The BurmaNet News: April 6, 1998

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"Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies"   
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The BurmaNet News:  April 6, 1998
Issue # 976

Noted in Passing: "There can be no prostitution in our country because it's
illegal." -- Than Po, head of Burma's social welfare department (see BOOK
REVIEW:  LITNER REVIEWS <WAR IN THE BLOOD>.)

HEADLINES:    
==========
ASSK:  ADDRESS TO UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
THE NATION:  AWKWARD QUESTION ON THE BORDER
BKK POST:  CHEESMAN'S STATEMENT IRKS ARMY CHIEF
BKK POST:  STUDENTS NOT ALLOWED TO PROTEST
AWSJ: WHAT ARE ASIA'S INSTITUTIONS?
REUTERS:  NOBEL LAUREATES URGE DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM
FEER BOOK REVIEW: LINTNER REVIEWS <WAR IN THE BLOOD>
ANNOUNCEMENT: FIRST BURMESE LANGUAGE INTERNET RADIO 

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AUNG SAN SUU KYI:  ADDRESS TO THE UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
April 2, 1998

MARCH, 1998

The case for human rights is hardly one that should need to be argued, and
yet again and again we have to appeal to the world to think of human
rights, to remind them that it is pertinent to all human beings, not just
to a few of us in a few underprivileged countries. The case of human rights
is the case of human dignity, human security, of human beings. Because we
are all human beings I think we should all care about whether or not there
are people in this world who are suffering because we cannot live as human
beings. Repressed human beings are not the same as those who are free and
secure. Something happens to us when we are repressed, when we are
intimidated, when we have to worry every day about our security.

The case for Burma is not just for one country. It is the case for all
those who are suffering under authoritarian regimes. The sufferings of our
people are the sufferings of all those whose human dignity is not protected
by the law. I hope that in arguing the case for Burma, I shall be arguing
the case for all peoples in the world who are suffering from the violation
of human rights.

Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has been passing
resolutions on the human rights situation in Burma . These resolutions call
inter alia for the early democratization of the country; for dialogue
between the military regime, the democratic forces and the ethnic
nationalities; for the release of political prisoners; for the right of the
people of Burma to take part in the political process of the country; for
the creation of  conditions that will enable refugees in neighboring
countries to return to Burma. None of these terms have been implemented by
the military government. We think it is time that the international
community took a greater interest in getting the terms of the resolutions
implemented. We are duly grateful to the United Nations and to the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights for making public the human rights
violations on Burma, for passing these resolutions that if implemented will
bring about such a great change that would be of such great benefit to our
peoples. But resolutions are not enough. Resolutions should be implemented.

Last year the deputy home minister called in certain members of the central
executive committee of the NLD . Now, this occasion was used as an excuse
by those who want to support the present military regime as a reason for
saying that the situation has improved, that there has been progress
towards dialogue. I would like to emphasize that that occasion had nothing
to do with dialogue at all. The deputy home minister in effect summoned
members of our CEC, started off by saying that they were a military
government and they were not thinking of giving democracy yet, and then
started giving our CEC members a good scolding, reprimanding them for
bringing out the kind of statements that were not favorable to the
government. Of course we are a political party, we have our work to do, we
must bring out statements about the situation as we see it.  It is our
responsibility. The deputy home minister also made a not so veiled threat
to our CEC members to the effect that should we continue to bringing out
such statements, action could be taken against us. We are quite prepared to
face whatever we have to face in the line of carrying out our responsibility.

There are those who ask whether the transition from SLORC to SPDC has meant
an improvement in the human rights situation. As far as I can see there has
been no improvement at all .  In fact I could say that I am inclined to
think that things have even got worse. There have been a number of arrests
since 1998. I think that the numbers of those arrested must be very close
to one hundred if not more since the beginning of 1998, and we are still at
the beginning of March . Of those who have been arrested some have been
tried arbitrarily and given long prison sentences . None of them have been
given access to their families or to their legal advisers .

I would first like to talk about the rights of which the National League
for Democracy, my political party, is deprived. At the moment the NLD Is
the most active political party in Burma, but I use the word active with
some caution as we are hardly permitted any activities at all. We are not
allowed any of the basic rights of political parties the world over. We
have no freedom of assembly, no freedom of expression, no freedom of
speech, no freedom of publication . The National League for Democracy is
not allowed to print anything, it is not allowed to publish anything, it's
not allowed to operate a Gestetner machine, it's not allowed to operate a
copying machine, it's not allowed to own an international direct dialing
telephone line, we do not have a satellite dish so that we can listen to
the news from CNN and other international media.

We are restricted in every way. We are not even allowed to hold meetings in
our own offices .  And there is a terrible campaign on to shut down our
offices all over the country . There have been arrests of our Members of
Parliament . Some of them have been forced to resign, ordinary members of
our party have been forced to resign . I think that there must be about
between a thousand and two thousand political prisoners in Burma today,
most of them are members of the National League for Democracy .

What is it that frightens this government so much? Why are they so intent
on these repressive measures? Why are they so intent on depriving our
people of their basic rights? A country where there are no basic rights is
a country where a people cannot be secure. And here we come to the question
of refugees. Because this is a country where we do not enjoy security,
there are many refugees from Burma who are a burden to our neighbors . We
accept that refugees are a burden. We do not want our people to be a burden
to our neighbors but when conditions in our country are such that our
people can enjoy neither political nor economic security, the problem of
refugees is inevitable. And I would like to appeal to our neighbors on
humanitarian grounds to do whatever they can for our refugees, and also to
the international community to do what they can to make the lot of our
refugees a little bit better.

Roughly there are two kinds of refugees: political refugees and economic
refugees. Political refugees are fleeing from political persecution and in
political persecution one must also include the persecution of the ethnic
nationalities. There is now a lot of hostility between the Burmese and the
ethnic nationalities, not because the Burmese as a people are doing
anything now to the ethnic nationalities but because the ethnic
nationalities are suffering under this government, which they see as a
Burmese government . So everything that they suffer they feel as something
imposed on them by the Burmese racial group. This does not all go well for
the future of our country.

A lot of our ethnic nationalities are fleeing from injustice, not just from
something as simple as forced labor, some of them are fleeing from forced
labor , not just from something as simple as even arrest and interrogation.
 Sometimes they are fleeing for their lives. They are fleeing that they
might not be killed, that they might not be tortured, that they might not
be deprived of all their goods . It is quite common in places where there
have been fighting between certain ethnic nationality groups and the
government troops for innocent villagers to be penalized in the worst
possible way. Whole villages have been destroyed, people have been tortured
and killed, families have been separated . There are families which have
been separated forever because there is no way they can ever get news again
of each other, and of course in the process some of them die.

Unless there is rule of law in this country, unless there is a system of
government which will guarantee the people the basic right to life - the
very, very basic right to life - there will be a continuing stream of
refugees fleeing across our borders.  These are the political refugees. We
can talk about such things as political prisoners who have been ill-treated
and who after they are released from prison decide that they cannot remain
in this country, we can talk about people who flee the country because they
think that they will be arrested soon for certain political activities, but
the worst cases are the ones I mentioned earlier - those who are fleeing
for their lives.  And, we would like the international community to be
aware of the fact that lack of political rights in Burma means that many of
our people cannot tell how long they will be allowed to live under these
circumstances.  
 
As to the economic refugees, they have to go to try to scrape together a
living across the border, because they cannot find any way of keeping
themselves and their families alive on this side of the border. This is due
to the economic problems of Burma . The present regime has had a decade in
which to try to resolve the economic problems of this country. The last few
months have proved that not only have they not been able to resolve the
economic problems of the country, they seem to have created more economic
problems . The kind of economic policies that they adopted when they came
into power have resulted in a very small, very wealthy elite, while the
general public became poorer and poorer. This makes not only for economic
malaise, it also makes for social discontent, and social discontent in the
long run means instability and instability is a threat to peace.

It is difficult to select what to talk about when we bring up the case of
human rights violations in Burma - there's so many violations of so many
kinds - but I think many of these have been made known to the international
community by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, by other human
rights organizations, by NGOs and by those who are working for democracy in
Burma.  We are working for democracy in Burma, not because we think that
democracy is a magic word that will resolve all the problems of our
country, we are working for democracy because we understand that democracy
is a system which believes in the protection of the basic human rights of
the people.

Unless our people enjoy basic human rights we will not enjoy peace or
prosperity in this country.  And unless there is peace and prosperity in
this country we will always provide a threat to the peace and prosperity of
this region.  In this day and age we cannot isolate any country.  We cannot
say that we are not going to interfere in the internal affairs of a country
because it's got nothing to do with us.  It has something to do with
everybody.  Those who claim that they will not interfere in the internal
affairs of Burma do not hesitate to be involved economically in Burma. As
long as they are involved economically, how can they say that they are not
interfering in the internal affairs of our country? If they are prepared to
engage economically with our country, then they must also be prepared to do
what they can to help us resolve our political problems. There is no way
that we can resolve our economic problems without a political situation. 

I would like to remind the international community that democratic
elections were held in 1990, that was eight years ago. The people of Burma
had the courage and the integrity to vote for the kind of government that
they wanted. The elections were free and fair but the run up to the
elections were not the kind of conditions that you would expect in
democracies. There were many restrictions on the National League for
Democracy. U Tin Oo, the chairman of the League, and myself, the General
Secretary, were placed under arrest a year before the elections took place.
 Many of our colleagues were also placed under arrest, there were many
cases of harassment, we were restricted in what we were allowed to do, we
were not free to campaign as we pleased , but yet the people of Burma voted
for us overwhelmingly not because they wanted the NLD as such, but because
they wanted a party that would protect their democratic rights.  

The United Nations General Assembly's resolution calls for the present
government of Burma to respect the will of the people as expressed through
the elections of 1990 . The will of the people, as expressed through the
elections of 1990, was that they wanted the NLD, they wanted to give the
NLD the responsibility of restoring democratic government to Burma. So the
international community should do what they can to help implement the terms
of the General Assembly resolution by helping the people of Burma to
realize their will which is to help us to achieve the early democratization
of Burma.

I would like to conclude by thanking the United Nations Commission for
Human Rights and all those NGO's who have done so much for the human rights
situation in Burma. It does make a difference that the international
community is keeping an eye - I hope more than one eye - on Burma and the
situation of human rights in Burma. I hope that you will continue to do so.
I hope that you will persevere in spite of all of the obstacles that are in
your way, because it does help us a great deal.  

Thank you.

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

THE NATION:  AWKWARD QUESTION ON THE THAI-BURMA BORDER
April 4, 1998
By Thana Poopat

(The cross-border raids by Rangoon-backed guerrillas against Karen refugees
sheltered on Thai soil raise some awkward questions on the way the Thai
army have been handling the border incidents. The Nation's Thana Poopat
analyses the situation. )

The Thai armed forces look their best in their military splendour on the
parade ground. The rest of the time, people do not see much of the
soldier-like charade in them. 

Not when Buddhist Karen insurgents have been allowed to make incursions
with impunity to harass refugees sheltered on Thai territory. 

Since last year, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) insurgents, backed
by Burmese government troops, have on several occasions launched
cross-border raids to burn down refugee camps housing civilians belonging
to the mostly-Christian Karen National Union (KNU). 

The Third Army Region, which is in charge of the western border with Burma,
offered virtually no resistance. 

The DKBA is a splinter faction of Gen Bo Mya's Karen National Union. It is
now allied with the Burmese government, which has been at war with Karen
nationalists for decades. 

Along with Burmese government troops, the DKBA has threatened Karen
refugees in Thailand with violence in an effort to get them to return to
Burma. 

The standard response to a fresh incursion by the DKBA guerrillas and
another burnt-down refugee camp is a security beef-up, peppered with some
tough talk of future drastic retaliation against intruders. 

No one can really tell if a threat by the Third Army that they will
actually perform their duty to defend Thailand's sovereignty has ever
worked as a deterrent. One can only assume that it works until the DKBA
guerrillas decide to launch another cross-border raids. 

The regularity and in recent months even predictability of an incursion by
the DKBA have raised some troubling questions. We already know the what,
the who, the when, the where, and the how of the border incidents. The only
unanswered question is the why. 

As in: Why has the Thai army failed to stop the embarrassing incursions? 

Are the DKBA intruders too good at evading the Thai army troops manning
numerous border outposts, or are Thai army personnel too weak to put up a
fight to defend the sanctity of Thai territory, or have the DKBA guerrillas
been given a green light by the Thai army to commit such outrageous acts? 

That the DKBA insurgents are so good at avoiding detection by the Thai army
is out of the question. In recent months, even refugee workers coordinating
emergency relief to the KNU refugee camps knew in advance when the DKBA
intruders would strike. 

It is difficult to say if the Thai army is too weak to put up a fight to
defend territory. But it is hard to imagine that an army that is better fed
and better armed than most of their counterparts in Southeast Asia, with a
high estimation of itself to match, should not have a matching high morale
and the will to fight. 

The most difficult question to answer is whether the DKBA guerrillas have
been given the green light by the Thai army to trespass on Thai soil,
harass defenceless refugees and humiliate the Thai people. 

How can one explain how consistently the cross-border raids that have so
far eluded news-gathering by the Thai army's intelligence unit, or how
opportunely Thai army personnel conveniently absent themselves from their
border outposts during the incursions. 

Every time a cross-border raid has taken place, the army has suggested the
KNU refugee camps be moved further away from the Thai-Burmese border, and
that able-bodied men be separated from women, children and the elderly. 

If it sounds like the army is blaming the KNU refugees, who are on the
receiving end of the attacks, it is not too far off the mark. That perhaps
partially reflects the attitude of many Thai army officers, who see it as
none of their business to get involved in the fighting of two foreign forces. 

But the fact that the harassing of refugees have been happening on Thai
territory under the watch of the Thai army makes such rationalisation
unacceptable. And there is no law that says the Thai army has the
discretionary power to decide when to allow violation of Thai sovereignty. 

All Thai soldiers make a solemn vow to defend the sovereignty of Thailand
with their lives -- never mind if no one cares about the Karen refugees
being sheltered on Thai soil. But the international community and a lot of
Thai people do care about the refugees. 

The Third Army has been slammed by refugee workers for alleged inaction
during the recent DKBA guerrilla attacks even though warnings had come
several hours in advance.

No one in the Thai army has ever said burning the refugee camp is a serious
affront to the Thailand, the Thai government and Thai people. 

It took the Burmese government-in-exile, the National Council of the Union
of Burma, to make a statement last month calling the attack a serious
violation of the sovereignty of Thailand and a direct insult to the Thai
government and the Thai people. 

An insult the Thai government and people have to endure, apparently. 

The Thai armed forces should realise that even if the Thai people have not
been very demanding of their military, it does not mean Thai people do not
know that the armed forces have a rule of engagement to stop intruders,
disarm those who are armed, or apply lethal force if they resist. 

The fraternisation of Thai military officers with their counterparts in
neighbouring countries has apparently become a tradition. Personal
relations may be a good way to solve minor border disputes and should be
encouraged so long as a mutual respect is maintained and no violation of
another's sovereignty is involved. 

When Thailand's sovereignty is violated, however, the Thai people expect
the Thai military to live up to its professional standards and perform its
duty simply, decisively, and if necessary forcefully. 

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BANGKOK POST: CHEESMAN'S STATEMENT IRKS ARMY 
April 3, 1998
Wassana Nanuam

Aid Worker "has really disappointed us."

The army chief was yesterday apparently unhappy with an Australian aid-
worker's statement that he had crossed the border into Burma voluntarily.

Nick Cheesman, 28, and colleague Ms Ngamsuk Rattanasathien, 30, returned to
Thailand safely on Wednesday. It was earlier believed they had been
abducted by pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army guerrillas last Friday.

The DKBA insisted the two were invited into Burma to take pictures of one
of its bases damaged in a counter-raid by its rivals from the Karen
National Union.

"I don't believe it was an invitation. He (Mr Cheesman) was forced at
gunpoint to cross the border. His statement is unacceptable. In that
situation he can't say he was invited.  However, we are relieved he has
been freed. And it shows we can talk with Burma and the DKBA," said Gen
Chettha Thanajaro.

"The army and the army chief are upset over Mr Cheesman's remark -- that we
were too excited. Gen Chettha was really worried about him. He has really
disappointed us," said an army source.

The source said Gen Chettha had asked Burmese military officers to help
negotiate with the DKBA for the pair's freedom, and had also sent Thai
officers over to secure their release.

"So if he insists he was invited, the army will file a charge of illegally
leaving the country against Mr Cheesman," said the source.

However, the army chief maintained no charges, would be filed against Mr
Cheesman.

But Gen Chettha said he would be warned against such action because
Thailand would be held responsible if something went wrong.

"Although he has broken the law, we cannot punish him. But we have to make
him realise he can never do that again. It is a bad example. What if the
DKBA had not freed him?"

Australian Ambassador to Thailand William Fisher yesterday thanked Gen
Chettha for the army's effort in helping secure the release of Mr Cheesman.

The Foreign Ministry also claimed credit for the release.

"The army is a coordinator in the case. The army commander contacted Burma
several times to seek his release. But we are always behind the scenes,"
said Deputy Foreign Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who inspected the
border area on the day the pair returned to Thailand.

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BANGKOK POST:  STUDENTS NOT ALLOWED TO PROTEST
April 3, 1998

Kanchanaburi

The governor has forbidden students from educational institutes here from
protesting against the Yadana gas pipeline project.

Direk Uthaiphol said he had ordered all school administrators here to
forbid students from joining activities held by those rejecting the laying
of the pipeline through some forests of Kanchanaburi.

Many organisations, especially the Kanchanaburi Conservation Group, have
tried to persuade students to join forces with them to protest though the
project would bring about more advantages than disadvantages to the people,
he added.

School administrators must inform him immediately in case their students
are convinced to participate in activities which may be against the law or
affect the country, Mr Direk said.

He also warned local people and students to carefully consider before
joining the conservation group's planned study trip to Thung Yai Naresuan
Wildlife Sanctuary because there might be an ulterior motive.

Director of the provincial General Education Office Wichai Khuprasit said
he would inform schools under the office about the governor's policy,
adding he believed that every school would follow the order.

Meanwhile, a teacher of Thep Mongkol Rangsi School voiced objection to the
order, saying it was unfair and undemocratic because people have the right
to conserve natural resources and monitor the Petroleum Authority of
Thailand's work on the project.

Deputy chairman of the conservation group Boonsong Chansonggrassamee said
the move was unfair and this showed that the governor took sides with the PTT.

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

ASIAN WALL STREET JOURNAL: WHAT ARE ASIA'S INSTITUTIONS?
April 2, 1998
By Greg Sheridan

Perhaps the most under-remarked lesson from the Asian economic crisis is
the complete failure of the region's institutions, especially the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations.  The lead institution in the crisis has been the International
Monetary Fund, although the soundness of its response is the subject of
vigorous debate. But the IMF is quintessentially a multilateral
organization under effective American dominance. Other institutions that
have played a role, such as the World Bank, are also organizations whose
inspiration, and leadership, lie outside the region. The home grown Asian
organizations, such as Asean, and the semi-home grown, such as APEC, have
been distressingly missing in action during this emergency.

That is a significant lapse. It shows that the East Asian region is still
dangerously dependent on outside leadership in anything that counts and has
failed to construct even a rudimentary regional institutional architecture
that can deal with the challenges of regional life. The result is a state
of quasi-colonial dependence for the region, which is all the more
depressing because it is self-imposed.

These words are written with great regret. I speak in the spirit of a
reformed alcoholic who was himself intoxicated in the early 1990s by the
possibilities of regional cooperation and regional integration held out by
the expansion and increasing ambition of Asean, and by the founding of
APEC.  But now we must ask the question: Where's the beef?

Traditionally, the Asia-Pacific was not a region of institutions, and those
it did have were anemic. This was because the "big picture" security
questions of the region were dominated by the United States and every
nation's individual relationship with the U.S. Moreover, Washington - and
especially the U.S. Navy -- preferred to deal on a bilateral rather than
multilateral oasis. The region was also teeming with its own internal
suspicions, which tended to militate against useful institution building.
The situation was roughly duplicated in the economic and trade sphere,
where the most important economic relationship for everyone was their own
relationship with the United States. 

All this was supposed to have changed with the end of the Cold War. For
instance, foreign power disengagement allowed Asean to welcome Vietnam as a
member. This was not only an attempt to influence Vietnam's future
development in a pro-market fashion, but an assertion of regional
inclusiveness that brought in Myanmar and Laos as well and would have
included Cambodia if it weren't for Hun Sen's coup. Meanwhile, the Asean
Regional Forum was established to provide a security dialogue mechanism.

In 1992, Asean embarked on the creation of a Free Trade Area to accelerate
economic integration. But by far the biggest game on the economic side was
APEC, which Australia founded in 1989. In 1993, the organization elevated
itself to a leaders' summit and the next year its leaders signed a pledge
to achieve free trade within the region by 2010 and no later than 2020.
What heady times they were!

Yet when the economic crisis hit in the middle of last year, none of these
regional institutions made any significant contribution toward solving it.
The crisis should have been seen as ready-made for Asean and APEC. It
didn't involve any polarizing security issues, but it did threaten the
substance of regional prosperity. So why have Asean and APEC proved such
total duds in responding to the crisis? APEC could have called an emergency
finance minister's meeting and it could have set up a group to help deal
with debt restructuring. Either APEC or Asean could have crafted a
political response promoting practical measures to accelerate
liberalization. Both missed an opportunity to offer intellectual leadership.

In Asean's case, it now appears that expansion was a tragic mistake. It
changed the association's character and made coordinated action much more
difficult in the early months of the economic crisis, when Southeast Asians
showed no signs of a regional policy response, or even a rhetorical one.
This despite Asean's famed multiple layers of consultation and innumerable
regular officials' meetings.

The "Asean way" didn't help either. The formalized habit of conflict
avoidance, of an endless striving for consensus, meant that Asean's
exhaustive decision making procedures were just too slow for a rapidly
unfolding situation. This is not to diminish Asean's historic achievements.
 It has been magnificent at its core task, namely avoiding military
conflict within Southeast Asia. It has managed or even massaged away most
of the intra-regional conflicts that bristled when the organization was
created in 1967. But Asean's failure to change its modus operandi after the
liberating end of the Cold War has left it impotent as it faces the
region's greatest challenge in 30 years.

Perhaps the worst aspect of Asean's expansion, however, was the way it
changed the organization's image in the West. Once seen as a group of
plucky developing nations making great headway economically and generally
becoming more pluralistic and representatives in their civic organization -
whatever the state of formal democracy -- the expanded Asean became
associated in the Western mind with the bloody coup in Cambodia, dreary
Stalinist red tape in Vietnam and the nasty repression of Aung San Suu Kyi
in Myanmar. In the case of Indonesia, the country's failings -- real and
imagined -- were magnified by being put into a negative context. When
markets overshoot as far as they did with the rupiah, sentiment has
certainly played a part, and Asean as an institution did nothing
significant to shape international sentiment in a positive way about
Southeast Asia.

APEC's failure is in a sense even more egregious and distressing. That is
especially difficult for an Australian to admit because we have a special
love for APEC. It was our baby, after all. APEC was sold as the vehicle
that would manage East Asia-U.S. trade tension. The threat to China's Most
Favored Nation trade status, the danger of Washington invoking Super 301
trade sanctions against Japan, Washington's spasmodic campaigning for
insertion of labor and environmental clauses into trade agreements -- all
were seen as problems that could be ameliorated by the very existence of
APEC. In addition to reinforcing a sense of community, it was meant to be
the institution that, by bringing leaders together, would have the clout to
solve problems.

Two things happened to APEC that diminished its effectiveness, one of them
America's fault, the other Asia's. APEC's membership became so grossly
distended that it lost its focus. It now includes Russia, Peru, Mexico,
Chile and Papua-New Guinea. Russia is too big to be ignored in any group of
which it is a member, but in no sense is it an integrated part of the Asia
Pacific economy. APEC is now an unwieldy mini United Nations.

That is almost all the fault of Washington, which insisted first on
including the Mexicans and then the Russians, apparently in an effort to
mollify Moscow over NATO expansion. The whole sorry episode of APEC's
expansion demonstrates the multiple weaknesses of the Clinton
administration's Asia policy, marked by merely episodic bouts of attention
and a failure to take the region's institutions seriously. As for Asia, its
contribution to APEC's enfeeblement was the insistence that APEC decisions
be non-binding, and that it be a forum not for negotiation but only for
consultations, in an attempt to recreate the culture of exhaustive Asean
consensus that has also paralyzed Asean in this instance.

It is not too late to do something. Certainly, there's no point in trying
to create a whole new raft of institutions when the current ones aren't
doing their jobs. But I have two modest proposals and one pious hope.
Modest proposal number one is to beef up the secretariats of both Asean and
APEC.  Sensibly, Asia has sought to avoid a Brussels-style bloated
bureaucracy, but in so doing it has gone to the other extreme. The APEC and
Asean secretariats not only need leaders of sufficient regional stature,
but leaders with the authority to take decisive action. Secondly, decision
making needs to shift from exhaustive consensus forming to a much more
majority rules style. The bigger an organization is, the more irrational
and debilitating is a system where every member has an effective veto.
Lowest common denominator decisions are not good enough for many of the
tasks ahead, and the economic crisis at hand.

My pious hope is that Asian leaders will be less polite and a lot more
serious from now on about transforming these institutions into tools that
really work. Just as the region needs transparent and efficient financial
institutions, it needs transparent and efficient international
institutional arrangements. There's not much point in being endlessly
diplomatic about the Asian way or the principle of non-binding decisions
if, at the end of the day, Asean and APEC cannot help the region at all in
confronting this most serious challenge.

Mr. Sheildan is the foreign editor of the newspaper the Australian. His
book, "Tigers, Leaders of the New Asia-Pacific," was published last year.

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

REUTERS:  NOBEL LAUREATES URGE DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM FOR ASIA
April 2, 1998 
By Jane Macartney

LONDON - Nobel peace laureates Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, Tibet's
exiled Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar joined in calls on
Thursday for democracy and freedom in their Asian homelands.

``Empires do not last forever, regimes are not eternal,'' Ramos-Horta said
in a speech at a reception organised by human rights activists on the eve
of the second Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM) in London.

``Peoples, yes, they are eternal, they are the makers of history,'' said
Ramos-Horta in his call for freedom not only for his Indonesian-ruled and
disputed East Timor homeland but for other countries in Asia.

The root problems of the Asian financial crisis that will be the
centrepiece of the summit of European and Asian leaders on Friday and
Saturday was the absence of democracy in some Asian countries, he said.

Asia's troubles could not be solved by financial bail-outs alone,
Ramos-Horta said, referring to the multi-billion-dollar aid package under
negotiation between the International Monetary Fund and Indonesia and those
already agreed with South Korea and Thailand.

``If they want to avoid turmoil ... if they want to avoid revolution, then
they must address the root causes of the problems and that is lack of
freedom, of democracy and of rule of law,'' he said.

Ramos-Horta met British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on Tuesday to express
his concerns. He was jointly awarded the peace prize in 1996 with Carlos
Belo, the Roman Catholic bishop of Dili, for their efforts to achieve a
peaceful solution to the East Timor issue.

The former Portuguese colony was annexed by Indonesia in 1976 in a move
never accepted by the international community. Ramos-Horta, a leader of the
movement opposing Indonesian rule, lives in exile in Australia.

Human rights groups accuse Indonesia of systematic abuses in East Timor and
the territory has long been a source of tension in relations between Europe
and Asia.

In videotaped speeches to the Alternative State Reception, the Dalai Lama
and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, formerly Burma, added their - more
carefully worded -- calls for freedom.

``China is a big country and in future will be an important country,''
Tibet's god-king said. His speech, in Tibetan, was recorded at his home in
exile in Dharamsala in India where he has lived since he fled China after
an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

``So a free and democratic China is not only advantageous to China but to
the rest of the world as well,'' he said.

However, the spiritual leader, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1989 for
his peaceful struggle for Tibetan autonomy under Beijing rule, offered an
olive branch to Beijing and avoided calling for independence for Tibet.

``It would be useless to isolate China,'' he said. ``China must be brought
into the international circle for this to be achieved.''

Tibet has been rocked in the last decade by a string of often violent
protests against Chinese rule, but Beijing and the Dalai Lama have failed
to agree on a forum for talks with China accusing the exiled god-king of
campaigning for Tibetan independence.

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, also underlined the
desire of her people for democracy.

In a videotaped speech smuggled out of Yangon, Suu Kyi indicated that the
plight of her people was an international issue.

``The cause of the people of Burma is the cause of all those who believe in
democracy,'' she said.

Suu Kyi, who was held under house arrest for six years until her release in
July 1995, won the peace prize in 1991 for her non-violent efforts to bring
about democracy in her homeland.

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FAR EAST ECONOMIC REVIEW BOOK REVIEW: CONDOMS OR LANDMINES
April 9, 1998
By Bertil Lintner

War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and Aids in Southeast Asia by Chris Beyrer.
Zed Books, 7 Cynthia St., London. £8.99.

The small dusty town of Fang in northern Thailand boasts rows of concrete
shops, a bus station, a truck depot, a disproportionate number of banks -
and far more AIDS cases per capita than elsewhere in the country. The
Burmese border is only a few kilometres away, and the town is a major
conduit for Golden Triangle heroin and hill-tribe women being trafficked
into prostitution in Thailand. 

This is also where Chris Beyrer, an American epidemiologist, began his
research project on Aids in 1992. In the next six years, he produced not
only numerous medical reports but an engaging book on the subject. <War in
the Blood> investigates the spread of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus
that causes AIDS, in six countries --Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Laos,
Cambodia and Vietnam --and in the Chinese province of Yunnan. 

Beyrer argues that HIV may be only one of many infections that spread
rapidly in times of social chaos, when blood is spilled and women are
raped.  Unlike cholera and malaria, however, HIV, with its stealthy
incubation and trivial first symptoms, doesn't fit the usual mode of
war-related disease outbreaks. According to Beyrer: "To use a military
analogy, cholera goes off like a cluster bomb; HIV seeds a country like
landmines," which may explode long after planting. 

The response to the AIDS crisis has become a mirror of the strengths and
weaknesses of political systems in Asia. In part, this is because of the
strange behaviour of HIV and the fact that AIDS is an entirely new disease
But the main reason is that the virus is spread primarily through sex and
drug abuse. For years, governments in the region claimed that their "Asian
Family Values" protected them from AIDS; Asia isn't Africa or Haiti, they
said. But when it was no longer possible to deny that some Asians visit
prostitutes and take drugs intravenously, Beyrer argues, the strongest
action was taken by the countries with the most open societies. 

In Thailand, through painstaking effort, the number of new infections has
declined. "Accountable governments and active public programmes can reduce
the burden of AIDS and reduce unnecessary suffering," according to Beyrer.
But in Burma, a country which lacks Thailand's medical infrastructure and
educational standards --and where the AIDS crisis is believed to have
reached East African proportions --the authorities still deny it. 

"There can be no prostitution in our country because it's illegal," Than
Po, head of Burma's social welfare department, stated publicly during a
recent visit to Bangkok. 

Cambodia is another example of how years of civil war, chaos and
governmental neglect have contributed to the spread of HIV. In Laos, AIDS
is a disease that exists only in Thailand, not in Vientiane or Luang Prabang. 

Vietnamese authorities have been more farsighted in their dealing with the
disease, following the Thai example. But, as far as AIDS is concerned,
Vietnam remains a divided country: Far more tests are carried out in the
south, where it's easier to admit that the problem exists, than in the more
conservative north, despite the fact that prostitution is as prevalent in
Hanoi as in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Beyrer links HIV and AIDS to the general condition of human rights in the
countries where he carried out his research. It is only logical that the
most glaring political failures in Southeast Asia are the countries most
affected by HIV. Wars in the blood can be won, he argues, but "civil
strife, repression, human-rights abuses, censorship, corruption and
government neglect can make HIV epidemics worse."

Beyrer's book offers a vivid account of sex and politics in a volatile
region. It is the first book to set the AIDS epidemic in Asia in its
rightful social and political context. In the end, governments must choose
which way to go and what their priorities are: Accountability or
censorship? A free exchange of ideas or tight control? Or, as Beyrer
succinctly puts it, condoms or landmines?

Bertil Lintner is a REVIEW correspondent, based in Bangkok.

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RADIO FREE BURMA:  FIRST BURMESE LANGUAGE INTERNET RADIO IN THE WORLD
April 5, 1998

The 5 April 98 program of Radio Free Burma is available now.  You can
listen to either Radio Free Burma page http://www.fast.net.au/rfb  or 
http://users.imagiware.com/wtongue/ of the Radio Free Burma originally on 
2NBC in Australia, now available for real-time playback via Real Audio. 
This is a Burmese-language program featuring Burma news, U Thaung's 
article, views, and music of Burma presented by Burmese now living in 
Australia. We appreciate any suggestion you have about program.  Please 
send E-mail to rfb@xxxxxxxxxxx .  Many thanks to Mr. Wrightson Tongue,
BurmaNet, and all listeners.

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