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BurmaNet News: January 5, 2001
- Subject: BurmaNet News: January 5, 2001
- From: strider@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 09:44:00
CORRECTION: Yesterday?s issue of BurmaNet carried an article from
Channel News Asia on Aung San Suu Kyi dated January 2, 2001. The
article, in fact, wasn?t from the second, or January, or even 2001.
BurmaNet carries articles from a range of news sources and those sources
are responsible for their own accuracy?or lack thereof. BurmaNet,
however, is responsible for accurately attributing sources and
reproducing articles unaltered (or at least noting any edits or
abridgements we introduce).
There are enough inaccurate things in print on Burma already. I
apologize for adding another by egregiously postdating the CNA article
yesterday.
?Strider
______________ THE BURMANET NEWS ______________
An on-line newspaper covering Burma
January 5, 2001 Issue # 1704
______________ www.burmanet.org _______________
NOTED IN PASSING: ?local people call it Na Wa Ta disease?
Kanbawza Win on AIDS in Burma. Na Wa Ta is the acronym is Burmese for
the SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Committee. See Mizzima:
Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease
INSIDE BURMA _______
*AFP: UN Envoy Razali Arrives in Burma To Broker Talks for Opposition,
Junta
*AFP: Mahathir visits south Myanmar after talks with leaders
*AFP: Junta, opposition lawyers wrangle over Suu Kyi property case
*United Press International: Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache
Brothers
*Xinhua: Myanmar's Yangon Population Reaches 3.85 Million
REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL _______
*PAP (Poland): Helicopter firm says 1990s deal with Burma legal
HIV/AIDS__________
*CBC TV: AIDS in Myanmar
*The Washington Quarterly: the Regional Impact of Hiv and Aids?Burma
excerpt
*Mizzima: Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease
ECONOMY/BUSINESS _______
*The Nation: Burma Allows Use of Baht in Border Trade
*The New York Times: Thai Gas Imports Stepped up
_____
Editor?s Note?Due to the number and length of articles on HIV/AIDS in
Burma, BurmaNet is adding a separate section on that subject in today?s
issue.
__________________ INSIDE BURMA ____________________
AFP: UN Envoy Razali Arrives in Burma To Broker Talks for Opposition,
Junta
YANGON, Jan 5 (AFP) - The UN special envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail,
arrived in Yangon Friday on a five-day mission to try to bring the
Myanmar junta and opposition together in a historic dialogue. Razali was
greeted at Yangon airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win and
then went into a meeting with Foreign Minister Win Aung. No details of
his schedule were available and it was not known whether he would be
permitted to see opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held
under house arrest since September. He last met with the Nobel peace
laureate on a visit to the country in October.
Razali is to spend five days here on his third trip since UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan appointed him in April with the aim of breaking the
country's decade-long political impasse. UN sources say this visit will
squarely tackle the task of building a bridge between the opposition
National League for Democracy and the junta which has done its best to
destroy the party. Sources in Yangon and Bangkok have hinted contacts
between Aung San Suu Kyi and the junta have already begun, with
diplomatic circles abuzz with such rumors for months.
But with the junta characteristically tight-lipped and the opposition
leader and several senior NLD members also under house arrest since
September, such speculation has remained unconfirmed. Diplomatic sources
say that even if Razali does not manage a breakthrough, he may at least
kick-start a reconciliation process with enough momentum to develop
under its own steam. They are cautiously optimistic the skilful and
experienced diplomat, who has seemingly won the confidence of both
sides, may find success where envoys before him failed. "The Razali
process is extremely important right now," said one Asian diplomat in
Yangon. "We hope he will bring about tangible effects and results."
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad arrived in Yangon Wednesday on
an official visit that included talks with junta leader Senior General
Than Shwe. The two trips, while not officially linked, have raised
suggestions Malaysia could play a key role in breaking the deadlock.
"Mahathir can prove that he can make a difference in Burma, or at least
encourage the junta to adopt economic reforms and engage the outside
world," the Nation daily said in an editorial this week. Mahathir's
mixed six-day working and holiday visit took him Thursday to a group of
islands in the Andaman Sea just off Tenasserim on Myanmar's west coast.
___________________________________________________
Agence France Presse: Mahathir visits south Myanmar after talks with
leaders
YANGON, Jan 4
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday visited southern
Myanmar as part of a mixed six-day working and holiday visit, officials
said.
On Wednesday, Mahathir held talks with members of the country's ruling
military junta, they said.
Details of the hour-long meeting were officially unavailable, although
foreign ministry sources said topics included furthering economic
cooperation and boosting trade.
The official Malaysian Bernama news agency had reported Mahathir was
scheduled to hold talks with General Than Shwe, chairman of Myanmar's
State Peace and Development Council.
Malaysia is the sixth largest investor in Myanmar with more than 594
million dollars committed to 26 projects over the past 10 years.
Mahathir is currently touring a group of islands in the Andaman Sea just
off the western Tenasserim coastal division.
According to business sources he will be examining the feasibility of
Malaysian entrepreneurs establishing edible-oil and rubber plantations
in the area.
Mahathir is accompanied by his wife and foreign ministry officials.
___________________________________________________
AFP: Junta, opposition lawyers wrangle over Suu Kyi property case
YANGON, Jan 5 (AFP) -
Lawyers for Myanmar's junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
wrangled Friday over whether the government was right to allow her
brother to bring a lawsuit laying claim to half her Yangon home.
Aung San Suu Kyi's legal team said the home ministry had no right to
issue Aung San Oo the waiver he needed, as a US citizen, to lay claim to
the property. Only the foreign ministry is empowered in these cases, it
said.
However, lawyers for the military regime said in the 45-minute hearing
at the Yangon divisional court that any ministry concerned was able to
issue an exemption to the law that prohibits foreigners owning property
here.
Presiding Judge U Soe Thein said he would deliver his verdict on
January 15.
In January 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi and her brother Augn San Oo signed an
agreement stating joint ownership of their late mother's house.
The agreement included a provision that allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to
live there as long as she pleased, according to her mother's wishes,
until both decided to sell it and share the proceeds.
Critics say the case is a veiled attempt by the ruling State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) to evict Aung San Suu Kyi and hamper her
National League for Democracy (NLD).
Although not overtly political, Aung San Oo is far less critical of the
junta than his sister and the two are not close.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for more than three months
since attempting to leave Yangon for the northern city of Mandalay with
a group of senior NLD members.
___________________________________________________
United Press International: Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache
Brothers
Thursday, 4 January 2001 7:21 (ET)
Trimmed by the state, Burma's Mustache Brothers
By CALUM MacLEOD
MANDALAY, Burma, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- "I will show you my slave-driver,"
offers
Lu Maw of Mandalay.
This could be a revealing moment in Burma, whose military regime is
notorious for press-ganging civilians into perilous labor projects. Lu's
oppressor soon appears, dressed to kill, in the traditional finery of a
Burmese princess.
"All day she tell me what to do, but every night I get my revenge!"
laughs
the comedian, before inviting his audience to select difficult dances
from a
manual of classical moves. His 40-year-old wife then performs each piece
with textbook style and grace.
Sporting his trademark handlebar moustache, Lu Maw has gags aplenty to
entertain the few foreigners who reach the district he dubs the Broadway
of
Mandalay. But any Burmese visitor to Lu's home-cum-theater would
instantly
spot something amiss as the "a-nyeint" form of vaudeville requires more
than
just one funny man.
In their prime, the three-man Mustache Brothers troupe bore comparison
with the legendary Marx Brothers. "A-nyeint" embraces everything from
slapstick and dance to drama and opera. Yet Chico is singing solo these
days
-- both Groucho and Harpo are "in the slammer."
Lu has a passion for colloquial English. "They let cat out of the bag,
and
spill the beans" is his explanation for the 7-year prison sentences
earned
by elder brother U Par Par Lay and cousin U Lu Zaw. More specifically,
they
took their acclaimed show to the Rangoon home of beleaguered Nobel Prize
Winner Aung San Suu Kyi in January 1996.
During a 2-hour performance, the pair bravely upheld the a-nyeint
tradition of contemporary satire.
"In the past, thieves were called thieves," commented Par Par Lay. "Now
they are known as co-operative workers."
There followed a predictable humor failure by the junta that ignored
Suu
Kyi's landslide election in 1990.
Back home in Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, soldiers from
Myanmar's dread military intelligence dragged the comedians from their
beds.
Par Par Lay was interrogated, tortured and even lost his drooping
whiskers.
"That made him really angry," says brother Lu, who did not perform in
Rangoon. "He never shaved his moustache."
Worse lay in store after a closed-door court despatched the comic duo
to a
labor camp in the northeast state of Kachin, breaking rocks for
government
roads. They were the only political prisoners among 900 drug offenders
and
violent criminals, and the only inmates whose feet were bound by a
1-foot
iron bar.
After two months, they were moved to regular prisons. When their
families
eventually discovered their whereabouts, they also found they were
denied
access. Ever since, Par Par Lay's wife has made a lonely pilgrimage
every
two months to his prison, one and a half days' train ride from Mandalay.
She
hands her food parcel to the guards and is shown her husband's signed
receipt, the closest contact they have had since September 1996.
While Par Par Lay has grown back his moustache, the 53-year-old's
health
has reportedly declined over the past five years. Amnesty International
estimates that more than 1,700 political prisoners are held in harsh
conditions throughout Myanmar. The government boasts of recent
improvements,
such as allowing Red Cross visits, but most observers remain sceptical.
"Conditions in prison are still terrible," believes one former
political
prisoner, a veteran of several establishments, who now lives in Rangoon.
"If
I go in again, I know I won't come out alive."
The families of Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw share a very real fear that they
will not appear on their release date in 2002. Many prisoners are held
long
after their sentences have expired. The fear partly explains the
families'
quiet determination to keep their loved ones' names alive, in a country
that
brooks no dissent.
"I am skating on thin ice every day," Lu admits, but there is little
else
he can do.
His troupe is blacklisted from the festivals and ceremonies where they
used to make their living. For almost 30 years, they had toured villages
nationwide, gathering the news of the day, and countless warnings from
the
authorities.
"The government is afraid of comedians as they tell the truth,"
explains
the former political prisoner. "When comedians get on stage, they are
not
afraid."
People who saw Par Par Lay in action, or the popular bootleg video of
his
1996 performance, recall his belief that comedy was for the public, not
for
flattering the regime, like the state-approved comedians they see today.
"We share the suffering of the people," he often said. "We must care,
'why
are they poor?'"
Now his family's world has shrunk to the chaotic confines of their
house
theatre, where 13 relatives crowd together. Reliant on the slim pickings
of
the tourist trade, Lu Maw politely disagrees with Suu Kyi's advice to
foreigners to boycott her country, lest their dollars profit the regime.
While government-sponsored and organised tours avoid the Mustache
Brothers,
Lu Maw credits independent travellers on the Lonely Planet trail with
keeping his troupe in business, and his family fed.
If you ever take the fabled "Road to Mandalay," which writer Rudyard
Kipling himself never did, make tracks for the only Mustache Brother
still
at large. His show offers a window into Burmese culture, and the hidden
courage of its proud and sadly misruled people.
___________________________________________________
Xinhua: Myanmar's Yangon Population Reaches 3.85 Million
YANGON, January 5 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's population in the capital of
Yangon reached 3.85 million as of the year 2000, 1.05 million or 37.5
percent more than that in 1988 when it was 2.8 million, according to a
latest official statistics. The population of Yangon registered in 2000
increased by 3.23 million or 520.9 percent as compared with that in 1948
when the country regained independence, the figures show. Meanwhile,
Myanmar is endeavoring to develop Yangon to meet the international
standard with high-rise buildings and modern houses appearing at the
places where squatters occupied in the past.
New satellite towns have also been built to lessen the congestion of the
city and plans are underway for the emergence of industrial towns in the
sub-urban areas of the city. In addition, city roads have been extended
to four-lane or six- lane highways, and city circular roads have also
emerged in and around the city. According to the Myanmar Ministry of
Immigration and Population, the country's population grows 2 percent
annually, reaching 50.12 million as of 2000. The population density of
Myanmar is 74 persons per square- kilometers.
___________________ REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL___________________
PAP (Poland): Helicopter firm says 1990s deal with Burma legal
January 05, 2001, Friday
PAP news agency, Warsaw, in English 1622 gmt 3 Jan 01
Lublin, 3 January: Mieczyslaw Majewski, chief executive officer of the
PZL Swidnik helicopter manufacturer in Swidnik, southeastern Poland,
said on Wednesday [3 January] that the plant's supplies of helicopters
to Burma were legal. "The helicopter contract was signed with the
Burmese government by my predecessors, probably still at the turn of the
1980s and 1990s. I do not know the details, but the deal was certainly
legal because I remember that this was checked at a later date,"
Majewski told PAP.
On Wednesday, the French daily Liberation wrote that Poland had sold 24
helicopters to Burma between 1991 and 1992, at a time when Burma was
under a EU embargo. According to the daily, the mediator in the sale was
a French arms dealer whose activities had been connected to the elder
son of France's former president Francois Mitterrand, currently under
arrest on illegal arms trade charges.
Majewski refused to comment on the French daily's reports. "All this is
just press speculation. I do not know anything about the affair. For me
the important thing is that the sale proceeded in accord with binding
laws and to the advantage of both sides," he stated.
__________________HIV/AIDS___________________
CBC TV: AIDS in Myanmar
[BurmaNet adds?spelling of Chris Beyrer?s name corrected from Barrer to
Beyrer throughout this transcript]
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE ( 10:30 AM ET )
January 4, 2001, Thursday
GUEST: DR. CHRIS BARER; OWEN WRIGLEY; STEVEN HONEYMAN.
ANCHORS: PETER MANSBRIDGE
PETER MANSBRIDGE: As the world works to confront the AIDS epidemic, it's
always the less fortunate countries that are hit hardest. That's very
much the case in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, where AIDS has spread
virtually unchecked. The CBC's Patrick Brown reports.
PATRICK BROWN: This fertile countryside yields two rice crops a year.
But the ranks of the people who sow and reap the rice are about to be
decimated as HIV/AIDS reaps its own grim harvest. This field has been
planted ten times since the government last released reliable AIDS
figures while the epidemic has been spreading largely unchecked. A 1995
survey predicted half a million people would be infected by the year
2000.
DR. CHRIS Beyrer: Unfortunately epidemic is exactly the right word.
BROWN: Dr. Chris Beyrer is a leading expert on AIDS in Asia.
Beyrer: It is much more on the order of 700,000 or 800,000 cumulative
infections and there probably already have been 50,000 to 100,000 if not
many more deaths.
BROWN: The official position of Myanmar is a rural conservative country
with a religion and culture which rule out the possibility of a
widespread epidemic. Outsiders are trying to tarnish Myanmar's image,
says this Deputy Health Minister.
DEPUTY HEALTH MINISTER: It is very much exaggerated. According to our
figures, it is about 30,000.
BROWN: The government's message is contradictory. There are HIV/AIDS
programs like this class for girls and AIDS is described as a national
concern. But everyone is expected to deny the problem is a serious one.
UNIDENTIFIED: Is it dangerous?
It is a rule and it is our culture that we don't have sex before
marriage usually.
BROWN: Myanmar's public health system is one of the poorest in the world
with a total budget of less than 50 cents per person per year.
Conditions at this showcase hospital on the outskirts of Rangoon are the
exception, not the rule. Most AIDS patients in Myanmar don't even know
what it is they're dying of. The government was shocked by its 1995
survey.
Beyrer: Those figures were found to be disturbing. The government didn't
want to accept them, didn't want to deal with them and they essentially
stopped looking rather than face up to what was there. There's been a
tremendous amount of death already from AIDS and it tends to be recorded
as death due to tuberculosis, death from diarrhea, death from a fever of
unknown origin.
BROWN: Organizations working here have to cope with two particular
difficulties. The military regime's reluctance to deal with the true
scale of the epidemic and the rest of the world's reluctance to deal
with the military regime.
Most countries and charitable foundations refuse to fund projects in
Myanmar, says Owen Wrigley of the UNDP.
OWEN WRIGLEY: Donors have decided that this country should not be
involved and so many of the regional programs specifically exclude
Myanmar. This is truly a massive mistake. The future of this country is
at stake and the donors really need to respond to the situation here.
BROWN: HIV/AIDS often spreads along truck routes. Educating truck
drivers is a top priority for Population Services International --
P.S.I., a humanitarian organization with programs in Myanmar.
P.S.I. has built a nationwide network distributing subsidized condoms.
As P.S.I. director, Canadian Steven Honeyman's biggest headache is
fundraising. To work in a pariah state which needs tens of millions of
condoms.
Do you have a bigger size?, he says. Whether or not Myanmar needs big
condoms, it certainly needs huge quantities. P.S.I.'s newest venture is
the love boat.
The boat brings P.S.I. teams to remote villages on the river.
STEVEN HONEYMAN: Many of them don't have, don't have access to them by
the road. So we came up with this idea. Let's reach them how they reach
themselves which is on the river itself.
BROWN: It's like a traveling theater which brings safe sex information,
the condom campaign and entertainment to isolated corners of the
country.
HONEYMAN: How much time before we start? Are the four speakers working?
There is not clear rules of how to move forward with the humanitarian
assisted projects and so we feel our forward. And in some cases,
approvals come very quickly and other cases, they do not.
BROWN: Approval to show happy travelers in villages was a breakthrough.
Ten part soap opera P.S.I. made for television. One episode was shown on
TV last year but censors still haven't passed the other nine. Even the
word condom is too sensitive to broadcast. Official sensitivities also
make it difficult to promote condoms at a nearby festival.
Men who dress as women play a key role in two religious festivals held
at temples in Mandalay. They are meccas for gay men from across the
country.
HONEYMAN: At the moment it's highly controversial. We've had limited
access to those kinds of activities. But we found other ways. I mean,
our job is to wake up every morning and find other ways to reach these
high risk individuals in these high risk groups.
BROWN: The authority's attitude isn't unique. Many governments have
found it hard to be completely open about AIDS, but few are so
completely cut off from humanitarian assistance.
HONEYMAN: The people of Burma should not suffer because of the political
stripes of the current regime. And I feel quite strongly that Canada and
other countries should be responding to the AIDS epidemic in Myanmar and
leave development assistance and private sector development perhaps to a
later date.
BROWN: Neighboring Thailand has 50 times more funding than Myanmar.
WRIGLEY: The total funding package in Myanmar last year was about $2.5
million. If Thailand has $150 million for the year, we're looking at two
percent of the resources that a country this size should have.
BROWN: Hiding their faces, these sex workers are part of a peer
education program. Their job is to carry the message of safe sex to
other prostitutes.
This woman says few insist their clients use condoms. They know, she
says, but they don't listen. I try to educate them to use condoms to
protect themselves. Burmese women are working in brothels across Asia.
They're easy victims of gangs which traffic in women. Myanmar is the
epicenter of a regional epidemic.
Beyrer: The real impact, people getting sick and dying has begun and
even if there were effective programs to stop new infections, over the
next decade there is going to be a steadily rising tide of deaths.
BROWN: The devastation has scarcely begun as an epidemic that Myanmar
won't admit and the rest of the world won't help. For The National, I'm
Patrick Brown in Mandalay.
MANSBRIDGE: Still ahead on The National. The winds die down but the
fires keep burning in southern California.
____________________________________________________
The Washington Quarterly: the Regional Impact of Hiv and
Aids--accelerating and Disseminating across Asia
Published by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2001 Winter
[Excerpt]
Vol. 24, No. 1; Pg. 211
Chris Beyrer. Chris Beyrer, M.D., M.P.H., is a public health analyst at
the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
After sub-Saharan Africa, Asia is the world's most HIV/AIDS-affected
region, with an estimated 7.2 million cumulative HIV infections in 2000.
n1 Given the enormous populations of the region, this figure, with a few
exceptions, does not generate population infection rates approaching
Africa's catastrophic burdens. One-fifth of Asia's infections occurred
in 1999 alone, however, and more than half of those were in Asians under
the age of 25. HIV/AIDS is spreading with unprecedented speed across the
region. The Asian epidemics that have occurred in India; Cambodia;
Burma; Thailand; the Russian Far East; and in the south, southwest, and
north of China have been explosive, were not well predicted, and
generally have been poorly managed. With the exception of Thailand, and
a handful of positive trends in a few other states, Asian governments
have been slow to respond to the threats of AIDS. They have largely
failed to contain the spread of the virus among their peoples. The
result: The face of AIDS in 2000 is changing, and it is increasingly
Asian...
BURMA (MYANMAR)
Burma has the highest population prevalence of HIV in Asia after
Cambodia, with as many as 1.0 -- 1.2 million cumulative infections,
although estimates are highly unreliable. Burma is perhaps the most
likely to become like an African country in terms of the spread of the
virus. There are several factors contributing to this scenario: official
denials on the part of the ruling junta; lack of political will; a
collapsing health sector; and unclean blood supply; very high rates of
HIV infection in drug users; a growing sex industry; a large, poorly
educated, and unpaid army; multiple refugees as well as migrant
populations from Thailand, India, and Bangladesh; and large numbers of
internally displaced persons -- estimated at 1 -- 2 million persons last
year. The national HIV prevention budget for 1998 was estimated at $
50,000 for a population of 48 million people. Data suggests that more
than 90 percent of drug users in some states in Burma are infected with
HIV which is among the highest infection rates ever reported anywhere.
n13
Burma's epidemic has spread well beyond injection drug users, however.
Access to family-planning services is extremely low, with only 18
percent of women receiving basic services. Sexually transmitted disease
(STD) cases are on the rise. n14
Burma's narcotics-based economy and the international trafficking of
women and girls has become a regional threat to HIV/AIDS control and to
regional security in general. The highest HIV rates in India, China, and
Thailand are all to be found along their respective borders with Burma.
Despite mounting evidence of the threat, the junta has thus far proved
unable or unwilling to respond. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1990
elections, has shown courage and candor about AIDS and delivered a
keynote address at the 2000 World AIDS Conference in Durban, South
Africa, calling for openness in dealing with the disease, its victims,
and caregivers. But she and her party have been forcibly restrained by
the junta -- the real leaders of the country -- in their efforts to
respond nationally to AIDS.
Asia's Future HIV Challenges
The Asian experience with HIV/AIDS is diverse, rapidly changing, and
poses new challenges for peoples, governments, donors, and regional
groupings. Several consistent themes emerge that will demand response.
HIV SPREAD RELATED TO DRUG USE
Increasing opium, heroin, and amphetamine production in Burma,
Afghanistan, and Laos and the availability of drugs throughout region
will remain a major challenge for the foreseeable future.
LACK OF DRUG TREATMENT AND PREVENTION
Asia lags severely in dealing with both drug treatment and HIV
prevention for drug users. Thailand has voluntary drug detoxification
services, but does not currently allow methadone maintenance. Vietnam
and the Russian Far East (with support from Medecins Sans Frontieres and
the Soros Foundation) are virtually the only Asian states with active
harm-reduction programs for drug users.
THE TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS
Trafficking in women for the sex industry occurs across the Asian region
and has made HIV prevention a complex and politically sensitive issue.
Destination countries of these females include Thailand, China,
Cambodia, India, Russia, Sweden, the United States, and the European
Union. Trafficking and sexual slavery are human rights abuses and
crimes, and all of the countries listed above (save the United States)
are signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which
explicitly bars both trafficking and child sex work. Yet in 2000, the
trafficking industry appears to be, if anything, increasing. A social
and personal harm in its own right, this is a major potential source of
an HIV epidemic, and one that will require regional and international
cooperation to resolve.
LABOR AND SOCIAL MOBILITY
Asia has large populations of internal migrants, migrant laborers,
internally displaced persons, refugees, and workers in industries
requiring mobility, including fisheries, shipping, and trucking and
trade. As in Africa, social mobility has helped spread HIV and is likely
to be a growing source of vulnerability. Crucial populations at risk
include the 1.0 -- 1.2 million Burmese in Thailand; the 3 million
Afghans in Pakistan; Burmese refugees and migrants in China, India,
Bangladesh, and Malaysia; and migrant and/or overseas workers from
Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, and other states. Asia's
labor and migration laws have lagged given the mobility of these
populations in 2000. Policies for workers and migrants with HIV are
contradictory, punitive, and are often barriers to providing preventive
services and care.
MILITARIES AND SECURITY FORCES
The armed forces play a major role in preventing HIV among their troops
and face important security issues if they fail. The UNTAC experience,
where HIV spread considerably among troops stationed in Cambodia, should
stand as a warning.
What Must Be Done
With the various barriers to reining in the HIV epidemic facing Asia,
there are many steps that must be taken, and taken quickly, if the
continent is going to avoid the degree to which AIDS has become a
scourge in Africa.
* There must be an end to official denials. Political will is needed to
make policy changes and forge partnerships with nongovernmental
organizations, civil society groups, and the international community.
* Asian countries must reform and expand their drug treatment programs.
Harm reduction methods must be employed for injecting drug users.
* Cultural taboos must be overridden so that frank sexual health
initiatives for adolescents, young adults, and women and men of
childbearing age can be established.
* Blood collection policies must be redefined. Blood safety and supplies
must be effectively regulated and monitored to provide the basic,
universal precautions found in health care settings in other parts of
the world.
* Both international and national armed forces and police, particularly
those involved in peacekeeping, must be trained in prevention measures.
* There should be regional and transnational cooperation to reduce the
trafficking of women and girls in the Asian sex industry. When this is
not possible, sex workers' rights must be recognized, with unionization
and licensing measures established where feasible.
* People living with AIDS and their families must be protected against
discrimination and be granted access to education and employment.
* The extensive highways, bridges, and infrastructure projects that will
dot Asia in the coming years must include assessments of what impact
these projects will have on the spread of HIV/AIDS. Prevention programs
must be built into these projects as well.
The HIV virus spreads faster where educational levels, especially among
women, are low; where public health systems are inadequate; where other
sexually transmitted disease programs, blood banking, and medical
services are poor; and where political will to face the epidemic is
lacking. Although a handful of affected developing countries have
mounted impressive efforts, many affected countries have not had the
political or social will to deal with HIV. Asia does not yet face the
same crushing AIDS burdens as much of Africa but there is evidence that
many states already have severe epidemics, and more are undergoing
explosive phases of early transmission. The window of opportunity to
respond to HIV in Asia is narrow and closing. The time for immediate
action is now.
Table I: Prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Asia in 1999
Country HIV/AIDS cases HIV rate (%) AIDS deaths
in 1999
Southeast Asia
Cambodia 220,000 4.04 14,000
Burma * 750,000 -- 1,000,000 2.00 -- 5.00 unknown
Thailand 755,000 2.15 ** 66,000
Malaysia 49,000 0.42 1,900
Philippines 28,000 0.07 1,200
Laos 1,400 0.05 130
Indonesia 52,000 0.05 3,100
* Burma (Myanmar) estimates are higher than UNAIDS figures, estimated at
530,000 infections in 2000, but based on incomplete reporting since
1995.
___________________________________________________
Mizzima: Hush Hush Na Wa Ta Disease
[Abridged]
By Kanbawza Win, January 5, 2001
Mizzima News Group (www.mizzima.com)
The international community recognized this scourge as Human
Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV/AIDS but, in rural areas of Burma, the
local people call it Na Wa Ta disease. There are two reasons for this.
The first one is that during the Ne Win administration of Burmese
Socialist Programme Party days, Burma boasted about not having a single
AIDS patient in the country. True, because the country was a hermit
kingdom and its closed door policy had effectively shut out not only
AIDS but also trade and tourism not to mention foreign investment. But
when the Burmese army took power in 1988 under the name of Na Wa Ta (in
English it is known as State Law and Order Restoration Council now the
SPDC), killing some 20,000 people, it changed its policy to the Burmese
Army Way to Capitalism and opened up the country. HIV/AIDS was among the
first to come in. Most Generals are poorly educated to run a country.
Being bumpkins in health affairs, they obviously did not take any
necessary precautions, justifying their approach as part and parcel of
opening up the country. Now HIV/AIDS has reached an epidemic proportion.
The second reason is that General Ne Win, the great helmsman, has a
great appetite for sex, having five official wives (Daw Tin Tin,
Mrs.Taunggyi known as Daw Khin May Than, Daw Ni Ni Myint, Yadana Nat Mai
and back to Daw Ni Ni Myint, other unofficial wives are not accounted
for). He looks the other way when his soldiers commit sexual offenses,
especially in ethnic areas because the generals construe this as
implementing the Mahar Myanmar race policy. This is tantamount to
encouraging the soldiers to commit rape. As HIV/AIDS is related to sex U
Ne Win automatically became the father of AIDS in addition to being the
father of the Burmese army. Since Na Wa Ta is one of his creations the
people jokingly call AIDS the Na Wa Ta disease as more than 10 percent
of the soldiers (about 4,400,00) are infected.
AIDS is now orphaning children, wrecking the people?s lives in
unprecedented numbers and undoing what little development had being
achieved. HIV positive persons will die within a decade which is also
the fate of the impoverished average Burmese. Worst of all, there is no
cure. The rich will be condemned to a life preserving cocktail of
powerful drugs. In eastern and northern Burma, the AIDS virus lurks and
spreads everywhere. We are sure that the numbers incubating HIV who will
probably die of AIDS is far larger than what Burmese army killed in
1988.
. The current military Junta has already broken the record of its
predecessor regime when the WHO ranked Burma as second last among the
191 nations in the quality of health care (Sierra Leone was last) while
the Burmese Socialist Programme Party only achieved the least developed
country status. The Generals often argue that the civilian figure of
over 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases estimated by the researchers of the World
Bank was just a political ploy to discredit the regime. The Junta claims
that only 40,000 were affected by Na Wa Ta disease.
Fanned by cheap heroine and the booming sex trade the AIDS crisis has
spun out of control. Exporting young girls to Thailand an action
indirectly encouraged by the government, and the returning prostitutes
from the neighboring countries have compounded the problem. Dr. Frank
Smithuis of M S F ( Medicins Sans Frontieres) who has spent six years
working on HIV/AIDS prevention in Burma cited the figure as between
200,000 to one million.
"It is hard to give a good estimates and is probably higher
than has been thought taking into consideration for those who have died.
It is high and is rising and nobody is doing anything about it."
The Junta could not admit it for obvious reasons, instead rely on
conservative social mores. Their hypothesis is that extramarital sex is
rare while the cultural value of the girl is to preserve her virginity.
It also used to point out the absence of a sex industry, such as found
in Thailand and Philippines However it did not take into consideration
the economic factor where young girls have to sell their bodies just to
survive.
The new fear for the Burmese was worse than the Junta is AIDS. Huge
populations are at risk and Burma will soon top the list of Asian
countries in AIDS cases The invisible cases under reported in a climate
of denial that unsafe and promiscuous sex is rife. It appears that the
virus has passed out of the world of commercial sex to thrive among
pregnant women who have had sex only with their husbands. It will soon
paralyze the nation if this denial goes on.
...Prominent medical doctors in Burma have to tell the world what the
Junta want them to say but in private they admit the hopelessness of the
situation. Counseling is virtually nonexistent; condoms, which were
banned by the Generals until 1993, are prohibitively far expensive for
most people. Free AIDS testing is rare, and most people cannot afford
the $10 (nearly Kyats 5,000) test to determine if they have this Na Wa
Ta disease. Once a patient is diagnosed, the doctors said, he or she
dies within three months. There are virtually no anti HIV drugs in the
country. Besides there is an acute shortage of antibiotics.
The virus is also spreading in jails where a prisoner can obtain a
little extra food for a blood donation and where transfusion equipment
is often reused without cleaning. Far worse the disease is spreading to
the monasteries. Many infected young men, shunned by their friends and
family have moved into the monasteries to die. Several of the monks are
also infected by AIDS. They have contracted the disease by shaving the
heads with the razors shared among them.
A combination of ravaging Na Wa Ta disease, an atrocious health-care
system and the Junta?s refusal to admit these medical problems has
condemned the Burmese to a life- expectancy of less than 45 years for
the next two decades or so. It seems that even if the Burmese military
Junta goes its partner AIDS or Na Wa Ta disease will continue to stay in
the country for quite some time.
_______________ ECONOMY AND BUSINESS _______________
The Nation: Burma Allows Use of Baht in Border Trade
Jan. 5, 2001
BURMA'S Commerce Ministry has sanctioned the use of baht in addition to
US dollars for border trade transactions, effective January 1, said
Karun Kittiastaporn, director general of the Foreign Trade Department.
However, other border trade regulations are unchanged and exporters must
still pay a 10 per cent tax on the total export value of their goods.
The Burmese move follows Thai pressure for permission to allow
transactions in baht and the Burmese kyat, after the Chinese yuan and
Indian rupee were authorised for border trade with China and India on
November 16 last year.
Karen said that the move would boost transactions between Thailand and
Burma.
Thai-Burmese border trade increased 106 per cent in the first 10 months
of 2000, compared with the same period of 1999. Imports from Burma
totalled Bt5.02 billion, a 337.6 per cent increase, while exports to
Burma were up 60 per cent.
___________________________________________________
The New York Times: Thai Gas Imports Stepped up
January 5, 2001
By Wayne Arnold
Thailand's state-controlled oil company, PTT Exploration and Production,
said yesterday that it expected to begin receiving additional gas from a
project in neighboring Myanmar that it co-owns with three foreign oil
companies -- Petronas of Malaysia, Premier Oil of Britain and Nippon Oil
of Japan -- and with interests in Myanmar, whose ruling junta has been
accused by human rights activists of using forced labor to build gas
pipelines. Thailand is obliged to buy gas from the project and another
in Myanmar involving TotalFina Elf and Unocal, even though the power
plant it was meant to fuel is unfinished; a new pipeline that opened
last month carries the gas elsewhere. Wayne Arnold
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