in 1990 but was never allowed to govern.
Myanmar has denied that Suu Kyi and other senior NLD members are under
house arrest, saying they are being temporarily confined to their homes while
the government investigates the alleged involvement of some NLD members in
''terrorist activity.''
Myanmar's treatment of Suu Kyi provoked a barrage of embarrassing
international criticism during the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York last week.
The government has reacted with increasingly strongly worded attacks on its
critics.
``Some big nations are applying pressure on Myanmar, openly meddling in her
internal affairs, and attacking her under various protests with intent to cast
her in their own mold,'' Tin Oo was quoted as saying.
Diplomats in Yangon say they have been repeatedly turned away when trying
to visit Suu Kyi and other senior NLD members.
``So far as we know nobody has got in there,'' said one Western diplomat in
Yangon.
``The fear is that with all these attacks and allegations of terrorism that
they are going to try to shut down the NLD completely,'' the diplomat
said.
``That is a growing concern.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/11/2000. Page A16
THE BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL - Repression in Burma While world leaders were orating at the United Nations Millennium Summit
last week about human rights, the rule of law, and good governance, the thuggish
junta that rules Burma was detaining Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
for nine days in a muddy field outside the capital, Rangoon.
That confrontation between an illegitimate regime and the nonviolent
democratic leader ought to serve as a test of the international community's
seriousness about the values commended by the heads of state at the summit.
The officers ruling Burma lost an election in May 1990, when Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy won more than 80 percent of seats in Parliament.
The junta then used force to thwart the will of the voters. The military
officers have not only preserved their power with brutal repression of
nonviolent Burmese democrats, they have been condemned by international
organizations and the US government for their cruel and persistent use of
torture, forced labor, the ethnic cleansing of minority areas, and what the
Asian Wall Street Journal called ''complicity in the thriving drug
industry.''
The junta's pretense last week that soldiers had to let the air out of the
tires on Suu Kyi's car and hold her incommunicado because unnamed forces had
''sound reasons for resentment and indignation toward her'' illustrated the
regime's contempt for the world's opinion. This was a rationale that fooled
nobody. It was issued while the regime's agents were arresting members of the
National League for Democracy, raiding the party's headquarters and carting off
every scrap of paper found on the premises.
Burma's junta presents the international community with a particularly
well-defined challenge because Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the National League
for Democracy are not violent revolutionaries, secessionists, nor even
dissidents. They are the elected representatives of the government chosen at the
ballot box by the Burmese people.
To his credit, President Clinton denounced the detention of Suu Kyi in his
speech last Wednesday at the UN. Leaders of the European Union also spoke up. UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan called on the junta to ''respect the human rights''
of Burma's democratic leaders, and, reiterating previous UN resolutions, he
urged ''the two sides to engage, as soon as possible, in a substantive political
dialogue.''
These reactions are proper, but they cannot alone be expected to change the
regime's behavior. For that, multilateral sanctions are required. The Clinton
administration already prohibits new investment in Burma and denies
international loans to the regime. The International Labor Organization is
expected to impose its own sanctions soon to punish the ruling officers for
their use of forced labor. But there is an evident need for the European Union
to cancel a December meeting with ASEAN ministers that is to include junta
members.
Democratic leaders who pursue business as usual with the Burmese usurpers
cannot be serious about human rights, drug interdiction, or
democracy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WIRE:09/12/2000 02:10:00 ET
British diplomat says he is barred from visiting Suu Kyi YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Myanmar
authorities barred a British diplomat from visiting pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi at her home, where she has been kept under virtual house arrest for
12 days, the diplomat said Tuesday. "I tried to visit Aung San Suu Kyi Monday
but I was not permitted," the diplomat, who asked not to be named, told The
Associated Press. He said he was politely turned away by a security officer at a
roadblock on Yangon"s University Avenue, where Suu Kyi"s lakeside home is
located. "I don"t see why we should not be given access to her," he said. "I
shall continue to go on a regular basis." Myanmar"s military government did not
immediately comment on the incident. Suu Kyi has been confined to her home since
Sept. 1, following a nine day standoff with the government in a Yangon suburb.
She was stopped Aug. 24 while en route to the countryside with 14 party
colleagues for a meeting of her National League for Democracy. They camped
outside and refused to return to the city but were finally forced back on Sept.
1. Suu Kyi and eight other top party leaders are now confined to their homes
while the government investigates what it says are the party"s links with
terrorists. The leaders are not allowed any visitors, and they have not been
seen in public. Their phone lines are also cut. The NLD"s Yangon office has been
raided by authorities and remains off-limits. British and U.S. diplomats tried
to visit Suu Kyi after she was forced back to Yangon, but they were told by
Myanmar"s deputy foreign minister, Khin Maung Win, not to try to make contact
with her. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her peaceful
struggle for democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma, which has been ruled by
its military since 1962. She spent six years under house arrest between 1989 and
1995. The current crop of generals came to power in 1988 after a bloody
crackdown on a nationwide uprising for civilian rule. The uprising catapulted
Suu Kyi to political prominence. In 1990, the NLD won national elections but was
prevented by the military regime from taking power. The latest restrictions on
Suu Kyi"s movements have drawn vehement international criticism, mainly by the
United States and Britain. They accuse the regime of blatantly violating the
Myanmar democracy leader"s political rights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WIRE:09/11/2000 06:03:00 ET
Myanmar steps up attacks on Suu Kyi, United States YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Myanmar
stepped up its litany against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the United
States, saying Monday that "internal traitors" are collaborating with a new
breed of colonizers to destabilize the country. The article published in the
newspaper Myanmar Ahlin did not name Suu Kyi or the United States, but the
references were clear. "A country that failed to pay millions of its due to the
United Nations continues to interfere in the affairs of the countries that (it
does) not favor," said the article. The United Nations puts U.S. debt at $1.8
billion. It was the latest in a series of attacks published in official
newspapers since Suu Kyi"s confrontation with Myanmar"s military rulers last
month. Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent
pro-democracy work, sat in her car for nine days after government authorities
stopped her as she left the capital to conduct political work in the countryside
on Aug. 24. It was her first attempt to leave the capital since 1998, when she
had a similar standoff with the government for 13 days. Initially a test of
wills between Suu Kyi and the government, the confrontation turned into an
international war of words when President Clinton criticized Myanmar for
cracking down on Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and other western nations also joined the chorus of
protests. The NLD, which won national elections in 1990, has never been allowed
to take office. Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989. She was released in
1995 but has been kept on a tight leash. She and the 14 party members who
refused to go back to the capital earlier this month were forcibly returned to
Yangon on Sept. 1. Some have been confined to their homes since then and have
not been seen in public for the last 11 days.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, September 12 1:46 PM SGT
AIDS scare among troops in India's troubled northeast GUWAHATI, India, Sept 12 (AFP)
- Army, police, and paramilitary officials Tuesday warned of a growing AIDS
threat among troops stationed in Indias troubled northeast.
Medical experts and senior security force officials said they had launched
an aggressive AIDS awareness campaign across the seven northeastern states to
help prevent the spread of the killer disease.
"We cannot be complacent and have therefore been taking the risk of AIDS
spreading among the troops very seriously", S.C. Mishra, deputy inspector
general of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) told AFP.
"Prevention is always better than cure," he said.
According to official reports, at least 50 security personnel deployed in
the northeast have been diagnosed with AIDS in the past two years.
Two of the soldiers have since died of the disease. However, unofficial
figures suggest the number of HIV and AIDS cases among troops could be more than
200.
Defence Minister George Fernandes told parliament in a written reply
recently that 2,527 soldiers of the three defence wings had contracted AIDS
between 1990 to 1999 throughout the country.
"I am suffering from AIDS and maybe I contracted the disease as I had
promiscuous sex with several women", a paramilitary soldier told AFP at an army
hospital in Guwahati, the capital of the far-eastern state of Assam.
"I knew nothing about how AIDS spread. But today I want to tell my
colleagues that they should never ever go for casual sex. I dont want even my
enemy to suffer like me".
Indian health ministry figures say more than 50,000 people in the seven
northeastern states are infected with the Human Immune-deficiency Virusthat
leads to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
"We have got various state health organizations which plan, execute, and
implement, awareness programmes for the protection and control of AIDS in the
armed forces", Lieutenant Colonel Gunasekhar, state health officer of an army
unit, told AFP.
"Long days in remote areas far away from their homes, makes the troops more
virile prompting some of them to go for unprotected sex to break the monotony",
S.S. Patra, chief medical officer of the CRPF base hospital in Guwahati
said.
"Our troops are in the age group which are sexually active and they do get
posted to various parts of the country and abroad, thus they face the risk of
having sex and contracting HIV and AIDS".
India's northeast, which borders the heroin-producing Golden Triangle of
Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar also has a major problem with intravenous drug use
which is a common cause of HIV infection here.
Troops said awareness programmes were very helpful.
"The regular counselling sessions and awareness programmes do help a lot in
driving home the message of AIDS and how it spreads", S.M.H. Hussain, a CRPF
soldier, said.
"Our officers regularly keep on telling us about the danger of AIDS and
that helps a lot".
According to the official Indian statistics, more than 3.5 million Indians
have been infected with the HIV virus.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Independent-Bangladesh
Sep 11, 2000. 'Myanmar junta helping drug smugglers' MAE SOT (Thailand), Sept 10: Myanmar's government is helping major heroin
and amphetamine producers expand their scope of influence, Thai military sources
said Sunday, reports AFP.Yangon is helping the United Wa State Army and
Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) -- two ethnic minority militias deeply
involved in the heroin and amphetamine trade -- to expand their operations along
the Thai-Myanmar border, Fourth Infantry civilian affairs chief Prasan
Saengsirirath said. The junta has allowed the Wa and DKBA to join forces on some
smuggling runs and to increase their number of factories and refineries, he said
at a meeting of military, police and district leaders in the western Thai border
town of Mae Sot. The two ethnic minority militias have upped their production of
amphetamines and are now smuggling over 10 million amphetamine pills a month
into Thailand, he said. Thai authorities last month arrested two Wa and two
Karen trying to enter Thailand with 400,000 speed pills. Myanmar's junta denies
claims that it granted permission to the Wa and DKBA to manufacture drugs in
return for them giving up their fight against the government.Yangon, determined
to shed the country's status as an alleged narcotics producer, says it has
introduced a drug eradication program which will wipe out domestic production
within 15 years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business Recorder
Myanmar paper says end of opposition "not far" YANGON (September 11) : Myanmar's ruling military accused its pro-democracy opponents on Sunday of committing criminal acts and ruining the economy, and warned that their end was "not far". As opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained locked inside her residence in the capital by the authorities for a ninth day, the official Myanmar language Kyemon newspaper said her National League for Democracy (NLD) had attempted to seize power. The party and its supporters, which the newspaper referred to as "axe-handles", acted against the national interest, it said. "The end of the axe-handles, who under the influence of the outsiders are committing destructive criminal acts while the nation-building tasks are gaining success under the leadership of the military government, is not far," it said. The newspaper did not elaborate. Official newspapers in Myanmar closely reflect the opinions of the military. In the past, the newspapers have made similar apparent threats against the pro-democracy opposition but the articles were not followed by action by the military. Suu Kyi and more than a dozen NLD leaders have been under de-facto house arrest since the authorities ended by force a marathon protest by the group on a roadside outside Yangon. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair both used their speeches at the United Nations Millennium Summit last week to denounce Myanmar's ruling generals. But Myanmar has rejected all criticism of its treatment of Suu Kyi and the NLD, saying the issue is an "internal matter". Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung told the Millennium Summit on Friday that his government had merely taken preventive action against those who wanted to lead the country into anarchy. The NLD walked out of the National Convention in 1995, saying the military had no intention of moving towards democracy. "They disrupted national reconciliation, national unity and drafting of the State Constitution law," the newspaper said. "Besides, they ruined Myanmar's economy by calling for the stopping of external humanitarian aid for the Myanmar people, imposing economic sanctions on Myanmar and blocking bank loans. "They also created misunderstanding of Myanmar's internal matters in the international community by relying on the Western media," it said.-Reuters -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Australian
Burma needs friends, not lectures By Foreign editor Greg Sheridan 12sep00 BURMA stepped up its litany against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
the US yesterday, saying "internal traitors" are collaborating with a new breed
of colonisers to destabilise the country.
The harsh attack coincided with fresh accusations from Thailand that Burma
was increasing its support for heroin and amphetamine smuggling from its
territory.
This news might be taken to indicate the futility of Australia's attempt to engage the Rangoon regime through the provision of human rights training and assistance in setting up a human rights commission. In fact it illustrates the opposite – the overwhelming need for countries
to re-engage with Burma.
Little more than a decade ago, Western governments were working hard with
the Burmese to pursue poppy substitution programs and to counter Burma's
appalling AIDS epidemic.
Now, because of understandable Western protest at the failure of the State
Peace and Development Council to implement the results of the 1990 election,
which was won by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, Western
nations have no influence on these matters.
Admirable as Aung San Suu Kyi is, she should not hold a veto over Western
or Australian policy towards Burma.
Far from asking whether Australia's policy of modest engagement has worked
in the five minutes in which it has been applied, critics should ask whether the
previous policy of isolation and sanctions had worked during the past 10 years.
The argument for engaging Burma is not that it is not all that bad –
although in human rights terms it is no worse than Vietnam and infinitely better
than North Korea – but that it is very bad indeed and only engagement offers any
prospect of even marginal improvement.
The Howard Government deserves credit for this rare case in which it is
showing political courage to engage a South-East Asian nation positively and
have some beneficial influence.
The argument against engagement is sentimental and hopeless. It is also
hypocritical. No serious foreign policy figure opposes engaging North Korea,
which is worse on every measure than Burma, but which has a nuclear weapon. Even
without a nuclear weapon, North Korea's best chance of being brought to more
civilised behaviour is through increased interaction and openness with the
outside world.
In North Korea, and in Burma, this is not going to produce democracy. But
it might possibly produce a Chinese-style economic opening, which would in turn
help the living standards of the people, create much greater civic space for
them and generally loosen the tightness of the Government's grip.
In a sense, AIDS and drugs are Burma's nuclear weapons. The region,
Australia included, has an enormous interest in trying to control these problems
in Burma.
Many countries, including all the ASEAN members plus Japan, China and
India, already engage Burma. But nothing would do more to open the place up than
Western investment and multilateral loans.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The China Times - Sep 11,
2000.
Taiwan Troops Offspring from Thai-Burmese Border Call for Help Taipei, Sept. 11 (CNA) More than 70 offspring of ROC military servicemen
left in Thai-Burmese border areas after the Chinese civil war in the 1940s took
to the streets of Taipei on Monday to appeal for government help to resolve
their "identity" issue.
The veterans' descendants came to Taiwan more than a decade ago on falsified passports. Although they were allowed to study at local schools, they have had a hard time getting legal residency and identification cards because they are officially stateless. Neither the Thai government nor the ROC recognizes them as their citizens. The petitioners staged the demonstration in front of the Executive Yuan in
downtown Taipei, urging the Cabinet to set up an inter-ministerial task force to
work out measures to help relieve them of their plight.
The demonstrators claimed that they came to Taiwan in their teens on forged
passports in the late 1970s mainly because the ROC's Overseas Chinese Affairs
Commission launched a drive at that time to encourage Chinese refugees in
northern Thailand bordering Burma (now known as Myanmar) to study in Taiwan.
Those who arrived prior to 1978 easily acquired residency and ROC ID cards,
but those who arrived in later years were not so lucky because of changes in
Taiwan's policy. There are currently 200-odd "stateless" army offspring stranded
in Taiwan. They can neither leave Taiwan for reunions with their parents in
northern Thailand nor can they find jobs in Taiwan due to a lack of legal
residency and nationality. They are also denied access to the national health
insurance program and other social benefits.
According to the ROC's immigration law promulgated in May 1999, those who
can prove their identity as descendants of ROC troops left in the Thai-Burmese
areas can apply for ROC nationality. However, the demonstrators counter by
asking how they are supposed to acquire such proof, given that they cannot enter
Thailand.
On June 14 this year, the Ministry of the Interior issued a decree allowing
them to apply for resident permits so long as they surrender themselves to local
police offices and obtain district court verdicts proving their "descendant" or
"refugee" status.
The demonstrators, most of whom were in their 20s or 30s, said that even
they get the court verdicts, they will still have to wait for another five years
to apply for ROC nationality. Moreover, they added, more that 90 of them would
still have difficulty obtaining court verdicts.
The petitioners urged the government to issue them with provisional ID
cards so that they can join the national health insurance program and the labor
insurance program and find jobs more easily.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Burma Perspective
September 12, 2000 The general public, and even those interested in drugs, does not have much
information on the progress made in the war on drugs. We have a situation where
those with resources and information do not inform the public about what is
really going on, while those without resources are expected to do so. Often,
critics are required to "prove" that drugs policies and strategies do not work
as claimed while, in contrast, the anti-drug establishments are not required to
publicly account for their actions, much less for their failure. In fact,
failure - the worsening of the problem year after year -- has become a
rationale for the infusion of more tax dollars into the war waged on drugs.
In short, both the problem and response, are, as far as the public is concerned, deep mysteries played out in the dark. It might well be a war fought on a distant planet. The war on drugs has become an opaque, "hidden" cops-and-gangsters game, isolated from deeper political-economic issues and problems that underlie the problem. The Drug Problem at Ground Zero
In Burma, Shan peasants, who cultivate opium or poppy - the raw material of
this multi-billion agro business - have not only become poorer and more
indebted, but have also to endure increased oppression by those exercising power
as agents of the state -- the Burmese military. The deterioration in the quality
of life of the Shan is a simple reality. In fact, the Shan State today is a land
of "ghost" villages. Most of the villages that one sees on maps are no longer
there. Their inhabitants have long been driven at gunpoint by the Burmese
military regime - without compensation or any assistance -into "relocation"
centers (see DaD # 20). Many now live in makeshift shelters in the jungle like
hunted animals -which, in a sense, they have become, since they are regarded by
the military as "rebels" or "sympathizers". Those internally displaced (internal
refugees), can be counted in the hundreds of thousand.
Some decades ago, the Shan State was a classic peaceful, pastoral plateau. The populace lived in socially harmonious, well-ordered communities, in villages shaded by bamboo groves and bordered by neat hedges. They planted rice, raised poultry and livestock, and grew vegetables and cash crops. Every five days, they went to bazaars to sell their produce and buy manufactured items and little luxuries. The majority Shan ethnic group, being pious Buddhists, avoided "sinful" activities, such as planting poppy, distilling spirits, butchering animals, and even fishing. Opium was grown in the more remote mountains by hill peoples, who bartered it for rice and other essentials. Those who engaged in opium barter with the cultivators were local "entrepreneurs", mostly Chinese, who then traded it among themselves or to long-distance traders (again, Chinese). The opium trade, which existed since British times, was essentially local and very small scale. American Cold and Hot Wars
Around the early 1950s, Kuomintang (KMT/Nationalist Chinese) remnants
escaped from China and encamped in Shan State. These units soon became the
spearpoint of American-Taiwan strategy to infiltrate Southwest China as a
prelude to the "reoccupation" of the Mainland. It was these KMT remnants,
operating in Shan State, who built up the opium trade. The opium-heroin business
was further consolidated when the war to contain communism seeped into Laos,
whereby tribal chiefs (the Hmongs, in particular) became part of a wider
Anti-Communist "secret war". In exchange for the services of anti-communist
clients – i.e., the KMT (on Taiwan and in areas bordering Southwest China), Thai
and Lao "strongmen" and generals, "tribal" anti-communist warriors - the U.S.
turned a blind eye to, and even aided, the illegal trade. Money made from it
funded this "secret war" as well. It can be said that opium was an important and
crucial resource in the American policy in force until the "loss" of Indochina
in the mid-1970s.
Opium became more crucial to the Shan economy from 1962 onwards. In that year, a coup took place in Burma, and the new leader Ne Win embarked on a "Burmese Socialist" path, which involved the nationalization and confiscation of private enterprises, big and small. This resulted in economic chaos, and a situation where the "socialist economy" existed only on paper. The real economy was the "black economy" - a "free enterprise" economy based on transactions in narcotics, contraband, and black-market goods, financed and run by a Pan-Asian Chinese network of capital which dominated the commercial-economic life of Southeast Asia (and still do today). Shan State, gifted with a climate and soil hospitable to opium, became the hub of a "borderless" economy fueled by opium, contraband, and black-market goods. This radically changed Shan society. Shan peasants were drawn into this underworld economy as cultivators of opium, the only viable cash crop and a "universal" medium of exchange. The people had no other choice but to produce the only crop that was marketable and in demand. As a further complication, Shan State was also a war zone. It was a battleground that pitched many armies against one another. These were the Burma Army, KMT Irregulars, Taiwanese intelligence units, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the Communist Party of Burma (sponsored by China), numerous Homeguard armies (sponsored by Ne Win's regime), and as well, half a dozen rebel armies. These armies fought each other according to the politics of expedient alliances and enmity. That is, enemies were also, loosely speaking, "partners" in the business of making money and extracting resources in the borderless marketplace. The Post-Socialist, free Market Economy in Burma
Since 1988, when Ne Win's military-socialist regime was toppled by a
nation-wide "people's power" uprising, much has changed -- though not in the
direction expected by popular, democratic forces. The military is still in
power, not as "socialist" as in the past, but as military-capitalists, touting
the "Burmese Way to Capitalism". What occurred is that after its suppression of
popular forces in 1988, the military legalized the hitherto "illegal" black
economy. As a result, blackmarketeers, contraband traders, drug dealers, and
corrupt military officers (participating in the black economy as protectors,
facilitators, bribe-takers, etc.) have overnight become respectable "capitalist
entrepreneurs".
At present, all forms of money-making, even illegal ones like gambling, money-laundering, opium-trading, heroin-refining, drug-pushing, prostitution, bribe-taking, and so forth, are tolerated or encouraged. Burma is, as such, now a regulation-free, lucrative "backwater", a wide-open, easy "fishing ground" for foreign "investors" and entrepreneurs. The current "Burmese Way to Capitalism" (or "free-market") economy is dominated by a new economic elite made up of governmental warlords (i.e, Burma Army commanders), drug "kings", and kinfolk of military bosses. Another alarming development is the growth of chemical drugs, methamphetamines or "Ya Ba" (see DaD #21). The Thai government, who has in the past been accused of being indifferent to opium and heroin outflow from Burma, is now thoroughly alarmed about the massive inflow of Ya Ba into their country. It might be said that the underworld methamphetamines industry represents the diversification of the Burma-based narcotics economy, from opium and heroin to a commodity which is more portable, cheaper to produce, easier to market and distribute, and yielding a handsome profit. A Ya Ba pill which cost 5 bahts to produce, sells for 15-20 bahts at source and for 100-120 bahts on the streets in Bangkok. The Wa army, currently regarded as the military regime's close ally, and Chinese entrepreneurs and financiers intimately linked to Wa leaders have been accused of being behind the Ya Ba "explosion" by Thai authorities. Wei Hseuh-kang and Sai Lin (Lin Min Xiang) are believed to be the top Ya Ba kingpins. The fact that they both have very close relations with Generals Khin Nyunt and Maung Aye, the two most powerful men within the ruling junta, can be regarded as a very significant indicator of the regime's dependency on the underworld economy. It shows that the drug problem in Burma is not a story of criminal syndicates. It is certainly not a "law and order" problem since Rangoon's ruling generals rule without reference to the laws of the land and are deeply implicated in the narcotics business and money laundering. Hidden Agendas
Given the wide range of, and larger, political-economic problems underlying
the drugs phenomenon, it can be argued that past and current drug policies did
not serve to eradicate the narcotics trade. They have instead served very
different agendas, namely, that of powerful governments, bureaucratic actors
(national and foreign) to win bureaucratic "wars", protect turfs, obtain more
budgetary tax dollars, gain more clout, advance careers, and so on.
For example, American policy on Burma in the mid-1970s was to a large extent influenced by the DEA which, in effect, usurped the State Department's function and power. Or putting it differently, Ne Win used the drug issue and the DEA's bureaucratic self-interest to obtain U.S. aid and military hardware. As well, the drug problem has been used by the military regime to obtain United Nations fund for "alternative development". In turn, it was used by UN agencies in Burma to boost their status in intra-UN politics. In short, the "war on drugs" is such that it is that only in a marginal way. For major players, the drug problem was (and still is) only a convenient rationale to play out certain policies or to achieve other unrelated goals. Another aspect of the flaws in drugs policies is arbitrary figures regarding opium, and thus heroin, production. The methodology used to predict opium output – special photographs showing poppy fields taken from the air - is extremely problematic. This is simply because some areas yield more opium than others. Thus, a large poppy plot in one area may yield much less than a tiny plot in another. Also, the number of poppy pods differ from plant to plant. A hundred poppy plant in one field may produce less pods than, say, fifty plants in another, and also, each poppy pod do not yield the same amount of opium sap. Moreover, both plants and pods are susceptible to frost and hail, and when rain falls at the wrong time, the sap may be washed away. It must be further noted that the basic opium production units, heavily indebted peasant families, who live in dangerous combat or "free-fire" zones, and its members are extremely malnourished and frequently suffer from chronic malaria, among other illnesses. Hence, opium production figures given, and employed, by anti-drug establishments are, it might be said, unreliable. What is beautiful about the figures is that there is no way of disputing them. This is due to the absence or the impossibility of longitudinal, independent research, the nature of the crop and unpredictable yield pattern, its illegality (how does one do an estimate of the yield of an illegal crop, which no one can admits to cultivating?), and so on. Hence if, for example, the regime comes up with a figure in order to claim success in drug eradication efforts, outside experts will have to accept the figure it at face-value because there is, for one, no way to check the validity or accuracy of the figures produced. A further flaw – perhaps the most important -- in the anti-drug policy and war on drug is that up to the present, almost nothing in substance is known -- at least by the public -- about the financing of the trade. This underlines a grave problem. If nothing in the form of hard evidence can be produced against alleged drug-financiers, and/or if those known are untouchable (even if there is evidence), it means that impunity from prosecution is almost guaranteed. Another way of looking at the immunity of drug financiers is that they are not prosecuted because anti-drugs warriors do not have enough evidence. This raises the question of why no evidence is available, and as well, how then, have billions of tax dollars been spent all these years? Waging a Better and more Effective War on Drugs
The war would be more successful if it were focused on its most vulnerable
point -- the financial and profit-making aspect of it -- i.e., making it
concretely risky to finance drug deals, or to be implicated, even indirectly.
Drug-financiers are not, at least in Southeast Asia, criminal, anti-social
misfits. In fact, most are shining "pillars" of their communities and bona-fide
financiers. However, once it can be shown that it does not pay, or that it is
too costly socially, financially, and politically, to finance drug operations
and launder money, many will be deterred, and many more will simply pull
out.
Most importantly, with regard to Burma, a crucial element of an effective war on drug would be to help the people of Burma take back their country, restore normality. It is inevitable that the military must return to the barracks for the simple reasons that in an increasing globalized world based free-market and free trade regimes, military regimes are no longer needed. Change in Burma, from the abnormal to the normal, from despotism to democracy, will come sooner or later, and it does not as such make sense for the international community not to assist in bringing peace and normality in Burma. There already exist, besides, an international consensus on the desirability of democratic transition in Burma. That this is so is attested to by the numerous resolutions passed since 1988 by the UNGA and other regional bodies – including the EU. The Burma Fund
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The Time
SEPTEMBER 18, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 11 From Bad to
Worse
Intensifying a crackdown on the opposition, Burma's generals are calculating that the West doesn't care By ROBERT HORN The gloves are off in Burma. For two years, the generals who rule the
country have allowed a modicum of freedom to the leaders of the National League
for Democracy—Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party—even while arresting and
intimidating its rank-and-file. Last week, after the latest face-off with the
popular dissident, the junta withdrew even those few freedoms and has turned its
wrath upon those leaders. Troops have been deployed around the homes of Suu Kyi
and eight other executives of her embattled party. They cannot go out, their
phone lines have been cut and all visitors have been turned back, including the
British ambassador, who reports being manhandled by military police on Sept. 2.
According to the government, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and her colleagues
"have been requested to remain at home," but are not under house arrest. However
one defines things, says Teddy Buri, an nld member living in exile in Thailand,
"it's the worst situation we've faced since 1989."
Back then, the generals confined Suu Kyi to her creaky, monsoon-streaked
house for what would amount to six years—and sent thousands of other party
members to prison. This time around, the junta insists the detentions are only
temporary. They began Sept. 2, when some 200 troops dragged Suu Kyi and 14 of
her followers back to their homes after they attempted to leave Rangoon to meet
party members, forcing a nine-day standoff beside a suburban road. Soldiers also
closed down the nld's headquarters and seized party documents. Officials say Suu
Kyi and her colleagues must remain under wraps while Rangoon investigates the
nld's alleged links to terrorist groups. While independent observers dismiss
such accusations as crude and far-fetched, Buri warns that "if the international
community doesn't raise a more concerted protest, the military may feel it can
keep them as long as it likes."
So far, however, sentiment in Western capitals has been moving in the
opposite direction. The regime's repressive measures have been so constant that
crackdown fatigue seems to have set in among its usual critics. Few have spoken
out even though many more nld members have been arrested or forced to resign in
the past two years. Suu Kyi's detention has provoked a sharper response. But
some nations appear nonetheless to be reconsidering the hard-line stance they
have adopted toward the junta. In the U.S., business lobbies are pressing
Washington to repeal sanctions on new investment in Burma. Australia has already
expanded contacts with the regime. In the European Union, which has barred all
aid to Burma except that which would promote democracy and human rights, France,
Italy and Germany are arguing for a more lenient attitude toward the generals.
(Britain and the Scandinavian countries are opposed to the shift.)
The lack of unity partly reflects disagreement over whether punitive
measures are effective. "Sanctions just aren't working," concludes a
Rangoon-based European diplomat. nld executive Nyunt Wai argues, however, that
the West should continue its hard line. "If sanctions have had no effect, why is
the military yelling about them all the time?" said Nyunt Wai shortly before his
confinement. And even if sticks haven't worked, neither have carrots. A year
ago, Western governments were cautiously optimistic that they could tempt the
regime to loosen its grip on power. Representatives of several nations quietly
offered $1 billion in aid if the junta would allow significant political
freedoms. The generals rejected the money, saying they couldn't be bought. More
than a decade of constructive engagement by Asian countries has similarly failed
to promote change.
The debate over which approach is most effective will be played out in
several forums. This month, the U.N. will debate an annual resolution condemning
Burma's human rights abuses. Democracy activists plan to press the U.N. to strip
the military government of its General Assembly seat. The International Labor
Organization may impose sanctions on the regime later this year because of its
use of forced labor. And Thailand's Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan has warned
that a December meeting between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and
the European Union—already delayed for more than two years because of the E.U.'s
refusal to meet with Burmese officials—could be scuttled because of the latest
crackdown.
The European nations that advocate a new approach say Suu Kyi's detention
hasn't altered their view—yet. "If the military holds her too long, we may have
to rethink our position," says the European diplomat. "They will only be hurting
themselves." But according to Josef Silverstein, a Burma expert at Rutgers
University, the junta isn't likely to engage in serious reform until it
undergoes a leadership shakeout, which could possibly take place during the
annual military reshuffle in November. The new guard "may be willing to make a
deal with Suu Kyi and the nld to shore up support in the West," Silverstein
says. But with the nld leaders under the gun, any deal the generals might offer
will be strictly on their own terms.
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Asiaweek
From Our Correspondent: Back to School in Myanmar Measuring the Cost of 12 Years of Folly BY DOMINIC FAULDER September 12, 2000
Web posted at 5:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 5:30 a.m. EDT Myanmar's universities and colleges reopened in late July. What could be
more unremarkable? Anywhere else in the world, the start of a new term might
just get a mention on the radio traffic news. But Myanmar is not like anywhere
else in the world. Universities and colleges have been closed not for a mid-year
break but for most of the past t12 years. Yes, 12 years -- a full Buddhist
cycle.
Since June 1988, they have been open only for very brief spells in the
period 1991-1996. Tertiary and higher education for an estimated 7 million young
people has been stymied. Worse, the All Burma Federation of Student Unions
estimates that 9.5 million Burmese children do not have proper access to basic
education. More than five times as much is spent on defense than education. The
education system is "seriously damaged", the federation contends. "The future
for the students and the country is terrifying."
Some dismissed the openings as eyewash timed to coincide with a major ASEAN
meeting in Bangkok. According to the National League for Democracy, only 40% of
the students claimed by the junta actually returned to classes, which are being
compressed into a three-month academic year to clear the huge backlog. "We would
like governments and the student organizations of the world to think of
education in Burma as part of our broader political situation," said Aung San
Suu Kyi, secretary general of the National League for Democracy, taking a
slightly self-contradicting swipe at the junta for using the education system as
a political weapon. In fact, students and politics are veritable Burmese twins,
inseparable. Suu Kyi's own father was a student hero before his illustrious
military career and untimely political martyrdom.
I witnessed the onset of the current education crisis. In fact, at the mere
mention of Burmese students my mind flashes back to the afternoon of August 3,
1988. I had just arrived in Rangoon. The city was heavily overcast, a seething
cauldron of underground political activity with revolutionary chatter steaming
from its ubiquitous teashops. Thanks to BBC radio, everybody knew the lid would
finally blow on 8 August -- the supposedly auspicious 8/8/88. Somehow the
impending mass pro-democracy demonstrations that would drag Burma back into
global consciousness from over a quarter century of total oblivion had become,
well, official. Once the BBC had "announced" protests would begin on that date,
there was no going back. The generals are still livid. Poorly acquainted with
the workings of a free press, they continue to imagine that a perfectly
legitimate piece of news reporting was part of some international conspiracy.
On the afternoon of the 3rd, I was hunched uncomfortably in the back of a
spluttering little four-wheeler on my way up to Shwedagon Pagoda, the main hub
of political intrigue. I was intending to take the revolution's pulse discreetly
over tea and cheroots with whoever might be willing to talk -- most likely some
students. I had no particular expectations and had certainly not sniffed a whiff
of what was about to happen. My vehicle was paused near Scott Market when the
pandemonium erupted.
Suddenly, thousands of people came pouring across the junction down
Shwedagon Pagoda Road towards the heart of the city. My driver panicked and
tried to reverse out of the crush. He was unable to grasp that I wanted him to
let me down immediately. As I stumbled out and pushed crumpled kyat notes
through his window, I momentarily glimpsed a scene that for me remains as iconic
as the famous photograph of American marines pushing up the stars and stripes on
Iwo Jima.
A group of students, mostly high school, were clustered beneath a banner I
had never seen before but recognized immediately. It was the Fighting Peacock,
the rallying symbol for generations of Burmese students who had first asserted
themselves between the world wars against British colonialists. The Fighting
Peacock swept off down the road, borne aloft upon a sea of young Burmese heads.
With not a policeman in sight, some 5,000 to 10,000 people poured on to the
streets that afternoon. Official reports next day mendaciously conceded there
were 200.
This first immense gush of idealistic young humanity was the dummy run for
demonstrations in August and September that would bring most of Rangoon on to
the streets sooner or later. There would be similarly overwhelming scenes in
towns and cities all across the country. This demand for a new beginning would
cost the lives of an estimated 3,000 people. The outside world would for the
most part looked on uselessly, rather bemused by this forgotten, inaccessible
country that had spontaneously combusted.
When I first caught sight of those young students racing off beneath their
beloved Fighting Peacock, two very conflicting thoughts struck me. First, in
Burma's brutal context -- over three dozen students had been suffocated to death
by riot police in a prison van only a few weeks before -- here was a display of
raw courage I had simply never seen anything to match. In the soft context of my
own student days in England, protests were noisy, self-righteous and routine,
usually shepherded by bored policemen hoping to be home in time for tea. And
that's what probably prompted my second thought: Students shouldn't be doing
this kind of thing. It was not the protesting that bothered me, but the very
real and present danger it posed to the participants.
As it would turn out, hundreds paid with their lives over the next seven
weeks, some gunned down right in front of the U.S. embassy in full view of
appalled diplomats. Thousands more fled to border areas and neighboring
countries or were incarcerated. For the majority who remained, the education
system basically closed down and Myanmar's youth was left to suck hopelessly on
the bitter pill of deprivation. The damage is incalculable.
The military authorities sometimes peddle an outlandish argument that
Burmese students are intrinsically cleverer than others and will therefore have
no difficulty catching up. That might be good for the national ego but few
people anywhere are so clever they can dispense with a formal education. The
reality is that literally millions of formative years have been lost forever by
nearly half a generation of youngsters, and there is nothing to show for it.
Exiled student leaders have produced reports highlighting the many glaring
flaws in the "reformed" system students are now returning to. The leaders should
keep up these constructive critiques because anything that contributes to
normalizing the educational environment in Myanmar is especially valuable. In
the meantime, surely everyone should agree that reopening classroom doors and
lecture halls is absolutely the right thing to do, however late. If the academic
years are shortened any more to deal with the backlog, they'll disappear
altogether. Time has run
out. |