Those who do not are arrested and physically punished with beatings. While the lower-ranked officers struggle to meet their quotas in the field, the highest levels of the government in the capital city strike deals with Burma's two top traffickers, one of whom is the prosperous partner of Singapore. With massive financial ties to Singapore, Lo is one of Burma's top investors. He, along with Khun Sa, a former 'king of opium' is a major player in the economy. In the early 1990s, Lo controlled the most heavily armed drug-trafficking organisation in Southeast Asia. He was arrested in 1973 and sentenced to death, but was freed under a general amnesty in 1980. Now, like Khun Sa, he wears the public persona of a successful businessman in Rangoon where no one does business without close government cooperation.
Although Singapore is proud of its mandatory death penalty for small-time narcotics smugglers and heroin addicts, both Lo and his son travel freely in and out of the friendly island nation. 'The family money is offshore', said a high level US narcotics official. 'The old man is a convicted drug trafficker, so his kid is handling the financial activities'. In 1996, when Law married his bride and business partner in a lavish, well-publicised Rangoon wedding, guests from Singapore were flown in on two chartered planes. According to a high-level US government official familiar with the situation, Law's wife Cecilia Ng operates an underground banking system, and 'is a contact for people in Burma to get their drug money into Singapore, because she has a connection to the government'. The official said that she spends half her time in Rangoon, half in Singapore; when in Rangoon, she is headquartered at Asia Lite, a subsidiary of Asia World. They are also sole officers and shareholders of Asia World subsidiary, Kokang Singapore Pte Ltd. Founded in Singapore in 1993 with $4.6 million, the company 'engages in general trading activities in goods/products of all kinds/descriptions'. Singapore's ventures with Asia World include both government and private investments. Kuok Singapore Ltd, a partner with Asia World in many ventures, was Burma's largest single real estate investor as of late 1996, with over $650 million invested.
Other Singaporean companies are mentioned in Asia Worlds company reports. Sinmardev, another major Singaporean project linked to Lo's company, is a $207 million industrial park and port on the outskirts of Rangoon, which broke ground in 1997. Singaporean entrepreneur Albert Hong, head of Sinmardev, described the project as the largest foreign investment in Burma outside the energy field. The Singaporean consortium leads the joint venture along with the Burmese junta, Los Asia World and a slew of international shareholders. Kuok Singapore Ltd, Lo Hsing Hans Asia World and the Burmese junta are also partners in the luxury Traders Hotel. The hotel's November 1996 opening ceremony was attended by the Singapore ambassador, the president of Kuok Singapore and briefly by Lo himself. The presiding Burmese minister publicly thanked Law and the government of Singapore 'without whose support and encouragement there would be very few Singaporean businessmen in our country'. While government and business connections in Burma and Singapore have boosted Asia World's prospects, other factors have contributed to the company's extraordinary growth. Asia World expanded from a modest trading company to become Burma's largest and fastest-growing private sector enterprise with interests in trading, manufacturing, property, industrial investment, development, construction, transportation, import and distribution, and infrastructure. 'How is it that a company that has a humble beginning trading beans and pulses is suddenly involved in $200 million projects?', asked a US government official interviewed by Kean and Bernstein. 'Where did all that start-up capital come from?' The US government ventured a guess in 1996: it denied Law, Asia World's CEO, a visa to the US 'on suspicion of drug trafficking'. Asia World's operations now include a deepwater port in Rangoon, the Leo Express bus line into Northern Burma, and a $33 million toll highway from the heart of Burma's poppy-growing region to the Chinese border. The conglomerate also operates a wharf with freight handling, storage, and a customs yard for ships carrying up to 15,000 tons. 'If you're in the dope business, these are the types of things that you've got to have to be able to move your product', said a high level US narcotics official told Kean and Bernstein. 'They have set up institutions to facilitate the movement of drugs. And in all probability, they are using laundered drug proceeds, or funds generated from investments of drug trafficking proceeds, to build this infrastructure', he added.
More than ten years ago, the activities of Los company Asia World triggered an international narcotics investigation led by Washington. US investigators alleged that Asia World's relationship to Singapore paves the way for the narcotics trade to be woven into all legitimate investments between the two countries. 'Singapore's investments in Burma are opening doors for the drug traffickers, giving them access to banks and financial systems', one government official told Kean and Bernstein. But despite the investigation' life in the poppy fields today is as it has always been. The Burmese junta's control of its impoverished population through crude methods such as torture, forced labour and mass killings leaves it open to international condemnation.
In contrast, Singapore takes a more sophisticated approach to repression, both at home and abroad. While the island nation's citizens have material benefits and the appearance of rule of law, they live in fear of an Orwellian government that closely monitors every aspect of their lives. The ruling party in Singapore often sues those who dare to oppose it on trumped up defamation charges, forcing many into bankruptcy or exile. Singapore has been more than willing to share its expertise in intelligence with its Burmese counterparts. The Singapore-Myanmar Ministerial-Level Work Committee was set up in 1993 in Rangoon to 'forge mutual benefits in investment, trade and economic sectors'. The committee included a former intelligence chief, Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, and other top Burmese ministers and high- level Singaporean officials. At the 23 December meeting, Nyunt urged his ministers to give priority to projects arranged by the Singaporean government. 'Pilot projects are being implemented to transfer know- how to Myanmar', said Nyunt in his address. One such project was a state-of-the-art cyber-war centre in Rangoon which could intercept a range of incoming communications, including telephone calls, faxes, emails and computer data transmission, from 20 other countries. The centre was built by Singapore Technologies, the city state's largest industrial and technology conglomerate, comprising more than 100 companies. This government-owned company also provides on-site training at Burma's Defence Ministry complex, and reportedly passes on its 'sophisticated capability' to hundreds of Burma 'secret police' at an institution inside Singapore. Burma has no external enemies but the ruling junta goes to extremes to terrorise the population through its elaborate intelligence network. Intelligence officials have already used their newly-acquired talents from the cyber-war center to arrest pro-democracy activists, and it is well known that its feared military intelligence often tortures its victims during lengthy interrogations.
Singaporean companies have also helped suppress dissent in Burma by supplying the military with arms to use against its own people. The first shipment of guns and ammunition was delivered on 6 October 1988. Throughout the month, hundreds of boxes of mortars, ammunition and other supplies marked 'Allied Ordnance, Singapore' were unloaded from vessels in Rangoon. Allied Ordnance is a subsidiary of Chartered Industries of Singapore, the arms branch of Singapore Technologies - the same government-owned company which built the cyber-war centre. The shipments also included rockets made by Chartered Industries of Singapore under license from a Swedish company and sold in violation of an agreement with Sweden requiring authorisation for re-exports. These shipments from Singapore arrived only weeks after the 1988 military takeover in Rangoon, in which the new leaders of the SLORC massacred hundreds of peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators in the street. These killings followed another wave of government massacres earlier that summer when longtime dictator Ne Win struggled to keep power in the face of nationwide strikes and demonstrations for democracy He eventually stepped down but, operating behind the scenes, installed the puppet SLORC. As the ki
llings continued thousands of civilians fled the country fearing for their lives. When numerous countries responded by suspending aid, and with traditional suppliers cutting shipments the SLORC became desperate. Singapore was the first country to come to its rescue and its companies have continued to supply Burma's military, sometimes acting as middlemen for arms from other countries ever since. In 1989, Israel and Belgium delivered grenade launchers and anti-tank guns via Singapore. In 1992, Singapore violated the European Commission arms embargo by acting as a broker and arranging for a $1.5 million shipment of mortars from Portugal. 'It is highly unlikely that any of these shipments to Myanmar could have been made without the knowledge and support of the Singapore Government', wrote William Ashton in Jane's Intelligence Review. 'By assisting with weapons sales, defence technology transfers, military training and intelligence cooperation, Singapore has been able to win a sympathetic hearing at the very heart of Myanmar's official councils'.
In November 1997, Singapore deployed its diplomatic arsenal to defend Rangoon at the United Nations. Its representatives made an effort to water down the General Assembly resolution which castigated Burma for its harsh treatment of pro-democracy activists, widespread human rights violations, and nullification of free and fair elections that had voted it out of power. In an urgent' letter to the Swedish mission, which was drafting the resolution, Singapore representative Bilahari Kausikan cited progress' in Burma and said that 'the majority of your co-sponsors have little or no substantive interests in Myanmar. Our position is different. We have concrete and immediate stakes'. Objecting to parts of the resolution and attempting to soften the language, Singapore's representative circulated the letter to key members of the UN's Third Committee on Human Rights. 'The driving force was definitely its business connections', according to Dr Ihaung Htun, Representative for UN Affairs for Burma's government-in-exile. 'Singapore defended its investments at the diplomatic level, using its efforts at the UN to promote its business interests'. The protection of Singapore's 'concrete and immediate stakes' is essential to the ruling party's success in maintaining power and the basis of its support for Burma, said Case Western Reserve University economist Christopher Lingle. 'Singapore depends heavily upon its symbiotic relationship with crony capitalists and upon accommodating a high enough rate of return to keep the citizenry in line. Therefore its very survival is tied up with business and government investments'.
William Ashton, writing in Jane's Intelligence Review, suggested an additional incentive for Singapore's alliance with Burma. As Rangoon's major regional backer and strategic ally, China has provided much of the weaponry, training and financial assistance for the junta. China's expanding commercial and strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region, coupled with its alliance with neighbouring Burma, is a source of great concern in Singapore. The desire to keep Burma from becoming Beijing's stalking horse in the region may provide another motivation for Singapore's wooing of Rangoon. The Singapore government has consistently disregarded the gross human rights violations, along with China and Russia. A US State Department country report for 1997 states that its 'longstanding severe repression of human rights continued during the year. Citizens continued to live subject at any time and without appeal to the arbitrary and sometimes brutal dictates of the military dictatorship'. Amnesty International reports that there were well over 1,200 political prisoners languishing in Burma dungeons where torture is commonplace. This was nothing new. The country has been politically unstable since 1962.
In 2007 the military junta again began a crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations, including a protest march led by Buddhist monks - once more boosting its prison population. The catalyst for that popular outburst was believed to be a huge increase in fuel costs that have begun to hurt the average citizen. But the protests were over more issues than just the price of petrol. It was all about freedom and democracy and human rights abuses. Images of bloodied monks were plastered all over the world. The US threatened stiffer sanctions, 27 members of the European Union also condemned the act, but only China and Russia stood in the way of a swiff UN Security Council resolution to confront the military government over its actions. However, following a visit in October 2007 the Secretary- General's Special Adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, reported 'positive' human rights developments and an invitation from Burma government for him and UN Special Rapporteur for human rights, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, to visit the country again in November 2007.
Pinheiro emphasised the 'importance of obtaining any information - even incomplete information - on the state of human rights in the country'. His trip to the country from 11 to 15 November was the first since 2003, when he was last allowed to visit on behalf of the United Nations. In his later address to the UN, Pinheiro emphasised the limitations of his visit. "This was not a full-fledged fact-finding mission', he said, citing the short time period, the lack of access to civilians and the government restrictions on his movement. 'My only moment where I was not with the government was when I met with certain UN dignitaries and interviewed prisoners and monks'. Despite these constraints, however, Pinheiro expressed his gratitude to the government for allowing him to return to the country 'It was a very unusual format that in normal circumstances I would not accept', he was reported to have said before adding, 'I'm not complaining'. During the visit, Pinheiro told the UN that he met with several groups, including the government's newly established human rights body, the police, 12 monks and administrators of the Yangon general hospital.
He also visited the infamous Insein prison where an estimated 1,200 political prisoners were held before the military crackdown began in September. There, he was able to conduct one-on-one meetings with five detainees. These interviews were unrecorded - as far as he knew. However, he is still unclear about his proposals for improved compliance with human rights legislation. He said: 'I need to report, I need to be public, but I must convince the authorities to comply with human rights laws'. While the government has provided detailed records in response to some of his requests for information, Pinheiro said: "There is a lot of information I cannot verify'. Pinheiro said he discussed the importance of timing in improving the political situation. "Thanks to the impact of images and the worldwide revulsion to the military crackdown, the international community is sharing a moment of coordination', he said. 'My fear is that the scenes of these marchers will be forgotten and we will lose this opportunity'. Pinheiro stressed the significant role that international cooperation, especially among the East and Southeast Asian countries, could play in stabilising the country and facilitating political transition. He said, 'I want to tell the other countries, 'you owe something to these people. They represent our values. The international community has to show some competence to talk less and act more effectively".
As expected, it was business as usual with Singapore whose leaders did not react in any way to the Saffron Revolution nor a report by Danish Doctors for Human Rights which revealed that '66 per cent of the over 120,000 refugees from Burma now living in Thailand have been tortured' in their own country and subjected to 'forced labour, deportation, pillaging, destruction of villages, and various forms of torture and rape'. The doctors reported that refugees witnessed the junta's military forces murder members of their families. Writing in the Online Citizen, Singaporean journalist Khairulanwar Zaini, said:
The antipathy towards the unholy alliance between the Singapore government and the Burmese junta is motivated by the latter's abysmal track record in governance - the countless flagrant abuses of power and inept leadership are legendary - and rightly so, it would seem inconceivable that our leaders should accommodate such personalities culpable of the murder of their own citizens. However, a deeper look into the issue will force many to confront the very practical realities of politics and economics: the governments motivation to engage with the Burmese has very little to do with altruism, but more of the economic advantages that can be procured. Burma is a potential source of lucrative economic profit for any investi
ng nation, particularly when most other foreign investors shy away from it. And therein lies the opportunity for Singapore - and this parleying to the Burmese junta is nothing new, but an attempt to play catch-up with Thailand and regional giants India and China, nations which have entered into close economic partnerships with Burma, and are clearly reaping the benefits of being the leading investors in a resource-rich nation that is shunned by others. Nevertheless, it may seem downright atrocious that our pursuit of economic growth is at the expense of the innocent citizens of Burma. Given the bloody crackdowns in the dying days of the Saffron Revolution and willful deprivation imposed on the Burmese population, it is legitimate to argue that doing business with the junta is a tacit acceptance of its ruthless and bloody policies, and that we are somehow culpable for prolonging the suffering of ordinary Burmese people. And this primacy that our government has accorded to economics and material wealth, overriding considerations of human rights and a sense of common decency, has earned the contempt of many an idealist, this author among them.
Once a Jolly Hangman Page 24