---------------------------------BurmaNet----------------------------------- ----- "Appropriate Information Technologies, Practical Strategies" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- The BurmaNet News: September 20, 1996 Issue #519 HEADLINES: ========== MAINICHI DAILY NEWS: BURMESE ACTIVISTS RALLY IN TOKYO ISBDA: TWO MORE NLD ACTIVISTS ARRESTED NATION: WRITER RESPONDS - LETTER NEW STRAITS TIMES: 33 NGOS PROTEST MYANMAR'S JOINING ASEAN NATION: BURMA MILITARY VOWS PEACE ON ANNIVERSARY THAI-BURMA CHECKPOINT REOPENS NYT: WHO KEEPS THE BURMESE IN STEP? ASK THE GENERALS INDEPENDENT REPORT: PROGRESS IN U.S. SELECTIVE PURCHASING NLM: ARTICLE EXPLAINS SUU KYI'S `BLIND ACCUSATIONS' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- MAINICHI DAILY NEWS: BURMESE ACTIVISTS RALLY IN TOKYO September 19, 1996 From: Carol Schlenker & Aung Thu By Demian McLean About 60 Burmese activists marched through the streets of Tokyo Wednesday afternoon, pumping their fists in the air and shouting slogans that called for an end to eight years of human rights abuses and military rule in the country now called Myanmar. The march began in Gotanda Minami Park with a mock re-enactment of the bloody military coup in 1988, and culminated with a visit to the Myanmar Embassy, where activists carrying Burmese flags delivered a list of demands for the military junta, including the release of all political prisoners and an opening of dialogue between the current government and Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Protesters particularly decried Japanese and other Southeast Asian countries' support for Myanmar's military government, which has been repeatedly castigated since 1988 by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. Marchers particularly took issue with Japan providing Official Development Assistance to Burma. "We're trying to show the Japanese people and government the real situation in Burma," said Aung Thu, a leader of the Burma Youth Volunteer Association and an organizer of the march. "People are still suffering -- there's torture and there's forced labor," he said. "The Japanese people think that if they send more ODA, it'll help develop the country," he said, "Instead, it's going to the military," he said, pointing to Myanmar's swelling military's ranks, which he said today number 475,000 soldiers, up from 175,000 soldiers eight years ago. At the Myanmar Embassy gate, marchers stuffed a giant envelope through the mail slot addressed to Gen. Thwan Shwe, leader of the military junta, containing a list of the demands. Inside, embassy guards watched from their security booths, and other watched from a high wall with a telephoto lens, snapping photos of marchers as they passed. ************************************************************ ISBDA: TWO MORE NLD ACTIVISTS ARRESTED September 19, 1996 From: "K. Tint" Two democracy activists who are members of the NLD Rangoon office were arrested by the military authorities on Saturday, NLD sources said. The individuals named Ko Aung Myint Oo and U Khin Aung who work at Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's office were taken to custody by the military intelligence officers for political reasons. Although whereabouts of these two activists are not known, it is feared that they may receive long prison terms after secret trials. ********************************************************* NATION: WRITER RESPONDS - LETTER September 19, 1996 BurmaNet Editor's Note: Tourism may have brought money to some Burmese, but the majority, despite safer drinking water, are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Low pay, as well as regular demands for forced contributions and forced labor, leave many families without enough to eat. That is why approximately 1 in 40 Burmese are now working abroad, often in appalling conditions. Tourism has done nothing to decrease human rights abuses by the SLORC. And while a tourist boycott cannot bring down the SLORC, it is clear that the SLORC has tried to use the Visit Myanmar Year campaign to gain legitimacy. That is why Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party received 82% of the votes in 1990, has called for the boycott. For those who support the pro-democracy movement, boycotting Visit Myanmar Year is a concrete way to demonstrate support. I would like to respond to the charges made by Christina Fink and Faith Doherty that my co-ed piece was full of "factual errors". First off, with in the last year alone, I have spent four months traveling to nearly every state in Burma and talking to people from all walks of life, not just people in the tourism business. Not a single person I have met outside Aung San Suu Kyi's immediate Yangon circle has supported economic sanctions of any kind. Neither critic offered one shred of evidence to refute my observation that the average Burmese is better off today than 10 years ago. Yes, the economy is very weak any current report makes that obvious. But take any such economic report - including the US survey cited by Ms Fink- and compare it with the 1986 equivalent and the evidence is unequivocal. The most complete of them, the UN human development reports, make this abundantly clear. According to the 1994 World Development Report, 74 per cent of Burmese citizens have access to safe drinking water, a 252 per cent increase since 1980. Does this mean everything great in Burma and there isn't vast room for improvement? No, it simply means that with respect to certain social and economic realities, things are better than before, not worse. To deny this is to risk losing all credibility, as many foreign Burmese activists have done. Fink and Doherty trot out the same half-truths and misconceptions that their respective organizations depend upon for their continued existence. The one exception may be the case of the Sittwe Hotel in Arakan state, if there ports of draft s labor are true Whether the Karen Human Rights Group can be considered an independent observer (just how many Karen are found in Sittwe." questionable, but if these allegations are true, it is the first time a hotel development has used draft labor to my knowledge. I observed the early stages of construction of the Sittwe Hotel myself and to me it looked like a paid labor site. The same goes for the Buddhist Museum in Sittwe. It's rather hard to swallow that in either of these cases the government had any need for unpaid labor, but without having done a thorough investigation myself I can't rule it out. I doubt whether either Ms Fink or Ms Doherty have ever been to Sittwe; dependent upon information passed around by those seeking asylum in Thailand, they cannot claim to have the full story. Ms Fink grossly misquotes me as saying that "most tourists do not use the roads or railways but take airplanes instead." Instead, I wrote that the Rangoon-Mandalay road wasn't solely used by tourists, and that the majority of tourists flew to Mandalay This is a fact that can be easily be verified by comparing the number of air and land arrivals to Mandalay. Furthermore, most of the people using public road transport to Mandalay whether bus or train - are Burmese citizens. This is patently obvious to anyone who has bothered to look for themselves. I fully understand the symbolic value of a Visit Myanmar Year (VMY) boycott, but my position is that trying to turn Burma into Cuba - strengthening the government while weakening the people through a travel embargo - is essentially an empty gesture. The Burmese government's VMY promotional efforts have been so inept that the best estimates of those involved in Burma tourism predict that the same number of people will arrive during the ill-fated year as would if no promotion at all had been undertaken. Ms Fink says "Suu Kyi has not ordered tourists to boycott Burma indefinitely. She has merely asked that people refrain from coming during SLORC's campaign for Visit Myanmar Year which begins this November." In the first place, Suu Kyi has no authority to "order" anyone, much less tourists. Secondly, she has made it abundantly clear in private conversations that she is opposed to tourism as long as Slorc is in power; only when specifically asked about Visit Myanmar Year as she limited her remarks to that arena. Again, I fully understand the sentiment behind this position, but I cannot agree with the chosen tactic given my own observation that this is not the will of the Burmese people and given my belief that this is an unfruitful tactic. Ms Doherty makes the oft-repeated error of referring to Suu Kyi as an elected leader, forgetting that she was placed under house arrest before elections were held and that no one 'leader" was elected by the NLD. The only prospective officials chosen during the elections were MP elects, and Suu Kyi wasn't one of these. Suu Kyi is a courageous and extremely admirable person, but unless I missed something in my research, elected she's not. The nearest thing to an elected leader that the pro-democracy movement has is Dr. Sein Win of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, an ad hoc border organization that has stated that "Responsible individuals and organizations who wish to verify the facts and to publicize the plight of the Burmese people are encouraged to utilize SLORC's more relaxed tourist policies." Neither critic has dared to refute the basic premise of my op-ed piece, that there isn't a single indication that the Burmese military, which has thrived on 34 years of isolation, will somehow turn tail and run because tourists stop coming to Burma. You have to have your head firmly planted in the sand to follow such a line of reasoning. The government has been illegitimate since its 1962 inception, and tourism this year, last year or next year has little bearing on this basic reality. I am especially disturbed by Ms Doherty's reference to the Mustache Brothers, Par Par Lay and Lu Daw, who are my friends and whose opinions on tourism are well known to me. Can Ms Doherty claim a similar relationship? This is not Par Par Lay's first time to be jailed for political reasons, and following his previous arrest I asked him repeatedly if it would be better for tourists to stay home as long as such human rights abuses continued and he was adamant that they continue to come, to bring hard currency to the people and to observe the realities of today's Burma, the good as well as the bad. Contrary to Ms Doherty's assertion, I never presented myself as a "non-biased observer". As the byline to my piece made clear, I've been updating Lonely Planet's guidebook to Burma since 1986. I do not, however, derive any sort of royalty on that book - it's a strictly work-for-hire relationship with no direct relation to sales. The book is traditionally a money-loser for both LP and myself. As far as I can tell, the only condition that shows a strong correlation with Burma book sales is the visa situation; as visa validities increase, sales go up, and when they decrease sales go down. At any rate I couldn't care less whether the book sells a million copies or goes out of print, as my primary motive in traveling to and writing about Burma is my respect for its people. I'm paid the same for writing these books regardless of what I report about the governments and human rights situations; in fact, Lonely Planet continually urges its authors to be as unbiased as possible in their political reporting. This is not the case with certain activist groups whose funding entirely depends on painting a certain picture. Should Slorc go away tomorrow, Ms Fink would be looking for another job and Ms Doherty would have to pump up another cause to justify that portion of the funds earmarked for publishing poorly substantiated research on Burma. I, Ms Fink, and Ms Doherty each live by reporting our observations; each of us has our own moral agenda and none of us can reasonably claim more morality than the other as far as I can see. At any rate, such ad hominem arguments my motives versus their motives are irrelevant to the debate issues themselves. The question remains, will a travel boycott make a positive or a negative contribution? I remain convinced at least for the time being that it can only bring negative results. Joe Cummings Bangkok ***************************************************************** NEW STRAITS TIMES: 33 NGOS PROTEST MYANMAR'S JOINING ASEAN September 19, 1996 KUALA LUMPUR, Wed - Representatives from 33 non- governmental organization today presented a memorandum to the Foreign Ministry to protest Myanmar's application to join ASEAN. The memorandum urged the Malaysian Government and other ASEAN members to ensure that Myanmar's ruling military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, would ad-here to certain conditions before its application was considered. Four leaders of the group, Abim secretary general Ahmad Azam Abdul Radman, Cenpeace director Fan Yew Teng Burma Solidarity Group Malaysia coordinator Debbie Stothard and the National Union of Muslim Students Malaysia secretary general Zamri Zakaria were met by Wisma Putra's undersecretary for Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific Ahmad Fuzl Abdul Razak and his deputy, Arshad Husin. Ahamd Azam said during the 30 minute meeting both officials had assured the group that the memorandum's contents would be conveyed to Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawl. Yesterday, Abdullah said Myanmar had formally applied to become a member of ASEAN. Its application was submitted by Myanmar Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw during last month's visit of Yangon SLORC chairman General Than Shwe here. Abdullah, who is currently the chairman of the Asean Standing Committee, said copies of the application have been forwarded to the other ASEAN nations. ASEAN's present policy of constructive engagement must not ignore the fact that Slorc is an illegitimate government, one that was not elected by the people during the May 1990 general election," Ahmad Azam said. ***************************************************************** NATION: BURMA MILITARY VOWS PEACE ON ANNIVERSARY September 19, 1996 RANGOON - Burma yesterday vowed to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity on the eighth anniversary of a coup that thrust into power the current military government. "The people, the government and the Tatmadaw [armed forces] shall unitedly march forward to a new era of peace, progress and prosperity," was the banner headline in the official New Light of Myanmar newspapers. State-run newspapers yesterday carried pages of reports detailing the military junta's achievements over the past eight years, and outlined many more that are in the works. But prodemocracy groups disagreed with the achievements of the government, which has been widely accused of human rights and condemned for its failure to restore democracy. - Reuter. ***************************************************************** US EMBASSY RANGOON: FOREIGN ECONOMIC TRENDS - BURMA June 1996 RECEIPTS The GOB has been unable, due to it's lack of both popular support and of administrative integrity and competence, to collect internal revenue effectively, the incidence of effective taxation has fallen disproportionately on the external sector. Conversely, the usefulness of the external sector for funding the SLORC's military expansion is thought by some observers to be related to the SLORC's policy of encouraging external trade and investment. >From FY 89/90 through FY 94/95, the external sector constituted less than 1/4 of legal GDP, but appears to have been the source of about 1/2 of public sector revenue. In FY 94/95, almost 19% of the public sector's foreign currency receipts, and about 9.4% of it's total receipts, is estimated to have been contributed by external grants partly of grass-roots humanitarian and opium crop substitution projects from the United Nations agencies, but mostly of unilateral debt relief from the government of Japan, which is the GOB's largest external creditor. When the GOB services its official bilateral to Japan. the government of Japan deposits an equivalent amount of Yen into an account that the GOB can use to purchase non-military merchandise. The GOB has used most of the Japanese debt relief to fund current expenditure. >From FY 92/93 to FY 94/95, the annual value of this unilateral Japanese debt relief, increased form about US $33 million to about US $125 million. Under the SLORC's rule, an apparently small but rapidly growing share of the GOB's income form the external sector has been derived from direct and indirect ownership of minority equity interests in private export-oriented firms, often through joint ventures with foreign investors. One hundred percent foreign ownership is not allowed in most of the sectors in which foreign investment is permitted, and the local joint venture partner of most foreign investors is either one of the GOB's state economic enterprises, or the military's Union Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (UMEH) UMEH is increasingly the local joint venture partner with which the GOB encourages foreign investors to affiliate. UMEH is a specially privileged holding company formed in February 1990. As stipulated by it's charter, 40% of it's equity is owned by the Directorate of Defense Procurement, a defense ministry agency that supplies the GOB's military imports: the remaining 60% is owned by "defense services personnel" notably senior military officers including SLORC members, and by military regiments and war veterans (organizations or individually). UMEH, as stipulated by it's charter, operates under the charter of the Dictorate of Procurement, with which it is co-located across from the street from the Defense Services Museum in Rangoon. UMEH appears designed to persist long after most State Economic Enterprises (SEE)are privatized. The GOB's policy of acquiring substantial minority equity interests in export oriented firms through foreign joint ventures with UMEH could eventually enable the GOB to relinquish state monopolies of leading exports and to privatize many SEEs, while continuing to receive substantial non-tax revenues from the external sector for expenditure by the military. ************************************************************ THAI-BURMA CHECKPOINT REOPENS September 19, 1996 Thirawat Khumtita Chiang Mai A checkpoint in Chiang Saen district has been reopened to facilitate construction of a casino, owned jointly by Thai and foreign businessmen, on the Burmese side of the border. Deputy director of the Internal Security Operations Command's Chiang Rai office Col Chusak Anujornphan said the Interior Ministry ordered the I reopening of Ban Wang Lao check point in Tambon Vieng on July 25. A steel bridge has been built across the Ruak River to facilitate delivery of construction materials from Thailand and soldiers have been stationed at the checkpoint to ensure security, he said. Security risks are high and Col Chusak fears crime could rise as smugglers and drug traffickers can now cross the border freely. The casino, which is expected to open in the middle of next year, could pose problems because both the Burmese and Thai governments have no policy of supporting the gambling business. A source said Interior Minister Banharn Silpa-archa approved the reopening of the checkpoint at the request of Prasit Phothasuthon, the younger brother of Chart Thai MP Praphat Phothasuthon. ***************************************************************** NYT: WHO KEEPS THE BURMESE IN STEP? ASK THE GENERALS September 17, 1996 From: Zaliwin@aol.com by Seth Mydans Yangon, Myanmar -- there are fighter planes and rifles and artillery shells in the new military museum here, but there are also displays of textile mills, power plants, resort hotels, supermarkets, bus lines and dancing shoes. There are paintings of great battles and portraits of military leaders, but there is also a model of the restoration of the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, a display of soccer and tennis balls and a diorama titled "Brief History of the Yangon City Water Supply System." "Parks!" snapped Col. Ye Htut, the museum's director. "How many parks have we got?" "Thirty!" cried a guide in the showroom of the Yangon City Development Commission in the capital of this nation, formerly called Burma. "Thirty parks!" The Defense Services Museum is no ordinary military museum, a vast, sunlit, marble-floored building constructed three years ago in the city formerly called Rangoon at a cost of nearly $9 million. But this is no ordinary military: an all-pervasive institution that sees itself as the historical backbone and only future hope for the nation. Having seized and held on to political power by force, the Burmese military now pervades virtually every aspect of society, every level of government, all corners of the economy. "The armed forces have been fighting to keep this country together for 50 years," Col. Ye Htut said, standing in front of a diorama. "Suddenly someone says: "Oh, you have nothing to do with politics. Go back to your barracks and let the politicians settle things." This we cannot accept." A recent tour of the museum, under the genial guidance of Col. Ye Htut, provided a self-portrait of one of the world's most reviled military establishments. There were no dioramas of the gunning down of pro-democracy demonstrators, no displays of the long-running battle to suppress ethnic insurgencies, nothing to indicate that the military is arresting its political opponents at an increasing rate. The museum concentrated on the country's struggle for independence from the British in the first part of the century and on economic development in the last few years. In an odd turn of history, the most prominent personality in the museum is U Aung San, the assassinated leader of the independence movement and the father of the current junta's chief critic, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country's pro-democracy movement. In an interview, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was surprised to hear of the giant portrait of her father in the museum and the glass case displaying his uniform, boots, gloves, sword and briefcase. She sharply criticized the military's attempt to manage the nation by fiat, saying, "You may be able to run an army like that, but can't run an economy like that." She added, "They don't seem to have learned the lesson that when an army diversifies like that it gets less and less professional and less and less proficient as an army, so they lose out both ways." Despite the elaborate displays in the museum's 60 showrooms, not everything about the military is open to scrutiny. Though Col. Ye Htut said it numbers about 250,000 troops, foreign estimates are closer to 400,000. And although official figures put military spending at 8 to 10 percent of the national budget, the World Bank places it at closer to 40 percent. But there is no dispute about the military's grip on the country. Myanmar has been a military state since Gen. Ne Win took power in a coup in 1962 and established a closed society. The current junta seized power after the massacre of hundreds of demonstrators in 1988, and then refused to step down after losing a democratic election in 1990 to Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. These actions were in the national interest, Co. Ye Htut said. "If you understand the history and development of our armed forces, you will not see them in such a very, very negative way," he said. "The media sees the armed forces shooting down people and holding on to power because it did not want to give up power. This is not so. The armed forces wanted to hand over power, it the situation would be stable. But there was no chance to have a stable situation." Co. Ye Htut led a visitor through what amounted to a tour of Myanmar: displays of the Yeni No. 2 Paper Mill, the Teigu Seasoning Powders Factory, the Shwedon gas turbine, the Mandalay International Airport, the Yangon City Golf Resort. "All built by Slorc," the colonel said, referring to the State Law and Order Restoration Council, the military junta that took power in 1988. Pointing to a display in the showroom of the Transportation Ministry, he said, "This is the railway line reputed to have been built by slave labor." Was it? "No, we are Buddhist people," the colonel said. "So we don't like hurting other people. We refrain from killing. We refrain from doing what you might call unpleasant things." Most of the unpleasantness in Myanmar has been caused by politicians, he said, and one of the military's proud achievements has been to keep the politicians at bay. "We had elections, yes," Co. ye Htut said, "but after the elections, if we were to hand over power to the political organizations we would have had a repeat of history -- the squabbling of political organizations, the fighting to secede from the union. The fight for power. "It has happened again and again," he said. "Only the military can hold the country together. Only the military can work to end this civil strife. That is why we are taking sole responsibility for this job." ********************************************************** INDEPENDANT REPORT: PROGRESS IN U.S. SELECTIVE PURCHASING September 19, 1996 From: Tomoyuki Tanaka 1. The entire State of Massachusetts passed a tough selective contracting law on 25/6/96 [...] 2. Oakland California passed a selective contracting law on 23/4/96 3. San Francisco, California passed a selective contracting law on 22/4/96 4. Ann Arbor, Michigan passed a selective contracting law on 15/4/96 5. Santa Monica California passed a selective contracting law on 28/11/95 6. Madison Wisconsin passed a selective contracting law on 16/8/95 7. Berkeley California passed a selective contracting law on 8/2/95. *********************************************************** NLM: ARTICLE EXPLAINS SUU KYI'S `BLIND ACCUSATIONS' September 17, 1996 Article by Phyo Aung [Transcribed Excerpt] I found news regarding the second news briefing of the Information Committee of the State Law and Order Restoration Council which were presented in full in the 3 September issue of the newspapers. [passage omitted] The reply given by the Minister was seen to be systematic one given precisely according to procedure by a true gentleman according to what the cultured and wise journalist wanted to know. Wanting to know precisely how U Hla Htwe asked in connection with what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said in the presence of personnel of various news agencies and those from various embassies connected with information, I searched for it in THE NEW LIGHT OF MYANMAR in which it was presented in original English version, as follows: U Hla Htwe of Antara News Agency and Nihon Keizai Shinbum said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had said at the "press conference" the previous Saturday that quite a number of foreign investing firms in Myanmar were immoral and benefits and profits accrued from them had gone to only immoral people. Concerning the matter, he asked for comments. Before asking the second question, he said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said at the same press conference that the market economic system had stopped being an open-door economic system since 1993 and become a government monopolized economic system and that Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd [UMEHL] had come to own a large slice of the economy and monopolized the economy. He asked if it was true and to what extent the UMEHL had economic enterprises in Myanmar and to what percentage it held. It is vividly seen that points contained in both the questions are blind accusations made by Daw Suu Kyi with her eyes tightly closed. Accusing the foreign entrepreneurs who came to Myanmar to make investments and to do trade as "immoral" is really too serious. With what evidence was the accusation made? The meaning of the word immoral does not only mean wrong intentions but also means those with no morals, lose character and with no shame. If so, t?is amounts to clearly accusing personnel of the oil companies such as Unocal and Total Companies, companies like Daewoo and Segye, those who have made investments in hotel business such as Inya Lake, Strand, Traders, Sedona, Summit Parkview and other hotels, Italy- Thai Construction Company and entrepreneurs of United Kingdom engaged in Ayeyawady Waterways Tourism Service totalling over 200 organizations which have made investments, to be immoral persons. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has balantly accused these dignified entrepreneurs who have made investments in various countries of the world without any sound evidence. The dignified entrepreneurs should take heed of the fact that they can file law suits against Daw Suu Kyi to retaliate her accusations. The second point accusing that the Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd had monopolized the economy is done to accuse the Government and the Tatmadaw [Defense Services] and it is quite obvious that she was too eager to obstruct and hinder the interests of the Tatmadaw. The answer given by the Minister is complete. However, wanting to know why Daw Suu Kyi said in this manner, I approached some journalists with whom I had close contacts and asked them and I came to know that she gave as an example that in the mining work carried out in Mogok, the Economic Holdings Ltd is said to have taken many good plots. I came to realized that she made the accusations without exactly knowing how many mining plots there are in Mogok, what system is practiced, which organizations are engaged in them and what system is used in allotting the plots to original owners. In mining of gems, it is important for people to have luck, wisdom, perseverance and investments. It is not a matter like carrying out geological survey and exploration work for finding oil, natural gas and minerals, nor a forecast be made on the exact spot where success would be achieved. Plots are marked and allocated in places where there is likelihood of finding gems. One can find the gems or not depending on one's luck. Accusation cannot be made that the best plots are selected and taken. Such accusations are made by those persons who once tried to do some gems mining to some extent but failed in their bid and are like persons still longing for their past golden days to come. It looks as though Daw Suu Kyi was speaking on behalf of such persons. It will not do to have a pessimistic view and make accusations all the time. Why has she made accusations without concrete proof and easily believed in what those who surround her say? Only those who have a considerate mind can think clearly and see things clearly as they are. "Foreign investors don't come and make investments in Myanmar," it is said. When foreign investments come the public get jobs. The investments help to bring about all-round economic development to the State. These are true facts. "No foreign assistance should be given to Myanmar Naing-Ngan," it is said. Development is being achieved with foreign help. For example, with the assistance given by Japan the General Diseases Hospital was built. The Institute of Nursing came into existence. Didn't they bring benefit to the public? With the assistance given by Japan farm machines could be purchased for the development of border areas. This was aimed for development of the people. This are true facts. "Tourists should not visit Myanmar," it is said. This is being said to cover up the lies told by expatriate groups who are roving round the world and spreading rumours that the situation in Myanmar is very bad and there is no security and people should not go to there. It is assumed that this is being said in order to cover up the false rumors spread by Daw Suu Kyi in collaboration with expatriate group fearing that their lies will be detected. When tourists come the world comes to know about Myanmar. They see the true situation. When tourists come a lot of foreign exchange is earned in all sectors. When souvenirs are sold the local entrepreneurs earn more income, economic and social contacts are made tending to bring development to the country. These are original facts. Having considerations has nothing to do with being educated. Although educated if one does not have the power to consider then one can make mistakes and bring lots of dangers. It is not good for oneself and at the same time it bring lots of dangers to the surrounding. [passage omitted] Due to the ability of the media of the West Bloc, what Daw Suu Kyi has said and done have been made known to the world and this can easily be seen how much she has gone astray from the power of thinking. She should at least consider the condition of those who are surrounding her, think of their historical background, of how much truth there is in what they say and what news they give and how much they are wrong. In reality by hearing news that "in Hlinethaya people have to buy congee [surplus water that is drained off while rice is being cooked]" one should at once realize the real situation and should at once have consideration. In spite of knowing that something is wrong and continuing to be foolish is very dangerous. Thinking about this, I came to remember the song sung by vocalist Chit Kaung. According to this song although the people think of you and take interested in you, don't try to speak or act perversely against the world as the world is much better than you. It is only you who will get into trouble. The acts deliberately done in order to put the government into a tight spot is like pushing the government and the public to the situation of losing their interests. "Consideration and reality can be perceived." ********************************************************* BURMANET SUBJECT-MATTER RESOURCE LIST BurmaNet regularly receives enquiries on a number of different topics related to Burma. If you have questions on any of the following subjects, please direct email to the following volunteer coordinators, who will either answer your question or try to put you in contact with someone who can: Campus activism: zni@students.wisc.edu Boycott campaigns: [Pepsi] ai268@freenet.carleton.ca Buddhism: Buddhist Relief Mission: brelief@gol.com Chin history/culture: [volunteer temporarily away] Fonts: tom@cs.colgate.edu High School Activism: nculwell@facstaff.wisc.edu History of Burma: zni@students.wisc.edu International Affairs: Julien Moe: JulienMoe@aol.com Kachin history/culture: 74750.1267@compuserve.com Karen history/culture: Karen Historical Society: 102113.2571@Compuserve.com Mon history/culture: [volunteer needed] Naga history/culture: Wungram Shishak: z954001@oats.farm.niu.edu Burma-India border [volunteer needed] Pali literature: "Palmleaf": c/o burmanet@igc.apc.org Pipeline Campaign freeburma@irn.org Resettlement info: refugee_help@mail.serve.com Rohingya culture volunteer needed Shan history/culture: Sao Hpa Han: burma@ix.netcom.com Shareholder activism: simon_billenness@mail.cybercom.net Total - France Dawn Star: cd@utopia.EUnet.fr Tourism campaigns: bagp@gn.apc.org "Attn. S.Sutcliffe" volunteering: refugee_help@mail.serve.com World Wide Web: FreeBurma@POBox.com Geographical Contacts: Massachusetts simon_billenness@mail.cybercom.net [Feel free to suggest more areas of coverage] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The BurmaNet News is an electronic newspaper covering Burma. Articles from newspapers, magazines, newsletters, the wire services and the Internet as well as original material are published. It is produced with the support of the Burma Information Group (B.I.G) and the Research Department of the ABSDF {MTZ} The BurmaNet News is e-mailed directly to subscribers and is also distributed via the soc.culture.burma and seasia-l mailing lists. For a free subscription to the BurmaNet News, send an e-mail message to: majordomo@igc.apc.org For the BurmaNet News only: in the body of the message, type "subscribe burmanews-l" (without quotation marks). 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