Democracy map excludes critics
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published December 14, 2003
BANGKOK -- Six months after orchestrating a violent crackdown on democracy activists, Myanmar's ruling military junta is to outline its so-called road map to democracy at an international conference here Monday.
Absent from the list of countries invited to the conference by host Thailand are the United States, Britain and Canada. Those governments took the hardest lines on the junta after the May 30 attack in Myanmar in which pro-junta supporters killed democracy supporters and the junta detained activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
"We have not requested to participate [in the meeting] and have no intention of doing so," said a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Bangkok. "There is a problem with the road map when it is formulated without any participation from members of the democracy movement, and so it is flawed to begin with."
Explaining the decision to exclude the three countries, a Thai government spokesman said, "The aim of the conference is to be constructive."
Asian nations and European governments considered more conciliatory to the junta are to take part in the conference.
France, Austria, Australia and Germany, which have close economic ties with Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, were invited. In its capacity as the current head of the European Union, Italy also was asked to attend.
Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India also are expected to send representatives to the meeting.
"Maybe it's kind of a good cop/bad cop thing," a diplomat in Bangkok from one of the uninvited countries said of the invitation list. "Because there are countries like the U.K., U.S. and Canada, it gives Burma incentive to talk serious with others."
Many analysts believe the path Myanmar takes in the near future will reflect the amount of pressure exerted on the junta by its Asian neighbors and those who have so far refrained from tough talk and action against it.
With sanctions from the United States and others hitting hard, Myanmar, is increasingly relying on loans and business from China and other Asian countries to prevent its economy from collapsing.
The conference comes after 16 political prisoners were released in Myanmar this month, five of whom are members of the National League for Democracy's executive council. They had been placed under house arrest after May 30.
The releases and road map are evidence that the international pressure, led by U.S. economic sanctions, has begun to wear down the resolve of the military government, said Debbie Stafford of Altsean-Burma, a pro-democracy group.
"That's why you see the military regime having to repackage itself, publishing this road map. All of these are strong signals the regime is very worried," she said. "Any effort to ameliorate or reduce international pressure right now would be counterproductive."
Western diplomats in the region are cautious, noting the political cycle in Myanmar has gone up and down since the military took power in 1988.
National League for Democracy leader Suu Kyi, meanwhile is under house arrest for the third time since 1990. She had been held incommunicado for nearly four months by the military after the May 30 attack. Diplomats in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, said their requests to see Suu Kyi have been ignored. The only non-military individual allowed to see the Nobel Peace laureate is her personal doctor. She had a hysterectomy in September.
Four other members of the NLD executive council are in custody, including NLD Vice Chairman U Tin Oo.
While the junta has have released a few dozen political prisoners since May 30, Amnesty International estimates there are still more than 1,000 still being held.
© 2003 The Chicago Tribune
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Malaysia's enigmatic leader to step down today
Mahathir credited and criticized
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - He has been described as an Islamic leader who fights Islamic fundamentalism, as a critic of the West who emulates Western
development, and as a strongman who espouses democracy.
For 22 years, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has confounded critics and delighted supporters with such contradictions. That duality frames the legacy he leaves as he hands over power to his deputy today, according to diplomats, politicians, and analysts here and in Bangkok.
Mahathir, 77, is known for speaking his mind, regardless of whom it might offend, but also for helping to modernize Malaysia.
"Mahathir is a visionary, no doubt about it," said Steven Gan, editor of an opposition-leaning Malaysian news Web page. "But he has a Machiavellian streak in him, and in the process of taking us from where we were to where we are economically, he has destroyed some of the institutions we cherish most like independent courts and police and a free press."
Even his detractors say that the economy under Mahathir's prodding is a success story, as this bustling capital attests. Kuala Lumpur boasts three modern rail systems and the soaring twin Petronas Towers, until recently the world's tallest buildings.
In 1981, when Mahathir took the reins, tin mines and rubber plantations operated a mile outside the city center. He aggressively pursued direct foreign investment, especially in information technology. The industrial component of the country's economic output doubled under Mahathir, from 19 percent to 38 percent.
While he has courted their investment, Mahathir also has alienated many Westerners with frequent anti-Western rants.
Outspoken to the last, he accused Western countries last week of "economic terrorism," saying their trading practices had hurt and killed people in the developing world in the same manner as terrorists had killed innocent people in the developed world.
Such rhetoric has elevated Dr. M, as the trained physician is affectionately known here, to hero status among many Malaysians and throughout much of the developing world.
"He is recognized as someone who speaks for the Third World, and is not afraid to take on the world powers in the West," said Ong Kian Ming, a policy analyst for the main ethnic Chinese party in Malaysia's governing coalition. "He has made a lot of people in this part of the world feel proud."
In the same way, speeches roundly condemned in the West as dangerously anti-Semitic have won him praise in the Muslim world. On Oct. 16, he received a standing ovation from delegates of the Organization of Islamic Countries when he said, "The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy."
His speech to the organization also assailed Muslims who resort to violence, saying that 50 years of fighting Israel had only worsened conditions for Palestinians.
But he stirred further controversy yesterday, when he was asked at a news conference if he had a parting message for Jews.
"They must never claim they are the chosen people who cannot be criticized at all," Mahathir said.
"We sympathize with them. We were very sad to see how the Jews were so ill-treated by the Europeans," he said. "The Muslims have never ill-treated the Jews, but now they [Jews] are behaving exactly in the way the Europeans behaved toward them against the Muslims," referring to the way Israel treats Palestinians.
At home, Mahathir has come under criticism for overseeing curbs on free press and freedom of assembly. Journalists and opposition politicians have been jailed. Police raided Gan's offices in February after his website, Malaysiakini.com, published a letter criticizing government policies.
Sankara Nair, the lawyer for the deposed deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, accused Mahathir of "raping the judiciary" in favor of his own career. The leader is "a puppet master behind what are supposed to be independent courts," Nair said.
Anwar was arrested and convicted of sodomy and corruption in 1998 after he lost a power struggle with Mahathir, who had once picked Anwar as his successor. He remains incarcerated.
"The tragedy of Mahathir is the erosion of freedom of thought and democracy," said Wan Azizah, Anwar's wife and the head of an opposition party formed by her husband before his arrest. "You shouldn't just build physical structures, you should enhance civilization and human development."
Mahathir himself told reporters in Bangkok recently that "democracy is not a monopoly of certain countries. It is open for interpretation. . . . When you force democracy on some countries that have never known it, it can cause anarchy," he said, alluding to the current situation in Iraq.
Since Sep. 11, 2001, Mahathir's interpretation of democracy was largely accepted, if not condoned, by the White House. The Bush administration held up Malaysia as the kind of secular Islamic state it wants to see more of.
When Malaysia shared intelligence with the United States and arrested Al Qaeda suspects, the White House ceased its criticism of Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which Mahathir has used to indefinitely detain alleged militants and political opponents without charging them. The human rights group Amnesty International estimates 200 people are currently in detention under the act.
Still, "[Mahathir] has done what he needs to do for his country," said one Asian diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mahathir has been given credit for keeping the peace between Malaysia's many ethnic communities. Ethnic Malays account for about half of the population, with ethnic Chinese around 25 percent, Indians at 8 percent, and indigenous people the remainder.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - He has been described as an Islamic leader who fights Islamic fundamentalism, as a critic of the West who emulates Western
development, and as a strongman who espouses democracy.
For 22 years, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has confounded critics and delighted supporters with such contradictions. That duality frames the legacy he leaves as he hands over power to his deputy today, according to diplomats, politicians, and analysts here and in Bangkok.
Mahathir, 77, is known for speaking his mind, regardless of whom it might offend, but also for helping to modernize Malaysia.
"Mahathir is a visionary, no doubt about it," said Steven Gan, editor of an opposition-leaning Malaysian news Web page. "But he has a Machiavellian streak in him, and in the process of taking us from where we were to where we are economically, he has destroyed some of the institutions we cherish most like independent courts and police and a free press."
Even his detractors say that the economy under Mahathir's prodding is a success story, as this bustling capital attests. Kuala Lumpur boasts three modern rail systems and the soaring twin Petronas Towers, until recently the world's tallest buildings.
In 1981, when Mahathir took the reins, tin mines and rubber plantations operated a mile outside the city center. He aggressively pursued direct foreign investment, especially in information technology. The industrial component of the country's economic output doubled under Mahathir, from 19 percent to 38 percent.
While he has courted their investment, Mahathir also has alienated many Westerners with frequent anti-Western rants.
Outspoken to the last, he accused Western countries last week of "economic terrorism," saying their trading practices had hurt and killed people in the developing world in the same manner as terrorists had killed innocent people in the developed world.
Such rhetoric has elevated Dr. M, as the trained physician is affectionately known here, to hero status among many Malaysians and throughout much of the developing world.
"He is recognized as someone who speaks for the Third World, and is not afraid to take on the world powers in the West," said Ong Kian Ming, a policy analyst for the main ethnic Chinese party in Malaysia's governing coalition. "He has made a lot of people in this part of the world feel proud."
In the same way, speeches roundly condemned in the West as dangerously anti-Semitic have won him praise in the Muslim world. On Oct. 16, he received a standing ovation from delegates of the Organization of Islamic Countries when he said, "The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy."
His speech to the organization also assailed Muslims who resort to violence, saying that 50 years of fighting Israel had only worsened conditions for Palestinians.
But he stirred further controversy yesterday, when he was asked at a news conference if he had a parting message for Jews.
"They must never claim they are the chosen people who cannot be criticized at all," Mahathir said.
"We sympathize with them. We were very sad to see how the Jews were so ill-treated by the Europeans," he said. "The Muslims have never ill-treated the Jews, but now they [Jews] are behaving exactly in the way the Europeans behaved toward them against the Muslims," referring to the way Israel treats Palestinians.
At home, Mahathir has come under criticism for overseeing curbs on free press and freedom of assembly. Journalists and opposition politicians have been jailed. Police raided Gan's offices in February after his website, Malaysiakini.com, published a letter criticizing government policies.
Sankara Nair, the lawyer for the deposed deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, accused Mahathir of "raping the judiciary" in favor of his own career. The leader is "a puppet master behind what are supposed to be independent courts," Nair said.
Anwar was arrested and convicted of sodomy and corruption in 1998 after he lost a power struggle with Mahathir, who had once picked Anwar as his successor. He remains incarcerated.
"The tragedy of Mahathir is the erosion of freedom of thought and democracy," said Wan Azizah, Anwar's wife and the head of an opposition party formed by her husband before his arrest. "You shouldn't just build physical structures, you should enhance civilization and human development."
Mahathir himself told reporters in Bangkok recently that "democracy is not a monopoly of certain countries. It is open for interpretation. . . . When you force democracy on some countries that have never known it, it can cause anarchy," he said, alluding to the current situation in Iraq.
Since Sep. 11, 2001, Mahathir's interpretation of democracy was largely accepted, if not condoned, by the White House. The Bush administration held up Malaysia as the kind of secular Islamic state it wants to see more of.
When Malaysia shared intelligence with the United States and arrested Al Qaeda suspects, the White House ceased its criticism of Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which Mahathir has used to indefinitely detain alleged militants and political opponents without charging them. The human rights group Amnesty International estimates 200 people are currently in detention under the act.
Still, "[Mahathir] has done what he needs to do for his country," said one Asian diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mahathir has been given credit for keeping the peace between Malaysia's many ethnic communities. Ethnic Malays account for about half of the population, with ethnic Chinese around 25 percent, Indians at 8 percent, and indigenous people the remainder.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Strides on North Korea, Iraq at forum
US-China ties gain; reconstruction aid gathers support
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent
BANGKOK - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum ended yesterday with calls for jump-starting world trade, but the most significant developments occurred on the sidelines of the summit in discussions on North Korea and Iraq.
Separate meetings in Bangkok between President Bush and Presidents Hu Jintao of China and Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea, produced new momentum in dealing with North Korea's nuclear program.
At the meeting, Bush offered multilateral security assurances for North Korea in exchange for nuclear disarmament. Last night, Pyongyang insisted that it wanted a bilateral agreement with the United States.
Bush was successful in persuading some APEC members to contribute aid to rebuild Iraq, ahead of a donors' conference that begins tomorrow in Madrid. Both South Korea and Japan have said they would donate money, and other APEC countries such as New Zealand also appeared supportive.
In a visit to Singapore yesterday, Bush stressed regional cooperation in the war on terrorism. Today he goes to Bali, Indonesia, the site of a terrorist attack in October 2002 that killed 202 people.
Although ostensibly dedicated to economics, the 21-nation APEC summit was dominated this year by security and terrorism issues.
"There is broad agreement within APEC that economics and security now go hand in hand," a senior US official said Monday.
In a final four-page statement, the leaders emphasized their collective belief that last month's World Trade Organization conference in Cancun, Mexico, represented a missed opportunity to further multilateral trade. The talks collapsed amid disputes between poor and wealthy nations.
Throughout the meetings, a growing partnership was on display between the United States and China, a sign of improving US-China relations two years after a diplomatic tussle over the fatal collision of a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.
Relations between the two nations have improved to the point that US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell twice referred to "our Chinese friends" in a speech Monday to APEC delegates.
"In the past 2 1/2 years, we have worked to achieve a candid, constructive, and strong relationship of the kind that might not have been imaginable just a few years ago," Powell said.
After meeting with Hu, Bush said the two had a "very constructive dialogue," and thanked the Chinese leader for his help on North Korea.
Hu also referred to the Chinese-US relationship as "constructive and cooperative" and said their two meetings this year represent "the very sound momentum of the development of our bilateral relations."
China, however, remains wary of American support for Taiwan, and the United States would very much like to see the Chinese re value their currency, which is kept artificially low.
"It is a sign of a mature relationship between two nations where you don't hold one issue hostage to another issue," Powell said Monday.
Though the United States was not directly involved, momentum also appeared to build toward resolving the political deadlock in Burma, where the military government is holding democracy leaders under house arrest.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent
BANGKOK - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum ended yesterday with calls for jump-starting world trade, but the most significant developments occurred on the sidelines of the summit in discussions on North Korea and Iraq.
Separate meetings in Bangkok between President Bush and Presidents Hu Jintao of China and Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea, produced new momentum in dealing with North Korea's nuclear program.
At the meeting, Bush offered multilateral security assurances for North Korea in exchange for nuclear disarmament. Last night, Pyongyang insisted that it wanted a bilateral agreement with the United States.
Bush was successful in persuading some APEC members to contribute aid to rebuild Iraq, ahead of a donors' conference that begins tomorrow in Madrid. Both South Korea and Japan have said they would donate money, and other APEC countries such as New Zealand also appeared supportive.
In a visit to Singapore yesterday, Bush stressed regional cooperation in the war on terrorism. Today he goes to Bali, Indonesia, the site of a terrorist attack in October 2002 that killed 202 people.
Although ostensibly dedicated to economics, the 21-nation APEC summit was dominated this year by security and terrorism issues.
"There is broad agreement within APEC that economics and security now go hand in hand," a senior US official said Monday.
In a final four-page statement, the leaders emphasized their collective belief that last month's World Trade Organization conference in Cancun, Mexico, represented a missed opportunity to further multilateral trade. The talks collapsed amid disputes between poor and wealthy nations.
Throughout the meetings, a growing partnership was on display between the United States and China, a sign of improving US-China relations two years after a diplomatic tussle over the fatal collision of a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.
Relations between the two nations have improved to the point that US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell twice referred to "our Chinese friends" in a speech Monday to APEC delegates.
"In the past 2 1/2 years, we have worked to achieve a candid, constructive, and strong relationship of the kind that might not have been imaginable just a few years ago," Powell said.
After meeting with Hu, Bush said the two had a "very constructive dialogue," and thanked the Chinese leader for his help on North Korea.
Hu also referred to the Chinese-US relationship as "constructive and cooperative" and said their two meetings this year represent "the very sound momentum of the development of our bilateral relations."
China, however, remains wary of American support for Taiwan, and the United States would very much like to see the Chinese re value their currency, which is kept artificially low.
"It is a sign of a mature relationship between two nations where you don't hold one issue hostage to another issue," Powell said Monday.
Though the United States was not directly involved, momentum also appeared to build toward resolving the political deadlock in Burma, where the military government is holding democracy leaders under house arrest.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, October 19, 2003
Bangkok readies for economic summit
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 10/19/2003
BANGKOK -- It's not every city that has to issue an order for elephants to stay off the streets. But this freewheeling metropolis has done just that amid preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting this week.
Leaders from 21 countries will convene in Bangkok tomorrow and Tuesday. President Bush, who arrived in Thailand late yesterday, will be on hand as the heads of state discuss improving cooperation on counterterrorism and security issues, and expanding economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Even before the meetings began, some Pacific Rim ministers expressed reservations yesterday about a US drive to put the fight against terror on an equal footing with economic issues. Still, the foreign ministers agreed to a US proposal that would impose new limits on the production, export, and brokering of shoulder-fired antiaircraft rockets, which are capable of bringing down airplanes.
Reports surfaced this month that 10 such missiles were smuggled into Thailand from Cambodia, setting Thai police on a fruitless search for the weapons.
Security precautions have been stepped up amid fears that the forum represents a high-profile terrorist target in a region of the world where terrorists have struck repeatedly in the past few years.
Twenty-thousand Thai police and separate contingents of security forces from each member country are assigned to protect the heads of state and their envoys. An American security official in Thailand said 1,000 US security agents would be in Bangkok to protect Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and the 500 staff and 200 media members accompanying them.
Meanwhile, the Thai government has gone to great lengths -- some say too far -- to beautify Bangkok for the conference and discourage protests.
Among the more controversial moves was the deportation of more than 600 Cambodian beggars from Bangkok. They were flown back to Phnom Penh by Thailand two weeks ago and told they faced arrest if they returned.
In addition to the warning about elephants, which are seen often on the streets, the government also shipped off thousands of homeless people and thousands of stray dogs from Bangkok for the duration of the meeting. The homeless are being put up at army camps, while the dogs were sent to northern Thailand.
At Phantip Plaza, a five-story mall known for carrying the best selection of pirated software, music, and videos, the same vendors who two weeks ago sold the contraband are now hawking Thai beer, T-shirts, and trinkets.
But security has received the most attention. Although no terrorist attacks have occurred in Thailand, as they have in Indonesia and the Philippines, high-profile terrorists have infiltrated this predominantly Buddhist country of 60 million people.
Al Qaeda's suspected chief of operations for Southeast Asia, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was caught an hour north of Bangkok in August in a joint US-Thai operation. In June, a sting operation in Bangkok captured a suspect accused of trying to sell radioactive material fit for use in a so-called dirty bomb.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra issued an order banning demonstrations during the forum but has retreated somewhat by allowing peaceful, approved protests. He has threatened "long and painful consequences" for groups that cause trouble. Thai embassies around the world have been collecting information on certain groups for months to determine who to blacklist from travel visas, singling out groups that have protested against governments of APEC member states and Thailand's neighbors. The groups include Falun Gong sect members and prodemocracy activists from Burma.
But local human rights groups said they will hold protests against free-trade policies and against Bush over the Iraq war.
"Our position is that the people have the right to peaceful assembly and the right to express their concerns," said Somchai Homlaor, secretary general of the pan-Asian human rights group Forum Asia. "I don't think the government has the power to prohibit that; it's a right under our constitution and under international law."
Along the sidelines of the APEC meeting, Bush is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of China, South Korea, and Mexico. The encounter with President Hu Jintao of China will be the first ever face-to-face between the two since Hu assumed the post. They are expected to discuss efforts to dissuade North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and the possible revaluation of the Chinese currency.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
BANGKOK -- It's not every city that has to issue an order for elephants to stay off the streets. But this freewheeling metropolis has done just that amid preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting this week.
Leaders from 21 countries will convene in Bangkok tomorrow and Tuesday. President Bush, who arrived in Thailand late yesterday, will be on hand as the heads of state discuss improving cooperation on counterterrorism and security issues, and expanding economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Even before the meetings began, some Pacific Rim ministers expressed reservations yesterday about a US drive to put the fight against terror on an equal footing with economic issues. Still, the foreign ministers agreed to a US proposal that would impose new limits on the production, export, and brokering of shoulder-fired antiaircraft rockets, which are capable of bringing down airplanes.
Reports surfaced this month that 10 such missiles were smuggled into Thailand from Cambodia, setting Thai police on a fruitless search for the weapons.
Security precautions have been stepped up amid fears that the forum represents a high-profile terrorist target in a region of the world where terrorists have struck repeatedly in the past few years.
Twenty-thousand Thai police and separate contingents of security forces from each member country are assigned to protect the heads of state and their envoys. An American security official in Thailand said 1,000 US security agents would be in Bangkok to protect Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and the 500 staff and 200 media members accompanying them.
Meanwhile, the Thai government has gone to great lengths -- some say too far -- to beautify Bangkok for the conference and discourage protests.
Among the more controversial moves was the deportation of more than 600 Cambodian beggars from Bangkok. They were flown back to Phnom Penh by Thailand two weeks ago and told they faced arrest if they returned.
In addition to the warning about elephants, which are seen often on the streets, the government also shipped off thousands of homeless people and thousands of stray dogs from Bangkok for the duration of the meeting. The homeless are being put up at army camps, while the dogs were sent to northern Thailand.
At Phantip Plaza, a five-story mall known for carrying the best selection of pirated software, music, and videos, the same vendors who two weeks ago sold the contraband are now hawking Thai beer, T-shirts, and trinkets.
But security has received the most attention. Although no terrorist attacks have occurred in Thailand, as they have in Indonesia and the Philippines, high-profile terrorists have infiltrated this predominantly Buddhist country of 60 million people.
Al Qaeda's suspected chief of operations for Southeast Asia, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was caught an hour north of Bangkok in August in a joint US-Thai operation. In June, a sting operation in Bangkok captured a suspect accused of trying to sell radioactive material fit for use in a so-called dirty bomb.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra issued an order banning demonstrations during the forum but has retreated somewhat by allowing peaceful, approved protests. He has threatened "long and painful consequences" for groups that cause trouble. Thai embassies around the world have been collecting information on certain groups for months to determine who to blacklist from travel visas, singling out groups that have protested against governments of APEC member states and Thailand's neighbors. The groups include Falun Gong sect members and prodemocracy activists from Burma.
But local human rights groups said they will hold protests against free-trade policies and against Bush over the Iraq war.
"Our position is that the people have the right to peaceful assembly and the right to express their concerns," said Somchai Homlaor, secretary general of the pan-Asian human rights group Forum Asia. "I don't think the government has the power to prohibit that; it's a right under our constitution and under international law."
Along the sidelines of the APEC meeting, Bush is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of China, South Korea, and Mexico. The encounter with President Hu Jintao of China will be the first ever face-to-face between the two since Hu assumed the post. They are expected to discuss efforts to dissuade North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and the possible revaluation of the Chinese currency.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Wheels of reform stuck, critics say
Skepticism persists despite Myanmar's release of Suu Kyi
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published September 28, 2003
BANGKOK -- Despite the return of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to her home Friday for the first time in nearly four months, there has been no concrete movement toward democracy in Myanmar, diplomats in Yangon and Bangkok said Saturday.
It was far more likely that the military junta that rules Myanmar allowed Suu Kyi to return home to convalesce from gynecological surgery as a means of diverting attention from the situation there before an Oct. 7-8 summit of regional leaders in Bali, Indonesia, they said.
Diplomats also characterized the move as a calculated measure by the military to portray itself as sympathetic to Suu Kyi without appearing to bend to foreign will.
"It's all about managing the level of international pressure," said a Western diplomat in Yangon. "It's not an indication that they actually want to reform."
As long as the Nobel peace laureate and the leaders of her National League for Democracy remain under house arrest, there is very little chance that the wheels of democracy can move in Myanmar in the near future, the diplomat said.
The military arrested Suu Kyi and dozens of her supporters May 30 after an attack by a pro-military militia that killed scores of democracy activists traveling in her convoy.
In the following days, the junta shut down the opposition group and placed its leadership under house arrest. Suu Kyi was held incommunicado at an undisclosed site until she was moved Sept. 20 for her operation at a hospital in the capital, Yangon.
Amnesty International estimates there are 1,300 political prisoners in Myanmar, and diplomats say their fate is also important to the democratic process.
The military has been in power since 1988, when the country was known as Burma.
International pressure
Since launching the most recent crackdown on the democratic movement, the junta has received diplomats who demanded Suu Kyi's release.
The regime also has endured economic sanctions from the United States and other countries; the cessation of aid from its largest financial donor, Japan; and an unprecedented diplomatic rebuke from its Southeast Asian neighbors.
Yet despite near worldwide condemnation, diplomats and political analysts say there are few signs of the military's relenting in its crackdown.
"When they release her from being held incommunicado to house arrest are we supposed to say, `Great'?" a Western diplomat in Bangkok said. "This is not a time to congratulate the Burmese government."
Such skepticism persists among Western diplomats in the region despite Suu Kyi's return home and a "road map to democracy" announced in August by Myanmar Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
The government's record of broken promises makes it hard to believe that the proposal is sincere, said another diplomat in Yangon.
Furthermore, the junta has yet to say it will accept the NLD as a partner in talks on reforms.
Some Asian governments see the situation differently.
Thailand, which has been criticized for not taking a harder stand against the junta, is optimistic about the prospects for the road map, Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said.
Many Western diplomats are lamenting the lack of public pressure from the one nation they believe has strong influence with the junta: China.
In recent years, China has come to economically dominate northern Myanmar, and the Chinese government has extended hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to the military since it seized power.
Unlike the rest of Myanmar's neighbors, the Chinese have said they consider Suu Kyi's detention and the broader crackdown on democracy to be internal issues best handled without foreign influence.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon said the American officials are talking with many countries to bring as much pressure to bear on the junta as possible.
"The more multilateral the pressure, the more effective it is," the spokesman said.
Sanctions costing jobs
The United States has slapped Myanmar with economic sanctions that are likely to have severe effects on the Myanmar economy, a Western diplomat said in Bangkok.
Some reports have placed the number of jobs lost as a result of the sanctions at 100,000 to 300,000.
"There are probably some generals who own factories that aren't making money now that were before, and that might have an impact," the diplomat said.
But if the economic sanctions ultimately fail to persuade the military regime to change, there may be few alternatives left for the United States to pursue, the diplomat added.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published September 28, 2003
BANGKOK -- Despite the return of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to her home Friday for the first time in nearly four months, there has been no concrete movement toward democracy in Myanmar, diplomats in Yangon and Bangkok said Saturday.
It was far more likely that the military junta that rules Myanmar allowed Suu Kyi to return home to convalesce from gynecological surgery as a means of diverting attention from the situation there before an Oct. 7-8 summit of regional leaders in Bali, Indonesia, they said.
Diplomats also characterized the move as a calculated measure by the military to portray itself as sympathetic to Suu Kyi without appearing to bend to foreign will.
"It's all about managing the level of international pressure," said a Western diplomat in Yangon. "It's not an indication that they actually want to reform."
As long as the Nobel peace laureate and the leaders of her National League for Democracy remain under house arrest, there is very little chance that the wheels of democracy can move in Myanmar in the near future, the diplomat said.
The military arrested Suu Kyi and dozens of her supporters May 30 after an attack by a pro-military militia that killed scores of democracy activists traveling in her convoy.
In the following days, the junta shut down the opposition group and placed its leadership under house arrest. Suu Kyi was held incommunicado at an undisclosed site until she was moved Sept. 20 for her operation at a hospital in the capital, Yangon.
Amnesty International estimates there are 1,300 political prisoners in Myanmar, and diplomats say their fate is also important to the democratic process.
The military has been in power since 1988, when the country was known as Burma.
International pressure
Since launching the most recent crackdown on the democratic movement, the junta has received diplomats who demanded Suu Kyi's release.
The regime also has endured economic sanctions from the United States and other countries; the cessation of aid from its largest financial donor, Japan; and an unprecedented diplomatic rebuke from its Southeast Asian neighbors.
Yet despite near worldwide condemnation, diplomats and political analysts say there are few signs of the military's relenting in its crackdown.
"When they release her from being held incommunicado to house arrest are we supposed to say, `Great'?" a Western diplomat in Bangkok said. "This is not a time to congratulate the Burmese government."
Such skepticism persists among Western diplomats in the region despite Suu Kyi's return home and a "road map to democracy" announced in August by Myanmar Prime Minister Khin Nyunt.
The government's record of broken promises makes it hard to believe that the proposal is sincere, said another diplomat in Yangon.
Furthermore, the junta has yet to say it will accept the NLD as a partner in talks on reforms.
Some Asian governments see the situation differently.
Thailand, which has been criticized for not taking a harder stand against the junta, is optimistic about the prospects for the road map, Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said.
Many Western diplomats are lamenting the lack of public pressure from the one nation they believe has strong influence with the junta: China.
In recent years, China has come to economically dominate northern Myanmar, and the Chinese government has extended hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to the military since it seized power.
Unlike the rest of Myanmar's neighbors, the Chinese have said they consider Suu Kyi's detention and the broader crackdown on democracy to be internal issues best handled without foreign influence.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon said the American officials are talking with many countries to bring as much pressure to bear on the junta as possible.
"The more multilateral the pressure, the more effective it is," the spokesman said.
Sanctions costing jobs
The United States has slapped Myanmar with economic sanctions that are likely to have severe effects on the Myanmar economy, a Western diplomat said in Bangkok.
Some reports have placed the number of jobs lost as a result of the sanctions at 100,000 to 300,000.
"There are probably some generals who own factories that aren't making money now that were before, and that might have an impact," the diplomat said.
But if the economic sanctions ultimately fail to persuade the military regime to change, there may be few alternatives left for the United States to pursue, the diplomat added.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Nations demanding release of Suu Kyi
By Rafael D. Frankel, Special to the Tribune. Tribune news services contributed to this report
Published July 30, 2003
BANGKOK -- Two months after a crackdown on democracy groups in Myanmar, the military junta finds itself besieged by growing demands from governments around the world to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of her followers.
Yet rather than showing signs of flexibility, the military is taking an indignant stance, analysts said, and ratcheting up the rhetoric against the National League for Democracy, which is headed by Suu Kyi.
The 58-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, who has spent much of the past 13 years under house arrest, has been held incommunicado by the junta since May 30 when she and hundreds of her supporters were arrested after a rally in northern Myanmar. The junta originally said Suu Kyi was being held "temporarily" in "protective custody."
Red Cross officials visited the pro-democracy leader Monday for the first time since she was detained. Michel Ducreaux, the agency's Myanmar representative, told Reuters on Tuesday that she was in good health and in "high spirits." He did not disclose where she is being held.
Condemnation of the junta for Suu Kyi's detention has come from around the world.
President Bush on Monday signed into law economic sanctions against Myanmar that had been quickly approved by Congress. The sanctions impose a ban on imports from Myanmar, freeze assets of the military government, expand a ban on granting U.S. visas to Myanmar officials and bar virtually all remittances to the country.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, exported about $356 million in products to the United States in 2002, mostly garments.
The European Union has taken similar steps, and Japan, the largest economic donor to Myanmar, has cut off all of its funding.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad recently warned that Myanmar could be expelled from the 10-member group of Southeast Asian nations, which previously had a strict policy of non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.
There is "a lot of coordination between certain governments that think the same way" to put pressure on the junta, a Western diplomat said in Yangon, Myanmar's capital. "And there is a lot of effort by the U.S. to influence many governments to adopt similar positions."
But with each criticism from the international community, the junta has intensified its attacks on Suu Kyi and the league.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Published July 30, 2003
BANGKOK -- Two months after a crackdown on democracy groups in Myanmar, the military junta finds itself besieged by growing demands from governments around the world to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of her followers.
Yet rather than showing signs of flexibility, the military is taking an indignant stance, analysts said, and ratcheting up the rhetoric against the National League for Democracy, which is headed by Suu Kyi.
The 58-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, who has spent much of the past 13 years under house arrest, has been held incommunicado by the junta since May 30 when she and hundreds of her supporters were arrested after a rally in northern Myanmar. The junta originally said Suu Kyi was being held "temporarily" in "protective custody."
Red Cross officials visited the pro-democracy leader Monday for the first time since she was detained. Michel Ducreaux, the agency's Myanmar representative, told Reuters on Tuesday that she was in good health and in "high spirits." He did not disclose where she is being held.
Condemnation of the junta for Suu Kyi's detention has come from around the world.
President Bush on Monday signed into law economic sanctions against Myanmar that had been quickly approved by Congress. The sanctions impose a ban on imports from Myanmar, freeze assets of the military government, expand a ban on granting U.S. visas to Myanmar officials and bar virtually all remittances to the country.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, exported about $356 million in products to the United States in 2002, mostly garments.
The European Union has taken similar steps, and Japan, the largest economic donor to Myanmar, has cut off all of its funding.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad recently warned that Myanmar could be expelled from the 10-member group of Southeast Asian nations, which previously had a strict policy of non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.
There is "a lot of coordination between certain governments that think the same way" to put pressure on the junta, a Western diplomat said in Yangon, Myanmar's capital. "And there is a lot of effort by the U.S. to influence many governments to adopt similar positions."
But with each criticism from the international community, the junta has intensified its attacks on Suu Kyi and the league.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Sunday, July 20, 2003
As dengue outbreak looms, Cambodia families tremble
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/20/2003
SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- For the next three months, monsoons will push through Southeast Asia, drenching the region with the daily downpours that sustain this lush region.
With the rains come mosquitoes. And at such places as the Angkor Hospital for Children in this northwestern Cambodian town known for the nearby 1,000-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, that means combating a growing wave of dengue fever -- including the potentially deadly hemorrhagic form.
''We obviously hope to do better this year,'' said Dr. Eugene Tragus, chief of medicine for the hospital, ''but they tell us it's going to be another bad year.''
Seven children there are being treated for dengue. And doctors are bracing for almost 200 cases -- a sharp increase over the same period last year -- by the time the monsoons subside.
Dengue fever, caused by four closely related viruses and found throughout the world's tropical zones, is spreading in Southeast Asia in ways never seen, health officials say. The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite during the day, has begun to buck a trend of occurring in three- to five-year cycles and shows signs of becoming an annual problem.
Children have become the main victims in Southeast Asia. In particular, Type 4 dengue, which causes hemorrhagic fever and carries with it the highest instance of death, preys most commonly on children younger than 7.
Scientists do not know why children contract the Type 4 strain more often. The phenomenon has not been seen in Central America, another hot spot for dengue, according to Dr. Chang Moh Seng, the World Health Organization's regional point man for the illness.
And scientists have not pinpointed why the disease is occurring with more frequency, although weather patterns, increased population density, and virulent strains are among the possibilities.
Malaria is a more deadly threat in the region. For a country like Cambodia, which is struggling with myriad health issues, where about half its 12.2 million people are under 15, the prospect of dengue morphing from a cyclical epidemic to an annual crisis is daunting, said Chang, who works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
''It's possible that dengue is moving to a highly endemic disease,'' he said. ''The signs from the first four months indicate this will be an especially bad year.''
Cambodia recorded almost 12,000 cases of dengue last year; the death rate was almost 2 percent. This year, cases of dengue are 50 percent higher than they were at the same time in 2002.
Lack of funding is among the chief hindrances for health workers in Cambodia.
For the past three years, the government received $150,000 annually from the US Agency for International Development to fight dengue. Half of that amount went toward large-scale larviciding -- spreading a chemical in city and town water supplies; the chemical is toxic enough to kill mosquito larvae without endangering people. This year, USAID has increased its annual contribution to $250,000.
Still, Chang said, ''We are facing a hopeless situation'' trying to keep down the breeding of mosquitoes. He said that again this year, due to lack of money, the government will only be able to spread larvicide in a few of the cities where dengue hits hardest.
Thailand, which is spending more than $3 million fighting dengue this year and will spend $3.4 million next year, is struggling to cope with the disease.
''With SARS winding down, it is the most urgent matter we are facing now,'' said Nitaya Chanruang Mahabhol, a spokeswoman for the Thai Public Health Department.
The Ministry of Public Health in Thailand reported 24,000 dengue cases by the end of May, 23 of them fatal. This accounting put the country on track to surpass the 108,905 cases recorded in 2002.
In contrast, in 2000, the last nonepidemic year, 18,617 cases were reported.
There is no cure. Although trials are underway to develop a vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it could be at least 5 to 10 years before one is available.
Although the death rate from the disease is relatively low, dengue fever's toll on towns like Siem Reap is often worse than it would seem at first glance.
With so many children ill, schools in areas with outbreaks often lag behind, Chang said. And parents who earn little money are often forced to stay home from work to care for sick children.
''It's just a grossly unfair disease,'' Tragus said as he surveyed the board listing the conditions of the children at the Ankgor Hospital. ''Soon, most of these will say `dengue,' and all we can do is really hope for the best.''
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- For the next three months, monsoons will push through Southeast Asia, drenching the region with the daily downpours that sustain this lush region.
With the rains come mosquitoes. And at such places as the Angkor Hospital for Children in this northwestern Cambodian town known for the nearby 1,000-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, that means combating a growing wave of dengue fever -- including the potentially deadly hemorrhagic form.
''We obviously hope to do better this year,'' said Dr. Eugene Tragus, chief of medicine for the hospital, ''but they tell us it's going to be another bad year.''
Seven children there are being treated for dengue. And doctors are bracing for almost 200 cases -- a sharp increase over the same period last year -- by the time the monsoons subside.
Dengue fever, caused by four closely related viruses and found throughout the world's tropical zones, is spreading in Southeast Asia in ways never seen, health officials say. The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite during the day, has begun to buck a trend of occurring in three- to five-year cycles and shows signs of becoming an annual problem.
Children have become the main victims in Southeast Asia. In particular, Type 4 dengue, which causes hemorrhagic fever and carries with it the highest instance of death, preys most commonly on children younger than 7.
Scientists do not know why children contract the Type 4 strain more often. The phenomenon has not been seen in Central America, another hot spot for dengue, according to Dr. Chang Moh Seng, the World Health Organization's regional point man for the illness.
And scientists have not pinpointed why the disease is occurring with more frequency, although weather patterns, increased population density, and virulent strains are among the possibilities.
Malaria is a more deadly threat in the region. For a country like Cambodia, which is struggling with myriad health issues, where about half its 12.2 million people are under 15, the prospect of dengue morphing from a cyclical epidemic to an annual crisis is daunting, said Chang, who works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
''It's possible that dengue is moving to a highly endemic disease,'' he said. ''The signs from the first four months indicate this will be an especially bad year.''
Cambodia recorded almost 12,000 cases of dengue last year; the death rate was almost 2 percent. This year, cases of dengue are 50 percent higher than they were at the same time in 2002.
Lack of funding is among the chief hindrances for health workers in Cambodia.
For the past three years, the government received $150,000 annually from the US Agency for International Development to fight dengue. Half of that amount went toward large-scale larviciding -- spreading a chemical in city and town water supplies; the chemical is toxic enough to kill mosquito larvae without endangering people. This year, USAID has increased its annual contribution to $250,000.
Still, Chang said, ''We are facing a hopeless situation'' trying to keep down the breeding of mosquitoes. He said that again this year, due to lack of money, the government will only be able to spread larvicide in a few of the cities where dengue hits hardest.
Thailand, which is spending more than $3 million fighting dengue this year and will spend $3.4 million next year, is struggling to cope with the disease.
''With SARS winding down, it is the most urgent matter we are facing now,'' said Nitaya Chanruang Mahabhol, a spokeswoman for the Thai Public Health Department.
The Ministry of Public Health in Thailand reported 24,000 dengue cases by the end of May, 23 of them fatal. This accounting put the country on track to surpass the 108,905 cases recorded in 2002.
In contrast, in 2000, the last nonepidemic year, 18,617 cases were reported.
There is no cure. Although trials are underway to develop a vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it could be at least 5 to 10 years before one is available.
Although the death rate from the disease is relatively low, dengue fever's toll on towns like Siem Reap is often worse than it would seem at first glance.
With so many children ill, schools in areas with outbreaks often lag behind, Chang said. And parents who earn little money are often forced to stay home from work to care for sick children.
''It's just a grossly unfair disease,'' Tragus said as he surveyed the board listing the conditions of the children at the Ankgor Hospital. ''Soon, most of these will say `dengue,' and all we can do is really hope for the best.''
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, July 13, 2003
Arrests anger Cambodian Muslims
Antiterror drive seen as political game
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/13/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- These are tense days for the Muslims of Cambodia, long a peaceful minority in this Buddhist country, but now roiled by the specter of international terrorism and the politics of fighting it.
The recent arrests of an Egyptian and two Thai teachers at an Islamic school 20 miles outside the capital sent shock waves through the country's estimated 700,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them ethnic Cambodian Chams. The teachers are accused of having links to the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, which intelligence specialists believe is the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda that is responsible for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people.
The initial shock from the allegation that Jemaah Islamiyah had infiltrated Cham schools and their society has turned to anger with the Cambodian government. Cham leaders accuse the government of drumming up charges against the three teachers to show it was tough on terrorism before a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month.
The government has ''used us in their game as a political issue, to please America and Australia, so they can get aid,'' said Ahmad Yahya, a leader of the Cham community and a secretary of state and deputy minister in the government. ''If these people are terrorists, we are very pleased for the government to arrest and jail them. But they have no proof.''
Since the arrests, the government has declined to disclose evidence against the suspects, and phone calls to the government spokesman seeking comment were not returned. But government and police officials have said they have evidence that the three teachers were involved in Jemaah Islamiyah. The officials also said that authorities acted on intelligence tips from the United States. Security specialists believe that Cambodia could be an ideal place for terrorists, with its porous borders and lax immigration laws.
An official at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not disclose the nature of any intelligence cooperation. But the official said the United States was ''very pleased with the [arrests] and very happy at the cooperation Cambodia has shown in the fight against terror.''
The United States is considering resuming limited military aid to Cambodia, which it suspended after a 1997 coup, if the July 27 general elections are deemed free and fair and if the planned Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is conducted without corruption, the embassy official said.
But Chams say the United States is behaving hypocritically by demanding fairness in the elections and tribunal while turning a blind eye to the manner in which the antiterrorist action was conducted. In addition to the arrest of the three foreign teachers and the deportation of at least 20 others, the government closed the 700-pupil Um al-Qura school where they taught. Its funding from a Saudi group that finances similar schools around the region also was cut off.
At the an-Nur an-Na'im mosque, 6 miles north of Phnom Penh, 18-year-old Sakin Abdullah spoke of the fear many in his community share: that they are being made scapegoats.
''We are worried to make friends with foreigners now,'' said Abdullah, a Cambodian who teaches English and the Koran to preteens in a two-story wooden shack next to the mosque that serves as a madrassa, or Islamic school. ''And we are very worried the government will close our school.''
The mosque, one of about 200 in Cambodia, was built in 1901. It was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge -- which killed more than 100,000 Chams during its brutal late-'70s reign, according to Cham leaders -- but was later rebuilt.
For about 1,300 years, the Champa kingdom existed in what is today central Vietnam. Islam came to the Chams' empire around the eighth century, spreading from what is now Malaysia. After being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, surviving Chams migrated to Cambodia, where they have maintained their community since.
Chams make up about 5 percent of the population. They have lived a mostly harmonious life in Cambodia, largely maintaining their distinct culture. In recent years, Chams have risen to high levels in the government.
But with intelligence specialists pointing to Southeast Asia as a hotbed of terrorist activity, the United States has made fighting terrorism the predominant issue guiding its policy on the region. High-profile arrests of suspected terrorists in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia have won high praise from Washington.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/13/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- These are tense days for the Muslims of Cambodia, long a peaceful minority in this Buddhist country, but now roiled by the specter of international terrorism and the politics of fighting it.
The recent arrests of an Egyptian and two Thai teachers at an Islamic school 20 miles outside the capital sent shock waves through the country's estimated 700,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them ethnic Cambodian Chams. The teachers are accused of having links to the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, which intelligence specialists believe is the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda that is responsible for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people.
The initial shock from the allegation that Jemaah Islamiyah had infiltrated Cham schools and their society has turned to anger with the Cambodian government. Cham leaders accuse the government of drumming up charges against the three teachers to show it was tough on terrorism before a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month.
The government has ''used us in their game as a political issue, to please America and Australia, so they can get aid,'' said Ahmad Yahya, a leader of the Cham community and a secretary of state and deputy minister in the government. ''If these people are terrorists, we are very pleased for the government to arrest and jail them. But they have no proof.''
Since the arrests, the government has declined to disclose evidence against the suspects, and phone calls to the government spokesman seeking comment were not returned. But government and police officials have said they have evidence that the three teachers were involved in Jemaah Islamiyah. The officials also said that authorities acted on intelligence tips from the United States. Security specialists believe that Cambodia could be an ideal place for terrorists, with its porous borders and lax immigration laws.
An official at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not disclose the nature of any intelligence cooperation. But the official said the United States was ''very pleased with the [arrests] and very happy at the cooperation Cambodia has shown in the fight against terror.''
The United States is considering resuming limited military aid to Cambodia, which it suspended after a 1997 coup, if the July 27 general elections are deemed free and fair and if the planned Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is conducted without corruption, the embassy official said.
But Chams say the United States is behaving hypocritically by demanding fairness in the elections and tribunal while turning a blind eye to the manner in which the antiterrorist action was conducted. In addition to the arrest of the three foreign teachers and the deportation of at least 20 others, the government closed the 700-pupil Um al-Qura school where they taught. Its funding from a Saudi group that finances similar schools around the region also was cut off.
At the an-Nur an-Na'im mosque, 6 miles north of Phnom Penh, 18-year-old Sakin Abdullah spoke of the fear many in his community share: that they are being made scapegoats.
''We are worried to make friends with foreigners now,'' said Abdullah, a Cambodian who teaches English and the Koran to preteens in a two-story wooden shack next to the mosque that serves as a madrassa, or Islamic school. ''And we are very worried the government will close our school.''
The mosque, one of about 200 in Cambodia, was built in 1901. It was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge -- which killed more than 100,000 Chams during its brutal late-'70s reign, according to Cham leaders -- but was later rebuilt.
For about 1,300 years, the Champa kingdom existed in what is today central Vietnam. Islam came to the Chams' empire around the eighth century, spreading from what is now Malaysia. After being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, surviving Chams migrated to Cambodia, where they have maintained their community since.
Chams make up about 5 percent of the population. They have lived a mostly harmonious life in Cambodia, largely maintaining their distinct culture. In recent years, Chams have risen to high levels in the government.
But with intelligence specialists pointing to Southeast Asia as a hotbed of terrorist activity, the United States has made fighting terrorism the predominant issue guiding its policy on the region. High-profile arrests of suspected terrorists in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia have won high praise from Washington.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Monday, July 07, 2003
For Cambodia, it's time to look ahead--and back
Elections, tribunal stir up tensions
By Rafael D. Frankel
Tribune special correspondent
Published July 7, 2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Uncertainty and trauma are familiar to Cambodians. And with general elections this month and a tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders coming closer to reality, the Khmer people are again facing disquieting events.
Two national events --one recalling a long past trauma, the other a cyclical torment--are crashing in on this Asian country.
On July 27, Cambodians will vote in what the government promises will be the most fair and free elections Cambodia has known.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled Cambodia since the Vietnamese left in the early 1980s, delivered that message personally to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at a meeting here last month.
On the surface, prospects for such an election appear possible.
"They have done a lot to update their election process," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. "The mechanisms are all in place for credible elections."
"They can reach international standards if they want to," said George Folsom, president of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy around the world.
But Folsom compares Cambodian democracy with that of Belarus and Zimbabwe, where dictators have done their best to squelch opposition.
"Democracy is not just about elections," he said. "There must also be political space for an effective civil dialogue."
And recent remarks by Hun Sen, saying there would be a civil war in Cambodia if his political party loses, are subtle intimidation, according to an election observer from Human Rights Watch.
"The people want [opposition leader] Sam Rainsy," said student Kingvivo Kong, 20. "But the people will vote for [Hun Sen] because we are afraid of war."
"Chronic intimidation" also is coming from village chiefs installed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to instill loyalty in rural areas, according to the Human Rights Watch observer.
Cambodians on edge
"Can a few more people talk about politics without getting shot? Yes," the observer said. "But any real discourse? No."
Most Cambodians are so nervous about being affiliated with a political party that asking whom they will vote for is a deeply personal question. Most people on the street answer, "I don't know."
Election observers are paying special attention to news media coverage of the campaigns that kicked off June 26.
As part of an agreement with the United Nations, one government-sponsored television station is devoting 15 minutes of its news coverage every night to balanced reporting. Cambodian reporters supervised by foreign journalists will report on the campaign in that time slot.
The amount of coverage each of the three main parties receives in the 15 minutes will be roughly equivalent to its representation in the national assembly.
But even as monitors judge whether coverage is balanced, they point out that 15 minutes of fairness is setting the bar conspicuously low.
And many election monitors are issuing comments critical of the government's conduct in the campaign, putting the government on the defensive.
"We will whistle even stronger this time around if the process and results are not legitimate," said Marco Perduca, an election monitor from the Transnational Radical Party based in Europe and the United States.
The campaign is being framed very differently by the competing parties. The ruling Cambodian People's Party is emphasizing the nation's improved roads, new schools and hospitals under Hun Sen.
The Funcinpec Party, headed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is campaigning on weeding out Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. The Sam Rainsy Party is campaigning against corruption in the government and calls itself the party of the working people.
One issue--so far untouched--is how to proceed with the Khmer Rouge tribunal. People's positions on this highly emotional topic are largely defined not by party affiliation but by generation.
Cambodia and the UN signed an agreement in early June to set up a tribunal that would bring aging Khmer Rouge leaders to the stand.
Modern-day Phnom Penh has changed dramatically since it was systematically emptied in 1975 after Khmer Rouge forces took control and banished the population to the countryside, condemning 1.7 million people to deathby execution, starvation, exhaustion and torture.
To those who never knew the nightmare of the Pol Pot years, putting a few old men on trial is not a pressing matter. But to the generation for which the killing fields were a gruesome reality, such a thing is never too far in the past for justice to be denied.
"For people of my son's generation, you come here and you witness an atrocity of history," Mong You said at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison where members of the Cambodian elite were interrogated and tortured before being driven to fields outside of town for execution by bludgeoning.
Horrors still fresh
"But for people of my generation, it feels like only yesterday and the horror is still so fresh."
Mong said "hundreds" of members of his extended family were killed by the Khmer Rouge and that putting the leaders on trial is necessary so they finally can be held accountable for their "genocide." Such trials also would "help history not repeat itself," he said.
More than a desire to see the perpetrators of genocide punished, Cambodians long for a day when they can look upon their justice system as fair, said Youk Chhang, director of a program that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities. In that way, the tribunal is an important election issue, he said.
"How can you grow a democracy without justice?" Youk asked.
"Only once the trial is over, and the verdict is returned, people will speak more freely. And then we will be on our way."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Tribune special correspondent
Published July 7, 2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Uncertainty and trauma are familiar to Cambodians. And with general elections this month and a tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders coming closer to reality, the Khmer people are again facing disquieting events.
Two national events --one recalling a long past trauma, the other a cyclical torment--are crashing in on this Asian country.
On July 27, Cambodians will vote in what the government promises will be the most fair and free elections Cambodia has known.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled Cambodia since the Vietnamese left in the early 1980s, delivered that message personally to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at a meeting here last month.
On the surface, prospects for such an election appear possible.
"They have done a lot to update their election process," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. "The mechanisms are all in place for credible elections."
"They can reach international standards if they want to," said George Folsom, president of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy around the world.
But Folsom compares Cambodian democracy with that of Belarus and Zimbabwe, where dictators have done their best to squelch opposition.
"Democracy is not just about elections," he said. "There must also be political space for an effective civil dialogue."
And recent remarks by Hun Sen, saying there would be a civil war in Cambodia if his political party loses, are subtle intimidation, according to an election observer from Human Rights Watch.
"The people want [opposition leader] Sam Rainsy," said student Kingvivo Kong, 20. "But the people will vote for [Hun Sen] because we are afraid of war."
"Chronic intimidation" also is coming from village chiefs installed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to instill loyalty in rural areas, according to the Human Rights Watch observer.
Cambodians on edge
"Can a few more people talk about politics without getting shot? Yes," the observer said. "But any real discourse? No."
Most Cambodians are so nervous about being affiliated with a political party that asking whom they will vote for is a deeply personal question. Most people on the street answer, "I don't know."
Election observers are paying special attention to news media coverage of the campaigns that kicked off June 26.
As part of an agreement with the United Nations, one government-sponsored television station is devoting 15 minutes of its news coverage every night to balanced reporting. Cambodian reporters supervised by foreign journalists will report on the campaign in that time slot.
The amount of coverage each of the three main parties receives in the 15 minutes will be roughly equivalent to its representation in the national assembly.
But even as monitors judge whether coverage is balanced, they point out that 15 minutes of fairness is setting the bar conspicuously low.
And many election monitors are issuing comments critical of the government's conduct in the campaign, putting the government on the defensive.
"We will whistle even stronger this time around if the process and results are not legitimate," said Marco Perduca, an election monitor from the Transnational Radical Party based in Europe and the United States.
The campaign is being framed very differently by the competing parties. The ruling Cambodian People's Party is emphasizing the nation's improved roads, new schools and hospitals under Hun Sen.
The Funcinpec Party, headed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is campaigning on weeding out Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. The Sam Rainsy Party is campaigning against corruption in the government and calls itself the party of the working people.
One issue--so far untouched--is how to proceed with the Khmer Rouge tribunal. People's positions on this highly emotional topic are largely defined not by party affiliation but by generation.
Cambodia and the UN signed an agreement in early June to set up a tribunal that would bring aging Khmer Rouge leaders to the stand.
Modern-day Phnom Penh has changed dramatically since it was systematically emptied in 1975 after Khmer Rouge forces took control and banished the population to the countryside, condemning 1.7 million people to deathby execution, starvation, exhaustion and torture.
To those who never knew the nightmare of the Pol Pot years, putting a few old men on trial is not a pressing matter. But to the generation for which the killing fields were a gruesome reality, such a thing is never too far in the past for justice to be denied.
"For people of my son's generation, you come here and you witness an atrocity of history," Mong You said at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison where members of the Cambodian elite were interrogated and tortured before being driven to fields outside of town for execution by bludgeoning.
Horrors still fresh
"But for people of my generation, it feels like only yesterday and the horror is still so fresh."
Mong said "hundreds" of members of his extended family were killed by the Khmer Rouge and that putting the leaders on trial is necessary so they finally can be held accountable for their "genocide." Such trials also would "help history not repeat itself," he said.
More than a desire to see the perpetrators of genocide punished, Cambodians long for a day when they can look upon their justice system as fair, said Youk Chhang, director of a program that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities. In that way, the tribunal is an important election issue, he said.
"How can you grow a democracy without justice?" Youk asked.
"Only once the trial is over, and the verdict is returned, people will speak more freely. And then we will be on our way."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Crackdown snags activist
Myanmar military reveals little about Suu Kyi's status
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published June 2, 2003
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the central committee of her National League for Democracy were being held incommunicado by the military government Monday as universities across the country were ordered shut in what analysts said was a new crackdown on the democracy movement in the former Burma.
For a full day there was no word about where the military was holding Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who was detained after a violent confrontation Friday night in the northern town of Ye-U. The military has not confirmed reports that she is back in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, and has not indicated what it intends to do with her. It has only said she was in "protective custody."
Sources told The Associated Press that Suu Kyi was in custody in the capital.
The military took 20 National League members into custody and placed the group's central committee members under house arrest in Yangon. The crackdown occurred after clashes in the north between pro-government demonstrators and Suu Kyi supporters left at least four people dead and 50 injured.
The military also closed the party's headquarters in the capital, along with at least six other offices across the nation, reports from Myanmar said.
Held incommunicado
No detained members of the league, including Suu Kyi, have been allowed outside contact. Telephone lines to the homes of league members in Yangon were cut.
The military said Suu Kyi is unharmed.
"We have been denied the opportunity to talk to any of the members of the NLD central committee and have been given no word from the government on when that could happen," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon.
The closing of all universities and colleges, traditionally hotbeds of political unrest in Myanmar, was announced late Sunday, and many students had not heard the news. Education and security officials turned students away at campuses.
The crackdown has been fomenting for months, analysts said.
Even after 12 years of absence from the public eye, Suu Kyi was greeted by thousands of well-wishers in her initial travels outside Yangon last year.
"Clearly, she was still just too popular for the generals' taste," a longtime political analyst in Yangon said Monday.
The analyst said it remains to be seen whether the military's actions will ultimately lead to the end of the democracy movement in Myanmar.
"This is probably another crackdown like we've seen before," he said, likening the military's actions to similar ones in 1988, 1996 and 1998.
According to the military, Suu Kyi and the 19 party members accompanying her on a political trip to the northern part of the country spent Friday night in Ye-U after their detention.
In statements since the clashes, the military junta, which has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988, blamed Suu Kyi and her followers for the violence, saying they made inflammatory speeches.
The NLD members were "under temporary protective custody," Brig. Than Tun said. It was still unclear who was killed in the violence.
Suspicions about arrest
Pro-democracy activists say the military has been inciting violence against Suu Kyi for months and is using the clashes to justify arresting her again.
"This is an unprecedented level of violence targeted at her directly," said Debbie Stafford, the Burma coordinator for Altsean, a regional pro-democracy group. "It's very clear that the military would have orchestrated an incident like this to teach Suu Kyi a lesson, so that she would not get too big and too popular, so that she would not go out of Rangoon."
Suu Kyi has twice been placed under house arrest, where she spent much of the last 12 years.
Her party overwhelmingly won national elections in 1990 only to see the results nullified by the military and the future Nobel Peace Prize winner denied freedoms. Suu Kyi was released in May 2002 with the promise she was free to travel throughout Myanmar to promote a national reconciliation dialogue agreed to by the military and her supporters.
On Sunday, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Carmen Martinez accompanied her British, German and Italian counterparts to the home of longtime democracy league spokesman U Luwin. The home was under armed guard, the U.S. Embassy spokesman said.
The diplomats were met at the residence by representatives of the Military Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Ministry who insisted Luwin and other league members were not under house arrest or protective custody, the embassy spokesman said.
However, the diplomats were refused entrance and any communication with Luwin.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published June 2, 2003
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the central committee of her National League for Democracy were being held incommunicado by the military government Monday as universities across the country were ordered shut in what analysts said was a new crackdown on the democracy movement in the former Burma.
For a full day there was no word about where the military was holding Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who was detained after a violent confrontation Friday night in the northern town of Ye-U. The military has not confirmed reports that she is back in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, and has not indicated what it intends to do with her. It has only said she was in "protective custody."
Sources told The Associated Press that Suu Kyi was in custody in the capital.
The military took 20 National League members into custody and placed the group's central committee members under house arrest in Yangon. The crackdown occurred after clashes in the north between pro-government demonstrators and Suu Kyi supporters left at least four people dead and 50 injured.
The military also closed the party's headquarters in the capital, along with at least six other offices across the nation, reports from Myanmar said.
Held incommunicado
No detained members of the league, including Suu Kyi, have been allowed outside contact. Telephone lines to the homes of league members in Yangon were cut.
The military said Suu Kyi is unharmed.
"We have been denied the opportunity to talk to any of the members of the NLD central committee and have been given no word from the government on when that could happen," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon.
The closing of all universities and colleges, traditionally hotbeds of political unrest in Myanmar, was announced late Sunday, and many students had not heard the news. Education and security officials turned students away at campuses.
The crackdown has been fomenting for months, analysts said.
Even after 12 years of absence from the public eye, Suu Kyi was greeted by thousands of well-wishers in her initial travels outside Yangon last year.
"Clearly, she was still just too popular for the generals' taste," a longtime political analyst in Yangon said Monday.
The analyst said it remains to be seen whether the military's actions will ultimately lead to the end of the democracy movement in Myanmar.
"This is probably another crackdown like we've seen before," he said, likening the military's actions to similar ones in 1988, 1996 and 1998.
According to the military, Suu Kyi and the 19 party members accompanying her on a political trip to the northern part of the country spent Friday night in Ye-U after their detention.
In statements since the clashes, the military junta, which has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988, blamed Suu Kyi and her followers for the violence, saying they made inflammatory speeches.
The NLD members were "under temporary protective custody," Brig. Than Tun said. It was still unclear who was killed in the violence.
Suspicions about arrest
Pro-democracy activists say the military has been inciting violence against Suu Kyi for months and is using the clashes to justify arresting her again.
"This is an unprecedented level of violence targeted at her directly," said Debbie Stafford, the Burma coordinator for Altsean, a regional pro-democracy group. "It's very clear that the military would have orchestrated an incident like this to teach Suu Kyi a lesson, so that she would not get too big and too popular, so that she would not go out of Rangoon."
Suu Kyi has twice been placed under house arrest, where she spent much of the last 12 years.
Her party overwhelmingly won national elections in 1990 only to see the results nullified by the military and the future Nobel Peace Prize winner denied freedoms. Suu Kyi was released in May 2002 with the promise she was free to travel throughout Myanmar to promote a national reconciliation dialogue agreed to by the military and her supporters.
On Sunday, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Carmen Martinez accompanied her British, German and Italian counterparts to the home of longtime democracy league spokesman U Luwin. The home was under armed guard, the U.S. Embassy spokesman said.
The diplomats were met at the residence by representatives of the Military Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Ministry who insisted Luwin and other league members were not under house arrest or protective custody, the embassy spokesman said.
However, the diplomats were refused entrance and any communication with Luwin.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Thursday, June 12, 2003
4 suspected of targeting embassies in Thailand
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published June 12, 2003
BANGKOK -- Three men arrested in Thailand and a fourth being held in Singapore are members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda, and were plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy and four other foreign missions here, Thai and Singaporean authorities said Wednesday.
The three Thai men and one Singaporean are suspected of planning to bomb the Bangkok embassies of Britain, Israel, Australia and Singapore, as well as popular tourist venues in Thailand, said Lt. Gen. Chumporn Manmai, the commissioner of Thailand's police intelligence unit.
Interrogations in Singapore of Arifin bin Ali, a suspect in the bombing plot, led to the surveillance and eventual arrest of the three Thai men in the far southern province Narathiwat.
"Arifin has disclosed to the Internal Security Department that he is involved with a group of like-minded individuals in planning terrorist attacks against certain targets in Thailand," a statement from Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said.
The plan to bomb the embassies was in the early stages, Chumporn indicated, as the three did not possess explosives or bombmaking material.
However, a document detailing part of their plans was found by Thai police, a spokesman for the Thai prime minister said.
Though arrested in Bangkok on May 16, it was not until Tuesday that Singaporean authorities announced they were holding Arifin, the suspected ringleader. He was taken into custody on immigration violations by Thai police but flown to Singapore a day later at the request of Singaporean intelligence units, Singaporean and Thai sources confirmed.
Arifin said he was a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, and accounts from other members in custody corroborate his story, Singapore's home affairs spokesman said Wednesday. Arifin trained other Jemaah Islamiyah members in military operations and security and was experienced in handling weapons and explosives, the spokesman said.
A plot by Jemaah Islamiyah to blow up the American, Australian and Israeli Embassies in Singapore last year was foiled by Singaporean and Malaysian authorities.
Singaporean intelligence, widely respected throughout Asia, believes Arafin originally went to Narathiwat before moving to Bangkok in January 2002.
Arafin was "on his way to a meeting" when he was picked up by police in Bangkok, Chumporn said. "We don't know who it was with."
Singapore is holding Arafin for interrogation under its Internal Security Act, which allows for detaining suspects indefinitely without charges.
Information provided to Thailand by Singapore from those interrogations led to surveillance being placed on Maisuri Haji Abdulloh, his son Muyahi Haji Doloh and Waemahadi Wae-dao just days before their arrests Tuesday.
The three are now in Bangkok, where Thai police have begun interrogating them.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy here on Wednesday praised Thailand and Singapore for their efforts to fight terrorism.
"It was a rapid and effective response on the part of Thai authorities to apprehend people" suspected of planning terrorist activities, the spokesman said. "It says very good things about the coordination between two members of [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations]."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Special to the Tribune
Published June 12, 2003
BANGKOK -- Three men arrested in Thailand and a fourth being held in Singapore are members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda, and were plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy and four other foreign missions here, Thai and Singaporean authorities said Wednesday.
The three Thai men and one Singaporean are suspected of planning to bomb the Bangkok embassies of Britain, Israel, Australia and Singapore, as well as popular tourist venues in Thailand, said Lt. Gen. Chumporn Manmai, the commissioner of Thailand's police intelligence unit.
Interrogations in Singapore of Arifin bin Ali, a suspect in the bombing plot, led to the surveillance and eventual arrest of the three Thai men in the far southern province Narathiwat.
"Arifin has disclosed to the Internal Security Department that he is involved with a group of like-minded individuals in planning terrorist attacks against certain targets in Thailand," a statement from Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said.
The plan to bomb the embassies was in the early stages, Chumporn indicated, as the three did not possess explosives or bombmaking material.
However, a document detailing part of their plans was found by Thai police, a spokesman for the Thai prime minister said.
Though arrested in Bangkok on May 16, it was not until Tuesday that Singaporean authorities announced they were holding Arifin, the suspected ringleader. He was taken into custody on immigration violations by Thai police but flown to Singapore a day later at the request of Singaporean intelligence units, Singaporean and Thai sources confirmed.
Arifin said he was a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, and accounts from other members in custody corroborate his story, Singapore's home affairs spokesman said Wednesday. Arifin trained other Jemaah Islamiyah members in military operations and security and was experienced in handling weapons and explosives, the spokesman said.
A plot by Jemaah Islamiyah to blow up the American, Australian and Israeli Embassies in Singapore last year was foiled by Singaporean and Malaysian authorities.
Singaporean intelligence, widely respected throughout Asia, believes Arafin originally went to Narathiwat before moving to Bangkok in January 2002.
Arafin was "on his way to a meeting" when he was picked up by police in Bangkok, Chumporn said. "We don't know who it was with."
Singapore is holding Arafin for interrogation under its Internal Security Act, which allows for detaining suspects indefinitely without charges.
Information provided to Thailand by Singapore from those interrogations led to surveillance being placed on Maisuri Haji Abdulloh, his son Muyahi Haji Doloh and Waemahadi Wae-dao just days before their arrests Tuesday.
The three are now in Bangkok, where Thai police have begun interrogating them.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy here on Wednesday praised Thailand and Singapore for their efforts to fight terrorism.
"It was a rapid and effective response on the part of Thai authorities to apprehend people" suspected of planning terrorist activities, the spokesman said. "It says very good things about the coordination between two members of [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations]."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Myanmar: Suu Kyi detention is temporary
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published June 11, 2003
BANGKOK -- The military junta that rules Myanmar allowed a UN envoy to meet with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, and the government later said she would be freed "as soon as the situation returns to normal."
"I can assure you she is well and in good spirits," UN envoy Razali Ismail said after the meeting with Suu Kyi, who has been held by the junta since a violent clash May 30 in northern Myanmar between her followers and junta supporters.
Military personnel accompanied Razali at the hourlong meeting with Suu Kyi, the first access granted to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the junta took her into "protective custody." The junta has not disclosed where she is being held or where the meeting took place.
Razali said Suu Kyi had "no scratches on her face . . . no broken arm." Some reports from pro-democracy groups said Suu Kyi had suffered a head injury and a broken arm in the clash with junta supporters.
Razali, who flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after the meeting, said the military gave him no indication of how long it plans to hold Suu Kyi and hundreds of her National League for Democracy supporters.
Later in the day, the military reiterated that Suu Kyi's detention was temporary. Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win issued a statement saying a decision to release her would be made when the situation is "normal" again.
More diplomatic activity is likely to ensue as the United States and other Western countries consider moves to pressure the junta.
"The important thing is to release her and not move back to the status quo," a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in Yangon, Myanmar's capital. "The military has to move ahead and show they are truly committed to national reconciliation."
The U.S. has imposed travel restrictions on Myanmar officials, and a ban on imports from Myanmar is under consideration. The U.S. also has asked the junta's close trading partners--including China, Thailand and Singapore--to take a tough stand against the crackdown, according to a Western diplomat in Yangon.
China in particular has strong influence in Myanmar, the diplomat said. "If they told the military to [release Suu Kyi], they would," the diplomat said.
But whether China stands ready to join the West in demanding the release of Suu Kyi's supporters is questionable, and the United States has yet to determine whether it wants to spend a large amount of political capital in Beijing on the situation in Myanmar.
The United States also will be watching for signs of civil unrest associated with the crackdown, the U.S. Embassy spokesman said.
A popular uprising in 1988 brought down the socialist government in Myanmar, then known as Burma. Once the government was ousted, the military, which had supported the uprising, crushed it and has ruled ever since.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections in a landslide, but the military nullified the results and placed her under two separate house arrests in the next 12 years.
In a twist to the military's account of the May 30 events, an officer from the Foreign Affairs Ministry told diplomats Tuesday that the four killed and 48 wounded were only those who came to the hospital to seek treatment, a second Western diplomat said.
Evidence uncovered by the U.S. at the scene of the May 30 altercation points to a "premeditated ambush" of Suu Kyi's motorcade, the embassy spokesman said. U.S. officials think scores may have been killed and hundreds injured.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Special to the Tribune
Published June 11, 2003
BANGKOK -- The military junta that rules Myanmar allowed a UN envoy to meet with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, and the government later said she would be freed "as soon as the situation returns to normal."
"I can assure you she is well and in good spirits," UN envoy Razali Ismail said after the meeting with Suu Kyi, who has been held by the junta since a violent clash May 30 in northern Myanmar between her followers and junta supporters.
Military personnel accompanied Razali at the hourlong meeting with Suu Kyi, the first access granted to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the junta took her into "protective custody." The junta has not disclosed where she is being held or where the meeting took place.
Razali said Suu Kyi had "no scratches on her face . . . no broken arm." Some reports from pro-democracy groups said Suu Kyi had suffered a head injury and a broken arm in the clash with junta supporters.
Razali, who flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after the meeting, said the military gave him no indication of how long it plans to hold Suu Kyi and hundreds of her National League for Democracy supporters.
Later in the day, the military reiterated that Suu Kyi's detention was temporary. Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win issued a statement saying a decision to release her would be made when the situation is "normal" again.
More diplomatic activity is likely to ensue as the United States and other Western countries consider moves to pressure the junta.
"The important thing is to release her and not move back to the status quo," a U.S. Embassy spokesman said in Yangon, Myanmar's capital. "The military has to move ahead and show they are truly committed to national reconciliation."
The U.S. has imposed travel restrictions on Myanmar officials, and a ban on imports from Myanmar is under consideration. The U.S. also has asked the junta's close trading partners--including China, Thailand and Singapore--to take a tough stand against the crackdown, according to a Western diplomat in Yangon.
China in particular has strong influence in Myanmar, the diplomat said. "If they told the military to [release Suu Kyi], they would," the diplomat said.
But whether China stands ready to join the West in demanding the release of Suu Kyi's supporters is questionable, and the United States has yet to determine whether it wants to spend a large amount of political capital in Beijing on the situation in Myanmar.
The United States also will be watching for signs of civil unrest associated with the crackdown, the U.S. Embassy spokesman said.
A popular uprising in 1988 brought down the socialist government in Myanmar, then known as Burma. Once the government was ousted, the military, which had supported the uprising, crushed it and has ruled ever since.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections in a landslide, but the military nullified the results and placed her under two separate house arrests in the next 12 years.
In a twist to the military's account of the May 30 events, an officer from the Foreign Affairs Ministry told diplomats Tuesday that the four killed and 48 wounded were only those who came to the hospital to seek treatment, a second Western diplomat said.
Evidence uncovered by the U.S. at the scene of the May 30 altercation points to a "premeditated ambush" of Suu Kyi's motorcade, the embassy spokesman said. U.S. officials think scores may have been killed and hundreds injured.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Bush, Thai leader to meet today
War on terrorism is likely focus of talks
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 6/10/2003
BANGKOK -- When President Bush and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand meet today at the White House, they will probably focus on Thailand's quiet cooperation in the war on terrorism -- the issue that has defined US relations with all Southeast Asian countries since Sept. 11, 2001.
As an ally since shortly after World War II, Thailand proved invaluable to the United States during the wars fought in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In those years, the United States flew round-the-clock missions from Utapao air base 90 miles south of Bangkok, and American soldiers came to Thailand to rest and relax.
Although it is a poorly kept secret that Thailand allowed the United States to fly missions from Utapao in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the seemingly surreptitious nature of the country's help in the antiterrorism campaign has bothered some in the Bush administration, who point to the more open declaration of support from countries like Singapore.
Officially, Thailand stayed neutral in both recent US wars. That gave Thaksin breathing room as he contended with strong popular sentiment against the Iraq war. But it did not fit with the Bush administration's ''with us or against us'' policy, leading some analysts in Thailand to question whether the United States would agree to have Bush meet Thaksin during his first trip to Washington as head of state in December 2001, and again now. In the end, both meetings were set up, although today's is unofficial.
''To people who follow Thailand closely, we understand why Thaksin made his choice [on Iraq], and we are looking at what they're doing as opposed to what they're saying,'' a Western diplomat in Bangkok said, citing domestic pressures for Thailand's neutrality. ''They're doing everything [the United States] wants them to do except for publicly making the statement.''
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, US policy toward Southeast Asia has stressed one issue: support for the war on terrorism. Singapore and Malaysia earned high marks from the Americans when they foiled an attempt by Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda, to blow up the American, Australian, and Israeli embassies in Singapore last year. Singapore earned extra favor for officially supporting the Iraq war. And because of its unwavering cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda, Malaysia, which vehemently opposed the Iraq war, is viewed favorably by the United States.
The war on terrorism has turned once implacable foes into cautious allies. Vietnam has cooperated, at least in words, with US efforts to hunt terrorists in the region, though it, too, opposed the Iraq war. And Cambodia, with a rapidly growing Muslim minority, recently arrested three men for suspected involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah: two Thais and an Egyptian who were teaching at an Islamic school there.
While Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand are all Buddhist nations, significant Muslim minorities exist in the latter two and in Singapore as well. Malaysia is mainly Muslim, while Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.
As a largely unregulated, free country at the crossroads of Southeast Asia, Thailand has played an unwitting role in international terrorism: Specialists said Jemaah Islamiyah uses Thailand as a transit point where its members can gather fake travel documents.
Intelligence officials said Jemaah Islamiyah members were in Thailand in January 2002 when they originally conceived the Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people in October.
Thailand is the big power in a region where the United States needs help combating terrorism and opium production. The United States also would like to stem the influence that China is increasingly wielding throughout Asia. The United States stages its annual Cobra Gold joint-military exercise with Thailand and Singapore in Thailand, enhancing US security standing in the region. It also has a large Drug Enforcement Administration operation in Thailand.
''Thailand is a longstanding friend and treaty ally with shared values and perceptions of security, and it shares a vision of the region with free trade and democracy,'' a spokesman for the US Embassy in Bangkok said yesterday.
The Bush administration is hoping to sign a deal with Thaksin in which Thailand would not send American suspects to the new International Criminal Court, which the United States refuses to recognize. In return, Bush will lobby Congress for Thailand to be designated a major non-NATO ally similar to the Philippines, which would ensure Thailand high levels of assistance in defense and security measures.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 6/10/2003
BANGKOK -- When President Bush and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand meet today at the White House, they will probably focus on Thailand's quiet cooperation in the war on terrorism -- the issue that has defined US relations with all Southeast Asian countries since Sept. 11, 2001.
As an ally since shortly after World War II, Thailand proved invaluable to the United States during the wars fought in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In those years, the United States flew round-the-clock missions from Utapao air base 90 miles south of Bangkok, and American soldiers came to Thailand to rest and relax.
Although it is a poorly kept secret that Thailand allowed the United States to fly missions from Utapao in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the seemingly surreptitious nature of the country's help in the antiterrorism campaign has bothered some in the Bush administration, who point to the more open declaration of support from countries like Singapore.
Officially, Thailand stayed neutral in both recent US wars. That gave Thaksin breathing room as he contended with strong popular sentiment against the Iraq war. But it did not fit with the Bush administration's ''with us or against us'' policy, leading some analysts in Thailand to question whether the United States would agree to have Bush meet Thaksin during his first trip to Washington as head of state in December 2001, and again now. In the end, both meetings were set up, although today's is unofficial.
''To people who follow Thailand closely, we understand why Thaksin made his choice [on Iraq], and we are looking at what they're doing as opposed to what they're saying,'' a Western diplomat in Bangkok said, citing domestic pressures for Thailand's neutrality. ''They're doing everything [the United States] wants them to do except for publicly making the statement.''
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, US policy toward Southeast Asia has stressed one issue: support for the war on terrorism. Singapore and Malaysia earned high marks from the Americans when they foiled an attempt by Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group linked to Al Qaeda, to blow up the American, Australian, and Israeli embassies in Singapore last year. Singapore earned extra favor for officially supporting the Iraq war. And because of its unwavering cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda, Malaysia, which vehemently opposed the Iraq war, is viewed favorably by the United States.
The war on terrorism has turned once implacable foes into cautious allies. Vietnam has cooperated, at least in words, with US efforts to hunt terrorists in the region, though it, too, opposed the Iraq war. And Cambodia, with a rapidly growing Muslim minority, recently arrested three men for suspected involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah: two Thais and an Egyptian who were teaching at an Islamic school there.
While Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand are all Buddhist nations, significant Muslim minorities exist in the latter two and in Singapore as well. Malaysia is mainly Muslim, while Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.
As a largely unregulated, free country at the crossroads of Southeast Asia, Thailand has played an unwitting role in international terrorism: Specialists said Jemaah Islamiyah uses Thailand as a transit point where its members can gather fake travel documents.
Intelligence officials said Jemaah Islamiyah members were in Thailand in January 2002 when they originally conceived the Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people in October.
Thailand is the big power in a region where the United States needs help combating terrorism and opium production. The United States also would like to stem the influence that China is increasingly wielding throughout Asia. The United States stages its annual Cobra Gold joint-military exercise with Thailand and Singapore in Thailand, enhancing US security standing in the region. It also has a large Drug Enforcement Administration operation in Thailand.
''Thailand is a longstanding friend and treaty ally with shared values and perceptions of security, and it shares a vision of the region with free trade and democracy,'' a spokesman for the US Embassy in Bangkok said yesterday.
The Bush administration is hoping to sign a deal with Thaksin in which Thailand would not send American suspects to the new International Criminal Court, which the United States refuses to recognize. In return, Bush will lobby Congress for Thailand to be designated a major non-NATO ally similar to the Philippines, which would ensure Thailand high levels of assistance in defense and security measures.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Suu Kyi was ambushed in Myanmar, reports say
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
BANGKOK — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy were ambushed by the military Friday night, according to reports from Myanmar that contradict the military government’s account of the clash.
Meanwhile, the fates of 17 of her National League for Democracy colleagues were unknown Tuesday after the military reversed course and told diplomats it could not guarantee they were unharmed, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon.
Suu Kyi, 57, the leader of the NLD, suffered a serious head injury and a broken hand in Friday night’s violence, in which dozens of people were killed, according to reports by Radio Free Asia. Corroborating reports came from the Washington-based
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a pro-democracy group that
says it heard eyewitness accounts of the violence.
The military did not reveal Suu Kyi’s whereabouts Tuesday. The junta also continued to hold incommunicado the central committee of her party under house arrest.
In briefing diplomats Tuesday, the military junta that has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988 still said that only four people were killed in a fight incited by Suu Kyi’s group, according to the U.S. Embassy. The junta assured
diplomats that Suu Kyi and her vice chairman, U Tin Oo, were in good health, an Embassy spokesman said.
However, in a departure from previous statements, the military said they could no longer make such guarantees about the other NLD members who had been accompanying Suu Kyi when the violence occurred, leading to fears among democracy supporters that they were killed or seriously injured.
During Tuesday’s diplomatic briefing, several Western ambassadors pointed out “inconstancies” in the military’s story, and the reaction among the diplomats
was one of “incredulity,” the U.S. spokesman said. The diplomats were particularly
skeptical of the military’s insistence that no police or military officers were present at a 5,000-person protest against Suu Kyi that the military claims to
have taken place and that Suu Kyi was taken into “protective custody” two hours later, thespokesman said.
Since her release from house arrest a year ago, Suu Kyi has been under constant surveillance by military intelligence. Witnesses’ accounts of the violence indicate that soldiers, pro-government militia members and convicts from a local prison attacked the 19 NLD members and hundreds of their supporters Friday.
The soldiers opened fire on Suu Kyi’s car, puncturing its tires, and the militia and convicts beat the Nobel Peace laureate and members of her group with bamboo stakes, the accounts aid. Vice Chairman Tin Oo was beaten and dragged away by three police officers, the witnesses said.
In the northern city of Mandalay, the witnesses managed to contact local members of the NLD, who helped the escapees call the National Coalition Government in Thailand, according to Zin Linn, the group’s eastern regional director, based in Bangkok.
Confirming the reports has proved difficult because phone lines to much of northern Myanmar are down.
On Monday, the military closed all offices of the party across Myanmar and closed all universities, which were supposed to start a new term that
day. On Tuesday, the military insisted the closings of the NLD offices were only temporary, though they offered no schedule for reopening them, an Embassy spokesman said.
World leaders have condemned the crackdown and demanded the release of Suu Kyi and her league members.
"The military authorities should release Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters immediately and permit her party headquarters to reopen," President Bush said Monday.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Special to the Tribune
BANGKOK — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy were ambushed by the military Friday night, according to reports from Myanmar that contradict the military government’s account of the clash.
Meanwhile, the fates of 17 of her National League for Democracy colleagues were unknown Tuesday after the military reversed course and told diplomats it could not guarantee they were unharmed, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon.
Suu Kyi, 57, the leader of the NLD, suffered a serious head injury and a broken hand in Friday night’s violence, in which dozens of people were killed, according to reports by Radio Free Asia. Corroborating reports came from the Washington-based
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a pro-democracy group that
says it heard eyewitness accounts of the violence.
The military did not reveal Suu Kyi’s whereabouts Tuesday. The junta also continued to hold incommunicado the central committee of her party under house arrest.
In briefing diplomats Tuesday, the military junta that has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988 still said that only four people were killed in a fight incited by Suu Kyi’s group, according to the U.S. Embassy. The junta assured
diplomats that Suu Kyi and her vice chairman, U Tin Oo, were in good health, an Embassy spokesman said.
However, in a departure from previous statements, the military said they could no longer make such guarantees about the other NLD members who had been accompanying Suu Kyi when the violence occurred, leading to fears among democracy supporters that they were killed or seriously injured.
During Tuesday’s diplomatic briefing, several Western ambassadors pointed out “inconstancies” in the military’s story, and the reaction among the diplomats
was one of “incredulity,” the U.S. spokesman said. The diplomats were particularly
skeptical of the military’s insistence that no police or military officers were present at a 5,000-person protest against Suu Kyi that the military claims to
have taken place and that Suu Kyi was taken into “protective custody” two hours later, thespokesman said.
Since her release from house arrest a year ago, Suu Kyi has been under constant surveillance by military intelligence. Witnesses’ accounts of the violence indicate that soldiers, pro-government militia members and convicts from a local prison attacked the 19 NLD members and hundreds of their supporters Friday.
The soldiers opened fire on Suu Kyi’s car, puncturing its tires, and the militia and convicts beat the Nobel Peace laureate and members of her group with bamboo stakes, the accounts aid. Vice Chairman Tin Oo was beaten and dragged away by three police officers, the witnesses said.
In the northern city of Mandalay, the witnesses managed to contact local members of the NLD, who helped the escapees call the National Coalition Government in Thailand, according to Zin Linn, the group’s eastern regional director, based in Bangkok.
Confirming the reports has proved difficult because phone lines to much of northern Myanmar are down.
On Monday, the military closed all offices of the party across Myanmar and closed all universities, which were supposed to start a new term that
day. On Tuesday, the military insisted the closings of the NLD offices were only temporary, though they offered no schedule for reopening them, an Embassy spokesman said.
World leaders have condemned the crackdown and demanded the release of Suu Kyi and her league members.
"The military authorities should release Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters immediately and permit her party headquarters to reopen," President Bush said Monday.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Friday, May 23, 2003
U.S. weighs changes in aid to Thais
2,300 deaths in drug war prompt call for inquiry
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
May 23, 2003
BANGKOK -- The United States is reconsidering its support for Thailand's counternarcotics operations after a three-month war on drugs here by the government left more than 2,300 people dead.
The breadth of the changes to American-Thai cooperation will depend on the results of an investigation by the Thai government into those deaths, a U.S. official here said. However, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency already is contemplating changes in its counternarcotics training assistance to Thailand.
"The Royal Thai Government needs to thoroughly investigate these cases and prosecute the killers in full accordance with the law--and in a fast and transparent manner," the official said.
Despite the concern U.S. officials expressed to Thailand at several diplomatic levels, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday announced the beginning of a new phase in the drug war.
Thailand and the United States have cooperated for more than 30 years in counternarcotics operations in the Golden Triangle, the dense jungle spanning parts of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos where much of the world's opium is grown.
The United States provides about $3 million in aid annually to Thailand for training counternarcotics agents and intelligence gathering. The DEA has a Thai bureau, and its agents occasionally accompany their Thai counterparts as observers during drug stings.
Of the 2,300 people slain in the campaign, Thai police insist a few dozen suspects were killed by its officers, and only in self-defense. According to the government, the rest were killed by drug dealers trying to cover their tracks.
International criticism rained on Thailand as the death toll mounted. Local human-rights organizations said Thai police were shooting drug suspects rather than trying to arrest them.
But local support for the drug war--opinion polls consistently put it at more than 90 percent--spurred the government to take its battle to a new phase.
Organized-crime figures, smugglers, corrupt politicians and rogue police constituted an "axis of evil," Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha said May 1. They would all be targeted in the coming "war on dark influences," as Shinawatra named it.
"The aim [of the new campaign] is to eradicate their roles in society, so that the law enforcement will cover everyone in the kingdom," a spokesman for the prime minister said. If the guilty come clean, no harm will come to them, he said.
Some critics of the methods used in the drug war are cautiously optimistic there will not be more of the daily multiple killings.
Thai Human Rights Commissioner Pradit Chareonthaitawee, who came under fire from the government for criticizing the methods employed during the drug war, said the government will be more cautious because of the international disapproval the killings brought.
Still, he is worried about whether the government will "follow the law, follow the constitution and follow the international [human-rights agreements] of the United Nations" in the months ahead.
Details of the new campaign were being concluded at the same time Shinawatra and Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai received the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Envoy Hina Jilani, who is on a fact-finding mission to assess the situation in Thailand. Jilani's visit was scheduled before the drug war began.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
May 23, 2003
BANGKOK -- The United States is reconsidering its support for Thailand's counternarcotics operations after a three-month war on drugs here by the government left more than 2,300 people dead.
The breadth of the changes to American-Thai cooperation will depend on the results of an investigation by the Thai government into those deaths, a U.S. official here said. However, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency already is contemplating changes in its counternarcotics training assistance to Thailand.
"The Royal Thai Government needs to thoroughly investigate these cases and prosecute the killers in full accordance with the law--and in a fast and transparent manner," the official said.
Despite the concern U.S. officials expressed to Thailand at several diplomatic levels, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday announced the beginning of a new phase in the drug war.
Thailand and the United States have cooperated for more than 30 years in counternarcotics operations in the Golden Triangle, the dense jungle spanning parts of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos where much of the world's opium is grown.
The United States provides about $3 million in aid annually to Thailand for training counternarcotics agents and intelligence gathering. The DEA has a Thai bureau, and its agents occasionally accompany their Thai counterparts as observers during drug stings.
Of the 2,300 people slain in the campaign, Thai police insist a few dozen suspects were killed by its officers, and only in self-defense. According to the government, the rest were killed by drug dealers trying to cover their tracks.
International criticism rained on Thailand as the death toll mounted. Local human-rights organizations said Thai police were shooting drug suspects rather than trying to arrest them.
But local support for the drug war--opinion polls consistently put it at more than 90 percent--spurred the government to take its battle to a new phase.
Organized-crime figures, smugglers, corrupt politicians and rogue police constituted an "axis of evil," Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha said May 1. They would all be targeted in the coming "war on dark influences," as Shinawatra named it.
"The aim [of the new campaign] is to eradicate their roles in society, so that the law enforcement will cover everyone in the kingdom," a spokesman for the prime minister said. If the guilty come clean, no harm will come to them, he said.
Some critics of the methods used in the drug war are cautiously optimistic there will not be more of the daily multiple killings.
Thai Human Rights Commissioner Pradit Chareonthaitawee, who came under fire from the government for criticizing the methods employed during the drug war, said the government will be more cautious because of the international disapproval the killings brought.
Still, he is worried about whether the government will "follow the law, follow the constitution and follow the international [human-rights agreements] of the United Nations" in the months ahead.
Details of the new campaign were being concluded at the same time Shinawatra and Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai received the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Envoy Hina Jilani, who is on a fact-finding mission to assess the situation in Thailand. Jilani's visit was scheduled before the drug war began.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Thursday, May 15, 2003
S.F. financier in Thai court in child sex abuse case
Rafael D. Frankel, Chronicle Foreign Service
Chronicle staff writer Stephanie Salter contributed to this report
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Bangkok -- Handcuffed, barefoot and wearing a white face mask to protect against the SARS virus, San Francisco financier Thomas Frank White appeared in Thailand criminal court Wednesday for the first of eight scheduled hearings to determine whether he will be extradited to Mexico to face charges of alleged child sex abuse, child prostitution and providing drugs to minors.
White, 68, a multimillionaire who made his fortune in San Francisco in investment securities and discount online stock brokering, has been held in Bangkok's Remand Prison since Feb. 13, two days after he was arrested at the request of the Mexican government.
Mexico issued warrants for White's apprehension in 2001 for crimes he allegedly committed against eight boys, ages 10-16, at his villa near Puerto Vallarta.
Through his attorneys, White has denied wrongdoing and termed the charges "entirely baseless" and "not credible."
According to Thai Special Prosecutor Piyathida Jermhunsa, extradition hinges on the prosecution showing evidence that White committed acts in Mexico serious enough to earn at least a one-year sentence there as well as in Thailand. The three-judge panel also must unanimously find that there is no political motivation behind the extradition and that Mexico would do the same for Thailand were the roles reversed.
White faces a daunting challenge in trying to avoid extradition. Both the Thai prosecution and defense attorneys said they could not remember a case where extradition was not granted.
"Nobody ever gets out of extradition," said White's secondary counsel, Kunacha Chaichumporn. "It's just a matter of time."
White's lead attorney, Kittyporn Arunrat, did not attend Wednesday's hearing because of duties in an unrelated case, which caused a postponement of the proceedings until July 4.
White is also named as the defendant in a California civil suit filed by Daniel Garcia, 20, of Modesto. He accuses White of sexually molesting him when Garcia was a minor. Garcia was in the Bangkok courtroom Wednesday along with his mother and attorney.
When arrested, White had been living since June 2002 in a luxury housing development in Jomtien Beach, Thailand, near the resort town of Pattaya.
White's extradition hearing could last as long as five months, with the final session scheduled Oct. 10. The prosecution is to call its first witness July 4, and wrap up its case in only a few half-day sessions. The defense is scheduled to begin Aug. 22.
Standing a head above everyone else in the courtroom, White wore maroon shorts and a matching short-sleeved shirt. He showed no ill signs of his three months in prison, where he shares a cell with about 20 other men and sleeps on a blanket over concrete.
White's spirits have risen lately after an initial onset of depression, his attorney Chaichumporn said, and he has made friends with other foreigners in the jail. He is able to order food from Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken for delivery to the jail. Aside from high blood pressure, for which he takes medicine and receives weekly visits from the jail doctor, White is in good health, according to Chaichumporn.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Chronicle staff writer Stephanie Salter contributed to this report
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Bangkok -- Handcuffed, barefoot and wearing a white face mask to protect against the SARS virus, San Francisco financier Thomas Frank White appeared in Thailand criminal court Wednesday for the first of eight scheduled hearings to determine whether he will be extradited to Mexico to face charges of alleged child sex abuse, child prostitution and providing drugs to minors.
White, 68, a multimillionaire who made his fortune in San Francisco in investment securities and discount online stock brokering, has been held in Bangkok's Remand Prison since Feb. 13, two days after he was arrested at the request of the Mexican government.
Mexico issued warrants for White's apprehension in 2001 for crimes he allegedly committed against eight boys, ages 10-16, at his villa near Puerto Vallarta.
Through his attorneys, White has denied wrongdoing and termed the charges "entirely baseless" and "not credible."
According to Thai Special Prosecutor Piyathida Jermhunsa, extradition hinges on the prosecution showing evidence that White committed acts in Mexico serious enough to earn at least a one-year sentence there as well as in Thailand. The three-judge panel also must unanimously find that there is no political motivation behind the extradition and that Mexico would do the same for Thailand were the roles reversed.
White faces a daunting challenge in trying to avoid extradition. Both the Thai prosecution and defense attorneys said they could not remember a case where extradition was not granted.
"Nobody ever gets out of extradition," said White's secondary counsel, Kunacha Chaichumporn. "It's just a matter of time."
White's lead attorney, Kittyporn Arunrat, did not attend Wednesday's hearing because of duties in an unrelated case, which caused a postponement of the proceedings until July 4.
White is also named as the defendant in a California civil suit filed by Daniel Garcia, 20, of Modesto. He accuses White of sexually molesting him when Garcia was a minor. Garcia was in the Bangkok courtroom Wednesday along with his mother and attorney.
When arrested, White had been living since June 2002 in a luxury housing development in Jomtien Beach, Thailand, near the resort town of Pattaya.
White's extradition hearing could last as long as five months, with the final session scheduled Oct. 10. The prosecution is to call its first witness July 4, and wrap up its case in only a few half-day sessions. The defense is scheduled to begin Aug. 22.
Standing a head above everyone else in the courtroom, White wore maroon shorts and a matching short-sleeved shirt. He showed no ill signs of his three months in prison, where he shares a cell with about 20 other men and sleeps on a blanket over concrete.
White's spirits have risen lately after an initial onset of depression, his attorney Chaichumporn said, and he has made friends with other foreigners in the jail. He is able to order food from Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken for delivery to the jail. Aside from high blood pressure, for which he takes medicine and receives weekly visits from the jail doctor, White is in good health, according to Chaichumporn.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Press
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Burma's leaders slowly moving to combat HIV
Poor nation's junta ignored danger for years
Rafael D. Frankel, Chronicle Foreign Service
San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, April 3, 2003
Lantaya, Burma -- Set among a series of wooden shacks that are connected by bamboo bridges, the four thatched huts on stilts make up one of Burma's few AIDS clinics.
The clinic in this bedroom community 45 minutes outside the capital, Rangoon, has 11 patients. They are treated for malnutrition and other illnesses but are given few medications to stave off the virus. All sleep on wood-framed beds with thin foam pads.
The female patients are former sex workers, or wives who contracted HIV from their husbands. The men are drug addicts infected by unclean needles or migrant workers who frequented prostitutes. Those who aren't bedridden paint signs that promote safer sex to be posted in the community.
Despite such basic care sponsored by the Netherlands chapter of the prominent Nobel Prize-winning group Doctors Without Borders, these 11 AIDS patients are the lucky ones.
In Burma, an impoverished nation of 48 million people, there are only two hospitals that have AIDS wards, and few Burmese can afford the average $300-a- month cost of anti-retroviral drugs. Many rely on traditional medicines and advice from pharmacies.
Many observers blame this dire situation on a military government that has allowed the nation's health system to decay -- the World Health Organization ranked Burma 190 out of 191 member countries in 2000, above only Sierra Leone - - and practically ignored the AIDS epidemic until last year. Life expectancy is just 55 years, compared with 63 years in the rest of Asia.
For years, the ruling junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council and calls the country Myanmar, had made AIDS a taboo subject. Health observers say that decision enabled the disease to gain a major foothold in Burma.
"It is their fault," said a Western AIDS worker, who, like other health activists, doctors and diplomats, spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. "They are afraid of being criticized" by Western governments. Because the government tightly controls information, no one knows how many Burmese are HIV-positive. UNAIDS, the United Nations' program, estimates that 400,000 people were infected at the end of 2001, or just under 1 percent of 15- to 49-year-olds. That is the grouping UNAIDS defines as the "adult" population and the most vulnerable to infection.
The junta, however, has long insisted that the numbers are much lower because they say Burma has a culture that stresses abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward. As a result, state AIDS campaigns had urged monogamy and fidelity while excluding the mention of condoms or the need for drug addicts to use clean needles.
"The cultural and social values of Myanmar society are found to have a protective effect to a greater extent than in many population groups," said junta member Gen. Khin Nyunt on World AIDS Day in December.
But a 1999 study by Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the John Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health who worked with the World Health Organization in Burma, suggests that at least 687,000 Burmese are HIV- positive, or almost 3.5 percent of Burma's adult population, which would be the highest rate in Asia. His team analyzed government figures at clinics and hospitals and narrowed the study to pregnant women, soldiers, sex workers, gay men and blood donors while excluding the nation's estimated 1.4 million drug users.
Beyrer, who studied AIDS in seven countries in his book "War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia," also blames the junta for the grim reality.
"There has been a complete failure on so many levels," Beyrer said. "The health care system is in collapse, grossly underfunded and neglected by the junta. The junta has been a disaster."
STRAIGHTS, DRUG USERS AT RISK
Heterosexuals account for 57 percent of infection rates in Burma, followed by intravenous drug users with 22 percent. Those who donated or received tainted blood are 4 percent, homosexuals make up 1.2 percent, and the cause was unknown for 13.5 percent, according to UNAIDS.
But health workers say the number of Burmese infected with HIV could be much higher because many people are unaware of the disease and go untreated.
The Burmese "know really only layman knowledge about transmission," said a local physician.
Some health experts also blame the international community. Most foreign assistance ceased after the junta suppressed Burma's democracy movement by force in 1988 and ignored the results of the 1990 election -- won by the opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize the next year.
Over the years, humanitarian groups have faced the dilemma of assisting AIDS patients without lending legitimacy to a repressive government. In 2001, donor funding for AIDS programs was less than $3.5 million, compared with Thailand, where foreign donors have spent between $30 million and $90 million per year in the past decade.
"I would fault the international community as much as the military in not supporting humanitarian work," said another foreign AIDS worker.
But there is now renewed hope that both the junta and international aid groups have turned a corner in fighting the AIDS epidemic.
A FEW ENCOURAGING SIGNS
Tony Lisle, the UNAIDS director for Southeast Asia, sees an "absolute groundswell of change in Myanmar in the last 18 months" in reference to the military's willingness to finally face up to the AIDS crisis.
Lisle said Burma's rulers have acknowledged AIDS as a "serious issue," and he points to several encouraging signs: a government-sponsored needle exchange program; an AIDS awareness billboard campaign; the appointment of a prominent doctor as the new minister of health; and a soap opera on state-owned television about a rich business family whose widowed patriarch is infected with HIV, which includes discussions of condom use.
A shift in policy on condoms is good news for Population Services International, a U.S. nongovernmental organization that was behind the television soap opera. The group has been promoting safer sex and distributing condoms since 1995 from riverboats that visit remote villages along the Irrawaddy River.
The organization is now distributing condoms unfettered. "This was unthinkable just three years ago," Lisle said.
Moreover, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, created at the urging of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is expected to provide $30 million in the next three years to foreign AIDS programs in Burma.
"It's all moving in the right direction," said another Western health worker.
HIV SPREADING IN RURAL AREAS
Yet the junta and the nongovernmental organization face a daunting challenge.
Although AIDS has long been an urban problem, the disease is spreading quickly to rural areas as a result of migrant workers and truck drivers having sex with prostitutes while traveling in such countries as India, China and Thailand. When they return, they pass the virus on to their wives and girlfriends, according to UNAIDS.
Another concern is the rising AIDS rate among urban female sex workers. UNAIDS says about 27 percent of sex workers in Rangoon and Mandalay are HIV- positive.
At a late-night "fashion show" at the Yangon International Hotel in Rangoon, young women paraded down a dance floor followed by a spotlight and the gaze of dozens of potential male clients.
"They are all up for negotiation," said a Malaysian businessman who asked not to be named. "Do they make the men wear condoms? Some do. Some don't. It depends on the girl and how much you pay them."
Meanwhile, despite the junta's apparent policy shift, its tight rein on society continues to complicate foreign AIDS programs.
Nongovernmental organizations complain about fiats that allow only government hospitals to carry out HIV tests and require permits to assemble a village to listen to a discussion on the disease.
"The generals don't allow any autonomy. Everything has to go through them," Beyrer said. "The health ministry knows there is a serious problem, but when you actually attempt to implement programs, it has to go through a general."
©2003 The San Francisco Chronicle
Rafael D. Frankel, Chronicle Foreign Service
San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, April 3, 2003
Lantaya, Burma -- Set among a series of wooden shacks that are connected by bamboo bridges, the four thatched huts on stilts make up one of Burma's few AIDS clinics.
The clinic in this bedroom community 45 minutes outside the capital, Rangoon, has 11 patients. They are treated for malnutrition and other illnesses but are given few medications to stave off the virus. All sleep on wood-framed beds with thin foam pads.
The female patients are former sex workers, or wives who contracted HIV from their husbands. The men are drug addicts infected by unclean needles or migrant workers who frequented prostitutes. Those who aren't bedridden paint signs that promote safer sex to be posted in the community.
Despite such basic care sponsored by the Netherlands chapter of the prominent Nobel Prize-winning group Doctors Without Borders, these 11 AIDS patients are the lucky ones.
In Burma, an impoverished nation of 48 million people, there are only two hospitals that have AIDS wards, and few Burmese can afford the average $300-a- month cost of anti-retroviral drugs. Many rely on traditional medicines and advice from pharmacies.
Many observers blame this dire situation on a military government that has allowed the nation's health system to decay -- the World Health Organization ranked Burma 190 out of 191 member countries in 2000, above only Sierra Leone - - and practically ignored the AIDS epidemic until last year. Life expectancy is just 55 years, compared with 63 years in the rest of Asia.
For years, the ruling junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council and calls the country Myanmar, had made AIDS a taboo subject. Health observers say that decision enabled the disease to gain a major foothold in Burma.
"It is their fault," said a Western AIDS worker, who, like other health activists, doctors and diplomats, spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. "They are afraid of being criticized" by Western governments. Because the government tightly controls information, no one knows how many Burmese are HIV-positive. UNAIDS, the United Nations' program, estimates that 400,000 people were infected at the end of 2001, or just under 1 percent of 15- to 49-year-olds. That is the grouping UNAIDS defines as the "adult" population and the most vulnerable to infection.
The junta, however, has long insisted that the numbers are much lower because they say Burma has a culture that stresses abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward. As a result, state AIDS campaigns had urged monogamy and fidelity while excluding the mention of condoms or the need for drug addicts to use clean needles.
"The cultural and social values of Myanmar society are found to have a protective effect to a greater extent than in many population groups," said junta member Gen. Khin Nyunt on World AIDS Day in December.
But a 1999 study by Chris Beyrer, an epidemiologist at the John Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health who worked with the World Health Organization in Burma, suggests that at least 687,000 Burmese are HIV- positive, or almost 3.5 percent of Burma's adult population, which would be the highest rate in Asia. His team analyzed government figures at clinics and hospitals and narrowed the study to pregnant women, soldiers, sex workers, gay men and blood donors while excluding the nation's estimated 1.4 million drug users.
Beyrer, who studied AIDS in seven countries in his book "War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia," also blames the junta for the grim reality.
"There has been a complete failure on so many levels," Beyrer said. "The health care system is in collapse, grossly underfunded and neglected by the junta. The junta has been a disaster."
STRAIGHTS, DRUG USERS AT RISK
Heterosexuals account for 57 percent of infection rates in Burma, followed by intravenous drug users with 22 percent. Those who donated or received tainted blood are 4 percent, homosexuals make up 1.2 percent, and the cause was unknown for 13.5 percent, according to UNAIDS.
But health workers say the number of Burmese infected with HIV could be much higher because many people are unaware of the disease and go untreated.
The Burmese "know really only layman knowledge about transmission," said a local physician.
Some health experts also blame the international community. Most foreign assistance ceased after the junta suppressed Burma's democracy movement by force in 1988 and ignored the results of the 1990 election -- won by the opposition party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize the next year.
Over the years, humanitarian groups have faced the dilemma of assisting AIDS patients without lending legitimacy to a repressive government. In 2001, donor funding for AIDS programs was less than $3.5 million, compared with Thailand, where foreign donors have spent between $30 million and $90 million per year in the past decade.
"I would fault the international community as much as the military in not supporting humanitarian work," said another foreign AIDS worker.
But there is now renewed hope that both the junta and international aid groups have turned a corner in fighting the AIDS epidemic.
A FEW ENCOURAGING SIGNS
Tony Lisle, the UNAIDS director for Southeast Asia, sees an "absolute groundswell of change in Myanmar in the last 18 months" in reference to the military's willingness to finally face up to the AIDS crisis.
Lisle said Burma's rulers have acknowledged AIDS as a "serious issue," and he points to several encouraging signs: a government-sponsored needle exchange program; an AIDS awareness billboard campaign; the appointment of a prominent doctor as the new minister of health; and a soap opera on state-owned television about a rich business family whose widowed patriarch is infected with HIV, which includes discussions of condom use.
A shift in policy on condoms is good news for Population Services International, a U.S. nongovernmental organization that was behind the television soap opera. The group has been promoting safer sex and distributing condoms since 1995 from riverboats that visit remote villages along the Irrawaddy River.
The organization is now distributing condoms unfettered. "This was unthinkable just three years ago," Lisle said.
Moreover, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, created at the urging of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is expected to provide $30 million in the next three years to foreign AIDS programs in Burma.
"It's all moving in the right direction," said another Western health worker.
HIV SPREADING IN RURAL AREAS
Yet the junta and the nongovernmental organization face a daunting challenge.
Although AIDS has long been an urban problem, the disease is spreading quickly to rural areas as a result of migrant workers and truck drivers having sex with prostitutes while traveling in such countries as India, China and Thailand. When they return, they pass the virus on to their wives and girlfriends, according to UNAIDS.
Another concern is the rising AIDS rate among urban female sex workers. UNAIDS says about 27 percent of sex workers in Rangoon and Mandalay are HIV- positive.
At a late-night "fashion show" at the Yangon International Hotel in Rangoon, young women paraded down a dance floor followed by a spotlight and the gaze of dozens of potential male clients.
"They are all up for negotiation," said a Malaysian businessman who asked not to be named. "Do they make the men wear condoms? Some do. Some don't. It depends on the girl and how much you pay them."
Meanwhile, despite the junta's apparent policy shift, its tight rein on society continues to complicate foreign AIDS programs.
Nongovernmental organizations complain about fiats that allow only government hospitals to carry out HIV tests and require permits to assemble a village to listen to a discussion on the disease.
"The generals don't allow any autonomy. Everything has to go through them," Beyrer said. "The health ministry knows there is a serious problem, but when you actually attempt to implement programs, it has to go through a general."
©2003 The San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Rude, crude, lovable Israelis!
Hordes of Israelis travel to the Far East, many leave a strong impression
By RAFAEL D. FRANKEL
To say Israeli travelers stick out like a sore thumb only makes sense if the proverbial thumb belongs to a cartoon character who just had his digit crushed by a five-ton grand piano and it's turning different colors while inflating to the size of a birthday balloon.
They are that easy to spot, especially the men who adhere to what must be a dress code published by the foreign ministry: brightly colored fisherman pants, a tank top with a Chang Beer or Redbull energy drink logo, an earring, slicked hair, and the standard issue purse-sized shoulder bag which rests down by the waist.
But it's more than just the look. Israelis here travel in packs, in gangs that swirl their way around Asia's beaches and jungles like tornadoes in Kansas, leaving guest houses, Internet cafes, and dance clubs gasping for air when they leave.
Where they go, craziness follows. Whether the craziness is good or bad depends on who you ask.
With close to 100,000 Israelis coming to Thailand - perhaps the backpacking hub of the entire world - every year, the level of interaction with people from all over is perhaps unsurpassed anywhere. As such, the impressions Israelis are leaving on people here, unintentional though they may be, are also having an effect on the way they are viewed in much of the Western world.
These impressions have nothing to do with CNN or the European daily papers. Since many Israelis come to the Far East at least in part to get away from the dreariness of daily life in Israel in these times, the impressions they are leaving may have nothing to do with politics, terrorism, or the right to self-defense at all - though that conversation certainly does come up.
Not that it would matter immediately if politics, rather than the next full-moon party, was the standard debate between Israelis and other travelers. For sure, the people they are interacting with are not in a position to sway international politics or opinions on any grand scale, but that's just the point. There are more important things to do and talk about. The truth is that Israelis are better known here for their crazy partying than for anything having to do with targeted killings or suicide bombings.
"They are crazy, crazy, and love to party and take many drugs," said Malte Kramer, 33, from Germany, who is in Thailand for the second time and was romantically involved with an Israeli woman for two weeks. "They're always in groups, very loud, taking drugs like you wouldn't believe. It's like they have this short time to live the way they want to live, like they cannot live in their country."
Kramer met Israelis on Koh Pangang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand known for its full-moon parties, trance music, and drugs. At least that's how Koh Pangang was known before. Now there's something else it is known for.
"You go there and there is Hebrew writing everywhere. And all around you people are speaking Hebrew. We call it David Pangang for fun," Kramer said.
Other names for Koh Pangang circle around Southeast Asia, such as Little Israel, or Little Tel Aviv. And they aren't far off. Invasion is a strong word, but considering that almost every establishment in Koh Pangang has signs up in Hebrew, or a staff that can say "Shalom, ma shlomcha?", or a menu which includes chicken schnitzel, "invasion" might not be far off.
Being so inundated by Israelis, many Israeli cultural traits, including the more objectionable ones, have shown themselves to the locals and travelers here, including rudeness - in the extreme.
"They demand, they don't ask questions. In Europe you would say they are not polite," said Olaf Biel, 30, also from Germany. "They have to be careful, need to show more respect when they meet other people."
Such descriptions are common here, especially among Northern Europeans and the locals. For a culture as soft-spoken and polite as the Thais are, even one Israeli can be a shock, let alone a half dozen. Many Thai guest houses, for example, have taken to asking where people are from before saying if they have any rooms. Some Israelis report being refused entry based on their passport.
"Most Israelis traveling here are just finished with the army. They are wild, loud, and don't have the same education that most Europeans come here with," said Keren Cohen, 23, French by birth, but with an Israeli mother. "And politeness is definitely not a priority. Sometimes, at least, people seem willing to forgive them once they hear where they are from. But still, it can put a lot of people off."
However, many travelers are willing to cut them some slack. After even a brief stint in Thailand, most travelers know at least one thing about Israelis: the mandatory army service. And having at least seen some news about the situation in Israel, many are willing to chalk up rude or harsh attitudes to a need to blow off three years' worth of steam.
This also leads to the description of Israelis by some travelers as being melancholy beneath their exuberant, adventurous exterior.
"There is a certain disenchantment, a sadness to them sometimes that you can see in their eyes," said Alessandra Volpi, 33, originally from Italy but now living in New York. "And from what they've been through in the army, it can also make them more aggressive."
Indeed, when a group of Israelis walks into a restaurant it feels as though a hand on the crowd volume switch just sent the amplifier into overdrive.
"It's true, we are loud, we make a mess," said Shai Tzur, 34, founder and co-owner of the Zullah Israeli House in Bangkok. "We know what we want, and we won't let people f**k with us. If we need to, we will say what we are thinking, even though sometimes that is not the best thing."
What nearly all travelers do agree on is that getting to know Israelis - beyond the usual pleasantries and party situations - is not easy. But once the ice is broken, those that make true Israeli friends, or perhaps have sexual relationships with them, find them to be among the most kind, caring, and fun people they have ever hung around with.
"Israelis can break everything, even cold people from Europe," Tzur said, proudly gesturing at the dozen or so Israelis sitting in his restaurant. "Israelis know exactly how to touch your heart, how to make you smile and be happy and have fun. It's not normal for Israelis to think they need to be with someone for a week before they can be free with you. They are like that from the beginning."
After traveling in Asia for nearly six months, Amanda Ciliberto, 23, from Seattle, says that of the 10 people she has met whom she now considers good friends, five are Israeli. Ciliberto was originally impressed by a group of Israelis she met on a boat in Laos, two of whom let her stay with them in a guesthouse when everywhere in town was full.
"I had no place to stay and they let me stay with them for free, without any questions," she said. "They are very quick to help you when you need it, and very quick to bond. They are very thoughtful and gregarious, very social animals."
Ciliberto also mentioned the physical beauty of Israelis. "Some of the most amazingly, stunningly beautiful people I have ever encountered," she said.
She is not alone in her opinions, as Israelis have also racked up quite a reputation as lovers. The sex columnist for the travelers' magazine Farang ranked Israelis with the "Best Bodies" in a recent issue: "They may seem the most eager to get into your pants, all machismo and no brains, but after coming out to Asia after three years of military service, they've got the bodies of gods, they're great conversationalists (once you get past the machismo), and they're really quite conservative. If you want respect in the morning, follow the Israeli woman's rules of etiquette: The first night is for talking, the second for snogging, and only on the third night do you 'let him' take you home. (We will forgive you, however, if you do what we've done more than once, which is to apply those rules in reverse!)"
True, sleeping their way to better international relations might not seem like the most reputable course to take, but it is having its effects. Those travelers who have had Israeli lovers, or who have made real friends with Israelis, have seen their opinions and impressions of the country change significantly during their travels. Add to this the complete absence of travelers from any Arab or Muslim countries - not one traveler interviewed for this story had met anyone from the Muslim world here - and the sympathies which are created are heavily tilted toward Israel.
"I don't know if my opinion about the political situation has changed much, but in terms of sympathy I do feel closer to Israel because I know so many people from there now," said Gulio Sasi, 26, an actor from Rome. "I feel closer to their culture and their religion."
Indeed, it's not simply a matter of gaining support for Israel in its current war. The attitudes and beliefs being sown here are more deeply rooted than opinions on current events. They are bound to be felt for years to come, when this generation is the one making the big geopolitical decisions.
"I am much more into Israeli/Jewish culture, so I have an affinity to them. As far as the Muslim world is concerned, I don't cope with it very well," Alessandra Volpi said, adding that Israelis remind her of Italians in being very open people. She does not find them rude, suggesting cultural differences among Europeans.
And perhaps that's the most important point. Some people here like Israelis; some find them loud and obnoxious. But ask a general impression of any nationality, be it British, or French, or American, and the same answers will come rolling in; some positive, some negative.
"The human contact is totally significant," Amanda Ciliberto, said, when asked what she thought might influence her opinions about the Mideast the most. "I wanted to go to Israel before, but I was scared. Now I think I'll go, and I think I'll have these friends for years to come."
©2003 The Jerusalem Post Magazine
By RAFAEL D. FRANKEL
To say Israeli travelers stick out like a sore thumb only makes sense if the proverbial thumb belongs to a cartoon character who just had his digit crushed by a five-ton grand piano and it's turning different colors while inflating to the size of a birthday balloon.
They are that easy to spot, especially the men who adhere to what must be a dress code published by the foreign ministry: brightly colored fisherman pants, a tank top with a Chang Beer or Redbull energy drink logo, an earring, slicked hair, and the standard issue purse-sized shoulder bag which rests down by the waist.
But it's more than just the look. Israelis here travel in packs, in gangs that swirl their way around Asia's beaches and jungles like tornadoes in Kansas, leaving guest houses, Internet cafes, and dance clubs gasping for air when they leave.
Where they go, craziness follows. Whether the craziness is good or bad depends on who you ask.
With close to 100,000 Israelis coming to Thailand - perhaps the backpacking hub of the entire world - every year, the level of interaction with people from all over is perhaps unsurpassed anywhere. As such, the impressions Israelis are leaving on people here, unintentional though they may be, are also having an effect on the way they are viewed in much of the Western world.
These impressions have nothing to do with CNN or the European daily papers. Since many Israelis come to the Far East at least in part to get away from the dreariness of daily life in Israel in these times, the impressions they are leaving may have nothing to do with politics, terrorism, or the right to self-defense at all - though that conversation certainly does come up.
Not that it would matter immediately if politics, rather than the next full-moon party, was the standard debate between Israelis and other travelers. For sure, the people they are interacting with are not in a position to sway international politics or opinions on any grand scale, but that's just the point. There are more important things to do and talk about. The truth is that Israelis are better known here for their crazy partying than for anything having to do with targeted killings or suicide bombings.
"They are crazy, crazy, and love to party and take many drugs," said Malte Kramer, 33, from Germany, who is in Thailand for the second time and was romantically involved with an Israeli woman for two weeks. "They're always in groups, very loud, taking drugs like you wouldn't believe. It's like they have this short time to live the way they want to live, like they cannot live in their country."
Kramer met Israelis on Koh Pangang, an island in the Gulf of Thailand known for its full-moon parties, trance music, and drugs. At least that's how Koh Pangang was known before. Now there's something else it is known for.
"You go there and there is Hebrew writing everywhere. And all around you people are speaking Hebrew. We call it David Pangang for fun," Kramer said.
Other names for Koh Pangang circle around Southeast Asia, such as Little Israel, or Little Tel Aviv. And they aren't far off. Invasion is a strong word, but considering that almost every establishment in Koh Pangang has signs up in Hebrew, or a staff that can say "Shalom, ma shlomcha?", or a menu which includes chicken schnitzel, "invasion" might not be far off.
Being so inundated by Israelis, many Israeli cultural traits, including the more objectionable ones, have shown themselves to the locals and travelers here, including rudeness - in the extreme.
"They demand, they don't ask questions. In Europe you would say they are not polite," said Olaf Biel, 30, also from Germany. "They have to be careful, need to show more respect when they meet other people."
Such descriptions are common here, especially among Northern Europeans and the locals. For a culture as soft-spoken and polite as the Thais are, even one Israeli can be a shock, let alone a half dozen. Many Thai guest houses, for example, have taken to asking where people are from before saying if they have any rooms. Some Israelis report being refused entry based on their passport.
"Most Israelis traveling here are just finished with the army. They are wild, loud, and don't have the same education that most Europeans come here with," said Keren Cohen, 23, French by birth, but with an Israeli mother. "And politeness is definitely not a priority. Sometimes, at least, people seem willing to forgive them once they hear where they are from. But still, it can put a lot of people off."
However, many travelers are willing to cut them some slack. After even a brief stint in Thailand, most travelers know at least one thing about Israelis: the mandatory army service. And having at least seen some news about the situation in Israel, many are willing to chalk up rude or harsh attitudes to a need to blow off three years' worth of steam.
This also leads to the description of Israelis by some travelers as being melancholy beneath their exuberant, adventurous exterior.
"There is a certain disenchantment, a sadness to them sometimes that you can see in their eyes," said Alessandra Volpi, 33, originally from Italy but now living in New York. "And from what they've been through in the army, it can also make them more aggressive."
Indeed, when a group of Israelis walks into a restaurant it feels as though a hand on the crowd volume switch just sent the amplifier into overdrive.
"It's true, we are loud, we make a mess," said Shai Tzur, 34, founder and co-owner of the Zullah Israeli House in Bangkok. "We know what we want, and we won't let people f**k with us. If we need to, we will say what we are thinking, even though sometimes that is not the best thing."
What nearly all travelers do agree on is that getting to know Israelis - beyond the usual pleasantries and party situations - is not easy. But once the ice is broken, those that make true Israeli friends, or perhaps have sexual relationships with them, find them to be among the most kind, caring, and fun people they have ever hung around with.
"Israelis can break everything, even cold people from Europe," Tzur said, proudly gesturing at the dozen or so Israelis sitting in his restaurant. "Israelis know exactly how to touch your heart, how to make you smile and be happy and have fun. It's not normal for Israelis to think they need to be with someone for a week before they can be free with you. They are like that from the beginning."
After traveling in Asia for nearly six months, Amanda Ciliberto, 23, from Seattle, says that of the 10 people she has met whom she now considers good friends, five are Israeli. Ciliberto was originally impressed by a group of Israelis she met on a boat in Laos, two of whom let her stay with them in a guesthouse when everywhere in town was full.
"I had no place to stay and they let me stay with them for free, without any questions," she said. "They are very quick to help you when you need it, and very quick to bond. They are very thoughtful and gregarious, very social animals."
Ciliberto also mentioned the physical beauty of Israelis. "Some of the most amazingly, stunningly beautiful people I have ever encountered," she said.
She is not alone in her opinions, as Israelis have also racked up quite a reputation as lovers. The sex columnist for the travelers' magazine Farang ranked Israelis with the "Best Bodies" in a recent issue: "They may seem the most eager to get into your pants, all machismo and no brains, but after coming out to Asia after three years of military service, they've got the bodies of gods, they're great conversationalists (once you get past the machismo), and they're really quite conservative. If you want respect in the morning, follow the Israeli woman's rules of etiquette: The first night is for talking, the second for snogging, and only on the third night do you 'let him' take you home. (We will forgive you, however, if you do what we've done more than once, which is to apply those rules in reverse!)"
True, sleeping their way to better international relations might not seem like the most reputable course to take, but it is having its effects. Those travelers who have had Israeli lovers, or who have made real friends with Israelis, have seen their opinions and impressions of the country change significantly during their travels. Add to this the complete absence of travelers from any Arab or Muslim countries - not one traveler interviewed for this story had met anyone from the Muslim world here - and the sympathies which are created are heavily tilted toward Israel.
"I don't know if my opinion about the political situation has changed much, but in terms of sympathy I do feel closer to Israel because I know so many people from there now," said Gulio Sasi, 26, an actor from Rome. "I feel closer to their culture and their religion."
Indeed, it's not simply a matter of gaining support for Israel in its current war. The attitudes and beliefs being sown here are more deeply rooted than opinions on current events. They are bound to be felt for years to come, when this generation is the one making the big geopolitical decisions.
"I am much more into Israeli/Jewish culture, so I have an affinity to them. As far as the Muslim world is concerned, I don't cope with it very well," Alessandra Volpi said, adding that Israelis remind her of Italians in being very open people. She does not find them rude, suggesting cultural differences among Europeans.
And perhaps that's the most important point. Some people here like Israelis; some find them loud and obnoxious. But ask a general impression of any nationality, be it British, or French, or American, and the same answers will come rolling in; some positive, some negative.
"The human contact is totally significant," Amanda Ciliberto, said, when asked what she thought might influence her opinions about the Mideast the most. "I wanted to go to Israel before, but I was scared. Now I think I'll go, and I think I'll have these friends for years to come."
©2003 The Jerusalem Post Magazine
Within Burma's outward smiles, winces of pain
LETTER FROM RANGOON
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 3/16/2003
RANGOON, Burma -- Ivy grows outside apartment walls, most buildings are cracked, and the sidewalks in this once-elegant capital are crumbling. Still, Rangoon is sprouting luxury hotels, high-rise office buildings, and its fair share of upscale nightclubs.
Burma is a country of contradictions, but the signs that it is deteriorating are not all visible. Instead, they lie in the frayed fabric of a nation coming apart at the seams, falling behind in its economic, educational, and health care status.
Except for the short bananas sold on street corners for a few cents apiece, life here contrasts sharply with some other Southeast Asian capitals.
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in Hanoi -- both bouncing back from decades of conflict -- motorbikes buzz around, carrying their busy drivers to and from work.
In Rangoon, the streets are clogged with 20-year-old cars running on spare parts and spewing black exhaust. The military junta that runs Burma and that refers to the nation as Myanmar, has outlawed motorcycles in the city and has raised taxes on cars so high that only the rich can afford new vehicles.
Burma, as one Western expatriate put it recently, ''is an undeveloping country.''
According to the United Nations, more than 35 percent of Burmese children suffer from malnutrition in what was once called the Rice Bowl of Asia. The health-care and education systems are in shambles, threatening to produce an entire generation in which ignorance and disease are the norm rather than the exception.
It is hard to determine exactly why the Burmese are no longer getting enough to eat. ''It's nearly impossible to get the true story,'' said a Western diplomat, who like others here spoke only on condition of anonymity. ''You cross-reference your facts and the things that match up three or four times you call the truth.''
So goes information dissemination in a totalitarian country.
Most likely, a combination of uneven distribution and overexporting has increased by more than 100 percent the prices for staples such as rice and cooking oil, the diplomat said. ''The poorest could face an increasingly difficult situation,'' he reported.
Meanwhile, only half of Burma's children complete Grade 5 because of gross underfunding by the government and an ingrained bribery system. Although school is supposed to be free, some teachers ask parents for ''donations.''
In addition, the younger generation is not keeping pace in learning English. When visitors need directions or are curious about current events, it is Burmese at least older than 40, who studied under the remnants of the English colonial system, who can speak with foreigners.
The effects of the education system are being felt in several ways. For example, there are no qualified architects or engineers to build the military's pet-project bridges over the Irrawaddy River; Chinese and Europeans are recruited instead.
In addition, there are no doctors coming up to take the place of those who are retiring, no small problem for a country where HIV infects almost 500,000 people, according to the United Nations, and is spreading rapidly. And with endemic cholera and tuberculosis, a public health crisis exists from which there is no discernible escape, a local doctor said.
Pinched by a government-mandated 25-cent consultation fee, the relatively few young Burmese doctors are cutcorners -- and endangering their patients -- by reusing syringes, the doctor said.
With myriad ills afflicting Burma, the people would be forgiven if they sank into societal depression. Nevertheless, as with all Southeast Asian countries, a gentle smile is still the rule.
''The Burmese are the most charming oppressed people in the world,'' American author Jeff Greenwald said after a recent visit.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 3/16/2003
RANGOON, Burma -- Ivy grows outside apartment walls, most buildings are cracked, and the sidewalks in this once-elegant capital are crumbling. Still, Rangoon is sprouting luxury hotels, high-rise office buildings, and its fair share of upscale nightclubs.
Burma is a country of contradictions, but the signs that it is deteriorating are not all visible. Instead, they lie in the frayed fabric of a nation coming apart at the seams, falling behind in its economic, educational, and health care status.
Except for the short bananas sold on street corners for a few cents apiece, life here contrasts sharply with some other Southeast Asian capitals.
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in Hanoi -- both bouncing back from decades of conflict -- motorbikes buzz around, carrying their busy drivers to and from work.
In Rangoon, the streets are clogged with 20-year-old cars running on spare parts and spewing black exhaust. The military junta that runs Burma and that refers to the nation as Myanmar, has outlawed motorcycles in the city and has raised taxes on cars so high that only the rich can afford new vehicles.
Burma, as one Western expatriate put it recently, ''is an undeveloping country.''
According to the United Nations, more than 35 percent of Burmese children suffer from malnutrition in what was once called the Rice Bowl of Asia. The health-care and education systems are in shambles, threatening to produce an entire generation in which ignorance and disease are the norm rather than the exception.
It is hard to determine exactly why the Burmese are no longer getting enough to eat. ''It's nearly impossible to get the true story,'' said a Western diplomat, who like others here spoke only on condition of anonymity. ''You cross-reference your facts and the things that match up three or four times you call the truth.''
So goes information dissemination in a totalitarian country.
Most likely, a combination of uneven distribution and overexporting has increased by more than 100 percent the prices for staples such as rice and cooking oil, the diplomat said. ''The poorest could face an increasingly difficult situation,'' he reported.
Meanwhile, only half of Burma's children complete Grade 5 because of gross underfunding by the government and an ingrained bribery system. Although school is supposed to be free, some teachers ask parents for ''donations.''
In addition, the younger generation is not keeping pace in learning English. When visitors need directions or are curious about current events, it is Burmese at least older than 40, who studied under the remnants of the English colonial system, who can speak with foreigners.
The effects of the education system are being felt in several ways. For example, there are no qualified architects or engineers to build the military's pet-project bridges over the Irrawaddy River; Chinese and Europeans are recruited instead.
In addition, there are no doctors coming up to take the place of those who are retiring, no small problem for a country where HIV infects almost 500,000 people, according to the United Nations, and is spreading rapidly. And with endemic cholera and tuberculosis, a public health crisis exists from which there is no discernible escape, a local doctor said.
Pinched by a government-mandated 25-cent consultation fee, the relatively few young Burmese doctors are cutcorners -- and endangering their patients -- by reusing syringes, the doctor said.
With myriad ills afflicting Burma, the people would be forgiven if they sank into societal depression. Nevertheless, as with all Southeast Asian countries, a gentle smile is still the rule.
''The Burmese are the most charming oppressed people in the world,'' American author Jeff Greenwald said after a recent visit.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, March 02, 2003
Searching for the truth in Myanmar
Democracy on hold in nation on edge
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published March 2, 2003
YANGON, Myanmar -- In a totalitarian nation where the grapevine has replaced the media as the trusted source of information, two rumors this month--one false, one true--have stirred this nation's simmering cauldron of discontent.
The economy had been on a downward spiral long before the first rumor struck--that the commercial banks were about to go bankrupt. Although false, it created a run on banks that prompted some to restrict withdrawals.
So when the second rumor--that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was headed to jail again--turned out to be true, passions were already high. Soon nearly 2,000 protesters gathered outside a Yangon courthouse, an uncommon occurrence in this nation where a military junta has ruled since 1988.
On Feb. 21, a court found Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, guilty of wrongful restraint in a civil suit and gave her the choice of paying a 50-cent fine or spending a week in jail.
"The Lady," as she is affectionately known here, chose jail.
The suit stemmed from an altercation last year, two days after Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her cousin, Soe Aung, punched her after she refused to allow him inside her compound.
Suu Kyi filed a lawsuit against her cousin for assault, and he filed a countersuit. Soe Aung also was found guilty and ordered to pay a $1 fine or spend a month in jail. The outcome of his sentence was unclear.
The military, faced with a volatile crowd and the uncomfortable prospect of sending the hero of millions of Myanmar people to prison just eight months after her release from a second house arrest, ordered Suu Kyi's sentence suspended.
Though Suu Kyi won a minor victory, the path toward democracy has made no headway since her release.
"It's obvious the process has stalled," said a Western ambassador, who like most diplomats, political activists and residents spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Relations between the military and Suu Kyi's league are extremely tense. Hope for a political reconciliation, which followed Suu Kyi's release May 6, has given way to despair and frustration within the league and among its supporters.
Suu Kyi's conviction follows the arrest of seven National League members and five other democracy activists two weeks ago.
"The general sense is that the [democratic process] is going nowhere, and we are extraordinarily disappointed with that," a Western diplomat said.
Washington is a staunch critic of the Myanmar junta and a strong supporter of Suu Kyi, and the U.S. has imposed an investment ban, travel restrictions for Myanmar officials and an arms embargo, among other sanctions, on the country.
An olive branch to U.S.
Just this month, Myanmar's junta extended a surprise invitation to the U.S. to enter a dialogue on the country's political future. But Western diplomats here played that off as a public-relations move to ward off new sanctions rather than a serious offer.
The appeal followed hints by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner that Washington would impose new sanctions on the former Burma due to a lack of progress in political dialogue with Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates.
The junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council, is supposed to be engaged in UN-brokered talks on national reconciliation with Suu Kyi. The talks began in October 2000.
Even so, rather than negotiate, the military regime is conducting a smear campaign against the National League and Suu Kyi in particular, said league spokesman U Luwin.
He noted a cartoon published recently in a Yangon newspaper that depicted Suu Kyi and senior league members tarnishing the image of Myanmar.
According to local and foreign experts on Myanmar's laws, the trial and eventual finding against Suu Kyi appeared fraught with legal abnormalities.
National League officials "believe there is an orchestrated political campaign to embarrass her, to diminish her and make her look ordinary," a Western diplomat said. "The irregularities with the way this case was handled support that."
In its defense, the junta said that under Myanmar law "all citizens are treated equally" and that the charge of playing politics in the civil suit "is completely untrue."
But the Suu Kyi conviction was just the latest shock to Myanmar. Current events here have the populace on edge and even prompted the UN to issue a warning last week to its employees here to exercise caution.
The banking crisis, coupled with rampant inflation, is threatening to grind the economy to a halt. Since the beginning of 2002, prices for rice, cooking oil and gasoline have risen more than 100 percent.
Though another Western diplomat said the reasons behind the price increases were murky, the consequences were potentially devastating.
"The poorest could face an increasingly difficult situation here," he said. "It's hard to imagine starvation, but malnutrition, which is already a problem, could increase."
Talk of discontent
Interviews with taxi drivers, hotel clerks, educators and health-care workers here all point to high discontent with the state of affairs in what was previously one of Asia's wealthiest countries. A taxi driver, his voice trembling and rising as he spoke, said he thinks there "will soon be an explosion."
Due to the pervasive presence of military intelligence personnel, such "interviews" are conducted in hushed tones at the back tables of tea houses or in private vehicles--when they take place at all.
Fearing imprisonment or disappearance, most Myanmar citizens simply shake their head and walk away when asked about any matters concerning the military government.
Some 1,300 political prisoners remain jailed and executions and forced labor continue to be reported in ethnic minority areas, according to Amnesty International.
Those people who do talk paint a picture of a society deeply frustrated with its plummeting standard of living and an inept government that people blame for their myriad ills.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published March 2, 2003
YANGON, Myanmar -- In a totalitarian nation where the grapevine has replaced the media as the trusted source of information, two rumors this month--one false, one true--have stirred this nation's simmering cauldron of discontent.
The economy had been on a downward spiral long before the first rumor struck--that the commercial banks were about to go bankrupt. Although false, it created a run on banks that prompted some to restrict withdrawals.
So when the second rumor--that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was headed to jail again--turned out to be true, passions were already high. Soon nearly 2,000 protesters gathered outside a Yangon courthouse, an uncommon occurrence in this nation where a military junta has ruled since 1988.
On Feb. 21, a court found Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, guilty of wrongful restraint in a civil suit and gave her the choice of paying a 50-cent fine or spending a week in jail.
"The Lady," as she is affectionately known here, chose jail.
The suit stemmed from an altercation last year, two days after Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. Her cousin, Soe Aung, punched her after she refused to allow him inside her compound.
Suu Kyi filed a lawsuit against her cousin for assault, and he filed a countersuit. Soe Aung also was found guilty and ordered to pay a $1 fine or spend a month in jail. The outcome of his sentence was unclear.
The military, faced with a volatile crowd and the uncomfortable prospect of sending the hero of millions of Myanmar people to prison just eight months after her release from a second house arrest, ordered Suu Kyi's sentence suspended.
Though Suu Kyi won a minor victory, the path toward democracy has made no headway since her release.
"It's obvious the process has stalled," said a Western ambassador, who like most diplomats, political activists and residents spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Relations between the military and Suu Kyi's league are extremely tense. Hope for a political reconciliation, which followed Suu Kyi's release May 6, has given way to despair and frustration within the league and among its supporters.
Suu Kyi's conviction follows the arrest of seven National League members and five other democracy activists two weeks ago.
"The general sense is that the [democratic process] is going nowhere, and we are extraordinarily disappointed with that," a Western diplomat said.
Washington is a staunch critic of the Myanmar junta and a strong supporter of Suu Kyi, and the U.S. has imposed an investment ban, travel restrictions for Myanmar officials and an arms embargo, among other sanctions, on the country.
An olive branch to U.S.
Just this month, Myanmar's junta extended a surprise invitation to the U.S. to enter a dialogue on the country's political future. But Western diplomats here played that off as a public-relations move to ward off new sanctions rather than a serious offer.
The appeal followed hints by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner that Washington would impose new sanctions on the former Burma due to a lack of progress in political dialogue with Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates.
The junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council, is supposed to be engaged in UN-brokered talks on national reconciliation with Suu Kyi. The talks began in October 2000.
Even so, rather than negotiate, the military regime is conducting a smear campaign against the National League and Suu Kyi in particular, said league spokesman U Luwin.
He noted a cartoon published recently in a Yangon newspaper that depicted Suu Kyi and senior league members tarnishing the image of Myanmar.
According to local and foreign experts on Myanmar's laws, the trial and eventual finding against Suu Kyi appeared fraught with legal abnormalities.
National League officials "believe there is an orchestrated political campaign to embarrass her, to diminish her and make her look ordinary," a Western diplomat said. "The irregularities with the way this case was handled support that."
In its defense, the junta said that under Myanmar law "all citizens are treated equally" and that the charge of playing politics in the civil suit "is completely untrue."
But the Suu Kyi conviction was just the latest shock to Myanmar. Current events here have the populace on edge and even prompted the UN to issue a warning last week to its employees here to exercise caution.
The banking crisis, coupled with rampant inflation, is threatening to grind the economy to a halt. Since the beginning of 2002, prices for rice, cooking oil and gasoline have risen more than 100 percent.
Though another Western diplomat said the reasons behind the price increases were murky, the consequences were potentially devastating.
"The poorest could face an increasingly difficult situation here," he said. "It's hard to imagine starvation, but malnutrition, which is already a problem, could increase."
Talk of discontent
Interviews with taxi drivers, hotel clerks, educators and health-care workers here all point to high discontent with the state of affairs in what was previously one of Asia's wealthiest countries. A taxi driver, his voice trembling and rising as he spoke, said he thinks there "will soon be an explosion."
Due to the pervasive presence of military intelligence personnel, such "interviews" are conducted in hushed tones at the back tables of tea houses or in private vehicles--when they take place at all.
Fearing imprisonment or disappearance, most Myanmar citizens simply shake their head and walk away when asked about any matters concerning the military government.
Some 1,300 political prisoners remain jailed and executions and forced labor continue to be reported in ethnic minority areas, according to Amnesty International.
Those people who do talk paint a picture of a society deeply frustrated with its plummeting standard of living and an inept government that people blame for their myriad ills.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune