Burma Related News - Sep 17, 2000.

Freed Suu Kyi challenges Burma junta
AP in Rangoon
Saturday September 16, 2000

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's pro-democracy leader, left her home yesterday after two weeks of effective house arrest and challenged the military government to stop her plans to travel outside the capital.

On Thursday, the military regime announced that it was lifting restrictions against her and eight members of the central committee of her National League for Democracy (NLD).

All of them had been confined to their homes since September 1. They were denied telephone contact and no visitors were permitted, except their closest relatives.

The government eased the restrictions after sharp international criticism of its actions - most notably by the US, Britain, and the UN. But in barely coded language the regime has accused London and Washington of meddling in its internal affairs.

Accompanied by colleagues, Ms Suu Kyi went to her newly reopened party headquarters in central Rangoon. "We are a legal political party and they have no right to raid our party," she told reporters there.

"I shall be travelling outside Rangoon within the next 10 days for party organisational work. It will be an organised trip, and we will do it openly. It is high time that the SPDC [the ruling military council] stops putting restrictions on our rights," she said.

The regime has accused her party of having links with terrorists in Burma and along the border with Thailand.

It was an attempt to travel round the country that brought the latest crackdown on the party leaders. On August 24, Ms Suu Kyi and 14 party colleagues were blocked by security forces outside the capital and ordered to return home. They refused and camped beside their vehicles for nine days before police took them forcibly back to Rangoon and confined them to their homes.

Ms Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel peace prize for her peaceful struggle for democracy in Burma, did not say where her group planned to go, but she challenged the authorities: "Stop us if you dare."

When the government lifted restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi on Thursday, the US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said at the UN's headquarters in New York that she was "gratified". The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, also welcomed the move and repeated his call on the junta to engage in a real political dialogue with opposition leaders.

Ms Suu Kyi looked cheerful yesterday as she held red and pink roses handed to her by some of the 200 supporters outside her party offices when she arrived there with the party's chairman, Aung Shwe, and vice-chairman, Tin Oo.

"We always appreciate the international support to our cause and our rights," she said. "I want to thank all those who stood up for our rights.

"We hope that they'll stand by us staunchly for full restoration of rights, not just of the NLD but for all the people of Burma."

The regime kept Ms Suu Kyi under house arrest between 1989 and 1995. The NLD won the general election in 1990, but was prevented from taking power. Hundreds of its members have since been jailed.

In London, Amnesty International expressed concern yesterday about 16 NLD youth members and the chairman of the party's Rangoon division, Soe Myint, who were reported to be still in detention in Rangoon's Insein prison.

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Saturday, September 16 10:32 PM SGT

Myanmar Opposition Resolves To Draft Natl Constitution

YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--Myanmar's democratic opposition declared Saturday it would draft a national constitution, a sign that a recent official crackdown against the party has not dented its ambitions to end military rule.
Two hundred members of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy held a meeting at the party's Yangon headquarters, two days after authorities eased restrictions against NLD leaders.

Party leaders had been confined to their homes for two weeks after Suu Kyi tried to travel outside Yangon on party work but was denied the right to do so.

At the meeting, the party commemorated the second anniversary of its Committee Representing People's Parliament, a proxy parliament formed as a direct challenge to the ruling military government, which has refused to honor the NLD's victory in a 1990 general election.

Military authorities had earlier blocked the road to the NLD office in downtown Yangon, but they allowed the meeting to take place, attended by 200 party members and diplomats. Reporters were barred from entering.

The NLD passed three resolutions at Saturday's meeting: to demand the government to release all political prisoners; to maintain the proxy parliament until a proper parliament is convened; and to draft a national constitution.

According to 1996 law, drafting a charter without the government's approval could result in a five-to-20-year prison sentence.

A state-organized national convention was set up seven years ago but was boycotted by the NLD on the grounds it was dominated by the regime. It hasn't met for four years and hasn't produced a constitution.

"With the support of the people and with support from countries who support democracy, a democratic government will certainly emerge," a declaration released Saturday by the CRPP said.

At the meeting, Suu Kyi announced she would take over as CRPP secretary and its representative for ethnic affairs, replacing Aye Tha Aung, who was arrested and sentenced to 21 years in prison in June for violating a publication law and an emergency law.

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Sunday, September 17 2:36 PM SGT
Official Myanmar Press Says Eliminate Opposition Party

YANGON (AP)--Myanmar's democratic opposition party should be eliminated before its leader Aung San Suu Kyi becomes more daring and causes more suffering to the nation, an editorial in an official newspaper said Sunday.
Opinions in the official press reflect those of the military government in Myanmar, and the commentary underscored rising tensions between the regime and its political opponents, amid rumors the government plans to close the party down by the year's end.

On Saturday, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy held its first meeting since a two-week crackdown against the party and declared it would draft a national constitution in defiance of the military government.

"There is almost no political party in Myanmar history which is as mean and evil as the NLD" and Suu Kyi, said an editorial in the Myanma Ahlin newspaper.

"The government has tolerated the NLD for so many years but it is time the party be completely eliminated," it said.

The commentary was written by Hla Soe, a disaffected former NLD member. He was elected as a parliamentary representative for the party in 1990 general elections that were swept by the NLD, which was never allowed to take power.

Nine party leaders including Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful struggle for democracy in Myanmar were confined to their homes for two weeks in late August after Suu Kyi tried to travel outside Yangon on party work.

Then on Sept. 1, Suu Kyi was forcibly brought back to the capital Yangon after a nine-day stand-off in which she and other party members camped by their vehicles after authorities prevented them from traveling to the provinces to do party work.

Yangon's crackdown drew vehement international criticism, mainly from the U.S. and the U.K., which accused the regime of blatantly violating the Myanmar opposition leaders' political rights. Myanmar accused both countries of meddling in its internal affairs.

"It is time the government takes care of the problem according to the law," Hla Soe wrote. "If the problem is taken lightly the Americans, British and Daw Suu Kyi will become more daring and the country will suffer more."

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Sunday September 17 6:56 AM ET
Thailand Said Facing New AIDS Risk

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The World Bank has warned that Thailand risks a resurgence of an AIDS (news - web sites) epidemic that has already infected nearly one million people due to a decline in condom use, a Thai newspaper reported Sunday.

The World Bank report, due for official release next month, highlights the impact of a decline in condom use, particularly among young men who visit sex workers and have casual sex partners, the Bangkok Post reported.

``Any decline in condom use with such high infection levels could easily re-ignite the explosive epidemic of a decade ago,'' the bank report was quoted as saying.

In the early 1990s, Thailand suffered the most rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the world, but won international acclaim for its efforts to bring the epidemic to heel through prevention campaigns and promotion of condom use.

Despite an overall decline in new HIV cases in Thailand, infections are increasing in some localities among prostitutes and intravenous drug users, the World Bank found.

Prevalence of HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - also continues to rise among pregnant women, up from 1.74 percent in 1997 to 2.02 percent in 1999, the report said.

``We had been moving on well in the past few years, but it seems as if we're now tripping,'' Mechai Viravaidya, a senator known as ``Mr. Condom'' for his anti-HIV campaigning, was reported saying in the Post.

He warned that there were 100 new infections in Thailand every day.

The newspaper said the World Bank report shows that while the use of prostitutes in Thailand was on the decline, one in five brothel-based sex workers in northern and central Thailand were HIV positive.

Sex workers who had migrated from Myanmar, also known as Burma, were at especially high risk of infection, as they were threatened with deportation if they contacted Thai social services.

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The Sunday Times - Sep 17, 2000.
Burmese junta calls up Buddha against Suu Kyi
Michael Sheridan, Rangoon

HIGH on the rainswept hilltop of Mindhamma, the general and the Buddha came face to face. Lieutenant-General Khin Ny-unt, one of Burma's military dictators, reached out with a chisel to carve the first crease in the Buddha's rough-hewn stone robes. An audience of monks and soldiers applauded in the monsoon downpour.

It may seem a strange way of doing battle with Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the country's democratic movement, but, as Rudyard Kipling wrote, "this is Burma and it will be quite unlike any land you know".

While the generals dice diplomacy with indignant foreign countries and play cat-and-mouse restrictions with the opposition, they have also turned to esoteric methods of staying on top. The saga of the Buddha image is a ploy by Khin Nyunt and his comrades to win prestige. Among ordinary Burmese people, astrologers, magic and traditional cosmic numerology are as important as regiments in retaining the mystique of power.

For decades, their master, the reclusive Ne Win, now 90, has lurked in his lakeside villa, conjuring up spells and watching his luck to ensure he remains at the pinnacle of Burmese society. The old supremo is rum-oured to be declining, however, despite his energetic soothsayers and medicine men. In the teashops of Rangoon, the muttered talk over cups of sweet, milky brew has been of a widely believed prophecy that one day Suu Kyi will be placed higher than the generals.

That is where the giant Buddha - the Loka Chantha Abhaya Muni, as it is reverently known - comes in. Earlier this year, Khin Nyunt's ears pricked up when he heard that stone sculptors in Mandalay had discovered a huge stone monolith in the Sagyin hills near the old Burmese capital.

"Religiously inspired" - or so The New Light of Myanmar, an official daily paper, informs us - "they decided to make it over to the state." Their zeal was assisted by a flying visit from Khin Nyunt, who had had an inspiration of his own. For the army's zodiacal experts had told him that in the Burmese alphabet, the syllables "Sagyin" carried the same astrological weight as "Suu Kyi."

Khin Nyunt flew back to Rangoon and explained the possibilities to his boss, Senior General Than Shwe, who "gave guidance" for the monolith to be carved into a Buddha image and transported more than 440 miles to Rangoon. There, it was to be placed on a hill overlooking the city, naturally positioned above the generals. Thus the prophecy would be fulfilled and the ignorant would learn that it had nothing to do with Suu Kyi.

On July 24, the monolith began its epic journey. It was dragged on rollers through villages full of prostrate peasants. It was floated down the Irrawaddy river, making stops at 13 towns to receive the homage of the devout.

A few dared to scorn its religious authenticity, pointing out that no Buddhist should revere an image until it is properly consecrated. The hastily sculpted image was neither complete nor blessed, but Khin Nyunt's men arrested one village headman who ventured to say so.

On August 26 it reached Rangoon. A specially constructed railway brought it to the foot of Mindhamma hill and on September 5 workmen hauled it upright to the summit.

Suu Kyi, who has explained this extraordinary story to visitors, was languishing in the Rangoon suburb of Dalla. She had set off with her supporters to campaign outside the city, but they were blocked by military intelligence agents.

The standoff broke on September 2. "Six burly female officers wrestled me to the ground and dragged me into a vehicle and took me back home," Suu Kyi said. "One of our youth members was beaten and another was almost drowned in a stream."

She was isolated. Military intelligence officers simultaneously raided her modest National League for Democracy (NLD) office, ransacked the place and shut it down. The British ambassador, seeking to find out if Suu Kyi was all right, was sent packing.

While a chorus of weary outrage echoed around the world, the junta proceeded with the business at hand. Pavilions were erected in the rain at Mindhamma. Garlands of flowers were brought and monks chanted sutras. Boys and girls were led by their parents barefoot up the muddy slope to gape at the blank-faced image.

Last Tuesday Khin Nyunt assumed an _expression_ of pious devotion, stood on a plinth and prayed alongside the clergy to inaugurate it. Than Shwe, too grand a general to attend in person, sent his wife, Kyaing Kyaing. The wives of the junta are said to have become the greediest of its beneficiaries and the most resolute in urging their husbands not to give in to the "democracy stunt actress".

Two days later a satisfied Khin Nyunt unexpectedly summoned one of Suu Kyi's aides and told him that all restrictions were lifted. She was soon receiving her supporters again and was able to venture out to the NLD office. "This isn't the end of the story," she said. "If we don't keep politically active, the party will die. So we are going to head outside Rangoon again very soon."

Yesterday, Khin Nyunt's men materialised again. They blocked the road leading to the NLD office. Plans to hold a meeting were frustrated. It was back to cat and mouse again for Suu Kyi and her captors.

Up on Mindhamma, Khin Nyunt's insurance policy sits enthroned in a sea of mud. The power of the graven image, however, may not be as great as the generals believe.

"Don't give it a single kyat in donation," said an onlooker, referring to the devalued local currency. "It's a show for Khin Nyunt, not our religion," said another. Trying to outwit a prophecy can be a treacherous game in a country as spiritual as Burma.

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The Sunday Times - Sep 17, 2000.
Fulfilling the last wish of a love that defied Burma's generals
Burma is still in chains but the late husband of Aung San Suu Kyi has had another dream come true, writes Jon Swain

As he lay dying in hospital a year and a half ago, Michael Aris, the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and Burma's opposition leader, had two last wishes: to be granted permission to fly to Rangoon to say goodbye in person to his beloved wife struggling for democracy, whom the military had prevented him from seeing for most of the past 10 years, and to create a permanent centre for Tibetan and Himalayan studies in Britain.
Tragically, he was never granted his first wish, but the second has come beautifully true.

Aris's friends had made all the travel arrangements; a plane with paramedics was standing by to fly him out to Rangoon. All that was missing was a Burmese visa. It was clear that Aris had no wish to embarrass the Burmese military or to score political points. Yet with a vindictiveness that is still typical of the generals who run Burma today, they denied the terminally ill academic a visa, resolving to use his cancer as an opportunity to try to get rid of his wife.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San, Burma's independence hero, had been a thorn in their side since her party, the National League for Democracy, had overwhelmingly won legislative elections in 1990. Rather than allowing the sick Aris fly to Rangoon, they said, if she flew to London they would allow her to return.

It was a heartbreaking decision to have to make, to put her commitment to her country above her family. She refused to leave, knowing she would end up in permanent exile if she did, and on his 53rd birthday Aris slipped into unconsciousness and died without saying goodbye to the wife he so adored.

He had always known that one day her sense of family political destiny and obligation as Aung San's daughter would compel her to go back to Burma, and so, even on his deathbed, he kept his word that he would never ask her to come back to him.

Recently Suu Kyi's fortitude and determination have again been tested in a confrontation with the security forces who blocked her vehicle as she tried to drive out of Rangoon to the countryside for party work. She camped out in the open for nine days before being forcibly returned to Rangoon.

Last week the military lifted the security restrictions but the reality is that her movements are still limited even though the padlock has been removed from the gate of her house.

As she recovers from this latest ordeal, it must, at least, be a comfort to her to know that her husband's other dying wish, for a Tibetan centre in Britain, has been fulfilled.

Ever since his wife was first put under house arrest in 1989, Aris, a shy Oxford don and Tibetologist in a tweed coat, had worked tirelessly behind the scenes on her be half. He went through enormous strife, fearing many times for her safety. He did not share his agony and despair throughout those lonely years, bringing up their two boys Kim and Alexander virtually on his own, and because of his retiring nature few outside their close family circle knew how wonderfully effective he was.

Almost the fact that she got the Nobel peace prize was his work. He could lift the telephone and call political leaders, and it was largely because of him that Suu Kyi has continued to have the strong support of the Foreign Office.

As a result of this stubborn love and devotion what he was going to leave behind in terms of his own life was never on Aris's mind. Then when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer early last year he started to work on the idea of a centre for Tibetan studies.

He always thought it extraordinary that there was no official centre for Tibetan studies in Britain, a country with closer links to Tibet than any other western nation. He gathered the powerful guns of Oxford, including the heads of the Bodleian and leading colleges, and worked up an ambitious appeal covering eight full-time posts, four studentships, a library and a university lectureship so that Tibetan studies and teaching would be strong after his death.

Just before he became terribly sick he got a pledge for a very large sum from a wealthy international benefactor. That day he went by ambulance to Highgrove and asked Prince Charles to be patron of the trust. The prince agreed on condition that his name was used for academic not political purposes, which it has been.

The Michael Aris Memorial Trust for Tibetan and Himalayan Studies is largely in the hands of Anthony Aris, his identical twin brother. The twins were born in Havana and spent their early childhood in Peru before being sent to a Sussex boarding school run by Dominican monks. This Catholic upbringing led, surprisingly, to a shared passion for the East.

Anthony says the lectureship has now been endowed and a candidate selected to start in October at the Oriental Institute in Oxford. The trust has so far raised about £1.6m and now seeks further resources. "There was a fund of goodwill for Michael," says Anthony. "He was much loved."

Anthony, who is as sensitive as his brother to the need to protect Suu Kyi and her family, is now considering donating his brother's diaries and personal papers to the library under limited access. Several cardboard cartons take up a corner of his London home.

Michael saw himself as just a husband "trying to support my wife as best I can". Should his twin make these papers public, the full extent of his unstinting devotion will become known.

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YANGON, Sept. 17 Kyodo
Myanmar's 2nd int'l airport opens in Mandalay

Myanmar's second international airport was officially opened Sunday in the central Myanmar city of Mandalay.

Mandalay International Airport, built at a cost of 6.5 million kyat (about $150 million), was funded by a loan from the Import-Export Bank of Thailand.

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Bangkok Post - Sep 17, 2000.
Border drugs watch
Somsak Suksai in Lampang

Anti-narcotics officers are keeping a close watch on local businessmen who are involved in the narcotics trade with the United Wa State Army in the Golden Triangle, said authorities.

Deputy commissioner of Provincial Police Region 5 Pol Maj-Gen Jesada Promsaka na Sakon Nakhon said the Wa had been linked to smuggling four million methamphetamine pills recently confiscated in Lampang.

Authorities voiced concern over the expansion of the UWSA's drug networks here through co-operation with businessmen and former politicians. The UWSA has turned many border districts in Tak and Chiang Rai into methamphetamine production centres under legal and illicit businesses such as casinos, he said.

Meanwhile, military and police forces have jointly checked houses in Chiang Rai, as they are believed to be owned by UWSA leaders.

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BBC - Sunday, 17 September, 2000, 09:54 GMT 10:54 UK
Challenge to Burma's rulers

Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party has issued a new direct challenge to the Burmese military authorities by deciding to draw up a new constitution.

The decision taken by the National League for Democracy (NLD) during a meeting in the capital, Rangoon, means the organisation would contravene a four-year-old law which forbids the drafting of a constitution without government approval.

Conviction for the offence could carry a prison sentence of between five and 20 years.

The BBC's South East Asia correspondent Simon Ingram says the NLD's challenge is likely to provoke a stern response from the generals and that the NLD may discover the international support it has received in recent weeks will offer little protection.

Convention

The Burmese authorities set up a national constitutional convention seven years ago but the NLD boycotted it on the grounds that it was dominated by the military regime.

It has not held a meeting for four years and has not produced a constitution.

The NLD won Burma's last democratic elections in 1990 by a landslide but the military refused to hand over power.

"With the support of the people and with support from countries who support democracy, a democratic government will certainly emerge," a declaration released from the NLD said.

Security

The NLD meeting in Rangoon on Saturday was held amid tight security.

About 200 party members were allowed to attend, observed by a handful of diplomats but reporters were barred from entry by the security forces.

The meeting took place at the NLD's headquarters two days after the authorities eased restrictions on the party's leadership.

Members had been placed under house arrest for two weeks after Aung San Suu Kyi was forcibly prevented by the authorities from visiting supporters outside the capital.

Aung San Suu Kyi has announced her intention to challenge the military and travel outside Rangoon again within the next 10 days.

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BBC - Sunday, 17 September, 2000, 07:56 GMT 08:56 UK
New international airport opened in Burma

The military government in Burma has opened a new international airport which it hopes will boost the country's tourist industry.

The airport, north of the capital, Rangoon, which cost one hundred and fifty million dollars, has the capacity to handle large wide-bodied passenger jets and some three million passengers a year.

Correspondents though say visitors have been deterred from Burma because of its human rights record and the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi's call for a tourism boycott.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service