BURMA RELATED NEWS – MARCH 09, 2011

Tourists reach new beach frontier in Myanmar
by Rob Bryan – Wed Mar 9, 3:05 am ET

NGAPALI BEACH, Myanmar (AFP) – Waves lap the vast sweep of pristine, palm-lined sands as a sprinkling of Westerners soak up the sun, their breezy peace punctuated only by the creaks of a passing ox-cart.

Welcome to a tourist paradise, in one of the world’s most isolated nations.

“I’ve been to a lot of beaches and this is just amazing,” said retired Canadian Hugh Minielly, as he and his wife Mary watched the sun set over the azure Bay of Bengal at Myanmar’s coastal resort of Ngapali.

Just a dozen or so hotels are hidden amid the two-mile (three-kilometre) stretch of palms, including some offering luxury beachfront villas for hundreds of dollars a night.

Despite the allure of its picture-perfect sands, Myanmar’s murky political landscape has kept the beach largely under the radar of most tropical sun-seekers, who have typically looked to more well-trodden Asian shores.

Those who do venture to the impoverished nation — one of the world’s least-developed after nearly 50 years of military rule — rave about the friendly locals, the tasty seafood and above all, the lack of other tourists.

“I’ve been looking for a beach like Goa, and this is like Goa but without the backpackers. It’s so authentic,” 69-year-old Minielly told AFP.

The quest for a coastal idyll was dramatised in the film “The Beach”, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a young backpacker who finds a seemingly utopian community on a remote bay, later torn apart by violence and paranoia.

Secluded spots are increasingly hard to find, as neighbouring Thailand can attest: it saw 16 million visitors in 2010, compared to 300,000 in Myanmar, according to the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Maya Bay on Phi-Phi Leh island, where the movie was filmed in 1999, is now hardly DiCaprio’s dream shore: every day, dozens of boats ferry hundreds of tourists to follow in his footsteps.

“Thailand is pretty well established on this circuit, especially if you go by what you can see in Phuket, Krabi or Koh Samui, where the beaches can be really crowded,” said Kris Lim of PATA, referring to popular Thai resorts.

It’s a pattern found across the region as beaches fall victim to their own popularity.

For years, India’s most tourist-friendly shores were to be found in the coastal state of Goa, where visitors could sip cold beer and feast on fresh seafood, enjoying the laid-back atmosphere.

“More than anywhere else on planet earth, this is a place where people really know how to relax,” boasts Goa’s official tourism website.

But over-commercialisation, allegations of police-supported drug peddling by Russian gangs and high-profile cases of violence against foreigners have tainted the state’s glamorous image.

In 2009 it was elbowed out of the top 10 Indian destinations for tourists, with many opting to head south to the palm-fringed backwaters of Kerala, where luxury houseboats offer peaceful cruises floating by lush paddy fields.

Further east in the Philippines, the central island of Boracay and its crystal-clear waters are a top attraction for visitors, but green groups and the government say the white sands are losing their idyllic charm.

“It’s so dense, it is now… too commercial. It’s become Phuket,” said tourism secretary Alberto Lim last year, sparking a firestorm of controversy as he suggested tourists visit less-developed islands.

In contrast, the El Nido area, on the western Philippine island of Palawan, continues to enjoy an unspoilt image, protected by its remoteness, government efforts to protect its environment and the high prices of its hotels.

Tourists use a small plane and a boat to get to the high-class resorts, ensuring an exclusive clientele. Local residents and businesses are also careful not to ruin El Nido’s main asset, its natural beauty.

“It’s important to have a sustainable plan to ensure the beaches and whatever surrounds the resorts are very well protected,” said Lim from PATA.

“We want to see that in 20 years from now, the islands are still as good as ever.”

In Ngapali, locals and foreigners alike were keen to preserve its rustic appeal — but Myanmar, too, is quickly changing and tourist numbers are up, with last year’s relatively modest figure a nearly 30 percent rise from 2009.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed from house arrest late last year after a controversial election, still stands strongly against tour groups to Myanmar, which often benefit the government financially.

But her party “would not object to individual tourists coming to study the situation and to find out what is really happening” in Myanmar, she told AFP in December, softening a previous tourism boycott.

Some fear the traveller floodgates will open — especially if a visa-on-arrival process, withdrawn ahead of the election, is fully resumed.

UK-based Wanderlust magazine has rated Myanmar the “top emerging destination” of 2011.

Antonio Dappozzo, Italian manager of the luxury Sandoway resort, warned it would be tough to retain such a peaceful atmosphere at Ngapali, where the main sound from his roadside window a year ago was of ox-carts lumbering past.

“Just a year later, now there is more noise from cars,” he said.

UC Berkeley NewsCenter – Burma’s voice of liberty, struggling to be heard
By Barry Bergman, NewsCenter | March 8, 2011

BERKELEY — From the sound of her voice, one might have thought Burma was far more than 8,000 miles away. Carried by cellphone, then amplified in Wheeler Auditorium and live-streamed over a password-protected Internet connection, it struggled through volume problems, static, microphone buzz and feedback squeals. Often, the words were barely intelligible.

But Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest at the hands of Burma’s military dictatorship, is living proof that it isn’t necessary to be seen, or heard, to inspire.

On Monday night, the leader of Burma’s democracy movement — and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize — spoke to an audience of several hundred students, activists and members of the Bay Area’s Burmese community in a phone interview arranged by facilitators of a student-run DeCal class on Burmese politics. The event was available online to those who had been given a password, a precaution meant to discourage possible interference from the Burmese government.

At one point in the 40-minute interview, Suu Kyi recounted how, during 2007′s so-called “Saffron Revolution” — the nonviolent protests led by Buddhist monks and brutally crushed by the ruling junta — she was preparing a banner of support to display on her gate when she heard distant chanting. The chants grew louder, and finally she saw the procession of monks and pro-democracy activists.

The protesters stopped outside her house, and she recognized some young activists from her own political party, the National League for Democracy. But the terms of her detention prohibited her from stepping outside the gate, and she complied. “I’m a very law-abiding citizen,” she said.

“I was not supposed to communicate with anybody outside, so I didn’t actually talk to them,” she added. “But I smiled at them.”

Now 65, Suu Kyi was released in November, this time after seven years of house arrest, a week after elections that guaranteed the junta’s hold on power for another five years. Her father, nationalist leader Aung San, was assassinated shortly before the country won its independence from Britain in 1947. Two years after a nationwide uprising in 1988, a resounding election victory by her NLD party was voided by the ruling generals.

The party boycotted the 2010 elections, prompting the junta to dissolve it.

On Monday, Suu Kyi patiently answered questions from Berkeley students including Michael Gaw and Wayland Blue, co-facilitators of the DeCal class, and from a dozen or so members of the audience, some of whom could barely contain their excitement at getting to speak with her.

To a student who wondered what it might take for Asia to share in the democratic fervor erupting in places like Egypt and Libya, Suu Kyi counseled the need to put aside petty differences to push for democracy worldwide. “I would be so appreciative,” she said, “if all the freedom-loving people could get together, work together, not just for a particular country or a particular people, but for all the people in all the countries that suffer from oppression.”

To a student from Burma who asked what she and others like her could do, she said, “Please don’t forget your roots,” and reminded her that young people in Burma have not had the educational opportunities available to those in other parts of the world. (Suu Kyi herself studied at Oxford.)

“I would so much appreciate it if young people in the United States, young people from Burma, would concentrate on helping young people in Burma get a better education,” she said, adding that in addition to moral support, “I would like you to do something practical,” such as assisting with educational funding.

Before her interview, Min Zin, a Burmese journalist who went into hiding in 1989 to avoid arrest — and is now earning his master’s degree at the Graduate School of Journalism, despite having been expelled from high school for his activism — described the extreme poverty, repression and brutality under Burma’s generals, who renamed the country Myanmar in 1989.

Min Zin, who fled the country in 1997, hailed what he called a “spirit of resistance” inside his native country, and told the audience how activists there would find strength in the face of military might by linking arms during protests.

He urged his listeners to “share your energy, share your strength, so that people in Burma can link up with you.”

The event marked the first time Suu Kyi has addressed an audience at Berkeley. Gaw said he and his fellow DeCal facilitators had heard her express interest in connecting with college students and the younger generation following her most recent release. They’ve been trying to arrange the talk since winter break, and got confirmation less than two weeks ago.

“We figured if it’ll be anywhere in America, it should start at Cal,” he explained, adding that Berkeley is the only university in the country with a class — even a student-run one — on Burmese politics.

Mar 10, 2011
Asia Times Online – COMMENT: People power in waiting in Myanmar
By Aung Din

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has stepped down. Could Myanmar’s long serving military dictator General Than Shwe be next?

The people of Egypt successfully toppled Mubarak’s authoritarian regime of 30 years in a mere 18 days of peaceful demonstrations. Emboldened by the success of the popular uprising in Egypt, millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Oman and Jordan, have taken to the streets in attempts to reform their countries’ political systems. The seeds of democracy are spreading across the Arab World; the fourth great wave of democratization has begun in earnest.

As international attention focuses on the surprising momentum and magnitude of the peoples’ power movements across the Arab World, many now wonder whether the trend will spread to Asia and in particular if people of Myanmar, also known as Burma, will once again rise up against the dictatorial military regime that under different leaders has ruled the Southeast Asian country with an iron fist since 1962.

There are several similarities between Egypt’s recent and Myanmar’s past uprisings. One is the democratic contagion effect. The success of Tunisia’s popular uprising in January this year inspired their neighbors in Egypt to follow suit.

Similarly, in 1988, empowered by the popular uprising that overthrew then Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, the people of Myanmar took to the streets in their millions to bring down their own military dictator, General Ne Win. Both revolts were sparked by state violence. In Egypt the killing of 28-year-old Khaled Said by corrupt police was a revolution ignition point; in Myanmar the brutal killing of students by the regime’s riot police sparked the 1988 uprising.

At the same time, there are several stark differences. In particular, Myanmar lacks an independent media to check and balance the regime’s abuse of power. Unlike in Egypt, where international media such as al-Jazeera and CNN covered the events as they unfolded, the military’s brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in 1988 went largely unnoticed.

Social media tools and comprehensive coverage by international media collectively applied sustained pressure on the Mubarak regime until cracked. Citizen journalist coverage disseminated over the Internet of the military’s crackdown on the 2007 Buddhist monk-led uprising, known around the world as the “Saffron” revolution, failed to yield the same result.
Time and time again, the people of Myanmar have expressed their desire to live free from oppression and fear. And time and time again, the United Nations has failed to intervene to put an end to the Myanmar regime’s reign of terror. But concerned people now wonder with the international support, including in the United States, given to many of the Arab nation revolts in the name of democracy whether the time is right for another popular uprising in Myanmar.

New democratic tools

There are many reasons to believe the next time could be different in Myanmar. As in many other countries, social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and SMS text messaging could play an important role in coordinating among organizers, bloggers, activists and artists to recruit people to the streets in a relatively short time.

Widely available cell phones and digital cameras would help citizen journalists to record unfolding events in the country and report to the outside world via the Internet, as they did in covering the 2007 “Saffron” revolution. That coverage would keep the international community informed and mount pressure on the regime when it inevitably struck back through use of lethal force.

Not a day goes by in Myanmar where the people do not defy the regime. Tens of thousands of fallen heroes, thousands of political prisoners, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and millions of broken families have already proved the people of Myanmar’s commitment towards and yearning for democracy. They are up to date and inspired by the developments in Egypt and the Arab World through international radio broadcasts from the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Democratic Voice of Burma.

Some are already bidding to launch a parallel peoples’ power movement, as seen over the recently created Facebook page entitled “Just Do It against Military Dictatorship”. The page now has more than one thousand members inside Myanmar who share information about revolutions in the Arab World and encourage each other through messages like “No dictator can resist a popular movement, we know”. There are an estimated 300,000 people who have regular access to the Internet in Myanmar, which is tightly censored by the regime.

Myanmar’s generals are experienced in manipulating the international community.

In recent years, they have succeeded in circumventing international denunciation by hiding behind the protective powers of China, Russia, and India – all of which aim to extract and exploit energy and natural resources in Myanmar. They are also able to utilize their membership in some international organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, to render United Nations’ resolutions toothless and ineffective. Any attempt by the United States to gain influence over Myanmar’s generals will only aid them in hedging their bets between international powers. A direct US intervention would likely undermine the democracy movement, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The United Nations Human Rights Council recently decided to form and dispatch a Commission of Inquiry to Libya to investigate human rights violations. This move is long overdue and came too late. Like General Than Shwe of Myanmar, Muammar Gaddafi has brutalized the Libyan people for decades. If the UN had established such an investigative mechanism earlier, it might have been able to stop the killing of innocent civilians by the Libyan military and its mercenaries.

Activists have long advocated for the UN to set up a commission of Inquiry into Myanmar’s rights abuses as a way to protect democracy activists and ethnic minorities and prevent further killing. Such an international effort would have warned Myanmar’s generals that, although they are fully protected by their domestic legal system, they could be held accountable in international courts for crimes they have committed.

Record of abuse
The regime’s abuses, meanwhile, continue unabated. On February 28, 2011, nearly 84,000 ethnic people from Karen State in eastern Myanmar sent an appeal letter to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon urging him to help stop human rights violations in their areas.

These civilians, aged 16 to 103, have been subjected to abuses including forced labor, looting, extortion, destruction of homes, villages, crops and fields, forced relocation, extrajudicial killing, beating, torture and the systematic rape of women and children by the Myanmar army for decades. More than 3,600 villages have been destroyed in eastern Myanmar in the past 15 years, an average of four every week.

Physicians for Human Rights, an international non-governmental organization, released a research paper on human-rights violations in Myanmar’s Chin State entitled “Life Under the Junta”. The report found 2,951 cases of abuse by the military regime over a one year period. Of the 621 household interviewed, 91.9% reported cases of forced labor. Many were forced to carry military supplies and ammunition, sweep for landmines, and build roads and buildings. Religious or ethnic persecution was reported by 14.1% of respondents, 5.9% reported arbitrary arrest and detention, 4.8% reported cases of disappearance, 3.8% reported instances of torture, 2.8% reported cases of rape, and 1% reported outright murder.

These abuses – similar to the ones cited by protesters now on the streets across the Arab world – are well-known among the Myanmar population. At the same time, the regime continues to issue threats to pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi, who was released from her last seven and a half year detention three months ago, and her recently banned party the National League for Democracy (NLD).

An article published on February 14 in the regime’s mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar stated that Suu Kyi and her party could meet “tragic ends” for their support for economic sanctions from abroad. Many speculate that a major crackdown on pro-democracy activists and NLD supporters will begin soon.

While voices raised against Myanmar’s military regime have been quickly and brutally repressed in the past, with the democratic momentum gathering across the Arab world, things could turn out very differently the next time the country’s oppressed people rise up and cry out for democracy.

Aung Din served over four years in prison in Myanmar as a political prisoner. He is now the executive director of the Washington DC-based US Campaign for Burma.

World| Tue, Mar. 08 2011 11:11 AM EDT
The Christian Post – Arab Protests Spark Internet Uprising in Burma
By Anugrah Kumar|Christian Post Contributor

Inspired by protesters in the Arab world, Burma’s democracy activists have set off an online revolution to oppose their junta-led government braving its Internet censorship and security upgrade.

Political activists inside and outside Burma are using the Internet to denounce the military dictatorship and call for true democracy, Ba Kaung, a journalist with a Thailand-based Burmese news agency, The Irrawaddy, told The Christian Post.

Kaung said two days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned from office under pressure from protesters, activists in Burma’s former capital Rangoon created a page on Facebook, “Just Do It Against Military Dictatorship.” The page now has over 1,500 supporters, mostly Burmese.

Some activists were also training Burmese citizens, including students and laborers in rural parts, to use the Internet, hoping they would join the protests against the military rulers, Kaung added.

Following the Facebook campaign, many activists began to distribute anti-junta pamphlets and posters across Burma – some of them saying, “Get Out Than Shwe,” Kaung said.

Senior-General Than Shwe is the head of the Burmese army who continues to rule the country through a proxy political organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which claimed victory in the allegedly rigged election held in December 2010 – first in two decades.

Of late, the government has beefed up security in Burma’s former capital Rangoon, Kaung said. “But we cannot confirm if it is linked to the Facebook campaign, but that’s what activists inside Burma assume,” Kaung added.

The State-owned media in Burma does not cover revolutions in other countries and the government restricts access to website that may incite protests. Burmese access “banned” websites with a software that bypasses government’s proxy servers.

However, of the Burma’s 60 million people, only an estimated 400,000 use the Internet, mostly with a low data download speed. But Burmese people can beat that challenge, thinks Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at London-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

“They are very conscious of the value of Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones and other technology, and although they are not as widely available in Burma as they are in Egypt, for example, their availability is growing,” Rogers told The Christian Post.

Even during the 2007 uprising in Burma, when Buddhist monks led demonstrations, technology played a crucial role, and “that is even more the case now,” Rogers added.

Debbie Stothard, Coordinator at Bangkok-based Altsean-Burma, agreed with Rogers. “Burmese have always followed anti-authoritarian struggles with excitement and hope ‘it’s our turn next time’,” she said.

“They have always been keen to learn from the strategies of other struggles. That’s why the regime has always suppressed news of political movements in the Burmese media,” she added, pointing out that the news of the 1998 Reformasi movement in Indonesia which pushed out President Suharto was suppressed for several days in Rangoon.

“Instead of world news, the Burmese public is fed a steady diet of pro-military propaganda, and stories of crime and sex scandals in foreign countries,” Stothard added.

Alana Golmei, in charge of advocacy group Burma Centre Delhi, said the Burmese pro-democracy activists were closely watching the protests in the Arab world despite media and Internet restrictions which is an inspiration for them.

An activist from Thai-Burma border, who identified himself as Tha U Wah A Pah, said, “Every act of freedom anywhere in the world is an encouragement to the people here and gives hope and courage.”

However, the impact of the Internet campaign is expected to be low in Burma’s frontier states where most ethnic minorities, including Christians, live and have been fighting for independence or greater autonomy. “People in ethnic minority states have limited access to the Internet,” Kaung said.

Tensions in ethnic states, particularly Karen, Kachin and Shan, rose when the 2010 election was announced. Many pockets in these states are under the control of armed ethnic resistance groups and it is feared that the Burmese army may launch a major military offensive to reclaim its hold on them.

Ethnic minorities – some with large Christian populations – have allegedly faced brutality, discrimination and neglect by the military rulers, who are predominantly ethnic Burman, for over five decades. Burmese media operating from across the country’s borders routinely report on Burmese army personnel launching violent indiscriminate attacks on minorities, raping their women and girls and forcing them to become laborers without pay.

Burma’s military, seen as one of the world’s worst violators of human rights, has forced a large number of the citizens to flee the country in the last few decades.

Last month, U.N.’s Special Rapporteur to Burma Tomas Ojeas Quintana said Burma had become a burden to the South-East Asia region due to increasing numbers of Burmese asylum-seekers.

It is estimated that Bangladesh has nearly 400,000 refugees from Burma, Thailand over 150,000, India roughly 100,000, and Malaysia over 85,000.

People’s Daily Online – 107 fire cases reported in Myanmar in February
14:07, March 09, 2011

A total of 107 fires broke out in Myanmar in February this year, killing four people and injuring six others, the Fire Department said on Wednesday.

The February fire destroyed 592 houses and buildings, leaving 2, 343 people homeless.

Mandalay region stood as a region with most of the fire outbreak, followed by Yangon and Sagaing regions, the sources said.

Most of the fire were blamed as being due to negligence, accounting 77 percent, while others were caused by electric short- circuit, arson and forest fire.

Myanmar suffered most from fire compared with other natural disasters.

Meanwhile, the Fire Department is trying to reduce the fire cases by declaring the period which are sensitive to fire occurrence and alerts the public to cooperate in the fight.

Summer falls in the months of March, April and May when fire occurrence is sensitive.

Source: Xinhua

March 09, 2011 14:38 PM
Myanmar Sets Up Satellite Launching Committee

YANGON, March 9 (Bernama) — Myanmar has set up a central committee and a working committee for launching satellite in a bid to promote the capacity of the country’s telecommunication and information sectors, says China’s Xinhua news agency citing a local report on Wednesday.

With the first secretary of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) as its patron, the central committee is made up of five members with the minister of communications, posts and telegraphs as chairman and its members comprise officials from the information and the defense ministries, a recent announcement of the SPDC was quoted by the Popular News as saying.

According to Xinhua, the seven-member working committee was formed with director of communications of the defence ministry as chairman and director- general of the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications as the secretary.

The central committee for launching satellite will lay down policy with the launching of state-operated satellite, approve satellite-launching memorandums of understanding and other related documents, and carry out tasks aimed at obtaining space-related technology.

The establishment of Myanmar’s committees for launching satellite signifies the country’s entry into a higher stage of space technology, observers here said.

MOSCOW, March 9 2011(RIA Novosti)  19:24
Russian Information Agency Novosti – Russia to build new An-148 for Myanmar in place of crashed plane

The passenger plane that crashed during a test flight on Saturday in southern Russia was insured and a new one will be built soon if insurance is paid swiftly, an aircraft industry source said on Wednesday.

The Antonov An-148 plane was being tested prior to delivery to Myanmar, which ordered two last year for government use.

The industry source said the plane was insured by Ingosstrakh, which confirmed the information, but declined to disclose the details of the insurance contract.

All six people on board, including two Myanmar nationals, were killed when the An-148 plane crashed in the village of Garbuzovo in the Belgorod region.

The plane crashed while carrying out descent tests. Investigators say the high speed caused critical pressure in the plane’s engines, causing them to ignite and the plane to explode in midair.

Plane parts were found 1.5 kilometers away from the site where the bodies of the crew were discovered.

The Russian Investigative Committee has admitted that the crash was caused by a technical failure.

Investigators are also looking at pilot error and a defective fuel gauge as possible reasons.

TAN Network – Opium Boom Expected in Golden Triangle for 2011
The drug flow from the infamous Golden Triangle is expected to boom in 2011.
UPDATE : 8 March 2011

The Shan state army estimates that up to 700 tons of opium will be produced from the Myanmar area and Thai authorizes report up to 4 tons are expected from the Thai side alone.

TAN Network’s reporter Chaowarat Yongjiranon reports on how the Thai Army is combating with the influx.

Early in the morning the Thai military gather their forces for a pre-dawn raid on homes of suspected drug dealers in the Thai controlled region of the Golden Triangle.

Moving quick and camouflaged by darkness they enter the homes with sniffer dogs, guns, and medics to check the drug levels of residents.

All the officials could find were mere possessions such as wild pigs and firewood, and no signs of drugs.

When TAN Network asked the owner of the house why he needed a 10,000 Baht worth of security equipment for and he said he needed the protection for his rice.

The farmer said he earned 300,000 Baht yearly with his crops of vegetables and rice.

This is how he says he can afford wearing the jewelry that he tried to hide from the authorities at the beginning of the raid.

Despite the suspicions authorities could do nothing more but let him go with a warning.

This is the reality of Thailand’s fight against drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle.

In 2011 authorities expect there to be an influx of drugs flowing in from the Thai-Myanmar border.

Resources are what the Thai military say they lack in combating with the war on drugs.

With 227 kilometers to cover the military relies mainly on limited manpower to discover opium fields and search for drug routes.

2011 is even going to be a tougher year as an increase of opium production is expected from the Golden Triangle. According to Lt. Gen.

Yawd Serk, the leader of the Restoration Council of the Shan State, the majority will come from Burma.

4 more tons are to be harvested in the Thai side.

TAN Network went with the soldiers on one of their patrols to a poppy field.

Trekking through beautiful terrain in the middle of mountains may seem touristy but with the sun on our backs as we tread up and down rough terrain, it was certainly not a relaxing stroll.

Finally we discover the beautiful poppy field.

Three months it is planted a poppy is ready to be harvested.

Its pod can then be scratched to make heroin.

If soldiers can take out the plants before the scratching, they will not only be able to take out the crop, but prevent the plants from growing again.

Unfortunately eradicating the drug trade itself is not as easy as taking out a poppy flower.

To solve the problem would take more than just picking flowers.

For Thai ASEAN News Network I’m Chaowarat Yongjiranon

03/09/2011 16:36
MYANMAR
AsiaNews.it – Yangon: regime pours funds into army and intelligence to block web protests

The junta is concerned that the “Jasmine Revolution” will also spread to Myanmar. National Bureau of intelligence, closed in 2004, is reopened. 20% of the 2011/12 budget for military spending, only crumbs for education and health. AsiaNews sources: the people are too busy trying to survive to even imagine a mass uprising.

Yangon (AsiaNews) – The Burmese government’s draft budget for fiscal year 2011-2012 shows that Parliament and the executive – a military and civilian mixture – commits most available funds to the national army and security departments. The junta is concerned that ongoing wave of “Jasmine Revolution”, that flared up in North Africa and even lapped China, could extend in Myanmar. This is why they are attempting to strengthen prevention and control measures, on the streets and the Internet. AsiaNews sources in Yangon confirm that “the controls are tight” and “protests would be difficult in the country.”

The Burmese government and the new Parliament – the result of contested elections of November 7 last year, met for the first time in late January – consider military investment a priority, while most of the population starves and is begging for food and development. The budget for the next fiscal year, among other things, was signed by General Than Shwe himself, in fact obscuring the role of the new president of Myanmar Thein Sein and parliament.

The plan provides for the distribution of 1.318 trillion kyat (about 1.50 billion dollars) to the Ministry of Defence, which represents nearly 20% of the total funds, which is around 7.65 billion dollars. This is followed by investments in energy and finance, as well as construction. A ridiculous amount of the funds have been dedicated to education (4% of the budget), Healthcare (1.31%) and welfare (0.26%).

Fearing that the ” Jasmine Revolution” will also include Myanmar, the Burmese military junta plans to reopen the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) – banned in 2004 – and expand the surveillance network. The military is concerned about the project promoted by Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, aimed at creating a “network of people” that would give rise to protests. For this reason, the leadership will form a new security system and strengthen intelligence.

Recently, some Internet users in Burma, close to the opposition, have opened a Facebook page called “Just Do It.” It appeared for the first time online on February 13, the birthday of Aung San, Burma’s national hero, leader of the struggle for independence in the 40s and the father of Nobel Peace Prize. AsiaNews sources in Myanmar, anonymous for safety reasons, explain that “the wave of protest in the country could come, but the junta has a very efficient control system that will be able to stop or otherwise control dissent.”

The source states that “it is possible to give rise to protest movements, because today more than in the past, it is more difficult to block content,” but “surfing speed is slowed down on purpose” and the population is more concerned with daily survival, than the birth of a true revolutionary wave”. “We need a movement of people – he concludes – but right now people are more concerned with trying to get enough to eat”.

New Kerala – Navy arrests 11 Myanmarese poachers from Andaman sea

Port Blair, Mar 8 : The Indian Naval Ship Batti Malv has apprehended 11 foreign poachers from Andaman Sea after hot pursuit and firing warning shots.

”INS Batti Malv, while on routine patrol off Interview Island on Sunday, apprehended 11 Myanmarese poachers. On sighting the warship, the poachers attempted to flee at high speed. But they were intercepted by the naval ship after hot pursuit and apprehended, Commander Abhinav Barve, the PRO of Andaman Nicobar Command told UNI today.

The ship had earlier apprehended another Myanmarese boat with 14 poachers in the month of September, 2010.

The apprehended poachers would be handed over to Andaman police.

The PRO added that adverse visibility conditions at sea and proximity of shallow waters made it difficult to undertake the task of intercepting and investigating the fast moving boat.

”During the chase, the ship had to resort to firing warning shots. It finally closed the boat and apprehended all 11 poachers on board at about 1115 hrs on March 6, 2011,” he added.

Commander Barve added the poachers tried to scuttle their boat when they realised that they would not be able to outrun the warship.

However, due to prompt action by the naval ship’s crew, the boat was rescued from being sunk and thus incriminating evidence about poaching was preserved.

Heroin worth Rs 60 lakh seized in Aizawl
STAFF WRITER 20:4 HRS IST

Karimganj (Assam), Mar 9 (PTI) Heroin worth Rs 60 lakh was recovered from a person of Myanmar origin by a joint team of BSF and Mizoram police in Aizawl today.

Lalaimawia, 35, was arrested from the Aizawl bus stand as he arrived in a bus, a BSF release said here.

Lalaimawia was coming from Myanmar and 818 grams of heroin was seized from his possession, it claimed.

Manila Bulletin – Comparing the ASEAN nations
By ATTY. ROMEO V. PEFIANCO
March 9, 2011, 10:57pm

MANILA, Philippines – Our ASEAN neighbors have foreign visitors/tourists numbering millions yearly who spend countless billions of dollars.

Competition to earn precious dollars is like running a 100-m race in the Olympics or regional competition.

ASEAN visit

A Filipino who travels to two or three of our neighbors can easily notice how a nation grows in a matter of, say, 15 to 20 years.

In 1998, the Thai baht was at its lowest – about 55 bahts to $1. It has steadily fought back and gained 25 points to 30B to a dollar now. Thailand sells rice to us by the millions of metric tons in the last 10 years.

Monstrous traffic

But Bangkok has monstrous traffic jams, forcing me to sit tight in a cab for one hour to move less than 200 m from a mall. Its sidewalk is crowded with commerce like Manila.

Thailand’s population of 66 M is struggling to reach a per capita GDP of $8,400 against the Philippines’ less than $4,000.

Vietnam’s late start

Vietnam is third biggest in population – 90M – in our region after Indonesia (243 M) and Philippines. Its chief exports include rice, crude oil, marine products, coffee, rubber, tea, garments, and shoes. The country started working hard and running fast after winning the war against the US with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Guaranty of safety

Years ago in Hanoi, I asked a hotel manager if it was safe to take a short walk after dark. His answer: “Hanoi government and police guarantee your safety.” My short walk and sightseeing lasted close to two hours. There were no police patrols or cars, but the tourist’s safety was fully secured as promised by the hotel management.

Secret partner

In Yangon (Myanmar), I noticed shiny hardwood used for door/window jambs and flooring. I asked the cab driver if the hotel was owned by businessmen. His answer: “They have a secret partner, one colonel.” I stopped asking questions, after learning that the fate of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was too uncertain for comfort.

Rewards

Three countries may earn more economic rewards faster – Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Singapore is way ahead at the top and Brunei Darussalam is floating on petroleum and natural gas for its population of 400,000, including countless Filipino workers.

Still ranking?

It’s hard to tell now if our country is still ranking in the ASEAN group of 11 states (including East Timor). In 1960, there was no independent Singapore and we were a step or two ahead of Malaysia and Thailand. It was probably easy for us to claim the No.1 rank. But in the next 40 or 50 years since 1960, our case was one of three steps, forward/backward.

Exception

We view corruption as endemic in most Asian countries with this exception: Singapore has abolished it and Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam are aware of a list of losses to graft. To them correcting it is a must.

Buy and sell

In this country, even a commission mandated to represent good government (the PCGG) has speculated in the buy/sell of stocks in the open market. Years ago, one GOCC used the employees’ retirement/pension fund to buy an expensive painting we don’t need.

Promises

The new AFP chief of staff called on officers to “lead simple/healthy lifestyles and ensure accountability.”

For this line above, he needs a CoA resident auditor who would strictly stick to his/her duty but not to overstay for 13 years and get a second transfer to the Navy, another branch of service.

Badly needed

The new chief badly needs a new, competent, and honest military Ombudsman who can sniff wheelers and dealers a mile away.

He badly needs an absolutely honest mole to smell all kinds of deals made by comptrollers and budget officers to avoid tragic consequences in the AFP.

All we need are good men loyal to hard work and duty not to mottos of an institution. (Comments are welcome at roming@pefianco.com)

WHO backs joint efforts to save lives in southeast Asia
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS – Wed, Mar 9, 2011 4:14 PM IST

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) As the southeast Asian region accounts for 26 percent of the world population and continues to struggle with a huge disease burden, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Wednesday called for regional cooperation to fight the challenges in the health sector.

The WHO is organising a three-day conference from March 16-18 on ‘Partners for Health in South-East Asia’ in the capital to strengthen regional collaboration for health.

The conference will engage the WHO and partners on priority health issues.

Partners from 11 member states — Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste — along with representatives from donor countries, multilateral and intergovernmental organisations, foundations, corporations and research and academic institutions are expected at the conference.

According to WHO, 50 children under five years of age die every hour in southeast Asia due to diarrhoea which is a leading cause of child mortality in the region, second only to pneumonia.

The region accounts for 70 percent of the world’s malnourished children. The incidence of low birth weight is still high at 30 percent.

A third of global maternal deaths occur in this region. In many countries, health systems are weak.

‘These diseases of poverty cannot be prevented and controlled by the health sector alone. Partnerships are therefore needed from every sector of society to successfully fight these diseases,’ said Samlee Plianbangchang, WHO’s regional director for southeast Asia.

Human Rights Watch – How the Philippines can promote justice in Burma
by James Ross
Published in: philSTAR.com March 9, 2011

MANILA, Philippines – The trial of a Mindanao mayor and other officials for the brutal killing of 57 people in November 2009 has highlighted many of the flaws of the Philippine justice system. But at least there is a system, and hope that the perpetrators of the Maguindanao massacre will be justly punished. The same cannot be said about Burma, where the military has ruled for nearly 50 years with lawless brutality, committing criminal offenses without ever having to worry about being held to account.

In the course of cementing their rule over all aspects of Burmese life, Burma’s military rulers have totally wrecked what had been a credible British-inspired justice system. The judges are not independent, but part of the governmental machinery to suppress dissent. They have handed down decades-long sentences against peaceful protesters and opposition politicians. Zargana, the country’s most famous comedian, received a 59-year sentence, later reduced on appeal to 35 years, merely for criticizing the military government’s poor response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008. About 2,100 political prisoners currently languish in Burma’s wretched prisons.

Any thought of Burma’s judiciary righting the government’s many wrongs are a pipe dream. Ever since independence in 1948, successive Burmese governments have been fighting various ethnic minority rebellions, and abuses against the local civilian populations have multiplied. The Burmese armed forces over the years have committed innumerable summary killings, rapes, and enforced disappearances. They have destroyed countless villages and abused forced laborers and child soldiers. Rebel groups have committed abuses as well, recruiting child soldiers and killing captured soldiers.

It has long been obvious that no one in Burma was going to investigate, let alone prosecute, these serious crimes. Year after year the United Nations General Assembly has issued statements condemning the Burmese military government, but it has stopped short of taking any real action. However, in March 2010, the UN envoy who reports on Burma to the Human Rights Council called for an international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma.

International support for the idea is picking up speed. The United States, the United Kingdom and several other Western governments have already announced their backing. Japan is seriously considering the idea, but otherwise there hasn’t been a peep from other Asian nations, including the Philippines. Maybe this reflects concerns about an international focus on an Asian nation – but Burma’s poor human rights record has long been a stain on ASEAN, as the region’s governments have increasingly recognized.

The best way to get an international commission of inquiry on Burma off the ground would be for the UN General Assembly to call for it in their annual resolution on Burma: a measure eschewed by the resolution’s drafters, the European Union, late last year, despite 19 years of strongly worded resolutions decrying Burma’s human rights record.

Some diplomats have tried to justify continued inaction, saying that pressing for a commission would interfere with democratic reforms expected from Burma’s November 7 elections. The elections were even more cynically rigged than many people feared, delivering a resounding victory for the military backed party in a climate of intimidation and widespread irregularities. Aung San Suu Kyi was released a week after the elections last year, but the military in Burma have endlessly released and rearrested Suu Kyi, using her freedom as a cynical commodity. Her release, while expected, was also timed to divert attention from the elections, and distract the international community from the plight of all the other political prisoners. Last month then Foreign Secretary Alberto G. Romulo penned an important piece describing the strength and determination of Suu Kyi, “Her example,” he wrote. “Shows that there are other ways of dealing with tyranny than violence – something we Filipinos proved to the world in 1986, perhaps our greatest contribution to the history of democracy.” Yet despite this poignant reminder, we still fail to see a strong foreign policy on Burma from the Philippine government.

In January Burma went through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process in Geneva, a mandatory assessment of all UN member states’ human rights record. Many states – including the Philippines – gave Burma an easy passage, in the illusionary hope that change is slowly coming to Burma.

These issues shouldn’t get in the way of justice for the victims of abuses. The bottom line is that there are lots of people – democracy activists, displaced ethnic minorities, and everyday Burmese caught up in the government’s abuses – who stand to gain if real justice were brought to Burma. For the first time there is a genuine plan under foot for just that. The Philippines, with its recognition of the importance of the rule of law, can play an important role in leading the region in joining this global effort. President Benigno Aquino III, who lost his father at the hands of the government, should understand more than most the importance of obtaining a measure of justice.

(Lawyer James Ross, Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch, has worked to improve human rights protection in the Philippines and throughout Southeast Asia since the mid-1980s.)

Globe and Mail – Myanmar students prepare for freedom in a candlelit room
MARK MacKINNON
RANGOON— From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Mar. 08, 2011 7:01PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Mar. 09, 2011 12:28PM EST

It’s Monday night and the power is out again in east Rangoon, so candles are produced to allow the lesson to continue. In a tiny and nondescript fifth-floor apartment, two dozen young people – activists, journalists, students – sit on plastic stools, reading and debating a text called “What Is Social Science?” that their teacher has printed off the Internet.

It is as innocent as it is subversive.

Though most of those who gather each night at the Bayda Institute are students at Rangoon’s universities and colleges, they come here to fill in the gaping holes in the official curriculum: social science, political science, the recent history of the country they live in.

“Many young people don’t know who General Aung San was,” said Mya Nandar, the 26-year-old founder of a pro-democracy group known as the New Myanmar Foundation.

She was referring to the founding father of the country then known as Burma, who led its drive for independence from the British Empire before he was assassinated in 1947.

Today’s students know even less, Ms. Mya Nandar said, about Gen. Aung San’s daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in honour of her long
fight to bring democracy to the country.

Most of the students are studying by candlelight out of fealty to the woman many in Myanmar simply call The Lady. Half a dozen pictures of her adorn the classroom walls, along with the slogan, “Towards a society of conscience.”

While many here puzzle over the non-confrontational response Ms. Suu Kyi has taken toward the country’s military rulers since her November release from seven years of house arrest, the students at the Bayda Institute are trying to deliver on what little Ms. Suu Kyi has thus far asked of her supporters.

“For us to achieve democracy, we will have to establish a network of people,” she said in one of her first speeches after being freed. She called on young people to use modern communications to connect with each other and broaden the campaign for democracy, even though she herself is only now learning to use the Internet.

The Bayda Institute is one of dozens of youth networks around Myanmar that have emerged since Ms. Suu Kyi’s speech. Their aim is to be ready to play their part in what Ms. Suu Kyi has called a “peaceful revolution” in this military-dominated country.

Myanmar is now governed, at least on paper, by a civilian government after five decades of direct military rule. However, her party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted elections that were held last year, arguing they were neither free nor fair. The new parliament is dominated by military men and the new “civilian” president is an ex-general who was previously the junta’s prime minister.

For now, Ms. Suu Kyi is biding her time and trying to make sense of the new political landscape. Her followers, meanwhile, are focusing on establishing the NLD – which lost its status as a legal political party after refusing to register for the elections – as a social force and in building up Myanmar’s nascent civil society.

“We must bear in mind that until we grow strong we can’t do anything,” said Myo Yan Naung Thein, a veteran of past student-led protests against the regime who now teaches the younger generation to question what the government tells them and to debate what they can do about it.

He said civil society in Myanmar has grown rapidly in the wake of the devastating Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which brought a rare influx of foreign aid money, and with it international relief organizations, which hired and trained local staff.

Despite two lengthy prison terms, the 36-year-old’s desire to see change come to Myanmar hasn’t dimmed from when he joined anti-government protests in 1988, 1996 and 2007. But the former student leader now talks about the classes he teaches at Bayda like a corporate strategist. “We are networking to build strength,” he says. “We need to focus on capacity-building.”

He’s also very aware of the fact Myanmar’s feared military intelligence agents could shut down the Bayda Institute at any moment. In an effort to show the government they’re not doing anything illegal, the group has posted all of its course material online, and even invited security officers to sit in on its classes.

“We’re not doing this so that we can all go to prison. Misunderstandings or fear on the government side is very dangerous for us,” Mr. Naung Thein said, admitting he worries the government could quickly close the limited political space it has opened since Ms. Suu Kyi’s release.

Another hurdle such youth networks face is a sense among young Myanmarese that any effort to change the country is doomed to fail. While previous generations of students repeatedly took to the streets to demand change, a calculated apathy today rules among Myanmar’s young people. The failed 2007 “Saffron Revolution” – which saw soldiers open fire on monk-led demonstrations – has killed almost all appetite for politics among those 25 and younger.

At a skate park east of Rangoon, two dozen young people take turns trying to impress each other with jumps off the end of a rusted and graffiti-strewn ramp. The skaters are typically anti-establishment – they hate the music industry, and cover songs in particular – but politics is purposefully the last thing on their minds.

“I don’t care about politics. I’m just interested in skating,” explains Khent Hein, the 27-year-old founder of YGN Skate Zone, Myanmar’s first skateboarding group. He and his friends wear ball caps and sneakers, emulating the style of hip-hop stars in the faraway United States.

“I’ve never heard any of my friends talking about The Lady or any of the big generals. We just talk about skating and music.”

Those that do choose to get involved say they feel isolated from their friends.

“My friends are more into music and going out and Internet chatting, they’re not into politics,” said Thiri, a pencil-thin 20-year-old English major at Dagan University who supplements her formal education with the NLD night classes. “Some of my friends are scared of me. They think politics is dangerous.”

The Irrawaddy – Burma’s Fallen First Family
By WAI MOE Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The fate of the family of Ne Win, the dictator who ruled Burma with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, is testament to the dog-eat-dog nature of military rule in this impoverished Southeast Asian country.

Since 2002, four members of the family—Ne Win’s son-in-law Aye Zaw Win and his grandsons Aye Ne Win, Kyaw Ne Win and Zwe Ne Win—have been held in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison for plotting to overthrow the current regime.

Although they face the death penalty after being found guilty of committing treason, prison sources say that they continue to enjoy privileges that few other inmates would ever dream of receiving, including occasional permission to leave the prison.

“Officials have allowed U Ne Win’s relatives to bring their own TVs and DVD players into the prison, as well as other communication devices. Therefore a prison official was sacked at the time,” said a prison officer at Insein Prison.

“However, they have influence even over U Zaw Win, the director-general of the Corrections Department, since they are from the former No.1 family. Other low-ranking officials at the prison are like their tools,” he added.

When Win Tin, a prominent opposition leader, was in prison, he was detained at the Special Cellblock compound in Insein Prison where Ne Win’s family members are also held. At the time, the veteran journalist had some conversation with the former first family members.

Win Tin, who was released from prison in September 2009, once told The Irrawaddy that Aye Ne Win, who studied in the UK, said he wanted to see pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Ko Naing, a prominent leader of the 88 Generation Students group, released from detention.

The Special Cellblock, which is for top political dissidents and imprisoned seniors officials, consists of 10 cells and five small houses. It was directly overseen by the Military Intelligence (MI), but the Special Branch of the police now directs it after the MI was abolished in 2004. The Special Cellblock has a separate kitchen and provides daily state-run-newspapers to prisoners.

When Ne Win’s son-in-law and grandsons were arrested in February 2002, Ne Win spent his last days under house arrest with his favorite daughter, Sandar Win, until he died in December of the same year.

Although Ne Win was the founder of Burma’s first military dictatorship, his funeral passed quietly, with only Sandar Win and his former colleague, Brig-Gen Aung Gyi, allowed to attend.

After Ne Win passed away, Sandar Win remained under house arrest at their home next to Rangoon’s Inya Lake. Since her release in December 2008, she has kept a low profile to avoid trouble with the ruling generals.

“She regularly visits her beloved husband and sons in Insein Prison. Sometimes she hangs out at the Railway Hotel, where Rangoon elites and international NGO staff gather. But she seems quite depressed,” said a businessman in Rangoon who close to the family.

“The fate of U Ne Win’s family is a lesson for all, but particularly for the current people in power,” he added.

Recent information leaked from prison officials is that restrictions on Ne Win’s imprisoned relatives have been eased. There have even been reports that they have occasionally been given permission to go outside of the prison.

However, this kind of special favor by prison authorities is not reserved only for the former first family, but also for other privileged prisoners, including well-known businessmen.

One of them is Maung Waik, a tycoon who is imprisoned for drug charges. He was arrested for allegedly providing drugs to Nay Shwe Thaway Aung, the grandson of the junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

“Maung Waik is not like prisoner serving a jail term on drug charges. He is more like a VIP guest at Insein Prison,” said the prison officer. “He mostly stays at a prison guesthouse which is outside Insein Prison. He can still use his mobile phones, doing his business as usual.”

Irrawaddy reporter Lin Thant contributed to this story.

The Irrawaddy – Mae Sot-Myawaddy Trade Banned
Wednesday, March 9, 2011

MAE SOT — Trade at the Thai-Burmese border’s major trading point, between Mae Sot and Myawaddy, came to a complete standstill on Wednesday as the Burmese authorities banned the illegal import of Thai commodities.

Burmese traders in Myawaddy said that they have been warned by the Burmese authorities to stop smuggling goods from Thailand.

“The instructions came from Naypyidaw,” said a trader in Myawaddy. “We were told to be patient, that the measure was a response to Thai government policy toward the Burmese government.”

The Burmese military authorities ordered the Friendship Bridge between Mae Sot and Myawaddy closed in July in an apparent attempt to pressure the Thai government, which has long allowed Burmese armed ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union (KNU) to operate along its border.

At least 20 crossing points between the two townships have been closed mostly by the Burmese authorities citing security issues.

Despite the closure of the border bridge, Burma has unofficially allowed the border trade to continue until Tuesday without interference.

“The main problem is that Myanmar [Burma] does not see the refugees in Tak as refugees,” Tak Governor Samart Loifah was quoted as saying to the DPA on Tuesday. “They see them as clandestine KNU supporters. This is why they refuse to open the bridge.”

Several Burmese traders said that this latest development might be also related to Thailand’s control of its sugar export to Burma. They said that the Thai government’s minister for trade visited Mae Sot on Monday and ordered the officials concerned to crackdown on the illegal export of sugar to Burma.

“The Burmese authorities in Naypyidaw were very angry with that move,” said another trader in Myawaddy, adding that he and other traders had been told by officials that Thai commodities already imported would not be confiscated, but that no more goods would be overlooked.

Myawaddy residents said that the Burmese army has increased security at crossing points along the river between Myawaddy and Mae Sot.

Before the border was closed, Burma was importing from Thailand an estimated 3 billion baht (US $3 million) of commodities per month. The volume of trade is currently estimated at 8 million baht ($8,000), according to a Thai trader.

The Irrawaddy – Burma Sanctions Debate Intensifies
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Wednesday, March 9, 2011

BANGKOK — The Burma sanctions debate has intensified in recent weeks since the National League for Democracy (NLD) concluded that the various measures implemented by Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United States should remain in place until the Burmese government adopts political and economic reforms of its own.

Either side of the Feb. 8 NLD statement, well-known international think-tanks such as Chatham House—which lists Burma-invested oil companies such as Total and Chevron as backers—and International Crisis Group have weighed in, saying that sanctions should be removed as they have failed to loosen the Burmese military’s hold on power and have compounded the poverty experienced by the majority of the country’s people.

The Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has similarly called for an end to Western sanctions on one of its ten member-states, while other leaders such as Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta have also come out against the measures.

However, the call to drop sanctions—without any real reform or confidence-building measure coming first from the Burmese authorities—has been questioned. US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has said it would be premature to remove or relax sanctions at present, after Asean leaders suggested that the measures had outlived their usefulness.

In 2009, after a lengthy policy review, the US said it would reciprocate on reform measures taken by the Burmese rulers, saying it would consider relaxing or removing sanctions if the junta engaged in national reconciliation with opposition and ethnic groups, released NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and held free and fair elections.

However, US officials have since admitted concern about reports that the Burmese military is collaborating with North Korea on conventional and possibly nuclear weapons, which, if proven true, would lead to intensified sanctions on the Burmese government, rather than a relaxation or removal.

Speaking in Bangkok on Wednesday at the launch of a report reviewing the outcome and impact of Nov. 7, 2010 elections—dismissed as a farce by US President Barack Obama—Lahpai Nawdin, the editor of the Kachin News Group, said that the new government in Burma was “old wine in new bottles” and dismissed claims that sanctions were the cause of the country’s economic woes.

“Government policy is the main reason why people are poor, why people migrate to Thailand in their millions, why economic development is absent, and why investment is just for the regime and its cronies,” he said.

In its statement, the NLD said it was seeking talks with the US, the EU, Canada and Australia on “when, how, and under what circumstances sanctions might be modified in the interests of democracy, human rights, and a healthy economic environment.”

The NLD review—dismissed by some of the organizations calling for an end to sanctions—looked at areas such as foreign direct investment, aid policy and trade relations, and concluded that Burmese government policy, rather than sanctions, had contributed most to the lack of economic opportunity experienced by most Burmese.

On Jan. 27, four days before the opening of the new Parliament, the Burmese junta quietly released budget details for 2011 in a state-run gazette, allocating a quarter of the outlay to military spending, with 1.3 percent for health and 4.3 percent for education. It is not clear precisely how sanctions led the Burmese rulers to contrive such imbalanced budgetary spending of their burgeoning oil and gas income, which is set to grow in coming years as the massive offshore Shwe gas field comes on-stream.

According to the Shwe Gas Movement website, “Burma’s military regime would stand to gain US $24 billion over the 20-year contract, or $1.2 billion per year,” from the Shwe field.
Currently, much of Burma’s revenue comes from the Yadana project, which is run by a consortium that includes Total of France, US-based Chevron and Thailand’s PTTEP.

According to Earthrights International (ERI), Burma’s rulers have pocketed more than $5 billion of $9 billion that the project has generated since it came on-stream in 2000. Most of this has apparently been squirreled away in Singaporean banks, according to ERI research.

In its calls for discussions on setting benchmarks for the lifting of sanctions, the NLD has cited the release of political prisoners as one  precondition for a change in Western policy toward Burma. That possible litmus test has been mooted in the new Parliament, which convened on Jan. 31. The National Democratic Force (NDF)—comprised of former NLD members who disagreed with the party’s decision to boycott the elections—has sought to introduce a motion offering amnesty to Burmese dissidents and exiles and seeking the release of the country’s more than 2,200 political prisoners. However, according to Khin Maung Swe of the NDF, “We submitted a proposal within the framework of the 2008 Constitution and we can’t say whether the new Parliament will reject our proposal or not.”

Khunsai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald Agency for News, another media outlet linked to one of Burma’s main ethnic minorities, said that if the junta allowed such a measure to pass though Parliament, and if an amnesty and prisoner release took place, then it would in turn warrant some relaxation of sanctions. In any case, the official government position is that there are no political prisoners in Burma, as those arrested and jailed for political activities are usually hit with trumped-up criminal charges.

To buttress the anti-sanctions argument, critics have decried the relatively low levels of humanitarian and development aid spent in Burma, even though this issue is not necessarily related to sanctions. That said, according to figures complied by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Burma receives a fraction of the aid per capita allocated to neighboring countries, with on average of $6 spent on each person in Burma—around one-tenth of the amount spent on citizens of Laos and Cambodia.

This disparity has led some countries to reassess their levels of aid for Burma. Last year, while confirming that existing bilateral sanctions would remain in place, Australia announced plans to implement “carefully targeted interaction in areas of great need like health, education and agriculture,” partnering with NGOs, UN agencies and others in a projected 40 percent increase in bilateral assistance to Burma.

Meanwhile, US Chargé d’Affaires Larry Dinger, the highest-ranking US diplomat in Burma, has begun talks with Aung San Suu Kyi on ramping up aid to the country, where the government has consistently stymied the work of UN agencies and NGOs by delaying visas and hindering access to ethnic minority areas.

UK aid is also set to increase dramatically, with plans to double the amount of humanitarian assistance  the country gives to Burma over the next four years to approximately £180 million ($290 million), making the former colonial power the biggest bilateral donor to Burma, even as London advocated that the EU retain sanctions in the run-up to the annual Common Position review.

According to Paul Whittingham, head of the UK Dept for International Development (DFID) office in Burma, “This scaling up is in no way related to the elections that have recently taken place. It in no way signals any kind of changed approach to how we engage with the regime here.

“The UK position on the elections has always been very clear—namely that they were not free, fair or inclusive and they don’t represent progress. … We want to see a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Burma where human rights are fully respected,” he said to the New Delhi-based Mizzima news group.

In April, the European Union member-states will re-visit their Common Position on Burma and review progress made on a set of benchmarks set last year, when the European Council—where EU heads of government or government ministers meet—said that it “underlines its readiness to revise, amend or reinforce the measures it has already adopted in light of developments on the ground.”

In a statement made after the Nov. 7 elections, the EU’s new Foreign Affairs representative Catherine Ashton said that “The EU regrets therefore that the authorities did not take the necessary steps to ensure a free, fair and inclusive electoral process,” hinting that from the European Commission perspective at least, any sanctions relaxation would be premature.

University students protest against power cuts in Mon State
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 20:21 Kun Chan

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – University students in Moulmein in Mon State demonstrated and threw stones at electrical services offices on Tuesday in protest against cuts in electricity during their graduation exams period.

More than 50 university students gathered at the Electric Power Cooperation Office in Ngantay Ward and the township office of electrical engineering in Mandalay Ward, sources said.

A source in Mandalay Ward said some students threw stones at the electrical office, breaking glass. Students said they also protested on behalf of grade 10 students.

‘The power cuts began two days before the exams on the first subject. The graduating students had to study without electricity for two days, and they’re unhappy about that. That’s why we lodged the protests’, a student leader told Mizzima.

Graduation exams started on March 7 across Burma and will end on March 17.

Similarly, in March 2009, power cuts occurred on four consecutive days before the graduation exams began. University students lodged protests, and the authorities supplied electricity during the exam period.

Mizzima News – Retired ambassador Hla Myint likely to replace Rangoon Mayor
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 19:41 Mizzima News

Rangoon (Mizzima) – Hla Myint, a former military officer and retired ambassador, is likely to replace current Rangoon Mayor Aung Thein Lin, according to municipal sources.

Hla Myint, 62, was nominated in the list of cabinet ministers by Myint Swe, the chief minister of the Rangoon Regional Assembly.

Hla Myint was a student in the Defense Services Academy batch No. (13) from 1967 to 1971. In 1971, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and rose to the rank of brigadier general.

In 2002, he was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2002 to 2005, he was ambassador to Argentina and Brazil, and served as ambassador to Japan from 2005-2010.

Current Rangoon Mayor Aung Thein Lin is also an MP in the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) for the South Okkalapa Constituency, a municipal official noted.

‘He comes to the municipal office every Friday. I hear that he has to attend Parliament on the other days’, said the official.

In early March, rumours circulated in Rangoon that Aung Thein Lin had been arrested because senior leaders were angry over financial issues.

Sources said some members of the  Rangoon City Development Committee are concerned that city departments among the 20 municipal departments could be dissolved if a new mayor is named.

A senior municipal official said that the application process to buy plots of land and shops has been suspended because of the potential reshuffle.

Aung Thein Lin, 59, who is known as a hard-liner, was named Rangoon Mayor in  2003. He was also a leader of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, which was the precursor of the USDP.

Junta distributes propaganda letter aimed at the KIO
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 12:22 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese authorities are distributing propaganda letters, saying the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) is causing the deaths of many civilian deaths through the planting of land mines.

Since March 5, the authorities have circulated the propaganda letters to restaurants and other locations along the Myitkyina-Laiza Road, according to local residents,

The letters, which include photographs of landmine victims, have been distributed in Waimaw, Ga Ra Yang, Nam Sang Yang, Laja Yang and Sadung in Kachin State.

Some of the letters are written in the Kachin language. ‘But, they don’t know the language very well’, one resident told Mizzima. ‘There are many mistakes’.

Military intelligence officers from the Northern Command and local police ordered shop owners, especially the owners of tea shops, noodle shops and bicycle repair shops, to distribute at least 50 letters among customers, according to a shop owner in Nam Sang Yang.

‘They said that it was the order of Northern Command, so I put the letters on a table. Anybody could take the letters’, he said.

The letter said, in part:  ‘The KIO obtains money from  civilians by extortion. Why does they (KIO) give people trouble?, their actions are cruel and selfish’, and, ‘The KIO is all talk. Although they say they are doing good things for the sake of the Kachin people, their actions say the  opposite. It’s time to question what the KIO does for the welfare of Kachin people’.

The letters were also distributed in some wards in Myitkyina, according to residents.

A KIO officer in Laiza told Mizzima that the KIO has not responded to the letter, and that the people would not lose trust in the organization.

‘It’s similar to the propaganda of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP). At that time, the  BSPP made anti-KIO propaganda when the KIO and the government were fighting. But, the Kachin people’s feelings for the KIO will not change. The authorities actions are very childish’, the officer said.

The KIO rejected the junta’s order in September 2010 to transform its troops into the Border Guard Force, causing increased tension between the junta and KIO.

On February 25, 10 remote-controlled mines, made from TNT gunpowder, were discovered outside the customs office in Loi Je Township in Bhamo District in Kachin State.

Lieutenant Colonel Thet Pone of the junta’s Northern Military Command Military Affairs Security (MAS) unit alleged that the mines were planted by the KIO and threatened the KIO, saying the regime would launch a major military offensive against it if it did not stop provoking the regime.

In October, two people died and one was injured after they stepped on a mine while climbing Nwalabo Hill in the Pinball Village tract of Mogaung Township in Kachin State. The junta said that the mine was planted by the KIO and state-run newspapers used the word “insurgents” to describe the KIO.

Mizzima News – Rangoon workers demonstrate against excessive overtime
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 18:22 Aung Myat Soe

Bangkok (Mizzima) – Nearly 3,000 workers at the Tai Yi leather factory in an industrial zone in Hlaingtharyar Township, a Rangoon suburban, demonstrated against extra long working hours and salary cuts on Tuesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, officials from the Industrial Zone Workers’ Affairs Department went to the factory and attempted to negotiate between the two sides, but with no success.

Workers from the main Tai Yi leather factory on Phanchakwun Oo Shwe Ohn Road in Industrial Zone (3) and workers from a branch of the Tai Yi factory both took part in the demonstration, Ko Than, a labour rights activist, told Mizzima.

‘Their main goal is to reduce their working hours. And the next problem is that their salaries have been cut’, Ko Than said.

In late January, the same workers staged a protest to urge the Tai Yi factory authorities to reduce working hours. At that time, the factory agreed that workers should continue to work until 8 p.m and promised not to force the workers to work on holidays.

But in late February, the factory officials declared that the workers needed to work until 9 p.m. Normal working hours at the factory are from 7:20 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Labour rights activists said that the working environment in the factory was poor, and the workers should not be forced to work long hours.

DVB News – Ex-British PM denied Burma visa
Published: 9 March 2011

Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown has been denied for the second time a visa to travel to Burma, where he says he had hoped to meet “the greatest fighter for democracy of our generation, Aung San Suu Kyi”.

Brown, who left office in May 2010 following a three-year term, has long supported the opposition icon and made a previous, but similarly unsuccessful, attempt to visit her.

Writing in The Independent yesterday to mark the 100th International Women’s Day, Brown said that while he had spoken to Suu Kyi over the phone, “her release from house arrest in November last year has not allowed her to meet visitors from abroad”.

While no official restrictions accompanied her freedom, measures such as blocking foreign dignitaries from entering the country are seen as an attempt to isolate the 65-year-old, who despite her banishment from the political arena continues to provide the greatest threat to the junta’s grip on power.

Suu Kyi featured prominently in a range of international tributes published yesterday to mark International Women’s Day, likely irking the ruling generals’ who have consistently tried to discredit her.

“The woman her people call Daw Suu has endured attempted assassinations, lengthy incarcerations and enforced separation from the husband she loved,” wrote Brown. “Hers is a courage born of the deepest of convictions – that people can endure almost anything when their cause is just.”

Days before leaving office last year, Brown wrote a letter to Suu Kyi in which he said “I will do everything I can to support you. You are, for me, what courage is and I will fight for you to be free and your people [to be] free”.

Several months after Brown quit, his successor, David Cameron, pledged to do more than the previous Labour government to help Burma’s beleaguered opposition, and sent a message to Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in which he said Britain would “take the lead in pushing for strong and effective international action on Burma”.

The British government’s Department for International Development (DFID) said last week that it would double aid to Burma, elevating it to the position of the world’s top international donor to the Southeast Asian pariah.

DVB News – Work to begin on China-Burma rail link
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 9 March 2011

The delay over the construction of a rail route between China and Burma appears to be nearing an end, with Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming saying that work would soon begin on the ambitious project.

He told Reuters yesterday that Beijing had “wanted to start as soon as possible but because the [new] Myanmar [Burma] government has just been formed and because of their internal problems, we have had to wait”.

The railway connecting China’s southwestern provinces to Burma and on to other Southeast Asian countries is another plank in its ambitious international infrastructure projects, which have even included talk of rail links to as far afield as London.

But the Burma venture will certainly be more about linking their lucrative extractive projects being undertaken in Burma to China, and assisting in the development of landlocked western China, which has lagged behind the eastern seaboard largely because of its inaccessibility to international trade.

This will however change with the trans-Burma Shwe gas pipeline and associated port developments in western Arakan state’s Kyauk Phyu. The pipelines will be able to transport Burmese gas and Middle Eastern and African oil to China, whilst the rail link could do the same for bulkier, solid commodities.

The strategic imperative of bypassing the congested and easily blocked Straits of Malacca will also be met.

The importance of the said link was underscored by Deming, who according to Reuters, told a delegation from China’s southwestern Yunnan province that “We want to start construction this year and it [the Burma link] will be the first line to open”.

Whilst it will streamline the export of Burmese raw materials, there may also be hope that Burma’s own nascent manufacturing industry, principally the garments sector, can benefit from increased connectivity with China. As China’s economy rapidly develops, low wage Burmese labour will become increasingly attractive to the regional giant.

The news of the rail link also follows hot on the heels of the announcement that China will open a truck factory in the country.

What effect the increased transportation will have on Burma’s disputed northern states could also be telling. Many of the ethnic groups there, such as the Kachin and Shan, have strong cultural and economic ties to China, but greater transport links may also threaten their autonomy from Naypyidaw as it seeks to normalise, or even ‘Burmanise’, these restive areas.