BurmaNet News: September 12, 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

September 12, 2003 Issue #2325

INSIDE BURMA
Kachin Post: KIO Welcomes National Convention

MONEY
AFX: Malaysia's Petronas completes swap exercise with Premier Oil
AFX: Thai PTT Exploration Production raises stake in Myanmar project to
19.3178 pct

REGIONAL
Xinhua: Indonesia to send envoy to Myanmar for release of Suu Kyi

INTERNATIONAL
Japan Times: Myanmarese dying to get out of Japan

EDITORIALS
Irrawaddy: Hollow Promises


----INSIDE BURMA----

The Kachin Post   September 11, 2003
KIO Welcomes National Convention

The Kachin Independence Organization has signaled its positive position on
Junta’s road map, welcoming the national convention only if the new one
would be different from the previous one, which was initiated in 1993.

The main ethnic arm organization, which signed cease fire agreement with
junta, delivered a letter to Rangoon two days after Prime Minister Khin
Nyunt announced Junta’s version of seven steps road map to democracy at
the end of last month.

The letter to the Prime Minster said, the national convention should be
invited delegates, who are selected by ethnic groups and political
parties.

Col Zau Seng, a leading member of the organization, said its organization
support the national convention, which allows space for all ethnic groups
and political parties. However, KIO will attend the national convention
“if it can be participated broadly by all ethnic groups and political
parties,” he said.

Junta’s national convention invited KIO delegates as an observer after
signing the cease fire agreement.

The process of National Convention delayed since 1996, after delegates
from the National League for Democracy party, it won 80 percent of vote in
1990 general election, walked out form the convention.


----MONEY----

AFX – Asia   September 12, 2003
Malaysia's Petronas completes swap exercise with Premier Oil

KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has completed the transfer
of its 25.00 pct interest in Premier Oil Plc for the latter's interests in
producing fields in Myanmar and Indonesia, a company statement said.

In the exercise, Petronas' 25.00 pct stake in Premier was cancelled while
its interest in the Yetagun Gas Project in Myanmar increased to 40.90 pct
from 30 pct. Petronas also became the operator of the project.

The transaction also resulted in Petronas holding a 15.00 pct stake in the
West Natuna Sea Block A Project in Indonesia.


AFX – Asia   September 12, 2003
Thai PTT Exploration Production raises stake in Myanmar project to 19.3178
pct

BANGKOK:  PTT Exploration and Production Plc said the company has, through
its subsidiaries, raised its stake in Yetagun project in Myanmar to
19.3178 pct from 14.1667 pct.

The company's participation in Yetagun is through two of its susidiaries,
PTTEP International Limited (PTTEPI) and PTTEP Offshore Investment Co Ltd
(PTTEPO).

The other joint-venture partners of Yetagun are Premier Petroleum Myanmar
Ltd (PPML), Petronas Carigali Myanmar Inc (PCMI), Myanmar Oil and Gas
Enterprise and Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) Ltd.

PTTEPI, PTTEPO and the other joint-venture partners have exercised their
rights to purchase the entire stake owned by PPML in the Yetagun project,
which consists of the stake in the Production Sharing Contract for Blocks
M-12, M-13, and  M-14 located in the Gulf of Mataban, Myanmar, and the
stake in the Yetagun Gas Export Pipeline.

Consequently, PTTEPI and PTTEPO have acquired an additional 5.1511 pct,
resulting in an increased stake of 19.3178 pct from 14.1667 pct.

The net acquisition cost as of Sept 10 was approximately 78 mln usd.

PPML, which is now part of the affiliate group of PCMI, will be the
operator of the project. The transaction will be retroactive from
September 30, 2002.

This additional investment in the Yetagun Project has been under
negotiation since mid-2002, with the joint-venture partners having the
First Right of Refusal under the Joint Operating Agreement to increase
their stakes.

At 10:03 am, PTT Exploration and Production was down 2.00 at 160.00 baht. 
(1 usd = 40.49 baht)


----REGIONAL----

Xinhua General News Service   September 12, 2003
Indonesia to send envoy to Myanmar for release of Suu Kyi

JAKARTA, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) --The Indonesian government will send an envoy
to Myanmar to convey a request for the release of opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi who has been detained since May 30, a government spokesman
said Friday.

"The Indonesian government has told the Myanmar government about our
commitment to send a special envoy who will keep a low profile for an
effective result," Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa was quoted
by the official Antara news agency as saying.

Marty asserted that Indonesia, the current country leader of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will maintain respect for
non-interference principles in internal affairs of its fellow ASEAN
member.

He said he could not provide further information about who will be
appointed as the envoy and when the envoy will begin the mission.

While attending an Asia-Africa conference in the Indonesian city of
Bandung in late July, Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung said his
government will release Suu Kyi before the ASEAN Summit in Bali in
October.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Price winner, was detained on May 30 following
riots between her supporters and pro-government mob that left a number of
people dead.


----INTERNATIONAL----

The Japan Times   September 12, 2003
Myanmarese dying to get out of Japan
By HIROSHI MATSUBARA, Staff writer

On July 28, a 39-year-old man from Myanmar died alone in the International
Medical Center of Japan in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo.

It was only 10 days before his death that he was finally taken to the
hospital - almost in a state of coma - after other institutions refused to
accept him. Suffering from brain inflammation and pneumonia, he did not
have legitimate resident status or health insurance.

His friends say the man wanted desperately to go back to his home country
to die, but he was unable to renew his passport and acquire permission to
re-enter Myanmar because he didn't have the money to pay the "tax" charged
by the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo.

The embassy imposes a levy of Yen 10,000 per month on Myanmarese
breadwinners living in Japan - regardless of how much they earn or if they
have a visa - and Yen 8,000 on their spouses.

Japan and Myanmar do not have a bilateral agreement to prevent dual
taxation on Myanmarese living in this country.

Because many undocumented Myanmarese do not pay the levy on a regular
basis, they face a huge payment if they go to the embassy for documents
necessary to return home, including passports. If an applicant is unable
to pay, the embassy leaves the application up in the air or often refuses
to even accept it, according to many Myanmarese living in Tokyo.

The embassy has declined to comment on the practice.

Having neither visas to stay nor passports to leave, many Myanmarese are
forced either to live in detention in an immigration center or to live a
marginal existence often without social security protection - even though
they want to go home amid the diminishing job opportunities here.

The desire to return home is especially strong among those who have fallen
too ill to work.

"I want to immediately return home before I get too sick," said a
55-year-old Myanmarese who has overstayed his visa. His hypertension grew
serious a month ago, forcing him to quit his job at a restaurant.

The man, who also suffers from depression and insomnia, has not contacted
the embassy for a legitimate passport because he has never paid its "tax"
since arriving here six years ago. This means he "owes" about Yen 1
million, including levies, arrearage and paperwork fees.

"There are so many people like me, and I hope both the Japanese government
and the Myanmarese Embassy will think about our plight," he said.

Taeko Kimura, director of Friendly Asians Home, a Tokyo-based citizens'
group, said more and more Myanmarese people are dying in Japan without a
passport to return home or health insurance to cover their medical
expenses.

She said at least 15 such people have died in Japan since last year,
including nine with AIDS. Many were unable to obtain a passport or did not
apply for one until it became too late because they had not paid the
embassy's levy, she said.

Another Tokyo-based citizens' group, People's Forum on Burma, estimates
that there are around 10,000 Myanmarese in Japan, and that more than half
of them have either overstayed their visa or illegally entered Japan and
have no immigration record. This means many must obtain relevant documents
from the embassy before they can leave.

Kimura's group is currently providing help to 32 Myanmarese who need a
passport to get out of Japan, negotiating with the Japanese government or
the embassy on their behalf.

It is also in contact with 12 Myanmarese hospitalized in public institutions.

She said the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau has given up on
deporting them because they are too ill to move, and it has failed to
address the question of how and under what status they should remain in
Japan.

Kimura charges that neither the Foreign Ministry, the Health, Labor and
Welfare Ministry nor local governments offered help, and hospitals were
reluctant to accept them due to their lack of health insurance - until
they were one step from death.

These government bodies actually ask the support group, which operates in
the red with minimal subsidies, to look after ill Myanmarese before and
after their death, she said.

The government is well aware of the problem, especially the many cases of
Myanmarese who have ended up dying from AIDS in Japan despite their wish
to return home. In 2001, four ministries, including the Justice Ministry
and the Foreign Ministry, set up a joint project team to tackle "problems
concerning exportation of Myanmarese AIDS patients."

The team pointed to four factors standing in the way of their wish to
return home - lack of money for plane fare, the technical difficulties
involved in transporting seriously ill patients the long distance home,
the dearth of advanced medical institutions in Myanmar and the Myanmar
Embassy's refusal to issue passports to those who have not paid the
levies.

The Foreign Ministry then asked the embassy to issue passports in cases
where there are human rights concerns. Ministry officials said that at one
point the embassy became relatively cooperative in deportation procedures
for those who were seriously ill.

The ministry has also raised the levy system with the embassy, because it
may constitute an exercise of sovereign power in a foreign country and
thus violate international customary law.

The embassy countered that the levies are not mandatory, and that it often
takes time to issue passports due to difficulties in confirming
applicants' identities in Myanmar, which has numerous ethnic minorities, a
ministry official said.

The situation changed when Japan decided to freeze new aid projects for
Myanmar in June after the junta there refused to release democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.

Kimura of Friendly Asians Home said the embassy has since refused to issue
passports to even those with serious illnesses - possibly in retaliation
against Japan's decision to cut off aid.

Regardless of the stalemate with the embassy, activists say, the
government should provide at least minimum support from a humanitarian
perspective.

"The issue is also a domestic problem for Japan, which has failed to track
down illegal entrants or people overstaying their visas, letting them work
here without the protection of welfare programs," Kimura said. "These
Myanmarese die in despair and solitude so far away from their home. Can we
still blame them or their country for everything while not doing anything
for them?"

Kimura is now taking care of the cremated remains, kept at a temple in
Suginami Ward, of Myanmarese who have died over the past two months. She
had arranged for their hospitalization, death certification, funeral
service and cremation.

Their families cannot come to Japan as they cannot afford air tickets, and
nobody knows when their remains can return home, she said.


----EDITORIALS----

The Irrawaddy   September 12, 2003
Hollow Promises
By Shawn L Nance

Over the past few weeks, Burma’s military government reshuffled its
cabinet and announced a seven-point road map for political progress. Aside
from the political intrigue of determining the winners and losers of the
personnel changes, most veteran Burma-watchers dismissed the move as
"cosmetic surgery" for the obstinate junta.

And for good reason. In his inaugural speech as Burma’s new prime
minister, Gen Khin Nyunt predictably denounced the opposition for holding
up political reform. He also promised a new constitution and national
elections, once again without committing to a timeframe. Heading the
constitution drafting committee is the known hardliner Lt-Gen Thein Sein,
the incoming Secretary Two of the State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC) military junta. For decades, we’ve watched the military regime in
Rangoon make grand gestures towards reform, only to realize later that
we’d been hoodwinked by empty promises, and that nothing had changed.

Earlier this week, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai
acknowledged the junta’s past propensity for deceit but refused to let it
cloud his optimism that positive change is forthcoming. "History is a
lesson," he said. "But don’t hold it against them."

It’s hard not to.

In 1972, Burma’s leaders replaced their military titles with civilian
prefixes, so that military dictator Gen Ne Win became U Ne Win, for
instance. Ambitiously, this kinder, gentler junta drafted a new
constitution that for the first time attempted to standardize the
country’s political administration. The ruling generals went to great
lengths to publicize the new document’s promulgation, which came 12 years
after they seized office by military coup. Any hopes for reform were
stymied by Article 11, which declared the ruling Burma Socialist Program
Party, or BSPP, the country’s only legal political party.

It took another 14 years for Ne Win to pass the reins of government to the
next generation of top generals. When Ne Win stepped down in June 1988, he
proposed that the people choose whether they want to return to a
multi-party system of government.

By September, however, Gen Saw Maung staged a successful military coup. It
was supposed to herald the opening of the Burmese economy and society to
the outside world. But as the BSPP’s last defense minister and a
subordinate to Ne Win, Saw Maung and his State Law and Order Restoration
Council, or Slorc, were regarded as a puppet regime of the "retired"
dictator, who continued to make all executive decisions from behind the
scenes. Nevertheless, Bangkok swiftly recognized the new government, and
Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then army chief and now deputy prime minister,
became the first foreign dignitary to visit the new regime in Rangoon.

The following year brought more theatrics, when "to give a previously
divided and fractious country a sense of national unity", Slorc changed
the formal name of the country to Myanmar.

Then, after gravely miscalculating their popularity, the junta held
national elections in 1990. They were trounced. It took another six weeks
for the junta to honor the results of the balloting, followed by a
two-month moratorium so losing candidates could lodge their appeals.
Staring defeat in the face, Khin Nyunt, then the secretary one of the
ruling junta, announced the people had just chosen a "constitutional
assembly" to draft a new charter, not an elected Parliament.

The National Convention set to work in 1993 to draw up new guidelines for
the constitution. During the drafting, however, the military tried to
assert a role for itself in all aspects of society, causing 86 elected
National League for Democracy opposition delegates to boycott the
committee. The junta rebuffed their efforts to return in 1995 and the
constitution drafting process has been stalled ever since.

And in 1997, when Slorc purged a few "corrupt" cabinet ministers to make
way for the young blood rising through the ranks and changed its formal
name to the less sinister State Peace and Development Council, the top
personnel remained the same. So, too, did the military regime’s driving
impetus: to retain power at all costs.

Certainly, as the Thai FM cautioned, it is unfair to judge Rangoon solely
by its past actions, but it would be churlish to ignore the military’s
long history of dubious political motions aimed at delaying a transfer of
power.

The most recent moves are no different. Rather than pave the way for a
leadership transition, the junta reshuffled the cabinet with an eye on
bringing in younger generals whose loyalty to the armed forces and junta
chairman Sr-Gen Than Shwe is unquestioned. By reworking previous promises
the military generals have set meaningful political reform off into the
distant, unforeseeable future.

Over the last four decades, Burma’s military dictators have purged the
cabinet, drafted constitutions, changed the name of the ruling regime and
even renamed the country, but the personnel and the tactics remain largely
the same.

Against the backdrop of the myriad human rights abuses, drug production,
economic mismanagement and social decay that have occurred on the junta’s
watch, it’s hard to generate much enthusiasm for an exercise that most
people believe will only galvanize the military’s permanent hold over
Burma and its people.

But the Thai foreign minister remained sanguine. "The process was
initiated by the junta," said Surakiart. "That is the most important
thing."

Exactly.