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Burma News Update, No. 93



Open Society Institute
The Burma Project

Burma News Update No. 93
22 September 1999


Quiet on "Four Nines"

Burma's capital, Rangoon, and other major centers were 
reported calm on 09 September as the country's army 
regime deployed extra troops and riot police to quell any 
public response to calls by exile groups for pro-democracy 
demonstrations on "9-9-99." Nine is an auspicious numeral 
in Burmese numerology, and the "four nines" date was also 
linked to the massive pro-democracy uprising on 08 
August 1988 ("8-8-88"). Exile groups says more than 500 
people have been detained in the junta's effort to suppress 
new demonstrations, while the regime puts the figure at 
less than 40. While arrests and the presence of heavy 
security forces ensured quiet inside Burma, protests 
against continued dictatorship and human rights violations 
in Burma took place in several other countries, including 
Thailand and Australia.

Rangoon, "Reuters," 09 September


Dam Warning

Thai and Burmese exile non-governmental groups are 
raising new environmental and human rights warnings on 
proposed hydroelectric dam projects along the Salween 
River, which forms part of the border between Thailand 
and Burma. Thirty-five civic and environmental groups 
issued an open letter demanding that planning for any 
such projects be ''fully open, transparent and honest.'' 
The letter, issued as a closed four-day conference in the 
northern Thai city of Chiang Mai considered various 
plans to dam the Salween River, urged that any project 
must ''fully recognise and respect the human, civil and 
political rights of all the development-affected people, 
ensuring their informed participation and fully 
compensating them for any losses incurred."

"The Nation"(Bangkok), 13 September


Bad News = No News

With its normal publication date well past, it appears 
that Burma's military regime will offer no statistical 
yearbook for 1989-99. The official annual compilation is 
usually issued in July in both Burmese and English 
versions, and there has been no word from the junta on 
its absence. Burma analysts suggest that the regime 
"is embarrassed to release information confirming 
Burma's abysmal economic performance over the past 
year. Industrial production has plunged, foreign investment 
is down to a trickle and prices of daily commodities are 
rising fast."

"Far Eastern Economic Review," 16 September


Timor Example Feared?

Burma's ruling army junta distanced itself from United 
Nations efforts to restore peace to East Timor, stating, 
"The decision of some ASEAN (Association of Southeast 
Asian Nations) countries to be involved in peacekeeping 
operations in East Timor is not a coordinated ASEAN 
position and accordingly we would not like to comment 
on it." Analysts suggest that Burma's generals, who 
are widely charged with gross human rights abuses, 
fear any trend toward greater international intervention 
to promote human rights and democracy.

Bangkok, "Agence France Presse," 13 September


Regime Rejects Religion Charges

Burma's ruling army junta rejected charges that it is 
suppressing the rights of Buddhist clergy, seeking 
to forcibly convert Christians, and repressing 
Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist country. The 
allegations were detailed in the US State Department's
first Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, 
which was released on 09 September. The regime has
 "systematically restricted efforts by Buddhist clergy to 
promote human rights and political freedom, the report 
said. Members of the Chin ethnic minority in 
northwestern Burma were pressed to convert to 
Buddhism through "highly coercive means, including 
religiously selective exemptions from forced labor, and
 by arresting, detaining, interrogating, and physically 
abusing Christian clergy," the report stated. It also 
said that Rohingya Muslims living in Burma's southern 
Arakan State "continued to experience severe legal, 
economic, and social discrimination.''

Bangkok, "Associated Press," 11 September


Second Briton Jailed

A 28-year old British woman was sentenced to seven 
years' hard labor by a Burmese court for "undermining 
peace, security and stability" after she chained 
herself to a lamppost in downtown Rangoon and 
shouted pro-democracy slogans. The imprisonment of 
Rachel Goldwyn came a few weeks after another 
Briton, 26-year old James Mawdsley, received a 17-year 
jail term for similar offenses.

"The Guardian" (London), 17 September





BURMA NEWS UPDATE is a publication of
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