The BurmaNet News: August 11, 1998

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The BurmaNet News: 11 August, 1998
Issue #1068

HEADLINES:
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THE NATION: BURMA HOLDS 18 FOREIGNERS
THE NATION: JUNTA STIFFENS SECURITY AROUND SUU KYI'S HOME
FEER: INTERNAL MATTER
FEER: BEHIND THE CIVILIAN MASK
ANNOUNCEMENT: ABSDF URGES BURMESE TO WEAR YELLOW
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THE NATION: BURMA HOLDS 18 FOREIGNERS

10 August, 1998

The Nation, Agencies

EIGHTEEN foreign activists, including three Thais, were arrested in Rangoon
yesterday and are still in detention after handing out leaflets calling on
the Burmese to remember a political uprising ten years ago, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Kobsak Chutikul said.

The Thais arrested are Charan Distapichai, 52, lecturer at Rangsit
University, Chanakarn Pandermwongse, 22, a Thamasat University student and
Sawat Uppahad, a representative from the Forum of the Poor.

The Thai Embassy in Rangoon has been instructed to request official
confirmation of the arrests from Burmese authorities and to learn the charges.

The rest arrested include six Americans, three Malaysians, three
Indonesians, two Filipinos and an Australian.

The eighteen arrived in Rangoon on Friday, holding tourist visas from
Bangkok, and planned to return yesterday afternoon. Some were arrested on
the street, others, at the airport, Kobsak said.

Pro-democracy supporters, handing out the leaflets, said they were from the
Alternative Asean Network (Altsean), a group supporting Burma's democracy
movement in neighbouring Asian countries. An Altsean spokeswoman in Bangkok
told The Nation that she had been shocked when she heard of the arrests and
was "very concerned about the well-being of those people as they did
nothing wrong".

Burmese authorities said that the 18 had been arrested for distributing
pamphlets in Rangoon and would be held until investigations were completed.

They said various pamphlets and related material aimed at inciting public
unrest had been found in their hotel rooms. "We are your friends from
around the world. We have not forgotten you. We support your hopes for
human lights and democracy," said the leaflets.

Activists said they had distributed around 10,000 leaflets throughout Rangoon.

The leaflets called on the Burmese to remember the 10th anniversary of an
uprising of opposition supporters on Aug 8, 1988, called the "Four eights
day" by pro-democracy activists, which resulted in a bloody crack-down
across the country.

"8888 -- Don't forget -- Don't give up," they added.

Thousands of red leaflets in Burmese and English were distributed earlier
yesterday at eight points in the capital, including the landmark Shwedagon
Pagoda, whose massive golden spire dominates the city, witnesses said.

"Despite these efforts for agitation, conditions in Rangoon, Mandalay and
other parts of the country are peaceful and calm," the government statement
said.

Thai Foreign Ministry yesterday issued a statement saying the "Thai
government does not support or encourage Thai nationals to engage in
political activities in other countries".

"However, if Thai nationals are arrested, we shall make necessary
representations to ensure that they are treated properly in accordance with
and in terms of legal and humanitarian standards," the statement read.

Kobsak said Thai ambassador to Rangoon Pensak Chararak had raised the issue
with Burma's Deputy Foreign Minister U Khin Muang Win at a function. The
Burmese minister told the Thai envoy: "Don't worry about this. We will
handle it."

Kobsak said that the detainees claimed the leaflets were not a political
document but a gooowill message from friendly neighbours and Asean.

The political temperature in Rangoon, with Aung San Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy (NLD) and the military junta at odds, has been high in
recent weeks owing to the deadline set, for the government to convene by
Aug 21 a parliament of those elected in May 1990.

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THE NATION: JUNTA STIFFENS SECURITY AROUND SUU KYI'S HOME

10 August, 1998

Associated Press

RANGOON -- The military regime stiffened its security detail on the streets
around Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's house yesterday after complying
with her requests to withdraw the detachment from her property.

But security outside her home and in the capital remained light a day after
the sensitive 10th anniversary of a nationwide uprising against military
rule, which the army eventually crushed by killing as many as 3,000 people.

The anniversary itself passed calmly on Saturday without demonstrations
anywhere in the country, the government reported. Rumours continued to fly
yesterday that pro-democracy activists were gathering to stage spot
protests, but none could be confirmed.

Government newspapers said plainly that the peaceful anniversary, which
dashed predictions by exiled Burmese opposition groups of a new uprising,
could be attributed to fear.

"Even though the democracy princess wanted the people to go out on the
streets and create anarchy in the country, the people dare not break the
laws of the existing government," said an opinion piece.

Suu Kyi, who recently engaged authorities in a six-day standoff on a road
outsaide the capital, requested last Thursday that the security detail
posted inside her lakeside compound be withdrawn.

The government announced on Saturday that it had complied but would
continue to ensure her safety. The detail is believed by diplomats to be
part of extensive surveillance of Suu Kyi and her, party, the National
League for Democracy.

On University Avenue, where she lives, signs put in place two years ago to
warn off non-residents were supplemented on Saturday with long bamboo poles
that could be raised to allow people to enter, but unlike previous tense
periods, there were no barbed-wire barricades.

Neighbours said that two cars, one a marked police vehicle, the other
unmarked, were parked outside Suu Kyi's residence, facing in either
direction. They appeared poised-to easily follow her if she tried to leave.

Suu Kyi has been stepping up her campaign to bring more democracy to the
country ahead of an Aug 21 deadline she has set for the government to
finally convene the Parliament elected in 1990.

The elections were overwhelmingly won by the opposition, but the military,
which has ruled the country since 1962, never allowed it to meet and has
steadily persecuted Suu Kyi's supporters.

Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, has spent most of the past
decade under house arrest or less formal restriction to her home.

On Friday her party exercised one of its few available powers and refused a
government invitation for Chairman Aung Shwe to meat a mid-level Cabinet
minister for talks. Suu Kyi and the party's two vice chairmen were
forbidden to attend.

The NLD has long called for a dialogue but fears attempts by the ruling
State Peace and Development Council is to divide the party's leaders and
isolate Suu Kyi, the group's most potent international symbol.

In Bangkok police ordered the 200 or so Burmese citizens who had gathered
outside the embassy on Saturday to protest against the government to disperse.

Their numbers yesterday were down to about 70, but police said they wanted
the figure under 40, citing complaints from the embassy and residents.
Three protesters who did not have papers allowing them to be in Bangkok
were detained and were to be sent back to a refugee camp.

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FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW: INTERNAL MATTER

13 August, 1998

By Shawn W. Crispin in Rangoon

The contrasts could not have been sharper in the Burmese government's
six-day stand-off with the opposition, which ended on July 30. Stranded on
a bridge on the outskirts of Rangoon was the dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.
Wearing a traditional Burmese pinni jacket and the headdress of a peasant
girl, she seemed somehow saintly. Looking on, the forces of the ruling
junta, with their barb-wired roadblocks and firearms, appeared downright
beastly. Meanwhile, in a country haunted by a history of shocking images,
the streets of Rangoon remained quiet.

Nearly 10 years to the day -- August 8, 1988 -- on which the military
killed thousands by opening fire on crowds of pro-democracy demonstrators,
this veneer of calm has the junta spooked. Domestic and international
political pressure mounts for the government to open dialogue with Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy. Meanwhile, any hope that Asean
membership, granted last year, would help to boost the beleaguered
country's wealth has been squelched by the regional economic crisis. And
increasingly erratic signals hint at divisions between military
intelligence and the rest of the armed forces.

"There is a growing, albeit quiet, antagonism between military intelligence
and the army_particularly between intelligence chief Khin Nyunt and army
commander Gen Maung Aye," says a Westrn diplomat. Khin Nyunt, handpicked in
1984 by then-dictator Ne Win, has always been seen as Burma's heir apparent.

Indeed, nowhere are the policy inconsistencies between the junta's two
power centres more apparent than in their recent divergent approaches to
dealing with the NLD, the country's chief opposition party. Quiescent since
1995, when it withdrew its participation in drafting a new constitution, in
June the NLD upped the tempo of its opposition campaign by demanding a
dialogue with the government, which goes under the name of the State Peace
and Development Council. The party also insisted that the parliament
democratically elected in 1990 be convened by August 21.

In seeming accord, the junta has answered such demands with a
characteristically hard and ruthless line. Since June, it has jailed 42
elected NLD members and restricted the movement of many others. In its
hardest position against Suu Kyi since it freed the Nobel Peace Prize
winner from six years of house arrest in 1995, the SPDC restricted her from
leaving the Rangoon area on three separate occasions.

But a deeper inspection reveals cracks in the party line. Suu Kyi's first
two halted excursions to meet provincial NLD members outside the capital on
July 8 and July 20 were resolved peacefully through military-intelligence
intervention. But her latest attempt ended with her being violently forced
back to the capital-an abrupt policy departure from the earlier two
incidents. "The army decided to deal with this one," says another
Rangoon-based diplomat. "They have lost their patience, which may indicate
Khin Nyunt's influence is on the descent."

This isn't the only time that mixed signals have emerged from the junta
since November, when, in a quiet coup, a number of ministers were sacked on
charges of corruption. On June 25, stick-wielding hooligans under the
army's direction attacked a "reading group" in front of Suu Kyi's compound.
(Since the military closed all universities in 1996, Suu Kyi has held
fortnightly meetings to peacefully discuss current events.) In the melee,
one of the military-intelligence officers in Suu Kyi's compound, Maj Thura,
suffered minor head injuries while trying to stop the flogging.

The November coup, many diplomats contend, originated with Gen Ne Win, Khin
Nyunt's patron. Ne Win ruled Burma from 1962-88 and continues to act as
junta puppetmaster. But as rumours swirl that the 87-year-old's health is
declining, the coup may not have come off as cleanly as first thought.
"Because Khin Nyunt controls the press and information dissemination,
everyone assumes he is running the country. But in the end Maung Aye still
wields a bigger stick," says the Western diplomat.

Rivalry and suspicion between military intelligence and the army are
nothing new, nor are differences in outlook between Khin Nyunt and Maung
Aye. But whatever the two men's differences, so far they have avoided
creating full-blown groups. Now, though, the regime faces its greatest
political and economic challenges since the 1988 democratic uprising, and
the strain is beginning to show.

Khin Nyunt brokered numerous recent ceasefires along the Thai border, where
some ethnic insurgents have fought for 50 years. Maung Aye, a former army
commander who has built his career battling ethnic insurgents, probably
preferred a final military solution to the conflicts. What's more,
political analysts speculate that Maung Aye thought the ceasefires spared
his former battlefield adversaries. "The terms of the Shan ceasefire, in
effect, legalized all Khun Sa's drug money and have made him veritable
royalty in Rangoon," says a Burma watcher in Thailand, referring to the
notorious Shan opium warlord.

There may also be a philosophical schism opening within the regime. Khin
Nyunt was the impetus for Burma's entering Asean in July 1997 and many
analysts speculate his fate rests on the initiative's success. At that
time, the top brass agreed that Asean would grant the regime the legitimacy
needed to woo much-needed foreign investment into Burma. "They figured the
Asean model of an authoritative political system, an open economy, would
work for them just like it did for Indonesia," says an ambassador to Burma.
"But the regional financial crisis has made their moment of triumph very
short-lived."

Worse yet for the military, that moment of triumph has quickly turned into
a moment of ignominy. Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan's recent call to
replace Asean's founding precept of "noninterference" with "flexible
engagement" was seen as a direct attack on Burma. The regime's continued
political intransigence quickly became a topic at the recent Asean and
Asean Regional Forum meetings in Manila, and Burma's foreign minister, Ohn
Gyaw, had to listen. "The Asean shield for the SPDC has completely
evaporated," says the ambassador. "They suddenly feel very much alone and
exposed." 

Criticism from its perceived Asean brethren caught the junta off-guard. And
as foreign investors flee the country, isolation looks a lot more appealing
to many SPDC members than keeping a door open to the world. "Considering
what the financial crisis has brought to bear on the more liberalised Asean
economies, openness is beginning to be perceived as a threat and may soon
be replaced by a resurgent isolationism," says a Rangoon-based analyst.

The first signpost has been recent restrictions placed on all border trade
in a crude attempt to stop the free-fall of the Burmese currency, the kyat.
Since July 1997, the blackmarket rate has slid to 365 to the U.S. dollar
from 170. The currency remains officially pegged to the dollar, however, at
only 6.25 kyat.

With Maung Aye serving contemporaneously as head of the Trade Policy
Council, the prospect of future economic opening looks bleak.

"Maung Aye is a soldier boy through and through. Decisions are made by
dictate and without consultation," says the Western diplomat.
"Unfortunately, he is hopelessly ignorant about economics."

More outward-looking, Khin Nyunt knows that a return to the isolationist
policies of the 1960s and 1970s is a dangerous proposition. In January and
March, he even solicited suggestions from private economists on how to
solve the country's economic woes. They called for the blackmarket and
official currency rates to be brought into line. But the more conservative
elements of the SPDC fear the effect a divaluation would have on inflation,
already dangerously high at 50% on domestically produced goods.

If it wants to avoid inflationary pressure, reworking the exchange rate
will require that Burma obtain foreign aid. But with Washington-led
sanctions still in place, that probably won't materialize until the
government starts talks with the NLD.

How long it will be before this happens, if ever, remains unclear. Khin
Nyunt seems to understand the need for openness. Maung Aye appears to be in
denial. And Prime Minister Than Shwe, increasingly a figurehead, would
probably rather retire than deal with it. None of them like it, but as Suu
Kyi continues her push, it will likely accentuate their different
perspectives and a fractious power struggle cannot be ruled out.

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FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW: BEHIND THE CIVILIAN MASK

13 August, 1998

Shawn W. Crispin

Burma's military rulers intend to hand over power. But there's a catch:
They intend to hand it to themselves.

Or at least a form of themselves. The junta has since 1993 been grooming
the Union Solidarity and Development Association _ a quasi-political party
established under the guise of a community_assistance organization to
become its political arm in an as-yet-unannounced round of elections.

By drafting a constitution without input from either the opposition
National League for Democracy or Burma's ethnic-minority groups, the junta
looks to remain at the centre of Burma's political stage-but behind the
civilian mask of the USDA. Through what Prime Minister Than Shwe calls
"discipline democracy," the regime envisages a system in which the military
continues to rule from behind the scenes.

"The USDA is Than Shwe's baby and he's trying to bring it up along the
lines of Indonesia's Golkar," says a Rangoon-based Asian diplomat,
referring to the Indonesian government's party, which after decades of rule
has only recently begun to truly seek popular support. Towards this end,
selected USDA members are being trained in diplomacy, public administration
and even economics.

Using both intimidation and promises of things like priority in hiring for
public-sector jobs, the USDA has expanded its membership to more than 8
million. "It's just easier to join," suggests a Western diplomat. "You go
to meetings and occasionally wave at a passing black limo, then nobody
hassles you."

Even with the development of the USDA, the junta remains reluctant to
unveil its constitution and formally announce new elections. When it does,
it will probably prevent the NLD from participating, perhaps by stripping
it of its legal status.

But as long as the NLD is outside the process, "new elections would have
absolutely no credibility," says the diplomat. Then again, after 10 years
in power as a "transitional" government, the junta has never shown great
concern for credibility.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: ABSDF URGES BURMESE TO WEAR YELLOW

8 August, 1998

Media Release 

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) today urges Burmese people
and sympathisers from the international community to wear yellow clothes
and carry yellow coloured objects as symbol of support for the
pro-democracy movement in Burma.

The call is being made in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the
(8888) democratic popular uprising in the country.

The ABSDF also calls on the Burmese people to lend support to Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) in their call for the
convening of parliament by August 21.

ABSDF Foreign Affairs Secretary, Aung Naing Oo said, "Yellow is a
traditional symbol of democracy in Burma. It symbolises unity among us and
encouragement to each other."

"Wearing yellow clothes is a low risk action. It is very easy for everyone
to participate in such action as they carry a minimum risk. The military
therefore will find it very difficult to stop such activities."

All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF)

For more information please call 01-253 9082, 01-654 4984
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