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New York Times - May 30, 2003
A Year
After Vowing Change, Burmese Junta Hardens Line
By
SETH MYDANS
BANGKOK, May 29 ? One year ago this month, Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi stood before a hot and excited crowd in Myanmar and declared, "It's
a new dawn for the country."
She had just been freed from 19 months of
house arrest by a ruling military junta promising cooperation, mutual respect
and a new dialogue toward a political accommodation with the democratic
opposition she headed.
"The next step is discussions about policy," she
said.
A government spokesman said there would be no restrictions on her
movements "because we are confident we can trust each other," and he announced
that the country's political prisoners would be freed.
Almost none of
these promises have been kept.
"I don't think there's been any progress
so far," said David I. Steinberg, a professor at Georgetown University who is a
leading expert on Myanmar, formerly called Burma. "It's been very depressing."
The anniversary of that hopeful moment has been marked by new tensions
between the government and the opposition and by some of the most pessimistic
remarks Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has made in years.
"We are concerned with
the lack of progress between the authorities and ourselves," she said shortly
before the May 6 anniversary of her release. "We have been forced to question
the sincerity of the S.P.D.C. I do not think there had been any progress. In
fact, I would have thought that there had been some kind of
regression."
The S.P.D.C. is the military junta that took power after
crushing a widespread popular uprising in 1988, and has since named itself the
State Peace and Development Council.
It clung to power after her party,
the National League for Democracy, won more than 80 percent of the seats in a
parliamentary election in 1990, and it has held her under house arrest, off and
on, for much of the time since then.
"The election results cannot be cast
aside at will," Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said in a statement on Tuesday, which was
the anniversary of that election. "We, the National League for Democracy, stand
firm for implementation of the results of the 1990 election."
That
position represented a hardening of the openly flexible position she had taken
in the recent past, Mr. Steinberg said.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's release
last May was one of the most hopeful moments for the democratic opposition since
the election, and the shrinking of those hopes over the past year has left it
uncertain about the future.
"Are they truly interested in a settlement
with us?" Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi asked in April.
The promised political
dialogue has failed to materialize, and a spokesman for her party, U Lwin, told
reporters this week in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, that the government had not
even discussed the issue for the past seven months.
A leading member of
the junta told the Thai foreign minister earlier this month that a dialogue
would begin soon. That statement was met with widespread skepticism that the
talks would be conducted in good faith, or that they would even actually
begin.
Though the government says more than 500 political prisoners have
been freed, the United States State Department estimates that 1,300 are still
being held. Many of these, however, are members or supporters of armed ethnic
groups rather than members of the political opposition.
Since January the
government has announced only 75 releases, and in recent months it has made a
number of new arrests.
Since December it has also backtracked on the one
major promise it had kept: permitting Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's freedom to travel
from Yangon to meet supporters and to reopen party offices that had been forced
to close.
According to party members in Yangon, her convoys of cars and
motorcycles have been obstructed, supporters have been intimidated, and public
meetings have been disrupted by heckling and harassment.
She is now on a
monthlong trip to northeastern Myanmar, her seventh trip in the past year, and
the party spokesman, Mr. Lwin, said in statements to reporters in Yangon that
she had been faced with the most hostile and violent disruptions so
far.
He said organized crowds had surrounded her and her supporters. Some
people brandished sticks and machetes. In one case, a brick landed on her car.
In another, punches were thrown.
He blamed these actions on a
government-organized group called the Union Solidarity Development Association,
some of whose members are sometimes used to harass opponents.
On Tuesday,
the government turned the tables and accused Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters
of assaulting people who were peacefully protesting against her.
"Local
authorities have urged the N.L.D. to be broad-minded and understand that there
are those who support the N.L.D. and those who do not support them," it said in
a statement.
Razali Ismail, a special envoy of the United Nations
secretary general, Kofi Annan, who brokered the agreement for Mrs. Aung San Suu
Kyi's release, has tried to shepherd the start of political discussions.
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THE NATION
RIGHTS REPORT: AI details
litany of Thai abuses
Pennapa Hongthong
Published on May 30, 2003
UK-based group
cites drug killings, harassment of media, activists
In a second blow to
Thailand's human rights reputation, Amnesty International yesterday said
extrajudicial killings and the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners and ethnic
minorities continued in the Kingdom last year.
The global human rights
monitor's 2003 annual report, released in London yesterday, comes on the heels
of UN human-rights envoy Hina Jilani's statement on Tuesday that human-rights
organisations in Thailand faced harassment and intimidation.
The Amnesty
report, which documents human-rights abuses in 151 countries and territories
from January to December 2002, said that holding prisoners of conscience and
capital punishment were also seen in Thailand last year.
The report also
cited the Thai government's moves to crack down on the media, including foreign
publications, and official investigations into the financial activities of
journalists critical of the government. Amnesty said the pretexts of armed
conflict, "war against terrorism" and "crackdowns on crime" had allowed
governments in the Asia-Pacific region to step up repression of political
opposition, make arbitrary detentions and introduce "sweeping and often
discriminatory laws that undermined the very foundations of international human
rights and humanitarian laws".
In a special update on selected
violations from January to April 2003 , the report mentioned the Thaksin
administration's war on drugs, which it said had resulted in a "de facto
shoot-to-kill policy" that had resulted in 600 killings.
Overcrowding of
prisons and the shackling of death row prisoners continued, although the
Corrections Department had taken steps to reform the prison system, the report
said. It cited the escape of 15 youths from the Baan Ubekkha Juvenile Detention
Centre in Samut Prakan as an example of ill-treatment of detainees.
Among the rights violations in Thailand listed in the report were the
rape of three Karenni refugees by Thai soldiers last March; the arrest of 26
farmers and land-rights activists in Lamphun, some of whom were charged with
more than 40 offences; and the case of Sok Yoeun, an ailing Cambodian refugee
and prisoner of conscience who was arrested for illegal immigration in 1999. The
report said Sok Yoeun remains at risk of being extradited to Cambodia since he
is currently appealing a court ruling that he should be extradited.
The
report also mentioned the discovery last February of the bodies of more than 20
migrant workers from Burma's Karen ethnic minority who had been blindfolded,
their wrists tied behind their back and their throats slit.
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Asian Tribune
Date :
2003-05-29
Curious surfers stream into nation?s first cyber
cafés
By: Aung Kyaw Tha
Myanmar's first cyber cafes have attracted a
steady stream of customers since they opened in Yangon just over a week
ago.
Cyber Zone, operated by the Maykha Networks company at the Dagon
Centre in Sanchaung township, and Fortune International company?s Cyber World 1,
in the Danathiha Centre, on Bogyoke Aung San Road, opened on May 10.
They
are the first of 16 cyber cafes due to open throughout Yangon in the coming
weeks.
Cyber Zone had registered 70 users and was attracting about 40
visitors a day, said U Kyaw Kyaw Moe, a Maykha Networks director, told Myanmar
Times last Thursday.
A spokesperson for Cyber World 1 said 80 people had
signed on as users during its first four days of business, and people were
visiting the premises every day to surf the net.
The spokesperson
predicted a bright outlook for cyber cafes because many Myanmar were interested
in the internet but did not have their own computers or access to the
internet.
Cyber Zone, with 40 terminals, and Cyber World 1 with 25, are
offering special introductory rates but both plan to charge K1500 an hour to
ordinary customers from June 1.
Customers at Cyber Zone are charged a
minimum of one hour?s usage, for which the introductory rate is K1200.
After the first hour, customers are charged for each 15 minutes.
However, U Kyaw Kyaw Moe said customers who use the terminals for three
consecutive hours will be charged for 120 minutes.
For the convenience of
customers, Cyber Zone has colour printers, scanners and CD writers for those who
want to download information in the form of print-outs and CDS, he
said.
Cyber café owners or operators pay a one-off K200,000 registration
fee and a monthly charge of K50,000 to the Myanmar Information and Communication
Technology Development Corporation, which was established to oversee the
operation of the businesses.
The MICTDC has urged all owners or
operators and customers to adhere to its regulations.
Bagan Cybertech,
one of the country?s two internet service providers, is providing technical
support to all cyber cafes.
- The Myanmar Times: May 19 - 25 -
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Asian Tribune
Date :
2003-05-30
Dangerous slide into barbarism: AHRC on the Killing of Six
Migrant Burmese Workers in Thailand.
Hong Kong, May 30:
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), slammed Thailand for the death of the six
Burmese migrant workers recently at Mea Sot, Thailand. The heart wrenching
tragic episode where innocent lives were subjected to extra-judicial killings,
was described as: ?Dangerous slide into barbarism.?
AHCR in its
statement alleged,?The six migrant workers murdered in Thailand this week were
the victims of a monster that threatens to consume an entire society and its
democracy. The monster was let loose by the current government when in February
it launched a "war on drugs" and granted the police a licence to kill. Unless it
is stopped soon, the monster may become uncontrollable. ?
The text of the
statement issued by the AHRC is given below:
That the six Burmese men
were murdered with the complicity of the police, army and local officials in Mae
Sot now appears beyond doubt. That such murders have occurred with alarming
regularity for many years, but are rarely reported on as migrant workers in
Thailand have long been treated as sub-humans, is also well known. Only cases of
extreme brutality are ever made public, such as the murder of at least 21
persons on the Mae Lamao stream in January 2002. No one has ever been brought to
account for that atrocity, which the Asian Legal Resource Center has taken
before the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Yet the sheer openness with
which the police and other local officials engaged in their conspiracy indicates
the extent to which they now feel free to kill with impunity. The Asian Human
Rights Commission has already noted that with the "war on drugs" the government
of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has effectively endorsed murder.
Since that war began over 2000 persons have been killed, cremated, and
officially forgotten. Never tiring of the fight, the Prime Minister has now
begun a war on 'dark influences', including alleged human traffickers and agents
for migrant workers. With the taste of blood fresh in its mouth, the police
force will thirst for more.
The persons who killed these six men must be
jailed. They are known and within reach. They must be arrested and prosecuted
without delay. They must be made into a public example. The National Human
Rights Commission, to which relatives of the dead men brought their appeal, must
do everything in its power to pursue this case. The six men's killers will not
be the only ones on trial: so too will be the killers of all migrant workers in
Thailand, and the killers of all those alleged drug traffickers who since
February have died without being granted the right to assert "I am innocent".
Finally, above all else, it is the rule of law and democracy in Thailand that
will be on trial. The Asian Human Rights Commission sincerely hopes that justice
will not fail.
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25.5 kilograms of opium seized in S.W.
province
Xinhuanet 2003-05-30 20:55:08
KUNMING, May 30
(Xinhuanet) -- A frontier police
station in southwest China's Yunnan province on May 27 seized 25.5 kilograms of
smuggled opium and arrested a foreign suspect.
The Nongdao police
station had received a report at 14:00 on May 27 warning someone would smuggle a
huge amount of drugs near the 55th China-Myanmar border milestone.
Six
armed policemen from the station rushed to the site and apprehended the suspect,
who claimed to be a Myanmar native, half an hour later.
The opium was
found at 15:40 in four baskets hidden in dense grass and sugarcane fields
nearby.
The suspect said he had been trusted by foreign drug dealers
toorganize and transport the opium to a city in western China.
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The Star - Friday, May 30, 2003
Iris
to promote chip-based passport in West Africa
BY HONG
BOON HOW
IRIS Corp Bhd is confident of using Nigeria as a
platform to promote greater use of the company's chip-embedded passport system
in West African countries.
Its chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail said the
company had signed a two-year agreement worth RM246mil with a Nigerian partner
to supply equipment, services and systems for the implementation of the
electronic passport system.
?As Nigeria is a dominant player in
the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) grouping of 15 nations,
we are expecting this development to spur other West African countries to
consider our system,? he told a media briefing in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Iris specialises in an electronic identification systems that integrate
several proprietary and generic technology to produce a fully operational
computing solution for high security applications.
The company had
signed an agreement with Iris Smart Technologies Ltd on May 24 to supply 5.5
million passport substrates with silicon chips for embedding into Nigerian
passports.
The agreement is also meant to develop comprehensive
end-to-end passport applications and issuance systems for 39 locations in
Nigeria and 51 sites outside Nigeria.
It also called for a passport
personalisation system, passport laminates with security features and the
setting up of border control autogates for air and land ports at eight
locations.
Razali, the former United Nations General Assembly
president, said Nigeria was the third country after Malaysia and Myanmar to
adopt the company's chip-embedded passports.
He said the new
passport system would help the country check the rampant forgeries of
passports.
Razali also said the company was looking at setting up
a showcase to promote the chip-embedded passport system to delegates of the
coming Organisation of Islamic Conference meeting, which was scheduled in Kuala
Lumpur in October.
Iris managing director Tan Say Jim said the
Nigeria passport contract was expected to bring a ?decent'' margin but declined
to elaborate.
He said Iris' success in securing the contract was a
milestone for the company as it was rare for developing countries to acquire
high-level security systems from another developing country.
Iris
posted a pre-tax profit of RM4.2mil on a turnover of RM10.1mil in the first
quarter ended March 31.
It said the results were mainly
attributable to the sale of hardware and contributions from the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) project as well as from its associated company Iris Technologies
(M) Sdn Bhd.
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DVB News (28 May 2003)
A member of Monywa NLD-Women branch was hit by
a motorcycle
Daw Khin Than, a member of Monywa NLD-Women branch was hit by a motorcycle
driven by an unknown person in front of her house and she suffered a broken leg
and was hospitalised, according to U Lwin:
U Lwin : 'I don't know what the reason is. While they were preparing for a
journey during an early morning, Daw Khin Than, a leader of the divisional
office was hit by a motorcycle and she broke her leg. She needed to be treated
in the hospital.
Members of the USDA and police have been watching the
NLD Monywa office for a couple of days. The NLD members were summoned and warned
by the chairman of the local authority not to welcome Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and
team with motorcycles and cars convoys.
About 300 to 500 members of the
USDA of Yinmapin and Pale were mobilised before the 26th of May. They are being
fed by the local authority and given 300 kyats each day. The local people are
saying that they could be prepared to harass Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and team when
they arrive.
Civil servants are also banned from welcoming the team and
if the evidences are found on the video tapes, their jobs are not guaranteed,
said the warning. The SPDC also complained yesterday in a statement that ten
people were assaulted and wounded by the supporters of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
during the trip. U Lwin retorted that it could not be so as follows:
U
Lwin : Even though I was not there, I know about it. There are people who
reported to us with the instruction of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. There are some
comments by U Tin Oo. He himself went to see our wounded people then, not long
after that, some USDA members wearing puttees and bandages arrived. On the
journey from Mogok, our youth were told not to alight from their cars. They have
no reason to get off their cars and attack members of the USDA. They (USDA
members) were wounded! The accusation has no foundation and no evidence. We
don't know how they were wounded. Our youth were not allowed to alight their
cars. They didn't know whether they were hurled with bricks or they were
wounded. Things were like that. They also bashed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's car. In
our view, the stones hurled at the people who came to welcome the team also
reached the surrounding houses. If we discuss with logic like that it would be
better.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and team will travel from Monywa to
Buttalin, Ye-U, Dipeyin and Tantse to raise signboards and open NLD
township
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