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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 20,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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AFP - Karen rebels
admit sabotaging Myanmar gas pipelines
AFP - Myanmar's
fledgling tourist industry pummeled by SARS fears: report
AFP - China not
invited to ASEAN SARS summit: Thai spokesman
The Observer - Back
to Burma
Bkk Post -
Villagers lose patience with Burmese refugees
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Sunday April 20,
1:51 PM
Karen rebels admit sabotaging Myanmar gas
pipelines
BANGKOK (AFP) - A rebel ethnic group opposed to Myanmar's
military government has claimed responsibility for sabotaging sections of
natural gas pipelines in the military-ruled state in recent
weeks.
In a statement seen Sunday, the Karen National Union (KNU)
said its militant arm blew up some sections of natural gas pipelines owned by
the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) on three separate occasions from
February to April, in response to continued oppression of the Karen ethnic
minority.
"The actions were planned and implemented as we would
like to inform the Total Company and justice-loving countries of the world that
the SPDC has been regularly buying fighter planes, tanks and other military
hardware, with revenue from the gas pipelines, to continue killing and
oppressing the Karen people and the people in general," read the faxed statement
from KNU headquarters.
French energy giant TotalFinaElf is involved
in gas exploration and production in Myanmar and faces accusations that it has
perpetuated forced labour in the country.
"The action was
undertaken to show that the KNU and the Karen people will never take such
injustices and oppression lying down and that they will make appropriate
response, as necessary."
It also said it took action to spotlight
Yangon's continued foot-dragging over the holding of a political dialogue with
ethnic groups and leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy.
"Responsibility for non-emergence of meaningful dialogue
in Burma lies squarely with the SPDC," the KNU said.
Last week
Yangon's ruling junta said the KNU's sixth brigade had damaged two gas pipelines
in recent weeks, including one damaged by explosives in southeastern Mon state.
One section of pipeline was also attacked February 1.
The KNU is
one of a few remaining rebel groups fighting an independence campaign against
the Yangon government.
The junta said last year it was willing to
"exchange arms for peace" with the KNU, a phrase used by the military to
describe a ceasefire.
The junta however requires that rebel groups
lay down their arms prior to negotiating for peace, which several have refused
to do.
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Sunday April 20, 7:11 PM
Myanmar's fledgling tourist industry pummeled by SARS
fears: report
YANGON, April 20 (AFP) - Myanmar's nascent tourism industry has been
crippled by an Asia-wide drop-off in travel due to concern over the deadly SARS
virus, a report here said.
While health officials in the military
government say Myanmar has avoided any cases of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS), and screening systems have been introduced at points of
arrival, the fallout from the disease has wrought havoc on the country's travel
industry.
Hotels and travel agencies last week reported
cancellation rates as high as 60 percent in what they said would be a severe
dent in an otherwise solid tourism year, according to a report in the
forthcoming Monday edition of the Myanmar Times.
Sai Travel, a
firm catering to the Japanese market, said 60 percent of its bookings were
scrapped during late March.
"About 25 percent of those who
cancelled planned to visit Myanmar at a later date," the company's general
manager Ko Myo Thwin told the semi-official weekly.
Yangon's Hotel
Nikko Royal Lake has suffered a bookings cancellation rate of 35 percent due to
SARS, a reservations supervisor said.
"Most were from Asia with
some Europeans," Ko Lay Ko Aung was quoted as saying.
The Pansea
Hotel reported a 23 percent year-on-year decline in reservations during April,
and cancellations were continuing, according to room manager Ko Aung Ko Ko.
Last month Myanmar authorities began taking precautions against
SARS, including screening arriving passengers, and issued several public alerts
about the respiratory illness in its tightly controlled media.
The
global SARS outbreak has now been blamed for the deaths of at least 200 people
and the sickening of more than 4,000 others, mainly in Asia.
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Sunday April 20, 3:22 PM
China not invited to ASEAN
SARS summit: Thai spokesman
BANGKOK, April 20 (AFP) - China
has not been invited to join ASEAN leaders for their one-day SARS summit later
this month, a Thai foreign ministry spokesman.
"It will be a
meeting among the 10 ASEAN countries," spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said of
the emergency meeting of regional leaders scheduled for April 29 in
Bangkok.
"ASEAN has not invited China," he added. "But we will
inform China about the result of the meeting."
The statement jars
with comments made Friday by a government spokesman who said China, as the
epicentre of the mystery respiratory disease, had been invited to attend the
session.
The rare emergency meeting of leaders from the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations to discuss the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) crisis was announced Thursday by Thailand, which said the World
Health Organisation would also attend.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra said the summit would determine an ASEAN position on SARS and boost
confidence and credibility in the region, which would in turn help buoy tourism,
investment and trade.
Asian economies -- in particular tourism --
are being hammered by the virus, with a series of downgrades to economic growth
forecasts in the past week.
The atypical pneumonia has killed at
least 185 people around the world and infected around 3,800, mostly in
Asia.
ASEAN countries reporting SARS deaths include Singapore,
Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.
The regional grouping also includes
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines.
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Back to Burma
Sunday April 20,
2003
The Observer
Intrepid Travel (020
8960 6333) is returning to Burma this summer after a four-year boycott.
It
cites the release of a number of political prisoners, including pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and the increased independence of
businesses, for the change to its policy.
General manager Damian
Perry said: 'We don't believe the boycott was helpful. Ever since we left, our
local contacts have been asking us to come back.'
Perry is
confident that money spent with Burmese businesses will no longer find its way
into the hands of the military junta. All profits from trips made there until
July 2005 will go into the Intrepid Foundation - a registered charity, which
funds poverty-line building projects and hospital equipment in Asia.
But Tourism Concern is sorry to see Intrepid Travel change its
policy. Director Tricia Barnett said: 'Aung San Suu Kyi is still asking people
not to come to Burma because the $200 arrival fee reinforces the junta's
position.'
However, she conceded: 'It's never been a black and
white issue.'
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Bangkok Post - Sunday 20 April
2003
Villagers lose patience with Burmese refugees
Pollution, disease blamed on camp
Supamart Kasem
Community leaders here say they have had enough of
Burmese refugees whom they accuse of polluting their stream, exploiting wildlife
and sometimes stealing from their farms.
The call for expatriation
of the refugees whose number in recent months has soared to over 100,000 in the
province was made when local leaders met senator Udon
Tantisunthorn.
Present at the recent meeting in Tha Song district
were provincial councillors, executives of tambon administration organisations,
tambon chiefs and village heads.
According to the local leaders,
the refugees are behind a variety of problems concerning environmental damage
and health care.
Sompong Khamkwang, chairman of tambon Mae La
administration organisation, said the government had only promised to give the
refugees temporary shelter.
In the early days, the refugees were
taken in on humanitarian grounds to protect them from the fighting between
Rangoon troops and the ethnic rebels. There were less than 1,000 at the
time.
``But 20 years later their number has swelled to 100,000.
They are scattered in Tak, Kanchanaburi, Mae Hong Son and Ratchaburi,'' said Mr
Sompong.
The Mae La refugee camp houses 42,224 refugees, of which
36,055 have been registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. The rest are classified as non-refugees and marked for a ``push back''
scheme.
Another 933 people crossed the border from Burma early this
year. They refused to be moved to a refugee camp and settled on the border
instead.
Last month, some 119 Burmese were rounded up after
slipping out of Tha Song Yang refugee camp to collect banana leaves for
sale.
A local leader said what this group of villagers did was just
a tip of the iceberg.
``They are hired to cut trees, encroach on
forest reserves and collect wild products. Sometimes they even steal from
villagers' farms,'' said a local leader.
Mae La stream has been
polluted for quite some time now, they complained. Used water from the refugee
camp is never treated and released directly into the stream.
Health
officials say besides malaria, several other diseases which were supposed to
have been wiped out have resurfaced in the area with the arrival of more
refugees.
Last month seven Burmese refugees in Umphang district
died of meningitis.
Chatchai Soisangwal, the Umphang district
chief, accused local business operators of encouraging refugees to cut down
trees and collect banana leaves in the Umphang wildlife sanctuary for
them.
These business operators sell the products to NGOs
supervising the refugee camps, he said.
He said he was once offered
100,000 baht to turn a blind eye to log poaching. He declined the
offer.
However, last month an operator sought permission to import
11,000 bamboo poles for use at the Nu Pho refugee camp, said the district
chief.
The bamboo poles were claimed to have come from Burma via
Phrop Phra district but no import documents were supplied. The camp officials
were prompted to refuse the products for use in camp
maintenance.
Mr Chatchai said the refugees who cut the bamboo trees
were paid 5-10 baht for each pole which was reportedly resold at 35 baht
apiece.
``I wonder if they have been taxed,'' he
said.
Senator Udon said the refugees should be pushed back as soon
as possible as there was rarely any fighting in the area now. ``There are only
skirmishes along the border. And many of those who flee into Thailand do so for
economic reasons,'' he said.
Mr Udon said the government should use
its good relations with Rangoon to get rid of these problems. The senator has
set up an ad-hoc committee to study the problems. Panel members will make a
field trip to the area to collect information next month.
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