BurmaNet News: December 15, 1999

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------------------ The BurmaNet News --------------- 
December 15, 1999 
Issue # 1413

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HEADLINES: 
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International¡V
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: QUANDARY ON BURMA AND DRUGS 
FT: JAPAN RENEWS HOPES FOR PROFITABLE BURMESE RELATIONS
REUTERS: PAPER LASHES OUT AT THAILAND OVER WORKERS 

Inside Burma¡V
CRPP: NOTIFICATION -- CRPP LEADER SAW MRA AUNG
REARRESTED
XINHUA: HOTELS TO BE PRIVATIZED IN MYANMAR 
XINHUA: NEW SUGAR MILL OPENED IN MYANMAR 

Other--
PD BURMA: CALENDAR OF EVENTS WITH REGARD TO BURMA
COMMENTARY: BURMA - THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 

*******************************************************
San Francisco Chronicle:Quandary on Burma and Drugs 
December 15, 1999
Pg A16

Lewis Dolinsky 

Members of Burma's junta, including one of its big
three, were pleasant to South Bay Republican Tom
Campbell when he met them recently in Rangoon. They
want an end to the U.S. ban on new investment in Burma;
he wants opium poppies eradicated, or at least a
serious attempt. If drugs really can be stopped at the
source, he came to the right place. As much as 50
percent of the world's heroin originates in Burma, much
of it in areas where the junta has negotiated "uneasy
truces" (Campbell's phrase) with tribal armies. 

Campbell and two other congressmen -- Democrat Donald
Payne of New Jersey and Republican John Cooksey of
Louisiana -- were escorted to northern Burma by Colonel
Kyaw Thein, who had negotiated many of the cease-fires
(which do not include the Karen ethnic group). When
Campbell's party reached territory held by the NDAA
(National Democratic Alliance Army), the colonel
stopped answering questions and the NDAA started doing
the talking. "I went in with the government," Campbell
said in a telephone interview, "but they (the
tribesmen) were the law." 

Legitimate enterprise in these areas is geared not to
Rangoon but to China. In Mongla, Campbell saw a casino
and tourist hotel, a Catholic church and Buddhist
pagoda. A sugar factory had shut down; China has
plenty. 

Campbell doesn't want to be a "one-day wonder" (instant
expert), and he is vague on some details. But he notes
that farmers could grow buckwheat or rice instead of
poppies, but then what? There are no roads to get a
crop to Rangoon. If the Chinese don't want it, there's
no buyer. But there is always a market for opiate. A
middleman comes to the door and pays up front, though
not generously. 

Poppy cultivation has dropped in Burma. Democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi ("phenomenal, great presence, I
have nothing but admiration for her") attributes this
decrease to drought. She told Campbell that the junta,
if it had the will, could stamp out poppy production as
it has stamped out human rights. She says that nothing
but humanitarian aid should come into Burma, that when
the government falls, the tribes will be part of the
political process and won't need bullets, or drug money
to buy them. The West will want to invest in a
democracy. 

Campbell has no reason to think that the junta will
fall. He acknowledges that investment needed to provide
roads to get rice to market will shore up a brutal
regime that voided elections won by Suu Kyi's party in
1988. He also knows that elements within the government
and military profit from drugs; Burma runs on drugs.
But he was told by neighboring Thailand's deputy
foreign minister, Sukhumbhand Paribatra, "We don't
approve of the government of Burma, but we do work with
them on drug eradication and you should be open to
doing the same." Campbell is undecided. A meeting with
the State Department on Monday may help make up his
mind. 

Since returning December 2 from his Asian tour -- a day
in Thailand, five in Vietnam, four in Burma -- Campbell
has been running hard for the GOP Senate nomination to
oppose Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein. Burma
policy is not expected to play a big part in that
election. Drug policy might. 


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

Financial Times: Japan renews its hopes for profitable
Burmese relations
Tokyo may decide to revive links that go as far back as
the second world war. 
December 15, 1999

William Barnes reports.

A bruised Japanese soldier in the popular post-war
novel, The Harp of Burma, argued that the Burmese
"possess something marvelous that we can't even begin
to understand". 

Burma has held a peculiar fascination for many Japanese
since the Greater East Asian war when its anti-colonial
heroes fought the British side-by-side with their
Japanese "liberators". 

That sentimental undertow may help explain why Japan is
urging Burma's military regime to ease its iron grip on
the country sufficiently to permit Japan to start
helping it. Keizo Obuchi last month became the first
Japanese premier in 15 years to meet his Burmese
counterpart when he talked to General Than Shwe at the
summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations
in Manila. 

Mr Obuchi told Gen Than Shwe that Japan was ready to
support the regime if it carried out "serious" economic
reforms. His senior foreign policy adviser, Ryutaro
Hashimoto, followed this up with a four-day tour of
Burma to "size up its economic needs". A 48-member
delegation from the powerful business organisation, the
Keidanren, has also just visited the country. Why
should Japan be quickening its engagement with a widely
reviled military regime when - according to a recent
World Bank report - "lacklustre economic performance. .
 . could have devastating consequences for poverty,
human development and social cohesion in Myanmar
(Burma)"? 

One Japan-based analyst argues that Japan's niggling
worries over security should never be underestimated:
"Economic survivalism remains at the core of Japanese
perceptions of themselves and the outside world,
especially Asia," the analyst said. A feeling that
Burma's potential is too rich to ignore is reinforced
by a concern that if Japan or others do not move in,
China will. 

Japan has made Burmese friends under western noses
before. The vanguard of the anti-colonial movement
trained in wartime Japan. The "thirty comrades"
included Aung San, father of Aung San Suu Kyi, current
opposition leader, and also Ne Win, the future dictator 

If the relationship turned sour before hostilities
ended, friendships created during the war helped ensure
Japanese aid provided a prop for an often isolated
economy from the mid-1950s to 1988. 

Tokyo eventually rebelled against the Ne Win regime's
eccentric management with an unprecedented warning in
early 1988 that the bilateral relationship would be in
danger if fundamental economic reforms were not
introduced. The blunt threat encouraged a newly-formed
junta to announce the opening up of the economy in late
1988, though by then the massacre of anti-military
protesters had already caused aid to be cut off. 

The big Japanese trading houses are eager to see a
resumption of large-scale overseas development
assistance to provide them with lucrative, risk-free
procurement contracts; they are too wary of political
instability, corruption and infrastructure problems to
risk doing much on their own. 

The Keidanren, and a Japan-Myanmar Association of big
corporations, is strongly supported by pro-business
members of the ruling Liberal Democratic party who are
moving closer to Burma's powerful military intelligence
establishment. 

One influential L.P. leader, Kabun Muto, established a
"Parliamentarians' Group to Support the Myanmar
Government" in 1988. 

Earlier this year another powerful L.P. figure, Koichi
Kato, inspected, with intelligence chief Lt. Gen Khin
Nyunt, a crop-substitution project (for growing
buckwheat rather than opium poppies) in Kokang State. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, has
her own links with Japan, especially through her
father, whose life she researched in Kyoto University
in the mid-1980s. However, Ms Suu Kyi's visibility in
Japan has declined sharply this year. This is important
in a country where personal relations count for more
than abstract ideas such as democracy, at least with
the political and business elite. 

Japan lifted its 1988 freeze on humanitarian aid in
1995 after Ms Suu Kyi was released from house arrest.
It resurrected a pre-1988 aid project in March last
year by lending Dollars 22.1m (Pounds 13.6m) for the
repair of the dangerously rundown Rangoon airport. 

Any moves to resume new aid lending must first overcome
the Ministry of Finance's own reservations about
extending more credit to a country that is not, in
effect, servicing its existing debt to Japan. 

Trickier still is the row provoked by breaking ranks
with the west on sanctions. Japanese policymakers may
resent US and European moralising, but the potential
rewards in Burma are not worth risking a rupture with
trade partners. 

Both Mr Obuchi and Mr Hashimoto made appeals for more
democracy and reconciliation, but critics of the regime
fear that in its eagerness Japan will encourage it to
make just token gestures. 

"The leaders of Myanmar should retire from the
military, stop wearing uniforms and should form a
political party," argued the president of The Nippon
Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, who accompanied Mr
Hashimoto to Burma. "Every nation has its own pace in
terms of democracy and moves towards a market economy." 

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

REUTERS: MYANMAR PAPER LASHES OUT AT THAILAND OVER
WORKERS 

Dec 13, 1999 

YANGON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - A commentary in an official
Myanmar newspaper lashed out at neighbour and fellow
ASEAN member Thailand on Monday for its handling of the
repatriation of illegal Myanmar workers. 

``If they respected the sovereignty of their own
country and their neighbour, there would not be any
problem concerning illegal workers,'' the commentary in
the Kyemon newspaper said. 

The article, attributed to ``an advocate,'' appeared as
senior immigration officials from the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 
were gathered in Yangon for an annual conference. 

It referred only to ``the other country'' but was
clearly directed at Thailand, whose relations with
Myanmar have been strained since armed dissidents took
over Yangon's embassy in Bangkok in early October. 

``These problems will remain as a never-ending story as
long as ``the other country'' does not mend its ways,''
it warned. 

Thailand restarted a policy of repatriating 600,000
illegal Myanmar workers after its neighbour shut its
border to trade in protest at the embassy attack.
Yangon reopened the border on November 24 after an
eight-week closure, but relations remain edgy. 

The commentary said the workers had left Myanmar
illegally and were working 
in Thailand illegally. 

``It shows complete lack of due consideration to ask
Myanmar to legally accept Myanmar citizens after having
had them work secretly and illegally.'' 

The commentary also complained Thailand had allowed
armed opponents of the government to remain in a border
buffer zone since Myanmar's independence in 1948 and
let refugees stay who were not real asylum seekers but
insurgents and their families. 

*******************************************************
XINHUA: HOTELS TO BE PRIVATIZED IN MYANMAR 
December 13, 1999 
YANGON (Dec. 14) XINHUA - Five hotels under the Myanmar
Ministry of Hotels and Tourism will be leased to local
private entrepreneurs for continuous 
operation as part of the country's privatization plan. 

The hotels to be leased include those in Sittway, Mrauk
U and Pyin Oo Lwin townships in the country, official
newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Tuesday,
quoting an announcement of the ministry. 

Applications are to be submitted in January 2000, the
report said. 

Myanmar has since January 1995 been implementing a
privatization plan for its state economic enterprises
(SEE), aimed at transforming them into effective
business organizations. 

The plan is carried out by auctioning and leasing out
the enterprises or establishing joint ventures with
local and foreign investors. 

The first phase of the scheme covers 51 SEE including
processing and manufacturing factories, livestock
breeding firms and cinemas. 

During the first half of this year, a total of 74 SEE
including four factories, seven rice mills, 57 cinemas
and six hotels were included in the privatization plan,
according to official statistics. 

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

XINHUA: NEW SUGAR MILL OPENED IN MYANMAR 
December 13, 1999 

YANGON (Dec. 14) XINHUA - A new sugar mill built in
Myanmar's Bago division, went into production Monday,
official newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported
Tuesday. 

The Nawadei sugar mill in the division's Pyay township
will produce 21, 478 
tons of sugar annually. 

Four more new sugar mills, two each in the country's
Mandalay and Magway divisions and one other in Yangon
division are also being constructed, the report said. 

According to official statistics, Myanmar produced a
total of 48,398 tons of sugar in fiscal 1998-99 which
ended in March. It cultivates over 100,000 hectares of
sugarcane with an annual output of over 5 million tons. 

Sugar production remained steady for the past three
years, maintaining at an average of 50,000 tons
annually. Myanmar exports over 35,000 tons of sugar 
annually, the statistics show. 


*******************************************************
 CRPP: Notification  63(11/99)-- CRPP leader ¡VSaw Mra
Aung rearrested

Representatives of the People elected to the Parliament
in the 1990 multiparty democratic elections

(Committee Representing Parliament)

Notification  63(11/99)

1.  The Shan National League for Democracy, the Arakan
League for Democracy, the Mon National Democracy Front,
the Zomi National Congress and the National League for
Democracy are political parties which were formed to
establish and advance a genuine democratic system in
the country.

2.  To achieve the above objective, there has to be a
parliament. Therefore, general elections were held in
1990 in which the above parties contested.

3.  The general elections were successfully
accomplished but a parliament has not been convened. 
The military authorities who decreed the People's
Parliament Election Law and conducted the general
elections should have taken steps to convene parliament
in accordance with the provisions of the law they
promulgated and flouted.

4.  At the time of the elections, the political parties
issued manifestos promising their constituents
political changes to be accomplished through the
parliament that would be formed.  Therefore the
political parties repeatedly and in very strong terms
urged the military authorities to convene parliament. 
But they have shut their eyes and ignored these
requests.  Under these circumstances, the above
political parties deemed it their bounden duty to act
on behalf of the people and formed the Committee
Representing the People's Parliament.

5.  That political parties should act on behalf of the
people is a notion which the military authorities are
totally opposed to.  Therefore the military
intelligence arm of the army (a) Illegally arrested and
held in their custody Dr. Saw Mya Aung, aged 82 years,
(Chairman of the Arakan League for Democracy) for a
period of 13 months.

(b) Chairman of the Mon National Democracy Front, Mr
Naing Htoon Thein, aged  82 years and Chairman of the
Zomi National Congress, Pu Kyint Shin Htan were also
illegally arrested and held. They were released for
medical treatment and though they informed the
authorities after receiving treatment that they were
prepared to be re-arrested no action was taken.

(c) However, on 3 November 1999, without showing any
cause the above two have been re-arrested and taken
into custody.

6. The inevitable fact is that all the nationalities
must work together with solidarity for the stability of
the country. Arresting and imprisoning leaders of the
different nationalities reflects a very narrow-minded
mentality.  By so doing the critical social, economic
and political problems that the country now faces can
never be solved. The solving of a country's extremely
important issues are prevented and hampered.

7. Political means must be utilized to obtain unity and
stability. It must be accepted that striking at each
other with military strength by armed groups and
achieving "cease fire" agreements, making temporary
allowances for mutual economic advantage is not the
answer for long term peace and stability. Achieving
genuine stability and unity of the nationalities is a
political affair.

8.  We therefore emphatically urge that the leaders of
the nationalities who have been arrested and held in
custody be immediately and unconditionally released.


Committee Representing Parliament
20 November 1999

(Distributed by National League for Democracy)


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

PD Burma: Calendar of events with regard to Burma
Published  by  PD  Burma. 

January 2000		: 88th session of the Committee on
the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, IPU 

January 20-26th 2000 	: ASEAN Tourism Forum 2000
(ATF 2000), Bangkok

January 31st - Feb 1st 	: 3rd Meeting of ASEAN-India
JCC, India

January 			: 15th  Meeting of ASEAN-US
Dialogue, Malaysia

February 25-26th 		: 4th  ASEAN Finance Ministers
Meeting, Bandar Seri Begawan

March 13th 		: Burma Human Rights Day

March 25-26th 		: 4th  ASEAN Finance Ministers
Meeting, Bandar Seri Begawan

March 27th 		: Resistance Day in Burma

April/May 		: 103rd Inter-Parliamentary
Conference, Amman

May 27th			: Anniversary of the 1990 election 


June 19th 			: Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday
and Burmese Women's Day

July 24-25th 		: 33rd  ASEAN Ministerial Meeting
(AMM), Bangkok

July 27th 			: 7th ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF), Bangkok

July 28-29th 		: 33rd ASEAN Post Ministerial
Conferences (PMC), Bangkok

August 8th 		: 12th Anniversary of the 8-8-88
uprising 

October 2000		: 104th Inter-Parliamentary
Conference, Jakarta

*******************************************************
** 
COMMENTARY: BURMA - THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 

Is "Myanmar" a collective identity accepted by all non-
Burmans? 
By: Sai Wansai 

The views of successive Burmese governments, including
the present regime, SLORC/SPDC, concerning national
identity have never been clear. They have been at a
loss even as to what sort of name they should adopt;
that is the reason why they are still using "Bamar" and
"Myanmar" interchangeably for what they would like to
be termed a common collective identity, in other words,
national identity. The reality is that when one
mentions "Myanmar", "Bamar", "Burmese" or "Burman",
such words are usually identified with the lowland
majority "Bamar"and have never been accepted or
understood by the non-Bamar ethnic nationals as a
common collective identity to which they also belong. 
It is, however, advisable to look into the existing
historical facts that Burma or Myanmar has never been a
monolithic political entity in any sense of the words.
The country we all know as Burma or Myanmar, as termed
by the Burmese military regime, is a country made up of
at least three countries, namely: Burma Proper, Karenni
State and Shan States. The Shan and the Karenni joined
Burma in their struggle for self-determination from the
British and jointly attained independence on January 4,
1948.
However, in 1962 the Burmese military sized state power
in a coup and declared the Union Constitution abolished.
In so doing, the Burmese terminated the only existing
legal bond between them and the other ethnic
nationalities. The declaration of the suspension of the
Constitution was in effect a self denunciation that Burma
had overnight become an aggressor-nation instead of
partner. Thus, in a legal-constitutional sense, the Union
of Burma ceased to exist. 
Meanwhile, the Burmese military regime has changed the
name of Burma to Myanmar. Its aim is to create a national
identity for every ethnic group residing within the
boundary of the so-called Union of Myanmar. But since the
name Myanmar has always been identified with the lowland
"Bamar", the SLORC/SPDC's effort is only doomed to fail
in trying to establish a common national identity among
the non ÈÎ-Bamar ethnic nationals. On top of that, this
national identity was not chosen with the consent of the
non-Bamar ethnic groups, but coercively thrusted down
their throats by the hated Burmese military dictatorship.


This writer has never heard anyone mentioning that he or
she is a Bamar Myanmar, Shan Myanmar, Kachin Myanmar,
Karen Myanmar and so on. In the United States, by
contrast, it is normal that one considers or accepts
oneself as an American, Chinese American, Japanese
American, Afro-American and so on. The point this writer
is trying to make here is that the successive Burmese
governments' nation-building process has totally
shattered and failed to take root after all these years.
The armed resistance of almost all the non-Bamar ethnic
groups is a stark reminder and living evidence of this
failure. The ceasefire deals which have been arranged
with some of the resistance armies are also not a
solution. They have, as noted by Bertil Lintner, simply
frozen the ethnic conflict for the time being. They have
failed to solve the underlying political problems and
grievances. 
The hard reality is that the denial of the right to self-
determination is the crux of all the problems
encompassing Burma today. All along the Burmese military
has been implementing its own version of "nation-
building" without tolerence to the notion of "Unity in
Diversity". Its "win - lose" oriented conflict resolution
has not produce positive result during the last five
decades and it won't possibily do for the future. It is
astonishing that the ruling military clique has not given
a thought to embrace the approach of "win -win" outcome
to manage the conflict. 

The rebuilding of the shattered Union will need a
political dialogue where comprehensive issues will be
addressed and discussed in a sincere and open manner by
all ethnic groups on an equal footing. Only then will we
have a fighting chance of ever establishing a "national
identity" in a true sense, embraced by all ethnic groups,
Bamar included.
***End************************************************


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