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BURMA RELATED NEWS - September
23, 2001.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reuters - Thailand to launch drive to register
migrant labour
ABC online - Burma's military ruler to travel to
Malaysia
Hoovers - Burma: Hong
Pang Company begins upgrading Rangoon-Mandalay
highway
Bkk Post - Five held,
caffeine seized
Xinhuanet - Roundup: Myanmar Endeavors for
Industrial Development
NMG - A new umbrella youth organization
formed
AFP - Myanmar
belatedly releases condolence message for the US
AFP - Thai refugee
camp under tight security after threats of attack
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Sunday September 23, 3:46 PM
Thailand to launch drive to register migrant labour By Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK, Sept 23 (Reuters) -
Thailand's government will launch on Monday a campaign to register around two
million illegal immigrants in the latest attempt to stem the tide of workers
from impoverished Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
But police and employers say the 20-day programme will fail because more
time is needed for authorities to register so many people, and it may ultimately
end up encouraging even more migrants.
"Thousands of aliens have been waiting along several border towns to sneak
into Thailand and disguise themselves as someone who has been in the country
before the registration period," said Police Major General Chanvut Vajrabukka,
deputy commissioner at the immigration bureau.
"Thailand may end up like the United States where the government has to
spend a lot of money to kick illegal labourers out of the country," he told
Reuters.
Over the past decade, people from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have fled to
escape war and poverty and have found work in Thailand as housemaids, builders
and fishermen.
Despite regular crackdowns, authorities have been unable to stop the human
tide and in the first half of this year alone, police said they arrested and
deported about 120,000 illegal workers, mainly from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and
South Asia.
This latest scheme will require employers to register their migrant workers
and pay an annual fee of 4,450 baht ($100) for each one.
But employers and analysts complain this is far too strict a ruling and the
fee is too high.
"The government couldn't even enforce the annual 100,000-employee
restriction in the past. How can they implement the new rules with a larger
amount of employees," said Nopparat Sukrakarn, a researcher on Asian immigration
at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
The labour ministry defended the new scheme and said it was just a first
step.
"This is not the only solution to the problem," said Vanchai Padungsupalai,
head of the ministry's Department of Employment.
"It is better than nothing and at least we can get some money from them,"
he said.
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Sep 23, 2001.
Burma's military ruler to travel
to Malaysia
Burma's military ruler is reported to be planning to make a rare trip
abroad next week, to Malaysia.
Malaysia's national news agency Bernama says Senior General Than Shwe, the
chairman of Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council, will hold talks
with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday.
The news agency says the leaders are expected to sign several bilateral
agreements, but did not elaborate.
The news agency say Malaysia is emerging as a broker between Burma's
generals and the opposition, and in helping end decades of isolation in the
impoverished country.
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Hoovers
Burma: Hong Pang Company begins
upgrading Rangoon-Mandalay highway
September 23, 2001 5:41am
The Central Supervisory Committee for Ensuring Safe and Smooth
Transportation meeting No 5/2001 was held at the meeting hall of the Army
Commander in Chief's Office at 1300 today. Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, chairman of the
committee and secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council [SPDC],
attended the meeting and delivered an address.
SPDC Secretary-1 Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt said: with regard to ensuring safe and
smooth transportation, the task of upgrading Yangon [Rangoon]-Mandalay Highway
into a six-lane expressway has been assigned to national entrepreneurs. As SPDC
Chairman Sr Gen Than Shwe gave guidance on the participation of national
entrepreneurs in national development endeavours duties have been assigned to
the entrepreneurs and they have been allowed to participate in the task of
bringing about safe and smooth transportation.
As the tasks are to be carried out in accord with the guidance of the SPDC chairman and the requirements of the nation, national entrepreneurs are required to strive for timely completion of upgrading the six-lane Yangon-Mandalay Highway. During this month, a ceremony to begin the task of upgrading Mandalay-Meiktila section, the northern part of Yangon-Mandalay Highway, by Hong Pang Company was held and construction work has begun. Other entrepreneurs are also engaged in tasks such as finding the axis for the respective sections of the highway, drawing road designs, and collecting fuel oil and machinery. In conclusion, the secretary-1 urged all to work for the emergence of the
six-lane Yangon-Mandalay Highway of high standard and assured them that the
government and responsible departments will provide necessary assistance.
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Bangkok Post - Sep 23,
2001.
Five held, caffeine
seized
Police yesterday arrested five men, one of them a village chief, and seized
2.4 tonnes of caffeine believed destined for the methamphetamine-producing
United Wa State Army in Burma.
Caffeine is a precursor for production of speed pills. The amount seized
was enough to produce as many as 50 million speed pills.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of Mae Sai district police and customs
officials on Friday night searched a six-wheel truck at the boat landing at Ban
Ko Wai.
They found 120 sacks containing 2.4 tonnes of caffeine in the back of the
truck. They were about to be delivered across the Moei river to Burma.
Boonsri Pongchana, 49, Chai Moonprasert, 38, Prasong Srikhan, 34, and
Chaisin Srikhan, 38, were arrested.
The four said they had been hired by Prakit Chanyo, the village chief of
Village Group 3 in tambon Pong Phang of Mae Sai district, to deliver the
caffeine to Burma. Police subsequently arrested Mr Prakit. The five were charged
with smuggling.
On Wednesday, police and anti-narcotics officials seized 2.9 tonnes of
caffeine in Muang district of Chiang Rai.
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Roundup: Myanmar Endeavors for
Industrial Development
Xinhuanet 2001.09.23 12:16:28 YANGON, September 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar has been making
efforts to transform its low-productivity agricultural economy to
industrial economy since the present government took over the power of
state in late 1988.
The endeavors being made are based on high-productivity agricultural
system.
The country formed the Myanmar Industrial Development Committee in August
1995 to formulate industrial policy and provide guidelines for
industrialization. The committee was later reconstituted in December
1997.
In May 1999, Myanmar formed a 12-member Myanmar Industrial
Development Central Committee, chaired by Vice-Chairman of the Myanmar
State Peace and Development Council General Maung Aye.
The country laid down five policies in the development of the
industries and establishment of an industrialized nation.
The policies designate that the industries be set up by three sectors
-- the state, the cooperative and the private sectors. Of them, the
state-owned facilities be permitted to run as the cooperative or private
industry or with the foreign investment.
The policies restrict that only the state shall have the right to
operate the industries producing the required and important goods for the
nation's defense such as arms and ammunition.
The policies give encouragement and support to emergence of
industries that base on domestic resources.
The policies emphasize that industries be developed in accordance
with the state's economic objective, that is the initiative to shape the
national economy must be kept in the hands of the state and the national
people.
With the aim of regrouping the once scattered industries of the country,
Myanmar has set up 18 industrial zones across the country including four in the
capital of Yangon since 1995.
With the participation of the private sector, the country strives for
setting up of import-substitute industries.
According to the latest official statistics, the number of industries
in Myanmar reached 53,338 in 1999 including 1,600 state- owned, 637
cooperative-run and 51,101 private-operated ones.
More statistics show that up to the end of May this year, there were 4,159
registered private industries in the 18 zones, including 424 heavy
industries, 565 medium-sized enterprises and 3, 170 cottage industries.
Meanwhile, Myanmar also introduced a privatization plan in January
1995, according to which state-owned industrial enterprises, including
those nationalized in the 1960s by the then government, are to be transferred to
financially strong and technically manageable private enterprises for
further operation by way of auctioning, leasing and joint ventures with
local and foreign entrepreneurs.
More measures were also taken which include increase of disbursement
of loans to industrial enterprises, fixing the annual interest rate for such
loans as low as 15 percent, only 3 percent higher than that for saving
deposits which is 12 percent. At the same time, it also cuts the rate of
revenues payable by industrial entrepreneurs.
The annual output of Myanmar's industrial sector is valued at over 1
billion U.S. dollars.
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Network Media Group
A new umbrella youth organization
formed
Ethnic Youths from Burma held a Seminar Chiang Mai, September 23, 2001
An Ethnic Nationalities Youth seminar was held on Thai-Burma border from
September 18 to 22 and formed a first ethnic based youth organization, United
Nationalities Youth League.
The seventy-five youth representatives from different ethnic groups
including individual Burman ethnic representatives attended the seminar. The
seminar had been organized for more then one year and supported by National
Reconciliation Program, one of the biggest and most funded program on the
border, said Nan Kyi Aye Shwe, chairperson of the organizing committee for the
seminar.
More then one hundred youths and guests attended the closing ceremony of
the seminar held on the evening of September 22. "The United Nationalities Youth
League is the first and biggest youth organization formed ever in the movement
and the decisions and agreements should be carried out as discussed," said U
Terriburi, one of the Ministers of the National Coalition Government of Union of
Burma (NCGUB) and chairman of the Members of Parliament Union in the closing
ceremony of the seminar. "Youths should participate in the transitional
preparation programs," he continued.
The United Nationalities Youth League will be lead by two representatives
from different ethnic youths; Karenni, Kayan, Palaung, Karen, PaO, Mon, Burman,
Shan, Arakan, Kachin, Lahu and Chin. "We will try to organize other ethnic
youths to participate in UNYL," said a spoke person from organizing committee of
the seminar.
"It is the new step of the youth in the movement," said Dr. Naing Aung,
coordinator of the National Reconciliation Program.
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Myanmar belatedly releases condolence
message for the US
YANGON, Sept 23 (AFP) -
Myanmar's military regime has belatedly released a message of sympathy sent to
the United States after the terrorist attacks there, and denied rumours that its
troops were ready to fight with the alleged perpetrator Osama bin Laden.
Myanmar's official press maintained a blackout on the attacks until the
weekend when it finally ran a letter to US President George W. Bush from junta
leader Senior General Than Shwe, sent the day after the attacks.
"I was deeply shocked by the news of the dreadful violence perpetrated in
the cities of Washington DC, New York and Pittsburgh on 11 September 2001," Than
Shwe said in the message.
"At this tragic hour, the people and government of the Union of Myanamr
join me in offering our heartfelt condolences to the government and people of
the United States of America."
The Myanmar junta typically has a hostile relationship with the US
government, which has led the international community in condemning the regime
over its poor human rights record and resistance to democratic reforms.
Meanwhile, the official press also issued a statement dismissing what it
said were rumours of a connection between government troops and fighters aligned
with Bin Laden, who the US has accused of masterminding the attacks.
"The government and the people of Myanmar are quite surprised to learn that
in Europe there is a malicious rumour going around stating that the Myanmar
soldiers are going to join Usamah Bin-Ladin's forces," it said.
The statement said the reports were being spread deliberately by exiled
dissidents who were aiming to discredit the government and deter tourists from
visiting Myanmar.
However, the opposition radio network, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB)
said the government's denial was the first it had heard of the bin Laden
connection.
"DVB has contacted Europe-based Burmese democracy groups but they said they
have not heard the rumours," it said.
The Myanmar Times said in a report to be published in its Monday edition
that Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win had also expressed the government's
sympathies over the attacks in a condolence book.
"These acts were indeed in no way acceptable to all mankind," the minister
wrote in the book opened at the Inya Lake Hotel, where a prayer service for the
victims was held Wednesday.
"In this hour of great tragedy, Myanmar wishes to reaffirm its friendship
with the great people of the United States."
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Thai refugee camp under tight security
after threats of attack
MAE SOT, Thailand, Sept 23 (AFP) - Thailand's military said Sunday it had
stepped up security around a major refugee camp on the Myanmar border, acting on
rumours that a rebel militia had targeted it for attack.
Fourth Infantry commander in Tak province, Colonel Anek Inamnuay, said the
Myanmar-aligned Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) was believed to be
planning a revenge strike against the Karen National Union (KNU).
Sources on the border said rumours were sweeping intelligence circles that
the KNU had captured high-ranking DKBA leader Kyaw Than during a raid on one of
its bases earlier this month.
The DKBA planned to retaliate by torching the Ban Bae Koh refugee camp in
Tak province's Tha Song Yang district, one of the biggest facilities on the
border and home to 37,000 Karen.
Anek said the Thai army was checking on the rumours, and in the meantime
tightening its guard over the camp.
"The intelligence reports we have say it is possible that the camp in Tha
Song Yang district will come under attack," he told AFP. "We have increased
security around the camp."
However, KNU secretary general Pado Mansha denied having 51-year-old Kyaw
Than in his custody, and said his fighters had raided DKBA headquarters, not the
base closer to the border as the Thais believed.
He told AFP that during the raid they found no top leaders, but seized four
lower-ranking officers and held them overnight before releasing them. About five
buildings at the headquarters were set alight and destroyed.
The KNU leader said he had also heard rumours of an imminent attack on the
camp, although he believed the smaller Mae La camp was being targeted.
"A raid on a camp would cause heavy casualties, but the Thai army has them
tightly secured so we don't expect them to be attacked by the DKBA," he told AFP
by phone from his secret base.
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