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BurmaNet News: December 11, 2000
- Subject: BurmaNet News: December 11, 2000
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 11:56:00
______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
________December 11, 2000 Issue # 1681_________
NOTED IN PASSING: ?Myanmar is Buddhism with a totalitarian face.?
Lloyd?s List. See Lloyd's List: Myanmar--TORTURE
INSIDE BURMA _______
*Lloyd's List: Myanmar--TORTURE
*AFP: Torture practised regularly in Myanmar: Amnesty
*Kyodo: Myanmar junta rejects EU mediation proposal
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Reuters: Europe-ASEAN talks soured by Myanmar, low turnout
*AFP: EU ministers hail concessions from Myanmar as they end ASEAN
boycott
*Financial Times(London): Asean flu
*Washington Post: U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*Xinhua: Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up
OPINION/EDITORIALS_______
*BurmaNet: Letter to the editor re. Asiaweek
OTHER_______
*BurmaSong: New versions of old songs posted
The BurmaNet News is viewable online at:
http://theburmanetnews.editthispage.com
__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
Lloyd's List: Burma--TORTURE
[BurmaNet adds: Lloyd's List is an international daily news and
intelligence service for the shipping and business communities.]
Summary executions under martial law. Slave labour on a massive scale.
Violent repression of ethnic minorities. Child soldiers. No freedom of
assembly, association or expression. Prostitution as an important export
industry. A democratically elected president and Nobel peace prizewinner
under lock and key.
December 9, 2000
Myanmar is Buddhism with a totalitarian face. Its shocking human rights
record has earned the military dictatorship international pariah status.
The country's democrats - led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Mandela -
are demanding a trade boycott.
But the world's maritime industries seem to see Myanmar as an important
business opportunity.
This is a relatively important seafaring labour supply country
internationally, a role dating back to its days as a British colony.
The government claims there are more than 47,000 registered seafarers in
the country. Most observers believe that is a somewhat inflated claim
and that the true figure is 30,000, which is still considerable.
Anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 are on the international market,
often available at some of the lowest pay rates in the world.
Leading shipmanagers such as Unimar and Hanseatic have crewing offices
in the country.
Shipping's complicity doesn't end there. Leading Asian boxship operators
such as Cosco and NYK carry much of Myanmar's trade. Some of the
state-owned carrier's liner services are managed by a subsidiary of
Jardine Matheson.
German repair yards drydock its ships. The container terminal at the
port of Yangon is managed by Hutchison Port Holdings.
The hard-nosed response is that this is entirely legal business. But in
a world where corporate responsibility is moving more and more up the
agenda, the cop-out no longer washes.
Doing business with dictators is bad PR and can lead to targeting by
activists. The International Transport Workers' Federation, in
particular, has campaigned hard for the restoration of democracy in
Myanmar and trade union rights in particular.
Savvier shipmanagers won't touch Burmese seafarers with a bargepole.
Acomarit, for instance, said that it regularly received offers of
manpower from Myanmar.
However, most of its clients preferred to have ITF agreements and
Burmese crews would not be considered until the union issue was
straightened out.
Acomarit's Bruce Lucas added that there was an added risk that Burmese
seafarers would jump ship.
"I remember one company I used to work for where we used them as riding
squads," he reminisced. "They went ashore in Tokyo one night and we
never heard from them again."
These problems aside, Burmese seafarers are employed by many Western
shipowners, both reputable and not so reputable, although few care to
advertise the fact.
Companies known to use Burmese crews include leading German boxship
operator Leonhardt & Blumberg, of Hamburg.
In many respects they are ideal. They are cheap, their English is good
and their seafaring skills are strong.
For the less morally conscientious there are other advantages. Because
Burmese crews are afraid to complain, for fear of retribution back home,
they are open to exploitation of the most naked variety.
Even where they are well treated, Burmese seafarers will be forced to
remit earnings to the state.
Seen in this light, as a valuable source of hard currency, the
government is naturally keen for their numbers to increase.
As a result, Myanmar's department of marine administration earlier this
year opened the country's second maritime training school.
Those who make the grade are subject to severe restrictions. A clause in
their employment contracts enjoins them to "uphold the dignity of the
state".
Among the list of actions thought to belittle the glory of the
dictatorship is contact with the ITF for any reason whatsoever.
Those who break this stipulation face confiscation of their passports
and seafarers' certificates. In one case the government went so far as
to publish a list of 14 seafarers branded as troublemakers who should
not be hired.
There are cases where the ITF has secured unpaid wages for seafarers
only to see the recipients forced by the state to hand the money back to
the vessel's master.
There are also numerous documented instances of double book-keeping,
with Burmese crew paid far less than the rates agreed.
Deprived of any ability to organise collectively, they can basically be
treated in any way a bad employer sees fit.
Lloyd's List last year reported on how the crew of a vessel called the
Ideal were abandoned in Malta by Greek operator Phoenix Ship Management.
The seafarers had not been paid for five months and were surviving on
charitable donations.
In September this year ITF inspectors in Darwin, Australia, discovered
four Burmese crew on board two cattle boats.
They had not been paid for four months and were made to work ashore on
local building sites while the boats lay in the mud in a private berth.
Accommodation and food were described as appalling.
If they had any complaints about the arrangement, they were told, they
would be taken to the local police station and sent back to Myanmar.
Such was their fear of that prospect that they keep their traps firmly
shut.
Suitably enough for a country where 1984 author George Orwell once
served the British empire as a colonial administrator, many official
organisations award themselves Orwellian nomenclature.
Thus Burmese seafarers are marketed internationally through the efforts
of the Seafarers Employment Control Department.
Myanmar argues that this outfit looks after the welfare of Burmese
seafarers and therefore trade unions are not needed. Butits main role
seems to be ensuring that crews do not argue with manning agents and
shipowners.
Its general stance can be gauged by a letter its deputy director, Ye
Myint Tun, wrote to the crew of a striking vessel two years ago.
"You are advised to make a halt because striking on board is not allowed
by our department," he admonished.
"We also heard that your comrades were trying to contact the ITF.
"You are urged not to make contact with the ITF. Otherwise our
department will take strong action against you."
Some Burmese seafarers are prepared to stand up to the dictatorship.
Since 1994 they have maintained a union in exile in Thailand with the
support of the ITF.
It is a brave activity. Seafarers' Union of Burma activists often face
government repression. Leader U Khin Kyaw, for instance, is now in
prison for "life plus a term of years" after being arrested on
trumped-up terrorism charges.
As well as supplying labour, Myanmar is also engaged in world trade,
facilitated by both its own efforts and those of othercountries.
State-owned shipping line Myanma Five Star Line was established in the
early 1960s as Burma Five Star Line.
When the regime renamed the country Myanmar in 1989, the national
shipping company adopted the new title, dropping the final letter.
MFSL directly owns a fleet of 20 vessels that comprise only dry cargo
tonnage,although it has previously owned a small tanker.
The ships are predominantly general cargo vessels built in the 1960s and
1970s, most purchased as newbuildings.
MFSL's core business has been a two-monthly liner service to Northern
Europe for more than 10 years, operated with two or three ships.
The company has a representative working from the Myanmar embassy in
London.
As most cargo support for the European service originates from Belgium,
the Netherlands and Germany, the London representative's main role is to
support ships when drydocked in Germany, where most of MFSL's larger
tonnage was constructed.
MFSL's second liner service is directed at Japan and the Far East with
monthly sailings calling at Pusan, Kobe, Yokohama, Hong Kong and Yangon.
The service is operated with three ships and calls are also made at
Singapore and Malaysian ports. Cargo for China is transhipped through
Singapore.
MFSL also has an agreement with NYK for transhipment cargo for delivery
to the US.
In 1993 a Yangon-Singapore service was initiated. This is managed from
Singapore by Jardine Starline Management, part of Hong Kong's Jardine
Matheson group.
Jardine Starline is effectively the commercial and container management
arm for MFSL and it has full responsibility for operating the
Singapore-Yangon service.
MFSL owns no containers, as there are always sufficient empty boxes in
Yangon awaiting repositioning to enable it to lease them.
Containers for its Yangon-Singapore service are leased in Singapore by
JSM.
A spokesman for Jardine in London said that JSM acted as agent only.
He defended its involvement with the state-controlled shipping line on
the grounds that "it is always better to be involved and try to help,
rather than to exclude".
An e-mail to JSM in Singapore showed that London was misinformed.
"We confirm JSM is effectively the commercial and container management
arm for MFSL," it reads. "JSM has full responsibility for operating the
Singapore-Yangon service.
"Our involvement in this business is strictly a commercial co-operation
and we do not intend to comment on political questions."
This was an entirely normal response from the companies contacted by
Lloyd's List, where they answered at all.
One expatriate shipping hand observered that the Asian attitude to such
matters is rather different than that of the effete Western liberal.
"Generally speaking, companies here have no qualms about anything," he
noted. "It all comes under the Asean banner of 'constructive
engagement'."
A Myanmar government website claims that Mitsui OSK is among the lines
serving the country.
Not so, said a spokesman for the Japanese carrier, adding:would confirm
that MOL vessels do not call at Myanmar ports. We have so far no idea
why the Myanmar government website so shows."
NYK responded: "Our basic policy is that we are in favour of protection
of human rights, but we do not take particular positions when it comes
to individual countries."
Hanseatic did not reply to an e-mail.Those who do business with pariah
MyanmarNo one thinks the picture in Myanmar is pretty. But, as David
Osler reports, there are those who find it attractivedoing maritime
business with a thuggish and brutal regimeAlexander Aris accepts the
Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of his mother Aung San Suu Kyi
from Bill Clinton on Wednesday. Clinton awarded Suu Kyi America's
highest civilian honour during his commemoration of Human Rights Day.
Picture: AP
____________________________________________________
AFP: Torture practised regularly in Myanmar: Amnesty
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Dec 12 (AFP) - Political activists, human rights
prisoners and ethnic minorities are victims of regular torture in
Myanmar, where the practice is a "veritable institution," the human
rights group Amnesty International charged Tuesday.
"Torture has become an institution in Myanmar, used throughout on a
regular basis," Amnesty said in a statement.
Victims were kept tied up for hours twisted into painful positions,
sometimes in tiny brick cells, or hung from ceilings and beaten,
according to a report drafted by the group.
"Torture has been reported for over four decades, yet the methods of
torture have remained constant," the organisation claimed.
Amnesty said there had been reported cases of rape by the army,
including that of a 12 year-old girl, raped and murdered by an army
major in 1998.
One former activist described how during detention in the cells of the
Military Intelligence Service, he had been forced to stand on tiptoe
with a drawing pin placed beneath each heel, or to kneel on jagged
stone.
It said members of Myanmar's National League for Democracy, which won
1990 elections, were frequently tortured, as were student activists and
political prisoners, the number of which Amnesty estimated to be at
about 1,700.
Appealing to the country's military junta to end abuses, Amnesty said
the rulers used torture to "keep the population living in a state of
fear."
"The military government denies torture exists, stating that it is
illegal in domestic law.
"AI urges the Myanmar government to issue clear orders to all security
forces to adhere to this law and immediately stop the practice of
torture. It should also investigate all allegations of torture, bring
perpetrators to justice and prohibit incommunicado detention," Amnesty
said.
Amnesty also appealed for an end to the severe treatment of common
criminals in forced labour camps where, it claims, hundreds and perhaps
even thousands have perished.
Men, women and children from the Shan, Karen and Karenni ethnic
minorities had been forced to do heavy labour for the army or were
drafted into building roads, railways and dams.
Many in areas of unrest were also interrogated under torture on the
activities of armed resistance groups belonging to their ethnic groups.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Geneva has asked its
affiliated members to review relations with Myanmar following reports
that nearly a million people in Myanmar are performing forced labour.
The European Union tackled the problem of human rights in Myanmar this
week when it resumed dialogue with the countries of the ASEAN group
after a three-year break.
The EU had shunned dialogue with the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) since 1997 because Myanmar was admitted to the group
despite its human rights record.
Myanmar representatives undertook to lift the remaining restrictions on
opposition leaders and allow complete freedom for an EU troika mission
to visit Yangon in January, which would be free to talk to whomever it
wanted, EU ministers said.
Human Rights Watch said this month that the Myanmar junta "continued to
pursue a strategy of marginalising the democratic opposition through
detention, intimidation and restrictions on basic civil liberties."
____________________________________________________
Kyodo: Myanmar junta rejects EU mediation proposal
VIENTIANE Dec. 11 Kyodo - Myanmar is ready to welcome a European Union
(EU) mission in late January but will not allow it to mediate a
political dialogue between the junta and the pro-democracy camp,
Myanmar's Foreign Minister Win Aung said Sunday.
The mission would be granted permission to meet all relevant parties,
including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy but the
political dialogue is considered an internal affair, Win Aung told
reporters late Sunday after a working dinner with the EU delegation.
He said political dialogue ''is an internal matter...no outsider can
come to engage.''
The EU delegation should limit its role to being a fact-finding mission,
as the previous team did in July last year, he said. ''They should come
to talk to us and learn about us, not mediate internal interference.''
Gerard Depayre, head of external relations for the EU Commission, who is
in Vientiane representing Commissioner Chris Patten, said earlier the EU
mission to Myanmar will propose a political dialogue between both sides
to achieve democracy in the country.
Win Aung is leading a Myanmar delegation to Laos for a ministerial
meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the
15-member EU to be held Monday and Tuesday. He will represent ASEAN in
the meeting to respond to questions raised by the EU about the political
and security situation of ASEAN members.
The EU is expected to bring up the subjects of human rights violations
and suppression of democracy in Myanmar.
''Now it is a chance to meet. We can talk and learn from each other. I
also can explain to them what is really happening in our country,'' the
Myanmar minister said.
The other members of ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
Reuters: Europe-ASEAN talks soured by Myanmar, low turnout
By Andrew Marshall
VIENTIANE, December 11 (Reuters) - The European Union and ASEAN kick
off their first ministerial talks in more than three years on Monday,
with the atmosphere soured by the issue of Myanmar and the failure of
senior European ministers to turn up.
All 10 foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian
Nations are attending the talks in Laos, but the Europeans are
represented mainly by junior ministers.
The official excuse was that the crucial EU summit in Nice, which has
dragged on past its scheduled conclusion on Saturday, had prevented
senior ministers from attending.
But the turnout also illustrated the chilly relations between the two
blocs since ASEAN controversially admitted Myanmar in 1997, shortly
before the region was battered by an economic crisis that also sapped
its political clout.
Gerard Depayre, leader of the European Commission's delegation to the
summit, insisted that the EU's level of representation was not intended
as a snub to ASEAN.
``There is the unfortunate coincidence with the Nice summit...but
behind the level of representation I can assure you there is no hidden
motive or intention,'' said Depayre, who is principal adviser to
European Commissioner Chris Patten.
Patten is at the Nice summit and did not come to Laos.
Depayre said Europe wanted to resume ministerial talks with ASEAN after
the three-year hiatus caused by disagreements over human rights in
military-ruled Myanmar.
``Regarding Myanmar, there has been no weakening the EU position,' he
said.
``On the other hand, after three years of interruption, we considered
that we should not hold our very important relationship with ASEAN
hostage to the situation in one country.''
MYANMAR TOPS AGENDA
European officials said the EU would use the talks to put pressure on
ASEAN to shift its stance on Myanmar. ASEAN has a code of
non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, but some
nations, notably Thailand, are getting frustrated by the impact of
Myanmar's membership.
British Foreign Office Minister John Battle said last week that Myanmar
would be at the top of the meeting's agenda.
Senior officials from the two blocs met at the weekend, to try to
hammer out agreement on some contentious points in the communique to be
issued when the meeting concludes on Tuesday.
Officials said there was some disagreement over how the communique
should deal with the issues of human rights, Myanmar, the internal
stability of Indonesia and the need for a new round of World Trade
Organisation (WTO) talks.
Jonathan Scheele, the European Commission's acting director for Asia,
said the two blocs had agreed that the document should recognise the
need for dialogue and political reconciliation in Myanmar between the
military government and opposition.
The opposition National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 by a
landslide but has never been allowed to govern. Its leader, Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under de facto house arrest for
nearly three months.
Scheele said the two sides were also discussing whether a troika of EU
states would be given access to Myanmar in January. The EU says it will
only accept the offer if its access to opposition leaders is not
limited.
On Indonesia, the communique will pledge support for the government,
but there has been disagreement on how it should mention separatist
tensions in Aceh and Irian Jaya and religious violence in the Moluccas,
as well as East Timorese refugees.
____________________________________________________
AFP: EU ministers hail concessions from Myanmar as they end ASEAN
boycott
Steve Kirby
VIENTIANE, Dec 11 (AFP) - European Union ministers hailed a brace of
concessions from the Myanmar military junta Monday as they ended a
three-year boycott of talks with the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) over its membership.
Mynamar representatives undertook to lift the remaining restrictions on
opposition leaders and allow complete freedom for an EU troika mission
to visit Yangon in January, which would be free to talk to whomever it
wanted, EU ministers said.
But the tough line the European Union adopted to extract the
concessioons sparked a backlash within ASEAN, with secretary general
Rodolfo Severino accusing European ministers of playing to their
domestic audiences by concentrating almost exclusively on the single
issue.
A Myanmar official confirmed that the junta had agreed to allow the
troika mission to speak to everyone it had talked to in 1999.
Yangon would also allow the three remaining opposition leaders still
under effective house arrest, including Nobel Peace price winner Aung
Sung Suu Kyi, to resume normal activities "at the appropriate time," the
official told reporters.
France, which co-chaired the meeting as current holders of the EU's
rotating presidency, said they took that to mean the restrictions would
be lifted before the troika's visit next month.
"It's hard to imagine that a lifting of the restrictions would not
happen before the visit," Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin told
reporters.
Josselin said it was vital that the process go smoothly as the next
EU-ASEAN ministers' meeting was set for Europe, which would require a
lifting of the EU's current visa restrictions on junta members for
Myanmar to attend.
The European Union only won the concessions from Yangon after two long
sessions of hard debate, with the great majority of the 15 EU
delegations each taking a turn at the podium in the afternoon after the
junta's presentation in the morning.
"They wasted a lot of time that could have been spent on other issues,
basically addressing their own domestic audiences," said Severino. "The
lecturing tone annoyed a number of delegations."
Josselin acknowledged that "a good dozen" European ministers had spoken
out when just four might have sufficed but said all delegations had felt
under pressure from public opinion to justify the resumption of talks
with an ASEAN including Myanmar.
"The dialogue also gave us an opportunity to take Myanmar to task and we
would have been widely criticised if we had passed it up," he said.
Dutch Minister of State Hans van Mierlo insisted that the EU had had
every right to speak out on Myanmar as this was an issue of human
rights.
"The issue of human rights is different from all other issues -- it's
not concerning states, it's concerning people. Everyone can always
interfere on the issue of human rights," he told AFP.
Ministers were forced to take up the issue of Myanmar after senior
officials failed to reach agreement in two days of talks over the
weekend.
EU officials only managed to secure an ASEAN commitment to support
national reconcilation and the mediation mission of the UN rapporteur,
delegates said.
Ministers also briefly discussed the issue of the continuing unrest in
Indonesia after officials failed to agree whether a joint statement
should refer to regions of concern like Aceh, Irian Jaya and West Timor,
delegates said.
European officials said their talks had been "particularly hard" as the
ASEAN side had raised a string of unexpected problems amid irritation at
the level of EU representation.
Not a single European foreign minister joined their 10 southeast Asian
counterparts for Monday's talks as EU attentions remained firmly fixed
on a European summit in Nice where heated discussions about the bloc's
future shape ran onto into an unscheduled fourth day Sunday.
It was left to junior ministers or special envoys to sit down with
Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung, as the EU moved to separate its
longstanding relations with ASEAN from its principled opposition to the
military junta in Yangon.
Monday's meeting went ahead despite an explosion at one of the Lao
capital's main public monuments, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the
previous evening.
The latest in a spate of explosions which have rocked the Lao capital
over the past eight months, the blast caused no injuries, diplomats
said, but dented a rare moment in the spotlight for the communist
authorities.
____________________________________________________
Financial Times(London): Asean flu
Dec. 11, 2000
Sometimes, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has worried about
becoming irrelevant. But its profile is about to be boosted by a most
unlikely source: U2.
It's all to do with a meeting scheduled for today between Asean and the
European Union in Laos. The get-together is the first since Europe put
such events on hold after Burma's military government was admitted to
the Asian club. But after a while, the European types decided that their
relationship with Asia couldn't be held hostage to the dispute.
Still, not every European minister is entirely comfortable with the idea
of sitting at the table with representatives of one of the world's most
repressive dictatorships. Word is that several countries are sending
junior ministers to the meeting, while others may not participate at
all. That has annoyed some Asean members, who have threatened to
downgrade their own delegations.
And into all this delicate diplomacy steps U2. The Irish rock band has
dedicated a song titled Walk on to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese
pro-democracy leader under house arrest in Rangoon. And it has told
visitors to its website to lobby European foreign ministers to stop them
turning up in Laos. At least it's one way of keeping Asean in the news.
____________________________________________________
Washington Post: U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition
[BurmaNet adds: This article is carried in full because several persons
and individuals involved in Milosevic?s ouster are or have been active
in supporting Burma?s democracy movement]
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 11, 2000; Page A01
BELGRADE In a softly lit conference room, American pollster Doug Schoen
flashed the results of an in-depth opinion poll of 840 Serbian voters
onto an overhead projection screen, sketching a strategy for toppling
Europe's last remaining communist-era ruler.
His message, delivered to leaders of Serbia's traditionally fractious
opposition, was simple and powerful. Slobodan Milosevic--survivor of
four lost wars, two major street uprisings, 78 days of NATO bombing and
a decade of international sanctions--was "completely vulnerable" to a
well-organized electoral challenge. The key, the poll results showed,
was opposition unity.
Held in a luxury hotel in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, in October
1999, the closed-door briefing by Schoen, a Democrat, turned out to be a
seminal event, pointing the way to the electoral revolution that brought
down Milosevic a year later. It also marked the start of an
extraordinary U.S. effort to unseat a foreign head of state, not through
covert action of the kind the CIA once employed in such places as Iran
and Guatemala, but by modern election campaign techniques.
While the broad outlines of the $41 million U.S. democracy-building
campaign in Serbia are public knowledge, interviews with dozens of key
players, both here and in the United States, suggest it was much more
extensive and sophisticated than previously reported.
In the 12 months following the strategy session, U.S.-funded consultants
played a crucial role behind the scenes in virtually every facet of the
anti-Milosevic drive, running tracking polls, training thousands of
opposition activists and helping to organize a vitally important
parallel vote count. U.S. taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint
used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milosevic graffiti on walls
across Serbia, and 2.5 million stickers with the slogan "He's Finished,"
which became the revolution's catchphrase.
Regarded by many as Eastern Europe's last great democratic upheaval,
Milosevic's overthrow may also go down in history as the first
poll-driven, focus group-tested revolution. Behind the seeming
spontaneity of the street uprising that forced Milosevic to respect the
results of a hotly contested presidential election on Sept. 24 was a
carefully researched strategy put together by Serbian democracy
activists with the active assistance of Western advisers and pollsters.
In the long run, many people here say, Milosevic's overthrow was
inevitable, if only because of the economic and military disasters that
befell Serbia during his 13 years in power, first as head of Serbia,
Yugoslavia's dominant republic, and then as head of Yugoslavia itself.
But there was nothing inevitable about the timing or the manner of his
departure.
"Without American support, it would have been much more difficult," said
Slobodan Homen, a student leader who traveled to Budapest and other
European capitals dozens of times to meet with U.S. officials and
private democracy consultants. "There would have been a revolution
anyway, but the assistance helped us avoid bloodshed."
"The foreign support was critical," agreed Milan Stevanovic, who oversaw
the marketing and message development campaign for the opposition
coalition, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. "In the past, we did
what we intuitively thought we should do. This was the first campaign
where our strategy was based on real scientific research."
Had Yugoslavia been a totalitarian state like Iraq or North Korea, the
strategy would have stood little chance. But while Milosevic ran a
repressive police state, he was never a dictator in the style of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. His authority depended on a veil of popular
legitimacy. It was this constitutional facade that gave Serbian
opposition leaders, and their Western backers, an all-important opening.
A Unified Opposition
The fall of 1999 was a difficult time for the Serbian opposition.
Although Milosevic had long been unpopular, he appeared to have had some
success in tapping into the upsurge of patriotic feeling caused by the
Kosovo war a few months before. The 59-year-old Yugoslav president was
seeking to depict himself as the rebuilder of the country following NATO
bombing raids. Attempts by some opposition parties to topple Milosevic
through street protests were getting nowhere.
Milosevic's strongest political card was the disarray and
ineffectiveness of his opponents. The opposition consisted of nearly two
dozen political parties, some of whose leaders were barely on speaking
terms with one another. While the opposition politicians recognized the
need for unity in theory, in practice they were deeply divided, both on
the tactics to use against Milosevic and the question of who should
succeed him.
It was against this background that 20 opposition leaders accepted an
invitation from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute (NDI)
in October 1999 to a seminar at the Marriott Hotel in Budapest,
overlooking the Danube River. The key item on the agenda: an opinion
poll commissioned by the U.S. polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland
Associates.
The poll reported that Milosevic had a 70 percent unfavorable rating
among Serbian voters. But it also showed that the big names in the
opposition--men such as Zoran Djindjic and Vuk Draskovic--were burdened
with negative poll ratings almost as high as Milosevic's.
Among the candidates best placed to challenge Milosevic, the poll
suggested, was a moderate Serbian nationalist named Vojislav Kostunica,
who had a favorable rating of 49 percent and an unfavorable rating of
only 29 percent.
Schoen, who had provided polling advice to former Yugoslav prime
minister Milan Panic during his unsuccessful 1992 campaign to depose
Milosevic, drew several conclusions from these and other findings of the
poll.
First, Serbian voters were receptive to simple anti-Milosevic messages
focusing on the terrible economic situation. Second, they wanted change
to come through the ballot box, not demonstrations. Finally, and most
important, only a united opposition had a chance of deposing Milosevic.
"If you take one word from this conference," Schoen told the delegates,
"I urge it to be unity."
The unity message did not catch on immediately with Serbian opposition
leaders. "They had seen Milosevic rise before," recalled Debra
Alexander, who was in charge of the National Democratic Institute
polling operation. "There was a sense they were going up against
insuperable odds."
In the following months, however, the opposition politicians came to
believe the polling evidence and shape a strategy for defeating
Milosevic with the help of the Western consultants. Djindjic, leader of
the largest, best-organized opposition party, agreed to set aside his
presidential ambitions in favor of a less polarizing candidate and serve
as coalition campaign manager.
Things moved into high gear in July, when Milosevic called elections.
For the first time in Serbian political history, Western advertising
techniques were used to test political messages. The messages were
tested in a similar way to soft drinks or chewing gum, according to
Srdan Bogosavljevic, head of the Strategic Marketing firm, which ran a
series of focus groups on behalf of the opposition coalition and the
Otpor student resistance movement with financial support from Western
democracy groups.
"We approached the process with a brand to sell and a brand to beat,"
said Bogosavljevic, one of Serbia's best known pollsters. "The brand to
sell was Kostunica. The brand to beat was Milosevic."
According to Stevanovic, the coalition marketing expert, every word of
the opposition's one-minute and five-minute core political messages used
by opposition spokesmen across the country was discussed with U.S.
consultants and tested by opinion poll. Coalition candidates running for
the Yugoslav parliament and tens of thousands of local government
positions received extensive training on how to stay "on message,"
answer journalists' questions and rebut the arguments of Milosevic
supporters.
Visa restrictions imposed by the Milosevic government made it impossible
for the U.S. consultants to travel to Serbia, so they organized a series
of "train the trainers" sessions in Hungary and Montenegro. The trainers
then went back to Serbia to spread the word.
Kostunica's selection as the opposition presidential candidate in August
was shaped, in large measure, by the opinion polls. "The polls showed
that Kostunica could defeat Milosevic in the easiest possible way,"
recalled Dusan Mihajlovic, leader of the New Democracy party, one of 18
political parties that made up the coalition. Part of Kostunica's
appeal, the polls showed, was that he was widely perceived as
anti-American. Because he was an outspoken critic of the NATO bombing of
Serbia, it was difficult for the Milosevic government to label him a
Western stooge or a traitor to Serbian interests.
Kostunica was also the one opposition leader strongly opposed to
accepting U.S. campaign assistance. "I was against it, never got any
myself, and thought it was unnecessary," he said in an interview.
To many opposition activists, Kostunica's denials ring a little hollow.
While it is true that his own party, the Democratic Party of Serbia,
rejected anything that smacked of U.S. aid, his presidential campaign
benefited enormously from the advice and financial support the
opposition coalition received from abroad, and particularly from the
United States.
Lessons in Resistance
The U.S. democracy-building effort in Serbia was a curious mixture of
secrecy and openness. In principle, it was an overt operation, funded by
congressional appropriations of around $10 million for fiscal 1999 and
$31 million for 2000.
Some Americans involved in the anti-Milosevic effort said they were
aware of CIA activity at the fringes of the campaign, but had trouble
finding out what the agency was up to. Whatever it was, they concluded
it was not particularly effective. The lead role was taken by the State
Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the
government's foreign assistance agency, which channeled the funds
through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its
Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).
While NDI worked closely with Serbian opposition parties, IRI focused
its attention on Otpor, which served as the revolution's ideological and
organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders
to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in
Budapest, a few hundreds yards along the Danube from the NDI-favored
Marriott.
During the seminar, the Serbian students received training in such
matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols,
how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial
regime. The principal lecturer was retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Helvey,
who has made a study of nonviolent resistance methods around the world,
including those used in modern-day Burma and the civil rights struggle
in the American South.
"What was most amazing to us was to discover that what we were trying to
do spontaneously in Serbia was supported by a whole nonviolent system
that we knew nothing about," said Srdja Popovic, a former biology
student. "This was the first time we thought about this in a systematic,
scientific way. We said to ourselves, 'We will go back and apply this.'
"
Helvey, who served two tours in Vietnam, introduced the Otpor activists
to the ideas of American theoretician Gene Sharpe, whom he describes as
"the Clausewitz of the nonviolence movement," referring to the renowned
Prussian military strategist. Six months later, Popovic can recite
Helvey's lectures almost word for word, beginning with the dictum,
"Removing the authority of the ruler is the most important element in
nonviolent struggle."
"Those Serbs really impressed me," Helvey said in an interview from his
West Virginia home. "They were very bright, very committed."
Back in Serbia, Otpor activists set about undermining Milosevic's
authority by all means available. Rather than simply daubing slogans on
walls, they used a wide range of sophisticated public relations
techniques, including polling, leafleting and paid advertising. "The
poll results were very important," recalled Ivo Andric, a marketing
student at Belgrade University. "At every moment, we knew what to say to
the people."
The poll results pointed to a paradox that went to the heart of
Milosevic's grip on power. On one hand, the Yugoslav president was
detested by 70 percent of the electorate. On the other, a majority of
Serbs believed he would continue to remain in power, even after an
election. To topple Milosevic, opposition leaders first had to convince
their fellow Serbs that he could be overthrown.
At a brainstorming session last July, Otpor activist Srdjan Milivojevic
murmured the words "Gotov je," or "He's finished."
"We realized immediately that it summed up our entire campaign," said
Dejan Randjic, who ran the Otpor marketing operation. "It was very
simple, very powerful. It focused on Milosevic, but did not even mention
him by name."
Over the next three months, millions of "Gotov je" stickers were printed
on 80 tons of imported adhesive paper--paid for by USAID and delivered
by the Washington-based Ronco Consulting Corp.--and plastered all over
Serbia on walls, inside elevators and across Milosevic's campaign
posters. Printed in black and white and accompanied by Otpor's
clenched-fist emblem, they became the symbol of the revolution.
A Fair Vote Count
Had Yugoslav border officials been paying attention last summer, they
would have observed an extraordinary increase in the number of Serbian
students visiting a revered Serbian shrine in southern Hungary. "Making
a pilgrimage to Saint Andrija" became the favorite excuse for opposition
activists en route to another U.S.-funded program, this one in the
Hungarian town of Szeged, just 10 minutes' drive from the Serbian
border.
Its purpose was to train election observers. "We set up mock polling
stations with ballot boxes and went through the balloting process in
detail with them," recalled John Anelli of the Republican institute,
describing what became a key component in Milosevic's downfall. "We
trained about 400 election monitors who went back to Serbia and trained
another 15,000 monitors."
Without a massive monitoring operation, and an equally massive parallel
vote count organized by the Serbian Center for Free Elections and
Democracy, this fall's effort to unseat Milosevic would almost certainly
have failed. Opposition parties suspected him of stealing previous
elections, most notably in 1997, but were unable to offer conclusive
proof. This time, they made sure they had the means to detect election
fraud.
Drawing on their experience of elections in such places as Indonesia and
Mozambique, IRI consultants simulated vote-counting scams and
ballot-stuffing techniques. "They trained us to spot fraud and react
quickly," said Goran Rapoti, an opposition election monitor from the
town of Backa Palanka, who attended the seminar. "It was really useful."
The United States paid for the training in Szeged and the second level
of training back in Serbia. By Election Day, the opposition parties were
able to place at least two trained monitors at every polling station in
the country. Each monitor received about $5 in Western-provided money, a
significant sum in a country where the average monthly wage is less than
$30.
"Without the monitors, Milosevic's people would have stolen the
elections again," said Alexander Trkulja, the coalition campaign manager
in Backa Palanka. "They are masters in stealing elections."
An iron rule for both the coalition and Otpor was never to talk about
Western financial or logistical support. To have done so would have
played straight into the hands of the Milosevic propaganda machine,
which routinely depicted opposition leaders as "traitors" or "NATO
lackeys."
"It was dangerous to be connected publicly with the American
authorities," said Randjic, the Otpor activist, recalling a 12-hour
police interrogation in which he was grilled about his "Washington
controllers."
Even today, nearly two months after Milosevic's fall, the topic is
sensitive. Although the U.S. effort was clearly aimed at Milosevic, the
Clinton administration prefers to depict it as a neutral
democracy-building operation. "Our job was to level the playing field,"
said Paul Rowland, head of the Democratic institute's Serbia program.
"We worked with parties that wanted to make Serbia a genuine democracy."
Serbian opposition leaders, meanwhile, view the U.S. support as
atonement for past mistakes. They note that for many years U.S.
officials treated the Yugoslav president as the linchpin of America's
Balkan diplomacy, an indispensable interlocutor for Bosnia peace
negotiator Richard C. Holbrooke and other high-level emissaries. Far
from undermining Milosevic's grip on power, U.S. policy had actually
served to strengthen it, they contend.
"In the past, we had the impression that the West was supporting
Milosevic," said Homen, a 28-year-old lawyer who served as Otpor's
intermediary with Western diplomats and aid organizations. "This was the
first time that we felt that Western governments were actually trying to
get rid of Milosevic."
____________________________________________________
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
Xinhua: Myanmar's Crude Oil Production Up
YANGON, December 11
Myanmar produced a total of 2. 404 million barrels of crude oil in the
first eight months of this year, up 7.7 percent compared with the same
period of 1999, according to the latest data issued by the country's
Central Statistical Organization.
During the period, the country yielded 1.031 billion cubic-meters of
natural gas, falling by 9.2 percent from the corresponding period of
1999.
So far, Myanmar's petroleum and its products are insufficient to meet
the demand and the country still has to import 280,000 to 300,000 tons
of crude oil and 100,000 to 150,000 tons of diesel oil annually.
Meanwhile, during the first eight months of this year, foreign
investment in the oil and gas sector amounted to 52.8 million U.S.
dollars in 5 projects.
According to official statistics, since Myanmar opened to foreign
investment in late 1988, such investment in the oil and gas sector
coming from Australia, Britain, France, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and
the United States has reached over 2.3 billion dollars in nearly 50
projects, taking up the highest percentage of the country's total
foreign investment by sector.
______________OPINION/EDITORIALS_________________
BurmaNet: Letter to BurmaNet re. Asiaweek
Dear Editor,
The idea floated in the editorial of the Asia Week Magazine [See
BurmaNet News, Dec. 10, 2000] that Suu Kyi should consider leaving Burma
to continue her fight for the Burmese people from abroad,is indeed a
very cynical proposal. The editor refers to a better opportunity for
other political leaders to strike a deal with the ruling junta while Suu
Kyi is away. He is of the opinion that if she is away from Burma, many
countries would forget about economic sanctions and trade with the
generals. He also refers to the present status of the Dalai Lama and a
somewhat similar status that she could achieve.
His main aim is to help the generals get rid of Suu Kyi. I wonder what
he would do if he were, by destiny, given a role to play as she has in
Burma. I'm sure he'll sell his soul to the generals, to exploit whatever
he possibly can. Greed and avarice would be the ingredients of his daily
life. Suu Kyi on the other hand is aboveboard and none can point a
finger at her. She carries on her fight not for her personal greatness
or ego, but for the Burmese people who are suffering from basic human
rights abuses. The deteriorating Burmese economy is due to the generals
and a peculiar way in which they run the country. Even if she is away
from the country, Burma's economy will continue to stagnate as it has
for the past 38 years. The generals and their cronies will continue to
prosper while the masses suffer.
In reply to the Asia Week's editorial, "Would it not be more appropriate
for the generals to go into exile and leave the Burmese people under the
leadership of a political party that they overwhelmingly elected?"
Sincerely yours
R. PeTin
_____________________OTHER_____________________
BurmaSong: New versions of old songs posted
I have posted some new versions of old songs and several new songs on
the
"Song" page at BurmaSong.
http://users.imagiware.com/wtongue/songbook.html
These recordings are more recent than the files previously posted there.
They have been encoded as MP3 files for downloading.
The songs are:
O BURMA
THE RAIN IN RANGOON
THE HEART OF BURMA
IN THE QUITE LAND
BRING THE REVOLUTION HOME
Use the key combination that opens the options window on your computer
while
clicking on the links. Choose "DOWNLOAD TO DISK" or a similar option to
save
them to your hard drive.
Let me know if any problems occur in the process.
Peace and Courage,
Wrightson
________________
The BurmaNet News is an Internet newspaper providing comprehensive
coverage of news and opinion on Burma (Myanmar) from around the world.
If you see something on Burma, you can bring it to our attention by
emailing it to strider@xxxxxxx
For a subscription to Burma's only free daily newspaper, write to:
strider@xxxxxxx
You can also contact BurmaNet by phone or fax:
Voice mail or fax (US) +1(202) 318-1261
You will be prompted to press 1 for a voice message or 2 to send a fax.
If you do neither, a fax tone will begin automatically.
Fax (Japan) +81 (3) 4512-8143
________________
___________________________________________________________
T O P I C A http://www.topica.com/t/17
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