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BURMA RELATED NEWS - March 24,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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AP
- U.N. human rights envoy suspends mission to Myanmar after
finding bugging device
Asia Pulse - Indonesia's Satelindo Satellite Uses 75% of
Capacity
Bkk
Post - Shan and Wa to be moved from frontier
Bkk
Post - Junta looks in no hurry in talks with Suu Kyi
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U.N. human rights envoy suspends mission to Myanmar after
finding bugging device
By AYE AYE WIN,
Associated Press Writer
YANGON,
Myanmar, March 24 (AP) - A visiting
U.N. human rights envoy on Monday suspended his mission to Myanmar after finding
a bugging device while conducting confidential interviews with political
prisoners.
The envoy, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil, said he
found the bug while talking to political prisoners in Insein prison outside
Yangon on Saturday.
Pinheiro told reporters he was leaving
Yangon later Monday, two days ahead of schedule.
''I think that
was a very serious incident and my untimely departure is an _expression_ of my
anger and frustration,'' he said, pounding the table with his fist. ''I hope the
government will demonstrate its willingness to continue to cooperate with the
commission on human rights.''
The envoy said he found a wireless
microphone under the table in the room where he was conducting an interview.
''The authorities expressed regret on learning of the incident,''
according to a statement from the United Nations. ''They gave the assurance that
the incident would be investigated in full.''
Pinheiro arrived in
Yangon on Wednesday to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and
evaluate the conditions of an estimated 1,000 political prisoners in the nation
also known as Burma.
A foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said Pinheiro was ''shocked and upset'' when the device was found
after he and his two colleagues heard a strange noise under the table.
Before interviewing the prisoners, Pinheiro had assured each
person he or she could speak freely, the diplomat said.
The visit
was one of a series of visits to compile a report scheduled to be delivered to
the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva at the end of the month.
Myanmar's junta has also faced criticism for failing to make
progress in its reconciliation process with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Her party won the 1990 general elections but was never allowed to take power.
Critics say the junta is not serious about restoring democracy.
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Monday March 24,
12:52 PM
Indonesia's Satelindo Satellite Uses 75% of
Capacity
JAKARTA, March 24 Asia Pulse - Seventy five per cent of the capacity
of the leased transponder of Satelindo, the operator of Palapa C2 satellite, has
been used for commercial purposes , the company said.
The entire capacity
could not be used for commercial purposes, as five or ten per cent of it (the
capacity) is also allocated for reserve," Satelindo's director for satellite and
international services, Djoko Prayitno, said in a press briefing over the
weekend.
Sixty per cent of the satellite's users were broadcasters,
like television stations, and the rest were information and technology
companies, he said.
Transponder of the Palapa C2 satellite were not
only leased by the Indonesian private TV stations but also foreign ones, such as
TV5, People TV, and Myanmar TV, Djoko said.
"The competition in
this sector (in the Asia Pacific region) is so tight. Until this time, there are
about 24 operators with 65 satellites which have been placed in the orbit of the
earth," he said.
Due to tighter competition, the leasing fee tended
to go down from time to time. This condition was only in favor for lessees and
not on the operators on general.
The Palapa C2 satellite with 24
C-band transponders and four KU-band transponders can cover Asian continent,
Australia and New Zealand.
The satellite can orbit until 2011, he
added.
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Bangkok Post - Monday 24 March
2003
Shan and Wa to be moved from frontier
New 3rd Army
chief puts trust in Rangoon
Wassana Nanuam
The new commander-designate of the Third Army, Maj-Gen
Picharnmet Muangmanee, says he will work closely with Burma to move the Shan
State Army and United Wa State Army out of the border area.
The
presence of SSA and UWSA along the border has long caused problems for
Thai-Burmese relations.
Maj-Gen Picharnmet will be promoted to
Lt-Gen and take over the Third Army from April 1.
He said Thailand
would make arrangements for the SSA to move away from the border, while Burma
would do the same with the UWSA. ``Thai soldiers will absolutely not use force
in dealing with the SSA. We have our own methods for handling them,'' he
said.
As a result, drug smuggling from Burma would be
reduced.
He said drug suppression operations would be intensified,
with the focus on preventing smugglers entering Thailand and eradicating drugs
within the country. At the same time Thailand would help mediate truce talks
between Rangoon and minority rebels.
``After that Thai and Burmese
soldiers will conduct joint border patrols,'' Maj-Gen Picharnmet
said.
When Maj-Gen Picharnmet was named the Third Army chief in the
mid-year reshuffle, critics said he was promoted only because he was a classmate
of Gen Chaisit Shinawatra, assistant army chief, and had close ties with Payap
Shinawatra, the prime minister's younger brother.
Maj-Gen
Picharnmet yesterday admitted he was friends with Mr Payap, a lecturer at Chiang
Mai University, saying they attended the same class at the National Defence
College.
``But I have never asked for a position from anyone. I
want others to recognise my capabilities. I think my superiors made the right
choice,'' he said.
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Bangkok Post - Monday 24 March 2003
ANALYSIS /
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE
Junta looks in no hurry in talks with Suu Kyi
A UN representative is in Burma in yet another effort to heal the
wounds which cause that country so much pain.
LARRY JAGAN -
Rangoon
Burma's fragile dialogue between the military
junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to moved forward for
months now. Things have gotten so bad that there now seems little prospect of
the United Nations-sponsored dialogue resolving the political
deadlock.
What hopes there are are pinned on the current visit of
Paulo Pinheiro, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma. Mr Pinheiro
is in Rangoon on his latest week-long mission to assess the situation before he
delivers a verbal report to the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission
in Geneva in three weeks time.
Mr Pinheiro last November threatened
to resign from his post if there was no substantial progress on the
recommendations he made in his last report tabled at the UN General Assembly in
New York. These included progress in the dialogue process, the release of
political prisoners and Rangoon agreeing to an independent assessment of
allegations of human rights violations in ethnic minority areas, particularly
Burma's northeast Shan state _ where Burmese soldiers stand accused of
deliberately and systematically raping ethnic women, according to research in
the area by two Thai-based human rights groups.
Mr Pinheiro is
confident his proposals on an independent inquiry into these allegations will be
accepted by Burma's military rulers during his current visit, a senior United
Nations official told the Bangkok Post.
But the special rapporteur
is extremely disappointed that only a handful of political prisoners have been
freed since his last visit. No political detainees were released for four
months, until last Sunday when the military authorities said they had released
49 prisoners. The opposition has only been able to confirm that three students
were among those freed.
``The human rights envoy will be asking
some very tough questions on the issue of political prisoners during this
visit,'' a UN official in New York said.
The release of political
prisoners has been one of the few concrete results of secret talks between the
UN and the military. More than 500 political prisoners have been released since
the dialogue began more than two years ago. International human rights groups
estimate that there are still more than 1,200 political prisoners in Burma's
jails.
Burma's generals defend their position on security grounds.
``In order to maintain security, we have to be very careful in how we release
certain prisoners,'' government spokesman Colonel Hla Min said. ``But that does
not mean that we won't release any more. We will.
``But we also
have to make sure that the country's security and peace is maintained, so we
have to do it gradually. Once we are confident that security and stability will
not be disturbed then we can go on releasing prisoners.''
This
reasoning is not something Mr Pinheiro accepted last year, so the regime will
have to find some convincing arguments for continuing to keep so many political
prisoners locked up.
Diplomats in Rangoon are convinced that the
junta is using political prisoners as a bargaining chip with the international
community. So Mr Pinheiro will have no alternative but to tell the generals that
this is unacceptable and they must release them as soon as
possible.
The Burmese military authorities are going to have to
provide the UN special rapporteur with some major concessions if he is not to
resign at the end of the month after reporting back to the UN in Geneva. ``There
is every possibility that this may be professor Pinheiro's last visit,'' said a
senior UN official.
The UN envoy has come under increasing
criticism from the Burmese political opposition, who cannot accept his appeals
to the international community to credit the junta for some of the progress that
has been made and to engage the regime more rigorously rather than adopt tougher
sanctions. Many Western countries, particularly the United States and some
Europe nations, are beginning to feel tougher sanctions are necessary to force
the generals to keep their promises to introduce political
reform.
``There should be no question whatever about our commitment
towards this process of national reconciliation,'' Burma's Deputy Foreign
Minister Khin Maung Win said. ``The reconciliation process is very important. We
are in the process of transition to a democratic system because we want our
country to be developed and modernised.''
But despite the constant
insistence on the part of Burma's military leaders that they are committed to
the dialogue, the reality suggests otherwise. Since Ms Suu Kyi's release from
house arrest more than nine months ago, there has been little effort by the
generals to talk to the opposition leader.
``I see it very
simply,'' she told the Bangkok Post in an exclusive interview recently at the
National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon. ``The SPDC [State Peace
and Development Council] is just not ready to talk. We've been trying to get to
the negotiating table for 14 years but they have never been keen on the
idea.''
Ms Suu Kyi has been trying since her release to coax the
regime into serious political talks with herself and the NLD _ offering to
cooperate with the army on various matters, including some involving
international humanitarian assistance.
``We have tried to make it
very clear to the SPDC we do not want to be the enemy,'' she said. ``We do not
want to look upon them as the enemy. We are in opposition to each other at the
moment but we should work together for the sake of the
country.
``We certainly bear no grudges against them. We are not
out for vengeance. We want to reach the kind of settlement which will be
beneficial to everybody, including the members of the
military.''
But these repeated appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
``The top generals just cannot bring themselves to meet Aung San Suu Kyi
personally and prefer to delay the day when the army has to acknowledge she has
a crucial and central role in Burma's political future,'' said a senior Western
diplomat in Rangoon.
In the meantime, UN officials are trying to
arrange the next trip of another special envoy to Burma, Razali Ismail, who
helped to broker the dialogue between the two sides. Military authorities have
tried to deflect the requests to schedule the visit for as soon as possible.
They rejected the requests in February by saying the government was ``too
focused on the country's financial problems to think about anything else at the
moment''.
More recently, they have simply told the UN that it was
not possible to receive the envoy at the moment. They did not give any concrete
reasons. In fact, the military regime has virtually told the envoy to stop
contacting them and they would be in touch when they were ready, according to
diplomats in Rangoon.
UN sources believe this reflects the
generals' wish to avoid having to explain why the government has not had any
contact with the opposition leader for more than four months, nor met any of the
promises made to Mr Razali when he was last in Rangoon.
``Mr Razali
doesn't expect to return to Rangoon before the end of April at the earliest,''
according to a senior UN source. ``And he may not be able to visit before June
the way things are going.''
In the meantime, the regime seems more
committed to finding ways of delaying talking to Ms Suu Kyi and dragging the
dialogue process out indefinitely.
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