The BurmaNet News: February 17, 199

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Subject: The BurmaNet News: February 17, 1999

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The BurmaNet News: February 17, 1999
Issue #1209

Noted in Passing: "Germany has said it will be difficult to convince its EU
colleagues unless there is progress on human rights [in Burma.] We are not
very optimistic." - Thai Foreign Ministry official (see THE NATION: ASEAN
FEELING WEIGHT OF BURMA) 

HEADLINES:
==========
AFP: MYANMAR RELEASE "INTERESTING GESTURE" 
INTELLIGENCE NEWSLETTER (FRANCE): INTERPOL CONFERENCE 
AAP: AUSTRALIA REJECTS BOYCOTT OF BURMA DRUG SUMMIT 
MIC: BOYCOTTS SMACK OF HIGH HYPOCRISY 
MIZZIMA: EPHEDRINE HYDROCHLORIDE SMUGGLED ACROSS BORDER 
THE NATION: ASEAN FEELING WEIGHT OF BURMA 
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AFP: MYANMAR RELEASE "INTERESTING GESTURE" 
12 February, 1999 

BANGKOK, Feb 12 (AFP) - Myanmar's release of a former aide to Aung San Suu
Kyi was an "interesting gesture" but the junta must renounce repression
before it can join an ASEAN-EU meeting next month, European sources said
Friday.

Myanmar's junta on Thursday night released Dr Ma Thida, a former associate
of Aung San Suu Kyi, a quarter of the way through a 20-year jail term. The
release came days after European sources said that a humanitarian "gesture"
by the junta such as the release of political prisoners could ease a
long-running row between ASEAN and the EU. 

"It was an interesting gesture on the humanitarian side but the problem is
very important," a senior European source told AFP in Thailand Friday.
"What we are waiting for from the Myanmar government is a true thaw, a
dialogue with the opposition. 

"What we want is an important change in the repression policy not a
microscopic gesture." 

The row between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the
European Union over Myanmar is threatening the EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting
in Berlin. A number of EU states including Britain have said they will
refuse to sit with Myanmar officials at the meeting. There has been no
formal contact between the two blocs for more than a year following
European criticism of the human rights situation in Myanmar when it was
admitted to ASEAN in July 1997. A planned ASEAN-EU meeting in Bangkok last
month was cancelled because of the Myanmar row and the Berlin meet on the
sidelines of next month's Asia-Europe (ASEM) forum in Berlin is now in doubt. 

Myanmar exile sources and a European diplomat in Yangon said Friday that it
was doubtful if Ma Thida's release was intended to ease the ASEAN-EU row.
They pointed out that Dr Thida, who was jailed in October 1993 for
distributing anti-government literature, had been seriously unwell in
prison. Dissidents were occasionally set free from Myanmar prisons before
the end of their sentences, they said. 

Critics of Myanmar accuse the government of political repression and
blatant human rights abuses including torture. Hundreds of members of the
opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, led Aung San Suu Kyi,
have been detained in recent months in what democrats call the biggest
crackdown on dissent since the junta brutally crushed a student movement in
1988. 


The ruling military council refuses to recognise the landslide victory of
the NLD in 1990 elections and has ignored recent calls for parliament to be
convened. The military, which has been in power in one form or another
since 1962, denies widespread allegations of serious abuses of human
rights, such as torture and the imprisonment of opposition supporters.

Thailand's Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said Thursday in Vienna that
some progress has been made in the row but admitted it remained a key
problem in the two blocs' ties. But he said: "Now that it's in, we have to
find a way ... so that other meaningful projects and meaningful dimensions
of the relations between Europe and ASEAN are not affected because of one
issue."
 
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INTELLIGENCE NEWSLETTER (FRANCE): INTERPOL CONFERENCE IN RANGOON BOYCOTTED
11 February, 1999 

[Intelligence Newsletter is the English version of the French Publication,
Le Monde du Renseignement.]

[BurmaNet Editor's Note: Yesterday (16 February, 1999) French Foreign
Minister Hubert Vedrine announced, "there will be no French delegation at
the 4th conference of Interpol in Rangoon, Burma".  He was responding to a
question asked in French Parliament by Ms. Marie Helene Aubert, a Green MP.
 The French Foreign Minister said this decision was equally decided with
the French Home Affairs Minister. The Parliament session was televised on
French national TV, France 3.]

#352

NARCOTICS

Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Ireland and then Belgium, the United
States and Britain have all announced their refusal to attend Interpol's
Fourth World Conference on Heroin, scheduled for Rangoon Feb 23-26 (IN
351). The American decision  came later because it appears that the DEA
[Drug Enforcement Agency] insisted on travelling to Rangoon. It was only
when the White House stepped in to decide in favour of the boycott that the
DEA stood down. Italy and Germany are reportedly poised to make the same
decision to refuse any [ ... ] with a regime often described as a "drug
dictatorship". 

Interpol's choice of Rangoon has opened a wide rift within the
organization. According to an Asian police source, the Burmese capital was
chosen at the behest of France which wants to "develop greater cooperation
with the Myanmar authorities". France's singular attitude towards  Burma
already surfaced in Brussels last October when Paris was alone among the 15
EU capitals to oppose European economic sanctions against Rangoon.
Elsewhere, former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing is scheduled to
visit Burma in a private capacity later this month.

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AAP (AUSTRALIA): AUSTRALIA REJECTS BOYCOTT OF BURMA DRUG SUMMIT 
11 February, 1999 by Stephen Spencer 

CANBERRA, Feb 11 AAP-- Australia today came under fire for refusing to join
the United States and a number of European nations in boycotting an
Interpol conference on heroin in Burma later this month.

The US yesterday confirmed it would join Britain, Holland, Italy, Belgium,
Luxembourg and Denmark in boycotting the conference to avoid compromising
tough sanctions designed to isolate the Burmese military regime.


At least two other European Union (EU) nations are considering joining the
boycott, with others under pressure from the US not to attend.

But Australia, which has not imposed sanctions on Burma, will send two
Australian Federal Police officers and a Customs officer to the conference.

The Australia Burma Council has written to Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer appealing to him to overturn Australia's decision to attend the
conference.

The council says Australia's presence would help to legitimise the regime
which has been ostracised over its brutal treatment of political opponents
and refusal to recognise the 1990 election victory by Nobel Laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi.

"Mr Downer must reconsider his position on this matter and refuse to allow
Australian Federal Police to attend the conference if Australia is to
maintain a level of respectability and honour in the international
community," the council said in a statement.

The council also attacked the staging of the conference in Burma as
hypocritical, citing US claims that Burma, with the compliance of the
military regime, was one of the world's major sources of illicit drugs.

Burma is the largest producer of heroin in the Asia Pacific region and is
directly responsible for approximately 80 per cent of the drug on our
shores which kills Australian children every day," the council said.

"Australia spends millions of dollars trying to stem the flow of drugs from
the Golden Triangle, yet are prepared to spend more on a conference which
will embrace the dictatorship of Burma and leave them thinking their
propaganda is being believed." 

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MYANMAR INFORMATION COMMITTEE: INFORMATION SHEET #A-0803(I) - BOYCOTT
SMACKS OF HIGH HYPOCRICY
16 February, 1999 from Okkar66129@xxxxxxx 

[Information Sheets issued under the email addresses MYANPERSP@xxxxxxx and
OKKAR66129@xxxxxxx match those issued by the Directorate of Defence
Services Intelligence (DDSI) in Rangoon, and can be assumed to reflect
official SPDC opinion.]

Until The Weekend Australian disclosed the high tensions caused by
Interpol's move to stage its heroin conference in Rangoon, even most of the
boycotting countries had kept quiet on the matter.

Small wonder.

For the "isolate Burma" zealots in the international community the issue
was not the international narcotics trade; it was protecting the purity of
their diplomatic stances.

The interests of police and Customs services and indeed of vulnerable
citizens were ignored in order to stay politically "on message". But once
that particular message sinks in at home, it might cause a lot of trouble
for the governments involved. Tough on drugs? Not if it means being less
tough on Burma.

Nor does it actually help their argument that the State Peace and
Development Council is running Burma as a "narco-State".

Rangoon was always going to use the conference to propagandise its claims
to be suppressing Burma's massive opiates industry. But the boycott
suggests those who have been loudest in making the narco-State case were
most nervous about having it tested by observation.


Never mind, either, that the boycotting nations include the world's
largest single narcotics market and several other very big ones Hey, we
don't make the stuff -- we just buy it. What we make is gestures!

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MIZZIMA NEWS GROUP: EPHEDRINE HYDROCHLORIDE SMIGGLED ACROSS INDO-BURMA BORDER
12 February, 1999 

The Indo-Burma border, which was for some years used as a route of heroin
smuggling from Burma to outside world, is changed to a route of Ephedrine
hydrochloride smuggling. The Ephedrine is used in making Amphetamine
tablets, a drug being used as a substitute of heroin for many drug addicts.
According to some local sources, some merchants in Indo-Burma border trade
have turned into this tablet trade which profits more.

The Free Press, a local newspaper in Manipur State of India, reported on
10th February that Amphetamine tablets worth Rs. 23,40,000 (US $ 55,714)
were seized from a local merchant at Moreh which is a border township of
Burma. The tablets were reportedly meant for illegal export to Burma
through Moreh-Tamu border trade route. Customs officials in Manipur told
that this is the first official seizure of tablets even though the tablet
trade has been going on for quite some time. The newspaper quoted Mr C.
Songate, Assistant Commissioner, Customs in Imphal (Capital of Manipur
State) saying that total 471,212 kg of Ephedrine hydrochloride worth Rs.
60,45,996 (US $ 14,3952) were seized from June 16 last year to January 8
this year. The drugs and tablets are smuggled out of India via Burma and
then Thailand.

In Manipur State of India, many drug addicts have become tablet users due
to cheaper, easier and less risk availability of the tablets. In the first
week of January, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), an armed insurgent
group in North East India issued a warning to the drug users and drug
traders to stop this unholy trade and practice. Over thirty thousands are
officially registered as drug users in Manipur State. The Ephedrine
hydrochloride is a licensed item in mainland India but it is not allowed to
trade in North East India.

Local merchants in Manipur State estimate that at least 200 kg of Ephedrine
is being smuggled from India into Burma everyday.

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

THE NATION: ASEAN FEELING WEIGHT OF BURMA 
16 February, 1999 

REUTERS

THE Association of Southeast Asian Nations has come to rue admitting
military-ruled Burma as a member 18 months ago.

The 30-year-old regional bloc now finds the behaviour of one of its
youngest members jeopardising its relationship with, and much needed
financial assistance from, its oldest dialogue partner, the European Union.

Signs are that a key ministerial meeting between the two blocs scheduled
for late next month will have to be postponed since Europe considers
Burma's human rights record so bad it will not accept senior Rangoon
officials within its borders.

Talks between the two blocs to resolve the stalemate have not budged either
from their respective collective positions.


The nine-member Asean insists all of its foreign ministers must be allowed
to attend the Berlin meeting or none at all.

But the signs of frustration and strain are showing.

"There are some people who now ask whether it was a good idea to accept
Burma," said an Asean diplomat in Bangkok. "But now it's a fait accompli,
it's tone, and we have to live with it. But we have our limits too and
sometimes we feel very fed up with this situation."

The economic crisis that has swept Asia since the last foreign ministers
meeting two years ago means Asean needs all the help it can get.

But Europe, economically resurgent and under pressure from strong human
rights lobbies, is in no mood to let Burma of f the hook.

It says easing its visa ban on senior Burma officials requires Rangoon to
show "substantial progress" on human rights.

The issue has already put paid to a more junior level meeting, of the
EU-Asean Joint Cooperation Committee, that was supposed to take place in
Bangkok last month.

EU and Asean diplomats consider the ministerial meetings, which are
supposed to be held every two years, key to the development of bloc-to-bloc
political ties.

But there is also a financial equation. The lack of dialogue means
disbursement of hundreds of millions of dollars of EU development funding
will be indefinitely delayed.

Thailand and Germany have been tasked with negotiating a way around the
dispute, but neither is optimistic.

"Germany has said it will be difficult to convince its EU colleagues unless
there is progress on human rights," said a Thai Foreign Ministry official.
"We are not very optimistic."

While Germany, as the current holder of the revolving EU presidency, would
like to find a compromise, it has to represent all EU members, not least
Britain ant the Nordic countries, which have taken a particularly tough
line on Burma.

"We wouldn't rule out a compromise, but we have made very clear our
position," said a German diplomat in Bangkok.

"The guiding line in the relationship cannot only be economic. It has to be
human rights as well," he said.

"The ball is now definitely on the Burmese side and if Asean can't convince
them, they have to bear the consequences. And the consequences are the
meeting not taking place."

Burma has shown little indication that it plans to alter radically its
attitude to dissent in the weeks ahead.

Last week, it said it had freed "on humanitarian grounds" a dissident
writer it jailed for 20 years in 1993 for distributing anti-government
leaflets.

But diplomats in Rangoon say they consider as credible reports from
pro-democracy groups that some 270 activists were sentenced last month to
jail terms ranging from seven to 62 years.

Human rights activists say the number of political prisoners held in Burma
could number up to 2,000.

On Monday, Burma's Foreign Minister Win Aung left on a four-nation Asean
tour that will take in Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. An Asean
diplomat said the EU dispute would top the agenda during his tour.

The Thai Foreign Ministry official said Asean was obliged to ensure all its
members were treated equally.


"We understand the EU position because we subscribe to that way of
thinking too, but we have to say we are not very happy when it links its
relationship with Asean to developments in a single country," he said.

Nevertheless, the Asean diplomat suggested a compromise might come in the
time honoured form of a "diplomatic illness".

"But it is up to Burma to decide whether it will assign somebody else for
the meeting. We will not ask U Win Aung to stay away and we have no
intention of raising it. But if he decides that himself, then that's
different," he said.

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