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Reuters - Ousted Myanmar PM Khin Nyunt indicted, source says YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government indicted former prime minister and military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt on Monday, a Supreme Court source said. Khin Nyunt, ousted last October for reasons which still remain murky in secretive Myanmar, was not present in court to hear the charges against him, the source told Reuters. He refused to give any details of the charges, but 38 former close associates, most of them members of Khin Nyunt's military intelligence apparatus, were jailed for corruption and other economic crimes in April. Two sons of Khin Nyunt, one a businessman and the other an army lieutenant-colonel, were tried on similar charges in May at a high-security court inside the notorious Insein prison, but there has been no word on the outcome. The elder son, Lt-Col Zaw Naing Oo, faced 10 charges and businessmen Ye Naing Win faced 33. All the charges were in connection with economic offences such as illegal imports and illegal possession of foreign currency. Khin Nyunt's son-in-law, Tin Htut, was among the 38 tried in April and legal sources said he was sentenced to very long prison terms, including at least one life sentence. Khin Nyunt has not been seen in public since he was ousted and his formerly powerful military intelligence operation dismantled. Usually knowledgeable sources say he was taken from his Yangon home to Insein prison last Thursday, but Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told a news conference on Sunday that was untrue. KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia should allow 50,000 refugees, many from neighbouring Indonesia and Myanmar, to work in the country legally in order to make up for a labour shortage, the U.N. refugee agency urged on Monday. Volker Turk, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Malaysia's recent expulsion of more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers had created a void. "You have a refugee population here who cannot be deported," Turk told reporters at a meeting organised by the agency. "Why not use this population? Why not allow them to work legally?" Malaysian Home (Interior) Minister Azmi Khalid could not be immediately reached for comment. The UNHCR says 40,000 of Malaysia's refugees are registered with it, among them 20,000 from Indonesia's war-torn province of Aceh, and 10,000 members of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority. Malaysia is not yet a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which has been ratified by 145 nations. It views refugees as illegal immigrants. Late last year Malaysia agreed to let the Rohingyas stay in the country temporarily, which meant they need no longer fear deportation, but Turk said the policy had yet to be implemented. "We harbour hopes that this decision will be implemented by World Refugee Day on June 20. That would be the best gift for all the refugees here," he said. The crackdown followed an immigration amnesty, during which more than 100,000 illegal foreign workers -- mainly Indonesians -- left in return for freedom from prosecution, but the exodus caused some acute shortages of unskilled labour. Malaysia relies on foreign unskilled labour to do dirty, poorly paid work that locals shun, but the number of illegal immigrants, estimated at 800,000 or more ahead of the amnesty, causes the government a fiscal and administrative headache. But their sudden departure hit a range of industries such as the construction and plantation sectors, leading to concerns among economists about the potential impact on economic growth and on inflation through higher wages. KUALA LUMPUR (AP) - Allowing military-ruled Myanmar to chair ASEAN next year could speed up the process of democratic reform there, the group's secretary-general said Monday. Myanmar is due to take over the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in 2006. But the United States and European Union fiercely oppose the move and have threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings and stall the bloc's development funding if Myanmar assumes the chair. "If Myanmar chairs ASEAN, then there will be constant international attention on this situation in Myanmar, and there will be a certain amount of pressure in moving the national reconciliation and democratization process," ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong told The Associated Press. "But if they are out of the chair, then for the next one or two years, they won't be on the radar scope. This is the downside," he said. The junta took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a pro-democracy movement. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when the National League for Myanmar is also facing pressure from within ASEAN _ parliamentarians from Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines have demanded that it give up its bid to lead the 10-nation bloc unless it releases Suu Kyi, improves human rights and introduces promised democratic reforms. Ong said Myanmar would make a final decision on whether it would take up the chairmanship at the ASEAN foreign ministers' summit in Laos next month. "Up to now, the reaction of the Myanmar leaders and representations they have made on the issue have been positive. They have been listening and did not react in a negative or confrontational manner. But we do not really know what decision they will make until they tell us in July," he added. Asked about a report on a possible compromise that would allow Myanmar to take up the ASEAN helm but for Thailand to host all international meetings, Ong said it was impractical. "It is best not to take a half-baked decision. On paper it may be attractive, but you may have to spend more money and there may be more headache," he said. The Philippines is next in line to chair the grouping and should consider preparing a contingency plan should Myanmar decide to pass up its turn, he added. Bangkok: (AFP) - The political and economic stagnation that has marred Myanmar under military rule has been a "great tragedy" and pressure on the junta must continue if reform is to happen, former US secretary of state Colin Powell said on Monday. "I think what has happened in Myanmar-Burma is a great tragedy," Powell told a leadership forum in Bangkok, referring to 1990 national elections that were won in a landslide by the democratic opposition but ignored by the junta. The National League for Democracy party, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 of 485 contested seats in the elections, considered free and fair by the international community. The junta never allowed the winners to take office. Washington and the European Union have imposed stiff economic sanctions on the isolated government, which holds Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and has stalled its own democratic road map. "All of us, the US, the United Nations, all of Myanmar's neighbours, have tried to put pressure on them to simply realise that they're going down a dead end," said the top diplomat of President George W. Bush's first term. "We have to... continue to apply pressure on the regime," he added. "They need to release Aung San Suu Kyi and let her participate in the political life of her country." Powell noted that Myanmar and North Korea remain the two most intractable problems in all of Asia. "Nations that lock themselves up like that -- North Korea and Myanmar -- they are so desperately in need and help is waiting for them" if they embrace political reform, he said. Myanmar is due to take over as president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year. Regional legislators have urged it to relinquish the role unless its military rulers implement democratic reforms and free political prisoners, while the United States has threatened to boycott key ASEAN meetings if Yangon is the host. BANGKOK - Myanmar (Burmese) refugees in a Thai-Myanmar border camp have lodged a complaint against the Berlin-based Malteser Hilfsdienst (MHD) for providing them with inadequate medical services, aid officials confirmed on Monday. "They did lodge a complaint with us and provincial authorities so what we will try to do is go in and form a committee to listen to both sides," said a spokesman for the Bangkok office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Residents of Ban Mae La Luang camp in Mae Hong Son province, 650 kilometres north of Bangkok, have accused MHD, a German aid organisation funded by the European Union, of providing the camp with poor quality medicine, refusing to listen to the needs of residents and failing to improve sanitary conditions in the camp. The camp, the temporary home to about 10,000 'displaced people' from neighbouring Myanmar, is run by a consortium of non-governmental organisations. MHD is responsible for medicine and sanitation in the camp. The refugees' chief complaint appears to be over MHD's reluctance to provide camp residents with antibiotics, a widely overused medication in many parts of Asia. Traditional security threats are receding but the North Korean and Burmese regimes as well as the lagging Middle East peace process still pose concerns for the world, according to former US secretary of state Colin Powell. The potential for a third world war or communist threats that he had faced in most of his public service life has diminished substantially with several regime changes in Russia, Mr Powell told a seminar organised by Business Week magazine and Thailand Elite company. The emerging China has posed challenges and opportunities to the world, he said, but if China wanted to be an economic power, it must move properly in the international systems. China must be transparent and abide by the international standard of intellectual property rights, for example by not producing and selling pirated CDs and DVDs. Also, China should be more sensitive to international concerns for human rights. On the military build-up, Mr Powell did not regard China's capabilities as posing a military threat to the United States. Neither did he see China's economic and trade disputes with the US as major problems, saying the US also had similar disputes with other countries. What really worred him were the situations in North Korea and Burma, Mr Powell said. He did not think a nuclear conflict could erupt easily since the stakes were too high for all concerned. Mr Powell cited positive developments from two nuclear-armed rivals _ India and Pakistan _ which decided to rely more on settling their differences through dialogue. The case of Burma was a ``great tragedy'' as the ruling military junta refused to heed the calls and pressure from the international community for the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The US and the rest of the world would keep the pressure on Burma, Mr Powell said. It was very sad that while both Burma and North Korea desperately needed assistance, they would not receive aid until they walked the right path. It was the role of the US to help other countries find the right path, he added. The Palestinians should have the rights to peace and freedom in their land, he said, and the US must do more to ensure the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians would not face more hiccups. Business firms should try to help the countries they were trading with, he said. They should not just seek profit but must bear social responsibility while conducting their business too. PUTRAJAYA: Nine young women who were nabbed more than a month ago for alleged involvement in vice activities are still being held at the Semenyih immigration detention camp as the Thai government has refused to accept them. They were among 26 foreign women who were handed over to the Immigration Department for deportation after claiming they had been smuggled into the country by a vice syndicate. The women, who did not have any valid travelling documents, told the authorities here that they were smuggled in buses with hidden compartments. Seventeen of them had since been deported to Myanmar after their government provided them the necessary documents to leave Malaysia. However, the fate of the other nine, who claimed to be from a minority tribe living along the Thai-Myanmar border, is in limbo as the Thai embassy here has refused to issue them the necessary documents. All nine claimed they were Thai citizens. Immigration enforcement director Datuk Ishak Mohamed said his department was still negotiating with the embassy to secure the travel documents for them, so that the women could be deported. “We understand the embassy’s reluctance to issue the women with passports but we hope it can issue temporary travel documents for them to leave and be reunited with their families. “The women’s claim have been verified and representatives from the International Justice Mission have agreed to undertake the responsibility of accompanying these women from here to their doorstep,” he said. International Justice Mission is an international organisation working against human trafficking and the involvement of young children in sex trade. Ishak said his department was sympathetic towards women who became victims of human trafficking and would speed up the process of sending the nine home. Last week the United States criticised Malaysia for failing to protect victims of human trafficking, saying that they were forced to endure harsh conditions while waiting deportation. |
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