The BurmaNet News: December 8, 1999 (r)

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The BurmaNet News: December 9, 1999
Issue #1419

HEADLINES:
==========
REUTERS: GENERAL SEES SUU KYI AS "YOUNGER SISTER" 
AP: U.S. SENATOR KERRY VISITS MYANMAR 
NLD: STATEMENT 169 - KACHIN STATE 
BKK POST: RANGOON FAILS TO FORM ITS POLICY 
FEER: WORST OF FRIENDS 
BKK POST: NARCOTICS ABUSE RAMPANT IN REFUGEE CAMPS 
*****************************************************

REUTERS: MYANMAR GENERAL SEES SUU KYI AS "YOUNGER SISTER" 
8 December, 1999 

BANGKOK, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Myanmar's powerful intelligence chief said in a
rare interview he bears no personal grudge towards opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi and sees her as a ``younger sister,'' but wishes she would
abandon confrontation.

Interviewed by Asiaweek magazine in Manila this week, Lieutenant General
Khin Nyunt also denied that Yangon's much-criticised military was holding
political prisoners and said democracy would come sooner if the West lifted
sanctions.

The interview will appear in the next edition of Asiaweek on sale from Dec
10. Asiaweek issued a news release on the interview on Wednesday.

Asked if he personally disliked Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who has
been the biggest thorn in the military government's side since it seized
direct power in 1988 by crushing a pro-democracy uprising, Khin Nyunt replied:

``We regard Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as a younger sister. I have no personal
animosity toward her and it is my earnest hope that she will change her
totally negative and confrontational attitude against us, which is also
negatively affecting the entire nation.''

Some political analysts have characterised the current political impasse in
Myanmar as a battle of wills between Khin Nyunt, 60 and Suu Kyi, 54,
considered by many to be the country's two most influential figures.

The quietly spoken and taciturn Khin Nyunt is the head of the feared
Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence. Officially number three in
the military government, he is widely thought to be its most powerful figure.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won Myanmar's last election in 1990
by a huge margin but the military never allowed it to govern and has since
tried to silence the party through arrests and intimidation, including
forced resignations.

PARTY ``DISSATISFIED'' WITH SUU KYI

Asked if Suu Kyi would ever be allowed to lead the country, Khin Nyunt
replied: ``Even among her own party members, even the hardcore members,
they are resigning from the party because they are dissatisfied at the way
that she is running the party ... more and more are supporting the
government.''

Khin Nyunt repeated government denials when asked about reports of
800-1,000 political prisoners being held in the country.

``Let me put the record straight. There are no political prisoners in our
country. We do not put people in prison because of their political
beliefs...That is an exaggerated number.''

Asked why the government refused to let Suu Kyi travel outside Yangon, Khin
Nyunt said there were constant threats from terrorist groups that could
endanger her life.

``This we would not want to happen. So we are requesting her to stay in
Yangon for the time being.''

He defended the government's economic and political record, saying it had
switched from a socialist system to a market-orientated one and carried out
unprecedented infrastructure development. It had also led the country out
of isolation to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

To the suggestion it had failed politically, he said: ``That's not true. We
have changed the political system from a one-party state to a multi-party
system. Please remember it was only during our time that political parties
were allowed to be formed.''

Khin Nyunt declined to criticise Ne Win, architect of Myanmar's
authoritarianism who headed the failed 1962-1988 socialist administration
and is still considered a power behind the scenes.

``It's not our policy to pass judgement on previous administrations.
Whatever they did during their time, they tried to do it with the interests
of the national at heart. There is no linkage between the previous
government and the present one.''

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

ASSOCIATED PRESS: U.S. SENATOR KERRY VISITS MYANMAR
8 December, 1999 

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - U.S. Sen. John Kerry met opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi during a brief visit to Myanmar, a U.S. embassy spokesman said
Wednesday.

Kerry, who arrived in Yangon on Monday evening, also met a top leader of
the country's ruling junta, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, and representatives of
some international nongovernment organizations, said the spokesman,
speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

The Massachusetts senator is the ranking Democratic member of the East
Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee of the Senate foreign relations
committee.

State-run newspapers on Wednesday reported Kerry's meeting with Khin Nyunt
on their front pages. They said Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung and
Acting U.S. Charge d'Affaires Priscilla Clapp were also present.

Kerry departed Yangon on Tuesday evening after his luncheon meeting with
1991 Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, who heads the National League for
Democracy. Her party suffers heavy repression by the government.

The league swept general elections in 1990, but the military, in power
since 1962, ignored the vote. Suu Kyi was freed in 1995 after six years
under house arrest. Her political activities and movements are still
heavily restricted.

Washington has poor relations with Myanmar - also called Burma - because of
the government's poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to
a democratically-elected government.

To show its disapproval, the United States has imposed both economic and
political sanctions against Myanmar.

The military government, in a tit-for-tat gesture, restricts visas to U.S.
officials and denounces U.S. policy toward Myanmar as arrogant and
counterproductive.

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

NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRACY: STATEMENT 169 - KACHIN STATE
29 November, 1999 

NLD Statement 169 (11/99)

1.  The SPDC has required householders in every village to participate in
the project for industrialization of agricultural lands in the Indawgyi
region, Mohnyin township of the Kachin State. Every citizen including those
in public service is forced to give their labour.

2.  In addition to the residents of 20 villages situated on the eastern and
western banks of Indawgyi, elephants, buffaloes, and cows are used to clear
the vegetation. In the process, two elephants and 14 cows and buffaloes
have died through injury. Claims for compensation of the losses have been
made but though the authorities agreed to place the matter at the State
level, nothing has resulted to date.

3.  No medical attention is given to these people of the region who have
been forced to give their labour.  Two persons from Mogoung township viz.
Maung Soe and Maung Naing have died as a result.  The authorities have
acted indifferently about this matter.

4. We denounce such lack of compassion for one's fellowmen in the Kachin
State.  We adamantly urge the authorities to make reparations for loss of
life and property suffered by the citizens.

5. We have received information that an order has been issued to all
cultivators and village headmen for all banana trees to be cut down by
16/11/99 in the following villages and quarters in Ta-da-oo township of
Mandalay Division:- Aye-kyi-gone, Po-lin-htoung, Wun-pa-te, The-maung-kan,
Zaga-in, Pin-ya, Ma-gyi-taw, Mwa-kyaw-da, Zegyo, Ba-le, Oak-kyut-pho,
Wei-hto-kan, Hanthawaddy, Oo-te, and Nos.1,2, and 3 wards.

In accordance with orders from divisional authorities, Kyaukse district
authorities headed by the Township chairman himself went and carried out
the chopping down of these trees and the owners were forced to pay five
kyats per tree as costs.

6. The reason given for cutting down these trees is that the cultivation
was not on classified garden land.  To our knowledge, these cultivators
have planted banana trees in areas close to water supply from creeks and
rivers to supplement their meager incomes.  This high handed action without
consultation with the cultivators is intolerable and firmly denounced.

Central Executive Committee National League for Democracy Rangoon

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

THE BANGKOK POST: RANGOON FAILS TO FORM ITS POLICY 
8 December, 1999 

EDITORIAL

Events in Burma continue to take one step forward, two steps back. A
Japanese offer of aid, accompanied by liberal political reform, attracted
initial interest from Rangoon. Suddenly, the military dictators have hit
out at the offer and the nation's democratic activists.

The most frustrating block in dealing with Burma is that the country has no
discernible, definable programme of reform. Indonesia is attempting to
reconcile its past, Singapore is building a future hooked to high
technology and Thailand is struggling to put a strong democracy in place.
In Burma, the only evident plan is to keep the ruling generals in office.
The lack of national policy makes it almost impossible to deal with Burma
in any rational manner.

Burma's dealings with other countries are usually unpredictable, often
uncomfortable, chronically frustrating and almost always baffling. The
Japanese have discovered this again, in a new and serious campaign to bring
Burma into the international community. A two-pronged effort from the
Japanese government and the private sector won initial Burmese
encouragement. Then, suddenly, the regime turned - not only on the Japanese
talks but also on the country's democratic forces, who were not even
participants in the diplomacy.

At the recent Asean meeting in Manila, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi
chatted with Senior Gen Than Shwe. That encounter led to a visit to Rangoon
last week by former Japanese premier Ryutaro Hashimoto. He received a VIP
welcome and talked with Gen Than Shwe, as well as the regime's intelligence
chief and first among equals, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt.

These talks were not just cordial, they were seemingly fruitful. Stripped
of diplomatic niceties, Japan offered real aid to Burma, a nation in dire
need of help if it is to ever face a future in a globalised world. Unlike
an earlier, rather crass offer relayed through the United Nations, the
Japanese did not directly link aid to political reform - meaning a move
towards democracy. Mr Obuchi and Mr Hashimoto both made it clear, however,
that they would appreciate seeing the junta enter talks with Aung San Suu Kyi.

Five days later, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt gave a blunt reply. He pledged to get
rid of the nation's traitors - a chilling warning to Mrs Suu Kyi and the
political opposition who are all, in Rangoon's view, traitors. He did not
define "get rid of", but it is clear they are not to be invited into the
regime. Burma, he claimed, is on the road to something called "disciplined
democracy". No outside country has the right to tell Burma how to run its
affairs. Every nation has the right to choose its own political system.

Well, yes. Taken literally, the general's words are not only correct but
upbeat. Someone who is unaware of the past 11 years of Burmese actions
might be encouraged. Unfortunately, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt has conveniently
forgotten that Burmese have chosen their political system, in free and
extremely honest elections. They also have chosen their leaders. That vote
was overwhelmingly in favour of a democratic system, with a government led
by Mrs Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

Burma has lobbied for a decade to join and to work the with the world
community. The regime is now a member of Asean and welcomed - if
reluctantly on occasion - into international forums. But it flatly refuses,
rejects and reviles suggestions that it work within generally accepted
diplomatic norms.

In return for public efforts at helping Burma, Japan has- been attacked and
unwittingly has further endangered Burmese democrats. In return for saving
55 hidden Burmese in its embassy, Thailand has received border tension and
had signed fishing contracts unilaterally ended at gunpoint. Burma's
co-operation with international narcotics traffickers is Thailand's
greatest threat to national security.

No one is trying to dispute the dictatorship's claims to Burmese
independence. But it would be better if Burma faced the world with a clear
and acceptable policy, so that fruitful contacts with Burma could be made.
It would be better for Burmese if their dictators would give them a chance
to participate in shaping the future of their nation.

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

FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW: WORST OF FRIENDS
9 December, 1999 by Shawn W. Crispin in Bangkok and Bertil Lintner in
Chiang Mai 

Beneath the surface of Burma and Thailand's renewed entente cordiale, ties
are still strained

Ever since Thailand released the Burmese dissidents that occupied Burma's
embassy in Bangkok in October, relations between the two countries have
been in a bad way. Days after the siege, Burma's military government closed
all formal crossing points along the Thai border. Tit for tat, Thai
authorities proceeded to repatriate thousands of the 100,000 or more
illegal Burmese and ethnic minority migrants who live in Thailand. By
sending them home, it threatened to destabilize the hinterlands where the
junta's grip on power is most tenuous.

On November 23,Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan appeared to patch
things up with Lt.-Col. Khin Nyunt, Burma's military intelligence chief and
one of the leaders of its State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC. The
following day, Burmese authorities reopened all major official border
crossings to commerce, while Thailand appeared to turn a blind eye to the
many migrants who slipped back across the border to their jobs in Thailand.
According to Surin, Thai-Burma relations returned to a "cordial and
official" status.

But there are strong signs that this rapprochement was only partial. And
increasingly contradictory signals emanating from the Burmese junta suggest
a renewed bout of tension within Rangoon's military leadership.

Consider: In public, Khin Nyunt may have reached an accord with Surin, but
privately he was striking down earlier agreements with Thai corporate
interests. Only four days before Surin's visit, Khin Nyunt slashed to 2,500
from 3,500 the number of seats Thai Airways may fly into Burma every week,
in hopes of raising the fortunes of its own beleaguered national carrier,
Myanmar Air.

Meanwhile, the junta continued to play hardball with the Thais over fishing
agreements. Just two days after showing a friendly face to his counterpart
Surin on border issues, Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aung announced that
Rangoon would review all fishing agreements signed with Thailand because of
"duplicated licence numbers for a dozen ships." Thai ships had also, on
occasion, fished in nonpermitted areas, he said.

Even more drastically, according to Thai military sources in the northern
province of Mae Hong Song, regional Burmese military commanders have been
instructed to shoot down any Thai aircraft that enter Burmese airspace as
the military prepares for its annual offensive against ethnic minority
insurgents. The Thai military has issued similar orders in response.

The two-month diplomatic stalemate over the border accentuated the
neighbours' increasingly divergent approaches to foreign policy when
relations seemed destined to hit bottom in mid-November, Thai Interior
Minister Sanan Kachornprasart proposed sending former army commander Gen.
Chetta Thanarajo to Rangoon to help heal the wounds by paying a yisit to
Burmese army commander Gen. Maung Aye, an old friend. But Prime Minister
Chuan Leekpai intervened, insisting that Thai foreign policy was the
exclusive domain of Surin's Foreign Ministry. As Surin said later: "The
military is now completely sidelined from internal Thai politics."

That's not the case in Burma, though; there, the military is politics.
According to diplomatic sources in Thailand, Khin Nyunt was in favour of a
softer line toward Thailand after the embassy seizure, but Gen. Maung Aye,
the army chief, wanted the border closed. Ultimately, hard economic reality
forced the junta to backtrack on the closure: Over the last decade, many
Burmese border towns have become dependent on imported Thai goods. "There's
no way the Burmese military government can return to isolationism," says
Bhansoon Ladavalya, a professor of political science at Chiang Mai
University and former member of Thailand's National Security Council.

However, among hardline junta cadres such backtracking is reinforcing
disaffection with Burma's liberalization experience, however timid. In 1997
Khin Nyunt led the charge for pushing Burma into the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations in hopes of attracting more foreign investment into
the country. But only two months after joining the club, the regional
economic meltdown started and Asean membership suddenly appeared to many
junta hardliners to be more of a political liability than an economic asset.

"Maung Aye and the hardliners in the SPDC are satisfied with the status
quo," says a Chiang Mai-based political analyst who tracks Burmese
politics. "He and his allies see where global market forces got Suharto,
and they are scared," he adds, referring to Indonesia's toppled president.

Both the powerful military intelligence arm and the army no doubt
understand the importance of at least the veneer of unity to maintain their
grip on power. But the controversy over opening up the economy has
heightened tensions between Khin Nyunt and Gen. Maung Aye. Indeed, both are
already jockeying to consolidate their influence with the increasingly
powerful regional commanders. And as Prime Minister Than Shwe edges ever
closer to retirement, the power struggle between the two promises to become
more pronounced -- and the foreign-policy signals more erratic.

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

THE BANGKOK POST: NARCOTICS ABUSE RAMPANT IN BORDER REFUGEE CAMPS 
8 December, 1999 by Subin Khuendaew

CALL FOR SWIFT ACTION BY THOSE IN CHARGE

TAK - The commander of the Third Army 1 Region says narcotics abuse has
long been widespread in several refugee camps, but no serious action has
been taken by authorities.

Lt-Gen Wattanachai Chaimuenwong said agencies concerned should take
immediate action as the military was only authorised to ensure the safety
of refugees.

"Do you want soldiers to chase drug dealers in refugee camps? Officials
concerned should arrest them. The problem has existed for a long time," the
general said.

According to him, new drug factories have been set up in Burma opposite
some refugee camps in Tak, but the Thai army's anti-drug operations was
only able to block narcotics smuggling in large quantities.

Meanwhile, a Karen refugee leader from Mae Sot district who requested
anonymity, said the use of amphetamines has been rife at three refugee
camps in Tak for almost two years. The camps are at Ban Mae La in Mae Ramat
district housing some 30,000 refugees, at Ban Nu Pho in Umphang district
with more than 20,000 refugees, and in Umphang district with around 30,000
refugees.

"Now, we are so worried about the widespread use of drugs among refugees,
mostly the Mon and teenagers. It was said at a meeting of the chiefs of the
three camps that this was a destructive plot worked out by our opponents,"
the source said.

A source from the Northern Narcotics Control Centre said the centre
suspected there might be drug production bases in some refugee camps since
narcotic drugs were available there at very low prices.

"Intelligence officers sent to some camps found that amphetamines cost five
baht a pill, much cheaper than outside the camps," the source said.

According to a Third Army source, Wa drug dealers and some Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army troops were negotiating for the smuggling of narcotic drugs
into Thailand via areas held by the pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army opposite Tak.

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




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