Daily News- February 26- 2002- Tuesday


  • Burma police block Suu Kyi visit
  • ILO Team Optimistic About Permanent Office
  • Supreme Court Hears Suu Kyi's Appeal
  • ULFA insurgents killed
  • Police seize ya ba haul 'of Wei associate'
  • Most stolen cars head west
  • Fire Devastates Yenanchaung


  • Burma police block Suu Kyi visit

    Source : BBC

    Officials from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) say they have been prevented from seeing Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in Rangoon. They said police refused to let them through a checkpoint blocking the road to the house.

    The two officials were at the end of a week-long visit to Burma to check whether the government had put an end to the practice of forced labour. A senior ILO official, Kari Tapiola, said on Sunday there was still no evidence the Burmese military government was willing to accept assistance to end forced labour.

    A spokesman for the ILO in Geneva said the terms of the visit required officials to be allowed freedom of movement and access to leading political figures.

    Aung San Suu Kyi has been held under virtual house arrest since September 2000. For much of that time, the government has been involved in secret talks with Ms Suu Kyi and her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD). More than 200 political prisoners have been released by the government, but there are estimated to be more than 1,500 still in jail.

    Security mix up

    The head of the ILO delegation, Francis Maupain said he was "very disappointed" not to have been allowed to see Aung San Suu Kyi.

    Policemen refused to lift a barrier as cars carrying Mr Maupain and ILO secretary Richard Horsey approached her lakeside home.

    NLD secretary U Lwin said there seemed to have been a mix up over security clearance. "Security said they wanted to allow the ILO team through the checkpoint but without proper clearance they couldn't do it, " he said.

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    ILO Team Optimistic About Permanent Office

    UN Wire, Mon 25 Feb 2002

    As an International Labor Organization team ends a week of what it called "candid dialogue" with Myanmar's military rulers on the issue of forced labor, ILO labor standards chief Kari Tapiola today said he is "optimistic" the country will "in the long run" allow a permanent ILO office in the capital, Yangon.

    "We are ready when they are ready," Tapiola said. "At this moment," he added, "Myanmar is in the category of governments which have not yet said to the international community, 'Yes, we are ready to cooperate.' ... We are not pointing the finger at any government, but we are interested in supporting governments in taking action."

    Discussions with the ILO team have focused on the permanent office, the appointment of an ombudsman and inquiries into murders of forced labor whistle-blowers. The team, which is to report to the ILO's governing council at its meeting March 18, has established a "good working relationship" with the junta, according to team leader Francis Maupain.

    "We hope that, in their own interest, there will be a movement here before we leave, a gesture that we can report to the ILO governing body," Maupain said. "The fact that they have agreed to talk with us gives us a good foundation, but we cannot say what the result will be."

    Myanmar has until now rejected the idea of a permanent ILO office, but the country did declare forced labor illegal following a 2000 ILO threat to seek more sanctions against Myanmar (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 25).

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    Supreme Court Hears Suu Kyi's Appeal

    By Win Htein
    the Irrawaddy

    February 25, 2002--Burma's Supreme Court heard an appeal from Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers on Wednesday concerning the drawn-out lawsuit filed by her estranged brother regarding ownership of her home, according to her lawyers.

    "We repeatedly read our stand that no foreigner has the right to file a lawsuit for land ownership without permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs," U Kyi Win, the leader of Suu Kyi's legal team, told the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). "If they (the court) allow it, the legal system has no meaning."

    However, the legal team representing Aung San Oo, Suu Kyi's brother again claimed at the appeal hearing that they do have the legal right to file the suit. Suu Kyi's lawyers said they are hoping a decision will be made in the next week.

    The disputed home is located on Rangoon's Inya Lake, where Suu Kyi is under house arrest. Observers feel the regime originally backed the suit until Suu Kyi began secret talks with the military leaders in October 2000.

    Aung San Oo, who lives in the United States, claims that he is entitled to half of the home that was originally owned by their parents, Gen Aung San and his wife Daw Khin Kyi. Daw Khin Kyi passed away in 1988 and Gen Aung San was assassinated in 1947.

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    ULFA insurgents killed

    February 25, 2002 Mizzima News (www.mizzima.com)

    Guwahati: Five United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) militants were killed in an encounter with security forces along the Indo-Burma border early Sunday morning.

    According to the security forces, a twenty-member group of ULFA members got into an encounter with the security forces on the Stilwell Road while trying to enter Indian territory from Burma. Reportedly, the militants fired indiscriminately on the security personnel following which a fierce encounter lasting for about four hours ensued in which five militants were killed.

    The security personnel later recovered one universal machine gun, two AK 56 rifles, 200 rounds of magazines and five hand grenades. This was the second major encounter within one week. Recently security forces shot dead four ULFA members near the Dibru-Saikhowa Reserve forest and recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunitions.

    It is reported that ULFA militants are now consolidating their bases in Myanmar with the active support of the Chin Independence Army and the National Socialist Council Of Nagaland (NSCN). Security sources say they have intensified their operations accordingly.

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    Police seize ya ba haul 'of Wei associate'

    source : The nation

    Provincial police yesterday seized 258,000 methamphetamine tablets said to belong to suspected trafficker Ubon Kamfubutr, 50, who was earlier arrested in a sting operation.

    Police Region 5 commissioner Pol Lt-General Jesadang Phrom-sakha na Sakon Nakhon said Ubon was a key trafficker in the drug ring run by an accomplice of fugitive drug lord Wei Xieu-kang. Following Ubon's arrest, police said they found the illicit drugs at a remote rice field in Mae Sai district before the suspect's accomplices could destroy them.

    Jesadang said Ubon acted as a go-between for supplies for the Burma's Red Wa group and for transporting its illicit drugs to markets in the eastern provinces and along the Thai-Cambodian border. Authorities have impounded Ubon's assets of Bt5 million, believed to be the profits of illegal activities, pending her prosecution.

    In separate operations, drugs-suppression police rounded up another five alleged traffickers, including a village headman in Chiang Rai, and seized 238,000 methamphetamine tablets. Meanwhile, Narcotics Suppres-sion Bureau commissioner Pol Lt-General Priewpan Damapong warned police officers at Tha Rua police station to stop condoning the illicit drug trade in the Klong Toei community in Bangkok.

    Priewpan said his bureau had taken over the responsibility for drug suppression in the community from Tha Rua police. He said the Tha Rua police, most of whom were non-commissioned officers, should reform or face the legal action.

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    Most stolen cars head west

    Piyanart Srivalo
    The Nation

    Burma is fast replacing Cambodia as the favourite |route for cross-border smugg-ling of cars from Thailand, receiving 90 per cent of vehi-|cles stolen here last year, the National Intelligence Co-|ordination Centre (NICC) told Cabinet yesterday. Stolen motorcycles, meanwhile, are smuggled to Laos via both land and water routes, according to the NICC.

    "Last year 6,462 vehicles were stolen and smuggled to neighbouring countries. Of these, 5,108 were motorcycles," it reported. In the past, most stolen cars went to Cambodia, but this changed after Phnom Penh introduced new regulations so that only left-hand-drive cars could be registered, making Thailand's right-hand-drive cars obsolete.

    To transport the cars to Burma, some smugglers chose to drive the vehicles through commonly used checkpoints with falsified documents. Others drove them across low mountains or through shallow rivers on the border between the two countries.

    According to the NICC, the exit areas are in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, Tak, Kanchanaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan provinces. It said the smuggling networks' major customers were Burmese ethnic minorities who profited from selling narcotics.

    Vehicles are smuggled to Malaysia by a different method. Cars are driven into Malaysia with proper documents but police are notified that they have been stolen in Malaysia. The NICC called on the government to tackle the problem out of concern that the car-smuggling business would support other illegal trades, particularly drug trafficking.

    The NICC reported that it was easy for stolen motorcycles to be smuggled to Laos because of their weight and shape. It said the exit areas for these were Chiang Rai, Uttaradit, Loei, Nong Khai, Mukdahan and Ubon Ratchathani provinces.

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    Fire Devastates Yenanchaung

    By Win Htein
    The Irrawaddy

    February 26, 2002-An explosion has left over 10,000 people homeless after a fire ripped through Yenanchaung city in central Burma last Wednesday. Despite the immense number of displaced persons, no casualties have been reported, according to a fire department official.

    "It began around 2:30 in the afternoon and blasted over 1,000 houses," an official from Yenanchaung fire department told the Democratic Voice of Burma. "But there were no casualties.''

    The cause of the fire is still unknown, however, it is believed to be related to the petroleum industry in Yenanchaung, which is located some 400 kilometers north of Rangoon. According to fire officials, a total of 2,000 houses were destroyed before the blaze was finally brought under control by firefighters who battled the fire for nearly ten hours.

    Burma's military government has not made any official announcement regarding the fire, although a local military commander has ordered emergency donations from nearby towns and villages for those left homeless by the blaze.

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