BurmaNet News: March 12 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

March 12 2003 Issue #2193

INSIDE BURMA

UN Wire: Forced labor continues, ILO representative says

MONEY

Narinjara: Preparations for Bangladesh trade fair in Rangoon
Narinjara: Bangladeshi fertilizer for Burma
Myanmar Times: Tokyo provides $44,000 for tuberculosis project

REGIONAL

Xinhua: Myanmar top leader to visit Vietnam
Irrawaddy: Five groups hold firm on conditions
Nation: Dealers flee en masse to Burma
DPA: Thai premier says he’s not afraid of assassination threats
NYT: In a contest of cultures, east embraces west

INSIDE BURMA

UN Wire March 12 2003

Forced labor continues, ILO representative says

The International Labor Organization's representative to Myanmar, Hong
Trang Perret-Nguyen, yesterday said the ruling State Peace and Development
Council's use of forced labor remains a problem despite recent efforts to
improve the situation.
"It is the army which mainly enforces forced labor," Perret-Nguyen said.
ILO officials gave Myanmar's ruling junta a plan in November on how to
curb forced labor.  The government returned the plan, outlining several
conditions which Perret-Nguyen said fell short of realistic efforts at
reforms.  Perret-Nguyen said the junta's suggested measures failed to
review current labor practices, offered no alternatives and did not answer
proposals for investigation and mediation.
Perret-Nguyen will submit her own plan, along with the government's
marked-up version, to ILO officials in Geneva later this month.
"I'm not in a position to endorse the plan of action that the government
has put forward," Perret-Nguyen said.  "So there is no joint plan of
action at this stage" (Irrawaddy, March 11).
Meanwhile, U.N. envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said in a report to be
presented to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva later this month
that the world should recognize that the movement toward democracy in
Myanmar is necessarily slow and that the country should not be isolated.
"The policy option now should be engagement, not isolation," Pinheiro said
in the report, which was obtained by Reuters in Yangon.  Pinheiro is
scheduled to visit Myanmar March 19-26, his fifth visit since being
appointed special rapporteur in 2001.
"Every political transition in the world is a process, sometimes a
torturous and slow one, and it would be unrealistic and naive to expect an
instant regime change in Myanmar," Pinheiro said.  "Instead of continuing
to complain that little has changed ... the international community must
have its eyes wide open to see the nuclei of change,'' he said.
Myanmar's military regime last May released opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi from 19 months of house arrest, but Western governments have
criticized the government's lack of response to Suu Kyi's repeated calls
for substantive dialogue

MONEY

Narinjara News March 12 2003

Preparations for Bangladesh Trade Fair in Rangoon

Keeping aside the existing bottlenecks in banking, shipping and port
facilities with its next-door neighbour Bangladesh is set to hold second
trade fair in Rangoon from March 20, a number of news agencies in Dhaka
reported.

The business community and the government of Bangladesh are highly hopeful
of the success of the trade and cultural fair.  During the four day fair
agreements will be signed on bilateral trade promotion, accounts trade and
coastal shipping  as agreed upon during the Burmese junta premier’s visit
to Dhaka last December.  Another private sectoral joint business council
will also be signed during the big show.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh is scheduled to lead a 54-member
entourage to the Burmese capital.  Another 200 people will also go to the
fair to run the stalls.  A 116-strong group of artists will also go there
to perform cultural shows, said UNB today.

The one hundred stalls will showcase pharmaceutical, ceramic, melamine,
light engineering, electrical and construction products besides
toiletries, which are popular items of smuggling into Burma.  A setback in
the trade between the two countries is till now the limitations on part of
the Burmese businessmen to open LCs due to strict foreign currency
regulations imposed by the junta.  The trade between the two neighbours
has so far been carried out via Singapore, in which export form Bangladesh
amounted to US$ 8 million while the import was to the tune of US$ 170
million.  Once the accounts trade agreement is in place, the business
community expected to narrow down the present gap.  Though the official
estimate of trade between the two countries stand at about US$ 100 million
annually, the non-formal trade is estimated as high as US$ 150 to 200
million.

During her two-day visit the Bangladesh premier is expected to emphasize
expedition of the road links between the two countries
____________

Narinjara News March 12 2003

Bangladeshi fertilizer for Burma

Burma will import one hundred thousand tons of urea fertilizer from
Bangladesh while it will export rice of corresponding value to Bangladesh,
it was learnt from a number of newspapers and agencies of news in Dhaka.

The Government of Bangladesh has proposed to sell off the surplus amount
of fertilizer in this regard to Burma.  It is expected that, the deal will
be finalized when the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Begum Khaleda Zia
visits Rangoon shortly.  On the other hand the two Ministries of Trade of
both the countries will finalize the necessary formalities of the
export-import deal.  The proposal of the deal has been forwarded to the
relevant authorities in Burma who have been reportedly expressed their
consent to work out all the details of the agreement.

When the premiere of Bangladesh visits Burma on 19th this month on a three
day tour, agreements on bilateral accounts trade, formalities in setting
up of a joint trade commission and completion of a coastal trading deal
will be finalized.  At the same time a second and single-country
Bangladesh Trade Fair will be inaugurated in the capital Rangoon.  The
proposed deal of the exchange of fertilizer with rice from Burma will also
be finalized then.

Bangladesh has suffered a recent shortfall in its rice production:
especially its late autumn harvest fell far short of the expected output
last year.    The proposed exchange of fertilizer with rice has been made
to ward off the deficit, the sources said.  The government of Bangladesh
made inquiries to Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC)
whether there would be any surplus production of fertilizer after meeting
the local demand in the present winter-season when the third and last
harvest of rice is made in a traditional solar year beginning in
mid-April.  BCIC informed the government about its surplus of 100,000 tons
of fertilizer in the present rice season, due to the drop in the demand
for fertilizer this year.  Though the demand for urea suddenly went up by
the end of February, at least 100,000 tons of urea fertilizer would be
sold less than the projected sales target for this year, they said,
besides the production of all the urea fertilizer factories in the country
are going on at full swing.  As a result a surplus production of 300,000
tons of urea fertilizer by the end of the next fiscal year is expected
even after the export to Burma is made.

Before this in 1994  95 the government of Bangladesh exported fertilizer
to Burma, which sparked off an acute fertilizer crisis in the country.  
The export of fertilizer is going to be made from the Chittagong Urea
Fertilizer factory where there is a surplus production.  At present the
price of a ton of the fertilizer is US$155 in the international market,
which is equal to taka 10,000 in the local Bangladeshi market.  BCIC would
earn a profit of taka 520 million by exporting the same amount of
fertilizer, but the present foreign currency crisis in Burma has forced
the country to go for exchanging rice for fertilizer, it was learnt.

Meanwhile the smuggling of urea fertilizer across the Naaf River from
Teknaf in Bangladesh to Maungdaw on the western Burma is so rampant that
both the countries have practically failed to stop the illegal traffic,
which is also conducted by the time-honoured bartering method.  During the
peak demand season of urea the sale recorded stood at 354,562 ton against
the expected sales target of 358,500 tons.  The winter rice had to be
delayed this year for inclement weather compelling the farmers to go for
plantation by the end of February instead of January, according to the
Janakamtha, a Bengali paper.

Many of the traders have expressed their opinion that the demand for urea
will continue till April as the plantation season has been delayed.  A
high official from BCIC said that the fertilizer factories across the
country are running at their full production capacity that will break the
last ten years’ production record, which will increase the production
beyond the set target.   For this reason the import of the fertilizer has
been drastically cut down.  The target for this year’s import of urea was
set at 400,000 ton.  But due to decreased demand the import has been
restricted to 300,000 tons, while about 260,000 tons of urea has already
been imported into Bangladesh, he said.
_______________

Myanmar Times March 10-16 2003

Tokyo provides $44,000 for tuberculosis project
By Nwe Nwe Aye

THE JAPANESE government has provided a grant of nearly US$ 44,000 for the
improvement of tuberculosis diagnosis and care in Thongwa township in
Yangon Division. The grant contract was signed on February 21 between the
Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar, Mr Yuji Miyamoto and Ms Melanie Koerner,
project administrator for Malteser Hilfsdienst Germany, a non-government
organisation which will implement the project. The grant will be used to
improve laboratory facilities and equipment at Thongwa Township Hospital
and Alankone Station Hospital. The assistance will also cover the cost of
technical training for laboratory technicians and of the purchase of 30
bicycles to be used by local public health officers to make follow-up
visits to tuberculosis patients.The project is expected to ensure an
efficient and reliable decentralised diagnosis and outpatient care system
for tuberculosis patients in the township, the embassy’s statement said.
The Tokyo government has also granted Myanmar a total of US$170,000 under
a grassroots assistance scheme to build nine primary schools in three
states. The assistance will cover the cost of building the schools and
providing a safe water supply in four communities in Demoso township in
Kayah State, three communities in Pekong township in Shan State and
communities in Sittway and Yathedaung in Rakhine State. The grant is
expected to help improve and give more formal structure to the teaching
environment in the communities and provide students with important basic
education in areas such as personal and environmental hygiene as well as
general studies, said the Japanese Embassy in the press statement.

REGIONAL

Xinhua News Agency March 12 2003

Myanmar top leader to visit Vietnam

Chairman of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council Senior-General
Than Shwe will pay a state visit to Vietnam in the near future at the
invitation of President Tran Duc Luong, said an official announcement here
Wednesday.

The announcement did not disclose the date of Than Shwe's visit. But
informed sources here said he will pay a three-day visit to that country
from March 15-17.

Than Shwe's visit, his third trip to Hanoi since March 1995, will be a
return one to president Tran's visit in May 2002.

Than Shwe is expected to discuss and exchange views with Tran on
bilateral, regional and international issues and those of common concern.

During Tran's last visit to Yangon, Myanmar and Vietnam held the 4th
meeting of their Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation  (JCBC) and a
memorandum of understanding on the establishment of a Joint Committee on
Trade between the two countries was signed.

Besides, a joint business meeting of chambers of commerce and industry of
the two countries was also held then, during which an agreement on
exchange of information in economic undertakings and investment for
extension of enterprises was signed.

Meanwhile, the two countries will cooperate in agriculture and forestry
under a two-year plan starting 2003.

Myanmar and Vietnam established diplomatic relations on May 28, 1975 and
the two countries set up the JCBC in May 1994.
_____________

Irrawaddy March 12 2003

Five Groups Hold Firm on Conditions
By Taw Taw

Burma’s military regime insists on meeting with armed ethnic groups on a
one-on-one basis in proposed peace talks, while five groups have today
reiterated their demand meet the junta at the same time.
"We are not going to meet with the military junta separately. We will wait
until they agree to meet all of us," said Rimond Htoo, general secretary
of Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), one of the five groups which
agreed to take part in mediation talks.
"If Burma’s military junta really wants to have meaningful dialogue, they
should agree to meet with all five groups at the same time," said Padoh
Mahn Sha of the Karen National Union, another group which agreed to the
talks.
In early February, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited Burma
and offered to act as mediator between Rangoon and ethnic rebels. Five
armed ethnic groups welcomed Thaksin’s offer during a meeting late last
month, on the condition that talks take place in a neutral country, and
with all relevant parties present, so as to avoid deals like the
individual ceasefires of the past.
The five groups include the KNPP, the KNU, the Shan State Army (SSA), the
Chin National Front and the Arakan Liberation Party.
Last week, the junta's Deputy Intelligence Chief Maj-Gen Kyaw Win was
quoted saying: "We will do these peace talks on a one-on-one basis, not
collectively."
Rimond Htoo suspects that military leaders in Rangoon won’t budge on their
earlier preference for dealing with ethnic groups individually. "They [the
regime] will ask us to enter the legal fold which means we will have to
surrender," he said.
He warned that as part of older agreements that stop groups from getting
involved in political issues, ceasefire groups may be prevented from
participating.
Burmese dissidents in Thailand argue that some ethnic groups are under
pressure from the Thai army to enter a ceasefire with Rangoon.
A prominent dissident who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy that if
Thailand continues to impose pressure on ethnic minorities, some armed
groups would have no choice but sign individual ceasefire agreements with
Rangoon.
Reportedly, Karen leaders based on the border have come under tighter
restrictions from Thai security forces. Last week, Karen refugees from Mae
La camp, near the Thai border town of Mae Sot, were arrested while
collecting leaves for roofing their homes in an area just outside their
camp. It was the first time Thai officials have acted against refugees in
this way. In another incident, food supplies, including rice, for refugees
at Nu Poe camp were blocked for several days without explanation.
Dissidents along the border believe that these are signs that Thai
authorities are pushing Karen people to talk to Rangoon.
Gen Udomchai Ongkasingha, Thailand’s Third Army commander, told the BBC
Burmese Service yesterday that they hadn’t pressured ethnic minorities to
start negotiations.
Some say Burmese authorities are using a divide-and-rule approach with
ethnic groups on the border.
The junta said it was not ready to talk to the SSA. Kyaw Win dismissed the
SSA as a breakaway faction of Shan groups that have already negotiated a
ceasefire.
"We are not the breakaway faction of any Shan ceasefire groups," a Shan
spokeswoman said in response. "We are not going to surrender. We want
peace and discussion. We don’t want any fighting."
__________

Nation March 12 2003

Dealers flee en masse to Burma, NATION

Over 100 drug dealers have fled over the Burmese border to escape the
government's war against drugs, a Karen official said.

Speaking to reporters at a border camp, Ner Dah of the Karen National
Union (KNU) said yesterday that the ongoing crackdown had forced many
dealers to flee into Burma, where clandestine drug laboratories operate
independently of the Burmese government.

Ner Dah, the KNU's assistant secretary for foreign affairs, said his
forces had lent support to the Thai security agencies in the crackdown,
which has reportedly claimed over 1,500 lives so far.

He said the KNU recently arrested a suspected drug dealer in possession of
300 methamphetamine pills. In an another development, a border source said
that a Burmese army unit had arrested drug traffickers on March 6 and
confiscated 4 million methamphetamine pills bound for Thailand.

The source said the traffickers were transporting the drugs across the
Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge when Burmese authorities apprehended them.
Lt-General Udomchai Ongkasing, Commander of the Third Army Region, said
the anti-drug campaign had dramatically reduced the transportation of
narcotics across the border.

However, he said, three months was too short a time to make any
sustainable impact on the trade.

Udomchai also said a total of 4,000 speed pills had been seized along the
northern border so far.

He said the Army would continue taking a more proactive approach in
dealing with traffickers as it had done in the last one-and-a-half months
under the government's anti-drugs campaign.
____________

Deutsche Presse Agentur March 12 2003

Thai premier says he's not afraid of assassination threats

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Wednesday accused unnamed
foreign drug dealers of plotting his assassination.

"I'm not afraid of threats against my life," Thaksin told reporters. "I
invite them to come (to Thailand) if they dare."

Thaksin, who has assumed a strongly combative stance since he launched his
controversial, high-casualty war on drugs on February 1, said he had
received intelligence reports that drug dealers in "a foreign country"
were plotting to kill him.

He declined to name the country where the alleged assassins were plotting,
but National Police Chief Sant Sarutanond said he had received information
that "Red Wa" conspirators were involved.

The Wa are an ethnic minority in Myanmar (Burma) known to be heavily
involved in trafficking heroin and methamphetamines.

Earlier Wednesday, Defence Minister Thammarak Isarankura said military
leaders were investigating a rumour that drug traffickers had put an
80-million-baht (1.9-million-dollar) price on Thaksin's head.

"We're checking on this," Thammarak told reporters who asked about the
assassination reports. "We must get rid of people with bad intentions
before they can carry out their plans."

He expressed confidence in security measures surrounding the prime
minister, which have been stepped up since February 1, when Thaksin
ordered an all-out blitz on drug traffickers that has so far claimed more
than 1,500 lives.

Last weekend Thaksin began travelling from his home to his office in a
bullet-proof Volkswagen van instead of his usual Lexus sedan.

Local news reports said the stepped-up security also included the use of
sniffer dogs inside the Government House compound and deployment of police
along the routes of Thaksin's motorcades in Bangkok.

In a speech to provincial governors and other officials last week, Thaksin
said he was determined to press on with his anti-drug blitz, and was not
afraid of becoming an assassination target.

Army Commander Somdhat Attanand said Wednesday he did not think drug
dealers would be able to carry out an attack on the prime minister.

"The army will not let this happen," Somdhat said.

He said the rumours about a possible assassination attempt might have been
started by drug dealers hoping to intimidate the government.

_____________

New York Times March 12 2003

In a Contest of Cultures, East Embraces West
By Seth Mydans

Asian values are universal values. European values are European values.

That was Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Muhamad, speaking before the
Asian economic meltdown of 1997, when the region still had some swagger
and leaders like Dr. Mahathir were resisting Western pressure for more
democracy and human rights.

Their argument was that the West was trying to impose alien values that
favor individual rights on an ancient culture where the highest value is
placed on the welfare of society as a whole. In that respect, Asian values
became an assertion of regional identity by nations that had begun to flex
their economic muscle and to refine their political systems in a
post-colonial world.

Asia, it was argued -- and by extension other regions with their own
histories -- has different cultural roots, values and assumptions about
society than those of the West. Western values like individual rights,
justice and fair play could not simply be applied like templates to
countries with such different traditions.

There was more than a touch of arrogance in the argument as well, an
insinuation that Asian values were not just different from Western values
but better -- for society and for economic growth.

The "Asian values" debate was also partly cynical, an excuse for
self-assured autocrats like Dr. Mahathir and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew to
play father-knows-best with their people, setting their bedtimes and
making them eat their vegetables without complaint.

Happy in their slipstreams were their favored financiers and developers
who found a respectable excuse to evade Western standards involving such
things as child labor laws, workers' rights and environmental safeguards.

When Asia was riding high in the 1980's and early 90's -- when the
region's economies were expanding by 7 or 8 percent a year -- nobody was
in a mood to criticize these "Asian values" -- including thrift and hard
work.

But with the economic crash in 1997, the underside of these virtues came
into view. The snug relationships among the powerful had bred corruption,
cronyism, repression and exploitation.

For a while it seemed that the whole idea of Asian values should be
consigned to the dustbin of history. But now, in the wake of the Enron
bankruptcy and corporate scandals in the United States, the West is also
dealing with cronyism and corruption and a debate of sorts has resumed
here over which models of society work best: competition versus consensus;
the rule of law versus personal relationships; a dynamic, even rowdy
society versus stability and order.

America's apparent willingness to go to war in Iraq to impose a Western
democracy there has also revived debate here over attempts to impose the
cultural values and political structures of one society on another.

Today, there is a slow, daily tug of war between the old-guard
traditionalists -- the former Asian values crowd -- and the insurgents of
an open society, who are developing a sort of indigenous version of
Western values.

The clans and oligarchs and strongmen and politburos are struggling to
hold their ground against the pressures of a more assertive public. Across
the region, interest groups are raising their voices with a striking vigor
against everything from deforestation to low factory wages.

But the pressures are not coming as they once did from the West. Rather,
the new paradigm seems to be the Asian assertion of what Dr. Mahathir
called European values.

It is a Thai environmental lobby that is opposing a large dam project. It
is an Indonesian group that exposes abuses of political detainees. It is a
Singaporean Web site that pushes for free speech. It is a Vietnamese
writer -- now in prison -- who demands political openness.

Asian values may indeed be universal values. But it seems that European
values are as well.

That is the view of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader in
Myanmar, formerly called Burma. "Unless they wish to call the people of
Burma 'un-Asian,' " she said, "they cannot call our struggle 'un-Asian.' "

Jose Ramos-Horta, the East Timorese leader who also won the Nobel peace
prize, was blunt, as always.

"Human rights were not a European invention," he said. "For thousands of
years, while Europeans were still living in caves, concepts of human
rights and justice were already articulated in the teachings of the major
Eastern philosophies and traditions."

It is no surprise that East Timorese believe in human rights and justice,
but they apply these principles in their own way.

When United Nations experts came to help found a court system in the
newborn nation three years ago, they brought with them an adversarial
model in which a verdict emerges from opposing arguments.

It was a strange process, said an American lawyer who took part in the
training. Culturally, she said, East Timorese tend to admit the crimes
they have committed. To create a Western-style court system, she said, it
was necessary to teach defendants to lie.