------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------ "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News: December 12, 1996 Issue # 590 Noted in Passing: The government says we are connected with the NLD. It is not true. We are not our elder brothers, we are a new generation. - Student demonstrator (see: AP: BURMA STUDENT PROTESTS SIDELINE SUU KYI, NLD) HEADLINES: ========== BKK POST: FRESH STUDENT PROTESTS AP: TOP GENERAL ACCUSES SUU KYI OF INCITING PROTESTS AP: BURMA STUDENT PROTESTS SIDELINE SUU KYI, NLD AP: SLORC ARRESTED 24 MEMBERS OF NLD REUTERS: BURMA ARRESTS 20 STUDENTS AFTER PROTESTS REUTERS: MORE SECURITY CHECKS TO CURB UNREST IN MYANMAR KYODO: SLORC PHYSICALLY STOPS DAW SUU FROM LEAVING REUTERS: DEMOCRACY FORCES CAN TOPPLE BURMA JUNTA AP: MA THIDA THE NATION: MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM SUU KYI TT: PROTESTS IN BURMA CAUSE DECLINE OF BORDER TRADE AP: BURMA SAYS ASIAN COUNTRIES RELUCTANT TO ENDORSE ITA BKK POST: AUST SEEKS CLOSE TIES WITH ASEAN ABSDF (WB): THE ASIA PACIFIC NGO HUMAN RIGHTS CONGRESS KYODO: JAPANESE COMPANY TO BUILD APARTMENT IN YANGON JAPAN TIMES: LETTER - DESTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- BKK POST: FRESH STUDENT PROTESTS December 11, 1996 New student demonstrations erupted at a medical school in downtown Rangoon yesterday as the military government closed most secondary schools in the capital in an attempt to quash mounting protests. The hit-and-run style demonstrations that have erupted at various colleges in Rangoon and Mandalay during the past several days are the most serious challenge to the current military government since 1988, when it seized power by brutally crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. More than 50 students staged a sit-in protest in front of medical university No. 1 early yesterday afternoon. They chanted slogans and demanded an end to police brutality, the right to form a student union and increased freedom and human rights. Riot police stationed a block away allowed the sit-in to continue while students stayed off the street, but military intelligence officers blanketed the area and confiscated film from news photographers. Student leaders tried to get more of their colleagues inside a dormitory across the street to join the protest, but they refused Students could be heard chanting slogans inside the dormitory late Monday night, as a crowd of several hundred people gathered outside. Riot police charged the onlookers and dispersed the crowd, but did not enter the dormitory. There were unconfirmed reports of other small student demonstrations around Rangoon yesterday afternoon that were broken up by police. The heavy police presence around the city and the universities has served to prevent different groups of protesters from linking up to form a large demonstration. "We are following standard international procedure " in dealing with the demonstrators, said Col Hla Min of Military Intelligence. "Most of the kids want to return to school and that's what the government wants also." Students and police have clashed regularly since Saturday morning when riot police broke up an all-night student sit-in outside the Shwe Dagon pagoda, arresting several hundred in the process. Protests have also spread to the institutes of medicine and technology in Mandalay, Burma's second largest city, according to a statement yesterday from Human Rights Watch Asia an international rights watchdog. "The schools will reopen when the situation returns to normalcy," Hla Min said. ***************************************************************** AP: TOP GENERAL ACCUSES SUU KYI OF INCITING PROTESTS December 11, 1996 RANGOON, Burma (AP) _ Burma's top general branded an ongoing wave of student protests as the work of political infiltrators and colonialist lackeys in the first official government reaction to the recent unrest in Wednesday's state-run media. Senior General Than Shwe, the most powerful member of Burma's military junta, made the charges during a speech to the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a military-sponsored social organization that democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has compared to the Hitler Youth. Rangoon has been rocked in recent days by students demonstrating against police brutality, and demanding the right to form a students union and more freedom and human rights. ``All must keep vigil and prevent negative, destructive and subversive traitors from intruding into the education realm and using students in bids to gain political power,'' read the front page headline on Wednesday's state-run New Light of Myanmar. The story quoted Than Shwe as urging students and parents to prevent ``pessimistic and destructive lackeys of the colonialists who are trying to use students in their bids to gain political power.'' The military frequently refers to Suu Kyi as a lackey of colonialists because she is married to a British academic, Michael Aris. It has also blamed her, along with communists and exile students groups, of inciting the recent protests. Both Suu Kyi and the students vigorously deny the charge, insisting that although they may have some of the same goals, there is no contact between them. Than Shwe said that 49 percent of the USDA's 5 million members were students, but observers said they were mostly members on paper. Few students have been seen attending any of the government-organized USDA rallies. Some Burmese say people join the organization not out of support for the government, but to receive preferential treatment in jobs, housing and other perks. On Tuesday, the general urged the organization to ``be vigilant and guard against disturbances of peace and tranquility.'' Suu Kyi was attempting to drive to the United States charge d'affaires residence for lunch. Four high-ranking U.S. Republican congressmen have been in Burma for the past several days and have met with military leaders. They are chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee Bill Paxon and Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Deborah Price from Ohio and Texan Tom Delaney. ***************************************************************** AP: BURMA STUDENT PROTESTS SIDELINE SUU KYI, NLD December 11, 1996 By Patrick McDowell RANGOON (AP-Dow Jones)--Eight years after troops gunned down hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, a new generation of Burmese is taking to the streets - and they aren't led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Increasingly confined to her home and muzzled by the military government, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner is a spectator to a wave of protests by university students changing the equation of political dissent in this tightly controlled country. A generation gap is visible between the students, in their early 20s or younger, and the older supporters loyal to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy who fill a Rangoon intersection each weekend in the usually vain hope she can come give a speech. 'We are not concerned with the NLD or Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,' said Zah Mazui Nu, 22, an economics student. 'The government says we are connected with the NLD. It is not true. We are not our elder brothers, we are a new generation.' The students held no animosity toward Suu Kyi, but they're focused on their own agenda. And that basically means more student rights rather than Suu Kyi's call for broad political dialogue with the government. But one thing is the same as 1988 - Rangoon resembles a city under siege. Trucks packed with soldiers training assault rifles over the cabs speed to dormitories or campuses at the least sign of a sit-in or march. Police armed with rattan shields and clubs chase onlookers down streets hung with banners urging tourists 'Visit Myanmar, the Golden Land.' Myanmar is another name for Burma. So far, bloodshed has been avoided. The regime's security forces have acted with relative restraint compared to the carnage seen in 1988, now using clubs and water cannons to disperse protesters rather than tear-gas and live ammunition. Before the demonstrations, Burma was at a stalemate. The State Law and Order Restoration Council, the junta in control of the country, has stymied Suu Kyi at every turn since freeing her from six years of house arrest in 1995. Suu Kyi's contact with ordinary Burmese has been virtually cut off since September, when authorities started erecting roadblocks each weekend to stop supporters gathering at her home. Now, those roadblocks seem insignificant. Ten square kilometers (four square miles) of Rangoon are sealed off to isolate three university campuses at the heart of the unrest. Ready-made barbed-wire barricades have been placed in scores of other places, ready to be dragged across streets quickly. The students stand virtually no chance of toppling the government - which is not their stated goal - and probably little likelihood they can wrest concessions from a regime not known for give and take. The students share with Suu Kyi, 51, an obvious dislike for the regime and often chant slogans demanding democracy and freedom. But they say their main goal is an independent student council to negotiate their grievances with the government. Since, student affairs have been tightly controlled and perodic uprisings put down at the cost of scores of lives. The students complain their degrees are worthless due to disruptions in the academic year still felt from the three-year closure of the universities after the 1988 uprising. They also complain of lack of materials and poor facilities. But the spark that launched their protests, they claim, was a dispute between some Rangoon Institute of Technology students and a food stall owner in October. Three were hauled to a station of the municipal police - the lowest rung of Burma's massive security apparatus - and badly beaten. Later that month, 600 students, mostly from the technology institute, staged a sit-in at nearby Rangoon University. Two more protests followed last week, and the pace is picking up. Sporadic outbursts by a few score or few hundred occur daily, prevented from linking up by the omnipresent security forces. The student protesters, however, are in a minority. Thousands of others are either afraid to join or are more concerned with getting on with life. **************************************************************** AP: SLORC ARRESTED 24 MEMBERS OF NLD December 11, 1996 (abridged) RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- Twenty-four members of Burma's pro-democracy party reportedly were in custody Wednesday as small protests continued to spring up across Rangoon. Kyi Maung, vice chairman of the National League party of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said 28 members had been detained after a demonstration Friday night. Four were released Wednesday morning. Maung said one person -- a laundryman -- was killed in the demonstration, which was broken up by a water cannon and baton charge. Maung said if the students were sure the government wouldn't fire on them, ``there would be thousands coming out into the streets.'' Troops have kept schools closed for three days, preventing students from meeting at their usual gathering points. Eighteen troop carriers also were stationed near central Rangoon's golden Sule Pagoda, the rallying point for protesters during the 1988 uprising. In a speech published in Wednesday's state-run newspapers, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the most powerful member of Burma's military regime, accused Suu Kyi of inciting the students to protest. Both the students and Suu Kyi have denied working together, although both admit they are fighting for some of the same goals. Maung said he believes international pressure has prevented the government from resorting to harsher tactics against the protesters. The students took to the streets after some of them were beaten by police during an argument with a restaurant owner. Groups of onlookers, including Buddhist monks from a nearby monastery, cheered and applauded the students. They were quickly pushed out of the area by plainclothes intelligence officers, who also manhandled reporters. Traffic was cut off and soldiers gathered in formation nearby as the students began chanting: ``Aung San taught the army to fight, not to kill students.'' The military has refused to let students form a union since they dynamited the student union building, killing hundreds, in 1962. Teachers were trying to talk the students into returning to their dormitories when police pushed reporters out of the area. ***************************************************************** REUTERS: BURMA ARRESTS 20 STUDENTS AFTER PROTESTS December 11, 1996 (abridged) By Vithoon Amorn RANGOON, Dec 11 (Reuter) - Burmese security forces arrested about 20 students amid scattered protests in the capital Rangoon, witnesses and diplomats said on Wednesday. Some 50 Yangon University students staged a brief anti-government protest in front of the U.S. embassy in the centre of the city late on Tuesday, they told Reuters. "They gathered near the embassy after either walking or taking buses to the embassy. About 20 students were arrested," a student source said. Government confirmation was not immediately available. More than 100 students at a medical school in central Rangoon shouted anti-government slogans at the gate of their campus on Tuesday and later dispersed, witnesses said. Police and military personnel manned checkpoints in the vicinity of the university and the Yangon Institute of Technology for the sixth day. At the peak of the demonstrations, thousands of protesters took to the streets from the two colleges. The authorities broke up the protests, held over 860 students and later freed them. Diplomats said the protests had also spread briefly over the weekend to two universities in the northern city of Mandalay. "If peace and tranquility are marred due to lack of restraint and thoughtlessness of some politicians, arrangements for the building of a modern nation will meet with delay, hindrance or disruption," SLORC chairman Senior General Than Shwe said in speech to the government-run Union Solidarity and Development Association. Powerful military intelligence chief Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt told Burmese writers at a ceremony on Wednesday to beware the threat to Burma posed by internal and external destructive elements. He did not identify the elements. Diplomats said the SLORC had issued circulars to all embassies in Rangoon, informing them the SLORC had exercised maximum restraint despite sustained student protests. The circular said the SLORC request for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to temporarily confine herself to her lakeside residence was for the Nobel laureate's own safety. The circular repeated SLORC accusations that some members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, exiled Burmese students and the outlawed Communist Party of Burma were behind the protests. ***************************************************************** REUTERS: MORE SECURITY CHECKS TO CURB UNREST IN MYANMAR December 11, 1996 MYANMAR authorities set up more security checks in the tense capital yesterday to curb any fresh student unrest, as universities remained sealed and calm after there were no new overnight protests. Witnesses said police and soldiers continued manning roadblocks in the vicinity of the Yangon Institute of Technology (YIT) and the Yangon University (YU). All classes in the two campuses remained cancelled since Monday after hundreds of boarding students left for home, fearing more unrest and that the government would close the universities. The diplomats also said monks in northern Mandalay had announced the formation of an All Buddhist Monks Union this week. Unions are illegal in Myanmar. Witnesses said police had set up more road blocks at some river bridges linking central and eastern Yangon to check commuters' identity papers. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained confined to her residence yesterday. -- Reuter ***************************************************************** KYODO: SLORC PHYSICALLY STOPS DAW SUU FROM LEAVING December 11, 1996. Myanmar's military government forces stopped pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from leaving her home Tuesday to attend a luncheon with the acting U.S. ambassador, her aides said Wednesday. Army soldiers placed chocks, studded with protruding nails, in front of Suu Kyi's car when she tried to leave, and police with nightsticks lined up across the front gate to her housing compound, the aides said. ***************************************************************** REUTERS: DEMOCRACY FORCES CAN TOPPLE BURMA JUNTA December 11, 1996 By Somchit Rungchamratasami PA-AN, Eastern Burma, Dec 11 (Reuter) - The self-proclaimed Burmese government-in-exile predicted on Wednesday that various democratic forces at play in Burma were poised to topple the military junta. A minister in the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) told Reuters in an interview that current student protests in the country were a manifestation of such forces, and they would grow. "I think democratic forces are having the upper hand right now. So I think in the near future, democratic forces will be able to topple military rule," said Tint Swe, a minister in the office of NCGUB Prime Minister Sein Win. The NGCUB was set up by elected members of parliament of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party who fled Burma.The NLD is led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and is active in Rangoon. The exiles formed the parallel government after the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in 1990 elections. Tint Swe said a dual strategy to apply pressure on the SLORC from inside and outside the country was now working and building up as more countries and businesses were opposing the Burmese military regime. "Now the international community are on our side, and inside the country the people including students, lecturers and workers are expressing their will to move for freedom, to form the unions and Suu Kyi has tried her best," he said. Tint Swe lives in exile in India and travels to the jungles of Burma and Thailand from time to time to meet opponents of SLORC. He believed that the SLORC would not use force to repress current student street protests as the military did during pro-democracy uprisings in September 1988, when thousands were killed or jailed. "It was the good sign that the SLORC did not use force to crack down on the student demonstrations and I don't believe they will use force to crack down on them," he said. Riot police and soldiers used water cannon and batons to disperse a student protest on Saturday. More than 860 students were detained by the government following last week's protests but the government said all were later freed. Maung Maung Aye, the NGCUB's Information Minister, who was also present at the interview, urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to delay Burma's admittance to the regional bloc. "I think like Aung San Suu Kyi said, if SLORC becomes a member of ASEAN it will be a disgrace for the ASEAN and I don't think the ASEAN leaders will be fooled by the SLORC," he said. The seven-member ASEAN, which groups Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei, has agreed in principle to admit Burma as a full member in 1997. "We want the ASEAN leaders to reconsider and to delay the membership of Burma as long as the military regime is in power in Burma," Maung Maung Aye added. ***************************************************************** AP: MA THIDA December 11, 1996 BOSTON (AP) _ Ma Thida, a doctor, writer and political activist, can't receive the award she's earned for fighting for human rights in Burma. The 27-year-old sits alone in a dark prison cell. But on Tuesday, hundreds of lights shined for her in Boston. About 250 people gathered for a candlelight vigil on the Boston Common to honor Thida's struggle to bring human rights to her troubled homeland in Southeast Asia. ``I hope she can feel the candles that we have lit here,'' said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, a Boston-based group. ``She faces 17 more years.'' Thida is one of four young activists from around the world being honored with the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston Wednesday. Activists from Nigeria, Guatemala are also being honored, along with a 13-year-old Canadian boy. Thida was imprisoned in 1993 for opposing Burma's military dictatorship and supporting the political party of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Among the charges against her were ``endangering public tranquility and distributing unlawful literature.'' At the vigil were representatives of Amnesty International, and celebrities including musicians Michael Stipe and Peter Gabriel and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Myaing Nyunt, a 30-year-old George Washington University medical student and a close friend of Thida's, said the international community must not forget Burma's plight. She recalled Thida's love of reading along with her determination. ``Ma Thida is the most stubborn person I have known in my entire life, but her health has always been on the weak side,'' Nyunt said. Sirkin said Thida has lost weight and suffers from tuberculosis in her small cell with little light and no books. Menino issued a proclamation on behalf of the city, stressing the need to fight for human rights every day. ``I look forward to the day she can travel to Boston to accept the award she so richly deserves,'' Menino said. Afterwards, Stipe, of the musical group REM, reflected on the ceremony. ``It's just great to get some form of solidarity,'' he said. ``Even if we are thousands of miles away.'' Massachusetts has the only state selective purchasing law that bars state agencies from dealing with companies that do business with Burma. Several cities have passed similar laws. The law is intended to force investors, including foreign companies, to choose between doing business with Burma or the state of Massachusetts. Apple computers recently announced it was pulling out of Burma because of the Massachusetts law. Ma Thida is being held in the Insein Prison, where torture of political prisoners is commonplace. **************************************************************** THE NATION: MESSAGE OF HOPE FROM SUU KYI December 11, 1996 Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's embattled political opposition leader and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, Monday sent a message of hope to this year's East Timorese prize winners. "I hope the time will come when we will be able to work together for democracy, not just in Burma, but also in other parts of the world," she said in a videoed statement shown at a press conference here one day ahead of the prize-giving ceremony. The Burmese dissident was invited to Oslo by the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee to speak at this year's peace award to two East Timor human rights and pro-independence activists, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta. But she was unable to come because she is currently under house arrest in her native country. Aung San Suu Kyi said in her message smuggled out of Burma, that the Nobel Peace award to her five years ago had given a great boost to Burma's democracy movement. She said Norway would be the first country she would visit when eventually permitted to leave. ***************************************************************** TT: PROTESTS IN BURMA CAUSE DECLINE OF BORDER TRADE December 11, 1996 (Thailand Times) by Assawin Pinitwong TAK: A wave of student protests in Burma last week has caused severe damage to the Thai -Burmese border trade and Burmese traders have temporarily suspended imports from Thailand worth about 100 million baht a day. A Burmese trader in the border town of Mae Sot said yesterday that as a result of last week's student unrests in the Burmese capital, traders in Rangoon and other major cities had decided to suspend the imports, especially from Thai border provinces of Tak, Ranong, and Chiang Rai. Burmese traders fear their imported goods, most of which are transported overland from Thailand, will be at stake if the unrests become the suspension of import, which began last Saturday, would remain in force if the situation did not improve in Rangoon. Thai traders in Mae Sot said that crisis might lead to a shortage of staple commodities such as rice and fuel in some parts of Burma, especially in Rangoon. Burmese authorities yesterday closed down the main university and Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) indefinitely following a series of most defiant student protests since pro-democracy uprising eight years ago took to the streets of the capital. Students from RIT and Rangoon University staged a series of anti- government protests in Rangoon on last week Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, demanding the establishment of student unions and the release of student prisoners allegedly held by the military in October after a smaller sit-in protest. ***************************************************************** AP: BURMA SAYS ASIAN COUNTRIES RELUCTANT TO ENDORSE ITA December 11, 1996 SINGAPORE (AP-Dow Jones)--David Abel, head of delegation and Minister for National Planning and economic development for Burma, said Wednesday he thought it would be difficult for the U.S. and European Union (E.U.) to persuade Asian countries to sign an information technology agreement (ITA) before Friday's conclusion of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conference. As significant exporters and importers of ITA products, Asian countries are more concerned that the U.S. and E.U. have a monopoly over the technology and that this monopoly would be imposed on all the signatories, he said. Abel added that most Asian countries would prefer the agreement to cover a narrower range of products and services and said that negotiating this pact during the current WTO meeting was stretching the boundaries of the trade organization. Burma was a founding member of both the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO. It has applied for, but not yet gained, entry to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ***************************************************************** BKK POST: AUST SEEKS CLOSE TIES WITH ASEAN December 11, 1996 Canberra - Australia said yesterday it wants to work closely with the Asean nations over continuing human rights and political problems in Burma. "The single most important thing Burma is seeking from the international community is membership of Asean," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday. Downer said he's convinced Australia must work with Asean to influence change in Burma. (BP) ***************************************************************** ABSDF (WB): THE ASIA PACIFIC NGO HUMAN RIGHTS CONGRESS December 6-8, 1996 Resolution on Burma The Asia Pacific NGO Human Rights Congress- Viewing with alarm the recent threats to the physical security of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the context of the increased pressure being exerted by SLORC on the National League for Democracy, Considering that the National Convention convened by SLORC on 9 January 1993 is design to prolong and legitimize military rule against the will of the people as expressed in the 1990 elections, and thus violates the principle established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the will of the people shall be the Basis of the authority of government, Convinced that the best means to bring about a stable future for Burma would be tripartite discussions involving SLORC, the political opposition and the ethnic opposition . Nothing that there has never been an internationally coordinated Burma policy, but simply a number of bilateral policies, with ASEAN's constructive Engagement, Japan's policy, the EU's critical dialogue, Australia's Benchmark Diplomacy and the Two Vision policy of the US pulling in different directions and neutralizing each other. 1) Urges the international community to insist that SLORC give clear guarantees of the physical safely of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues. 2) Calls on the international community, in particular the government of the Asia-Pacific, to; Develop an internationally-coordinated Burma policy aimed clearly at the restoration of democracy in the light of the 1990 election, by means of a tripartite process involving SLORC, the political opposition and the ethnic opposition. Create an ongoing working group to agree the goals and means of such a policy. Such a group should invite suggestion and assistance from intergovernmental, gonerrment, and non-governmental bodies and organizations. Drop all support of SLORC's National Convention, as being incompatible with the aim, started in most if the UN Burma resolution to date, (adopted by consensus) of resolution of democracy in the light of the 1990 election. ***************************************************************** KYODO: JAPANESE COMPANY TO BUILD APARTMENT IN YANGON December 11, 1996 YANGON, Dec. 11 Kyodo - A Singapore-based subsidiary of the Japanese zip-fastener maker YKK Corp. signed an agreement Wednesday to build a 35 million U.S. dollar apartment building in Yangon. The agreement was signed by Yoshiki Takeda, managing director of YKK Development Pte Ltd., and Tin Oo, director of the Myanmar Port Authority, in the presence of Lt. Gen. Thein Win, the ruling junta's transport minister. Under the contract on a build, operate and transfer basis, the Japanese company will build a 186-room apartment block on Kaba-Aye Pagoda Road in Yangon and operate it for 30 years before transferring the establishment to the Myanmar government free of charge. Construction of the building, to be known as the YKK Golden Hill Service Apartment, is expected to be completed in three years. *************************************************************** JAPAN TIMES: LETTER - DESTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT December 11, 1996 Your recent feature written by two members of the European Parliament regarding slave labor and the horrid tactics of Burma's ruling State Law and Order Reform Council (Nov. 22) brought vivid images back to me of the time I spent in business negotiations with SLORC generals in a stint at a real estate developer quite some time in the past. They are memories at which I cringe. (I quit the company for moral reasons.) SLORC officials, when they formalize a contract with business entities from overseas, usually attach a stipulation to the contract that a certain "sign bonus" must be paid. These are not kept secret, and are openly publicized, often in project finance magazines and other speciality financial publications. This is in effect similar to "key money" for an apartment in Japan, and without it, no contract can be consummated. These bonuses usually run into several millions of U.S. dollars, money with which SLORC can purchase ammunition and weapons. With this arsenal, SLORC is comfortably able to suppress the call for democracy in Burma. Effectively, thus, the iron-fisted, oppressive rule of SLORC is largely funded by the overseas companies who grudgingly pay these bonuses. No bonus, no contract. No contract, no access to the potential Burmese market (in reality, a huge majority of Burma's populace hardly has the funds needed to buy the televisions and mobile phones companies think they can sell there). The contractual documents, when publicly available, of foreign companies, especially Japanese companies, who in tandem with Southeast Asia prefer to "constructively engage" Burma, should be evaluated by some sort of international business council on ethics to determine if these "bonuses" (read: bribes) are being paid, and some sort of penalizing sanctions on such companies should exist. Evidence exists that Japanese companies in particular, beaten by Korea and others in Vietnam, etc. and thus in search of some sort of pioneer market, blindly ignore SLORC's horrific actions, convinced that a new office building or an airport will somehow benefit the average citizens who can't afford the rising cost of rice. This is far from a reality. A "Ginza" in the middle of Rangoon will do nothing but bring more hard cash into the coffers of the worst military dictatorship in Asia, and smiles on the faces of indignant businessmen just as narcissistic as SLORC. --Scott R. Docie, Yokohama ***************************************************************** 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: Campus activism: zni@students.wisc.edu Boycott campaigns: [Pepsi] ai268@freenet.carleton.ca Buddhism: Buddhist Relief Mission: brelief@gol.com Chin history/culture: [volunteer temporarily away] Fonts: tom@cs.colgate.edu High School Activism: [volunteer needed] History of Burma: zni@students.wisc.edu International Affairs: Julien Moe: moe@interport.net 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 Aung San Myint: aungsan@giasd101.vsnl.net.in Pali literature: "Palmleaf": c/o burmanet@igc.apc.org Pipeline Campaign freeburma@irn.org Resettlement info: refugee_help@mail.serve.com Rohingya culture volunteer needed Shan history/culture: Sao Hpa Han: burma@ix.netcom.com Shareholder activism: simon_billenness@mail.cybercom.net Total - France Dawn Star: cd@utopia.EUnet.fr Tourism campaigns: bagp@gn.apc.org "Attn. 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