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BURMA RELATED NEWS
- December 14, 2002.
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HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------ AFP - Three executed in southern
China for heroin and ecstasy trafficking
AFP - Myanmar, Thailand draw up joint
plan to fight drugs
Natal Witness - Burma: Free at
last?
Bkk Post - Burma unveils opium-free
zone project
Bkk Post - Thammarak optimistic as
junta talks to ethnic groups
Bkk Post - Allegations groundless,
says army
Xinhuanet - UN chief lists parties to
conflict using child soldiers
Asian Tribune - Vice-President
to visit Myanmar
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday December 14, 11:32 AM
Three executed in southern China for heroin and ecstasy trafficking BEIJING, Dec 14 (AFP) - Three people have been executed in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, convicted of trafficking 1.7 kilograms (3.74 pounds) of heroin and 5.4 kilograms of ecstasy, state press said. Mu Rongcheng was executed in the city that borders Hong Kong on Friday, the China News Service reported. He was convicted recently for attempting to smuggle out of China 1.7 kilos of heroin. He was arrested in April 1997 and found to have 51 packets of the drug inside computers and using a fake name to export them from Shenzhen's Dapeng customs station, the report said. In a separate case, Chen Lai and Chen Jingmao were executed Friday for manufacturing and attempting to smuggle 5.4 kilograms of ecstasy, the report said. The two made the drug in Shenzhen and were caught trying to traffic it into Hong Kong in March 1998, it said. Drug use has become an increasingly big problem for Chinese police in recent years with significant amounts of heroin flooding over the border with the "golden triangle" drug producing region in Myanmar and Laos. Besides supplying a growing number of illegal drug users throughout the country, traffickers are seeking ways to move the cheap drug out of China to lucrative markets in the developed world. Early this month, a court in Dongguan, Guangdong province sentenced six traffickers to death after they were convicted of trafficking 100 kilograms of heroin. Last summer, in an apparent commemoration of the June 26 UN anti-narcotics day, up to 90 convicted drug traffickers were executed in China nationwide. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Myanmar, Thailand draw up
joint plan to fight drugs
CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 14 (AFP) - Thailand and Myanmar said Saturday they had drawn up a joint plan to fight drugs as they wrapped up a two-day meeting on anti-narcotics efforts in this northern Thai city. "We reviewed our joint operations and cooperation during the year. We also exchanged views and advice on ways to improve the effort to fight against drugs," Thailand's Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) secretary general Kitti Limchaikit told reporters. "We exchanged data, discussed our strategies as well as drew up a combat plan to combat drugs in the future," he said, without elaborating on specific future cooperation measures. The drugs issue has plagued relations between the two neighbours in the past, with each accusing the other support of supporting ethnic armies accused of involvement in drugs trafficking. In particular the border drugs trade, which Thai and US authorities say is masterminded by the Yangon-allied United Wa State Army (UWSA), is a perennial irritant to bilateral relations. Thai army officials angered Myanmar recently by predicting that a record one billion methamphetamine pills would be trafficked into Thailand next year from dozens of drug factories along the border. Myanmar said Saturday the allegation was untrue and called for greater international cooperation on curbing the lucrative trade. "The issue of one billion pills is only speculation and is groundless," said Police Major General Khin Yi, Myanmar's national police chief and secretary of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC). "This amount of drugs could be made in an area of 10 square-feet. Our country borders with many countries. They could be produced in border areas in any country, not only in Myanmar," he said. "The chemicals required to produce drugs are not in our country, they come from outside Myanmar. We believe that we need cooperation from our neighbouring countries to solve this problem and that's why we are here at this meeting." James Kelly, the US State Department's top policymaker for East Asia and the Pacific, acknowledged last month that the junta had cooperated with the international community on drugs suppression. However while opium production was down, he warned that methamphetamines production "has likely increased" -- affecting neighbouring countries such as Thailand, where addiction has reached crisis point. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Natal
Witness
Burma: Free at last? Publish Date: 14 December 2002 Over 40 years of tyranny and poverty may be coming to an end One should not speak ill of the dead, but an exception is justified in the case of Burma's late dictator Ne Win. He was responsible for almost 40 years of tyranny and poverty in his country, and most Burmese would gladly dance on his ashes if it were allowed. By the time he died at 91 on December 5, however, the process of undoing his malignant legacy was well underway. Last May, Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who is as much the symbol of democracy in Burma as Nelson Mandela was in apartheid South Africa, was freed from house arrest by the generals who are Ne Win's successors. "My release should not be looked on as a major breakthrough for democracy," Suu Kyi warned - but she added: "I would cautiously say that where we are is better than where we have ever been." Even as he neared death, Ne Win tried to kill the hope for democracy in Burma: his son-in-law and three grandsons were arrested last March while trying to organise a coup that would have unseated his successors and aborted the talks for Suu Kyi's freedom. They were sentenced to be hanged and Ne Win died a lonely and unhonoured death this month under house arrest at his home on a lake in central Rangoon - just across the lake, in fact, from the house where Suu Kyi had been confined for so long. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Other south-east Asian countries also had liberation heroes who turned into monsters and blighted their people's lives - Indonesia's Sukarno and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh spring to mind - but none lasted so long or did as much damage as General Ne Win. One of the legendary "30 Comrades" who began Burma's war for freedom from Britain, he overthrew the country's shaky democracy in 1962 and ruled with an iron hand for the next 28 years. Ne Win was so superstitious that he replaced the country's existing paper currency with 45-kyat and 90-kyat notes because nine was his lucky number. He was so suspicious of foreigners that he walled Burma off from almost all outside contact, imposing an erratic "Burmese road to socialism" that turned the region's richest country into its poorest in only three decades. And then, when popular protests broke out in 1988, he abruptly resigned. A new kind of non-violent democratic revolution was toppling dictators all across Asia in the late eighties - in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, South Korea - and in 1988 Burma was swept along. So was Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma's greatest independence hero Aung San. Long settled in Britain with her English husband and their two sons, Suu Kyi just happened to go home that year to nurse her dying mother. To most Burmese her father, who had been assassinated when she was just two, was still the most powerful symbol of the future that had been betrayed, and so she suddenly found herself leading a democratic revolution. Then the frightened generals massacred thousands of citizens in the streets of Rangoon to save their power, Ne Win came back to power in another coup, and Suu Kyi discovered her destiny. Ne Win's new junta opened the country to foreign investment in an attempt to revive the devastated economy, and so much oil and timber money poured in that the regime was emboldened to hold an election in 1990. But the brief burst of prosperity changed nobody's mind: 82% of the voters backed Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy against the generals. So Ne Win simply refused to accept the election's outcome, jailed most of the NLD's elected members, and embarked on a long duel with Suu Kyi (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991) over the future of Burma. Knowing she would never be allowed back into Burma if she left, she remained in Rangoon, mostly under house arrest, while her children grew up without her. Her husband eventually died of cancer without even being allowed a visit to say goodbye. The military regime's propaganda called her a "foreign stooge" and a "genocidal prostitute", but most ordinary Burmese know her simply as "The Lady", and trust her completely. The ageing Ne Win eventually withdrew from power, leaving three lesser generals to carry on the struggle against democracy. But Burma's economic plight grew ever worse as a trade embargo by democratic countries tightened during the later nineties, and early this year the junta decided to seek a deal with Suu Kyi. Ne Win, in character to the end, tried one last coup to stop it, but Suu Kyi was released seven months ago, and Burma began to emerge from the long darkness. What is going on now is a delicate and secretive process in which the repressive regime negotiates a safe exit from power and an indemnity for its past crimes - rather like the first year after Nelson Mandela was freed from jail in South Africa. As General Khin Nyunt put it in August, "The democracy that we seek to build . . . will surely be based on universal principles of liberty, justice and equality . . . (but) such a transition cannot be done in haste and in a haphazard manner." Aung San Suu Kyi concedes that after all this time it cannot simply be a matter of handing power over to the NLD government that was legally elected in 1990. But, she adds, "who's to say we won't get a bigger majority this time?" The country's proper name in English is Burma. "Myanmar" was imposed by the military junta in an attempt to wrap themselves in the flag, and is shunned by the democratic opposition. Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Saturday 14 December 2002
Burma unveils opium-free zone project Anucha Charoenpo Burmese anti-drug authorities tried to portray a positive image of their country yesterday by presenting the seventh meeting of Thai-Burmese drug officials with their opium-free zone project. Burmese delegates led by Pol Maj-Gen Khin Yi, secretary-general of the Central Committee on Drug Abuse Control, showed the plan at the meeting in a bid to make their Thai counterparts more understanding about their aim to eradicate opium by 2015. Burma says it will spend US$150 million with the help of the United Nations to destroy opium plantations in 41 townships, mostly along the Thai-Burmese border in the north. A source said the delegate explained that the project was divided into three phases of about five years each. The delegate had not elaborated, but did say the project used a community-based approach to tackle opium cultivation and other drug problems. However, Thai drug officials wondered whether it would succeed given Burma's internal problems. Even in Thailand, which has been destroying opium plantations for more than 30 years, cultivation continues along the Thai-Burmese border. Thai officials would prefer Burma to suppress all drugs, especially methamphetamine and heroin, to make all Asean countries drug-free by 2015. Chartchai Suthiklom, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, said the first-day bilateral meeting yesterday focused on exchanging information on suspects who were still at large between the two countries. Thai officials asked their counterparts to help track down drug suspects in five cases who were believed to have escaped from Thailand to Burma. He said the two sides also agreed to strengthen cooperation between Burmese officials at Myawaddy coordinating office and Thai officials at Mae Sot coordinating centre. Many drug suspects were arrested in the past years due to cooperation between the Mae Sai and Tachilek offices. Burma, which has a coordinating office in Kawthaung, also asked Thailand to set up another office in Ranong. Thai officials said they were considering it because they were aware many traffickers had changed their traditional routes from the North to the West of Thailand in the past few years. It is predicted there will be an increase in opium cultivation in Thailand next year due to a bigger heroin demand. The Northern Narcotics Control Office recently conducted a survey of opium plantations which showed that cultivation would expand to 8,000 rai from this year's 7,800 rai. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Saturday 14 December 2002
Thammarak optimistic as junta talks to ethnic groups Bid for ceasefire may ease tension at border Yuwadee Tunyasiri and Wassana Nanuam Defence Minister Gen Thammarak Isarangkura na Ayudhaya said yesterday contentious border issues with Rangoon would be alleviated if ceasefire talks between the junta and Burmese ethnic groups proved successful. Gen Thammarak's comments followed accusations levelled by Burmese border committee chairman Lt-Col Aye Saw claiming the government was supporting the anti-Rangoon Shan State Army by allowing it to build bases on Thai soil. Rangoon was currently holding negotiations with several ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union. Gen Thammarak said the military would continue attempting to convince neighbouring countries the government had no intention to support Burmese rebel groups. ``It is government policy not to allow armed ethnic groups, like the Shan, onto Thai territory,'' he said. ``Order must be maintained, especially at known trouble spots.'' Gen Thammarak said the Third Army had been ordered to push back foreign troops reported to have entered areas of Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son provinces. Meanwhile, army chief Gen Somdhat Attanand announced soldiers had been barred from crossing the border in pursuit of suspected drug traffickers. Gen Somdhat said any border incursions by military personnel would be considered in violation of Burma's sovereignty rights. ``Drug traffickers who flee across the border should be dealt with by the Burmese military,'' he said. Gen Somdhat admitted the role of anti-drugs Task Force 399 had been reduced to intelligence-gathering, saying the military was not permitted to raid suspected drug producers based in Burma. The army chief said he was currently awaiting a reply from Rangoon after submitting a request for a meeting with his Burmese counterpart, Gen Maung Aye. Gen Somdhat planned to propose at the meeting the introduction of joint patrols and a crackdown on illicit activities along the border. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bangkok Post -
Saturday 14 December 2002
Allegations groundless, says army Wassana Nanuam The army has dismissed allegations that it had captured and executed Burma's ethnic rebel leader Kyaw Ni, who took part in the 1999 seizure of the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. Maj-Gen Mana Prachakjit, chief of the Surasri task force, denied any knowledge of Kyaw Ni's capture as reported by AFP. ``Since I assumed command of the task force, I have never seen him. There have been no reports that the Karen National Union or any other rebel group had handed him to the Thai army.'' The anti-Rangoon Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW) had claimed in a statement that Kyaw Ni, better known as Johnny, was arrested on the Burmese border with the help of some members of an allied rebel group in July 2000. Johnny was in a band of VBSW gunmen who seized the Burmese embassy in Bangkok, holding 38 people hostage for more than 24 hours in 1999. The hostages were later freed and the rebels flown to safety at the Thai-Burmese border following their negotiations with Thai officials. The VBSW later linked up with the Karen minority God's Army. Maj-Gen Mana said when the God's Army fighters surrendered to the Chuan Leekpai government on Jan 16, 2000, Johnny was not found in the group. In its statement, the VBSW also accused elements in the KNU of betraying Johnny as a favour to the Thai army. Maj-Gen Mana said since the God's Army surrendered, the army had never asked its troops to find Johnny, adding he was not a key figure in the rebel group. A source in the task force said Johnny was among God's Army gunmen who seized a hospital in Ratchaburi on Jan 24-25, 1999. Ten gunmen were killed by commandos who stormed the hospital, but Johnny managed to escape. He later joined KNU rebels based opposite Tak and Kanchanaburi provinces, the source said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ UN chief lists parties to
conflict using child soldiers
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has submitted a report to the Security Council, listing parties to conflicts on the council's agenda that continue to recruit and use child soldiers, according to a press release issued in New York on Friday. The list represents "an important step forward in our efforts to induce compliance by parties to conflict with international child protection obligations," Annan said in the report. The report contains a list of 23 parties, including both governments and rebels, in five conflict states, namely Afghanistan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Somalia, which recruit or use children. "This report breaks new ground," said UN Under-Secretary- General Olara A. Otunnu, who is the special representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict. "For the first time in an official report to the Security Council, those who violate standards for the protection of war- affected children have been specially named and listed," he said. The Security Council is sending a message to governments and rebel groups alike that the international community is watching, claiming that they will be held accountable for the welfare of children in conflict and post-conflict situations, Otunnu said. The report also highlighted other conflicts not on the agenda of the Security Council, including Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, the Sudan, northern Uganda and Sri Lanka, where children are recruited and used as combatants. It also mentioned conflicts that have recently ended, including Angola, Kosovo, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, where demobilization and reintegration programs for child combatants are under way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Asian Tribune
Date :
2002-12-14
Vice-President to visit Myanmar By Amit Baruah Delhi 13: ice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, is expected to visit Myanmar early next year. This will be the highest-level visit by an Indian dignitary since that of the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in December 1987. New Delhi's decision to accept the invitation to Yangon for the Vice-President is significant given the fact that other invitations to India's top political leadership have also been extended by Myanmar. In February 2001 and April 2002, the then External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, visited Myanmar and recently, the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, was in Yangon for consultations. Not only did Mr. Sibal hold talks with his counterpart, he also called on the powerful Secretary-1, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, who is Myanmar's intelligence chief and the number three man in the official hierarchy. Mr. Sibal and his counterpart in the Myanmar Foreign Ministry travelled to Mandalay to re-open the Indian consulate there. The decision to open the consulate was taken during the visit of Mr. Singh in February 2001, when the 160-km Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo road built by the Government of India was inaugurated. Sources said the Myanmar Foreign Minister, U Win Aung, is expected to visit New Delhi shortly. All this engagement points to the growth in India's cooperation with the military Government in Yangon. Gen. Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and army chief, had visited India twice ? once as the guest of the Vice-President (November 2000) and as the guest of the Indian Army chief. From the diplomatic point of view, the absence of a "return visit" from at least one senior Indian leader would have looked odd given the fact that Gen. Maung Aye, number two man in the Myanmar State structure, had visited India twice. A return visit by then Army Chief, Gen. V.P. Malik, had taken place. In the past, visits by the Vice-President had largely been ceremonial, but a signal of India's goodwill towards the host country. The former Vice-President, Krishan Kant, for instance, had paid a goodwill visit to Cambodia last year. At a time when top Chinese and Pakistani leaders had visited Myanmar, there was a pressing need for taking the level of visits from New Delhi to a higher plane; this is exactly what has happened after India accepted the invitation for a visit by the Vice-President. India and Myanmar share a 1,640-km long border. Four out of the seven northeastern States ? Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram ? share this largely tranquil border. Due to the fact that this border is tranquil and the Indian and Myanmar armies have been cooperating in counter-insurgency operations for some time now, the strategic need to keep this border quiet cannot be underestimated in any way. Given the problems that India has with Bangladesh and, to a lesser extent with Bhutan, as far as insurgents and their operations are concerned, the quietude on the Myanmar border must be accorded maximum appreciation. Apart from this, India-Myanmar cooperation on a range of issues such as remote sensing, Indian participation in gas exploration, hydel power generation and road construction can only grow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |