The BurmaNet News: December 11, 199 (r)

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Subject: The BurmaNet News: December 11, 1998

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 "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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The BurmaNet News: December 11, 1998
Issue #1156

Noted in Passing: "Indeed, it is probably the language of non-violence ...
that is most responsible for the low profile of those who have right but
not might on their side.  There is irony in this, ... considering the
disapproval ... we give to violent advocates of change in places like the
Middle East."  - David Evans (see EDMONTON JOURNAL: NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE
BEST CHANCE FOR BURMA) 

HEADLINES:
==========
IPS: AID-FOR-DEMOCRACY OFFER TO JUNTA FALLS FLAT
XINHUA: SOLUTION TO MYANMAR PROBLEMS 
AFP: JAPAN WILLING TO INCLUDE MYANMAR-MIYAZAWA PLAN 
KYODO: JAPAN DENIES MYANMAR INCLUDED-MIYAZAWA PLAN 
EDMONTON JOURNAL: NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE BEST CHANCE 
LA TIMES (OP-ED): THE CONSCIENCE OF LA 
ANNOUNCEMENT: ASSK VIDEO MESSAGE ON THE WEB 
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IPS: AID-FOR-DEMOCRACY OFFER TO JUNTA FALLS FLAT
7 December, 1998 

Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, (Dec. 7) IPS - A proposal by several Western governments to offer
a one billion U.S. dollar "carrot" to the Burmese junta, to get it to
resume political dialogue with its pro-democracy opponents, has found only
lukewarm response from both sides. 

Analysts say that the latest attempt to break the political deadlock in
Burma, though well-meaning, is extremely naive about realities there as
well as a sign of rising frustration in certain sections of the
international community. 

According to the International Herald Tribune in late November, the offer
to provide financial and technical aid to the Burmese government in return
for greater political freedoms to the opposition was made during a recent
trip to Rangoon by UN Assistant Secretary General Alvaro de Soto. 

De Soto, U.N. special envoy to Burma, is reported to have told Burmese
military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt that preconditions for providing the
funds include release of all political prisoners, freedom of movement for
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and activists of the National League for
Democracy (NLD). 

The funds are to be provided by the World Bank and channeled through the
United Nations. It is estimated that there are some 1,300 political
prisoners in Burma's jails, some 600 of them NLD members. 

The proposal came out of a meeting on Oct. 12-13 at Chilston Park in
south-east England, arranged by the British foreign ministry, and attended
by more than 40 diplomats from various countries. 

Those attending included five Rangoon-based ambassadors from Australia,
Japan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States as well as
Thai Deputy Foreign Minister Sukhumband Paribatra. 

Sukhumband was quoted by Thai media as saying the initiative was a step in
the right direction. However, he also noted: "The initiative will not bring
about apocalyptic changes in Burma, nor will it break the political
deadlock overnight."

The reaction of the Burmese junta, which calls itself the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), has been cautious. According to U.N. sources,
Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt has reportedly asked for more time to consult other
junta members before reaching any decision. 

Though many pro-democracy groups are highly skeptical about the initiative,
they have not made any public statements because of the involvement of
international bodies and governments supportive of their cause. A source
close to Suu Kyi said that the dissident leader also avoided attaching too
much importance to the proposal. 

"The Chilston Park initiative is incredibly naive if it envisages a change
in the attitudes of the SPDC to the political situation inside Burma," said
a leader of a Burmese pro-democracy students group. 

Some pro-democracy activists are actually worried that the Burmese junta
may accept the proposal and create a temporarily liberal political
atmosphere only to renege on the deal after the funds are in. 

"If that one billion dollar package makes them stay in power, definitely
they will welcome it," said an exiled NLD member of parliament. 

The poor homework done by those conceiving the Chilston Park proposal is
evident from the sum of one billion dollars being offered, analysts say.
Critics say it is too large a sum in the context of Burma, whose annual GDP
is less than $300 million. 

Diplomats at the October meeting have subsequently clarified that the one
billion dollar figure was only a hypothetical amount and yet to be "fully
worked out" in consultation with all parties concerned. 

Bangkok-based Burmese analysts say that Western governments seem to have
come up with the proposal to give a one billion dollar incentive to the
Burmese junta due to their frustration over the failure so far to bring
about change in Burma. 

Since the brutal suppression of the pro-democracy uprising in 1988, many
Western governments led by the United States have pursued economic
sanctions against the military regime. 

For its part, the Association of South-east Asian Nations adopted a
"constructive engagement" policy criticized as being too supportive of the
regime.

Neither approach has pushed the military into restoring power to the
Burmese parliament elected in general elections of 1990. Instead, in the
past decade, the ruling junta has tightened its grip over the country and
sent thousands of opponents to jail or to be even tortured and killed. 

The idea of giving money to the regime as an incentive to take steps toward
greater democracy seems to have been born in the aftermath of the Asian
economic crisis, which has hurt the Burmese economy deeply. 

Prices of essential goods inside Burma have skyrocketed in the past year
and foreign investment and exports have plummeted, putting enormous
pressure on the military junta. 

Though the Chilston Park meeting was attended by representatives from the
U.S. and several Asian governments, some analysts also see it as being
pushed primarily by Britain along with other European governments. 

"The attendance of the U.S., Thai and a few other non-European governments
lent credibility to the initiative but there is no doubt that this is also
an attempt by the Europeans to assert their own independent policy on
Burma," said an international human rights activist based in Bangkok. 

The European Union recently clashed with the United States over Cambodia,
where it strongly endorsed the July 26 general elections and fostered
political dialogue between rival parties despite U.S. attempts to portray
the polls as being unfair. 

Whatever be the realpolitik behind the current proposal on Burma, the
chances of its success are rated by some in the diplomatic community itself
as being very little. 

Instead, they look forward more to political initiatives from within the
opposition movement in Burma to wrest power from the military junta, if
necessary through mobilization of the masses. 

"There can be no meaningful change in Burma unless the domestic opposition
gets its political strategy together and challenges the military inside the
country," noted an Asian diplomat based in Rangoon. 

He points out that external efforts, in the form of either carrots or
sticks, will not be effective and will only play into the junta's
accusations that the pro-democracy opposition is a "puppet of foreign
forces trying to destabilise the country". 

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XINHUA: SOLUTION TO MYANMAR PROBLEMS BE ATTAINED BY PEOPLE: UN
8 December, 1998 

YANGON (Dec. 8) XINHUA - "The solution to the problems of Myanmar must be
attained essentially amongst the people of that country, " a spokesman for
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, was quoted by the U.N.
Information Center in Yangon as saying. 

Answering questions raised in an article in the International Herald
Tribune on November 26, the spokesman said Annan's discussions with the
Myanmar government and those of his special envoy with the government and
Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the opposition National League for
Democracy, are confidential in character and cover a wide range of issues. 

"The secretary-general has often repeated his concern that a member of the
U.N. should be so isolated from the international community and would very
much hope to assist in finding ways for Myanmar to address the concerns
that have led to that isolation," he said. 

"In that effort, he (the secretary-general) reserves the right to consult
closely with interested and influential governments and with agencies and
programs of the U.N. system," he stressed. 

In December last year, Senior-General Than Shwe, Chairman of the Myanmar
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), met with Kofi Annan when he
attended the Kuala Lumpur Second Informal Summit Meetings of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations and they had discussions on Myanmar. 

In October this year, the U.N. chief sent his special envoy Alvaro de Soto,
Assistant U.N. Secretary-General, to Yangon again to look into the
situation in Myanmar. Soto met with both Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, First
Secretary of the SPDC, and Aung San Suu Kyi. 

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

AFP: JAPAN WILLING TO INCLUDE MYANMAR IN MIYAZAWA PLAN
9 December, 1998 

BANGKOK, Dec 9 (AFP) - Japan would be willing to channel to Myanmar some of
the 30 billion dollars in aid pledged to Asia by Finance Minister Kiichi
Miyazawa, a Japanese government spokesman said Wednesday.

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Masaki Okada, on a whirlwind tour of
ASEAN nations ahead of next week's Hanoi summit, said Japan would be
receptive to an application for funds from Myanmar's junta.

"We haven't had any interest from them. If they are interested then we are
ready to cooperate," he told reporters here.

The statement appeared to contradict Japanese foreign minister Masahiko
Komura's September pledge to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that
Tokyo would not resume aid to Myanmar.

Japan suspended all but a small amount of humanitarian aid to the
military-run state in the late 1980s but agreed in February to help finance
reconstruction of the airport in Yangon, Myanmar's capital.

The United States has imposed broad sanctions since the ruling junta
crushed a pro-democracy movement and seized power in 1988. In 1997,
Washington banned new investment in the country.

Okada said although Japan would have to consult with the US were it to use
funds from the five billion dollar joint initiative announced at
Asia-Pacific Cooperation forum in November, the Miyazawa cash could be
allocated unilaterally.

"In the interpretation of that joint initiative, we cannot undertake (it)
unilaterally, we always have to consult with the United States," he said.

"We can also undertake our own unilateral cooperation in the future," the
envoy added. "We are not only tied to that bilateral cooperation with the
United States."

Okada said it was hard to tell how badly affected Myanmar was by the
region-wide economic and financial crisis, but that the junta would have to
meet the same application criteria as other Asian nations.

He said the funds would need to be used in supporting corporate debt
restructuring, efforts to make the financial system "sound and stable," to
stimulate the economy and provide social safety net schemes.

"These are the areas we think we can support (Asia) with the Miyazawa
initiative," Okada said.

Japan's Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in October announced a 30 billion
dollar loan facility to help Asian nations along the road to recovery.

Japan originally envisaged the funds going to five Association of Southeast
Asian Nations namely Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and
South Korea, Okada said.

"But we do not intend to limit the recipients to those five countries ...
the door is open to other countries."

"We know that Vietnam is interested and we also heard that Laos is
interested," he added.

"We explained to them that if they are interested in our Miyazawa plan then
please give us some concrete ideas, concrete projects to finance from our
initiative." 

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

KYODO: JAPAN DENIES MYANMAR INCLUDED IN MIYAZAWA PLAN
10 December, 1998

Japan on Thursday denied news reports that it intends to include Myanmar as
a recipient in the $30 billion Asian aid package initiated by Finance
Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. ''Given the situations at home and abroad
involving Myanmar, Japan does not see the nation as subject to the
so-called Miyazawa plan,'' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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

EDMONTON JOURNAL: NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE BEST CHANCE FOR BURMA
6 December, 1998 by David Evans

There's always a sense of unreality when you talk to emissaries from a
troubled corner of the Earth.

The snow lies on the ground outside, the reassuring comforts of Canada
surround the conversation, and the talk itself is, most often, restrained
and logical, as if the challenge at hand were, say tinkering with a health
care system, and not restoring democracy and human rights to a population
of millions.

Perhaps this is because the emissaries themselves find problems less real
when then they are so far from them in miles, environment and culture.

More likely, they automatically mute their pitch to keep it within the
credibility range of an audience with a different personal experience of
"serious problems".

Perhaps, also, they know that whatever human beings may say, they
instinctively behave as though possession was nine-tenths of the law when
it comes to government, and that titles and power, however ill-gotten,
confer legitimacy that mere justice does not.

So it is for the dreadful Augusto Pinochet of Chile, whose frailty and self
awarded rank of elder statesmen somehow entitle him to the concern that was
never accorded those whose lives he expended imposing his agenda on Chile.

And so it was, in the opposite sense, in an Edmonton living room last
Wednesday.  The day before they were to be received by Alberta MLAs, the
prime minister and a foreign minister of the provincial government of Burma
chatted about their struggle to mobilize support to unseat the usurpers
running the government in Rangoon.

Dr. Sein Win, the prime minister, is a cousin of the Burmese democratic
leader and Nobel peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

He was elected in the 1990 parliament that the Burmese military quashed; he
was one of 20 MPs that established a provincial government in rebellious
Karen state; he has lived in Washington since 1993.

And yet here he is, reduced by fate to live thousands of miles from the
daughter he has never seen, serving as goad to the world's easily
distracted and easily calmed conscience.

In almost every way except the one that counts, these are hard times for
the Burmese junta.

Dr. Win says the Asian crisis has squeezed several ways first by drying up
investment from the region, second by the undermining the idea of "Asian
values" by which rulers justified curtailing individual and democratic
rights, and third by bouncing Indonesia's sympathetic Suharto. 

In addition, crucial neighbours such as China and Thailand have increasing
reason to be unhappy about Burma.  Thailand, especially is frustrated with
drug, refugee and AIDS problems coming over the border.

As a result, Dr. Win says the Thais have now switched to a philosophy of
"constructive intervention," a more aggressive formula for encouraging
change he'd like to see the UN and member countries take to Burma.

Bo Hla-Tint, minister for South and North American Affairs for the
provincial government, says that ought to mean, in addition to sanctions
and condemnation of human rights violations, more active support for
democratic forces like Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.  

The two men were in Edmonton on their way home from Victoria, where they
were welcomed by the B.C. legislature on the invitation of NDP Premier Glen
Clark.

Bo says part of the idea was to discuss the connection between Burma's
problems and the drugs on Vancouver's streets; obviously the junta's direct
and indirect encouragement of the drug trade makes it more than the distant
philosophical enemy it sometimes appears.

But such contacts are also part of Suu Kyi's philosophy of building support
for the Burmese cause through people-to-people connections, rather than
relying on a top-down approach with occasional statements of good intention
from national governments and the UN.

"People connections." "Active support."  "Condemnation of human rights
violations."

Such concepts are not the hard edged stuff of a plan of action.

Indeed, it is probably the language of non-violence (however admirable and
refreshing) that is most responsible for the low profile of those who have
right but not might on their side.  There is irony in this, to say the
least considering the disapproval (but vastly greater attention), we give
to violent advocates of change in places like the Middle East.

Win says Suu Kyi's movement eschews the violent part because it fears
replacing one government deriving power from the gun with another.

This is the wisdom of South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not that of
Ireland's Gerry Adams.  It is a wisdom that will eventually give Burma the
sort of government it elected in 1990, and that it deserves.

In the mean time, however, it relies on fortune -- the blunders of the
military government, possible action by aggrieved neighbours, steadfast
foreign friends -- and especially on the Burmese people, who must reject
government arguments that democrats are to blame for their plight.

It requires patience, principles and a higher tolerance for pain and
frustration than most of us would have.  It is a wisdom that deserves our
respect, and more of our attention.

David Evans is a member of The Journal's editorial board.  He may be
reached by email at davide@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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

LOS ANGELES TIMES: THE CONSCIENCE OF LA
10 December, 1998 by Robert W. Benson and U Kyaw Win

Myanmar: A council proposal would put local clout behind condemnation of a
dictatorship.

When the Los Angeles City Council votes on a proposed Free Burma Law on
Friday, members will be taking a stand not only on the atrocities of the
Myanmar dictatorship, but also on the right of Los Angeles to speak out on
foreign affairs and to choose how it will  spend its tax dollars. That
historic right is under ferocious assault by international corporations,
which complain that it cramps business.

The law is aimed at repressive policies in the Southeast Asian country that
changed its name in 1989, a change not recognized by the government's
opponents. The proposed law is similar to the Los Angeles ordinance that
prohibited city contracts with companies doing business in South Africa
during apartheid and to a law still on the books against the Arab boycott
of Israel.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called Myanmar "the South Africa of the '90s."
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate whose political party won 82% of
the seats in a 1990 election quashed by the military, pleads with the world
to enact sanctions against businesses investing in her country: "Putting
money into the country," she says, "is simply supporting a system that is
severely harmful to the people."  "Severely harmful" is a euphemism.  Ask
the students whose universities have been closed for years.  Ask the 5
million Myanmar people forced to labor on infrastructure projects.  Ask the
little girls used as human minesweepers for the army, then raped at night,
sometimes with fire-heated bayonets.

There are, to be sure, other repugnant governments in the world deserving
rebuke.  But the time is ripe to single out Myanmar because there is a
significant chance that international pressure could bring down Myanmar's
junta the way it brought down apartheid in South Africa. Myanmar's economic
situation is precarious.  The military takes 50% of the national budget,
yet there is no foreign enemy.  Heroin is a principal export; according to
the Drug Enforcement Administration, 60% of the heroin on American streets
originates in Myanmar. No other government is the target such a chorus of
condemnation by the United Nations, Europe, other countries and independent
monitors like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  Congress has
prohibited new investments in Myanmar by U.S. companies, and 22 cities and
counties as well as the state of Massachusetts have enacted laws saying
they will not spend their tax dollars to contract with any company doing
business there.  Such local sanctions by democratically elected
representatives pack a powerful economic and symbolic punch.  It is these
laws that transnational corporations are hellbent to stop.

The National Foreign Trade Council, a lobbying arm for several hundred
large companies, has sued Massachusetts, asserting that the state's Myanmar
law is unconstitutional.  The trade council's real theory is not a legal
but an economic one: the capital should be free from moral and social
constraints.  The council also argues that the federal government has an
"exclusive" role in foreign affairs and that Massachusetts has
unconstitutionally invaded it.  A federal judge bought that argument; the
decision, which is nonsense on stilts, is being appealed.  But had it been
the law, the recent successful efforts by New York and California to
pressure Swiss banks to pay Holocaust victims would have been illegal, as
would the McBride Principles, which prohibit religious discrimination by
companies doing business in Northern Ireland.  "Buy America" or "Buy Local"
laws of 43 states would be invalid, as would the environmental laws
requiring recycled content or prohibiting rain forest wood.  The decision
ignores not only constitutional texts but also history.  State and local
governments have been involved in foreign affairs for 200 years and now
have nearly as many overseas offices as the U.S. government has embassies.

But these local efforts are nettlesome to transnational corporations
pursuing profits amorally.  They want the global village to themselves. And
they want the foreign policy of the United States to speak with one voice,
theirs.  When the City Council votes on Myanmar, it should make clear that,
at least when it comes to deciding how to spend its tax payers' dollars,
Los Angeles has both a strong voice and a strong conscience.

*****

Robert W. Benson is a professor of Loyola Law School.  U Kyaw Win is
international president of the Committee for Restoration of Democracy in
Burma.

[Writer's note:  Myanmar was substituted for Burma by the editors.]

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

ANNOUNCEMENT: AUNG SAN SUU KYI VIDEO MESSAGE ON THE WEB
10 December, 1998 from <glen@xxxxxxxxx> 

Aung San Suu Kyi's video message on the 50th Anniversary of the UN
Declaration of Human Rights is available for viewing, or listening, at
http://metalab.unc.edu/freeburma/assk/50. You can also download and save
the video to distribute to others.  The 5 minute message is only 600k.

To view, you need the RealPlayer software, free from www.real.com. To
listen, you can use the RealPlayer, of an MP3 player, also free from
www.winamp.com.

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