Yangon dismisses Suu Kyi `rumours'

[Sidneypilg@xxxxxxx]

HEADLINES
(1) Yangon dismisses Suu Kyi `rumours'
(2) Burmese military accuse Aung San Suu Kyi of empty gestures
(3) A host of problems

(4) Fourth Chinese dissident jailed

(5) Hong Kong activists' protest


NEWS
(1) Yangon dismisses Suu Kyi `rumours'
THE military government yesterday dismissed rumours that it might deport
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying they represented attempts by her
party to create news headlines. 
A government statement said Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD)
should join the ruling military and other countries in finding ways of riding
out the Asian economic crisis, rather than trying to seek publicity.  ``We
hope the NLD will contribute in a positive and meaningful way to achieve a
better, fuller life and take a more responsible, constructive co-operation
rather than resorting to whimsical and symbolic gestures designed merely to
attract attention and create seasonal sensational headlines,'' it said. 

An NLD statement obtained on Friday quoted Ms Suu Kyi as saying she had no
intention of leaving Myanmar amid rumours in Yangon that she might be expelled
and the NLD dissolved after New Year.  The Nobel peace laureate said the
government would have problems finding a country to accept her as she held
only Myanmar citizenship.  Myanmar's official media have in recent months
questioned whether Ms Suu Kyi is still entitled to Myanmar nationality, on the
grounds that she had married a British man, academic Michael Aris. 

Semi-government organisations have recently organised anti-NLD rallies in
which they have called for Ms Suu Kyi's deportation and dissolution of her
party. The state-run media have also made similar demands since September when
the NLD launched its Committee Representing People's Parliament.  The
government said yesterday it was not an appropriate time for Ms Suu Kyi and
the NLD to engage in sensational politics.  ``The government of Myanmar is
working hard to develop Myanmar and guide it through the current regional
economic crisis. Much work remains ahead of us. The regional economic crisis
is not improving and this is no time for playing politics,'' it said. 
- Reuters  (Hong Kong Standard - Dec 28, 98)
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(2) Burmese military accuse Aung San Suu Kyi of empty gestures 

The military government in Burma has accused the opposition leader, Aung San
Suu Kyi, of empty political gestures and trying to seek publicity.  It was
responding to a statement last week by Mrs Suu Kyi that the authorities might
deport her. 

The government urged her party, the National League for Democracy, to be more
constructive and to help Burma get through the Asian economic crisis.
Correspondents say there's been a campaign in the official Burmese media
questioning whether Mrs Suu Kyi is still entitled to Burmese nationality,
because she's married to a British citizen. 
>From the newsroom of the BBC World Service - Dec 27, 98
					-----------------------
(3) A host of problems
THE SIXTH ASEAN SUMMIT: To what extent will the bold promises of the Hanoi
Plan of Action affect the lives of ordinary Vietnamese?  JOSHUA KURLANTZICK

At the recent Sixth Asean Summit held in Hanoi, Vietnam, much attention was
paid to the subjects of how the Asean nations could best cooperate to overcome
the current regional economic problems and to increase cross-border business
and tourism links. 
But in Vietnam, the host nation of the regional gathering and a country where
foreign business investment and tourism are to some extent floundering, many
citizens are unsure if promises made at the summit will actually help ordinary
Vietnamese weather their own economic crisis or if the ministerial statements
are just a new front of Asean hot air which blew into Hanoi and will quickly
dissipate.

The promises: Throughout the 6th Asean Summit, the current economic crisis
weighed heavily on every discussion, debate, and decision. No country in the
region has survived the crisis unscathed, and foreign investment and tourism
in almost all Asean countries are sharply down (Thailand's phenomenal tourism
boom in 1998 is a noteworthy exception.)  With the crisis still looming, the
leaders of the Asean nations promised to implement the Hanoi Plan of Action
developed at the summit. In the words of Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van
Khai, the Plan of Action would help Asean show economic "national and regional
resilience".

Asean nations, Mr Van Khai added, would help each other overcome the crisis,
lure foreign investment, boost regional tourism, and foster intra-regional
trade by working together to make sure that measures such as the Asean Free
Trade Area, the Asean Investment Area, and the Asean Industrial Cooperation
Scheme are successes.  Moreover, a ten-point plan for tourism development
which was part of the Plan of Action would create a Visit Asean Year in 2001,
would provide for studies of tourism trends in Asean states, and would
encourage Asean Tourism Training Centres, among other things. 

According to Mr Van Khai, development of the West-East Corridor of the Mekong
Basin and trans-Asean road and rail links, promotion of new "growth triangles
and quadrangles" in the Asean sub-regions, "greater focus on poverty
alleviation, job creation, and comprehensive development" also will contribute
to making Asean a vibrant force. Together, all of these measures would "send
the international community a strong and clear message that Asean ... will
participate actively in and make worthy contributions to the cause of peace
and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific (region) and the rest of the world."

On the ground, tourism: Mr Cu, owner of a restaurant that caters to tourists
in one of Vietnam's larger cities, puts little credence in Vietnam's ability
to improve its links with neighbours and to draw more tourists. According to
Mr Cu, "tourism is sharply off since the initial high times when the country
opened up to foreign travel ... In the past year, my restaurant is rarely full
anymore, and when it is, it is full of backpackers swapping stories about
different places in Vietnam where they got ripped off. My family, like other
Vietnamese who welcomed the opening by going into the tourist trade, are left
out now and have little income. We have no money for several operations which
my son needs and he may die. I do not see the drop-off in visitors changing
anytime soon."

Many other restaurateurs and hotel staff in Hanoi and other cities in Vietnam
confirm Mr Cu's sentiments. Mr Vu Tat Thanh, a restaurant owner in Hanoi,
admits that "you can see on the street in Hanoi that there are far fewer
tourists. People came once to Vietnam, but will not come back. And other
people are scared off by many of the negative things they have heard about our
country. I cannot see the Asean Summit doing much for my restaurant or
trickling down to help anyone in the travel trade here, really." 

Sources at business journals which deal with Vietnam estimate that tourism to
the country has dropped more than 40 percent year-on-year in 1998. Why exactly
has this happened?
Joshua Levine, Chief Correspondent of Vietnam Business Journal, outlines some
of the reasons why Vietnam's travel trade has struggled and why the Asean
plans may have little effect on tourism to the country.  According to Levine,
"Vietnam's official dual-pricing policy is the main obstacle to the country's
ability to make significant hard currency through tourism, like Thailand does.
The Vietnamese government tells citizens to charge foreigners more for
everything - it's a quick buck kind of strategy. Look at Vietnam Airlines -
even they have the dual-pricing policy. So tourists' experience in Vietnam is
always coloured by feeling like they are getting taken advantage of
everywhere, and few people choose to come back. And now, the word is getting
out, so people are deciding not to come at all. Look around Hanoi, and you see
how many fewer foreigners there are here than two years ago."

Levine continues, saying that "the Vietnamese government's restrictions on
citizens working in the travel trade and on foreign companies attempting to
invest in tourism in Vietnam also have contributed to the drop in tourism in
Vietnam ... A number of big hotels planned in Hanoi have not opened as a
result." 

Another journalist familiar with foreign businesses in Vietnam agrees,
remarking that "I believe the Vietnamese government gives foreign-owned hotels
no support, has no long-term plan for attracting foreign visitors, and gives
local merchants the impression that they should just gouge tourists ... All of
this leads to a lack of quality in Vietnam's service industry, to bad feelings
on the part of tourists and foreign investors in Vietnamese tourism, and
eventually to just more poverty for the local Vietnamese."

Indeed, as exemplified by Thailand, tourism can be a vital earner of hard
currency for an Asean country. Walking around Hanoi or Hue, one can see how
Vietnam's tourism decline has starved some citizens who left other jobs to be
in the service industry of work, of cash, and even of food. 
For example, in Hanoi, college-age men and women who opened up cafes to cater
to tourists have reverted to attempting to peddle cheap postcards on the
streets. In Hue, staff at several smaller hotels who had given up previous
employment in the construction industry and now face lay-offs and a return to
relative impoverishment complained that "we have been duped by the government
promises of rich tourists."

While unwilling to disagree with the government's dual-pricing plans, these
same workers admitted that "the quality of service in Vietnam may discourage
visitors." Yet despite the belief of Mr Cu and many others involved in the
travel trade in Vietnam that tourism will not prosper in Vietnam, there are
signs that the Vietnamese government, partially working through Asean
frameworks, is learning valuable lessons. For example, according to sources
with knowledge of the government's plans regarding tourism, Vietnam Airlines -
which just got audited and is perpetually in the red - may abandon its dual-
pricing plan within the next six months. 
Furthermore, as one American businessman working in Hanoi notes, "Since
Vietnam is just getting used to an open economy and a service sector, it takes
two to three years for the government and the people in Vietnam to catch up to
trends. Merchants on the streets of Saigon and Hanoi are learning that they
cannot just gouge visitors. A market economy is lowering prices even for
foreigners, and this increased cooperation with capitalist Asean countries
will help.
"Merchants are learning that, as a visitor, you now can just walk down the
street and buy souvenirs or produce from another vendor. And the Vietnamese
government keeps making noises about reducing red tape for foreign hotels,
stores, etc. I take the government's participation in the Hanoi Plan of Action
as a positive sign. When the financial crisis slackens, and if Asean really
does promote cross-border links and more travel within the region, Vietnam
tourism could come back, I believe."

On the ground - foreign investment: Like tourism, foreign investment has
slackened in the past two years in Vietnam. And, as with tourism, the Asian
financial crisis is not solely to blame, although the financial pinch
certainly has contributed to the slowdown in Asian investment in Vietnam. In
fact, because Vietnam remains a relatively closed economy, the dong did not
suffer as great a devaluation due to the crisis as other regional currencies
such as the baht, the rupiah, or the peso. Ironically, Vietnam became a more
expensive and more prohibitive place in which to invest as a result. 

Again, as with tourism, the Vietnamese government may be largely to blame for
foreign investors' troubles in the country. According to one prominent
investor in Vietnam, "the amount of bureaucratic hassles involved in putting
money in the country really has not decreased that much since 1994, although
the government keeps promising it will happen. The generation in charge in
Hanoi is still the old-line, conservative group, and it is just impossible to
move quickly on projects when working with them.

"Everyone needs to say OK for anything to happen, which means that you have to
get 40 OKs just to build one building. And the lack of available private land
due to the slowness in the privatisation process also makes finding sites
hard."

Vietnam remains a largely rural, agricultural-based economy. Hence a slowdown
in foreign investment in urban and industrial products has not affected a
majority of Vietnam's population. According to Levine, "realising this, the
Vietnamese government has concentrated on fighting rural unemployment,
reforming big rural state enterprises, and dealing with Aids and other
problems ... not so much with luring outside investment. Perhaps for now they
think that less foreign investment will not really matter to most Vietnamese."
But in the future, as Vietnam's population continues to expand - the country
has one of the highest birth rates in the region - a lack of foreign
investment may cause considerable socio-political dislocation. As more
children are born, rural families may move to Vietnam's cities looking for
work. According to several Vietnamese, many more street urchins - sons and
daughters of failing farmers - roam the streets of Hanoi and Hue looking for
handouts than did just two years ago, and many more of these street kids are
turning violent.

As one merchant in Hanoi remarked, "These kids are going to keep coming here,
and if there are no industrial or commercial jobs for them, jobs which we need
foreign investment for and help from other Asean countries for, what will all
these kids do? There will be terrible urban social upheaval." The future: So
the question remains: will the Hanoi summit have a significant impact on
investment, on tourism, on the lives of the Vietnamese people? Clearly there
is a difference of opinion. 

Most foreign investors living and working in Hanoi who have stuck out the past
four years seem to share the belief that, as one man put it, "eventually the
ideas put across at the summit - especially Vietnam's eventual inclusion in
AFTA - will help create a more open business climate here and will help draw
back some investors, when the crisis slows down in Korea and Japan and
Thailand. And the influence of other Asean nations, over time, will help the
Vietnamese bureaucracy learn how to handle investors, which in turn will
produce more industrial projects in Vietnamese cities."

Another prominent businessman who has been working in Vietnam since 1994
agrees, saying that "although nothing really new and shocking is developed at
these summits, you have to remember that Vietnam has only been in Asean for a
little while. Other Asean states can teach, if they are willing. Thailand's
success in tourism, other countries' ability to draw foreign investment -
Vietnam wi
Bangkok Post - Dec 27, 98
					----------------------

(4) Fourth Chinese dissident jailed

Zhang Shanguang's conviction comes just days after three prominent dissidents
received long jail sentences sparking an international outcry.  Human rights
campaigners said Mr Zhang was accused of threatening national security after
he gave information about farmers' protests to Radio Free Asia.  They said the
dissident's family was barred from the closed trial in Huaihua city in Hunan
province, which lasted less than two and a half hours.  The court also
stripped Mr Zhang of his political rights for five years after his release,
according to reports. 

The New York based group, Human Rights in China, said the activist was accused
of "illegally providing intelligence to overseas enemy organisations and
people".  In an interview with US-funded Radio Free Asia in March, Mr Zhang
spoke about demonstrations by farmers against excessive taxes. 

Beijing considers the network hostile to communist rule and blocks its
broadcasts. In June it refused to grant visas to its reporters to cover
President Bill Clinton's visit to China. 
Mr Zhang, 45, was detained five months ago after he tried to set up a pressure
group to help laid-off workers.  He had previously served a seven year
sentence after he was arrested in a nationwide crackdown following the
demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. 
International outcry.  His trial follows those of Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin and
Wang Youcai, three of China's most prominent dissidents. 

They were sentenced this week to 13, 12 and 11 years respectively for trying
to establish the China Democracy Party to challenge communist rule. In Hong
Kong, activists marched to China's official Xinhua News Agency office on
Sunday to demand the release of the three jailed dissidents.  The trials have
sparked worldwide condemnation with the US calling the sentences deplorable. 

But the Chinese authorities have warned they will continue to take a tough
line and dismissed the criticism as foreign interference.  'We'll nip
subversion in the bud'   The crackdown comes just 11 weeks after China signed
the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which
guarantees freedom of speech. 

But President Jiang Zemin said last week that subversive activities would be
"nipped in the bud" and said China would never tolerate Western-style
democracy.  Shortly after the warning, China targeted the arts and
entertainment industries, mandating harsh punishments for those found guilty
of "inciting to subvert state power". 

The new rules cover writing, music, movies, television, video recordings and
computer software, outlawing material that "endangers social order". 
BBC - Dec 27, 98
					----------------------

(5) Hong Kong activists' protest 

CAN FOLLOW CHINA DISSIDENT TRIAL A group of around thirty democracy activists
in Hong Kong have marched to the local branch of the official Chinese Xinhua
news agency to protest against last week's sentencing of three dissidents in
China. 

The protestors among them, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic
Democratic Movements of China demanded the release of the dissidents Wang
Youcai, Qin Yongmin and Xu Wenli who were given heavy jail sentences this week
for trying to create an opposition political party. 

The human rights activists also demanded the immediate release of a veteran
labour activist Zhang Shanguang.  In their petition, the protestors called on
the Chinese government to follow the International Convention on Civil and
Political Rights which recognises the right to assembly. 
>From the newsroom of the BBC World Service - Dec 27, 98