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Tuesday June 24, 6:42 PM
Myanmar exiles say 94 missing
in May clash
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thailand-based group of political
exiles from Myanmar has said eight people were killed on May 30 in a clash
between a pro-junta group and supporters of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
At least 94 people were missing, the Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners said in a statement on Tuesday.
Suu Kyi was detained
after the clash in central Myanmar and remains in the custody of the country's
military regime. The group said its sources in Myanmar had reported that
authorities had arrested 51 people, including Suu Kyi and key leaders of her
National League for Democracy (NLD).
It said 94 people, including the
party's vice chairman, Tin Oo, had not been accounted for, listing them as
"disappeared".
Myanmar exiles and some Yangon-based diplomats say
hundreds of pro-junta youths, wielding bamboo and iron rods, set upon Suu Kyi's
convoy and local villagers when she was touring a town in central Myanmar.
Myanmar's ruling generals, who maintain that four people died in the
incident, say they are holding Suu Kyi for her own safety.
A six-member
team from the International Committee of the Red Cross left Yangon on Sunday for
central Myanmar to visit around a dozen detained members of the NLD leadership.
The team's leader Michel Ducreaux told Reuters last week access had been denied
to Suu Kyi.
Britain says Suu Kyi is being held in the "notorious" Insein
Jail on the northern outskirts of Yangon, but the Myanmar government denies
this.
International anger has mounted against Myanmar's military rulers
over Suu Kyi's detention, with the European Union and the United States
threatening harsher sanctions.
The biggest aid donor to the country,
Japan, sent a minister to meet Myanmar's military intelligence chief and third
in the ruling junta on Monday to try to secure her release.
But Tetsuro
Yano came away empty handed, telling reporters in Bangkok the military had given
him only vague assurances it would "rectify the situation".
The NLD
swept to a landslide election victory in 1990 but was prevented from taking
power by the military, which has ruled the country since a 1962 coup.
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Japanese Minister Urges Myanmar to Free Suu
Kyi
Mon Jun 23, 7:42 AM ET
YANGON (Reuters) - A Japanese minister met Myanmar's
military rulers on Monday to try to persuade them to free pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Japanese diplomatic source said.
International anger
with the generals has mounted since they detained the Nobel peace prize winner
on May 30 after a clash between her supporters and a pro-junta group.
Japan, the main aid donor to the impoverished country formerly known as
Burma, sent its deputy foreign minister, Tetsuro Yano, to meet Myanmar's
military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, third in command in the junta, the
source said.
He said Myanmar's foreign minister, Win Aung, attended the
meeting, but gave no further details. Yano, who was in Yangon for just a few
hours and was scheduled to leave later on Monday, also separately met Home
Minister Tin Hlaing, the source said.
Japan said last week it would
consider scaling back assistance to Myanmar if Suu Kyi is not released.
The Myanmar junta has said it is holding Suu Kyi for her own personal
safety and says it will free her soon.
Former colonial power Britain
says Suu Kyi is being held in the "notorious" Insein jail, the biggest prison in
the British empire before 1945, on the northern outskirts of Yangon.
A
six-member team from the International Committee of the Red Cross left Yangon on
Sunday to see around a dozen leaders of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
(NLD) believed held in the Mandalay area in central Myanmar.
But the
team's leader, Michel Ducreaux, told Reuters last week the junta had denied
access to Suu Kyi.
The NLD swept to a landslide election victory in 1990
but has been prevented from taking power by the military, which has ruled
Myanmar in various guises since a 1962 coup.
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Tuesday June 24, 4:34 PM
Malaysia Mahathir Again Urges
Myanmar To Release Suu Kyi
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia
(AP)--Calling the issue a "dilemma"
for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Malaysia's leader Tuesday
repeated his call for Myanmar's military government to immediately release
detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"I hope that the Myanmar
regime will take into account the views expressed by other countries, especially
Asean in this matter, because this has placed Asean in a dilemma," Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad said at a news conference. He didn't elaborate.
Asean last week told Myanmar's junta to free Suu Kyi - an unprecedented
demand for the association, which has a core policy of not interfering in its 10
member nations' internal affairs. Similar calls have come from the U.N., the
U.S. and other countries.
Suu Kyi was taken into what the junta calls
protective custody May 30 following violent clashes in northern Myanmar, also
known as Burma. The government said four people were killed, but unconfirmed
reports from dissidents put the number at 70.
Myanmar Foreign Minister
Win Aung told his Asean counterparts at a meeting last week that Suu Kyi, a
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wouldn't be released until an investigation into the
clashes is complete.
Mahathir, 77, has led Malaysia for almost 22 years
and is considered an elder statesman within Asean. He was crucially involved in
getting Myanmar accepted into the group, and helped broker moves toward
reconciliation between the junta and Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
party.
Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won the 1990 national elections,
but the junta has refused to give up power.
Asean members are Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday June 24, 4:47 PM
Myanmar Factory Workers In
Thailand Fired Over Dispute
MAE SOT, Thailand
(AP)--A garment factory in western
Thailand has fired 420 Myanmar migrant workers, who were demanding better
working conditions, a labor organization said Tuesday.
The factory in
Mae Sot, owned by Hong Kong and Taiwan businessmen, refused to provide the
workers with clean drinking water during work hours, forcing them to drink from
a fish pond, said Moe Swe, secretary of the Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association.
He said the owners also didn't repair a dangerous walkway or provide
light at night. The workers were fired Monday as their protests became more
boisterous, said Moe Swe, whose group looks after the welfare of workers in the
Mae Sot area, close to the Myanmar border.
Guards at the factory's gate
said managers and owners weren't available for comment.
Garment
factories in Mae Sot profit from cheap labor provided by Myanmar migrants
fleeing harsh economic conditions in their country. Their vulnerable status as
migrant workers leaves them easily exploited.
Moe Swe said the factory
employees had been working for 55 Thai baht ($1=THB41.59) a day, while the local
legal minimum wage is THB133 baht a day.
Moe Swe said according to Thai
law, migrant workers have seven days after losing a job to find a new one before
facing deportation. But he claimed the factory handed the workers immediately
over to the police for deportation to Myanmar.
"It is unjust and
violates the law. We have reported it to the Thai national human rights
commissioner," Moe Swe said.
Police were also not available for comment.
He said during negotiations with the owners, armed guards surrounded the
workers and threatened them to leave quietly.
The Thai and Myanmar
governments last week signed a memorandum of understanding to improve the
working conditions of migrant workers.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday June 24, 10:26 PM
Thailand Police Arrest 90
Myanmar Illegal Immigrants
MAE SOT, Thailand
(AP)--Police in western Thailand
arrested 90 Myanmar people Tuesday including a 3-year-old child who allegedly
sneaked into the country illegally in search of jobs, officials said.
The 52 men, 35 women and one child were arrested along with two alleged
traffickers as they were trekking through the jungles of Tha Nong Thong Chai
mountain in Kamphengphet province, said Viraphong Subannaphong, a Mae Sot
district official.
He said the migrants had paid $140 each to the
traffickers to be taken from the border town of Mae Sot to Kamphengphet, from
where they were to be taken to the capital, Bangkok, by road.
Kamphengphet is 320 kilometers north of Bangkok.
Thousands of
Myanmar migrants, fleeing harsh economic conditions in their country, enter
Thailand illegally every year to work in low-paying jobs. Many are employed
legally also.
Maung Maung, one of those arrested, said he had borrowed
money at interest to pay the traffickers.
"I did not have enough money
to feed my family in Myanmar. Now I am in custody. The interest is growing day
by day," said a tearful Maung Maung, a father of five.
Viraphong said
the two alleged traffickers face up to 10 years in prison, while the others will
be deported.
Meanwhile, a garment factory in Mae Sot fired on Monday 420
Myanmar migrant workers, who were demanding better working conditions, a labor
organization said Tuesday.
The factory, owned by Hong Kong and Taiwan
businessmen, refused to provide the workers clean drinking water during work,
forcing them to drink from a fish pond, said Moe Swe, secretary of the Yaung Chi
Oo Workers Association.
He said the owners also did not repair a
dangerous walkway or provide light at night.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday June 24, 7:16 PM
Indonesia Questions
Malaysian, Thai, 2 Others In Aceh
JAKARTA (AP)--Indonesia's military said Tuesday it was
questioning a Malaysian, a Thai and two Myanmar nationals who claim they are
fishermen and were kidnapped by rebels in waters off Aceh province.
Aceh
military commander Brig. Gen. Bambang Darmono said soldiers found the four while
on a patrol in eastern Aceh. He didn't elaborate.
The military last week
reportedly found an abandoned fishing boat flying the Thai flag in northern
Aceh.
It wasn't immediately clear what would happen to the four men.
The rebels have occasionally kidnapped sailors in waters off Aceh and
held them for ransom.
On May 19, the military launched its latest
offensive against the insurgents after a six-month cease-fire collapsed.
Since then, 262 rebels have been killed, along with 26 soldiers and four
police officers, military spokesman Col. Ditya Sudarsono said.
The
numbers show an increase of seven rebels killed and two soldiers. Sudarsono
didn't elaborate on how the deaths occurred.
The separatist Free Aceh
Movement has been fighting for an independent homeland on the northern tip of
Sumatra island since 1976. More than 12,000 people have been killed since.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monday June 23, 1:58 PM
U.N. secretary-general says conditions under which Suu Kyi
is held
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday
repeated his call to Myanmar to immediately release pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, saying the conditions under which she is being held in a jail
outside Yangon are ``truly deplorable.''
Annan was ``gravely concerned''
that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was reportedly being held in Insein
Jail outside of Myanmar's capital, according to a statement from his spokesman's
office.
He also said his special envoy had informed him that she was
detained under a law protecting the state against subversive elements.
Annan ``considers the conditions under which she is being held _
incommunicado and without charge _ to be truly deplorable,'' the statement said.
Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, or NLD, has
been detained since a clash between her supporters and government backers on May
30 in northern Myanmar.
Political prisoners in Myanmar, also known as
Burma, are often not released even when they have completed their sentences.
Her detention has stirred international outrage, and the United States
and the European Union have initiated sanctions to press for her release. The
U.S. sanctions would bar most trade, dealing a harsh blow to Myanmar's export
earnings.
``The secretary-general urges the government of Myanmar again
to heed the repeated calls of the United Nations and the international community
... to immediately release (Suu Kyi) and other members of the NLD,'' the
statement said.
He also called on the government to acknowledge that the
people of Myanmar are ``overwhelmingly in favor of change and to join hands with
all parties,'' to bring about national reconciliation as soon as possible.
Myanmar's military government has said Suu Kyi is being detained for her
own protection, and that the clash occurred when her supporters tried to drive
through a crowd of people protesting her party's behavior. It said four people
died and dozens were injured.
Opposition accounts of the incident
depicted it as a brutal ambush of Suu Kyi's motorcade by government-backed thugs
who may have killed as many as 70 people.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monday June 23, 10:58 PM
U.N. envoy on Myanmar to visit Tokyo to discuss Suu Kyi's
release
TOKYO (AP) - The special U.N. envoy on Myanmar will
visit Tokyo this week to hold talks with top Japanese officials on ways to
achieve the release of detained Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
officials said Monday.
Razali Ismail, who arrives Tuesday, will meet
with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and other government officials, the
ministry said. More details of his two-day visit were to be released Tuesday.
Razali, who met with Suu Kyi on June 10, is the only outsider to have
seen her since she was detained May 30 by Myanmar's government following clashes
between her supporters and military backers in the country's north.
In
Myanmar's capital of Yangon on Monday, Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister
Tetsuro Yano met with Gen. Khin Nyunt, the No. 3 leader in Myanmar's junta, to
call for Suu Kyi's early release and clarify events that led to her detention.
Yano also was to convey a message from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi urging the release of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Myanmar's
government has said Suu Kyi is being detained for her own protection and that
the clash occurred when her supporters tried to drive through a crowd of
opponents. It said four people died, but opposition accounts put the number at
as many as 70.
Other leaders of Suu Kyi's party, the National League for
Democracy, also have been detained and party offices have been closed throughout
the country.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Koizumi hints at no immediate review of Myanmar aid
policy
TOKYO, June 24, Kyodo - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi suggested
Tuesday that Japan will not immediately review its aid policy on Myanmar, while
urging the junta to democratize the country and release Aung San Suu Kyi.
''Some say Japan's measures toward Myanmar are lenient compared with
those of the United States and Europe,'' Koizumi told reporters. ''But those
measures cannot be the same.''
Koizumi said it is necessary to keep in
mind various ties between Japan and Myanmar in dealing with the continued
custody of the democratic leader.
The European Union recently decided to
step up sanction measures on Myanmar, including economic ones, in protest
against the junta's arrest of Suu Kyi. The
U.S. has also said it is
studying stricter economic sanctions on Myanmar for similar reasons.
''I
will urge (the Myanmar junta) to democratize the country,'' Koizumi said.
''We need to give (the junta) some time to decide on the release''
before reviewing the official development assistance, Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi told reporters earlier in the day.
The junta ''has to release
(Suu Kyi) as quickly as possible,'' Kawaguchi said.
Kawaguchi met
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung last week in Phnom Penh on the sidelines of a
series of meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Kawaguchi called for Suu Kyi's release and told Win Aung that Japan may
review its aid policy if there is no progress on the issue.
Suu Kyi and
some members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) have been detained since
what the junta says were violent clashes between NLD supporters and pro-junta
demonstrators in northern Myanmar on May 30.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Kawaguchi hints at no immediate review of Myanmar aid
policy
TOKYO, June 24, Kyodo - Japan will not immediately review its aid
policy for Myanmar but Myanmar's junta needs to act quickly to achieve the
release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi
said Tuesday.
Asked if Japan will set any time frame to review the
policy, Kawaguchi told a news conference, ''We need to give some time (for the
Myanmar government) to decide on the release, but it has to release her (Suu
Kyi) as quickly as possible.''
Kawaguchi met Myanmar Foreign Minister
Win Aung last week in Phnom Penh on the sidelines of a series of meetings hosted
by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Kawaguchi called for the
release of Suu Kyi and told Win Aung that Japan may review its aid policy if
there is no progress on the issue.
Suu Kyi and some members of her
National League for Democracy (NLD) have been detained since what the junta says
were violent clashes between NLD supporters and pro-junta demonstrators in
northern Myanmar on May 30.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Asia Times - Jun 25, 2003
SPEAKING
FREELY
Why ASEAN criticized Myanmar
By
Hiro Katsumata
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature
that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
SINGAPORE - When the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations held a series of annual meetings last week, it was the
ASEAN foreign ministers' dealing with the Myanmar issue gained the most
attention of the international media. The ministers took the unprecedented step
of urging the Yangon government to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, who has been detained since late May. Their Joint Communique stated that
they "look forward to the early lifting of restrictions" placed on her.
The international media reported this as a surprise departure from, or
even an abandonment of, the principle of non-interference in internal affairs of
ASEAN members. Even some Western newspapers that are usually unequivocal in
criticizing ASEAN politics made a few positive remarks. For example, the
International Herald Tribune stated last Wednesday that if ASEAN is to "stop
coddling the junta", better days for the people of Myanmar "may at least be in
sight".
What was the reason behind this unprecedented maneuver on the
part of ASEAN? Most critics maintain that its members were concerned about the
association's international image and reputation. ASEAN had been criticized by
the Western countries, including the United States and European Union members,
as ignoring Myanmar's human-rights record. Singapore's Straits Times on Saturday
held that "ASEAN had no choice but to act": ASEAN's "international image has
taken a beating because of its passivity over Myanmar".
This line of
argument is partially plausible; however, it overlooks a more important reason.
When ASEAN urged Yangon to release Suu Kyi, the members were motivated not only
by their concern for image and reputation, but also by their own beliefs in the
value of human rights and democracy. ASEAN's behavior was not just a response to
international pressure for tougher actions against Yangon. It was also a
voluntary action to address the serious human-rights problem in Southeast Asia.
In other words, their motives were not only external but also internal. The
norms of human rights and democracy have gradually been internalized in ASEAN,
and its members were driven by their own normative commitment.
Such a
claim can be justified by focusing on the origin of the agenda to address
domestic matters of member states. From the late 1990s, the ASEAN countries
started to debate whether and to what extent they should discuss one another's
domestic affairs.
It was Thailand that proposed in 1998 that ASEAN
should adopt a policy of "flexible engagement". The then-foreign minister, Surin
Pitsuwan, proposed this on behalf of the Thai people who share the value of
human rights and democracy. At that time, the domestic situations in Cambodia
and Myanmar were serious concerns of human-rights advocates. Not surprisingly,
Surin's proposal was strongly supported by the Philippines, another democratic
country in Southeast Asia, but not by many other relatively less democratic
members.
Yet the debate over the discussion of domestic affairs
continued, in the contexts of different notions, such as "enhanced interaction".
As many in the region started to recognize the value of human rights, the
governments of ASEAN members relaxed their strict adherence to the
non-interference principle. The behavior of the ASEAN ministers in the meeting
last week should be seen as the result of this process.
The events of
last week demonstrate a new aspect of ASEAN policies in the 21st century. ASEAN
politics have been driven by liberal norms, gradually internalized in Southeast
Asia, and members have finally begun to address issues of human rights and
democracy.
Hiro Katsumata is an IDSS-Sasakawa post-doctoral fellow at
the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. He can be reached at ishkatsumata@xxxxxxxxxx .
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Washington Post
How Best to Rid the World of
Monsters
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, June
23, 2003; Page A21
Almost everyone who opposed the U.S.-led war
in Iraq, both here and overseas, agreed that Saddam Hussein was a monster.
"We're glad the dictator is gone," they say now. "But war was the wrong way to
unseat him."
Fair enough. But then, what is the right way? Aung San Suu
Kyi might like to know.
In case you haven't been following the news from
the other side of the world, she is the leader of pro-democracy forces in Burma,
a lush, predominantly Buddhist nation of Southeast Asia. At the moment she is
thought to be in Insein Prison, the terror center outside Burma's capital, where
dog kennels have been converted to torture cells and prisoners are forced to
beat each other bloody for the entertainment of guards.
If Saddam
Hussein's rule was monstrous, the regime of Burma's junta is no less so. Ethnic
cleansing, rape as an official tool of repression, heroin and HIV/AIDS as
primary exports, a vast security apparatus spreading fear throughout society,
slave labor -- Burma's got it all.
But Burma has something that
distinguishes it from most totalitarian systems, too. In Iraq, Hussein's
apologists could claim, up to the very last minute, that the Iraqi people loved
him. You could scoff at the claim, but you couldn't absolutely prove it false.
In Burma, you can declare with mathematical certainty that the regime is
illegitimate: It lost a 1990 election to the National League for Democracy,
which won 82 percent of parliamentary seats even though its leader -- the same
Aung San Suu Kyi -- was under house arrest at the time. Those elected were never
permitted to take their seats. Quite a few, in fact, ended up in
Insein.
Given all that, you might ask why regime change is not on the
world's agenda. Last week the United Nations General Assembly adopted a $2.17
billion budget for the coming year for peacekeeping operations. Why nothing for
democracy-keeping?
It's accepted, now, that the "international
community," as we call it when no one wants to take responsibility, would have
been justified if it had violated Rwanda's sovereignty to prevent genocide there
-- that is was morally remiss, in fact, in failing to do so. Many nations
supported the violation of Serbia's sovereignty to save the people of Kosovo
from forcible eviction from their homes. The people of Burma have been suffering
far longer. Yet somehow, as in North Korea, it is considered perfectly moral to
stand aside and watch crimes against humanity that just unfold in slower motion
than Rwanda's. The Burmese generals are permitted to shield themselves behind a
sovereignty that does not legitimately belong to them. Leaders around the world
go on receiving their ambassadors and embracing their foreign ministers.
Is
it fanciful to dream of a democracy-keeping force that would liberate the people
of North Korea (where at least 2 million have died of officially induced
starvation) or Burma? No doubt. Jacques Chirac would be upset, Kofi Annan would
remind us of the absence of consensus, George Bush would see no issues of
national security to justify the use of force. But then, what would they
do?
Sen. Mitch McConnell has one suggestion, and he persuaded 96 other
senators to go along: a ban on imports from Burma. Such economic punishments
often have little effect, or end up hurting poor workers more than rich
generals. U.S. business almost always opposes sanctions.
But for a couple
of reasons, Burma might be different. The regime -- which calls itself the State
Peace and Development Council -- controls most of the economy and so would be
immediately affected. U.S. clothing and shoe importers, who account for most
Burmese goods sold in this country, became so disgusted by the child labor and
other coercive practices of the regime that, through their trade association,
they actually endorsed an import ban before the Senate voted. Amartya Sen, the
Nobel Prize-winning economist and development expert, said Friday that sanctions
"are more likely to be effective there than almost anywhere else I can imagine"
-- provided other countries join in.
With which McConnell agrees. "Our
actions will not be truly effective until our European allies and Burma's
neighbors also place pressure on the junta," he said last week.
And that
brings us back to all those politicians who bowed to no one in their disdain for
Saddam Hussein -- but who insisted war could never be the answer. They have a
chance to show that another way might work. Aung San Suu Kyi is waiting.
--------------------------------------------------------------