|
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BURMA RELATED NEWS
- November 28, 2002.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reuters - Myanmar's Suu Kyi ends
sensitive Shan state trip
Reuters - Weakening cyclone moves
from India coast to Myanmar
Reuters - Antibiotics in Myanmar
Often Duds, Maybe Dangerous
AP - Suu Kyi ends longest political
tour of Myanmar since release
AP - Human rights group protests
Lauda Air flights to Myanmar
Asian Tribune - Political Prisoners
in Burma exceuted secretly by Junta.
Asian Tribune - Aung San Suu Kyi is
expected in Rangoon, after two weeks in Shan state.
Xinhuanet - India reopens consulate
in Myanmar's Mandalay city
Bkk Post - Army denies giving out
drug estimate
Mizzima - Conference in Berlin
discusses future of Burma
AJC - Rights group
decries use of child soldiers
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thursday November 28, 1:52 PM
Myanmar's Suu Kyi ends sensitive Shan state trip By Aung Hla Tun YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi returned to the capital Yangon from eastern Shan state, party officials said on Thursday, ending her most sensitive trip since military rulers freed her from house arrest. Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi been allowed to travel freely to visit members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) in central Myanmar and Mon state since her release in May. But her 15-day visit to Shan state was much more sensitive because of allegations by rights groups that the army carried out human rights abuses in the region, including forced conscription of child soldiers and systematic rape of Shan women and girls. NLD officials told Reuters Suu Kyi returned to the capital at around midnight on Wednesday. Party spokesman U Lwin said earlier Suu Kyi was allowed to travel freely in the region and was warmly welcomed by locals. "She covered almost the entire Shan state and she received a tumultuous welcome from the local people wherever she went," he told Reuters late on Wednesday. "During this trip she opened altogether five NLD offices, four township offices and one division office. She will make similar political trips in future but it's too early to say where or when." Suu Kyi's last period of house arrest began in 2000 after a tense road-side stand-off when the military, fearing her popularity would spark unrest, prevented her from travelling outside Yangon. But since entering into a U.N.-brokered reconciliation process with the NLD in late 2000, Myanmar's ruling generals have freed more than 400 political prisoners and given more freedom to the NLD, but have yet to start talks on political transition. Diplomats and analysts say the military is taking a calculated risk, giving Suu Kyi more freedom in the hope of ending their international isolation, but have no intention of loosening their grip on power. Many Western countries, including the United States and European Union members, have imposed political and economic sanctions on poverty-stricken Myanmar for its human rights record. Suu Kyi's party won 1990 elections by a landslide, but has never been allowed to govern by the military, which has been in power for the past four decades. An estimated 1,200 political prisoners, including hundreds of NLD members, still languish in Myanmar's prisons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday November 27, 5:48 PM
Weakening cyclone moves from India coast to Myanmar CALCUTTA, India, Nov 27 (Reuters) - A cyclone swirling in the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast has weakened and is heading towards Myanmar, an Indian weather official said. "The cyclone is moving eastwards towards Myanmar but is weakening and is in the process of becoming a deep depression," T.K. Sarkar, director of the regional India Meteorological Department, told Reuters. Sarkar said the cyclone was accompanied by winds of 55-60 km (34-38 miles) per hour but could not give details on where and when the storm might hit Myanmar's coast. Weather officials in neighbouring Bangladesh said their warning to fishermen not to go to sea still stood as the cyclone moved east. They added, however, that the storm was expected to weaken over the next 24 hours. On November 12, a cyclone hit the low-lying coast of West Bengal and Bangladesh. More than 100 fishermen are still listed as missing after that cyclone. Bangladesh's worst cyclone was in 1991 when at least 138,000 people were killed. In 1999, a cyclone killed at least 10,000 people in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Antibiotics in Myanmar Often
Duds, Maybe Dangerous
Wed Nov 27, 3:50 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A random sampling of antibiotics often sold as treatment for sexually transmitted diseases in a province in Myanmar--the country formerly known as Burma--reveals that only a fraction contain as much of the drug's active ingredient as the label claims. Drugs that are not as powerful as they should be can lead to many problems, Dr. Thierry Prazuck of CHR Orleans La Source in France and his colleagues report. For instance, people who take the drugs may not totally clear their bodies of an infection, which could render them very sick and put their entire communities at risk by helping the bacteria in their bodies become resistant to antibiotics. Prazuck and his team obtained their findings from analyzes of random samples of antibiotics taken from the capital city in a northern province that borders China. The investigators analyzed the contents of antibiotics sold at the State Hospital pharmacy and by five drug sellers and five doctors in the region who sold drugs. Reporting in the November issue of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Prazuck and his team discovered that 8 of the 21 products they examined did not contain the amount of the active drug claimed, with most containing less. Another five drugs could not be analyzed, they note, because the drugs did not state how much of the active ingredient they contained. At worst, the authors note, two products contained only half of the stated dose. "Our study found substandard drugs were sold by any official healthcare provider, including the State Hospital," Prazuck and colleagues write. "As a consequence, the whole Myanmar population is victim to the poor quality of drugs." Antibiotics that contain less of the active ingredient than they claim can increase antibiotic resistance by failing to completely rid a person's body of the bug they are trying to beat, the authors note. When the relatively few remaining bacteria begin to multiply again, the ones that tend to take over are resistant to the antibiotic, Prazuck and his team note, putting a person at risk of having a body full of bacteria that won't be cleared by standard drugs. Selling drugs that don't work well also reduces patients' faith in this type of treatment, the authors add. "In addition to decreasing the efficiency of treatments, this circumstance weakens the population's trust in both the public and private healthcare systems," they write. "The low efficiency of antibiotherapies also discredits Western medicine. "Although our study focuses on Myanmar, the production of counterfeit drugs is found throughout developing regions, and should generate a worldwide public health concern about an increase in bacterial resistance to antibiotics," Prazuck and his team conclude. SOURCE: Sexually Transmitted Diseases 2002;29:624-627. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Suu Kyi ends longest political
tour of Myanmar since release
Wed Nov 27,11:30 PM ET YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has completed a 15-day tour of Myanmar's northeast, her biggest trip to reinvigorate her National League for Democracy since being released from house arrest in May. "This is the longest and most extensive party organizational trip by Daw Suu (Kyi) since she was released," party spokesman U Lwin told The Associated Press by telephone on Thursday. Daw is an honorific. Suu Kyi returned to Yangon late Wednesday, he said. Suu Kyi began the tour of Shan State on Nov. 13, a day after meeting with United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail, who was visiting Myanmar for the ninth time in an attempt to ease the political standoff between the ruling military and democratic opposition. Accompanied by NLD Vice Chairman Tin Oo and a host of young party members, Suu Kyi reopened five party branch offices in the capital of Shan State, Taunggyi, and elsewhere in the northeast during the trip, U Lwin said. He added that a total of 72 NLD branch offices have been reopened across the country since May. It was the fourth time the Nobel peace prize laureate has made political trips outside Yangon since the junta released her from house arrest on May 6 in an apparent gesture toward reconciliation. She visited the northern city of Mandalay in June, the southeastern city of Moulmein in late July and the countryside of central Myanmar last month. Before her release, Suu Kyi had been blocked from leaving the capital. Suu Kyi began closed-door talks with the junta in late 2000 to break the deadlock that began when the military refused to recognize the results of a 1990 general election, which Suu Kyi's party won in a landslide. Instead, the military began harassing and detaining pro-democracy activists, for which it was condemned and isolated by Western nations, including the United States. Last week, the junta freed at least 51 political detainees, but the reconciliation process appears stalled. The junta has apparently not yet discussed with Suu Kyi the political future of Myanmar, ruled by the military for 40 years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Human rights group protests
Lauda Air flights to Myanmar
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ An Asian human rights group on Thursday criticized an Austrian airline for starting weekly flights to Myanmar, claiming the move would benefit the country's military regime but not its people. Lauda Air, part of the Austrian Airlines group, earlier this month began flying a route that goes from Vienna to Yangon and onward to the Thai island resort of Phuket before going back to Vienna. The flight is the first by a regularly scheduled European airline to Myanmar, which is courting Western tourists in order to boost a lagging economy. A statement by the Bangkok-based group Forum-Asia, a regional human rights consortium, criticized the airline's initiative for putting profits before people. ``The decision to open this service between Austria and Burma is based on purely commercial economic interests,'' Somchai Homlaor, the group's secretary-general, was quoted saying. Myanmar is also known as Burma. Myanmar's ruling junta has been widely criticized for human rights abuses and its failure to turn over power to a democratically-elected government. Some Western countries have enacted limited economic and political sanctions against the regime, although none bar flights to the country. Opponents of the military regime oppose aid and trade going to the country, claiming that it props up the military instead of contributing to development. Some critics urge a tourist boycott of the country, although others suggest that tourists contribute to a free flow of information in and out of the country. They also suggest that tourists can spend selectively to help the man in the street rather than the government. Taking the hard line, Forum-Asia's Somchai was quoted saying that to claim that Lauda's new flights could benefit Myanmar's people ``is to ignore the political and humanitarian realities, and the human rights crisis in Burma.'' Forum-Asia said it ``advocates the provision of humanitarian assistance rather than economic engagement, providing the process is transparent and the assistance is given directly to the people, not channeled through government agencies.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Asian Tribune
Date : 2002-11-28 Political Prisoners in Burma exceuted secretly by Junta. Bangkok, Nov. 28: Investigation reveals that the Burmese Junta has executed several Political prisoners secretly.At present the details of those executed are sketchy but private investigations are on to get the clear picture soon. Democratic Voice of Burma interviewed Ko Taik Naing, the Secretary of the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP) regarding the statement that was issued relating to the recent release of 115 political prisoners by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) which maintained that most of the prisoners were released under a written bond as per provisions of Section 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The statement also revealed that 1400 political prisoners including 26 who had completed the period of sentences still remained in the prisons and that though SPDC claims that national reconciliation is advancing, the national ethnic groups say that over 150 of their members are still imprisoned. Ko Taik: ? Our main purpose in issuing the statement is to reveal SPDC?s malafide. Some countries and international organizations may be happy and welcome the releases and be misled. We want them to know that because international pressure has been so great it left them with no choice but to release 115 prisoners. DVB : ? You mention in the statement that some prisoners from Beik (formerly known as Mergui) and Tavoy cannot be traced. Can you be more specific about this? Ko Taik: - One group of seven including Ko Khin Maung Cho, Ko Shwe Baw, Ko Tin San, Ko Naing U were taken away from the jail in Beik in the month of July, 2001. They have not been returned to the jail ever since. The information we have received is that they were taken to an island and all were executed. Another group of 6 including Ma Cho Lwin were taken away in the month of April this year from the jail in Kawthaung and have not yet been returned to the jail. Our information is that of the 7 individuals involved in that case one was sent to the jail in Insein and the remaining six have been executed at Ngapyawjoaw village tract to the east of Zatetkyi naval base. This is the way prisoners have been lost in southern Burma. But we are working to get details about the names, age etc and photographs so that we can make representation to the ICRC, UN, the government and other humanitarian organizations. Though some are being released, others are being arrested and sentenced to 7 years, 14 years for petty reasons even for making legitimate requests. It is incomprehensible ? this kind of insincerity displayed by the military government. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Asian Tribune
Date : 2002-11-28 Aung San Suu Kyi is expected in Rangoon, after two weeks in Shan state. Bangkok, Nov. 28: Pro-democracy campaigner of Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was due to arrive in Rangoon late Wednesday, but heavy flooding in the north threatened to delay her arrival by a day. She is expected to be in Rangoon by today. The two weeks trip to the Northern Shan State apparently went without a hitch, but problems started when she entered into Southern Shan State, NLD spokesman U Lwin said. At one incident, a motorcycle driver leading Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's car was fallen from the hill on their way to Maymyo, because of the harassment of the military intelligent agents. During the night, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD members could not sleep properly because; MI was videotaping the groups from nearby houses. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party had left Lashio on 25 November and went to Thibaw [Hsipaw] to open a new local NLD office. There were also some harassment and interferences in Thibaw and only 2000 people were at the office opening ceremony. She then proceeded to Kyaukme and to everyone's astonishment; 50,000 people warmly welcomed her. According to the NLD spokesman, U Lwin, She left Kyaukme on 26 November and continued her journey to Maymyo and from there she started her return journey to Rangoon, through Mandalay. Aung San Suu Kyi stopped over at Maymyo and arrived at Mandalay. She left Maymyo at three o'clock in the evening and arrived at Mandalay at 5pm. As soon as she arrived at Mandalay, she gave a speech to the supporters in front of the local NLD office according to a local NLD member. He also said that she also gave her obeisance to Thakhin Ba Thaung in Maymyo and visited several pagodas. She only had time to talk to local elders and was not able address to people properly as she was too tired from the long journey. When he arrives at Mandalay, she will be having tea at the divisional NLD office and give her obeisance to Ludhu Daw Ama and Daw Hinn Yi and take a rest. The schedule is to meet local elders and NLD members at a dinner party. After the said meeting, the same member told the DVB that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi given her obeisance to well-known writer Ludhu Daw Ama and Daw Hinn Yi. About 1000 people attended the tea party outside the house and she came out to greet them. She said that she was very glad for warmly welcoming her with a tea party. And she also felt at home there and the like. She will be having dinner and a rest in the evening. She was expected to return to Rangoon without giving any further public speeches. "From a political organization point of view, it was quite a successful sojourn," U Lwin, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), told of the mission on which throngs of supporters often greeted the opposition leader. During her two weeks journey, she presided over the re-opening of four NLD offices in Shan state, bringing to 72 the number of offices reopened since an easing of restrictions on the NLD. More than 230 NLD offices remain shuttered, however, said U Lwin. In Shan state, she met with the state's major nationalities in efforts to engage various ethnic groups, who till now have been excluded from national reconciliation talks between the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the democratic opposition. "This trip was very important because this is the area with the most ethnic diversity," U Lwin said. It came at a sensitive time for Shan state, which has been in the spotlight recently with the release of a report ?Licence to Rape,? alleging systematic sexual abuse of ethnic minority women there. The opposition leader of Burma wrapped her political trip outside Rangoon, the capital of Burma since the military Junta placed her under house arrest 13 years ago. By mid-day on 27 November, she had reached the oil town of Yenangyaung, on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River some 370 miles (590 kilometres) north of Rangoon, U Lwin said. If the flood situation subsides the Nobel laureate is expected to be back in Rangoon by today. . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ India reopens consulate in
Myanmar's Mandalay city
YANGON, Nov. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- India reopened its consulate in Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay on Wednesday. The reopening of the Indian consulate in Mandalay will further promote the development of the friendly and cooperative ties of the two countries and bilateral economic and trade exchange, officials of both sides said. The Indian consulate in Mandalay was established in 1953 and closed in 1979. Accordingly, Myanmar consulate in Calcutta was also shut on this account. In January this year, Myanmar and India reached an agreement on the reopening of their consulates in respective cities and Myanmar consulate in Calcutta was reopened in last September. As part of its "look-east" policy, India has strengthened bilateral cooperation with Myanmar since Myanmar joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in July 1997 and the cooperation between the two nations has made achievements to some extent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Thursday 28 November 2002
Army denies giving out drug estimate 1bn speed pills was officer's own opinion Wassana Nanuam The army has denied giving out a figure on the number of
methamphetamine pills expected to be smuggled from Burma into Thailand next
year.
Deputy spokesman Maj-Gen Palangkul Klaharn said neither the Defence Ministry nor the army had ever issued a formal estimate. They were in no position to arrive at such a figure. The estimate of one billion pills attributed to Maj-Gen Naris Srinet was the Third Army chief's personal view, not an official figure. Rangoon earlier lashed out at the forecast, holding the army responsible for releasing the estimate which it called ``regretful and perplexing''. The junta's anti-drugs spokesman Col Kyaw Thein was also quoted as scoffing at Thai authorities' inability to suppress the flow of drugs into the country. Drug production along the Burmese border is largely controlled by the pro-Rangoon United Wa State Army. Most production bases are only a stone's throw from Thailand. Maj-Gen Palangkul said the army's duty was to combat drug trafficking in compliance with government policy. He insisted the army was not being too quick to appease Rangoon. The drug situation would improve through closer bilateral cooperation in tackling the problem, he said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Conference in Berlin discusses
future of Burma
Mizzima News Berlin, November 28, 2002: German media (Die Tageszeitung) on Thursday reported on a conference in Berlin, organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, bringing together members of the Burmese government in exile and members of the German government, social scientists and NGO representatives to discuss Burma?s future under the heading of ?Paths to Democracy?. At the heart of the discussion was the question of the effectiveness and justifiability of economic sanctions. The prime minister of the exiled government, Sein Win, assessed the current situation, saying that hopes aroused by the end of the detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been superceded by bitter reality. Two weeks ago, UN Special Representative Razali Ismali had been received for merely fifteen minutes by General Than Shwe. Only by exerting political and economic pressure could the international community force the military not to ignore it. The representative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation defended an equally strict position towards Burma. While humanitarian aid was contemplated, economic cooperation would continue to be rejected as merely supporting the military. Political scientist Werner Pfennig asked whether boycotts made sense at all: ?Do the generals first have to start building weapons of mass destruction??, he asked with reference to humanitarian aid given to North Korea despite its political system. Tay Tay of the women?s network, SWAN, reported on innumerable cases of rape and the systematic use of rape by the military to undermine any oppositional efforts. A representative of the German Federal Foreign Ministry announced a positive development in this regard: the UN is reported to plan an inquiry into rape cases in Burma. How this inquiry is to be financed is still unclear though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Atlanta
Journal-Constitution - November 28, 2002
Rights group decries use of child soldiers Young conscripts in Asia describe atrocities Denis Gray - Associated Press Thursday, November 28, 2002 Bangkok, Thailand --- 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 last month by Human Rights Watch said 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 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 has denied the allegations. "The government finds it very difficult to understand on what basis [Human Rights Watch] 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 in examining recruitment by the army and 19 opposition groups. The report said army recruiters apprehend boys at bus and train stations, markets and other public places and threaten them with jail if they refuse to join. Recruits are sent to camps where they undergo weapons training and are routinely beaten and brutally punished or killed if they attempt to escape, the report said. 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 quoted 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 also are 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 also are 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, said it takes in orphans but denied 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 Htoo, sought refuge in Thailand after leading a rebel band of Karen 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, 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 15, and several United Nations conventions condemn the practice of having anyone under 18 serve as a soldier. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |