|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BURMA RELATED NEWS - OCT - 02, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reuters - Myanmar Government Says Military
Rule Is Best
The Korea Herald - President receives
human rights award from Norwegian foundation
The Times of India - Myanmar plans
military base with Chinese help
China Times - Myanmar Plans to Build
Military Base with Chinese Support: Opposition
CSM - OPINION -
The road to Burma may run through China
Xinhua - Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up
in Six Months
Monday October 2 7:31 AM ET
Myanmar Government Says Military Rule Is Best By Aung Hla Tun YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) -
Myanmar's government said on Monday military rule was ideal for the country,
accusing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined to her house
and cut off from contact, of trying to destroy the country.
A commentary in the official English-language New Light of Myanmar
newspaper said the country had always done best when under the rule of the armed
forces, known as the Tatmadaw.
It was titled: ``To tell the truth, only Tatmadaw government is suited to
the nation.''
Myanmar has spent nearly four decades under military rule. Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy (NLD) won elections in 1990 by a landslide but has
never been allowed to govern.
Suu Kyi and seven senior NLD colleagues have been kept locked in their
homes since September 22, when she was forcibly removed from Yangon's main
railway station after the authorities blocked her attempt to travel outside the
city by rail.
Her telephone has been cut and diplomatic access barred.
NLD Vice Chairman Tin OO and several party supporters were detained in the
crackdown that followed Suu Kyi's latest bid to defy travel restrictions and
have not been heard from since.
Condemnation
Myanmar's treatment of the opposition has sparked world condemnation and
thrown into doubt a planned meeting in Laos in December between foreign
ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and European
Union.
Myanmar has responded with a barrage of attacks in official newspapers
against Suu Kyi, the NLD and international critics.
Monday's commentary said Suu Kyi was an atheist who did not share Myanmar's
values and was trying to destroy the country.
It said the time the 55-year-old Nobel laureate had spent abroad had
undermined her sense of patriotism. Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, was a national
independence hero who fought British rule of the country until he was
assassinated in 1947.
``Having lived abroad, eaten food from abroad and drunk water from abroad
for over thirty years, she was virtually deprived of a sense of patriotism,''
the newspaper said.
``Any citizen will not put up with her act to destroy the nation with the
use of her father's name as a stepping stone.''
Myanmar newspapers also rejected once again suggestions that the
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) should help mediate between the
military government and NLD.
A commentary carried in all official newspapers pointed out ASEAN's code of
non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
``All issue involving ASEAN members should be resolved by consensus,'' the
commentary said.
The Korea Herald - Oct 2,
2000.
President receives human rights award from Norwegian foundation President Kim Dae-jung has been named to receive a human rights award from
Norway's "Rafto Foundation," Chong Wa Dae said yesterday.
The foundation, based in Bergen, Norway, was named after Thorolf Rafto, a
Russian studies scholar and activist for human rights in Russia, officials
said.
The officials said the foundation decided to present the award to President
Kim in recognition of his endeavors to promote human rights and democracy in
South Korea.
The foundation also cited Kim's policy of reconciliation and cooperation
toward North Korea, which contributes to improvement of human rights in the
North, they said.
Past recipients of the award included Czech Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek in
1987; Myanmar's dissident Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990; Jelena Bonner, the wife of
Soviet physicist Sakharov, in 1991; East Timorese citizens in 1993; and "Mother
of Soldiers," an antiwar group in Chechen, in 1995.
The award ceremony will be held Nov. 5 in Bergen, officials said. (CSY)
The Times of India - Oct 2,
2000.
Myanmar plans military base with Chinese help BANGKOK: Myanmar's regime has made plans to build an airbase in the
southern district of Tenasserim, with support from China, opposition radio
monitored in Bangkok reported Sunday.
"The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military government has
planned to build an airbase in Tenasserim Division with fighters and helicopters
from China," the Democratic Voice of Burma said.
The SPDC is the official name for the Yangon junta.
"Surveys were carred out since June. Construction materials were shipped
from Rangoon (Yangon) to Mergui." China would provide eight fighter planes,
eight helicopters and a radar station, the radio said.
Villagers will be moved out of the area and their land will be confiscated
to make room for the base, it said. China, the first country to recognise
Myanmar's military regime after it seized power in a bloody coup in September
1988, is the junta's main arms supplier.
Since coming to power, senior Myanmar generals have made frequent visits to
China and several high-ranking Chinese officials have travelled to Yangon.
According to a senior official in Yangon, the junta'a army chief of staff,
Lieutenant General Tin Oo, made an unpublicized trip to China on May 23,
allegedly to make new arms purchases. (AFP)
China Times - Oct 2,
2000.
Myanmar Plans to Build Military Base with Chinese Support: Opposition BANGKOK, Oct 1 (AFP) - Myanmar's regime has made plans to build an airbase
in the southern district of Tenasserim, with support from China, opposition
radio monitored in Bangkok reported Sunday.
"The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military government has
planned to build an airbase in Tenasserim Division with fighters and helicopters
from China," the Democratic Voice of Burma said.
The SPDC is the official name for the Yangon junta.
"Surveys were carred out since June. Construction materials were shipped
from Rangoon (Yangon) to Mergui." China would provide eight fighter planes,
eight helicopters and a radar station, the radio said.
Villagers will be moved out of the area and their land will be confiscated
to make room for the base, it said. China, the first country to recognise
Myanmar's military regime after it seized power in a bloody coup in September
1988, is the junta's main arms supplier.
Since coming to power, senior Myanmar generals have made frequent visits to
China and several high-ranking Chinese officials have travelled to Yangon.
According to a senior official in Yangon, the junta'a army chief of staff,
Lieutenant General Tin Oo, made an unpublicized trip to China on May 23,
allegedly to make new arms purchases.
The Christian Science Monitor - OCT 2,
2000.
OPINION - The road to Burma may run through China By Robert I. Rotberg CAMBRIDGE, MASS. One of the most intractable issues on Washington's foreign policy agenda is
figuring out how to induce Burma's harsh military junta to respect the results
of its own national election.
Last month, the junta again hobbled Aung San Suu Kyi, the overwhelming
victor in those elections, which led world leaders to protest against the junta.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned the authorities of Burma
(Myanmar) for their treatment of Suu Kyi. So did the European Union. Even Japan,
Malaysia, and Singapore, long friendly with the junta, muttered quietly. Not a
word was uttered, however, by China – Burma's largest and most powerful
neighbor, and the only outside party capable of influencing the behavior of the
so-called State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) – the junta.
China holds most of the keys to a resolution of the Burmese crisis. It
supplies the Burmese military with most of its modern weapons, though smaller
quantities of arms arrive from Singapore. It is Burma's major trading partner,
taking and transshipping large quantities of Burma's illicit opium and heroin
exports, and supplying consumer goods in return. In 1998, Burma also exported to
India, Singapore, and Thailand, and imported from Singapore, Japan, Thailand,
and Malaysia, but the products listed did not include narcotics and weapons,
which dwarf all other commodities.
The junta funds itself through the drug trade, and by controlling or
licensing smuggling or black-market commerce. In many of those ventures Chinese
businessmen, or Chinese provincial officials from the bordering province of
Yunnan, are closely involved as partners or facilitators.
Without access to China through Yunnan, Burma would be compelled to rely on
less satisfactory trading outlets in Thailand and South and Southeast Asia, and
would have many problems with its illicit exports, probably 60 or 70 percent of
the real totals.
Periodically, the SPDC cracks down on Suu Kyi and her National League for
Democracy (NLD). The junta's ultimate aim is destruction of the party, the
opposition, and Suu Kyi as a beacon of international legitimacy. That is why it
prevented her in late August from visiting NLD branches outside of Rangoon, the
capital. Ultimately, as last year, they forced her to retreat into her Rangoon
compound, where she has since been kept except for a few days in mid-September –
under a tight form of virtual house arrest. The British ambassador and the US
charge d'affaires were forcibly prevented from visiting Suu Kyi.
The SPDC is one of the most oppressive regimes in the modern world. In an
earlier guise, it kept Burma isolated from the world from 1962 to 1988. Then
students and Buddhist monks led demonstrations against the junta, which Suu Kyi
was asked to lead. Their actions were repressed, and Suu Kyi placed under house
arrest. Yet the junta also permitted a national election in 1990, while Suu Kyi
and other NLD leaders were detained.
The NLD won 87 percent of the parliamentary seats in that election. But the
junta of the day simply refused to honor the results of the vote. It kept Suu
Kyi under house arrest until 1995, and under close surveillance ever since. She
won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991.
The junta wants the world to believe that Suu Kyi and the NLD have been
marginalized. Its recent efforts, including the jailing of a number of senior
and many junior officials of the party, have been directed at smashing the NLD.
As a result, it is probably true that many Burmese have lost hope for the
democracy, and many may have little faith in Suu Kyi's ability to outlast and
outwit the junta.
But the military leaders who control the junta cannot gain legitimacy by
intimidating would-be members and supporters of the NLD, or by harassing Suu Kyi
and her colleagues. They cannot restore ruptured relations with the West or the
UN. Nor can they strengthen tenuous existing relations with Thailand or their
other local trading partners.
As Burma's economy continues to collapse (it is one of the world's 10
poorest countries), and as the daily experiences of ordinary Burmese farmers and
merchants become more and more miserable, China's hand is much more decisive
than that of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or its
individual members, like Malaysia. Whereas the West has virtually no way of
compelling the junta to think again about internal matters, the Southeast Asians
have too little leverage and little inclination to exert any, and Australia has
contact without influence. China is Burma's sturdiest and largest friend.
If Washington wants a democratic future for the Burmese, it must find some
way of persuading China to police its southern neighborhood. The US cannot do so
directly. Ultimately, deals can be struck. But it is profoundly in China's
self-interest to secure a more prosperous and well-ordered state along a section
of its vulnerable southern flank. Curbing Burma's illicit exports would also
help curb China's own massive internal addiction problem.
The best route to democracy in Burma is, paradoxically, through China – no
friend of true democracy, but a nation with many needs and much power.
(Robert I. Rotberg is director of Harvard University's Kennedy
School program on intrastate conflict and president of the World Peace
Foundation.)
Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up in Six
Months
YANGON (Oct. 2) XINHUA -
Myanmar produced a total of 1.829 million barrels of crude oil in the first six
months of this year, up 10.18 percent compared with the same period of 1999,
according the Central Statistical Organization Monday.
During the period, the country yielded 766.85 million cubic- meters of
natural gas, dropping however by 10 percent from the corresponding period of
1999.
So far, Myanmar's petroleum and its products are insufficient to meet the
demand and the country still has to import 280,000 to 300,000 tons of crude oil
and 100,000 to 150,000 tons of diesel oil annually.
Meanwhile, during the first half of this year, foreign investment in the
oil and gas sector amounted to 52.8 million U.S. dollars in 5 projects.
According to official statistics, since Myanmar opened to foreign
investment in late 1988, such investment in the oil and gas sector coming from
Australia, Britain, France, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and the United States has
reached over 2.3 billion dollars in nearly 50 projects, taking up the highest
percentage of the country's total foreign investment by sector. |