BurmaNet News, September 22, 2004

[Editor]

September 22, 2004, Issue # 2564

"Anytime anyone in Burma listens to my music, I want them to know that
they are listening to an artist that supports their freedom."
- Eric Clapton as quoted in US Campaign for Burma’s press release
announcing the coming release of “For the Lady,” a compilation CD
dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Ceasefire anxieties mount in Karen State

HEALTH / AIDS
AP: Thailand donates condoms, medicines to Myanmar

DRUGS
AP: Myanmar says U.S. allegations on drugs 'shameless'
SHAN: Junkies queue up for dope in Monghsu
SHAN: First crop harvested

BUSINESS
Xinhua: Myanmar to hold mid-year gems expo

INTERNATIONAL
BBC: Bands back Burma activist Suu Kyi
Irrawaddy: Rock stars to release album dedicated to Suu Kyi

OPINION / OTHER
Asia Times: China to Europe via a new Burma road

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 22, Irrawaddy
Ceasefire anxieties mount in Karen State - Shah Paung

As Burma’s military government and the Karen National Union, or KNU,
prepare for another round of ceasefire negotiations next month, people
inside Karen State are growing uneasy about the truce.

Talks to end the half century conflict began in November but sporadic
fighting and human rights abuse continue.

“Villagers are hoping so badly for peace,” said Saw Hsa Paw, a village
headman in Win Yea Township, known in Burmese as Kyar Inn Seik Gyi
Township, which is located in territory controlled by the KNU’s Sixth
Brigade in southern Karen State. “But now, even with the ceasefire the
villagers still face fighting and human rights abuses like forced labor by
the SPDC [ruling State Peace and Development Council].” He also complained
that government troops regularly steal chickens and pigs from local Karen.

He cited the instance on September 5, when government soldiers from
Infantry Battalion 51, led by commander Zaw Min, attempted to rape six
young girls, aged 8 to 14, from the Anan Kwin Monastery in Win Yea. The
Karen Women’s Organization condemned the sexual abuse in a statement last
week.

“How can they be satisfied with the ceasefire when their lives are so
insecure?” he asked.

Saw Ta Kwe Hay, who lives in Mae La refugee camp near the Burmese border,
agrees: “If the ceasefire is not signed on paper we must be very careful
to proceed slowly.”

Mae La is the biggest refugee camp in Thailand and is inhabited mainly by
ethnic Karen from Burma.

KNU Foreign Secretary David Taw acknowledged the intermittent clashes and
continuing abuse by government soldiers in some areas. But he said the
Karen should be happy that the ceasefire talks have reduced the scale of
fighting and number of casualties.

The ceasefire talks still have not addressed issues of resettling
internally displaced persons, or IDPs, and territorial demarcation. To
prepare for the next round of talks, either in the Burmese capital,
Rangoon, or the Karen State capital, Pa-an, KNU leaders and some military
commanders gathered in the Thai border town of Mae Sot from September 8 to
10. Talks are tentatively scheduled for early October but no date has been
fixed.

“If we look out only for ourselves, we could resolve this problem
quickly,” said David Taw. “But we moving slowly now because we are looking
out for the benefit of both sides.”

The KNU has selected seven delegates to attend the talks, including David
Taw, joint general secretary Htoo Htoo Lay, intelligence chief Col Soe
Soe, KNU Brigade 4 Commander Padoh Kwe Htoo, top KNU health officer Col
Roger, and two brigade commanders.

In January the two sides agreed to a “gentleman’s ceasefire”, after the
second round of talks, held in Rangoon and attended by KNU deputy chairman
and commander in chief Gen Bo Mya. The two sides have met several times in
Burma and Thailand since the talks began late last year.

_____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

Sept. 22, Associated Press
Thailand donates condoms, medicines to Myanmar

Thai health officials on Wednesday delivered 1 million condoms and
anti-AIDS drugs to neighboring Myanmar as part of a program to contain the
spread of disease by migrant workers, a government statement said.

The officials, led by Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan, handed
over the items to their counterparts in the Myanmar capital, Yangon, said
the ministry statement.

The 10 million baht (US$242,000; euro 197,000) aid included drugs to fight
AIDS, which has become a serious problem in Myanmar, said the statement.

It quoted Sudarat as saying that cooperation with Myanmar will ease the
financial strain on Thailand of providing medical treatment for Myanmar
migrant workers, who number as many as 1 million.

Thailand has an extensive and well-trained public health system, which its
cash-strapped western neighbor lacks. Myanmar was among the worst five
countries in the world in a 2000 study by the U.N. World Health
Organization evaluating national health care systems.

Thai officials are concerned that diseases that have been contained or
eliminated in Thailand are being reintroduced by migrants from Myanmar,
also known as Burma. Once described as an AIDS time bomb, Thailand reined
in the spread of the disease with a successful condom promotion campaign.

However, AIDS and drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and malaria are
found at elevated rates along Thailand's 2,400-kilometer- (1,500-mile-)
long border with Myanmar, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director-general of
the Communicable Disease Control Center.

"If we don't cooperate to solve these problems ... apart from making it
difficult to control and prevent diseases, it will force Thailand to bear
the burden of treating migrant workers for free," Sudarat was quoted
saying.

The medicines delivered on Wednesday included GPO-VIR pills, a so-called
cocktail formula of three generic anti-retroviral drugs to fight HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS.

The Thai side handed over enough pills to treat 200 patients, the first
part of a three-year supply commitment.

The Thai delegation is expected to conclude the meeting with Myanmar
officials, including Public Health Minister Kyaw Myint, on Thursday.

_____________________________________
DRUGS

September 22, Associated Press
Myanmar says U.S. allegations on drugs 'shameless'

Yangon: Washington's allegations that Myanmar is not serious about
cracking down on drugs are "shameless" given that the U.S. is the biggest
consumer of illegal drugs in the world, the junta has said.

The U.S. last week put Myanmar on a list of 22 countries that "failed
demonstrably" for the second consecutive year to adhere to its obligations
under international counter-narcotics agreements.

Home Minister Col. Tin Hlaing, speaking at a meeting of the Central
Committee for Drug Abuse Control Tuesday, disputed the labeling made by
President George W. Bush to Congress.

Satellite photos and land survey records of the U.N. anti-drugs office and
the U.S. government "have stood witness to the success achieved by Myanmar
in rooting out the drug problem", Tin Hlaing was quoted as saying by the
state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper.

"Blind accusations from the political point of view can be assumed
shameless acts. As the U.S., the largest narcotic drug market in the
world, wants to hide its image as the country with a large drug addict
population, it is hurling slanders against others," he said.

Washington should "concentrate on demand reduction and make sincere
cooperation with Myanmar in her anti-drug drive", Tin Hlaing was quoted as
saying.

He said U.S. drug agencies have acknowledged that Myanmar was able to
reduce up to 81% of its illegal poppy cultivation and 88% of its opium
production in a nine-year period.

Still, Myanmar is the world's second largest producer of opium and remains
among the world's largest producers and traffickers of amphetamine-type
stimulants.

Tin Hlaing said U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar are not only
hurting the economy but also the government's war on drugs as it is now
banned from sending officials to attend drug elimination courses abroad.

The U.S. imposes economic and political sanctions against the junta
because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to
a democratically elected government.

_____________________________________

September 22, Shan Herald Agency for News
Junkies queue up for dope in Monghsu

The gemland southeast of Monghsu in southern Shan State is where addicts
can line up openly to buy their daily doses without fear of arrest by
authorities, according to ceasefire sources.

"There is no action taken," wrote an officer who was recently in Monghsu,
189 miles northeast of Shan State's capital Taunggyi, "because drugs on
sale include those seized by the officials elsewhere."

Look-pu (The Crab Hole) on the gem hills of Loi Hseng, 16 miles southeast
of Monghsu, is where the peddlers and their customers do their trade,
right under the eyes of the military authorities, they claim.

At the time of the reporting, the battalion on tour in the gemland is
Infantry Battalion 287 from Wanzing, 50 miles south of Monghsu. Its job,
according to the sources, is to collect taxes for the battalion and send
part of it to Taunggyi-based Eastern Region Command headquarters.

Items for taxation are as listed below:
* Three-month residence permit 500 kyat/person
* Gambling Games:
- Lay-gawng-gin joints 10 x 50,000 kyat per day
- Mark-king-loi joints 30 x 30,000 kyat per day
Automobile 85,000 kyat per year
Maintenance of Monghsu-Loi Hseng road: (average) 60 vehicles per day x 700
kyat

"The road conditions, nevertheless, have not improved," wrote the same
officer. "Could you believe that I had to spend one night in Namtawng,
half way from Monghsu, before reaching there the next day?"

Paying automobile tax to the military also does not exempt one from being
requisitioned by the Army to stand by at the garrison post for its use.
All 4-wheeler owners in town are required to leave their vehicles at the
Army's disposal in rotation.

Monghsu, a quiet out-of-the-way township until 1991, became a booming
place after its rubies were found to be marketable.

_____________________________________

Sept. 22, Shan Herald Agency for News
First crop harvested

The season's first crop, grown in upland regions of Shan State, are being
gathered at the time of this reporting, according to sources along the
border.

A cross-border trader told yesterday he was informed of the harvest taking
place in the Loi Hon-Loi Maw range east of Hsihseng, a township 34 miles
south of Taunggyi only a week earlier. Other sources confirmed the fact by
saying the same activities were taking place in Mongkang and Loi Khamlong
highlands in Mongton township, opposite Chiangmai.

Sources say only the most needy engages in the backbreaking labor that
goes with the first crop.

"For the first thing," explained a former poppy farmer, "the seed-sowing
is in July, when you can expect heavy rains and prepare the fields so
there is no excess of rain water in them that can destroy the seeds. The
second thing is to arrange shelters for the plants as soon as the seed
pods have been cut and the sap begins to congeal or it will be washed away
by the rains. The makeshift shelters look just like umbrellas, so the
ya-zao (first crop) is often called ya-kang-zawng (umbrella-sheltered
opium)."
Despite the hard work, the produce is not much. "But it will be just
enough for the farmer to buy food to feed his hungry family," insists one
source.

For most poppy farmers, both lowlanders and highlanders, ya-karng (middle
crop), September-February, when the weather, except for September and
October, is normally dry and cool, is preferred. The highest yield of the
season is also associated with ya-karng.

Farmers on high elevation also plant ya-long (Big or Final Crop). "For
them, heavy dew is all the irrigation they need and the harvest is
considered the best quality," said an informed source. "It also means that
people who live in remote uplands can grow poppies all year-round if they
need to."

Free Burma Ranger, on a relief mission opposite Maehongson province, 1-18
May 2004, reported coming across a ya-long poppy field not yet harvested.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crimes, on the other hand, reported last month
that "the end of opium is in sight" in the Golden Triangle.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS

September 22, Xinhua News Agency
Myanmar to hold mid-year gems expo

Yangon: Myanmar is set to hold the 13th Mid-Year Gems Expo from Oct. 27 to
Nov. 4 to put on sale its domestically-produced gems, jade, pearl and
jewelry, the state-run Myanmar Gems Enterprise (MGE) announced on
Wednesday.

The Mid-year gems show has been added to the annual ones since 1992 to
boost the country's foreign exchange earning.

Hundreds of foreign gem traders from across the world,, especially from
China's Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan, are expected to join the event as
before.

In the 41st annual event in March, Myanmar earned a total of 21. 83
million US dollars from out of 29.5 million dollars worth of various gem
items put on sale.

Myanmar started to hold gem shows annually in 1964 and since then the
country has earned a total of over 453 million dollars from such events
including the mid-year ones since 1992, according to official statistics.

Myanmar, a well-known producer of gems in the world, possesses nine gems
-- ruby, diamond, cat's eye, emerald, topaz, pearl, sapphire, coral and a
variety of garnet tinged with yellow.

There are three famous gem lands in Myanmar -- Mogok in Mandalay division,
Mongshu in Shan state and Phakant in Kachin state.

To develop the gem mining industry, Myanmar enacted the New Gemstone Law
in 1995, allowing national enterprises to mine, produce, transport and
sell finished gemstone and manufactured jewelry both at home and abroad.

Since 2000, the government has started mining of gems and jade in joint
ventures with 10 private companies under profit-sharing basis.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 22, BBC
Bands back Burma activist Suu Kyi

Paul McCartney and REM are to feature on an album dedicated to Burmese
democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

The leader of Burma's opposition party has been held under house arrest by
the ruling military junta for a year.

Eric Clapton, U2, Coldplay, Sting and Travis will also feature on the
27-track album, the proceeds of which will go to the US Campaign for
Burma.

Clapton said he wanted to tell any Burmese people who hear his songs that
he supports their efforts for freedom.

We stand tall for her as she will again stand tall for herself - REM
singer Michael Stipe

The album, called For the Lady: Dedicated to freeing Aung San Suu Kyi,
will be released by Rhino Records on 26 October.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her
efforts to bring democracy to Burma, has spent nine of the past 15 years
in some form of detention.

Michael Stipe, lead singer of REM, said: "Her dedication, resolve, courage
and patience are the mark of a leader. We stand tall for her as she will
again stand tall for herself."

Proceeds from the sale of the album will help the non-profit group US
Campaign for Burma highlight the country's situation under the military
dictatorship.

The group's spokesman Jeremy Woodrum said: "Music has helped bring about
change in many parts of the world."

Clapton said: "Anytime anyone in Burma listens to my music, I want them to
know that they are listening to an artist that supports their freedom."

The album will feature exclusive tracks by REM, Pearl Jam, Damien Rice and
Tom Morello's The Nightwatchman, as well as previously released songs by
Lavigne, Coldplay and Travis.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the US government in
August called for Aung San Suu Kyi to be freed from house arrest.

The government of Burma, which calls the country Myanmar, is supposed to
be drawing up a new constitution as a first step towards the restoration
of democracy.

The junta has clamped down on Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National
League for Democracy, because of its efforts to win democratic reforms.

_____________________________________

September 22, Irrawaddy
Rock stars to release album dedicated to Suu Kyi

Popular musicians from around the world will together launch a music album
dedicated to freeing Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is
currently under house arrest in Rangoon.

Songs from international acts U2, Pearl Jam, Coldplay, Sting, R.E.M.,
Travis, Indigo Girls, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton will be included in
the album, entitled For the Lady: Dedicated to Freeing Aung San Suu Kyi
and the Courageous People of Burma.

The two-CD album was organized by the Washington-based US Campaign for
Burma and will be released by Rhino Records on October 26.

“Aung San Suu Kyi is truly one of the world’s most important, yet least
known, heroes. No matter how much she suffers, she never backs down in her
quest for freedom,” said a statement released by British band Coldplay
cited in a US Campaign for Burma press release on September 20. “That’s
why Coldplay are supporting this effort, and why everyone who believes in
human rights should buy this CD.”

All the singers are donating their songs to the album, including live
recordings by Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Damien Rice and Better Than Ezra that
have never been released before, and “Let Freedom Ring,” a studio track by
Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello’s solo incarnation, Nightwatchman.

The album features a song banned by the Burmese government, “Walk On”,
which U2 dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi on their last album All That You
Can’t Leave Behind. Among the 27 tracks, it also includes a song by
popular exiled Burmese singer Mun Awng.

“I felt a bit of nervous to perform with big stars. But I’m really proud
of that,” said Mun Awng on Wednesday by telephone from Norway, where he
now lives.

His song “Tempest of Blood” was written by prominent Burmese student
leader Min Ko Naing, who has been a prison inmate in Burma for the past 15
years for his political activities.

According to the press release, proceeds from the sale of the album will
benefit the US Campaign for Burma.

“I hope this album increases [international] awareness of Burma’s
struggle,” said Mun Awng. “I think music is a best way to share feelings
with one another.”

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 22, Asia Times
China to Europe via a new Burma road - David Fullbrook

KUNMING, China - Pipe dreams of a cheaper, shorter and safer trade route
between China and Europe through Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal are once
again edging onto official agendas. High oil prices, competitive
advantages and strategic imperatives are set to midwife this route that
might have painful implications for Southeast Asia's ports and shipping.

Driving a modern transport network through Myanmar from Yunnan province
following an age-old trade route to the sea should cut shipping bills
significantly by saving a week or more on shipping time from China to key
European markets. Yunnan, situated in the southwest corner of China,
borders Tibet, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

It would also ease fears of disruption to Middle East oil supplies should
terrorists wreak havoc on Southeast Asia's pirate-infested Malacca Strait,
the waterway through which most of Northeast Asia's fuel and goods pass.

Bhamo, an old port far up the Irrawaddy River about 12 hours from the
Chinese border, is the likely linchpin where goods will switch between
Chinese trucks or trains and riverine ships ferrying goods along the
Irrawaddy. The river, Myanmar's most important commercial waterway, flows
2,170 kilometers across the center of the country, and empties into the
Bay of Bengal.

"Earlier, there were talks about a multi-modal transport route through
Yunnan to Bhamo and onwards by river. It was then postponed. But now
interest is reviving," said Professor Wang Chung Lee, director of the
Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS). "It's the attitude of the
Myanmar government. Now they agree to have discussions, previously they
refused," he told Asia Times Online.

This route could open within a few years if China gets investment approval
from Myanmar. Preparations appear to be under way. Traders report that
Chinese engineers have been surveying Bhamo port, which needs modernizing
and expanding in order to handle a sharp increase in trade that more China
traffic would mean.

A Chinese railway might later bypass Bhamo, running to the Myanmar
railhead at Lashio, the terminus of the railroad line from Mandalay made
famous during World War II as the starting point of the Burma Road. But
for now, cost, time and the challenges of rebuilding the poorly maintained
railway between Lashio and Mandalay count against it. "At present we are
yet to discuss investment in the railway. The focus is on the multi-modal
road and river transport," said Wang.

Meanwhile, Chinese construction crews are building a railway from Kunming,
the capital of Yunnan, southwest to Mangshi, the capital of Dehong Dai.
People in China's Ruili - a busy cosmopolitan border town astride roads to
Bhamo, 80 kilometers west, and Lashio - expect the railway to arrive from
Mangshi within a few years. That will leave the Chinese and Myanmar
railways only 145km apart.

If the Bhamo river-road nexus proves a success, the case for pipelines
through Myanmar, complementing those from Central Asia to China's booming
east coast, will be strong. "There are rumors of all kinds, but there are
no clear plans. It is reasonable. China's need for oil is great and
urgent. Any pipeline, any route would be beneficial," said Wang. An idea
tried and tested. In Yunnan's Baoshan, villagers curiously call water
pipes "oil water pipes". A few rusting remnants of the first pipeline they
saw, one laid by the allies in World War II from Kolkata to Kunming, still
litter Yunnan and Myanmar.

And not just China's oil, but Japan's and Korea's too could conceivably
flow through pipelines from Myanmar's coast via China, earning Beijing a
pretty yuan or two in pipeline fees. Then again, Beijing might well waive
such fees in order to burnish an image as the friendly Big Brother.

Such an alternative oil and freight route could cause traffic to slow,
fall even, at key Oriental ports, including Malaysia's Johore Bharu,
Singapore and even those dotting China's Pearl River Delta. It would
almost certainly snuff out talk of a link across Thailand's Isthmus of
Kra.

Of course there are a few potentially nasty potholes. Myanmar rebels could
threaten attacks. However, their threat is diminishing as they continue
splintering into obscurity while others succumb to payoffs from Myanmar's
junta. Trickier is getting the generals to sign and stick to a deal in
deed as well as in letter. "More important is the agreement to facilitate
transit shipment of goods," said Wang, head of the Yunnan Academy of
Social Sciences. But the changing strategic situation, which sees China's
economic and military prowess growing while the junta fears an
Anglo-American invasion, makes for ever-warmer relations between Beijing
and Yangon.

Myanmar is not the only trade route China hopes to revitalize. It wants a
railway south from Jinghong in southern Yunnan through Laos to Thailand's
deepsea port at Laem Chabang, near Bangkok. Furthering its cause are
United Nations efforts to fill gaps in the Eurasian railways and
Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN's) talk of a
Kunming-Singapore railway. China is also helping build a second road
through Nepal to India while repairing the existing one, and nudging
Kathmandu to clear the way for a third. Such routes will receive a fillip
when the Lhasa railway, now under construction, opens later this decade.

Taken together China has not made such strenuous efforts to open trade
since Ming Dynasty Admiral Cheng Ho led huge fleets west to India and East
Africa 600 years ago. Locally, however, Yunnan has long looked south.
"Historically, Yunnan has closer transport and economic links with
neighboring countries than with eastern China," said Wang.

In the 19th century, when the British and others were barging their way
into hermit China, Yunnan's Tengchong - where government offices now
occupy the sturdy former British consulate - Mangshi and Simao hosted some
of the earliest customs offices in China, overseeing trade along the
southern Silk Road. "It was because of these trading activities that it
was possible to develop this route into a very strategic road, the Burma
Road, during the Second World War," said Wang.

Such was the growing volume of trade that the British proposed a railway
between Kunming and India at the beginning of the 20th century. Other
proposals followed, but the opening of the Sino-French railway between
Hanoi and Kunming a few years later delayed, but did not eliminate, the
imperative. "We are now solving a historical problem," said Wang.

Indeed, prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China, the
fastest and the safest route between Kunming and Shanghai lay via Hanoi
and then Hong Kong, because the transportation system was so poor.. And
despite age-old caravan routes, it was still quicker to reach Lhasa via
British India.

Yunnan's trade, not surprisingly, is once again booming, with its
neighbors benefiting from economic reforms that began in 1978. In 1998,
China-Myanmar trade totaled US$580 million, of which $310 million
originated or moved via Yunnan. Four years later, the figures stood at
$862 million of which $410 million was via Yunnan, rising to $493 million
in 2003.

Myanmar is Yunnan's biggest trade partner, accounting for a fifth of its
$2.5 billion international trade, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and the
United States. Trade with Laos and Vietnam is also rising fast, with the
latter seen surpassing Myanmar within a few years.

The prospective benefits of better transport links have not gone unnoticed
in Kunming. "Now the Yunnan government has formed a strategy for turning
it into a corridor to Southeast and South Asia. Once this dream is
realized, the present strides in trade will be nothing compared to what
will happen," said Wang.

Languid ever since World War II destroyed the commerce that made it throb
with huge steamers and barges, the Irrawaddy may well find itself
chock-full again, giving rise to scenes not dissimilar to those
immortalized by a constable serving in British-ruled Upper Burma, Rudyard
Kipling.