Reuter news on Dec. 1

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Reuters on Dec.1


Burma promises foreign investors a fair deal

    RANGOON, Dec 1 (Reuter) - A senior member of Burma's ruling State Law and
Order Restoration Council has assured overseas businessmen of fair treatment,
saying that foreign investment in Burma stands at $1.3 billion. 
    Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, military intelligence chief, was quoted by
official media on Thursday as giving the assurance at the opening on
Wednesday of a medical and pharmaceutical exhibition in Rangoon. 
    ``On our part, we assure all our friends that whatever you do in our
country you will get a fair and just deal,'' Khin Nyunt told representatives
of more than 60 companies from 14 countries. 
    In a review of foreign investment in Burma, Khin Nyunt said: ``Up to
date, we have 17 countries investing with 113 direct investments amounting to
1.3 billion U.S. dollars. 
    ``Our rich potential in agriculture, forestry, marine products,
manufacturing, mining and services sector is attracting many foreign
investments,'' he added. 
    On October 29, 1988, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)
declared a policy of moving towards a market economy, after experimenting for
more than 25 years with a locally adapted form of socialism. 
    Six years later the SLORC has announced a broad-ranging policy to
privatise state enterprises, and on Tuesday the government signed an outline
pact with a Japanese securities house for help in establishing a stock
market. 
    But economists say the artificially high exchange rate of the kyat
against the dollar, and vestiges of the former command economy, still hamper
Burma's economic progress. 
    In addition, some western diplomats have urged caution for companies
eyeing the Burma market, saying the legal and physical infrastructure is not
yet fully in place. 
 REUTER


Transmitted: 94-12-01 13:26:25 EST
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Burma 1994/95 paddy harvest seen 19.5 mln tonnes

    RANGOON, Dec 1 (Reuter) - Burma will produce about 19.5 million tonnes of
paddy from 6.5 million hectares in 1994/95, official media on Thursday quoted
Agriculture Minister Lieut-General Myint Aung as saying. 
    The minister, who spoke at a meeting of the International Network for
Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) on Wednesday, said rice production had
increased steadily from 13 million tonnes in 1991/92 to around 17 million
tonnes in 1993/94. 
    Myint Aung said the successful adoption of a summer paddy programme was
mainly responsible for the increase. 
    Burma's main rice crop on irrigated or flooded plains runs November to
April, while the summer programme taking advantage of the wet season is from
May until October. 
    The INGER meeting, attended by 17 nations, will continue until December
3. 
 REUTER


Transmitted: 94-12-01 13:19:36 EST
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Burma hails meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi

    BANGKOK, Dec 1 (Reuter) - Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw said on
Thursday that recent meetings between his country's military rulers and
detained oppposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi helped build mutual
understanding and were likely to continue. 
    Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai said Ohn Gyaw gave the assurances after
he enquired after Suu Kyi in a one-hour meeting also attended by Thai Foreign
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. 
    ``The Burmese said the meeting helped to create confidence and
understanding on both sides and there are good prospects for another
meeting,'' a government spokesman quoted Chuan as saying. 
    Ohn Gyaw said Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC) sincerely intended to resolve its political problems, Thaksin added. 
    SLORC has been shunned by much of the Western world after crushing a
democracy uprising in 1988 and later refusing to recognise the election
victory of the National League for Democracy party founded by Suu Kyi. 
    The league's sweeping victory in 1990 came despite Suu Kyi's being placed
under house arrest in 1989. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991. 
    Two meetings between Suu Kyi and junta representatives over the past
three months -- the first since she was placed under house arrest -- have
sparked hopes of a softening of Rangoon's hard line. 
    Ohn Gyaw also said that Burma would rely on diplomacy and not fighting to
solve its disputes with ethnic minority rebels, Thaksin said. 
    More than a dozen ethnic minority groups have been fighting the central
Rangoon government for autonomy since the end of British rule in 1948. 
    Since SLORC announced a unilateral ceasefire in April 1992 13 main rebel
groups or splinter groups have signed peace pacts with the government. The
Shan and the Karen are the only main groups that continue to fight. 
    Although government troops earlier this year attacked Shan rebel forces
led by opium warlord Khun Sa in southern Shan state, rebel sources say the
two sides are now at a stand-off. 
    Chuan told reporters he expressed concern to Ohn Gyaw about ethnic
minority rebels who have fled across the border, saying Thailand was being
targeted for criticism. 
    Human rights group Amnesty International earlier this year criticised
Thailand for sending 6,000 Mon people back to Burma after they fled to the
Thai side of the border following a Burmese army raid. 
    ``Ohn Gyaw...informed Chuan that his government has stopped military
operations since 1992 so there is no reason for these refugees to be afraid
and flee to Thai soil,'' the Thai government spokesman said. 
 REUTER


Transmitted: 94-12-01 05:55:13 EST
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Forum hammers Asia's authoritarian leaders

    By David Brunnstrom 
    SEOUL, Dec 1 (Reuter) - Human rights activists on Thursday blasted Asia's
authoritarian leaders for deriding Western ideas of democracy, and a leading
South Korean campaigner denounced Singapore's model as an ``Orwellian extreme
of social engineering.'' 
    ``Authoritarian leaders will have us believe that Asian culture precludes
universal human rights,'' said Canadian Edward Broadbent of the International
Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. 
    ``It is taken seriously by too many people; these authoritarians are
wrong,'' he told the two-day Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia-Pacific
being held in Seoul. 
    The forum focused on human rights in Burma, where a military government
remains in control having ignored the results of a 1990 general election and
having detained many opposition leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991
Nobel peace prize winner. 
    Burmese Buddhist monk Rewata Dhamma, who lives in Britain but recently
acted as an intermediary to arrange dialogue between Suu Kyi and the
generals, said a state that did not guarantee human rights lost its claim to
legitimacy. 
    ``The depiction of rights as simply a Western invention fails to
understand the relationship of rights to responsibilities and ethical norms. 
    ``If the ethical systems we find in different times and different parts
of the world varied greatly, we might have a problem, but in fact the central
values of all societies are very much the same.'' 
    Most Burmese living under the military would find the idea that they were
not ready for full democracy ``grossly patronising'' said another Burmese
participant Harn Yawnghwe. 
    South Korea's Kim Dae-jung, a former presidential candidate, human rights
activist and political prisoner who set up the forum, made a scathing attack
on the philosophies of Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew. 
    In an article in the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs and
distributed at the forum, he said Lee was wrong to claim Western-style
political systems, with their ``intrusive government,'' were not suited to
family-orientated Asia. 
    ``Asian governments intrude much more than Western governments in the
daily affairs of individuals and families,'' he wrote. 
    Kim said that in South Korea each household was still required to attend
monthly neighbourhood meetings to receive government directives and discuss
local affairs. And in Japan the government constantly intruded into business
to protect perceived national interests. 
    ``In Lee's Singapore,'' he wrote, ``the government stringently regulates
individuals' actions -- such as chewing bubble-gum, spitting, smoking
littering and so on -- to an Orwellian extreme of social engineering.'' 
    ``The fact that Lee's Singapore, a small city state, needs a
near-totalitarian police state to assert control over its citizens
contradicts his assertion that everything would be all right if governments
would refrain from interfering in the private affairs of the family,'' Kim
said. 
    He said despite resistance from people like Lee, Asia had made great
strides towards democracy and it was likely to take root throughout the
continent by the start of next century. 
    ``Instead of making Western culture the scapegoat for the disruption of
rapid economic change, it is more appropriate to look at how the traditional
strengths of Asian society can provide for a better democracy,'' he said. 
    ``Asia should lose no time in firmly establishing democracy and
strengthening human rights. The biggest obstacle is not its cultural heritage
but the resistance of authoritarian rulers and their apologists,'' he said. 
 REUTER


Transmitted: 94-12-01 08:13:25 EST