------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------ "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: September 4, 1995 Issue #215 Noted in Passing: The living are suffering anyway and this regime does not even let the dead rest in peace." - a Muslim leader in Rangoon talking about the relocation of graveyards by SLORC. (quoted in Good Times, Bad Times) Headlines: NATION: NEW KAREN LEADERSHIP TARGETS TALKS WITH SLORC REUTER: BURMA'S KAREN REBELS AGREE TO PUSH FOR PEACE NATION: GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES BKK POST: CHAVALIT HOPES FOR BETTER BURMA TIES REUTER: THAI DIPLOMATIC OPTIMISTIC ABOUT BURMESE RELATIONS ---------------------------------------------------------- Produced with the support of the Burma Information Group (B.I.G). The BurmaNet News is an electronic newspaper covering Burma. 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Sutcliffe" World Wide Web: FreeBurma@POBox.com Volunteering: christin@ksc.net.th [Feel free to suggest more areas of coverage] ---------------------------------------------------------- (Editor's Note: In an effort to shorten the length of BurmaNet issues, the editor will abridge articles which are similar to other articles posted in the same issue. Articles containing information not directly related to Burma may also be abridged.) **************************** NATION: NEW KAREN LEADERSHIP TARGETS TALKS WITH SLORC September 3, 1995 by Yindee Lertcharoenchok KAREN guerrilla forces ended their long-awaited congress on Friday with the election of a new leadership under Gen Bo Mya to guide the embattled ethnic group towards peace- negotiations with Burma's military junta. Sixth Brigade Commander Gen Shwe Saing, who had been expected to succeed Bo Mya as president of the Karen National Union (KNU), was elected his deputy, while Gen Oliver remains as KNU Fourth Brigade commander. Saw Ba Thin retains his position as general secretary, while Bo Mya's personal secretary, Mahn Sar Lar Pan, was elected first joint general secretary. Tu Tu Lay, former head of the justice department, was elected second joint general secretary. Gen Tamalabaw, who replaced Bo Mya as chief of staff after the KNU lost its headquarters early this year, was re-elected to the position. In an interview late on Friday night, Arthur Shwe, the new head of the foreign affairs department, said the Karen Congress had elected a new 55-member Standing Committee, 35 of whom are Central Committee members. The other 20 young leaders are candidates for the Central Committee. Eleven Standing Committee members were elected to form a Central Executive Committee to carry out day-to-day work. He said the KNU had scrapped its Cabinet system but retained a party leadership as the group is running short of personnel to take care of daily operational activities. According to a KNU press statement, the 11th Karen Congress which ran from Aug 21-31 was attended by 106 KNU representatives and 79 observers from civil and military establishments from all the provinces in Burma's southeastern Karen state. The statement said the group would "continue to uphold its stand of endeavouring for dialogue between the KNU and Slorc towards the establishment of genuine and lasting peace in the country." Slorc stands for the State Law and Order Restoration Council, which seized power in a bloody coup in September 1988. Shwe rejected as rumours press reports that Bo Mya would this month lead a KNU delegation to sign a ceasefire agreement with the Slorc in Pa-an. He said neither side has initiated any talks although the ethnic group appointed a five-member negotiation team about two years ago. The foreign affairs chief said he believed the rumours were spread by the Slorc, which has no genuine desire to hold talks with the KNU now that the group has been weakened by its loss of strongholds. Although the Burmese army has not launched any offensives against other KNU bases for the time being, Shwe said the group must still wait until after the monsoon season to see whether Slorc wants to open any dialogues. Shwe said he had heard that the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army had handed over Padoh Mahn Yin Sein, a senior civilian KNU leader who was kidnapped in February from a Thai refugee village in northern Mae Sot district, to the Slorc and recommended that he be sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for his refusal to join the group. ************************* REUTER: BURMA'S KAREN REBELS AGREE TO PUSH FOR PEACE September 2, 1995 MAE SOT, Thailand, Sept 2 (Reuter) - Burma's embattled Karen guerrillas finished a 10-day congress vowing to work towards talks with Burma's military government but leaders warned on Saturday peace would be elusive if political concerns were not addresed. Almost 200 members of the Karen National Union (KNU), one of the world's oldest guerilla groups, gathered for the meeting in their besieged zone of control in remote southeastern Burma. The KNU suffered serious military setbacks earlier this year, losing its headquarters to a Burmese government offensive after several hundred troops in the rebel army mutinied and joined the government side. Last month, KNU leaders held preliminary talks with representatives of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and agreed that a guerrilla delegation would hold truce talks with the government soon. The guerrillas, who have been fighting for autonomy since 1949, agreed to ``endeavour for a dialogue between the KNU and SLORC for the establishment of genuine and lasting peace in the country,'' the KNU said in a statement. The SLORC has agreed to ceasefires with more than a dozen guerrilla forces since 1989 but has refused to discuss any of their political demands. The KNU has insisted that any talks should cover their political demands, including autonomy for ethnic minorities under a federal system. Newly elected joint general secretary of the KNU, Mahn Sha Lar Pan, speaking on the Thai-Burmese border south of the Thai town of Mae Sot, stressed the KNU's desire to talk peace but said there must be discussion of long-standing political grievances. ``Without discussion of our political demands it will be difficult to achieve real peace,'' the guerrilla official told Reuters. NATION: GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES September 3, 1995 Manoj Kumar in Rangoon traces the riches to rags story of Indians caught up in Burma's turbulent this century. Anyone who knows India will find much that's familiar in downtown Rangoon, from the sidewalk astrologers to the betel-spitting pedestrians (who are still defying the new ban on the practice), to the splendid mosques and colourful temples of Indian origin. The Indian presence in Burma goes back a long way, and has been particularly striking _ and troubled _ this century. Much of the modern Burmese capital was built by Indians who flourished there under British colonial rule. According to census estimates, at any one time there were more than a million Indians living in Burma, mostly in Rangoon where they made up half the population, between 1901 and 1941. "In those days Hindustani was spoken all over this city," reminisces Doriswamy, a Tamil businessman who was born and brought up in a village 50 kilometres from Rangoon. In pre-independence Burma Indians dominated commercial life in Rangoon, with Tamils, Telugus and Chittagonians making up much of the industrial and agricultural working class, the Marwaris controlling trade, Bengalis the professions and Chettors the world of finance. There was even a 100,000-strong community of Indians from the Buxar district in Bihar who occupied the two towns of Ziyawadi and Kyawtoga, 200 kms north of Rangoon, working as farmers. But it was a domination that many Indians here partly regret, since it worked against them after Burma gained independence. In the run-up to independence Burmese nationalists were determined to curb Indian influence, which they perceived as being an essential part of British colonialism. The first exodus of Indians came in the late '30s and early '40s when a series of anti-Muslim riots, followed by the Japanese invasion of Burma, forced several hundred thousand to leave. Many more departed after Burma's declaration of independence when new laws required them to acquire citizenship or register as aliens. The final round of depopulation came in the mid 60s when a nationalization law brought in by General Ne Win's military regime deprived rich Indians of much of their property and made it impossible for them to continue business. "It was a calamity for which Indians themselves were responsible to a large extent," claims GS Sharma, one of the few richer Indians to stay on in the country through its more than three decades of isolation from the rest of the world. According to him, cultural arrogance on the part of the Indians toward the local population under British rule, as much as the fact of economic domination, caused many Burmese to resent the Indians. Sharma remembers with regret how many of the older generation considered themselves to be "culturally superior" to the Burmese and took the local people's simplicity to be "simple-mindedness". There were numerous Indians, he says, who would willingly get married~with dubious intent to local women they actually looked down upon. Another issue that harmed relations was the Indian habit of repatriating profits from their businesses in Burma back to India without consideration for the welfare of the local economy. It would be hard to overestimate the contribution by poor Indian migrant labourers to Burma's economy earlier this century and up to the present. Working under harsh conditions, they were in large part responsible for increasing the extent of arable land available in the country, making Burma the world's largest exporter of rice- in the world by the '40s. Trade unions formed by Indian labour activists were also precursors of the country's worker's movement which played an important role in the independence struggle. Though government propaganda still occasionally shows movies with Indian depicted as "blood-sucking money-lenders", and though some Burmese now look down on Indians, at the level of common people there are few traces of animosity now between the two communities. "The Burmese are among the most hospitable and warm people in the world," says Doraiswamy who feels that most Indians living in the country wouldn't dream of returning to India now. In fact, even after the exodus of Indian migrants in previous years, the number still remaining is estimated to be well .over half a million. While some Indians continue to be traders, the majority are poor, illiterate and engaged in menial urban professions or as agricultural labour. One of the major problems confronting the Indian population in Burma continues to be the issue of their national identity, with only 56,000 having become naturalized citizens and around 81,000 holding foreign registration certificates. Ignoring earlier notices and deadlines for obtaining citizenship, more than 300,000 people of Indian extraction remain virtually stateless with no identity cards or travel documents. Though Indians are not very active in local politics, for many the ruling military regime is as oppressive as it is for the indigenous population. Even while speaking in their native Tamil or Hindi [part missing here] When Amma' was arrested we prayed every day for her release," says a poor Tamil woman. "Amma" in this case is a reference to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and dissident leader. Like many ordinary Burmese, for Indian migrants in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi remains a beacon of hope for a better future. In recent years many Indians have been alienated from the military regime by its practice of arbitrarily taking over property. In its bid to please foreign investors and as part of a tourism promotion drive, military authorities have been evicting building owners and tenants around the city to make way for new hotel and office complexes. Many Indians who lost their property due to the nationalization law are also unhappy over the way senior officers in the Burmese army have been using such "nationalized" property for private gain. The regime's relocation of ancient Hindu and Muslim graveyards to make room for parks and gardens has angered Indians even more. Though the policy of shifting graveyards outside city limits affects all religious denominations in Rangoon, Indians are particularly sensitive to what they consider the "desecration" of burial grounds. "The living are suffering anyway and this regime does not even let the dead rest in peace," says a Muslim leader. Sentiments are running high within the Muslim community, for example, over the proposed relocation of their burial ground near the Rangoon railway station. The community has been asked to stop burials in this hallowed ground from October this year and has been offered money to shift the bones of those buried earlier to a site outside the city. But undaunted by these and other similar tensions a small number of former residents of Rangoon are making their way back to the city. "This country has an irresistible pull for all those who were fortunate enough to live here at some point in time," says a Bombay businessman whose grandfather migrated here in the last century. Forced to leave the country in the mid-'60s, he is back now with two of his brothers running a successful import-export trade out of Rangoon. ***************************************************************** BKK POST: CHAVALIT HOPES FOR BETTER BURMA TIES September 3, 1995 (abridged slightly) THAILAND has expressed the hope that problems along the Thai-Burmese border can be solved through cooperation between the two countries. Both the Thai and Burmese governments will order local authorities to tackle problems together, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said yesterday. He did not go into detail but his statement on arrival in Bangkok after a two-day official visit to Rangoon indicated Thailand would respond to the conditions set by senior State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) figure Senior Gen Than Shwe. Gen Than Shwe demanded security problems along the common border, the suspended construction of the Thai-Burmese Friendship Bridge and the fisheries conflict in Ranong be resolved before the two countries expand cooperation. Gen Chavalit said he discussed sensitive matters with Gen Than Shwe during a golfing session and chat on Friday afternoon, which was said to have taken place in a "cordial" atmosphere. Gen Than Shwe holds the posts of chairman of SLORC, Defence Minister and Commander of the Armed Forces. During the informal discussion with Gen Than Shwe, Thailand proposed the setting up of a direct line between the Thai and Burmese defence ministers via their military attaches whenever problems occurred along the border, a military source said. Gen Chavalit, in an effort to rebuild Thailand strained relations with the Burmese government, also said Gen Than SUnited Nations, Made-leine Albright, intends to visit Burma next week, the highest US official to do so since the military junta took once, Reuter reponed yesterday, quoting her spokesman Chavalit identified three topics discussed during his meetings _ the overall situation along the bonder, the murder of Burmese fishermen aboard a Thai trawler and encroachment on the Moei River bank in northern Mae Sot district by Thais. He said the two countries now have a "good understanding" of the problems and "good intentions" to resolve them. The deputy premier said he had proposed that the government sector should play a key role in monitoring the economic activities Of Thai businessmen in Burma, because the private sector has failed to do so and a number of problems have consequently arisen. The Burmese, he said, agreed to the idea because they also want joint investment and cooperation. Chavalit said Gen Than Shwe, chairman of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc), asked him to convey his best wishes to Prime Minister Banharn Silapa-archa. REUTER: THAI DIPLOMATIC OPTIMISTIC ABOUT BURMESE RELATIONS September 3, 1995 RANGOON, Sept 3 (Reuter) - The Thai ambassador to Rangoon said on Sunday that the bilateral between two countries had improves since a senior Thai delegate visited Burma. ``Normalisation of the relations is underway now,'' the Thai ambassador to Burma, Poksak Nilobon, said in a telephone interview. Poksak, who declined to elaborate the details of discussions between the Thai delegates and their Burmese counterparts, spoke with Reuters one day after Thai Defense Minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh returned from his two days visited to Rangoon. Chavalit, the most senior Thai official to visit Burma since the Burmese ordered the border closed in April right after the Mong Tai Army (MTA) guerrillas loyal the opium warlord Khun Sa raided a Burmese border town. Burma has accused Thailand for supporting the opium warlord but Chavalit told reporters over the weekend that he would offer full cooperation in Burma's ongoing campaign against Khun Sa.