Burma Related News - March 22, 2002.

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BURMA RELATED NEWS - March 22, 2002.

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HEADLINES

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BBC - Burma's opposition slowly rises from ashes

AFP - Myanmar accuses Thailand of smear campaign over drugs trade

AFP - Three drug traffickers killed by Thai police in Bangkok shootout

Reuters - ILO to set up Myanmar office to halt forced labour

Reuters - Malaysia sends in bulldozers to push out migrants

VOA News - ILO: Burma Accepts Liason Officer

TI - 1,000 acres of poppy fields destroyed in Myanmar

Bkk Post - Officials in Burma on routes survey Expansion of Asian Highway in mind

FCO - DR SALAI TUN THAN IMPRISONED IN BURMA

Xinhuanet - Chinese Company to Build Auto-Telephone Exchanges for Myanmar
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Thursday, 21 March, 2002, 15:36 GMT
Burma's opposition slowly rises from ashes
By Larry Jagan in Rangoon
BBC regional analyst

Burma's democratic opposition is becoming a hub of activity, amid hope of a breakthrough in talks between its leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the military regime.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) is trying to prepare the ground for it to function as a vibrant political party when Burma eventually gains full political freedom.

The party convincingly won the 1990 elections but the generals never allowed it to take power.

But since Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta started secretive talks more than 18 months, ago the NLD has been allowed to operate more freely.

Before then its members were harassed and their movements restricted. Now local NLD officials from provincial and rural committees can freely visit the central headquarters in Rangoon.

"There are committees preparing policy on health, education, defence and the economy," says the NLD spokesman U Lwin. "But our most important task is to re-open all our offices in Rangoon and the divisional headquarters throughout the country."

Nearly all the Rangoon offices have been re-opened and several others in Mandalay, the country's second largest town. The NLD hopes to open many of its divisional headquarters in the next few weeks.

Membership crisis

Allowing the NLD to function is all part of the dialogue process.

"It's Aung San Suu Kyi's main priority at present," says a western diplomat in Rangoon who does not want to be identified.

There is no doubt that the NLD remains popular throughout the country. But its support seems to be more for their charismatic leader Aung San Suu Kyi than for the party itself.

The party would be nothing without her, NLD leaders admit privately.

"It's a great burden and responsibility for her to carry," says a Rangoon-based diplomat.

"But she has the character, fortitude and vision to do it."

Nevertheless there are growing concerns about the NLD leadership as a whole. The other three top leaders - U Lwin, Aung Shwe and Tin Oo - are all in their seventies.

"There really is no one within the NLD who could replace Aung San Suu Kyi," one western diplomat in Rangoon said.

Impatience

And unlike the military, which is carefully grooming junior officers to succeed them, there is little succession planning within the opposition.

U Lwin admits that membership is falling.

"We once attracted the students, but we now have great difficulty in interesting them in joining us," he says.

There has been resentment among young NLD activists over the past 10 years that Aung San Suu Kyi has appeared to favour the old guard.

And there is growing impatience within in younger, rank-and-file party supporters that the dialogue process is progressing too slowly. They want more transparency.

"We're frustrated by constantly being told to be patient and trust our leader," says one young NLD member.

The divide between the NLD inside Burma and the opposition groups outside the country, like the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), is even more stark.

The NCGUB refuse to believe the military is sincere in wanting political change and is only stringing out the process to deflect international pressure.

U Lwin insists the dialogue process is going through a delicate stage, but progress is being made - albeit very slowly.

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Thursday March 21, 9:29 PM
Myanmar accuses Thailand of smear campaign over drugs trade

YANGON, March 21 (AFP) - Myanmar on Thursday accused elements within Thailand of conducting a smear campaign against the ruling junta by accusing it of being involved in drugs trafficking along their common border.

Three former members of the rebel Shan State Army (SSA) were paraded in front of the media at a press briefing here, alleging that they had helped stage a drugs "raid" on a Myanmar military outpost.

"Certain Thai politicians and some elements inside the Thai army are pointing their fingers in the direction of Myanmar with fabrications that the Myanmar military was trafficking in illicit drugs, in order to cover up the own misdeeds," said military intelligence deputy chief Major General Kyaw Win.

"We do not wish our bilateral relations to be adversely affected by the un-neighbourly and insincere behaviour of some elements in Thailand," he told reporters.

The briefing followed a statement from the foreign ministry Wednesday which expressed shock at a Thai politician's suggestion that the US consider launching air strikes against drug barons operating in Myanmar.

The junta insisted that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) accused by Thailand and Western governments of dominating the drugs trade was earnestly trying to stamp out narcotics, and that the Thai-allied SSA were the real "drug terrorists".

Kyaw Win accused Thailand of harbouring SSA chief Yawd Serk and said that two of the surrendered SSA fighters present Thursday were eyewitnesses to the April 2001 border post raid where a huge haul of drugs was seized.

"We were asked to plant nearly 200,000 stimulant tablets inside the captured military outpost before the Thai media was invited in to record the whole show," said 27-year-old Kwan Kham, identified as an SSA unit commander.

Kyaw Win screened video clips of the alleged drugs planting and said the SSA fighters had been assisted in the raid by Thai artillery and troop support.

The accusations come after a period of relative harmony between the two countries over drugs and border issues, which have plagued relations in the past.

A serious border dispute flared up in February 2001 when fighting between the SSA and the Myanmar-allied UWSA sparked a clash between the two national armies.

A half-year diplomatic standoff ensued, with both sides exchanging increasingly hostile language until a series of high-level visits resolved the row.

Nevertheless, Kyaw Win Thursday described overall relations with Thailand as "excellent".

"We, on our part, will do our utmost to keep these good relations intact," he said.

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Thursday March 21, 3:10 PM
Three drug traffickers killed by Thai police in Bangkok shootout

BANGKOK, March 21 (AFP) - Undercover Thai police shot dead three suspected drug traffickers, including one hilltribesman, in an overnight firefight on the streets of central Bangkok, police said Thursday.

Narcotics officers posing as drug dealers were purchasing 10,000 methamphetamine tablets worth 250,000 baht (5,700 dollars) when the suspects caught on to the setup and a five-minute gunfight ensued.

The deaths occured near Royal City Avenue, a nightlife district of Bangkok popular with the city's youth.

"We have long traced this gang, which has had drugs transported from northern Thailand to the city by (ethnic minority) Lisor men," said metropolitan police Colonel Saritchai Anekvieng.

Hilltribesmen from Thailand's north, particularly along the Myanmar border in the notorious drug-producing Golden Triangle region, often shuttle drugs to Bangkok to supply addicts, the colonel added.

Saritchai said the suspects may have had links with fugitive drug warlord Wei Hsueh-Kang, but did not elaborate.

Thai officials have estimated that some 800 million tablets of cheap but dangerously addictive methamphetamines, know here as "ya baa" or crazy medicine, will be trafficked across the border from Myanmar this year.

More than four percent of Thais from all walks of life are already addicted to the drug that has largely replaced heroin addiction in the country.

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Friday March 22, 5:54 AM

ILO to set up Myanmar office to halt forced labour

GENEVA (Reuters) - Myanmar has agreed to allow the International Labour Office (ILO) to set up an office in the country to help it wipe out forced labour, the United Nations agency said on Thursday.

The hard-won accord on a liaison officer, signed in Geneva, was endorsed by ILO's Governing Body, ILO senior adviser Francis Maupain said.

An ILO report last year said the Myanmar army was still forcing villagers to farm and work on infrastructure projects or as porters, especially in areas near the Thai border where the army is fighting ethnic minority armies.

"According to the understanding, Myanmar accepted appointment of a liaison officer by June 2002...It is a seed for future development which was extremely difficult to obtain," Maupain told a news briefing.

"Now we have been given guarantees the liaison officer will be in a position to do something for the objective...which is the full eradication of forced labour in Myanmar," he added.

Myanmar's ruling generals, eager for international legitimacy which could bring more aid, trade and investment, passed a decree in 2000 abolishing forced labour.

"The law prohibited forced labour and made clear that those who perpetrated it are subject to criminal sanctions. One aspect of the liaison officer's activities will be to give assistance to authorities to do that," Maupain said.

The liaison officer will identify technical assistance projects to help the army stop using forced labour, he added.

At the Governing Body meeting, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations said the annual International Labour Conference in June should repeal the call made in 2000 for ILO's 175 member states to "review relations" with Myanmar, according to Maupain.

But Maupain said there was no consensus on asking the ILO's annual meeting to lift the measures imposed two years ago on the ruling military.

That move, unprecedented at the U.N. agency, was tantamount to sanctions.

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Thursday March 21, 7:16 PM
Malaysia sends in bulldozers to push out migrants
By Barani Krishnan

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Bulldozers flattened houses in Kuala Lumpur's oldest Indonesian squatter colony on Thursday as the Malaysian government piled more pressure on hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Authorities said they had, since Wednesday, demolished nearly 400 illegal squatter homes in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, a poor village nestled in the shadows of glitzy commercial complexes in the Petaling Jaya suburb fringing the capital.

Indonesians, who make up the largest number of foreign workers in the country, have concentrated in Kayu Ara, which has grown as an enclave for illegal squatters over the past few decades.

Malaysia, one of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia, has around two million foreign workers employed in factories, plantations and construction sites, and as domestic servants.

More than half of them are illegal, and with a population of 23 million, Malaysia fears being overrun by people fleeing the poverty and violence besetting its more populous neighbours.

Municipal workers said they have been pulling down houses in the village on and off for the past 20 years, only to see them being rebuilt in weeks.

But the latest campaign appears more determined. The latest crackdown on illegal immigrants followed a series of violent incidents involving particularly Indonesians.

"Our mission is to demolish all illegal squatters marked in the area, however long it takes," Haniza Hamid, spokeswoman for Petaling Jaya's municipality, told Reuters.

Indonesians with permanent resident (PR) status or work permits were not spared.

"They gave us a two-week notice but before I could move, the bulldozer levelled my house," said Jani Rahman, an Indonesian with PR status who has lived in Kayu Ara for 21 years.

He, his wife and two children, aged one and 12, are sleeping in the open with their belongings around them until he finds another place.

Malaysia deported 15,037 Indonesians and 1,352 Myanmar nationals in the first two months of the year, officials said.

Police have also detained nearly 8,000 Indonesians and Filipinos and tore down more than 3,000 of their homes in the eastern Sabah state on the island of Borneo, which has one of the biggest illegal immigrant populations in the country.

The government on Tuesday offered an amnesty to those without documents to come forward and be deported -- or stay and risk a whipping when immigration laws are amended to bring in harsher penalties later in the year.

"This is because of the seriousness of the offence and the increasing number of illegal immigrants entering the country," Deputy Home Minister Chor Chee Heung said in defence of the new laws.

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ILO: Burma Accepts Liason Officer
Dale Gavlak
Geneva
VOA - 21 Mar 2002 22:01 UTC

The Geneva-based International Labor Organization says Burma has accepted the appointment of a liaison officer to help eradicate forced labor in the country.

The decision was a major change for Burmese officials. Only last month, the military government blocked international efforts to halt Burma's army from using forced labor.

But a senior ILO official, Francis Maupain, says Burma now has agreed to have an ILO liaison officer living inside the country to investigate the labor issue.

Mr. Maupain says the liaison officer will give information and advice to people facing forced labor. He says the officer will help authorities implement Burma's decree, of last year, abolishing forced labor.

He says the ILO officer will suggest other training possibilities to authorities in Burma's military who are involved in the use of forced labor.

Mr. Maupin says Burma, also called Myanmar, must stop its use of forced labor for public projects because it lacks funds to pay workers. "If the authorities show a sufficient commitment to eradicate forced labor and to establish their will to do it and take all the means to eradicate it, then presumably that would put a strong signal to investors to come back to Myanmar," he said. "Then you will restart, if you like, an economy, which gives you the means to conduct these public works."

The ILO says the Burmese army is forcing villagers to farm and work on public projects near the Thai border, where the army is fighting ethnic-minority soldiers.

The ILO says it is not possible to know the exact number of forced laborers in Burma. It insists the liaison officer have freedom to move around the country and report on the labor situation on regular intervals.

But the organization discounted the possibility of ending sanctions against Burma at this time.

The U.N. human rights investigator for Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, welcomed the decision. "The presence of ILO will be an extraordinary contribution to fight forced labor," he said. "I think it is a breakthrough. It is so important as the presence of the International Committee of the Red Cross is also having an impact on [Burmese] prisons."

Mr. Pinheiro says it is important to keep pressing Burma's government on human rights matters. He says this will help lead to greater political freedom for the opponents of the military government.

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The Times of India

1,000 acres of poppy fields destroyed in Myanmar

PTI [ FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2002 12:17:47 AM ]

BANGKOK: Myanmar authorities have destroyed over a 1,000 acres of poppy fields in the country's northern hillside region, state-run media reported late on Thursday.

Some 1,336 acres of poppy fields, located in northern Myanmar's Kachin state, were destroyed between February 12 and March 14 by civilian and anti-narcotics officials, TV Myanmar said in a dispatch monitored here.

According to a recent report by the United Nation's International Narcotics Control Board, Myanmar is the world's largest producer of opium, accounting for some 50 or 60 per cent of the global supply of the drug.

Myanmar overtook Afghanistan in poppy cultivation, from which both opium and heroin are produced, after a ban on poppy-growing by the now-defunct Taliban militia slashed Afghan opium production by 90 per cent, and world production by some 60 per cent.

Myanmar forms part of the infamous 'Golden Triangle' poppy-growing region which includes border areas of Thailand and Laos.

Myanmar's ruling military has come under harsh international criticism, particularly from western nations, for its failure to clamp down on illegal drug producers and failing to do not enough to eradicate drug crops. The junta denies the charges.

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Bangkok Post - Friday 22 March 2002

Officials in Burma on routes survey Expansion of Asian Highway in mind

Supamart Kasem

A three-day car rally from Tak's Mae Sot district to Pa-an of Burma began yesterday as Thai officials and businessmen survey possible new routes for the Asian Highway.

The 26-member delegation consists of Foreign and Finance ministry officials and members of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and Tak's Chamber of Commerce.

After entering Myawaddy, the team will follow the Asian Highway past Kawkareik, Naunglon, Pa-an and Moulmein on the first day, and use the Moulmein-Mudon-Thanbyuzayat-Kyine route on the second day.

On the final day, they will survey the Moulmein-Moktama-Thaton-Pa-an route and return to Thailand on Pa-an-Myawaddy road.

Sunant Gliengpradit of the Highway Department, who led the survey team, said study results would be sent to the government for improving regional land transport links.

The Myawaddy-Rangoon route was an important trade link for towns in southeast Burma and Thai border towns.

The United Nations plans to develop Asian Highway to link countries in this region and also to other parts of Asia, Middle East and Europe.

Routes linking Asian Highway to towns are crucial for enhancing Thailand's ties with its neighbours under the East-West Corridor Plan.

``If this route is developed for more convenient, faster and safer travel and transport, it will benefit economic and social development co-operation between Thailand and Burma,'' Mr Sunant added.

At a Thai-Burmese meeting in Rangoon in November, Burma proposed a land transport link between Thailand, Burma and India in a bid to boost trade, investment and tourism.

Niyom Wairatpanij who chairs the Thai Chamber of Commerce's committee on border trade, said Burma wanted to see a land transport link with Thailand and India so it should improve a route linking Rangoon to Mandalay and Tamu which is close to India.

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UK - Foreign and Commonweath Office

Fri March 22

DR SALAI TUN THAN IMPRISONED IN BURMA
Following the imprisonment of Dr Salai Tun Than in Burma, Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw said:

'I am dismayed to hear that Dr Salai Tun Than has been imprisoned in Burma for seven years. His only crime was peacefully to express his hope to see democracy in Burma soon - an aspiration which the Burmese government claims to share. His detention is completely unjustified and I call on the Burmese authorities to immediately release him, if for no other reason than on humanitarian grounds due to his age.

'The detention of Dr Salai Tun Than underlines the need for an urgent and systematic commitment by the Burmese authorities to release all political prisoners and to permanently end the arrest and detention of people for political reasons. We have welcomed the gradual release of political prisoners in Burma since the beginning of 2001, but have questioned the sustainability of this progress. Such an unjustified and severe penalty only serves to call into question the authorities which claimed commitment to pursuing democracy and national reconciliation in Burma.'