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BurmaNet News: March 27, 2001



______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
        An on-line newspaper covering Burma 
         March 27, 2001   Issue # 1764
______________ www.burmanet.org _______________

INSIDE BURMA _______
*Reuters: Myanmar marks key date with praise for democracy
*Xinhua: Myanmar Bears No Malice Towards Any Country: Military Leader
*Xinhua: Myanmar Leader Calls for Improving Newspaper Quality
*DVB: Regime issues white paper on resisting labor sanctions

REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Financial Times (London): Forced labour in Burma tests ILO's will to 
uphold global standards: Union and human rights activists say firm 
rhetoric is not matched by action
*Reuters: Myanmar may host informal ASEAN meeting April 30
*The Nation: Surakiart to attend meeting in Burma

ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*The Washington Post: China's Lumbering Economy Ravages Border Forests; 
Logging Industry Taps Unregulated Markets for Wood

OPINION/EDITORIALS_______
*Bangkok Post: Burma Stonewalls Drug Co-operation

OTHER______
*Federation of Trade Unions, Burma: Obituary?Ko Aung Than [ Min Gyi ]	


__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________





Reuters: Myanmar marks key date with praise for democracy

By Aung Hla Tun 

 YANGON, March 27 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government marked a key 
national anniversary on Tuesday with cautious praise for democracy, with 
one senior official saying secretive talks with the pro-democracy 
opposition were going well. 
 Thousands of soldiers with automatic rifles marched through Yangon to 
commemorate Armed Forces Day, the 56th anniversary of the launch of 
nationwide resistance against the occupying Japanese in 1945. 

 A senior government spokesman at the ceremony was upbeat about the 
talks with Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 

 ``It is going very well,'' he told Reuters. 

 Closed-door discussions between Suu Kyi's opposition National League 
for Democracy (NLD) and the ruling State Peace and Development Council 
began in October last year. They represent the highest-level protracted 
talks between the ruling generals and the NLD since 1995. 

 Some diplomats and pro-democracy activists have said they hoped the 
government would mark Tuesday's anniversary with a gesture of goodwill. 
But there were no immediate signs of such a move, although in his speech 
to the ceremony SPDC Chairman General Than Shwe praised democratic 
countries. 

 ``They have high per-capita incomes, well-developed human resources and 
they cooperate for national interests regardless of partisan 
differences,'' he said to crowds watching the military parade. 

 But he cautioned against moving towards democracy too quickly. 

 ``In our country, we experienced chaos and instability when multiparty 
democracy was put into practice right after independence and before the 
nation had a chance to become strong,'' Than Shwe said. 

 ``Political transition will naturally require a higher degree of sound 
preparation,'' he said. 

 Myanmar's government insists it is committed to building democracy but 
has repeatedly said the process must not be rushed. The NLD won national 
elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. 

 Witnesses said security was tight on Tuesday at key spots across the 
capital. 

 Myanmar's opposition celebrates March 27 as ``Resistance Day'' in 
honour of independence leader Aung San who issued the call to arms 
against the Japanese. Aung San was Suu Kyi's father, and is revered in 
Myanmar. 

 The NLD told Reuters it would celebrate the anniversary with a low-key 
ceremony at its headquarters. No diplomats or journalists would be 
invited, an NLD leader said. 

 (With additional reporting by Erin Prelypchan) 


___________________________________________________



Xinhua: Myanmar Bears No Malice Towards Any Country: Military Leader

YANGON, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar top military leader Senior General 
Than Shwe said Tuesday that Myanmar does not bear malice or hostility 
towards any country and is indeed determined to foster friendly 
relations with all nations of the world. Than Shwe, Commander-in-Chief 
of the Defenses Services, made the remarks at a grand military parade 
here to mark the country's armed forces' 56th anniversary. Than Shwe, 
who is also Chairman of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council 
and Prime Minister, reiterated that Myanmar adheres to an independent 
and active foreign policy in accordance with the Five Principles of 
Peaceful Coexistence in Myanmar's international relations, enjoying 
friendly relations with nations of the world. He also said this policy 
places special emphasis on development of friendly and cordial ties with 
neighboring countries and on cooperation with them for mutual benefit 
and economic progress. Myanmar has established diplomatic relations with 
88 nations since its independence in 1948.


___________________________________________________





Xinhua: Myanmar Leader Calls for Improving Newspaper Quality  


YANGON, March 27 


Myanmar leader Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt has called for improving 
the quality and standard of government-run dailies to win public 
attraction in the wake of growing reading population in the country, 
state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Tuesday. 

Meeting with officials, chief editors and staff of the state-run News 
and Periodicals Enterprise of the Myanmar Information Ministry here on 
Monday, Khin Nyunt, first secretary of the Myanmar State Peace and 
Development Council, stressed the need for them at different levels to 
work in accordance with the policy laid down by the state. 

He maintained that "press freedom" is being granted to an " appropriate 
degree" although his government is a military one, noting that over 100 
private periodicals have been permitted for publication and more private 
journals are also being allowed to do so. 

He warned against featuring news reports which may cause ill effects on 
the nation and the people. 

There are four state-run newspapers published in Myanmar, mainly in the 
capital of Yangon. They are The Myanma Alin (The New Light of Myanmar) 
in Myanmar and English languages, and the Kyemon (Mirror) and the City 
Evening News in Myanmar language. 

Meanwhile, beginning Tuesday, copies of the New Light of Myanmar are 
printed in the second largest city of Mandalay for direct distribution 
to readers in the northern part of the country. 



___________________________________________________






DVB: Regime issues white paper on resisting labor sanctions

Democratic Voice of Burma, Oslo, in Burmese 1245 gmt 22 Mar 01 
Text of report by Burmese opposition radio on 22 March

The SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] Foreign Ministry has 
issued a secret White Paper to defend the action by the International 
Labour Organization, ILO, over the SPDC's use of forced labour and its 
ramifications. The White Paper includes detailed plans to entice and 
organize the domestic workforce and to export Burmese products through 
Malaysia and Singapore when international sanctions come into effect. 
The White Paper was submitted to top SPDC leaders at the end of last 
year and DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] has obtained a copy of the 
White Paper.

The White Paper forewarned the SPDC leaders that Western nations and 
private organizations fully exploiting the ILO's resolution will 
categorically impose sanctions against Burma. The Foreign Ministry also 
recommended that Burma should take appropriate measures domestically to 
withstand and retaliate such actions.

The first recommendation is that although the Burmese government has 
tuned down relations with the ILO, the Burmese government delegation 
should continue attending the ILO meetings otherwise the exiled Burmese 
group FTUB [Federation of Trade Unions, Burma] will take its place.

According to the second recommendation, if international economic 
sanctions are imposed Burmese produce should be exported to third 
countries via Singapore and Malaysia. At the same time, it is 
recommended that border trade should be extended from now as 
international port workers could call a strike anytime and refuse to 
handle any freight concerning Burmese exports. Therefore Burmese export 
products should be properly packed into containers so that stevedore 
independent mechanized freight handling systems could be utilized. It is 
also recommended that the trading companies should be given the 
responsibility to pack the produce into containers by including it in 
the trade agreement.

Last year, the Indian Workers Union members staged a strike and refused  
to unload the cargo from the SPDC's Burma Five Star Line freighter so 
the ship was held up at the Indian port for more than 24 hours. To avoid 
such incidents in the future the paper suggested that Burma should woo 
port workers from India, Japan, Bangladesh and South Korea where Burmese 
products are regularly exported. 
The ILO passed a resolution condemning Burma's use of forced labour and 
urged member countries to review its policy towards Burma. The UN 
Economic and Social Council will discuss the ILO sanction at its July 
Conference. If the case is discussed at the meeting then the SPDC's 
forced labour issue will become a focal point not only of ILO but the UN 
as well. Thus, in its fourth recommendation the paper suggested that 
Burma should approach the 54 member nations of the UN Economic and 
Social Council.

In its recommendation to entice and organize the domestic workforce, the 
paper cited that the ILO sanctions against Burma was because of 
anti-government organizations' propaganda. It said if international 
sanctions are imposed the workers will become jobless and the people 
will suffer and the blame should fall on anti-government groups. 
Moreover, workers should be persuaded to sign protest letters against 
the ILO sanctions and the letters should be forwarded to the ILO 
Headquarters in Geneva.

The SPDC government did not mention that the ILO sanction was because of 
its use of forced labour but cited it as an attempt by the ILO to exert 
political pressure on Burma by not following the meeting procedures. The 
White Paper finally urged the need for Burma to stop the use of forced 
labour in accord with the ILO's resolution.  





___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
				



Financial Times (London): Forced labour in Burma tests ILO's will to 
uphold global standards: Union and human rights activists say firm 
rhetoric is not matched by action


March 27, 2001, Tuesday London Edition 2 


Report Frances Williams and Edward Alden

When the International Labour Organisation issued its unprecedented call 
last November for member states to consider sanctions against Burma over 
its use of forced labour, the US government responded swiftly and 
seriously. 

Meetings were held at the highest level, trade unions and business 
groups weighed in on opposite sides of the issue, and the administration 
considered a range of options. Despite strong pressure, however, the US 
refrained from any action. 

On January 18, two days before leaving office, Madeleine Albright, the 
US secretary of state, announced that the US would hold off from further 
sanctions, citing the resumed dialogue between the Burmese military 
regime and Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader. 

In fact, a report prepared for a discussion in Geneva this week by the 
ILO's 56-strong governing body shows that no country has imposed 
additional sanctions since the ILO urged members to "review their 
relations" with Burma to "ensure that such relations do not perpetuate 
the system of forced or compulsory labour in that country". 

Some ILO members, including the US and the European Union, said they 
were prepared to take further measures if forced labour continued. 
Washington specifically mentioned trade sanctions. But Russia, China, 
Japan and other Asian nations are strongly opposed to any action to 
ostracise Burma. 

The lack of action will fuel long-standing criticisms that the ILO, 
despite its strong words, remains incapable of mustering sustained 
pressure on countries. 

For human rights groups and trade unions, Burma's flagrant use of forced 
labour is seen as a crucial test of the ILO's credibility as the 
guardian of core labour standards. In the US, the Bush administration 
has been looking to a stronger ILO in order to deflect demands that 
labour rights be enforced through the use of sanctions under the World 
Trade Organisation. 

"International trade unions are looking to the WTO because of the ILO's 
failure to deliver the 'killer punch' in cases of persistent abuse of 
core labour standards," says Bill Jordan, general secretary of the 
Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which 
has consistently pressed for a social clause in WTO trade agreements and 
supports a blanket trade and investment ban against Burma. 

"There couldn't be a better test case than the gross and widespread use 
of forced labour by Burma. The ILO needs to show that it has the will 
and the means to end abuse of labour standards - that's its job," he 
said. 

Both the ICFTU and New York-based Human Rights Watch say they have 
evidence that forced labour is continuing despite a Burmese government 
decree issued last October to abolish the practice except in public 
emergencies. 

The ICFTU, in a 300-page report issued last month, documents recent 
cases in which children as young as 10 have been forced to carry 
munitions and military supplies. Many cases also "involve torture, rape, 
murder and violence", the report says. One source with close ties to the 
Burmese opposition says: "All of the things the ILO has been complaining 
about have intensified." 

The US finds itself in an awkward position. While Washington has banned 
US investment in Burma and suspended its eligibility for special trade 
preferences, the US has still become the biggest market for its exports. 
The value of US imports of Burmese clothing rose from Dollars 185m 
(Pounds 130m) in 1999 to more than Dollars 400m last year. Since the US 
first imposed sanctions in May 1997, clothing imports are up almost 400 
per cent. Tom Harkin, a US senator, has introduced legislation that 
would cut off all imports from Burma. But US options for additional 
sanctions are limited. 

Burma is a WTO member, and the US would have difficulty imposing 
restrictions on its clothing exports without violating WTO rules. 
"They've de facto made it impossible," said Art Gundersheim, the 
director of international trade with the largest US textile workers' 
union. 

It remains unclear whether ILO members have the will to make that threat 
credible. Juan Somavia, the ILO's director-general, who likes to stress 
his role as a consensus builder, shows clear signs of discomfort when 
asked about Burma. "We want to eliminate forced labour in Myanmar, not 
impose sanctions," he said this month, citing as progress the fact that 
the Burmese government no longer denies the existence of forced labour. 

But Mr Jordan of ICFTU says those governments that oppose action on 
labour standards in the WTO must give the ILO the tools to do the job 
instead. Otherwise, he says, trade unions and others "will continue to 
demand that the WTO be given this role - because it has the sanctions". 


___________________________________________________



Reuters: Myanmar may host informal ASEAN meeting April 30

BANGKOK, March 26 (Reuters) - Myanmar is likely to host an informal 
meeting of foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of South East 
Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the end of April, a Thai Foreign Ministry 
spokesman said on Monday. 
 The official told Reuters it was very likely an ASEAN ministerial 
retreat would be held in Yangon on April 30, although Myanmar had not 
yet officially confirmed the date. 

 No agenda had been planned because the retreat would be informal, where 
any country could bring up any issue to discuss. 

 Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said earlier on Monday he 
expected to accept an anticipated invitation to the retreat in Yangon. 

 Myanmar's foreign ministry told Reuters on Monday the ASEAN meeting was 
only at a tentative stage and had not yet been confirmed. 

 ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the 
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 


___________________________________________________



The Nation: Surakiart to attend meeting in Burma 

March 28, 2001




FOREIGN Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said yesterday that he would 
attend the informal Asean ministerial meeting in Burma at the end of 
April.  
The minister said he would extend his trip if the Burmese side 
officially invited him to do so.  

"If there is an invitation, I will probably accept it because I will 
have to attend the meeting there anyway," he said.  

The ministerial retreat, scheduled for April 30, was agreed to at last 
July's Association of Southeast Asian Nations' ministerial meeting in 
Bangkok. The informal nature of the meeting is aimed at allowing Asean 
leaders to bring up any issues and discuss them frankly.  

Surakiart, who will meet his Burmese counterpart for the first time 
since becoming foreign minister, expects to discuss ways to mend 
strained Burmese-Thai relations as well as border trade and promotion of 
tourism.  

"The principle is that problems between neighbouring countries should be 
resolved on a case-by-case basis and that any single incident should not 
be allowed to affect the overall relationship," he said.  

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is scheduled to visit Vietnam and 
Malaysia in late April, to be followed by trips to the United States and 
China respectively, Surakiart said.  

The foreign minister said he planned to go to Washington soon to hold 
discussions on regional security and anti-narcotics cooperation with US 
Secretary of State Colin Powell and other senior officials.  

A source said Surakiart would also visit New Delhi to boost ties and 
strengthen cooperation on economic issues and anti-drug initiatives.  

Since becoming foreign minister, Surakiart has promoted his concept of 
the Asian Cooperation Dialogue, which aims to bring South Asia together 
with Southeast Asia and East Asia under a framework of informal talks.  

Getting the dialogue going with India would be on the agenda of the New 
Delhi visit, the source said.  





_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
 


The Washington Post: China's Lumbering Economy Ravages Border Forests; 
Logging Industry Taps Unregulated Markets for Wood

March 26, 2001, Monday, Final Edition



John Pomfret, Washington Post Foreign Service

PIANMA, China

This Chinese town hard on the border with Burma smells of wood. Sawdust 
floats through the air like pollen. Fires crackle in roadside 
restaurants. Pianma's tallest structure is a mountain of logs more than 
50 feet high. And trucks weighed down with timber trundle through town 
daily.

Pianma, 1,500 miles southwest of Beijing on the far edge of Yunnan 
province, is one of China's gateways into the forests of northern Burma, 
where for the last several years a massive, unregulated and largely 
unnoticed timber trade has stripped bare hundreds of square miles of 
ancient tropical forests. As such, Pianma is a vantage point to view the 
mounting appetite of the Chinese economic giant that is emerging and 
spreading its reach to the rest of Asia and the world.

The economy -- at more than $ 4 trillion it is 22 times bigger than it 
was in 1978 -- has led the charge toward renewal of what many Chinese 
regard as their rightful influence on the country's Asian neighbors.

China is the biggest investor in Mongolia, for instance, and buys more 
than half its cashmere. China has challenged Russia for influence in 
several Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, 
where Chinese investments vie with Moscow's and Chinese bicycles, 
electronic goods and other gadgets are pushing Russia's out.

To the south, China has improved ties with Vietnam, and
Chinese firms are some of the most aggressive investors in that country. 
Chinese firms have also plowed money into Nepal and Cambodia.

China's growing economic influence has sometimes aroused
passions in the region. Mongolia moved several years ago to ban Chinese 
firms from participating in its privatization process. Government and 
cashmere industry officials routinely blame China for the collapse of 
their textile industry. Local officials in Siberia have spoken about 
their fears of a "Chinese invasion," although negotiations are underway 
for Chinese crews to cut down trees in Russia.

Here in Pianma, where men saunter the streets with pistols and 
prostitutes gather on street corners offering laborers a quick massage 
and more, people have been trading lumber for years. But the boom, 
truckers and lumberjacks say, really began in 1998. That was the year 
China issued a ban on logging to protect its fast- disappearing forests 
and to halt massive soil erosion that contributed to deadly floods.

"You have a situation where an environmentally beneficial policy in 
China created incentives to destroy forests in other parts of the 
world,"  said Jim Harkness, director of the China office of WWF, a 
conservation organization formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund.

 From 12 provinces in 1998, the logging ban was extended to 18 in 2000. 
No logging is allowed in the upper reaches of the Yangtze or Yellow 
rivers. Logging has been reduced in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, the 
northwestern Xinjiang territory and elsewhere. In all, 740,000 wood 
workers have been laid off, according to research by WWF. China's timber 
production plummeted 97 percent from 1997 to 2000, when only 1 million 
cubic meters were produced. 
Preparations for China's entry into the World Trade Organization have 
also sparked an increase in timber imports. Tariffs on forestry products 
have fallen drastically as China seeks to prepare for a more open 
trading system. In many places around China's borders, no tariffs are 
charged for logs.

In that atmosphere, thousands of out-of-work laborers flooded this town 
and regions all along the borders after 1998, looking for wood to feed 
an unquenchable demand for chopsticks, furniture and paper. China's 
imports of logs skyrocketed from less than 5 million cubic meters in 
1998 to more than 10 million in 1999 and between 14 million and 15 
million last year.

Steven Johnson, a statistician at the International Timber Trade 
Organization, estimates that within a few years China will surpass the 
United States, Japan and the European Union as the world's biggest 
importer of logs, although its imports of all wood products are still a 
fraction of the world total.

"The logging ban played a role," a World Bank official said, "but the 
trend was already there. As China gets richer, it's natural that it will 
consume more wood."

On paper, Burma supplies less than 10 percent of the imports, or 740,000 
cubic meters, according to statistics collected by the timber trade 
group. But no one in this swath of western Yunnan province believes 
those numbers.

"I would say it's about twice that high," said Li Jiajing, a 44-year- 
old driver, who said he moved 1,000 cubic meters last year of teak, 
Chinese hemlock, walnut, dragon spruce and Chinese pine. One recent day, 
he was preparing an 18-cubic-meter
truckload of three teak logs; the trunks were more than 10 feet in 
diameter, hundreds of years old.

Timber company officials estimate that more than 350,000 cubic meters 
move through Pianma alone each year. Large amounts also come into China 
from Burma at towns farther south along the border: Tengchong, 
Yingjiang, Zhangfeng, Ruili and Wanding. And a Malaysian timber firm is 
building a bridge across the Salween River, 60 miles north of Pianma 
near Fugong, to bring in still more logs.


In 1988, there were only 13 small sawmills in Dehong prefecture, a 
center of the new logging trade. Now there are more than 100. Another 
100 have sprouted up around Tengchong.

China's activities in the Burmese rain forests are mirrored on its 
northern border. Imports of Russian logs have skyrocketed over the past 
two years and outstrip the number from Burma. Russia now accounts for 42 
percent of all logs that flow into China. But Russia's wood comes mostly 
from forests that specialize in faster- growing softwood, while Burma's 
comes from tropical forests where the trees are often hundreds of years 
old.

"It's an international tragedy because Burma possesses about half of 
mainland Southeast Asia's forests," said Kirk Talbot, a Washington-based 
expert on Southeast Asian forests. "The
combination of a military-backed junta [in Burma] and
unquenchable appetites in China is creating a disaster."

In theory, the military-run Myanmar Timber Enterprise
controls all Burma's lumber exports. But the Chinese are not dealing 
with the government from Rangoon across from Pianma, for Burma's 
political system has conspired to facilitate the denuding of its 
forests.

In 1988, Burma's military-led government annulled the results of an 
election. Concerned that thousands of dissidents who fled Rangoon would 
be armed by insurgents who have operated for decades along Burma's 
northern border, Burma's generals cut a deal with the rebel forces: In 
exchange for permission to engage in business, the insurgents promised 
not to arm the dissidents.

Logging concessions were a key sweetener. Burma's generals gave these 
local leaders access to logging machinery and milling equipment. Chinese 
businesses were soon operating in Burma, bringing in lumberjacks and 
truckers and cutting down forests. 
Burma and Yunnan, the neighboring Chinese province, are
home to an abundance of plant and animal life, from a dizzying 
assortment of rhododendron species to the lesser panda.
There are more than 12,000 recorded species of trees in the region, one 
of the most biologically diverse in the world. 
Deforestation has ravaged its forests, however. In 1949,
the year of China's Communist revolution, half of Yunnan
province was forested, but today it is less than 10 percent. In Burma, 
forest cover has dropped from 21 percent in 1949 to less than 7 percent 
today.

Environmentalists in Yunnan say the damage to Burma's forests along the 
border has been severe. In 1997, one Yunnan-based conservationist 
reported that Chinese loggers had cleared 35 miles into Burma. This year 
logging has moved 60 miles inside Burma, he said.

"Burma used to be covered in huge trees like our Gaoligong Shan area 
just across our border," said the environmentalist, who recently 
journeyed to the border region. "Now you can climb to the top of their 
mountains and all you see are roads and logging trucks and barely any 
trees."

Most of China's deals are done with warlords in Burma's Kachin state, 
which borders China.

"The warlords basically run one region and so they sell us all of their  
 mountains," said Wang Jian, a businessman based in Pianma. "We're in a 
difficult position because they change warlords all the time. So our 
incentive is, once we get the contract, cut all the logs. So we 
clear-cut. If we don't, and they change the warlords, we're going to 
have to pay him as well."

That has angered China's environmentalists, who note that while China 
bans the logging of its own hardwood forests, its policies encourage 
lumberjacks and smugglers to cut down rare trees and snare endangered 
animals in Burma and Laos.

But Kou Wenzhong, a senior official in China's forestry department, said 
Chinese firms have a hard time making money in the region despite the 
absence of regulation.

"We're trying to pay attention to Burma's environment as well," he said 
in an interview in Beijing, "but when a warlord is changed over there, 
they rip up the contract and things get very difficult. Lots of 
contracts have been broken. There have been serious losses."


_______________OPINION/EDITORIALS_________________



Bangkok Post: Burma Stonewalls Drug Co-operation 



March 27, 2001 





No one has better illustrated the refusal of the Burmese to co-operate 
in fighting drug traffickers than the Rangoon regime itself. Last week, 
an official spokesman for the military dictators said the regime was 
holding what he called abundant information about Thais involved in the 
heroin and methamphetamine trade. This hardly came as news to Thais, who 
are increasingly determined to find and punish such traffickers. But it 
must be a shock to find out that Burma has held such information for 
years and refused to share it. 

For the past several years, the regime in Burma has got huge mileage out 
of promises and lip service. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations 
made the regrettable error of admitting Burma, with a hope and a prayer. 
Everyone desired that Rangoon would begin the twin tasks of halting its 
massive abuses of its own people, and begin to act in a constructive and 
helpful manner in world diplomacy. The Burmese response has been woeful. 


Rangoon has asked the world's forbearance on many occasions. At present, 
it has asked for - and received - virtually a world blackout on 
criticism of its domestic abuses. The dictators claim to be involved in 
deep, serious discussions with Aung San Suu Kyi and other democrats. And 
the regime has asked for help and understanding as it embarks on a new 
policy of wiping out drug trafficking within the next 14 years. But it 
has recorded no achievements, and made several backward steps. 

Last year, junta strongman Khin Nyunt flew to the Wa region to 
congratulate the United Wa State Army on its progress. The only known 
progress by the Wa group is to build more drug factories, make more 
drugs, arrange for more drug smuggling and increase drug profits. The 
Burmese army has moved tens of thousands of landowners from the region 
so that Wa can take over the opium fields as well as the drug factories. 
Burma has asked for time and aid. It has used both of these to make 
drugs an institution. 

Now, Burmese officially state they have held information on drug 
trafficking in Thailand for years. They obtained it - so they say - from 
people like Khun Sa, who is supposedly retired, and is close to the 
regime. The claim that Burma holds such information on important drug 
traffickers is shocking. If it is true, then the military dictators owe 
Thailand a serious explanation and, quite possibly, an apology. 

When it used and abused Asean as a stepping stone into the world 
community, Burma incurred some responsibilities. The most important of 
those was to co-operate, first and foremost with its neighbours. Burma 
should realise why Thailand and China agreed last week to work together 
on drugs. The common interest between Bangkok and Beijing is the Burmese 
drug trafficking, which poses a major security threat to both nations. 

It is a serious assault on diplomatic conduct that Burma has withheld 
such important information. It is sad that Burma uses such information 
to try to justify its unjustifiable propaganda attacks. Rangoon simply 
cannot claim it is co-operating to combat drugs. The dictatorship 
admits, and brags, that it has withheld vital intelligence. This could 
have helped to stop some drug trafficking years ago. 

Next week, Burmese and Thai border officers and officials are to meet at 
Kengtung. The head of the Thai delegation is Lt-Gen Wattanachai 
Chaimuenwong, commander of the Third Army. He said last week he has 
information about drug trafficking by Thai politicians. Prime Minister 
Thaksin Shinawatra ordered him to investigate. 

Burma should turn over all information it has. This can help Lt-Gen 
Wattanachai and Thailand. Rangoon can no longer claim it is serious 
about fighting traffickers unless it openly begins to share the 
important information it claims to have. 




______________________OTHER______________________


Federation of Trade Unions, Burma: Obituary?Ko Aung Than [ Min Gyi ]

Feb. 27, 2001

Former member of the All Burma Students Democratic Front ABSDF, former 
Staff of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma NCGUB 
and former Assistant General Secretary for East Burma of the Federation 
of Trade Unions Burma FTUB passed away at 23:00 Hrs on the 26 of March 
2001 from chronic kidney and liver dysfunction. 

His family thanks the doctors, nurses and staffs of the Chulalongkorn 
University Hospital for their efforts. 

His body will be cremated at a Buddhist Wat in Bangkok. The venue and 
time will be announced later. 






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Viewable online at http://www.soros.org/burma/burmanewsupdate/index.html
Cost: Free
Published by: Open Society Institute, Burma Project

The Burma Courier 
Frequency: Weekly 
Availability: E-mail, fax or post.  To subscribe or unsubscribe by email 
celsus@xxxxxxxxxxx
Viewable on line at: http://www.egroups.com/group/BurmaCourier
Cost: Free
Note: News sources are cited at the beginning of an article. 
Interpretive comments and background
details are often added.

Burma Today
Frequency: Weekly
Availability: E-mail
Viewable online at http://www.worldviewrights.org/pdburma/today.html
To subscribe, write to pdburma@xxxxxxxxx
Cost: Free
Published by: PD Burma (The International Network of Political Leaders 
Promoting Democracy in Burma)




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