BurmaNet News, January 14, 2004

[Editor]

THE BURMANET NEWS
A listserv covering Burma
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January 14, 2005, Issue # 2636


INSIDE BURMA
Xinhua: FAO to help Myanmar improve inland fisheries
Irrawaddy: Red Cross aid for Burma’s tsunami victims

REGIONAL
AFP: Southeast Asia's human rights record stained in 2004: report
South China Morning Post: Relief may be out of reach for migrants
Inter Press Service: Thai compassion for Burmese migrants wears thin
AFP: Kofi Annan will appoint a special envoy to assist with tsunami relief

PRESS RELEASE
NCGUB Information Committee
”Reign of Terror”

ANNOUNCEMENT
Human Rights Watch has released their World Report 2005 on human rights
abuses around the world in 2005. For the section on Burma, please visit
Human Rights Watch’s website with this link:
(http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/13/burma9826.htm)

J School journalism training program is now accepting applications for its
next training. Please see announcement at the end of this BurmaNet.


______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 14, Xinhua General News Service
FAO to help Myanmar improve inland fisheries

Yangon: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will help Myanmar
improve its information on inland fisheries in the development of the
sector as part of the organization's assistance rendered to five Southeast
Asian nations, official newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported
Friday.

According to an agreement signed here between the FAO and the Department
of Fisheries of Myanmar, a two-year project on addressing the quality of
information on Myanmar's inland fisheries is to be implemented.

The FAO-sponsored project also covers Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and
the Philippines for systematic exploitation of inland water resources,
long-tern stability of the fishing industries and conservation of
biodiversity and environment in these countries.

Meanwhile, the FAO has also been helping Myanmar upgrade its agricultural
production technology under a cooperation program of the two parties.

According to official statistics, in the fiscal year of 2003-04, the
country exported 205,400 tons of seafood, earning over 200 million US
dollars. For the first half (April-September) of 2004- 05, the fishery
exports amounted to about 93,600 tons, of which fish accounted for about
57,000 tons, while prawn represented 11, 000 tons and other fishery
products took 26,000 tons.

Myanmar produced over one million tons of fish and prawn annually.

Myanmar's fishery sector stands the third largest contributor to the gross
domestic product (GDP) with an output value of 310.31 billion Kyats (about
344 million US dollars according to market exchange rate) in 2003-04,
taking up about 8 percent of the GDP.

With a long coastline of over 2,800 kilometers and a total area of 500,000
hectares of swamps along the coast, the country has an estimated
sustainable yield of marine products at over one million tons a year.

____________________________________

January 12, Irrawaddy
Red Cross aid for Burma’s tsunami victims

The US Red Cross is donating US $500,000 to UNICEF’s tsunami relief work
in Burma.

UNICEF said Tuesday that families affected by the disaster are being
provided with basic needs, including blankets, clothing, utensils and
mosquito nets. The UN agency also plans to assist in the long-term
development of local communities that were affected by the tsunami.

The German and Canadian Red Cross have also sent emergency supplies to the
Rangoon office of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC.

The Burmese government initially declined offers of international aid,
claiming that the country was able to deal with the effects of the tsunami
with its own resources.

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REGIONAL

January 14, Agence France Presse
Southeast Asia's human rights record stained in 2004: report

Washington: Southeast Asia's human rights record took a knock in 2004
following Thailand's brutal crackdown on Muslim insurgents, the
harrassment of dissidents in Vietnam, resurgence of military power in
Indonesia and denial of basic freedoms in Myanmar, Human Rights Watch said
in an annual report Thursday.

The steady erosion of respect for human rights in Thailand that has
characterized Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatras rule "accelerated
sharply," the rights watchdog said.

It cited military repressions against a steadily escalating insurgency in
the countrys predominantly Muslim southern provinces.

The revolt culminated in the death of 86 protesters at the hands of
security forces in October 2004 and a retaliatory spate of deadly bombings
and beheadings of locally prominent Buddhists, apparently by Muslim
insurgent groups.

Since the area was placed under martial law in January 2004, at least 550
people have been killed, some apparently by insurgent groups, some at the
hands of military and paramilitary forces.

"Thai security forces, increasingly able to act with impunity, engaged in
brutal crackdowns against insurgents in the south," the New York-based
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

It also highlighted what it called government pressure and intimidation on
Thailands once-thriving human rights community.

Thailand's neighbour Myanmar remains one of the most repressive countries
in Asia, despite promises for political reform and national reconciliation
by its authoritarian military government, the rights group said.

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest and
the activities of her political party, the National League for Democracy,
remain curtailed.

HRW also accused the military regime in Yangon of using internationally
outlawed tactics in ongoing conflicts with ethnic minority rebel groups.

Myanmar "has more child soldiers than any other country in the world, and
its forces have used extrajudicial execution, rape, torture, forced
relocation of villages, and forced labor in campaigns against rebel
groups," it said.

Thousands of Myanmar citizens, most of them from embattled ethnic
minorities, have fled to neighboring countries, in particular Thailand.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest nation, experienced its first ever
direct presidential election last year, marking another step toward full
democratization but significant barriers to rule of law and human rights
remain in place, HRW said.

Pressing human rights concerns in Indonesia included the resurgent power
of the military in social and political affairs, the report said.

The group charged the military with commiting atrocities and abuses in the
restive provinces of Aceh and Papua.

Aceh was the biggest casualty of the December 26 deadly tsunami, triggered
by an undersea earthquake off Sumatra that unleashed towering waves which
killed over 100,000 people.

Human Rights Watch also expressed worry over "disturbing signs of a return
to intimidation of the press and criminalization of dissent" in Indonesia.

In Vietnam, human rights conditions, already dismal, worsened in 2004, the
group said.

The government tolerates little public criticism of the Communist Party or
statements calling for pluralism, democracy, or a free press, it added.

"Dissidents are harassed, isolated, placed under house arrest, and in many
cases, charged with crimes and imprisoned," it said.

The Vietnamese government, it said, continues to brand all unauthorized
religious activities -- particularly those that it fears may attract a
large following -- as potentially subversive.

Targeted in particular are members of the Unified Buddhist Church of
Vietnam and ethnic minority Protestants in the northern and central
highlands.

Prominent human rights concerns in Malaysia include arbitrary detention of
alleged militants under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA),
restrictions on media freedom, constraints on judicial independence and
abuses against refugees and migrants, HRW said.

The Malaysian government is holding more than eighty detainees under ISA
without charge or any type of judicial review, it said.

In Cambodia, the group said, authorities continue to ban or disperse most
public demonstrations.

Politicians and journalists critical of the government face violence and
intimidation and are barred from equal access to the broadcast media, the
rights watchdog said.

In addition, the judiciary remains weak and subject to political influence
while trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation through
networks protected or backed by police or government officials is rampant,
it added.

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January 14, South China Morning Post
Relief may be out of reach for migrants Illegal and legal workers are
reluctant to come forward for fear of deportation - Simon Montlake

Khao Lak: Thailand has admitted that its much-praised tsunami relief
operations are not reaching hundreds of destitute migrant workers who have
gone into hiding along the battered Andaman coastline.

The Post revealed yesterday that migrants from Myanmar are afraid to seek
help from Thai authorities as they risk arrest and possible deportation by
police who are on the lookout for illegal aliens.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Labour insisted that all migrants should
have received post-tsunami assistance, regardless of nationality or legal
status.

But he conceded that the fear of arrest was deterring some migrants from
coming forward, even if they have legal papers to work in Thailand.

"The difficulty is we cannot locate them and ask them to come out and
report their needs," said Thapabutr Jamasevi.

Many of the migrants employed in southern Thailand had work permits that
entitle them to legal protection and health care.

In theory, documented migrants should be issued new work permits to
replace those lost in the tsunami.

Migrants who lost their jobs to the tsunami are liable for compensation
and can be reassigned to other employers.

"We want them to report to us whether they want to find a new job or
return to their home country," said Mr Thapabutr.

"We are actually quite worried about these people. They don't know where
to go."

Activists say that thousands of migrants from Myanmar left the coastal
region in the days after the tsunami.

Some went home, desperate to escape the ruins of their shattered lives.

Others moved to other areas in Thailand in search of new jobs.

But several hundred are scattered in the forests and plantations of Phang
Nga province, one of the worst-affected stretches of coastline.

Only a trickle of food and medicine from private donors is getting
through, despite Thai promises of handouts for everyone in the community.

Of particular concern are children left orphaned by the tsunami, which
swept away hundreds of Myanmese labourers, hotel staff and fishermen.

Western diplomats have raised the issue of migrants with senior officials
in Bangkok and sought reassurances that their plight will not be ignored.

A flurry of foreign dignitaries has descended on Thailand in recent weeks
to check on the search for missing westerners. Most have paid tribute to
the Thai government for its post-tsunami relief work.

The plight of missing holidaymakers and the struggle to identify more than
1,000 corpses of non-Thais has dominated these high-profile visits.

But little attention has been paid to the guest workers whose cheap labour
built and maintained Thailand's resorts and boosted investor profits.

Aid workers in Khao Lak, a beach resort in Phang Nga, have struggled to
reach migrants neglected by Thai authorities.

A Myanmese doctor and two volunteers working for World Vision, a Christian
charity, were detained by police on Wednesday because they were accused of
helping to repatriate stranded migrants.

Some employers in southern Thailand have blocked migrants from leaving and
reportedly threatened those who try to return home.

"Many of the workers would like to go back to Burma Myanmar for recovery
with their families, but the local employer won't let them," said Pranom
Somwong of the Migrant Action Programme, an advocacy group based in Chiang
Mai.

Thailand depends heavily on imported workers to fill dirty and dangerous
jobs paying low wages. The majority come from Myanmar, along with smaller
numbers of Cambodian and Lao nationals.

In Phang Nga alone, as many as 40,000 migrant workers are employed in
fishing, construction, tourism and agriculture.

Although tourism has taken a huge hit, the rehabilitation of the battered
coastal resorts is expected to boost employment in the short term.

That makes it crucial for aid to reach those stranded by the tsunami until
they can get back on their feet and begin earning again.

"These people should be allowed to stay. Just because there are no jobs
now, there will be in a few weeks," said Irena Vojackova-Sollorano,
regional head of the International Organisation on Migration.

_____________________________________

January 14, Inter Press Service
Thai compassion for Burmese migrants wears thin - Sonny Inbaraj

Underpaid and exploited, Burmese migrant workers are often the hidden face
of Thailand. When a killer tsunami lashed the western Andaman Sea
coastline of Thailand on Dec 26, it came as no surprise to Burmese
activists that none of the local authorities bothered to account for the
bodies of these workers washed up on beaches.

“After the waves receded, some of the migrant workers who survived made
their way to Phuket Island's Patong beach,” said Aung Myo Min, a Burmese
exile who is director of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma.

“They identified several bodies there as that of their friends and tried
to retrieve them. But they were chased away by the local search and rescue
teams,” he added.

When these workers went back later in a second bid to retrieve the bodies,
they had disappeared, said Aung Myo Min, who led a survey team to Phuket,
Phang Nga and Ranong—the areas hit badly by killers waves spawned by an
undersea quake in the northernmost tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island that
killed over 150,000 in South and South-east Asia.

“We have the names of at least 163 dead Burmese migrant workers, but we
are not in a position to do anything. There’s no next-of-kin, there's no
DNA testing, there’s nothing. The bodies have just disappeared,” he told
reporters.

“I know we are treated as second or even third class citizens in this
country, but this is not the way to treat our dead,” said a frustrated
Aung Myo Min.

Sensationalist Thai media reports that Burmese gangs were looting areas of
southern Thailand affected by the tsunami have also not helped the case of
the migrant workers.

According to these media reports that quoted Thai police officials,
Burmese migrant workers had looted collapsed hotels and stolen from the
wreckage of tsunami victims’ homes.

“Compared to looting by Thais, the number of the Burmese committing crimes
is insignificant,” a Thai journalist told ‘Irrawaddy’, a
newspaper-in-exile published in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. ‘'But the
Burmese are blamed because of their nationality. Prejudice towards them
has increased.''

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the
Burmese government-in-exile, reckons that at least 800 Burmese nationals
died and 1,500 went missing when the tsunami struck, killing a total of
over 5,000 in Thailand.

The NCGUB also condemned Burma's military regime for failing to offer help
to their nationals in neighboring Thailand.

There are now fears that the emergency relief efforts could bypass Burmese
migrant workers because of their lack of legal status in the country.

But Thai Minister for Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti,
who is overseeing rehabilitation efforts in Phuket, said he was unaware
that Burmese migrants were denied emergency aid in the relief centers.

“In a catastrophe like this, everyone is entitled to aid regardless of
whether they are Thai or foreigners,” he told IPS. “I’ll definitely be
looking into this matter.”

The international relief organization World Vision also raised concerns
about the neglect of Burmese migrants by the emergency aid efforts. “There
has been no publicity at all about Burmese workers. They have been totally
forgotten,” said a World Vision aid worker.

Human rights activist Aung Myo Min said many of the Burmese tsunami
survivors were also reluctant to make their way to the relief centers
because they had been told that emergency food supplies were only for
registered Thai citizens.

“Many of them felt humiliated and said they would rather die than face
such shame,” he told IPS.

According to the Law Society of Thailand, there were 127,714 Burmese
migrant workers in the five Thai provinces hit by the tsunami, but only
22,504 or less than 18 percent were registered with the Thai Labor
Ministry. There are some one million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand.

Aung Myo Min said about 3,000 Burmese workers are taking shelter at
abandoned construction sites around the Kamala beach area in Phuket and
another 600, including women and children, are hiding in a rubber
plantation on Phang Nga Island.

“Most of them are afraid because they either have no working documents or
have lost their labor identification cards and work permits,” he said.
“The ones that have lost their labor IDs are afraid of being arrested
because they have no other documents to prove their status.”

According to local news reports, several Burmese workers who could not
show proper identification papers to local police officers were arrested
on sight for being suspected looters.

Aung Myo Min told IPS that he came across some cases where after
sympathetic non-governmental organizations had distributed emergency
relief to the Burmese migrants, the Thai police moved in to arrest
undocumented workers and suspected looters.

“This is sheer discrimination. Not every Burmese migrant worker is a
criminal,” he said.

Many Burmese migrants have been forced out of Burma due to civil war,
extreme suppression of civil and political rights and political violence
that has resulted in extreme poverty throughout the country.

The majority of these people are Mon, Karen, Shan and Burman and over half
of these Burmese in Thailand are women and young girls.

“People who have already suffered from losing friends, relatives,
belongings and their jobs are now being subjected to harassment and
intimidation by the Thai authorities. That’s just cruel,” said Debbie
Stothard of the Burma lobby group Alternative Asean Network on Burma
(ALTSEAN).

_____________________________________

January 14, Agence France Presse
Kofi Annan will appoint a special envoy to assist with tsunami relief

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says he will appoint a special
envoy to oversee relief and reconstruction efforts in the wake of the
Asian tsunami disaster that left more than 160,000 dead.

"In order to ensure the maximum coherence and coordination in the relief
and reconstruction efforts, I have decided to appoint a special envoy," Mr
Annan told a news conference on the sidelines of a UN conference on small
islands.

Mr Annan said he hoped to name the envoy by the end of next week, when a
UN conference on disaster reduction in Kobe, Japan, is expected to become
the focal point for the international effort to help tsunami-hit
countries.

A UN donors' conference in Geneva this week raised some $A944 million to
assist the 12 countries battered by the December 26 tsunami in the Indian
Ocean.

UN agencies are also leading the effort to set up a global warning system
that Mr Annan said should not just cover tsunamis, but also other threats
such as storm surges and cyclones.

A tsunami early warning system already exists for the Pacific and experts
agree that lives could have been saved in the Indian Ocean region had such
a mechanism been in place.

On Wednesday, the UN education and scientific agency UNESCO, which is
coordinating the effort, said a tsunami early warning system for the
Indian Ocean should be up and running by June 2006.

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PRESS RELEASE

January 14, NCGUB Information Committee
"Reign of Terror"

Senior Intelligence Officers Killed in the Junta's Torture Chamber

A reliable source in Rangoon informed a barbaric act of the State Peace
and Development Council (SPDC) or military junta. It shocked the people to
hear of an unusual occurrence. It happened on 5 January at Yae-way
cemetery, one of the two main cemeteries in Rangoon. Armed-troops from
Burmese Army suddenly appeared and occupied the Yae-way cemetery on that
Wednesday and ordered the funeral workers there to get out of the area
immediately.

No funeral functions were allowed to public on that day.

Then, some army vehicles entered the graveyard and put some corpses out of
the vehicles. Those human remains were cremated by the men in uniform
without putting in the official death register of the cemetery. Although
Gen. Thura Shwe Mann has said that no one was above the law, the military
itself committed the unlawful act of obliterating the human remains by
abusing its power.

The next day, the troops left the graveyard after transferring the area to
the respective municipality officers who took responsibilities of the
Yae-way cemetery's daily function.

As a result, news were spreading here and there in Rangoon that those were
the remains of some of the detained former military intelligence officers
who died of inhumane tortures during interrogation by the army. Although
nobody knew exactly names and number of the remains, two outstanding
identities popped up in the following days. The two whose remains were
obliterated together with others by the army were Col. Thet Htut and Col.
Tin Hla.

Death of Col. Thet Htut and Col. Tin Hla was confirmed by a junior
intelligence officer and a close relative of a former retired general who
recently released from army's interrogation.

Col. Thet Htut was former head of the passport issuing section under the
Immigration Department of the Interior Ministry. In the previous set-up of
the Passport Scrutiny Board, the Interior Minister (Col.Tin Hlaing) acted
as the chairman of the Board and the Passport Section Head (Col. Thet
Htut) was the secretary. Before he took charge of the passport section, he
served as an in-charge-officer of one intelligence unit under the ousted
intelligence chief and Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt.

Col. Tin Hla (B.C.1 3 0 4 2) was also a loyalist of Khin Nyunt and deputy
head of the Counter Intelligence Department of the Defense Service
Intelligence Bureau (DSIB) before his superior was ousted. He might be the
officer who took responsibility for gathering the corrupt practices of the
high-ranking army officers including the Senior General and Vice Senior
General into a secret file.

In the same time, the junta has summoned 30 magistrates and 30 prosecutors
of the Chief Justice's Office and put them into a camp in a secret place
somewhere in army's military command to be used for the trials in
connection with Khin Nyunt and his followers' cases. A rumor has been
spreading inside Burma that the case of the death of the late secretary 2
Gen. Tin Oo who died in a helicopter-crash has also been prepared to make
lawsuit in which Khin Nyunt might be involved.

The same reliable source also confirmed that Major Zaw Naing Oo, Commander
of the 44 Light Infantry Battalion and elder son of the ousted Prime
Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment at an
arbitrary court held at a secret place in Pyinmana Township, Mandalay
Division on 27 December, 2004.

The court made three hearings. At first hearing, the judge asked Major Zaw
Naing Oo whether he knew what his father had committed against the law,
especially about some conspicuous bribery. He only replied no.

When the court resumed its second hearing, the judge noticed him, if he
did not tell the court what his father had done, it meant he committed a
crime. But he replied that he knew nothing of his father's matters.
At the third hearing, the judge said it deserved twenty years imprisonment
for his crime of refusing to tell about his father's unlawful activities.
The court did not allow his lawyer to talk at the trial on behalf of him.
The court seems to be under martial law, the source said.

It seems to be a case of dog eats dog. After the downfall of Khin Nyunt,
the former intelligence chief of the junta, the army commanders raided all
military intelligence units and offices throughout the country arrested
all intelligence personnel in purpose of interrogating for abuse of power
and corruption. Army officers confiscated everything owned by the
intelligence agents. Not only money, gold and jewelry were confiscated but
businesses such as karaoke bars, hotels, restaurants, tourism industries,
Internet Service Provider and all. Even properties from the relatives of
the intelligence officers were not exempt from confiscating.

Information Committee
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB)

_____________________________________
ANNOUNCMENT

The J School journalism training program is now accepting applications for
new journalism students from Burma.

The J School is an 8 month residential journalism training program,
beginning in May, 2005. The school, based along the Thai-Burma border,
aims to  increase the pool of independent and skilled reporters and
editors working for all ethnic communities from Burma. The program
includes intensive training in independent journalism, concentrating on
print reporting skills.

Applications are welcome from all people from Burma who are interested in
a career in media. Women and members of all ethnic groups of Burma are
especially encouraged to apply.

Deadline for return of applications has been extended to Feb. 18, 2005.
Please contact jschool at pobox.com   for more information or an application.

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