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BURMA RELATED NEWS - August 11,
2001.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------ Kyodo News - Mekong countries
conclude meeting on counter-narcotics
Bkk Post - Second friendship
bridge to be built in Mae Sai
The Nation - Troika meets
to show its 'spirit'
Xinhuanet - Sub-Regional
Senior Officials Meeting on Drug Control Ends in Yangon
------------------------------------------------------------------ Mekong countries
conclude meeting on counter-narcotics
YANGON, Aug. 11, Kyodo - Senior officials from China, Laos, Myanmar
and Thailand concluded a meeting Saturday in Yangon on drug control cooperation
in which they discussed supply and demand reduction and law enforcement.
''This meeting is...a demonstration to the world that we
are politically committed to drug elimination,'' said Col. Kyaw Thein, a senior
member of Myanmar's Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control.
The meeting was held to prepare for a ministerial-level
meeting in Beijing among the four countries of the Mekong sub-region, set to be
held in Beijing on Aug. 27 to 28.
Delegates at the meeting resolved to further collaborate
to fight the drug menace in sub-region, and gave suggestions on the draft of a
declaration to be issued at the Beijing meeting.
Sources who attended the Yangon meeting said they also
discussed a proposal for a shared database that would include information on
suspected members of drug trafficking groups and the chemical composition of
various stimulant drugs.
They also discussed exchanging satellite images of drug
production areas, crop substitution efforts and exchanges and joint exercises
among authorities responsible for border area law enforcement.
The four countries signed a drug control cooperation
memorandum of understanding in 1993.
------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post - August 11,
2001.
Second friendship bridge to be
built in Mae Sai
Phuket meeting to discuss fishery rules Bhanravee Tansubhapol
Thailand and Burma have agreed to discuss fishery rules and to build a
second bridge linking Mae Sai and Tachilek, Foreign Minister Surakiart
Sathirathai said yesterday.
Mr Surakiart and his Burmese counterpart Win Aung discussed the issues
during a tripartite lunch in Tachilek that was joined by Somsavat Lengsavad, the
Lao foreign minister.
Mr Win Aung also offered to host, in Mandalay, the first discussion with
Thailand and India of a proposed road linking the three countries.
The Burmese minister proposed another road link between Laos, Thailand,
Burma and India, according to Bounkeut Sangsomsak, the Lao deputy foreign
minister.
In order to sustain the tripartite forum, Laos, which had initiated the
lunch meeting in Tachilek, might also invite Mr Surakiart to a similar gathering
after a Lao-Burma Joint Commission meeting in Huayxay, northern Laos, at the end
of this year, Mr Bounkeut added.
The Thai and Lao ministers had co-chaired meetings of their joint
commission and arbitration committee before crossing the border to lunch with
their Burmese counterpart in Tachilek. Mr Surakiart said the question of fishery
rules would be on the agenda of the Thai-Burma Joint Commission due to take
place in Phuket early next month. It would be the first formal discussion of the
issue since Burma banned Thai fishermen from its waters following the storming
of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok by exiles in October 1999.
The joint commission would also touch on the Thai-Burma-India road link in
preparation for the later meeting in Mandalay.
The second Mae Sai-Tachilek bridge would give Thailand a new access to
South China's market of 42 million people through northern Burma, Mr Surakiart
noted. Thailand and Laos earlier agreed to develop a road from Chieng Khong to
Huayxay and Luang Namtha to South China.
The new Mae Sai-Tachilek bridge, which would take about two years to build,
would be bigger, and more suited to accommodate heavy trucks than the existing
one, which would then be used for smaller vehicles and pedestrians, Mr Surakiart
said.
Burma was currently working on the road, due to be completed in March, from
Tachilek to Kengtung in northern Burma that would link up with Jinghong, in
China's southern Yunnan province, he added. The three ministers did not discuss
drug co-operation as their senior officials and colleagues from China were
currently meeting in Rangoon on the matter, he said. Their ministers would meet
in Beijing later this month, and in Brunei in November to pave the way for the
four-country drug summit in Beijing close to yearend.
The Thai and Lao ministers agreed in Chiang Rai that a committee set up to
arbitrate trade and investment conflicts would not interfere in the legal
procedures of either countries.
Mr Surakiart said the committee would not have the same powers as the
courts of law or tribunals but its opinions and recommendations would "carry
weight and reliability."The meeting also set up two subcommittees to be
respectively headed by Prachuab Chaiyasarn, Trade Representative, and the Lao
deputy foreign minister.
Thailand had submitted 34 cases to the committee, most of which concerned
violations of investment rules in Laos. Laos was expected to submit about 20
cases.
------------------------------------------------------------------ The Nation - August 11,
2001.
ASIAN SOLIDARITY: Troika meets to show
its 'spirit'
Don Pathan- MAE SAI, CHIANG RAI
Thai, Burmese and Lao foreign ministers gather at former 'hot spot'
Tachilek for informal talks
In what was billed as a show of Asean solidarity, foreign ministers from
Thailand, Laos and Burma met yesterday in the border town of Tachilek, a scene
of cross-border shelling earlier this year and a place where seven Thai
counter-narcotics officials were kidnapped by the Wa drug army.
"This is a show of Asean spirit," said Somsavat Lengsavad, the Lao foreign
minister.
According to Laotian Ambassador to Thailand Hiem Phommachanh, ministers
from Laos, Burma and Thailand will travel to Beijing later this month.
The three met informally for three hours to discuss the preparation for the
drug summit to be held in China's Kunming later this year.
They then crossed over to the Thai side to Foreign Minister Surakiart
Sathirathai's private residence in the Mae Chan district.
Earlier this year, Thai and Burmese troops engaged in cross-border
shelling, bringing bilateral ties between the two Asean neighbours to one of its
lowest points, as well as putting a big dent in so-called Asean
solidarity.
Moreover, just two weeks ago, seven Thai narcotics officials were kidnapped
just on the outskirts of Tachilek while they were on a field trip by the
pro-Rangoon United Wa State Army.
The gathering of the three ministers came immediately after the closing of
the 10th Joint Com-mission meeting, which was held in Chiang Rai between the
Thai and Lao foreign ministers.
At the meeting, the two sides formed a joint committee to settle business
and investment disputes between the private and the public sectors of the two
countries.
Named the Reconciliation Committee for the Resolution and Settlement of
Investment and Business Disputes, it will be jointly overseen by Thailand's
trade representative Prachuab Chaiyasarn and Laos' Deputy Foreign Minister
Bounkeut Sangsomsak.
Though the finding of the committee will not be legally binding, the
outcome of disputes reviewed by the committee will have the backing of both
governments, Surakiart said.
Thailand has 34 disputes pending, and Laos will soon present its disputes
to the committee.
"The committee is not a group of judges or a court, and it will not
interfere with the legal system of the two countries," Surakiart said
yesterday.
The subcommittee will meet on a regular basis, and a ministerial-level
meeting will be held annually along with the Joint Commission meeting, Surakiart
said.
However, a special ministerial-level meeting could be called if the two
sides agreed to it, he said.
Somsavad said most of the misunderstandings between investors from the two
sides resulted from unscrupulous "back-door" approaches instead of abiding by
the proper procedures.
Surakiart said the committee would also take up cases that involved
investors from a third country.
------------------------------------------------------------------ Sub-Regional Senior Officials
Meeting on Drug Control Ends in Yangon
Xinhuanet 2001.08.11 14:37:40 YANGON, August 11 (Xinhuanet)
-- The two-day Senior Officials Meeting among China, Laos, Myanmar and
Thailand to enhance cooperation for control and suppression of narcotic
drugs in the sub-region ended here Saturday.
This is the first meeting of its kind of the four countries hosted by
Myanmar.
During the meeting, the delegates from the four nations discussed
cooperation of drug eradication, supply reduction and demand
reduction.
The meeting passed in principle the "Beijing Declaration" and the
"Press Release" to be issued at the Ministerial Meeting to be held in
China and the agenda of the Ministerial Meeting.
The initiation of the four-country meeting at three levels -- senior
officials meeting, ministerial meeting and meeting of the heads of states
-- was raised by Myanmar and Thailand during Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra's visit to Yangon in June and the present meeting was agreed
upon during Myanmar Foreign Minister U Win Aung's visit to Bangkok later
in the month.
The senior officials meeting will be followed by a ministerial
meeting on 28 August in Beijing.
China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and the United Nations Drug Control
Program are founding members of the 1993 Memorandum of Understanding
signed in New York for drug control in the sub- region, the membership of which
was later enlarged to include Cambodia and Vietnam in 1995.
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