BurmaNet News: January 24 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

January 24 2003 Issue #2163

INSIDE BURMA

Irrawaddy: Junta seizes KNU camp
Myanmar Times: VCDC bliz to eradicate stray dogs

DRUGS

Myanmar Times: Poppy survey in March

MONEY

Xinhua: 500,000 foreign tourists visit Myanmar in 2002

REGIONAL

Newsweek: A reckless harvest
Times of India: Myanmar won’t permit anti-India activities from its soil

INTERNATIONAL

AP: Myanmar ‘hinders’ British dial-up diplomacy
AFP: Myanmar to attend high-level talks in Europe despite sanctions
World Markets Analysis: Diplomatic breakthrough for Myanmar as it joins
ASEAN-EU meeting

STATEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS

Falun Dafa Information Center: Elder Slapped with 7 Years for
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" Banner
Washington DC Area Falun Gong Practitioners: Press Conference
Government of New Zealand: New Envoy to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Burma

INSIDE BURMA

Irrawaddy January 24 2003

Junta Seizes KNU Camp
By Aung Su Shin/Mae Sot

Burmese troops seized one of the Karen National Union’s (KNU) strategic
army camps today after launching their first major dry season offensive
yesterday morning, sending hundreds of villagers across the border. The
KNU lost control of the Lay Khaw Camp after Burmese troops heavily shelled
it along with three other camps, including the KNU headquarters at Waw Lay
Khee.
A KNU frontier officer today said that troops had officially withdrawn
from Lay Khaw Village, causing an estimated 700 Karen villagers to flee
the village, which is opposite Thailand’s Phop Phra District, 450
kilometers northwest of Bangkok.
Contrary to wire service reports, no causalities from either side have
been reported. KNU officials today said they had retreated from the
village before any Burmese troops had arrived. But one villager was
injured yesterday after stepping on a landmine while heading towards
Thailand. He is reportedly being treated in a Mae Sot hospital.
Hundreds of Thai villagers from Yaphaw Village in Thailand’s Phop Phra
District were also evacuated 20 kilometers from the border after seven
Burmese shells landed in the village.
Burmese army officers have ordered Lay Khaw’s village headman and two
Buddhist monks to return immediately, but as of late this afternoon they
had not complied. Villagers said the headman was ordered to come back so
as to encourage others to join him. The villagers said, however, that they
are too scared to return.
"First they [Burmese troops] will be good to us," said a 36-year old Karen
woman today who had fled with her four children. "But what can we do if
they change their mind later? As for Karen, here [Thailand] is safer."
She said villagers were concerned that if they returned they would be used
as forced labor by Burma’s military government. While pointing towards
Burma she said: "On that side of the [river] bank, whether you can eat or
not, you must go for volunteer service. So we will not go back."
The villagers have also refused to stay in the Umpiem Mai refugee camp.
"We want to stay in our village," said a group of villagers today. "We
would like to request to the international community to solve the problem
of Burma and bring us back to our homeland. If Thai authorities make us
stay in the refugee camp, we will hide in the jungle."
The villagers are now staying at the Yaphaw temple under the protection of
Thai soldiers, according to KNU officers. "If the situation becomes
normal, we will bring all the villagers home," said the Yaphaw headman
today. "But we must wait and see for a while."
_________

Myanmar Times January 24 2003

YCDC blitz to eradicate stray dogs
By Nang San Noom
PuBLIC help is needed in preventing the spread of rabies, the head of the
Department of Veterinary and Slaughterhouses told Myanmar Times last week.
 "The public can help us by registering their dogs and vaccinating them
against rabies," said Dr Htay Aung, the head of Department of Veterinary
and Slaughterhouses. Dr Htay Aung said the small increase in the number of
registered dogs proves that public cooperation is still poor. From 2001 to
2002, the number of registered dogs increased from 3031 to 3828. Dr Htay
Aung said, although Myanmar is a Buddhist country and Lord Buddha teaches
us to avoid killing other living beings, the YCDC department has to kill
the stray dogs in order to prevent the incidence of rabies in our
community.
"We have to destroy more stray dogs as they are the main source of rabies
– a dangerous disease that can be transmitted to human beings. The other
fact is that the breeding rate of stray dogs is high," he said. Generally,
a bitch can breed twice a year and can have up to eight puppies a litter.
So, to control the increasing rate of stray dogs, the YCDC established a
new group for removing stray dogs in May 2002. The new group, comprising
20 staff, is working together with the six existing groups that employ 50
staff. Increasing the number of staff means more stray dogs will be
captured. 18,521 stray dogs were destroyed in 2001 and 20,416 in 2002. Dr
Htay Aung said the stray dogs contribute to the degradation of Yangon’s
green and clean environment by scattering the piles of rubbish and by
leaving their faeces on the street and the stairs of apartment buildings.
They regularly run across roads causing road traffic accidents.
Dr Htay Aung urged all dog owners to have their dogs registered and
vaccinated against rabies.  "We register all dogs that have been
vaccinated by our department or other clinics. Our main aim with dog
registration is to know the number of vaccinated, disease-free dogs," he
said. The annual fee for registration of a dog is K500 and K 400 for a
collar. To kill stray dogs, baits are laid using the poison, ‘Strychnine
Hydrochloride’ which costs US$68/kg.

DRUGS

Myanmar Times January 24 2003

Poppy survey in March

The joint teams of the government and the United Nations will conduct a
survey on opium poppy cultivation in Shan State in March, a senior police
official said. The survey will be conducted in 50 towns in Shan State by
150 government and the UN officials, Pol Col Hkam Awng, joint secretary of
the government's Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control told a media
briefing last Friday 17 January . The survey will include opium
cultivation, opium prices and economic factors affecting the opium
farmers, Pol Col Hkam Awng said. The joint teams of the Myanmar Burmese
government and the American Drug Enforcement Agency has also been
conducting opium yield surveys in Shan State every year since 1993.
However, the Myanmar government has no plans to conduct further surveys
with the US, in protest against Washington's lack of recognition of the
achievements in Myanmar's narcotics eradication effort, Pol Col Hkam Awng
said.

The opium poppy cultivation season in Myanmar began in October with the
harvest to take place in February. Pol Col Hkam Awng said more than 900
acres of opium poppy were destroyed in Shan State by late December. In
another development, the authorities in Lashio are to destroy a large
quantity of narcotics including more than 720 kg of opium seeds and 5.5m
tablets of stimulant pills this week, Pol Col Hkam Awng said.

MONEY

Xinhua News Agency January 24 2003

500,000 foreign tourists visit Myanmar in 2002

Myanmar received nearly 500,000 foreign tourists in 2002 with an income of
100 million US dollars, the local weekly Myanmar Times reported in its
latest issue.

The report quoted Mandalay Mayor Brigadier-General Yan Thein as saying
that Myanmar plans to absorb up to one million tourists this year. The
mayor attributed the increase of the number of foreign tourists to border
tourism, in which more than 270,000 visitors made one-day trips or longer.

As many as 90,000 tourists entered through Shan state's China gateway,
while 142,000 travelers came in from Thailand through Myanmar's
southeastern corridor, the Myanmar tourism authorities said.

Myanmar has bilateral cooperation agreements on tourism with China and
Thailand, both of which are main suppliers of cross-border tourists to the
country.

Myanmar has been making efforts to promote its tourist industry by
building more hotels and attracting foreign investment in the sector.

Official statistics show that there are 42 state-owned hotels with 1,402
rooms, while there are 498 local private-run hotels, motels and inns with
11,292 rooms in the country.

Since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in 1988, the number of hotel
projects had reached 40 as of late 2002 with an amount of 1.235 billion
dollars.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2001, Myanmar lowered the requirement for
travelers to exchange 300 dollars with local currency on arrival, bringing
the amount down to 200 dollars.

Other measures include allowing Chinese tourists to use the Chinese
currency yuan during their stay in Myanmar.

In order to attract more foreign tourists, it is reported that Myanmar
will soon grant visas-on-arrival for individual travelers on some
designated foreign carriers.

REGIONAL

Newsweek January 24 2003

A Reckless Harvest
By Brook Larmer and Alexandra A. Seno

The ornate three-story palace just off the main road in Ruili, a boomtown
on China's southern border, is a monument to the plunder of Burma's rain
forests--and to China's insatiable appetite for timber. Meng Jianxin, the
50-year-old timber importer who owns the mansion, seems pleased to give
visitors a guided tour, pausing at one point to run his hand along a
polished wooden banister. The grandiose spiral staircase is made from five
kinds of precious timber--"all from Burma," he says. In the garden, Meng
shows off an aviary with dozens of exotic birds and two cages occupied by
monkeys with mournful eyes. The animals, like the trees, were taken from
ancient rain forests that Meng's company, Southwest Development, has
helped clear-cut--forests that are disappearing forever. Asia's forests
are being destroyed at a staggering rate, and the finger of blame is now
pointing at China. Over the past three decades, Japan's hunger for timber
helped destroy the rain forests of the Philippines and Borneo. Ecologists
now fear China will chop down the rest, thanks in part to a cruel irony.
In 1998, after the People's Republic was hit by devastating floods caused
by deforestation, Beijing banned logging along the upper reaches of the
Yangtze and Yellow rivers--and called for a drastic reduction in other
provinces. But in moving to avoid ecological disaster at home, Beijing is
causing a catastrophe abroad: to make up for the shortfall in timber,
China is devouring forests from Burma to Siberia to Indonesia, much of it
in the form of illegal logging. "It is frustrating," says one
forest-conservation expert in Beijing. "The logging ban is good for
China's environment, but it is leading to the destruction of forests
elsewhere."

China has become, virtually overnight, the second largest importer of logs
in the world, trailing only the United States. (The volume of uncut logs
arriving in China has more than tripled since 1998 to over 15 million
cubic meters.) The logging ban is a huge factor--China now produces only
half the timber it consumes--but there are others, too. Domestic
consumption is growing fast, as China's burgeoning middle class buys new
homes and Beijing undertakes huge civil-construction projects. China's
entry into the World Trade Organization has also driven tariffs for most
timber imports down to zero, fueling imports as well as a rapidly
expanding export industry in everything from pulp and paper to furniture
and decorations, most of it destined for the United States and Europe.
"China is not the only one to blame for the destruction of the rain
forests," says Zhu Chunquang, Beijing director of the forestry program for
WWF, formerly known as the World Wildlife Fund. "Everybody has a role,
from the suppliers to the consumers."

Not satisfied with legal imports, China's hunger for wood has also caused
a boom in illegal logging. According to international forestry experts,
about 40 percent of China's timber imports come from illegal
clear-cutting, which endangers some of the earth's most vital forests.
Nearly half of China's imports now derive from the vast coniferous forests
in Russia's Far East, a wild frontier where poverty, corruption and poor
law enforcement allow some companies--often controlled by Chinese
gangs--to cut trees illegally. Timber imports from Russia have risen from
less than 1 million cubic meters in 1997 to nearly 9 million cubic meters
in 2001, and one fifth of this trade is believed to be illegal. The result
of this boom can be felt in the northern Chinese city of Suifenhe, where
200 freight cars filled with logs arrive every day.

Ecologists are even more concerned about the destruction of the tropical
rain forests of Southeast Asia, whose rich biodiversity make them the
"lungs of the earth." The lowland forests of Indonesia, for example, are
being systematically destroyed by a corrupt triangle of military officers,
timber barons and international companies. Nearly three quarters of all
timber in Indonesia comes from illegal logging, experts say. (The World
Bank closed its last forestry-conservation project in Indonesia last
October due to rampant timber trafficking in a so-called protected park in
Sumatra.) At the current rate of destruction, the forests will disappear
on Sumatra by 2005 and in Kalimantan by 2010. American firms may have
contributed to the devastation: in 2000, the United States imported more
than $450 million worth of timber from Indonesia.

Now China is coming in aggressively, renting out whole swaths of forest
and muscling out competitors. "China is just sucking in the supply," says
one Filipino timber trader driven out of business last year. "We can't
compete because they pay more. The demand for wood in China is
incredible." So incredible, in fact, that they are quickly becoming the
leading destination for Indonesia's illegal logs. (The International
Tropical Timber Organization in its 2002 report ranked China just behind
Malaysia, but experts say that many logs heading to Malaysia are later
rerouted to China.) Because the illegal logs are so cheap--no taxes in
Indonesia, no tariffs in China--mainland companies have a huge competitive
advantage in export markets for everything from chopsticks to furniture.
Even logs. For a Jakarta-based company, in fact, the price of Chinese logs
that originated in Indonesia and illegally passed through Chinese ports
can be cheaper than the price of legal logs sold in Indonesia.

The Indonesian government has done little to stop the destruction. Last
year there was a glimmer of hope when the Indonesian Navy seized three
cargo ships loaded with 25,000 cubic meters of allegedly illegal logs
destined for China. (Indonesia has banned the export of logs.) The ships
and logs were impounded, and their crews detained, for seven months. The
U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) claims that documents
it obtained connect the shipment to a powerful Indonesian timber baron and
to a large state-owned Chinese shipping company. But after Indonesian
President Megawati Sukarnoputri visited Beijing last fall, the case was
dropped, the crews were released and the logs were auctioned off by the
police to the highest bidder. "It's not just an issue of trees but of
governance," says Faith Doherty, an EIA investigator who worked on the
case.

The public-relations disaster, however, had a silver lining. At the end of
December, Beijing and Jakarta signed a memorandum of understanding to curb
the flow of illegal timber into China. It outlines no specific plans or
policies, only a list of intentions. But activists see it as the first
positive step in holding both governments accountable. "If there is a real
commitment on the part of China to help put order in the process, we will
get some improvements," says David Kaimowitz, director-general of the
Center for International Forestry Research, based in Bogor, Indonesia. His
optimism derives in part from the fact that such agreements are so rare.
Earlier this month in Cambodia, where 70 percent of logging is unregulated
(and much goes to China), Phnom Penh expelled the environmental group
Global Witness, which it had contracted to monitor illegal logging. The
reason: the group had named corrupt officials involved in the timber
trade.

Meanwhile, on the bustling Chinese border in Ruili, Meng is chain-smoking
555s and complaining about Burma's crackdown on the sale of logs to China.
A former soldier who sports a military buzz cut, Meng started his business
in 1990 with a 50-kilometer trek into the Burmese mountains, from which he
emerged with 100 horses carrying logs of teak, rosewood and other rare
tropical hardwoods. Due to the massive, unregulated trade that has
stripped bare hundreds of miles of ancient forest, Meng is now one of the
richest men in Ruili. He has dozens of employees and several warehouses
filled with logs, some a meter and a half in diameter and more than a
century old. This is not high-end timber; that, he says, is now being
shipped directly from Rangoon to Shanghai. And due to heightened scrutiny,
even lower-quality logs are now traded in the dead of night--one reason
Meng is easing out of timber and moving into Chinese medicines.

Still, Meng has no trouble getting a fresh supply. Using one of two cell
phones, he simply calls a contact whom he identifies as a member of a
"rebel government" in Burma's Kachin state. "I call, and 24 hours later,
the trucks come to deliver," he says. Simple as that: one more chunk of
the world's ancient rain forests rumbles into China, ready to be cut,
sawed and shaped in the service of the world's fastest-growing economy.
______________

Times of India January 24 2003

MYANMAR WON'T PERMIT ANTI-INDIA ACTIVITIES FROM ITS SOIL

NEW DELHI: Myanmar has reiterated that it would not allow its territory to
be used for anti-India activities.

This was asserted during a low-key visit by Myanmar foreign minister U Win
Aung. India and Myanmar signed a protocol on foreign office consultations
and agreed to explore prospects of enhanced cooperation in hydro-electric
projects, road construction and multi-modal transport.

The protocol was signed by external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha and
his Myanmar counterpart here after wide- ranging one-to-one and
delegation-level talks.

On the economic front, Myanmar is keen on Indian help to set up its IT
sector. The visiting minister is due to go to Hyderabad to scout for IT
firms that would be suitable for this collaboration.

India is already engaged in offshore oil and gas exploration and has
offered its expertise for on-shore operations as well, besides showing
interest in Myanmar's power projects.

The two sides also exchanged views on major regional and international
issues, including the Iraq crisis.

INTERNATIONAL

Associated Press January 24 2003


Myanmar 'hinders' British dial-up diplomacy

Thursday's telephone conversation between Foreign Office Minister Mike
O'Brien and Suu Kyi, their third in two months, was much shorter than
normal because it was hindered by constant interference and the cutting of
the phone line, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
It is not clear what caused the problems, but the ministry noted there
have been reports of deliberate interference with her phone.
Suu Kyi told O'Brien her National League for Democracy wants to work with
citizens and the authorities for the sake of Myanmar, a country also known
as Burma. She said urgent progress was needed and that the NLD did not
want confrontation but it could result from continued harassment by
authorities, the spokesman said.
O'Brien told Suu Kyi that Britain was very concerned about the increasing
restrictions being placed on her freedom to travel and operate freely, and
that the disruptions of her recent meetings in Rakhine state were
"symptomatic of the attitude of the Burmese regime," the spokesman said on
customary condition of anonymity.
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department criticized what it called
harassment of Suu Kyi by government-affiliated groups in Myanmar.
Before the telephone link broke down, O'Brien said that if the limited
political progress achieved to date in Myanmar was further eroded, Britain
would be forced to consider tightening its policies toward the regime.
Restrictions
The impoverished Southeast Asian country has been under military rule
since 1962. The military held a general election in 1990, but refused to
honor the results when Suu Kyi's NLD party won a landslide victory.
The two sides have been holding reconciliation talks since late 2000, but
no real progress has been made.
European Union restrictions on Myanmar include an arms embargo; a ban on
high-level visits, defense links and visas; and an asset freeze on senior
regime and military members.
The European Commission suspended Myanmar's trading privileges because of
forced labor there. Britain also does not encourage trade, investment or
tourism with Myanmar.
_________

Agence France-Presse January 24 2003

Myanmar to attend high-level talks in Europe despite sanctions
By P. PARAMESWARAN

Myanmar will for the first time be allowed to participate in an ASEAN-EU
foreign ministers meeting in Europe next week despite sanctions imposed on
the military-ruled state, ASEAN and Myanmar officials said Friday.

"This is a big breakthrough," an official told AFP ahead of the two-day
meeting from Monday between the 10 foreign ministers of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 15-member European Union (EU).

The EU has refused to hold high-level talks in Europe with ASEAN ever
since Myanmar was admitted into ASEAN in 1997 due to that country's human
rights record.

The EU, together with the United States, has imposed sanctions on Myanmar
in a bid to press the junta to initiate reform. They include an arms
embargo and a travel ban on members of the Myanmar junta. A Western
diplomat said the travel ban and other sanctions were still in place but
an "exception" would be made for Myanmar's Foreign Minister Win Aung to
travel to the Belgian capital for the talks.

"In preparatory talks, I was informed the minister will be given a visa
but there is no question of sanctions being withdrawn," he said.

Yangon issued a brief statement to AFP confirming Myanmar's participation,
but the junta said a deputy foreign minister would head Myanmar's
delegation.

"Myanmar looks forward to having a fruitful meeting between ASEAN and EU,"
spokesman Colonel Hla Min of the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

"The Myanmar delegation will be led by the Deputy Foreign Minister U Khin
Maung Win," he added.

No further explanation about the delegation was provided.

This is the first time Myanmar will take part in such a high-level meeting
in Europe since its admission into ASEAN, officials said, adding that it
could mark a "new era" of ties between the two regions.

"Having Myanmar together with the ASEAN ministers at the AEMM (ASEAN-EU
Ministerial Meeting) in Brussels offers a good opportunity for Myanmar and
EU to better understand each other's concerns," ASEAN Secretary-General
Ong Keng Yong told AFP.

"I hope that this opportunity will not be missed," said Ong, who took over
the helm at the Jakarta-based ASEAN secretariat on January 1.

"The important thing is that we do not talk over each of our heads, but
engage each other purposefully, sensitively and also specifically," he
explained.

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's release in May from 19 months
of house arrest as well as the subsequent release of more than 300
political prisoners had raised hopes of political reforms in the
military-ruled state.

But EU officials had said recently that the release of political prisoners
alone was not enough to lift the sanctions.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming
election victory in 1990 but the junta has never recognised the result.

Aside from Myanmar, ASEAN comprises Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Officials also said that terrorism would be a key topic at the ASEAN-EU
foreign ministers meeting, with a joint statement on fighting the scourge
expected to be adopted at the end of the talks.

The ministers would also discuss steps to boost trade and economic
cooperation, they said, noting that Europe was a key market for ASEAN
exports -- the driver of economic growth in the region.

Asked what would be the benefit of Myanmar's participation at the Brussels
meeting, Ong said: "Everybody wishes to get something out of this
dialogue, but we have to be realistic.

"There is already a certain set of developments in Myanmar and it is
important not to waste this opportunity.

"It is important to listen to each other and perhaps from that process, we
find that there is a common ground," he said.

On whether Myanmar's participation would instead be a stumbling block to
better ASEAN-EU relations, Ong said: "No, I think that it's good that we
talk and explain.

"Many of these impressions of something happening in Myanmar are based on
certain information, so now you have the Myanmar minister there and
European ministers there, let's have an adult exchange of views.

"If we approach it with a desire to know more about the situation in
reality, I think it's a step forward. To sit down and talk is better than
not having a conversation at all."
______________

World Markets Analysis January 24 2003

Diplomatic Breakthrough for Myanmar as it joins ASEAN-EU Meeting
Dr Tobias Nischalke

Myanmar's military regime got off to a bright start on the diplomatic
front in 2003. Following a reconfirmation of close ties with China,
Myanmar achieved a notable step away from isolation when it emerged that
Foreign Minister Win Aung is to be exempted from a European Union (EU)
travel ban and will be allowed to take part in the foreign ministers'
meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the EU.
The EU, along with other Western states, imposed sanctions on Myanmar
because of the military's poor human rights record and reluctance to begin
a transformation towards democracy. Since Myanmar became an ASEAN member
in 1997, amidst Western protests, representatives from the country have
not been allowed to travel to Europe. Consequently, ASEAN-EU meetings were
not held on EU territory, hampering relations between the two regional
organisations. The exemption from the travel ban for Win Aung may be a
concession by the EU in response Myanmar's release of opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in 2002. There is little prospect of
any swift democratisation in Myanmar, but at the same time it is clear
that Western sanctions have failed to bring about the desired results (see
Myanmar: 20 December 2002: The Waiting Game Continues).


STATEMENTS/MISCELLANEOUS

Falun Dafa Information Center January 24 2003

Burma: Elder Slapped with 7 Years for "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance"
Banner

Main Factor is Jiang Zemin’s Pressure to Persecute Falun Gong Overseas
(1/24/2003  1:43)
HONG KONG (FDI) -- 71-year-old Mr. Chan stands quietly by the side of a
Burmese road. He unfolds a little yellow banner that reads
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" as he patiently waits for Jiang
Zemin’s motorcade to drive by.
Within seconds he is pounced upon by local police. Under the gaze of the
Chinese Embassy, and with presence of neither lawyer nor family, the elder
is secretly sentenced to 7 years in prison and taken away.
Mr. Chan’s case was exposed publicly for the first time yesterday. A
permanent resident of Hong Kong who practices Falun Gong, he was visiting
his family during the holiday season of 2001-2002 when he learned that
Jiang Zemin was scheduled to visit the country.
Since launching his campaign against Falun Gong in 1999, Communist Party
leader Jiang Zemin has become known for pressuring foreign governments to
act illegally, particularly during his visits. While Jiang was in Germany
last April, his secret service assaulted Falun Gong practitioners; in
Iceland last June, Jiang pressured authorities to use an illicit blacklist
and barred practitioners from entering the country during his visit.
South East Asian countries, like Burma, have been particularly susceptible
to the duress. Last August, in nearby Cambodia, an elderly couple was
abducted by Chinese Embassy agents and clandestinely taken to a labor camp
in China.
Falun Dafa Associations in Hong Kong, North America, Europe, and Australia
have begun efforts today to appeal for Mr. Chan’s release. They have
delivered letters to Burmese officials in the capital Rangoon, as well as
to Burma’s consulates in Hong Kong and the United States. The case is also
in the process of being submitted to the United Nations and Amnesty
International as a prisoner of conscience.
When Mr. Chan was first arrested for displaying the principles of Falun
Gong in public, he was held for over a month. While in detention,
officials from the Chinese Embassy supervised as local Burmese police
repeatedly demanded that Mr. Chan present a written promise to forsake
practicing Falun Gong, a demand commonly imposed on practitioners in
China. In exchange for acting against his conscience, they offered him
personal freedom.
Mr. Chan refused.
On January 31, 2002, 71 year-old Mr. Chan was secretly sentenced to 7
years in prison and warned his family against contacting Falun Gong
practitioners in Hong Kong.
________

The Washington DC Area Falun Gong Practitioners January 24 2003

Press Conference in front of the Myanmar Embassy

In protest of the Wrongful Arrest and Illegal Jail Sentence of
Falun Gong practitioner in Myanmar


In protest of the wrongful arrest and illegal jail sentence of Falun Gong
practitioner in Myanmar, practitioners and supporters of Falun Gong in the
Washington metropolitan area will hold a peaceful appeal in front of the
Mayanmar Embassy in DC. A press conference is scheduled on Friday, January
24, 2003. Meanwhile the Falun Dafa Practitioners Association will request
an official meeting with the Ambassador on this issue.


On 12/12/2001, Mr. Chan Wing Yuen, a Falun Gong practitioner and a
permanent resident of Hong Kong, displayed a small-sized banner that read
“Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance” in a street of Rangoon, Myanmar in
anticipation of a visit by China’s President Jiang Zemin who was
responsible for the death of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in
China. Mr. Chan was standing on the side of a road that he believed Jiang
would travel on.

Mr. Chan was arrested by Rangoon police within seconds after he opened up
his banner even though Mr. Chan’s action was peaceful and his banner did
not carry any offensive message. More than a month and half after his
arrest, on 1/31/2002, Mr. Chan was secretly sentenced to 7 years in prison
without legal representation or the presence of his family members.

Before and after the “conviction”, local Burmese police, under the
instruction of and in the presence of officials from the Chinese embassy,
had repeatedly demanded that Mr. Chan give written promise to renounce his
belief in Falun Gong in exchange for his freedom. Mr. Chan refused.

Officials from the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar and officials from Myanmar
Consulate of Hong Kong warned Chan’s family not to associate with Falun
Gong in Hong Kong.
_________

Government of New Zealand January 24 2003

NEW ZEALAND APPOINTS NEW ENVOY TO THAILAND, CAMBODIA, LAOS, BURMA

New Zealand's new ambassador to Thailand is career diplomat Peter Rider,
Foreign Minister Phil Goff announced today. Mr Goff said New Zealand's
relationship with Thailand was multi-faceted and highly valued. "There has
been impressive two-way growth in trade - New Zealand exports to Thailand
have more than trebled since 1990 with total exports of 392m dollars in
the year to June 2002, while imports from Thailand amount to 536m dollars.

"Thailand is the largest ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
source country for education - more than 3,000 Thai students undertook
study in New Zealand last year. There is also healthy growth in tourism.
Thailand remains a popular holiday destination for New Zealanders and we
welcome around 20,000 Thai tourists to our shores annually.

"In the broader regional arena, Thailand is an important partner in the
ASEAN Free Trade Area-Closer Economic Partnership and is an influential
member of APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum , which it
currently chairs.

"Peter Rider has been international affairs adviser in the Department of
Prime Minister and Cabinet since 2000. His previous postings include
Bahrain, Riyadh, Geneva and New York, where he was New Zealand's deputy
permanent representative to the United Nations.

"He is an able and widely experienced officer and well equipped to
represent New Zealand in his new assignment," Mr Goff said.

Mr Rider will also be accredited as ambassador to Cambodia, Laos and
Myanmar Burma . He takes up his post in June 2003 and replaces Alan
Williams who is returning to Wellington.