|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BURMA RELATED NEWS - January - 12, 2001. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEADLINE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Guardian - Burmese opposition treads
carefully
AFP - Thai court orders aide to Myanmar drug
lord held on remand
LA Times - Myanmar Is
an Easy Case to Make for Sanctions
Dow Jones - Business News From The Thai Press
Friday
Xinhua - Major Drug Dealer to Be Extradited to
US Soon
Kyodo News - Thai
policeman, 3 Karens shot dead in Myanmar jungle
The Guardian
Burmese opposition treads carefully Suu Kyi's party calls for caution
as it confirms her secret talks with junta
John Aglionby , south-east Asia correspondent Thursday January 11, 2001 Burma's main pro-democracy party yesterday confirmed that its leader, Aung
San Suu Kyi, has been in secret talks with the military junta since last
October, for the first time in more than five years.
Speaking a day after the UN special envoy on Burma, Razali Ismail, broke the news about the dialogue, a National League for Democracy executive member, U Lwin, said the negotiations were at a very early stage. It would take great patience for more substantive discussions on Burma's political future were to develop. "The meeting is what we have been working for," he said. "Since [news of]
it has appeared, the responsibility has become greater on both sides not to
interrupt the momentum of the process. Both sides have to be careful not to
irritate the process."
Mr Lwin said that the NLD's members were told in December of the meetings
between Ms Suu Kyi and senior generals, including the junta's first secretary,
Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt.
"The meeting seemed to have achieved some progress then," he said. He
refused to give further details. The last time Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace
prizewinner, held substantive talks with the junta was in 1994, after she was
released from six years in prison.
News of the talks came as a surprise as Ms Suu Kyi has been under virtual
house arrest since last September, when she was blocked from leaving the capital
Rangoon. Mr Ismail, who has just ended a five-day visit to Burma, was the first
foreign diplomat to see her since then.
The military first came to power in 1962 and abolished all state
institutions in 1988.
The NLD won an overwhelming majority in the last general election in 1990,
but has never been allowed to govern. Its members are harassed, detained and
beaten up. Despite this, Ms Suu Kyi has refused to compromise on the restoration
of full democracy.
Mr Lwin said both sides were toning down their rhetoric against the other.
"The government papers have stopped carrying provocative articles and cartoons
and therefore we decided not to do anything that will be provocative," he said.
Some sources in Rangoon say that Gen Nyunt's willingness to meet Ms Suu Kyi
could be part of a power struggle between generals jockeying to succeed the
ailing supreme leader, General Than Shwe.
"An awful lot is going on behind the scenes in the corridors of power," one
diplomat said. "I would not be surprised if this was linked to that."
Public reaction to the dialogue has been mixed. The exiled All Burma
Students' Democratic Front hailed the talks as a "historic breakthrough after 12
years of struggle".
"We hope this dialogue will begin to overcome the major problems of civil
war and bring about democratisation," it said. "This is the most positive sign
we've seen since the election in 1990."
Governments in south-east Asia were also encouraged by the dialogue.
Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia said they hoped for further breakthroughs. One
diplomat said the progress so far was the result of "doing things quietly, the
Asean way" - a reference to the regional group's policy of "constructive
engagement" with its member countries, rather than intervention.
It is thought that Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohammad, stressed
to the junta the importance of continuing the talks during a visit to Rangoon
last week.
Western governments were less effusive. The British Foreign Office minister
John Battle said: "We hope these [talks] will soon lead to a substantive
political breakthrough and look forward to the early release of Aung San Suu Kyi
and her colleagues. We do not intend to relax our international pressure for
respect for democracy and human rights for the Burmese people until we see real
progress."
Britain and the US have been leading a global campaign against the junta's
oppression of the country's 46m people, including massive forced labour
projects.
The US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said it was crucial that Ms
Suu Kyi should be "respected as a political leader and not, as was framed to me,
as a 'little sister', that they had to take care of by keeping her in her
house".
Friday, January 12 7:21 PM SGT
Thai court orders aide to Myanmar drug lord held on remand BANGKOK, Jan 12 (AFP) - A Thai
court Friday ordered the former private secretary of Myanmar drug lord Khun Sa
be held on remand while the United States applies for his extradition.
Yang Wan-Hsuan, alias Lao Tai, was apprehended by Thai Narcotic Suppression
forces Tuesday on the banks of the Mae Sai river in the northern province of
Chiang Rai which borders Myanmar.
The United States, which posted a 2.0 million dollar reward for his
capture, asked for his arrest in 1994 after he was indicted on serious drug
trafficking charges.
Outside the court, Lao Tai denied allegations his arrest was pre-arranged
by officials who agreed to split the 2.0 million dollar reward with him.
His apparently uneventful capture, conveniently close to the Thai border,
after so many years of being on the run raised suggestions it may have been
rigged.
"No it's not true, the Thai police just arrested me," he said in response
to a question from the media pack.
Julasingh Wasantasingh of the office of Thailand's attorney general said he
did not expect any delay in the extradition proceedings, which must be approved
by a court. "We are ready now," he said.
"The US must send a full request to the Thai government within 60 days of
the suspect being placed on remand," he said.
Lao Tai was indicted along with about 20 other suspected drug traffickers
following a US investigation called "Operation Tiger Trap" that lasted several
years.
So far thirteen suspects have been arrested and face trial in US, but seven
are still at large.
The charges levelled against Lao Tai include conspiracy to import and
distribute heroin in the United States.
US authorities have said Lao Tai faces a prison term of 20 years for each
of the charges against him, but that they will not seek to seize his
assets.
Thai police said Lao Tai has maintained close links to his former boss Khun
Sa, who was until recently seen as the most powerful figure in the notorious
golden triangle opium producing area that straddles Myanmar, Thailand and
Laos.
Khun Sa ostensibly withdrew from the drugs business in 1996 after the
signing of a ceasefire between Myanmar's military junta and his Mong Tai Army,
which had been waging a separatist rebellion in eastern Myanmar for two
decades.
Also wanted by the United States, Khun Sa, 64, now lives in Yangon,
apparently with total immunity and the protection of the secret services.
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday, January 11, 2001 Myanmar Is an Easy Case to Make for Sanctions By ROBERT L. BOROSAGE The brutal military clique that runs Burma--now called Myanmar--leads the
global race to the bottom. Workers have no right to form a union, and
independent labor activity is ruthlessly suppressed. In February, the military
shelled a village that dared host a trade union event on human rights. Workers
making clothes for U.S. companies are paid as little as 8 cents an hour.
Myanmar is infamous for its systematic use of forced labor. Each day, men,
women and children are rounded up at the point of a bayonet, forcibly held in
camps and put to work on road and other construction and commercial projects,
made to carry military supplies, or even to serve as human land mine detonators
in combat zones.
Now Myanmar's indefensible practices pose a test to the Clinton
administration and the industrial world. For the first time in its history, the
International Labor Organization, or ILO, has called on member governments to
"review their relations with Myanmar" and to act "to ensure that such relations
do not perpetuate the system of forced or compulsory labor in that country." The
ILO is urging members to isolate Myanmar, after independent investigations have
confirmed what the dictatorship denies: "widespread and systematic" use of
forced labor.
The ILO's action calls the bluff of the United States, its European allies and the minstrel chorus that celebrates corporate globalization. For years, they have fended off efforts to enforce basic worker rights in trade accords, in World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies and at the World Trade Organization. As protests grew--50,000 in Seattle against the WTO, 80,000 in Nice against the European Union--the defenders looked for cover. The WTO isn't the proper forum, they argued, because the ILO is charged with concern for labor rights. Skeptics noted that the ILO was the perfect dodge: all bark and no bite, with a tripartite membership of business, labor and government that virtually ensured paralysis. The ILO has no power to enforce sanctions on its own. But now the ILO has called on its members to sanction a country for wanton violation of basic worker rights. The U.S. has led the global denunciation of the Myanmar junta's
human-rights practices. In May 1997, President Clinton barred all new investment
in Myanmar. He recently rewarded the Medal of Freedom to Aung San Suu Kyi, the
democratically elected leader of Myanmar whom the military deposed a decade ago
and now has under virtual house arrest.
But the ILO declaration calls on nations to review any practice that might
support the dictatorship. The AFL-CIO, human rights organizations, as well as
conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Caroline and liberal Democrat
Tom Harkin of Iowa, among others, have called on the president to ban
immediately all imports from Myanmar.
The U.S. is one of Myanmar's largest--and its fastest-growing--consumer
markets. U.S. apparel companies increased their imports from there by a
staggering 130% in the first nine months of 2000. Members of the junta jointly
own many of the factories exporting to the U.S., so U.S. consumers are
unwittingly supporting one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world.
Sweatshop investigator Charles Kernaghan reports in a study that leading U.S.
retailers, including Kenneth Cole, Williams Sonoma, Dress Barn and others, are
importing from Myanmar sweatshops. Last year, the U.S. military imported more
than $138,290 in clothing made there. A ban on U.S. apparel imports would cut
off about one-fourth of the regime's foreign exchange earnings.
Now in his final days in office, Clinton is being pressed to put muscle
behind his own words and support the ILO by suspending all imports from Myanmar.
Led by Tom Niles, president of the U.S. Council for International Business, the
business lobby has fought against any action, demanding impossible
preconditions, including a preposterous "cost-benefit test" for each sanction
considered (presumably balancing the cost of workers' lives against the benefit
of cheaper T-shirts).
The most recent annual report of Human Rights Watch concluded that the
"current system to regulate global commerce leaves little or no room for human
rights and other social values," even as the global economy is "generating human
rights problems of global dimension." Myanmar now offers what should be a rather
easy test case.
If the president suspends imports to Myanmar--and his successor upholds the
suspension--then the ILO will have succeeded in triggering significant sanctions
against a regime for violations of core worker rights. If the president ducks,
the global community will have demonstrated that there is no constraint, no
global standard of basic rights that will be enforced on corporate behavior. If
forced labor is not beyond the pale, then what is?
- - -
Robert L. Borosage Is a Founder of the Campaign for America's
Future and Co-editor of the Forthcoming Book, "The Next Agenda" (Westview
Press)
Dow Jones Newswires
Friday January 12, 10:02 AM Business News From The Thai Press Friday The Petroleum Authority of Thailand plans to issue 10 billion baht
($1=THB43.378) worth of domestic bonds this year to refinance its
dollar-denominated debt and to finance a contract for gas delivered from Yadana,
Myanmar, The Nation reports.
A national asset management company, aimed at purchasing bad loans from
private banks, could be formed by merging two state-owned bodies, Asset
Management Corporation and Sukhumvit Asset Management Company, Bangkok Post
reports, quoting Thai Rak Thai Party's economic team leader Somkid Jatusripitak.
The National Housing Authority is seeking strategic partners for a THB20
billion residential-commercial project on the site of its Din Daeng flats for
low-income earners in central Bangkok, Bangkok Post reports.
U.S.-based Daramic Inc., a producer of battery separators, will invest
about THB1 billion to build a factory in Thailand to serve as its Asia-Pacific
export base, Bangkok Post reports.
Major Drug Dealer to Be Extradited
to US Soon
2001.01.12 17:06:43 BANGKOK, January 12 (Xinhuanet)
-- A former secretary to Khun Sa, arrested in northern Thailand on
Tuesday, will be extradited to the United States as soon as possible, the
Thai News Agency quoted the public prosecutor as saying Friday.
Yang Wan-Hsuan, for whom the U.S. government has offered a 2 million
U.S. dollar reward, was arrested Tuesday night in Mae Sai, a border town in
Chiang Rai Province near Myanmar, some 1,000 kilometers north of
Bangkok.
Prosecutors sent Yang to the criminal court Friday morning and asked
the court to order his detention pending the authorities' gathering of
more evidences from Washington and filing of a lawsuit seeking his
extradition over the next 60 days.
Yang is placed under solitary confinement while he is questioned by
Thai investigators, according to police.
Yang, 55, head of Khun Sa's Shan State Army political affairs section
and also Khun Sa's personal secretary, is one of the most wanted drug
traffickers in the United States.
He is under indictment in the United States for conspiracy to import
and distribute heroin.
The Thai government also indicted him for suspected smuggling of
heroin and methamphetamines and for illegal entry into the country.
Previous reports said Yang would be handed over to the United States
only after the Thai investigations are over.
Khun Sa was once the biggest heroin trafficker in the Golden Triangle
area, where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet, before
surrendering along with his Shan United Army to the Myanmar government in
January 1996.
Yang's arrest was part of an ongoing joint Thai-U.S. operation, Operation
Tiger Trap, launched in 1994 that targeted top members of the Shan United
Army. Yang is the 16th trafficker arrested in the operation.
Thai policeman, 3 Karens shot dead in
Myanmar jungle
BANGKOK Jan. 12 Kyodo - A Thai
policeman and 3 Karens were shot dead Thursday in the Myanmar jungle about 30
kilometers from the border with Thailand, police said Frixxday.
Sgt. Maj. Suvit Rungarunkarn and the three Karen laborers were killed
Thursday morning by unidentified gunmen while working at a road construction
site, they said.
As Thai police have no authority to guard work sites in foreign states, the
group is under suspicion of involvement in narcotics trafficking, according to a
border source.
|