BurmaNet News: January 31 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

January 31 2003 Issue #2168

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Refugees Return Home
AFP: Thai army commander departs for Myanmar visit
AP: Amnesty officials meet with Suu Kyi in breakthrough visit to Myanmar
DVB: Two NLD members imprisoned
DVB: Farmers forced to sell cotton

DRUGS
Xinhua: Myanmar opens more drug treatment centers

MONEY
Bernama: Asean Broadens Liberalisation Of Investment Rules
Xinhua: Myanmar to hold industrial exhibition

INTERNATIONAL
Korea Times: Four More Asylum Seekers Granted Refugee Status


INSIDE BURMA

Irrawaddy   January 31, 2003

Refugees Return Home
By Aung Su Shin/Mae Sot

Hundreds of ethnic Karen villagers voluntarily returned to Burma yesterday
after seeking shelter in Thailand last week due to heavy fighting between
Burmese and Karen National Union (KNU) troops. Sources familiar with the
situation say this marks the first time that such a large group has gone
back on their own accord. Nearly 600 villagers returned home.

The villagers sought assistance from Thailand's Phop Phra District office
in hopes of ensuring a safe passage home. Villagers, however, say they are
still apprehensive about how they will be treated now that both Lay Khaw
and U Ru Hta Villages are no longer controlled by the KNU. Lay Khaw is
located opposite Thailand's Yaphaw Village, 80 kilometers south of Mae Sot
in Tak Province.

"We would like to stay in Burma so we choose to go back home," says Ma
Kyi, 37, and mother of six. "But in fact, we are afraid of landmines and
being used as porters." She said she had been staying in the Umpiem Mai
refugee camp but was unhappy there do the strict controls.

Yanyong Kunakum, secretary of the Phop Phra District office, said the
group had officially reported to his office saying they would like to go
back. "We have prepared for their safe return home," said Yanyong. He said
NGOs had been providing them with food while in Thailand.

The pro-Rangoon Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) has said they will
guarantee the group a safe return home, according to a battalion commander
and officer.

"A Burma army commander told me there is no danger for us to return home
and they will not use us as porters," says Maung Pu, head of Lay Khaw
Village. "I think nothing will happen because DKBA and us are the same
Karen." He added that DKBA officer Captain Jarni told him only DKBA troops
from battalion 907 would be stationed in the village, not Burmese troops.

Before heading home yesterday food rations and medical treatment were
provided to the villagers by the Burma Border Consortium and Doctors
Without Borders. Officials from the Thai government and the UN High
Commission for Refugees were also on hand. The Karen Refugee Committee
refused to comment on the villagers return.
__________

Agence France Presse   January 31, 2003

Thai army commander departs for Myanmar visit

Thailand's recently-appointed army commander General Somdhat Attanand
departed for Myanmar Friday for a two-day familiarisation visit, the Thai
army spokesman said.

Army spokesman Colonel Somkuan Sangpattaranetr told AFP that Somdhat's
schedule in Yangon would not be announced. "The main purpose of his visit
is to introduce himself to his Myanmar counterpart (Maung Aye)," he said,
adding that Somdhat had expressed a wish to meet all of his counterparts
in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Myanmar and Thailand havee an occasionally rocky relationship, due both to
a flourishing drugs trade on the Myanmar side of their border and regular
dry-season border clashes between armed ethnic minority groups, and
Myanmar's ruling military forces and allied ethnic groups.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is scheduled to make his second visit to
Myanmar as premier on February 9 and 10 and has said the drugs issue would
be at the top of his agenda.

Somdhat, who was promoted to army chief last August, was accompanied by
top aides including army chief-of-staff General Veerachai Iamsa-ad,
assistant chief-of-staff Lieutenant General Lertrat Ratanavanich and
director-general of intelligence Major General Vaipot Srinual.
__________

Associated Press   January 31, 2003

Amnesty officials meet with Suu Kyi in breakthrough visit to Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar: Two representatives of Amnesty International met with
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday in the first-ever official
visit to Myanmar by the London-based human rights organization, diplomats
said.

Amnesty International has been a leading critic of Myanmar's military
government on a range of issues, including suppression of democracy,
political imprisonment, prison conditions, forced labor and extrajudicial
executions.

The group said last November that at least 1,200 political prisoners are
in detention in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. The two Amnesty delegates,
who arrived in Yangon earlier Friday, were seen driving into the lakeside
residence of Suu Kyi, the first time the junta has allowed her to meet
with such prominent human rights officials.

Details of the talks were not immediately available.

The Amnesty officials' visit has not been officially announced by either
the government or the human rights group. A spokesman for the group in
London would only confirm that visas had been issued for two of its
delegates. A Myanmar government spokesman earlier this week declined any
comment "at this stage."

The two visiting representatives are Demelza Stubbings, Amnesty
International's director for the Asia and Pacific Region, and Donna Guest,
a researcher on Southeast Asia, said diplomats in Yangon, speaking on
condition of anonymity.

They said the two will meet representatives of both the government and the
opposition, as well as other relevant people.

Members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party have been
frequent targets of government harassment and detention. Suu Kyi herself
has often been under house arrest. She was released from 19 months of
house arrest in May last year.

Suu Kyi and the junta have been holding reconciliation talks since October
2000 but no tangible progress has been made.

While Myanmar's junta has rejected most criticism of its human rights
record, it has allowed visits in recent years by investigators from groups
such as the International Red Cross, the International Labor Organization
and the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
__________

Democratic Voice of Burma   January 30, 2003

Two NLD members imprisoned

There has been a report that two NLD members were sentenced to two years
each to prison by the military junta's court on the day the AI's delegates
arrive in Rangoon. Ma San San Maw and Ma Aye Yi Htay of N0.11 Ward, Hlaing
Thaya Township, and Rangoon are members of the youth wing of the NLD.
Their crime is criticising the authorities during a queue for rice. They
were arrested and detained since last September and they were sentenced on
the 24th of this month at a court in south Rangoon. U Lwin gave his
reactions as follows:

A: We heard about the two female NLD members just recently. Rangoon
Division legal volunteers [of the NLD] are appealing for them at the
moment. There are some queues for rice and cooking oil. What happened was
they were pushing and shoving at a queue for rice and oil rations. It was
not easy. But when they reached their turn, they were told that all the
rations have gone. The same thing happened when they went the second time.
They were told that people have taken all the rations earlier on. They
were not satisfied. They kept on queuing. There were two disputes already.
On the third time, as soon they got there they were told that rice rations
were gone and they started to dispute again. Some damaging words might
have been used. They were accused of interfering with the officials on
duty and reported to the police and they were arrested and sent to court
and sent to prison. That's it. To say it briefly, there are many incidents
like this throughout the country. Being the NLD members, they tried to do
good things for the people and discussed things with them about the
unfairness of the system. The relationship between the people and the
officials is not good and the people are scrambling for food and fight
among themselves. At the end of 2002, a person was killed in a fight with
a broken bottle. The situation is that bad. We know about this kind of
thing from our people. There have been many incidents like this.
__________

Democratic Voice of Burma   January 30, 2003

Farmers forced to sell cotton

Five farmers of Pale Township, Sagaing Divison were arrested by township
authorities last week for not able to sell cotton harvests to the
government on time. According to the government's quota, the farmers have
to sell 50 'visses' per acre. If they could not do so the authorities are
threatening them with fines of 5000 kyats per acre. But, this year, the
yield is very poor and some crops were destroyed by the late monsoon
downpours and the gap between the government's price and the black market
price is so vast that many farmers complained that they would be unable to
fulfil their quotas. Then the five farmers were arrested and they were
released three days later when their families paid the money to the
authorities.


DRUGS

Xinhua News Agency   January 31, 2003

Myanmar opens more drug treatment centers

YANGON:  Myanmar has opened 20 more major drug treatment centers across
the country since 1988, bringing the total number of such centers to 26,
according to the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on
Friday.

In addition to these major centers, 20 smaller ones were also added during
the period, bringing such total number to 40. The number of rehabilitation
centers remain at two, it said.

The CCDAC said that, so far, over 300 drug addicts out of estimated over
700 have been given treatment in eastern Shan state alone.

The centers, besides carrying out treatment, will also serve as a source
of information for the prevention of drug use.

According to official statistics, Myanmar had a total of 68,395 drug
addicts in the whole country as of February 2002.

Meanwhile, according to the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime
Prevention, 2.4 percent of Myanmar's population aged 15 and above smoke
opium daily compared to a global average of 0.3 percent of the population
taking opium once or more in a year.

The percentage of Myanmar drug addicts estimated by the United Nations is
shown as over 1.2 million, 20 times the Myanmar figures.


MONEY

Bernama, Malaysia   January 31, 2003

Asean Broadens Liberalisation Of Investment Rules

JAKARTA:  Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(Asean) have decided early this week to accelerate the liberalisation of
their investment regimes by broadening the scope of economic activities.

The Asean Coordinating Committee on Investment which met here on Monday
and Tuesday, had agreed to phase out the so-called "temporary exclusion
list" of products in the manufacturing sectors.

"With effect from Jan 1, any Asean investor can now invest in any Asean
country and enjoy national investor treatment in the manufacturing areas
that had been excluded previously," a statement from the Asean Secretariat
said Friday.

The decision has stepped up the timetable for investment liberalisation,
which had been set four years ago.

Since the launch of Asean Investment Area in 1998, Southeast Asian states
had started opening up all industries for investment and grant national
treatment to Asean investors, with some exception as specified in the
Temporary Exclusion List.

Since the launch of the Asean Investment Area in 1998, Southeast Asian
states have started opening up all industries for investment and grant
national treatment to Asean investors, with some exceptions as specified
in the Temporary Exclusion List and Sensitive List.

These lists were supposed to be phased out by 2010 for Asean investors and
by 2020 for all other investors.

Meanwhile, the Asean states that have opened new areas for Asean investors
are Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand.

In Brunei, investors could go into manufacturing of veneer sheets,
plywood, laminboard, particle board, other panels and boards, and builders
carpentry and in Indonesia they could go into the manufacture of
pesticides.

Myanmar has opened the doors to the manufacture of all kinds of production
and marketing of basic construction materials, furniture, paraquet etc
using teak extracted and sold by state-owned economic enterprises.

Philippines has opened to Asean equity in cooperatives while Thailand has
allowed for the production of flour from rice and field crop.

Malaysia and Singapore are not included in the list as they had opened up
investment in the sector since the launch of the Asean Investment Area
four years ago.

The newer members of Asean, namely Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, have until
Jan. 1, 2010, to phase out their temporary exclusion list for the
manufacturing sector.

The establishement of the Asean Investment Area is expected to encourage
investors to think increasingly in the regional terms and adopt a regional
investment strategy and network of cooperations.

An Asean investor is defined as being equal to a national investor in
terms of the equity requirements of an Asean country in which the
investment is made.

Thus, an Asean firm with a majority interest can avail itself of national
treatment and investment market access privileges.
__________

Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2003

Myanmar to hold industrial exhibition

YANGON:  Myanmar will hold an industrial exhibition in Mandalay, the
country's second largest city, from March 1 to 7, according to the
Ministry of Industry Friday.

On display at the exhibition will be products of state organizations,
private entrepreneurs from industrial zones and cooperatives, the ministry
said. To open up the opportunities for exchange of experiences and
technology among industrialists, Myanmar has organized four such
industrial exhibitions --one each in Mandalay and Bago and two in capital
Yangon --between 1996 and 2002.

Myanmar has been working for the systematic advancement of its industrial
sector by harmoniously developing the state, private and cooperative
sectors in this regard.

Since 1996, the country has established 18 industrial zones in nine states
and divisions, including six in Yangon, for the development of the private
sector where a total of 4,496 factories and plants have gone into
production there.

To promote its industrial development and to gradually transform the
agricultural country into an agro-based industrial one, Myanmar formed the
Industrial Development Central Committee in May 1999 and laid down a
30-year long-term plan for the development from 2001-02 to 2030-31.

According to official statistics, there has been more than 57, 000
industrial enterprises in Myanmar, up 15,000 from 1988. Of them, about
1,600 are state-owned, over 50,000 are private-operated and the rest are
cooperatives.


INTERNATIONAL

Korea Times   January 31, 2003

Four More Asylum Seekers Granted Refugee Status

Three asylum seekers from Myanmar and one from Cameroon were granted
refugee status on Wednesday, the Justice Ministry said yesterday.

This increases the number of political refugees in South Korea from two to
six, the ministry said. The three refugees from Myanmar, all political
activists belonging to an opposition group in the country, applied for
refugee status in May 2000 after coming here to escape political
oppression.

The asylum seeker from Cameroon, aged 29, is a member of the countrys
opposition party who applied for refugee status in October 2001.

Those who succeed in obtaining political asylum are given a F-2 resident
visa, which will eventually allow them denizenship, and will also be able
to receive health insurance and other benefits.

An Ethiopian man was officially acknowledged as a political refugee in
February 2001, while another asylum seeker from the Congo, a 50-year-old
dissident professor, obtained the status in December last year.

The ministry said it will soon review the remaining 70 applications for
refugee status.

South Korea joined the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees in 1992.