News Fron The Nation Newspaper

[nyeinchan@xxxxxxxxxxx]

The Nation
Trade disrupted as Burma shuts border passes 
The Nation 

BURMESE officials closed all border passes opposite Mae Sot district in 
Tak province yesterday, resulting in a disruption of cross-border trade. 

Army Commander Gen Chettha Thanajaro said he was perplexed by the move, 
but stressed that the closure was ''not a serious problem because we 
don't have any conflict. A border dispute is a small incident. Don't 
exaggerate this matter because that would affect trade and relations 
between the two countries." 

Burmese officials gave no warning of the impending closure. Even members 
of the Joint Border Committee working closely with Burmese border 
officials said they were mystified as to why it occurred. 

Maj Rijirawat Vongsariyanarong, the head of the Thai-Burmese 
Coordinating Committee, said Lt Col Sai Phone, the commander of Burma's 
275th Infantry Division, informed him of the reason for the border 
closure after it had occurred. 

Maj Rijirawat quoted Lt Col Sai Phone as saying security problems 
prompted the move and that Burma would like to reorganise regulations 
concerning border crossings and goods trafficking. 

Maj Rijirawat said Burma had neglected to officially notify Bangkok of 
the closure. According to the Thailand-Burma Treaty on Trade and 
Investment Cooperation, if either country wishes to close a border pass, 
it must notify the other country at least three months in advance. 

Border officials said they believed the closure resulted from the 
dispute over Burmese dredging of the Moei River, which Rangoon claims 
has changed course, resulting in a loss of Burmese territory. 

Gen Chettha said the Army will not take any action at present but will 
wait for the results of the next round of talks between Joint Border 
Committee representatives, scheduled in Rangoon at the end of the month. 

Burmese troops set up dredging equipment in the Moei River opposite Ban 
Rim Moei early last month, near Wat Phrathat Khok Chang in Tambon Tha 
Sai Luad. They apparently intended to change the river's course back to 
where it was before flooding altered it. 


Both sides refused to give ground. Burma insisted that their dredging 
plan was based on an aerial map and photographs taken in 1989, while 
Thai authorities refused to accept a claim that had expanded from 150 
rai to 300 rai. 

Early attempts to resolve the dispute failed as both sides insisted on 
their original proposals. The third round of talks, which took place on 
Tuesday, ended with the Burmese delegation headed by U Aye Lwin walking 
out of the meeting. 

The spontaneous closure has affected Tak's cross-border trade, which 
consists of 100 metric tonnes of consumer goods exported to Burma every 
day, Panithi Tangphati, the vice president of Tak's Chamber of Commerce, 
said. 

''Yesterday, around 50 trucks arrived at the border passes and were 
stuck here. Many of them had to drive back because they don't have 
warehouses here," he said. 

Panithi said the unexpected nature of the closure will shake the 
confidence of Thai traders along the border, as well as foreign 
investors in Burma.

Goods stranded as Thai-Burmese border closed



posted at 17:00 hrs (Bangkok time) 



BANGKOK, June 13 -- Burma's sudden closure of a strategic stretch of its 
border with Thailand amid a tense territorial dispute will block 
millions of dollars in trade between the two neighbours, officials said 
Friday. 

The governor of Thailand's northern Tak province, Pongpayome Vasatuti, 
told AFP that Burma had Thursday indefinitely and unilaterally shut four 
border posts in the province's Mae Sot area, leaving scores of trucks 
stranded. 

''The closure of the border will have a major impact on border trade 
between the two countries as goods worth an average of 10 million baht 
(400,000 dollars) cross the frontier every day,'' he said. 

''The Burmese officials did not say how long the border posts will be 
closed,'' Pongpayome said, adding that neither local officials nor the 
Thai foreign ministry had been officialy informed of the closure until 
Friday. 

The shutting of the posts, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of 
here, has left goods-laden lorries stranded on the Thai side of the 
usually bustling frontier, the governor said. 

He said Burmese officials had said the surprise closure was a 
''temporary'' measure to give Burma time to ''re-arrange'' the 
crossings. The Burmese authorities in their letter to Mae Sot's district 
chief had not however elaborated on the motivation for the closure. 

Media reports here have however said the shutdown was an escalation of a 
simmering border dispute between the two neighours and over a Thai ban 
on the export of a small onion native to Burma. 

The governor added that senior Thai military officers were meeting 
Friday with their Burmese counterparts to discuss the border block in 
Mae Sot as Thailand required more information on the move. 

The closure came after Burma and Thailand reportedly failed to reach 
agreement in talks over a contested stretch of their border along the 
Moei River which divided the two countries in the Mae Sot region. 

The dispute flared up last month when heavily-armed troops from both 
sides were deployed along the river as both countries staked their rival 
claims to the territory. 

The argument began several years ago when the river changed course after 
a bout of severe flooding in the area. 

The Thais insisted the border had shifted -- in their favour -- along 
with the course of the river, while the Burmese said it should remain 
where it had been prior to the floods. 

In May, Thai troops were sent to the area to try to stop Burmese workers 
from digging canals in a bid to divert the Moei River back to its 
original pre-flood course. 

The move sparked a similar deployment by Burmese troops, with both sides 
facing each other armed with tanks and heavy weapons. 

The two sides have been holding talks over the issue, but all attempts 
to broker a diplomatic solution have ended in deadlock. 

Thailand sent an aide-memoire to Burma on November 23, 1995, setting out 
the country's claims to the area. 

Thailand's director for Treaties and Legal Affairs has held discussions 
with his counterpart but Burmese officials refused to accept the Thai 
position. 

Officials in Mae Sot said the volume of border trade between Burma and 
Thailand totalled 1.24 billion baht (48 million dollars) between January 
and May this year. 

Goods from Thailand include mainly consumer items and construction 
materials, while agricultural products and household goods from China 
are traded in the opposite direction. (AFP)

PTT denies public access to contract for gas pipeline 



BY PENNAPA HONGTHONG 

KANCHANABURI ­ The Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) declined to 
reveal the contents of the Yadana gas pipeline contract to members of 
the public yesterday, but did give a copy to Kanchanaburi's governor, 
who chairs a provincial sub-committee set up to monitor the project's 
impacts. 

''We are happy to reveal all information, including the contract, but it 
must go through the sub-committee first," PTT vice-president Suwanant 
Chartudompan said after giving a copy of the contract, signed by the 
state enterprise and the Burmese government, to Kanchanaburi Governor 
Kwanchai Wassawong. 

Suwanant said a specialist in international law and commerce would be 
needed to explain the contract to committee members. ''The contract's 
wording is in English and includes technical terms, so it's hard to 
understand," he explained. 

Pinan Chotirosseranee, who leads a group opposing the project, asked 
Kwanchai to make a copy of the contract and give it to her. ''It will 
take a lot of time to clarify the contract so I want him to bring it and 
read it at my house," she said. 

Kwanchai refused her request, saying that Pinan, other environmentalists 
and the media will be allowed to read the contract, but will not be 
permitted to copy it. 

''It's very complicated and sensitive because it involves international 
relations, so we should be careful about revealing the contents," he 
said. 

He added that anyone seeking details about the contract can ask him or 
the working group on contracts and regulations which will be established 
by the sub-committee. 

''However, I must consult with the project developer, the PTT, about 
which parts of the contract can be revealed to the public," he added. 

The sub-committee includes several representatives of local groups and 
non-governmental organisations, but Pinan, a former member, quit the 
board to protest at a lack of transparency in the project. 

There was a tense atmosphere at yesterday's meeting of the sub-committee 
as Kanchanaburi residents waited in vain for three hours for the PTT to 
give them a copy of the contract. 

Pinan, who left the meeting before it was concluded, said she would 
submit a letter of protest to Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh if 
she is not given a copy. 

''The prime minister said at Wednesday's meeting that the contract 
belongs to the public and I came here to receive it," Pinan said. ''The 
PTT has not followed his orders." 

Songkiert Tansamrit, director of the PTT's public relations division, 
said the state enterprise had not disobeyed the premier's orders. ''The 
contract is now in the hands of Kanchanaburi's governor, anyone can ask 
him for permission to read it," Songkiert said.

Editorial & Opinion 

Don't push Rangoon into Beijing's orbit 



n 

By admitting Burma into its fold, Asean is countering China's influence 
on the buffer country. 

Defying US objections, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has 
voted to admit Burma. When asked why they took this controversial step, 
Asean leaders referred repeatedly to ''strategic considerations". 
''Strategic" is a code word for China. The Southeast Asians fear that 
Burma is becoming a Chinese satellite; it is a fear that Washington 
should share. 

The Clinton administration has imposed tougher economic sanctions 
against Burma, citing continued human rights abuses by the junta in 
Rangoon. It is a morally satisfying and politically popular initiative. 
It is also bad policy. 

It is not often that the theatre of world affairs produces a drama of 
good versus evil as pure and gripping as the one being played out in 
Burma. This is a government that has massacred pro-democracy 
demonstrators in 1988, suppressed political dissent, engaged in 
large-scale forced labour, probably collaborated in heroin trafficking 
and annulled the results of a democratic election while imprisoning the 
leader of the democratic movement, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 

Not surprisingly, US policy toward Burma has reflected moral outrage. 
Washington has regularly condemned the actions of the ruling State Law 
and Order Restoration Council, has halted all bilateral economic and 
military aid, has suspended trade privileges, has opposed lending by 
international financial institutions and has tried to rally support for 
such policies among other countries, including a proposed international 
embargo on arms shipments to Rangoon. Members of Congress have vied with 
editorial writers in urging still harsher, more punitive sanctions. 

Since the earliest days, US foreign policy has exhibited two often 
conflicting tendencies. The first is a normative, ''idealist" impulse to 
use policy to further American political values, notably democracy and 
human rights. The second is a geopolitical ''realist" approach that 
stresses the pursuit of national interest defined largely in terms of 
power and economic advantage. 

In the case of Burma, the normative approach has governed policy for 
most of the last decade in a uniquely pure form. This has been possible 
because the United States has viewed Burma as geopolitically irrelevant. 
There have been no significant national-interest costs to a policy of 
principle. 

But this is changing and the agents of change are China and Asean. 
Following the upheaval in 1988, the beleaguered and ostracised regime in 
Rangoon turned to the one country more than ready to overlook its 
transgressions: China. Beijing has become a near monopoly supplier of 
military equipment to Burma while the country's north has been flooded 
with Chinese consumer goods and immigrants. Chinese engineers are 
building roadways and bridges in Burma and press reports suggest the 
presence of Chinese intelligence installations on the coast. In short, 
Burma is becoming something very close to a Chinese satellite. This has 
occurred at a time when the strategic landscape in Asia has begun to 
shift with the growth in Chinese economic and military power. Chinese 
leaders have increasingly portrayed Southeast Asia as China's natural 
sphere of influence. 

All this has been watched with growing concern in Southeast Asia. 
Uneasiness concerning China's strategic aims is the principal motive 
behind Asean's decision to admit Burma. Asean is trying to offer Burma a 
strategic alternative to its dependency on China before the dragon's 
embrace becomes unbreakable. But this effort at ''constructive 
engagement" conflicts with Washington's policy of pressure and 
ostracism. In this there is no small irony because the American 
strategic interest vis-a-vis China in Southeast Asia is identical to 
Asean's. Someone is not thinking clearly, and it is not Asean. 

Any policy, if it is to be maintained, must meet a basic test. Is it 
working? Does it have a reasonable prospect of doing so? The current 
policy of isolation and sanctions fails that test. The essential 
repressive character of the Burma regime has remained unchanged over 
three decades despite heavy foreign pressure. Deeply unpopular and 
oppressive, it nevertheless holds apparently firm control over the army 
and ethnic Burman population. 

Quarantining Burma has simply reinforced the regime's xenophobia. 

Ironically, successful sanctions would weaken an already vulnerable 
economy, leaving the junta with little choice but to rely more heavily 
on Chinese support and on revenue generated from increased opium and 
heroin production. 

Isolation is further obviated by a host of US friends and allies in 
Asean that increasingly oppose that policy. 

Burma is not an Asian reincarnation of South Africa. The South African 
white elite was vulnerable to Western sanctions for a number of reasons, 
including the fact that the surrounding black African states supported 
their imposition. No such regional support exists in Southeast Asia. 

Washington can and should remain outspokenly critical of abuses in 
Burma. But there are security and other national interests to be served. 
Let's recognise that present US policy is not working and has no serious 
prospect of working. It is time to think seriously about alternatives. 

Marvin Ott is a professor of national security policy at the US National 
War College. The views expressed are his own. The article first ran in 
the Los Angeles Times.






"THERE WILL BE NO REAL DEMOCRACY IF WE CAN'T GURANTEE THE RIGHTS OF THE 
MINORITY ETHNIC PEOPLE.  ONLY UNDERSTANDING THEIR SUFFERING AND HELPING 
THEM TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS WILL ASSIST PREVENTING FROM THE 
DISINTEGRATION AND THE SESESSION."  "WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THEIR 
STRENGTH, WE CAN'T TOPPLE THE SLORC AND BURMA WILL NEVER BE IN PEACE."



---------------------------------------------------------
Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------