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BURMA RELATED NEWS - July 03,
2001.
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HEADLINES
---------------------------------------------------------------- Dow Jones - Thai PTT/Gas Payment : Premier Oil
Gets $19.3M
Kyodo News - N. Korea, Myanmar explore military
cooperation: Yonhap
ABC online - Progress
in Burmese reconciliation talks
ABC online - AIDS
experts hold seminar in China
The Nation - History against us in drugs battle
Bkk Post - Editorial - Poppies bloom in the
killing fields
The Daily Star - 20 Myanmar, 3 Thai nationals
chargesheeted
NSTP - Medan consulate to help Indon
police probe in fisherman shooting
---------------------------------------------------------------- Monday July 2, 9:10 PM Thai PTT/Gas Payment : Premier Oil
Gets $19.3M
Gas Price Negotiations Ongoing SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--The
Petroleum Authority of Thailand last week paid over US$300 million in overdue
payments owed to producers of natural gas from Myanmar, a senior PTT official
said Monday.
PTT had withheld the money, pending negotiations with producers of gas from
the Yadana and Yetagun fields, in Myanmar's Andaman Sea. PTT sought
"flexibility" in gas pricing, after the slipping value of the Thai baht
(US$1=THB4.33) and higher global crude and products prices raised the effective
price of the gas.
"In principle, we have reached an agreement, but we need to work on the
details," Panu Suttsirat, PTT Gas vice president for supply, said Monday.
The missed payment stems from gas PTT was obligated to buy, when it didn't
yet have the infrastructure in place to receive the volumes specified in the
contract. Gas from Myanmar began flowing in early 2000, but didn't reach full
volume until early this year after a connection from the Myanmar pipe to
Thailand's eastern gas grid was completed.
PTT had met payments for gas it actually received, withholding only the
payments for contracted volume it didn't offtake, PTT officials said earlier.
1205GMT Premier Oil Gets $19.3M
PTT will continue to take gas from the Yetagun and Yadana fields at 115% of
the contracted amount, for up to 12 years, to make up for missed volume, Panu
said. The gas contract allows 15% flexibility.
Panu declined to comment on any resolution to PTT's request to restructure
the gas pricing, saying only that the parties "have agreed in principal to be
flexible temporarily on price."
The Myanmar gas is pegged to Singapore fuel oil prices, which rose together
with crude to peak in the second half of 2000. At the same time, the Thai baht
has lost value, falling about 7% since the beginning of the year.
The Yadana field is operated by TotalfinaElf SA (TOT), with 31.24%. Its
partners are Unocal Corp. (UCL), with 28.26%, PTT Exploration & Production
PCL (H.PTT), with 25.5%, and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, with 15%.
The Yetagun field is operated by Premier Oil PLC (PMOIY), with 26.67%.
Premier's partners in Yetagun are Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd (P.PET), or
Petronas, with 30%, MOGE with 15%, and PTTEP and Nippon-Mitsubishi Oil Corp.
(J.NPO), each with 14.17%.
Premier Oil received US$19.3 million for its share of the outstanding
payment, the company said in a release to the London Stock Exchange
Monday.
---------------------------------------------------------------- N. Korea, Myanmar explore military
cooperation: Yonhap
SEOUL, July 3, Kyodo - - North
Korea and Myanmar are strengthening bilateral military cooperation despite the
absence of diplomatic relations, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported
Tuesday.
Yonhap quoted a South Korean government official as saying that Pyongyang
has recently exchanged visits of foreign affairs and defense officials with the
military-led government in Yangon.
Yangon severed diplomatic ties with Pyongyang in 1983 after a terrorist
bombing in the Myanmar capital by North Korea agents killed 17 members of a
South Korean delegation during a visit by then South Korean President Chun Doo
Hwan.
The official reportedly said a North Korean delegation led by Park Kil Yon,
a vice foreign minister, visited Yangon from June 20-22 and met Myanmar Deputy
Defense Minister Khin Maung Win to discuss defense industry cooperation.
The official said that in November last year a Myanmar government
delegation secretly visited the North for talks with high-ranking officials of
North Korea's People's Armed Forces Ministry.
Yonhap quoted another Seoul government official as saying that North Korea
and Myanmar appear to be seeking conventional arms sales and technology
transfers rather than high-tech weapons sales.
It noted that Jane's Defense Weekly, a Britain-based defense magazine,
reported in 1998 that earlier that year food-short North Korea had sold Myanmar
about 20 howitzers with a range of 27 kilometers in exchange for rice.
The South Korean officials were quoted as saying that in the two rounds of
talks, Pyongyang and Yangon did not discuss reopening ties.
Myanmar suspended diplomatic relations with North Korea following the Oct.
9, 1983 terrorist bombing that killed the 17 visiting South Korean government
officials, including several cabinet ministers, and wounded 14 others.
Three North Korean terrorists, one of whom was arrested after the bombing
and sentenced to death, were found to have planted the time bombs at the Aung
San Mausoleum, where the South Korean delegation was waiting for Chun's arrival.
Myanmar has reportedly said it wants North Korea to officially acknowledge
its responsibility for the bombing and apologize before diplomatic relations can
be reopened.
But last July, Myanmar set aside the issue to allow North Korea to join the
ASEAN Regional Forum, a 23-member body for security consultations.
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung told Kyodo News in an interview at the
time that Myanmar was ''considering'' resuming ties with North Korea but in no
''rush'' to do so, saying, ''It is not the time for us to start talking.''
He declined to say whether Myanmar was insisting on an official apology.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Australian Broadcasting Corporation
July 03, 2001.
Progress in Burmese reconciliation talks
Geoff Thompson - Bangkok
Historic talks between Burma's military rulers and democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi are showing new signs of progress, with the release of more
political prisoners.
After western diplomats decribed the dialogue as stalled, real hope has
returned with the release from prison after five years of Aung San Suu Kyi's
cousin and close aid U Aye Win. The 61 year old was reunited with his family and
has been descibed as looking well even a bit stouter than before his
imprisonment.Recent weeks have seen Burmese military junta release dozens of
members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy who were voted into
office in 1990's disallowed elections.Nine members were released just last week.
The failure of the junta to release NLD members has been criticised for
hindering the progress of secret talks which began last October. It's believed
that Aung San Kyi set the release of political prisoners and the reopening of
NLD offices as pre-conditions to the talks continuing.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Australian Broadcasting
Corporation
July 03, 2001.
AIDS experts hold seminar in China
More than 100 Red Cross officials and medical experts have held a seminar
in China on combating AIDS in Southeast Asia.
The conference, in the southwest city of Kunming, was attended by experts
from the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Norway and Australia.
They discussed tackling HIV/AIDS in the Mekong River countries of China,
Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
A statement from the conference says that with the planned economic
development in the Mekong River region, AIDS will threaten the people along the
trade routes.
The AIDS specialists also say that China itself has failed to acknowledge
the scale of its AIDS crisis.
---------------------------------------------------------------- The Nation - July 03,
2001.
Letters - History against us in
drugs battle
Kenny Descherelle - TORONTO
With all the summits and talk over Thailand's drug problems, one has to
understand this has been festering for more than five decades. If we are to
include the old monopoly, Thailand has had over one hundred years
experience.
In his book "The Politics of Heroin", Alfred W McCoy, professor of
Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin, gives an accurate and
clear picture of Thailand and the region. In his book he names those entrenched
in the Thai military, police and political system who virtually looked the other
way or were directly involved in the cultivation and distribution routes.
In 600-plus pages he spells out in detail the strategy of Thailand and
Burma, partners for many years. Now, with the current drug ya ba in vogue, one
doesn't have to wait for the harvest. The imported chemists can make all they
need within months of production.
Thailand also has to remember that as long as there is no economic stimulus
for its neighbour Burma, drugs will never ever stop entering Thailand. There
will always be a market and a buyer, along with the protection afforded the
sellers and distributors. Money talks.
Along with Laos, Burma will continue to flood the region [with drugs].
Juntas and regimes care little about the effects on your country. Wake up,
Thaksin, this is one fight you are sure to lose.
---------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - July 03,
2001.
Editorial - Poppies bloom in the killing
fields
The ban on poppy growing by the Taleban of Afghanistan seems serious. Two
teams of honest investigators from the International Narcotics Control Board and
the United States have reported that the opium crop has been virtually wiped out
in one season. No doubt, there will be back-sliding. There also is evidence that
the regime is dealing in old heroin warehoused in the past couple of
years.
But it appears that drug traffickers have begun making other plans for
other supplies. Their plans revolve around one nation: Burma. Because of the
Taleban action, Burma has become the world's biggest opium producer again. Burma
produced an audited 1,085 tonnes of opium last year. The end of the Afghanistan
crop leaves our western neighbour alone as-in the words of the United Nations
Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention-a "black spot" on a global drug
scene that is making some progress against the pushers.
In recent months, there has been increasing evidence of stepped up
attention on heroin production in Burma. This flies in the face of the claims of
the Burmese dictatorship. It also contradicts the attention given to Burma by
drug agents in recent years. That attention has been focussed more and more on
methamphetamines. We may yet all regret ignoring the heroin problem.
History tells us that drug traffickers will concentrate on Burma but spread
their net far wider in an attempt to make up for the Afghanistan narcotics ban.
Twenty years ago, India, Pakistan and Turkey were the leading producers of opium
and, thus, heroin. Today, all three countries are virtually opium-free. Twenty
years ago, Laos and Thailand grew most of the opium in the Golden Triangle.
Today, Burma has moved into the No 1 slot.
Heroin remains a leading killer, and increases its toll yearly. Last week,
an Indian report said 50,000 people in the northeastern states bordering Burma
have HIV/Aids. Half contracted the disease through contaminated, shared needles
for injecting heroin. Similar figures are seen in the North of Thailand and in
Yunnan province of China.
As demand for heroin increases, so does the search for supplies by the
traffickers. In the past two years, this newspaper has documented the alliance
between Hong Kong drug triads and Burma's government-supported Wa faction. The
United Wa State Army has become notorious for putting Thailand at risk with
methamphetamines. The group is also deeply involved in the international heroin
trade.
The Golden Triangle remains highly susceptible to the drug lure. Opium is a
more lucrative crop than marijuana for Cambodia's poor, ignored farmers of the
northern hills. Remote farms in Laos could resume, or continue covertly, growing
opium. In recent years, the tiny opium crop of Thailand has increased. Thailand
has not been a player on the world poppy scene for years. But the rising price
of drugs could trick farmers in remote areas into growing poppies once
again.
Certainly, the heroin trade is once again in a state of flux, and
traffickers are testing and developing new supplies and routes. Authorities in
Tamil Nadu state of southern India seized 28.8kg of high-grade heroin last week.
It was almost certainly a shipment directed by the Tamil Tiger terrorists of Sri
Lanka, but it was the first ever detected moving through that region. China
burnt two tonnes of heroin on World Anti-Drug Day.
There is no evidence the Burmese regime would oppose any expansion in drug
trafficking. The dictatorship has directly supported the Wa activities, and does
business with Lo Hsing-han and other major drug pushers. Asean and other
neighbours must put the strongest pressure possible on Burma and Laos to resist
the temptation of a new heroin market.
---------------------------------------------------------------- The Daily Star - July 03,
2001.
20 Myanmar, 3 Thai nationals
chargesheeted
UNB, Bagerhat
Mongla thana police on Sunday chargesheeted 20 Myanmar nationals and three
Thais who were arrested from the Bay for intruding into Bangladesh
territory.
Bangladesh Navy arrested 23 foreigners along with a trawler, firearms and
ammunition on December 18 last.
They were later handed over to police and a case was filed against them
with Mongla police.
After investigation, police submitted the chargesheet to the local
magistrate court.
---------------------------------------------------------------- The New Straits Times Press
July 03, 2001.
Medan consulate to help Indon police
probe in fisherman shooting
by Adrian David The Foreign Ministry has directed the Malaysian Consular-General in Medan,
Indonesia to assist police in their investigations into the shooting at a
Malaysian fishing boat in the Straits of Malacca on June 25.
The shooting led to the death of fisherman Heng Peng Hong while three of
his Myanmar crew were detained by the Indonesian navy, Tentera Nasional
Indonesian-Angkatan Laut, in Belawan, Sumatra.
A statement from Wisma Putra today said that investigations would involve
recording statements from the three Myanmar crew to obtain a clear scenario of
what transpired during the incident.
We are making efforts to despatch an interpreter as the Myanmar crew do not
speak English or Bahasa Malaysia, said the statement.
It added that the body of Heng had yet to be found and the ministry has,
through the Consulate-General in Medan, urged TNI-AL to intensify the search
operations.
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