Burma News Update No. 79

[HMarciniec@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Burma Project
Open Society Institute

Burma News Update No. 79
16 March 1999



EU: No Meeting With Burma

A planned meeting between the European Union and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations is unlikely to go ahead because the EU is
maintaining its objections to participation of representatives of
Burma's military junta. Efforts to salvage the meeting have so far
failed, a Philippine official said during the visit to Manila of Burma's
foreign minister, adding that the Philippines would express its own
"disappointment" with the junta's human rights record.

Manila, "Associated Press," 14 March



Albright: No To Drugs Aid

American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright charged that Burma's
army regime is protecting "top drug dealers and kingpins" and that the
junta is not attacking the country's massive drug problems on "an
institutional basis." On a visit to Bangkok, Secretary Albright said
that US narcotics assistance and cooperation will remain frozen. An official
US narcotics report released in February said that American anti-drug
aid would have to wait for the junta's "unambiguous demonstration of a
strong commitment to counter narcotics." 

"The Nation" (Bangkok), 05 March



Suu Kyi: No to Tourism

Burmese democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi restated her opposition
to international tourism in Burma until there is improvement in the
country's human rights record. "[T]he bulk of the money from tourism
goes straight into the pockets of the generals," Suu Kyi said in an
interview with the Burma Campaign UK released on 01 March, adding, "It's
a form of moral support for them because it makes the military
authorities think that the international community is not opposed to the
human rights violations which they are committing all the time."

"Burma Campaign UK," press release, London, 01 March



KNU: No Peace Soon

A spokesman for the outlawed Karen National Union (KNU) denied
statements by Burma's military intelligence chief, Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt,
that a negotiated end to the ethnic Karen insurgency may be near. The
KNU said no talks are currently underway and that the Burmese army is
mounting offensives against KNU forces [near the Thai border]. The KNU
spokesman also confirmed that ten government officials captured at the
beginning of March had been killed, in what he described as fighting
with junta forces.


"BBC World Service," 14 March



Junta: 'No Repression, No Fear, No Anxiety'

A headline in the state-run New Light of Myanmar on 14 March declared
"People living happily without repression, fear and anxiety; Allegations
about human rights violations completely groundless." [On 05 March,
Burma's foreign ministry issued a strong denial of charges of gross
human rights abuses made in the U.S. State Department's annual human
rights report released in late February, dismissing it as "based on
unfounded facts and... a politically motivated document aimed at
interfering in the internal affairs of Myanmar."] The same edition of
the New Light of Myanmar carried reports of 60 more "voluntary"
resignations from the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).
[The NLD claims are the resignations are the result of a continuing
campaign of junta coercion-Ed.]

"New Light of Myanmar" (online), 14 March



Bonfire of the Videos

Officials of Burma's military junta destroyed over 10,000 confiscated
uncensored video tapes and disks and films deemed unsuitable for public
viewing in a 06 March bonfire at a police camp in the capital Rangoon.
The tapes were seized from shops in Rangoon and Mandalay, and the
burning was overseen by officials of the country's Central Committee for
Video Industry Scrutiny Board and the Motion Picture Censorship Board. 

Rangoon, "Xinhua News Agency," 07 March 



Burmese Meth Hits India

Indian police have reported their first seizure of illicit
Burmese-produced methamphetamines after a man was arrested with 800
tablets near the border town of Moreh in the northeastern Indian state
of Manipur. The tablets were of a variety produced in eastern Burma and
before seen only in Thailand. [Manipur has in recent years become a
major trafficking route for Burmese heroin, and the appearance of
methamphetamines, now being illegally produced in large quantities
inside Burma, will likely exacerbate the already serious problem of drug
addiction in northeastern India-Ed.]

"Far Eastern Economic Review," 11 March