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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 01,
2001.
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HEADLINES
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - UN human rights envoy to make first
trip to Myanmar
ABC News - Milosevic
Arrested
BBC - Burmese junta frees
activists
Kyodo News - Yangon
seeks Karens after deaths of soldiers, engineers
Bkk Post - Shooting not directed at Thai
planes, says army
The Nation - CHINA'S
LUMBERING RAVAGES BORDER FOREST
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Chambers of Commerce
Membership Expands
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Leader Stresses Need for Technical Advances
FEER - Thai-Burmese Border Warms
Up
Sunday April 1, 3:50 PM
UN human rights envoy to make first trip
to Myanmar
BANGKOK, April 1 (AFP) - The
United Nations' new human rights envoy is to visit Myanmar for the first this
time week, in a new sign of the junta's willingness to begin cooperating with
the outside world.
Brazilian academic Paulo Sergio Pinheiro received the green light to fly
into Yangon just weeks after his appointment, while his predecessor Rajsoomer
Lallah quit last year after never visiting the military-run country.
Diplomats have hailed Pinheiro's visit as another indication that a
remarkable political shift is underway in Myanmar, where the generals have begun
meeting behind closed doors with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"This is a very positive sign," said one observer. "They need to normalise
their relations with the international community."
They noted the junta's move came ahead of the UN general assembly on human
rights in Geneva next month, and after last year's damning resolution by the
International Labor Organisation which caused deep concern in Yangon.
The talks with Aung San Suu Kyi have created a sense of "cautious optimism"
that the two sides may be able to negotiate a power-sharing agreement and a
longed-for transition to democracy after a decade of political deadlock.
In a significant show of good faith, the junta has ordered the official
media to halt its vicious personal attacks on the Nobel peace laureate and has
toned down its rhetoric against her National League for Democracy (NLD).
Fourteen opposition NLD activists were released over the weekend in an
apparent gesture to mark Pinheiro's expected arrival Tuesday.
The UN special rapporteur, whose so-far discreet approach to the job has
been welcomed by the junta after the outspoken Lallah, is also considered likely
to be given permission to visit Aung San Suu Kyi.
However, dissident groups warn the public relations blitz must soon yield
real results, or risk dashing newly-raised hopes and alienating the ethnic
minority groups who have so far been left out of the nascent dialogue.
Their frustrations have been amplified by the fact the talks have been held
under strict secrecy, with the junta characteristically tight-lipped and Aung
San Suu Kyi withholding details even from close NLD aides.
The opposition leader has been confined to her Yangon home since September
but by all accounts has freely chosen to comply with the restrictions which are
designed to build much-needed confidence between the two sides.
"Honeymoons don't last for ever, eventually they will have to deliver,"
said Debbie Stothard from the activist alliance Altsean-Burma.
"There's growing concern that the military has not delivered any visible
progress on the talks," she said, noting that six months into the process there
was still evidence of continued arrests, and atrocities in ethnic areas.
Stothard warned that dissidents in the United States, Europe and Southeast
Asia would soon take action unless the junta proved it was not merely using the
talks as a tool to shield itself from criticism.
"I would speculate that there will be an increasing wave of activism until
concrete results are made. They cannot dash these hopes by just talking and not
doing anything to help these people."
Both dissidents and diplomats generally agree that reported "leaks" coming
from the talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, including suggestions that she has agreed
not to play a personal role in any civilian government, are unreliable.
"I don't think anybody, either in the Burmese political world or in the
international community in Rangoon has anything like that sort of information
about what's going on," said one senior diplomat.
"It seems to me that it's not very credible to suggest that either side
would be giving up major concessions at this very early point in their
negotiations on these sort of issues, like an amnesty for the military.
"Of course they are the very issues that need to be resolved but they are
also issues that are going to be extremely difficult and take a long time to
work out."
Other observers in Yangon note that although the ethnic minority groups
must eventually be the third partner in any political settlement, their
resentment in the meantime could derail the extremely delicate process.
"The government is feeling rather apprehensive at this stage. These guys
always react negatively if they feel they are being pushed, so people should be
handling this situation with velvet gloves," one said.
Milosevic
Arrested
Police Convoy Takes Ousted Leader to Belgrade Prison April 1 — After a tense, 26-hour standoff with police, former Yugoslav
president Slobodan Milosevic surrendered. He was taken away from his tony
Belgrade villa via police convoy shortly before
dawn.
ABCNEWS and wire sources report
that Milosevic was extremely upset over the entire ordeal. He brandished a
pistol with him, and threatened to kill himself, along with his wife and
daughter.
Branislan Ivkovic told Reuters Milosevic surrendered voluntarily "to
include himself in the legal procedure." Government officials had been
negotiating for hours with Milosevic, trying to persuade him to surrender and
avoid blooshed.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica warned that he did not want bloodshed
but that no one was above the law if the state was to survive. Several hundred
riot police lay seige to the house of Milosevic in the second night of the
standoff. Milosevic had vowed that he would defy the authorities to his
death.
The raid was bloodless, but there had been gunfire. Before he was taken
away, ABCNEWS reports that Milosevic's 32-year-old daughter, Marija, fired four
or five shots— reportedly aiming toward a government representative trying to
negotiate her father's surrender— moments before he was taken away.
Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said police were authorized to
arrest Milosevic for abuse of office and financial crimes— but not so he could
be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Court Date to Be Determined
There is still no indication yet as to when he will be taken in front of a
judge.
War crimes remain a difficult topic for the Yugoslav nation. Milosevic's
supporters fought a war and they now have to come to terms with the fact that
many of their own people, many of the young men from their own families, were
involved in horrendous and brutal crimes.
Serbs are only just waking up to the news that the man who ruled them with
an iron fist for 13 years is finally behind bars. Many Serbs wanted to see
Milosevic punished for allegedly lined his own pockets at the expense of the
Serb citizens, rather than for the war crimes he allegedly committed in
Kosovo.
Many speculate that the level of mismanagement, misgovernment, downright
corruption and gangster-like practices that Milosovic has been accused of
practicing will be exposed during the trial, and that at some point, he may be
called to The Hague based on information that may come out of this trial.
U.S. Aid Hangs in Balance
The attempted arrest came just hours ahead of a U.S. deadline for Belgrade
to cooperate with the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal, or face suspension of millions
of dollars in economic aid.
According to national security officials in Washington, Yugoslav
authorities charged Milosevic with corruption, tax evasion and abuse of
power.
The charges remain civil, which means Milosevic likely will not face the
U.N. War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague anytime soon.
Some fear that if Milosevic is extradited to face the international
charges, President Vojislav Kostunica's reformist government, only in power for
roughly half a year, would face severe opposition. Kostunica, who toppled
Milosevic in a "peoples' revolution" last year, has opposed sending Milosevic
abroad to face charges, arguing it is unconstitutional.
The main question now is if the civil charges will be enough to convince
President Bush to continue sending economic aid to Yugoslavia. Congress
appropriated $100 million for Yugoslavia, half of which has yet to be released.
Washington imposed a deadline of midnight Saturday for Kostunica's government to
begin cooperating with the War Crimes Tribunal.
Before accounts of Milosevic's possible arrest today, Bush told reporters
that Milosovic "ought to be brought to justice."
Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had made no decision on whether to
certify that the Yugoslav government was doing what was necessary to receive
American assistance. A decision could come Monday.
BBC - Sunday, 1 April, 2001, 11:25 GMT
12:25 UK
Burmese junta frees activists The military government in Burma has released several detained members of
the country's biggest political party, the National League for Democracy NLD.
The freed NLD activists -- believed to number more than a dozen -- had all
been arrested last year, but their release leaves several dozen more, who'd been
detained at the same time, still in jail.
The move comes shortly before the arrival in Rangoon of a senior United
Nations human rights official, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, for the first time in many
years.
He'll discuss the human rights record of the Burmese military government,
as well as its current talks with the leader of the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
Yangon seeks Karens after deaths of
soldiers, engineers
BANGKOK March 31 Kyodo -
Myanmar's junta deployed three battalions of special forces equipped with
mortars, armored cars and helicopters to the eastern border near Thailand's
Three Pagoda Pass in Kanchanaburi Province following an offensive by Karen
rebels that left 10 Myanmar soldiers and two engineers dead, Thai officials at
the border said Saturday.
The Karen National Union (KNU) rebels launched a guerrilla attack on Friday
against a construction team building the Phayathonzu-Thanphyuzayut highway in
eastern Myanmar, taking two engineers hostage.
Myanmar's military then deployed a group led by Capt. Saw Tin to rescue the
hostages, but after heavy fighting the government troops lost the two hostages
and another 10 personnel, including Saw Tin, is said to be a nephew of Gen.
Muang Aye, secretary one of Myanmar's ruling junta.
The KNU is the largest rebel group in Myanmar and has been fighting for
autonomy since 1949.
Bangkok Post - April 01,
2001.
BURMESE BORDER
Shooting not directed at Thai
planes, says army
Mystery surrounds anti-aircraft fire from junta side There were no Thai military planes flying along the Burmese border on
Friday when anti-aircraft fire was heard from the Burmese side, a senior Third
Army officer said yesterday.
Col Akkadej Songworawit, commander of a special task force, said he
received a report from a unit at Ban Pang Noon post, near Mae Fah Luang
district, that soldiers heard 30 bursts of anti-aircraft fire from the Burmese
side.
"We don't know what they fired on. It could be an aircraft, but it for sure
wasn't ours," he said.
The ranger outpost at Ban Pang Noon was seized by Burmese troops on Feb 9,
resulting in fierce clashes when it was retaken.
A source said the United Wa State Army and Burmese military are continuing
to reinforce their outposts along the border from Ban Pang Noon to Doi Ko Wan,
close to the Shan State Army base.
The nearest Wa base is only about 300m from the Ban Pang Noon base.
The Nation -April 01,
2001
CHINA'S LUMBERING RAVAGES BORDER
FOREST
With a growing demand for wood products and its own logging ban in place,
China is trucking in massive tonnages of lumber from Burma, reports John Pomfret
of the Washington Post.
Pianma, Chian - This Chinese town hard on the border with Burma smells of
wood. Sawdust floats through the air like pollen. Fires crackle in roadside
restaurants. Pianma's tallest structure is a mountain of logs more then 50 feet
high. And trucks weighed down with timber trundle through town daily.
Pisnma, 2,400km southwest of Beijing on the far edge of Yunnan Province, id
one of China's gateways in to the forests of northern Burma, where for the last
several years a massive, unregulated and largely unnoticed timber trade has
stripped bare hundreds of square miles of ancient tropical forests. As such,
Pianma is a vantage point to view the mounting appetite of the Chinese economic
giant that is emerging and spreading its reach to the rest of Asia and the
world.
The economy - at more than US$4 trillion (Bt176 trillion) it is 22 times
bigger than it was in 1978 - has led the charge toward renewal of what many
Chinese regard as their rightful influence on the country's Asian neighbours.
China is the biggest investor in Mongolia, for instance, and buys more than half
its cashmere.
China has challenged Russia for influence in several Central Asia
countries, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzatan, where Chinese investments vie
with Moscow's and Chinese bicycles, electronic goods and other gadgets are
pushing Russia's out.
To the south, China has improved ties with Vietnam, and Chinese firms are
some of the most aggressive investors in that country. Chinese firms have also
ploughed money into Nepal and Cambodia.
China's growing economic influence has sometimes aroused passions in the
region. Mongolia moved several years ago to ban Chinese firms from participating
in its privatisation process. Government and cashmere industry officials
routinely blame China for the collapse of their textile industry. Local
officials in Siberia have spoken about their fears of a "Chinese invasion",
although negotiations are underway for Chinese crews to cut down trees in
Russia.
Here in Pianma, where men saunter the streets with pistols and prostitutes
gather on street corners offering labourers a quick massage and more, people
have been trading lumber for years. But the boom, truckers and lumberjacks say,
really began in 1998. That was the year China issued a ban on logging to protect
its fast-disappearing forests and to halt massive soil erosion that contributed
to deadly floods.
"You have a situation where an environmentally beneficial policy in China
created incentives to destroy forests in other parts of the world. " said Jim
Harkness, director of the China office of WWF, a conservation organisation
formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund.
From 12 provinces in 1998, the logging ban was extended to 18 in 2000. No
logging is allowed in the upper reaches of the Yangtze or Yellow rivers. Logging
has been reduced in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, the northwestern Xinjiang
territory and elsewhere. In all, 740,000 wood workers have been laid off,
according to research by WWF. China's timber production plummeted 97 per cent
from 1997 to 2000, when only 1 million cubic metres were produced.
Preparations for China's entry into the World Trade Organisation have also
sparked an increase in timber imports. Tariffs in forestry products have fallen
drastically as China seeks to prepare for a more open trading system. In many
places around China's borders, no tariffs are charged for logs.
In that atmosphere, thousands of out -of- work labourers flooded this town
and regions all along the borders after 1998, looking for wood to feed an
unquenchable demand for chopsticks, furniture and paper. China's imports of logs
skyrocketed from less than 10 million in 1999 and between 14 million and 15
million last year.
Steven Johnson, a statistician at the International Timber Trade
Organisation , estimates that within a few years China will surpass the United
States, Japan and the European Union as the world's biggest importer of logs ,
although its imports of all wood products are still a fraction of the
world total.
" The logging ban played a role, " a World Bank official said, " but the
trend was already there. As China gets richer, it's natural that it will consume
more wood."
On paper, Burma supplies less than 10 per cent of the imports, or 740,000
cubic metres, according to statistics collected by the timber trade group. But
no one in this swath of western Yunnan province believes those numbers.
"I would say it's about twice that high," said Li Jiajing , 44, a driver
who said he moved 1,000 cubic metres last year of teak, Chinese hemlock, walnut,
dragon spruce and Chinese pine. One recent day, he was preparing an
18-cubic-metre truckload of three teak logs; the trunks were more than 10 feet
in diameter, hundreds of years old.
Timber company officials estimate that more than 350,000 cubic metres move
through Pianma alone each year. Large amounts also come into China from Burma at
towns farther south along the border: Tengchong, Yingjiang, Zhangfeng, Ruili and
Wanding. And a Malaysian timber firm is building a bridge across the Salween
River, 100km north of Pianma near Fugong, to bring in still more logs.
In 1988, there were only 13 small sawmills in Dehong prefecture, a centre
of the new logging trade. Now there are more than 100 have sprouted up around
Tengchong.
China's activities in the Burmese rain forests are mirrored on its northern
border. Imports if Russian logs have skyrocketed over the past two years and out
strip the number from Burma. Russia now accounts for 42 per cent of all logs
that flow into China. But Russia's wood comes mostly from forests that
specialise in faster-growing softwood, while Burma's comes from tropical forests
where the trees are often hundreds of years old.
" It's an international tragedy because Burma possesses about half of
mainland Southeast Asia's forests." said Kirk Tabot, a Washington - based expert
on Southeast Asian forests. "The combination of a military-backed junta (in
Burma) and unquenchable appetites in China is creating a disaster."
In theory, the military-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise controls all Burma's
lumber exports. But the Chinese are not dealing with the government from Rangoon
across from Pianma, for Burma's political system has conspired to facilitate the
denuding of its forests.
In 1988, Burma's military-led government annulled the results of an
election. Concerned that thousands of dissidents who fled Rangoon would be armed
by insurgents who have operated for decades along Burma's northern border,
Burma's generals cut a deal with the rebel forces: In exchange for permission to
engage in business, the insurgents promised not to arm the dissidents.
Logging concessions were a key sweetener, Burma's generals gave these local
leaders access to logging machinery and milling equipment. Chinese business were
soon operating in Burma, bringing in lumberjacks and truckers and cutting down
forests.
Myanmar Chambers of Commerce
Membership Expands
2001.04.01 12:26:47 YANGON, April 1 (Xinhuanet) --
The Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(UMFCCI) has expanded to comprise a membership of 9,363, said official
newspaper The New Light of Myanmar Sunday.
Of the 9,363 members, 5,815 are Myanmar companies, while 708 are
foreign companies and 2,840 are individual members.
Among the UMFCCI members, there are 16 state and division CCI, 9
border trade associations and 16 other associations, the report
said.
Myanmar Chamber of Commerce was formed in 1906 when the country was under
colonial rule and Myanmar national entrepreneurs were not allowed to join
in until 1919.
The chamber was upgraded to the UMFCCI in 1999.
T
he UMFCCI, which represents all the Myanmar businesses of national
entrepreneurs, has joined the Paris-based International CCI and ASEAN CCI
and has also signed memorandums of understanding with 18 organizations from 13
economies.
Myanmar Leader Stresses Need for
Technical Advances
2001.04.01 11:00:23 YANGON, April 1 (Xinhuanet) --
Myanmar leader Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt has stressed the need to
place emphasis on technical advances and strong economy, calling on his
country people to work for the goal in unity and with might and main, official
newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday.
Speaking at an annual general meeting here of the Union of Myanmar
Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), Khin Nyunt, First
Secretary of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council, said that
science and technologies are advancing at a blistering pace and
globalization is taking place under the present international
situation.
He noted that every nation is making all-out efforts to uplift their
national economic life and not to lag behind others in the process of
international development.
He blamed that some developed nations, that have gained the upper
hand in terms of technology and economy, have come to use their advances
in technology and strong wealth as a weapon, as a result of which, he
added, the gap of technology and wealth among the nations in the world is
getting wider and wider.
He pinpointed that it is a significant condition of the world today
that some developing nations, that want to safeguard against inequality of
opportunity for economic development, have come to place emphasis on
cooperation on a mutually beneficial basis rather than economic
competition and formed economic cooperation organizations.
Accordingly, he said, Myanmar is striving for the improvement of
national economic life in the international front, cooperating with
regional economic organizations.
The UMFCCI, which represents all the Myanmar businesses of national
entrepreneurs, has joined the Paris-based International CCI and ASEAN CCI
and has also signed memorandums of understanding with 18 organizations from 13
countries.
Far Eastern Economic
Review
INTELLIGENCE
Issue cover-dated April 5, 2001
Thai-Burmese Border Warms
Up
Burma has sent troop reinforcements to bolster heavily fortified positions
along the border with Thailand, raising fears of renewed armed clashes between
the neighbours. Local residents in eastern Burma believe the soldiers may be
preparing to attack camps of the separatist Shan State Army just inside Burma.
Burma's military junta says the SSA gets help and sanctuary from Thailand. Local
residents say that in the third week of March they saw 120 trucks, each carrying
20-35 soldiers and 120-millimetre and 82-millimetre mortar rounds, heading south
from the garrison town of Kengtung in easternmost Burma to Tachilek, opposite
Mae Sai in northern Thailand. Thai and Burmese forces fought for two days in
this area in early February after Burmese troops occupied a Thai paramilitary
base on the border. Another 120 army trucks have been seen recently on the road
from Mong Hsat in eastern Burma heading in the direction of Loi Laem, a
stronghold of the SSA, one of the few ethnic rebel groups still fighting
Rangoon. Observers say Thailand is sympathetic to the Shans because they have
attacked narcotics production sites across the border that are reportedly run by
another minority group allied to the Burmese government. Meanwhile, the Burmese
recently bought as many as 100,000 82-millimetre mortar rounds from Vietnam
through private arms dealers, according to Western and Thai intelligence
sources, who said the Vietnamese did not know the identity of the ultimate
client.
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