[burmanet2-l] Burma Related News - Jan 01, 2003.

["TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
BURMA RELATED NEWS - January  01, 2003.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEADLINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFP - Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi cautiously optimistic on change
AFP - Vietnam's drug seizures up 10 percent
AP - Suu Kyi lashes out at Myanmar junta over interference
AP - Belgian Human Rights Advocate Dies
Reuters - Van der Horst returns as Myanmar oil firm
Xinhuanet - Myanmar's head of state to visit China
VOA News - Talks with Burma's Leaders Going Nowhere, says Aung San Suu Kyi
BBC - Burma's democracy leader optimistic
BBC - China labour leaders 'face death penalty'
Asian Tribune - Successful Myanmar - Thai Boarder committee meeting
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi cautiously optimistic on change

YANGON, Dec 31 (AFP) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday she
remained cautiously optimistic that political change would come to Myanmar,
following the massive support shown to her by people across the country this
year.

"There has never been any reason for me to change my cautious optimism (on
political change)," she told reporters in the capital, at only the second
press conference she has given since being released from 19 months of house
arrest in May.

The Nobel peace laureate attributed her optimism to the thousands of people
who flocked to see her during the several political trips she has made since
then, aimed at resuscitating her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

"We have been particularly encouraged by the reception we received in Shan,
Mon and Arakan states, by the people of the region," she said.

"It is most encouraging that there is a tremendous sense of national
solidarity, that there is no distinction being made at the ground level
between the Burmese and the other ethnic nationalities," she added, using
the country's former name Burma.

"Our various ethnic nationalities are all aware of the need for change in
this country and the majority of them are prepared to join hands together to
achieve this change."
On her visits, Aung San Suu Kyi has also striven to engage with ethnic
minority groups who have been excluded from national reconciliation talks
between the ruling junta and the democratic opposition, which were brokered
by the United Nations two years ago.

She said her trips had gone well, although local authorities were
occasionally obstructive in spite of the junta's May promise to allow her
complete freedom of movement.

"On the whole my travels throughout the country have been fairly smooth ...
The authorities, in some cases, have been very, very cooperative and in
other cases perhaps not as cooperative as we might have desired," she said.

The most serious incident occurred during her trip to western Rakhine state
at the town of Myauk-Oo, where the leader clamoured atop a fire engine to
prevent it from dispersing a crowd of 20,000 people with high-pressure
hoses.

Aung San Suu Kyi described the ongoing reconciliation talks, which have
focused on confidence building and shown few tangible results other than her
release, as being "in limbo".

"There has never been a dialogue, as such," she said, referring to the
political stage of the dialogue still to be commenced by the two sides.

Nevertheless, Suu Kyi said she was hoping for change within "the next year".

"At the end of this year, 2002, I could say that I have been very heartened
by the spirit of our people but I have been saddened by the situation of
this country because our people deserve more than this," she said.

"They deserve a better standard of living, they deserve a better system of
government ... and I hope that the next year will be able to give them what
they deserve."

In an interview earlier this month she said she was hopeful of progress by
this time next year and that it was not impossible that change could take
place "within months".

The military has ruled Myanmar for the past four decades, and refused to
recognise a landslide election victory claimed by the NLD in 1990.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vietnam's drug seizures up 10 percent

HANOI, Dec 31 (AFP) - Drug seizures by Vietnamese police rose 10 percent in
the year to November, official media reported late on Monday.

Police recovered 55 kilograms of heroin and 550 kilograms of opium in 14,000
operations across the country in the 12 months from November 2001, according
to the Vietnam News Agency.

"Large numbers of civil servants and drug users were found to be involved in
distributing drugs," the agency said in a statement.

"However, drug trafficking remains like an iceberg with the larger part
being covered, according to the Drug Control Board. Monitored drug users
have amounted to 130,000 with some 75 percent being unemployed."

Vietnam's porous borders make the country a haven for traffickers. Drugs
from China and the Golden Triangle -- which links Laos, Thailand and
Myanmar -- often transit the country before leaving for the West.

Fifty-five people were sentenced to death for drug-trafficking in Vietnam
last year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suu Kyi lashes out at Myanmar junta over interference

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi criticized
Myanmar's military government Tuesday for interfering with her recent tour
of the country's northwest, saying some officials were intent on disrupting
the national reconciliation process.

At a press conference at the headquarters of her National League for
Democracy party, Suu Kyi said ``there had to be some kind of instructions
from above'' to crack down on her supporters during the tour of Rakhine
State from Dec. 16-24.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner's trip was the fifth political visit outside
the capital since her release from 19 months of house arrest in May. She
earlier traveled to Myanmar's second-largest city of Mandalay, the
third-largest city of Moulmein, central Myanmar and Shan State.

``I also understand that a minister has been going around telling people not
to demonstrate their support for us and we are destructive elements and the
people should join hands... with the army,'' she said.

``It's those who are trying to stop us from achieving reconciliation'' that
are the destructive elements ``because they are the ones who will destroy
the country by blocking the process of reconciliation,'' Suu Kyi added.

She said there was a fixed pattern of interference at meetings during the
tour, leading her to believe the disturbances were not the work of local
officials but a higher authority.

The opposition leader added that an organization formed by the government in
1993 to carry out social welfare activities had been distributing defamatory
pamphlets ahead of her visits to locations in the northwest.

A party spokesman said earlier that authorities in some areas placed trucks,
boulders and barbed wire across streets to stop Suu Kyi's vehicle, while at
others they warned people not to attend her rallies.

Suu Kyi's release from house arrest in May was the result of reconciliation
talks with the junta. But the talks have achieved no real progress in ending
the country's political deadlock.

``The dialogue has not started,'' she said Tuesday. ``The reason the
dialogue has not started is not because we are reluctant but because the
authorities are reluctant. I suppose people are reluctant to do something
because they do not think it will work in their favor.''

The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy
movement. It called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results when
the NLD won a thumping victory. The junta says the country is not yet ready
for democracy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belgian Human Rights Advocate Dies
Tue Dec 31,10:43 AM ET

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Regine Orfinger Karlin, human rights campaigner and
heroine of Belgium's resistance to Nazi occupation, has died, her family
said Tuesday. She was 92.

Orfinger Karlin, who died Saturday, restored the Belgian Human Rights League
after its suspension during World War II and was a prominent campaigner for
the rights of minorities and for equality between the sexes.

Born in 1910 in the northern port city of Antwerp, she studied law and
became only the second woman admitted to the bar in her home city. When the
Nazis occupied Belgium in 1940 she was struck off the lawyers' registry
because she was Jewish.

Orfinger Karlin joined the underground resistance to the Nazis. Her husband
Lucien Orfinger, also in the resistance, was captured in May 1943 when she
was pregnant with their second child.

Lucien Orfinger was shot in the Breendonck concentration camp south of
Antwerp in February 1944 four months after the birth of their son.

Orfinger Karlin intensified her resistance work after her husband's death,
moving to the southern city of Namur and becoming one of the few woman
partisan commanders.

She resumed her work as a lawyer after the war, taking up a number of human
rights causes. In recognition of her work, the Human Rights League in 1996
set up the Regine Orfinger Karlin Prize for rights activists.

Winners have included groups promoting human rights in Myanmar and offering
to help for asylum seekers in Belgium.

Orfinger Karlin is survived by two sons and four grandchildren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Van der Horst returns as Myanmar oil firm

SINGAPORE, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Singapore's Van der Horst Ltd announced a
reverse takeover that will inject a Myanmar oil business into the company,
which sold all its operating assets in 2001, and end a three-year share
suspension.

Van der Horst said it would pay S$30 million ($17 million) through the issue
of new shares to buy Goldwater Company Ltd, a British Virgin Islands firm
whose main business is exploring for and producing petroleum in Myanmar.

``The proposed acquisition will inject an operating business into the
company which has outstanding bank liabilities of S$104.3 million,'' Van der
Horst said late on Tuesday.

The deal will give Goldwater a 68-percent stake in former construction
business Van der Horst. The Singapore firm said the restructuring would
enable the lifting of a suspension of its shares, which have not traded
since January 2000.

Van der Horst, which had no significant assets after selling its operations
and distributing cash to creditors, is run by court-appointed managers.

The plan, subject to regulatory and other approvals, also involved a capital
restructuring via a share split, an issue of new shares and a change of Van
der Horst's name to Interra Resources.

Van der Horst plans to issue 600 million new shares at S$0.05 a share to buy
Goldwater, which had operating profits of about S$1.5 million in 2001.

Van der Horst shares were quoted at S$0.445 when they were suspended.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myanmar's head of state to visit China
Xinhuanet 2002-12-31 09:57:12

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- Than Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and
Development Council of the Union of Myanmar, will pay a state visit to China
from Jan. 6 to 11, 2003, at the invitation of Chinese President Jiang Zemin,
according to diplomatic sources here Tuesday.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOA News - Talks with Burma's Leaders Going Nowhere, says Aung San Suu Kyi
Kate Pound Dawson reports
Hong Kong
31 Dec 2002, 12:34 UTC

Burma's main opposition leader closed out 2002 by saying talks with the
military government appear to have stalled, despite her release from house
arrest, earlier this year.

Aung San Suu Kyi said talks with Burma's government have made no progress
since May, when she was freed from 19 months of house arrest.

In a news conference in Rangoon Tuesday, the head of the National League for
Democracy acknowledged there has been some improvement in conditions for her
pro-democracy party. Since her release, she has made several trips around
the country to rebuild the party.

In addition, the ruling military council freed hundreds of political
prisoners in the past year.

Still, she and other NLD leaders say the government tried to impede her
recent trip to the country's northwest. Despite the government's efforts,
hundreds of supporters turned out to greet her.

The NLD won a sweeping victory in national elections in 1990. However, the
military government never allowed the party to take power, and Aung San Suu
Kyi spent several years under house arrest. Thousands of her supporters were
imprisoned or forced to flee the country.

Two years ago, the United Nations began mediating reconciliation talks
between the government and the opposition, leading to Aung San Suu Kyi's
release in May.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BBC - Tuesday, 31 December, 2002, 12:19 GMT
Burma's democracy leader optimistic

The Burmese pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, says she remains
cautiously optimistic that political change will come to Burma in the next
year.

Speaking at a news conference in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi said she was
particularly encouraged by her reception during recent visits around the
country, and by what she called the tremendous sense of national solidarity.

She said Burma's various ethnic groups were all aware of the need for change
and most were prepared to co-operate to achieve it.

Ethnic minority groups have so far been excluded from the national
reconciliation dialogue between the military government and the opposition,
brokered by the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, says the leader of the Burmese
military government ,Than Shwe, will begin a state visit to China next week.

>From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BBC - Wednesday, 1 January, 2003, 12:57 GMT
China labour leaders 'face death penalty'

Two labour leaders in China who took part in a big demonstration last year
could face the death penalty, reports say.

Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang were arrested in March following protests in the
north-eastern city of Liaoyang.

A US-based labour rights group, China Labour Watch, says the two men are now
facing charges of subversion, for which they could be executed.

The men were originally arrested for organising illegal protests against
corruption and unpaid wages and benefits.

'They did nothing'

China Labour Watch says it believes the new charges relate to allegations
that the men signed petitions from the outlawed China Democracy Party.

The group said it had been informed that Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang would
be charged with the "crime of subversion of the power of the state", the AFP
news agency reports.

Yao Fuxin's wife told AFP that magistrates "will not be able to establish
the crime".

"All they did was to denounce corruption to protect the interests of the
nation. They did nothing against the (Communist) party or the social order,"
Guo Xiujing said.

Another Liaoyang protest leader, Wang Zhaoming, was given probationary
release last week after nine months in detention, but is reported to have
been arrested again after indicating that he intended to sue the police for
illegal detention.

Crumbling companies

Large-scale demonstrations are still unusual in China.

But correspondents say the country's crumbling state-owned enterprises and
increasing unemployment could spark increased unrest.

Most of those who took part in last year's protests in Liaoyang worked for
the city's Ferro-Alloy Factory, a bankrupt, state-owned enterprise.

When the factory closed, employees were promised pensions and back wages.

But they never materialised and many of the unemployed workers suspected the
factory's managers of embezzlement.

They took to the streets in China's largest public demonstration in years.

Across China, state-owned companies are faltering, weighed down by bad
business practices and corrupt managers.

In Chinese cities, that has raised the unemployment rate to dangerous
levels - perhaps as high as 15%.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asian Tribune
Date : 2002-12-31
Successful Myanmar - Thai Boarder committee meeting

According to reports emerging from the myanmar government side, Myanmar-Thai
Border Committee Meeting was held successfully in Mawlamyin.

The opening ceremony of the 20th Myanmar-Thai Border Committee Meeting was
held at the South East Command in Mawlamyine on 28 December.

The meeting was attended by members of Myanmar delegation headed by Chairman
of the Committee, Chairman of Mon State Peace and Development Council,
Commander of Southeast Command Maj-Gen Thura Myint Aung and Thai delegation
led by Commander of Third Army Area of Royal Thai Army Lt-Gen Udomchai
Ongkasing.

The closing ceremony of the meeting was also held on 28 December. At the
ceremony, Maj-Gen Thura Myint Aung and Lt-Gen Udomchai Ongkasing signed the
agreement of the meeting.

During the meeting, they made positive discussions of matters pertaining to
good neighborly relations between the two countries and friendly relations
between the two defence services of the countries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------