************************** BurmaNet ************************** "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ************************************************************** The BurmaNet News: Wednesday, Januar 25, 1995 Issue #100 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Contents: *************************INSIDE BURMA************************* NATION: ASEAN'S PRESSURE ON SLORC CAN HELP SUU KYI'S FREEDOM SEASIA-L: FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE; BOB HAWKE'S LATEST **************************SHAN STATE************************** NATION: THAKSIN TO TACKLE BURMESE OVER BORDER GAMBLING ISSUE ***************************THAILAND*************************** BKK POST: FM HEEDS CALL FOR ACTION ON BURMA STUDENTS AT SAFE AREA NATION: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT NABBED AFTER 25 YEARS ****************************REGION**************************** SEASIA-L: THE COMFORT WOMEN REUTERS: PORKY PIG, MADONNA ON THE OUTS IN ASIAN TV STAKES ************************************************************** The BurmaNet News is an ********************************* electronic newspaper * * covering Burma. Articles * Iti * from newspapers, magazines, * snotpo * the wire services, news- * werthatcor * letters and the Internet * ruptsbutfea * are published as well as * r.Fearoflos * original material. * ingpowercor * * ruptsthosewhoare * The BurmaNet News is * subjecttoit...Theef * e-mailed directly to * fortnecessarytoremain * subscribers and is * uncorruptedinanenvironm * also distributed via * entwherefearisanintegralpar * the soc.culture.burma * tofeverydayexistenceisnot * and seasia-l mailing * immediatelyapparent * lists and is also * tothosefortun * available via the * ateenoughtol * reg.burma conference on * iveinstatesgo * the APC networks. For a * vernedbytheru * free subscription to * leoflaw...Iam * the BurmaNet News, send * n ota frai * an e-mail message to: * d.. * * .D * strider@igc.apc.org * aw * * Au * Subscriptions are handled * ng * manually so please allow * San * for a delay before your * Su * request is fielded. * uK * Letters to the editor, * yi * comments or contributions * . * of articles should be ********************************* sent to the strider address as well. For those without e-mail, BurmaNet can be contacted by fax or snailmail. Tel/Fax: (in Thailand) (66)2 234-6674 By snailmail: Attention to BurmaNet, care of Burma Issues PO Box 1076, Silom Post Office, Bangkok 10504 Thailand By email: strider@igc.apc.org *************************INSIDE BURMA************************* NATION: ASEAN'S PRESSURE ON SLORC CAN HELP SUU KYI'S FREEDOM January 25, 1995 Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle for a free Burma continues. The Burmese opposition leader, still in the dark about her freedom since the term of her house arrest officially expired two weeks ago, issued a rare public statement, through her husband, seeking to kill all rumours about any "secret deals" being made with her captors_ the military junta calling itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council or Slorc. "I adhere to the principle of accountability and consider myself at all times bound by the democratic duty to act in consulation with colleagues and to be guided by the aspirations on those engaged in the movement to establish a truely democratic political system in Burma," Suu Kyi said. "I remain dedicated to an active participation in this movement," she added. The Slorc which has confined the Nobel Peace laureate without any official charge or a trail, devised, amended and interpreted retroactively a security law which permits her to be held under house arrest for up to five years. Last July, the military junta made another change and also applied it retroactively to prolong her confinement for one more year, with six month's written notice at a time. Constitutional process Last week, hopes for the imminent release of Suu Kyi faded as the Slorc said the leader of the national League for Democracy (NLD) would be freed only when a constitution noow being written is complete. This was confirmed by Thai Foreign Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who told the reporters after returning from an official trip to Burma that the Slorc "will not release her until the constitution is complete". Ovservers believe it could take at least three years before the drawn out constitutional pocess reaches a conclusion. Slorc itself has given hard-to-swallow excuses that "domestic stability takes priority" and Suu Kyi's release "might encourage dissidents to cause domestic disruptions". So what is the current reality in Burma? If we are to believe the official Asean line that things are getting better there, then it is high time we started having second thoughts in the light of Asean, Japan, certain European governments and Australia cozying up to the rangoon military junta. The harsh fact remains: The Slorc suppressed democratic voices through the murder of more than 3,000 people in 1988 and continues to refuse to cede power to the pro-democracy parties led by Suu Kyi's NLD, which won an overwhelming majority of the contested seats in the national elections held in 1990. Yet the Slorc claims it is comitted to national reconciliation by pointing to constitution-drafting under taken by a so-called national convention. In its latest report on Burma, the London-based Amnesty International painted a gloomy picture. Despite the officially reported release of more than 2000 political prisoners since April 1992, Amnesty said political detention in Burma continues to be a major tool of repression used by the Slorc. Hundreds of political prisoners arrested since the pro-democracy movement began in 1988 remain in detention, including more than 50 prisoners of conscience. Also, 28 members of the 1990 parliament-elect, most of whom were arrested in late 1990, are still in detention. The 89th conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) recently noted that the slorc was guilty of the world's most serious human rights violations against parliamentarians. In fact, 50 per cent of the IPU's workload has been devoted to cases of imprisoned Burmese parliamentarians. Under the pretext that "we in Asean do not interfere in the internal affairs of a neighbouring state," many Asean governments, Thailand included, are more than willing to bend over backwards to whitewash the atrocities comitted by the Slorc against the Burmese people. People's solidarity It is important to point out that the policy considerations of the goverments of Asean with regard to Burma, do not necessarily reflect the opnions and positions of the citizens of the regional grouping. The people of Asean are in solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people's struggle for democracy. Diplomatic engagement can only bring progress when the governments doing the engaging drive tough bargains and insist that their terms be met. Asean's constructive engagement has been to the contrary_and has been used as a quick way to rake in profits at the expense of the Burmese people. However, it is not too late for Asean to change. In order to erase the disturbing question mark over the regional grouping's moral conscience, Asean must call for the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners. The diplomatic dissimulation that internalizes human rights abuses as all in the family has to stop. Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma can be free if Asean turns the screws on the Slorc. (TN) *************************INSIDE BURMA************************* SEASIA-L: FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE; BOB HAWKE'S LATEST Gehan Wijeyewardene bit.listserv.seasia-l Jan 21, 1995 The Thi-Yunnan project held a most interesting seminar yesterday, Friday 20 Jan. on Local and regional trade in mainland Southeast Asia. It is hoped the papers will be published in the Newsletter, due in March. One item of information which emerged concerned the Friendship Bridge and I, among many, would appreciate firm information on this. As many observers have reported the lack of pedestrian creossing and other restrictions meant that the old ferry was still operating with established fares and time tables. We were told that the ferry has now been forced to cease operations and that this may have been through the intervention of Australian authorities who felt the bridge should be getting more use. It would be much appreciated if anyone with more knowledge on this would keep us informed. Talking of the bridge and remembering our Australian initiator, it was reported on Australian radio yesterday that Bob hawke and current partner and biographer Blanche d'Alpuget (author of 'Monkeys in the dark', 'Turtle Beach'- novels with SEAsian themes) were in Burma discussing business opportunities, probably with Malaysian introductions. It is indeed sad to see an ex-Australian Labor prime Minister, sucking up to SLORC. Gehan Wijeyewardene **************************SHAN STATE************************** NATION: THAKSIN TO TACKLE BURMESE OVER BORDER GAMBLING ISSUE 25 January 1995 Foreign Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday he would discuss the recent opening of a casino in the Burmese town of Tachilek with that country's government, as the casino is near the Mae Sai-Tachilek border checkpoint. Thaksin said he would discuss the issue in detail with the Burmese government, as well as advising them that it was inap- propriate to allow gambling house to operate so near the bor- der checkpoint. He said the Mae Sai-Tachilek border checkpoint, which is soon to become permanent, was set up to facilitate traders and was not for gamblers to access their pleasure. However, he said he was informed by the Burmese embassy here that the Burmese government did not usually grant permission for casino operations. The "Wa and Burma VIP Casino" was opened last Thursday in Bur ma's Kengtng province. It was believed to be a joint venture between Thai investors and members of the Red Wa, and with the becking of the Burmese government. Thaksin said casinos would not be legalized in Thailand and the government was looking into ways to stop Thai people from gambling in foreign countries. The foreign minister said he would discuss the issue with In- terior Minister Sanan Kachorprasart and draw up plans to pre- vent Thais from gambling in the Burmese town. (TN &BP) ***************************THAILAND*************************** REUTERS: THAILAND SAVES BURMESE BEARS FROM THE COOKING POT bit.listserv.seasia-l Jan 20, 1995 (at MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 20 Jan 95 17:03:44 -0500 From: C-reuters@clarinet.com (Reuters) Subject: Thailand saves Burmese bears from the cooking pot This is an edited version of a story that appears in a clarinet.com hierarchy. LONDON (Reuter) - Environmentalists Friday heaped praise on Thailand for saving 21 Burmese bear cubs from South Korean cooking pots. The society said the bears, an endangered species, were seized en route to restaurants in South Korea after being illegally smuggled out of Burma. ``The animal dealer, whose only punishment was an on-the-spot fine, was said to be unrepentant, stating that already this year he had smuggled over 70 bear cubs to Korea alone,'' the society said. ***************************THAILAND*************************** NATION: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT NABBED AFTER 25 YEARS 25 January 1995 Immigration police have arrest a Burmese in Nakhon Ratchasiam's Muang district on charges of illegal entry, foreign passports, and using faked official rubber-stamps for visas to Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, and Singapore, a group of immigration officers said yesterday. Wair-asir Kahong, 46, has lived illegally in Thailand for 25 years without being discovered by the police, according to the group's leader, Pol maj Gen Veera Pitakphol. In yesterday's press conference he alleged that Kahong produce fake passports and used forged rubber stamps to give "visas" to foreigners - mostly from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma and Bangladesh - who wanted to enter Thailand, Laos, Malaysia or Singapore. At Kahong's rented house police found two fake passports, an identity card, a military summons, a number of rubber stamps for visas of many countries and other equipment used to falsify documents. Another Burmese immigrant, arrested earlier for illegal entry, tipped-off the police to Kahong's criminal activities. (TN) ***************************THAILAND*************************** BKK POST: FM HEEDS CALL FOR ACTION ON BURMA STUDENTS AT SAFE AREA 25 January 1995 Foreign Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday supported a call by the Interior Ministry for strict measures on Burmese students at the Maneeloy Safe Area in Ratchaburi. Mr Thaksin said the Foreign Ministry will follow any measure proposed by the Interior Ministry to prevent a repetition of a brawl between the Burmese at the safe area and the authorities. Strict legal action should be taken against Burmese students who break Thai laws, he told reporters before a Cabinet meeting at Government House. The Interior Ministry plans to propose that the Cabinet review Thailand's policy toward Burmese students after the incident last week. At the same time, the National Security Council will take with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on measure to prevent the students from engaging in political activities. The Foreign Ministry agreed with the interior Ministry and the National Security Council to use strict measure on students who do not respect Thai laws, he added. (BP) ****************************REGION**************************** SEASIA-L: THE COMFORT WOMEN SEASIA-L: THE COMFORT WOMEN moe bit.listserv.seasia-l Jan 20, 1995 (at MINERVA.ORI.U-TOKYO.AC.JP) Title : The Comfort Women Author : George Hicks (An economist & writer w/ a lifetime's experience of Asia. He divides his time btn Singapore & Australia.) Publisher : YENBOOKS 1-2-6 Suido, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 112, Japan. (by special arrangement w/ Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd., Australia.) Copyright : 1995 by George Hicks Listed price : 1240 Yen (about US$ 12) (paperback) (From the back cover) In 1938, Japan's imperial armed forces established in Shanghai what they designated a "comfort station." This pleasant-sounding facility in fact represented the first step into an unending nightmare for women across East Asia, as the Emperor's forces rampaged across the continent. Sexually enslaved by the invaders, over 100,000 young women- many of them prepubescent- were trafficked across Japan's wartime empire by its soldiers and their collaborators Using official documents and other original sources unavailable until now, George Hicks tells how prevalent, organized, and concealed the comfort system was. He also traces the fight by Japanese and Korean feminist and liberal groups to expose the truth and tells of the complicity of the Japanese governm- ent in maintaining the lie. "The Comfort Women" is an account of a shameful aspect of Japanese society and psychology. It is also an exploration of Japaneseracial & gender policies. Above all else, "The Comfort Women" allows the victims of this unacknowledged war crime to tell their own stories powerfully and poignantly: their shame, and the full magnitude and brutality of the system. Nearly 50 years after the war former comfort women are beginning to speak out, to fight for compensation and demand that their stories be acknowled- ged in the official history of the war. This book is an important step in that process. (With 22 rare photos of comfort women & stations in China, Korea, Japan, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia.) ****************************REGION**************************** REUTERS: PORKY PIG, MADONNA ON THE OUTS IN ASIAN TV STAKES REUTERS: PORKY PIG, MADONNA ON THE OUTS IN ASIAN TV STAKES bit.listserv.seasia-l Jan 19, 1995 Subject: 1995/Jan/Jan 18/Porky Pig, Madonna on the outs in Asian TV stakes From: C-reuters@clarinet.com (Reuter / Jane Blennerhassett) HONG KONG (Reuter) - Porky Pig is banned, heavy metal music is on the scrap heap and Madonna's bra stays under wraps. Welcome to satellite television in Asia, where Western broadcasters, including the usually unflappable Ted Turner, bend over backwards to woo the region's more sensitive viewers and ingratiate themselves with nervous regional governments. In three weeks, China will kickstart the next phase of the region's television industry when it launches its new satellite Apstar-2 over Asia. Apstar-2 will carry the broadcasts of ambitious broadcasters who have realized that their successes in the United States or Europe cannot simply be relabeled and rerun in Asia. Take Porky Pig for example, a hit with generations of kids in the West. But Muslim viewers, who don't eat pork, might see red over the sight of Ted Turner's porcine character, especially if tuning in to Asian cartoons at dinner time . Unasked, Turner banished Porky to the archives when he launched his movie and cartoon network in Asia last year. ``We are not having Porky Pig altogether. We are going to be sensitive to regional viewers,'' a spokeswoman for Ted Turner's TNT & Cartoon Network said in a recent interview. Blanket broadcasting and Western tastes do not always go over well in Asia, a region filled with races, religions, cultures and languages as diverse as those found in the United States or Europe. Rupert Murdoch, whose STAR TV pioneered Asian satellite broadcasting in 1991, should know. This month STAR announced its pop-music ``Channel V'' was finally blessed by the Singapore government, well-known for its tight grip on the media. But no nudity, rap or grunge will be seen on Singapore's eight hours of STAR TV pop videos each week. STAR has substantially tamed its music broadcasts from its early days to include more crooning love songs and less rock 'n' roll. ``We vet everything for not just vulgarity and sex and violence but also for cultural taboos,'' said Channel V program manager Don Atyeo. ``It's a real myth that music travels across boundaries,'' Atyeo said. ``It's very hard for a kid in (Hong Kong's working-class area of) Mong Kok to relate to Madonna prancing around with traffic cones on her tits. They relate more to Andy Lau (a popular Asian singer) with a sports coat and a turtleneck sweater.'' Murdoch also yielded to China, axing STAR TV's BBC news broadcasts over north Asia last year when Communist officials found uncensored Western news too hot to handle. While Western broadcasters were rethinking their Asian strategies, niche local broadcasters began to spring up, promising sanitized family-style entertainment to please Asia's increasingly wealthy but relativelytive middle class. Asian television veteran Robert Chua started China Entertainment Television Broadcast Ltd (CETV), a variety satellite channel in the main Chinese dialect of Mandarin. Former Hong Kong publisher Yu Pun-hoi launched Chinese Television Network, which plans to show Mandarin news and entertainment. But Western broadcasters say they can still use their popular material and play to their strengths in Asia, as long as they give the locals in each country what they want. Ted Turner has archives full of movies about making money, a favorite local pastime. This Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January, while Asia's Chinese viewers are wishing each other good fortune they will be bombarded with movies about wealth and getting rich. Cartoons will feature poor little rich kid Richie Rich. Advertisers, too, find generic ads rarely have pan-Asia appeal, even for universal brands. Companies planning regional television campaigns mostly buy ocal television stations, often creating a different ad for each country. ``There's no such place as Asia. India is a very different place to Malaysia and a very different place to China,'' said television researcher John Kaye. ``Pan-Asian advertising is as daft a proposition as pan-European advertising" ************************************************************** NEWS SOURCES REGULARLY COVERED/ABBREVIATIONS USED BY BURMANET: AP: ASSOCIATED PRESS AFP: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE AW: ASIAWEEK AWSJ: ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL Bt.: THAI BAHT; 25 Bt.3 DUS$1 (APPROX), BBC: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION BI: BURMA ISSUES BKK POST: BANGKOK POST (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK) BRC-CM: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-CHIANG MAI BRC-J: BURMESE RELIEF CENTER-JAPAN CPPSM: C'TEE FOR PUBLICITY OF THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE IN MONLAND FEER: FAR EAST ECONOMIC REVIEW IRRAWADDY: NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY BURMA INFORMATION GROUP JIR: JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW KHRG: KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP Kt. BURMESE KYAT; 150 KYAT3DUS$1 BLACK MARKET 100 KYAT3DUS$1 SEMI-OFFICIAL 6 KYAT3DUS$1 OFFICIAL MOA: MIRROR OF ARAKAN NATION: THE NATION (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK) NLM: NEW LIGHT OF MYANMAR (DAILY STATE-RUN NEWSPAPER, RANGOON) R.T.A.:REC.TRAVEL.ASIA NEWSGROUP S.C.B.:SOC.CULTURE.BURMA NEWSGROUP S.C.T.:SOC.CULTURE.THAI NEWSGROUP SEASIA-L: S.E.ASIA BITNET MAILING LIST SLORC: STATE LAW AND ORDER RESTORATION COUNCIL USG: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT XNA: XINHUA NEWS AGENCY **************************************************************