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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 24,
2003.
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HEADLINES
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Reuters - Thailand
seeks regional departure hall SARS checks
AP - Suu Kyi says
junta's henchmen harassed her and supporters
AFP - Aung San Suu
Kyi takes calculated risk in shifting stance against junta
AFP - UN special
envoy hopes to return to Myanmar 'as soon as possible'
AFP - Myanmar junta
announces end to its rice stranglehold
Asia Pulse -
Australia's Ivanhoe, Citic Team up for Mineral Exploration
BBC News - Burma
rejects opposition claims
Asian Tribune - Dam
- A cover-up for the construction of strategic road by Burma to Contain Shan
Militants.
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Thursday April 24,
12:06 PM
Thailand seeks regional departure hall SARS
checks
BANGKOK, April 24 (Reuters) - Thailand said on Thursday a plan for
SARS-affected countries to screen departing passengers will be proposed at a
regional health ministers' meeting this week. "We must stop the cause of the
problem at the origin," Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said in a
statement.
Health ministers from the 10 Association of South East
Asian Nations are due to meet in Malaysia on Friday and Saturday to discuss
boosting cooperation in the fight against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) that has killed 254 people worldwide.
The brief medical
checkup would be similar to that given to arriving passengers at airports,
including taking temperatures.
Decisions made by health ministers
at the Malaysia meeting will be passed to heads of state from Southeast Asia for
adoption at a summit in Bangkok on April 29.
ASEAN groups Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.
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Suu Kyi says junta's henchmen harassed her and supporters
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has
accused Myanmar's military junta of harassing her and her supporters when she
toured the northwestern Chin State earlier this month.
Suu Kyi
told a news conference on Wednesday that the junta used its affiliate
organization, the Union Solidarity Development Association, to obstruct her and
intimidate her supporters during the April 3-13 trip to Chin State and a
previous trip to Rakhine state in December.
Her National League
for Democracy party displayed several photographs showing logs placed across
roads in areas where Suu Kyi and her party traveled.
``My travels
during the last year have led me to the conclusion that the USDA are being used
by the authorities to harass the NLD and supporters of the NLD,'' Suu Kyi said.
The USDA was formed in 1993 as a social organization and
reportedly has 19 million members, avowedly loyal to the junta, known as the
State Peace and Development Council.
Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace
laureate, also said the SPDC does not appear to be serious about the
reconciliation talks it started with the opposition party in October 2000,
adding that the process is in fact sliding backward.
``I do not
think there had been any progress (in the talks). In fact, I would have thought
that there had been some kind of regression.''
Suu Kyi's comments
have reinforced suspicions among Western governments that the junta has no
intention of giving up power, and that it went into the talks with Suu Kyi only
to placate critics.
The current group of ruling generals, who
seized power in 1988, refused to hand over power to the NLD after it won the
1990 general elections. Instead it jailed thousands of NLD members and has put
Suu Kyi under house arrest several times.
Her last period of
incarceration ended in May 2002 and since then she has been allowed to travel to
the countryside, but alleged government harassment has marred her last two
trips.
The junta has denied it is hindering Suu Kyi's movements or
activities.
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Aung San Suu Kyi takes calculated risk in shifting stance
against junta
BANGKOK, April 24 (AFP) - Faced with the unwillingness of Myanmar's
junta to discuss democratisation, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has shifted
her stance from conciliation to public criticism, taking a calculated risk in
the process, diplomats and analysts say.
Aung San Suu Kyi's
obvious irritation Wednesday at only the third press conference she has given
since her release from house arrest last May could alienate the junta, or have
no affect at all, they say.
"There has been a slight shift towards
confrontation... a slight shift in strategy," one Western diplomat says of the
leader's strong criticisms of the junta.
"She has made no public
criticism since the talks (with the junta) started," he says, referring to the
UN-brokered secret talks which began between Suu Kyi and the junta in October
2000.
The talks were supposed to begin with a confidence-building
phase before proceeding to a political dialogue aimed at shifting the country
towards democracy, ending the four-decade grip on power by Myanmar's military.
But on Wednesday the Nobel peace laureate complained that the
political dialogue had not commenced and directly questioned the sincerity of
the junta in even wanting to participate in it.
"We have been
forced to question the integrity of the SPDC (the ruling State Peace and
Development Council) and their sincerity in achieving national reconciliation,"
she told reporters.
"National reconciliation is change. They don't
want change, but change is inevitable," she said, striking an attitude unseen in
recent years.
"I was quite surprised by her candid comments, which
military authorities here could interpret as being confrontational," said one
Myanmar expert.
"It was a calculated risk on her part... A
calculated move, obviously. It will be interesting to see what they (the
generals) say."
The same Myanmar journalists who attended her
press conference Wednesday have been summoned to a government press briefing on
Friday morning.
But, as one diplomat noted, if Aung San Suu Kyi
had departed from her usual policy of conciliation towards the junta, "she also
said a lot of conciliatory things to balance it out".
She
reiterated the wish of her National League for Democracy (NLD) to cooperate with
the regime, as she has done relentlessly since being freed from 19 months of
house arrest.
Still the junta -- headed by Senior General Than
Shwe, who is said to be the most opposed to any change -- has not given any
signs that it is willing to discuss a transition.
Since the start
of the year, Yangon has on four occasions refused requests for visits by Razali
Ismail, the special envoy of the UN's secretary general Kofi Annan, who paid a
key role in brokering the October 2000 landmark talks.
Aung San
Suu Kyi on Wednesday urged his return, saying "he should be allowed to visit any
time he wants, go anywhere he pleases and talk with anybody."
The
diminutive leader, deeply influenced by the Buddhist principles of patience,
tolerance and non-violence, appears unable to continue to hide her frustration
over the lack of progress.
And she knows she can count on the full
support of Western capitals, which have in recent months also apparently stopped
believing that the junta is sincere in wanting reform.
Her recent
seven trips outside the capital after more than a year confined to her residence
have also likely further strengthened her will to fight for democracy: on her
extended tours she has had a first-hand view of the immense aspirations for
freedom of thousands of her countrymen.
And she has also seen how
huge her own popularity is.
"She appears to have become
spiritually and morally strengthened after her recent trip to the Chin state,
where popular support for her was so overwhelming, despite the people there
being subjected to official threats and intimidation," one observer noted.
Forces within the NLD party may also be nudging her, in particular
the youth league.
"There may be some criticism that the NLD is not
pushing enough and is too conciliatory," says one diplomat, referring to
elements within her party.
The NLD did, after all, win a landslide
election victory in 1990, the results of which the junta has still not
recognised.
"One never knows how the generals will react," said
one diplomat.
One thing is certain: the ongoing pressure and
sanctions exerted on the regime by the United States and the European Union have
had no visible effect.
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UN special envoy hopes to return to Myanmar 'as soon as
possible'
KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 (AFP) - United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail
on Thursday said he hoped to return to Myanmar quickly to speed up the national
reconciliation talks between the ruling military junta and the National League
for Democracy (NLD).
"I have no idea when I will return. Of
course, I hope I would return as soon as possible," Razali told AFP.
Razali said he would attempt to get the meetings between the
junta, NLD and other ethnic groups going and to "consider humanitarian
assistance" for Myanmar.
The former Malaysian diplomat's new
six-month term began last month.
Razali, whose last trip to Yangon
was in November last year, is credited with brokering landmark secret talks
between the military and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which began in October
2000 and were aimed at promoting national reconciliation and political reform.
The talks have led to the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel
Peace Prize laureate, and some political prisoners, but are widely known to have
ground to a halt.
On Wednesday, the NLD leader complained for the
first time publicly about the lack of progress in national reconciliation talks
with the junta.
"We have been concerned with the lack of process.
We should move on to a more advanced stage. We have been forced to question the
integrity of the SPDC (the ruling State Peace and Development Council) and their
sincerity in achieving national reconciliation," she told reporters.
The EU earlier this month extended sanctions against Myanmar.
In December, Aung San Suu Kyi said she was "cautiously optimistic"
that political change would come to Myanmar.
Her party won a
landslide 1990 election victory but has never been permitted to rule by the
military.
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Myanmar junta announces end to its rice stranglehold
YANGON, April 24 (AFP) - Myanmar's military junta announced Thursday
the scrapping of its 40-year-old paddy procurement policy.
"All
nationals can trade rice in the country freely at the prevailing market prices,"
Lieutenant General Soe Win, of the ruling State Peace and Development Council
was quoted as saying through an article in the state-run New Light of Myanmar
newspaper.
"The new rice trading policy has totally removed the
government's control of rice... There will be no involvement of state
organisations in the sale and purchase of rice," he said.
The
decision, taken at a high-level junta meeting earlier this month, signifies a
dramatic change in policy in Myanmar, where agricultural production and trade
has been tightly controlled for decades.
Under current procurement
method the government buys up 10 percent of overall production at officially
fixed and heavily deflated prices.
The grain is then redistributed
to government employees, military personnel and their families as a subsidy,
while the rest is stocked for emergencies and for export.
Under
the new scheme farmers will no longer have to sell a portion of their produce to
the government at prices as low as one sixth the prevailing market rate.
Analyts said earlier this month that the move was expected to
stabilise future rice prices.
But it would badly affect civil
servants and military personnel who had grown accustomed to the subsidies, they
said.
Soe Win met Wednesday with members of various industry
bodies to explain the new rice policy, which would "ensure free trade of rice
beginning in the coming year", according to the report.
The new
policy was aimed at shifting towards a market-oriented system, would encourage
farmers to produce more and allow consumers to buy rice at reasonable prices,
the report said.
Under the new system rice would only be exported
when it was in surplus but farmers would have to pay a ten percent export tax
and then split their earnings evenly with the government, the report added.
Rice is Myanmar's primary agricultural product, and at least 12
million out of an estimated labour force of 16 million are farmers.
Once one of Asia's leading rice exporters, Myanmar exports less
than one million tons annually despite a rise in production, as more rice is
consumed domestically.
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Thursday April 24, 5:51 PM
Australia's Ivanhoe, Citic
Team up for Mineral Exploration
SYDNEY, April 24
Asia Pulse - Ivanhoe Mines (ASX:IVN)
and China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) have teamed up
for mineral exploration in the Asian region.
A joint statement by
the companies said the alliance would explore and develop base and precious
metal projects in Asia to meet China's current and future
needs.
CITIC has agreed to facilitate discussions between senior
Chinese and Mongolian officials over a proposed 290 kilometre rail line linking
Ivanhoe's gold and copper discovery at Oyu Tolgoi (Turqoise Hill), southern
Mongolia and the Chinese industrial city of Bayan Obo.
The
companies said they would investigate strategies to optimise the development of
copper and gold exploration in Mongolia, the expansion of Monywa copper project
in Myanmar, joint ventures with CITIC Gold and the introduction of Advanced
Processing Technology at various asian mining projects.
CITIC is a
giant Chinese state-owned enterprise with interests in a range of industries
including energy, banking, information technology, airlines, real estate, heavy
industry and infrastructure investment.
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BBC News
Thursday, 24 April, 2003,
12:07 GMT 13:07 UK
Burma rejects opposition
claims
The Burmese military government has rejected
accusations by the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi that she was harassed and
intimidated during recent travels outside the capital, Rangoon.
The military spokesman, Colonel Hla Mintold, told the BBC that the party
led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, was responsible for
deteriorating relations between the two sides.
His comments came
after Aung San Suu Kyi challenged the government's commitment to reform, saying
the authorities refused to start serious political talks.
A BBC
correspondent in the region says Burma's political deadlock is increasingly
becoming a war of words.
He says that although both the opposition
and the military government say they want to co-operate on humanitarian and
development issues neither side seems able to take the initiative.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
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Asian Tribune
Date : 2003-04-24
Dam - A cover-up for the construction of strategic road by Burma to
Contain Shan Militants.
The construction of the Dam
on the Salween project is only a cover up to build a startegic road of 100miles
long to contain the Shan militants in the area.According to an observer's
account: "It will be part of the strategy to hem in the Shan State Army, active
in the area and eventually force it to submission." The dam on the Salween
project in Shan State has enabled Rangoon to build a strategic highway aimed at
containing the recalcitrant Shan rebels along the border, according to a
long-time border watcher in Thailand.
The officer, who holds a
military rank, told S.H.A.N. since signing up the Tasarng hydroelectric power
plant agreement with Thailand's MDX Co. on 20 December, the Burmese army had
been busy sending up engineering units and construction equipment from Rangoon
to Mongton Township on the eastern side of the Salween.
Their
mission was to "bulldoze" a dirt track leading from Tasarng along the steep
eastern bank to Ta Sopharng, the mouth of the Harng where it joins the Salween,
and turn southeast through Loi Khilek and Mongjawd to Nakawngmu and Thailand's
Nawng Ook village in Chiangdao district, bypassing Mongton altogether. The road,
reportedly for the use of the MDX and the construction company to be chosen by
it, after completion, will roughly be half as long as the existing thoroughfare
that goes through Mongton (100 miles).
The MDX officials, who have
been at the dam site since 21 January, had already inspected the ongoing
operation on 31 March, according to a Burmese report obtained by a border
source.
Overall security is being provided by Military Operations
Command #17, commanded by Brig-Gen Nyunt Hlaing, stationed at Mongpan on the
west bank, said the officer.
"It will be part of the strategy to
hem in the Shan State Army (that is active in the area) and eventually force it
to submission."
An observer remarked that explain why the
anticipated military assaults against Shan bases in the area had been long
overdue. "Last year operations against the Shans were already in full swing in
April, a month before the battle of Pang Maisoong (20 May-20 June 2002)," he
added.
- Shan Herald Agency for News -
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