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Asian Tribune
Date : 2003-03-29
Assistance for Poppy Eradication in the Shan State of Myanmar by the
Trust Fund for Human Security
Tokyo, March 28: The
Government of Japan and the United Nations (UN) decided to extend a total of
1,203,935.07- dollar assistance through the Trust Fund for Human Security to the
project "Drug Control and Development in the Wa Region of the Shan State" in the
Union of Myanmar to be implemented by the United Nations International Drug
Control Programme (UNDCP).
This project is expected to contribute
to increasing the food security of opium farmers, improving their living
standard, and eventually, eradicating opium poppy cultivation.
Press Secretary Hatsuhisa Takashima of the Japan?s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs announced today at a Press Conference held at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of the assistance to the Union of Myanmar for opium poppy
eradication by the Trust Fund for Human Security.
Hatsuhisa
Takashima said that the Government of Japan and the United Nations (UN) have
decided to extend a total of US$ 1.2 million assistance through the Trust Fund
for Human Security to the project "Drug Control and Development in the Wa Region
of the Shan State" in Myanmar to be implemented by the United Nations
International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).
The goal of this
project is to support the opium poppy eradication plan of the Wa Special Region
where opium has been largely produced and the living standard is low. Activities
include training in construction of irrigation system, building community-based
capacity to manage and monitor the whole irrigation system, developing flat
paddy fields, and introducing double cropping of rice.
The Press
Secretary further added: ?This project is to support the opium poppy eradication
plan of the Wa Special Region through such activities such as training in
construction of irrigation system, building community-based capacity to manage
and monitor the whole irrigation system, developing flat paddy fields, and
introducing double cropping of rice. ?
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Bangkok Post - Saturday 29 March
2003
Sea patrols increased to cut off supply line
More naval vessels have been deployed to patrol
the Andaman Sea off southern Ranong province around the clock in a bid to block
smuggled drugs from Burma.
Patrol vessels from the Third Fleet have
been ordered to step up vigilance in high-risk areas in the waters off Ranong
which provided shortest smuggling routes from Burma, said Vice Adm Pairoj
Thirachai, the fleet commander.
The navy has sent more speed boats
to join a special anti-drug fleet assigned to patrol the areas around the clock
as the seas will be calm in the next two months, he said. Local fishermen would
be asked to help tip off authorities about drug-smuggling
activities.
A special task force and local marine police were
keeping a close watch on travellers between Ranong and Burma, especially its Son
island.
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Bangkok Post - Saturday 29 March
2003
EDITORIAL - Child soldiers and desperate regimes
Of all the scenarios predicted for the climactic
siege of Baghdad, when and if it comes, perhaps the most chilling is the
prediction by some military analysts that a beleagured President Saddam Hussein
will throw child soldiers into the battle, thereby confronting coalition
soldiers with a terrible dilemma.
Such predictions might sound
far-fetched but, if realised, would not set a precedent. People under the age of
18 have been forced to fight in 33 ongoing or recent conflicts and four of the
countries responsible for press-ganging them into service are within Asean,
notably governments and rebel factions in Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia and the
Philippines.
Unicef estimates there are up to 70,000 child soldiers
in the East Asian and Pacific region, and says the use of children as soldiers
by state and non-state armies should be recognised as ``an illegal and morally
reprehensible practice that has no place in civilised societies''. Only the most
callous could disagree.
In a recent report it cited the case of a
boy who had been abducted by Burmese government soldiers at the age of seven,
with promises of food and sweets. A 16-year-old Cambodian recruited into the
Royal Cambodian Armed Forces at the age of 12 still has nightmares of being
arrested, taken away and shot.
The technological advances in
weaponry so extolled and evident in the war on Iraq and the proliferation of
small arms have had the tragic side effect of contributing to the increased use
of child soldiers. Lightweight automatic weapons are simple to operate, often
easily accessible, and can be used by children as easily as by
adults.
Because of their immaturity and lack of experience, child
soldiers suffer higher casualties than their adult counterparts. Even after the
conflict is over, they may be left physically disabled or psychologically
traumatised. Frequently denied an education or the opportunity to learn civilian
job skills, many find it difficult to rejoin peaceful society. Schooled only in
war, former child soldiers are often drawn into crime or become easy prey for
future recruitment.
Human Rights Watch has mounted a global
campaign to stop this abhorrent practice. In a sweeping indictment of one
generation's brutality towards another, it has compiled a dossier of the 300,000
children worldwide who have been denied a proper childhood and forced to serve
as soldiers in armed conflicts. Often subjected to horrific violence, they wield
automatic weapons on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors,
take part in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or
lookouts. Girls frequently have to endure sexual abuse as well as undergo combat
duties.
Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children
typically make obedient soldiers.
Many are abducted or recruited by
force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. Others join
armed groups to escape grinding poverty.
Indeed, it is poverty
which opens the door to other horrors endangering children such as the sale and
trafficking of young boys and girls, of debt slavery, forced or compulsory
labour, prostitution, pornography or the production, trafficking and consumption
of drugs.
Iraq, where 40% of the population is under 16, has long
been on the list of the 30 countries whose governments use child
soldiers.
Every conceivable means of restraint must be used to
prevent them from being turned into cannon fodder by a desperate regime.
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The Nation
Boats & balloons in PAGAN
Published on Mar 29, 2003
Board the Pandaw III
and sail in pre-colonial splendour down the Mekong past tranquil scenery, and
end the experience with a long joyride in a hot-air balloon across Burma?s
skies.
Come ye back to Mandalay where the old Flotilla
lay
Can?t you ?ear their paddles chunkin? from Rangoon to
Mandalay...
Skud running between Pagan?s temples and scraping over
the tops of palms and tamarand trees isn?t what we expected when we crawled into
Balloons Over Pagan?s basket for a dawn flight, but we were lovin? it. Then we
popped up to 3,000 feet to catch a breeze drifting us back over Old
Pagan.
Below, crumbling battlements were clearly outlined, kindly
remodelled by Kublai Khan in 1287 after the Pagan king made coconuts out of the
heads of the Khan?s emissaries sent to exact tribute. Beyond lay a scatter of
more than 3,000 monuments as far as one could see over the 40 square km
site.
The balloon ride was the climax to a marvellous, even
nostalgic, four nights aboard the remarkable Pandaw III.
It?s the
third in the fleet of the resurrected Irrawaddy Flotilla Company ? the legendary
flotilla of Rudyard Kipling. Not only is it rising from a watery grave, but this
year it will be spreading the teak and brass romance of a bygone colonial era to
this region?s tourist industry.
More so than Thailand, Burma is a
nation of rivers ? the Irrawaddy, Chindwin, Salween and the Irrawaddy?s nine
fingered delta ? all navigable by steamers. With the Irrawaddy alone reachable
by large vessels along 930 of its 1,100 miles it was the natural road to
Mandalay.
Incorporated in 1865, the Company was the largest
private fleet in the world by the 1920s, with shallow draft paddle boats
especially designed to handle the shifting sands of Burma?s rivers.
By the 1930s, it was moving nine million passengers a year ? half
the population. (It?s about 50 million now). Twenty-six steamers formed a
squadron five miles long in 1885 to deliver 10,000 British soldiers to Mandalay,
completing the three part conquest of Burma. It was even a Flotilla steamer that
carried the sadistic last king, Thibaw, and his screwish, equally murderous
queen, Supayalat, to Rangoon before they sailed into exile in India.
The Flotilla?s demise came in 1942 when 550 of its 650 ships had
the hulls Bren-gunned to deny it to the advancing Japanese. A post-war attempt
to revive the fleet sank and by 1948 it was, well,
history.
However, several ships with the pre-war design were built,
and many ? in dilapidated condition ? are still working the river today. One of
these was the original Pandaw, built in 1947. It was purchased in 1998 and
refurbished to once again carry passengers in fashionable, pre-colonial
style.
From this ? with modern, first class amenities ? the
Irrawaddy Flotilla Company has been reborn. Later this year, the newest addition
will be the launch of the Ho Chi Minh City, and it will cruise to Phnom Penh
along the Mekong, then to Angkor Wat via the Tonle Sap. Also, a smaller version
called the Pandaw Kwai, will begin adding colour to that already colourful river
later this year.
In Burma, there are several choices among cruises,
from the lengthy Rangoon to Mandalay to Bhamo, to two-day jumps from Mandalay to
Pagan in the ?tourist triangle,? which includes Inya Lake.
We chose
the Royal Burma offering. Burma is a nation of dead cities ? there?s at least 16
scattered about due to the different tribal groups vying for power ? Burmese,
Pyu, Mon and Shan ? but also because of the penchant of new monarchs to build
new capitals.
Most writers scribble this up due to mere
fickleness, but Sir James Scott, writing authoritatively in ?The Burman? in
1882, provides a more gruesome explanation.
Whenever a new capital
was founded, it was customary to bury alive a number of people at key positions
? gates, corners of battlements, beneath the throne ? in the belief that these
innocents would reincarnate into protective spirits called nats.
Such was the case when Mandalay was built in 1858; 52 people were
buried alive. Unfortunately, these nats have a limited shelf life, determined by
the royal astrologer, and these due dates ?coincidentally? often came up at the
crowning of a new monarch.
Usually some ?sign? was determined by
the astrologers. One such date occurred in 1880 in Mandalay with an outbreak of
smallpox which killed Thibaw and Supayalat?s only child. Although the astrologer
prescribed the building of a new city as a cure, income from Thibaw?s highly
reduced kingdom ? thanks to two wars with the British Raj and his own
incompetent management ? forbade this.
A suitable compromise was
worked out whereby 600 people would be buried alive. Naturally, this caused a
certain degree of panic and a stampede to the Flotilla?s steamers leaving town.
When the news reached a shocked London that 100 of these future nats were to be
foreigners, Thibaw was forced to cancel the remedy.
That this was
the man who, upon ascending the throne, dug a large hole on the palace grounds,
executed 70 of his siblings and dumped them in, comes as no surprise (though, to
be fair, this was a recognised, long term practice of new Burmese monarchs).
After a few days, the ground heaved and he had his royal elephants
stomp it back down. When it again heaved, he had the bodies disinterred and
buried in common graves. Burma did not enjoy the enlightened monarchy of
Thailand during the 19th century.
The five cities in the Royal
Burma tour are betel juice spitting distance from each other. Amarapura has
dissolved into Mandalay?s southern suburbs. Ava, intermittent capital for 400
years, is just another few kilometres further south.
Across the
Irrawaddy is Sagaing, the first capital to grow after Kublai Khan?s grand tour.
Pagan, 200 nautical clicks south of Mandalay, is the Grand Finale of
course.
The most interesting (outside of Pagan) is Ava. From the
Leaning Tower of Ava, so called thanks to the 1838 earthquake, one can make out
beyond the Ozimandian paddy fields the four walls. Also visible is the single
original gate through which troopers galloped on elephant back in 1767 to kick
the sticky rice out of our Thais at Ayuthaya.
There?s two guided
shore excursions daily. One is north of Mandalay to view the Mingun Bell and
Pagoda ? both Guinness Book record holders for size. Another, in Amarapura, is
to stroll along the 200 year old U Bein Bridge, at 1.2 km, the longest teak
footbridge in the world.
Another excursion is to a village
reachable only by river traffic where life still bumps along at ox-cart pace.
The Burmese are even more helpful and hospitable than the Turks, if that?s
possible: everyone waves, from babies on up.
Observing life along
the river while smoking a whackin? white cheroot and sipping on a cold Mandalay
beer from a deck chair is one of the great pleasures. Like that Burma girl
bathing at the river?s edge, her wet longyi clinging to her supple body.
Catching me ogl...uh...admiring her through my binoculars, she laughed and blew
me not one, but two kisses.
Ah, come me back to Mandalay
Where the dawn comes up like Ol? Thunder
And where
there?s a Burma girl a-waitin?
and she?s a thinkin?
o?me.
Jason Schoonover
The Nation
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The Jakarta Post - March 29, 2003
FM
to visit Myanmar, Thailand
JAKARTA: Foreign
minister Hassan Wirayuda is slated to visit Myanmar and Thailand between April 1
and April 5 to discuss several bilateral issues with the two fellow ASEAN
members.
Foreign Ministry director for East Asia and Pacific Primo
Alui Joelianto said on Friday that during the Thai leg of the trip Hassan would
discuss efforts to strengthen economic ties and other issues such as the
exclusive economic zone.
Hassan will begin his trip in Myanmar,
where he will stay until April 3.
The minister is slated to meet
high-ranking officials of both countries.
"The discussion will
focus more on economic ties with both countries and several pending issues ...,"
Primo said.--JP
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