BurmaNet News: February 28, 1996 #3 (r)

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Subject: BUrmaNet News: February 28, 1996 #353

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The BurmaNet News: February xx, 1996
Issue #353

HEADLINES:
==========
THE NATION: BURMA HOLDS THEFT SUSPECTS
THE NATION: ACTIVISTS BLAST E.ASIAN NATIONS FOR STAND ON 
HUMAN RIGHTS
BKK POST: KNU RAID KILLS AT LEAST 35 BURMESE
BKK POST: PROMISING GAS FIND IN GULF OF MARTABAN
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THE NATION: BURMA HOLDS THEFT SUSPECTS

FEBRUARY, 29 1996

BURMESE authorities have refused to hand over to Thai police 
on a highway on Sunday night, border officials said 
yesterday.

The official said the Burmese authorities arrested six Shan 
men believed to have crossed the border and robbed Thai 
police. They also seized valuables and cash.

They said two of the suspects reported escaped custody. The 
officials also said the robbery suspects were no longer 
members of drug warlord Khun Sa?s troops after the warlord 
surrender to the Burmese authorities.

Meanwhile, police at Pang Ma Pha sub-district said that a 
Shan man who was arrested here after the road robbery was 
apparently not involved. The man was charged with possessing 
war weapons, they said. (TN)

**************

THE NATION: ACTIVISTS BLAST E.ASIAN NATIONS FOR STAND ON 
HUMAN RIGHTS

Yindee Lertcharoenchok

KEY political activists on Burma, East Timor and Northern 
Ireland yesterday verbally lambasted leaders of rapidly-
growing East Asian economics which have rejected the 
university of human rights with counter-argument based on 
Asian values.

In Rangoon Aunt San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma?s democracy 
movement, has accused Asian leaders of abandoning the values  
that carried their countries to independence in favour 
narrow commercial gain.

The activists, attending a three-day Asian-Europe NGO 
Conference ahead of the upcoming Asian-Europe Meeting, 
expressed strong opposition to the Asian definition, 
particularly on the promotion of communal rights at the 
expense of the rights of the individual.

?The definition of collective rights ought not to take place 
in the context where their are violations of individual 
rights within the community. You cannot justify those rights 
being violated just because the community?s identity has to 
be respected,? said Simtu Kothari, a human rights activist 
from the New Delhi-based Lokayan Dialogue for the people.

He said both the universality and the specificity have to be 
respected,? but the important point is that there is no case 
to justify leaders of (Asian) regime suppressing the human 
rights of their people in the name of specific identity and 
context.?

Kothari said activists were protesting against leaders of 
regime in Asian who are allowing gross violations of basic 
human rights to take place and protecting themselves under 
this umbrella of the Asian identity.

Along with Kothari, Maung Maung, a representative of the 
opposition Burmese government in exile, Catrina Rauane from 
the Centre of Research and Documentation in Ireland, and 
Carmel Budiardjo, who is a British activist on East Timor, 
have urged the 25 leaders from Asian and European Union to 
discuss human rights during the Asem.

Addressing the same press conference, Rauane said most of 
the countries that have promoted Asian values are ?often the 
governments with the worst human rights record?.

She said Burma, the Slorc has denied the rights of the 
majority of its population. More than 80 per cent voted in 
the 1990 general elections for  the NLD of the Suu Kyi.

?The community right is what the people of Burma voted for 
in 1990. The problem is that the military regime said that 
there are different standards of this right. The majority of 
Burma voted for this (NLD) political party, so what are the 
reason behind denying them their rights?? He said.

Maung Maung said he did not see any difference between being 
born in Asian or the West as we are all human beings and, 
therefore, are entitled to the same basic human rights.

In an interview with AP Television to be broadcast, Suu Kyi 
urged leaders at the Asian-Europe summit to help, not 
hinder, Burma?s struggle for democracy.

?We are going to achieve democracy in Burma and it would be 
much to their credit if they could say later that they help 
us in that achievement.

?At the time of independence, all the Asian leaders insisted 
that should have the same rights as Europeans and that they 
should have the rights that colonial governments had...?

?But of course with time views do change, and on the road to 
economic development some people now think issues of human 
rights and democracy are not important,? Suu Kyi said.

Despite the strong popular support enjoys, Suu Kyi refuses 
to threaten the army with any sort of uprising. She said she 
believed the military?s handing of the economy will prove so 
ruinous that even those investors who care little for human 
rights will start to worry.

?The majority of the people are getting poorer while a very, 
very rich. Such a difference between haves and have-nots 
will surely make for a lot of social unrest,? she said. (TN)

*****************

BKK POST: KNU RAID KILLS AT LEAST 35 BURMESE

February 29 ,1996

Mae Sot, Tak

AT least 35 soldiers were killed in heavy fighting between 
the Karen National Union and Rangoon-backed Democratic Karen 
Buddhist Army troops early Tuesday in an area opposite Mae 
Sot, a rebel source said.

The source said 300 KNU soldiers of the 24th Battalion, 7th 
Division, led by Col Kyaw Nee pounded a DKBA position at 
Tichara Botae with motars and recoilless guns.

The attack on the position, about 10km west of the border 
opposite Ban Wang Kaew began at 3 a.m.

The DKBA were reinforced by 400 Burmese government troops 
and both sides engaged in heavy fighting. The din of 
machine-gun fire was heard clearly in Mae Sot town.

The KNU withdrew at about 8 a.m, said the source, confirming 
that a least 30 government and DKBA troops were killed while 
the KNU sustained five killed and seven wounded.

A Thai military source said the attack was in retaliation 
for the DKBA raid on Mae La refugee camp in Tak?s Tha Song 
Yang District early last month which killed senior KNU 
officer Hta Lu, 71.

The two sides have frequently clashed for control of logging 
areas near the border with Thailand. (BP)

******************

BKK POST: PROMISING GAS FIND IN GULF OF MARTABAN

February 29, 1996

by Boonsong Kositchotethana

A CONSORTIUM that includes Thailand?s PTT Exploration & 
Production PLC (PTTEP) has discovered what appears to be 
another promising gas structure in Burma?s Gulf of Martaban.

Total, the French oil firm that leads the group, reports 
success from the exploratory well M5 A1, lying about 10 
kilometres south of Yadana, Burma?s largest known gas field.

The discovery well, to be called Sein, flowed natural gas at 
a combined rate per day (MMcfd) during tests that were 
completed recently.

Sein - diamond in Burmese - was drilled to a total depth of 
about 2,000 metres with two gas productive zones, according 
to executives of PTTEP, an exploration affiliate of the 
Petroleum Authority of Thailand.

The well is the first of a series of six exploratory wells 
the consortium plans to drill this year in its licensed 
blocks M5 and M^, where at least some six gas productive 
deposits are believed to be lying.

The exploration programme, estimated to cost as much as 
US$25 million, forms part of the group?s effort to establish 
additional gas reserves from the blocks, on top of Yadana 
whose recoverable gas reserves stand at a world-scale 5.7 
trillion cubic feet.

Yadana is being developed by the group, mainly for exporting 
to Thailand. Under a 1995 agreement, the group to PTT in 
mid-1998 at a rate of 130 MMcfd, before increasing the rate 
to 525 MMcfd 15 months thereafter.

The $1 billion Yadana development, some 320 kilometres south 
of Rangoon in the Gulf of Mataban, has drawn fire from 
activists who accuse Thailand and the Total group of 
supporting the Burmese military junta.

Additional gas reserves from the Burmese blocks would 
support PTT?s announced plan to raise its purchases of 
natural gas from Yadana by 200-300 MMcfd over the 
contractual levels.

PTT Governor Pala Sookawesh has discussed this possibility, 
since the Yadana developers expect more gas from the field, 
and additional gas demand spurred by private power plant 
operators under Thailand?s independent power producer 
programmes.

According to PTTEP, the consortium is moving the semi-
submersible drilling platform from Sein to a new location 
called Badamya. (BP)


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