From editor@burmanet.org Wed Dec 11 00:03:35 2002 From: editor@burmanet.org (editor@burmanet.org) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 19:03:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: BurmaNet News: December 10 2002 Message-ID: <11104.207.10.94.131.1039565015.squirrel@webmail.pair.com> December 10 2002 Issue #2137 INSIDE BURMA Time (Asia): Soldiers of Fortune AFP: Myanmar’s Suu Kyi confident political change on the way: report AFP: Myanmar’s feared Wa fighters resent “narco-army” reputation Narinjara News: Forced labor in road construction Narinjara News: Leasing rivers and creeks DRUGS Xinhua: Myanmar’s Wa leader vows to achieve drug-free goal by 2005 GUNS DVB: Burma to open two new artillery battalions in coastal command INTERNATIONAL AFP: Myanmar polishes charm offensive in US STATEMENTS/OTHER DCI Group: Government of Myanmar announces major drug burn and destruction of narcotics in Shan state WAN: WAN calls for release of ailing Burmese journalist BBC: Aung San Suu Kyi [radio program announcement] FCO: Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien spoke to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on 9 December about the current situation in Burma Amnesty/FBC: Protest to mark Human Rights Day 2002 INSIDE BURMA Time Asia December 16 2002 Soldiers of Fortune By Andrew Marshall and Anthony Davis We reach Gawng Lang village at dusk. At first, the only signs of life are the smoke of cooking fires seeping through thatched roofs and the muffled clatter of food being prepared. Then we notice the children. Half-naked, their bellies bloated by malnutrition, they watch from beneath the stilt houses with dumbstruck curiosity. Soon the women emerge, dressed in handwoven black smocks and gripping slender, silver pipes between their teeth. They stare and giggle at us, waiting for their husbands, uncles and brothers to arrive. Wearing ragged military fatigues, the men, when they finally materialize, seem without exception to be among the oldest members of the hamlet. Only later do we discover where all the young men have gone. Gawng Lang sits on a lonely hilltop in northeast Burma, sheltered by gently swaying bamboo. None of its 400 inhabitants has seen a white man before. But then, very few white men have ever seen a Wa, the most fascinating, seldom met and impoverished of Burma's myriad tribes. Until the 1970s, many Wa strayed from their hilltop redoubts only to chop off human heads, which they believed to be powerful totems against disease and bad harvests. Neighboring tribes have long loathed and feared them. Among the Shan, Burma's largest ethnic minority, a mother anxious to hush her restless child might still whisper, "Shhh! A Wa is coming!" >From the nearest Chinese border town, it takes five hours of hiking over hauntingly beautiful mountains to reach the village. Five hours, that is, for a city-softened journalist. Even elderly Wa can cover the distance in less than two. The Wa are so accustomed to climbing steep terrain that they complain of sore feet when walking on level ground. Gawng Lang's inhabitants don't receive many visitors, but after recovering from their initial surprise, they are both hospitable and curious. "Tell me," says Ai Sin, a wiry 42-year-old who serves us rice and vegetables by guttering lamplight. "I have heard that when it is day in the Wa hills, it is dark in America. Can this be true?" The Wa no longer chop heads, yet their ferocious and demonic image remains intact. Dawn reveals why: the sloping fields surrounding Gawng Lang are planted with thousands of opium poppies, their fresh green shoots pushing up through the mist-dampened earth. We also learn in the morning why there are no young men around. They have all been conscripted into the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA)—a formidable force of tribal soldiers dubbed by the U.S. State Department as the world's "most heavily armed narco-traffickers." Burma in 2001 was the largest producer of opium in the world (Afghanistan ranked second), and the UWSA dominates the country's opium and heroin business. It also controls some 80% of Burma's equally lucrative trade in methamphetamine pills, a cheap and highly addictive drug better known in Asia by its Thai name yaba, or crazy medicine. Together, these businesses earn the UWSA's Elite commanders and their associates up to $550 million a year, according to TIME's research. It's an incomprehensible sum for the people of Gawng Lang, who see little of the spoils and go about their medieval existence much as their ancestors did. In Thailand, a tidal wave of yaba has ripped through schools, slums and nightclubs, leaving a quarter of a million addicts in its wake. With narcotics experts and Thai army officials expecting a billion pills to pour in next year, many Thais regard the UWSA as the gravest threat to their society and national security since the 1970s communist insurgencies. Sending an aggressive message to Rangoon and its drug-dealing Wa allies, the Thai army last spring staged a troop buildup along the kingdom's border on a scale not seen since World War II. Yet the scourge is anything but contained. The UWSA is now diversifying into gunrunning while also expanding operations geographically into Laos, the Chinese province of Yunnan and the turbulent states of northeast India. Shipments of yaba are turning up in Europe, Australia and America. And in an ominous extension of its military reach, the UWSA has broken out of its traditional territory by forcibly relocating tens of thousands of Wa villagers to strategic swatches of land along the Thai-Burmese border—a Stalinesque forced exodus little noticed by the outside world. How did a once isolated hill tribe grow so powerful, so quickly, transforming itself into an international crime syndicate to rival Colombia's drug cartels? The man we hoped might answer this question is the UWSA's commander, Bao Youxiang. Little is known about "Chairman Bao," as he prefers to be called, and few Westerners have ever met him. But his reputation, fueled by rumor, is gaudy, befitting the lord of a narco-fiefdom. Bao is reputedly so rich that he would need two trucks to carry around all his money. He is rumored to have once had four of his own men pistol-whipped to death for conspiring against him. Also, he likes bowling. To meet Bao, we plunged into the lawless hills of northeast Burma—to the heart of an empire built on guns, drugs and blood. Even in the old days, not every Wa chopped heads; 19th century Chinese merchants made the potentially lifesaving distinction between the nonhostile "tame Wa" and their bloodthirsty cousins, the "wild Wa." But all Wa cherished the de facto independence their hilltop seclusion granted them and were quick to trade on their unsavory image if threatened. A Wa chief once declared to approaching British troops, "We are a wild people, who eat rats and squirrels raw." Undaunted, a British colonial administrator named George Scott launched the first expedition into wild Wa territory in 1893. Scott demolished many myths about the hill tribe. They were not, as outsiders had insisted, "habitual cannibals" with a predilection for roasted babies. Nor were they backward, he said. "They are an exceedingly well-behaved, industrious, and estimable race," wrote Scott, "were it not for the one foible of cutting strangers' heads off and neglecting ever to wash themselves." Despite brutal military campaigns by Scott's men—one in retaliation for the decapitation of two British officers—the Wa were never brought fully under colonial control. But later, greater historical forces shattered Wa isolation forever and propelled their homeland into the international narcotics trade. The Wa had always grown poppies. Scott himself had marveled at the "enormous amount of opium" they produced even in the 1890s. But the retreat of China's nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) divisions into northeast Burma after the 1949 communist revolution kicked cultivation into high gear. The KMT persuaded farmers to grow more opium, transporting it on long mule caravans into northern Thailand. By the late 1960s, the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) had arrived. Bent on overthrowing the Rangoon government through its jungle bases along the Sino-Burmese border, the Beijing-backed CPB quickly formed pacts with Wa guerrilla bands. One was led by a pugnacious 21-year-old named Bao Youxiang. Born to a chieftain in Kunma, a northern Wa village near Gawng Lang, Bao was the sixth of eight brothers and a natural-born fighter. He rose steadily through the CPB ranks, from battalion commander in Kunma to leader of a crack brigade operating near the Thai border. For Bao and thousands of fellow Wa tribesmen, the CPB provided modern weaponry, combat experience and—a first for a people historically made up of squabbling clans—a loose political unity. In return, the communists got a pool of tough tribal warriors to fight a bloody 20-year conflict against the Burmese government. The Wa proved fearless in battle and willing to accept appallingly high casualties. As one saying went, "The Wa are good at dying." At rebelling, too. In 1989 a key brigade mutinied against the aging CPB leadership. On April 17 of that year—a date the Wa still celebrate as national day—Bao and other tribal commanders joined the rebellion. Burma's Communist Party split into several heavily armed factions, all of which signed cease-fire agreements with Rangoon. One of these factions, the United Wa State Army, would be dominated by Bao. The cease-fire was a turning point in Wa history. The embattled Burmese military, still reeling from the 1988 democracy uprising, had no desire to fight the heavily armed Wa militia. In return for keeping the peace, the UWSA was given full autonomy over what the regime termed "Special Region No. 2," which Bao christened "Wa state." The UWSA was also granted lucrative business concessions, including tacit permission to deal in the only valuable commodity it knew: narcotics. By 1994 the wa state army was mass-producing yaba in addition to heroin. Unlike fields of poppies, the tiny pills are immune to bad weather and invisible to U.S. spy satellites. They are cheap to produce in makeshift chemical factories and easier to smuggle than heroin. Thailand proved a ready market: today, more Thais are addicted to yaba than to heroin. And so the UWSA prospered. To defend its enterprises, it acquired a formidable arsenal, largely provided by Chinese dealers in Yunnan. Today the UWSA's weaponry includes heavy machine guns and Chinese-built, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles. With Burma's domestic economy teetering on collapse, the military regime needed Wa drug money and bribes. So Wa entrepreneurs were welcomed in cities such as Rangoon and Mandalay, where they set up trading companies and bought real estate. Today the UWSA reportedly controls such companies as the Myanmar May Flower Group and, through it, a large private bank. Inevitably the Wa leaders grabbed a hefty piece of the action for themselves. Bao's family, for example, reportedly owns Yangon Airways, one of the country's two domestic airlines. Some money from the tribe's business ventures trickled down, changing the landscape of the Wa hills. "In 1993 you could still meet guys carrying spears," recalls a Christian missionary who toured the region. Since then, a handful of larger Wa villages have morphed into towns, and with Chinese technical help a new road has been built to link them. Villagers who live along its winding route refer to it simply as "the road." There is no other one in the Wa hills with which to confuse it. And so, by logical necessity, all roads in the Wa hills lead to one place: Panghsang, population 15,000, the headquarters of the UWSA's empire and the lair of Chairman Bao. "To get into any Wa village," an earlier visitor once wrote, "you must either fight or be invited." Getting an invitation to meet Asia's most powerful druglord was simpler than expected. A few calls to a Chinese mobile-phone number, a letter of intent delivered through a Wa emissary and then, suddenly, a message from Panghsang: Bao was willing to meet. After that came a great deal of waiting near the Burmese border for this rare audience. There are worse places to kill time than the Ru Yi Commercial City development in Menglian, a Chinese town only an hour's drive from Panghsang. Locals say the lavish, Thai-designed complex is owned by Li Ziru, a Chinese-born former Red Guard who nowadays acts as Bao's right-hand man. The U.S. State Department claims Li is a leader in Burma's drug trade. He is clearly a very wealthy man. The Ru Yi complex boasts a four-star hotel, shops, a supermarket, karaoke bars and—in a country where gambling is still outlawed as one of the "Five Evils"—a busy casino. Evidently, Chinese officials are not squeamish about drug money fueling the breakneck development of Menglian and other towns in Yunnan. The Golden Phoenix Hotel in Simao is proudly described in a brochure as a joint venture between "the Wa Federation of Myanmar (Burma)" and Yunnan's Provincial Farming Bureau. And at the UWSA-owned Health and Happiness Hotel in Cangyuan, senior county officials slurp tea in the lobby while Wa prostitutes prowl the upper floors for clients. The summons from Bao eventually comes. Getting to Panghsang involves a short drive to the border, an immigration check and a trip across the bridge spanning the turbid Namkha River. On the other side, flanked by forbidding mountain ridges, lies Panghsang. Ten years ago it was little more than a village with a rebel army base attached. Today it has hotels, shops, karaoke bars and a 24-hour casino. There is also a bowling alley where, say locals, a lane is permanently reserved for Bao. In a conference room in one of the hotels, Bao makes his entrance orbited by two of his own cameramen, one of them packing a side arm, both recording the boss's meeting with the Western press. Bao, a squat man in his early 50s with a bulldog face, is also armed. He carries a small-caliber pistol clipped to the belt of his khaki pants, an ensemble jarringly set off by his footwear: a pair of battered, pink Chinese slippers. He listens to our questions with unnerving stillness, staring at us intently, then answers in rapid-fire Yunnanese patois, gesticulating wildly. "These drugs!" he cries, karate-chopping the air for emphasis, revealing the diamond-encrusted gold Rolex he wears on his wrist. "I detest them! You think drugs have been harmful to others? Let me tell you: they have been a much greater disaster for the Wa! Our people are stuck in such poverty they haven't even got clothes to put on their own backs." Ask Bao who runs Burma's narcotics trade, and he grows intensely agitated. "It's all done by businessmen!" he fumes. "Businessmen operating outside the law are refining opium into heroin and manufacturing yaba." The Wa people—and, by extension, their leader—are simply "victims," he says. This is disingenuous, to say the least. Many of these unnamed businessmen are Bao's own field commanders. His brother, senior UWSA commander Bao Youhua, runs what an official with an international narcotics-monitoring agency calls "industrial-scale" cultivation of opium poppies in the Nam Lwi Valley southeast of Panghsang. Another notorious trafficker is the shadowy leader of the UWSA's southern command, Wei Xuegang. Half Wa and half Chinese, Wei was indicted in absentia on heroin-trafficking charges in 1993 by a New York federal court. The U.S. is offering a $2 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Wei is also named by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Thai army as the boss of the booming methamphetamine trade into Thailand, where a court has already sentenced him to death in absentia. But Chairman Bao will not be drawn on this. He prefers to portray himself as a heroic enemy of the narcotics racket, a man dedicated to the banishment of opium from the Wa hills. "Our objective is to eliminate the cultivation of opium poppies by 2005, and I intend to achieve that," he declares. Only 40% of Wa farmers now cultivate opium, claims Bao, down from 60% in recent years. "We've also developed a range of substitute industries," he says, listing what he calls "decent, regular businesses"—rubber and tea plantations, gem and zinc mines, liquor distilleries and a brand of cigarettes called Golden Triangle. This is just a start, promises Bao. "If the international community is willing to support us," he offers, "we'll get this work done. But we need help." The international community has shown little inclination to trust the UWSA leader. But Bao cites what he believes is irrefutable proof of his good intent: the great Wa migration. In 1999, Bao launched a grandiose relocation scheme that he says is intended to solve the intertwined problems of opium cultivation and the chronic rice shortage in the northern Wa hills. "People in the north can break their backs for a year to grow enough rice to last them just six months," Bao says. "But those who have moved south can work for one year and harvest enough rice to eat for two years." A sense of historic destiny is also at work. By moving south, the Wa are reclaiming land they have regarded as their own since the 12th century. The migration is Chairman Bao's Long March. Mass relocations from six northern Wa districts began in 1999. Some villagers were given a month's notice, others only 24 hours. All were told to leave their livestock and possessions behind and bring only what they could carry. Lured by the promise of land, some Wa left willingly; many did not. "Some people were happy to go, some people were crying," recalls Sam Kap, 60, of Gawng Lang, where almost half the population was forced at gunpoint to leave and head south. "Nobody had any choice." Most villagers walked to the nearest Wa town, then continued south on overcrowded trucks. Many had never seen motor vehicles before. Some traveled the whole distance on foot, a three-month journey. Upon arrival in the lowlands, the Wa were given 1,000 baht ($23) each, a monthly rice ration and new military fatigues. Otherwise left to fend for themselves, with little shelter and no medicines, the bewildered migrants soon fell prey to epidemics of malaria, typhoid, dysentery and anthrax. Despite the belated arrival of Chinese doctors, up to 8,000 people are thought to have died during the first year of the relocations alone. The influx also had a devastating impact on the region's original inhabitants, mostly Shan and Lahu hill people. Wa settlers stole livestock and drove hundreds—possibly thousands—of them from their fertile lands. In some cases, according to a Thailand-based NGO, the UWSA forced locals into slave-labor squads. Chairman Bao is unmoved by such reports. As tea is served, he denies that the Shan were driven out of their homes, insisting that the resettlement area was "empty" before the Wa arrived. He also vows to continue the relocations. "Altogether we're planning to move 100,000 people," he says excitedly. "We ought to be able to finish this within two or three years." Wa farmers who stay behind in the north and are still cultivating poppies in 2005 will be stopped by what Bao terms "executive measures"—a chilling phrase that doubtless spells further misery for his long-suffering people. The Burmese government has heralded the relocations as a bold opium-eradication measure. But old habits die hard, especially among starving people who have no other source of income. Upon arrival in the south, some Wa migrants began planting poppies again, allegedly with the blessing of UWSA druglord Wei. Nor is there much evidence that the exodus has caused a drastic decline in poppy cultivation back in northern Wa state. At Gawng Lang, those ordered south usually owned the least land; and this land, if used to grow poppies, was quickly taken over by industrious relatives and resown with the same crop. "Poppy is still the easiest thing to grow," says Sam Rung, a somber 45-year-old farmer working the fields with his wife and daughter. "The earth's just not good enough for corn." Nevertheless, drug-monitoring agencies say it's undeniable that Burmese opium production has dropped significantly of late. The U.N.'s estimate for this year's harvest is 748 tons, down from more than 900 last year. The U.S. government—which is currently mulling greater cooperation with Burma's military regime in the war against heroin—cites an even lower figure of 560 tons. Bao's relocation scheme and substitute industries may well have contributed to the decrease, although Wa farmers say two years of bad weather have also hurt crop yields. Whatever the reasons for the reduction, Bao's chances of meeting his 2005 deadline for the eradication of poppies as a cash crop look increasingly dicey. Opium will remain "the economic backbone of the villagers," predicts a bleak U.N. report on the Wa hills, so long as new economic ventures in the area benefit only UWSA leaders and Chinese investors. Meanwhile, Bao's bombastic declarations on opium reduction have drowned out a more alarming development: since the relocations, the UWSA's production of methamphetamine has skyrocketed. "Maybe the Wa have it in their minds to scale back opium production," notes a senior Western antinarcotics official. "But they're not making any pledges to get out of methamphetamines." Bangkok police recently seized a record consignment of 3 million yaba pills. That's just a fraction of what is now streaming into the country from the Wa hills. Indeed, experts monitoring Southeast Asia's drug trade say Bao's Long March is not about eradicating opium production. It's about expanding the sphere of Wa influence and gaining greater access to the Thai border, which will facilitate methamphetamine distribution. >From Mong Yawn, the southern UWSA headquarters, the yaba trade is spreading in all directions. To the southwest, the UWSA has set up several factories around the Burmese border town of Myawaddy to pump pills into central Thailand. To the east, where UWSA troops are now firmly encamped on the Mekong River, drug running has surged across the poorly policed waters into Laos—a perfect place for further Wa expansion, notes an antinarcotics expert in the capital Vientiane. And hundreds of miles north, at the hardscrabble Burmese frontier town of Tamu, the arrival of Wa businessmen has coincided with a rising tide of yaba into the adjoining Indian state of Manipur. What's more, the UWSA's freedom of movement around Burma—a nation bordering on five others—has also enabled it to launch a menacing new trade: selling weapons to Asia's ethnic insurgents. According to intelligence sources, the Wa army in the past two years completed deals that sent rifles and other munitions to Naga rebels in northeast India. "If we have any more opium here after 2005," Bao once declared, reaching for a classic Wa metaphor, "you can come and chop my head off." But these days, as the cash-rich UWSA continues to expand unchecked, Burma's neighbors have much more than an opium problem. They have a Wa problem. Darkness falls on Gawng Lang. There is no electricity in this tiny village, but the sky is brilliant with stars. Suddenly, a bright light arcs across the Milky Way. "A plane," declares village elder Ai Sin. No, too fast for a plane—and too slow for a meteor. Perhaps it's one of the satellites that the U.S. government routinely deploys to monitor the poppy fields surrounding Gawng Lang and hundreds of Wa villages like it. What satellites can't monitor is the misery of the poppy growers living under the UWSA's unquestioned authority. In a typical year, Sam Rung, a wounded veteran of Burma's now defunct Communist Party, produces about 1.6 kilograms of opium, which he then sells for about $12 to the UWSA. "We're not allowed to keep any for ourselves," says Sam Rung. Nor are farmers allowed to smoke it. Opium is too precious to be consumed at the source. "If they catch you they put you in a pit for one or two years," says Ai Sin. The pit is a traditional Wa punishment: a three-meter-deep, two-meter-wide square hole in the ground where addicts go cold turkey in their own waste. The Wa army metes out similar punishment to soldiers found using yaba. According to the New York City-based Human Rights Watch, repeat offenders are shot. There is a ready supply of replacements. Every Wa family that has two or three sons must send at least one of them to a UWSA training camp; a family with four or five boys must send two. Some 2,000 troops are under 18, and as many as 800 are under 15, claims Human Rights Watch. The Wa are still good at dying. By one estimate, war has killed one in four Wa men in recent decades. "These deaths have been devastating for the villages," says Hideyuki Takano, a Japanese writer who spent six months in 1996 living with the Wa. "With so few young men around, the social fabric of traditional Wa life is unraveling." At first, the villagers shyly refuse to talk about their lives as serfs of the army. But later, in the gloomy interior of one house, traditional Wa rice wine begins to flow, and so does the anger. "They don't help us at all!" shouts a villager. "They gave us money to pay for a teacher, but that's it. Then some U.N. people came and handed out leaflets promising food and clothing. We saw the leaflets but nothing else. The Wa army took everything." Outside Panghsang and Mong Yawn, there are no hospitals. When asked what happens to villagers who fall gravely ill, Ai Sin replies flatly, "They die." Curable diseases killed five of his nine children in infancy. Though Wa peasants know little else but poverty, disease and war, their de facto leader Bao is nevertheless revered. They call him uncle. "He's a very good man," says Ai Sin. "If he says he'll do something, he does it." Says another elder: "All the Wa love him." Unconvincing as they might sound to outsiders, these sentiments seem genuine. Bao may have given little else to his beleaguered people, but he has at least given them pride, plus the apparent respect of an erstwhile enemy, Burma. The otherwise spartan bamboo walls of many Wa huts bear a poster of Bao with Burma's much feared military intelligence chief, Lieut. General Khin Nyunt. They are shown walking side by side, like equals. Khin Nyunt, who brokered the 1989 cease-fire that launched the UWSA, still visits Panghsang annually—a sign that cozy relations with Rangoon will continue. It is no mean feat for the Wa to have achieved this special relationship, which affords them extraordinary autonomy in this despotic nation. Bao is lord of the Wa, but he is also a player in a larger, Asia-wide game. For Burma's generals, the 10,000 UWSA troops now scattered along the border with Thailand serve as a proxy army in their decades-long fight against Shan rebels. The Wa army is also a self-financing frontier security force—Rangoon's very own "600-pound gorilla on the border," as a diplomat memorably put it. In May, the UWSA fought alongside Burmese troops in clashes with the Thai army, which Burma accuses of aiding the Shan. Just last week, Burmese troops were preparing for a fresh dry-season offensive against the Shan in which Wa troops will again participate. Burma has little incentive to check UWSA expansion, and Thailand seems unable to. Raids by Thai police this year seized an estimated $7.9 million worth of Thailand-based assets allegedly belonging to southern commander Wei Xuegang. The haul included land, gold, mansions and luxury cars. But the UWSA's activities poison relations between Rangoon and Bangkok. The Wa issue has also created a dangerous rift between senior Thai military officers, who urge stronger measures to fight the UWSA and its drugs, and senior Thai politicians, who prefer to improve ties with Rangoon by fostering legitimate business and trade. China is the one power in Asia whose opinion counts both in Rangoon and Panghsang. It has been suggested by Western diplomats that China backed Bao's relocation scheme in the hope that narcotics smuggling into Yunnan and beyond would decrease. There is evidence the gambit has failed. In April, with help from the DEA, authorities in the mainland commercial city of Shenzhen seized 357 kilograms of heroin that had originated in Wa territory. No wonder a drug official for Yunnan has described Bao's commitment to fighting drugs as "only lip service." Indeed, Bao has more friends than enemies in China, including the numerous officials who have aided his highly visible enterprises in Yunnan. His interview with TIME ends because he has a business meeting to attend. A feast is laid out on a nearby table, but the Chairman isn't eating. However, he will join his foreign guests in a glass of fiery Wa State Rice Wine, made in his own factory. "Ganbei!" cries Bao, and knocks it down in one. Then he shakes hands and marches from the room—purposeful, confident, a Wa tribesman with his head very firmly on his shoulders. _________ Agence France-Presse December 10 2002 Myanmar's Suu Kyi confident political change on the way: report Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly said Tuesday she was confident political change would come to the military-ruled country, but warned the process could be slow. "We are confident change will come -- not as quickly as most of us would wish, but it will come," she told the BBC in an interview posted on its website. The Nobel peace laureate's remarks will boost confidence in the slow-moving national reconciliation process which observers in the Myanmar capital Yangon had feared was on the verge of complete breakdown. United Nations envoy Razali Ismail, who brokered historic contacts between the ruling junta and Aung San Suu Kyi two years ago, has voice frustration that the process has failed to move into a proper political dialogue. But the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy told the BBC that the contacts with the regime had made some headway since her release in May from house arrest, although there was "some way to go". For the first time she put a timeline on the prospects for political reform, saying she was hopeful of progress by this time next year and that it was not impossible that change could take place "within months". Aung San Suu Kyi maintained the conciliatory stance towards the ruling generals which she has adopted since her release from 19 months of detention, saying she felt "no personal animosity" towards them. "I get along with them well enough. After all it was my father who founded the Burmese army and I do have a sense of warmth towards the Burmese army," she said, using the country's former name. In contrast to Aung San Suu Kyi's positive tone, Razali said after his ninth mission to Myanmar in November that he was disappointed after making little progress towards reinvigorating the reform process. "There were discussions between the junta and the NLD at the lower levels but this was not tantamount to a dialogue, he said at the time. "I am always disappointed where there are no full results but that's the nature of my mission." And in late November the NLD commemorated National Day with a call for a speedy beginning to a "meaningful political dialogue" with the junta. The NLD won a landslide election victory in 1990 but it was prevented from taking power by the military, which has ruled Myanmar in one form or another for the past four decades. _______ Agence France-Presse December 10 2002 Myanmar's feared Wa fighters resent "narco-army" reputation Myanmar's ethnic Wa, former head hunters reviled by foreign governments as a ruthless narco-army flooding the world with heroin, insist they have abandoned drugs and bitterly resent their reputation. "Give us a chance to prove ourselves," pleaded Pauk Yu Yi, one of four brothers who control the region of half a million people and its United Wa State Army, a 20,000-strong band of feared fighters known as the Red Wa. In a rare visit to the heartland of Wa power, the group's leaders proudly showed reporters around Pangsang, a thriving border town across from China's Yunnan province which was notorious as a centre for opium poppy cultivation. The deadly crop which once bloomed red across the hillsides is now largely gone, they say, under a drive to eradicate narcotics from the region by 2005. Pangsang, home to 60,000 people, has been transformed from a ramshackle settlement wedged in nearly accessible mountain ranges into a thriving town that at night resembles a miniature Las Vegas. Wide metalled streets, grand hotels, casinos, massage parlours and an imposing four-storey administrative building are lit up by a 24-hour electricity supply that even the capital Yangon cannot boast. But international anti-narcotics experts say this prosperity was founded on the profits from vast amounts of opium which made Myanmar the world's biggest producer before it was overtaken by Afghanistan. Another Wa showpiece is the town of Mong Yawn, a bustling settlement near the Thai border surrounded by orange groves, rubber plantations and paddy fields. On fertile territory gifted to the Wa as a reward for helping rout notorious druglord Khun Sa in 1996, the town was created overnight when some 60,000 former poppy farmers were resettled here, far from the northern Wa region. Despite the Wa's denials, Thai and US authorities have labelled Mong Yawn a "drug city" that churns out hundreds of millions of speed pills annually, causing a massive addiction crisis in Thailand. "We now have food in abundance but no market to sell," Pauk Yu Yi lamented, adding that they had hoped to send their produce to Thailand but that mistrust over the drugs issue had barred commercial links. "What are we going to do with all this if we cannot sell them... we might as well go back to growing poppy," he said half-jokingly. In 1989 the Red Wa signed a ceasefire deal with Myanmar's military government, which gave the rebels wide-ranging autonomy in return for ending decades of rebellion. In recent years, the junta has been working hard to convince the world that they and their Wa allies are serious about stamping out narcotics. Even the US State Department -- the staunchest critic of the junta's autocratic rule and appalling human rights record -- has admitted they have made great strides in eradicating opium cultivation. Now the US is poised to decide whether to remove Myanmar from the list of the world's major drug producers, prompting an all-out public relations blitz from the regime to ensure the decision goes its way. On a recent visit to Pangsang and other towns in the infamous "Golden Triangle" region, four cabinet ministers accompanied reporters and several Yangon-based ambassadors on a whirlwind tour of the Wa and Kokang regions. "This place could once be described as a veritible sea of opium poppy, but now it can with real confidence be declared practically opium free thanks to the concerted efforts of both the government and the ethnic Kokang and Wa leaders," said Foreign Minister Win Aung. Drugs money is a notoriously destabilising factor, so the ban on poppy cultivation served a dual purpose -- deflecting international criticism and helping secure peace in the once war-torn region. "Knowing well that insurgency and poppy cultivation came hand in hand in this region, our military leaders decided to get rid of the latter by making peace with the former,'" said Labour Minister Tin Win, who carried the first peace overture to the Kokang group in north-eastern Myanmar. "After all, all we managed to do over decades of fighting against each other was getting ourselves killed by the thousands on both sides and getting nowhere," he said. Win Aung, who as a young man was a front-line military officer at the height of the troubles, said dozens of different armed groups fought themselves and the government for control of the lucrative drug business. "Every day the sound of artillery and gun-fire was heard in the Golden Triangle region," he said. Kokang leader Phone Kyar Shin, a 70-year-old veteran of the conflict, also insists that the ethnic armies' drug-producing days are behind them. "I have assured the government of Myanmar that we do not have any more poppy plantations here," he told the diplomats. "We all understand that opium and its derivative heroin pose a huge problem not only for the Union of Myanmar but also for the rest of the world. I appeal to your excellencies to help develop our region so we can remain drug-free." _______ Narinjara News December 10 2002 FORCED LABOUR IN ROAD CONSTRUCTION The dilapidated Sittwe - Rangoon Road connecting the western state of Rakhine with the Burmese capital has been under repair since the 17th November, according to our correspondent quoting a number of sources. The repair work in three sections of the road have been undertaken simultaneously on an urgent basis to make it motorable as many areas have been badly broken and many bridges have become rundown as this year's heavy rain washed away the bitumen surfaces. The three sections are at Kyauktaw - Mrauk-u in the northern end of the state, Mrebon Township in the middle, and Ann Township close to the Roma Ranges - strategically placed close to the Burma proper. Light Infantry Battalion 538 based in Rathedaung has been supervising the work on the Kyauktaw - Mrauk-u section, while LIB 34 and 55 in Mrebon and Ann. In the Mrebon section about 1,700 people has been used as forced labour to do the repair work till 1 December, in Ann about one hundred people have been used everyday as forced labour, while the number in the Kyauktaw - Mrauk-u section could not be established. The Burmese junta officials have told the people off and on that the "voluntary labour" as used in Burma is part and parcel of the culture and tradition of the Burmese people which earns the doer merit for their afterlife and a prosperous living in this life. The junta officials have not only denied the presence of "forced labour" in the country, but also used the term "voluntary labour" to define the practice much hated at home and abroad. Our correspondent on his tour to a number of remote areas has seen large scale use of forced labour by the Burmese military troops in recent days. __________ Narinjara News December 9 2002 Leasing rivers and creeks The Burmese junta officials in the western part of Burma are going to lease the rivers and creeks of Arakan (Rakhine) State in sections to the highest bidder, according to our correspondent quoting a top local businessman. As the present period of lease runs out in this month, the local state junta officials are making preparations to lease the rivers and creeks to the military and police forces' "welfare" trusts before the expiry of the present lease period. The trusts again would sub-lease the rivers and creeks to the highest private bidders. Afterwards the bidders who win the auction will be allowed to collect tolls from fishing boats and fishing nets under their respective areas. Since Rakhine State is crisscrossed with rivers and creeks besides being a coastal strip of land, almost all the households in its villages and towns possess fishing nets or fishing boats and trawlers. Under the present system of leasing out the water bodies, a leaseholder collects kyat 1,000 for small fishing nets, kyat 5,000 for a 2m net, and kyat 10,000 for a 4m net, and it goes up to kyat 50,000 for a trawling net for the permission to fish in the selected area for one year. Again the fishermen have to bring their catches for sale to the leaseholders under the 'agreement' and that is too for a price determined by the owners of the leased sections of the water bodies. A large number of people who cannot pay the demanded sum are disallowed from fishing in the natural waters of Rakhine State unlike prior to 1990, when the Burmese junta introduced the system, our correspondent said. The system serves two purposes to the junta firstly, it helps to earn money for the upkeep of its troops and the police forces that are poorly paid, far less than the subsistence limit. Then secondly, the measure restricts on the operation of private fishermen, indirectly wielding control over the fishing community. But for the general public it surely means increase in fish price and less fish on the dining table, said a businessman from the locality. The burden so imposed by the price increase is very heavy upon the 80% people who live on a low income, a businessman said. At Rathedaung Township on the Meyu River of northern Rakhine State in the western part of Burma, the Meyu River is divided into three sections for leasing. At Maungdaw, close to the Bangladesh border, the Naaf River and its estuaries and creeks are assigned to the local township military and police 'welfare' trusts for leasing out to the highest bidders for toll collection but the payment has to be made in US dollars. Last year the Aukpuma Creek was leased for $4,669.00, Ngakhura Creek for $10,494.00, and Sapay-baung-raung Creek for $7,337.00 all the creeks produce large quantity of shrimps, according to official records. In like manner all other rivers and creeks of the state including the Kaladan and Lemro Rivers and their estuaries are leased every year in December. The leasing out is done and controlled by respective township level military battalions. The system has caused untold sufferings to the general public of the state most of who are either farmers or fishermen in a region of agricultural lands and fishing grounds. Lack of industrialization in the state has been a curse to the residents and the rate of jobless population runs as high as 85%, said the source. DRUGS Xinhua News Agency December 10 2002 Myanmar's Wa leader vows to achieve drug-free goal by 2005 Bao Xu-xiang, leader of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), an armed Myanmar ethnic minority group, said the area he controls will become drug-free by 2005. Bao made the remarks during a recent interview with the Nation newspaper in his headquarters in Panghsang, Myanmar, the Thai newspaper reported Tuesday. The 20,000-strong UWSA reached a ceasefire deal with the Myanmar government 13 years ago and was later granted the autonomy status. It now controls an area near the Myanmar-Thai border and has been accused by Thailand of being a major drug production and trafficking source in the Golden Triangle area. The UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) has launched a number of projects to rid the UWSA-controled area of poppy growing, but Bao said much more international support is needed to ensure his area to become opium-free. He also dismissed allegations that the UWSA settlements along the Thai-Myanmar border are a threat to Thailand's security. Recently, the Thai military said they have evidence that the UWSA is producing huge amount of drugs in its camps near the Thai border and is expanding the production to other countries in the region. GUNS Democratic Voice of Burma December 9 2002 Burma to open two new artillery battalions in Coastal Command It has been learned that the Rangoon Yangon military junta has decided to establish two new artillery battalions under the Coastal Region Military Command's Mergui-based No 505 Artillery Command at Palauk Village in Palaw Township and Kyaukmedaung Village in Tavoy Township. They are No 308 and No 307 Artillery Battalions and have been planned to be opened by the end of this month. Over 300 acres of land for the military bases have been forcibly confiscated from the local people who are also forced into providing volunteer labour to clear the land and construct the buildings. These new artillery battalions are the seventh and eight to be built while the ninth will be opened shortly in Kyunsu Township of Tenasserim Division. The six artillery battalions already established are Artillery Battalion No 301 at Kalwin Village in Mergui Township, No 302 at Phayataung Village in Tavoy Township, No 303 at Khamungyi Village in Kawthaung Township, No 304 at Kyaukkanyar Village in Tavoy Township, No 305 at Hanthathan Village in Bokpyin Township, and No 306 at Panlamawt Village in Tenasserim Township. Similarly, various artillery battalions and artillery commands have also been established in the other 11 military commands. According to military observers based at the Thailand-Burma border six artillery commands and more than 100 artillery battalions have been established so far. INTERNATIONAL Agence France-Presse December 10 2002 Myanmar polishes charm offensive in US Myanmar on Tuesday fired a new shot in its US charm offensive, with an unprecedented reception for congressional aides at the residence of its ambassador to Washington. The event, open only to members of the Congressional Legislative Staff Association (CLSA), is part of campaign to dilute US scorn towards the military-ruled state -- which so far appears to have had little success. An invitation to the heavily-controlled reception, obtained by AFP, offers CLSA members two early evening hours in the company of Linn Myaing, Yangon's ambassador here. A confirmation notice sent to members who signed up, warned of the importance of showing up at the event, registering apparent concern that any controversy about the event could deter guests. "Remember, you are not only representing yourself, but your boss and the Congress as well," it warned. DCI Group, the Yangon junta's US-based lobbying firm was unavailable for comment or to give details on the reception. The United States is a fierce critic of Myanmar's military regime, and its treatment of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which won an overwhelming 1990 election victory that was never recognized by the junta. Myanmar, treated as a pariah state by Washington and some of its Western allies, has recently tried to improve its standing in the US capital, hiring DCI Group and making major announcements to the media here, before releasing information in Bangkok or Yangon. In July, the junta claimed it was victim of a vicious "smear" campaign designed to frustrate its goal of improving poisoned relations with the United States. The tirade followed allegations that Myanmar troops had systematically raped women and girls in Shan state. Last month, news reports here said that mid-level officials in the State Department were considering removing Myanmar's name from the US list of the world's major drugs producers. Myanmar has made strenuous efforts in recent times to prove that it is serious about eradicating opium production in the country, sending anti-drugs czar Colonel Kyaw Thein to Washington to meet senior US officials earlier this year. Removal of its name from the list would be a major boon for Yangon, and fulfill one of its primary goals in relations with the United States. But it would likely be resisted by supporters of the embattled opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi in the US Congress and the non-governmental organisation community. Campaigners fear that the junta would showcase its new status and portray it as international acceptance of its rule. STATEMENTS/OTHER DCI Group December 10 2002 Government of Myanmar Announces Major Drug Burn and Destruction of Narcotics in Shan State Drugs worth a total of $468 million destroyed Washington D. C., December 10 - The Government of Myanmar announced today a ceremony in which the government destroyed a huge volume of seized narcotic drugs and poppy seeds voluntarily handed over by farmers in exchange for other seeds. This major drug burning was held on December 8 in the Namsham Township in the Southern, Shan State. Presided over by Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council, General Khin Nyunt, the ceremony included local and foreign NGOs, high ranking government officials and the public. This is the second drug destruction ceremony in the Shan State. Secretary-1 said, “Last year, Myanmar’s opium production was reduced to a fourteen-year low, and now is at less than half the levels found in the past decade. We are committed to dramatic reductions in opium production as well as all narcotic drugs including methamphetamines.” The drugs destroyed are: (1) Poppy Seed 8623.873 kilos (5282.25 Acres) (2) Drug Poppy Bud 2.041 kilos (3) Heroin 6.925 kilos (4) Opium 139.458 kilos (5) Marijuana 2.204 kilos (6) Methamphetamine 135,472 tablets (7) Phencodyl 78.5 liters The 8,623 kilos of poppy seeds destroyed can be planted in 5,285 acres of land under poppy cultivation. If refined into 2.32 tons of heroin the market value of $462 million USD can be obtained. The 6.925 kilos of heroin destroyed can value 1.4 million USD and the 139.46 kilos of opium destroyed can value 2.8 million USD. Altogether, narcotic drugs worth 468 million USD have been destroyed (excluding methamphetamine pills). (1 kilo of heroin = 200,000 USD New York Street Price.) ________ World Association of Newspapers December 9 2002 WAN Calls for Release of Ailing Burmese Journalist The World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum have asked the military junta of Burma to unconditionally release ailing journalist U Win Tin following his transfer from prison to a hospital for treatment of a heart ailment. In a letter to Colonel Tin Hlaing, the Interior Minister of Myanmar, as Burma is also known, WAN and the WEF said they were "gravely concerned" about the deteriorating health of the 72-year-old U Win Tin, a founder of the National League of Democracy who has been in prison for the past 13 years. "It is our organisations' view that the continued imprisonment of U Win Tin constitutes a deep blemish on the international standing of Myanmar which can only be erased by his release. We believe that his continued detention remains a barrier to peace in Myanmar and of great alarm to the international community," they said. U Win Tin is a laureate of the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom award. The letter said: "We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to call on you to release journalist U Win Tin from jail immediately. "We are gravely concerned about the deteriorating health of the 72-year-old U Win Tin, who has been imprisoned for the past 13 years. U Win Tin, former editor of the daily newspaper Hanthawati, vice-chair of Myanmar's Writer's Association and founder of the National League for Democracy, was arrested in July 1989, tried in a closed military court and sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly being a member of the banned Communist Party of Myanmar. This sentence has since been increased to 21 years in jail. 'According to reports, on 22 November U Win Tin underwent tests for a heart ailment. The following day, on a doctor's advice, he was transferred to Rangoon general hospital, near Insein prison. Since then, he has been held in one of the rooms reserved for political prisoners in the hospital's basement. "U Win Tin has been hospitalised several times before and since his incarceration has suffered two heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes and spondylitis (an inflammation of the vertebrae). He has also undergone an operation for a hernia. "It is our organisations' view that the continued imprisonment of U Win Tin constitutes a deep blemish on the international standing of Myanmar which can only be erased by his release. We believe that his continued detention remains a barrier to peace in Myanmar and of great alarm to the international community. "Furthermore, the detention of U Win Tin constitutes a clear breach of his right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by numerous international conventions. We remind you that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights considers that 'detention, as punishment for the peaceful expression of an opinion, is one of the most reprehensible ways to enjoin silence and, as a consequence, a grave violation of human rights'. "We respectfully call on your government to demonstrate strength, compassion and sincerity in the reconciliation process by releasing U Win Tin without conditions." WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 71 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups. The WEF is the division of WAN that represents senior news executives. Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: lkilman@wan.asso.fr ________ British Broadcasting Corporation December 14 2002 Aung San Suu Kyi [radio program announcement] It is seven months since the Burmese government released the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. There had been hope that progress could be made to restore her country to democracy, but so far there has been little visible evidence. The Nobel peace laureate's National League for Democracy (NLD) party overwhelmingly won the country's 1990 elections but the military government refused to hand over power. Aung San Suu Kyi was our guest on Talking Point this week in our special series to mark the 70th anniversary of the BBC World Service. An extract from recording of this programme will be available soon on this page. The full programme will be available on this page from this weekend and it will be broadcast on the BBC World Service at 1400GMT on Sunday 15 December. _____ Foreign and Commonwealth Office December 9 2002 Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien spoke to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on 9 December about the current situation in Burma. Following the call Mike O'Brien said: "I spoke today with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese democracy movement and Nobel Prize winner, as part of our ongoing dialogue. I told her that while we welcomed the recent release of 115 political prisoners, wider political progress, in addition to prisoner releases, must take place to sustain confidence in Burmese authorities’ stated desire to pursue a transition to civilian rule. “I said we stand ready to support any genuine transition to national reconciliation and civilian rule. But Senior General Than Shwe must understand that relations with the UK can and will get worse unless the authorities irreversibly commit to reform. “I also raised with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi the increased concern that has been expressed by the British Parliament about Burma. My discussions with the Burma All Party Group and the debate in the House of Lords on 3 December have shown all party support for continued action to help bring about respect for human rights, national reconciliation and democracy in Burma.” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told Mike O’Brien about her recent visit to Shan State. She was encouraged that understanding between the National League for Democracy and the ethnic Burmese minority groups was growing. But the economic situation in Shan State was poor. The people, especially the young, were frustrated. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi thanked Mike O’Brien for the strong support of the UK, including Parliamentarians, for the democratic movement in Burma. She said that the military authorities didn’t yet understand that democracy would benefit all sectors of Burmese society and that they underestimated the underlying goodwill of the international community towards Burma. Mike O’Brien and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi agreed to keep in regular contact. _______ Amnesty International, Free Burma Coalition December 10 2002 Protest to mark Human Rights Day 2002 Amnesty International and the Free Burma Coalition New York call for the release of Burmese political prisoner. WHEN: Tuesday, December 10, at 4pm WHERE: Burmese Mission, 10 East 77th Street, New York. (New York) - Members of Amnesty International USA (group 280) and the Free Burma Coalition New York are joining together for their first joint action: a protest calling for the release of Burmese student, Myo Min Zaw. Protesters will wear masks of his face, as well as plaques displaying dates from 1998 to 2050 to emphasize the length of his sentence - 52 years. A petition of more than a thousand signatures will also be delivered to the Burmese ambassador. Now aged 26, Myo Min Zaw was one of hundreds of student activists arrested in a government crackdown in 1998. He was sentenced to 38 years 'for agitating unrest' - a sentence later increased to 52 years. He was a member of the central organizing committee of the All-Burma Student Union (ABSFU) and a founder of the Student and Youth Unity Front. Recent developments in Burma suggest that increased international pressure at this time could persuade the government to release Myo Min Zaw and other political prisoners like him. In May of this year, the military regime ended the house arrest of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). The government has also released around three hundred and fifty political prisoners since December 2000 – including 60 prisoners this month (on Thursday 21st November). However despite this latest release more than 1,000 political prisoners still remain behind bars. Also discouraging is the fact that even while the latest prisoners were being released, more students, Thet Naung Soe and Khin Maung Win, were being sentenced to fourteen and seven years in jail for distributing anti-government leaflets at Rangoon City Hall. CONTACTS: Janet Ball: 212 734 1462 / 646 942 1756 (cell) / Jibby29@hotmail.com Sue Ronald: 212 317 9374 / Sue 280@aol.com Moe Chan: 718 335 2240 / srfantasy@yahoo.com From editor@burmanet.org Wed Dec 11 20:52:37 2002 From: editor@burmanet.org (editor@burmanet.org) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:52:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: BurmaNet News: December 11 2002 Message-ID: <32466.207.10.94.131.1039639957.squirrel@webmail.pair.com> December 11 2002 Issue #2138 INSIDE BURMA Irrawaddy: Farmers feel the pinch Retuers: Suu Kyi says Myanmar reform could be slow AP: Daughter of former dictator Ne Win holds religious rite GUNS SHAN: War : Shan rebels strive to stem Burmese offensive DRUGS BBC: Fighting Burma’s drugs trade AFP: Thailand invites Myanmar junta figure for talks over drugs crisis REGIONAL Mizzima: Indian industry focus export promotion with Burma DPA: Singapore-Kunming rail network inches closer to reality ON THE BORDER AFP: Myanmar rebels claim Thai military killed leader after embassy siege Irrawaddy: Arrests hit Mae Hong Son OPINIONS New Zealand Herald: Democracy sure to rise from a dead man’s bones INSIDE BURMA Irrawaddy December 11 2002 Farmers Feel the Pinch By Naw Seng Farmers in Burma’s Kachin State say that their survival is becoming increasingly precarious due to a combination of soaring commodity prices and a government policy forcing them to sell a large portion of their crops at a reduced rate. Government authorities have been requiring all rice farmers in Kachin State to sell 12 tin (1 tin = 32 kilograms) of rice paddy, or unmilled rice, for every acre of arable land they possess. Each acre produces a minimum of 40 tin. But farmers say that if part of their land is not under cultivation, they still are expected to provide the government with an amount corresponding to their total acreage. The market price for a tin of rice paddy is 1,500 to 2,000 kyat (1 USD = 1,050 kyat). The government, however, only pays the farmers 350 kyat per tin. Farmers who cannot grow the necessary amount must purchase rice paddy at the market price before reselling it to the government at the reduced rate or face arrest. "If farmers do not have crops to sell authorities, they will certainly face arrest," said a farmer from Bhamo Township in southern Kachin State. He said the government detained some of his neighbors for two months after they failed to meet the requirements. There has been a rice shortage in Burma this year due to flooding. And Rangoon-based diplomats have predicted the scarcity of rice will be more noticeable in January as available rice rations begin to dry up. In September, a series of lootings occurred in Burma due to food shortages. Passenger buses were reportedly stopped and forced to hand over any food on board, while dozens of villagers in Mon State were arrested after they raided a rice warehouse in Mudone Township. Rice prices have doubled in Rangoon this year already, and reports from some rural areas have said the price has even tripled. Over the past couple of months the government has given out daily rice rations in hopes of easing public dissent. Sources in Burma, however, have said that much of the rice bought by the government is being exported to shore up hard currency reserves. On Sunday, the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development said that rice exports had reached 742,000 tons during the first eight months of this year, marking a year-on-year increase of 114.19 percent for rice exports. According to government statistics, Burma's agriculture industry supplies 28.3 percent of the country's exports and 48 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Burma has more than 18 million acres of arable lands, half of which is farmed. ______ Reuters December 11 2002 Suu Kyi says Myanmar reform could be slow Manmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she is confident political change will come to the military-ruled country but the process could be slow, the British Broadcasting Corporation said on Wednesday. The BBC Web site quoted Suu Kyi as saying in an interview that talks between her National League for Democracy (NLD) party and the junta had made some progress since her release from 19 months of house arrest in May, but there was still "some way to go". Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, said she was hopeful of progress towards political reform by this time next year and that she did not think it was impossible that some political change could take place "within months". BBC television on Wednesday quoted Suu Kui in an excerpt from the interview as saying she did not know when the time would be right for change, but adding: "I don't think it will take too long for the simple reason people long for change and we are working as hard as possible for the kind of change that will benefit our country." The NLD won Myanmar's last democratic elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern. Instead its members have been arrested and party offices have been shut. The junta has said it wants some form of democracy eventually but that too speedy a transition would destabilise the country, formerly known as Burma. Suu Kyi and the generals began secretive talks two years ago as part of a reconciliation process brokered by U.N. special envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismail. That led to hopes for a speedy move towards democracy. But despite the release of several hundred political prisoners, the United Nations says more than 1,000 opposition activists remain behind bars and there are no signs yet of real political change. Suu Kyi's pro-democracy opposition movement has asked the international community to maintain sanctions against the country until there are signs of reform and discourages tourism. The BBC Web site quoted Suu Kyi as urging foreign travellers keen to visit Myanmar to be patient. "We have not yet come to the point where we encourage people to come to Burma as tourists," she said. The Web site said the BBC World Service radio would broadcast the interview with Suu Kyi in full on December 15. ________ Associated Press December 11 2002 Daughter of former dictator Ne Win holds religious rite The eldest daughter of former dictator Gen. Ne Win offered food and saffron robes to Buddhist monks on Wednesday in memory of her father who died last week under house arrest. Only a handful of close relatives attended the quiet ceremony at Sandar Win's lakeside residence in Yangon. Ne Win, who ruled Myanmar with an iron fist from 1962 to 1988, died last Thursday at the age of 91. It is a Buddhist custom in Myanmar, also known as Burma, to hold a merit-making ceremony on the seventh day after a person's death. Ne Win had been under house arrest with Sandar Win since the March 7 arrest of her husband and three sons for attempting to overthrow the military government. They were sentenced to death in September and have appealed. State media and the government ignored Ne Win's death. He was cremated without the military honors usually granted a general. Ne Win, a hero of Myanmar's struggle for independence from Britain, presided over the country's demise from prosperity to poverty, as he trampled a fledgling democracy and imposed military rule, turning the country into an international pariah. A government official said Sandar Win's status as a detainee under house arrest has not changed after her father's death. "She will remain as she was before. She is still under house arrest," he said on condition of anonymity. Foreign diplomats said they cannot send condolences to the family as the government has not made any official announcement of the death or opened a condolence book. GUNS Shan Herald Agency for News December 11 2002 War : Shan rebels strive to stem Burmese offensive Reports from the ceasefire quarters and the locals indicate the Shan State Army "South" of Col Yawdserk had been waging preemptive strikes against Burmese forces in Southern Shan State since last month. "Well-known guerrilla tactics such as ambushes, raids and sniping have been employed in the SSA's campaign", said an officer from a ceasefire group. "These have been going on since 27 November." According to other sources, the Burmese forces had been using Laikha, 108 miles northeast of Taunggyi and Kengtawng, 137 miles east of Taunggyi, as staging areas. (Kengtawng is a sub-township of Mongnai, not to confuse with Kengtung, eastern Shan State's capital). "Although most of them are hit-and-run affairs, the clashes are frequent and fierce, especially in the Kengtawng area," he added. The Shan State Army has 4 brigades west of the Salween: the 198th commanded by Lt-Col Wi Lek, in Mongkerng: the 758th commanded by Lt-Col Moengzuen in Laikha, Monghsu and Mongnawng; the 756th commanded by Maj Khurh Lao in Mongpan and the 759th commanded by Maj Khamleng in Mongnai, Lankhurh and Kengtawng. The rest which includes the 241st commanded by Lt-Col Khun Jaw, the 757th commanded by Maj Timar the Kengtung Force commanded by Lt-Col Kawnzuen and the three mobile columns: Khunsang Tonhoong, SurhKhanfah and Kawnzoeng are all operating along the Thai border. The SSA's chief of staff, Col Khurh-ngern, had downplayed the operations across the Salween as "normal local affairs." But his boss on hearing reports about upcoming Burmese onslaught, promised, "You won't find us as sitting ducks." Along the border, the Burmese have been reinforcing their troops and weapons. "There are only 3 battalions confronting us," said Lt-Col Kawnzuen from Loi Kawwan, opposite Chiangrai province. "Infantry Battalion #227 at Pangnoon, Light Infantry Battalion #526 at Maemaw and Light Infantry Battalion #331 at Loi Zarngmob. But each of them are close to full strength with an estimated total of 700". Adding the Wa and local militia units the present aggregate strength would be 1,000, according to him. "Normally, they only had understrength units during relatively peaceful periods." Meanwhile, the Thai army's northern gatekeeper, the Third Regional Army, had assured S.H.A.N. Thais would not "give up an inch of our territorial sovereignty" to any foreign armed groups to be used in their attack against one another. "Even a police commissioner cannot order a policeman not to catch a known criminal," said Special Colonel Wechchai Dokmai, representative of Lt-Gen Udomchai Ongkhasingh, Commander of the Third Army, on 29 November. "It goes the same for us. We have been constitutionally entrusted with the duty to protect our sovereignty. Nobody can stop us from carrying out our duty." DRUGS British Broadcasting System December 11 2002 Fighting Burma's drugs trade Burma's ruling generals and their Wa allies on the country's north eastern border have pledged big cuts in opium production, hoping to head off international criticism. Larry Jagan, the BBC's Burma analyst, reports. Bao Yuxiang, the notorious drug warlord and commander of the United Wa State Army, says he will dramatically cut production of opium poppy in areas under his control within the next 12 months. "I have promised to make the Wa areas drug-free by 2005 and I will," he told the BBC in a recent interview in his home-base of Pangshang, on the border with China. The Wa are one of the main poppy growers in Burma's Golden Triangle - situated in the north-west tip of the country bordering, China, Laos and Thailand. UN drug officials now estimate that most of the world's illicit heroin originates in this inhospitable and mountainous region. Profitable crop The Wa have been involved in the drugs trade for decades, largely because of the difficulty of growing any other cash crops, and lack of industry. Since 1989 the Wa have had a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military junta. During much of that time opium production has sky-rocketed. But in the last few years poppy cultivation has declined dramatically, say UN drug control officials. Mr Bao, who along with his three brothers commands the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA), says that over the past two years, the Wa have begun to resist the temptation to continue growing poppy. UN financial assistance has been used for crop substitution projects, including fruit trees and tea plantations, and to set up small-scale industries like tea production and slate manufacturing factories. "In some areas the Wa have reduced the amount of land under poppy cultivation by up to 80%," said an independent Australian researcher, Jeremy Milsome, who has just completed several months of detailed surveys in UWSA areas. "Last year, overall the UWSA managed an average reduction of poppy production of more than 30%," he said. Most independent assessments of opium production in the Wa areas also show a major reduction in the amount of poppy that is cultivated. Allegations continue But despite this, the Wa are still blamed by Thai army chiefs for millions of amphetamines that flood into Thailand every year, and by Western governments like the United States for most of the heroin on the streets of Europe and North America. These are allegations which Mr Bao vigorously denies. "It makes me fed up and angry... I'm tired of hearing it. It's nonsense," he said. But the allegations continue, and with the new growing season at its height, there is increasing international concern about the production of opium in Burma's Golden Triangle. The Burmese authorities are now insisting that poppy cultivation this season will be half as much as last year. "We hope to cut opium production by 50% in the current production year [2002-3]," said the head of Burma's drug suppression committee, police colonel Hkam Awng. "There will be a dramatic reduction in poppy cultivation in the coming year," the Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aung told the BBC. "You will see!" 'Too fast, too soon' But UN officials are worried about the possible impact of this planned rapid decrease in poppy cultivation. They fear that as a consequence, poor farmers who are dependant on growing the illicit drug will suffer. "A 50% reduction is revolutionary and we should be happy with that," said the head of the United Nations Drugs Control Programme in Rangoon, Jean-Luc Lemahieu. "But it's too fast, too soon. I don't see enough income coming in for the opium poppy farmers and I'm concerned that we'll have a humanitarian crisis on our hands as a result." UN officials fear that if there are no viable substitute cash crops or income generating schemes for the poor farmers, the result will be that they have no alternative but to return to poppy production the following year, as happened in Afghanistan. And while the Burmese authorities continue to insist they are doing all they can to reduce opium production, the reality is that amphetamine tablets, known as crazy medicine or ya baa, continue to flood across Burma's borders, especially into Thailand. Thai military officials are warning that Thailand is facing an invasion of more than a billion tablets next year - most of which will be produced in the Golden Triangle. "The precursor chemicals needed for the manufacture of amphetamines are not produced in Burma and are illegal here," Win Aung told the BBC. "They come from India, Thailand and China. More needs to be done to stop the smuggling of these chemicals across our borders." But as many experts point out, the only way to effectively combat drug trafficking is to suppress the demand for it as well as cut its production. _________ Agence France-Presse December 11 2002 Thailand invites Myanmar junta figure for talks over drugs crisis Deputy prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said Wednesday he had invited the Myanmar junta's number-three Khin Nyunt to Thailand to discuss bilateral ties and the drug-trafficking problem. "I have invited Khin Nyunt to come to Chiang Rai in the next few days to exchange views and ideas over cooperation between the two countries including on the drugs problem," Chavalit told reporters. The deputy premier said that at the meeting in the northern border town, he would put forward his idea of joint military patrols at border checkpoints to avert conflict between the neighbours. "Thailand will push for the joint deployment of both Thai and Myanmar troops at border checkpoints, which are prone to drug smuggling, to avoid misunderstandings," he said. Thailand and Myanmar spent the first half of this year embroiled in a bitter diplomatic war over border clashes between rival ethnic armies accused of involvement in the drugs trade. Although the spat has since been healed, new niggles have emerged recently after the Thai army said it expected one billion "speed" pills to be trafficked across the border next year from drug labs in Myanmar. The Thai government also voiced disappointment over the military regime's failure to cooperate in plans to repatriate nearly one million illegal Myanmar workers from Thailand. Myanmar's junta has repeatedly and angrily denied allegations that it is engaged in the drugs trade, which United States and Thai anti-narcotics authorities believe is controlled by ethnic armies allied to Yangon. It has rejected the army's "billion pills" estimate and urged the institution "to contribute in a more constructive and meaningful way in the regional and international war against narcotic drugs". Chavalit said no date had yet been set for the meeting with Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, who is Myanmar's chief of military intelligence. REGIONAL Mizzima December 11 2002 Indian industry focus export promotion with Burma The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), an apex body of Indian industry houses, has suggested the Government of India to improve the existing infrastructure in the North East India in order to boost export with Burma, Bangladesh and the southeast Asian countries. Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, the capital of Assam State in the northeast India today, the CII's president Ashok Soota said that time has come now to pay a special attention to this region to develop export infrastructure in the north east India to open trade with neighboring countries. He also suggested setting up of a task force to identify the thrust area for investment. "We have to develop tourism and the agriculture sector in the region for promotion of export", he added. "One of the major problems in the region is unemployment and to address this issue in a limited way, CII, with the help of its member companies is arranging training in Automobile, Appliances, Hospitality, Health-care etc." On the prospect of trade with the neighboring countries, the CII's president expressed the view that the region would emerge a major trade hub if proper attention were paid. "The northeast India is full of natural wealth and we must take initiative to tap this", he added. Expressing satisfaction over improving the law and order situation in this region, Mr. Soota said this would help in bringing the investors. The CII has decided to set up a centre of excellence on handlooms and silk in Guwahati. _______ Deutsche Presse-Agentur December 11 2002 Singapore-Kunming rail network inches closer to reality The governments of China and Malaysia were praised on Wednesday for their pledges to help bring the dream of a comprehensive railroad network through Southeast Asia an important step closer to reality. Speaking at the opening of the Fourth Special Working Group Meeting on the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link (SKRL), Myanmar's (Burma's) Transportation Minister U Pan Aung congratulated Beijing and Kuala Lumpur for their pledges last month in Phnom Penh to help rebuild a rail link between the Cambodian towns of Poipet and Sisophon. Construction of the 48-kilometre-long "missing link" between the two towns would make rail traffic possible between Bangkok and Phnom Penh, one of the key sub-links in the proposed SKRL rail network. "On behalf of the delegates, may I extend our thanks to Malaysia and China for their kind-hearted and far-sighted support of the SKRL project," U Pan Aung said at the meeting held at the Sedona Hotel in Yangon (Rangoon). "I am confident that all the foundations have been laid and the first step is going to be taken by connecting Bangkok and Phnom Penh," he added. "At the same time, necessary studies and implementation are required for the rest of the missing links and spur lines." Malaysia offered to provide Cambodia with rail track materials to build the link and China agreed to co-finance the project. Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asian Development Bank, China, Japan and South Korea have expressed willingness to take part in the construction of the rail network, which is hoped to eventually make it possible to travel by train from Singapore to Kunming, with spur links to Yangon, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other cities. ON THE BORDER Agence France-Presse December 11 2002 Myanmar rebels claim Thai military killed leader after embassy siege A Myanmar rebel group has claimed that its leader Kyaw Ni, who carried out the 1999 siege of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, was captured and executed by the Thai army the following year. The Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors (VBSW) said in a statement mailed to AFP that Kyaw Ni, better known as Johnny, was arrested on the Myanmar border with the help of elements in an allied rebel group in July 2000. Johnny was one of a band of VBSW gunmen who seized the Myanmar mission in Bangkok in protest against the military regime, holding 38 people hostage for more than 24 hours. "If Johnny committed a crime, Thailand should have taken action according to the law. Such activities, taking people into custody without public knowledge and execution, violate human rights by Thailand," the rebel group said. "The truth of the incident should be uncovered and those involved should be investigated by Amnesty International," it said, adding it did not reveal the abduction before because it felt vulnerable to further action by the Thai army. Johnny's movements were shrouded in mystery after the embassy siege, which ended when Thai officials negotiated a deal which saw the hostages released and the rebels flown to the border in a helicopter. The VBSW holed up with a group known as the Karen God's Army, which was led by cheroot-smoking 12-year-old twin brothers Luther and Johnny Htoo. In February 2000 God's Army rebels slipped accross the border into Thailand and took over a provincial hospital with several hundred patients, demanding Myanmar and Thai troops cease attacks on them. The hospital siege ended when Thai special forces stormed the building killing all 10 gunmen -- at least two of whom were reported to have been VBSW members. The VBSW said that elements in the Karen National Union (KNU), a leading rebel group fighting the Myanmar junta which dwarfs both the VBSW and the now-defunct God's Army, betrayed Johnny as a favour to the Thai army. In July 2000 a group of top Karen leaders led by central committee members Mahn Nyein Maung and Myint Thein went to see him at a God's Army camp and invited him to move into safer territory which they controlled, it said. Citing the testimony of a VBSW cadre who accompanied Johnny, the group said that when he left the following day with KNU forces he was delivered into the hands of Thai soldiers. Later, the rebels learned he had been killed. Mahn Nyein Maung, currently the KNU's joint secretary, admitted to attending the July meeting but denied he was involved in Johnny's death. "It is true that I went to see Johnny... and we asked him to move into territory under our control for his safety," he told AFP. "But we are arrested by Thai authorities on our return from there. "I also heard that Johnny was killed, but I don't know when or where," he added. Thailand's army denied any knowledge of Johnny's capture or death. "I don't have that information. All we can confirm was that 10 people died after we cleared the hospital," said spokesman Colonel Somkuan Seangpattaranetr. ___________ Irrawaddy December 11 2002 Arrests Hit Mae Hong Son By Kyaw Zwa Moe More than twenty Burmese democracy activists were arrested yesterday on immigration violations after Thai police raided a meeting in Mae Hong Son Province that the activists were attending, according to reliable sources. Mae Hong Son’s mayor also told a Thai newspaper that more arrests were to follow, citing the possible negative impact Burma’s democracy movement could have on Thai-Burma relations. The raid occurred at 11 am yesterday at the Green November-32 office, a non-governmental organization specializing in human rights and environmental issues. Those arrested include ethnic Shan, Karen and Karenni from Burma. Sources say meetings regularly take place at the office in order to discuss political, human rights and educational issues affecting Burmese youth. According to the provincial mayor, representatives from six organizations were arrested, and eyewitnesses said police also confiscated political documents during the raid. Some of those arrested were later released after presenting legal documents allowing for their stay in Thailand. But 9 men and 5 women remain in detention. "The police said that they will be tried on charges of illegal immigration tomorrow," said an ethnic dissident helping the group. "We don't know exactly if they will be released or deported. But I don't think they will be directly handed over to the military regime." In August 31 activists were arrested in the Thai border town of Sangklaburi, in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province. They were all deported to border areas near Three Pagoda Pass before sneaking back into Thailand. International and local rights groups condemned the move, saying the Thai government was only trying to appease Burma’s military regime. STATEMENTS/OPINIONS New Zealand Herald December 12 2002 Democracy sure to rise from a dead man's bones by Gwynne Dyer One should not speak ill of the dead, but an exception is justified in the case of Burma's late dictator Ne Win. He was responsible for almost 40 years of tyranny and poverty in his country, and most Burmese would gladly dance on his ashes if it were allowed. By the time he died at 91 last Thursday, however, the process of undoing his malignant legacy was well under way. Last May, Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who is as much the symbol of democracy in Burma as Nelson Mandela was in apartheid South Africa, was freed from house arrest by the generals who are Ne Win's successors. "My release should not be looked on as a major breakthrough for democracy," Suu Kyi warned. But she added: "I would cautiously say that where we are is better than where we have ever been." Even as he neared death, Ne Win tried to kill the hope for democracy in Burma. His son-in-law and three grandsons were arrested last March while trying to organise a coup that would have unseated his successors and aborted the talks aimed at securing Suu Kyi's freedom. They were sentenced to be hanged, and Ne Win died a lonely and unhonoured death under house arrest at his home on a lake in central Rangoon - just across the lake, in fact, from the house where Suu Kyi had been confined for so long. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Other Southeast Asian countries also had liberation heroes who turned into monsters and blighted their people's lives - Indonesia's Sukarno and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh spring to mind - but none lasted so long or did as much damage as General Ne Win. One of the legendary "Thirty Comrades" who began Burma's war for freedom from Britain, he overthrew the country's shaky democracy in 1962 and ruled with an iron hand for the next 28 years. Ne Win was so superstitious that he once replaced the country's existing paper currency with 45-kyat and 90-kyat notes because nine was his lucky number. He was so suspicious of foreigners that he walled Burma off from almost all outside contact, imposing an erratic "Burmese Road to Socialism" that turned the region's richest country into its poorest in only three decades. And then, when popular protests broke out in 1988, he abruptly resigned. A new kind of non-violent democratic revolution was toppling dictators all across Asia in the late 1980s - in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, South Korea - and Burma was swept along. So was Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burma's greatest independence hero, Aung San. Long settled in Britain with her English husband and their two sons, Suu Kyi just happened to go home that year to nurse her dying mother. To most Burmese her father, who had been assassinated when she was just 2, was still the most powerful symbol of the future that had been betrayed, so she suddenly found herself leading a democratic revolution. Then the frightened generals massacred thousands of citizens in the streets of Rangoon to save their power, Ne Win came back to power in another coup and Suu Kyi discovered her destiny. Ne Win's new junta opened the country to foreign investment in an attempt to revive the devastated economy, and so much oil and timber money poured in that the regime was emboldened to hold an election in 1990. But the brief burst of prosperity changed nobody's mind: 82 per cent of the voters backed Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy against the generals. So Ne Win simply refused to accept the election's outcome, jailed most of the League for Democracy's elected members, and embarked on a long duel with Suu Kyi - who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 - over the future of Burma. Knowing she would never be allowed back into Burma if she left, she remained in Rangoon, mostly under house arrest, while her children grew up without her. Her husband eventually died of cancer without even being allowed a visit to say goodbye. The military regime's propaganda called her a "foreign stooge" and a "genocidal prostitute", but most ordinary Burmese know her simply as "The Lady", and trust her completely. The ageing Ne Win eventually withdrew from power, leaving three lesser generals to carry on the struggle against democracy. But Burma's economic plight grew ever worse as a trade embargo by democratic countries tightened during the later 1990s, and early this year the junta decided to seek a deal with Suu Kyi. Ne Win, in character to the end, tried one last coup to stop it, but Suu Kyi was released seven months ago and Burma began to emerge from the long darkness. What is going on now is a delicate and secretive process in which the repressive regime negotiates a safe exit from power and an indemnity for its past crimes - rather like the first year after Nelson Mandela was freed from jail in South Africa. As General Khin Nyunt put it in August: "The democracy that we seek to build ... will surely be based on universal principles of liberty, justice and equality ... [but] such a transition cannot be done in haste and in a haphazard manner." Aung San Suu Kyi concedes that after all this time it cannot simply be a matter of handing power over to the National League for Democracy government that was legally elected in 1990. But, she adds: "Who's to say we won't get a bigger majority this time?"