BurmaNet News October 16-18, 2004

[Editor]

October 16-18, 2004, Issue # 2581

INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar bans "For the Lady" album before release
PNG Post Courier: Suu Kyi freedom rejected
BBC: Burmese opposition radio reports crackdown on intelligence-owned
businesses
Xinhua: Myanmar to change all automobiles into gas-fired ones

DRUGS
Bangkok Post: End of the road for Burma’s drug barons
Bernama: Australian police chief warns of drug threat from Asia

BUSINESS / MONEY
AFP: Myanmar targeting beach resort development: report
Kyodo: Myanmar's foreign trade drops slightly in 1st half of FY 2004

REGIONAL
Times Of India: George goes ahead with meet on Myanmar sans clearance

OPINION / OTHER
New Straits Times: Manoeuvring on Myanmar
Mizzima: Declaration of the 2nd International Convention for the Restoration
of Democracy in Burma (ICRDB) held on 15-17 October 2004

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 18, Agence France Presse
Myanmar bans "For the Lady" album before release

WASHINGTON: One week before its release, Myanmar's military junta has
banned an album by some of the world's top artistes demanding the freedom
of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, activists said Monday.

"According to a radio station that beams news inside Burma, we just
learned that 'For the Lady' was banned by the ruling dictators," said
Jeremy Woodrum, founder of non-profit group US Campaign For Burma,
comprising activists seeking an end to the military dictatorship in the
impoverished nation.

Myanmar was previously known as Burma before the name change by the
junta's leaders, who have detained Aung San Suu Kyi for more than a year
and clamped down on her National League for Democracy party.

Bands U2, Pearl Jam, Coldplay, Sting, R.E.M., Travis, Indigo Girls and
Matchbox Twenty and several top artists including Paul McCartney and Eric
Clapton plan to launch "For the Lady" on October 26 dedicated to the
political leader.

"The fact that Burma's dictators are threatened by songs from Paul
McCartney, Eric Clapton, Sting, and others shows how weak they truly are,"
Woodrum said.

"Just as rock 'n roll helped tear down the Iron Curtain, it can help bring
freedom to Burma," he said.

The border guards of Myanmar's junta, known as the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), have been ordered by its military intelligence
to carry out thorough searches on people coming into the country and
confiscate the album, Woodrum said.

Proceeds from the sale of the double CD featuring 27 tracks is to benefit
the US Campaign For Burma.

Singing a freedom-seeking song in Myanmar can result in a minimum
seven-year prison sentence, according to the group.

Myanmar has been run by the military since a 1962 coup. The NLD won
overwhelmingly in 1990 elections, considered free and fair by the
international community, but was not allowed to govern.

Last week, the European Union ramped up sanctions against Myanmar for
failing to meet key demands on human rights, including Aung San Suu Kyi's
release.

They included widening a visa blacklist and clamping down on investment
despite criticism, notably, from Japan that the new measures will not
help.

The United States has wideranging trade and investment sanctions against
Myanmar.

____________________________________

Oct 18, PNG Post Courier
Suu Kyi freedom rejected

RANGOON: Burma s highest court has rejected lawsuits by the Opposition
National League for Democracy party demanding that the military Government
free its detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi and re-open its offices, the
party said yesterday. The NLD filed the suits on Saturday, accusing the
junta of wrongfully confining Suu Kyi and her deputy Tin Oo and claiming
the election commission illegally shut down its offices, a statement said.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the cases, saying they were not relevant
under Burma s criminal code, the statement said. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace
Prize winner, and Tin Oo were detained in May 2003 following an attack on
NLD followers.

____________________________________

Oct 18, BBC
Burmese opposition radio reports crackdown on intelligence-owned businesses

Text of report by Burmese opposition radio Democratic Voice of Burma web
site on 17 October

[Presenter] SPDC [State Peace and Development Council] Chairman Sr Gen
Than Shwe on 14 October issued an order to close down the Phoenix Travel
Agency owned by the Military Intelligence [MI]. The travel agency was
opened with SPDC Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt's permission.

Rangoon residents said it is a well-known Rangoon International
Airport-based travel agency providing services to foreign tourists. A
Rangoon resident said the 14 October incident was unbelievable. The
strange thing was that all travel agency staff who were waiting to welcome
the tourists were immediately driven away from the airport while the
travel agency's signboards were removed by authorities.

In this regard, a Rangoon resident said:

[Unidentified female Rangoon resident - recording] It is true. My cousin
who works at the airport visited us on 15 October and said that the travel
agency operated by the MI had been shut down.

[Presenter] According to her, many people in Rangoon have been saying that
the closure of this travel agency is a sequel to the conflict between the
Na Sa Ka [Border Supervisory Committee] intelligence units and the
military units. She said there have been more arrests.

[Unidentified female Rangoon resident] I heard that their heads were
shaven and they were sent to a jail. All belongings of the [arrested] MI
personnel have been confiscated. Even their wives' earrings were
confiscated. All their houses in Rangoon were searched and even the
belongings of their relatives were also confiscated. Tractors and other
belongings of their relatives in up-country were also confiscated.

[Presenter] That was a resident of Rangoon.

According to other reports, many business, such as the Three Stars Plastic
Company, a prawn breeding firm, and rice and oil mills owned by MI
personnel in rural areas have also been shut down. Due to these closures
and arrests and a growing tug of war between the MI and the military
units, some Rangoon residents see a possible chaotic situation nationwide.

We contacted Military observer U Htay Aung. He says:

[U Htay Aung] "The objective of forming the MI and military units under
the reign of military dictator U Ne Win was to counterbalance each other.
The military has to control the MI if it is excessively using its power. A
stronger group will annihilate and remove the other group, for example, by
making arrests such as in Mu-se and shutting down the MI-owned businesses
in Rangoon. If the military continues to take actions against the MI, I
think, personnel from important posts might be removed and actions might
be taken against them."

Source: Democratic Voice of Burma web site, Oslo, in Burmese 1430 gmt 17
Oct 04

_____________________________________

Oct 17, Xinhua
Myanmar to change all automobiles into gas-fired ones

Myanmar is stepping up transformation of automobiles in terms of fuel
operation, planning to change all petrol- or diesel-operated engines in
the country into natural-gas-fired ones amid sustained rise of crude oil
prices in the world.

Efforts are being made for the extended use of compressed natural gas to
run automobiles as natural gas is abundant in Myanmar, according to
Sunday's state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar.

Myanmar has around 260,000 petrol and diesel cars in the country, over
150,000 of which are in Yangon.

Other official reports said Myanmar will add six more natural gas stations
in the capital as part of its plan to strengthen the country's gas supply
for vehicles and reduce fuel import.

More gas stations will also be opened later across the country including
major cities such as Mandalay, Magway, Myinchan, Aunglan, Pyay and
Yinchaung.

There are two natural gas stations in Yangon, two in Yenangyaung and one
in Chauk.

With a total of about 476,000 motor vehicles moving in the country now,
Myanmar's petrol consumption has at least doubled in the past decade as
registered, consuming about 100 million gallons (420,000 tons) of petrol
and about 340 million gallons (1.4 million tons) of diesel annually in
most recent years.

Although Myanmar produced about 6 million barrels (798,000 tons) of crude
oil annually at home, yet it could not meet the demand and had to import
about 130 million US dollars' worth of the oil per year.

Under its measures to extend use of such gas in place of petrol and
diesel, the government has re-installed over 2,000 automobiles with gas
engines as the first phase of the move.

Myanmar has been using natural gas limitedly to run cars safely after
tests on compressed natural gas were carried out in 1986. Such gas brings
benefits of saving of fuel, effective use of locally produced gas,
prevention of air pollution, speedy flow of passengers and commodities and
catching up with modern technology.

With three main large offshore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar
possesses a total of 87 trillion cubic feet (TCF) or 2.46 trillion cubic
meters (TCM) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude
oil reserve, official statistics show.

Myanmar produced 9.79 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas and 7.2 million
barrels (957,600 tons) of crude oil in 2003, exporting 6. 45 BCM of gas
and importing 27.85 million dollars' crude oil during the year.

_____________________________________
DRUGS

October 17, Bangkok Post
End of the road for Burma's drug barons; The Wa leaders know that they
have to give up poppy cultivation if they are to preserve their political
and economic autonomy. - LARRY JAGAN

Pangsan: Burma's drug barons have long used the inaccessible mountains
nestled in the north of the country along the border with China and to the
east with Laos and Thailand as the base of their operations. This is the
notorious Golden Triangle. Opium poppy has been grown here for more than a
hundred years. The farmers there, the poorest of the poor, have relied on
it as their sole cash crop.

Most of the traffickers and the poppy growers here are from the various
ethnic groups which have inhabited these hills for centuries such as Wa,
Kokang, Lahu and Akha. This region along the border with China comes under
the control of the Wa who agreed to a ceasefire deal with the Burmese
military in 1989 after decades of fighting.

It took the best part of a week to travel some three hundred kilometres by
four-wheel drive along the winding road from Pangsan, the capital of the
Wa special region, to Namteet. Driving some six hours a day at less than
forty kilometres a hour, we wound through the mountains along the border
with China. Poppy fields were visible along the steep slopes of the hills
through which we drove.

"But this year's harvest is going to be very poor. The drought in this
area has devastated the crop. It's the worst poppy season in my lifetime,"
says a local township leader, Wei I Yung, now fifty years old. Only around
twenty percent of the poppy seeds seem to have germinated, according to
the local UN workers who monitor the crop across Shan state.

"And even those plants which have survived are a fraction of the size of
the poppy plants that were harvested last year," says Jeremy Milsom who
has conducted the UN's crop survey in the past two years.

The local villagers fear for their future. The poppy resin that they
harvest is their hedge fund against the food shortages and disease in the
coming year. And this year their reduced resources will provide little
protection for them in the next twelve months.

Already there is a humanitarian crisis looming in the region. In the past
year more than a thousand villagers have died of disease and malnutrition,
according to senior Wa leaders. Late last year a whole village was wiped
out by a malaria epidemic that could easily have been prevented.

On top of everything the Wa leaders have ordered all farmers in their
special autonomous region to stop growing poppy altogether after next
season's harvest.

"There will be a complete ban on poppy cultivation by the 26th June 2005,
World Anti-drugs Day," says Shao Min Liang, the Wa's second-in-command.
Even the danger of famine and starvation has not daunted the Wa leaders'
determination to keep their promise to end poppy cultivation in areas
under their control within the next twelve months.

Over the last five years the Wa have been progressively reducing the area
under poppy cultivation. Both the UN and American survey teams have
verified this decrease in poppy and opium production in the Wa areas.

That may be good news for the global effort to suppress heroin production,
but it leaves these peasants to a very uncertain future. "I just don't
know what is going to happen to us," says Na Pha, an eighty-year-old
grandmother who hasn't planted poppy this year because of the orders of
the local authorities.

Looking out across a fallow field, the substitution crops she was given by
the village administration all failed . "All we can do is hope for the
best," she says.

RELOCATION POLICY

The Wa are taking draconian measures to implement their plans. Meetings
have been held throughout their area. Instructions have come from the top
down, following the Chinese model in which the Wa leaders were all trained
during the days when they were part of the Burmese Communist Party.

"Villagers have attended several meetings held by the local headman to
explain the anti-drug policy over the past two years," says a Catholic nun
in one Wa village along the Chinese border.

But countless villagers that I interviewed could not recount the reasons
the Wa leaders are banning poppy cultivation, though they do know the
consequences of disobeying the Wa administrations orders.

"We will have to stop growing poppy after next season," says Nang Yee Noon.

"If we don't, we'll be carted off to jail," he says.

Apart from issuing edicts, the Wa authorities' strategy to eliminate poppy
involves the mass movement of populations within their area of control,
ostensibly from infertile highland areas where poppy is one of the few
crops that can be grown successfully to lower, more fertile ground where
rice cultivation and fruit trees flourish.

The most notable relocation has been four years ago, when some fifty
thousand people were moved from the northern Wa areas to the southern
command near the border with Thailand.

This became a major issue of controversy between the Burmese regime and
the Thai government, forcing the Wa leaders to stop this particular
programme. But they have not stopped the mass relocation of farmers within
their northern command.

In Namteet, some twenty thousand villagers have been shifted from the
highlands -- where all they knew was how to grow poppy _ to the lowlands
where new villages have been built for them. They are now growing rice and
working in the administration's crop substitution plantations, which
include rubber, tea and fruit orchards.

"We had no choice but to move," says Nyi Meng, a Wa farmer who has just
been relocated. "We knew that soon we would not be allowed to grow poppy,
so we moved. But since then we have hardly been able to eke out a living
and many of us have become ill with malaria."

The Wa leaders concede that shifting the farmers and banning poppy
cultivation will cause extreme hardship for their people, at least in the
short run. "It will take three to five years to recover from the crisis,"
says Shao Ming Liang.

But the bottom line is that the Wa leaders know that they have to give up
poppy cultivation if they are to preserve their political and economic
autonomy. Their primary concern is to establish a Wa state within the
Union of Burma.

They also know that after a new constitution is drawn up they will face
pressure to disband their 20,000-strong army, something they are
determined to resist as long as possible.

Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt has told the UN envoy for Burma, Razali
Ismail, and European diplomats that the ethnic armies will have to
surrender all their weapons once the new constitution has been drafted,
even before the referendum that has been promised.

This is something most ethnic leaders will not countenance. The Wa leaders
are absolutely clear.

"There is no way we will give up our arms and disband the UWSA (United Wa
State Army) before permanent peace and stability is guaranteed throughout
the country," Shao Ming Liang told me earlier this year.

The Wa understand that although there has been a measure of peace in their
mountainous border region for the last fifteen years since the truce with
Rangoon, it's very fragile.

"There is a very good possibility of insecurity and instability after the
Wa deadline next year," according to the head of UN anti-narcotics
operations in Burma, Jean-Luc Lemahieu.

An increase in poverty and starvation, brought on by the end of the
cultivation of poppy next year, mass movements of populations in search of
food, and the involvement of criminal gangs with cross-border connections,
will heighten uncertainty in the area and increase the danger of renewed
violence.

METH NEXT TARGET

The key problem in the Wa areas is that the crop substitution programmes
and commercial ventures that have been set up will only provide a fraction
of the income needed to replace the farmers' reliance on poppy.

Many of these are joint ventures with Chinese companies, including liquor
and cigarette factories, granite and tin mines, tea and rubber
plantations.

Their commercial success, though, relies on exporting the products to
China, where, say the Wa authorities, they are heavily taxed.

In Namteet, the township chairman, Ai Rong, a nephew of the Wa leader
Chairman Bau Yuxiang, is extremely frustrated. Here the authorities have
invested heavily in crop substitution programmes, particularly in fruit
and vegetables.

Pineapples, lychees and longans are among their exports to China. These
are all taxed at twenty percent. "It is too high," Ai Rong bemoans, "it
leaves us with very little profit".

The taxes on many other products are as high as 40 percent. In another Wa
town along the Chinese border, a tin mine has stopped production because
the taxes on the tin produced makes it unprofitable to operate.

Rangoon is as unsympathetic to the Wa's plight as the Chinese, the Wa
leaders complain. "We are being squeezed from both sides," Ai Rong says.
"The government is squeezing and squeezing us, maybe something will happen
if they continue to squeeze us," he warns

But the international community is unlikely to be moved by the Wa's plight
unless their leaders are as rigorous in ending the production of ya ba
(metamphetamines) in the areas they control as they have been in ending
poppy cultivation.

The Wa leader, Chairman Bau Yuxiang, insists that the Wa authorities are
targeting all drug production -- poppy, opium, heroin and ya ba.

Western and Asian anti-narcotics agents remain sceptical. So far there
little evidence that the Wa's own war on drugs has had any real impact on
the production of methamphetamines in the Golden Triangle.

Until the Wa leaders do something to stamp out the production and
trafficking of ya ba, as well as banning poppy cultivation, the Wa's
claims to be making their region drug-free will not get the international
recognition the Wa leaders so desperately crave.

_____________________________________

October 17, Bernama
Australian police chief warns of drug threat from Asia

- Amphetamine production in Asia's Golden Triangle is set to overtake
heroin as the greatest drug threat to Australia, according to Australian
Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner, Mick Keelty.

Keelty told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper that massive quantities of
amphetamines produced in the region were destined for the Australian
market.

Up to three tonnes of pseudo-ephedrine, a plant-based chemical used to
make amphetamines, had been seized by offshore AFP officers this year
alone, he said.

"In Burma now, the production of amphetamines is just huge and the number
of amphetamine addicts in places like Thailand has tripled," he is quoted
saying.

In June this year, AFP officers and their Fijian counterparts seized 1.5
tonnes of pseudo-ephedrine from a chemical factory.

Keelty said: "And in March, we seized, with Philippines authorities, 1.3
tonnes coming out of China. That's a lot of amphetamines coming to
Australia.

"Clearly, that's indicating drug-use habits have changed. We can't rely on
the breaking of heroin supplies as a success."

The newspaper said that a recent UN report said Australia was the only
country to record a heroin shortage since 2000.

Supply of heroin started to dry up in 2000 thanks to increased border
patrols and seizures by Australian police and customs.

Keelty said that, as a result, the annual number of national heroin
overdoses of people aged 16-34 had dropped by two thirds from about 1,100
in 2000 to just 324 last year.

But drug syndicates were now steering away from labour-intensive heroin
production in favour of amphetamines, which are cheaper and quicker to
make.

Keelty said ephedrine grew wild in China, sparking drug production in the
Golden Triangle on the Chinese and Burmese sides of the border.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / MONEY

Oct 17, Agence France Presse
Myanmar targeting beach resort development: report

Military-ruled Myanmar must develop resorts along its pristine and
undiscovered beaches if it is to maintain growth in its embryonic tourism
industry, hoteliers said in the Myanmar Times.

The isolated, military-ruled state was largely closed off to international
tourism for decades, and only in the past few years has it begun
aggressively courting travellers and expanding plans to develop the trade.

"We need to develop our beaches to attract more international travellers,"
Khin Shwe, chairman of the Myanmar Hoteliers' Association, said in the
edition of the semi-official weekly to be published Monday.

Khin Shwe also heads the National Development Company Ltd, which this
month broke ground on a five-star resort on undeveloped Maungmagan beach
near the town of Dawei, 385 kilometres (240 miles) southeast of the
capital Yangon. The resort is due to open late next year, the newspaper
said.

Myanmar's best known beach destination, Ngapali northwest of Yangon, has
just seven hotels with 280 rooms, but another 10 hotels are due to open
there by next April, it said.

U Win Aung, the managing director of the Amata Resort and Spa in Ngapali,
said demand at beach destinations was surging, with resorts often booked
out during the high season.

"People come to a beach to relax and unlike other destinations they stay
for days and spend a lot of money," he was quoted as saying.

Approval has also reportedly been given for 20 new resorts in the seaside
town of Ngwe Saung, south of Ngapali, while Myanmar's Tourism Promotion
Board has added seaside destinations to its familiarisation tours it
offers to tour agents.

Myanmar's coastline extends about 2,830 kilometres (1758 miles). Its
beaches are acknowledged by travel agents as ripe for resort development,
although the coast is battered by monsoons from mid-May to late October.

The country recorded 600,000 foreign visitors last year, a 22 percent
annual jump in arrivals, with tourism generating 116 million dollars.

The rise occurred despite the international outcry over the junta's
ongoing detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a crackdown on
her pro-democracy party since May 2003.

Myanmar's military regime sees the tourism industry as an important source
of foreign exchange to boost the country's economy, which is in tatters
due to decades of economic mismanagement and ongoing international
sanctions.

_____________________________________

Oct 16, Kyodo News
Myanmar's foreign trade drops slightly in 1st half of FY 2004

Myanmar's foreign trade volume fell by just 0.84 percent to $2.12 billion
in the first half of fiscal 2004 from a year before, according to recent
data made available by the semiofficial organization Business Information
Group.

Imports fell 6.45 percent to $1.00 billion during the April-September
period, while exports increased 4.78 percent to $1.12 billion, according
to the data released Friday.

Most of Myanmar's imports come from Singapore, while exports largely go to
neighboring Thailand.

Japan was the fourth-largest foreign trading partner in the previous
fiscal year, according to the figures.

During fiscal 2003, Myanmar traded $380.89 million worth of goods with
Japan, importing $265.61 million and exporting $115.28 million.

The country's major import items include textiles, lubricant oil, diesel,
automobiles, machine parts, and steel and iron products, while its major
export items include natural gas as well as agricultural, fishery and
forestry products.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries accounted for
more than half of Myanmar's foreign trade during the last fiscal year.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

October 17, Times Of India
George goes ahead with meet on Myanmar sans clearance

NEW DELHI: Former defence minister George Fernandes did not take the
required political clearance for his seminar on restoration of democracy
in Myanmar. Top sources said the government would have certainly denied
permission for such a seminar, held on the eve of a high-profile state
visit by the chief of the SPDC and Myanmar president, Senior General Than
Shwe.

Fernandes had sent a letter to foreign minister Natwar Singh asking him to
deliver a speech at the convention. In fact, foreign secretary Shyam Saran
spoke to Fernandes to ask him to defer the conference in view of the
current sensitivities. On Fernandes' refusal, the Indian government
refused a visa to the "prime minister" of the coalition government of the
"union of Burma", Sein Win, to attend the seminar.

Meanwhile, the UPA government is ready to roll out the red carpet for Gen
Than Shwe, who will be visiting India between October 24 and 28. On
October 25, he will hold a slew of meetings with the Prime Minister,
foreign minister and other leaders and sign a host of agreements with
India. The Myanmar delegation will also visit Bodh Gaya.

On top of the agenda with the Myanmar general will be discussions on
possibility of joint military operations in Myanmar to flush out Indian
militants. There are indications that Myanmar may be amenable to Indian
requests.

In a spate of intensive diplomacy with the Myanmar government after the
North-East blasts, India has impressed on the need to act against
anti-India insurgents in neighbouring countries. The blasts almost
coincided with a security dialogue with the Myanmarese. Saran also
travelled to Yangon to continue the discussions with the Myanmar
government, as well as to finalise the agreements that would be inked
during Than Shwe's visit.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

Oct 16, New Straits Times
Manoeuvring on Myanmar

ASEAN has bent so far backwards for Myanmar that it went into the fifth
Asia- Europe Meeting (Asem) last week having to stand taller to hide the
carpet-burn on the top of its head.

Plenty of agile diplomacy and face-saving graces had to be employed in
Vietnam to keep the simmering dispute from spoiling what was otherwise a
historic jamboree.

To say that the doughty regional grouping has been hurt by association
with Yangon's dismal human rights record would, of course, be an
exaggeration.

Asean once again showed muscle by overriding strenuous European objections
to Myanmar's accession to the enlarged 39-member Asem.

But no sooner had the ink dried on the neutral-sounding Hanoi communique
than the European Union (EU) ministers convened in Luxembourg last Monday
to tighten the screws on the military junta.

Apart from visa bans on the brass hats of the regime and asset freezes,
the 25 ministers vowed to block loans and investments to Myanmar,
including those from the World Bank.

Predictably, the ruling generals accused the West of sabotaging the
country's transition to democracy.

"In a developing country, democracy cannot be built by outside pressure,"
say their newspaper mouthpieces.

They have a point that is too casually dismissed by lack of proof. It is
just as easy to be cynical about the European and the even snootier
American position.

Myanmar isn't of vital strategic interest to the West, so climbing the
moral high ground is geopolitically cost-free.

It poses no threat to its neighbours or anyone else; it has some oil, but
not enough to move markets. (Anyway, France has obtained exclusions for
French companies that have already made deals.) On the other hand, the
Europeans also have a point, sharp enough to stab at the heart of Asean's
principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs.

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights forms the political core of its
proposed constitution and much else in the grand project to permanently
abolish conflict on the European continent. It won't be credible to itself
unless it projects its humanitarian personality in its external relations.

The US posture is mandated by the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of
2003, which took more than a decade to finally foreclose on any creative
measure to coax the junta into compliance.

Until Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is freed and the reconciliation
process with her National League for Democracy (NLD) and other opposition
groups resumes in earnest, the sanctions look set to stay.

The controversy over sanctions, however, is less about cause than effect.

Will they compel the State Peace and Development Council to give up power
to elected democrats? In a country as used to economic isolation as
Myanmar, the answer is a straightforward no.

Even the NLD has asserted that the EU decision will be in vain.

Others argue that it could push the generals ever deeper into their
reactionary habits.

But if action is to be exclusively measured by results, wouldn't the
policy of constructive engagement - advocated by Asean, Asia's big guns
and to a lesser extent Australia - be just as controversial? It would.
Constructive engagement, however, is a nuanced approach that operates in
shades of grey, not black and white.

>From Myanmar's admission into Asean in 1997 onwards, it actually seemed to
work.

By May 2002, Asean governments had shepherded the international community
to bring enough pressure (or persuasion) to bear on the junta to release
Suu Kyi.

A year later, a clash between government and opposition supporters, which
left several dead, led the junta to re-arrest her and crack down on the
NLD.

No one in the Asean leadership was as disappointed at the reversal as Tun
Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who had done so much to win Myanmar's membership
against deep misgivings, even among those well aware of Asean's founding
ambition to eventually include all 10 countries in the region.

In July last year, he vented his frustration by suggesting that Myanmar
should be kicked out.

Given Asean's devotion to solidarity and Thailand's plea for more time for
its back-channel initiatives, expulsion was never really on the cards.

Still, Dr Mahathir's finger-wagging was not lost on the generals.

A month later, the Government announced a major restructuring in which
Senior General Than Shwe, the junta leader, handed the prime ministership
to Lt. General Khin Nyunt, who is reckoned to be more pragmatic.

Shortly afterwards, he announced a seven-step "road map" to what he called
"a principled democracy".

Western opinion, so fixated on the fate of Suu Kyi, doesn't think much of
a gradual nation-building plan that only includes the NLD as part of a
wider dialogue with ethnic minorities and other insurgent groups.

There are hints that the NLD is weary of such moralistic meddling, which
only serves to raise the junta's xenophobic hackles and worsen the already
chronic distrust between them.

If there is a lesson in all this, it is that outsiders have limited
influence.

In a report last April, the Brussels- based International Crisis Group
(IGC) said: "Myanmar's problems cannot be solved from afar, and there is
no strategy, new or old, that can solve them quickly and dramatically."
Constructive engagement has not been invalidated by the failure to meet
expectations.

For Asean, the choice is simply one between having some clout in Yangon
and none at all. Even so, the sense of betrayal lies heavy.

"For the 50 million citizens of Myanmar, who have suffered greatly in the
intervening period, any hope of improvement - or for many, indeed,
survival - depends on whether all sides, including the international
community, have the courage and energy to move away from entrenched
positions and try something different.

"The recycling of policies that have so demonstrably failed is not a
viable option," said the ICG.

Trying something different will become more urgent for Asean.

The embarrassment with which it has shouldered an unreformed Myanmar
through its stellar international itinerary could turn into pain in 2006,
when Yangon is due to take up its chair.

_____________________________________

October 18, Mizzima
Declaration of the 2nd International Convention for the Restoration of
Democracy in Burma (ICRDB) held on 15-17 October 2004

The Second International Convention for the Restoration of Democracy in
Burma was held from 15 to 17 October 2004 in New Delhi, India. Total 142
delegates from 14 countries such as Australia, Burma, Canada, Denmark,
East Timor, India, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, South Korea,
Sweden, Sri Lanka, Thailand and United States of America participated at
the convention. The declaration of the Convention is as follow:

Recognising that the total denial of democracy, fundamental rights and
freedoms and the will of the people of Burma as expressed in the 1990
general elections, the continuation of an illegal military dictatorship
and the expanding domination of the military over all aspects of Burmese
society, the lack of a comprehensive political solution to the civil war
and the continuing gross human rights violations against the people of
Burma constitute a serious threat to regional and international security
and stability,

Being committed to the demand for the unconditional release of all
political prisoners, including NLD leaders Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin
Oo, Urging for the cessation of military attacks on ethnic nationality
communities,

Calling for the initiation of an unconditional, transparent, all inclusive
tripartite dialogue,

Strongly believing that the currently suspended National Convention will
be unrepresentative so long as the majority of those elected in the 1990
general elections, including the NLD, remain excluded,

Highlighting the need to review the current Indian policy towards Burma so
as to further the political process to ensure the restoration of democracy
in that country,

The Second International Convention for the Restoration of Democracy in
Burma, held from 15th to 17th October, 2004 in New Delhi, India declares
its intention to:

Establish a support group of parliamentarians and parliamentary
organisations around the world to promote the cause of the restoration of
democracy in Burma.  Form an Asean and South Asia joint group for
democracy and human rights in Burma.  Undertake a visit of delegates of
the said group to meet the heads of state/government of Asean and South
Asian countries for that purpose.  Coordinate with similar groupings and
like-minded legislators including but not limited to the European Union
and United States Congress.  Observe January 4, 2005 as an International
Day of Solidarity with the Democratic Movement of Burma by holding rallies
in all capitals of the world.  Promote the signing of a statement by the
heads of all political parties and parliamentarians in  India as well as
in other countries. The statement will demand the unconditional release of
all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo,
cessation of military attacks on ethnic communities, and the commencement
of an unconditional, transparent and all-inclusive tripartite dialogue
with the objective of moving towards the establishment of a truly
representative democracy in Burma, well before it is due to take the Chair
of the Asean in 2006.

Create a permanent but flexible structure under the aegis of the ICRDB
(International Convention for the Restoration of Democracy in Burma) to
implement the above initiatives and undertake advocacy at world fora,
particularly the United Nations.