BurmaNet News: May 30 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

May 30 2003 Issue #2248

INSIDE BURMA

NYT: After vowing change, junta hardens line
Reuters: Myanmar junta says Suu Kyi causing ‘commotion’
AP: Myanmar to sign agreement to eliminate forced labor

DRUGS

Myanmar Times: The Wa drug-free vision
Xinhua: 25.5 kilograms of opium seized in SW province
Xinhua: Three countries extend aid for Myanmar’s drug control project

ON THE BORDER

Bangkok Post: Bosses target of new govt campaign

INTERNATIONAL

Washington Post: White House seeks to curb rights cases from abroad
Xinhua: Australia to help train Myanmar eye surgeons

REGIONAL

TPR: Mae Sai-Tachilek Bridge provides access to southern China
Xinhua: Bangladesh repatriates 704 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in May

INSIDE BURMA

New York Times May 31 2003

After vowing change, junta hardens line
By  SETH MYDANS

One year ago this month, Aung San Suu Kyi stood before a hot and excited
crowd in Burma and declared, ``It's a new dawn for the country.''

She had just been freed from 19 months of house arrest by a ruling
military junta promising cooperation, mutual respect and a new dialogue
toward a political accommodation with the democratic opposition she
headed.

``The next step is discussions about policy,'' she said. A government
spokesman said there would be no restrictions on her movements ``because
we are confident we can trust each other'', and he announced that the
country's political prisoners would be freed.

Almost none of these promises have been kept.

``I don't think there's been any progress so far,'' said David Steinberg,
a professor at Georgetown University who is a leading expert on Burma.
``It's been very depressing.''

The anniversary of that hopeful moment has been marked by new tensions
between the government and the opposition and by some of the most
pessimistic remarks Daw Suu Kyi has made in years.

``We are concerned with the lack of progress between the authorities and
ourselves,'' she said shortly before the May 6 anniversary of her release.
``We have been forced to question the sincerity of the SPDC. I do not
think there had been any progress. In fact, I would have thought that
there had been some kind of regression.''

The SPDC is the military junta that took power after crushing a widespread
popular uprising in 1988, and has since named itself the State Peace and
Development Council.

It clung to power after her party, the National League for Democracy, won
more than 80% of the seats in a parliamentary election in 1990, and it has
held her under house arrest, off and on, for much of the time since then.

``The election results cannot be cast aside at will,'' Daw Suu Kyi said in
a statement on Tuesday, which was the anniversary of that election. ``We,
the National League for Democracy, stand firm for implementation of the
results of the 1990 election.''

That position represented a hardening of the openly flexible position she
had taken in the recent past.

Daw Suu Kyi's release last May was one of the most hopeful moments for the
democratic opposition since the election, and the shrinking of those hopes
over the past year has left it uncertain about the future.

``Are they truly interested in a settlement with us?'' Daw Suu Kyi asked
in April.

The promised political dialogue has failed to materialise, and a spokesman
for her party, U Lwin, told reporters this week in Rangoon that the
government had not even discussed the issue for the past seven months.

Since December the junta has also backtracked on the one major promise it
had kept: permitting Daw Suu Kyi's freedom to travel from Rangoon to meet
supporters and to reopen party offices that had been forced to close.

According to party members in Rangoon, her convoys of cars and motorcycles
have been obstructed, supporters have been intimidated, and public
meetings have been disrupted by heckling and harassment.

She is now on a monthlong trip to northeastern Burma, her seventh trip in
the past year, and party spokesman U Lwin told reporters that she had been
faced with the most hostile and violent disruptions so far.

He said organised crowds had surrounded her and her supporters. Some
people brandished sticks and machetes.

In one case, a brick landed on her car. In another, punches were thrown.

He blamed these actions on a government-organised group called the Union
Solidarity Development Association, some of whose members are sometimes
used to harass opponents.
____________

Reuters May 30 2003

Myanmar junta says Suu Kyi causing ''commotion''

The junta, which freed Nobel laureate Suu Kyi from house arrest in May
last year, said members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party
from several towns had gathered in Monywa, 600 km (370 miles) north of
Yangon.
       It said Suu Kyi toured the town for three hours in a convoy of 16
cars and 150 motorcycles.
       ''Responsible government officials had to warn the NLD to
understand the people, avoid startling them, causing commotion
among them,'' the junta said in a statement faxed to Reuters.
       NLD spokesman U Lwin told Radio Free Asia on Friday Suu Kyi had
been greeted by thousands of well-wishers in Monywa on Thursday,
including dozens of Buddhist monks who ''protected'' her.
       The NLD, which swept to a landslide victory in 1990 elections but
was never allowed to rule, has often complained that Suu Kyi has
been harassed by the government during her trips outside the
capital Yangon.
       The military, which has ruled Myanmar in various guises for the
last four decades, put Suu Kyi under house arrest in 2000 after
repeatedly preventing her from leaving Yangon to visit supporters
in neighbouring districts.
       The ruling generals freed Suu Kyi last May after a series of
U.N.-brokered ''confidence building'' talks with the NLD. But the
government has never responded Suu Kyi's calls for substantive
dialogue on political change.
       The U.N. envoy who brokered the first round of talks, Razali
Ismail, is due to visit Myanmar from June 6 to 10 in a bid to
kick-start fresh talks.
       Suu Kyi spent six years under house arrest from 1989 to 1995 after
emerging as the country's main opposition leader during a failed
pro-democracy uprising in 1988.
____________

Associated Press May 30 2003

Myanmar to sign agreement to eliminate forced labor

Myanmar's military government will sign an agreement with the
International Labor Organization to eliminate forced labor in the country,
an ILO official said Friday.

After 10 months of discussion and negotiations, the agreement will be
formally signed at the ILO's annual conference in Geneva next month, ILO's
liaison officer, Hong-Trang Perret-Nguyen, told The Associated Press.

The agreement also calls for appointing an independent official to monitor
labor standards in Myanmar. The person named to the position is Leon de
Riedmatten, the Myanmar representative of the Center for Humanitarian
Dialogue, a Geneva-based group.

His duties include investigating claims by victims of forced labor and to
liaise with the authorities, Perret-Nguyen said.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under pressure from the ILO since
November 2000 when the agency urged its 175 member governments to impose
sanctions and review their dealings with the country to ensure they are
not abetting forced labor.

The ILO and other international observers have long accused the military
of using unpaid labor on public works and making civilians serve as army
porters.

As part of the agreement, a pilot project will be undertaken to build a
65-kilometer (40-mile) road in Myeik, a southern port town, with voluntary
and paid labor "to demonstrate that forced labor can be eliminated,"
Perret-Nguyen said.

Myeik was chosen because there have been allegations of forced labor
continuing in the area.

She said the presence of an ILO project office outside the capital "is a
sign of more openness on the part of the government. Though slow it is a
gradual opening."

Perret-Nguyen began her work as ILO liaison officer in Myanmar in October
after the government and the ILO agreed on her appointment in March last
year.

DRUGS

Myanmar Times May 30 2003
The Wa drug-free vision
IT is market day in Mong Pawk, a sleepy village deep in the Wa Special
Region in north-eastern Shan State, on the border with China. The Saturday
market is busy with members of the Akha, Lahu, Palaung, Shan and Wa ethnic
minorities, dressed in colourful traditional clothes. Some have travelled
long distances to sell their goods.
Many stalls at the market display baskets full of dark brown balls, piles
of foreign currency and scales. There are old silver coins from India and
rifle bullets that are used as weights – for trading in raw opium.
The opium harvest has just ended and there is keen demand in the market
for the brown, sticky substance, which is used to make heroin. The opium
sold at the market will end up as heroin in Beijing, Bangkok, Tokyo, New
York and Sydney. A joint survey last year by the govern-ment’s Central
Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) and United Nations Office for
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that Shan State accounts for more than 90
per cent of Myanmar’s opium crop.
About 60 per cent of the opium produced in Myanmar goes to China, 30 per
cent to Thailand and 10 per cent stays in the country.
Efforts to reduce the opium crop are making steady progress. UNODC says
poppy cultivation declined by nearly 46 per cent between 1996 and 1999.
Any program aimed at reducing the production of opium – an easily
transported commodity which provides growers in remote areas with a better
return than any other cash crop – is likely to face challenges. In the Wa
Special Region they are formidable because of a combination of factors,
including ideal growing conditions in areas that are difficult for
officials to reach and a history of groups involved in drug trafficking.
Despite the challenges, the leaders of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) –
which administers the area under a ceasefire agreement reached with the
government in 1989 – are confident of reaching a goal to make the region
opium-free by 2005.
“Our strategy is not to stop opium cultivation immediately but gradually
reduce it,” said Zhao Aik Nup, the chief of the External Relations Bureau
in the Wa Politburo. “Our main assistance is from UNODC but the more help
we can get, the better.”
Foreign visitors are welcome in the region, said Zhao Aik Nup.
“We want to engage with the international community,” he said. “If
representatives from other countries would come to the Wa (region) they
might change their views and perceptions. The situation is slowly getting
better and better.”
Asked what measures will be implemented to make sure that the opium-free
target is achieved by 2005, one of the Wa leaders said bluntly: “We
ordered it.” The powerful Wa authorities do not consider the possibility
that their orders may be disobeyed.
Bo Lai Khan, the UWSA’s Second Commander in Chief, said a lack of
understanding was the main reason why more international assistance was
not available for the opium reduction campaign in the region.
“The outside world considers the Wa as a terrorist organisation because
our region is related to drugs,” Bo Lai Khan said. “They should come here
to see with their own eyes. They think the opium farmers are rich but they
are not. The traders and middlemen make the money and they come from over
the border.”
The big money is not made in the fields or in the market. The
international drug syndicates and middlemen make the money when the opium
is refined into heroin,” said Mr Giovanni Gallo, the information officer
at UNODC’s Yangon office.
It takes 10 kg of opium to make a kilogram of heroin, for which the going
price is $4000 on the Myanmar side of the border. Once it is taken out the
cost jumps to $40,000 a kg.
Even though opium is the main cash crop in the Wa region, and an important
income source for those who grow it, the UWSA authorities deny being
involved in drug trafficking.
They say their main sources of revenue include a 10 per cent tax on
agricultural crops and mining and logging concessions granted by the
Myanmar government.
Although the goal of ridding the Wa region of opium will be challenging,
there is already encouraging evidence of progress. Some parts of the
region have already been declared opium-free. They are mainly areas where
villagers have been relocated and are growing substitute crops or raising
animals.
The UNODC says one of the greatest chalenges to eradicating opium is
changing the mind-set of the growers.
It can take a lot of convincing to persuade farmers that they will be
better off by not growing opium but there are examples which demonstrate
the effectiveness of the approach taken by the authorities and the UNODC.
“Simple things like giving a village access to clean water, sanitation and
substitute crops can make a total difference,” said Mr Gallo.
An example is the Palaung village of Wan Lone which was once 100 per cent
dependent on opium as a cash crop. Mr Gallo said it was one of the poorest
villages in the region. The nearest market is a three-hour walk and
fetching water involved an hour-long round-trip on foot.
“The start of an UNODC assistance program in July 2002 and the provision
of clean water, a latrine system, a rice bank and the introduction of such
basic agricultural techniques as backyard gardening has dramatically
changed the lives of the villagers,” said Mr Gallo.
Villagers now grow potatoes, beans or cabbages. The headman said the
alternative crops had helped the village to become more prosperous.
However, poppy fields can still be seen on hillsides near the village.
One of the reasons why opium has assumed such an important role in the
lives of villagers is its traditional use as a cheap and easily available
medicine. It is used to ease the pain of ailments ranging from headaches
and colds to cancer and AIDS. Many people who began smoking opium for
medicinal purposes became addicts.
They include Na Ha, 83, a Lahu woman who began smoking the drug 40 years
ago to relieve pain.
“I don’t want to stop because I feel relaxed and it relieves me from pain.
My doctor told me that I might die when I stop because I am too old and
smoke too much,” Na Ha said.
“If my husband was still alive I would kill him because he introduced me
to opium,” she said.
An UNODC survey of 210 opium addicts in the Mong Kar area in the southern
Wa region found that 53 per cent had initially taken the drug for
medicinal purposes. Another 20 per cent had begun taking opium to deal
with grief, 17 per cent for social reasons and 10 per cent, out of
curiosity.
Of 18 addicts in a detoxification centre in Mong Pawk, 15 had begun taking
opium for medicinal reasons. Of the remaining three, two became addicts
after smoking regularly with friends, and one man had sought consolation
from the drug after two of his children died.
Although the drug situation remains serious, the authorities in Myanmar
have attracted praise for their efforts to eradicate production and
trafficking.
In its 2002 International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports, the United
States said the government in Myanmar had “demonstrated a new commitment
to effective counter narcotics measures.”
The report noted that Myanmar had “continued its poppy eradication
program, initiated actions against drug traffickers and some drug
trafficking organisa-tions, drafted new money laundering legislation, and
begun to work closely and cooperatively with neigh-bouring and regional
countries.”
In its war on drugs, the government of Myanmar cooperates with the United
States Drug Enforcement Administration, other US agencies involved in
poppy surveys and the Australian Federal Police.
Despite the cooperation with the US, the State Department last year failed
to remove Myanmar from a list of countries regarded as not cooperating
with Washington in its attempts to eradicate narcotics.
Pol Col Hkam Awng said he cannot un derstand why the international
community does not want to work directly with Myanmar in its anti-drug
efforts.
“We would welcome them to work at the source,” he said.
“The western countries are turning a blind eye to some of the developments
we have achieved. People who visit the drug areas appreciate the problems
and the situation which we face there. It took Thailand thirty years to
get to this level (in eradicating opium) and they had a lot of
international assistance. All we want is some recognition,” Pol Col Hkam
Awng said.
However, 2005 is still far away. In the meantime, more engagement from the
international community will help to ensure that the Wa Special Region
achieves opium-free status by 2005 – and that it stays that way.
_______________

Xinhua News Agency May 30 2003

25.5 kilograms of opium seized in S.W. province

A frontier police station in southwest China's Yunnan province on May 27
seized 25.5 kilograms of smuggled opium and arrested a foreign suspect.

The Nongdao police station had received a report at 14:00 on May 27
warning someone would smuggle a huge amount of drugs near the 55th
China-Myanmar border milestone.

Six armed policemen from the station rushed to the site and apprehended
the suspect, who claimed to be a Myanmar native, half an hour later.

The opium was found at 15:40 in four baskets hidden in dense grass and
sugarcane fields nearby.

The suspect said he had been trusted by foreign drug dealers to organize
and transport the opium to a city in western China.
____________

Xinhua News Agency May 30 2003

Three countries extend aid for Myanmar's drug control project

Japan, Germany and Italy have extended a total of over 3 million US
dollars of aid for an opium substitution project in the Wa region of
Myanmar's Shan state, implemented by the United Nations Office of Drugs
and Crime (UNODC) .

According to the UNODC, the Wa alternative development project involved 
contributions of over 1.9 million dollars made by Japan, 1 million by
Germany and 100,000 dollars by Italy.

The UNODC began launching the 11.6-million-dollar five-year project in
1998, the largest of its kind so far implemented in Myanmar by the UN
organization.

Under the present contributions by donors, the project could be prolonged
for two more years up to 2005, the UNODC predicted.

The organization's projects in Myanmar are said to have helped reduce
substantially the poppy cultivated areas of the country.

The Wa state, also known as Myanmar's Special Administrative Region-2,
laid down in November 1990 a plan of gradual reduction of poppy
cultivation area and total eradication of poppy within 15 to 20 years.

Through over 10 years' efforts, the poppy cultivation area and the opium
output of the Wa state had been reduced to 2,025 hectares and 30 tons in
2000 from 4,050 hectares and 60 tons in 1990 respectively.

According to figures of the US Counter Narcotic Center, Myanmar 's opium
production dropped from about 2,365 tons in 1997 to 630 tons in 2002,
while the country's opium poppy cultivated area reduced from 155,150
hectares to 77,700 hectares.

Meanwhile, a UN report estimated that in 2002, Myanmar's opium poppy
cultivated area was 81,400 hectares and the production was 828 tons.
Narcotic drug addicts accounted for 2.4 percent of the adult population.

Myanmar started implementing a 15-year drug elimination plan in 1999,
covering 54 drug cultivating and producing townships.

ON THE BORDER

Bangkok Post May 30 2003

Bosses target of new govt campaign
Money-laundering charges join armoury
By Supamart Kasem

The government will launch a nationwide crackdown against employers hiring
illegal alien labour, starting in Tak's Mae Sot district, Samut Sakhon and
Ranong.

Deputy Prime Minister Korn Dabbaransi, who chairs the alien labour policy
committee, said the government would take legal action against
entrepreneurs using illegal workers. Charges could be brought under the
anti-money laundering law.

The clampdown would be held alongside a project to promote farming and
livestock in Burma's border areas for deported Burmese workers.

``From now on, there should be no need for us to catch illegal alien
labour, but we will take serious action against employers.

``At present 409,339 registered Burmese, Laotian and Cambodian workers are
exempt from the ban. But there are illegal alien workers everywhere
because employers are selfish,'' Mr Korn said.

The illegal labour problem was worst in Mae Sot, Samut Sakhon and Ranong.
Employers wanted cheap labour without concern for national security.

Mr Korn and senior labour and police officials checked on Burmese labour
in Mae Sot yesterday.

Employers hiring alien labour would be registered and charges brought
under immigration, alien labour and anti-money laundering laws, he said.
National security measures could be used in serious cases.

Mr Korn said the government would renew work permits for 409,339 alien
workers for another year if their employers abided by the law.

However, alien workers would be allowed in only five kinds of jobs instead
of six as before.

Alien labour would no longer be permitted to work as karaoke bar staff,
waiters and beauty assistants. These jobs should be reserved for Thais, he
said. Thailand and Cambodia will sign an agreement tomorrow to legalise
foreign labour exports. A similar pact was signed with Laos, and would be
signed with Burma on June 30.

INTERNATIONAL

Washington Post May 30 2003

White House Seeks to Curb Rights Cases From Abroad
U.S. Fears Effect On Diplomatic Ties
By Dan Eggen and Charles Lane

The Bush administration is pushing to limit the ability of foreign
nationals to obtain judgments against despots and multinational
corporations in U.S. courts, arguing that such lawsuits have become a
threat to U.S. foreign policy and could undermine the war on terrorism.
For the past 23 years, federal courts have allowed victims of torture and
other abuse to file claims under an obscure 1789 statute for violations of
human rights norms, commonly known as the Alien Tort Claims Act.
Since a 1980 lawsuit was filed against a former Paraguayan police chief
accused of torturing and killing a teenage boy, lawsuits have been filed
against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan
Karadzic, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and banks and other companies
alleged to have profited from Nazi war crimes.
But the Justice Department, reflecting an emerging view among conservative
legal scholars, argues in a 30-page brief filed this month that such
lawsuits frequently have no connection to the United States and may
complicate foreign policy objectives by targeting allies, including
nations helping in the war on terrorism.
Many U.S. government officials also fear that the tort act will be used in
claims against the United States. The statute has been employed by a group
of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who were captured in Afghanistan,
and by a Mexican doctor who was kidnapped by bounty hunters and brought to
the United States to stand trial in the killing of a drug agent.
The government brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit in San Francisco in a case involving a Unocal Corp. gas pipeline
in Burma. It said the law "has been commandeered and transformed into a
font of causes of action permitting aliens to bring human rights claims in
United States courts, even when the disputes are wholly between foreign
nationals and when the alleged injuries were incurred in a foreign
country, often with no connection whatsoever with the United States."
The filing has prompted an outcry from human rights groups and some
lawyers in the State Department, who believe that such lawsuits should be
encouraged. American University law professor Diane F. Orentlicher said
the brief amounts to "a profound reversal" on the part of the U.S.
government, which has previously been supportive or remained neutral in
many alien tort cases.
"There are legitimate questions to be raised about some of the
interpretations by some of the courts," she said. "But what they've done
with this brief is like treating a mosquito bite by cutting off your arm.
.. . . It's effectively trying to roll back decades of interpretation and
the united views of Congress and the judicial branch."
Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson said in an interview that "the
position we're articulating is one that the government has articulated
over and over with respect to these kinds of cases."
Last year, for example, the State Department's top legal officer asked a
federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit under the alien tort act against
ExxonMobil Corp. in connection with operations in Indonesia, which has
been cooperative in the fight against Islamic terrorists. Also, in the
1980s, the Reagan administration filed a brief opposing use of the statute
in a lawsuit against Marcos.
The Justice Department brief was filed in the case of Doe v. Unocal.
Burmese citizens say their human rights were violated during the
construction of a $1.2 billion gas pipeline. The pipeline was a joint
venture of the Burmese military regime, Unocal -- a multinational oil and
gas company based in El Segundo, Calif. -- and two other private firms.
The plaintiffs argue that Unocal allowed the use of forced labor by
workers supplied by the government for construction of roads and
heliports. Unocal has denied the charge. Originally filed in 1996, the
lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district judge in 2000. But a
three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reinstated it last year. The court
then granted Unocal's request for a new hearing by an expanded panel, and
oral arguments in the case are set for June 17.
The intervention of the U.S. government raises the possibility that the
issue will ultimately reach the Supreme Court. If the 9th Circuit
invalidates the claim, it will create a split in legal authority with
another court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York,
which has upheld a right to sue under the tort act. If the 9th Circuit
upholds the claim, Unocal can appeal with the support of the U.S.
government.
Supporters of the law said that it enables people to enforce rights
guaranteed them under international agreements such as the Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party. Ending
or severely limiting such lawsuits would deprive victims of political
torture and murder of one of the few legal remedies they have, advocates
say.
"This is a craven attempt to protect human rights abusers at the expense
of victims," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said
in a statement. "The Bush administration is trying to overturn a
longstanding judicial precedent that has been very important in the
protection of human rights."
But opponents say the statute was originally intended to deal with
incidents such as piracy or assault on a foreign diplomat in the United
States, and note that the act was used only twice in its first 190 years.
Curtis Bradley, a visiting law professor at the University of Virginia who
is critical of expansive interpretations of the tort act, said that
national security concerns since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks underscore
the dangers of allowing such lawsuits to flourish in U.S. courts.

"The use of the statute for human rights litigation, including these
corporate suits, inherently involves policy decisions that are better made
by the executive and legislative branches, not the judicial branch," he
said. "There's a real danger that these lawsuits, if they continue to
expand as they have, could truly interfere with relations that we have
with foreign governments."
One of the most successful lawsuits was the claim against Marcos, filed by
nearly 10,000 Filipinos who won a $1.9 billion judgment against his estate
in federal court in Hawaii in 1995. The plaintiffs settled with the Marcos
estate and the Philippine government for $160 million, but payment has so
far been blocked by a judge in the Philippines.
The Unocal case marked one of the earliest attempts to use the statute
against a corporation rather than a political leader, and has been a
subject of debate in the Bush administration.
The State Department, which is deeply divided over use of the statute,
argued that Justice should not intervene in the case because of the
unsavory nature of the Burmese regime and uncertainty over Unocal's role,
according to two sources involved in the discussions. But Justice
overruled those objections and filed the brief, these sources said.
William H. Taft IV, the State Department's legal adviser, declined to
comment on the case, a spokeswoman said.
One well-known critic of the tort act is Jack L. Goldsmith, who has been
nominated chief of legal policy at the Justice Department. He co-authored
a 1999 law review article with Bradley arguing that the statute is being
used "in a context far removed from its original purposes."
Barry Lane, a spokesman for Unocal, said the Justice brief "speaks for
itself. We didn't lobby them for it or anything like that. We don't know
where it came from or how it came about."
___________

Xinhua News Agency May 30 2003

Australia to help train Myanmar eye surgeons

Australia will train eye surgeons of Myanmar to help provide an
advanced-standard and effective treatment and care for patients with eye
ailments in the country, according to the latest disclosure of the
Ministry of Health.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed here earlier this month between
the Myanmar Health Ministry and the Royal Adelaide Hospital of Australia,
a "Vision Myanmar Program" will be established to provide opportunities
for Myanmar eye surgeons to receive post-graduate training at the
Australian hospital, it said.

Australian specialists will also visit Myanmar annually to conduct
training at two eye hospitals in Yangon and Mandalay where about 7,000 and
1,200 surgical operations on eye patients are respectively carried out
each year, it added.

The training program would contribute to Myanmar's efforts in achieving
the goal of the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Vision 2020 campaign
which started in 1999 with the aim of bringing down the rate of avoidable
blindness to less than 0.5 percent of the population by 2020, the sources
said.

In fighting blindness, Myanmar has, since 1964, launched trachoma control
and prevention of blindness program to tackle the problems of blindness
and the incidence of trachoma is being brought down from 43 percent to
less than 4 percent, according to the ministry.

Official statistics show that, a total of 46,530 eye patients were cured
under Myanmar's blindness control program which was implemented from 1989
to 1999. Of them, 34,440 were cured of cataract and 12,090 cured of
glaucoma.

REGIONAL

Thai Press Reports May 30 2003

MAE SAI-TACHILEK BRIDGE PROVIDES ACCESS TO SOUTHERN CHINA

Construction of the second Thai-Myanmar friendship bridge is designed to
provide access to southern China through Myanmar.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the construction of the bridge
linking Mae Sai District in Chiang Rai with Tachilek township in Myanmar
is scheduled for completion by December. The bridge will finally lead to
easier access to China, according to the Prime Minister.

Though bombing had erupted in Tachilek killing several Myanmar officials
and people recently, the friendship bridge project will be continued, he
said.

The violence was suspected to have stemmed from conflicts of interest
within the Myanmar township and to have involved a minority group inside
Myanmar, he said.

Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai visited Tachilek and signed a
contract for the bridge project and met General Khin Nyunt, Secretary One
of the State Peace and Development Council, a few days earlier.
______________

Xinhua News Agency May 30 2003

Bangladesh repatriates 704 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in May

At least 704 Rohingya refugees were repatriated from Bangladesh to their
motherland Myanmar in May, the official Bangladesh News Agency reported
Friday.

Sources from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and
local officials were quoted as saying this is the largest group of Myanmar
refugees who had been repatriated ater the stoppage of the repatriation
process in August 1997.

Officials of Bangladeshi government's Refugee Commission and UNHCR
observed that the high figure of repatriation reflects Myanmar
government's goodwill and positive attitude towards Bangladesh.

The officials said that Rohingya refugees are allowed to step into
voluntary repatriation process after Myanmar immigration officials issue
clearance certificate.

During a meeting with Myanmar's director general of immigration between
May 18-22, the Bangladeshi authorities requested Myanmar to step up the
repatriation process.

UNHCR officials said nearly 250,000 Rohingya refugees fled from Myanmar to
Bangladesh in late 1991-1992 to escape the reported widespread human
rights abuses at the hands of security forces of Myanmar.

So far, 234,007 Rohingya refugees belonging to 46,776 families have been
repatriated successfully to their motherland, while 21, 197 Rohingyas are
still awaiting their turn in the repatriation process.

Local officials involved in the repatriation process said most of the
Rohingya refugees have opted for voluntary repatriation to Myanmar.

They said that if the ongoing process continues without any major
interruption, all Rohingya refugees could return home within the next two
years.