BurmaNet News, May 6, 2004

[Editor]

May 6, 2004, Issue # 2471


INSIDE BURMA
RFA: Burmese Crackdown Said To Have Killed 282
DVB: Burma Accused of Hiring "Thugs" To Protect National Convention
DVB: Comments by UNLD on the forthcoming NC

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Leader of Myanmar's Karen rebels Bo Mya hospitalised in Bangkok

DRUGS
Independent: Burma's Warlords Hope to Make Friends in the Outside World
with a Ban on Opium

BUSINESS / MONEY
Fortune International: Red Rubies, Black Economy
Globe and Mail: A convergence of old warriors and new money

REGIONAL
Nation / ANA: A tough time for Southeast Asia


INSIDE BURMA
_____________________________________

May 5, Radio Free Asia
Burmese Crackdown Said To Have Killed 282

Junta leader ordered massacre, exile government says

Bangkok: Burma's exile government says it has new evidence that 282 people
were killed in violence orchestrated by the junta last year and that junta
leader Than Shwe was behind it, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.

The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has compiled a log
of everyone killed in the May 30, 2003 violence in Depayin Township in
northern Burma, a senior official in the exile government told RFA's
Burmese service. Previous reports estimated the number of deaths in the
attack on Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy
(NLD) convoy at more than 100.

"This came from SPDC sources-they have people who listed the names of
those who died in the incident. According to this list prepared by the
authorities themselves, there were 282 dead, but it's very difficult to
get all the names because these documents are top secret," San Aung,
minister in the exile prime minister's office, said in an interview.

The exile government, the National Coalition Government of the Union of
Burma (NCGUB), published its findings in Burmese on May 4. The report
hasn't yet been published in English. The NCGUB also obtained a list of
people belonging to junta-sponsored gangs or employed by the Shwebo
District local government who took part in the attacks.

"There were eyewitness," San Aung said, "and we got their names from the
eyewitnesses. We also got names from the public and from those who,
against their will, carried out orders to attack NLD members and
supporters. This includes people in the [junta-sponsored group] Union
Solidarity Development Association (USDA), in the police, and in the army.
They themselves admitted to the killings."

"If in reality there were an independent commission to investigate the
incident, the true facts would surely come out," he said.

In some USDA meetings, San Aung said, junta leader Gen. Than Shwe
reportedly claimed credit for organizing the massacre, although any
documentary evidence to this effect has apparently been destroyed. "Than
Shwe himself, from his mouth, said he organized this. But concrete
evidence we will never have, because all orders on the case were
unwritten, they were never on paper, and they erased all kinds of evidence
with regard to the order for the killings," he said.

The report contains photos of the massacre site and tables listing those
killed in and responsible for the attacks-as well as the names of
companies whose cars were seized for use in the attack.

Photos are available on the World Wide Web, at:
www.democraticurma.com/depayin/depayin_Photo_index.htm
and the report, in Burmese only, is available at
www.democratic-burma.com/index.html

Sixteen cars from various private firms were commandeered for use in the
attack, and the NCGUB report included the car registration numbers. It
also contains an account of how weapons and chemical stimulants were
distributed beforehand.

"We got the facts and figures from democracy forces inside the country as
best as we could get," San Aung said. "They are credible and accurate, and
we will take full responsibility for their accuracy. But this is not
complete. Because of the secrecy of this information, we were unable to
get complete information-please understand this."

The SPDC announced at a news conference May 31, the day after violence,
that four people had been killed and 50 injured in a clash between NLD
supporters and opponents. On Jan. 10, 2004, Burmese Police Chief Khin Yi
reiterated that account and stood by the official death toll.

Officials at the Burmese Embassy in Washington were unavailable to comment
on the report.

According to Burmese dissidents, May 30 attackers numbered about 3,000 and
Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy of 10 cars and 20 motorcycles comprised 300 to
400 people. Eyewitness told RFA that the attackers used stakes, pipes, and
clubs to beat and kill NLD supporters.

The State Department, in its latest annual report on human rights around
the world, cited "credible reports [that] throughout the rest of the night
following the attack, security forces clashed with and may have killed
scores of other villagers, students, and Buddhist monks in the villages
surrounding the attack site."

"The Government did not credibly investigate any of the attacks and thus
perpetuated a climate of impunity. Officials reportedly involved in the
assault were subsequently rewarded," it said.

_____________________________________

May 6, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma Accused of Hiring "Thugs" To Protect National Convention

The Interior Ministry of Burma's military junta, State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) issued a directive on how to control the people
of Burma closely before the reconvening of the so-called National
Convention on 17 May.

The ministry sent out the directive to police forces and army commands
throughout Burma ordering them to make the people of the country to take
part enthusiastically in the junta-sponsored "state building projects"
with a two pronged strategy.

The police commanders were told take part in the evangelisation of the
people making them fully believe in the role of the police in Burma by
asking their needs and taking down their comments.

The commanders were also told, with the help of the "People's Power
Holders", i.e. junta sponsored thugs, to "unearth" those who are trying to
destroy the National Convention including those who are sent by
anti-government opposition groups.

_____________________________________

May 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Comments by UNLD on the forthcoming NC

U Htaung Co Thang, the elected representative of Tamu Constituency, Chin
State in northwest Burma and a member of Committee for Representing
People’s Parliament (CRPP) and United Nationalities League for Democracy
(UNLD) commented on the forthcoming National Convention to be organised by
Burma’s military junta on 17 May as follows:

U Htaung Co Thang : The position of our party, the UNLD is still the same
as before; if the National Convention is to be reconvened with the same
principles and regulations, we won’t be attending it. With the latest
situation, according to the latest reports, the NLD could attend it if the
compromise works. As we are the ally of the NLD and if it attends the
convention, I don’t think they will leave us behind. If the NLD decides to
attend the convention, it will come and persuade us to attend it with
them. In that case, we do have the plan to attend. It won’t be good if the
NLD attends and we don’t. The situation is like this. But I am unable to
tell you our definite decision yet. We will only make a clear decision
only when we have a meeting.

DVB : Even if you attend the forthcoming convention, as stated by General
Khin Nyunt, it is only the first step of the seven-point road map plan. If
you attend the convention, would it not be like recognising the
seven-point road map plan and agreeing to a fresh election?

U Htaung Co Thang : If we attend the condition with the current situation,
as it is based on the road map, I don’t think they will recognise the
result of the 1990 election. After drafting a new constitution, they are
likely to hold a fresh election and form a new government. I am sure they
won’t recognise the 1990 election anymore.

DVB : As you are a member of the CRPP, by attending the convention would
you not be dissolving the CRPP inadvertently? What are your views?

U Htaung Co Thang : I am unable to comment for sure on this matter. The
role of the CRPP is, if I say it clearly, not to accept the National
Convention but for the emergence of people’s parliament. In my opinion, in
Burmese politics, there are many titles. I don’t think it would be enough
with the National Convention alone. The national convention is just one
title. You need another title called the national reconciliation and there
is another called the future of ethnic nationals and how to solve their
problems. There are many titles in our country. Among the titles, the
first thing to be sorted out is the National Convention. It is not at the
stage of drafting a constitution. The National Convention was reconvened
so that they could agree on basic rules. I think that they (the generals)
could negotiate with political parties on the matter of 104 principles
(undemocratic rules and regulations). We are taking part in politics on
democratic principles. The NLD which won the biggest number of votes is
leading in Burma. Therefore, we have to behave in accordance with their
desire. It would be very profitable for the nation if we cooperate, I
believe.


ON THE BORDER
_____________________________________

May 6, Agence France Presse
Leader of Myanmar's Karen rebels Bo Mya hospitalised in Bangkok

Bangkok: General Bo Mya, the figurehead of Myanmar's biggest rebel
movement the ethnic 0Karen National Union (KNU), has been hospitalised in
the Thai capital, officials said Thursday.

KNU official Shee Lay said the 77-year-old leader was in the intensive
care unit at the Thai army's Phra Mongkutklao Hospital but his condition
was improving and he would be moved to a normal ward on Friday.

"Now his condition is better than before and we can communicate with him
by mobile phone," he told AFP by telephone from the KNU's base on the
Myanmar-Thai border. "His condition is becoming better and better."

Shee Lay said Bo Mya was taken to hospital for surgery on his leg but
after the operation he developed a bladder problem and became extremely
ill, lapsing into unconsciousness. He said he was also suffering from
blood pressure.

The KNU official declined to speculate on whether his illness would
disrupt ongoing peace talks with Myanmar's military government.

After a surprise December agreement to cease hostilities, Bo Mya in
January led a delegation on an historic trip to Yangon which produced a
provisional ceasefire deal.

However, the second round of talks held in February appeared to have made
little progress towards ending the half-century insurgency.

The KNU is the largest of a handful of rebel groups still resisting
Yangon's rule. The junta estimates there are 7,000 rebels in the insurgent
group which took up arms 53 years ago.


DRUGS
_____________________________________

May 6, The Independent (London)
Burma's Warlords Hope to Make Friends in the Outside World with a Ban on
Opium - Jan McGirk

Pang Kham: Kya Lew's cheeks are deeply creased from sucking his opium
pipe. He has much to ponder. In the autumn, this respected village elder's
poppy crop was stunted from drought. Last week, he prayed that his next
harvest will be more bountiful.

For Chairman Bao Youxiang, the rebel supremo of the United Wa State Army
(UWSA), has decreed that the opium poppies planted later this year here in
Burma's Shan state must be the last.

All opium in Wa-ruled territory, which makes up the Burmese corner of the
narcotic trade's Golden Triangle and ultimately provides the raw material
for most of the heroin syringes in America and Australia and 10 per cent
of European smack, is to be banned by July next year.

Violators who grow, smoke or traffic opium next summer will face execution.

Only addicts aged 60 or above will be spared. It is a drastic policy
change by the Wa chieftain, who admits that illicit drugs financed his
15,000 guerrillas for decades, which threatens the survival of a quarter
million tribal people who depend on the poppy harvest to eke out a living.

A United Nations programme to introduce sustainable food crops to these
remote hill people is working against the clock. Veteran aid workers warn
that a humanitarian crisis looms over Burma's northeastern frontier, which
is shared with China, Laos and Thailand.

Without outside assistance, relocating thousands of villagers into
malarial lowlands that can grow sufficient rice is likely to worsen their
plight. "The world cannot just neglect these opium farmers," said Jeremy
Milson, who co-ordinates the Wa area development project for the UNs'
Office on Drugs and Crime.

Everything hinges on the word of Chairman Bao, who was blacklisted by the
United States as a "foreign narcotics kingpin" just two years ago.

Mr Bao insists that the Wa will start lopping the heads off poppies and,
by next summer, eliminate a cash crop which the British introduced 120
years ago. "If we have any more opium here after 2005," Bao has vowed
repeatedly, "you can come and chop my head off."

Just down the road from the UWSA's main garrison, Mr Bao repudiated his
drug profiteering past. He even acknowledged that his younger brother was
recently demoted for links with Chinese methamphetamine traffickers and
was forced to undergo a detox regime.

The old Communist fighter denied any part in the burgeoning trade of
synthetic stimulant pills, which he claims is run by Chinese crime
syndicates. "There is no processing here. We do not have the capability or
chemicals to produce these drugs," Mr Bao said.

Shrugging off charges of using forced labour and child soldiers in his
autonomous domain, Chairman Bao tackles one reform at a time. "Our people
are poor and illiterate. Sometimes they must be forced to work in projects
for their well-being," he said. Since 1989, when Mr Bao negotiated a truce
with the Burmese junta after 25 years of insurgency, most of the 400,000
ethnic Wa in Burma have stayed mired in poverty while development across
the border in China's Yunnan province surged.

Bribery and influence peddling has secured a few elite Wa businessmen a
foothold down in Mandalay and Rangoon, where they flourish as property
tycoons or wealthy traders.

Yet Western aid agencies are increasingly willing to hold their noses and
work with the Wa and the junta. This week, Japan pledged $ 300,000 (pounds
170,000) to the UN's World Food Programme for emergency rations for the
Kokang region in northern Shan state, where a self-imposed poppy ban is
already in place.

A European diplomat in Rangoon said: "Through this work, neither the
Burmese government nor the Wa will gain legitimacy or financial benefits.
Local communities are the sole target. Burma's poor should not be put at
double jeopardy because of the junta."

To administer the autonomous area that the Burmese generals call Special
Region 2, the Wa have traditionally demanded a 10 per cent tax on opium
income, double the fee for rice producers. With a straight face, Mr Bao
vowed to suspend all agricultural taxes for the next three years in order
to eradicate opium production.

Police Colonel Hkam Awng, joint secretary of the central committee for
drug abuse control in Rangoon, said satellite surveys and ground checks
back up Mr Bao's claims of poppy reduction. "I believe him," he said. " He
is sincere and a humble man."

UN statistics verify that poppy cultivation areas have decreased by 64 per
cent across Burma in the past seven years. More than one-third of these
opium-producing poppy fields grow in the Wa-controlled region, which is
the country's largest single producer.

One-quarter of Burma's poppy harvest is consumed domestically, since opium
is the local drug of choice. About 4 per cent of the rural population
become addicts.

The Rangoon generals are incensed that their totalitarian regime's efforts
to stamp out illicit drug production have won such little international
recognition. Public relations do matter to the junta. And lately, the
junta's Wa partners seem to be just as fussy about its image.

Kya Wen Xing, a regional Wa security officer, said: "We cannot afford to
be the wild people in the mountains any more. Opium does not make us
friends in the outside world."


BUSINESS / MONEY
_____________________________________

May 17, Fortune International
Red Rubies, Black Economy - Robert Horn

Carat for carat, the blood-red rubies of Myanmar fetch a higher price than
diamonds. The prospect of purchasing some of these exceedingly rare
stones, fabled for their rich fluorescence, lured hundreds of dealers to
Yangon earlier this spring for a semiannual auction organized by Myanmar's
ever watchful and cash-strapped military government. But as buyers weaved
past barbed-wire barricades to enter a teak and jade-tiled exhibition
hall, their anticipation turned to grumbling. Not a single stone from
Mogok--a remote mining town north of Mandalay that has been the world's
best source of rubies for centuries--was on the block. Instead most of the
rubies came from Mong Hsu, a mine whose stones require heat treatment to
enhance their color. "Mogok is mined out," says Hla Win, a Burmese trader
hawking Mong Hsu rubies.

But dig a little deeper, and a different tale emerges. Dealers say miners
are still unearthing rubies at Mogok's limestone karsts. The stones just
aren't coming to the nation's capital. "Yes, there is smuggling, although
it's going down," says auction chairman Myint Thein. That's surprisingly
frank talk for a Myanmar government official, but there's no denying that
gem smuggling exploded after the mines were nationalized by the generals
30 years ago. Since 1989, the government has been attempting to build and
profit from a legal, privatized gem trade by handing out mining
concessions to trusted business allies and to ethnic insurgents as
enticements to end decades of civil war. "The government has been trying
hard to get it right," says Jayesh Patel, a Bangkok ruby dealer born in
Mogok. Still, according to those in the know, gem smuggling thrives.

Officially, minerals and gems are Myanmar's fifth-largest export, at $ 30
million a year, but government statistics are notoriously unreliable.
Patel and other dealers say as much as 90% of the business lurks within
the shadow economy. Mismanagement and U.S. economic sanctions over human
rights abuses have swelled the country's black economy to five times the
size of its legal economy, say Western diplomats. The government reeled in
$ 2.2 million, or 10% of the gross, from this auction, but hundreds of
millions of dollars' worth of gems are leaking across borders to China,
Thailand, and India every year, selling at prices that turn Yangon's
generals greener than their uniforms.

Gen. Nay Win Tun hasn't worn a uniform since 1991, when his Pa-O
Liberation Army signed a cease-fire. His corporation, Ruby Dragon Jade, a
joint venture between the government and the Pa-O leadership, has
interests in construction, hotels, and tourism as well as gems and jade.
It is now one of Myanmar's top gem producers. "Peace has been good," Nay
Win Tun says, waving a wrist weighed down by a diamond-dappled Rolex at
his Yangon office. Of the 882 pounds of Mong Hsu rubies his company put up
for sale, only 196 found buyers. But the general is unperturbed. In his
vaults in Mandalay, he says, he still has rubies from Mogok.

About a quarter of the thousand or so mining companies are run by former
rebels, some of them linked to opium and heroin smuggling, according to
the U.S. State Department. Other mining companies are owned by Chinese
nationals using Burmese as frontmen. Although they are chiefly interested
in jade, they too have well-established smuggling networks.

Many smugglers are women. After buying stones from miners or corrupt
company officials, they trek for days to the border, dodging brigands and
paying cash or gems at checkpoints run by the army or guerrillas. To
conceal the gems, they often swallow them. Bodies of suspected smugglers
have been found sliced open. Says Bangkok dealer David Glickman, who used
to buy rubies at the border: "We'd wait for the smugglers to shoot it out,
then buy from whoever was left standing."

If smuggling remains rife, blame greed and mismanagement. The regime takes
a large stake in all mining ventures, then slaps a 20% tax on excavated
gems. Another 10% tax is taken if the gems are exported. Nonetheless, to
get their mining permits renewed, companies must bring some booty to
Yangon.

To counter smuggling, the government wants to develop an indigenous
finishing industry. But because of the sanctions few Western buyers visit
Myanmar, and neighboring countries place 80% to 200% tariffs on jewelry
imports. "The government has failed the industry by not getting those
reduced," says Win Kyaw Oo, a former reporter for the Myanmar Times. Until
Myanmar's generals can negotiate trade agreements as skillfully as
cease-fire deals, their country will remain merely a gem mine for its
voracious and economically mightier neighbors.

______________________________

May 5, Globe and Mail
A convergence of old warriors and new money - Geoffrey York

Myanmar's city of Mong La is a garish mix of tribal army commanders and
wealthy Chinese tourists

Mong La: Available soon: Luxury condos with a spectacular view of an
immaculately groomed golf course, surrounded by an idyllic Asian landscape
of rice paddies and lakes.Slight disadvantage: Your neighbours will be
opium merchants, guerrilla leaders, drug lords, prostitutes, loan sharks
and gamblers.

Chinese-style capitalism has arrived in the heart of the Golden Triangle,
the notoriously lawless region where much of the world's opium and heroin
are produced, and the result is a bizarre boomtown of the nouveaux riches
and the old warriors.

The new city of Mong La, which has sprung up from the wilderness of
northern Myanmar in barely a decade, is a garish mix of wealthy Chinese
tourists, tribal army commanders, drug traffickers, casino clients,
thrill-seekers, Russian burlesque dancers, Thai transvestites and migrant
businessmen.

As many as 600,000 Chinese tourists cross the frontier every year to visit
the exotic attractions of this fast-growing border town, built on profits
from the opium trade. Because gambling is illegal in China, the casinos
are a huge draw for Chinese tourists, who fly to an airstrip on the
Chinese side of the border, then travel a short distance by road across
the border to reach Mong La.

For more than a century, opium poppies were the only cash crop in this
remote region of mountain villages and obscure tribes. But the former
guerrilla fighters who command the region are under heavy pressure to ban
the opium trade. Now poppy fields are giving way to a new economy of
casinos, karaoke bars, golf courses, brothels, hotels, bowling alleys and
tourist gimmicks such as elephant polo.

On the outskirts of Mong La, a luxury housing development with several
dozen condominium units is being constructed beside the gleaming greens
and fairways of a nine-hole course, where the town's elite are fond of
golfing. Every afternoon at 4 p.m., local government leaders -- mostly
ethnic Chinese -- show up for a round. The course's official logo is a
dollar sign -- with two golf clubs crossing the S to form it.

The night sky of Mong La is brightly lit by the neon lights of the gaudy
casinos and posh hotels. One of its central squares is little more than
dozens of brothels and strip clubs. Its wide boulevards and newly paved
streets are a sharp contrast to the poverty of the farmland and villages
surrounding it.

Chinese gamblers stake as much as $100,000 (U.S.) on a single wager at
Mong La's casinos. Loan sharks hover near the betting rooms, ready to lend
money to desperate gamblers at exorbitant interest rates -- enforced by
violence against those who don't repay their loans.

Mong La's booming casino economy was created by a local drug boss, Lin
Mingxian, who heads the tribal army in Myanmar's eastern Shan State. "When
he comes to town, everybody stands at attention," said a local restaurant
owner, one of many migrants from China's Sichuan province who have moved
to Mong La to make their fortune.

The restaurateur tells stories of the guns and drugs that he sees in town,
including bales of opium as big as a suitcase. But while the opium traders
pass through Mong La, it is the Chinese businessmen who really control the
town, he says. "The whole place is run by people from Sichuan."

Many tribal leaders in Myanmar are convinced that Mong La is the model for
the future: an economic paradise to replace the lost revenue of the
illegal narcotics business when opium is banned across most of this region
next year.

United Nations aid workers worry the casinos will create as many problems
as they solve, including gambling addictions. They are trying to persuade
local leaders to switch to livestock or fruit orchards instead of creating
new cities of vice and tourism. But the revenue from Mong La is an
alluring temptation for the tribal leaders.

In the border town of Pang Sang, leaders of the Wa tribe have built a
shopping mall with a massive three-storey casino, open 24 hours a day. So
far, however, the casino is failing to draw Chinese tourists. Instead it
is filled with hundreds of impoverished local residents, including
soldiers who spend much of their tiny monthly salary (less than $6
Canadian) on wagers.

All across the territory of the Wa and Shan tribal armies, the Chinese
influence is increasingly obvious. Shops are filled with Chinese goods.
The main currency is the Chinese yuan. Street and road signs are written
in Chinese characters. Stores and hotels set their clocks to Chinese time,
rather than Myanmar time. Much of the business and labour is conducted by
Chinese migrants. The biggest investments, including a new swath of rubber
plantations, are financed and promoted by Chinese investors.

The tribal region is still officially part of Myanmar. But as China's
economy booms, Myanmar's grip on the region weakens.

"Basically," said a Western diplomat in Myanmar, "this region is drifting
away to China."


REGIONAL
______________________________

May 6, The Nation / Asia News Network
A tough time for Southeast Asia - Don Pathan

All of a sudden, Southeast Asia doesn't look so good. International
coverage of the clashes in southern Thailand last week, that left the
streets littered with dead Muslim militants, has effectively shattered the
country's reputation as a land of peace and tolerance. Adding to the
pressure on the Thai government, Malaysia has publicly announced it will
welcome anyone fleeing the violence in Thailand's deep south, where the
local population is predominantly Muslim and of Malay ethnicity.

Moreover, leaders of Malaysia's opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia have
gone further, calling the clashes last Wednesday "a massacre of Muslims,"
and accusing Thai troops of violating the sanctity of religious
institutions with their raid on the Krue Se mosque in Pattani, which left
over 30 people dead. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has told the rest
of the world to mind its own business while at the same time upping the
ante against local Muslim militants with his hawkish, all-or-nothing
mindset.

Meanwhile, Manila released a report last year warning that 50 Abu Sayyaf
terrorists were being trained as suicide bombers by Indonesian instructors
who are members of Jemaah Islamiyah and received training in Afghanistan.
Indonesia appears to be most vulnerable to terror at present, facing a
three-pronged problem: political transition, ethnic violence and economic
instability. The country has suffered two major terrorist attacks that
have jolted the world community. Illicit drugs, meanwhile, continue to
pour out of Myanmar, as evidenced in the recent seizure of nearly 300
kilograms of heroin on the Chinese border in Yunnan province, while the
standoff between the Myanmar military and pro-democracy forces continues
to be a source of embarrassment for all of ASEAN and humiliation for
Thailand, which sees itself as capable of brokering a political settlement
in Myanmar.

A political deadlock in Cambodia, meanwhile, reflects the difficulties of
transitional periods. The entire region appears to be shifting away from
the old order, says leading security expert assistant professor Panitan
Wattanayagorn, from Chulalongkorn University. Many in the region are
moving from authoritarian-based power structures to semi-democracies - and
the transition generally has not been smooth, Panitan said.

Many of these countries are weak, with weak institutions and short-term
economic strategies that are unable to cope with the challenges of a
rapidly changing world. Panitan said ethnic tensions and separatist
movements are part of the "deprived factor," or a segment of society that
sees itself as having been denied its fair share of economic growth or
political representation.

Kobsak Chutikul, vice chairman for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
thinks Southeast Asia missed an opportunity to put its house in order
after the financial crisis of 1997.

"That was a wake-up call, but it became apparent that most of the nations
were not willing to fully embrace reform," said Kobsak.

Today, the region's economy is continuing its modest upward climb, but the
same old problems are still there - communal violence, separatism, illicit
drugs, corruption and weak institutions. The recovery of the past
two-three years was mainly the result of China's strong economic
performance. In a sense, this has only provided a further excuse to delay
reforms and go back to the old way of doing things, Kobsak said.

Southeast Asia is once again at a crossroads. One route is to adopt
Chinese-style totalitarianism - with closed politics and an open economy.
The alternative is to fully embrace reform, modernization and
democratization as in the West. "But I fear most countries will attempt to
muddle through with home-grown hybrids with the result that we will be
going around in circles," Kobsak said.