Lubbock Evening Journal from Lubbock, Texas • Page 16

JOURNAL, Lubbock, March Black market goods AP An open-air shop in Mandalay, Burma boasts a wide array of black market goods. In Burma, the state attempts with little success to run a centralized economy, but the black market thrives with merchandise from places such as China, India and Thailand. Burma leadership survives power ploy, bomb attack Burma Strongman Ne Win and his policy of neutrality fixtures in this Asian hermit nation for the past two decades appear to have survived unscathed an internal political power play and a brutal bomb attack staged on Burmese soil by North Korea. Western diplomats here and knowledgeable Burmese sources discount speculation that Burma's carefully tended neutrality was shattered last Oct. 9 when North Korean commandos triggered a bomb that killed 17 visiting South Korean officials and four Burmese.

Burmese are dealing with the incident as a single, specific case. They don't want it to have any international ramifications," said one political analyst at a Western embassy. the wake of the attack, some observers speculated Burma would move into the Western bloc and shun the communist world, especially the Soyjet Union, which took a pro-North Korean line after the incident. Burma broke off diplomatic relations with North Korea and sentenced to death two of the commandos, who are currently awaiting the outcome of an appeal. But the government is giving no indication it intends to deviate from strict neutrality and its barring of foreign influences policies that have been its hallmarks since Ne Win came to power in a military coup in 1962.

Burma even pulled out of the movement of non-aligned nations, also known as the Third World, in 19BO, claiming its original principles were "dying." Nc Win in recent months' has again asserted himself in both intern- ational and domestic politics, setting in motion a wide-sweeping purge. The 72-year-old leader stepped down as president in 1981 but kept the far more powerful post of chairman of the Burma Socialist Program Party. No heir apparent is currently visible. His most recent potential rival, Brig. General Tin Oo, was sentenced to life imprisonment on corruption charges last November.

"Tin Oo didn't heed the lessons of the past," said the embassy analyst, the lessons being that Ne Win has over the years sacked five potential rivals. The corruption charges against Oo are widely considered to be irrelevant. Tin Oo, who ranked in the party hierarchy and once headed the military intelligence rapidly consolidating his influence when his fall came. It was accompanied by a purge: of his supporters in the army and government; With Ne Win entrenched, few foresee changes in basic policies which he and his followers instituted under what they called "the Burmese road to socialism." This is an amalgam of socialist economics, Buddhist metaphysics, nationalism and rule by an army-controlled government and party. With retired army colonels running all but ope government ministry, it is unlikely that any bold initiatives or bureaucratic 'efficiencies will be introduced.

"This, some officials of aid-giving countries say, is unfdrturiate because Burma appears'to have reached a plateau in its economy and stale management after initiating some mild reforms in the mid-1970s. The latest economic report from ther U.S. Embassy here notes that has a poor export performance and has been especially hurt by low world prices for rice, EvcGobor Wig Trend Texas 743.11 LUBBOCK ODESSA AMARILLO SPRING SPECIALS! MENS: Short-Sleeve Cotton Knits (Solids stripes) Short-Sleeve Sport Shirts (Reg. 27.50-37.50) Blue White Oxford BD Dress Shirts (Reg. 28.50).

LADIES: Summer Seersucker Skirts (Reg. 45.00) Spring Camp Shirts (Reg. 45.00) Spring Suits (Reg. 185) BOYS: (Sizes 14-20) Polo Cotton Knits (Reg. 25 Polo (Reg.

30.00) Polo US Rugbys (Reg. 40.00) Polo US Cotton Sweaters (Solids Stripes) Polo Nylon Bike Jacket (Reg. 60.00) 95 19 95 95 '29 9S 27 95 139 95 '19 95 22 95 29 95 29 95 53995 744-6194 13th University ys smugglers By DENIS D. GRAY Associated Press Writer MANDALAY, Burma Rudyard Kipling, the poet of Imperial Britain, would probably be a shade shocked if he took to any of the roads to Mandalay these days. He'd find they carry toothpaste from Thailand, T-shirts from India and flashlight batteries from China.

By way of Lashio, Shwebo, Taung- gyi and the Arakan the.smugglers come, employing human backpower, mules, boaLv elephants and finally trains and trucks to deposit a bewildering range of goods at Mandalay's black market. Burmese kings of the last century dubbed this magic city the center of the universe. It is at the very heart of Burma: equidistant from the frontiers of India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand and 400 miles from Rangoon, the nation's capital. This makes free enterprises freer in a land where the state attempts with little success to run a centralized economy. Besides the reluctantly tolerated black market and its products from what the residents here call "the back door," Mandalay hums with private initiative.

Along tree-lined streets, Chinese grocers sell hillocks of fruit and vegetables while hawkers ply rich curries, noodles and coconut sweets. In the shadows of pagodas, traditional craftsmen work with marble, wood, ivory, brass and silk, their products a marked contrast to the overpriced offerings at the government's handicraft stores. "In Mandalay you have a sense of motion. People look like they're going places," says a Western diplomat stationed in'Burma for several years. "In Rangoon, many people just amble around." But Burma's second largest city is not a throbbing dynamo about to catch up with Tokyo, Singapore or Hong Kong.

Mandalay, with 600,000 people, has'installed-traffic lights at only four intersections and just recently entered the television age. By most standards, the pace of life is as leisurely as the trot of ponies pulling the carriages which serve as taxis for most citizens. Mandalay's teeming bazaars, low skyline and languid moods are of the old Asia rapidly vanishing just-atout everywhere else. Yet in the Burmese context, it is not an ancient- place. Mandalay was.built in the century by King Mindoii.

was a progressive ruler but was followed by a monarch of lesser qualities and Mandalay his "golden city, the cluster of was doomed to become Burma's last royal capital. Thei British annexed Burm.a;-.in 1885 to colonial India and held it-until granting independence in 1948. Little, however, is left of Britain's presence in the city, itself. One must drive two hours into the cool hills east of hereto meet the ghosts of fallen At Maymyo, the British built.a hill station where colonial.officers wpulji retreat each summer; to infernalheat of the plains, play'polo and grow petunias, pines awberries. -v SATURDAY COLOR SPECIAL! OFF SPECIAL ITEMS-BUT YOU MUST COME IN TO FIND THE SPECIAL COLOR! "Where Children Are Specinr 70th Indiana Liberty Village South Plains Mall SPORTSWEAR Country Suburban, Collectibles SPRING COORDINATES Linen, Crepe, Poplin.

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