BurmaNet News, November 12, 2004

[Editor]

November 12, 2004, Issue # 2600


INSIDE BURMA
Xinhua: Myanmar people urged to safeguard independence, sovereignty
Kyodo: SCOPE: ADB says sex industry continues to thrive in Myanmar
Narinjara: A millionaire Nasaka officer arrested in Arakan State

REGIONAL
Reuters:Indonesia minister discusses concerns in Myanmar
AFP: Japan Buddhists pull sponsorship of Myanmar summit after regime shake-up
AFP: Singapore, Thailand to push for faster ASEAN integration at Laos summit

INTERNATIONAL
M2 Presswire: Burma: Fresh ICFTU evidence of forced labour ahead of
crucial ILO meeting

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: The greening of a dictatorship

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

November 12, Xinhua News Agency
Myanmar people urged to safeguard independence, sovereignty

Yangon: Myanmar leader Lieutenant-General Thein Sein has urged his people
to safeguard and defend the country's independence and sovereignty based
on nationalist fervor and patriotism.

Thein Sein, first secretary of the State Peace and Development Council,
made the appeal at a meeting here Thursday to prepare for the observation
of the country's 57th Independence Day anniversary falling on Jan. 4,
2005, state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

Noting that Myanmar has a fine tradition of defending and safeguarding its
nation whenever it faces foreign aggression, he attributed the regain of
the country's independence in 1948 to the struggle by the entire nation
with strong national spirit and nationalistic fervor and unity.

"Again, Myanmar is now facing instigation and interventions of tricky
neo-colonialists who want to manipulate and dominate the nation," he
warned, saying it is high time to uphold the fine traditions of Myanmar's
independence struggle.

He stressed that independence and sovereignty are to be perpetual so that
the people can shape the future of the nation on their own without foreign
instigation and to move on the path free from external interference.

And even if a nation does not lose independence, he warned, it cannot
stand firmly as a sovereign state if it is dancing to the tune of others
and overshadowed by foreign nations.

He further clarified that the government is putting the seven- point
political roadmap to democracy into operation which can guarantee the
independence, sovereignty and perpetual existence of the nation.

Thein Sein called for collaborative participation of the people in
conformity with the national essence for enabling the entire national
people, including the new generation youths, to realize the value and
essence of the independence and sovereignty of the nation and the
successful implementation of the ongoing roadmap.

The government's political roadmap to democracy, announced in August last
year, was outlined as resuming the constitutional national convention long
suspended since 1996, undergoing a national referendum on draft of the
constitution, holding a general election to produce parliament
representatives and forming a new democratic government.

Accordingly, as the first step of the roadmap, the national convention was
resumed on May 17 this year but has adjourned again since July 9. The
convention is scheduled to resume by the open season without specific
date.

______________________________________

November 11, Kyodo News
SCOPE: ADB says sex industry continues to thrive in Myanmar - Dario Agnote

Myanmar has a thriving sex industry despite vigorous denials by its
military government, and a recently released report by the Asian
Development Bank says soldiers and policemen are among the major procurers
of commercial sex.

''There is a complicated but sizeable domestic sex industry in Myanmar,''
said the Manila-based bank study titled 'Mobility and HIV/AIDS in the
Greater Mekong Subregion.'

''A demand situation, along with a supply of women, ensures that the trade
expands.''

''There is hardly any brothel-type service or red-light district,'' said
the study penned by Supang Chantavanich of the Asian Research Center for
Migration, adding karaoke bars and restaurants along Myanmar's major
highways and trading places are often transformed into prostitution dens.

''Small (hotel-like) guest houses operate where men can take women (to
have drinks and sex),'' says the report, adding that some border towns
even have ''special entertainment'' centers for ''cross-border sex
workers'' that cater to visitors from neighboring China, Thailand and
elsewhere.

The report warns the continued migration of Myanmar nationals,
particularly women, to the borders with Thailand, China, India and
Bangladesh to seek jobs has abetted the transmission of the AIDS-causing
virus and could lead to a serious HIV-AIDS epidemic in that Southeast
Asian country.

''The continuing political struggle and the ensuing economic hardship have
forced millions of people to move from place to place for jobs and
income,'' the report notes.

There are 530,000 Myanmar people who are sick with AIDS, according to
UNAIDS 2000 estimates. More than 26,000 people have tested positive for
the virus during the last 12 years and more than 3,500 AIDS cases have
been confirmed, according to National AIDS Program statistics.

The feared explosion in HIV cases casts another dark cloud over the future
of Myanmar, which is already saddled with a stagnant economy, widespread
poverty, political instability and a poor human rights record.

Since the reporting of the first case in 1988, it says the number of AIDS
cases has continued to rise throughout the country due mainly to
intravenous drug use and unprotected sex.

''The epidemic is no longer limited to these specific population groups,''
says the report, adding it has now spread among people who live and work
in ''high-risk situations'' such as transport workers, fishermen, traders,
seafarers and migrant workers.

The report says the HIV prevalence among commercial ''hospitality girls''
showed a dramatic increase from 4.2 percent in 1992 to 36.5 percent in
1999. Overall, it says that HIV prevalence among the adult population is
estimated to be at 1.99 percent, very close to Thailand's 2.15 percent.

''But the main difference is that the epidemic in Thailand started about
eight to 10 years ahead of Myanmar. With this rapid pace of transmission,
HIV prevalence in Myanmar is expected to exceed Thailand soon and,
perhaps, catch up the regional leader Cambodia in the future,'' the report
says.

The report adds that HIV infection among military recruits, who roughly
represent the rural male population, has steadily increased from 0.56
percent in 1992 to 2.22 percent in 1999.

''The prevalence among commercial hospitality girls showed a dramatic
increase from 4.2 percent in 1992 to 36.5 percent in 1999. The linear
trend in this particular group is very steep.''

The report adds, ''The Burmese military is one of the largest forces in
the region and dominates the present government. Because of the continuing
border and ethnic clashes, about 330,000 armed forces are deployed in
remote areas. They are periodically rotated to different stations.''

''National sentinel surveillance shows a consistent rise of HIV
seropisitivity among military recruits, in 1999, representing 2.22 percent
of the people tested,'' it says.

In fact, the report says ''military and policemen are described as one of
the largest groups of clients in the sex venues, which is much more common
in remote border areas than in close vicinity to large army bases.''

The report says Myanmar's high HIV transmission is due to its large number
of mobile population and widespread human smuggling or trafficking,
especially of women.

''A very large number of the mobile population groups -- internal and
external -- are involved in HIV high-risk situations that will continue to
spread HIV to the general population,'' it says.

''The HIV epidemic is closely associated with the Thai and Chinese border
areas. Many IDUs live in and around the Golden Triangle and some of them
have links with drug traffickers. From here, drug trafficking and use of
spreads to nearby Mandaya, Muse and then to Yunnan,'' says the report.

''HIV transmission will continue among people through casual and regular-
partner sex unless effective prevention methods are in place to limit such
transmission,'' warns the report.

Myanmar is among the six countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion that
also include Cambodia, China's Yunnan Province, Laos, Thailand and
Vietnam.

''HIV/AIDS infection is one of the major health problems of the GMS,''
said John Cooney, director of the Social Sectors Division of ADB's Mekong
Department. ''It affects all population groups and the share of HIV/AIDS
related illnesses in the subregion is expected to triple in the next 20
years,
unless stronger preventive measures are undertaken.''

_____________________________________

November 12, Narinjara News
A millionaire Nasaka officer arrested in Arakan State

Maung Daw: A millionaire Nasaka officer on November 6 was arrested in
Maung Daw, a northern Burma-Bangledeshi border town.

Aung Zaya, a sergeant, was arrested by military personnel in the (3) Mile
gate Nasaka check-point of Maung Daw, where he worked as a monitor and was
in-charge.

According to a police officer, the authorities seized 30 million Kyat and
47 gold bars from him and his interrogation continues.

He has a number of joint businesses in the area with local businessman and
the authorities are currently looking for them, said a source.

A businessman from Buthidaung said that the authority has been seizing
properties belonging to intelligence and other Nasaka officials since Oct
31. So far, authorities have seized shrimp farms, hotels, funds, as well
as cars and motorbikes owned by intelligent unites.

"All businessmen in the area are anxious about the present situation
because all businessmen were cooperating with local intelligent officials.
In the previous time, anyone could not do anything about his or her
business without intelligent permission and cooperation," he said.

Now Aung Zaya is in the Buthidaung jail, where about 20 intelligent
officials who were recently arrested by authorities were moved from
Rangoon, according to a reliable source.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

November 12, Reuters News
Indonesia minister discusses concerns in Myanmar - Jerry Norton

Jakarta: Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda held talks in Myanmar
on Friday, the first senior overseas visitor to the widely shunned nation
since the junta purged its prime minister amid corruption charges last
month.

Wirajuda flew to Myanmar on an unannounced visit "to communicate our view,
and one may even say our concern," about developments in the former Burma,
ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.

There was no official comment from Yangon, which was celebrating a
national holiday, but an official said Wirajuda met his Myanmar
counterpart Nyan Win and new Prime Minister Lt.-General Soe Win.

There was no immediate word on whether he met paramount leader Than Shwe,
which one source said Wirajuda was hoping to do.

Wirajuda appeared to want to know what the military junta's policies were
in the wake of the purge of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who was also head
of military intelligence, and many of his associates over the last few
weeks.

The government said Khin Nyunt's family was involved in corruption and
posed a serious threat to Myanmar and its armed forces, but the sudden
dismantling of his military intelligence power base took everyone by
surprise.

It even took aback Myanmar's fellow members of the 10-nation Association
of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which have been following a policy of
"constructive engagement" with a government shunned in the West.

PICKING UP THE THREADS

"This is the first diplomatic gambit from ASEAN and the outside world to
pick up lines of communication with the SPDC since the removal of General
Khin Nyunt," said an ASEAN diplomat, referring to the military government
by its acronym.

The West and some Southeast Asian neighbours have criticised Myanmar for
its human rights record and its detention of democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi.

Khin Nyunt was believed to be willing to at least talk to her and his
removal consolidated the grip of the junta's hawks led by Than Shwe, who
is thought determined to ignore her.

Indonesia swore in a new president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, last month.
So far there has been no public indication his policy on Myanmar will
differ from that of his predecessor.

Like most of Myanmar's fellow members of ASEAN, Indonesia has been
critical of some of the junta's actions, including the detention of Suu
Kyi, but has not been inclined to follow the West in imposing sanctions on
the regime.

Shortly after Khin Nyunt lost his job, Wirajuda had said: "It's an
internal matter for Myanmar, but we hope the appointment of a new prime
minister won't have a negative impact to the prospects for democratisation
and reconciliation."

Wirajuda was due to Jakarta on Friday, Natalegawa said.

"This visit has been made deliberately low key, with the intention so that
he can have an opportunity to have good, candid and frank exchanges with
the Myanmar side," he said. (Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tung in
Yangon).

_____________________________________

November 12, Agence France Presse
Japan Buddhists pull sponsorship of Myanmar summit after regime shake-up

Tokyo: A Japanese group has withdrawn sponsorship of a Buddhist summit in
Myanmar next month over concerns about the junta's hardline shake-up, but
Yangon said it would go ahead with the event on its own.

Japan's Nenbutsushu sect has held the World Buddhist Summit every two
years in a Buddhist nation. The event was due to be held December 9 to 13
in Yangon, where a new convention hall has been built for it and temples
and hostels spruced up.

But the summit organizer said most participants, including main sponsor
Nenbutsushu, refused to attend after the junta last month sacked reformist
prime minister General Khin Nyunt and put him under house arrest.

"People were concerned that this was a coup d'etat or an undemocratic
change of government," said summit headquarters spokesman Kazuo Takayama.

"Including Myanmar and Japan there were 20 nations expected to attend," he
said. "Most of the countries later said they were unable to come."

"The goal of the summit is to spread world peace, coexistence and mutual
understanding through Buddhist teachings," he said.

"With this many people saying they will not come, we decided it would be
difficult to attain the goal."

Organizers approached Myanmar's government on October 30 to cancel the
summit, and later learned Yangon would hold it without its participation.
They are also asking Myanmar not to call the event the World Buddhist
Summit.

Myanmar's new premier was quoted by state media as saying that the summit
would go ahead from December 9-11, cutting it two days short.

"After putting much time and effort into making elaborate preparations,
the job is almost done and the summit will go ahead smoothly as
scheduled," state press quoted Lieutenant General Soe Win as saying
Monday.

A source from Myanmar's religious affairs department said about 2,500
delegates had been expected but the numbers were now expected to be much
lower.

"We will not call it the fourth summit any more," the source told AFP.

"Of the 40 countries invited, 10 of them have said they will attend," the
source said without detailing which ones.

But he said most of those who were not expected to attend were from Japan
or Japanese-related organizations.

_____________________________________

November 11, Agence France Presse
Singapore, Thailand to push for faster ASEAN integration at Laos summit

Singapore: Singapore and Thailand will renew their call on ASEAN to
accelerate its move toward a European Union-style single market earlier
than 2020 during a leaders' summit in Laos this month, press reports said
Friday.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he discussed the issue with
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra during a meeting in Bangkok on
Thursday, the Straits Times reported.

Lee said there was a "meeting of minds" as well as some "urgency" to move
the 2020 timetable forward

"We feel that time is pressing... We are aiming for an ASEAN Economic
Community by 2020, but our free trade agreements with China, Korea and so
on are around 2009, 2010," Lee told Singapore journalists travelling with
him.

"If we get our own integration done by 2020, that's really a long time and
too slow. We should move faster."

Thaksin agreed with Lee, saying that countries that are prepared to
cooperate in certain sectors of their economies should do so, with others
in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) joining in
when they are ready, the report said.

The leaders of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- which comprise ASEAN --
will meet in the Laotian capital Vientiane from November 29-30 for their
annual summit.

A meeting of senior officials and foreign ministers will precede the
summit, which will be hosted by communist-led Laos for the first time
since it joined ASEAN in 1997.

ASEAN leaders last year agreed to transform ASEAN -- which boasts of a
market of 500 million people -- into a single market and manufacturing
base by 2020 in order to better compete with giant neighbours China and
India.

But Singapore and Thailand have argued that the timetable was too far away.

"We have to move before 2020. Some pieces we know what we want: free up
all non-tariff barriers, have a proper dispute resolution mechanism and
closer economic integration so that trade, investment and people flows can
respond more readily to economic forces," Lee said.

"We can do these progressively over the next few years," said Lee, who was
in Thailand as part of an introductory tour of the region after taking
over from Goh Chok Tong in August.

As part of efforts toward economic integration, ASEAN's economic ministers
in September agreed to liberalise 11 industry sectors before 2010,
including autos, textiles, electronics, agriculture, health care, air
travel and tourism.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

November 12, M2 Presswire
Burma: Fresh ICFTU evidence of forced labour ahead of crucial ILO meeting

Brussels: As the Governing Body of the International Labour Office (ILO)
prepares to discuss the Burma situation next week, the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has released new evidence of
forced labour taking place in various parts of the country. For the fourth
time since last June, the ICTU has provided concrete examples of forced
labour of various types, including road construction, military camps
building and maintenance, carrying of army supplies and ammunition,
agricultural work and many others. In its 4-page letter to the ILO, the
ICFTU provides dozens of examples from Karen, Arakan and Chin States, as
well as from the Pegu, Tennasserim and Sagaing Divisions. Some of the
forced labour took place as recently as mid-October 2004.

The ICFTU information is based on data collected by the Federation of
Trade Unions - Burma (FTUB), an underground workers' organisation active
inside Burmese territory and maintaining office and training structures in
neighbouring countries. Three FTUB leaders and activists were sentenced to
death one year ago, after the authorities discovered they were supplying
information about forced labour to the ILO. Although their sentences have
since been reduced to prison terms, they remain in detention to-date.
Their cases will feature prominently in next week's ILO discussions.

Several Burmese army commanders are identified by name in the new ICFTU
report (
http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991220741&Language=EN). In
Tenasserim Division, one Colonel Soe Thet, of the 4th Centre of Strategic
Command, is reported to have ordered nearly 300 people from ten different
villages to work on the construction of a paved road. The road building
contract had been awarded to a Thai construction firm; the ICFTU is
presently investigating the matter in cooperation with the Geneva-based
International Federation of Building and Wood Workers (IFBWW).

At least 12 army officers commanding Infantry Battalions deployed in six
different states are mentioned by name in the report. The include
Commander Win Oo, of Infantry Battalion ndeg39, who last May detained four
women and their children in the Bawgali area (Pegu Division, in Central
Burma) when his soldiers failed to find villagers to carry loads for his
unit. They were brought to a local police station and released only the
following day, after nine male villagers came out of hiding; the men were
then ordered to carry heavy equipment to Koh Day army camp.

The ICFTU said it saw continuing widespread forced labour as strong
grounds for a reinforcement of measures adopted by the ILO against Burma
in June 2000. It said it would at the same time urge the ILO Governing
Body to press the Burmese junta to allow for an expansion of ILO
monitoring operations in Burma. The ILO Liaison Office in Rangoon has
received dozens of complaints by citizens subjected to forced labour.
Although the government has so far systematically denied that the cases
took place, the ICFTU said citizens had been encouraged by the ILO
presence in the country.

The ICFTU represents 148 million workers in 234 affiliated organisations
in 152 countries and territories. ICFTU is also a member of Global Unions:
http://www.global-unions.org.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

November 12, Irrawaddy
The greening of a dictatorship - Zao Noam

International environmentalists have praised Burma for its commitment to
conservation, yet in reality the greening of the Burmese dictatorship is
just another tool for military coercion and advancement.

By the year 2000, Burma had designated over 15,000 sq km of protected
areas in 31 national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, covering 2.26 percent
of the total area of the country, according to the Nature and Wilderness
Conservation Division, or NWCD.

In addition to the protected areas already established, foreign
conservationists are helping the Burmese regime to create the greater
“Northern Forest Complex” in Kachin State, Burma.

The first step was the establishment of the Hkakaborazi National Park in
the far north of Kachin State, where neither the New York City-based
international organization Wildlife Conservation Society, or WCS, nor the
Burmese junta consulted with the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO,
which controlled the area.

Since the KIO ceasefire in 1994, at least 10 Burma Army bases have been
established in the area, which was seen by the regime as an important
national security zone.

The “Northern Forest Complex” took further shape at the end of 2002, when
the WCS secured Burmese government approval for Hponkhan Razi, a reserve
that links Hkakaborazi to the Hukaung Valley in Kachin State.

The complex would be completed by the incorporation of Bhumba Bum in
southeastern Kachin State, a project now under review.  The establishment
of this protected area may also serve national security needs, since it
justifies a Burmese military presence in the area.

Most recently, Burma’s Ministry of Forestry recommended the expansion of
the Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Kachin State to include much of
the Hukaung Valley to be designated as the country’s first tiger reserve,
the largest of its kind in the world.

Such developments prompted Alan Rabinowitz of the WCS, in a recent article
in National Geographic, to praise Burma’s apparent commitment to
conservation and to hail the country as the most cooperative he had ever
worked with. So why the unexpected conservation-military alliance in
Burma?

Burma provides a powerful example of the strength of environmental
rhetoric when even a brutal military dictatorship can appear committed to
conservation.

The government profits financially and politically from “environmentalism”
to enable violent exploitation of natural resources, forced resettlement
and the seizure of ethnic minority-populated land rich in biodiversity by
the military.

These conservation-military tactics have already been documented in Karen
State, where in 1996 Rangoon—in cooperation with WCS and multinational oil
companies—created Myinmoletkat Nature Reserve. A few months later the
Burma Army launched a military offensive that captured land controlled by
the indigenous Karen to include it in the reserve and to grant logging
concessions.

That action provides an idea of what could happen in the world’s largest
tiger reserve in Kachin State, where the Burma Army, in cooperation with
the WCS, has taken over KIO-controlled Kachin land, in the name of
conservation.

In addition to the mining and logging concessions that followed the
ceasefire in Kachin State, the Burmese government is using “conservation”
as a tool to acquire territory and weaken ethnic-political organizations.
At the same time, the regime is exploiting natural resources within park
borders to fund state coffers.

The Burmese government uses international environmental organizations and
treaties in order to gain “green money” and recognition as an
“environmental steward”. However, a Burmese signature on an international
environmental agreement does not commit the regime to specific actions. It
is one thing to create new domestic laws under the provision of
international treaties, but another matter altogether to democratically
implement them.

International environmental organizations continue to endorse the
protected area system in Burma, yet they are not allowed to discuss the
political ramifications of establishing conservation parks under the
control of the Burmese government. For these reasons, in 1997, Aung San
Suu Kyi spoke out against doing conservation work in Burma.

A recent Global Witness report critical of the logging industry in
northern Burma provoked numerous official Burmese government responses. An
article in a 2003 issue of the New Light of Myanmar challenged the Global
Witness report, saying, “The Myanmar Forest Policy has been formulated in
a holistic and balanced manner
with the environment and sustainable
development taking full cognizance of the forestry principles adopted at
the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development, 1992.”

These remarks illustrate how the regime uses international environmental
treaties to create an illusion of an environmentally responsible military
administration, despite their politically and financially motivated
clandestine resource extraction.

In one recent article in the journal Conservation Biology the authors
admitted that six of twenty protected areas they reviewed had “military
camps and/or insurgents indicating availability of firearms.” The six were
named as Shwe U Daung, the Taunggyi Bird Sanctuary, Lamp Island Marine
Park, the Shwesettaw Wildlife Sanctuary, the Pidaung Wildlife Sanctuary
and Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park. In addition, numerous others have
been found to have plantations, mining or logging operations within
protected areas.

Among many suggestions for improvements, there is no mention in the
article of how the contradictions of military bases and commercial
extractive industries within protected areas might signal a problem with
conservation in Burma.

Rangoon is not only using environmental rhetoric as a platform to enable
state control to penetrate indigenous insurgent territory; it is using the
adoption of international environmental treaties as a tool to gain
political legitimacy.

Biodiversity conservation has been transformed by being adopted by the
Burmese government. Their separate agendas become blurred, with a
resulting hybrid of the Burma Army conducting politically sensitive
conservation projects.

This “greening” of a military dictatorship creates contradictions as human
rights abuses continue unchecked, civil society participation is ruled out
and natural resources are exploited to earn foreign currency.

Zao Noam is a researcher on environmental politics in Burma.