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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 18,
2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- AP - List of Myanmar Prisoners
Published
Asia Times online - THE ROVING EYE
AP - UN Rights Comm Turns Spotlight On
Russia, China, Cuba
AP - Taiwan Drug Czar: Chinese Drugs Are
Destroying The Region
Dow Jones - Philippines Seeks Delay In
AFTA Tariff Cut On Petchem Pdt
Reuters - Child slave labour remains a
global issue
AP - Thailand
Plans Weekly Executions
Excite - Citigroup draws criticism on Myanmar, predatory lending
Bkk Post - Three
charged with killing Thai skipper
Xinhuanet - Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up Slightly in 2000
SCMP - Rangoon
blasted on rights record
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday April 18 3:04 AM ET
List of Myanmar Prisoners Published BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -
Amnesty International has published its first extensive list of political
prisoners in Myanmar as part of a new campaign to pressure the military regime
to improve a ``grave'' human rights situation.
The list of 458 prisoners, among 1,850 held in Myanmar, includes people
penalized for peacefully demonstrating, telling jokes, distributing or
possessing uncensored leaflets or videos and talking to foreign journalists.
In a statement received in Bangkok on Wednesday, the London-based rights
group said it has stepped up its campaign for human rights in the country, amid
signs that ``international pressure may be having some effect.''
Political tensions in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have eased since the
start of secret meetings in October between democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and the military regime.
The talks are regarded as the most significant dialogue between the two
sides in a decade, since Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy swept general
elections in 1990 but was barred from taking power. Hundreds of her supporters
have since been jailed.
The regime had recently released some prisoners, including more than 30 in
April before the first visit in five years by a United Nations human rights
investigator to Myanmar. Another 85 were released before a European Union
delegation visited in January.
Amnesty said it would lobby foreign governments and investors and would
appeal directly to the Myanmar government to release sick or elderly prisoners
of conscience, improve prison conditions, stop torture and halt forced labor.
The list of 458 prisoners includes students, politicians, doctors, farmers,
teachers, journalists, writers, lawyers and housewives. It is not comprehensive
as access to information on individual cases is difficult to obtain, Amnesty
said.
Suu Kyi herself has been under house detention for the past six months
after she tried to travel outside Yangon in defiance of travel
restrictions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Asia Times Online - April 12,
2001.
THE ROVING
EYE
Burmese days By Pepe Escobar BANGKOK - The new United Nations Human Rights rapporteur in Myanmar, Paulo
Sergio Pinheiro, is back to Geneva after a landmark three-day visit to Yangon.
UN diplomats described the mission as "a success". Myanmar's generals -
international pariahs controlling one of the bloodiest dictatorships on the
planet - dubbed it "constructive".
The alleged success could be measured by the fact that Pinheiro and three
other UN diplomats were officially authorized to meet formidable Nobel Peace
Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in her own dilapidated
mansion on University Avenue, generally off limits. Suu Kyi - Asia's Joan D'Arc
- has technically been under house arrest since last September. Pinheiro's visit
lasted 90 minutes - but no details were available about the recent secret
meetings between the junta and the opposition, supposedly aimed at future
national reconciliation.
Pinheiro, a Brazilian professor of political science chosen to the post
only last February, opened his mandate with a small victory: to actually land
and spend three days in Yangon. His predecessor, Rajsoomer Lallah, a judge from
Mauritius, quit in disgust because, among other things, he was never authorized
even to even visit the airport.
Lallah never measured his words. In his last report to the UN, he heavily
criticized the "militaristic approach" of the junta, responsible for causing
"extreme poverty and the absence of food security in the country". According to
Lallah, the systematic "scorched earth" policies of the junta involved "forced
relocation, forced labor and inhuman treatment".
Pinheiro said he would only comment on what the saw and heard in Myanmar
after presenting his report to the UN commission in Geneva. In Myanmar, he met
all the relevant big shots - people who would hold their own against the
neo-incarcerated Milosevic, especially after adopting a more "modern" and
sinister face. The new generation is led by the Intelligence chief,
Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, routinely honored on the cover of the kafkaesque
New Light of Myanmar as "Secretary-1". "Secretary-1" is a kind of adopted son of
octogenarian general Ne Win, the founder of the splendidly ineffective "Burmese
Way to Socialism" - a policy that, among other things, reduced Myanmar from a
major world rice exporter to one of the least-developed countries in Asia.
Agriculture still accounts for 50 percent of GDP and employs almost two thirds
of the population.
Legions of Myanmar-watchers took note that the dictatorship decided to host
the new envoy only a few weeks before the crucial UN General Assembly on Human
Rights, next month in Geneva. In the face of more than a decade of being viewed
as international pariahs, the military may be steering a kind of "Burmese
perestroika" - according to an Asian diplomat. For months they have been
involved in secret negotiations with the unbreakable Suu Kyi. The official media
has been instructed to moderate its daily attacks on Suu Kyi and her party, the
National League for Democracy (NLD), winner of the 1990 free elections but never
recognized by the military.
Pinheiro, a former Human Rights Watch rapporteur in Brazil, has been
praised for his low profile in such a delicate mission - compared to Lallah. But
if diplomats are optimistic, dissident groups in Thailand prefer to say this is
just another public relations offensive by the junta. They point out that
arrests still continue, and also massacres in areas populated by most of the 67
Burmese ethnic minorities. According to rumors circulating across Southeast
Asia, Suu Kyi agreed with the military that they would not take part in any
eventual civilian government. Diplomats and dissidents say there is no proof,
and the whole thing could be just another charm tactic.
Myanmar matters because it enjoys a crucial strategic position at the
crossroads of South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. With the regional
giants, China and India, that have influenced its culture for centuries, it
shares long, porous and turbulent borders, invariably crossed by its tribal
groups, many with independent armies. The regime's ex-strongman, the
superstitious Ne Win, obsessed with the number nine, now plays The Shadow.
"Secretary-1" runs the show, flanked by members of an obscure government think
tank, the Office of Strategic Studies (OSS). OSS is pure Big Brother material:
it advises the Ministry of Foreign Relations, writes the texts read by the
Ministry of Information, deals with the 67 tribal groups, runs the drug policy,
and watches over dissidents inside and outside the country.
The outside world is definitely not impressed with the "new" face of
Myanmar since the junta changed its name from the "Get Smart" - worthy SLORC to
the more serious-sounding SPDC (State Peace and Development Council).
"Secretary-1" was one the youngest members of SLORC.
According to Singaporean businessmen, he is intelligent, energetic, and
capable of extreme brutality. Not corrupt, at least in theory, he lives the good
life on a US$20 monthly salary. The average Burmese, wearing his lungyi,
visiting his magnificent temples and eating in street stalls, makes around $15 a
month.
For a visiting Thai, Indonesian, Filipino or Taiwanese, this warped cross
between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 is positively chilling. Suu
Kyi cannot leave home, not even to go to the market. Until recently, a long list
of lawyers, monks or ex-student leaders was apprehended every week - and
denounced in the New Light of Myanmar, in Burmese and English, as "stooges".
Yangon is still peppered with bilingual billboards extolling the "People's
Desire" (example: "Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the
common enemy").
Non-authorized possession of a fax, modem or walkie-talkie means jail time.
A dozen scissor-equipped censors at the Ministry of Information spend their days
slashing each imported copy of Singapore's Straits Times or the Herald Tribune
mentioning Myanmar. Each year the UN and the European Union condemn
"extra-judicial executions, torture and repression of ethnic and religious
minorities", as a recent European Union report put it.
It is only fitting that the junta, obsessed with censorship and secrecy,
has made a Faustian pact with the Chinese panda. China is supposed to give the
junta full diplomatic support, and to help the military control the turbulent
ethnic groups in the northeast it has sold it more than $2 billion in arms. But
the most destabilizing factor is that Myanmar accepted the Chinese offer to
build a port on the Bassein River, which flows into the Bay of Bengal. This port
will be a gift from Heaven for Chinese exports - the end of the famous Myanmar
road to the Indian Ocean dreamed by the Chinese for more than a century.
No wonder New Delhi is alarmed. India suspects the port could become an
enormous Chinese base capable of harboring, among other juicy items, a Chinese
submarine fleet equipped with nuclear missiles.
The bilateral relation with its southern neighbor has helped China increase
its influence in South and Southeast Asia - directly or via Yangon. No wonder
alarm bells have rang, not only in India, but also in Washington. Whether one
believes that China has annexed Myanmar into its strategic orbit or whether
Myanmar is already a Chinese satellite, what counts is that Beijing made Yangon
an offer no junta could refuse. China offers diplomatic protection, tons of
arms, help for an array of "projects", technical and financial assistance,
industrial equipment and consumer goods for the masses - and everything for an
unbeatable price. Myanmar had only to forget those heady 26 years of the Burmese
way to socialism to embrace the market - sort of.
The standard procedure of the US - confrontation through sanctions - once
again did not work in Myanmar. In the past 10 years the junta has expanded its
armed forces to more than 500,000 troops. And it has kept up the pressure on
dissidents in urban centers as well as launching military campaigns against
narco-rebel groups who were not inclined to accept a ceasefire.
Facing the massive Chinese cavalry, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Korea and Taiwan decided to go turbo and improve their commercial ties
with Yangon before the Chinese gobbled up all of the lucrative deals. And so
Myanmar has re-established its strategic importance - no matter what the US or
the EU might say.
Myanmar, though, pays a heavy price for the panda's economic embrace.
Kipling's once romantic Mandalay is already regarded as nothing but a Chinese
suburb. The "Made in China" junk on sale everywhere represents the kiss of death
to hundreds of local entrepreneurs. There is wide resentment about the
indiscriminate pillaging of natural resources. Myanmar has 75 percent of the
teak available in the world. The junta, Karen and Shan minorities, and 20 Thai
timber companies, will likely destroy all of this by 2010 if they continue at
their present rate. Whole villages are dislocated because of dubious "projects",
and traditional cultural values are being utterly destroyed.
The junta's members may be ruthless military officers, and they don't
exactly hold PhDs in diplomacy or international commerce. There is simply no
support from the intelligentsia - in exile or in internal exile, as they have no
political voice. Public opinion means absolutely nothing for the junta. And the
icing on the cake is the complacent attitude of the rulers towards drug
trafficking, and the junta's reluctance to admit to an AIDS epidemic that is
spreading fast around China's Yunnan province.
Thai-Myanmar relations are also in danger. Thailand's premier has already
demanded an official explanation from Yangon concerning the massive, deadly flow
into Thailand of methamphetamines - and, of course, heroin - manufactured on the
Myanmar side of the border, mostly by the United Wa State Army, the world's
largest and heavily armed drug-trafficking operation. For the Thai military,
this is the No 1 security threat to the country. For the whole region, the
spectre is of a possible balkanization of Myanmar, criss-crossed by armed
drug-trafficking organizations.
On a trip to Myanmar before being blackballed as "undesirable" by the
military authorities - like hundreds of other journalists - this correspondent
heard from an Indian businessman a pretty good summary of the whole dilemma.
According to the businessman, the sanctions imposed by the West did not squeeze
the military, but the common people. And the "constructive engagement" policy of
fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations members also does not work. The
West uses the carrot and the stick, the East uses only the carrots, and nothing
has worked.
It makes one wonder just what it will take for the junta to "see the
light". It is possible to argue that for the moment, Asia, Europe and the US are
just settling for the persuasive powers of the new UN envoy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday April 18, 11:53 AM
UN Rights Comm Turns Spotlight On
Russia, China, Cuba
GENEVA (AP)--Censure motions
condemning the human rights records of more than 10 nations, including China,
Cuba and Russia, head the agenda at the United Nations's top human rights
watchdog Wednesday.
After more than four weeks of discussion, the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights
Commission will start voting on resolutions Wednesday.
The United States has submitted a resolution criticizing China's human
rights record. It denounces Beijing's repression of the Falun Gong spiritual
movement, its "increased restrictions" on Tibetans, and "harsh sentencing" of
government opponents.
It cites "continuing reports of failure to protect internationally
recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms in China."
It will be the tenth time a Western government has tried to pass a
resolution condemning China at the annual commission. On the other nine
occasions, full debate on the subject was blocked after China introduced a
counter-resolution calling for "no action."
China is expected to lodge a similar motion this year.
The European Union has proposed a resolution criticizing Russian actions in
the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
The resolution "strongly condemns the use of disproportionate force ...
including attacks against civilians and other breaches of international law as
well as serious violations of human rights, such as forced disappearances,
extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, torture and other inhuman and
degrading treatment."
It expresses concern about the slow pace of Russian internal investigations
into alleged human rights abuses.
The resolution also attacks the actions of Chechen rebels, who are accused
of torture, taking hostages and the indiscriminate use of land mines.
Last year Russia became the first permanent member of the U.N. Security
Council to be censured by the commission for human rights abuses, after frantic
attempts to produce a consensus statement failed.
The E.U. has also lodged resolutions criticizing Iran, Iraq, Sudan and
Myanmar, or Burma.
The commission is expected to consider a proposal by the Czech Republic to
censure Cuba for its human rights record. A similar proposal to censure Cuba
passed during the commission's annual session last year.
Havana maintains the proposal is directed from Washington.
Censure by the U.N. body brings no penalties but draws international
attention to a country's human rights record.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday April 18, 4:14 PM
Taiwan Drug Czar: Chinese Drugs Are
Destroying The Region
TAIPEI (AP)--Drugs smuggled
from China are destroying the region, and Beijing needs to shelve political
disputes with Taiwan and work with the island to fight the problem, Taiwan's
drug czar said Wednesday.
About 60% of the drugs seized by Taiwanese authorities last year were from
the southern Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Guangdong and Hainan Island, said
Yang Kuang-chuan, director of the Investigation Bureau's Drug Enforcement
Center.
Taiwan's efforts to stop the smuggling of heroin, opium, marijuana and
other amphetamines from mainland China "were encountering difficulties because
the talks between the two sides have not resumed," Yang said.
"We appeal to you to tell China that we have to talk about this," Yang told
reporters during a tour of the bureau's facilities and warehouse for seized
drugs.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and since then their leaders
haven't met. Long-standing disputes about Taiwan's political status have kept
the two sides from the bargaining table.
Yang said that drugs produced along the mountainous borders of Myanmar,
Thailand and Laos in the area known as the "Golden Triangle" were shipped out of
China due to lax drug enforcement along China's southern coast.
As of this month, about 81 kilograms of heroin have been seized in northern
Taiwan. From 1990 to 2000, about 17,000 kilograms of heroin and amphetamines
were seized by Taiwanese authorities, Yang said.
Yang said however that many illegal chemists and clandestine laboratories
that refine opium from mainland China into heroin exported to North America
"have moved out of Taiwan to other Southeast Asian countries."
"Generally speaking, business has been slow these days" in Taiwan, Yang
told reporters.
Yang said drug seizures have lessened since the last decade and that the
U.S. has recognized drug enforcement efforts by removing Taiwan from a blacklist
of major drug transit countries, Yang said.
Every year, the U.S. government lists countries deemed "major drug transit
countries/entities" due to combination of geographical, commercial and economic
factors that allow drugs to pass through them.
Washington removed Hong Kong and Taiwan from the list in September last
year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday April 18, 7:02 PM
Philippines Seeks Delay In AFTA Tariff
Cut On Petchem Pdt
MANILA (Dow Jones)--The
Philippines will seek the approval of other members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, to its plan to defer the reduction of tariff
on petrochemical products, Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas said Wednesday.
Roxas said deferring the tariff cut will help ensure the viability of a
private sector project to build the country's first naphtha cracker facility.
The project is estimated to cost at least $500 million.
A cracker facility cracks naphtha and other feedstocks to produce ethylene
and propylene, which in turn are used as raw materials for many petrochemical
products.
Proponents of the naphtha cracker want tariff on polymers to be maintained
at the current 15% to ensure the commercial viability of the project. Duties on
polymers was supposed to drop to 5% or lower within the Asean Free Trade Area by
2002.
AFTA involves reducing tariffs on goods traded within Asean to between 0%
and 5% by 2002 for the more-developed economies in the group. Free trade in the
region is envisaged by 2010 for members of Asean, except for Cambodia, Vietnam
and Myanmar. The deadline for these three countries is 2015.
The 10 Asean members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday April 17, 9:23 PM
Child slave labour remains a global
issue
By Jeremy Lovell LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of
women and children are being forced or tricked into slavery every year even as
the world enters the 21st century, experts said on Tuesday.
"Children in slavery around the world are in their millions. Slavery is a
totally global issue," Beth Herzfeld, spokeswoman for the British-based charity
Anti-Slavery International told Reuters. "There is no country that does not have
child slavery."
As the hunt for a ship allegedly carrying hundreds of child slaves off West
Africa ended with the discovery that the MV Etireno was instead carrying adult
economic refugees headed for Gabon, attention turned to the global traffic in
human flesh.
"It really is still a huge problem. Slavery is illegal, but it is still
incredibly prevalent," said Rachel Yates, child labour advisor of the Save the
Children organisation.
"The trouble is there are no accurate figures," she said, noting the lack
of an agreed definition of slavery.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are 250 million
children between the ages of five and fourteen in slave labour around the world
-- predominantly in Asia and Africa.
In some cases the children are forced into labour to pay off family debts,
in others they are kidnapped and in others again the parents hand them over to
the traffickers on the promise of a better life for them and an income for the
family.
The United Nations child welfare organisation UNICEF estimates that tens of
thousands of women and young girls are sold into the sex trade in India and
Thailand each year or traded as child brides.
"It is estimated that in the last 30 years, trafficking in women and
children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone has victimised over 30 million
people," the organisation said.
TRAFFICKERS OFTEN WOMEN
Herzfeld said international figures put the chief source of slave labour as
those working under bond to pay off the debts of their parents or even inherited
debts.
"It is estimated there are 20 million people in bonded labour," she said.
"South Asia has the most bonded labour."
"These children are often not paid, have no rights and are forced to work
all day, every day," she added. "They can't take time off and can't afford to be
sick. Every day they don't work adds to their debt."
In West Africa there is a regular trade in human cargoes from the poorer to
the richer countries -- particularly from the tiny and impoverished Benin to
oil-rich Gabon and Nigeria.
"In West Africa girls frequently are forced into domestic work or on market
stalls, while boys are sent to the cocoa plantations," Herzfeld said.
"In Africa particularly the traffickers are largely women and in some cases
they are relatives," she added. "In some cases it is organised crime, but in
West Africa they are often small rings abusing traditional systems."
A recent United States study estimated the number of women and children
being shipped across national borders globally at up to two million a year.
But in many cases the slaves do not leave the country. Often they are
forced into domestic service -- sometimes for a wealthy relative and even in the
same village.
Yates said the problem in quantifying and ending the slave trade was
aggravated by a lack of resources, the fact that the trade was highly secretive
and shrouded in lies and deception and that there was no globally accepted
definition of slavery.
"It is not only very widescale, but it is also incredibly hidden most of
the time," she said.
For the slaves, the suffering does not end when they reach their mid-teens
and are deemed to have outlasted their usefullness.
"If they survive, they are often simply cast out when they get too old,"
Herzfeld said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday April 18 7:35 AM ET
Thailand Plans Weekly Executions By SUTIN WANNABOVORN, Associated Press Writer
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -
Thailand plans to execute drug offenders every week, starting Wednesday, in a
bid to deter traffickers.
``From now on we will conduct weekly executions against drugs offenders,''
Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon said Wednesday.
``We are executing convicted narcotics offenders quickly to send a clear
signal to drug traffickers that this government is serious about taking tough
action against them,'' he said.
Executions are carried out by firing squads in Thailand.
There are 19 prisoners on death row in Thailand, all of them at Bangkwang
prison. Eleven were convicted of trafficking in methamphetamines, three of whom
were to be executed later Wednesday. For the first time journalists would be
allowed to film part of the death the execution, prison officils said.
Purachai did not say whether the weekly plan would bring forward the
execution dates. One convicted trafficker was executed last week.
The prisoners condemned to die Wednesday were identified as a 47-year-old
man from Hong Kong, a 33-year-old Taiwanese man and a 40-year-old Thai
man.
They were convicted of conspiring to smuggle 7.5 pounds of heroin. Further
details of the case were not immediately available.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government, which took power in
February, has vowed to crack down on the drugs, which is mostly smuggled from
neighboring Myanmar, also known as Burma. Heroin and methamphetamines are
considered the leading cause of crime in Thailand.
The army on Wednesday announced it confiscated 7.6 million methamphetamine
tablets in the second-largest seizure ever.
A task force ambushed a drugs caravan manned by unidentified gunmen in
northwestern Tak province near the Myanmar border on Monday, an army statement
said. There were no casualties. It gave no details of any arrests.
In all, 325 convicts in Thailand have received death sentences, 184 for
drug trafficking. All but 19 are going through the appeals process. Thailand has
executed 298 prisoners since capital punishment was adopted in 1935.
The Bangkok Post newspaper reported Sunday that the government has
requested King Bhumibol Adulyadej that drug traffickers on death row be deprived
their right of petition for a royal pardon, which can delay their execution by
up to nine months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Excite - 5:08 PM ET April 17, 2001
Citigroup draws criticism on Myanmar,
predatory lending
By Cal Mankowski NEW YORK (Reuters) - A parade of critics turned out at Citigroup Inc's
annual meeting Tuesday to assail the company on issues ranging from the
financing of projects in Southeast Asia to its lending practices in poor U.S.
neighborhoods.
A small protest outside was marred by one arrest, but the meeting itself
was conducted peacefully, despite the convergence of a wide range of groups.
Speaking from the stage of the venerable Carnegie Hall concert hall,
Sanford Weill, the company's chairman and chief executive, responded that the
financial services giant shared the concerns of the critics.
In all, five resolutions submitted by activists were soundly defeated.
Citigroup, the biggest U.S. financial services company, after racking up
record profits in 2000, saw profits decline in the first quarter as the stock
market's slump took a toll on its key investment banking business.
Weill told shareholders the current business environment was "more
difficult" with a buildup of business inventories and consumers cutting back.
He said it was hard to tell where the bottom will occur but said he hoped
the Federal Reserve would continue its policy of cutting rates.
He also pointed out the 10-year record of Citigroup and its predecessor,
Travelers Group, saying investors have been rewarded with a stock that has
appreciated nearly 39 percent per year over the decade.
Citigroup shares rose 97 cents, or more than two percent, to close at
$47.92 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. The shares have ranged from a
high of $59.13 to a low of $39 over the past 52 weeks.
Asked about a resolution to increase the authorized shares to 15 billion
from 10 billion, Weill said it could facilitate a stock split. Shareholders
approved that resolution by a wide margin.
The 67-year-old executive was not asked, however, about his 2000
compensation, which at approximately $28.6 million was nearly double the amount
received in 1999.
But a proposal sponsored by the AFL-CIO Staff RetirementPlan, took the
company to task for its financing of the Ratchaburi Electricity Generating
Company of Thailand.
The plant, when completed, will benefit a pipeline partly owned by the
government of neighboring Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, critics contended.
Speaking in support of the resolution, Kenny Bruno, identifying himself as
campaign coordinator for EarthRights International, argued the project helps
prop up a brutal military regime in Myanmar.
In its proxy materials for the meeting, Citigroup said it complies with and
supports all U.S. laws and regulations imposing sanctions on investments in
Myanmar. The proposal garnered 4.7 percent of votes cast.
Another critic questioned whether Citigroup was moving fast enough to end
abusive lending practices at Associates First Capital Corp., a consumer finance
company that Citigroup acquired last year.
"Once lost, a company's reputation never can be restored -- never," said
Martin Eakes, chief executive and co-founder of Self-Help, a community
development financial institution based in Durham, N.C.
Eakes, in particular, criticized Associates' use of single premium credit
life insurance, in which a borrower has to pay upfront for the insurance, also
borrowing to pay the premium, and driving up the cost of the loan.
Weill said Citigroup is seeking regulatory approval to allow borrowers to
pay insurance premiums on a monthly basis.
Citigroup also came under fire for its financing of mining activities in
the Amazon basin. Ilyse Hogue of the Group Rainforest Action Network contended
those activities contribute to the destruction the fragile ecosystems known as
rainforests.
Although the atmosphere was calm on the inside of the concert hall, there
were a few tense moments on the sidewalk outside prior to the meeting.
As protesters peacefully handed out fortune cookies to passers-by and
twirled red umbrellas with the company's corporate logo, police ordered the
group of about 20 protesters to move across the street.
One woman, identified as Pam Martens, an original plaintiff in the
notorious "Boom Boom Room" sex harassment suit against brokerage firm Smith
Barney, was placed under arrest and driven off in a police vehicle. Lt. Kevin
Mullen of the New York City police said she was arrested for disorderly conduct
and "refusing to disperse."
Smith Barney is now part of Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - April 18,
2001.
Three charged with killing Thai
skipper
Three fishing trawler crewmen-two Burmese and a Mon-were yesterday charged
with the murder of their Thai skipper in Pak Phanang district of Nakhon Si
Thammarat.
The three suspects were among four crewmen who had allegedly killed the
skipper, identified only as Mr Khai, of the Siriwaree trawler, marine police
said yesterday.
The other suspect, a Burmese, remained at large. The three arrested men
were found adrift in the sea after the trawler sank. Police said the killing
took place some seven nautical miles off the coast in Pak Phanang.
The crewmen claimed they killed the skipper because they had been
overworked.
They stabbed him to death and then dumped his body into the sea. They then
tried unsuccessfully to bring the trawler loaded with catch to land. The trawler
later sank and they were cast adrift until they were arrested.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up
Slightly in 2000
2001.04.18 10:17:31 YANGON, April 18 (Xinhuanet) --
Myanmar produced a total of 3.538 million barrels of crude oil in 2000,
4.27 percent more than 1999, according to the latest data issued by the
country's Central Statistical Organization.
During the year, the country yielded 1.538 billion cubic-meters of natural
gas, falling however by 8 percent from 1999.
In 1999, the country produced 3.393 million barrels of crude oil and
1.672 billion cubic-meters of natural gas.
Since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such
investment in the oil and gas sector coming from oil companies of
Australia, Britain, France, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and the United
States has reached 2.355 billion dollars in 51 projects, taking up 32.2
percent of the country's total contracted foreign investment by
sector.
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- South China Morning Post
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
Rangoon blasted on rights
record
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Bangkok Amnesty International has published its first extensive list of political
prisoners in Burma as part of a new campaign to pressure the military regime to
improve a ''grave'' human rights situation.
The list of 458 prisoners, among 1,850 held in Burma, includes people
penalised for peacefully demonstrating, telling jokes, distributing or
possessing uncensored leaflets or videos and talking to foreign
journalists.
In a statement received in Bangkok on Wednesday, the London-based rights
group said it has stepped up its campaign for human rights in the country, amid
signs that ''international pressure may be having some effect''.
Political tensions in Burma, have eased since the start of secret meetings
in October between democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military
regime.
The talks are regarded as the most significant dialogue between the two
sides in a decade, since Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy swept
general elections in 1990 but was barred from taking power. Hundreds of her
supporters have since been jailed.
The regime had recently released some prisoners, including more than 30 in
April before the first visit in five years by a United Nations human rights
investigator to Burma. Another 85 were released before a European Union
delegation visited in January.
''Although these releases are a step in the right direction, 1,850
political prisoners are still behind bars in various detention centres around
the country,'' the statement said.
Amnesty said it would be lobbying foreign governments and investors and
would appeal directly to the Burmese government to release sick or elderly
prisoners of conscience, improve prison conditions, stop torture and halt forced
labour.
The list of 458 prisoners includes students, politicians, doctors, farmers,
teachers, journalists, writers, lawyers and housewives. It is not comprehensive
as access to information on individual cases is difficult to obtain, Amnesty
said.
Among the prisoners are comedians Pa Pa Lay and Lu Zaw who were given seven
year prison sentences in 1996 after a performance at Ms Suu Kyi's residence when
they satirised the military authorities. Their trial was conducted inside prison
in the northern city of Mandalay and they were denied any legal representation,
Amnesty said.
Ms Suu Kyi herself has been under house detention for the past six months
after she tried to travel outside Rangoon in defiance of travel
restrictions.
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