BurmaNet News: April 2 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

April 2 2003 Issue #2207

INSIDE BURMA

AFP: Myanmar to take precautionary measures against SARS
DVB: DKBA attacks civilians

MONEY

AFX-GEM: May Department Stores joins Myanmar boycott after US pressure
campaign
Narinjara: Tekanaf Land port to be operational soon

REGIONAL

TV Myanmar: Talks held with Thai delegates on model village development in
Wa region
AFP: Myanmar exiles hold democracy seminar in Thailand
Bangkok Post: US unhappy over Thai police abuses
Irrawaddy: Soe Myint trial postponed

INTERNATIONAL

Xinhua: Myanmar refutes US report on human rights practices
UN Wire: Researcher calls for panel to investigate rape by soldiers
The Hill: Activists, lobbyists gearing up for fight over proposed changes
on alien rights

INSIDE BURMA

Agence France Presse April 2 2003

Myanmar to take precautionary measures against SARS

The Myanmar health authorities are preparing to take precautionary
measures against a strange pneumonia disease called Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) spreading in Asia and Southeast Asia.

According to the National Health Committee Wednesday, it will take such
measures at the country's international airports, ports and checkpoints in
border areas for the prevention.

The SARS control programs and public health education on the disease will
also be carried out, it said.

Although no signs of the disease have emerged in Myanmar, the authorities
warned that it is a highly infectious and deadly disease, calling for
efforts to collect data and facts about the atypical pneumonia in time.
_____________

Democratic Voice of Burma April 1 2003

DKBA attacks civilians

Some members of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army [DKBA] based in the
Burmese border town of Myawaddy opened fire on a Karen home in a village,
in Maesod District of Thailand at about four o’clock this morning. As a
result, a Karen woman was killed and a man was wounded. DVB’s Maung Too
reports:

Maung Too : At 4.30 this morning, five armed DKBA members crossed the
border from Wankha Village and attacked the home and pigsties of a Thai
Karen in Wansip Kayan Village in Maesod District with AK47 and M16 assault
rifles, according to Maesod Police Station. A Thai Karen woman was killed
and a man was wounded and he is being hospitalised at Maesod Hospital. The
police in Maesod are still investigating why the attack happened. Some
people think that the attack happened because the local Thai Karen refuse
to co-operate with the DKBA in transporting its amphetamine tablets from
Burma to Thailand and stolen cars from Thailand into Burma.

MONEY

AFX-GEM March 31 2003

May Department Stores joins Myanmar boycott after US pressure campaign

May Department Stores, owner of 14 chains including Foley's, Lord &
Taylor, and Robinsons-May, has agreed to stop selling any products
manufactured in Myanmar, the nation formerly called Burma, following
pressure from a human rights group.

    The company has added the new policy to its vendor guidelines posted
on its Web site.

    "It's significant, May is one of the largest retailers in the US,"
said Dan Beeton of the Free Burma Coalition. "This is sending a pretty
strong signal to Burma's military regime."

    The FBC has spearheaded a boycott of Myanmar clothes in an effort to
pressure the military regime to implement democratic reforms and cease
human rights violations.

    The regime, which ignored the results of elections throwing it from
power in 1992, has been accused of widespread human rights violations,
including the use of child soldiers, rape and torture.

    May joins a total of 40 companies respecting the ban in the past two
years, including Wal-Mart, Kenneth Cole, Tommy Hilfiger, Jones New
York, and Federated Department Stores, owner of Macy's and
Bloomingdale.

    The effort appears to be working. Total clothing imports from Myanmar
fell to 303 million dollars last year from 411 million dollars in
2001, according to the US Department of Commerce.

    Beeton said May was the last major US clothing retailer to join the
ban. FBC has conducted two "phone-in" campaigns over the last two
weeks, encouraging members to call store managers during busy sales
times to talk to them about the issue.

    Beeton thought the campaign helped convince May to adopt the new policy.

    "It has a lot to do with the phone calls people were making to their
stores," he said. "Ultimately it was a pretty simple thing for them to
do."

    May could not immediately be reached for comment.

    The company has previously said none of its own labels are
manufactured in Myanmar, but it did not have an explicit policy
forbidding their suppliers from having their clothes made there.

    Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democratic opposition in Myanmar
and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has called for economic
sanction against her country in order to put pressure on the regime.

    The US has placed a moratorium on new investment in the country, but
has not imposed a ban on imports.
____________

Narinjara News April 2 2003

Tekanaf Land port to be operational soon trade with Burma

The Bangladesh government is taking necessary measures for building a
full-fledged land port at Teknaf on the bank of Naaf river to boost
two-way trade with Burma, according to yesterday’s the independent.

The proposed port will be built in Teknaf Township under Cox’sbazar
district. Teknaf is the township bordering Bangladesh-Burma in the
southeastern corner of the country.

Teknaf is one of the 12 land ports the government has decided to upgrade
to meet the need of the hour. The government has already set up a new body
styled as ‘ Bangladesh Land Port Authority’ (BLPA), which will supervise
the functioning of the land port including the one in Teknaf.

Sharif Atiqur Rahman, chairman of BLPA told BSS over telephone that BLPA
had already completed the tender floating process and gave the work order
last week for building the infrastructure of Taknaf land port. The
concerned company is to hand over the port to BLPA after two years of
operation.  The facilities in the land port include a jetty, two sheds,
one warehouse and procuring handling equipment, he added.

BLPA chairman hoped that the construction work of Teknaf Land Port will
start within a month and likely to be completed by the end of October this
year. Export-import trade through this port is expected to be in full
swing at the end of the current year. Besides improving physical
facilities to cope with potential flow of two-way trade, national Board of
Revenue (NBR) has decided to upgrade its customs station at Teknaf
Bringing it under the direct supervision by an assistance commissioner. At
present Teknaf station is under Cox’sbazar divisional office.

ATM Sarwar Hossain, commissioner of customs (VAT) Chittagong told BSS that
the station had been upgraded by office order, but matters relating to
providing necessary facilities to it like vehicle, telephone and mobile
phone and support staff to make Teknaf in a full fledged land port
remained pending.

He said the customs VAT authority had earned about Taka 186.9 million in
the first eight months of the current financial year against a target of
Taka 117.3 million. The earning on same account for the entire period of
fiscal 2001-2002 was Taka 117.9 million.

During the period under study nearly 26 items were imported from Burma.
The items are betel-nut, gas lighter, cumin-seed, cloves, cinnamon, black
pepper, battery, sweet cumin-seed, dry fish, frozen fish, ginger,
cigarette paper, cane, bamboo and rice, he added.

Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury has said recently that
Bangladeshi businessmen would be benefited if they take advantage of look
east policy of the government. He said in a bid to reduce trade imbalance
Bangladesh and Burma have decided to go for “ Accounts Trade”.

Meanwhile, shipping Minister Akbar Hossain has directed the Mercantile
Marine Department to issue fitness certificated to vessels after proper
inspection as prospect of coastal trade with Burma likely to start soon
following the coastal Trade agreement signed during the recent visit of
prime minister Begum khaleda Zia to Rangoon.

REGIONAL

TV Myanmar April 1 2003

TALKS HELD WITH THAI DELEGATES ON MODEL VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT IN WA REGION

A meeting of Myanmar Burmese and Thai delegates on development project of
Yawng Kha Model Village, which is being carried out with the assistance of
Thailand under the Myanmar-Thailand Drug Abuse Control Cooperation
Programme, was held at Yawng Kha, a Wa Village, in Mong Hsat Township at
0945 on 29 March.

The meeting was attended by a 10-member delegation led by Col San Pwint of
the Office of Chief of Military Intelligence, Defence Ministry, from the
Myanmar side and a six-member delegation led by Lwaitone Project Manager
Mr Disnada Diskul from the Thai side. Wa national race leaders - U Shauk
Min Lian and U Kyauk Kaw En - and local people welcomed them at the
village.

At the meeting, the delegates of the two countries discussed matters
related to the completion of a primary school for 500 students, which is
under construction, in April and a 16-bed station hospital at the end of
May and requirements for construction of a dam for irrigating about 1,000
acres of farm and irrigation systems.

After the meeting, the delegates from the two countries visited the
successful and thriving poppy substitute farms of Wa nationals in Mong
Hsat, Wan Hong Region, by cars.

The Wa national race leaders and local people welcomed them and explained
on the success achieved by Wa nationals in cultivation of poppy substitute
crops - longan, honey-orange, coffee, tea, mango, sugar cane, pulses and
beans, corn, and paddy - in Mong Yawng, Wan Hong, Mai Kyam, and Wan Pong
regions.

The delegates inquired about the facts they wanted to know and inspected
Wan Hong longan plantations, Mai Kyam honey-orange plantations, and Loi
Hsan Saw coffee plantations. The delegates left Wan Hong for Tachilek late
in the evening.
__________

Agence France Presse April 2 2003

Myanmar exiles hold democracy seminar in Thailand

Exiled Myanmar dissidents and academics gathered here Wednesday to study
ways to kickstart reconciliation talks with the military junta and prompt
a transition to democracy, participants said.

The closed-door seminar held at Chiang Mai University included 80 exiled
Myanmar pro-democracy politicians, students, members of ethnic minorities
and veterans, who exchanged views on a long-pursued transition to pure
civilian rule.

Myanmar, formerly Burma, has been ruled by authoritarian military regimes
since 1962.

The forum was designed in part to help groom Myanmar pro-democracy
elements for eventual face-to-face talks with the ruling junta.

"We don't know when the negotiations will take place, but we are hopeful
and we are preparing for that," Zaw Oo, director of policy and research
for the Washington-based Burma Fund, told AFP.

The session studied comparative lessons of the other countries that had
transformed from authoritarian regimes to democracy, inculding Brazil,
Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa and Thailand.

The project was also intended to strengthen civilian expertise in security
affairs and to prepare for the challenge of rebuilding the Myanmar army
into a professional defense force.

Win Min, a Harvard University academic who led the discussions, said the
seminar's findings would be passed on to democracy campaigners in Myanmar.

"We will write our research findings and send them to Aung San Suu Kyi and
other pro-democracy leaders inside Burma," Win Min said.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate, was released from house arrest
last May and has been engaged in UN-brokered talks with the junta since
October 2000, but they are yet to progress beyond a confidence-building
stage.

Some pro-democracy elements from within Myanmar were in attendance but did
not wish to be identified.
__________

Bangkok Post April 2 2003

US UNHAPPY OVER THAI POLICE ABUSES
By Saritdet Marukatat

The Thaksin government remains reluctant to prosecute police involved in
extra-judicial killing of criminal suspects, a US government report
concludes.

In its annual report on human rights around the world, the US State
Department said Thailand generally respected human rights, but expressed a
few concerns including police killing of criminal suspects. The report
focused only on the 12 months to Dec 31 and made no mention of the
crackdown on drug trafficking launched on Feb 1. Police officers killed a
number of criminal suspects while attempting to apprehend them,'' with
drug traffickers and users being most of the victims, said the State
Department report released yesterday.

The government remained reluctant to prosecute vigorously those who
committed such abuses, contributing to a climate of impunity,'' it said.

The country was saddled with corruption and bribery, especially in the
civilian bureaucracy and some units'' of the security forces, the report
said. These practices undermined the rule of law and also kept illegal
activities going.

The report also expressed concern about press freedom and state control of
the mass media and trafficking of children and prostitutes.

Some local officials, immigration officers and police reportedly either
were involved in trafficking directly or took bribes to ignore it,'' it
said of human smuggling problems.

The report also referred to difficulties faced by non-governmental
organisations working in politically sensitive areas, such as groups
promoting democracy in Burma which were harassed last year.

The report was compiled with a balanced view and was open to reaction from
all sides, including the government.
____________

Irrawaddy April 2 2003

Soe Myint Trial Postponed
By Naw Seng

Judges in a West Bengal court have postponed the trial of Soe Myint,
editor of the New Delhi-based Mizzima news service, until June 23.
Soe Myint was charged last year for hijacking a Thai Airways flight from
Bangkok to Rangoon in 1990. He redirected the flight to Calcutta using a
laughing Buddha statue in the hope of bringing international attention to
Burma’s democracy movement. He has been living in exile in India ever
since, and no one is sure why it took authorities in India 12 years to
officially file charges.
Thin Thin Aung, Soe Myint’s wife, who attended the hearing today, said the
court accepted an appeal for a continuance from the prosecuting government
attorney who claimed he had yet to prepare witnesses for the trial
The case was reopened in April 2002, but it wasn’t until January this year
that officials filed the charge. The case has already been delayed several
times. "I think this hearing will be the last one before the trial," Thin
Thin Aung said.
India’s tough anti-hijacking laws mean Soe Myint faces life imprisonment
if convicted. Yesterday, over 200 Burmese dissidents demonstrated in the
Indian capital, calling on authorities to drop all the charges against Soe
Myint.
Early last month, India’s Defense Minister George Fernandes defended his
government’s engagement with the Burmese regime, saying the government
would stand by the Burmese democracy movement at the launch of Soe Myint’s
book Burma File: A Question of Democracy.
Analysts say the decision to charge Soe Myint didn’t come from the federal
government in New Delhi, but from state authorities in Calcutta, even
though state officials have denied having the authority to initiate the
case.

INTERNATIONAL

Xinhua News Agency April 2 2003

Myanmar refutes US report on human rights practices

The Myanmar government on Wednesday refuted a recent US report on its
human rights practices, saying the report is politically motivated and
does not represent the situation in this country.

"Myanmar categorically rejected the unfounded allegations contained in the
Country Report on Human Rights Practices-2002 released by the US State
Department," said a statement of the Myanmar Foreign Ministry.

The report is "patently biased and rehashes unsubstantiated charges made
by insurgents and opposition groups like the Kayin National Union," the
statement said.

It conveniently ignores the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC)
and the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), the statement charged, noting
that these developments have been mentioned by UN Special Envoy to Myanmar
on Human Rights Paulo Sergio Pinheiro in his oral presentation to the
UNHRC on March 31.
__________

UN Wire April 2 2003

Researcher Calls For Panel To Investigate Rape By Soldiers
By Steve Hirsch

-- A human rights researcher yesterday called for the establishment of an
independent panel to look into allegations of systematic rape of ethnic
minority women by Myanmar's army, while Refugees International prepared to
issue a report on the subject this week.
Betsy Apple, director of the Women's Rights Project for EarthRights
International, was a consultant on the Refugees International report,
which she wrote with Veronika Martin of Refugees International.
No Safe Place:   Burma's Army and the Rape of Ethnic Women cites the
"widespread use of rape by Burma's soldiers to brutalize women" of five
minority nationalities.  It follows a report last year by the Shan Human
Rights Foundation and the Shan Women's Action Network saying Myanmar was
allowing troops to commit rape as a weapon of war.
Allegations of rapes of Shan women in Myanmar has received attention
because of the earlier report.  The new report calls the rapes of Shan
women "one aspect of the problem," adding that Myanmar's military
"frequently rapes women from other ethnic minority groups as well."
The report claims that women of the Karen, Karenni, Mon and Tavoyan ethnic
groups have also been victimized, citing 43 cases of rape or attempted
rape -- 23 confirmed by eyewitness testimony or physical evidence -- which
it calls "but a fraction of those perpetrated by Burma's army."
Forty-five ethnic women took part in focus groups conducted for the report
and all of them reported hearing about rapes in their home areas,
according to the report.  Moreover, 80 percent of them said they knew a
rape victim, according to Martin.
Apple said in an interview yesterday that she thought the practice of rape
is part of a conscious policy by Myanmar's military to "quash" dissent by
ethnic minorities, which, together with the ethnically Burman
pro-democracy forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy, oppose the ruling junta.
"Hatred and loathing and dehumanization" of the ethnic groups is part of
indoctrination in the military, she told UN Wire, and the use of rape is a
way to expand warfare against the government's opponents.
The report is being issued just after U.N. rapporteur on human rights in
Myanmar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who cut his visit to Yangon short last week
after discovering the room he was interviewing political prisoners in was
bugged, reported to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva on his
trip.
According to Apple, for an independent panel to be useful, it has to be
set up under ground rules guaranteeing its independence and the
confidentiality of information provided.
Amnesty International Expresses Disappointment About Rights Climate
Meanwhile, Amnesty International released a statement in London yesterday
expressing disappointment that further progress has not been made in the
human rights situation in Myanmar.
The organization, which made its first visit to the country almost two
months ago, welcomed limited improvements, citing statements by the ruling
State Peace and Development Council that political prisoners now have
access to reading materials and social contact.  Yet it added that more
than 1,200 political prisoners remain in custody and the pace of releases
has dropped in recent months.
"We are disappointed that the SPDC has not released prisoners who are ill,
elderly or are imprisoned with their young children," Amnesty
International said.
During its visit, Amnesty submitted a list of political prisoners who
should be released quickly, including imprisoned members of the elected
Parliament and people who should be released on humanitarian grounds.
Although hundreds of prisoners have been freed since January 2001, Amnesty
International said, many were not released unconditionally and political
arrests have begun again since July.
______________

The Hill April 2 2003

Activists, lobbyists gearing up for fight over proposed changes on alien
rights
By Michael S. Gerber

Business groups and human rights activists have quietly begun preparing
for a possible face-off in Congress over a law that dates back more than
two centuries, which is being used by foreign plaintiffs in human rights
cases
The Alien Tort Claims Act, enacted in 1789 as part of the original
Judiciary Act, allows foreign plaintiffs to litigate in American courts
even when the alleged abuses took place in other countries.
Human rights groups, who oppose any change in the statute, have filed
suits against corporations in recent years, accusing them of complicity in
rights abuses that occurred in countries where they conducted business.
They have also met with a small number of staffers on the House and Senate
Judiciary panels, human rights activists said.
Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists have also begun meeting with congressional
aides, although they have not yet proposed any specific legislation.
The two efforts may presage a full-blown lobbying fight in which U.S.
corporations seek protection from suits that they claim punish them for
abuses committed by other people overseas.
The concisely written law says that “district courts shall have original
jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in
violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”
Scholars have argued over the original intent of its authors, theorizing
that they wrote the provision to protect foreign diplomats or allow action
against piracy.
The statute lay mostly unused for almost 200 years until the late 1970s,
when lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights used it in the case
of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala.
Dolly Filartiga’s brother had been tortured and killed in her native
Paraguay. After seeking asylum in America, she discovered that her
brother’s murderer, a police inspector named Americo Norberto Pena-Irala,
had also entered the U.S.
Filartiga marked the first time in recent history that the Alien Tort
Claims Act had been used to sue for violation of “the law of nations.”
Although the court first dismissed the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit ruled that torture constituted a violation of “the
accepted norms of international human rights law and [therefore] a
violation of the domestic law of the United States.”
In 1996, a group of Burmese villagers sued Unocal, a multinational oil and
gas corporation, for abuses allegedly committed by Burmese soldiers who
were guarding a pipeline project in which Unocal was involved. A
California judge dismissed the suit, saying that no evidence existed to
show Unocal actively participated in the abuses, only that they may have
known about and gained from them. But on Sept. 18, 2002, the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals overturned the decision, allowing the case to continue.
Fearing an increase in similar cases — about two dozen have been filed
against U.S. and multinational corporations so far — business groups have
begun to fight back. Coalitions such as USA Engage, which includes the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council, and other
pro-trade business groups, argue that the lawsuits will discourage
companies from investing in developing nations.
“While we’re sympathetic, cases are proliferating and that could get
worse,” said Dan O’Flaherty of the National Foreign Trade Council. “If you
were to win one of these cases [against a corporation], you wouldn’t
necessarily change the policies of the [foreign] government. What we need
are instrumentalities that go to the heart of the problem.”
But human rights activists disagree, saying these cases would force
corporations to rethink their actions across the globe but not discourage
investment.
“It’s a law that’s needed in quite rare and limited circumstances,” said
Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski. “But we think they’re important ones
— for when an American company is accused of being complicit in serious
crimes in a country where the domestic legal systems would not hold them
accountable, in places like Burma and Sudan.”
Currently, the business community has yet to launch a serious lobbying
effort to amend the statute. But they have begun a public relations
effort, and have even received support from the administration in the form
of a letter from State Department Legal Adviser William H. Taft IV, to the
judge presiding over a case brought against ExxonMobil.
“[T]he Department of State believes that adjudication of this lawsuit at
this time would in fact risk a potentially serious adverse impact on
significant interests of the United States,” Taft wrote, “including
interests related directly to the on-going struggle against international
terrorism.”
Activists from human rights groups dismiss Taft’s letter, saying the
attacks against the Alien Tort Claims Act are premature.
“Two dozen filings hardly constitutes that this 
 is crippling
corporations financially,” said Eric Biel of the Lawyers Committee for
Human Rights, which opposes any change to the statute.
“I’m not sure Congress is well situated at this point to try to figure out
how to separate meritorious claims from frivolous ones,” Biel added.