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

The BurmaNet News, August 13, 1997 (r)



------------------------ BurmaNet ------------------------
"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"
----------------------------------------------------------

The BurmaNet News: August 13, 1997
Issue #796

HEADLINES:
==========
BKK POST: SUU KYI TOOK $80,000 GIFT, SAYS SLORC
REUTER: BURMA REOPENS SCHOOLS, BUT NOT ALL
BKK POST: RICE PRICES SOAR AS KYAT PLUMMETS
HONG KONG AFP: NLD APPEALS FOR DIALOGUE WITH JUNTA
ABSDF PRESS RELEASE: PRIORITIZE DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS
HINDUSTAN TIMES: MYANMAR FOR ASIAN HIGHWAY
THE NATION: BURMA TESTS ASIAN VALUES
THE NATION: LETTER - REPRESSION CONTINUES
FBC STATEMENT : AUGUST 8, 1997
KYO: KAREN NATIONAL MARTYRS' DAY
ABSDF BOOK LAUNCH: LETTERS TO A DICTATOR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

BKK POST: SUU KYI TOOK $80,000 GIFT, SAYS SLORC
August 12, 1997
Rangoon, DPA

Burma's government-controlled press hinted yesterday that opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi, who heads the National League for Democracy (NLD), was
heading for her downfall as a politician.

"It is certain to foretell that she will perish after her raft has dashed
against the consolidated rock of national politics," said the second
installment of a lengthy diatribe against Ms Suu Kyi that appeared in all
government-controlled dailies.

Yesterday's article, entitled "From Washington to University Avenue,"
accused Ms Suu Kyi of accepting a cash donation of 80,000 dollars from
American citizen John Vincent Osolnick Jr who visited Rangoon on January 24
to 26. Ms Suu Kyi's house is located on University Avenue in Rangoon.

Under Burmese law it is illegal for a political party or politician to
accept donations from abroad.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council (Slorc), Burma's military junta,
claims to have evidence that Ms Suu Kyi accepted a cash donation from Mr
Osolnick and is reportedly building a case to have the popular politician
deported or arrested.

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

REUTER: BURMA REOPENS SCHOOLS, BUT NOT ALL UNIVERSITIES
August 12, 1997

RANGOON, Aug 12 (Reuter) - Burma reopened nearly 39,000 schools two months
late on Tuesday, but kept closed some 30 universities and colleges suspected
of being linked to student unrest.

Tuesday's reopening involved 38,808 schools and more than seven million
children. The schools had been closed since March and had been due to reopen
in June.

Rangoon-based analysts said the ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) was afraid of protests before its admission to the
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) last month.

"They did not want to lose face until their smooth entry into ASEAN," one
analyst said.

About 20 of the universities and colleges still closed, including cradles of
last year's unrest Yangon (Rangoon) University and Yangon Institute of
Technology, have been shut since December 1996.

Students have been at the forefront of sporadic anti- government protests
since the abortive uprising of 1988.

The SLORC has declined to say when the universities will be reopened. An
education ministry official contacted by  Reuters on Tuesday said: "The time
for opening the universities is getting closer than before."

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

BKK POST: RICE PRICES SOAR AS KYAT PLUMMETS
August 12, 1997
Achara Ashayagachat.

Heavy floods destroy crops and dikes in Irrawaddy food basin

Burma is experiencing a second consecutive year of heavy damage to its rice
crop due to the current flooding in the Irrawaddy basin, according to
sources in Rangoon.

Prices of rice for local consumption are rising, and exports will be limited
to amounts far below the military government's ambitious targets.

The floods have destroyed dikes along the Irrawaddy and some parts of the
rail system, the most serious damage since the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (Slorc) took over the country in 1988, foreign sources said.

"People on the street have felt the shortages of rice and some other
necessities since late last year," said one observer who asked not to be named.

The shortage is not acute yet, but the real problem has been price
increases, he added.

The government has stocked rice and will release some to the market if the
situation gets worse, but the industry and the public do not know how much
rice is under state management.

A 50-kilogramme bag of good quality rice is now being sold for 3,120 kyat,
compared with between 2,000 and 2,200 kyat last year.

"The price hike is not due totally to rice missing from the market, but to
the eroded value of the local currency, as well as last year's higher world
market prices for rice, resulting in nearly two million tons of rice being
exported [over two years]," an industry source said.

But during the 1996 calendar year, he said, exports fell to about 265,000 tons.

Exchange-rate fluctuations have has also dampened the foreign investment
climate in Burma. The market rate of the kyat, which had been relatively
steady at about 160 to the US dollar for several months, plunged as low as
260 in recent weeks and is now at about 205. The official rate of six to the
dollar is virtually ignored.

The real estimate of loss and how quickly the situation will recover will
not be known until the harvest starts from mid-October to December, and
until replanting of rice takes place later this year, the source said.

Flooding will also create some build-up of silt which will be good for rice
planting, he added.

So far this calendar year, only some very small shipments of about 160 tons
of normal rice and 5,000 tons of parboiled rice have been exported.

"No big shipments have been seen since last September as the Burmese
[government] wanted to ensure the food supply for domestic consumption,
despite the bad need for hard currency," a source said.

Although he believed the Slorc had made a strong commitment to control the
situation, he said this year was a very bad one for everyone.

"Social relief will be delivered to affected farmers, but not all farmers
have planted rice as planned by the government. The general population will
be affected from the rice situation," he said.

Burma has long been self-sufficient: rice production totals 14 million tons
a year.

Smuggling has been ruled-out as the reason for the shortage.

"There may be some smuggling from Arakan state near Bangladesh and from Shan
state to China, but the amount is not substantial as access to China is
still in bad condition."

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

HONG KONG AFP: NLD APPEALS FOR DIALOGUE WITH RULING MILITARY JUNTA
August 8, 1997

RANGOON, Aug 8 (AFP) -- Burma's opposition National League for
Democracy (NLD) appealed Friday for dialogue with the ruling junta, saying
this was "the only solution" to the country's problems.
An NLD statement said the military authorities must acknowledge that
the NLD won the 1990 general elections and that the current constitutional
convention was not likely to bring about national reconciliation.
"Since the SLORC claims to have a similar objective of bringing
democracy to the nation as the NLD, ... this indicates that a dialogue is
possible," the 18-page statement said.
SLORC refers to the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC),
the official name of the junta.
Signed by NLD chairman Aung Shwe, the statement's release coincided
with the anniversary of the August 8, 1988, general strike which crippled
the previous socialist government.
The statement attacked "continued repression" of NLD members, the
"forcible resignations" of elected NLD candidates and the junta's refusal
to return party documents seized since in October 1991 as problems to be
tackled.
In addition, "the still unresolved case" of who attacked a motorcade
carrying NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi last year and "the unremoved barriers
in front of her residence" were all "clear signs that Burma was still
undergoing a national crisis," the statement said.
"The only solution to all this is a dialogue," it added.

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

ABSDF PRESS RELEASE: PRIORITIZE RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
August 12, 1997

Press Release
Date: August 12, 1997

ABSDF CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING DECIDES TO PRIORITIZE POLITICAL WORK TO
RESTORE DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

At a recently completed ABSDF Central Committee meeting a resolution was
made to alter the organization's strategy to make non-violent political
defiance tactics and international lobbying the main weapons in our struggle
to end the brutal military dictatorship in Burma. The 40 student leaders
from different regions, who attended the meeting spent 10 days analyzing the
effectiveness of the tactics that have been used in the past, and discussing
the most appropriate course to follow in the future.

The ABSDF believes that Burma now faces an even more critical situation than
it did at the beginning of the civil war immediately after independence from
Britain.

The SLORC's continued refusal to acknowledge the genuine desires of the
Burmese people, and it's unwillingness to tackle political problems, in
particular democratic, ethnic and human rights issues, in a just and
dignified way by political means, is the primary cause of the economic
crisis that the country now faces. Furthermore, Burma's hopes of achieving
development and peace in the future have been almost shattered by the
SLORC's complete failure to address the urgent need for investment in
human resources, and by their rampant depletion of our natural
resources for the purchase of arms.

The ABSDF believes that the only way out of the abyss lies in the hands of
the Burmese themselves. All of us must actively participate in the struggle,
and fight for the freedom and rights that we have been deprived of for over
three decades.

With the ever-increasing repression of political dissent, the worsening
economic situation in the country, and growing dissatisfaction among the
rank and file of the Burmese army, the ABSDF believes that in the
foreseeable future the people will be driven to a level which they can no
longer tolerate, from which they will once again rise up against the
dictatorship as they did in 1988, and risk life and limb to demonstrate their
desperation.

After extensive consideration of these circumstances, the ABSDF has decided
to adapt our political strategy to give a greater focus to non-violent means
of struggle.

Central Committee
All Burma Students Democratic Front

For more information please contact 01-9231687, 01-654 4984

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

HINDUSTAN TIMES: MYANMAR FOR ASIAN HIGHWAY THROUGH INDIA
August 12, 1997

Dhaka
The Hindustan Times, Lucknow Edition (12/8/97).

Myanmar wants the proposed Asian highway linking South and Southeast
Asia to enter its territory from north-eastern India and not from
Bangladesh, an official of the UN Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said.

Myanmar wants the highway to enter it at Tamu from Imphal in India and
not from Teknaf, the tip of south-eastern Bangladesh, according to Dr M
Rahmatullah, Director of the Transportation, Communication and Tourism, at
Bangkok-based ESCAP which is co-ordinating the transportation project.

Dr Rahmatullah, who was in Dhaka to attend a seminar, said that even the
Bangladesh government had accepted the Imphal-Tamu route. Myanmar does not
favour the Teknaf route because it is not economically profitable.
The mid-stream of the Naf river at Teknaf is the boundary between
Bangladesh and Myanmar, with Arakan on the other side.

While Bangladesh has a good road to Teknaf, there is no road of the
needed quality linking Yangon to Teknaf. Each country through which the
highway would run, has to build its part of the road itself.

India and Myanmar agree that the highway should pass through Imphal in
India on to Tamu in Myanmar Dr Rahmatullah said.

An international conference which would try to solve problems linked
with the Bangladesh section of the highway would be held in Dhaka in
December where Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar would
he represented.

According to the ESCAP official, the Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand section
of the Asian highway had already been built. A bridge linking Thailand
and Myanmar would open to traffic on August 15.  Thailand is helping
build a part of the highway in eastern Myanmar while India is assisting
on a section in western Myanmar.

The Bangladesh government has not so far proposed any changes in routing the
Asian highway from Tamabil in northeastern Sylhet in Bangladesh, he added.
The Bangladesh government had discussed changes in the highway route with
the ESCAP in May this year.

Although Dr Rahmatullah did not say what was discussed then, there are
indications that the Bangladesh government would like the Asian highway
to be routed through its Sylhet-Austragram section. In case that happens,
observers say, it would be a defeat for the former BNP government of
Bangladesh because it had opposed the Sythet-Austragram route.

Quoting from a letter sent by the BNP government to the ESCAP two years
ago, Dr Rahmatullah said that Dhaka had then proposed routing the
highway through Sylhet-Tamabil in Bangladesh to move on to Imphal in
India and Tamu in Myanmar, although it would mean a detour of an extra
360 kilometres.

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

THE NATION: BURMA TESTS ASIAN VALUES
August 12, 1997
Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe.

If Asian values are about encouraging a harmonious relationship between the
state and society, then Asean leaders have their work cut out in Burma,
comments Chao-Tzang Yawnghwe.

Now that Burma is a member of Asean, it would not be illogical to assume
that Asean will now take some responsibility for the well-being of that
unfortunate country - which is now an economic, political and social "basket
case" in the regional forum.

It is not presumptuous to presume that Aung San Suu Kyi is, like Lt Gen Khin
Nyunt and Slorc generals, now regarded as part of the Asean community.
Perhaps, Asean leaders will cease treating her as a political persona
non-grata. It is also hoped that Asean leaders, who are presumably sincere
about Confucian and "Asian" values, will be true to their convictions and
help restore state-society harmony in Burma.

A cardinal component of Confucianism is "harmony" - that is, harmony between
the head of the family and its members, and by extension, harmony within a
state between rulers and the ruled (or state and civil society).

Burma is precisely a place where this "harmony" is lacking. Strife between
the state and civil society has been the norm since 1962. This stems from
those entrusted with the country's defence betraying that trust. They
usurped - in 1962 and in 1988 - by force of arms the power to govern, and
have monopolised all forms of power at gunpoint. With their guns, they have
"anointed" themselves the guardian-rulers of the country in perpetuity.

What the people of Burma want, as articulated by their chosen champion, Suu
Kyi, is the restoration of harmony between that part of the population which
exercises power and the rest of society, over whom power is exercised.

GIVE AND TAKE

In Burma, "democracy" is but a metaphor of the desire of the people for the
restoration of harmony - a functional relation based on give-and take