------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------ "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: September 23, 1995 Issue#234 Noted in Passing: Torture has been routine in Myanmar's prisons for many years, and has increased dramatically since the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners beginning in 1988. - Amnesty Inter- national (quoted in NATION: AMNESTY ACCUSES BURMA OF TORTURING ITS PRISONERS) Headlines: ======== LETTER: SLAVE LABOR, SLORC and ITS WESTERN APOLOGISTS NATION: AMNESTY ACCUSES BURMA OF TORTURING ITS PRISONERS BOSTON GLOBE: WHY ARE THE BURMESE SMILING? NCGUB: STATEMENT ON THE 7TH ANNIVERSARY OF MIL. COUP IN BURMA SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: JUNTA SNUBS SUU KYI OFFER TO NEGOTIATE. UPI: EUROPE-ASIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT PLANNED AFP: BURMESE JUNTA, VOWING RECONCILIATION, SEEKS MORE BKK POST: BURMESE WATERS LIKELY TO STAY OFF-LIMITS TO THAIS ---------------------------------------------------------- Produced with the support of the Burma Information Group (B.I.G). The BurmaNet News is an electronic newspaper covering Burma. Articles from newspapers, magazines, newsletters, the wire services and the Internet as well as original material are published. The BurmaNet News is e-mailed directly to subscribers and is also distributed via the soc.culture.burma and seasia-l mailing lists and is also available via the reg.burma conference on the APC networks. For a free subscription to the BurmaNet News, send an e-mail message to: majordomo@igc.apc.org In the body of the message, type "subscribe burmanet-l" (without quotation marks) Letters to the editor, comments or contributions of articles should be sent to the editor at: strider@igc.apc.org ------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION ABOUT BURMA VIA THE WEB AND GOPHER: Information about Burma is available via the WorldWideWeb at: FreeBurmaWWW http://sunsite.unc.edu/freeburma/freeburma.html [including back issues of the BurmaNet News as .txt files] BurmaWeb: http://www.uio.no/tormodl Burma fonts: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~lka/burmese-fonts/moe.html Ethnologue Database(Myanmar): http://www-ala.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rap/Ethnologue/eth.cgi/Myanmar TO ACCESS INFORMATION ABOUT BURMA VIA GOPHER: gopher csf.colorado.edu. Look under the International Political Economy section, then select Geographic_Archive, then Asia, then Burma. ---------------------------------------------------------- BURMANET SUBJECT-MATTER RESOURCE LIST BurmaNet regularly receives enquiries on a number of different topics related to Burma. The scope of the subjects involved is simplytoo broad for any one person to cover. BurmaNet is therefore organizing a number of volunteer coordinators to field questions on various subjects. If you have questions on any of the following subjects, please direct email to the following coordinators, who will either answer your question or try to put you in contact with someone who can: Arakan/Rohingya/Burma- [volunteer needed] Bangladesh border Art/archaeology/: [volunteer needed] Campus activism: [on summer vacation] Boycott campaigns: [Pepsi] wcsbeau@superior.ccs.carleton.ca Buddhism: Buddhist Relief Mission, c/o NBH03114@niftyserve.or.jp Chin history/culture: plilian@asc.corp.mot.com Fonts: tom@cs.colgate.edu History of Burma: zar@mcc.wisc.edu Kachin history/culture: 74750.1267@compuserve.com Karen history/culture: 102113.2571@Compuserve.com Karen Historical Society Mon history/culture: [volunteer needed] Naga history/culture: Wungram Shishak, z954001@oats.farm.niu.edu Burma-India border [volunteer needed] Pali literature: "Palmleaf" c/o burmanet@igc.apc.org Shan history/culture: [volunteer needed] Shareholder activism: frdc@igc.apc.org "Attn. S. Billeness" Tourism campaigns: bagp@gn.apc.org "Attn. S. Sutcliffe" World Wide Web: FreeBurma@POBox.com Volunteering: christin@ksc.net.th [Feel free to suggest more areas of coverage] ******************* INDEPENDENT LETTER: SLAVE LABOR, SLORC and ITS WESTERN APOLOGISTS September, 1995 by Nicholas Greenwood The following is a response from Nicholas Greenwood, a travel writer and Burma activist to Wilhelm Klein, the author of the Insight Guide to Myanmar. Mr. Klein denies the use of slave labor in SLORC's economic projects. (Also see "Burma in Chains: U.S. Corporations profit from Slave Labor" by Brad Miller in October 1995 issue of the Progressive Magazine. It's already on the Net.) "I am ...aware of prisoner's labor, but this I cannot see as slave labor, since it is a pattern found all around the world": anti-Semitism is found all around the world, does that makes it acceptable? "... some groups ...said that slave labor has been used for the gas pipeline work...this work has not even started.": I presume that Mr. Klein has therefore personally inspected the gas pipeline. I also presume that when the work does start, Mr. Klein will have no objections to the use of slave labor in its construction. "...what I found was that villages have been ordered to supply stones and other construction materials free of charge and a certain amount of people of each village had to work unpaid on stretches within their district. The workers I talked to, saw this as the usual way roads are built in Myanmar and they are not aware of a different way of organizing it. In their own words it has always been so and they were happy to get some infrastructure to get their goods to the market." In the Middle Ages in England we used to burn witches at the stake--it had always been so--but in 1995 we no longer burn them. These are the recent words of the infamous Austrian-born but German-based Wilhelm Klein, author of, amongst other SLORC-friendly publications, the Insight Guide to Myanmar (not Burma). Klein is well-known amongst fellow Burma travel writers for his tacit support of and connivance with Burma's detested military dictatorship, the State Law and Order Restoration Council. For it was only by collaborating (quite willingly it must be said) with the government bodies such as Tourist Burma (as was)--and now Myanmar Travels & Tours (MTT)--that Klein (and fellow photographer, the Frankfurt-born Guenter Pfannmueller) obtained permission to visit many of Burma's then off-limits areas. This permission, however, was not granted without a catch--Klein's books had to be military-friendly, had to gloss over the events of 1988, give limited coverage to the Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and not to be overly critical of butcher Ne Win and his misguided socialist and subsequent fascist policies. Instead, the books were to present the smiling, friendly face of Burma and its repressed people, lots of glossy photos, nostalgic tales of Kipling, Burma girls a-settin' and whackin' white cheroots. Any mention of human rights abuses--and other foolish Western concepts--was strictly taboo. It is alleged that Klein (and colleague Pfannmueller) were richly rewarded by SLORC on recent visits to, amongst other places, Mergui. A leading local SLORC official (and a rare critic of the military regime), who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous, told me that Klein and Pfannmueller had received the "red carpet treatment" in Mergui, had a government boat laid on free charge to transport them around the archipelago and were paid US$1,000 per day to present the "right image" of Myanmar to the Western world. Whether these allegations are true is something to which only Klein and the SLORC are privy, but on perusing the Insight Guide to Myanmar and the more recently published glossy coffee-table book Burma The Golden, Klein's tacit support of the SLORC is obvious. In Klein's introduction to Burma The Golden, the only mention of the military's brutal massacres of 1988 appears in the brief phrase "After the political turmoil of 1988". Klein goes on to say: " With the new constitution implemented, one which is supposed to be similar to the Indonesian one, and an abated civil war, yet untouched regions will be opened to visitors". On turning to the end of the book (page 161), one reads: "Both Pfannmueller and Klein were fortunate in the assistance of Myanmar Travels & Tours." In compiling his own Guide to Burma (and the hardback edition Burma Then and Now), this writer neither sought nor employed the assistance of MTT. Wherever possible he used the services of private, non-SLORC-operatives and still managed to reach more destinations than Klein. And I would certainly not have contemplated giving MTT an acknowledgement in any segment of my book. ************** NATION: AMNESTY ACCUSES BURMA OF TORTURING ITS PRISONERS September 22, 1995 Agence France-Presse AMNESTY International today accused Burma's military authorities of increasingly using torture against both political and criminal detainees who are held in "appalling conditions". "Torture has been routine in Myanmar's prisons for many years, and has increased dramatically since the imprisonment of thousands of political prisoners beginning in 1988," the London- based human rights group said, using the official title for Burma. More than 1,300 prisoners convicted of criminal offences were reported to have died in three of nine known labour camps around the country, where they were "subjected to even worse treatment than political prisoners", it said. In a report received here, the group urged Burma to halt such practices immediately, allow international monitoring of its prisons and conduct a prompt and thorough enquiry to bring those responsible to justice. It based the report on recently received "new information about appalling conditions in labour camps and prisons" in Burma, involving torture, prolonged shackling, lack of proper medical care and insufficient food. " Torture techniques, which include beatings sometimes to the point of unconsciousness, being forced to crawl over sharp stones and being held in the hot sun for prolonged periods, are used by [Burma's] security forces to punish and intimidate prisoners," the organization said. It estimated that thousands of political prisoners were still held in Burma, including at least 800 at Insein Prison the country's largest, near Rangoon. At least 15 had died in custody since 1988, it added. Political prisoners were subject to interrogation at any time of the day or night and faced stiff punishment for breaking any of the "arbitrary and harsh" prison rules. One prisoner "was kept in shackles in the 'police-dog cells' [where dogs were normally kept] for two months because he was found with a piece of paper," the report said. ***************************************************************** BOSTON GLOBE: WHY ARE THE BURMESE SMILING? Wednesday, September 20, 1995 The US ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, being a native of Czechoslovakia, displays a sure sense of the proper way to converse with dictators. An example was her two- hour chat in Rangoon with Gen. Khin Nyunt, a capo of the ruling junta in Burma, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC. Telling a preposterous lie, of the sort common among tyrants wielding absolute power, Khin Nyunt assured Albright that SLORC has "broad popular support" and offered as proof of this fib the fact that "the Burmese people smile a lot." Albright responded that it had been her experience "in a lifetime of studying repressive societies that dictators often delude themselves into believing they have popular support, but that people often smile not because they are happy, but because they are afraid." In 1990, when Burmese were able to vote, they gave 80 percent of Parliament's seats to the National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Sun Kyi, who had been placed under house arrest in 1989. The junta ignored the election and conducted a war against society that exceeded the excesses of China's Tiananmen Square. The generals released Suu Kyi this summer because they know that the people despise them and that their only hope for stability lies in dialogue with her. They were also compelled to yield to outside pressure because of an overwhelming foreign debt of $5.5 billion, debt service of $1 billion, and a U.S. veto on loans from the World Bank. Albright told SLORC it had to respect human rights and enter a political dialogue with Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. But Washington also needs to insist on security guarantees for Suu Kyi and her fellow democrats; to back Albright's tough words with penalties such as an executive order against investment in Burma; and to press Japan not to resume development aid until Burma's elected government is restored. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee could do its part by inviting Albright to testify about her chat with the Burmese Godfather. **** NCGUB: STATEMENT ON THE 7TH ANNIVERSARY OF MILITARY COUP IN BURMA September 18, 1995 INFORMATION OFFICE 815, 15th Street N.W., Suite 910, Washington D.C., 20005 Tel: 202-3937342, Fax: 202-3937343 Seven years have passed since the Burmese military brutally cracked down on the nationwide popular democracy movement and seized the state power against the will of the people. Despite the massacre and sustained persecution of democracy activists, aspirations for democracy and human rights remain as strong as ever among the people. With seven years of struggle behind it, the Burmese democracy movement has matured and is getting stronger with time. The morale of the democratic movement has also been greatly boosted by the recent release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who despite spending six years of house arrest, is as determined as ever to bring democracy to the motherland. Every individual and organization in the democratic movement have expressed their warm welcome to her return to politics and to her leadership in the second struggle for independence of Burma. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release only marks the beginning of another round of struggle and hence the democracy movement cannot afford to let its guard down. This is because apart from her release, nothing else has changed. SLORC, until now, has not responded to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's offer of a dialogue, and people, under laws and orders designed to serve the SLORC, are still being intimidated and restricted from freely participating in the political process. Gross human rights violations, such as porterage and forced labor, are continuing throughout the country. Thousands of political prisoners continue to languish in prisons under horrible conditions, and SLORC's national convention to legitimize the leading role of the military in the future political life of Burma is still in progress. The policy of armed confrontation is still being pursued against the ethnic people and the Karenni National Progressive Party became a victim to this policy recently when SLORC breached its own cease-fire agreement and attacked the Karenni people. The NCGUB therefore takes the opportunity of this sad September day to call on all the patriotic forces in and out of Burma to draw strength from the memory of those who had given up their lives for the cause of democracy and to redouble their efforts to end militarism in Burma. The democratic movement needs to prepare itself with courage, perseverance and wisdom to overcome the final obstacles to democracy. It is the historic duty of all the citizens of Burma to join in this noble cause, because, as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has said, the struggle for democracy and human rights is also a struggle for human life and dignity. The NCGUB also wishes to call on the international community to realize the critical role it plays at this phase. Opportunities are open to the international community, and given the right action, the long-sought for comprehensive political settlement in Burma will be achieved without fail. Any hesitation in its action will only give SLORC a tactical advantage and diminish the chances for a dialogue for national reconciliation. These are the concrete steps the international community can take to help Burma : (1) Strengthen the personal safety and freedom of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: a) ambassadors accredited to Burma visit her regularly, b) official delegations visit her routinely, and c) eminent persons visit her at regular intervals. (2) Increase the support for the organizing work of the Burmese democracy movement at grassroots level; (3) Step up the mediation efforts by the UN Secretary-General a) support strong resolutions at the UNGA and Human Rights Commission, b) urge governments to fully back the efforts of the UN Secretary-General c) ensure all private mediation efforts complement those of the United Nations d) lobby on behalf of the Burmese people at the United Nations (4) Impose arms embargo and trade sanctions against Burma. With the growing movement for democracy at home and an increasingly coordinated pressure by the international community overseas, we expect to see democracy and human rights come to Burma without fail. ***************************** SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: JUNTA SNUBS SUU KYI OFFER TO NEGOTIATE. September 21, 1995 By Mark Baker SINGAPORE, Wednesday: A key member of Burma's military leadership has rejected a proposed dialogue with the country's democracy leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, and declared the regime is pushing ahead with a new constitution which will entrench the army's grip power. The Minister for National Planning and Economic Development, Mr David Abel, said talks with Ms Suu Kyi, who was freed two months ago after spending six years under house arrest, would make no difference to Burma's future. "Dialogue is not the final solution," said Mr Abel, who is attending a regional economic summit here. "There has been a dialogue, in the future there can be dialogue, but that doesn't resolve the issues." The US and other Western governments, including Australia, have demanded substantive dialogue between Ms Suu Kyi and the military as a condition for resuming international aid and development loans. But Mr Abel made it clear a compromise on political reform is unlikely. He said a national convention backed by the military was close to ratifying the new Constitution, which will reserve a quarter of parliamentary seats for military personnel and ensure the head of state is a former army officer. The convention, due to resume on October 24, had already agreed on the 15 main chapter headings of the Constitution, and the 104 basic points to be included, he said. Mr Abel said the regime was hopeful of a resumption of loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. "In the meantime we can carry on." He said there had already been dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi - an apparent reference to informal contacts between her and General Khin Nyunt soon after her release. ************************************************ UPI: EUROPE-ASIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT PLANNED September 15, 1995 SINGAPORE, Sept. 15 (UPI) _ European and Asian business leaders will meet next week in hopes of improving business ties between the two economically powerful regions. The conference will focus on financial issues, intellectual property rights, environmental concerns, human resources, stability and security and the role of the private sector in helping to develop national infrastructure, organizers said. The fourth annual Europe-East Asia Economic Summit, which begins Wednesday, is organized by the World Economic Forum (WEF), a non-profit group based in Switzerland. About 500 business people are expected to participate. The forum will include a special seminar on Burma. Burmese government and trade officials will meet with European and other Asian officials to discuss business opportunities in the formerly closed nation. Talks also will focus on economic development in the Mekong River area, which is shared by Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and China, according to Tommy Koh, Singapore's ambassador-at- large and chairman of the summit steering committee. Heads of state at the meeting will include Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Indonesia's President Suharto, Norway's Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, South Korea's Prime Minster Lee Hong Koo and Cambodia's First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Jeffrey Garten, a U.S. Commerce undersecretary, and Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans also are scheduled to attend. The World Economic Forum was founded in 1971 ``to bring the business community, governments and academicians,'' said WEF director Colette Mathur. Mathur said the WEF placed a heavy emphasis on Europe-Asia economic ties. ``With the beginning of APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum), we thought Europe would be a little left out of this great grouping,'' Mathur said. ``Europeans would like to be sure that they are treated on an equal basis with our American friends or competitors,'' in the Asia-Pacific trade arena, she said. Mathur said Burma's attendance at the conference was particularly exciting to participants from the business world. ``Every year we choose a country that is not fully open _ last year it was Vietnam,'' she said. ***************************** AFP: BURMESE JUNTA, VOWING RECONCILIATION, SEEKS MORE INVESTMENT September 20, 1995 (ADDS ministers comments at news conference) SINGAPORE, Sept 20 (AFP) - A Burmese junta leader appealed here Wednesday for more foreign investment in his country as it presses ahead with market reforms and vowed that national reconciliation was in the works. Brigadier General David Abel, the minister for national planning and economic development, told a seminar for Asian and European businessmen that the junta had approved three billion dollars in foreign investment. The junta, known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), enacted a foreign investment law shortly after taking power in 1988, crushing a democracy movement in the backward but resource-rich Southeast Asian nation. It boosted its diplomatic image last July when it freed popular opposition leader and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, but remains under international pressure to carry out democratic reforms. Speaking at a news conference after the seminar, hosted by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum, Abel said the SLORC had achieved "90 percent" of its political objectives including peace, security and stability, and hoped to attain "national reconciliation" as well. He said progress had been achieved in framing a new constitution and vowed that "very soon" a meeting will be convened to complete the work. Asked when the junta would hold a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, he replied that it was a "very hard question for me to answer," saying vaguely that "legal procedures" will have to be followed. In a seminar paper, Abel said Burma had approved slightly more than three billion dollars in foreign investment since the junta took power. This involves 157 projects, with nearly half the funds, 1.44 billion dollars, going into oil and gas. "What is really needed for further development is the influx of capital and technology in order to reap the most effective benefit of its endowment in natural and human resources," he said in the paper on "golden opportunities" in Burma, renamed Myanmar by the junta. "This is the most opportune time to do business in Myanmar, making best use of its abundant resources for mutual benefits," Abel said. Figures supplied by Abel showed the second biggest investment area after oil and gas was hotel and tourism, with 31 projects totalling 604 million dollars. Other major investment sectors were fisheries, with 252 million dollars, real estate with 224 million dollars and mining with 192 million dollars. ************** BKK POST: BURMESE WATERS LIKELY TO STAY OFF-LIMITS TO THAI FILSHERMEN September 22, 1995 BURMA is expected to keep its territorial waters off-limits to Thai fishermen until Thailand can prove that it will sincerely try to prevent fishing agreement violations by Thai fishing boats, Fisheries Department Chief Plodprasob Surasawadee said. Mr Plodprasop said he had received a tip from the Indonesian Fishery Department that the Burmese government still wanted to pursue their fishing business investment with Thailand if the Banharn government can give an assurance that there will be no more violations of the agreement. The Burmese stand was disclosed by the chief of the Burmese Fisheries Department to his Indonesian counterpart. The Burmese official was quoted as saying that his government would like to restore the relationship with the Thai government if it could come up with effective measures. Rangoon declared its territorial waters off-limit to Thai fishing boats after a group of Thai fishermen brutally beat to death three Burmese crewmen and dumped their bodies into the sea last month. The incident took place allegedly after the Burmese crew who had been hired to work on a Thai fishing trawler informed the Burmese authority that Thai fishing boats had not delivered the full fish catch as required under a joint fishing agreement with Burma. He added his department had proposed to an ad-hoc committee chaired by the Defence Minister on Monday that the Fishery Department would issue a regulation requiring tougher qualifications of fishing companies wishing to operate in Burmese waters. ***************************************************************** Typed by the Research Department of the ABSDF {MTZ} 22.9.95 *****************************************************************