BurmaNet News: June 24 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

June 24 2003 Issue #2268

INSIDE BURMA

Reuters: Myanmar exiles say 8 dead, 94 missing in May clash
Reuters: Red Cross says Myanmar’s NLD Vice Chairman unharmed
DVB: Missing and detained MPs in Burma
AFP: Senior democracy leader detained in Myanmar is in good health, ICRC says
AFP: Aung San Suu Kyi not at infamous Insein jail, Myanmar tells Japan envoy

MONEY

Xinhua: Top exporters, buyers for 2002 awarded in Myanmar

INTERNATIONAL

AP: UN secretary-general says conditions under which Suu Kyi is held are
‘truly deplorable’
Xinhua: EU welcomes Japan’s calls on Myanmar junta to free Suu Kyi
Xinhua: Myanmar to benefit from UN-sponsored project

REGIONAL

AP: Malaysia’s Mahathir again urges Myanmar to release Suu Kyi
Kyodo: Japan PM suggests no immediate review of Burma aid policy
AP: Japan presses for Suu Kyi’s release
Age: Rangoon rejects Tokyo plea on Suu Kyi

ON THE BORDER

Xinhua: Over 300 Myanmar workers deported from Thailand after wage dispute

STATEMENTS/OPINIONS

NYT: Freeing a nation from a tyrant’s grip
WP: Burma under control
CNF: Statement of Chin National Front regarding current political
developments in Burma and international responses
Mizzima: Flowerless Insein: Indian realism will backfire
Sacramento Bee: More heat on Burma

INSIDE BURMA

Reuters June 24 2003 Myanmar exiles say 8 dead, 94 missing in May clash

A Thailand-based group of political exiles from Myanmar said on Tuesday
eight people were killed on May 30 in a clash between a pro-junta group
and supporters of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
At least 94 people were missing, the Assistance Association for Political
Prisoners said in a statement.
Suu Kyi was detained after the clash in central Myanmar and remains in the
custody of the country's military regime. The group said its sources in
Myanmar had reported that authorities had arrested 51 people, including
Suu Kyi and key leaders of her National League for Democracy (NLD).
It said 94 people, including the party's vice chairman, Tin Oo, had not
been accounted for, listing them as "disappeared".
Myanmar exiles and some Yangon-based diplomats say hundreds of pro-junta
youths, wielding bamboo and iron rods, set upon Suu Kyi's convoy and local
villagers when she was touring a town in central Myanmar.
Myanmar's ruling generals, who maintain that four people died in the
incident, say they are holding Suu Kyi for her own safety.
A six-member team from the International Committee of the Red Cross left
Yangon on Sunday for central Myanmar to visit around a dozen detained
members of the NLD leadership. The team's leader Michel Ducreaux told
Reuters last week access had been denied to Suu Kyi.
Britain says Suu Kyi is being held in the "notorious" Insein Jail on the
northern outskirts of Yangon, but the Myanmar government denies this.
International anger has mounted against Myanmar's military rulers over Suu
Kyi's detention, with the European Union and the United States threatening
harsher sanctions.
The biggest aid donor to the country, Japan, sent a minister to meet
Myanmar's military intelligence chief and third in the ruling junta on
Monday to try to secure her release.
But Tetsuro Yano came away empty handed, telling reporters in Bangkok the
military had given him only vague assurances it would "rectify the
situation".
The NLD swept to a landslide election victory in 1990 but was prevented
from taking power by the military, which has ruled the country since a
1962 coup.
__________

Democratic Voice of Burma June 23 2003

Missing and detained MPs in Burma
Among the missing and detained 200 people of the Dipeyin incident, there
are 10 MPs, said the exiled MPU today.

There are 18 MPs in prison originally and with the new 10 MPS, there are
nearly 30 MPs being detained by the military junta in Burma, said Dr.
Myint Cho, the secretary of the MPU as follows:

Dr. Myint Cho : Just before the murderous incident at Dipeyin, there were
19 MPs including the MP of No.2, Dipeyin Constituency, U Win Myint Aung in
prison.

After the incident, U Do Htaung, the MP of No.1 Katha Constituency,
Mandalay Division was released on the 2nd of June.

On the 3rd, the SPDC arrested 10 MPs accusing them of being connected to
the incident.

They are:

1) U Soe Win, the MP of No.1, Pegu Constituency, Pegu Division. He is one
of the leaders of National Democracy Party and a new member of the CRPP.
2)U Paw Khin, the NLD MP of No.1, Myingyan Constictuency, Mandalay Division.
3)U Tin Aung Aung, the MP of No.1, Mandalay Northwest Township.
4)U Saw Hlaing, the NLD MP of Indaw Constituency, Sagaing Division.
5)U Myint Kyi, the NLD MP of Katha Constituency, Sagaing Division.
6)U Hla Maung, the Patriotic Veterans MP of No.1, Kya-In-Seikkyi
Constituency. He is a new member of the CRPP which was recently expanded.
7)U Thein Oo, the MP of National Democracy Party and No.1, Oattwin
Constituency and he is also a new member of the CRPP.
8)Dr Hla Soe Nyunt, the MP of No.2, Sagaing Constituency.
9)U Bo Maung, the MP of No.2, Dipeyin Constituency.
10)U Tin Hut Oo, the MP of Le-way Township, Mandalay Division.

We have heard that these ten people were arrested after the Dipeyin
incident. We don’t know where they are being detained to this day.

DVB : These people were arrested. The ICRC is going to Mandalay to see
them and we don’t know where they are going to continue. What do you have
to say to the ICRC?

Dr. Myint Cho : We have reported the news to IPU about the arrests,
tortures and assaults of our MPs. The IPU, through their respective
parliaments then put pressures on the SPDC. There are two ways for the
SPDC to allow the ICRC. First, they will allow the ICRC to meet
unimportant and unhurt prisoners. But I don’t think they will allow them
to meet important and top leaders. And they will keep the wounded people
until their wounds heal. What we want to say the ICRC not to look at the
list provided by the ICRC but examine all the lists you receive from all
sides. Then, try to find out the list of the NLD leaders, members and
their supporters. Then, the ICRC should take action and demand the
authority to meet them. You can’t be content with the list given by the
SPDC and meet only the people they allow you to meet. Then, the future and
safety of other prisoners will be very worrying.
_________

Agence France Press June 24 2003

Senior democracy leader detained in Myanmar is in good health, ICRC says

The detained vice chairman of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) Tin Oo is in good health, the International Committee for
the Red Cross (ICRC) in Myanmar said Tuesday.

An ICRC team met Tin Oo as well as other pro-democracy supporters arrested
in northern Myanmar following violent clashes there last month, ICRC
official Alfredo Mallet told AFP.

Tin Oo, who was travelling with Aung San Suu Kyi when her convoy and
supporters were attacked by a junta-backed mob on May 30, was in normal
health, Mallet said.

"Our team ... performed their first visit today and had access to Mr. Tin
Oo," Mallet said. "He's in good health. He was examined by a doctor, an
ICRC physician, and is in normal health, I would say, with no apparent
injuries."

Rumours had circulated after the attacks that Tin Oo, who is 76 and known
to be on medication for long-running medical problems, had been seriously
wounded or even killed during the attacks.

Mallet declined to reveal where Tin Oo was being held, saying only he was
in the north. The military government had insisted the vice chairman was
well and being held in a jail near the Indian border.

Mallet could not reveal how many political prisoners were met by the ICRC
team, which began its tour of northern Myanmar Sunday, but said it
appeared the government was keeping its end of the deal.

"I cannot say where (they were met), neither can I disclose the number of
persons, but it shows that the agreement ... is working," he said, adding
that those the ICRC had seen had written letters to their families to
assure them they were alive.

Myanmar's military government has assured the ICRC that it would have
private access to those arrested during last month's violence, but has
refused the ICRC's request to see Aung San Suu Kyi.

The British government said last week she was being held in the
notoriously tough Insein jail outside the capital Yangon in a two-room hut
without even a change of clothes.

Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano said Monday that military
intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt had made it clear to him during
talks Monday that Aung San Suu Kyi was not being held in the jail.

Mallet said the ICRC was continuing to push to see the Nobel peace laureate.

"We cannot accept that one person is not entitled to a visit by the ICRC,"
he said.

Two ICRC teams of six are currently deployed in northern Myanmar. One is
travelling to meet detainees and the other is now in Mandalay and would
begin travelling outside the city shortly, Mallet said.

The number of people arrested in connection with the attacks is unknown.

Apart from Tin Oo, the rest of the NLD leadership is under house arrest in
Yangon. Myanmar's ruling generals are under intense international pressure
to release Aung San Suu Kyi and the other NLD members under detention.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers meeting in the Cambodian capital last
week issued an unprecedented call for the junta to give the democracy icon
her freedom.

The NLD won 1990 elections by a landslide but has never been permitted to
rule.
________

Agence France Presse June 24 2003

Aung San Suu Kyi not at infamous Insein jail, Myanmar tells Japan envoy
By MICHAEL MATHES

Myanmar's detained pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is not
being held at the infamous Insein prison as stated by the British
government, the ruling military junta has told a Japanese envoy.

Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano said military intelligence
chief General Khin Nyunt had made it clear to him during talks Monday that
Aung San Suu Kyi was not being held in the jail.

Britain's assertion last week that the Nobel peace laureate was
languishing at Insein under a draconian internal security act, after the
junta said she was only in "protective custody", drew widespread
international outrage.

Asked if Aung San Suu Kyi was being held at Insein, Yano said: "Secretary
Khin Nyunt made it clear that he is aware of this kind of information,
however, (he said) it is not a fact, it is not a fact."

Yano, speaking to reporters in Bangkok late Monday upon arrival from a
one-day mission in Yangon, did not say whether Khin Nyunt specified where
Aung San Suu Kyi was being held.

The junta has consistently refused to specify where she has been detained,
and United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail, who met with Aung San Suu
Kyi early this month, was asked by the government not to disclose her
location.

The Japanese envoy suggested he was not satisfied with the outcome of his
mission, despite being the first senior official of a foreign government
to visit Yangon since Razali.

"I tried to break the ice, but it didn't work out as I expected, due to
the insufficient efforts made by the SPDC."

He said the "close personal relations" between him and Khin Nyunt, the
third ranking leader in the country whom he first met in 1998, was not
enough to "break the ice of this stalemate".

Yano met briefly with Khin Nyunt to deliver a letter from Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi demanding the immediate release of Aung San Suu
Kyi.

The letter also demanded an "accountable and transparent" explanation for
deadly clashes that erupted May 30, when the democracy leader was
arrested, Yano said.

The envoy added he requested that Japan's ambassador to Yangon be allowed
to meet with her as soon as possible, though he did not say how the junta
reacted to the request.

Aung San Suu Kyi and several of her party members were arrested during a
political tour of northern Myanmar after a brutal attack on her entourage
by a junta-backed mob.

The government said four people died in the melee, while diplomats,
dissidents and rights groups say they believe dozens died.

Yano also held talks with Home Minister Tin Hlaing, a key junta figure who
monitors activities involving the opposition.

"The minister of interior (Tin Hlaing) made it clear that no legal
measures have been taken towards Aung San Suu Kyi."

Yano did not elaborate on the discussions regarding the democracy
campaigner's legal status.

It was unclear whether the junta addressed whether Aung San Suu Kyi was
being held under Section 10(a) of the 1975 State Protection Act, which
allows for up to five years imprisonment without a legal charge.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said through a spokesman Monday the
democracy leader was being kept in "deplorable" conditions and should be
released immediately.

The spokesman also said that Razali Ismail was told that Aung San Suu Kyi
is being held under the 1975 law designed to "safeguard the state against
the dangers of subversive elements".

Japan, Myanmar's top donor country, has threatened to cut off tens of
millions of dollars in aid if it does not release Aung San Suu Kyi.

Her National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in 1990
elections that were never recognized by Myanmar's military rulers.

MONEY

Xinhua News Agency June 24 2003

Top exporters, buyers for 2002 awarded in Myanmar

Top exporters in normal and border trade and top buyers of goods destined
for foreign markets as well as the best export operation for 2002 in
Myanmar have been awarded by the government, according to local press
Tuesday.

Each winning exporter earned about 10 million US dollars in overseas
sales, while the buyers bought commodities valued at 10 million dollars
and above, the Ministry of Commerce was quoted as saying.

The top award in the normal trade category went for the second consecutive
year to the Asia Winner Industrialist Company, which exported agricultural
and forest products and imported iron bars from India with the export
earning amounting to 9.85 million dollars.

The top award in the border trade category went to the Myanmar
Muse-Namkham Border Chamber of Commerce, which exported goods worth 6.48
million to China during the year, the sources said.

The best buyers' award was won for the second year by the Myanmar Agrocorn
Company, which supplied agricultural produce and animal feed worth 11.77
million dollars to overseas markets, the sources added.

INTERNATIONAL

Associated Press June 24 2003

U.N. secretary-general says conditions under which Suu Kyi is held are
'truly deplorable'

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday decried the "truly deplorable"
conditions under which Myanmar's military government is holding
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and again urged her immediate
release.

Annan was concerned that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was
reportedly being held in Insein Jail outside the Myanmar capital, Yangon,
according to a statement from his spokesman's office.

He also said his special envoy had informed him she was detained under a
law protecting the state against subversive elements.

Annan "considers the conditions under which she is being held -
incommunicado and without charge - to be truly deplorable," the statement
said.

Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy has been detained
since a clash between her supporters and government backers on May 30 in
northern Myanmar.

Political prisoners in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are often not
released even when they have completed their sentences.

Suu Kyi's detention has stirred international outrage, and the United
States, the European Union and Britain have initiated sanctions to press
for her release. The U.S. sanctions would bar most trade, dealing a harsh
blow to Myanmar's export earnings.

On Monday, Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano met with the
No. 3 leader in Myanmar's military government, Gen. Khin Nyunt, to urge
Suu Kyi's release. He was expected to deliver a message from Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi calling for her freedom.

In his statement, Annan urged "the government of Myanmar again to heed the
repeated calls of the United Nations and the international community ...
to immediately release (Suu Kyi) and other members" of her party.

He also called on the government to acknowledge the people of Myanmar are
"overwhelmingly in favor of change and to join hands with all parties," to
bring about national reconciliation in Myanmar as soon as possible.

Myanmar's military government maintains Suu Kyi is being detained for her
own protection, and that the clash occurred when her supporters tried to
drive through a crowd of people protesting her party's behavior. It said
four people died and dozens were injured.
________

Xinhua News Agency June 24 2003
EU welcomes Japan's calls on Myanmar junta to free Suu Kyi

The European Union (EU) on Tuesday welcomed Japan's recent calls on
Myanmar's ruling junta to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Etienne Reuter, charge d'affaires of the delegation of the European
Commission in Japan, said the move was consistent with the EU's position
on Myanmar.

The two sides should step up pressure on the junta to release the Nobel
Prize laureate and democratize the country, Reuter was quoted by Kyodo
News as saying.

Reuter made the comment after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged the
junta government Tuesday to release Suu Kyi, who has been in protective
custody since a clash between her supporters and junta followers in
northern Myanmar on May 30.

"Japan seems to be moving towards the same position as the EU," Reuter
said, citing the EU's demand that the junta adopt democracy and promote
dialogue with opposition parties.

On Monday, Japan demanded the military government free Suu Kyi and allow
her National League for Democracy (NLD) to operate freely, according to a
Kyodo report.

During a summit meeting last weekend in Thessaloniki, Greece, EU leaders
called on Myanmar to immediately release Suu Kyi as well as other NLD
members and to reopen NLD offices.
______

Xinhua News Agency June 24 2003

Myanmar to benefit from UN-sponsored project

Myanmar, along with three other newer members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) --Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam will benefit
from a new UN-sponsored project, according to Myanmar Times Tuesday.

The three-year project at 1.45 million US dollars aims to provide funding
to narrow the development gap among ASEAN members, an UNDP official was
quoted as saying.

The funding also targets at poverty reduction in newer members and
implementation of free trade area agreements between ASEAN and other
countries to benefit them, the official added.

An agreement was signed on the project between ASEAN and the UNDP in Phnom
Penh last week.

ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong noted that the new project would
pave way for ASEAN integration process which was launched in 2000.

The six older ASEAN members are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

REGIONAL

Associated Press June 24 2003

Malaysia's Mahathir again urges Myanmar to release Suu Kyi

Calling the issue a "dilemma" for the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, Malaysia's leader on Tuesday repeated his call for Myanmar's
military government to immediately release detained pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.

"I hope that the Myanmar regime will take into account the views expressed
by other countries, especially ASEAN in this matter, because this has
placed ASEAN in a dilemma," Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said at a news
conference. He did not elaborate.

ASEAN last week told Myanmar's junta to free Suu Kyi - an unprecedented
demand for the association, which has a core policy of not interfering in
its 10 member nations' internal affairs. Similar calls have come from the
United Nations, the United States and other countries.

Suu Kyi was taken into what the junta calls protective custody on May 30
following violent clashes in northern Myanmar, also known as Burma. The
government said four people were killed, but unconfirmed reports from
dissidents put the number at 70.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung told his ASEAN counterparts at a meeting
last week that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, would not be
released until an investigation into the clashes is complete.

Mahathir, 77, has led Malaysia for almost 22 years and is considered an
elder statesman within ASEAN. He was crucially involved in getting Myanmar
accepted into the group, and helped broker moves toward reconciliation
between the junta and Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.

Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won 1990 national elections, but the junta
has refused to give up power.

ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
________

Kyodo News June 24 2003

JAPAN PM SUGGESTS NO IMMEDIATE REVIEW OF BURMA AID POLICY

Tokyo, 24 June: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi suggested Tuesday (24
June) that Japan will not immediately review its aid policy on Myanmar
(Burma), while urging the junta to democratize the country and release
Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Some say Japan's measures towards Myanmar are lenient compared with those
of the United States and Europe," Koizumi told reporters. "But those
measures cannot be the same."

Koizumi said it is necessary to keep in mind various ties between Japan
and Myanmar in dealing with the continued custody of the democratic
leader.

The European Union recently decided to step up sanction measures on
Myanmar, including economic ones, in protest against the junta's arrest of
Suu Kyi. The US has also said it is studying stricter economic sanctions
on Myanmar for similar reasons.

"I will urge (the Myanmar junta) to democratize the country," Koizumi said.

"We need to give (the junta) some time to decide on the release" before
reviewing the official development assistance, Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi told reporters earlier in the day.

The junta "has to release (Suu Kyi) as quickly as possible," Kawaguchi said.

Kawaguchi met Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung last week in Phnom Penh on
the sidelines of a series of meetings hosted by the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations.

Kawaguchi called for Suu Kyi's release and told Win Aung that Japan may
review its aid policy if there is no progress on the issue.

Suu Kyi and some members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) have
been detained since what the junta says were violent clashes between NLD
supporters and pro-junta demonstrators in northern Myanmar on 30 May.
__________

Associated Press June 24 2003

Japan presses for Suu Kyi's release

A Japanese envoy urged Myanmar's military junta to release pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and said it would be difficult for Tokyo to
increase aid to the impoverished nation if it continues to defy
international opinion.

Senior Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano pressed Gen Khin Nyunt at a
meeting on Monday in Yangon to release Suu Kyi immediately, allow her
pro-democracy party to operate freely and account for events leading to
her detention three weeks ago, the Japanese government said in a
statement.

Yano's comments suggested that Japan, Myanmar's largest donor, might be
prepared to rethink its aid policies if the deadlock over the Nobel Prize
peace laureate continues.

"Japan wants to support the democratization of Myanmar as much as
possible, but if the government of Myanmar continues the current measure,
it will be difficult to pursue a policy of aiming to strengthen our
involvement in Myanmar," the statement quoted Yano as saying.

Yano gave Khin Nyunt, the junta's No 3 leader, a letter from Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi explaining Japan's position.

Suu Kyi has been under detention since a clash between members of her
party and junta supporters in northern Myanmar on May 30. The government
says she is being detained for her own protection.

Khin Nyunt told Yano he took Japan's concerns "very seriously" and would
make "every effort to resolve the situation as quickly as possible,"
according to the statement, released late Monday in Tokyo.

Suu Kyi's detention has provoked international outrage, and the United
States, the European Union and Britain have initiated sanctions to press
for her release.

Japan has generally taken a softer line than other nations toward
Myanmar's military government.

Razali Ismail, the special UN envoy on Myanmar, was scheduled to meet
Japan's foreign minister in Tokyo during a three-day visit beginning
Tuesday.(
________

The Age June 24 2003

Rangoon rejects Tokyo plea on Suu Kyi
By Mark Baker

International concern is mounting over the fate of Burmese opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi after the military regime ignored fresh pleas by a
senior Japanese envoy for her immediate release.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan described as "deplorable" the
conditions in which Ms Suu Kyi was being held and called on the regime to
end her detention and recognise the overwhelming desire of the Burmese
people for political change.
British Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien last week reported that the
Nobel laureate was being held in a two-room hut in Rangoon's notorious
Insein Prison, wearing the same clothes in which she was arrested almost a
month ago, a claim denied by the regime.
Mr O'Brien said Ms Suu Kyi was being held under the 1975 State Protection
Law, which allows for detention without access to lawyers or family
members for 180 days at a time and for a total of five years.
Japan, Burma's largest aid donor, is considering joining the United States
and the European Union in imposing sanctions on the regime after the
failure of Monday's plea by Deputy Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano.
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"Our efforts to break the ice did not work out as I expected, which is due
to the insufficient efforts of the SPDC (the ruling State Peace and
Development Committee)," Mr Yano said after meeting the third-ranking
member of the regime, Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, who warned last week that
Japan would review its aid programs unless Ms Suu Kyi was freed
immediately, yesterday said Tokyo would allow the regime "some time". "But
it has to release her as quickly as possible," she said.
UN special envoy Razali Ismail yesterday was due in Tokyo for talks
expected to focus on ways of stepping up pressure on the regime to support
his stalled efforts to broker talks on political reconciliation.
Ms Suu Kyi was arrested on May 30 after a pro-Government mob attacked her
convoy in northern Burma. Opposition groups claim scores of villagers and
members of the opposition National League for Democracy were killed.
Mr Razali, who met Ms Suu Kyi at the military headquarters in Rangoon on
June 10, remains the only foreigner allowed access to her.
A UN spokesman said Mr Annan considered "the conditions under which she is
being held - incommunicado and without charge - to be truly deplorable"
and urged the Burmese Government to heed the repeated calls of the UN and
the international community.

ON THE BORDER

Xinhua News Agency June 24 2003

Over 300 Myanmar workers deported from Thailand after wage dispute

More than 300 striking Myanmar garment workers in Tak province of
Thailand, 450 kilometers north from Bangkok, were deported by local
government after failing to settle a wage dispute.

According to the report of the Bangkok Post Tuesday, before the Monday's
deport, the  Myanmar workers had struck for seven days to demand a 20-baht
(0.48 US dollars) increase in their daily wage from 60 baht (1.43 dollars)
to 80 baht (1.9 dollars).

The factory managers called in authorities to witness the wage talks,
which was failed as the firm only granted an increase from 60 baht (1.43
dollars) to 70 baht (1.67 dollars) this month and could not afford
another.

Somsri Sirvorarat, factory manager, said management could not accept the
Myanmar workers' proposal and fired the workers on grounds that they
missed work for more than three days.

Then the local officials send the workers back to Myanmar via Mae Sot
district of the province.

The workers claimed they were cheated as the factory agreed to pay a daily
wage of 133 baht (3.17 dollars) as required by law and would file
complaints later.

Physical abuse and discriminatory practices against Myanmar's migrant
workers are rife in Thailand, where more than one million of them
currently work at backbreaking jobs.

There have been a number of reports over the years about Myanmar's workers
who have gone missing and later turned up killed, allegedly killed by
their employers.

Last month, Thai police found the remains of six Myanmar workers who were
believed to be murdered and burnt in Tak Province.

STATEMENTS/OPINIONS

New York Times June 24 2003

Freeing a Nation From a Tyrant's Grip
By COLIN L. POWELL

A brave man recently met with me and described how life in his country has
become unbearable. "There is too much fear in the country, fear of the
unknown and fear of the known consequences if we act or speak out,"
explained Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Yet Archbishop Ncube speaks out fearlessly about the terrible human rights
conditions in Zimbabwe, and is threatened almost every day with detention
or worse.
For hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, the worst has already come.
Millions of people are desperately hungry because the country's
once-thriving agricultural sector collapsed last year after President
Robert Mugabe confiscated commercial farms, supposedly for the benefit of
poor blacks. But his cynical "land reform" program has chiefly benefited
idle party hacks and stalwarts, not landless peasants. As a result, much
of Zimbabwe's most productive land is now occupied by loyalists of the
ruling ZANU-PF party, military officers, or their wives and friends.
Worse still, the entire Zimbabwean economy is near collapse. Reckless
governmental mismanagement and unchecked corruption have produced annual
inflation rates near 300 percent, unemployment of more than 70 percent and
widespread shortages of food, fuel and other basic necessities. Is it any
wonder that Zimbabweans are demanding political change, or that President
Mugabe must rely on stepped-up violence and vote-rigging to remain in
office?
On June 6, the police again arrested Mr. Mugabe's most prominent opponent,
Morgan Tsvangirai. They paraded him in a courtroom in shackles and leg
irons before releasing him on bail on June 20. His offense? Calling for
work stoppages and demonstrations to protest economic hardship and
political repression.
Like Myanmar's courageous opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Mr.
Tsvangirai wages a nonviolent struggle against a ruthless regime. Like the
Burmese junta, President Mugabe and his Politburo colleagues have an
absolute monopoly of coercive power, but no legitimacy or moral authority.
In the long run, President Mugabe and his minions will lose, dragging
their soiled record behind them into obscurity. But how long will it take?
How many good Zimbabweans will have to lose their jobs, their homes, or
even their lives before President Mugabe's violent misrule runs its
course?
The United States — and the European Union — has imposed a visa ban on
Zimbabwe's leaders and frozen their overseas assets. We have ended all
official assistance to the government of Zimbabwe. We have urged other
governments to do the same. We will persist in speaking out strongly in
defense of human rights and the rule of law. And we will continue to
assist directly, in many different ways, the brave men and women of
Zimbabwe who are resisting tyranny.
But our efforts are unlikely to succeed quickly enough without greater
engagement by Zimbabwe's neighbors. South Africa and other African
countries are increasingly concerned and active on Zimbabwe, but they can
and should play a stronger and more sustained role that fully reflects the
urgency of Zimbabwe's crisis. If leaders on the continent do not do more
to convince President Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a
dialogue with the political opposition, he and his cronies will drag
Zimbabwe down until there is nothing left to ruin — and Zimbabwe's
implosion will continue to threaten the stability and prosperity of the
region.
There is a way out of the crisis. ZANU-PF and the opposition party can
together legislate the constitutional changes to allow for a transition.
With the president gone, with a transitional government in place and with
a date fixed for new elections, Zimbabweans of all descriptions would, I
believe, come together to begin the process of rebuilding their country.
If this happened, the United States would be quick to pledge generous
assistance to the restoration of Zimbabwe's political and economic
institutions even before the election. Other donors, I am sure, would be
close behind.
Reading this, Robert Mugabe and his cohorts may cry, "Blackmail." We
should ignore them. Their time has come and gone. As Archbishop Ncube has
said, "Things in our country can hardly get worse." With the perseverance
of brave Zimbabweans, strengthened commitment from their neighbors, and
the strong support of the international community, we can rescue the
people of Zimbabwe. This is a worthy and urgent goal for us all.
Colin L. Powell is secretary of state
_________

Washington Post June 24 2003

Burma Under Control

Regarding Steve Hendrix's June 15 Outlook article about his trip to Burma:

My wife and I also went to Burma in January, and we spent the better part
of our 30-day visa traveling freely on buses, pickups, trains and
riverboats. Like Mr. Hendrix, we loved it. We didn't get into political
discussions, but we listened if someone wanted to talk. The masses don't
seem to love the ruling generals, but many people seemed thankful that
after 50 years of ethnic civil war the country is mostly under control.

There was never a country called Burma until the British combined a bunch
of warring ethnic groups and ruled them with an iron hand. Aung San, the
father of Aung San Suu Kyi, is revered as the national leader who
persuaded the British to grant independence after World War II. He was a
Marxist and a Japanese collaborator, and no one knows what kind of ruler
he might have been if he hadn't been assassinated. When the civilian
government couldn't keep order, the military stepped in, substituting its
iron hand for that of the British.

The generals have been accused of everything from brutality and drug
dealing to enslaving the people. Much of it is probably true, but the
slavery rap is a bit of a reach. We saw many village road crews, but no
chained ankles, guards or police. Villagers say they are expected to
contribute labor to public works projects during the dry season, when they
can't farm. This taxation tradition goes back to the pharaohs.

Aung San Suu Kyi says it's time for democratic change, even though the far
reaches of the country have yet to be pacified. What kind of leader would
she be? Who knows? The mob attack on her was deplorable, but no doubt the
generals see her as destabilizing. If she takes power in her unruly
country, she may need the military to keep the peace. Perhaps a more
cooperative attitude on both sides is in order.

JAMES R. SCHULTE

Ellicott City
______________

Statement Of Chin National Front Regarding Current Political Developments
In Burma And International Responses
Chin National Front heartily welcomes the passage of Burmese Freedom and
Democracy Act 2003 (S.1215), a bill that would sanction the Burmese
military junta, with an overwhelming majority in the American Senate on
June 11, 2003. The passage of this bill will hit hard a group of Burmese
military cliques who are illegitimately ruling the country.
Unquestionably, the bill will boost the determination of the movement for
freedom and democracy, and will serve as an important source of strength
for the entire people of Burma in their effort to topple a military
dictatorship that has long enslaved and oppressed them. We are also
confident that the similar bill "Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003
(H.R 2330)" will be approved in the House of Representatives.
CNF also welcomes the decision of the European Union on June 16, 2003 to
extend additional sanctions against Burma. For such measures to be more
effective, the European Union should encourage other nations that have
economic ties to Burma to implement similar measures against the Burmese
military regime.
CNF noted with a great degree of optimism, and welcomes the unequivocal
statement of ASEAN ministerial meeting on June 16, 2003, which called for
the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. In calling for
the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Association of South East Asian
Nations, which has traditionally pursued non-interference principle, has
in effect taken up the policy of ‘constructive intervention,’ and the Chin
National Front considers this step as the right direction towards the
return of freedom and democracy in Burma. At a time when the international
community is making every effort to put Burma on the track of
democratization, ASEAN, as Burma’s most important and immediate neighbors,
has a crucial stake in joining the effort by continuing to pursue its
constructive intervention policies towards Burma.
The degree of repression experienced by the people of Burma under the
ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council is turning
every day from bad to worse. As inevitable consequences of more than forty
years of military rule, millions of Burma’s ethnic populations have been
killed, uprooted from their homes, and driven away to neighboring
countries where they are forced to struggle with acute humanitarian
crises. The arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo and other NLD leadership
and supporters are clear evidence that the degree of repression is nothing
but only worsening in Burma. No one should need more evidence to be
convinced that the Burmese military junta by its brutal and repressive
policies is committing an act of State terrorism against the people of
Burma.
The International Labor Organization, since 1994, has every year
consistently condemned the Burmese regime’s pervasive use of forced labor
and systematic violations of human rights. A decade into this
condemnation, the Burmese military regime is still relentlessly practicing
its repressive policies by unleashing a reign of terror against the entire
populations, arresting and torturing political activists and by conducting
a genocidal war against ethnic minorities. It is high time that the United
Nations Security Council hold Burmese military cliques accountable for
commission of crime of genocide and crime against humanity.
Chin National Front calls on the State Peace and Development Council in
the strongest possible terms to immediately and unconditionally set free
Aung San Suu Kyi, U Tin Oo and all prisoners, reopen all NLD offices, and
to implement a political dialogue directed at national reconciliation in
Burma. The CNF is convinced that with the relentless effort of the people
of Burma, combined with measures of sanctions imposed by civilized nations
and timely and meaningful intervention by Burma’s neighboring country,
freedom and democracy will be restored and militarism eliminated in Burma.
Date: June 17, 2003
Central Executive Committee
Chin National Front
__________-

Mizzima June 24 2003

Flowerless Insein: Indian Realism Will Backfire
By Sreeram Chaulia
Mizzima News (www.mizzima.com)
June 24, 2003 : Britain has just conveyed news that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
the hope of Burma and the most famous wearer of jasmine flowers in the
world, has been interred in the dreaded Insein prison after a violent
clampdown launched on pro- democracy activists by state-sponsored militias
in May. Insein is Burma’s Lubyanka, a ‘Special Jail’ outside Rangoon where
political prisoners are systematically tortured and broken down by the
military junta, the dead house where hundreds of NLD workers have perished
from starvation, disease and abuse for the last 12 years.
Believed to be crammed with as many as 10,000 inmates at any given time,
Insein is perennially short of bare essential supplies. Paucity of syringe
needles has generated repeated HIV AIDS-epidemics. Paucity of clean water
has led to mass dysentery deaths. Paucity of space is an incentive to
daily rapes and stabbings. If at all anything is available in plenty, it
is barbed electric wire, iron chains, manacles and other diabolical
weapons to inflict physical pain on detainees.
I doubt if Daw Suu Kyi will be allowed to adorn her hair with fragrant
jasmines in Insein because everything in this confined penitentiary runs
by writ of bribes and espionage. Perform a favour for the guards and maybe
you can get three square meals a day. Since oiling the palms of the SPDC
would lower the dignity of democracy fighters, the latter have universally
preferred death to ingratiating jailors. But then, Razali Ismail, the UN
Secretary General’s Special Envoy says that she is “well and in good
spirits.” Compared to the rank-and-file NLD workers, the junta has tended
to treat her like a VIP throughout her decade-long house arrest ordeals.
Ismail “did not see any signs of injury on her
no scratches on her face,
no broken arm.”
The coarse and inhuman conduct reserved for ordinary captives will
obviously not be meted out to someone as high profile as Daw Suu Kyi, but
then it would be a lie to claim she has not suffered much for standing up
to dictatorship and injustice. In 1999, her husband Michael Aris was in
the advanced stages of prostate cancer in England. He requested permission
to visit his wife one last time, but the military rulers denied entry,
arguing that there are no appropriate facilities in the country to tend to
a dying man. They suggested instead that Suu Kyi visit him in England,
hoping to exile her permanently and stoke propaganda that she is a
“foreign woman” who leads a scandalous lifestyle in the west. She refused,
fearing that leaving the country would result in banishment. Aris passed
away without seeing her. Sacrifice is in her blood, made votive by the
scented jasmines that symbolically defy Burma’s harsh fate and her own.
In his spare time, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee pens Hindi
poetry hailing heroic women studded with aromatic flowers who will inherit
the earth and bring peace. Not unaware of the tribulations Daw Suu Kyi and
the Burmese people are being subjected to right in India’s immediate
neighbourhood, he and his foreign office have failed to issue even a
murmur of protest on the latest grotesque twist at Insein. Navtej Sarna,
the Indian External Affairs spokesman laconically commented, “we are
watching the situation in Myanmar carefully
solutions to internal problems
must come from within.” Poetry and politics don’t mix for Vajpayee. Poetry
and so-called national interests are even more incompatible in ‘realist’
India.
Trade and cultural exchange between Burma and India date back to the age
of Emperor Ashoka (3rd Century BC). Buddhism travelled through eastern
India to Burma. From 1885 to 1937, Burma was a province of British India,
a period of administrative harmonisation between the two countries. During
the freedom struggle against colonial rule, the national leaders of the
two countries developed close political links which stood the test of time
for years after independence. Jawaharlal Nehru and U Nu shared a common
worldview of nonalignment and India helped the newly independent Burma
tide over crisis after crisis. In the fifties, Nehru extended military
assistance to U Nu, saving his "Rangoon Government" from advancing
insurgents. Daw Khin Kyi, Suu Kyi’s mother, was ambassador to India in the
1960s and her daughter studied at Delhi’s Lady Shriram College. Over the
years, Burma has acquired in the Indian mind an emotional nostalgic image
immortalised by the 1949 Bollywood classic Patanga, where the hero croons
into the telephone to his beloved- ham Burma ki galiyon mein, aur tum ho
Dehradun (I gallivant the lanes of Burma while you stay unhappy in
Dehradun, an Indian hill station).
After the post-1988 pro-democracy uprising caught the Burmese military in
a bind and led to the annulment of NLD’s election victory, India was the
first and only neighbour to clearly and openly take the side of Daw Suu
Kyi. Rajiv Gandhi, who knew Suu Kyi from her student days in Delhi,
instructed border troops to not deter genuine Burmese refugees and
dissenters seeking asylum in India. Ubiquitous ‘Burma colonies’ appeared
in major Indian cities and public sympathy for the NLD was on prominent
display on the streets.
Around 1992, foreign policy pundit J.N. Dixit initiated a new ‘Look East
policy’ for India that would steer the locus of Indian external interests
from the problematic Northwestern side towards the economically promising
Southeast Asia. Geostrategically, India was announcing to China that its
interests stretched into the hitherto neglected Asia Pacific and that it
will compete with Beijing’s predominance in that region. China was inching
ever closer to India’s sphere of influence in South Asia via friendly
Burma and Indian intelligence was rife with reports that Pakistan and
China were infiltrating arms, drugs and insurgents into Northeast India
through the Burmese border. Under these circumstances, India reasoned that
a ‘working relationship’ with SLORC was essential, no matter what the
moral qualms were.
Dixit’s initial foray paved the way for India-Burma cooperation in border
controls, resumed trade, business joint ventures and even extradition of
anti-junta figures resident in India (in 1997, 12 Burmese defectors who
joined with pro-democracy groups based on the Indo-Burma border were
secretly deported by Indian military intelligence agents). In 2001,
Jaswant Singh, Vajpayee’s first foreign minister, inaugurated the
‘India-Myanmar Friendship Road’ linking the town of Moreh in Manipur to
central Myanmar and then Mandalay.
This year, India, Burma and Thailand are discussing a road that would
connect all three countries as well as a deep-sea port in Daiwe, southern
Burma to facilitate Indian and Thai ships to refuel here instead of
waiting to cross the Malacca Straits. A pro-India faction within SLORC has
been identified in the Burmese junta, led by Vice-Senior General Maung Aye
and Foreign Minister U Win Aung The deepening of such political ties was
hailed by the Indian government as a step that would “earn a lot of
goodwill from this part of the world.”
Would it really? Far from a ‘working relationship’ premised on indefinite
continuation of SLORC rule in Burma, India seems to be getting into the
‘thick relations’ department with Rangoon’s bloody regime, thereby
strengthening its internal terror apparatus, of which Insein is the
apotheosis. Tibetans were sacrificed by Nehru in 1954 in return for
Beijing’s hand of friendship, a move that ricocheted in 1962. The
long-suppressed democratic aspirations of the people of Nepal have also
felt betrayed by India’s recent “cautious policy” that has not questioned
monarchical usurpation of power. As a reward for its ambivalence, India is
being accused by the monarchical government in Kathmandu of aiding the
Maoist insurgency! For Bangladeshi Hindu minorities too, India’s
lackadaisical interest in the fundamentalist violence unleashed by
Islamists tied to the ruling Khaleda Zia government has come as a shock.
What kind of “goodwill” is being earned for India in Burma that will be
long lasting? Can it match the goodwill of the Nehru-U Nu era? The Indian
government may have awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Peace Prize in 1995 to
Daw Suu Kyi as a token, but the substantial policy trend in the last
decade has been a colossal let-down of the Burmese people by a myopic
Delhi. In the lure of short-term benefits, India has forgotten that when
democracy triumphs in Burma, its legitimation and connivance with SLORC
will rankle and affect relations. India’s size and economic potential (23%
of Burmese exports reach India) are often considered permanent interests
that will override sentimentality when there is regime change in Rangoon,
but it is instructive to note that like in most democratic polities,
Burmese public opinion will inform foreign policy when Daw Suu Kyi takes
over. Burmese people do not have a say in the current set-up, but one day
they will and India may have to pay a heavy price.
Nonintervention in internal affairs of other countries is a word of faith
in Delhi and for a medium world power, it should be so. But
nonintervention should not be translated into apathy when crimes against
humanity are happening in India’s backyard. The realism that nods at
flowerless Insein as an “internal affair” will boomerang.
________

Sacramento Bee June 24 2003

More heat on Burma
Asian countries join global condemnation
Bee Editorial Staff

Breaking with a long-standing aversion to criticizing fellow Asian rulers,
ASEAN -- the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations -- has
called on the military junta in Burma to release Nobel Peace laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi from detention. The Burmese government says it takes the
criticism seriously but has refused to say when it will release her.
That's about as credible as its promise last year, when it released Suu
Kyi from 19 months of house arrest, to move toward democracy. No
democratization has occurred.
Nor has the regime, which seized power in 1988 and annulled elections in
1990 that Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won handily, done
anything to open up a closed and repressed society. Indeed, lately it has
shut down NLD offices, kept more than 1,200 political prisoners locked up
and was almost surely behind an ambush on May 30 by armed thugs against
Suu Kyi's motorcade that left dozens of her supporters dead and her in
custody.
Whether ASEAN's criticism will have much impact is questionable. But that
it took such a step only days after Malaysia, a member, and China, which
maintains close ties, opposed such criticism as unwarranted interference
in the affairs of Burma suggests regional leaders are feeling the heat of
denunciation from abroad. The United Nations, European Union and United
States have not only spoken out -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, who
attended the ASEAN meeting, has been especially forceful -- but have
threatened to expand sanctions.
Sanctions, such as freezing assets or closing borders to Burmese
officials, may have little direct impact on a country with a large
informal economic sector and a lucrative drug-smuggling industry. But the
signal it sends to potential foreign investors cannot be safely ignored by
the junta, nor can the increasing isolation it is likely to feel if it
continues to defy civilized humanity.