No Happy Medium for Hardliners

The SPDC is seeking new ways to tell the world that Burma is open for business. But it is having a hard time finding a medium that doesn’t threaten to open the floodgates of political debate.

The Internet, the driving force behind economic growth in much of the rest of the world, has been given little leeway to help Burma stake its claim in the cyber-marketplace. A website (www.myanmarmade.com) promising crafts, gems, clothes and music at prices "too good to be true" is in the works, but may yet fall victim to the sort of draconian measures that have forced Myabuzz, a Thai-based on-line journal similarly dedicated to promoting business in Burma, to shut down until further notice. Myabuzz, a sister publication of Thaibuzz, has been suspended until it can begin receiving content from Rangoon—impossible now that Eagle, Burma’s only independently owned Internet service provider, has been cut off after officials learned that it was being used to access foreign news reports about Burma.

Until it overcomes its fear of the Net, the regime is hoping that another new project, a glossy print publication dubbed "The Myanmar Times and Business Review," will prove more innocuous. The new up-market tabloid (circulation: 30,000) will sell for two dollars and be distributed to major cities in Burma and Southeast Asia. "The government need not fear us," reassured editor Ross Dunkley.

Dunkley may also be feeling secure: his Burmese partner, Pyone Maung Maung, is a close associate of intelligence chief Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt. But hardliners displeased at the way the publishers sidestepped the Ministry of Information by registering the new publication as a journal ("Only the ministry can approve a newspaper. So it will be a journal, not a paper," explained Lt Col Thein Swe of the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence, a silent partner in the company) may make even this modest step towards independent journalism a risky venture.

"Greedy" Regime Stuns Japanese

Officials in Japan, historically Burma’s largest creditor, have been left shaking their heads over the SPDC’s latest efforts to tap into the wealth of Asia’s richest nation.

An article in the English-language daily, The Japan Times, called the regime "greedy" after it was revealed that the SPDC had informally requested US$ 1.45 billion in aid under the Japanese government’s Miyazawa Plan for crisis-stricken Asian economies.

"They (the SPDC) may be envious of Myanmar’s neighbors that are receiving aid under the Miyazawa Plan," said one Japanese official.

So far, Tokyo has made no offers to include Burma on the list of countries eligible for Miyazawa funds.

Others noted that the requested figure, which the regime says it needs to eliminate the current dual exchange rate system, is about the same amount that Burma owes to Japan in bad loans. According to Japanese government sources, nearly half of the SPDC’s outstanding debt of 272.5 billion yen (US$2.5 billion) had been in arrears for more than six months as of the end of fiscal 1998. The SPDC has not repaid any of its debt to Tokyo since then, despite an arrangement whereby the Japanese government automatically provides grant-in-aid equal to the amount it receives in repayment from deeply indebted countries. Burma now accounts for approximately one-third of all bad debts owed to Japan by the world’s developing nations.

Meanwhile, Japanese immigration officials are finding it difficult to deport Burmese under strict new immigration regulations because the Burmese embassy in Tokyo will not issue new passports until they receive back taxes. Burmese living in Japan are required to pay the embassy 10,000 yen ($90) per month, regardless of their earnings or visa status. Most of the estimated 10,000 Burmese living in Japan are illegal overstayers.