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BURMA RELATED NEWS - February 17,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - Myanmar banks
suspend credit card services
AFP - Thai-owned
elephant steps on landmine in Myanmar
Reuters - Thai
anti-drugs war toll jumps, stokes rights fears
Asian Tribune - US
threatens Burma with wider bans
Asian Tribune -
Union Day Statement of the Burmese Ethnic Political
Parties
The Independent -
Thais to lay ghosts of 16,000 Allied PoWs by reopening Death Railway into
Burma
The Daily Star -
Three trade deals with Myanmar likely
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Monday
February 17, 5:13 PM
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Monday February 17, 1:41 AM
Thai anti-drugs war toll jumps, stokes rights
fears
BANGKOK, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Nearly 320 people have died in a Thai
anti-drugs crusade in its first 15 days, the police said on Monday, but human
rights advocates fear over-zealous authorities are using the campaign to commit
atrocities.
Police told reporters they arrested more than 15,000
suspected traffickers during the first fortnight of the 90-day operation. Only
15 of the 319 deaths were attributed to the poilce and were described as being
in self-defence.
The rest were killed by criminal gangs, the
police said, in an operation that began on February 1.
Police also
seized six million methamphetamine pills and 182 million baht ($4.22 million)
worth of assets said to belong to the suspects.
``The war on drugs
has just started, we can't yet reach the top guys,'' National Police Bureau
Spokesman Pongsapat Pongcharoen told a news conference. ``But from tipoffs and
evidence we have collected, we will be able to get them.''
Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched the crackdown, dubbed
``an-eye-for-an-eye,'' this month to make the country drugs-free by May in a
blitz on criminal gangs.
Thai officials say the crusade is the
only way to break the back of a multi-billion dollar business that dwarfs many
legitimate industries in the country.
Up to one billion pills of
methamphetamine -- a stimulant called ya ba or ``crazy medicine'' in Thai and
related to the drug known as ``ice'' in the United States -- are expected to be
brought into Thailand this year from secret chemical factories in the Golden
Triangle, which borders Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.
But critics
say it is unrealistic to expect a brief campaign to remove such a well
established and lucrative criminal business and the police methods have drawn
widespread protests.
Local and international rights groups say the
campaign involves a shoot-to-kill policy by police that amounts to
extra-judicial execution.
``Fears now have spread throughout the
country,'' Jaran Ditapichai, a member of the country's Human Rights Commission,
told Reuters. ``The public see death tolls rising, but they don't know who
killed those poeple.''
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Asian Tribune
Date : 2003-02-17
US
threatens Burma with wider bans
The US said it was
highly sceptical that Burma's military was serious about reform, and yesterday
warned it was considering further sanctions as its patience wore
thin.
Lorne Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights,
Democracy and Labor, delivered a highly pessimistic survey of the political
situation in Burma.
He said the US Government was disappointed that
the release from house arrest last year of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was
not followed by a genuine effort by the government to enter dialogue with the
opposition.
"We remain highly sceptical about the regime's
commitment to any political transition," Mr Craner said at a conference of
exiled Burma politicians and rights activists.
"The (junta's)
disregard for human rights and democracy extends to every conceivable category
of violation and we will be cataloguing these this year.
"The
regime suppresses political dissent by censorship, persecution, beatings,
disappearances and imprisonment," he said, at the event sponsored by the Free
Burma coalition.
Mr Craner said the US could not verify that more
than 100 political prisoners the regime promised to release had yet been freed,
and said hundreds more remained in prison.
He said Washington still
hoped that a UN-brokered dialogue between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi
would yield results.
"We are disappointed and frustrated by the
recalcitrance of the (government)," he said.
"Our patience for
positive change is beginning to run out and we, along with the UK and others,
are considering all options, including further sanctions."
The US
maintains sanctions including an investment ban, travel restrictions for Burmese
officials and an arms embargo on Burma.
"Only our sanctions on Iraq
are tougher," Mr Craner said.
Washington is a fierce critic of
Burma, and a strong supporter of Ms Suu Kyi, whose overwhelming election victory
in 1990 is not recognised by the ruling military.
On Wednesday she
called for dialogue with the military government to start a process of national
reconciliation but questioned the junta's desire for talks.
- The
Mercury - 17 February 2003 -
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Asian Tribune
Date : 2003-02-17
Union Day Statement of the Burmese Ethnic Political
Parties
Union Day of Burma is remembered by the
Burma?s ethnic organizations.
The English language version of the
Union Day message released jointly by the Burmese ethnic organizations is given
below:
Today (Feb. 12) marks the 56th anniversary of Union Day. It
is a day of special significance because it commemorates the ?UNION SPIRIT? of
solidarity that existed between all the nationalities as a family in the
Republic of the Union of Burma. It also marks the day when all the national
groups came together and agreed to free themselves from foreign domination and
claim independence. Fifty-six years have passed since that
day.
However, that spirit of unity and solidarity has slowly
diminished since independence was gained and today we are in a deplorable
situation. Our great desire is for national reconciliation and we have been
striving to achieve it even to this day. In all sincerity and as brothers we
firmly believe that the only way to peaceful and productive national
reconciliation is by tripartite dialogue. We will be doing our utmost to find
solutions that will enable us to bring about that dialogue and national
reconciliation.
The following Burmese ethnic nationalities
organization jointly released the above statement to commemorate the Burma?s
Union Day:
Zomi National Congress, ZNC;
Mon National Democratic
Front, MNDF;
Chin National League for Democracy, CNLD;
Karen National
Congress for Democracy, KNC;
Shan Nationalities League for Democracy,
SNLD;
Kayah State All Nationalities League for Democracy, KNLD;
Kachin
State National Congress for Democracy, KNCD;
Democratic Organisation For
Kayan National Unity, DOKNU.
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The Independent(UK)
Thais to lay ghosts of 16,000
Allied PoWs by reopening Death Railway into Burma
By Jan
McGirk in Bangkok
17 February 2003
The
Thai Prime Minister hopes to resurrect the notorious Death Railway as a tourist
train across the Three Pagodas Pass, some six decades after Allied prisoners of
war completed this short-lived supply line into Burma for the Japanese Imperial
Army.
On his return from a visit to Burma, Thaksin Shinawatra said
officials in Rangoon had requested his help in boosting tourism through
cross-border rail travel, but did not disclose exactly how the joint project
might be financed.
Superstitious Thais, who believe in a potent
spirit world, think this old track, which was destroyed in 1945 by Allied
bombers, must surely be haunted: some 16,000 prisoners, mostly from Britain,
Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States, perished while being forced
to build 250-mile railway during a hellish 16 months in the dense jungle. Nearly
100,000 South-east Asian labourers died in the same effort, felled by
heatstroke, torture, hunger and tropical fevers.
A new scheme to
carry Japanese golfers and European mountain bikers through the Karen guerrilla
strongholds into southern Burma would contrast starkly with the train's
inaugural run in 1944, when brothel wagons for the Japanese troops chugged into
the Thanbyuzayat station to great applause.
Backpackers and war
buffs already flock to Thailand's Kanchanaburi province, 80 miles west of
Bangkok, to see the rather unremarkable Bridge on the River Kwai which was a
crucial link in the Death Railway.
Celebrated in David Lean's 1957
film starring William Holden, Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins, the steel span of
the bridge has been rebuilt since the war, but the curved portions are remnants
of the original PoW construction. A handsome wooden bridge erected by prisoners
in 1943, and a stronger metal bridge built with imperial supplies imported from
Java, were both bombed repeatedly.
The river Kwai, or Mae Nam Khwae
Yai, runs beneath the span like a trickle of milky tea. Vintage railway engines
from the Second World War are polished and put on display in a museum near the
bridge, and every December, local people re-enact the Allied bombardment in
spectacular style with a sound and light extravaganza which overpowers the noise
of the karaoke rafts that ply the river now.
Two Allied war
cemeteries are laid out on the far side of the corn and sugarcane fields, and
the headstones stretch to the horizon. Beyond them are sapphire mines and steep
cataracts which water some of Thailand's most extensive wildlife
sanctuaries.
Burma's National League for Democracy, which is loyal
to Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected prime minister who was barred from office by
the military junta, continues to call for Western tourists to boycott Burma and
deprive the government of foreign exchange until the regime acknowledges its
human rights abuses and eases restrictions against the democratic
opposition.
Ms Suu Kyi was released from house arrest last year,
and Amnesty International completed its first authorised inspection tour this
month.
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The Daily Star - Mon. February 17,
2003
Three trade deals with Myanmar likely
UNB,
Dhaka
Signing of three bilateral trade promotion agreements,
including account trade and coastal shipping arrangement, will feature the
second Bangladesh's single country fair beginning in Yangon on March
20.
An agreement on joint business council will also be signed
during the five-day show planned in the Myanmar capital to project Bangladesh's
export potentials.
"We expect Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia to
inaugurate the fair," Bangladesh-Myanmar Business Promotion Council Chairman R
Maksud Khan said.
Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury,
who inaugurated the first country fair in Yangon in March last year, yesterday
reviewed the preparations for the second show at a meeting with Export Promotion
Bureau and private sector people.
The success of the first fair
encouraged both the EPB and the private sector to organise the second fair. "The
weeklong fair last year was a success. Responses have also been very
encouraging," Khan said.
However, the vast potentials, generated
from the first fair could not be explored fully due to some bottlenecks
regarding shipping and banking. Myanmar businesspeople have limitations in
opening L/Cs there due to strict foreign currency regulations.
To
overcome the problem, both the sides last year agreed on introducing account
trade, now being practised between Myanmar and Thailand.
The
Myanmar Premier, General Than Shwe, during his visit to Dhaka in December last
year, also agreed with the proposals of account trade system and direct shipping
link between Chittagong and Yangon.
Trade officials and
busine-sspeople here hoped that the two arrangements would bolster bilateral
trade between the two next-door neighbours and help reduce trade
gap.
The Bangladesh Fair 2002 had some 60 stalls, apart from
display of a gala cultural show. This time, the target is to have 100
stalls.
Bangladesh has good prospect, specially in pharmaceuticals,
jute and jute goods, ceramic, steel products and cosmetics, in Myanmar which
enjoys a trade in bilateral trade.
In 2000-01, Bangladesh imports
from Myanmar amounted to US$ 24.69 million while the country's export was only $
1.09 million.
The two countries entered into a border trade
agreement in 1994.
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