BurmaNet News: April 28 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

April 28 2003 Issue #2224

INSIDE BURMA

Irrawaddy: Burmese workers sue for unpaid wages
Irrawaddy: Political prisoner on hunger strike

MONEY

Xinhua: Myanmar achieves first-ever foreign trade surplus
ZDNet: Monster revises banned listings

ON THE BORDER

Oil & Gas Journal: Rebel group KNU claims responsibility for Myanmar gas
pipeline explosions

REGIONAL

AP: Thailand urges support for Myanmar reconciliation process
Australian: Burmese sex slave granted refugee status
Kyodo: Japan envoy to ask Burma for economic reforms, democracy

INTERNATIONAL

AP: Britain gives US$15.7 million to fight AIDS in Myanmar
Irrawaddy: Britain announces aid donation to Burma

INSIDE BURMA

Irrawaddy April 28 2003

Burmese Workers Sue for Unpaid Wages
By Aung Su Shin

April 28, 2003—A knitting factory on the Thai-Burma border is preparing to
defend a claim brought on behalf of 26 workers who say they are owed 4.6
million baht (US $107,000) in unpaid wages and compensation.
The owners of the Nut Knitting Factory paid workers 77 baht a day, a
little over half the province’s minimum daily wage of 133 baht, said
Pranom Sanwong of the Chiang Mai-based Migrant Assistance Program (MAP),
the NGO which filed the case. In February, officials at Tak province’s
Social Welfare and Labor Department ordered the factory owners to
compensate the 34 underpaid workers.
But Pranom said that the workers were not paid. Instead, 26 of the workers
were last week arrested and charged with working illegally, then deported
to Myawaddy, opposite Mae Sot on the border. The workers will have their
case heard in the Mae Sot Labor Court, and will fight the factory owners
with help from the Thai Lawyers Association.
Problems mounted when 19 migrant workers from the factory were found
without permits and arrested in October last year. On Oct 3, 200 workers
protested outside the factory calling for the release of their fellow
workers.
One of the workers forced to return to Burma last week was 20-year-old Ah
Nge Lay, who is pregnant. She said everyone had work permits but were
waiting for them to be renewed at the time of the October crackdown. "We
had already paid for the medical check-up but the owner kept the documents
and drove us out of the factory," Ah Nge Lay said.
Another worker, Maung Myo, 22, said the factory owners hired strike
breakers who attacked the demonstrators with iron rods and wooden sticks.
He says that most protestors ran from the factory, but seven people were
injured in the scuffle.
In accordance with Thai immigration law, the workers who were sent back to
Burma can apply for border passes to sit in on the case in Thailand.
A Thai newspaper recently reported that the government had plans for a
"war on migrant workers", in the style of Thailand’s controversial "war on
drugs". But immigration officials in Tak say they are yet to receive any
special orders from Bangkok and that the arrest and deportation was a
normal procedure.
A date for the hearing in Mae Sot has yet to be set.
___________

Irrawaddy April 28 2003

Political Prisoner on Hunger Strike
By Kyaw Zwa Moe

April 28, 2003—A prominent political prisoner is refusing food in protest
of human rights violations and the military’s imprisonment of political
dissidents, according to a press release from the US-based Free Burma
Coalition (FBC). So far, however, nobody inside Burma has been able to
confirm the strike is taking place.
"Dr Salai Tun Than, a 75-year-old professor, has launched a hunger strike
to protest violations of fundamental human and religious rights," the
press release said.
The FBC’s statement said he is protesting because of the military’s
detention of political prisoners who have completed their sentences. He
also charges junta officials with interrogating prisoners after meeting
with the UN human rights rapporteur and the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC).
He said prison officials have been not been giving dissidents sufficient
medical supplies and refused them access to religious books, such as the
Bible.
However, the Rangoon office of the ICRC said it was too early to confirm
whether Dr Salai Tun Than was on a hunger strike. An ICRC official said
that his family was currently away from Rangoon.
Vice chairman of the opposition’s Social Supporting Committee (SSC), U Ohn
Myint, told The Irrawaddy today, "We haven’t heard about his hunger strike
yet. And I personally don’t think he will stage such a strike."
The SSC is a group formed by the National League for Democracy, which
works to help political prisoners and their families.
Based on information gathered by the SSC, U Ohn Myint said Dr Salai Tun
Than is being held with other prisoners in the hospital ward of Insein
Prison and that he has had two operations on his eyes since being
arrested. He added that since surgery, Dr Salai Tun Than’s condition has
been improving slightly.
Dr Salai Tun Than is almost blind. According to the FBC, he suffers from
eye problems, a bone disease and other ailments.
"In the past, guards have placed hunger strikers in solitary confinement
where they were beaten, tortured and shackled, and some even beaten to
death," said Aung Din, a former political prisoner and now policy director
for the FBC.
Aung Din said he is concerned that Dr Salai Tun Than will be tortured or
killed. Aung Din believes that at the very least, he will be transferred
to a prison far away from his family in punishment for the strike.
In 1998, another political prisoner Aung Kyaw Moe was reportedly tortured
to death following a hunger strike in Tharawaddy prison, Pegu Division.
According to the UN human rights rapporteur to Burma, there are around
1,400 political prisoners languishing in Burmese prisons. Some prisoners
have completed their terms and are still waiting to be released.

MONEY

Xinhua News Agency April 28 2003

Myanmar achieves first-ever foreign trade surplus By Duan Tingchang

The Myanmar government has finally produced surplus in its foreign trade
after the problem of foreign trade deficit plagued its economy for a long
period.

According to the figures published by the Central Statistical
Organization, the country's foreign trade deficit reached as high as 1,687
million US dollars in 1998, 1,232 million dollars in 1999, 1,048 million
dollars in 2000 and 501 million dollars in 2001.

In 2002, Myanmar's foreign trade totaled 5,276 million dollars, of which
the import accounted for 2,294 million dollars, while the export
represented 2,982 million dollars, producing a trade surplus of 688
million dollars.

Myanmar has taken effective measures in reducing the trade deficit and
realizing the trade surplus. It firstly adopted the strategy of "sell
more, buy less" and "export more, import less" to encourage its countrymen
to use home-made goods, buy less foreign ones and substitute imported
goods with domestic products as much as possible.

Secondly, it greatly supported enterprises engaged in producing export
goods by providing privileges in accordance with its policy.

Thirdly, it opened more border trade points, simplifying related
formalities, appropriately adjusting its standard of charge collection and
strictly controlling the import of high-grade consumer goods and luxury
ones.

Fourthly, it strove for the promotion of production, ensured goods supply
and tackled the phenomena of shortage of locally manufactured commodities.

A fact that deserves mentioning is that the export earning of natural gas
has played an important role in Myanmar's efforts to bring down the trade
deficit and realize trade surplus for the first time.

Myanmar began export of natural gas in 1998, earning 750,000 dollars only
during the year when the country suffered a trade deficit of as high as
over 1,600 million dollars. In 2001, the country's gas export proceeds
increased to 523 million dollars, while that year's trade deficit dropped
to 501 million dollars. In 2002, its gas export earning attained a new
record high of 846 million dollars, generating a foreign trade surplus for
the first time.

Myanmar's natural gas is exported to Thailand through pipelines with an
annual export quantity of billions of cubic meters.

According to official statistics, Myanmar's natural gas reserve reached
1,442.05  billion cubic meters. It concentrates mainly on Rakhine state
and Tanintharyi division and Mottama.

In 2002, the gas output of Myanmar was 9,173.8 million cubic meters.
According to the present scale of production, the country' s natural gas
could be exploited for 157 years.

Myanmar is an agricultural country with very weak industrial
infrastructure. The majority of its required capital goods of machinery
and equipment depends on import. As these imported goods, which contain a
high degree of technology and highly-added value, are relatively costly,
it constituted an important factor leading to the emergence of deficit for
consecutive years in its foreign trade.

Official statistics show that in 2002, Myanmar imported capital goods
valued at 557 million dollars, taking up 24.28 percent of the country's
total imports.

At a time when the capital goods are depending on import, Myanmar has also
to import a great deal of consumer and intermediate goods annually to meet
the domestic demand. In 2002, the import vale of Myanmar's consumer and
intermediate goods stood at 892 million dollars and 845 million dollars,
accounting for 38. 88 percent and 36.84 percent of the country's total
imports respectively.

Meanwhile, as a less-developed country, Myanmar has a unitary structure of
its export goods, and commodities available for export are very much
limited. Its export goods are mainly known as primary products such as
agricultural and marine products, timber and mine products. The prices of
them are low, constituting a great contrast against imported goods which
contain a high degree of technology and highly-added value.

In addition, Myanmar products lack good quality and competitiveness in the
world market. These factors have also restricted Myanmar's export to a
large extent.

Although Myanmar has achieved surplus for the first time in its foreign
trade, it is hard for the country to maintain such status in the long run.
To attain this, it is up to Myanmar to adjust the structure of its export
goods, increase the export products categories, seek new export growth
points, boost gas export, improve the quality of export commodities, speed
up the industrialization process, and raise the level of high technology.
__________

ZDNet April 28 2003

Monster revises banned listings
By Declan McCullagh

WASHINGTON--Monster.com, the popular career Web site, has partially backed
away from a decision to limit which nations could be listed on résumés and
job postings.
Citing a desire to comply with federal laws, Monster this week deleted
some references to seven federally sanctioned countries from job listings
and resumes. Iran, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, Cuba, Libya and North Korea are
on the list.
Now Monster has relented, at least in part. By the middle of next week, it
now will permit its customers to describe where they went to school--using
the Web site's pull-down menus--even if it was in one of the seven
sanctioned nations. But its users will continue to be prohibited from
selecting a sanctioned country as a place they'd like to work.
Arab-American groups have protested the policy shift as not required by
federal laws, which restrict U.S. companies' ability to provide services
to sanctioned countries. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
in Washington said it had contacted the Treasury Department's Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and learned that Monster was not required to
alter resumes at all.
"This is not a complete retraction of their policy, because individuals
with addresses in these countries are still being affected," a National
Iranian American Council (NIAC) representative said on Friday. "However,
it's a step in the right direction."
NIAC has created a Web site to highlight Monster's actions and warn of a
possible boycott. "Iranian-American executives have urged NIAC to
encourage Iranian-American employers and employees to notify Monster.com
of a possible boycott in order to prevent Monster's actions from becoming
common practice in corporate America," the site states.
Monster's current policy will not affect textual descriptions of jobs that
customers type in themselves, such as a description by a U.S. photographer
of work that involved a trip to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
Instead, the career site has removed those seven nations from pop-up lists
of countries that customers use to construct their listings.
A Monster spokesman said, however, that if the company learned that a
customer had expressed a desire to work in Iran or any other sanctioned
country, that résumé could be removed. "We'll have to evaluate when they
come up on a case-by-case basis," spokesman Kevin Mullins said.
Scott Maberry, an attorney of counsel to the Fulbright and Jaworski law
firm who is representing Monster, pointed to Treasury Department OFAC
regulations that say the sale "of any goods, technology, or services to
Iran or the Government of Iran is prohibited." Maberry said similar
regulations exist for the other six nations on the list, and warned that
the Bush administration could view "services" broadly enough to cover
providing job ads and résumé distribution.
"We live in a different world now," Maberry said. "The U.S. government,
including OFAC, is ever more active in identifying and addressing
national-security and foreign-policy threats."
Monster said it has asked OFAC for guidance and received a reply, but
refused to make the reply public. "Monster has never, and will never,
discriminate against individuals based on their ethnic origin or
background," Mullins said. "Millions of job seekers from all over the
world use Monster to advance their careers and their lives--we would never
engage in any discriminatory practices."
Monster's parent company is TMP Worldwide. Its shares closed Friday at
$13.48, down $0.42.

ON THE BORDER

Oil & Gas Journal April 28 2003

Rebel group KNU claims responsibility for Myanmar gas pipeline explosions

NICOSIA, Apr. 28 -- The Karen National Union (KNU), a rebel ethnic group
opposed to government by Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC), has claimed responsibility for blowing up sections of the natural
gas pipeline linking the Yadana gas field to the Myainggale electrical
power station in Karen State.
"The action taken to destroy the gas pipeline is to notify Total Oil Co.
and the international community that the SPDC military government has been
persecuting the people by using war weapons purchased with funds derived
from the gas pipeline," KNU said in a statement.
It said, "The SPDC has been regularly buying fighter planes, tanks, and
other military hardware, with revenue from the gas pipelines, to continue
killing and oppressing the Karen people and the people in general."
Series of explosions
KNU attacks on the pipeline took place on Feb. 1, Mar. 29, and Apr. 15.
Reports of the Apr. 15 explosion said a section of the pipeline was blown
up in the early morning hours near a Karen Christian village, Ye Township
in Mon State. No one was reported hurt in the explosion, but the blast was
described as "very powerful since it unearthed four sections of the gas
pipeline which was buried about 5 ft underground."
KNU said, "The action was undertaken to show that the KNU and the Karen
people will never take such injustices and oppression lying down and that
they will make appropriate response, as necessary."
Companies blamed
TotalFinaElf SA and Unocal Corp., both involved in gas exploration and
production in Myanmar, have faced continued accusations of collusion with
the SPDC, which is charged with a host of human rights violations by
international organizations.
According to Earth Rights International (ERI), the companies "contracted
with the (Myanmar) military regime to provide security for the Yadana
project" and "the (Myanmar) army has engaged in a pattern of systematic
human rights abuses and environmental degradation as it seeks to fulfill
its contractual responsibilities to Unocal and Total(FinaElf)."
Unocal has denied the allegations, saying activist groups have "resorted
to spreading false and hurtful allegations about Unocal and the Yadana
natural gas project" aimed at forcing the company "to sell off its
interest in the Yadana project and withdraw from that country."
Unocal has also cast doubt on claims that proceeds from the pipeline could
be used by the SPDC for the purchase of military equipment, saying that
"between 1992-2000, the government of Myanmar received little revenue from
the Yadana project" and that "the government of Myanmar will not start to
profit fully from the revenue stream generated by the Yadana project until
2005-06."
Court rulings
In late March, however, a ruling by a California appellate court appeared
to open the way to a trial against Unocal over allegations that it shares
responsibility for abuses allegedly conducted by troops guarding the
pipeline.
Refugees from Myanmar accused Unocal of being complicit in slavery,
murder, and rape related to the 1990s construction of the $1.2 billion
pipeline, built by a consortium of TotalFinaElf (operator with 31.24%),
Unocal 28.26%, Thailand's PTT E&P Co. Ltd. 25%, and Myanma Oil & Gas
Enterprise 15%.
California Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney last year ruled that
Unocal should stand trial but lawyers for Unocal challenged her ruling by
arguing that the case did not belong in a state court because it involved
crimes allegedly perpetrated by foreign troops outside California.
In a ruling dated Mar. 29, however, the 2nd District Court of Appeal
denied Unocal's request, stating only that the company failed to make a
case for preventing a trial. "That was Unocal's last hope to avoid trial,"
said attorney Katie Redford, a cofounder of ERI. "It's the last obstacle
between our clients and trial."
Charles Strathman, Unocal's chief legal officer, said the company would
consider an appeal to the California Supreme Court.
The refugees first filed suit seven years ago in federal court, but US
District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew found that Unocal was unaware of the
military's abuses and could not stand trial for liability since it did not
control the troops.
After Lew dismissed the case, the refugees filed a second suit in October
2000 under state law in Superior Court. A three-judge panel of the 9th US
Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the federal lawsuit last September,
after finding that Unocal was potentially liable due to evidence the
company knowingly encouraged the alleged abuses.
Unocal challenged the judge's ruling and the San Francisco-based court in
February announced it would hear the case in June with 11 judges to
determine if Unocal should face a federal trial.
Ending forced labor
Meanwhile, plans by Myanmar's military government to end forced labor are
not yet adequate or credible, a Rangoon-based International Labor
Organization (ILO) officer said in early March.
Myanmar is the only country in the world where forced labor is imposed by
authorities and is in talks with the ILO to draw up a plan to eliminate
the practice, ILO liaison officer Hong-Trang Perret-Nguyen said on Mar.
11.
Perret-Nguyen said her impression after visits to various parts of the
country was that "the situation is really very serious and people continue
to suffer from practices of forced labor." She visited the Yadana gas
pipeline operated by TotalFinaElf but said that she "did not see any
evidence of forced labor for the benefit of TotalFinaElf."
TotalFinaElf last August faced accusations it used forced labor in Myanmar
after a Paris lawyer filed a complaint brought on behalf of two Myanmar
citizens who said they were forced to work on the pipeline. TotalFinaElf
categorically denied the claims. "It is unimaginable that a company like
ours could have used forced labor at any time," a spokesman said, adding
that "Neither we nor our service suppliers have used forced labor."
The $1.2 billion, 416 mile Thai-Burmese natural gas pipeline was begun in
1994 and completed in mid-1999.
Earlier this month, Myanmar's Ministry of Energy reported that the
country's natural gas production rose in 2002 to 9,173.85 million cu m, an
increase of 4.2% from 2001. It said the country holds 50.95 tcf of gas
reserves.

REGIONAL

Associated Press April 28 2003

Thailand urges support for Myanmar reconciliation process
By UAMDAO NOIKORN

Thailand on Monday urged the international community to support moves by
Myanmar's military government toward reconciliation with the democratic
opposition led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Political change in Myanmar will be "impossible" without "some positive
response" whenever Yangon shows signs of compromise toward Suu Kyi,
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said.

Surakiart spoke to reporters after talks with the United Nations special
envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail, who initiated a reconciliation process
between the junta and Suu Kyi in October 2000.

The talks have made little progress, with Suu Kyi accusing the junta of
being insincere. Apart from freeing Suu Kyi from house arrest last May and
releasing a few hundred other political prisoners, the junta has shown no
sign that it is willing to give up power.

The deadlock has drawn intense criticism from the West and from human
rights groups, but Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries are
recommending more leniency toward the junta.

"We've always advocated an open arms policy. Every party should also be
sincere by showing a positive response when Myanmar acts in a way that
favors reconciliation," Surakiart said.

He did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to the junta's
concessions to the opposition in freeing Suu Kyi and allowing her to make
political trips to the countryside.

The current group of generals in Myanmar took over the government in 1988,
and refuses to hand over power to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
party, which won the 1990 general elections.

Razali, a veteran Malaysian diplomat who was appointed the United Nations'
special envoy to Myanmar in April 2000, is said to be seeking Thailand's
help in ending Myanmar's political deadlock.

He made his ninth trip to the isolated Southeast Asian country last
November but is reported to have been denied a visa by the junta since
then.

Razali said he was "very happy" with Bangkok's support of the
reconciliation process, and that he planned to visit Myanmar "as soon as
possible." He declined to say whether dates had been set for his next
visit.

Razali refused to comment on Suu Kyi's assertion last week that the junta
was not serious about embracing democracy. "I don't pass judgment on what
one party or the other party says or does not say," Razali said.

Surakiart said reconciliation talks should include all ethnic and armed
rebel groups in addition to representatives from the ruling military and
Suu Kyi.

He urged Western nations to help Myanmar solve social problems including
AIDS, unemployment, health care and poverty, saying that social and
political progress must go hand-in-hand.

He said he asked Razali to meet with the World Bank and other
international financial institutes to find ways to help Myanmar cope with
its nagging social problems.
_________

The Australian April 28 2003

Burmese sex slave granted refugee status
By Natalie O'Brien and Elisabeth Wynhausen

A BURMESE woman trafficked to Australia as a sex slave has finally been
granted refugee status, despite Immigration Department claims she was
really a Thai national.

Highlighting deep divisions within the department, conflicting decisions
were made about her background, although there was overwhelming evidence
proving she was from Burma's Shan state.

Immigration insiders say the case shows the variable quality of
departmental decisions. In this instance, two officers weighing up the
same facts came to opposite conclusions.

The Refugee Review Tribunal believed her story that she was raped and
assaulted by the Burmese military as a child, a common scenario. The
tribunal accepted she was trafficked to Thailand and forced into
prostitution before being trafficked to Australia.

Her Immigration case officer believed her story. The officer concluded
that although the woman spoke fluent Thai, it was her second language.

When the case was referred to the Immigration Department's Onshore
Protection section, which makes the final decisions on refugees, she was
rejected on another language test, using the controversial voice testing
method.

But tribunal member Paul White decided the language analysis was
unreliable. In a decision published last week, he said the linguist who
conducted the test had used only a few words of Burmese and had never been
to Shan state or any part of Burma where the language was spoken.

The woman had already shown she was familiar with Burmese food, customs,
songs and geography.

"There is no credible evidence to suggest that the applicant has any other
nationality," the tribunal member said.

The woman was picked up in a Sydney brothel during an Immigration raid.

Soon after the raid, she revealed she was Burmese and that she had been
too scared to reveal her nationality in case she was deported to Burma.
__________

Kyodo News Service April 26 2003

Japan envoy to ask Burma for economic reforms, democracy

Bangkok, 26 April: Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will make a
three-day visit to Myanmar Burma from Tuesday 29 April to call on junta
leaders to promote economic structural reforms and democracy, Japanese
diplomatic sources said Saturday.

Mori, carrying a letter from current Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
stating the requests, plans to meet with officials including Sr Gen Than
Shwe, chief of the junta or State Peace and Development Council, they
said.

"Japan intends to show its strong will by a former prime minister directly
making the demands to the top junta leader. It will not dangle any
prospects for economic assistance," one of the sources said.

Mori will ask the junta to carry out reforms based on proposals a group of
Japanese experts worked out after studying Myanmar's economic situation
for two years jointly with the Myanmar side, the sources said.

A task force of the group formulated the final report late last year,
calling for modernizing the agrarian system and establishing a single
exchange rate.

Mori was prime minister for about a year before being replaced by Koizumi
in April 2001.

INTERNATIONAL

Associated Press April 28 2003

Britain gives US$15.7 million to fight AIDS in Myanmar

Britain will give Myanmar US$15.7 million for an HIV/AIDS prevention and
care program being implemented by nongovernmental organizations, officials
said Monday.

Nigel Blackwood, an official at the British Embassy, said the total
required for the three-year program is estimated at US$51 million.

"We are hopeful that we will get more funds from our donors," he said.

An embassy statement said the British contribution is the biggest so far
for the HIV/AIDS project.

It said the money will be channeled through the Fund for HIV/AIDS in
Myanmar, which is managed by the United Nations Development Program.

Britain last year provided US$10 million for HIV/AIDS projects in Myanmar.

The Myanmar Health Ministry said the country currently has 180,000 people
infected with HIV/AIDS, while UNAIDS estimates that between 170,000 and
420,000 people are infected with HIV.

Of the officially reported HIV cases, 30 percent are attributed to using
injected drugs and 68 percent to heterosexual transmission.
_____________

Irrawaddy April 28 2003

Britain Announces Aid Donation to Burma
By Naw Seng

The United Kingdom announced on Friday that US $15.7 million dollars has
been earmarked for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in Burma,
according to a press release from the British Embassy in Rangoon.
The money will be donated to a UNAIDS joint programme involving 13
international relief groups and local government affiliated aid
organizations as well as the Burmese regime and the opposition National
League for Democracy.
The program is to last from 2003-2005 and has a proposed budget of US $51
million. It marks the largest prevention effort to date in Burma, which
according to UNAIDS has the highest HIV incidence rate in Asia outside
Cambodia.
Eamonn Murphy, the UNAIDS country representative in Burma for the Joint
United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, described the amount as
"significant" but said, "We still have a major shortfall in funding." He
explained that to date only US $21 million has been secured for the
three-year project, leaving a 30 million dollar gap.
Although critics of the regime welcome the money, they note that the
budget falls well below that of neighboring Thailand, which is one of a
handful of countries that has been able to reverse its rate of infection.
Thailand receives US $120 million a year to fight HIV/AIDS. But Mr Murphy
said today from Rangoon that Burma lacks the absorption capacity to handle
that amount of money. "Myanmar [Burma] cannot go from nothing, to large
activities overnight. So it needs to build, it doesn’t need as much money
as Thailand right now because it can’t spend it properly," explains Mr
Murphy.
He said there has not been enough of a response to Burma’s epidemic yet to
allow for the same scale of prevention being implemented in Thailand.
Funding alone will not stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Burma, according to
Ms Vicky Bowman, the British Ambassador to Burma. "Experience elsewhere in
the world shows that funds alone are not enough to successfully combat
HIV. It requires a change in attitudes from both government and wider
society, and a consideration of whether legal and judicial frameworks
inadvertently hinder the fight against HIV," Ms Bowman said in the press
release.
She said that the British government would work to ensure that their money
is delivered to those in need and in a "transparent way with effective
monitoring".
In recent years, the British government has provided over $US 7 million
annually to relief organizations in Burma.
UNAIDS estimates between 170,000 and 420,000 people are infected with HIV,
while Burma’s Ministry of Health puts the number at 180,000. A recent
study at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Baltimore’s Johns
Hopkins University, however, says that using a "conservative approach"
they estimate that as many as 832,100 individuals could be HIV positive.