The BurmaNet News: December 2, 1999

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The BurmaNet News: December 2, 1999
Issue #1414

HEADLINES:
==========
REUTERS: MYANMAR MINSITER ON INVESTMENT BODY RETIRES 
THE NATION: HASHMOTO MEETS BURMA JUNTA LEADERS 
SCMP: ACTIVISTS FEARFUL OF JAPANESE INVESTMENT 
REUTERS: BRITON VOWS TO FIGHT ON IN MYANMAR 
BKK POST: ACTIVIST DIES 
***************************************************
 
REUTERS: MYANMAR MINISTER ON INVESTMENT BODY RETIRES 
1 December, 1999 

YANGON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A minister in Myanmar's ruling military council
on the country's foreign investment commission has retired, the third
cabinet member to step down in two months.

Official Myanmar Radio and Television announced on Tuesday night that
Brigadier-General Maung Maung, a minister in the office of State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) chairman Senior General Than Shwe, had been
permitted to retire.

Maung Maung was also secretary of the Myanmar Investment Commission, which
is responsible for policy on foreign investment into the country. He was
expected to be automatically relieved of that post.

Myanmar, under U.S. sanctions since 1997 because of its human rights record
and failure to democratise, announced dismal foreign investment statistics
in July this year.

It said it had approved just $29.5 million of foreign direct investment in
the fiscal year to March, down from $777.4 million a year earlier and $2.8
billion the year before that.

Officials of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development
blamed the sharp fall on the Asian economic crisis rather than on the
sanctions.

Several foreign firms have pulled out of Myanmar due to concerns about
being associated with its poor rights record. However, some large U.S. and
European oil firms, such as Unocal and TotalFina, remain in the country.

The declaration announcing Maung Maung's retirement was signed by
Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, officially number three in the SPDC but
considered its must powerful figure.

Maung Maung had been one of three ministers in Than Shwe's office since
November 1997 and had been livestock and fisheries minister before that.
Previously he was commander of Yangon airbase.

Last month, the SPDC announced that Major-General Kyaw Than had been
permitted to retire as minister of commerce and Brigadier-General Sein Win
as minister of sports.

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

THE NATION: HASHIMOTO MEETS BURMA JUNTA LEADERS
2 December, 1999 

AFP

Former Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto held talks with leaders of
the military government here yesterday during a mission to size up the
needs of Burma's limping economy.

Hashimoto met Sen Gen Than Shwe and was due to hold talks later with
intelligence chief Lt Gen Khin Nyunt and Foreign Minister Win Aung.

Japanese officials said on Sunday on the sidelines of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila that Japan was willing to help
Burma if it embraced economic reform.

"If your country is to tackle economic reform seriously, we are ready to
support your country's economic reform with our experience," a Japanese
spokesman quoted Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi as telling Than Shwe.

"I would like government officials of the two countries to discuss what
exactly we can do for you."

Japanese diplomats in Rangoon stressed on Tuesday the visit was "private"
in nature but would study the political and economic situation in Burma.

A World Bank report leaked to a newspaper this month reportedly warned the
economy was on the verge of collapse, submerged in debt, choked by
inflation and starved of foreign investment by Asia's crisis and
international sanctions.

Burma is viewed as an international pariah by Western nations which accuse
the junta of gross human rights abuse and suppressing the democratic
opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 

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

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: ACTIVISTS FEARFUL OF JAPANESE INVESTMENT 
1 December, 1999 by William Barnes 

Critics of the Burmese regime fear that recent top-level Japanese contacts
will only persuade the junta to make superficial political concessions
sufficient to permit Tokyo to lift the floodgates of easy lending. Former
Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto arrived in Rangoon last night on
a mission to assess Burma's "economic needs".

Last weekend, Japanese premier Keizo Obuchi met the military regime's
senior general, Than Shwe, at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
summit in Manila.

Japanese enterprises are poised to drive deep and hard into Burma - a
country that has long figured on their corporate radar screens - when the
political restraints are cut.

"This could be a disaster for the pro-democracy movement," warned one
Western democracy activist. "Any leverage the international community has
with the military would vanish overnight."

The bilateral relationship is complex. Many Japanese who have tried to do
business in Burma claim they have a special feeling for the country. Partly
perhaps because of relatively warm memories brought back by soldiers who
served there in World War II.

More importantly, Burma is seen as a juicy target that is uniquely ripe for
exploitation.

This time around Japanese businessmen say they will not make the same
"mistake" they made when, in deference to US sensitivities, they held off
and lost early opportunities to Taiwanese and Hong Kong rivals.

Nevertheless, the risk-averse Japanese business establishment will not move
too far into Burma without its back being covered by political
"concessions" wrung from the regime by their Government.

This will help protect it from Western criticism and, just as important,
allow Japan to throw development money at Burma to smooth the way for
business projects.

The opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has historic and personal links
with Japan that could partly counterbalance the business lobby's warm ties
with certain sections of the ruling military.

She has worked in Japan, speaks some Japanese and has written delicate
columns on political and cultural life in Burma for a Japanese newspaper.

Her father, the independence hero Aung San, also sought Japanese help in
ejecting the British colonial rulers.

But the undoubted sympathy and admiration many Japanese feel for Ms Aung
San Suu Kyi may be swamped by the pressing demands of the business lobby.

Mr Obuchi is reported by one of his officials to have told General Than
Shwe: "If your country is to tackle economic reform seriously, we are ready
to support your country's economic reform with our experience."

The regime's critics and many more analysts seriously doubt that real,
effective reform is possible without first seeing a quite dramatic change
in the make-up of government.

The Burmese opposition has also argued that although the military
government might offer occasional sops to international opinion, in reality
its rule is getting harder.

"I would hope that Tokyo will resist the temptation to pull its punches on
political reform and privately tell the regime some home truths. I hope
that, but I do fear they will pass on at best muffled messages," said a
veteran activist.

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

REUTERS: BRITON VOWS TO FIGHT ON IN MYANMAR
1 December, 1999 by David Brunnstrom 

BANGKOK, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A Briton serving 17 years for pro-democracy
activism in military-ruled Myanmar has not wavered in his convictions and
has no plans to appeal for early release, his mother said on Wednesday. 

Diana Mawdsley said after her first visits to her son James since his
September arrest and jailing in remote northwestern Kengtung town that he
was keeping his spirits up with the Bible and works of Soviet political
prisoner Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 

``James wants to fight on robustly. At the moment he has no plans to make
any sort of appeal. 

``He says there's no judicial process as we know it in Burma and whether he
serves one month, one year, or seventeen years, it will be up to the junta
to decide,'' she told Reuters. ``But I would say as his mother, I'd like to
see him out of there.'' 

James Mawdsley, 26, from Lancashire, was jailed after illegally entering
Myanmar in September to distribute pro-democracy leaflets. It was his third
arrest there in two years and the government has said he could not expect
mercy. 

His mother said he was ``very, very pale and pasty'' due to solitary
confinement for all but 30 minutes daily exercise, but otherwise appeared
in good health. 

``He's not lost weight and is in cracking good spirits. He will not make
one single complaint about himself.'' 

But he had complained to prison authorities about treatment of local
prisoners, who he said had been beaten by guards. 

Diana Mawdsley said she believed her son must sometimes feel deep despair
and loneliness. ``But he's determined not to worry us and we're determined
not to worry him. There must be a point at which we all break, but at the
moment James is nowhere near it.'' 

Her son told her he had not been tortured while serving this term. Last
year after release from 99 days in Yangon's notorious Insein Jail, he
reported being beaten with bamboo poles, having staves rolled down his
shins and being deprived of water. 

She said he also praised fellow Briton Rachel Goldwyn, who has been slammed
by activists for refusing to criticise Myanmar's military. Goldwyn was
released after serving less than two months of a seven-year jail term for
an anti-government protest. 

James was being watched round the clock in his larger than average cell --
by six guards in the daytime and two at night. 

After a prison inspection by Red Cross officials, he was given a piece of
wood as a seat for his lavatory bucket. 

James, deeply religious, was making a determined effort to keep clean and
intellectually alert in jail, and would dream of building a school for
refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border. ``That keeps him going, that
thought,'' she said. 

Mawdsley said she was grateful the government had allowed her four
hour-long visits to her son, but thought she could have been allowed longer
as she had come so far. Her husband plans a visit in January, followed by
her three other children. 

``I told the military intelligence man that we planned to come every two
months and he looked absolutely appalled at the thought of this wave of
Mawdsleys coming over,'' she joked. 

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

THE BANGKOK POST: ACTIVIST DIES 
2 December, 1999 

U Tin Maung Win, a prominent Burmese political activist and journalist died
yesterday of a heart attack at Synphaet hospital.

Tin Maung Win, 62, was editor and publisher of the New Era Journal, the
only democratic tabloid newspaper published in liberated areas of Burma.

A senior member of the Parliamentary Democracy Party formed by U Nu after
the 1962 military takeover, Tin Maung Win was a founder of the Committee
for the Restoration of Democracy in Burma and vice-chairman of the
Democracy Alliance of Burma.

He is survived by his wife Daw Khin Myo Aye, daughter Ma Thuza and two
grandchildren.

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