EBO Burma News, 4 April 2003
News Summary:
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1. New rape allegations tar
2. Banking crisis pushes
3.
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New rape allegations tar
by Stephen Collinson
and systematic rape as a weapon of war
against ethnic women, a new report said
Friday, which is certain
to re-ignite a controversy over similar claims
furiously disputed by
The survey by the Washington-based
Refugees International Group (RI), based
on interviews of women on the Thai-Myanmar
border suggests that the use of
rape by the Tatmadaw
(
reported last year.
RI documented 43 rapes among women from
the Karen, Karenni, Mon, Tavoyan
and Shan ethnic groups. Some 75 percent of
women interviewed reported knowing
someone who had been raped.
"Rape is widespread and committed
with impunity, both by officers and lower
ranking soldiers. The culture of impunity
contributes to an atmosphere in
which rape is permissible," said RI
spokeswoman Veronika Martin.
are guilty of rape, and accused the
allegations to attack it.
The State Department said in December that
its consulate in the northern
Thai city of
groups -- including the Shan Human Rights
Foundation -- that
used gang rape of ethnic Shan women as a
weapon of war.
The group released a report last year
documenting 625 sex attacks on Shan
women and girls by
The report contains graphic allegations.
Testimony from one woman, named
Thay Yu, claims that she witnessed the rape of
a woman fleeing to
with her family.
The woman's husband was forced to watch as
soldiers raped and killed his
wife, before turning their guns on him, the
report said.
Other alleged rapes are documented among
women who were enduring forced
labor and incarceration in military prison
camps.
One claim concerns the experience of a
woman named Naw Muh Doh who
allegedly saw soldiers come to take her sister away
to their camp.
"She heard her sister's cries -- 'they
are raping me' -- but could do
nothing to stop it. The day after, the soldiers
brought her body back to the
family to bury. Her wounds indicated she had
been raped, perhaps to death,"
the report said.
RI calls on the UN Commission on Human Rights
to condemn rape and other
forms of violence against women and girls in
on the country.
It wants the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees to ensure that any probe
into the issue is conducted by experts of
sexual violance with guarantees of
full access and security for witnesses.
Furthermore it calls on the Thai
government to provide protection for women
and girls fleeing rape in neighboring
It also calls on the
women and children enshrined in various
international conventions and
agreements it has signed up
The
raped women from ethnic minorities, especially
in Shan, Karenni and Karen
states, which drew international condemnation
and fierce denials from the
junta last year.
unsubstantiated charges made by insurgents and opposition
groups."
The
strong supporter of pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, maintaining an
array of sanctions to protest her exclusion
from politics.
Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest
last May, and has been
engaged in UN-brokered talks with the junta since
October 2000, but they are
yet to progress beyond a confidence-building
stage.
----------------------------------
Banking crisis pushes
by Pascale Trouillaud
limits on withdrawals, a suspension of cheque
and credit card services, no
lending and a huge shortage of currency, all of
which are hitting many people
hard.
The bankruptcies of a few small
money-lenders in mid-February initially
sparked the crisis, which saw thousands panic and
rush the country's 20
private banks.
The banks had attracted a large
concentration of savings by offering
interest rates six times higher than public
institutions.
A near-absence of official comment from
the military junta, and
insufficient short-term measures devised by monetary
authorities to deal with
the sudden liquidity cruch
then worsened the crisis, diplomats and
businesspeople in
The most important private banks,
including the Asia Wealth Bank (AWB) --
which held more than 200 million dollars, or 43
percent of total deposits of
private banks and the Chinese-run Yoma Bank were immediately affected and the
others were soon hit, a western analyst said.
"Of course, the private banks were
not managed with great orthodoxy. They
lent always on short-term credit and often to
the rich, who bought gold,
four-wheel drives, houses," the analyst said.
"This created a true speculative
bubble. Gold prices here are above world
levels, and property prices per square metre are
not far off
As a stop-gap measure, the central bank
injected 25 million dollars into
private banks, he said.
Borrowers were ordered to repay 50 percent
of their loans immediately,
while bank withdrawals were limited to between
50 and 100 dollars each week
per account, a paltry sum for companies
needing to pay wages or suppliers.
As a result of its scarcity, the kyat,
which had been trading on the
widely-used blackmarket at
around 1,100 to the dollar, shot up -- brutally for
many -- to 750. It now hovers at the 900
point.
The kyat's
appreciation would be welcome news for the junta, which risks
mistaking it as a sign of a healthier economy,
according to analysts.
Officially, there is no banking crisis.
"They try to camouflage the crisis.
They passed on orders to news
publications: it doesn't exist," one observer said.
Diplomats and analysts agree that
authorities are not dealing with the
crisis.
"Usually in a banking crisis the
government tries hard to prevent it from
spilling over into the general economy -- the
government steps in and
guarantees deposits," a western diplomat said.
"Here the government has refused to
fix the situation."
The consequences are already visible, with
enterprises unable to pay for
their raw materials closing or shifting their
employees to part-time work in
an industrial park in
Meanwhile shops in the capital are
suffering a drop of 30 percent of their
turnover since the start of the crisis, according
to figures from a western
embassy.
And if farmers are unable to sell their
produce in the next few weeks as
the current harvest ends, they will not be
able to sow their crops next season.
"The whole economy is
paralysed," declared a western businessman. "And I am
paralysed too, because at this stage there is no
point in expanding my
business. People are depressed... There is
absolutely no cash."
An Asian diplomat said the crisis is
affecting everyone.
"It does impact on the entire
spectrum of the economy. For businesspeople,
the traders, it is important for this government
to find lasting solutions,"
he said.
The evaporation of the money supply has
prompted a crisis of confidence in
the banking system: The weekly Myanmar Times
reported that sales of safes have
doubled in
"People trusted their banks and
suddenly they can't withdraw money," said a
businessman of
of uncertainty, especially for the poor and
the underprivileged."
More generally, a high-ranking diplomat
said, "this creates resentment and
generally reinforces the feeling of how badly the
government is handling the
economy."
The major effects, however, are difficult
to ascertain because of the huge
parallel economy in
"The banking crisis will reinforce
the weight of the underground economy,"
said another diplomat.
With its pathological fear of social
unrest, the junta has apparently
ensured that the largest companies have
sufficient liquidity to meet the
payment of salaries for March.
"The government will not let massive
layoffs take place," predicted another
western diplomat. "They also keep a close
watch on rice distribution, wages
and salaries."
An army of the unemployed and famished farmers
taking to the streets would
be the worst-case scenario for the generals.
But this is a still tiny risk, according
to one Yangon-based observer who
pointed to the "the apathy, aplasia of
living from day to day" under the junta's
yoke.
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embassy in the
there Saturday, a source close to the British
embassy said.
"As far as I know the man is still at
the embassy. He has not been handed
over, despite requests from the foreign
ministry to do so," a source close to
the British embassy told AFP.
The source added that the demonstrator had
said he did not represent any
political party.
He and another man had protested outside
the embassy Friday morning,
holding fighting peacock flags and shouting,
according to a statement released
after the incident by the country's ruling
military junta.
One man was arrested while the other, who
was dressed like a Buddhist monk,
escaped into the grounds of the British embassy,
the junta statement said.
The source said Saturday, however, that it
was the monk who had been
arrested.
British diplomats have not been available
to comment on the incident.
The junta statement said that authorities
were conducting an investigation
because the pair were suspected of being linked
to a March 27 bomb blast in
downtown
exchange.
Peacock flags are a traditional symbol of
resistance against military rule
in
Nevertheless, individuals are occasionally
arrested in
the law and protesting in public, usually
against the ongoing rule of the
regime.
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