[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

BurmaNet News: November 15, 1994





************************** BurmaNet ************************** 
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
************************************************************** 
BurmaNet News: Tuesday, November 15, 1994
Issue #64

************************************************************** 
Contents:

1 NEW YORK TIMES: THE SLORC'S CHOICE IN MYANMAR
2 NYT: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR 
3 NATION: UK EXPERTS PROBE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE ALLEGATION IN BURMA
5 IHT: BURMESE SPECTER IN JAKARTA 
6 NATION: JAPAN TO RESUME ECONOMIC AID TO BURMA
7 BKK POST: BURNT FOREST TREES TO BE REMOVED

************************************************************** 

The  BurmaNet News  is  an   *********************************
electronic daily 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  soc.culture.thai        *      immediatelyapparent      *
newsgroups as well as        *       tothosefortun           *
the seasia-l mailing         *       ateenoughtol            *
list.   For  a  free         *       iveinstatesgo           *
subscription  to the         *        vernedbytheru          *
BurmaNet News, send          *        leoflaw...Iam          *
an  e-mail  note to:         *        n ota     frai         *
                             *                  d..          *
strider@xxxxxxxxxxx          *                   .D          *
                             *                   aw          *
Subscriptions are handled    *                   Au          *
manually so please  allow    *                   ng          *
for a delay  before  your    *                  San          *
request is fielded.          *                  Su           *
                             *                  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.

     By fax: (in Thailand) (66)2 234-6674              
     Attention to BurmaNet, care of Burma Issues       
                              
     By snailmail: (in the United States)         
     BurmaNet, care of Coban Tun   
     1267 11th Avenue #3           
     San Francisco, CA 94122 USA



************************************************************** 
NEW YORK TIMES: THE SLORC'S CHOICE IN MYANMAR
November 14, 1994

Myanmar's ruling junta, the State Law and Order Restoration
Council, or SLORC, is one of the world's most brutal, least
legitimate regimes.

It seized power in what used to be known as Burma by massacring
democracy demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon six years ago.
Since then it has ignored elections, cooperated with drug lords
and  waged a relentless war against democratic political leaders,
university students, Buddhist religious activists and the ethnic
minorities who make up more than a third of Myanmar's population.

This grim dictatorship is now being courted by countries eager
for new economic opportunities in the world's hottest boom
region.

These include many of Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbors and
much  of the European Union.

To the east, Thailand makes refugees fleeing the SLORC's
repression feel unwelcome. To the north, China provides military
aid, consumer goods and diplomatic support. The United States
stands almost alone in principled opposition to the SLORC,
denying it anti-narcotics aid and development assistance,
blocking loans from international banks and criticizing it in
international forums.

But these steps have had only a limited effect. So this month
the Clinton administration dispatched a diplomatic emissary to
offer the SLORC a choice. It can soften its tyranny and enjoy
better relations with the United States or it can continue its
thuggish ways and have Washington step up the pressure. The SLORC
is still weighing its response.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard asked the
SLORC's strongman, Gen. Khin Nyunt, to respect internationally
recognized human rights, admit U.N. and Red Cross observers, end
forced labor, fight drug trafficking, devise credible, democratic
procedures for a return to constitutional rule and free,
unconditionally, the democratic opposition leader and Nobel
laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as well as other political
prisoners.

Progress on these points could lead to warmer relations, eased
sanctions and renewed cooperation against drugs. No progress
would lead Washington to broaden U.S. sanctions and push for an
international arms embargo. Some of Hubbard's points resemble the
human rights conditions the United States earlier tried to apply
to  China, then dropped. This time the administration appears
more  united and serious. That leaves the next step up to the
SLORC.
  
  <TDAT> NYT-11-13-94 1818EST

************************************************************** 
NYT: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR 
N.Y. Times News Service  
By ANDREA ADELSON   

Liz Claiborne Inc., one of the nation's largest apparel makers,
has decided to stop making and buying apparel in Myanmar,
formerly known as Burma, because of its authoritarian government.
Liz Claiborne buys goods from 40 countries, and knits and woven
apparel from Myanmar represented less than 1 percent of its
volume, a company spokeswoman said. Its announcement would thus
seem to be largely symbolic.

Liz Claiborne does considerably more business with China, which
has also been the subject of human rights complaints, but has no
plans to examine its commitments there.

Other American companies have withdrawn from Myanmar. Levi
Strauss & Co. stopped buying clothes made there in 1992 after
learning that the military junta owned an interest in the
factories. Amoco Corp. pulled out last April, citing economic
reasons.

In a statement Friday, Jerome A. Chazen, Liz Claiborne's
chairman, said: ``Though the facilities with which we work have
complied with our strict human rights standards, we cannot
support the activities of this country's current government.''
The spokeswoman said Chazen was not available to take questions.
The Liz Claiborne announcement could depress Myanmar's apparel
 industry, said Andrew Jannis, president of the Marketing
Management Group, an apparel industry consultant.

``A lot of importing is about networking,'' he said. ``When a
company like Claiborne abandons a location, it might have a very
adverse affect on sourcing.''

Myanmar, with 43 million people, is controlled by a government
that seized power in 1988 and has a record of human rights
abuses.
The leader of the main opposition party, the Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest. The opposition
party in exile, saying foreign investment props up the regime,
has
called for a trade boycott.

About 10 American companies have invested $300 million in
operations in Myanmar since 1988, said Kenneth A. Bertsch, an
analyst at the Investor Responsibility Research Center.

Pepsico Inc., which has a minority interest in a bottling
operation in Myanmar, and Unocal Corp., which plans a $1 billion
offshore pipeline, in the last few weeks have received
shareholder
resolutions aksing them to end their operations there, company
officials said Friday.

Most of the other American companies with ties to Myanmar may
well receive related resolutions, said Sister Valerie Heinonen,
program director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility, a group of religious investors with $35 billion
in
assets. The companies include the Limited, Pier 1 Imports,
Atlantic
Richfield Co., Texaco and Halliburton Co., she said.

Rather than an economic embargo, these resolutions ask companies
to disclose the extent of their operations in Myanmar and how
they
intend to respond to human rights violations there, she said. 
************************************************************** 
NATION: UK EXPERTS PROBE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE ALLEGATIONS IN BURMA
15 November 1994

BRITISH experts who travelled to rebel-held areas of Burma
recently are investigating allegations that the country's
military
government has used germ warfare against rebel tribes people.
Baroness Caroline Cox, deputy speaker of Britain's House of
Lords, was scheduled to give a press conference in London yes-
terday about the British team's trip to Karen-held territory
earlier this month.

The Karen are the last major ethnic minority group still wag-
ing guerrilla war against Burma's military government, operat-
ing from bases along the Thai-Burmese border.
Over the past year, Kaerns have claimed that military planes
drooped dozens of devices with balloons attached around their
villages.

They allege that the devices, normally used in meteorological
work, contain a foul-smelling substance and that after its
release people died from a cholera-type illness.
In one village, Karen medics told the team that 185 people
died from disease, which was previously unknown in the area.
The Britons, including the baroness and tropical disease ex-
pert Dr Martin Panter, returned to London with one of the
spent devices which will be analyzed by the British Foreign
Office.

"I think a regime looking for ways to intimidate and destroy
could used this kind of geography to get away with murder and
not be found out," the deputy speaker told Associated Press
Television during the seven-day trip inside Burma.
Burmese government atrocities against ethnic minorities and
the Burma majority are well documented, but the charge of germ
warfare has yet to be proved.

The Canadian government already tested one of the devices with
"inconclusive results."

The Burmese embassy in Bangkok had no comment to make on the
allegations expect to say that they sounded flimsy. The war
against the Karen and other ethnic minority groups earlier is
conducted by light infantry troops in jungle, lightly populated
terrain. The Burmese military is not to known to have
sophisticated weaponry.

A welter of ethnic minorities rose up against Rangoon to gain
greater autonomy but in recent year most have given up the
fight after negotiations with the central government. Karen,
however, continued their fight.  (TN)

************************************************************** 
IHT: BURMESE SPECTER IN JAKARTA 
Nov. 15, 1994

International Herald Tribune

U.S. Failure to Tame Rangoon Mars Mood Dateline: Jakarta Byline:
Thomas W. Lippman

JAKARTA -- For all the apparent harmony here as President Bill
Clinton  discusses economic cooperation and regional security
with eladers of the  major nations of East and Southeast Asia, a
country that is not present  serves as a reminder of Asia's
determination not to take orders from  Washington.

The country is Burma, an impoverished nation ruled by a military
junat  that Washington regards as so odious that the Clinton
administration made  it a target last spring of an intimidation
campaign aimed at reducing it  to pariah status.

The goal was to bludgeon the junta, known as the State Law and
Order  Restoration Council, or SLORC, into relaxing its grip on
Burma's  long-suffering citizens and to stop cooperationg with
the heroin  producers whose output is flooding the United States.
But this did not  work, mostly because other Asian nations --
including longstanding  friends -- refused to follow Washington's
lead.

Last month, the Clinton administration threw its towel and
dispatched an  envoy to open a new dialogue.

Asia was nearly unanimous in its rebuff to Washington's Burma
policy -- a  policy denounced in March after months of high-level
review within the  administration and of consultations with
Congress.

Thailand refused to cut off commerce with its neighbour. China
declined  to halt arms sales. Japan extended foreign aid to
Burma. Deputy Secretary  of State Strobe Talbott was "shocked",
one senior offical said, to learn  that even Australia had
rejected the U.S. effort.

Result: a 180-degree turn in U.S. policy, with an effort now to
reach out  instead of stamp out.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard was dispatched
to  Rangoon in late October to inform the junta that "We wish to
have more  constructive relations in the future," as he put it.

The Burma issue is one of many, ranging from the crucial to the
trivial,  on which Asian nations that maintain generally friendly
relations with  the United States are willing to defy Washington
when it suits them. They  may find Washington's ideas valuable,
as appears to have happened in the  Asian response to Mr.
Clinton's efforts to turn the Asia-Pacific Economic  forum into a
permanent economic force. But they act in their own  interests,
often disregarding U.S. desires.

Singapore's insistence on caning a young American, Michael Fay,
for  vandalism was one example. Another was Thailand's recent
rejection of a  U.S. request to stockpile military supplies there
-- a rejection  applauded by neighboring countries. On Monday,
President Jiang Zemin of  China reminded Mr. Clinton that China,
like may other Asian nations,  rejects the U.S. view that
individual liberty and political freedom are   fundamental human
rights that take precedence over stability and communal  rights.

In the case of Burma, Asia's complete unwillingness to fall into
step  left the administration little choice but to change policy,
a senior  official said, but he added, "we wouldn't have done it
just because of that."

What made the move palatable, he said, was a modest gesture from
the  junta: opening discussions with Burma's best-known political
dissident,  the Nobel Peace prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

She is in her sixth year of house arrest in Rangoon and the junta
has  refused to release her, but has begun discussions with her
that she  apparently regards as useful, a U.S. official said.

"We had to be satisfied that there was a real change, not just
cosmetic,  and she told us she was satisfied that it is," the
official said.

Mr. Hubbard's assignment was to tell the junta that the United
States was  prepared to respond proportionately to whatever such
gestures Rangoon  makes. He told reporters in Bangkok after his
trip that the United States  was ready to "move forward
aggressively" to improve relations, but only  in response to
actions by the junta.

"It's up to them," an official who traveled here with Mr. Clinton
said.  "If they make small moves, we make small moves. If they go
fast, we go fast." 
************************************************************** 
NATION: JAPAN TO RESUME ECONOMIC AID TO BURMA
15 November 1994
Yindee Lertcharochchok 

TOKYO will resume economic assistance to Burma very soon, Jap-
anese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono told Foreign Minister Thask
in Shinawatra  during bilateral talks here yesterday.
It was the first official confirmation by Tokyo since reports
leaked two weeks ago that Japan was considering resuming Official
Development Assistance (ODA) to the repressive military
junta that rules Burma.

Japanese officials said Tokyo would make available about a
billion yen in grants and aid in medical and humanitarian
fields on the grounds that the political climate in Burma has
shown some improvement, according to Foreign Ministry spokes-
man Suvidhya Simasakul.
This would help generate momentum for future talks between
Burma's military leaders and opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi.

Suvidhya told reporters after the two minister met that Kono
had commended Thailand's policy of constructive engagement
with Burma as the right approach, especially its invitiation
to Burmese Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw to attend the Asean
Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok last July. Kono was quoted as
saying Japan intended applying the same diplomatic approach.

Tokyo froze its ODA program to Burma in 1988 when the present
junta, the Slorc, seized power by suppressing pro-democracy
demonstrators and ending months of anti-government unrest in
the capital and other Burmese cities.

Slorc promised multi-party elections, but one day after its
information troops occupied Rangoon and mowed down demonstra-
tors who took to the streets in protest. Burma has been under
military rule since 1962.

Since 1988 Tokyo has limited aid to three projects in support
of International Red Cross activities. Thaksin told Kono that
construction of the Thai-Burmese bridge across the Moei River was
testament to Thailand's policy towards Burma, according to
Suvidhya.

The two government last month signed a contract to construct
the bridge, the second between Thailand and Burma. The first
is at Mae Sai in Chaing Rai province. (TN)
************************************************************** 
BKK POST: BURNT FOREST TREES TO BE REMOVED
15 November 1994

The cooperative and Agricultural Ministry has agreed to allow
the Forest Industry Organisation (FIO) to removed burnt tree
trunks worth more than 100 million baht from two national for-
est reserves along the Thai-Burmese border.

The removal operation is expected begin in January next year
and last for about six months.
A source said a large number of Karen refugees have encroached
extensively into the forest reserves and burnt down trees to
clear the way for growing cash crops.

A recent survey by the forestry Department revealed more than
12,000 trees covering 15,000 Rai of forest have been burnt.
The FIO forwarded a proposal to the ministry's working group
on forest destruction prevention May suggesting trunks be re-
moved and transformed into processed wood for later use. After
the trunks have been removed the area could be reforested.
Committee member, Deputy Central Investigation Bureau Commis-
sioner Pol MAj-Gen Boonyian Yaibuathet, opposed the removal
plan, reasoning it would encourage further illegal felling of
trees in the forest by businessmen.(BP)


************************************************************** 
************************************************************** 

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.=US$1 (APPROX), 
 BBC: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION
 BI: BURMA ISSUES
 BIG: BURMA INFORMATION GROUP
 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 EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW
 JIR: JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
 KHRG: KAREN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP
 Kt. BURMESE KYAT; 150 KYAT=US$1 BLACK MARKET
                   100 KYAT=US$1 SEMI-OFFICIAL
                   6 KYAT=US$1 OFFICIAL
 MOA: MIRROR OF ARAKAN
 NATION: THE NATION (DAILY NEWSPAPER, BANGKOK)
 NLM: NEW LIGHT OF MYANMAR (DAILY STATE-OWNED NEWSPAPER, RANGOON)
 S.C.B.:SOC.CULTURE.BURMA NEWSGROUP 
 S.C.T.:SOC.CULTURE.THAI NEWSGROUP
 SEASIA-L: S.E.ASIA BITNET MAILING LIST
 USG: UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
 XNA: XINHUA NEWS AGENCY 
**************************************************************