BurmaNet News, November 16, 2004

[Editor]

November 16, 2004, Issue # 2602


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Kachin split healed
Xinhua: Myanmar top leader stresses ensuring food security in future
Kyodo: Myanmar to have new airport terminal before 2006 ASEAN summit
Kaladan: Eid-Ul-Fitr in Arakan

AIDS/HEALTH
S.H.A.N.: AIDS in Shan State a crisis

REGIONAL
AFP: Human trafficking talks start in Cambodia

INTERNATIONAL
FT: A little can go a long way towards making life better

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: The spook goes down

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INSIDE BURMA

November 16, Irrawaddy
Kachin split healed - Nandar Chann

The Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, and a splinter group headed
by its intelligence chief, Col Lasang Awng Wa, have agreed to patch up
their quarrel, a senior Kachin leader announced on Sunday.

During a three-day meeting with representatives of the Kachin Consultative
Assembly and the New Democratic Army-Kachin, or NDA-K, in Myitkyana, the
capital of Kachin State, Col Lasang Awng Wa and his followers agreed to
resume their duties with the organization some time before December.

“We agreed that what happened in the past is to be forgotten,” said James
Lum Dau, deputy officer of the Thailand-based KIO foreign affairs office.

The split within the KIO occurred after an alleged coup attempt at the KIO
headquarters in Laiza, Kachin State, early this year. Col Lasang Awng Wa,
his deputy, Lt-Col Padip Gam Aung, and Vice President Brig-Gen Hpauyam
Tsam Yan, were expelled from the party for alleged involvement in the coup
plot.

Later, the splinter group deployed with about 300 Kachin soldiers in
NDA-K-controlled territory.

Since the split, the Kachin Consultative Assembly and the NDA-K worked to
bring the two sides back together again.

The KIO was formed in 1961 by ethnic Kachins with the aim of fighting for
independence from Rangoon. In 1994 the organization signed a cease-fire
agreement with Burma’s military government.

______________________________________

November 16, Xinhua News Agency
Myanmar top leader stresses ensuring food security in future

Yangon: Myanmar top leader Senior-General Than Shwe has stressed the need
to ensure food security for the country's growing population in the next
three decades.

Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, told
departmental officials in his latest inspection tour to Southwest Command
in Pathein, Ayeyawaddy division, state-owned newspaper The New Light of
Myanmar reported Tuesday.

Noting that Ayeyawaddy division stands a region for the country to rely on
in terms of economy, especially in the agricultural and fish and meat
production sectors, Than Shwe called for greater efforts to exceed the
target of the two sectors.

He disclosed that the government is laying down and implementing plans for
proportionate development of all states and divisions.

He said he saw bright prospects to extend cultivation of perennial and
seasonal crops in the region which is rich in land and water resources.

He warned of Myanmar's growing population which is to reach 100 million in
the next 30 years, urging the farmers to expand sown area and raising per
hectare yield to meet the challenge.

According to the report, Ayeyawaddy division has so far put 1.41 million
hectares of land under monsoon paddy this year against the target of 1.45
million hectares of the monsoon paddy and 0.68 million hectares of summer
paddy.

Official figures show that in fiscal year 2003-2004 ended in March,
Myanmar produced 22.94 million tons of paddy out of 6.75 million hectares
cultivated. The country exported 106,312 tons of rice in the same fiscal
year

With a population of about 53 million now, Myanmar stands as a country
with agriculture as the mainstay of its economy. The agricultural output
value takes 42 percent of the gross domestic product and the export
represents 16 percent of the total.

Myanmar has a cultivable land of 18.23 million hectares, of which 16.72
million hectares have been put under crops, the figures show.

______________________________________

November 16, Kyodo News
Myanmar to have new airport terminal before 2006 ASEAN summit

Myanmar will complete the construction of a new terminal at Yangon
International Airport before the country hosts an ASEAN summit in 2006, a
local weekly journal reported Tuesday.

Soe Lwin, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Department, was quoted in
Flower News that the new terminal will have four passenger bridges with a
capacity to handle 2.7 million passengers annually.

A Singapore company, CPG Consultants Pte Ltd, designed the terminal and a
Myanmar company, Asia World, is handling the construction work.

Yangon International Airport currently does not have a passenger bridge
and is using the same terminal for domestic and international departures.

The airport will have separate terminals for domestic and international
flights after completion of the new terminal.

______________________________________

November 15, Kaladan News
Eid-Ul-Fitr in Arakan

Mahngdaw: Thousands of Muslim Rohingyas of Arakan celebrated their
religious festival Eid-ul-Fitr today like Millions of Muslims in the world
celebrated it after one month of fasting, reported by an elite Rohingya
from inside Arakan on condition of anonymity.

After sighting the moon last night, the Muslims population of South Asia
including Arakan and Burma are celebrating the Eid festival today, while
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries had celebrated
it, day-before yesterday on 13th November 2004, he further reported.

Most of the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan have offered their Eid prayer in
the mosques because the SPDC authorities warned the Rohingya Muslims not
to pray at the Eid-Gah    (Open air prayer ground) with large number of
devotees and the SPDC also restricted to deliver contemporary Khutbah or
religious sermons in Mosques. So, Rohingya Muslims celebrate the
Eidul-Fitr in fear of lives and liberty, said a Rohingya political leader
who is concerned with the situation in Arakan and Burma as well.

In this connection the Rohingya Muslims of Maungdaw, Buthidaung,
Rathedaung and Sittwe are warned in advance by the SPDC authorities not to
move from one place to another at a time in large numbers and also not to
stay for long period in a place even today – the Eid day. The SPDC is
violating the religious rights of Rohingya in various mean, he further
said.

It may be mentioned here that this restriction is not first time in Arakan
but for many years, especially after 1988 democracy uprising which is
comparatively increasing year by year. In the case of Buddhist festival,
the Muslims Rohingyas were forced to donate and contribute and also
encouraged to take part in the celebration, while the other religious
festivals of non-Buddhists are prohibited and restricted in various way in
their worship in the country, he continued.

According to Muslim tradition, the celebration of Eid-ul Fitr at Eid Gah
has more virtue than at Mosques. So, all the Islamic believers (Muslims)
try to pray their Eid prayer at specific places of Eid Gah. But, there are
more than 1.5 million Rohingya Muslims in Arakan are deprived of their
freedom of worship and religion, as they are accustomed by Islam and
follow the true Islamic philosophy of Quran and Sunnah, while the others
believe in Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and animist.

_____________________________________
AIDS / HEALTH

November 15, Shan Herald Agency for News
AIDS in Shan State a crisis

A presenter at a two-day workshop on HIV/AIDS in Shan State held in
Chiangmai has tagged the problem in Burma's largest state as a crisis,
said women participants at the 13-14 November meeting.

The Update on HIV in Burma in October 2004 by Jamie Uhrig, a researcher
who had worked in Burma, called the rising prevalence of the epidemic as
"The Crisis in Shan State."

According to his paper, over 80% of injecting drug users (IDUs) in Lashio,
most of them who inject heroin, were found HIV infected and many of them
have died.

Dr Chris Beyrer, American authority on HIV/AIDS who had conducted
"Sentinel Surveillance" in September-October 1999 in Burma, also estimated
the 2004 HIV prevalence in Shan State as follows:

Lashio - Northern Shan State  ------ 74.0%
Muse - Sino-Burma border  ---------- 92.3%
Taunggyi - Southern Shan State  -- 13.0%
Total  ----------------------------------------- 42.0%

In addition, the 1999 survey came across high HIV prevalence rates among
ante-natal clinic (ANC) pregnant women:

Lashio Northern Shan State ----- 1.0%
Muse Sino-Burma border --------- 6.5%
Taunggyi Southern Shan State - 1.5%
Tachilek Eastern Shan State ---- 3.0%

Uhrig's paper noted that the military government has begun small-scale
activities in Shan State such as condom promotion, support for outreach,
needle and syringe programs, life skills training, minimum package of care
and prevention of HIV infection in mothers and young children, with a $ 50
million total committed funding.

However, crackdowns on sex work and human trafficking have disrupted HIV
prevention programs and led to greater vulnerability of sex workers to
HIV.

1.31% of all adults in Burma are estimated to be living with HIV in Burma,
according to the National AIDS Program's official estimate, revised in
September.

Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 July, reported that 5% of the 7 million
people living with HIV/AIDS in Asia-Pacific Region are in Burma, while 61%
are in India, 13% in China, 11% in Thailand and 10% in other countries.

"The Burmese (generals) need not worry about destroying the Shans," a
woman social worker told S.H.A.N. "AIDS is already doing the job for
them."

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

November 16, Agence France Presse
Human trafficking talks start in Cambodia

Phnom Penh: A conference opened in Cambodia on Tuesday aimed at tackling
human trafficking in one of the Asian nations at the heart of the illegal
trade.

Cambodia, one of the world's poorest nations, is viewed as a sender and
receiver of trafficked people because of its weak border controls and
poorly enforced migration laws.

An estimated 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked annually
across borders worldwide in a billion-dollar illicit trade, with a growing
crisis in Asia.

Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar signed an agreement
last month in Yangon to cooperate in combatting trafficking.

US ambassador Charles Ray said more needed to be done in Cambodia to
prosecute those responsible for trafficking.

"The courts in Cambodia have to be held accountable for acting
transparently and professionally when investigating, prosecuting and
convicting traffickers and sex tourists."

Prime Minister Hun Sen acknowledged growing trafficking, particularly in
urban and border areas.

"Human trafficking is not only a crime of serious human rights violation,
it affects seriously socio-economic development process," he told the
gathering of officials, donors and other groups that ends Wednesday.

He conceded the kingdom still lacked some laws to fight trafficking.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

November 16, Financial Times
A little can go a long way towards making life better

In the first of a two-part series, our correspondents examine the role of
microfinance in relieving poverty around the globe - Farhan Bokhari, Fiona
Harvey, Amy Kazmin and Amy Yee

Not long ago, 46-year-old Than Than Win and her husband eked out a living
by working the fields of landowners in Kangyi, a small village about half
a day's journey from Rangoon. Along with many of Burma's poor, Ms Win had
little means to improve her life or those of her six children.

But Ms Win says receiving microfinance loans to buy a flock of ducks
through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1998 changed
her life.

Her first loan of Dollars 6 (Euros 3.3, Pounds 4.6) was used to buy 50
ducks, whose eggs she sold at the local market for a profit of Dollars 1 a
day.

Microfinance has traditionally consisted of distributing small loans worth
between Dollars 25 and Dollars 2,500 to help the urban and rural poor
start small businesses, with typically high rates of repayment of up to 97
per cent in some developing countries. Successful initiatives show an
average rate of return of about 2.5 per cent of total assets.

The concept evolved in response to the deficiencies of the traditional
banking system whose high overheads often made small loans unaffordable to
relatively poor clients. Microfinance sought to reduce the cost of lending
either by linking lenders to existing development projects where borrowers
had a track record, or by using non-governmental organisations to vet
prospective customers.

Other techniques used to reduce risk have included lending to a group of
poor borrowers who between themselves decided how much money to pass on to
a member and who are collectively responsible for managing a default by
any individual member.

Microfinance has grown at an average annual rate of 25-30 per cent over
the past five years, involving an increasing number of banks such as
Citibank, Deutsche Bank and India's ICICI.

On Thursday the UN will declare 2005 the International Year of
Microcredit. "Microfinance has proved its value, in many countries, as a
weapon against poverty and hunger," said Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-
general, yesterday. "It really can change peoples' lives for the better -
especially the lives of those who need it most."

The UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) says giving
the poor access to basic financial tools will help meet the UN's
Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

But for microfinance schemes to reach "a meaningful number of the world's
poor", more banks and more NGOs need to get involved, says Henri Dommel,
IFAD's rural development technical adviser.

Critics say, however, that no matter how fashionable, microfinance is no
panacea in the fight against poverty. Such loans often still carry
relatively high rates of interest and the number of poor who can be helped
is limited.

In the largest micro-finance initiative by any government, Thaksin
Shinawatra, the Thai prime minister, has moved to fulfil a campaign
promise made four years ago to provide each of Thailand's 70,000 villages
with a Bt1m (Dollars 24,761, Euros 19,150, Pounds 13,413) microcredit
fund.

But Thai academics have questioned whether the poorest and most needy
villagers have had access to the funds, and whether money has been used
for productive investment or simply for conspicuous consumption.

Some economists have suggested that some Thai families are being forced to
borrow from money lenders in order to repay the village funds. Kazi Matin,
chief economists for the World Bank in Bangkok, says successful
microfinance projects generally require well-developed regulatory
frameworks to ensure that they are sustainable and do not add to financial
pressures on vulnerable families.

"If you actually give relatively large loans and that money actually does
not get used productively, it could get people into trouble if you try to
enforce the repayment," says Mr Matin. "They get into trouble trying to
repay, and that is the category of risk that is worst for the poor
households."

In Pakistan, economists warn of limitations to a plan to expand the role
of microfinance in the country's fight against poverty.

"The idea of microcredit has been fashionable and you would find many
people pleading the case for more such ventures," concedes a senior
Pakistani government official. "The problem is that there continue to be
practical difficulties. When you give out small loans, you just can't do
this without charging high interest rates. But high interest costs defeat
the purpose of lending to the poor to deal with their predicament."

Such objections are being met with growing calls within the community of
aid donors for a redefinition of microfinance.

Elizabeth Littlefield, a former banker who runs the Consultative Group to
Assist the Poor, a Washington-based consortium of 30 donor agencies, says
the real challenge is not only to distribute more small loans but to
overhaul entire financial systems. "This means making poor people central
to the financial systems in poor countries," she says, "whether in making
it easier with the help of new technology for urban workers to send
remittances to family in the countryside or to build local financial
intermediaries to harness savings." Reporting by Amy Yee in New York,
Fiona Harvey in London, Amy Kazmin in Bangkok and Farhan Bokhari in
Islamabad The second part of this series, focusing on the developed world,
appears on Thursday For more reports see www.ft.com/globaleconomy

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

November 12, Irrawaddy
The spook goes down - Bruce Hawke

The fall of Asia’s longest-serving intelligence chief.

General Khin Nyunt, the chief of the Office of Military Intelligence, or
OCMI, and since August last year prime minister of Burma, took a day off
from his hectic schedule of public engagements to celebrate his 65th
birthday on October 11. Seven days hence he was going to have a lot more
free time.

On Monday, October 18 at some time before lunch Khin Nyunt was detained in
Mandalay where he was on an official visit. At about 18:00 the Office of
the Chief of Military Intelligence, or OCMI, headquarters at Eight-mile
Junction, Rangoon was raided by Burma Army personnel. Some time after
20:00 Khin Nyunt arrived at Mingaladon Airport where he was met by Defense
Services Chief of Staff and Coordinator of Special Operations (Army, Navy
and Air) Gen Thura Shwe Mann.

Shwe Mann accompanied the deposed prime minister to his office at the OCMI
building where he was told to hand over his pistol and his radio. The
20-year reign of Asia’s longest-serving intelligence chief was over.

The next day news of the palace coup was broken by Thai government
spokesman Jakrapop Penkair, who said Khin Nyunt had been deposed for
corruption. That evening Myanmar Television news confirmed that the State
Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, had permitted the prime minister
to resign on “health grounds with effect from today” and that in his place
Lt-Gen Soe Win had been appointed PM. Up to that time, Soe Win had been
Secretary-1 of the SPDC.

According to various Rangoon sources, Khin Nyunt’s wife Khin Win Shwe,
daughter Thin Le Le Win, and sons Maj Zaw Naing Oo (44th Light Infantry
Battalion, headquartered in Thayet, Magwe Division) and Ye Naing Win, an
entrepreneur who ran the country’s only Internet server, were also
detained.

It is unlikely that the deposed PM is under house arrest at his home.
Until Monday, October 18 he shared a residential compound at Eight-mile
Junction with, among others, Sr-Gen Than Shwe and Deputy Sr-Gen Maung Aye,
the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the SPDC, respectively. The housing
estate backs onto a War Office compound. Basic security concerns would
require Khin Nyunt and his family be somewhere off-site. Those concerns
would also have dictated that his power base be shut down.

The Friday evening news on October 22 announced that the SPDC had repealed
the 1983 National Intelligence Bureau Law and dissolved the National
Intelligence Bureau. The coup had become a route. The spook apparatus
appears to have been made inoperative.

Five of the seven Heads of Department at OCMI are reportedly under some
form of detention, including Brig-Gen Myint Aung Zaw (Administration),
Brig-Gen Hla Aung (Training), Brig-Gen Kyaw Han (Science and Technology),
Brig-Gen Than Tun (Politics and Counter Intelligence) and Brig-Gen Myint
Zaw (Border Security and Intelligence). OCMI posts nationwide have been
shut down or commandeered by regular army officers, while intelligence
staffers down to the rank of major have been told not to stray far from
home.
Brig-Gen Kyaw Thein (Ethnic Nationalities and Ceasefire Groups, Drugs
Suppression and Naval and Air Intelligence) is still free, while Brig-Gen
Thein Swe (International Relations), the father of Myanmar Times newspaper
co-founder “Sonny” Myat Swe, prudently retired a week or two before the
putsch and since October 18 has been claiming to be suffering from
amnesia.

There has been a flurry of house searches and asset seizures—not least the
Burma Army’s takeover of Bagan Cybertech Ltd, the Internet server run by
Ye Naing Win and OCMI Deputy Department Head Col Tin Oo.

The only senior OCMI employee unaccounted for is Deputy Chief Maj-Gen Kyaw
Win. It’s likely that he was complicit in the coup (he was a protégé of
Sr-Gen Than Shwe), perhaps feeding his immediate superior false
information at intelligence briefings. As PM with a hectic public
schedule, Khin Nyunt had no time to oversee day-to-day spook operations.
However, circumstantial evidence suggests that he wasn’t taken entirely by
surprise.

On September 12 Khin Nyunt and a party of cabinet ministers and
bureaucrats made a goodwill visit to Singapore. Its believed that during
that time, the entire 70-man OCMI detachment at Muse on the Chinese border
(including the border Security Department, better known by its Burmese
acronym Na Sa Ka) was arrested by troops from the Northeast Regional
Command on corruption charges and transported to Mandalay. The decision to
bust them can only have come from the top.

The PM and his party returned to Rangoon on September 17. The next day the
SPDC announced the “retirement” of both the minister of foreign affairs
and his deputy (who had just returned from Singapore with Khin Nyunt) and
the ministers of agriculture and irrigation and transport, the appointment
of four replacements and the reshuffling of five other portfolios.

The SPDC orders were all signed by Lt-Gen Soe Win, at that time
Secretary-1 of the SPDC. Khin Nyunt must have had a fair idea of what was
to come. According to several sources, when the OCMI building was raided
on October 18, a number of important, incriminating files were missing.
There is speculation that the PM spirited the documents out of the country
to be used as bargaining tools in the event of his being purged. The
question that remains unanswered is what was the motivation for the coup?

There are two main theories: friction over control of business turf or
that Khin Nyunt was becoming too powerful. The business turf argument is
not backed by any real evidence—the families and cronies of the elite all
got a piece of the action. The “Khin Nyunt too powerful” theory is
similarly unsubstantiated—since being appointed PM in August 2003 he has
looked increasingly marginalized and ineffectual.

His seven-point road map to political reform, unveiled shortly after
taking office, was derailed at the first stop—the constitution-drafting
National Convention, convened in May, was adjourned indefinitely in early
July. The ceasefire with the Karen National Union, negotiated by his
subordinates at the OCMI, was ignored by the Burma Army, which continued
to attack Karen troops and civilians. It looked very much as though Than
Shwe and Maung Aye were deliberately (and successfully) undermining him.

Khin Nyunt had no combat troops under his command, so no ability to pull a
coup. Possibly he was trying to use patronage to buy the loyalty of field
commanders, but there is no evidence yet (the rumor that three Light
Infantry Division commanders were detained in the purge is still to be
confirmed). His wife had built up a modest patronage-dispensing machine
through her presidency of the Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, but it
was of little relevance.

While it’s possible they had information that indicated otherwise (or that
paranoia caused them to act), Khin Nyunt didn’t appear to be a threat to
either Maung Aye or Than Shwe.

A Burmese expatriate who knew all the major players personally claims that
the purge had nothing to do with fear of the spook. Than Shwe and Maung
Aye simply held an intense personal dislike of him for years and were
looking for the right occasion to get rid of him.

Khin Nyunt had been untouchable so long as his patron, retired strongman
Ne Win, maintained influence from behind the scenes. But when Ne Win’s
son-in-law and three grandsons were arrested and convicted of “conspiring
to overthrow the state” in 2002, his moral authority evaporated and the
spy chief became vulnerable. So why did the SPDC appoint him prime
minister last year?

Than Shwe, a poor English-speaker, didn’t like having to attend
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, meetings. In the wake of
the May 30, 2003 Depayin Massacre (in which dozens, perhaps hundreds of
supporters of the opposition National League for Democracy were beaten to
death by a government-orchestrated mob), he had further reason for staying
away. In appointing Khin Nyunt PM, the responsibility for dealing with
Asean heads of state, making excuses for Depayin and trying to roll back
the US sanctions put in place after the massacre, fell to him. It also
meant he had considerably less time free to play spy.

Over the course of 15 months, with the tight US economic sanctions still
in place, Khin Nyunt could boast of no successes and looked weak. He had
demonstrated himself surplus to requirements. It’s likely that the date
for the coup was made on advice from a fortuneteller.

Note that the “retirements” of the cabinet ministers (September 18) and
the purging of Khin Nyunt (October 18) took place on dates that are both
divisible by the number nine and add up to nine (1+8=9)—doubly auspicious.
The leading members of the regime, acutely superstitious, appear to have a
penchant for “9” (the late strongman Ne Win was also very fond of 9).

That leaves Maung Aye and Than Shwe as the only two surviving members of
the original State Law and Order Restoration Council (that took power on
September 18, 1988). If their choice of new prime minister is indicative
of the future direction of the regime, there may be little good news to
look forward to. “Depayin” Soe Win, as he is called in Rangoon, is blamed
for orchestrating the 2003 Depayin Massacre.