BurmaNet News: December 8, 2000

[strider@xxxxxxxxxxx]

______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
        An on-line newspaper covering Burma 
________December 8, 2000   Issue # 1678_________

INSIDE BURMA _______
*BBC: Son visits Burmese opposition leader
*AP: Suu Kyi's lawyers prepares defense in Myanmar property row
*AFP: Myanmar stands out among Asian rights abusers: Human Rights Watch 
*DVB: Students bring down Rangoon regime slogan signboard 

REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*Agence France Presse : Armed forces head warns Myanmar could be ravaged 
by drug addiction 
*Bangkok Post: Three killed in ambush; Victims were warned to stop 
selling drugs 
*Far Eastern Economic Review: Burma Roots for Thaksin in Polls
*Liberation (France): The UN accuses Burma
*The Vancouver Sun: : Spare a thought for human rights

ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*Wall Street Journal:  Myanmar Sells Control of Flag Carrier To 
Singapore's Region Air, Businessman
*The Times (London): Ethical mantle falls on company shoulders 
*Xinhua: Trade Between Myanmar, NEA Countries on Rise 
*Xinhua: Myanmar's Rice Export Sharply Up 



The BurmaNet News is viewable online at:
http://theburmanetnews.editthispage.com


__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________


BBC: Son visits Burmese opposition leader


Friday, 8 December, 2000


The younger son of the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has 
arrived in Rangoon to visit his mother who is under house arrest. 

The son, Kim Aris, is accompanied by his wife and their young son. 

They flew into Rangoon from Britain on board a Thai airlines flight. 

A statement by the Burmese military government wished the family an 
enjoyable time during their reunion. 

Meanwhile, in a legal case between Aung San Suu Kyi and her brother, 
Aung San Oo, a Rangoon court has ordered his lawyers to hand over a copy 
of the claim he has lodged for a half share in her house. 

Aung San Suu Kyi's team have two weeks to present a challenge to the 
claim


____________________________________________________



AP: Suu Kyi's lawyers prepares defense in Myanmar property row 

Dec. 8, 2000

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ Lawyers for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on 
Friday began to prepare her defense against a lawsuit filed by her 
brother, who is seeking an equal share of the Yangon property where she 
lives.
 
 The lawyers inspected and copied _ by hand _ the plaintiff's complaints 
and written statements at the Yangon Division Court. The hearing was 
adjourned until Dec. 22 when the lawyers will present her defense in a 
written statement. 

 Kyi Win, one of the lawyers, said he will see Suu Kyi two or three 
times before the hearing. 

 Suu Kyi's elder brother, Aung San Oo, a U.S. citizen and resident, is 
demanding half-ownership of the lakeside residential compound in Yangon 
inherited from their mother, who died in Dec. 1988. Suu Kyi has lived 
there for the past 12 years.
 
 Suu Kyi has been confined in the house by authorities since Sept. 22 
after she unsuccessfully tried to travel outside Yangon in defiance of 
an unwritten government ban. 

 Suu Kyi's younger son Kim Aris, meanwhile, arrived in Yangon with his 
wife and child Friday morning to spend the Christmas holiday with her, 
said members of her National League for Democracy party. They said he 
will stay here for about three weeks.
 
 Kim last visited his mother in April last year and stayed for two 
weeks. 

 Suu Kyi was held under house arrest without trial on national security 
charges at the house from 1989 to 1995. During that time she won the 
1990 Nobel Peace prize for her nonviolent efforts to promote democracy. 

 The government continues to restrict visitors to the house, and greatly 
limits her freedom of movement. Her National League for Democracy party 
won a 1990 general election but was never allowed to take power, and its 
members face harassment and jail.
 
 On Wednesday in Washington, U.S. President Bill Clinton gave Suu Kyi 
the highest U.S. civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for 
her peaceful struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar, also 
known as Burma.



____________________________________________________



 
AFP: Myanmar stands out among Asian rights abusers: Human Rights Watch 


[Abridged]

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (AFP) - The governments of Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand 
and Cambodia continued to perpetrate serious human rights abuses in 
2000, but military-run Myanmar alone made no attempt to improve its 
record, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. 

 The Yangon junta "continued to pursue a strategy of marginalizing the 
democratic opposition through detention, intimidation and restrictions 
on basic civil liberties," the organisation said in its annual report, 
ahead of International Human Rights day this Sunday. 

 Despite international condemnation that centred on an unprecedented 
vote against Myanmar at the International Labor Organisation in Geneva, 
"the system of forced labor remained intact". 

 Overall, the military government "took no steps to improve its dire 
human rights record." 

 Despite releasing several high-profile political prisoners during the 
year, it continued to arrest "individuals engaged in peaceful political 
activities." 

 Myanmar's government has frequently insisted that forced labour is on 
the decrease and that it holds no political prisoners. 

 However, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest 
since late September, when she and several of her party lieutenants were 
barred from taking a train to the central city of Mandalay. 

 Vietnamese citizens enjoyed more civil liberties than their 
counterparts in Myanmar, but Hanoi retained tight control over freedom 
of expression, assembly and religion, the report said. 




____________________________________________________




DVB: Students bring down Rangoon regime slogan signboard 

Source: Democratic Voice of Burma, Oslo, in Burmese 1245 gmt 5 Dec 00 



Some students have brought down "Our Three Main Causes" 
[Non-Disintegration of the Union, Non-Disintegration of National 
Solidarity, and Perpetuation of National Sovereignty] hanging billboard 
at a state high school in Pegu one night. The signboard, which is 
hanging at State High School No 4 in Pegu, was brought down by seven 
unknown students on the night of 12th October. The youth urinated on the 
signboard and departed shouting the slogan Out with the SPDC [State 
Peace and Development Council] military government. 

The security forces took away the signboard the following day. The 
township authorities next consulted with astrologers, performed a 
ritual, and then reinstalled the signboard at a different place in the 
school. 

The news quickly spread to other schools. Fearing a student unrest, Maj- 
Gen Tin Aye, commander of Southern Military Command, has ordered the 
authorities not to take actions blatantly. Military Intelligence Unit-3 
has been ordered to find those responsible. This report was filed by DVB 
[Democratic Voice of Burma] correspondent Kyaw Swa. 




___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
				

Agence France Presse : Armed forces head warns Myanmar could be ravaged 
by drug addiction 

BANGKOK, Dec 8 


Thailand's armed forces chief will use a visit to Myanmar next week to 
warn the junta that its own people will be ravaged by drug addiction if 
it does not halt narcotics production, according to reports here Friday. 


On his December 12-13 visit to Myanmar, armed forces commander Gen 
Sampao Chusri will tell the Yangon junta they "cannot hope to save their 
people from addiction if the spread of drugs continues at the present 
rate," the Bangkok Post said. 

Given this disturbing possibility, "Burma (Myanmar) should make clear 
its stance on an anti-narcotics drive," he said. 

Myanmar is a major source of amphetamines and opium and some western 
states have accused the military junta of turning a blind eye to the 
production and trafficking of the drugs. 

Although the Thai military estimated some 600 million of these 
amphetamine pills flooded into Thailand last year, army sources have 
said that an increasing number of pills and heroin is going to the 
internal Myanmar market. 

Despite the rising rate of Myanmar addicts, Yangon has admitted that it 
is failing to control drug production in areas of the country controlled 
by ethnic minority militias, the Post said. 

Ethnic militia United Wa State Army, based in northeast Myanmar, signed 
a peace treaty with the Yangon junta in 1989 and then used the peace to 
move into amphetamine, opium and heroin production and smuggling. 

The Wa now operate almost completely autonomously from the central 
government. 

And due to the ongoing massive trade in amphetamines, tension is rising 
sharply along the 2,000 kilometre (1,240 mile) Thai-Myanmar border, 
Lieutenant General Pisanu Ourailert told the Post. 

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said two weeks ago that he was 
seeking a combined approach with Myanmar to contain cross-border 
violence and end disputes over drug smuggling, before they spill over to 
affect bilateral ties as a whole. 

Armed forces chief Sampao is expected to meet with Yangon junta head Gen 
Than Shwe and army chief Maung Aye during his visit to Myanmar next 
week. 






____________________________________________________


Bangkok Post: Three killed in ambush; Victims were warned to stop 
selling drugs 


December 8, 2000 


Gunmen killed a Thai man and two Karen soldiers and wounded two other 
Karen in Phop Phra district on Wednesday. 

Police said four Karen National Union soldiers were riding in a 
four-wheel-drive vehicle driven by Somsak Khamhae, 24, when a group of 
gunmen in a van opened fire on them with M16 assault rifles. 

The Thai driver and two of his Karen passengers - Taw Soe and Maung Yu 
Win, both 20, were killed instantly. 

The other two Karen - Maw Tu, 22, and Ta Ja, 23, were seriously wounded. 
Mr Somsak was taking the four men, who belonged to the Karen sixth 
division, to the border when they were attacked near Ban Huay 
Mi-Muenluechai. 

Police said the attacked vehicle belonged to Lt-Col Jee Lay, commander 
of the 16th battalion in the sixth division. 

Sources said these Karen had collaborated with soldiers of the 
pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in the drugs trade. 

They had been warned to stop selling drugs by KNU military leader Gen Bo 
Mya, the sources said. 



____________________________________________________


Far Eastern Economic Review: Burma Roots for Thaksin in Polls

Issue of Dec. 7, 2000

The currently sour relations between neighbours Thailand and Burma can 
be expected to improve substantially if Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai 
Rak Thai Party form a government after the January 6 general election. 
Under the government of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, senior officials, 
particularly those involved with security, have sometimes openly 
criticized the Burmese government's failure to stem the flow of illegal 
drugs across the border into Thailand. Concern centres mainly on the 
influx of an estimated 600 million methamphetamine tablets. Most were 
destined for sale to young Thais and nearly all are manufactured by the 
Wa ethnic minority group, whom Rangoon says it cannot control. But Thai 
Rak Thai has on its election list former Thai army commander Gen. Chetta 
Thanajaro, known to have close connections with the ruling generals in 
Rangoon. When Chetta visited Rangoon in early December, Lt.-Gen. Khin 
Nyunt, a leading figure in the Burmese junta, was quoted by a Thai Rak 
Thai Party official as saying he hoped bilateral relations would improve 
"after a change of government after Thailand's election."




____________________________________________________


Liberation (France): The UN accuses Burma

6/12/2000 

[Translated by Info-Birmanie]


The military Junta is accused of condoning rapes, torture and killings. 
The General Assembly of the United Nations accused the military regime 
who holds power in Burma, of condoning, among other things, summary 
executions, torture, rapes, mass arrests and forced labour. In a 
resolution adopted without vote Monday evening in New York, the 189 
members of the Assembly praised the Burmese Junta only for allowing this 
year, the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit some 
detainees.

Apart from that, nothing has changed in Burma where all kinds of abuses 
keep on being committed. The resolution urges the Junta to free all the 
political prisoners and to let the members of the NLD to operate freely 
as legal opponents. Aung San Suu Kyi, NLD?s leader and Nobel Peace price 
winner, has been living for the past ten years under tight military 
control. The NLD won elections in 1990 by a landslide but the Junta 
never accepted to leave power.

The Assembly condemned ½the increasingly systematic policy of the 
Government of Myanmar to persecute the democratic opposition, National 
League for Democracy members, sympathisers and their families. . The 
list, given by the United Nations, of abuses committed by the Junta, is 
a litany : extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, enforced 
disappearances, rape, torture, inhuman treatment, mass arrests, forced 
labour, including the use of children, forced relocation, and denial of 
freedom of speech, expression and movement, abuse of the legal system... 
The report says that some people are arrested because they have listened 
to Voice of America on their radio , others are jailed in tiny cells 
meant for dogs. It goes further in details saying that the worth abuses 
are committed against the ethnic minorities particularly the Shan, 
Karen, Karenni and Rohingya groups. This particularly strong resolution 
was based on a report by Rajsoomer Lallah, a former Mauritius? supreme 
court judge. It stresses the fact that the government spends only 1,2% 
of its budget on education. Already in November, the International 
Labour Organisation, has suggested to apply sanctions against Burma for 
its massive use of forced labour.



____________________________________________________


The Vancouver Sun: : Spare a thought for human rights: This Sunday, I 
discover, is a day to learn about freedom via an oddball concoction of 
art, religion and politics.


December 8, 2000

Paula Brook 

Things to do on Sunday: shop till you drop, marinate plums for pudding, 
lose one pound of sweat at gym, celebrate International Human Rights Day 
by attending "an improvisational rave about freedom, hypocrisy and the 
courage to be human." 

Did I lose you on the last one? Then you're not a likely candidate for 
Vancouver writer/performer Alan Clements' brand of Sunday night 
entertainment. Nor am I, for that matter. If I hadn't talked with 
Clements a few days ago, the 52nd anniversary of the signing of the 
Declaration of Human Rights this Sunday might have slipped right past 
me, as would the Peace Prize Ceremony taking place the same day at Oslo 
City Hall. 

And I wouldn't have given a passing thought to the fate of Aung San Suu 
Kyi, the leader of the opposition in Burma who won the 1991 Peace Prize 
for her non-violent struggle for democracy against the country's 
military junta and who has spent six of the past 10 years under house 
arrest in Rangoon. 

The 55-year-old Nobel Laureate and head of Burma's National League for 
Democracy (NLD) by rights should be the head of state following her 
landslide victory at the polls in 1990. Except she was under house 
arrest at the time, as she is right now, having been captured by the 
ruling generals on Sept. 21 as she tried to leave Rangoon by train to 
visit her constituents in the north of the country. 

For the past 11 weeks there has been no outside contact with Suu Kyi or 
her NLD colleagues, several of whom have been imprisoned. 

Alan Clements can't help but take this personally. Nor will he take it 
sitting down -- which is the subtext to his Sunday night improv rave, 
titled Spiritually Incorrect. 

He knows Suu Kyi well, having written three books on Burma's struggle 
for freedom, the most recent being The Voice of Hope, a 
several-times-translated collection of interviews Clements conducted 
with Suu Kyi over the course of nine months in 1995-96 at her Rangoon 
home. 

That was the last of several visits he has made to Burma, which is more 
than his spiritual home. Born in Boston, he fell under the influence of 
Mahasi Sayadaw on the renowned Buddhist monk's first visit to America in 
1979. Clements returned with the elderly meditation master to become 
ordained himself and live for most of the next eight years in a Burmese 
monastery. 

"I plunged into this alien world, shaved my head, renounced food after 
noon, became celibate, and lived in a foreign culture with teachers I 
didn't know and with little support of friends or family," he recounts. 

"After an initial adjustment period, this whole experience began to 
sparkle with beauty for me. I found myself in a world where people spoke 
to the issues of my heart." 

But there were issues of the mind and the body that would eventually 
draw Clements back to America and eventually to Vancouver, his home of 
the past five years. He has long since disrobed and is now openly 
critical of western culture's new-age flirtations with eastern 
spirituality, which he sees as self-indulgent and "pathologically 
humourless" and of little help to oppressed people both East and West. 

These days he is as likely to quote Vaclav Havel as the Dalai Lama. 
Though he continues to enjoy an international reputation as meditation 
teacher, he is more interested in human rights than human potential. 
Meditation is okay, he says, as long as you keep your eyes open. 

This irreverent approach hasn't always made him popular. In fact, I 
wonder whether Clements can browse the aisles of Banyen Books without 
fear of being struck by flying tofu dogs. Having nurtured his own little 
community of inner peaceniks, he now goes around merrily debunking the 
whole idea of an inner journey. 

Spiritually Incorrect (the aforementioned rave about freedom, hypocrisy 
and courage taking place Sunday night at the Arts Club Review Theatre on 
Granville Island) is his loudest and rudest critique to date. 

First staged in September at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, it's 
essentially a chronicle of Clements' bumpy journey to political 
awareness, with detours for sex, drugs and other mild depravities thrown 
in for humility -- all in the name of, well, freedom. 

He calls it a "spoken word" performance, though it looks and sounds a 
lot more like a 90-minute lecture to me -- but what do I know? (My only 
exposure to Dharma is on Tuesday night TV.) 

It's an oddball mix of art, religion and politics. Just like life, says 
Clements, who doesn't seem to care if people like him or the show or 
not, as long as they help him support The Burma Project. That's the 
non-profit human rights organization he founded while living in San 
Francisco, dedicated to raising awareness of Burma's struggle for 
freedom and justice. 

In a 1996 interview with Suu Kyi, Clements sagely asked her what message 
she would like to send to the outside world should she find herself 
re-arrested and unable to speak publicly. 

"It's very simple," she replied. "You must not forget that the people of 
Burma want democracy. Whatever the authorities may say, it is a fact 
that the people want democracy and they do not want an authoritarian 
regime that deprives them of their basic human rights. 

"The world should do everything possible to bring about the kind of 
political system that the majority of the people of Burma want and for 
which so many people have sacrificed themselves." 

More information: www.WorldDharma.com 

pbrook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 




_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
 

Wall Street Journal:  Myanmar Sells Control of Flag Carrier To 
Singapore's Region Air, Businessman

 By ZACH COLEMAN 
 Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
 
 
Dec. 8, 2000

 Myanmar has sold control of its flag carrier to Region Air of Singapore 
and a Myanmar businessman who lives in Singapore.
 
 Myanmar Airways International has no planes or pilots of its own, but 
as the international airline of the isolated Southeast Asian nation, it 
controls rights to serve about 45 countries. MAI currently serves 
Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur from Yangon with two 
Boeing 737-400 jets leased from Malaysian Airline System, complete with 
pilots.
 
 Region Air, an aircraft leasing and maintenance company controlled by 
tycoon Ong Beng Seng, acquired a 49% stake in MAI from state-owned 
domestic carrier Myanma Airways in a deal signed Nov. 29. Partner George 
Yin Soon, also known as Kyaw Kyaw Htun, acquired about 11% of MAI from 
Myanma Airways, which will keep the rest of MAI's shares.
 
 Mr. Soon, who is also an investor in British American Tobacco PLC's 
Myanmar operations, and three Region Air appointees will hold the 
majority of seats on MAI's seven-member board. Under the deal, Region 
Air will take over the management of MAI on Jan. 1 under what Prithpal 
Singh, one of the directors designated by Region Air, called a "very 
long-term" agreement extending "a lot longer" than 10 years. Mr. Singh 
declined to give the size of Region Air's investment, but said MAI has 
paid-up capital of $10 million.
 
 Securing Yangon's Support
 
 MAI was split off from Myanma Airways in 1993 in a venture with 
Highsonic Enterprises Pte. Ltd., a unit of Singaporean food company QAF 
Ltd. QAF backed out of the venture two years ago. Soon after QAF's exit, 
Myanmar, a regional ally of China, signed on with Taiwanese carrier EVA 
Airways. However, Yangon later withdrew, apparently in deference to 
Beijing.

 Myanmar's tight rules on remitting profits deterred potential partners, 
but Mr. Singh said Region Air secured the government's agreement to 
relax the restriction.
 
 Mr. Singh said MAI reported a loss of about $200,000 in the year ended 
March 31. But he said the airline's load factor, or share of seats 
filled by paying passengers, has risen to about 55% from 30% two years 
ago, which will enable MAI to break even this year. Before the Asian 
financial crisis, the airline earned "a few million U.S. dollars a 
year," he said.
 
 "We're quite confident we can turn the airline around fairly quickly," 
Mr. Singh said. He said after the airline's lease agreement with the 
Malaysian carrier expires in June, MAI will bring in expatriate pilots 
to fly other planes to be leased then. MAI will also send new pilot 
candidates from Myanmar's three domestic airlines abroad for training 
and will cultivate local managers, he said.
 
 Maung Maung Ohn, MAI's chairman, said that Region Air was selected in 
part because of its experience providing support to new and rebuilding 
airlines in Asia. Among those Region Air has worked with are Vietnam 
Airlines and Indonesian carrier Air Wagon International.
 
 Remaking Its Image
 
 Mr. Singh said Region Air's initial goal will be to remake "the image 
of the airline as a Singapore-Myanmar joint venture so that people 
understand its Singapore expertise and management combined with Myanmar 
hospitality and tradition." By mid-2001, he said, MAI will be looking at 
adding regional routes to India, Bangladesh and possibly China. Another 
priority will be to make agreements with foreign airlines for connecting 
flights and  sharing traffic. Beginning next year, MAI will offer some 
service from the new, under-used Mandalay International Airport in an 
effort to stimulate airline traffic there, he said.
 
 For Region Air, Mr. Singh said, MAI is "an opportunity to get in on the 
basement level." He compared Myanmar's annual visitor arrivals of 
200,000 to neighboring Thailand's nine million. "Tourism will definitely 
grow because it is another Thailand in the making," he said. Indeed, the 
International Air Transport Association forecasts that Myanmar's 
international passenger traffic will grow at an average annual rate of 
8.1% through 2004, compared with a world rate of 4.6%.
 
 Mr. Singh added that Region Air is preparing to return to the business 
of providing commercial airline service, which it abandoned after a 
brief foray in 1995. He said the company has applied to reactivate its 
Singaporean air operator's certificate, but declined to elaborate on 
Region Air's plans there.
 




____________________________________________________


The Times (London): Ethical mantle falls on company shoulders 

FRIDAY DECEMBER 08 2000 
 

ANALYSIS BY CARL MORTISHED  
 
AT A meeting in Laos on Monday, Britain will put its ethical foreign 
policy to the test. The tiny country is hosting a summit meeting between 
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the European 
Union. Britain wants to use the occasion to create a stink about human 
rights in Burma. 
Our Foreign Office ?has it in? for the Burmese generals. The regime has 
amassed a catalogue of human rights offences: political prisoners, 
torture, censorship, and above all, the refusal to relinquish political 
power to a democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. 

Isolating the rabble in Rangoon ought to be an easy diplomatic victory 
for Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary. In this case, we have no 
conflicting interest to distract us. Burma, unlike Indonesia, Iran or 
even Nigeria, has few things that we want ? too little oil and gas to 
make a difference, a few rubies, disappearing teak forests and temples 
for our tourists to visit. 

We are unlikely to prevail. Fratricidal conflict is too recent in 
South-East Asia?s history for Asean to abandon its policy of 
non-intervention in internal affairs. Britain likes to believe its voice 
carries a long way but, in fact, our diplomats are largely impotent 
except when backed by the threat of Tornados. In many parts of the 
developing world where the King?s writ used to run, Britain?s political 
influence and power has passed from the public to the private sector. 

We still have embassies but if you want access to movers and shakers ? 
if you want to persuade rather than shout ? you might find an 
introduction from someone at BP or Shell more useful than a letter from 
the British Ambassador. 

Evidence of the gradual privatisation of diplomacy came this week when 
Premier Oil admitted that it acted as go-between in negotiating the 
release of James Mawdsley from a Burmese jail. By the standards of its 
industry, Premier is a tiny oil company. It made its name as a 
buccaneering adventurer, drilling speculative wells in places where many 
fear to tread: Cuba, Albania, Pakistan and Burma, where, to its delight, 
it found a sizeable gasfield. 

Premier was surprised by events in Burma: not by the coup d?etat ? for 
oil companies such as Premier, military coups are as regular as the 
monsoon ? but by the torrent of abuse heaped on it by human rights 
campaigners and, recently, by the British Government. 

A flood of letters arrived on the doormat of Charles Jamieson, the chief 
executive. Protesters turned up at the annual meeting and little Premier 
took on the notoriety of a British Aerospace or a Shell. The protesters 
wanted it to quit Burma and cease supporting such a nasty regime with 
its investment dollars. 

It seems to matter little to the protesters that Premier?s partner in 
the gasfield is Petronas. the Malaysian state oil company, a vast and 
wealthy enterprise and one unlikely to be moved by an angry letter or 
two. Premier?s experience in Burma mirrors that of Shell in Nigeria, of 
BP in Colombia and of De Beers over ?conflict diamonds? ? gems sold by 
rebel groups in Angola and Sierra Leone. 

These multinationals, and now the diminutive Premier, have become the 
focal point for protest about the ills of the world. It is not Robin 
Cook?s ethical foreign policy that the public cares about. It is the 
ethical foreign policy of Shell, Rio Tinto, BP and ExxonMobil that 
matters. 

And bizarre as it should seem, all these companies have now adopted 
ethical policies or statements of corporate responsibility. Reluctantly, 
private companies have been forced to adopt a public stance on issues 
that they previously believed were not their province. Chief executives 
in their 50s can remember the protests against multinationals in the 
1970s. Accused then of interfering in the affairs of Third World 
countries, US companies were assumed to be arms of the CIA, packed with 
spies, fomenting coups. Today, the same protesters want Shell and BP to 
reverse policy, to interfere even more, to play politics, to demand fair 
elections and the release of prisoners. 

Unlike governments, businesses listen to public opinion. So, De Beers 
has set up a certification system to clean up its diamond business and 
Premier has intervened, reluctantly, to have a British prisoner released 
from a Burmese jail. And in a bizarre further development, the oil 
company is sponsoring a human rights training programme in Rangoon in 
February at which a group of senior army officers, intelligence officers 
and judges will be lectured by Australian and British human rights 
experts. 

Create a vacuum and something will fill it. Salil Tripathi, a campaign 
co-ordinator at Amnesty International, reckons that contemporary 
multinationals are being thrown into a role not unlike that of the old 
East India Company. ?In certain countries where the rule of law is 
absent, people will gravitate to the only organised structure and a 
person may end up appealing to the corporation.? 

In the Niger Delta, Shell is the only structure that matters. Small 
wonder that the company faces daily threats of violence and extortion. 
There is no point in the impoverished locals rising against the 
Government. They would be fighting a shadow. Shell, at least, can do 
things, organise, build roads or clinics. 

Among human rights campaigners, one detects some enthusiasm for the new 
corporate converts. If a small oil company can convince a Burmese 
general that his troops should be lectured on human rights, it cannot be 
such a bad thing. 

However, we should be wary of relying on corporate ethics. Corporations 
are reluctant converts and offer no substitute for democratic 
institutions. What is troubling about the move by big business into the 
political vacuum is the vaccuum itself. 

The world?s protesters seem to want BP, Shell and Exxon to take charge. 
What if they really did?
 


____________________________________________________


Xinhua: Trade Between Myanmar, NEA Countries on Rise 

YANGON, December 8 

Bilateral trade between Myanmar and the three Northeast Asian (NEA) 
countries --China, Japan and South Korea --totaled 678.88 million U.S. 
dollars in the first eight months of this year, a year-on-year rise of 
6.16 percent, the latest Economic Indicators issued by the government 
showed. 

Of the total, Myanmar's import from the three countries amounted to 
516.54 million dollars, while its export to them was valued at 162.34 
million dollars. 

The bilateral trade between Myanmar and the three NEA countries during 
the eight-month period accounted for 26 percent of Myanmar' s total 
foreign trade. 

Of this, trade with China represented the highest volume with 298.64 
million dollars or 11.43 percent of Myanmar's total foreign trade, 
followed by that with Japan at 192.97 million dollars or 7. 39 percent 
and that with South Korea at 187.27 million dollars or 7.17 percent. 

Of the three NEA countries, China, which has border trade with Myanmar 
in addition to normal trade, stands as Myanmar's second largest trading 
partner after Singapore, while Japan and South Korea remain as the 
country's fourth and fifth largest trade partner, respectively. The 
third place belongs to Thailand. 

Meanwhile, the three NEA countries have so far injected a total of over 
367 million dollars of investment in Myanmar with Japan taking the 
leading role (232.8 million), followed by South Korea ( 102.3 million) 
and China (31.9 million). 

Total investment from the three NEA countries takes up only 5 percent of 
Myanmar's foreign investment which stands at 7.234 billion dollars as of 
the end of June this year since late 1988. 



____________________________________________________


Xinhua: Myanmar's Rice Export Sharply Up 

YANGON, December 8 


Myanmar exported a total of 80, 400 tons of rice in the first eight 
months of this year, 31,700 tons or 65 percent more than the same period 
of 1999, said the country's Central Statistical Organization in its 
latest data. 

The sharp rise of the export was attributed to the high export volume of 
the commodity in the months of July and August alone when it registered 
18,200 tons and 30,000 tons, respectively, compared with the figures of 
the previous months which stood below 10,000 tons. 

Myanmar's rice export had dropped from 111,700 tons in 1998 to 63,700 
tons in 1999. 

To meet its food demand, Myanmar has since January 1999 reclaimed 
467,370 hectares of vacant, virgin, fallow and wetlands in the country's 
six divisions and states for cultivation by private entrepreneurs. 

Meanwhile, more reclamation of such lands in two other states and 
divisions are also being planned in four years' time beginning April 
2001, the start of the next fiscal year. 

Myanmar has abundance of cultivable land stretching 18.22 million 
hectares, of which only 9.31 million are under cultivation, while 8.91 
million remain utilized. 

The country's agriculture accounts for 37 percent of the gross domestic 
product and 25 percent of the export value. 



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