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BURMA RELATED NEWS - OCT - 25, 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
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Dow Jones - Thailand Jan-Aug Oil,Gas Consumption
Up;Pdts Demand Slips
AP - Thai Soldier Killed, 2 Hurt In Clash With Myanmar
Troops
ABC online - Karen spokesman
warns against returning refugees to Burma The Irish Times - HUMAN RIGHTS IN
BURMA
SMH - Jailed human rights
activist tells of fight against madness
Kyodo News - Thai journalists boycott ASEAN press
group
SCMP - NLD asks for eviction delay
Wednesday, October 25 1:52 PM SGT
Thailand Jan-Aug Oil,Gas Consumption Up;Pdts Demand Slips SINGAPORE (Dow
Jones)--Thailand's oil and natural gas consumption averaged
907,800 barrels of oil a day equivalent during the period from January to
August, an increase of 1.6% over the same period last year, state-owned
Petroleum Authority of Thailand said Wednesday.
Although consumption of refined oil products fell marginally by 3.1% to 618,900 b/d, the country's demand for natural gas grew 13.4% to 288,900 b/d oil equivalent, PTT said. PTT attributed the increased demand for natural gas to
increased consumption by small and independent power producers and private
industry.
Gas demand from IPPs and small power producers increased 38%
on year to 60,200 b/d oil equivalent. Private industry accounted for 25,800 b/d
oil equivalent of gas, a 24.6% increase over the same period last year.
Natural gas consumption by the Electricity Generating
Authority of Thailand for power generation was up 6.6% to 202,900 b/d oil
equivalent.
Total refined products consumption declined compared with a
year ago. Fuel oil consumption was down 15.5% on year at 118,900 b/d, gasoline
fell 3.2% to 118,500 b/d, gasoil or diesel consumption fell 1.1%, to 265,300
b/d, and kerosene decreased 8.6% to 800 b/d.
However, consumption of liquefied petroleum gas rose 11.3% to
56,100 b/d, while aviation fuel consumption rose 5.1% to 59,300 b/d, PTT said.
Imported oil and gas totals fell 3.1% on year to 708,400 b/d
oil equivalent, PTT said. Crude imports were down 5.4% on year to 659,800 b/d,
while imports of refined products fell 2.0% during the period, to 33,000 b/d.
Thailand's refined products imports costs soared to 8.948
billion baht (US$1=THB43.625), more than double last year's bill of THB3.987
billion.
Thailand also imported 15,600 b/d of natural gas from Myanmar
in the January-August period at a cost of THB2.943 billion, PTT said. PTT wasn't
importing natural gas from Myanmar during the same period in 1999.
Volume of imported crude from the Middle East was down 16.4%
at 474,200 b/d, while imports from Asia were up 31% at 132,300 b/d. The cost of
crude imports rose to THB170.049 billion, up 76.3% compared with January-August
1999, PTT said.
Domestic crude production increased 85.1% to 54,900 b/d during
the first eight months of 2000. Domestic natural gas production was up 8.4% at
327,000 b/d oil equivalent, and condensate rose 13.3% to 52,500 b/d.
Wednesday, October 25 7:36 PM SGT
Thai Soldier Killed, 2 Hurt In Clash With Myanmar Troops MAE SOT, Thailand (AP)--One Thai soldier was killed and two more were
injured in a border clash with Myanmar troops early Wednesday, the Thai military
reported.
A Thai patrol unit exchanged fire briefly with about 50
Myanmar troops who crossed into Thai territory, an officer of Thailand's
military Task Force No. 4 based in Mae Sot said on condition of anonymity.
A Thai patrol unit usually numbers about 10 to 15 troops. The
unit was from Thailand's Naresuan Task Force.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties
among the Myanmar troops, from the Light Infantry Battalion 283, based at
Kawkareik in Myanmar's Karen State. Myanmar officials weren't available for
comment late Wednesday.
The Myanmar troops are deployed in the area to fight
antigovernment Karen insurgents who operate along the Thai-Myanmar border.
Skirmishes occasionally occur between Myanmar and Thai troops patrolling the
frontier.
Wednesday's firefight with assault rifles and M79 grenades
happened at Mae Jan, in Umphang district of Tak province, some 320 kilometers
northwest of Bangkok, the Thai officer said.
As the monsoon season draws to a close, Myanmar battalions are
arriving at the border to step up their fight against guerrillas of the rebel
Karen National Union, which has been battling for more autonomy in Myanmar for
five decades.
ABC online - Oct 25,
2000.
Karen spokesman warns against returning refugees to Burma Burma's ethnic Karen has warned against returning about eight
thousand refugees, now sheltering in northern Thailand.
The refugees are part of an estimated 100-thousand Burmese
living in camps inside Thailand, having fled a crackdown by the Burmese military
government.
The Thai government says the camp is only a temporary shelter
and it intends to repatriate the refugees to Burma as soon as
possible.
But, a spokesman for the Karenni Information Division, Dhosay
has warned they risk joining an estimated 700-thousand displaced people inside
Burma:
The majority of the famillies in the hideout areas are facing
starvation. They are completely dependent on the food they can find in the
jungle. People are suffering from many kinds of diseases, such as malaria and
skin infection and tuberculosis. In the rainy season they have to travel in the
rain, becausd they are all the time on the move, especially when the Burmese
troops approach they, they have to move from the hideout areas.
The Irish Times - Oct 25,
2000.
Letters to the Editor HUMAN RIGHTS IN BURMA Sir, - You published a letter on October 16th about an
Englishman, James Mawdsley, who was imprisoned in Burma for protesting against
the genocide of the Karen ethnic minorities by the military dictatorship there,
the State Law and Order Council (SLORC). It was indeed good news to see on Sky
News during the week that he has been released. While in prison, he was held in
solitary confinement and tortured.
While we all admire the courage and integrity of this young
man, we should also remember that there are still up to 2,000 Burmese people
being denied their basic human rights by being tortured and kept in prison. They
have not committed any crimes, nor engaged in violence. Their continuing
detention is a violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Freedom of Dublin in
March, has called on world leaders to ban all trade with the illegal regime.
Investments in Burma serve only to line the pockets of the military and do not
help the ordinary people.
French companies are among the biggest investors in Burma,
especially Total Oil. In partnership with SLORC, and without any consultation
with local people, it has pushed through a $1.2 billion pipeline project. This
has resulted in local residents suffering serious human rights abuses, and
thousands have been constricted as forced labourers on infrastructure
projects.
I would like to encourage your readers to call on the French
president and the French Ambassador to Ireland to take measures to end this
trade with Burma, which is doing such damage to its people and environment. -
Yours, etc.,
KATHLEEN FORDE, Secretary, Burma Action-Ireland, PO
Box 6786, Blackrock, Dublin 14.
Sydney Morning Herald
Jailed human rights activist tells of fight against madness Date: 23/10/2000 The human rights campaigner James Mawdsley returned to England
a free man on Saturday, and told how he feared going mad during 415 days
solitary confinement in a Burmese prison cell.
After being arrested for distributing pro-democracy leaflets
in August last year, he was watched constantly by guards at Kengtung prison and
allowed out of his cell for only an hour a day. The glare from a strip light
deliberately left on all night by his jailers damaged his eyes to the point
where he was unable to read.
"I wanted to protest against solitary confinement before I
went crackers," said Mr Mawdsley, 27, who served 14 months of a 17-year
sentence. "I wasn't crackers but I knew I would be in a few months. Prison is
hard. Physically you can adapt, but mentally it's a battle."
During the 12-hour flight from Bangkok to London, Mr Mawdsley
who had lived on a diet of rice and fish paste in jail, was able to enjoy a
traditional English breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato and sausages. On the flight
from Rangoon to Bangkok he had refused a celebratory glass of champagne fearing
the effect it would have on him because he had not had any alcohol for 14
months. On the Bangkok to London flight, however, he allowed himself a glass of
wine. After his long months in solitary confinement, Mr Mawdsley spent most of
the long flight in conversation with his mother. The campaigner, who had been
denied even a radio while in jail, was able to catch up with current affairs by
watching BBC World news and sport programmes on the in-flight television. He
could also laugh at the two in-flight movies: the Woody Allen film, Small Time
Crooks, and a Police Squad movie.
When the devout Roman Catholic from Ormskirk, Lancashire, was
handed over to British officials earlier in Rangoon, he refused to sign an
undertaking to stop criticising the junta. He has, however, said he will not
risk returning to Burma.
Mr Mawdsley's cell in Kengtung was a converted warder's office
27 feet by 23 feet, with only bare boards to sleep on. Successive protests
earned him three beatings on consecutive days, the most brutal being on the
third.
"It doesn't take long with five guys hitting you with clubs
before you go down. After I fell, two carried on but the others stopped them and
said that was enough."
Mr Mawdsley said an atmosphere of terror permeated the prison.
Convicts were frightened to look him in the eye for fear they would be beaten.
His guards were determined there should be a light on him every second of the
day. When power failures blacked out the neon light, they would connect it to a
car battery. Consular staff from the British embassy in Rangoon supplied an
airline mask, but the rats ate it.
Prison censors deemed the autobiography of Nelson Mandela and
the works of Solzhenitsyn acceptable, but Mr Uppity and Mr Brave were considered
too subversive.
Mr Mawdsley landed in England at 5.08am local time and
immediately had a tearful re-union with his father David, sister Emma and twin
brother Jeremy, a captain in the Royal Artillery.
The Sunday Telegraph, London
BANGKOK, Oct. 25 Kyodo
News
LEAD: Thai journalists boycott ASEAN press group A group of Thai journalists said Wednesday it has suspended
ties with a journalists' organization in the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), citing lack of transparency and accountability in the ASEAN
group's management.
On Monday, a seven-member delegation of the Confederation
of Thai Journalists (CTJ) walked out of the general assembly of the
Confederation of ASEAN Journalists (CAJ) in Singapore ''to protest against the
lack of transparency and accountability among the executive members of CAJ,''
the CTJ said in a statement.
South China Morning
Post
Wednesday, October 25, 2000 BURMA - NLD asks for eviction delay ASSOCIATED PRESS in Rangoon Updated at 4.20pm: Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party, facing eviction from its
modest headquarters, has asked the building's owners to give it more time until
party leaders are released from house arrest, a spokesman said on
Wednesday.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) opened the headquarters as usual on Wednesday, the last day for it to occupy the premises in an old two-story building in downtown Rangoon. The building's owners, two elderly women, served the eviction
notice on the NLD last month, soon after the military government unleashed a new
round of restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi, who has been campaigning since 1988 for
democracy in Burma.
After blocking two attempts by Ms Suu Kyi since August to
travel outside Rangoon on party work, the government put her and other top
leaders of her party under virtual house arrest, holding them incommunicado. The
office was temporarily closed and searched by the authorities at the same
time.
A party spokesman said that according to the eviction notice,
the party had until Wednesday to stay in the building.
The office will be closed on Thursday for a public holiday and
it will have to wait until Friday to see if the premises are closed
down.
If the eviction is carried out, the NLD will have no central
office to co-ordinate its affairs. With hundreds of its members detained or
coerced into resigning, the NLD barely functions outside Rangoon. While access
to the Rangoon headquarters is often blocked, authorities have usually allowed
party meetings to go ahead.
The NLD spokesman said the party has asked the building's
owners not to enforce the eviction until Ms Suu Kyi and other leaders are freed
since there is no one with authority to determine how to deal with
eviction.
It is not known if the landladies - Khin Nu, 70, and Kyaw,
whose age is not known - have responded to the NLD's request.
The NLD has occupied the property on Shwegondaing Road in
central Rangoon since 1989, one year after it was founded. The party won general
elections in 1990 but the Burmese military refused to hand over
power.
The junta accuses the NLD of working with foreign governments
to destabilise the country.
The NLD has reported that the two landladies were briefly
arrested after the party marked the 10th anniversary of its victory at the polls
on May 27.
Ms Kyaw, who uses only one name, and Ms Khin Nu were
apparently accused of and held responsible for causing public disturbance when
the NLD used loudspeakers. |