BurmaNet News: November 19-20

[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

************************** BurmaNet ************************** 
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
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BurmaNet News: Saturday and Sunday, November 19-20 1994
Issue #67

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Contents:

BKK POST: AQUINO TO DELIVER ADDRESS BY SUU KYI DURING RP MEET
NATION: UN RIGHTS INVESTIGATOR VISITS BURMA REFUGEES
BKK POST: [LETTERS] UNFOUNDED ALLEGATION
NATION: GERM WARFARE CLAIMED
NATION: UN ENVOY IN BURMA
NATION: I'NESIAN INVESTMENT IN BURMA

ADS AND NOTICES

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BKK POST: AQUINO TO DELIVER ADDRESS BY SUU KYI DURING RP MEET
Saturday, November 19, 1994

FORMER Philippines president Corazon Aquino will read out an
address from Aung San Suu Kyi at the 5th World Commission on
Culture and Development meeting in Manila on Monday.

The address, "Empowerment for a Culture of Peace and Development"
was prepared by Suu Kyi at the invitation of Javier Perez de
Cuellar, president of the commission.

A Nobel Laureate and honorary member of the WCCD, Suu Kyi has
been under house arrest in Rangoon since July 1989. The
commission members launched an appeal for her release at the
Stockholm meeting in June 1993.

Jointly established by the United Nations and UNESCO in 1992, the
commission includes among its members four Nobel Prize winners
and a former head of state. It is chaired by Perez de Cuellar,
former secretary-general of the United Nations.

The opening of the meeting will be attended by Philippines
President Fidel Ramos, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Roberto
Romulo, and Ricardo Gloria, secretary of the Department of
Education, Culture and Sports.

The meeting ends on November 25.

* The head of the United Nation's envoy on human rights said
yesterday the situation has improved in Burma and was optimistic
Burmese refugees in Thailand would be able to return to their
homeland soon.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma
Professor Yozo Yokota said his group discovered during a
just-completed trip to Burma better living conditions at prisons
where pro-democracy dissidents are detained.

He said conditions are generally better than what he witnessed
last year when he led a similar trip to the country.

His statement came yesterday after touring Mae Hla Burmese
refugee camp in Tha Song Yang district in Tak to commence a
three-day visit to refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border.

A source said most of the 6,000 refugees at Mae Hla camp belong
to the Karen minority group who escaped suppression by the
Burmese government army.

Professor Yokota said while in Burma he did not have the
opportunity to meet opposition leader Suu Kyi.

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NATION: UN RIGHTS INVESTIGATOR VISITS BURMA REFUGEES
Saturday, November 19, 1994
Reuters, Mae La

A special UN human rights investigator yesterday said there had
been some progress in Burma since last year, and he hoped Burmese
refugees living in camps in Thailand could go home soon.

Yozo Yokota travelled to the Thai-Burmese border on the second
leg of a United Nations-sponsored trip to assess the human rights
situation in Burma. 

Earlier this week he completed a 10-day visit to Rangoon and
other areas inside Burma.

He interviewed more than a dozen yesterday, most from Burma's
Karen ethnic minority, who fled to the border earlier this month
from deeper inside Burma. 

He also spoke to three former Burmese government soldiers who
recently surrender to autonomy-seeking Karen guerrillas, Karen
refugee officials said.

Yokota told reporters that his trip to Burma was successful. He
said there had been some improvement in Burma since his last
visit there a year ago, but declined to elaborate.

He told some of the several thousand refugees housed at one camp
in northwestern Thailand that he hoped they would all be able to
go home and start new lives soon.

There are some 80,000 refugees from Burma in camps along the Thai
side of their common border.

Most are ethnic minorities who have fled government army
operations against guerrillas. Many have lived in the camps for
the last decade.

International human rights groups have accused the Burmese army
of systematic human rights violations in ethnic minority regions,
including forced labour, relocation, summary executions and rape.

************************************************************** 
BKK POST: [LETTERS] UNFOUNDED ALLEGATION
Sunday, November 20, 1994

SIR: I have participated actively in the pro-democracy movements
of my country, Burma, in 1988, initiated by us, Burmese students,
to establish a new democratic era in place of a protracted
authoritarian rule.

In the wake of the army coup on September 18, 1988, during the
severe crack-downs on dissent by the Burmese military, I left my
country with an aim to continue restoration of democracy and
human rights in my country.

My dedication to my cause and country earned me the chairmanship
of an elected body of Burmese students in Bangkok and Thailand,
the prestigious Overseas National Students Organisation of Burma,
today. In that capacity and position, I have been striving my
best for our dedicated cause: peace, liberty, justice and harmony
in our country.

For general information and clarification, the ONSOB is
professing non-violence in its course of actions to restore
democracy and human rights in the Burma. As a result, human
rights violations on any human being, specifically, on the people
of Burma become our cause and concern.

Therefore, we are duty-bound and obligated to expose all human
rights abuses, undemocratic and peremptory measures exercised by
persons or ruling bodies, to the global community for monitoring
and appropriate action, as we should ally with them and seek
refuge and assistance, as deemed essential.

However, as a man of integrity born and bred in Burma, possessing
a culture and tradition stretching to several millennia and
incumbent Chairman, Overseas National Students' Organisation of
Burma, a prestigious, highly acclaimed and widely acknowledged
position, a degrading or lacklustre performance on my part is
beyond my farthest imaginations, much less to implement in deed.

As a consequence and obviously, allegations of spying especially,
for certain countries in exchange for personal gains, on me, as
publicised in the media recently, are much below my dignity,
bearing and unworthy of my attention and clarification, and
further, for being unaccompanied by substantiative evidence to
back the claim. Therefore, I dismiss the allegation as a baseless
and unfounded farce, a frame-up, literally only with an ulterior
motive to discredit me.

Nevertheless, I hold no grudge or enmity on anyone or
organisation, other than to express my deep sorrow in this
matter, and as a matter of fact, allow me to express myself to
the international community that I will continue to uphold my
dignity, and self-esteem, during the course of my endeavours to
restore democracy and human rights in to my country in the
company of my colleagues and compatriots and specifically, in
exposing human rights abuses by persons or cliques irrespective
of race, creed, colour or greed.

Aung Myint Kyi
Chairman, ONSOB


************************************************************** 
NATION: GERM WARFARE CLAIMED
Sunday, November 20, 1994

A human rights group, Christian Solidarity International, said it
had strong circumstantial evidence that the Burmese government
has used germ warfare in a campaign against rebels. It claimed
some 300 members of the Karen ethnic minority died in epidemics
resulting from gems dropped by aircraft.

************************************************************** 
NATION: UN ENVOY IN BURMA
Sunday, November 20, 1994

UN Human Rights Commission representative Yoso Yokata [sic] left
Burma after a 10-day visit during which he met with government
officials and political leaders, inspected prisons and spoke with
"voluntary workers" at construction sites at railway construction
sites in the Ye-Tavoy area of south Burma, and in the Pakokku
district of central Burma. 

************************************************************** 
NATION: REFUGEE STATUS REJECTED
Sunday, November 20, 1994

Japan formally refused to grant refugee status to 11 Burmese
dissidents, provoking an outcry by their lawyers and human rights
activists. Japanese lawyers helping the Burmese to get political
asylum said the 11 faced persecution by Burma's military junta if
they returned to their homeland.

************************************************************** 
NATION: I'NESIAN INVESTMENT IN BURMA
Sunday, November 20, 1994
UPI, Rangoon

A cigarette manufacturing company made the first private
Indonesian investment in Burma in recent decades by forming a
joint venture with a Burmese partner, an official newspaper said
yesterday.

The New Light of Myanmar said Bursa Tobacco Corp of Indonesia and
Burma's Zaykaba Company Ltd, plans to lease land and a building
from the Ministry of Industry, the daily said, calling the deal
the first investment by a private Indonesian venture in the
country. 

Despite its strict political control, the ruling military has in
recent years liberalized the economic and opened the once
xenophobic nation to foreign investment.

According to official statistics, investors from 17 countries had
as of last September put more than $1.3 billion into Burma,
focusing mainly on the manufacturing and tourism sectors.

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************************************************************** 
BRC-J: BURMA'S REVOLUTION OF THE SPIRIT
<NBH03114@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
16 Nov 94 2200 JST

YOUR LIBRARY NEEDS THIS BOOK

In order to increase sales of the book and awareness about Burma,
please ask your local libraries and bookstores to order Burma's
Revolution of the Spirit.  Here's the info you'll need:

TITLE: Burma's Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for
Democratic Freedom and Dignity
AUTHORS: Alan Clements and Leslie Dean
PUBLISHER: Aperture foundation, Inc.
ADDRESS: 20 East 23rd Street, NY,NY 10010
COPYRIGHT: 1994
ISBN; 0-89381-580-2
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG NO: 94-70080
LIST PRICE; US$35


************************************************************** 
SUBREGIONAL ENERGY SECTOR STUDY FOR THE A.D.B. AVAILABLE
November 16, 1994

The Asian Development Bank will be bankrolling much of the
infrastructure development in Southeast Asia in the coming
decades.  A draft final report written by the consulting firm
hired by the bank lays out plans for an enormous variety of
energy related projects in the region, including hydropower plans
for the Salween River, natural-gas development in the Andaman Sea
and the pipelines to Thailand to carry the gas to market.  This
report also details proposed projects in Burma which are not yet
common knowledge, including large scale hydropower projects which
will flood vast areas.

BurmaNet will make copies of this report available at cost. 
Xeroxing and binding should be about US$20 and mailing costs to
North America and Europe will be about $10.  Contact BurmaNet
directly if you, your organization or someone you know wants a
copy of this report.  This report may also be of interest to
people working on environmental issues in Cambodia, Laos,
Thailand, Vietnam and China as well.

*****
Cover page
*****

    Promoting Subregional Cooperation Among

           Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar,
   Thailand, Viet Nam, and Yunnan Province of
           The People's Republic of China

     Subregional Energy Sectory Study for
           Asian Development Bank

            Draft Final Report

                 June 1994

This draft report is restricted and must not be reproduced or
quoted.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and
do not necessarily replect the views and policies of the Asian
Development Bank.

                            Norconsult
                            Norconsult International A.S.

*****
[One highlight from the report, from the section on pipe-line
systems, 3-32]

     CONSEQUENCES DURING CONSTRUCTION
     Pipelines will create a lineal impact along the route
     of the pipeline.  During the construction period the
     land immediately around the poipeline will be excavated
     and disrupted.  The pipe will normally be buried and
     the land will be returned to the same state as before
     the construction.  Where the pipeline is buried,
     excavation will increase the opportunity for greater
     environmental disturbance.  Slopes will need particular
     attention to avoid the pipeline being threatened by
     landslides or soil erosion which will jeoardise the
     pipeline's stability.

     Pipeline construction requires roads and railroads to
     transport material and equipment to the construction
     site.

[Editor's note: Total and Unocal deny that forced labor is being
used on the pipeline but do not deny that it is being used on the
construction of the nearby Ye-Tavoy railroad.  The companies do
however, deny any links between their pipeline and the railroad 
--Strider]



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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
 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
 IRRAWADDY: NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY BURMA INFORMATION GROUP
 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 
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