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BURMA RELATED NEWS
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HEADLINES
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AP - Myanmar Appoints New Army
Commanders
AFP - Thailand set for record rice exports in
2002: FAO
Dow Jones - Thailand Jan-Oct Oil,Gas
Demand-3:Natural Gas Use +18.8%
PG - Meeting to fight child sale to brothels
Bkk Post - Army
accused of helping KNU fighters
Bkk Post - Power plant
project at Tachilek halted
The Nation - Burmese
students ask for one more year
The Nation - Plan for free-trade area gets
approval
Xinhuanet - Myanmar Seizes Large Amount of
Stimulant Drugs
Xinhuanet - Thailand Strips 81 Countries of
Visas on Arrival Privileges
Kyodo News - 822
Myanmar dissidents still in jail, NLD secretary says
SCMP - 10 new army regional commanders appointed
Bernama - Fishing Boat Shot and Robbed Off Pulau
Jarak
------------------------------------------------------------ Myanmar Appoints New Army
Commanders
The Associated Press, Wed 19 Dec 2001 YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? Myanmar
has appointed 10 regional army commanders to replace generals who were
reassigned to the capital last month in a reshuffle of the regime's top ranks,
an official source said Wednesday.
Ten divisional commanders were promoted Tuesday to fill positions left
vacant after the most significant revamp of the military regime in four years,
the source said on condition of anonymity.
The reshuffle appears to consolidate the authority of the top three
generals, junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe, army chief Gen. Maung Aye and
military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt.
Analysts say the new regional commanders are unlikely to be appointed to
the elite 13-member junta, the State Peace and Development Council, as their
predecessors were, and so will have less clout.
The regime took power after a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests for
democracy in 1988. It held general elections in 1990, but refused to recognize
the landslide victory of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is
currently under house detention.
Wednesday December 19, 6:32 PM
Thailand set for record rice exports in 2002: FAO BANGKOK, Dec 19 (AFP) -
Thailand, the world's top rice exporter, is set to post a new record for 2002
thanks to reduced competition from China, Pakistan and Vietnam, the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Wednesday.
"Rice shipments in 2001 from the world's biggest exporter of the cereal are
already set to cross the seven million-tonne mark for the first time ever," it
said in a statement.
The bonanza is partly due to Beijing's entry to the World Trade
Organization, which will transform China into one of the world's main buyers of
rice, with imports estimated to surge nearly six-fold next year.
"Though this will be partly due to the continuing fall in domestic
production over the past two years, its WTO obligations would require mainland
China to allow entry (of) to up to four million tonnes of rice subject to a low
1.0-percent import duty," the FAO said.
The FAO's Rice Market Monitor released Wednesday said Thai rice would
benefit from a surge in demand from Indonesia and China and the reduced ability
of other major exporting nations to meet the shortfall.
"Thailand's main rice export rivals -- China, Pakistan and Vietnam -- have
found it hard to keep up their performance due to reduced domestic supply and
external factors," it said.
"Exports by China are expected to decline by more than 1.0 million tonnes
this year compared to 2000 mainly because of the contraction in domestic
output."
Though international rice prices have declined over the past 12 months,
reaching their lowest level in 14 years, a recovery is expected next year thanks
to a fall in inventories, the FAO said.
The favourable response from China, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Vietnam to
Thailand's proposal for an exporter alliance is also expected to shore up
prices.
In Indonesia, the disappointing 2001 paddy season is tipped to push up
Indonesia's rice imports to 2.0 million tonnes in 2002 against 1.4 million
tonnes estimated this year.
A sharp contraction in paddy harvesting and the war against terrorism in
Afghanistan have kept Pakistan from boosting exports, which remain at last
year's 2.0 million-tonne level.
Floods in the Mekong Delta have affected paddy supplies in Vietnam and the
world's number two rice exporter is estimated to ship out just 3.7 million
tonnes this year compared to an original FAO forecast of 4.0 million
tonnes.
India and Myanmar are projected to record major export gains next
year.
Wednesday December 19, 5:54 PM
Thailand Jan-Oct Oil,Gas Demand-3:Natural Gas Use +18.8% Dow Jones Newswires 19-12-01 0812GMT SINGAPORE (Dow
Jones)--Thailand's oil and natural gas consumption averaged
933,500 barrels of oil equivalent a day from January to October, an increase of
3.7% over the same period in 2000, PTT PCL (H.PTX), said Wednesday.
Imported oil and gas rose 11.5% on year to 802,300 boe/d, according to PTT,
formerly the Petroleum Authority of Thailand. Crude imports were up 5.1% on year
at 706,600 barrels a day.
Imports of gasoline more than doubled, to an average 2,000 b/d. Diesel
imports slumped 51.4%, to an average 6,400 b/d in the first ten months of the
year.
Increased use of natural gas by power producers and private industry has
reduced demand for fuel oil and diesel, or gasoil, eliminating the need to
import fuel oil.
Total refined products imports fell 68.3% from the 2000 period, when
imports included fuel oil. Thailand's refined products import bill was 3.531
billion baht (US$1=THB43.805), down from THB5.523 billion a year earlier.
Demand for natural gas grew 18.8% to 348,500 boe/d, while consumption of
refined products fell by 3.7% to 585,000 b/d, PTT said.
Gas demand from independent and small power producers rose 40.1% on year to
89,300 boe/d. Industry accounted for 30,500 boe/d of gas, a 16.4% increase over
the same period last year.
Natural gas consumption by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
for power generation rose 12.5% to 228,700 boe/d.
Total refined products consumption declined compared with a year ago, led
by fuel oil consumption, which was down 31.8% on year at 78,700 b/d.
Consumption of other refined products rose. Consumption of liquefied
petroleum gas was up 12.2% at 64,000 boe/d, and aviation fuel consumption rose
7.1%, to 63,800 b/d, PTT said. Kerosene demand increased 20.2% to 1,000 b/d, and
diesel consumption rose 0.9%, to 260,300 b/d, while gasoline rose 0.6% to
117,200 b/d.
Thailand imported 87,300 boe/d of natural gas from Myanmar in the
January-October period, at a cost of THB26.184 billion, PTT said. Natural gas
imports from Myanmar cost THB4.883 billion in the first 10 months of 2000.
Imported crude from the Middle East rose 13% to 560,500 b/d, while imports
from Asia fell 6.6% to 121,100 b/d. The cost of crude imports rose to THB245.019
billion, up 6.6% compared with January through October 2000.
Domestic crude output rose 5.6% to 60,700 b/d in the first 10 months of
2001. Domestic natural gas production fell 1.3% to 322,600 boe/d, due to
increased use of Myanmar gas. Condensate was unchanged on year at 52,700
b/d.
Post-Gazette
Meeting to fight child sale to brothels Monday, December 17, 2001 By Andrew Perrin, Special to the Post-Gazette MAE SAI, Thailand -- Mr. Chai sold his 13-year old daughter into
prostitution for the price of a television set.
He had no regrets.
His wife had one.
When Mrs. Chai discovered that her eldest daughter wasn't working in a
nearby town, as the agent who'd bought her daughter had promised, but instead
was selling her body in Bangkok's international sex markets, she wept.
The tears were not for her daughter.
"I should have asked for 10,000 Baht (about $228)," she said. "Not 5,000
Baht. [The agent] robbed us."
Mr. and Mrs. Chai live in a thatched hut in Pa Tek village on the outskirts
of Mae Sai, a bustling township situated on Thailand's northernmost border with
the military state of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Tensions run high between the two countries' rival armies, and bullets
occasionally fly across the muddy waters of the Mae Sai River that separates
them. Yet the sporadic outbreak of hostilities has done nothing to hinder the
two main trades in town -- drugs and daughters.
The smuggling of vast quantities of heroin and amphetamines from Myanmar
and China through Thailand has given this region it's infamous tag -- The Golden
Triangle -- but it's the explosion in the recruitment of young girls into the
sex industry that has put this particular border town on the map.
Little Mae Sai has even found its way onto the agenda of the Second World
Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, which begins today
in Yokohama, Japan. National governments and child protection agencies will meet
to exchange information and review their policies.
There are no reliable statistics on the number of children working in the
sex industry worldwide, but the lowest figure cited is 1 million. The United
Nations Children's Fund estimates that one-third of sex workers in Southeast
Asia are 12 to 17 years old. Many get bought and sold in Mae Sai.
Every year, hundreds of young girls from Mae Sai -- and thousands who pass
through from Myanmar, Laos and southern China -- are sold into prostitution and
spirited away to Bangkok where they feed the insatiable appetite of the
multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry. Sex tourists come to Thailand from
all corners of the globe, and Thai men are reliable customers, as well.
Few villages in the region have contributed as many daughters as Pa
Tek.
It is populated by Burmese immigrants who have escaped persecution and
poverty at the hands of the ruling military junta. Most are permitted by the
Thai government to live and work in the border area yet they have no legal
status. Many are farm workers earning less than $160 a year.
Desperate poverty makes the area easy pickings for brothel agents, known
locally as "Aunties." The Development and Education Program for Daughters and
Communities, a non-government organization working to stop the sale of children,
estimates that 70 percent of Pa Tek's 800 families have sold at least one
daughter into the sex trade.
"Agents will come to the village with orders to fill," said Sompop
Jantraka, director of the program. "The people in Bangkok -- mostly foreigners
-- can order girls like they order pizza. They will say 'I want a girl with thin
hips and big bosoms and a round bottom' and the agents will come up here and
find her. And they always deliver."
Virginity is highly prized. Fueling the demand for young girls is ignorance
about HIV/AIDS transmission and myths about the curative powers of
virginity.
Some brothel clientele -- particularly those from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the
Middle East -- believe sex with children is less risky because they are more
likely to be "clean." In reality, said Phil Marshall, manager of a Bangkok-based
U.N. project on trafficking of women and children, virgins may be "clean," but
as soon as they've had sex, children are physically more prone to bleeding,
infection and disease. Their bodies are smaller; their tissues more
porous.
Somporn Khempetch, coordinator of the Child Protection and Rights Center in
Mae Sai, has seen firsthand the devastating impact of the child sex trade. This
year alone, she said, 50 girls in Pa Tek village died from AIDS.
Despite the risks, there is no shortage of parents willing to sell their
children. With prices ranging from $110 to $900 -- almost six years wages for
most families -- parental bonds in impoverished households are easily
broken.
So established has child trafficking become that many brothel agents live
in Pa Tek; they are often friends or relatives of the families from which they
buy children.
"We tend to think of trafficking as involving sophisticated crime networks,
but much of it is really a cottage industry involving small-time profiteers,"
Marshall said.
A report to be released this month by the International Labor Organization
and U.N. Development Program supports this claim. It challenges current policies
that target regional criminal syndicates as misguided. The report's authors say
most girls leaving their villages in Asia do so through informal networks, with
the approval of their parents.
One conclusion sure to stir great controversy is that many of the girls are
willing participants.
"What we have found is that many girls want to leave home and work
elsewhere, preferably in cities," said Hans van de Glind, deputy project manager
for the ILO in Bangkok and one of the report's authors. "It's not so much a
poverty issue because we found that girls from one village would migrate while
girls from another, equally poor village, wouldn't.
"Consumerism plays a part. A girl with access to a television and who lives
close to a road is more likely to migrate. Suddenly they want to have nice
clothes ... and an entertaining life like the people on TV."
Andrew Perrin is a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
Bangkok Post - Dec 19,
2001.
Army accused of helping KNU fighters
The pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army accused the army of helping
the Karen National Union attack one of its strongholds.
Mae Sot district chief Samart Loifa yesterday received a letter which said
Thai troops supported the KNU's strike against the DKBA's Shwe Kokko camp.
It said they fired 50 shots at the camp, opposite Mae Sot district.
The document was signed by the DKBA's 999th Brigade Special Battalion
commander Lt-Col Maung Chit Tu.
The letter said a KNU insurgent died and the injured retreated into
Thailand with the help of Thai soldiers.
The army said it has never supported KNU attacks inside Burma.
Bangkok Post - Dec 19,
2001.
Power plant project at Tachilek halted
Teerawat Kumtita
Work on a lignite-fired power plant in Burma's Tachilek has been suspended
amid protests by Thai residents of opposite Mae Sai town.
Lt-Gen Kyaw Than, chairman of the Burmese-Thai Cultural Association, said
Burma put a hold on the project, located about 5km from the border.
Maung Win, manager of the Electric Supply Company providing Tachilek with
power from Thailand, quoted Burmese officials as saying Rangoon was preparing to
scrap the project for fear of pollution. Also, buying machines from China and
taking lignite from another town, 160km from Tachilek, would probably cost too
much.
The project was initiated by U Kyaw Win, managing director of the Golden
Triangle Hydro Power Plant.
The Nation
Burmese students ask for one more year
Published on Dec 17, 2001
Dissident Burmese students who are staging a hunger strike against the
closure of Maneeloy camp yesterday urged the Thai government to allow them to
stay for another year until the UN completed the resettlement process.
Some 240 students applying for resettlement in third countries are now
waiting for interviews with officials from host countries, said Maung Maung Kuu,
secretary of Burmese Students Committee.
"The Thai government should not move the students to border areas since
they may be hurt by Burmese armed forces,'' he said.
The National Security Council said earlier that 176 students who had been
granted "person of concern" status by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees would be relocated to a shelter in Suan Phung district pending their
resettlement.
Meanwhile another 130 people who illegally entered Thailand and are not
recognised by any organisations would be deported to their homeland.
Set up in 1993, the Maneeloy camp is a shelter for Burmese students who
fled the 1988 military crackdown. However, the camp has become troublesome for
the Thai authorities as some dissident students have used it as a base for their
political movement against the Rangoon junta.
Some members of the camp were involved in a siege at the Burmese Embassy in
Bangkok in October 1999 and the storming of a hospital in January 2000.
Thailand has repatriated some 2,100 students since the incidents.
Students at the camp have been conducting a hunger strike to oppose the
closure, now scheduled for December 27.
However, yesterday only nine students continued the hunger strike with five
protesters having been hospitalised.
THE NATION
Plan for free-trade area gets approval Achara Pongvutitham Published on Dec 19, 2001 Thailand will propose a framework for forming a five-nation free-trade area
with a combined population of more than 1.2 billion people at a meeting of
high-level officials in India early next year.
The government yesterday approved the Commerce Ministry's framework
proposal for the so-called Bangladesh, India, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand
Economic Cooperation (BIMST-EC) plan.
Kuthep Saikajang, deputy government spokesman, said the ministry also
proposed shortening the timeframe for launching the free-trade area from 10 to
five years.
The BIMST-EC idea was initiated by the administration of former prime
minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh in 1997. Originally, it covered six areas of
cooperation including trade and investment, technology, energy, transportation,
tourism and fisheries.
The proposal was later expanded from an economic cooperation pact to a
full-fledged free-trade area by former commerce minister Supachai
Panitchpakdi.
Kuthep said BIMST-EC would cover all goods, services and investment.
First-step cooperation will concentrate on the reduction of tariff and
non-tariff barriers. However, sensitive products can be exempted from the
tariff-reduction scheme.
Tariff reductions under BIMST-EC would be based mainly on the Asean
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Free Trade Area's preferential
framework.
According to a study conducted by the Business Economic Department,
BIMST-EC will create export opportunities for Thailand thanks to the huge market
it represents, with a combined population of 1.2 billion.
In addition, the four other countries participating in the scheme are
important sources of raw materials and have complementary industries with
Thailand such as automotive components and electronics.
The department also said it made sense for the five countries to focus more
on Asia, a huge market with relatively low levels of competition. All partners
stand to enjoy mutual benefits from creating such a free-trade area, it
said.
Potential benefits to Thailand include not only tariff reductions but also
increased inflow of foreign direct investment into the country, which would be
positioned as a "gateway to South Asia".
Supachai recently gave full support to the idea of an "east-west corridor"
with India in a move aimed at promoting economic ties with the country. He also
encouraged the move to form a free-trade area with India, rather than focusing
exclusively on economic ties with China.
Myanmar Seizes Large Amount of
Stimulant Drugs
Xinhuanet 2001-12-18 10:42:25 YANGON, December 18 (Xinhuanet)
-- The Myanmar authorities seized altogether 448,000 tablets of stimulant drugs
in Kengtung area, the country's eastern Shan state, earlier this month, the
Myanmar Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control said on Tuesday.
The seizure was made by a combined team comprising local intelligence unit
and the police force when they searched a vehicle without number plate passing
by at a check point in the area on December 9.
Altogether three people were arrested in connection with the case, it said,
adding that they were punished under the country's Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances Law.
Meanwhile, the authorities also confiscated 200,000 stimulant drug tablets
along with other drugs in the same area on November 17, arresting two people in
this connection, according to an earlier official report.
Official statistics show that during the first half of this year, the
authorities exposed a total of 1,536 drug-related cases, seizing 474.91 kg
opium, 27.89 kg heroin, 8,371 kg of marijuana, 6.14 million stimulant drug
tablets, 1,889 kg of ephedrine and 269.28 liters of phensedyl, and punishing
2,187 drug offenders.
Thailand Strips 81 Countries of
Visas on Arrival Privileges
Xinhuanet 2001-12-19 11:30:02 BANGKOK, December 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Thai government ruled that visitors
from 81 countries including Russia and Uzbekistan would no longer be able to
obtain a visa on arrival, the Nation newspaper reported Wednesday.
Thailand granted visas on arrival for visitors from 96 countries and
allowed them to stay in the countries for 15 days.
However, according to government officials, previous records indicated that
visitors from some countries had exploited the privileges to commit crimes, such
as prostitution, trafficking narcotics and humans, as well as overstaying their
visas to seek jobs.
Thai officials also suggested to strip the privilege for Chinese and
Indian, but the cabinet ruled out the proposal.
At the same time, Thai government also removed 19 countries from a list of
56 nations whose citizens were offered "visa-free" entry into Thailand for a
month.
The countries removed from the list included Burma, Mexico, Egypt, Oman,
Tunisia, Chile and Bahrain.
822 Myanmar dissidents still in jail,
NLD secretary says
YANGON, Dec. 19 Kyodo - The
secretary of Myanmar's National League for Democracy (NLD), U Lwin, said
Wednesday 194 NLD-affiliated political prisoners have been released from
detention since January but 822 still remain in various jails in the country.
(20 :03)
South China Morning Post
Wednesday, December 19, 2001 MYANMAR - 10 new army regional commanders appointed ASSOCIATED PRESS in Yangon Myanmar has appointed 10 new regional army commanders to replace generals
who were reassigned to the capital last month in a reshuffle of the regime's top
ranks, an official source said Wednesday.
Ten divisional commanders were promoted on Tuesday to fill positions left
vacant after the most significant revamp of the military regime in four years,
the source said on condition of anonymity.
The reshuffle appears to consolidate the authority of the top three
generals, junta leader Senior General Than Shwe, army chief General Maung Aye
and military intelligence chief Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt.
Analysts say the new regional commanders are unlikely to be appointed to
the elite 13-member junta, the State Peace and Development Council, as their
predecessors were, and so will have less clout.
Appointments to the secretive military are usually not publicly announced,
though they are published eventually in the government gazette, but that is not
readily available to the public.
The reshuffle began on November 9, with the sacking of the junta's
fourth-ranking general and a military affairs minister for unspecified
''violation of state policy.'' Two ageing deputy prime ministers and three other
ministers were ''permitted to retire'' the same day.
Ten of Myanmar's 12 regional army commanders were then promoted to the rank
of lieutenant general and reassigned to the Ministry of Defence - a move seen as
curbing the autonomy they enjoyed in the regions.
It is the biggest overhaul of the regime since November 1997, when the
original junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, was
dissolved, renamed the SPDC and new generals appointed.
The SLORC took power after a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests for
democracy in 1988. It held general elections in 1990, but refused to recognise
the landslide victory of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is
currently under house detention.
The Malaysian National News
Agency
December 15 , 2001 22:23PM Fishing Boat Shot and Robbed Off Pulau Jarak HUTAN MELINTANG, Dec 15 (Bernama) -- Five fishermen had a close shave when their boat was shot and robbed while they were fishing near Pulau Jarak, about 20 nautical miles from here, early Friday. Skipper Tan Ching Koon, 46, said the incident happened at about 6.30am when
their boat was fired by what appeared to be an Indonesian navy ship.
At the time of shooting, Tan said he was in Malaysian territorial waters
with a Malaysian and three Myanmar national crew.
"Suddenly, we saw a ship coming from the direction of Indonesia. We quickly
drew our nets and left the place....this is what we normally do in such a
situation," he told reporters here today.
However, the ship chased his boat and several other fishing boats of local
fishermen till it was detained about 30 minutes later, he said.
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