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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- October 16, 2002.
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HEADLINES
-------------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - Myanmar has world's largest
child army: rights group
AFP - Myanmar junta wants UN rights
envoy to investigate rape claims
AFP - Suu Kyi wraps up political trip
to northern Myanmar
AP - Report: Myanmar recruits world's
largest number of boy soldiers
AP - Myanmar welcomes visit by U.N.
official to probe rape allegations
AP - Myanmar military jets crash, killing two pilots
AP - Myanmar 'Boy Soldiers' Number
Large
Reuters - Small bombs hit Myanmar
town after border reopened
Reuters - U.N. envoy visits Myanmar
as rights criticism grows
OneWorld - Recruitment of Child
Soldiers Widespread in Myanmar
UN Wire - MYANMAR: Special Rapporteur
Urges Political Reforms; More
Xinhuanet - Myanmar makes efforts to
improve rural water supply
Bkk Post - Longer permit renewal
period draws flak
Bkk Post - Junta opens its border
checkpoints
The Nation - Border checkpoints
reopen to little fanfare
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday October 15, 16:59 PM
Myanmar has world's largest
child army: rights group
NEW YORK, Oct 15 (AFP) - Children as young as 11 are being forcibly recruited into the Myanmar army, where they are coerced into human rights abuses including mass executions, an in-depth report showed Tuesday. The 220-page study from Human Rights Watch estimated that more than 20 percent of the soldiers currently serving in the Myanmar national army could be children under the age of 18. "Myanmar has a poor human rights record, but its record on child soldiers is the worst in the world," said Jo Becker, advocacy director of the New York-based watchdog's Children's Rights Division. The overwhelming majority of Myanmar's child soldiers are found in the national army, although armed opposition groups use them, as well. "Myanmar's army preys on children, using threats, intimidation and often violence to force young boys to become soldiers," said Becker. "To be a boy in Myanmar today means facing the constant risk of being picked up off the street, forced to commit atrocities against villagers, and never seeing family again." The Human Rights Watch report, "My Gun was as Tall as Me: Child Soldiers in Burma," claims to be the most comprehensive study of its kind and drew on interviews with more than three dozen current and former child soldiers. According to the report, army recruiters focus on boys at train and bus stations and markets, threatening them with jail if they fail to join. The boys are given no opportunity to contact their families, and are sent to camps where they undergo weapons training and are routinely beaten and brutally punished if they try to escape. Salaing Toe Aung, recruited when he was 16, recalled a recaptured escapee who was beaten about the head and back with sticks for 30 minutes before being placed, unconscious, in leg stocks for a week. "He couldn't eat anything and they sent him to the hospital. He died in the hospital," Aung said. Khin Maung Than was 13 when his army unit captured 15 women and children, including three babies, and were ordered by their headquarters to shoot them all. "Six of the corporals loaded their guns and shot them. They fired on auto," Than said. "After the mothers were killed, they killed the babies. They swung them by their legs and smashed them against a rock. I saw it." Myanmar's army has doubled in size since 1988, and with an estimated 350,000 soldiers, it is now one of the largest in Southeast Asia. Human Rights Watch said estimates put the number of conscripts under the age of 18 at more than 70,000. "The international community has increasingly recognised the use of child soldiers as unacceptable," said Becker. "Myanmar's armed forces and groups must immediately stop recruiting children and demobilise all children in their ranks." -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday October 16, 4:53 PM
Myanmar junta wants UN rights
envoy to investigate rape claims
YANGON, Oct 16 (AFP) - Myanmar's military junta said Wednesday it wanted visiting UN rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro to investigate allegations that it used rape as a weapon of war against the Shan ethnic minority. Pinheiro will arrive here on Thursday for a two-week visit during which he is scheduled to travel to Shan state as well as meet with top junta leaders and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi. Myanmar's government has repeatedly denied the rape allegations contained in a report released by two Thai-based Shan rights organisations in July. The study, which drew international outrage, detailed the sexual assault of 625 girls and women, mostly between 1996 and 2001. "The government of Myanmar stands in solidarity with the civilised world community against rape of any kind, most especially as an instrument of government policy or war," the junta said in a statement. "The government welcomes Professor Pinheiro's independent review of the situation, and we will cooperate fully with him, so that he may report on these outrageous allegations of human rights abuses in the Shan State," said spokesman Colonel Hla Min. "We believe an unbiased report from Mr Pinheiro and the United Nations will affirm what we have been saying all along: these accusations are false." The government dismissed the findings by the Shan groups who released the report and said they were linked with a Shan ethnic army which it accuses of being involved in drug-trafficking in the Golden Triangle region. According to an official itinerary, Pinheiro is to stay in the capital Yangon until October 21 and depart for Shan State on October 22 where he will stay until October 24. For the rest of the mission -- his third to Myanmar since being appointed in April 2001 -- he will be based in Yangon but make side-trips to jails in outlying regions. The Brazilian academic is scheduled to meet with General Khin Nyunt, the influential first secretary of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). In a report to the UN General Assembly released Monday, Pinheiro said the "recent mellowing on the political front" in Myanmar was not enough to improve the human rights situation there. He urged the UN to get ready to help with the transition to democracy, saying: "The present delicate situation... needs to be handled with great care and generosity on the part of those who wish the people of Myanmar well." -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday October 16, 7:14 PM
Suu Kyi wraps up political
trip to northern Myanmar
YANGON, Oct 16 (AFP) - Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's latest political trip to the country's north has been extremely successful, her party said Wednesday as the journey drew to a close. The Nobel peace laureate departed Monday on the four-day trip to the town of Pyay in Pago division, some 180 kilometres (110 miles) north of Yangon, which took in many towns and settlements along the way. The journey, one of several taken since she was freed from house arrest in May with permission to travel the country freely, had been "very successful and informative", an NLD official told AFP. On Tuesday Aung San Suu Kyi visited Padaung, a town about 20 kilometres (13 miles) from Pyay and after meeting with party members there she journeyed on to a government dam project, he said. The party leader and her entourage returned to Pyay where she spoke to some 500 supporters from the town. "She spoke words of encouragement and expressed her feeling of sympathy for the problems they continue to face with regard to shortages in electricity and high commodity prices," the party official said. "These problems will be solved if we all work together," she was quoted as telling the gathering. On Wednesday she left Pyay to visit a government irrigation project in nearby Shwe-Daung and visit the NLD office there where more than 200 supporters had gathered to greet her. The group, which includes NLD vice chairman Tin Oo and 15 members of the party's youth wing, will spend the night at the town of Nat-ta-lin before heading for Yangon on Thursday, he said. Myanmar's military government repeatedly blocked Aung San Suu Kyi's attempts to travel outside Yangon until a stand-off over a planned trip to the northern city of Mandalay resulted in the opposition leader being placed under house arrest for 19 months. The latest trip is taking place ahead of a visit by UN human rights envoy to Myanmar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro who is due to arrive on Thursday. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Report: Myanmar recruits
world's largest number of boy soldiers
By DENIS GRAY - The Associated Press 10/15/02 6:48 PM BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Children are being snatched off the streets of Myanmar and forced to fight and commit atrocities in an army with the world's largest number of boy soldiers, according to human rights investigators. A report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch claims that as many as 70,000 soldiers in Myanmar's national army were under 18, with the vast majority forcibly conscripted. Myanmar, also known as Burma, fields an army of some 350,000 to fight a variety of ethnic minority groups that also reportedly recruit boys into their ranks. "To be a boy in Burma today means facing the constant risk of being picked up off the street, forced to commit atrocities against villagers, and never seeing your family again," the New York group said in the report. Myanmar denied the allegations. "The government finds it very difficult to understand on what basis it is making such claims, saying that 20 percent of the national army is made up of underage children," it said in a statement. The human rights group said the report drew on interviews with current and former child soldiers to examine recruitment by the army and 19 opposition groups. The report said recruiters for the army apprehend boys at bus and train stations, markets and other public places, threatening them with jail if they refuse to join. Recruits are allegedly sent to camps where they undergo weapons training, are routinely beaten and brutally punished or killed if they attempt to escape. Boys as young as 12 are sent into combat and forced to commit abuses against civilians, rounding up villagers for forced labor, burning villages and carrying out executions, according to Human Rights Watch. The report quotes one 14-year-old boy who said the army conscripted his 11-year-old friend, who was beaten by guards for crying because he didn't get enough food. Another boy soldier described how his unit rounded up 15 women and children, shooting the mothers and beating babies to death against rocks. He was 13 at the time, the report said. Children are also found in the ranks of rebel groups, some of which have long been fighting for greater autonomy from the central government. The United Wa State Army, known for involvement in drug trafficking, has the largest number of boy soldiers while the Kachin Independence Army also recruits girls, the report found. Youngsters are also enlisted in forces of the Karen, Shan and Karenni rebels, although the three have official policies against recruiting anyone under 18. One rebel group, the Karen National Union, says it takes in orphans but denies using child soldiers in combat. "We don't give them military training. Our policy is not to let the children soldiers fight," Mahnshar Laphan, the group's general secretary, said in an interview. In early 2001, two 12-year-old twins, Luther and Johnny Htu, sought refuge in Thailand after leading a rebel band of Karens known as God's Army. Myanmar leads the world in the number of boy soldiers because the army has difficulty finding adult recruits and desertion rates are high in a force that has doubled since 1988, said Jo Becker, the children's rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers last year estimated that more than 300,000 children were fighting as soldiers in 41 countries. The London-based coalition said the children, about 120,000 of them in African armies, were used as front-line fighters, minesweepers, spies, porters and sex slaves. International law prohibits recruiting children under the age of 15, while several United Nations conventions condemn the practice of having anyone under 18 serve as a soldier. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar welcomes visit by U.N.
official to probe rape allegations
Wed Oct 16, 3:51 AM ET BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The military government of Myanmar on Wednesday welcomed a planned investigation by a U.N. official into allegations that its troops raped women of an ethnic minority group fighting for autonomy. The probe will be conducted by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, who is scheduled to arrive in the country on Thursday for a 12-day visit. "The government of Myanmar looks forward to an independent third party review of the situation since false reports of a systemic government policy of rape have been distributed," said a statement from Myanmar's junta, received in Bangkok. Myanmar has repeatedly denied allegations that its soldiers raped ethnic Shan women to retaliate against Shan guerrillas. The allegations were made in a June report by the Shan Women's Action Network and the Shan Human Rights Foundation, two Thailand-based rights groups. Their report, which claimed to document 173 cases of rape and sexual violence against girls and women, received widespread publicity in July when the U.S. State Department took note of it. "The notion of rape as a systemic national policy is abhorrent to the government of Myanmar which has never ordered, supported or condoned rape," the junta statement said. "We believe an unbiased report from Mr. Pinheiro and the United Nations will affirm what we have been saying all along: these accusations are false." The Shan are one of several ethnic minorities in Myanmar, also known as Burma, who are seeking autonomy from the central government. Armed Shan guerrillas in eastern Myanmar frequently battle government troops. In Geneva, the United Nations said Pinheiro will travel to the capital Yangon as well other places in the country. He will hold meetings with government officials, judicial authorities and other members of the legal profession, as well as with representatives of different political parties and social organizations, a U.N. statement said. The West has generally taken the junta's claims of an unblemished human rights records with a pinch of salt because of its refusal to give up power it assumed undemocratically in 1988. In a report released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch claimed that as many as 70,000 soldiers in Myanmar's army were under 18, with the vast majority forcibly conscripted. The group said that guerrilla groups fighting the government also recruit boys into their ranks. Pinheiro has prepared an interim report on the country's rights situation, which he will present at the 57th session of the General Assembly later this year along with his preliminary observations on his latest visit to Myanmar, his fourth. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar military jets crash, killing
two pilots
Wed Oct 15, 01:07 AM
ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Two Chinese-made military jets crashed
recently in Myanmar during routine training flights, killing their two pilots,
an official said Wednesday.
A Nanchang A-5C jet, the Chinese version of the MiG-19,
crashed in late September near Meiktila in central Myanmar, killing the pilot,
Lt. Wai Hin Tun, said a government official, who did not want to be identified
further.
He said a Chengdu F-7M, the Chinese variant of the MiG-21, crashed in Twante outside Yangon on Oct. 1, killing its pilot, Lt. Phyo Kyaw Hlaing. No damage or injuries were reported on the ground, the official said. The causes of the crashes were not known, but accidents during training are not uncommon. The crashes were also reported by the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia, which said the first plane was airborne for about 30 minutes before going down in an unpopulated area outside Htan-ta-bin township on Sept. 21. Radio Free Asia said the Myanmar military purchased 42 Chengdu F-7M and Nanchang A-5C aircraft from China in the 1990s. Both the F-7M and the A-5C are ground-attack fighter-bombers. In 2001, Myanmar's military junta added 10 MiG-29 warplanes to its fleet. The information could not be independently verified. The junta almost never releases any military information. The last reported military air crash in Myanmar occurred in February 2001, when a helicopter went down in the southeastern part of the country, killing the junta's fourth-highest official, Lt. Gen. Tin Oo, and two Cabinet ministers. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar 'Boy Soldiers' Number
Large
Tue Oct 15, 6:58 PM ET By DENIS GRAY, Associated Press Writer BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Children are being snatched off the streets of Myanmar and forced to fight and commit atrocities in an army with the world's largest number of boy soldiers, according to human rights investigators. A report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch claims that as many as 70,000 soldiers in Myanmar's national army were under 18, with the vast majority forcibly conscripted. Myanmar, also known as Burma, fields an army of some 350,000 to fight a variety of ethnic minority groups that also reportedly recruit boys into their ranks. "To be a boy in Burma today means facing the constant risk of being picked up off the street, forced to commit atrocities against villagers, and never seeing your family again," the New York group said in the report. Myanmar denied the allegations. "The government finds it very difficult to understand on what basis it is making such claims, saying that 20 percent of the national army is made up of underage children," it said in a statement. The human rights group said the report drew on interviews with current and former child soldiers to examine recruitment by the army and 19 opposition groups. The report said recruiters for the army apprehend boys at bus and train stations, markets and other public places, threatening them with jail if they refuse to join. Recruits are allegedly sent to camps where they undergo weapons training, are routinely beaten and brutally punished or killed if they attempt to escape. Boys as young as 12 are sent into combat and forced to commit abuses against civilians, rounding up villagers for forced labor, burning villages and carrying out executions, according to Human Rights Watch. The report quotes one 14-year-old boy who said the army conscripted his 11-year-old friend, who was beaten by guards for crying because he didn't get enough food. Another boy soldier described how his unit rounded up 15 women and children, shooting the mothers and beating babies to death against rocks. He was 13 at the time, the report said. Children are also found in the ranks of rebel groups, some of which have long been fighting for greater autonomy from the central government. The United Wa State Army, known for involvement in drug trafficking, has the largest number of boy soldiers while the Kachin Independence Army also recruits girls, the report found. Youngsters are also enlisted in forces of the Karen, Shan and Karenni rebels, although the three have official policies against recruiting anyone under 18. One rebel group, the Karen National Union, says it takes in orphans but denies using child soldiers in combat. "We don't give them military training. Our policy is not to let the children soldiers fight," Mahnshar Laphan, the group's general secretary, said in an interview. In early 2001, two 12-year-old twins, Luther and Johnny Htu, sought refuge in Thailand after leading a rebel band of Karens known as God's Army. Myanmar leads the world in the number of boy soldiers because the army has difficulty finding adult recruits and desertion rates are high in a force that has doubled since 1988, said Jo Becker, the children's rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers last year estimated that more than 300,000 children were fighting as soldiers in 41 countries. The London-based coalition said the children, about 120,000 of them in African armies, were used as front-line fighters, minesweepers, spies, porters and sex slaves. International law prohibits recruiting children under the age of 15, while several United Nations conventions condemn the practice of having anyone under 18 serve as a soldier. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday October 16, 02:25 PM
Small bombs hit Myanmar town after border reopened MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Three small bombs have exploded in a Myanmar town on the border with Thailand since the neighbours reopened their mutual border earlier this week for the first time in five months, Thai officials said on Wednesday. No one was hurt or killed by the blasts, which took place in Myawadee, opposite the Thai border town of Mae Sot, 500 km (310 miles) northwest of Bangkok. Thai police laid the blame for the bombs on Myanmar ethnic minority militias, who had supplemented traditional drugs trafficking activities with smuggling in other goods while the border was closed. ``We can't point the finger at anyone yet but I believe it was the work of two minority groups who would lose their benefits now the border has reopened,'' Police Colonel Songkran Sangkorn, head of Mae Sot police station, told reporters, without elaborating further. One bomb exploded in a community temple on Wednesday, damaging a 10-wheel truck, Myanmar witnesses and Thai officials said. The other bombs exploded in a rice field and in an empty primary school on Tuesday evening. Yangon closed all border crossings in May during a row with Thailand following skirmishes between Myanmar troops and ethnic rebel armies. Myanmar's ruling generals accused Bangkok of aiding the rebels, a charge Thailand denies. But relations have gradually improved and the two neighbours, enemies for centuries, agreed earlier this month to reopen the 1,800-km (1,125-mile) frontier which stretches from Laos to the Indian Ocean. Closure of the crossings dealt a blow to Myanmar's formal economy, tottering after years of neglect and strict sanctions by many Western nations, and silenced bustling Thai border towns. But the closure did little to hinder drug-running gangs along the porous, jungle-cushioned border, mostly carrying metamphetamines, but also heroin, from Myanmar into Thailand. -------------------------------------------------------------------- U.N. envoy visits Myanmar as
rights criticism grows
YANGON, Oct 16 (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights envoy arrives in Myanmar on Thursday for a 10-day visit the country's ruling generals hope will silence mounting criticism of their human rights record and ease their international isolation. The Myanmar government said on Wednesday it had invited Brazilian academic Paulo Sergio Pinheiro to make his fourth visit to the country in a bid to dispel allegations its troops used rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minority girls and women. ``The government welcomes Professor Pinheiro's independent review of the situation, and we will cooperate fully with him, so that he may report on these outrageous allegations of human rights abuses in Shan State,'' Myanmar government spokesman Colonel Hla Min said in a statement faxed to Reuters. The invitation to Pinheiro follows criticism by Washington and a report from two minority rights groups saying Myanmar troops had raped at least 625 girls and women between 1996 and 2001 in Shan state in the east of the country. On Wednesday, pressure group Human Rights Watch accused the Myanmar military of widespread use of force to recruit an estimated 70,000 child soldiers. It said many of them had been forced to commit atrocities against ethnic minority civilians. Analysts are sceptical Pinheiro will see an accurate picture of the human rights situation during his trip to Myanmar, which will include separate meetings with the junta and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as a trip to Shan State. ``The problem is there's a climate of fear,'' said Aung Zaw, editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, run by Myanmar exiles in Thailand. ``If villagers tell him something they could be punished after his visit, there's no guarantee for them if they cooperate with him.'' In recent years the junta has been more responsive to the international community's pleas to clean up its human rights record, allowing the Red Cross to visit political prisoners and letting the United Nations investigate claims of forced labour. The United States and several European countries have imposed political and economic sanctions on the military regime, since it refused to recognise an election victory by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) in 1990. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Recruitment of Child Soldiers
Widespread in Myanmar
Tue Oct 15, 7:26 PM ET Jim Lobe,OneWorld US Boys between the ages of 11 and 17 years could make up as much as 20 percent of the 350,000-man army of Myanmar, one of the largest military forces in Southeast Asia, according to a major report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The vast majority of boys are forcibly recruited into the army, according to the 220-page report, where they face routine beatings and are severely punished if they try to run away. Once deployed, boys as young as 12 also engage in combat against ethnic rebel groups. Many of the army's child soldiers are forced to commit serious abuses against civilians, including mass killings, summary executions, burning villages, and rounding up villagers for forced labor, according to the report, which is based on extensive interviews of former soldiers and refugees in Thailand and in parts of Myanmar, as well as representatives from humanitarian and relief organizations active in Thailand in the first half of 2002. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, "has a poor human rights record, but its record on child soldiers is the worst in the world," said Jo Becker, advocacy director of the HRW's Children's Rights Division. "Burma's armed forces and groups must immediately stop recruiting children and demobilize all children in their ranks." The report, 'My Gun Was as Tall as Me: Child Soldiers in Burma,' offers new and sometimes harrowing details about the reign of what is widely regarded as one of the world's most abusive regimes. The United States, the European Union, and the International Labour Organization, among others, have repeatedly condemned the military junta that seized power in 1988. Most western nations have also imposed economic and other sanctions against the regime, which now calls itself the State Peace and Development Council. Last summer, a report by two Burmese groups documented the systematic use of rape and other sexual abuses against women and girls by the army as part of its counter-insurgency strategy against minority communities. This new report opens yet another window on the kinds of abuses committed by the army, which claims that all of its soldiers are volunteers and that the minimum recruitment age is 18. In reality, however, most of its soldiers are recruited when they are still children between the ages of 12 and 17, according to the report. Non-commissioned officers and soldiers often stalk railway, bus, and ferry stations, traffic checkpoints, markets, and festivals to search for draftees, in exchange for whom they receive a cash and rice bounty from recruitment officers. If the boys cannot produce an identity card--which are generally not available to children--they are threatened with the choice of a long prison term or joining the army. If they refuse to enlist, they are often forcibly taken to a local army base or holding camp where they are beaten, sometimes over a period of days, until they agree. Upon formal registration, recruiting officers invariably fill in their age as 18, even for children as young as 11. Boys even younger than 11 have been recruited in this way, but they are usually held in army camps, where they are forced to work without compensation until they become strong enough to be formally inducted, according to the report. All young recruits, usually between the ages of 12 and 16, are eventually taken to "Ye Nyunt" camps where they are forced to wear military uniforms and undergo weapons training. From there, they pass through a series of military camps for about six months of basic training. "The training exercises are often difficult for the youngest boys, so they typically are beaten more often than older recruits," said the report, which recounted one instance in which three trainees under 16 were killed during a live-fire exercise. Once deployed to battalions, the report explained, child soldiers are not permitted leave or contact with their families for their first five years in the army. "The commanders beat them for little or no reason, steal their pay and their rations and then send them out to the villages to steal their own food and round up villagers for forced labor." HRW researchers interviewed two boys, aged 13 and 15, who were forced to participate in a massacre of 15 displaced minority Shan women and children. Desertion is punishable by three to five years in prison and sometimes by execution. In addition, soldiers are told that if they desert, their family will be placed under surveillance. "Seeing no alternative, some commit suicide," the report said. International law regards the recruitment of children under 15 by governments or armed groups as a war crime. In 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that banned recruitment before 18. -------------------------------------------------------------------- UN
Wire
MYANMAR: Special Rapporteur Urges Political Reforms; More Myanmar must undergo political reforms if it is to improve the human rights situation for its citizens, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the country said in a report released yesterday. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro says that despite recent releases of political prisoners, the "mellowing on the political front has not and could not possibly bring about significant improvements to the complex human rights and humanitarian situation" in Myanmar. "This is only feasible in the context of a sustainable process of political transition and national reconciliation," he adds. According to Pinheiro, four conditions must be achieved in order to bring about a credible political transition in the country -- the inclusion of all segments of society in political discussions, the release of all political prisoners, the end to restrictions on political parties and groups and the holding of free elections. Warning against "viewing the complex process as a struggle between good and evil," Pinheiro adds that reconciliation and the move to democracy must be "handled with great care and generosity." He laments that human rights issues have been put on the "back seat" in the international arena as the fight against terrorism takes center stage. Pinheiro cites ongoing human rights violations, particularly in Karen and Shan states, including forcible transfers of populations in Shan state. The report recommends that the United Nations help in the transition process by supporting efforts in Myanmar to ratify human rights agreements and improve the justice system (U.N. release, Oct. 14). Pinheiro is scheduled to visit Myanmar Oct. 17-28, his fourth trip to the country as special rapporteur (U.N. release, Oct. 15). BBC Online reports that Myanmar released 31 prisoners last week, including several elderly senior members of the opposition National League for Democracy. The development follows reports that rape is being used as
a weapon of war against ethnic minority females. The government denies the
allegations (BBC Online, Oct. 10).
UNESCO Prize Awarded To Aung San Suu Kyi UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura named Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to receive the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Nonviolence for her efforts to establish democracy in the country and her pursuit of "nonviolent struggle for democracy and tolerance." The prize, which was established in 1995 by UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh, includes an award of $100,000. It will be presented in a ceremony coinciding with International Day for Tolerance, Nov. 16, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris (The Hindu, Oct. 5). -------------------------------------------------------------------- Myanmar makes efforts to
improve rural water supply
Xinhuanet 2002-10-16 10:52:41 YANGON, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Myanmar has been making efforts to improve rural water supply and 1,923 tube-wells have been sunk in its three divisions of arid zone under a 10-year rural water supply project which began in 2000-01. According to a report of the Ministry of Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development available here Wednesday,there were 8,042 water-scarce villages in the three divisions of Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway, and about 50 percent of them now have tube-wells providing clean and safe water. There are also 15,813 villages in the border areas still facingwater shortage, the report said. According to the report, under the arid-zone rural water supplyproject, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is Japanese government's overseas aid agency, will offer assistance for digging 250 tube-wells in the country's northern Shan state. In addition, another organization, the Bridge Asia Japan and the UN Children's Fund are also assisting to sink tube-wells in the arid zone. Meanwhile, the JICA has also proposed to Myanmar a 1.5-billion-US-dollar project to improve the water supply system in the capital of Yangon which has a population of 5.5 million. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post -
Wednesday 16 October 2002
Longer permit renewal period draws flak Poor response blamed on graft, punishments The House committee on labour affairs has criticised the Labour Ministry after it extended by 22 days the period during which registered foreign workers may renew their permits. The ministry ordered the extension after the original period ended yesterday with only half the number of registered foreign labourers having applied for renewals. The ministry blamed the poor response on recent heavy flooding around the country and the complexity of the renewal process. However, House panel chairman Premsak Piayura attributed the low turnout to corruption among officials and inadequate punishment for offenders. The ministry's extension was unlikely to spur more registered foreign labourers to seek permit renewals, he said. In addition, Mr Premsak said his panel had obtained information that suggested irregularities in the bidding contest for the contract to produce registration cards for foreign workers. Tenders were expected to be called this month. A firm with a tainted history planned to submit a bid after having changed its name, he said. Mr Premsak suggested the task be carried out by the Local Administration Department rather than a private company, which would charge the government up to 148 baht for each card, produced at a cost of 28 baht. Senate labour committee member Sawai Prammanee called on the government to end the practice of hiring foreign labourers. Local hiring would help lessen the country's unemployment rate, he said. According to the Labour Ministry, only 281,162 of 568,249 registered foreign workers had applied for permit renewals. Those whose permits had been renewed comprised 236,361 Burmese, 28,036 Laotians and 17,215 Cambodians. Two Burmese have been arrested in Ranong province after checks found that their registration cards were fake. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Bangkok Post -
Wednesday 16 October 2002
Junta opens its border checkpoints Five-month closure cost exporters B1.8bn Post reporters Burma reopened its border checkpoints with Thailand in Chiang Rai, Tak, Ranong and Kanchanaburi yesterday after almost five months, ending a trade hiatus which cost businesses on both sides billions of baht. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the most important outcome was not the prospect of a trade revival but that Thai and Burmese people could contact one another again. The Mae Sot-Myawaddy border checkpoint reopened at 6.30am without ceremony, although barbed-wire barricades had to be taken down from the middle of the Thai-Burmese Friendship bridge. About 30 Thai officials, led by Thai-Burma Border Committee chairman Col Jirasak Chomprasom, shook hands with about 20 Burmese officials led by Lt-Col Kyaw Se Ya on the bridge to mark the event. Mae Sot district chief Samart Loifa said immigration, customs and other services started at 7am. Mae Sot customs checkpoint chief Boonthiam Chokwiwat said the border closure deprived Thai traders of opportunities to export goods worth 1.8 billion baht, resulted in losses to Burma of more than 300 million baht in revenue, and also affected the local economy. ``Before the border was closed on May 22, the value of goods crossing the checkpoint was 18 million baht a day, three million baht of which was from imports. ``After the closure, the value of goods crossing the border dropped to only four million baht, 0.89 million baht of which was from goods coming in,'' he said. In Chiang Rai, the Mae Sai-Tachilek border checkpoint reopened at the same time with Mae Sai customs checkpoint chief Ronnarong Sukthavorn leading more than 500 Thais across Mae Sai-Tachilek bridge to the Tachilek checkpoint gate, which was unchained and opened by a Burmese official. At 8.30am, Chiang Rai governor Rungrit Makarapong, Mae Sai's TBC chairman Col Apichart Meesommon and senior staff visited Mae Sai checkpoint and stopped at the gate to greet Burmese officials. Sermchai Kittirattanapaiboon, who chairs the provincial chamber of commerce, said the closure of Mae Sai-Tachilek checkpoint cost Thai entrepreneurs three billion baht. Amporn Sinsamut, a petrol trader in Mae Sai, said Burmese merchants were ordering tens of thousands of litres of petrol from Mae Sai. In Ranong, the reopening of Ranong-Kawthaung border checkpoint at 6.30am was witnessed by Ranong governor Nopporn Chantarathong and staff. However, it failed to attract the attention of Thai and Burmese villagers. Only about 200 Burmese people crossed the border into Ranong and fewer than 10 Thais entered Kawthaung. The atmosphere at the Ranong-Kawthaung pier was lively though few people used the 50 passenger boats there. In Kanchanaburi, Thai and Burmese people, mostly Thai vendors, were waiting at the border at 5am. They crossed Three-Pagoda checkpoint when it opened at 6.30am. Thai trucks carrying clothes, consumer goods and petrol headed for Phaya Thone zu market where many stores reopened for the first time in months. In Mae Hong Son, three Burmese checkpoints with Thailand _ Ban Huay Phung permanent border checkpoint in Muang district, Ban Sao Hin crossing in Mae Sariang district, and Huay Ton Noom crossing in Khun Yuam district _ remained closed. However, Burmese troops on duty at the checkpoints let Thai and Burmese merchants cross over via passages near the gates, saying border reopening there was not allowed yet. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The
Nation
Border checkpoints reopen to little fanfare Published on Oct 16, 2002 All official access points along the Burmese frontier - at Mae Sai, Mae Sot and Ranong - were reopened with little fanfare yesterday, normalising border crossings after five months of bilateral bickering. Chiang Rai Governor Roongrit Makarapong, who oversees the Mae Sai checkpoint, led a group of Thai officials into the opposite province of Tachilek to deliver remarks in the absence of his Burmese counterpart, Aung Nyunt Thein. Rangoon did not wish to make much ado of the reopenings, a local official said. Governor Roongrit said he saw nothing abnormal in the lack of celebrations, saying he could meet his counterpart later since they had plenty of mutual projects to discuss. Traders and tourists appeared less than excited with the reopening after hearing a rumour that the Burmese planned to increase the entry fee. Wimol Khamdaeng, a motorbike-taxi driver, said he was charging passengers up to Bt50 each to ferry them through the checkpoint rather than the usual Bt40. Mae Sai Customs Chief Roonnarong Sukthavorn said there were no major transactions over the frontier yesterday but he expected a sizeable shipment of consumer goods today. Business transactions via the checkpoint would likely reach the customary Bt20-million to Bt30 million per day in coming days, he predicted. Trader Amporn Srisamut said her firm had secured an order for 60,000 litres of fuel from Burma and the shipment would be made by today. Border-crossing activity in southern Ranong province was also relatively slower than expected as local traders and tourists remained dubious that the checkpoint would in fact be reopened. Ranong Governor Nopporn Chantatong, who inspected the checkpoint yesterday, said border transactions would increase to normal levels within a few days. Local traders in Mae Sot said they expected the reopening to overcome the recent business slowdown in the vicinity. Mae Sot opened to Myawaddy at the same time as the other two checkpoints yesterday. The three checkpoints have been closed since border skirmishes in May, when Rangoon accused Thai troops of firing shells across the frontier to support the rebellious Shan State Army. Thailand denied the allegation and spent five months negotiating to have the crossings reopened. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he had ordered relevant agencies to strictly guard against narcotics trafficking via the checkpoints. -------------------------------------------------------------------- |