BurmaNet News, July 31-August 2, 2004

[Editor]

July 31 – August, 2004, Issue # 2529

“It is within the Secretary-General’s power to call for a Security Council
resolution authorizing an arms or travel embargo on the Burmese regime’s
thuggish leaders. He should do so immediately, lest his thoughtful
challenge be lost in the shuffle of history, along with 600,000 people in
eastern Burma.”
- Peter Gabriel and Joseph Pitts, Asian Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2004


INSIDE BURMA
NYT: Despite U.S. penalties, Burmese junta refuses to budge
New Straits Times: Some degree of religious freedom in Myanmar
AP: Karen rebels say new round of peace talks set with Myanmar government

BUSINESS
Reuters News: Myanmar awards Thai firm two more gas concessions

REGIONAL
AFP: Myanmar PM avoids democracy talk at Asian summit meeting
BP: Burma; PM may meet Than Shwe soon
BP: Cash offer for arrest of illegal workers; Registrations exceed
expected figures

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: US Senators ask Powell to expel Myanmar envoy

OPINION / OTHER
FT: Burma will be poor if junta retains its hold on power - Nyan Lett
AWSJ: Don’t leave the people of Burma behind - Peter Gabriel & Joseph
Pitts

INSIDE BURMA
______________________________________

August 1, The New York Times
Despite U.S. penalties, Burmese junta refuses to budge - Jane Perlez

Yangon: Soon after dawn, hundreds of women streamed toward the garment
factories that have provided them with new jobs in this capital's biggest
industrial zone. Many came on foot, wearing traditional ankle-length
Burmese skirts and simple sandals, cylindrical tin lunch pails glinting in
the early light. Some came on creaky 60-year-old buses provided as free
transport.

In any other nation in Southeast Asia, the scene might be greeted as the
healthy sign of a vibrant economy. But this is Myanmar -- the name given
Burma by the military government 15 years ago -- and these are factories
that the Bush administration had hoped would be suffering, even shut down,
with the economic penalties that it slapped on one of the world's most
repressive governments last year.

The sanctions, which ban all imports from Myanmar to the United States,
were renewed in July. They are intended, the administration says, to
persuade the government that it should share power with the opposition
leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate. With a few
interludes of freedom, she has been under house arrest for more than a
decade.

But from many signs around the country, and the buzz of activity around
the factory gates in the industrial zone of Hlaing Tharyar here in Yangon,
formerly Rangoon, the military government, led by Gen. Than Shwe, a
71-year-old hard-liner, remains firmly entrenched.

Proud of its long record of survival under international isolation -- for
example, there have been no World Bank loans to Burma since 1987 -- the
government has not been budged by the American sanctions, Burmese people
say.

It has not helped that European nations have applied less stringent
sanctions, while Asian countries, in particular China, still trade freely
with Myanmar. The country has managed to acquire military hardware from
diverse sources, including China, Russia and North Korea.

One Western diplomat in Myanmar sent home a cable in which he wrote about
''the cockroach economy,'' meaning that the military government would
still be standing with the cockroaches after everything else had
collapsed.

The generals, as the Burmese refer to their leaders, appear to have
crafted a straightforward survival strategy. It is based, Burmese and
outsiders say, on personal financial enrichment for themselves and
political payoffs and cease-fire accords that guarantee peace with
Buddhist leaders and otherwise restive ethnic groups.

A new class of rich people, mostly the sons and daughters of the military,
as well as ethnic Chinese, is allowed to flourish. They are the ones who,
in one of the world's most heavily censored societies, sport cellphones
tucked into their belts.

Asked how much his cellphone cost, one businessman gave a local figure
that was equivalent to $4,000. Almost everyone else must rely on tattered
public telephones arrayed on card tables at street corners, staffed by
watchful cashiers.

Holding companies run by the military are involved in many of the deals
that have allowed some scattered patina of modernity -- an international
airline with new planes and smartly dressed cabin crews -- and some
extravagant follies. A gleaming new international airport replete with
gilded pagodas attached to the terminal roof opened in Mandalay, the
nation's second largest city, four years ago. The air bridges for big jets
and luggage carousels look as though they have never been used.

The generals also rely on heavy repression -- the military intelligence
service is one of the most pervasive organizations of its kind in the
world -- and what some call the passivity of the people in this
predominantly Buddhist nation.

For example, as many as 40,000 people lost their jobs after the sanctions
came into effect in July 2003, according to an informal survey in November
by the United Nations. But there were no protests, and since then, many of
the out-of-work have either gone home to the countryside or turned to the
capital's seedy sex trade. Many, however, are finding work at reopened
factories.

At the Korean-owned WaHongHon factory, which churns out cheap T-shirts, a
crowd of women lined up to apply for job openings. A sign on the gate said
that machinists and finishers were needed.

''The starting salary is 15,000 kyat a month,'' or about $15, one of the
women said. She had left a job a few months ago at 25,000 kyat but said
she had decided to return to work. ''If you're good on a sewing machine
you can get a job anywhere,'' another woman said.

These attitudes, borne as much out of the desperation of deep poverty as
quiescence, frustrate the educated opponents of the government.

''I wish the factory workers had protested -- to the government, to the
owners, to anyone,'' said one educated Burmese. ''But they didn't; they
just accepted.''

The instruments of the government's control are evident, sometimes
obviously, sometimes by inference, wherever one goes, from the urban
centers to villages.

More than 50 percent of Myanmar's budget is spent on the military, and in
the broken-down atmosphere of much of the country, the army's prosperity
stands out.

In Pin U Lain, the new name of the old British hill town known as Maymyo,
the nation's two military academies are endowed with well-built modern
buildings. Young cadets sauntered around town on their day off in
well-pressed uniforms.

The privileges of the generals are clear. A golf course in Pin U Lain,
with a nearby helipad, is for their exclusive use, for example.

In remote areas that are generally off limits to the foreign officials in
the capital, the army forces civilians into heavy labor, including
backbreaking work building roads under primitive and cruel conditions,
according to the International Labor Organization. Commanders whose forces
are under pressure from insurgency groups recruit children as soldiers,
the organization says.

In a concession by the government, the labor organization was allowed to
open an office in Yangon two years ago to try to reduce forced labor
abuses. The government now acknowledges the existence of child soldiers
and forced labor, but there seems little political will to prosecute
cases, said the organization's liaison officer, Richard Horsey.

The people receive virtually no services from the government. Education is
abysmal. The government's annual health budget is about 24 cents per
capita, with only one country, Sierra Leone, spending less, the World
Health Organization says.

In Hsipaw, a town of 200,000, the public hospital was empty and shuttered,
and only a few nursing attendants were on duty at the maternity hospital
across the street. ''There is no medical service here except a few doctors
in private clinics who charge a lot,'' a resident said.

In a nearby village, nestled under a canopy of lush jackfruit and tamarind
trees, almost all of the wooden houses, many of them built on stilts to
permit a flow of air in the muggy climate, were without electricity. One
enterprising farmer had fashioned a microhydro plant that furnished
electricity to his own family and five neighbors.

His three children had all finished high school but some families in the
village could not afford to send their children to school at all, he said.

The Bush administration's sanctions, as well as other international
prohibitions, do not rule out assistance to help alleviate some of the
poverty. But educated Burmese who oppose the government and manage to get
news of the outside world through satellite dishes -- the BBC is
available, but not CNN -- often say they have mixed feelings about the
American sanctions.

Some American officials say they are torn about the sanctions, too. One
official said it was clear that the new, more rigorous sanctions were not
having much effect on the military government and were probably hurting
ordinary workers.

''But what are we to do?'' the official asked.

______________________________________

August 1, New Straits Times (Sunday)
Some degree of religious freedom in Myanmar - Balan Moses & Shamini Darshni

Myanmar enjoys freedom of religion although the country is under military
rule. However, there are constraints.

Rev Arthur Ko Lay, vice-chairman of the Myanmar Baptist Convention, said
although the Government allowed freedom of worship, the expression of
views on human rights and justice was still curtailed.

"The only caution the Government has given is to say that the church
should not infringe on the beliefs of other faiths and we respect that,"
he said.

"The Ministry of Religious Affairs has been instrumental in lending its
ear to the concerns of different religious groups in majority-Buddhist
Myanmar," he said.

A religious dialogue on social action, he said, was in the pipeline.

The various communities, he added, were more concerned about helping the
hardcore poor regardless of religious beliefs.

The Venerable Joseph Sarvananthan, a former archdeacon, said in an
interview that in Sri Lanka, people of various faiths lived in harmony.

"Sri Lanka has had racial riots, but never religious riots or
disturbances," he said today.

Negotiations between the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) have been stagnant since a new Government took over.

Inter-religious dialogues, he said, continued to be held regularly to
prevent clashes and to establish a common understanding.

______________________________________

July 31, Associated Press
Karen rebels say new round of peace talks set with Myanmar government

Ethnic Karen rebels from Myanmar have said they will hold a new round of
cease-fire talks with the country's military government in the third week
of August.

The Karen National Union _ the only major ethnic guerrilla group that
hasn't signed a full cease-fire agreement with Myanmar's government _
entered peace talks late last year, and both sides have declared a
provisional truce. The KNU has been fighting for autonomy for more than 50
years.

David Htaw, head of the KNU's foreign affairs office, said Friday that the
junta had proposed a meeting on July 28, but the date was inconvenient for
the rebels, who instead suggested the third week of August.

He said the venue might be Moulmein, in Myanmar's eastern Mon State, where
the last round of talks was held in late February.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

The guerrillas described the last round of talks as "successful," but they
were marred by an attack by KNU guerrillas on a government outpost just
before they began. The attack was apparently sanctioned by KNU field
commanders opposed to the cease-fire negotiations.

The next round of talks is supposed to cover substantially the same ground
as the previous one: demarcation of territory, troop positions and
resettlement of ethnic Karen displaced by fighting, said Htaw, who was
deputy leader of the last delegation.

Despite the warming relations, the two sides have not signed a formal
agreement.

The KNU also has declined to participate in the junta's National
Convention to draft guidelines for a new constitution.

The convention is a first step on the junta's so-called roadmap to restore
democracy, an effort to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the international
community. The junta is widely condemned for failing to hand over power to
an elected government.

The proceedings have been boycotted by the main opposition party, the
National League for Democracy, because its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is
under house arrest. Outside critics have also described the convention as
undemocratic.


BUSINESS
______________________________________

July 31, Reuters News
Myanmar awards Thai firm two more gas concessions

Bangkok: Myanmar has awarded Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL
(PTTE.BK) (PTTEP) two more offshore gas blocks in the Gulf of Martaban, a
Thai government spokesman said on Saturday.

The Myanmar cabinet had "agreed in principle" to grant the Thai firm the
right to explore Blocks M-3 and M-4, north of Blocks M-7 and M-9, both of
which Thailand and Myanmar signed a 50:50 production sharing agreement
last November, he said.

"During their meeting yesterday, Myanmar Prime Minister Khin Nyunt told
our Prime Minister (Thaksin Shinawatra) his cabinet had agreed in
principal to grant PTTEP rights to explore Block M-3 and M-4," Jakrapob
Penkair told reporters.

Jakrapob gave no other details, but an official familiar with the deal
told Reuters a memorandum of understanding between Thailand and Myanmar
would be signed next week in Yangon.

PTTEP is 65 percent owned by PTT, the country's largest oil and gas firm
which is 52 percent owned by the Ministry of Finance. It has 13
exploration and development blocks in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Myanmar Energy Minister Lun Thi signed the production sharing agreement
with Thai counterpart Prommin Lertsuridej last November in the Myanmar
tourist town of Pagan for the Blocks M-7 and M-9, estimated to hold
reserves of between 1.5 trillion and 7.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of
natural gas.

PTTEP already owns stakes in Myanmar's two large gas fields - Yadana, in
which PTTEP has a 25.5 percent stake and is near the two new blocks, and
Yetagun, in which it has a 19.32 percent stake.


REGIONAL
______________________________________

July 31, Agence France Presse
Myanmar PM avoids democracy talk at Asian summit meeting

Bangkok: Myanmar's prime minister shunned the international clamour for
the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi by avoiding his country's
political crisis in a speech Saturday at an Asian leaders' summit.

General Khin Nyunt spoke only of Asian economic cooperation and to extol
the beaches, mountain ranges and attractions of Myanmar, which has been
hit by an informal tourism boycott because of the military's democracy
crackdown.

With Myanmar suffering under international sanctions, General Khin Nyunt
used his speech in Bangkok to highlight close links with the country's
Asian neighbours -- compared to the United States and Europe which have
led criticism of the regime.

"It is indeed an honour and a pleasure for me to take part in today's
historic meeting to exchange views on how to further strengthen our
cooperation," he said at the BIMSTEC summit of leaders also from
Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

In a meeting with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Friday,
General Khin Nyunt said Aung San Suu Kyi would be released at a time of
the regime's choosing.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been kept under house arrest for more than a year by
the military junta that has ruled since taking over the country in a 1962
coup.

Her third period of detention followed a violent clash between her
supporters and a pro-junta mob in May last year.

The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi -- whose deputy Tin Oo is also being
held -- has proved a sticking point for planned talks between Southeast
Asian nations and Europe scheduled for October in Vietnam.

EU ministers have demanded a signal that the junta is prepared to allow a
degree of democratic opening, including her release, before sitting down
with a Myanmar delegation.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has refused to leave
Myanmar out of the talks prompting a round of frantic diplomatic meetings
to try to resolve the crisis.

______________________________________

July 31, Bangkok Post
Burma; PM may meet Than Shwe soon - Preeyanat Phanayanggoor and Yuwadee
Tunyasiri

Visit aimed to speed up democratisation

Talks between Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Burmese strongman Than
Shwe could take place in August to hasten the democratisation process in
Burma and another Thai-hosted international meeting on Burma, a government
source said.

The prime minister would travel to Rangoon to visit Gen Than Shwe,
chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, to press for progress
in the next round of the Bangkok Process.

Thailand wants to arrange the meeting before the Asia-Europe Summit in
Vietnam in September and the Asean summit in Laos in December.

Last month, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was
worried about the slow move towards democracy in Burma.

Mr Thaksin yesterday agreed in talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh that progress in Burma was slow and told him Thailand would help
Burma achieve democracy in a compromising way rather than adopting a
Western-style hard-line approach.

The second Bangkok Process would probably take place after Burma holds its
second national convention so Burma had more information for the
international community.

Mr Thaksin also told Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt at a meeting in
Bangkok yesterday that the second Bangkok Process could be an opportunity
for Burma to explain to the world about its stumbling blocks to democracy
such as ethnic minority issues, developmental problems and poverty.

Gen Khin Nyunt told him Burma recognised international concerns but asked
for more time. "Burma is an independent country and we don't want any
interference from outside in its internal matters," he said, adding
Rangoon would decide on the right time to release opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi.

Meanwhile, the government yesterday offered flood-stricken Bangladesh
1,000 tonnes of rice and credits for importing safe chicken at a bilateral
meeting with Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, said government
spokesman Jakrapob Penkair.

Thailand also signed six agreements with Sri Lanka at another bilateral
meeting, governing cooperation in fisheries, agriculture, information
technology and investment. Sri Lanka also wanted to push for free trade
negotiations between the countries.

______________________________________

August 2, Bangkok Post
Cash offer for arrest of illegal workers; Registrations exceed expected
figures

The government will offer cash rewards for the arrest of alien workers who
failed to register with labour authorities by the July 31 deadline.

Juthawat Intarasuksri, director-general of the Employment Department, said
Deputy Prime Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha would meet with relevant
agencies on Aug 5 to discuss the employment of non-registered alien
workers and the measures that should be taken against them.

The meeting would also discuss the size of cash rewards to be offered to
those providing information on the whereabouts of non-registered workers.

Police officers involved in the arrests would also be rewarded.

A total of 1,269, 074 alien workers registered with labour authorities
when the one-month registration period ended on July 31. The Labour
Ministry was satisfied with the number as it had exceeded their estimated
figure of 1.2 million people.

In Tak, more than 120,000 alien workers have registered with the
authorities, outnumbering the number of workers wanted by local
entrepreneurs.

Altogether 120,636 immigrant workers from Burma, Cambodia and Laos
registered with the Tak labour office during July. Burmese immigrants
topped the list with 120,534, followed by 93 Lao and 9 Cambodians.

Direk Thachan, chief of Tak employment office, said employers only wanted
91,127 alien workers. Of these, some 50,000 would work in the industrial
sector and the remaining in the agriculture and service sectors.

A provincial sub-panel dealing with the employment of alien workers plans
to further boost the alien workforce as requested by employers in the
province. The panel was expected to approve the employment of about
70,000-75,000 more, said Mr Direk.

Provincial authorities have vowed to get tough with illegal alien workers
and their employers .

Tak governor Sawat Srisuwandee said alien workers who failed to register
by the deadline and employers who continued to hire them would no longer
be spared as they had already given them an opportunity to have them
registered.

Both employers and the unregistered alien workers would be rounded up and
fined and thrown into jail.

The cash rewards will be officially set by the cabinet soon.


INTERNATIONAL
______________________________________

July 30, Agence France Presse
US Senators ask Powell to expel Myanmar envoy

Washington: Two US senators have asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to
downgrade diplomatic ties with military-ruled Myanmar by expelling its
envoy to Washington.

They said Myanmar's envoy Linn Myaing "should be sent home, to return only
if, and when, progress is made in the restoration of democracy" in the
Southeast Asian state.

Senators Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein requested of Powell, in a
letter dated last week, that "the United States downgrade its diplomatic
relationship with the illegitimate military junta" in Myanmar by requiring
Linn Myaing "to immediately return" to Yangon.

They said in the letter, a copy of which was made available on Friday,
"such action was warranted" because of the military regime's refusal to
free democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi despite repeated calls from the
international community.

The junta was also accused of continued human rights violations,
particularly against ethnic groups.

"These abuses include murder, rape, torture, forced relocations, forced
and child labor, and trafficking in persons and drugs," they said.

Aung San Suu Kyi is currently more than a year into her third period of
house arrest.

The junta has never allowed her National League for Democracy (NLD) to
rule, although it scored a landslide victory in elections the
international community considered otherwise free and fair in 1990.

The senators also urged the State Department to increase pressure on US
allies to do more in support of democracy in Myanmar "and be vigilant in
its dealings with" the junta.

They wanted Myanmar to be excluded from any list of invitees to functions
marking official US holidays hosted by the State Department or any other
US government agency.

The senators expressed "outrage" that Myanmar had been invited to the
State Department's July 4 celebration of US Independence Day "when other
odious regimes, including Zimbabwe, were excluded."

Since 1990, the United States has not appointed an ambassador to Myanmar
and has kept its diplomatic representation in Yangon at the charge
d'affairs level.

"To put it simply, as the United States does not have an ambassador in
Rangoon, the (junta) should not have one in Washington," they said.

President George W. Bush signed into law this month renewed import
sanctions against Myanmar for a further period of 12 months.

The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi -- her deputy Tin Oo is also being held
-- has also proved a sticking point for planned talks between Southeast
Asian nations and Europe scheduled for October in Vietnam.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Friday after talks with
his Myanmar counterpart General Khin Nyunt than Yangon "is asking for more
time" before considering Ang San Suu Kyi's release.

The NLD party said it was compiling a nationwide petition to demand the
immediate and unconditional release of its leaders and other political
prisoners.


OPINION / OTHER
______________________________________

August 2, Financial Times
Burma will be poor if junta retains its hold on power - Nyan Lett

>From Mr Nyan Lett.

Sir, Jeffrey Sachs ("Myanmar: sanctions won't work", July 28) argues that
sanctions are the cause of Burma's poverty and political impasse and thus
will not work. He also suggests that the west look to Burma's next
elections, not backwards to 1990. The article is seriously flawed as it is
based only on propaganda Burma's military regime has been producing since
its inception and fails to take into consideration what is happening on
the ground.

Debates about whether sanctions work have been never-ending, without one
side becoming a clear winner. But, in the case of Burma's democratic
revolution, multilateral sanctions are the chosen tool of the most
oppressed and tortured party - the National League for Democracy - to
pressure the military regime to come to the negotiating table. In Burma,
no one is in more danger from the government than NLD members. Yet the NLD
has the mandate of the people with 82 per cent of the vote. If sanctions
are what make the country poorer and create a political impasse, the NLD
will be the first to beg to revoke them.

Ironically, sanctions are not the cause of poverty. Regardless of
sanctions, Burma will remain poor if it continues to be run by military
dictators. In other words, it is poor governance that causes Burma's
tragedy. Look at the spending of the military regime even before the US
imposed sanctions. In the midst of significant deterioration in the
economy, health and education, the regime managed to spend more than 60
per cent of gross domestic product on expansion of the military and under
2 per cent on health and education combined. After a massacre in Depeyin,
many cases of rape in Shan state, thousands of arrests and abuses of
political prisoners across the country and unilateral sanctions by the US,
the military regime is now saying that Burma is in a sorry state because
of sanctions while it is trying to hide the fact that the regime and its
cronies have never been wealthier.

Prof Sachs' article should have been headlined "Burma: engagement won't
work" because it is impossible to engage and help people in need without
giving the lion's share to the regime and its cronies. If sanctions are
perceived as ineffective in the case of Burma, it is for two reasons: they
are still unilateral, and neighbouring countries that place financial
value above other fundamental human values are still engaging.

It is very dangerous in the case of Burma to apply a forward-looking idea
and to suggest not going back to the 1990 election, because it is
precisely the strategy of the military regime first to annul the result of
the 1990 election and then to hold another that guarantees the permanent
role of the military in politics, thereby legitimising permanent military
rule in Burma. The regime's seven-step road map is aimed at achieving
that, and that is why the map is so unpopular.

The regime in Burma has lied and broken promises many times. It is crucial
for the international community not to be misled by superficially correct
but basically flawed arguments such as "sanctions won't work in Burma".

Nyan Lett, Burma UN Service Office, New York, NY 10017, US

______________________________________

August 2, Asian Wall Street Journal
Don’t leave the people of Burma behind - Peter Gabriel & Joseph Pitts

In a major 1999 policy address, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan stated that the core challenge for the United Nations Security
Council and the U.N. as a whole in the next century was to “forge unity
behind the principle that massive and systematic violations of human
rights —wherever they may take place —should not be allowed to stand.”

Given Mr. Annan’s lofty rhetoric, the Security Council’s indifference
toward the serious, prolonged humanitarian crisis in eastern Burma is
astonishing. Rather than “forging unity,” the Security Council, many key
countries around the world, and short-sighted aid agencies have all but
turned a blind and indifferent eye to massive and systematic violations of
human rights that represent a serious threat to regional security.

First, consider the facts. Over the past several years, hundreds of
thousands of people from eastern Burma have been forced by soldiers of
Burma’s ruling military regime to flee their homes in fear. The regime ’s
scorched-earth policy—destruction of entire villages along with food
storage and production facilities, systematic rape, the use of men, women
and children as landmine “sweepers,” and forced labor—has turned Burma
into a human-rights nightmare. At least two million live in neighboring
countries, where only a few find safe refuge while most scratch out a
living as illegal laborers.

Even worse, however, is life for the 600,000 people who have remained in
Burma as internally displaced people. Often eking out a living in the
jungle, these people are almost entirely cut off from the outside world
and humanitarian aid as the regime ’s soldiers hunt them down like
animals.

Next, consider the history. The internally displaced people are largely
from the Shan, Karen and Karenni ethnic groups. Even though heir villages
were in lands historically controlled by their peoples, the arbitrary
drawing of boundaries during colonial times by the British left them
trapped and vulnerable when the country was taken over by the military
regime.

Finally, consider the international response. Mr. Annan has not voiced his
public support for a Security Council resolution on Burma. The U.N.
General Assembly has passed consecutive resolutions criticizing Burma’s
regime, which are completely ignored by the regime. The United Nations
Commission on Human Rights has passed similar resolutions, also ignored by
the regime. The Secretary-General’s special envoy to Burma, Razali Ismail,
has also refused to publicly support a U.N. Security Council resolution on
Burma. To sum up action taken by the U.N.: minimal.

To be fair, Mr. Annan and the Security Council aren’t the only silent
party. Individual governments and national aid agencies have refused to
fund emergency assistance for internally displaced people out of fear of
offending the Burmese regime’s claims to sovereignty. Other governments
continue to supply a major and destabilizing arms build-up by the regime
that represents a serious threat to regional security.

Meanwhile, internally displaced people in Burma despair as the few voices
that escape from Burma’s jungles are ignored by decision-makers. One man
recounted to Burma Issues, a group working with the human-rights
organization Witness: “They came and destroyed our rice paddies and
properties, and in the rainy season they killed one of my nieces. They
came to order us to work as porters, and if you don’t want to do it, you
have to run away and they destroy your things.” The Committee for
Internally Displaced Karen Peoples recently added chilling evidence to the
already-full body of proof: “[E ]ntire populations of some villages were
detained for days without food. Most were told they had one or two weeks
to move to a relocation site before troops returned to burn their houses,
but the soldiers invariably returned earlier than that beat them for being
slow and force-marched them out of the village.”

We believe that Burma’s internally displaced people represent just the
kind of challenge to the Security Council that Secretary-General was
referring to before the turn of the century, and strongly urge him to call
for action. It is within the Secretary-General’s power to call for a
Security Council resolution authorizing an arms or travel embargo on the
Burmese regime’s thuggish leaders. He should do so immediately, lest his
thoughtful challenge be lost in the shuffle of history, along with 600,000
people in eastern Burma.

Mr. Gabriel is an activist and musician. He is a co-founder of the
human-rights organization, Witness. Mr. Pitts is the vice-chair of the
U.S. Congress House International Relations sub-committee on international
terrorism, non-proliferation and human rights.





Ed, BurmaNet News