Daily News- September 06- 2002- Friday

  • Myanmar junta jails two members of Aung San Suu Kyi's party
  • Panel wants probe into attacks on Shan
  • DELICATE DIPLOMACY: Junta asks Princess to visit Burma
  • Myanmar naval vessel sinks, killing six

    • Myanmar junta jails two members of Aung San Suu Kyi's party

    YANGON, Sept 5 (AFP) - Two members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) have been sentenced to three years in jail for possessing a journal published by exiled dissidents, party sources said Thursday.

    The two, Aung Thein and Kyaw Naing Oo, both members of the NLD youth wing, were arrested on August 22 and tried successively on August 23 and 26, NLD officials said.

    They were found guilty under a 1950 emergency provision act and sentenced Thursday, even as seven other NLD members were released from jail in a gesture designed to mark a European Union delegation visit to Yangon this weekend.

    Myanmar's ruling junta announced Thursday that 39 women prisoners and another prisoner jailed "for connection with unlawful organisations" had been freed from jail along with the seven NLD ahead of Sunday's EU mission.

    Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed since the beginning of 2001 in goodwill gestures linked with fledgling talks between the junta and the opposition, but some 1,500 are believed to be still incarcerated.

    Since being freed in May from 19 months under house arrest, NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said her party's top priority is to secure the release of all the political prisoners in the country's jails.The Nobel Peace laureate suggested last month that a mass release would be a precondition to her beginning a long-awaited political dialogue with the regime.

    The Thailand-based magazine Irrawaddy quoted family sources as saying that the pair sentenced Thursday were beaten during their arrest for possessing the New Era (Khit Pyaing) journal, which is published by dissidents in Bangkok.

    Kyaw Naing Oo's family said he received five stitches in his head as a result of injuries sustained during an attack by five or six police officers as he walked near Rangoon's Thiri Mingalar market.The magazine said the two are active members of the NLD, and are also close to Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

    "They accompanied Aung San Suu Kyi on some of her political trips," one friend told The Irrawaddy. "Thats also one of the reasons why we think they were arrested in such a harsh way."

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    Panel wants probe into attacks on Shan

    Supoj Wancharoen
    The Bangkokpost

    The Senate committee on foreign affairs wants the United Nations to investigate reports of violence by Burmese troops against Shan ethnic people in Burma.

    On Tuesday, Burma rejected claims by panel chairman Kraisak Choonhavan that Burmese, Wa and local troops had tortured Shan ethnic people in Shan state. Burma's Labour Minister Tin Win and intelligence deputy chief Maj-Gen Kyaw Win denied the claims.

    Banthoon Krirkpitthaya, the Senate foreign committee's spokesman, said Rangoon should allow the UN and human rights organisations to look into the allegations.

    ``Committee members went to the border in Wiang Haeng district, Chiang Mai. We met almost 600 Shan refugees who said Burmese forces had killed Shan people, raped them and forced them into labour,'' he said.

    DELICATE DIPLOMACY: Junta asks Princess to visit Burma

    The Nation

    Burma's military junta has invited HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn to make an official visit, signalling that relations between the two countries are sound, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday.

    The junta has invited Her Royal Highness to visit Burma by the end of October to show respect to the Thai monarchy and will offer a well-prepared welcome, he said.

    Relations between the two countries soured after border skirmishes in May that prompted a closure of the border.

    The announcement came after Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aung cancelled a meeting scheduled for today with his Thai counterpart Surakiart Sathirathai to discuss reopening the border.

    Thaksin declined to link the royal visit with the border reopening, saying the resolution of border issues would follow normalised relations.Several factors affect relations between the two counties, he said, including fighting between armed minorities and Burmese government troops along the border.Hundreds of thousands of Burmese from minority groups have fled the conflict to Thailand.Thaksin said he wanted to see the situation in Burma improve before any repatriation of refugees.

    Shan minorities recently accused the junta's soldiers of routinely raping ethnic women. In a Thai version of the report "License to Rape" released yesterday, a Shan group said the junta used rape as a weapon of war against minorities.

    Senator Kraisak Choonhavan said the international community should take action to solve the problem, as Thailand alone can not do so. The Thai government often turns a blind eye to "aggressive incidents nearby", he said.

    National Human Right Commissioner Sunee Chayaros said Thailand should bring the issue of the alleged rapes to international attention. The government should set up shelters for the women who flee to Thailand and provide psychological support, she said.

    Ticha na Nakhon, from the Women and the Constitution Network, said the International Criminal Court should investigate the fate of Shan women."Those women do not have the bargaining power to relieve their plight unless the rest of the world knows about their fate," she said.

    Virada Somswasdi, president of the Women Studies Centre at Chiang Mai University, said all rape, not just of the Shan, is an insult to all men who are fathers, husbands and sons of the victims.

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    Myanmar naval vessel sinks, killing six

    YANGON, Sept 5 (AFP) - A Myanmar navy patrol vessel sank earlier this month off the country's southern coast, killing six people including the captain, the military government said Thursday.

    "On August 13th a Myanmar naval vessel sank due to bad weather conditions," a spokesman for the junta said in a statement.The 33 other crew on board were rescued, he said.

    The ill-fated vessel was reported to be Chinese-made. China is one of the largest foreign investors in Myanmar and a main arms supplier to the junta.

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