The BurmaNet News: September 3, 199

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{{{Breaking News -- Protests in Rangoon -- Suu Kyi Meets With Foreign
Diplomats -- Mon Schools Closed }}}

The BurmaNet News: September 3, 1998
Issue #1088

HEADLINES:
==========
AFP: THOUSANDS OF MYANMAR STUDENTS PROTEST 
BBC: FOREIGN DIPLOMATS MEET BURMESE OPPOSITION 
NCUB: BURMESE AUTHORITIES ORDER MON SCHOOLS TO CLOSE  
SHRF: VILLAGERS ARRESTED OVER PLANE CRASH 
TIME: THAT UNEASY FEELING 
ANNOUNCEMENT: NAM DEMONSTRATION - SOUTH AFRICA 
ANNOUNCEMENT: FREE BURMA EXPEDITION SUMMITS MCKINLEY 
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AFP: THOUSANDS OF MYANMAR STUDENTS PROTEST AS POLITICAL TENSIONS ESCALATE 
2 September, 1998

YANGON, Sept 2 (AFP) - Thousands of students protested against the Myanmar
here Wednesday in the biggest such demonstrations in nearly two years as
political tensions boiled over on the campuses.

"End the military government," chanted up to 800 students at the Yangon
Institute of Technology (YIT), as riot police cordoned off a one mile
perimeter around the campus, witnesses said.

Another 3,000 students rallied at the Hlaing campus in the city, where many
of the institution's students live, diplomats and witnesses added.

At least six trucks of riot police, carrying some 50 officers each, were
seen arriving at Hlaing and up to 200 more were deployed around the main
YIT campus, diplomats and witnesses said.

The Hlaing campus, which was also sealed off by security forces, also hosts
a college for students preparing to enter YIT. The riot police had shields
and batons but no firearms were seen.

The protest was initially triggered by student anger at arrangements for
examinations over the last two weeks, the first since universities were
closed following unrest in December 1996, diplomats said.

But the demonstrations were the biggest since the 1996 unrest and came
after riot police broke up a smaller protest outside Yangon University on
August 25, arresting dozens of people, according to witnesses.

Another protest was staged later that day at Yangon Institute of
Technology, during which rocks were thrown and riot police mobilised.

"One little thing can spark a big demonstration which gets out of control,"
said one diplomat.

"This could escalate or it could simmer down. There is no clear indication
at this stage and there isn't likely to be because we can't get near the
area to check."

A senior Asian diplomat said he was optimistic the protest would end
peacefully but expressed fear that violence could erupt.

"They know if they allow it to go on there will be problems. I am sure if
they can't stop (the protest), the military troops will come."

The diplomat said neighbouring countries were avoiding involvement with the
protests, in line with the regional non-interventionist policy.

One European diplomat saw the absence of firearms among the riot police as
a positive sign.

"If there were guns, I would be more worried, but I think this one will be
resolved somehow for the time being."

Political tensions are rising following an opposition decision to convene
the parliament elected in 1990 after the junta ignored earlier requests to
do so.

The opposition, led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) of Nobel
peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 1990 polls by a landslide but the
junta has refused to relinquish power.

The junta, meanwhile, stepped up a verbal offensive against the opposition,
saying its vow to convene parliament was an unacceptable threat to national
security and promising stern action if the plan went ahead.

The military also repeated allegations that foreign governments were
supporting the NLD and using sanctions to hinder progress toward democracy.
Such attacks are usually interpreted as being directed at the United States.

"The NLD's decision to hold a national parliament on their own comes up as
a threat to Myanmar's national security," the junta said in a statement.

"In this scenario, the government will be left with no choice but to take
necessary legal action in safeguarding its national security."

The junta said it was unfortunate foreign powers were "blatantly
encouraging (the) NLD to take the confrontational and provocative path
which will derail Myanmar's national unity, peace and stability."

It also railed against sanctions imposed by some Western nations which have
alleged grave violations of human rights and curbs on political freedoms by
the junta. 

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BBC: FOREIGN DIPLOMATS MEET BURMESE OPPOSITION
2 September, 1998 

Foreign diplomats in Rangoon have met the leader of the National League for
Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, and several members of her executive committee
to discuss the party's plans to convene the parliament elected in 1990, in
defiance of Burma's military junta.

The meeting took place as student protests in the capital's Institute of
Technology came to an end.

And in a rare interview with the BBC, a spokesman for Burma's military
government said the military authorities refuse to rule out imprisoning
Aung San Suu Kyi if she goes ahead with her plans to create a people's
parliament.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent long periods under house arrest, said
members of her National League for Democracy party were prepared to go to
go to jail in their attempts to restore civilian rule in Burma.

Senior government spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Hla Min, said the NLD's
plans could derail national security.

"We could have a lot of problems on our hands. That leaves the government
with not much choice but to prevent the from NLD taking that stance, " the
colonel said.

Hla Min said that the government found the NLD's policies "detrimental to
the interests of the man on the streets".

The overwhelming majority of people in Myanmar are not obsessed with politics.

"They don't see the periodical right to vote and the chance to express
their political desires openly and freely as the number one thing in this
country. That will probably come when we are at a more developed stage," he
said.

Last month, Lt-General Khin Nyunt, one of the government's most senior
officers, described the NLD as "obstructionists with evil intentions".

[ ... ] 

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NCUB: BURMESE AUTHORITIES ORDER 120 ETHNIC MON SCHOOLS TO CLOSE 
2 September, 1998 

Media Release

Burma's military authorities have ordered the closure of more than 120 Mon
National Schools in Mon State in southeast Burma, breaking an agreement
with a Mon cease-fire group.

The order to close the schools was issued on July 16 by the Commander of
Military Intelligence Unit 5 (MI-5) based in Moulmein, Mon State.

It is not yet known how many schools have been subsequently shut down,
however if all 123 schools were closed an estimated six thousand students
would be affected.

The 123 Mon National Schools are operated by the New Mon State Party (NMSP)
which signed a cease-fire agreement in 1995 with the military authorities.
Under the agreement, the NMSP was allowed to operate the Mon National
Schools. Apart from the 123 Mon National Schools in Mon State, a further
170 schools are jointly administered by the NMSP and the military authorities.

In 1997, the authorities advised that the teaching of Mon language would no
longer be permitted in the 170 jointly administered schools. However, there
has been significant resistance from the Mon people to this new policy.

As a result of this new language policy, and because of increasing
education expenses and teacher shortages, Mon students have begun
transferring from the 170 jointly administered schools to the Mon National
Schools. As a result, the military authorities have ordered the closure of
the Mon National Schools.

In a letter from Military Intelligence to the NMSP, the Commander of MI-5
stated that the operation of the Mon National Schools has had a negative
impact on official education policy.

Foreign Affairs Committee National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB)

For more information, please call 01 828 3741, 01 654 2778, 01308 1994, 01
253 9082. 

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SHAN HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION: VILLAGERS ARRESTED OVER PLANE CRASH 
2 September, 1998 

News Release by the Shan Human Rights Foundation 

3 Akha villagers who reported finding the Air Myanmar passenger plane that
crashed east of Tachilek, eastern Shan State, on August 24, are being held
by Burmese authorities on unsubstantiated charges of looting, say sources
in Tachilek.

The three villagers, Ah Bay, 40, Ah Jer, 36, and Ah Nay, 20, are from the
village of Parng Kaw, about 2 miles east of the Tachilek air-strip, and 6
miles from the town itself. The plane, a Fokker Friendship F-27, on a
flight from Rangoon to Tachilek via Heho, had crashed into a wooded
hillside about 1 km from the village in heavy rain at about 10 am while
attempting to land at the air-strip.

The body of the plane broke up on impact into 3 parts and the passengers
were thrown off in all directions. Altogether 36 passengers and 3 crew
members died in the crash.

When the plane went missing, the Burmese authorities had ordered local
people and members of the People's Militia to search for the plane, but
until August 27, there were no reports that the plane had been found.
During the search, people were warned not to talk about the plane crash or
they would be imprisoned.

When the 3 Akha villagers came to the Tachilek Township Peace and
Development Council office and reported the plane crash on August 27, they
were blamed for being so slow in reporting the crash, even though they
protested they had only just found the wreckage. When the authorities went
to the wreckage and found that valuables and cash totaling over 30 million
kyat were missing from the bodies, they immediately arrested the Akha
villagers and accused them of looting the plane. Despite their denials,
they were jailed and told they would be released only if they could produce
the money and valuables looted from the plane. Furthermore, the village
headman and another local community leader in Parng Kaw were also arrested
and interrogated, and have been jailed up to the present.

One of the most senior Buddhist monks in Tachilek, Khoo Wa Long Seng La,
from Sai Murng Temple, a member of the Township Council of Monks, has
pleaded for the release of these Akha villagers, but his plea has so far
been ignored.

While it is unclear who actually looted the plane, some villagers from the
village of San Na, close to the air-strip claim to have seen a group of
Burmese soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion 526, based in Tachilek,
coming from the site of the crash the day after the crash took place.

Since August 29, troops from LIB 526 have been guarding the site of the
plane crash and no villagers are allowed to go near it. The SPDC township
authorities have announced that the relatives of the victims should go and
retrieve the bodies of their relatives by themselves. Among the casualties
are reported to be 2 police officers, Inspector Kyaw Thaung and his deputy
Myint Thein, and also 2 Captains from LIB 526.

Until August 30, there was still an order banning the talking about the
plane crash. On August 29, a group of 4 Burmese wage labourers, Myint Aung,
33, Kyaw Too, 19, Htun Kyaing, 21 and Than Lay, 31, were arrested for
talking about the plane crash in a tea-shop in Tachilek. They had been
complaining about the fact that the authorities had been so slow in
locating the plane. They were locked up for one night and fined 600 kyats
each.

These arbitrary arrests highlight clearly the lack of basic human rights in
Burma.

The Shan Human Rights Foundation, P.O. Box 201, Phra Singh Post Office,
Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand  (e-mail: shrf@xxxxxxxxxxxx)

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TIME: THAT UNEASY FEELING 
7 September, 1998 by Anthony Spaeth

FACING POLITICAL UNREST, ECONOMIC TURMOIL AND ONE STUBBORN LADY, BURMA'S
BOSSES BRACE FOR THE WORST.

RANGOON, THE LEAFY CAPITAL OF BURMA, has sprouted a bit of a night scene.
There are many new eateries, including a stylish Japanese restaurant, and
dance clubs in shiny hotels now cater to tourists, businessmen and affluent
locals. These days, though, the streets of the city are darkened, deserted
and eerily quiet after sundown. "People are fearful that there will be
trouble," explains a hotel receptionist.

A sense of impending trouble can be felt during the day too, as thick as
the tropical humidity. Last week, some 200 students gathered near Rangoon
University, shouting pro-democracy slogans and waving the red flag of the
National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the
1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Onlookers cheered, but riot police swiftly
disbursed the rally and loaded students and even a few bystanders onto
trucks. A smaller demonstration erupted afterward at the Yangon Institute
of Technology, which also was broken up. They were the first such rallies
since two weeks of demonstrations at the end of 1996 and a possible sign
that the eight-year stand-off between Suu Kyi and Burma's military regime
is entering a more tumultuous phase.

That, apparently, is how the generals see it: at midweek they closed all
approaches to the gilded and diamond-encrusted Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's
most sacred shrine. Suu Kyi gave a famous speech there in 1988, and
authorities don't want it to become Rangoon's own Tiananmen Square. They
also summoned two of Suu Kyi's deputies and officially warned them to
"avoid acts which will undermine stability and peace".

It's a stand-off that neither side is likely to win. Suu Kyi is demanding
that the ruling junta belatedly recognize her party's victory in 1990
parliamentary polls, which would make her the country's leader. "The time
is not only ripe," she said in a recent taped address smuggled out to Radio
Free Asia, "but in fact it is long overdue." But the generals have no such
plan. After releasing Suu Kyi from six years of house arrest in 1995, they
have ignored her pleas for a power-sharing dialogue in the apparent hope
that she will fade into irrelevance. (Suu Kyi has consistently avoided a
call for a popular uprising, fearing the violence that could result.) The
military regime also started liberalizing the economy, hoping a trickle of
prosperity would placate the populace.

But the economy is on the verge of collapse, largely because of the
political deadlock and Suu Kyi's pleas to the outside world to with hold
investment from Burma. Foreign-exchange reserves are estimated to be down
to $50 million, barely enough to pay for a week's imports, and inflation is
running at about 30%. The official exchange rate of the kyat, Burma's
currency, is six to the U. S. dollar, but private moneychangers give 360
for a greenback. Electric power fails constantly in the capital. Three of
Rangoon's new luxury hotels have asked for government permission to close,
which was denied.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi is being forced into greater assertiveness. Two months
ago, she demanded that the parliament elected in 1990 be convened by Aug.
21, a deadline that passed unheeded. "The lower echelons of the party and
the students feel a last-ditch effort is needed if the party is to
survive," says a Rangoon diplomat in touch with Suu Kyi. "They forced her
into it." After setting the deadline, Suu Kyi decided to travel to the
countryside to drum up support from her idle and demoralized followers. In
two attempts to visit Irrawaddy district, a main area of support,
authorities halted her on a small bridge 32 km from the capital. After six
days on the bridge in July, she was forced back to Rangoon in poor physical
shape.

On the second attempt, she spent 13 days in a Toyota Town-Ace van, finally
returning to the capital in an ambulance. But the government made every
effort to deride her. It sent a beach umbrella and plastic tables and
chairs to the bridge and issued a press release saying it had also provided
imported snacks and cassettes by Madonna and Michael Jackson. "She has been
spending most of her time inside her air-conditioned camper reading
novels," it announced.

That's part of a long-running effort to paint Suu Kyi, who lived for
decades in Britain, as a troublemaker foisted on Burma by the outside
world. It hasn't worked, as the student protests and a barricaded capital
prove. Suu Kyi hopes that a collapsing economy will force change, and the
International Monetary Fund has reported that Burma's medium-term outlook
is "grim".

The same, unfortunately, can be said about the political situation. The
junta is said to be split between pragmatists and an even tougher faction
that favors going back to the hermetic isolation of the Ne Win decades. (Ne
Win himself, now 87 and in supposed retirement in Rangoon, still has clout
in that group.) Suu Kyi's party, meanwhile, is showing signs of a split:
during her second stand-off on the bridge, NLD chairman U Aung Shwe met
with a top general, an event featured on the government's nightly news
broadcast. Burma's downward slide continues, but its pace might be picking up.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: NAM DEMONSTRATION -- SOUTH AFRICA 
2 September, 1998 from Kiru Naidoo <kiru@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 

[update]

A successful demonstration was held outside the Non-Aligned Movement Heads
of State Summit in Durban, South Africa.  The Free Burma Campaign had over
50 persons with posters , banners and pamphlets highlighting the persistent
repression in Burma.  Both the South African and the Military Junta's
Foreign Minister, U Ohn Gyaw, failed to arrive to receive our memoranda.
The officials of the Myanmar Embassy were however quite busy photographing
the demonstration.  The demonstration was extensively covered by the
international print and broadcast media.  Durban is host to the 12th NAM
summit which is attended by 23 heads of state and 113 countries.

Media Release:  BURMA DEMONSTRATION

The Free Burma Campaign (South Africa) which is a member of the
International Free Burma Coalition will organise a demonstration at the
International Convention Centre (Durban) where the Non-Aligned Movement
Summit is being convened.  The demonstration will be held on Wednesday, 2
September 1998 at 14.30 outside the Exhibition Centre in the area allowed
for demonstrations.  We will seek to present a memorandum to President
Mandela and U Ohn Gyaw, Head of the Myanmar delegation to NAM.

The Free Burma Campaign calls on the military regime which has ruled Burma
since 1962 and which is represented at NAM as the delegation from Myanmar, to:

1. Recognise the results of the democratic elections of 1990 in which the
National League for Democracy emerged victorious with over 82% of the
popular vote

2. Allow NLD leader , Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Laureate,
unhindered political activity including addressing her officials and
supporters, meeting the international media and diplomats and free movement
within the country (She recently spent almost two weeks in her car during a
standoff with the military authorities who refused to allow her to proceed
to meeting her supporters.)

3. Convene Parliament speedily

4. Desist from intimidating and harassing ordinary Burmese people who face
consistent human rights violations eg. forced labour, torture,
extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, forced porterage often as
human mine sweeps, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence perpetrated
especially against girls and young women.

5. Accept Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's persistent offer to engage in dialogue
aimed at the restoration of democracy in Burma.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: FREE BURMA EXPEDITION SUMMITS MCKINLEY 
2 September, 1998 

On June 16, 1998 the "Free Burma Rangers" summated Mt. McKinley, at 20,320
feet, the highest mountain in North America.  Battling high winds, extreme
cold, and pressing on when other expeditions turned back, the three man
team planted their Free Burma flag on McKinley's icy summit.

In addition to the love and challenge of mountaineering, the purpose of the
climb was to increase international awareness of the peoples of Burma's
struggle for democracy. The purpose was also to have "fun", however, there
was not too much fun to be had on what is said to be the coldest mountain
on our planet.  The climb took three weeks during a bad year that saw most
expeditions fail.  Violent storms lashed the mountain repeatedly,
destroying camps, stopping all movement and contributing to the death of
three climbers who fell high off the route.

The "Free Burma Rangers" were an American team composed of David Eubank, a
Christian  missionary in Thailand working with refugees who have fled
Burma, Commander Peter Dawson, a U.S. Navy  submarine officer, and Major
Mike Stoneham, a U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret), officer. (Mr.
Eubank is also a Major in the Special Forces reserve.) The name "Free Burma
Rangers", was chosen because of the team's personal support of the movement
for freedom in Burma and to help create more awareness of the situation in
Burma.  (note: All expeditions must have a name).

While at each of the five camps established on the mountain, the team flew
their Free Burma flag.  Other expeditions took notice and many came by to
express their solidarity with the people of Burma.  A Polish team was
especially moved and upon seeing the flag, said with great emotion, "Ah,
Aung San Suu Kyi, yes we admire her,  we are with the people of Burma, we
know what it is like to live under a dictatorship, we know what freedom
costs.... all the peoples of Burma have our support and prayers." Germans,
Ukrainians, Spaniards, Australians, Belgians and other national expeditions
gave their support and a message to the peoples of Burma...."don't give up,
the world is behind you".

The team itself stated that, "as our motto in the Special Forces is ,'De
Oppresso Liber', or Free The Oppressed, we decided it was fitting to name
our expedition in honor of all those who struggle to be free from  the
oppression in Burma."  They will present the summit flag to Aung San Suu Kyi.

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