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BURMA RELATED NEWS - September
21, 2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Aung San Suu Kyi marks year under house
arrest, no sign of release
AFP - Philippines to raise anti-terrorism front
at ASEAN summit
JT - Center turns away Myanmar donors
IHT - Covering
Burma
Reuters - Suu Kyi marks a year in
confinement
Bkk Post - Crop-switch move okayed
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Textile Supply Falls Short
of Demand
SCMP - Forced labour probe assisted
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday September 21, 1:36 PM
Aung San Suu Kyi marks year under house arrest, no sign of release YANGON, Sept 21 (AFP) -
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will by Saturday have spent one year confined
to her lakeside home on the orders of Myanmar's junta, which has given no
indication of when she will be released.
Despite the restrictions, the Nobel peace laureate has had a productive 12
months, embarking on landmark talks with the military and receiving a stream of
high-profile international visitors.
Sources close to the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader say that
during her long struggle against the generals in Yangon she has used the periods
of house arrest as an opportunity to meditate and reflect.
This time, she has also been allowed to receive top officials from her
party, as well as envoys from the United Nations, the European Union, the US
State Department and the International Labor Organisation.
Aung San Suu Kyi and all her party's central committee members were placed
under house arrest last September 22, after attempting to journey by train to
the northern city of Mandalay in defiance of the junta's travel ban.
The move, initially announced as "temporary detention", saw military
intelligence officers placed around the residences and a block on all diplomats
and journalists from visiting the pro-democracy figures.
Most analysts believe Aung San Suu Kyi will not emerge from the rambling
residence until the talks with the junta which began last October have reached a
stage where they can withstand intense public scrutiny.
So far, the secret dialogue with the ruling State Peace and Development
Council appears not to have progressed past the initial confidence-building
phase.
Some Myanmar-watchers believe the junta has no intention of giving up
power, and that it entered the reconciliation process only to try to loosen
international sanctions and rid itself of its status as a pariah regime.
US financier George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation has a major
project focused on Myanmar, said he was doubtful the process would produce a
flowering of democracy after four decades of military rule.
"I'll believe it when I see it. There have been too many false starts in
that country," he told business leaders in Hong Kong Thursday, in an address
broadcast at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Thailand.
Despite the scepticism, Aung San Suu Kyi appears to be taking an extremely
serious approach to the dialogue, which has yielded the release of nearly 200
dissidents including her two top lieutenants at the NLD.
The junta claims the democracy leader is cooperating with the limitations
of her own free will. "It's her own choice of seclusion," said minister attached
to the prime minister's office, Tin Win, recently.
But diplomats say that by refusing to accept the junta's offers to leave
the house on key occasions, including ceremonies to honour her father,
assassinated national founder General Aung San, Aung San Suu Kyi is making it
clear she will have total freedom or none at all.
"She does want to meet with people but she certainly wants to have
freedom," one diplomat said, referring to the high-level envoys who have been
driven to the rambling house on University Drive.
"She doesn't want to give a semblance of normality to a situation which is
anything other than normal," another diplomat said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday September 21, 3:51 PM
Philippines to raise anti-terrorism front at ASEAN summit MANILA, Sept 21 (AFP) -
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said Friday she would push for the creation
of a regional anti-terrorist front at the annual meeting of Southeast Asian
leaders in November.
The Philippines put forward the idea as Washington called for a global war
against terrorists suspected to be behind the terror attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon last week.
Vice President Teofisto Guingona, also the Philippines foreign minister,
has "already started to sound out the other two" on setting up a regional
anti-terrorism coalition, Arroyo said, referring to Indonesia and
Malaysia.
"In the course of sounding out, there was an idea that arose that it might
even graduate into a major agenda item in the next ASEAN summit," Arroyo told a
news conference.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders next meet in Brunei
on November 5-6. They grouping also includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.
Kuala Lumpur Wednesday said it was awaiting further details on the
proposal, noting that nothing official had been transmitted by Manila.
The neighbors face growing rebellions by Muslim separatists believed to be
slowly linking up with each other.
The urgency of setting up a coalition was underscored by Malaysian leader
Mahathir Mohamad last month when he warned that a Malaysian-based group of
Islamic radicals had forged links with Philippine and Indonesian
separatists.
Retired general Eduardo Ermita, a security adviser to President Arroyo, has
also said that Indonesian authorities have alerted Manila to firearms being
smuggled by Filipino rebels to Islamic separatists in Indonesia's Aceh
province.
"In all probability" the guns could have been provided by the Abu Sayyaf
group, a small group of self-style Islamic freedom fighters holding hostage 18
US and Filipino hostages in the south, he said.
Philippine officials say the Abu Sayyaf once received aid from Saudi
dissident Osama bin Laden, wanted by the US dead or alive for the September 11
attacks.
Manila backs US President George W. Bush's call for a global war against
terrorists, with Arroyo earlier offering the use of the country's airports for
refuelling or transshipment points for US forces.
Military sources here said three US F-18 fighter jets from the US base in
Okinawa, Japan landed at the Mactan International Airport in central Cebu city
on Friday for refuelling. They stayed only 30 minutes before leaving on an
unspecified mission.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Japan Times: Sept. 21,
2001
Center turns away Myanmar donors The Japanese Red Cross Society has turned away a dozen Myanmar residents
wanting to donate blood, saying HIV risk-assessment interviews cannot be
effectively conducted with foreigners, a group representing Myanmar residents
said Thursday.
Members of the League for Democracy in Burma visited a blood donation depot on June 17 in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, hoping to perform a good deed prior to the June 19 birthday of Myanmar's prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, they said. One of the members speaks Japanese. According to the league, the Red Cross has previously accepted blood
donations from its members. The Red Cross later apologized to the group,
promising to accept their blood should they return in the future, the group
said.
The group accused the Red Cross of discrimination. A Red Cross official
rejected the accusation, saying workers at the depot were unaccustomed to
foreigners.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Herald Tribune
Covering Burma
Friday, September 21, 2001
From Jennifer Cox, publicity and promotions manager for Lonely Planet Publications in London: . I read Thomas Crampton's piece on Burma (Rangoon City Guide, Sept. 7) with my heart in my mouth: We have been criticized by some for producing our own guide and are deeply frustrated by the lack of research or sense with which many write on the subject. But I was delighted that Crampton not only wrote about the situation over there in an informed way but also about Lonely Planet's situation. . There is one piece of information that was wrong. We have not increased or decreased the frequency with which we publish this guide. We still bring out new editions every two and a half to three years, as has always been our practice. When we do reprints, we may put updated information into it, but that has always been our practice, too, not just with Burma but with all our guides. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suu Kyi marks a year in
confinement
21 September, 2001 07:26 BST By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
has spent the last year locked inside her Yangon house, cut off from contact and
with her voice silenced -- yet she has come closer than ever to a political
breakthrough.
In the early hours of September 22 last year, police forcibly ended an
attempt by the 56-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate to leave Yangon and
escorted her back to her lakeside house.
For the past year she has remained there, with her telephone cut, and with
only a handful of foreign diplomats given permission to see her.
But while the ruling generals have tried to keep her out of sight, they
have also begun an unprecedented dialogue with her on Myanmar's political
future, and offered a series of olive branches to the opposition after years of
repression.
Few details of the talks have emerged, and the dialogue has not passed
beyond the stage of confidence-building.
But for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), which won Myanmar's
last election in 1990 by a landslide but was never allowed to govern, the talks
have provided hope.
"There was no understanding or mutual confidence between us before
September 22, 2000. We have now gained some understanding and reached the
confidence-building stage," NLD Secretary U Lwin told Reuters.
"But there is still plenty of room for improvement. As you all know, our
leader still faces restrictions and there are a number of our members in
prison."
SIGN OF PROGRESS NEEDED
The start of dialogue was welcomed by the international community and by
representatives of Myanmar's many ethnic groups.
But the goodwill will not last forever.
Opposition members and ethnic groups are pressing for more transparency and
for concrete signs of progress, to prove the dialogue is more than just a public
relations exercise.
"Of course nobody can expect too much too quickly, but there is still real
doubt about whether the government is serious about these talks," said one
Western diplomat in Yangon.
"Until Aung San Suu Kyi is free to speak her mind, and to give her verdict
on the talks, that doubt will stay."
Suu Kyi, daughter of Myanmar independence hero Aung San who was
assassinated when she was a child, was held under house arrest from 1989 to
1995. Over the past decade hundreds of NLD members have been harassed and
detained.
Last year Suu Kyi twice tried to travel outside Yangon in defiance of
government restrictions on her movements.
When the government blocked her car south of Yangon in August 2000 she
spent more than a week in a roadside standoff that drew international
condemnation of Myanmar's military government.
Her attempt to travel to the city of Mandalay by rail a year ago was also
blocked -- the government claimed no tickets were available and removed Suu Kyi
from the station before launching a widespread crackdown on the NLD.
But the start of talks with Suu Kyi in October last year was marked by a
thawing of the military's stance. More than 150 NLD detainees have been released
over the past year, and the NLD and government have agreed to stop public
attacks on each other.
"It has certainly been a year of progress," the diplomat said. "But what we
need now is an end to the restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post - Sep 21,
2001.
Crop-switch move okayed Yuwadee Tunyasiri Rangoon and the Wa have welcomed Bangkok's offer to encourage ethnic
minorities to stop growing drugs, says Prime Minister Office's Minister Gen
Thammarak Issarangkura na Ayuthaya.
A Thai delegation led by a deputy chief of the Narcotics Control Board had
been sent to the North for talks about anti-drug schemes proposed by Thailand,
and backed by Burmese and Wa authorities at a meeting in Beijing.
Thailand had offered to help Burma and the Wa grow and promote plants such
as grape, lychee, longan and coffee in return for co-operation on fighting
drugs, he said.
"During the recent Thai-Burmese regional border control meeting, Burma
proposed joint patrol operations. This shows that a better relationship benefits
talks at various levels and also leads to collaboration," he said.
Burmese military leaders say they want to make Burma drug-free by 2005.
Anti-drug programmes under the Thai government's Palang Phaendin strategy were
going well, with more budget money approved for fiscal 2002.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar Textile Supply Falls Short
of Demand
Xinhuanet 2001.09.21 13:04:14 YANGON, September 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar textile industry
can at present meet only 13 percent and 9 percent of the nation's yarn and
cloth demands respectively, according to sources with the country's
Ministry of Industry No.1 Friday.
The demand for Myanmar's growing population, which has reached 52
million now, is 1.699 kilograms of cotton yarn and 14.624 meters of cloth
per capita per year, while the country requires 85, 158 tons of cotton yarn and
732.662 million meters of cloth.
To meet the demand, the government has agreed with two Chinese
companies to build three textile plants in Salingyi, Pakokku and Pwintbyu
areas in central Myanmar.
The two Chinese companies, which will install the plants, are China
National Import and Agricultural Machinery Import and Export Corporation and
Tianjin Machinery Import and Export Corporation ( Group).
The prior one will undertake the Salingyi project, while the other
will implement the Pakokku and Pwintbyu projects. The three mills will
start running respectively in 2002 and 2003.
The capacity of the three mills totaled 89,280 spinning wheels and
2,256 automatic looms and will generate over 10,000 jobs for the local
people.
The sources said that after the completion, the first and the second
plants will each similarly produce 1,707 tons of carded yarn and 10.364
million meters of grey fabric, while the third plant will produce 648,312
kg of yarn, 648,312 kg of PC yarn, 4. 559 million meters of poplin and 4.559
million meters of PC cloth.
The completion of the three plants will also be followed by building
of more textile and garment factories in three other areas.
The sources disclosed that to supply enough cotton to the factories,
the government has designated the area from Thayet on the west bank of the
Ayeyawaddy River in Southwestern Magway division to Salingyi on the west
bank of the Chindwin River in northwestern Sagaing division as a special
cotton belt which will produce quality long-staple cotton.
Meanwhile, a total of 262,440 hectares of land will be put under
cotton in the belt to produce 179,000 tons of cotton per year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- South China Morning Post
Friday, September 21, 2001 MYANMAR - Forced labour probe assisted An International Labour Organisation (ILO) team investigating the Myanmar
junta's efforts to eradicate forced labour had met opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi and been given access to every minister concerned, sources said
yesterday.
The four-member team, along with seven experts accompanying it on the
three-week mission, had a working lunch with Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday, an
official source said. No details of the meeting were released.
The team also held a meeting with ethnic minority parties, including the
Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (NLD), as part of a thorough briefing on
labour conditions in Myanmar.
Talks with the Attorney-General and the Chief Justice were also on the
itinerary, which the United Nations body kept tightly under wraps.
Francis Maupain, who has joined the mission as a representative of ILO
director-general Juan Somavia, said the itinerary since the trip started on
Monday had been "very packed".
"We are seeing everyone, including all the ministers concerned," he said.
Mr Maupain declined to confirm reports that the team would leave Yangon on
Sunday to travel to the states Karen and Shan, where reports of forced labour
are rife.
"We do not yet know exactly where we are going," he said. "That depends on
the information that we collect during the course of our talks here."
Shan NLD representative Khun Tun Oo said the meeting with the ILO team
focused on whether forced labour had persisted since last November, when the
junta banned the practice for the first time.
They were also interested in the military regime's efforts to enforce the
ban. "We generally conceded that except for the nation's periphery, where
conflicts with anti-government armed groups still went on, conditions in the
rest of the country had improved," he said.
"We found the team to be very serious and open-minded, and our meeting was
quite satisfying."
Over the next few days the ILO mission is expected to see non-governmental
organisations and visit development projects around Yangon.
The ILO last year made an unprecedented censure of Myanmar and threatened
more sanctions against the military-run nation if it failed to curb forced
labour.
Rights groups say nearly a million Myanmar people have been forced to build
roads, ports and tourist resorts and assist military manoeuvres on the unstable
borders.
But commentators in Yangon said the regime was eager to convince the ILO
that it was sincere in its efforts to wipe out the practice.
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