------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------ "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: November 5, 1995 Issue #271 Noted in Passing: HEADLINES: ========== BURMANET: RE: DR. SEGAL AND SLORC'S MYANMAR CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: POLITICAL ACTIVISM ON CAMPUS BKK POST: BURMESE FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS JAPAN TOMORROW BKK POST: SAMART LOOKS FOR TELECOM BUSINESS IN BURMA ---------------------------------------------------------- Produced with the support of the Burma Information Group (B.I.G) and the Research Department of the ABSDF {MTZ} 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. 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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. If you have questions on any of the following subjects, please direct email to the following volunteer 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 Campus activism: zni@students.wisc.edu Boycott campaigns: [Pepsi] wcsbeau@superior.ccs.carleton.ca Buddhism: Buddhist Relief Mission: brelief@gol.com Chin history/culture: plilian@asc.corp.mot.com Fonts: tom@cs.colgate.edu History of Burma: zni@students.wisc.edu Kachin history/culture: 74750.1267@compuserve.com Karen history/culture: Karen Historical Society: 102113.2571@Compuserve.com 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: simon_billenness@mail.cybercom.net 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] *********************** BURMANET: RE: DR. SEGAL AND SLORC'S MYANMAR November 2 1995 by Strider Ko Tun, You waste your time in spending so much time rebutting Dr. Segal's posting on soc.culture.burma Assuming Mr. Segal exists, it is a fair bet that he didn't write it. His wife, Miriam Marshall Segal has been responsible for much other pro-SLORC propaganda and she is the likely auther of this piece as well. Ms. Segal is an example of the axiom that there is no honor among thieves. One of her recent business ventures was as the head of the Peregrine Fund's investment arm in Myanmar; Peregrine Myanmar. Peregrine if I remember correctly is a Hong Kong based investment firm that is long on money and short on scruples. Peregrine got into a sort of joint venture arrangement with Segal--they put up most of the money, she put up her contacts with the SLORC and together they set out to invest in Burma. Unfortunately for Peregrine, Ms. Segal was less than faithful to her end of the bargain. Persons who were interested in investing with Peregrine Myanmar were being steered by Ms. Segal into placing their money directly with her, thus cutting Peregrine out of commissions and profits. It seems that Peregrine learned of this arrangement when someone in the Rangoon office of Peregrine accidently faxed a memo from Segal. The memo, detailing how this worked, went to Peregrine's office in Hong Kong instead of its intended recipient--one of Miriam's co-conspirators. Ms. Segal was promptly fired by Peregrine which was mad enough to complain to the SLORC. No word yet on whether they received any justice yet. This is the version of the story as it was related to me in Rangoon. Ms. Segal apparantly has her own version of the story with different heroes and villains. Rather than critiquing her posting on the net, perhaps we should be asking her to share with us her version of why Peregrine fired her. Regards, Strider *************************************** CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: POLITICAL ACTIVISM ON CAMPUS TAKES ON A CYBERSPACE TWIST October 31, 1995 >From zni@students.wisc.edu 'Birks' have replaced earth-shoes but human rights still rile students By Ann Scott Tyson Staff writer of the CSM, Evanston, ILL. Brad Simpson, a PhD candidate in history at Northwestern Unievrsity, spends most of his spare time mobilizing fellow students to protest human rights abuses in farway East Timor. A doctoral student named Zarni at the University of Wisconsin in Madison devotes about 15 hours a day to on-line organizing, rallying classmates behind a campaign to divest US firms from his native Burma, also known as Myanmar. At Ohio State University, Brad Watson, a junior in sociology, leads 20 Ohio student groups in demonstration and letter-writing campaigns aimed at freeing political prisoners identified by the human rights organization Amnesty International. No one is claiming to have reached the heights of antiwar fervor achieved in the Vietnam era. Central America is no longer a cause celebre. But political activism on the American college campus is alive and well in the 1990s. It is increasingly sophisticated, high-tech, and at times, just as effective as its tie-dyed '60s exemplars in making politicians and corporate executives take notice. "Student activism is on the rise," says Roberto Guerra, Midwest campus coordinator for Amnesty International. "A lot of studets are realizing the US frequently plays a role in human rights situations overseas." This weekend, for instance, more than 300 students activists from across the Midwest gathered at Northwester in Evanston, Ill., for a day of training, speeches, and advice on campus organizing run by Amnesty International. The gathering was the largest regional get-together of studet activists ever held by Amnesty, says Mr. Guerra. And last Friday, hundreds of students at 75 universities, including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Northwestern joined an international day of protest against the military dictatorship in Burma, says Mr. Zarni, head of the Free Burma Coalition. Students in cities around the country dumped out cans of Pepsi and staged sit-ins at PepsiCo Inc.-owned subsidiaries such asTaco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken to protest Pepsi's investment in Burma. They also call on alumni associations to cancel tours to Burma. Alumni at Northwestern and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have agreed; Yale alumni are considering the demand. Organizers seek the total divestment of PepsiCo, the oil giant Unocal, and other large US firms from Burma. They say they hope to mobilize a student movement similar to the one that pushed US companies to pull out of South Africa in the 1970s and '80s. "Essentially we want to re-create what went on during the anti-apartheid movement," says Zarni. He and his fellow activists are working to form a broad alliance with environmental, women's, and human rights groups opposed to the Burma regime, as well as with labor unions that are battling PepsiCo.'s suppliers. "Rank and file union workers in Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, and Decatur (Ill.) are all actively encouraging a boycott or a Pepsi dump." says Todd Price, a University of Wisconsin student who is working to garner union support for the Burma campaign. Unlike the past decades, today's student activists rely heavily on the Internet and other modern technology as organizing tools. Amnesty, for example, has its own World Wide Web site. It recently began distributing an interactive CD-ROM to educate students about high-priority cases of human rights violations. Moreover, the Burma action day was orchestrated almost entirely on the Internet. "In seven weeks this campaign has pretty much exploded," says Zarni. "Without the Internet, this would have been impossible." >From his small room in Madison, Zarni connects quickly and cheaply with activists around the world. "If I can't mail out campaign posters on time, I just get on the net and send people our site address and let them download it," says Zarni. *************************************** BKK POST: BURMESE FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS JAPAN TOMORROW November 4, 1995 Tokyo, AFP Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw will arrive in Japan tomorrow on a five-day visit for talks with Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and other Japanese leaders, Foreign Ministry officials said. The officials pointed out that Ohn Gyaw's itinerary was however still tentative. Japan last week announced it would extend $16 million in grants to Burma in line with its decision to resume aid to the country following the release of leading dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. But Tokyo still remains cautious about resuming large-scale, low-interest official loans for major projects in Burma as it has said it would closely watch democratic reforms in that country. Japanese Defence Agency director-general Seishiro Eto has cancelled a meeting with a senior official of the Burmese military junta due to a parliament engagement, an agency spokesman said. The meeting with General Maung Aye, vice-chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council, was called off as Eto had to attend a parliament session, the spokesman said. It would have been the first time the head of the defence agency had met with a leader of Burma's military government. The meeting with Maung Aye, who is on an unofficial visit, could not be rescheduled. (BP) *************** BKK POST: SAMART LOOKS FOR TELECOM BUSINESS IN BURMA November 4, 1995 Samart Crop Plc is looking for more business opportunities in Burma, having set up a joint-venture company there. Samart Myanmar Co has been established to sell satellite dishes in Burma, and more opportunities are possible because the Burmese government is considering allowing foreign investors to handle telecommunications infrastructure projects, said Samart chairman Charoenrut Wilailuck. He said Samart may have a better chance at such projects than other investors since the company has been studying the Burmese market for a long time. Mr Charoenrut said he does not expect the company to be a telecom operator but only to install a system, since the Rangoon government still has very rigid laws in this area. He acknowledged that sales of satellite dishes in Burma have been below expectations, due mainly to the government's restrictive policies on access to information. Satellite dishes are only allowed to receive the television signal from the sole national television broadcasting station. The Rangoon government prohibits the sale of dishes that could receive signals from other stations. Samart also faces some constraints in the Middle East, where it has formed Farahidy Samart (Middle East) Co Ltd. Mr Charoenrut said the company would restrict itself to being a trading firm. (BP) *************************************************************