BurmaNet News, December 23, 2004

[Editor]

December 23, 2004, Issue # 2626

Dear Reader,

BurmaNet News will next be published on January 3rd, 2005.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year,

The Editor


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Militant student group claims responsibility for Myanmar bomb attack
DVB: Burma to implement intelligence bureau's project to disband armed groups
Kao Wao News: Wanted: 10 million for the capture of guerrilla leader
SHAN: Junta-Wa hostilities reported
AP: Controversial tower to be completed next year

ON THE BORDER
SHAN: Shan draft charter presented for team approval
Narinjara: Nasaka headquarters raided by Army personnel in Arakan

DRUGS
New York Times: A corner of China in the grip of a lucrative heroin habit

REGIONAL
AFP: Detained Myanmar opposition leader to be awarded degree by Thai
university

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Aung San Suu Kyi’s security

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

December 23, Agence France Presse
Militant student group claims responsibility for Myanmar bomb attack

Bangkok: A militant Myanmar student group on Thursday claimed
responsibility for a bombing in the capital Yangon and warned that more
attacks will follow unless opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is released
from house arrest.

One worker was injured when the bomb exploded Tuesday in a restaurant
popular with foreign tourists in the capital of military-ruled Myanmar,
said state media.

The Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors -- which was behind an embassy
hostage drama in Bangkok five years ago -- said in a statement sent to AFP
that more bomb attacks would follow unless its demands are met.

The group called for the "immediate release of all political prisoners
including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" and "to hand over the state power to
National League for Democracy" which won a landslide victory in a 1990
general election.

The group is a small band of Myanmar anti-junta students, who in October
1999 stormed Myanmar's Bangkok embassy. It seized 38 hostages and demanded
the release of all political prisoners including the opposition leader.

The five gunmen released the hostages and were freed after being taken by
helicopter to the Thai-Myanmar border in a deal with the Thai authorities.

Aung San Suu Kyi condemned the embassy raid and has spoken out against
violent acts aimed at political reform.

The Nobel laureate was again detained by the junta in May 2003 following a
clash between her supporters and a pro-government gang in the north of the
country.

Myanmar's democracy figurehead has undergone two other long spells of
house arrest, one lasting for six years and the other for 19 months.

The blast was the fourth to strike Yangon this year.

The junta has blamed three bomb blasts in June on a pro-democracy-linked
"terrorist" who was allegedly trying to disrupt a controversial meeting
reworking the country's constitution.

_____________________________________

December 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma to implement intelligence bureau's project to disband armed groups

Although the SPDC State Peace and Development Council abolished the
National Intelligence Bureau NIB led by former Prime Minister Gen Khin
Nyunt, it has decided to continue to implement a project proposed by the
NIB to dissolve ethnic armed groups in hilly regions and border areas.

It has been learnt that the Defence Services Office of Strategic Studies
proposed the project at the SPDC's special military operations meeting in
early August. According to sources close to the War Office, details about
the project is still not known but the first stage of its implementation
will be to disarm groups who have agreed to cease-fire.

_____________________________________

December 23, Kao Wao News
Wanted: 10 million for the capture of guerrilla leader - Nai Lavi and Taramon

The State Peace and Development Council will pay up to 10 million Kyats
for information leading to the capture of Mon guerrilla leader, Nai Bin.

The notice states that anyone who can provide information leading to the
guerrilla’s whereabouts or who can bring him in will be awarded with the
money, according to eyewitnesses from southern Ye, Mon State.

Second leader Nai Hloin and other leaders, Nai Chan Dein and Nai Sook
Gloing (long hair) each have one million put on their heads.  “The
posters, with pictures of the men, are plastered everywhere, in every
village, in Yebyu township the public has seen them all over northern
Tenasserim Division,” Nai Ong Mon, from the area said.

“A Mon youth in Aleh Sakharn village, Yebyu Township, tore down the
posters from the notice boards in the village,” Lavi, a community leader
said. Later, he added, the SPDC soldiers wrapped up the posters with
plastic.

“Some Mon youths were arrested, held for three days and beaten. There are
about twenty youths involved in ripping down the posters; they were later
set free,” he added.

Local youths usually support the Mon armed groups and “did not want to see
the posters with pictures of their leaders” he quoted the youth as saying.
So they risked removing the posters.  He said that not only do the young
Mons support the Mon armed group, but the Karen also do too.

The posters are seen only in Yebyu Township, not in Mon state, Ong said.
The Mon armed group, led by Nai Hloin and Nai Bin brothers, has not been
seen in the area for a while, even though this is their strong hold area.

The Burma Army has launched an offensive to wipe out the Mon armed group
and the insurgents in turn use ambush tactics and guerrilla warfare.
Conflict between the groups has been raging now for about (8) years
non-stop in southern Ye and Yebyu Townships.

_____________________________________

December 23, Shan Herald Agency for News
Junta-Wa hostilities reported

An arms clash between unidentified force believed to be Wa and a Burma
Army unit had sent both Thai and Shan agents along the border rushing to
Chiangrai's Mae Fah Luang district, facing Burma's Monghsat township
yesterday:

At 07:55, according to a solid source, a company of Tachilek-based Light
Infantry Battalion, led by Lt Myo Min Thant, ran into a 30-men armed band.
During the ensuing 15 minutes, the unknown group was able to disengage and
withdraw apparently without suffering any serious casualty. On the Burma
Army's side, 5 were wounded, two seriously. (They were later reported
dead)

Reinforcements from the neighboring units: Monghpyak-based LIB 329 and
Mongpiang-based LIB 360 later carried out a probing operation firing 81 mm
mortar shells into likely hide-outs all day long but failed to uncover the
mysterious hostile troops, they said.

The Shan State Army of Col Yawdserk had denied outright the unknown band
was one of its own. "If you look at the map, you'll understand why it
wasn't us," argued Lt-Col Gawnzeun, Commander of the Kengtung Front that
is operating in the area. (Map attached)

"The section on this side of the border is thick with hostile troops," he
explained. "It would have been foolish of us to traverse it."

A Wa source in Mongton confirmed this morning that it was an encounter
between the United Wa State Army's patrol and that of the Burma Army.

A high-ranking Thai security official had put it in the following way:

"On 10 December, a two-truck convoy was ambushed by an unidentified force
near Mongtoom, killing 4 (the death toll increased to 6, when two more
were found dead) including Col Khin Maung Latt (not Khin Maung Hla). The
Burma Army had dismissed the SSA, saying it would be too much of a fluke
for it.

Reports later of the killing of 7-8 Burmese officers near Htalang on 17
December by the Wa was said to have been brought about following
insinuations by the former of the likelihood of the latter's connection to
the attack.

In the light of those two previous events, it is different to imagine the
latest clash was not with the Wa."

"The trouble," he continued, "is that the Burmese keep saying it was the
SSA, and not the UWSA, who was the guilty party on both the first and
third counts. As for the second count, they have yet to say anything.
Maybe they are in the know of something we don't."

He added that the Thais had yet to "acquit" the SSA. "We'll still be
closely following their activities," he said.

The Thai-Burma border meeting, township level, was held today in
Chiangrai. It is yet to be reported what topics the two sides discussed.

Meanwhile, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma reported that
relations between Rangoon and Panghsang, the Wa capital on the Chinese
border, was becoming touchy due to the former's units setting up camps in
the latter's territory without prior consultations.

_____________________________________

December 23, Associated Press
Controversial tower to be completed next year

Rangoon: A controversial viewing tower at Burma’s ancient temple city of
Pagan, one of Asia’s greatest archaeological sites, will be finished early
next year, a state-run newspaper reported Thursday.

Eighty percent of the 200-foot-tall (60-meter-tall) tower has been built
and it should be completed by February, the Burmese-language Myanma Ahlin
reported, quoting Teza, head of the Htoo Trading company which is building
the tower.

Critics maintain the cylindrical steel tower will blemish the site.

Burma’s ruling junta says the tower will boost tourist revenues at the
World Heritage Site by giving visitors a bird’s-eye view of Pagan. The
tower is also intended to help protect the site —authorities will bar
visitors from clambering over the ancient pagodas that are being damaged
by thousands of invading feet every day.

The 1,000-year-old temple complex is the country’s most popular tourist
destination comprising thousands of Buddhist temples and monuments spread
among rice paddies over an area of more than 80 square kilometers (32
square miles).

More than 4,400 pagodas and 3,000 other religious structures were built in
Pagan, Burma’s former capital, during a 243-year period starting in the
11th century of extraordinary Buddhist fervor.

Today, 2,237 ruins and temples remain, and many are still used by
worshippers.

Tour guides complain that the tower, set to be taller than every temple in
the complex but one, will ruin the beauty of the area. But fear of the
junta is such that no one is willing to voice opposition publicly.

UNESCO, the UN agency with the power to grant or withhold World Heritage
status and the accompanying funding, has spoken out against the tower.

The tower will house offices, shops and a restaurant. The project includes
45 bungalows for tourists, the newspaper reported.

More tourists were visiting Pagan, the Myanma Ahlin reported, citing
36,678 visitors through November 2004.

_____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

December 23, Shan Herald Agency for News
Shan draft charter presented for team approval

A long wait after it was formed in the year 2000, the Shan Constitution
Drafting Commission in exile, has come up with its "bottom-up" first draft
to be debated and adopted prior to the release for public review, said the
Commission's chairman on Saturday, 18 December.

"The reason for the delay was that we were doing our best to make it a
document of the people that is written collectively by the people for the
people," declared Sao Seng Suk a.k.a Hkun Kya Nu, 69, son of Hkun Kya Bu,
a signatory of the historic Panglong Agreement of 1947. "The Commission,
especially myself, is only putting their wishes together."

The 106-page "outline" has 8 chapters (Characteristics, Bill of Rights,
Legislature, Legislative powers, National Executive, Judiciary Power,
General Provisions and Amendment of the Constitution) 19 sections and 295
sub-sections.

Apart from being a bottom-up draft "made up of copious feedbacks from the
people inside", it also boasts of 4 other prominent features:

The Shan State will be a federal union composed of states, sub-states and
autonomous regions. ("It will also hopefully serve as a model for the
Federal Union of Burma")

The people of Shan State will decide whether it will be part of the future
Federal Union of Burma or a separate nation.

The Shan State government will be chosen by the Upper House i.e. the House
of Nationalities and not by the House of Representatives.

The role of local governments, Shan State being a multi-ethnic state, has
been especially focused. Three separate sections with 31 sub-sections have
been devoted to the subject.
According to the resolutions of the 36th monthly meeting of the SS-CDC on
Saturday, the draft would be translated into Burmese before it was
considered by the 11-member Commission.

"I hope it will stir up constructive debates among all those concerned to
produce a draft agreed by all," Sao Seng Suk, who is concurrently
President of the Shan Democratic Union, said.

The SS-CDC was elected at a meeting attended by 50 representatives from
various organizations from Shan State, 8-11 September 2000, that had
commissioned its task as the incorporation of a federal structure and a
democratic decentralized administrative system for the Shan State.

Among the seven non-Burman states of Burma, Karen, Karenni, Chin and Mon
have already completed their first drafts and are in the process of
gathering more feedbacks. The authors hope the whole process will
eventually lead to the emergence of a genuine federation and national
reconciliation, according to the late Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (1939-2004), who
was credited as the originator of the concept.

For more information, please contact Sao Seng Suk, Chairman of the Shan
State Constitution Drafting Commission, Email <syammax at cscoms.com> Tel:
66-1-595 0351.

_____________________________________

December 23, Narinjara News
Nasaka headquarters raided by Army personnel in Arakan

Maungdaw, Dec23: The border security force of the Nasaka headquarters,
located in the west border town Maungdaw, was raided by a column of the
Burmese army and a number of Nasaka officers were arrested on December 21,
said a witness living near the headquarters.

The raid was led by two commanders from Buthidaung Station, including over
100 soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion No. 345, and was acting under
the Military Planning Bureau No. 15's order.

There was no report of the number of Nasaka officials that were arrested
and the reasons for their detention is still unclear.

A source said that the Commander in Chief of Nasaka, Let-Col Aung Ngwe,
was one of the arrestees and that he was taken to an army station of
Buthidaung soon after he was arrested.

Aung Ngwe had just returned to the headquarters to resume his duties, on
December 6, from a military training for the senior army personnel named
at the Military Defence University of Burma.

It was reported that before the raid, the Military Planning Bureau
summoned the Nasaka zone commanders to gather in the Nasaka headquarters,
in order to give some important information to them.

A local resident said it is a little early to say what exactly happened in
the Nasaka headquarters, hoping to confirm it within the next few days.

The acting Nasaka Commander Let-Col Myint Oo is currently under
interrogation due to his involvement in drug trafficking to a neighboring
country.

Nasaka is a combined force formed by several government organizations
including the Army, Police, Riot police, Customs, the Immigration
Department and the Intelligent Unit for the supervision and preservation
on border area.

_____________________________________
DRUGS

December 23, The New York Times
A corner of China in the grip of a lucrative heroin habit - Howard W. French

Banlao, China: The road to this town, treacherous and narrow, ends after
miles of knee-deep mud on a mountain path that looks down upon the clouds.
It was market day, and the gently sloping main street was so choked with
people and goods changing hands that for all the tattered clothes and
sun-creased faces, the place radiated a measure of prosperity.

The magic of the larger market that has lifted so much of China out of
poverty has bypassed most of this region, where peasants live as they have
for generations, carrying firewood on their backs and farming the steep,
terraced slopes by hand. But Banlao, otherwise lost in the shadows of tall
mountains, where neighboring Myanmar, formerly Burma, looms visible in the
distance, has another source of wealth.

The authorities say 10 percent of China's illegal narcotics traffic enters
through the surrounding Lancang Prefecture and 85 percent of the arrests
in this part of southwestern Yunnan Province are made in this one hamlet.

During a simple lunch of noodles at a sidewalk restaurant, a local man was
asked where to look for signs of the illicit wealth. Barely interrupting
his meal, he gestured with his head to a storefront across the street.
With its slatted doors, big glass windows and new tile roof, it indeed
stood out, with the clean look of a Japanese sushi restaurant.

''That was a restaurant built by a drug dealer,'' the man announced
casually. ''He was arrested, then executed.'' As he spoke, he lifted his
hand to his head, mimicking a pistol, and pulled the trigger. If what the
man was saying was true, it would be a typical fate.

Local folk say that perhaps 70 percent of the shops on the single business
street were built by people who made their money in the heroin trade, and
that half of those arrested have been executed.

Heroin has a particularly repugnant resonance for the Chinese government,
tied up so deeply as it is with the country's subjugation at the hands of
Western powers in the 19th century, when British trading companies
promoted opium addiction among Chinese as a way, in part, of balancing
their trade.

Drug use was almost eradicated under Communist rule but returned after the
easing of border controls and social constraints in the 1980's. Since
then, year after year of strenuous campaigns have done little to stem the
flow of narcotics across the border from Myanmar and Laos.

The poverty here is one cause. The nearest junior high school is still
several miles away, on a road so bad that only tractors can navigate it.
Electricity arrived five years ago, and mobile phone service came just
last year.

Some here say one million yuan, or about $120,000, is not an uncommon
payback for those who are willing to hike the 20 miles or so into Myanmar
to sneak the drug back into China, where a portion will be sold by crime
syndicates for domestic use and the bulk of it exported.

''The police have been fighting this problem intensively since the 1980's,
but people are so poor here there's no difference between being alive or
dead,'' said Mo Zaigang, 36, a peasant who together with friends spoke
with a stranger in the backyard of a tumbledown, barrackslike home, where
peas dried on the ground in the sun. ''The only way is going out,'' he
said, using the common shorthand for seeking one's fortune in the drug
trade.

As his friends nodded in assent, Mr. Mo added, matter-of-factly: ''I am
sure you can make a lot of money if you're not caught. Others get nothing,
though, and just lose their lives.''

With that, the men's conversation shifted to the ebb and flow of misery
here, from the severest times they could remember, before the reforms
begun 25 years ago, when collective farming was still in force. One man
said people ate leaves off trees to survive.

As China's economic liberation gathered speed in the 1980's and the
borders opened a bit here, many people became migrant workers on poppy
farms in Myanmar, getting their first taste of the heroin trade. Then came
outright trafficking, followed by severe crackdowns, with big police
sweeps, compulsory re-education programs and frequent executions.

But the enforcement efforts have hardly dented the drug trade because,
many here say, poverty is not the only cause. Official corruption, they
say, a plague that spares little in China, is also a factor.

Tales abound of how relatives of trafficking suspects have offered large
sums of money to the police, only to have the cash disappear and their
relatives sent away for imprisonment or execution. In China people can be
executed for possession of as little as 50 grams of heroin, less than two
ounces.

Whether true or not, other commonly heard stories are more sinister still,
involving rumored collusion between Burmese drug lords and the Chinese
police.

''People buy the drugs from a boss in Burma, and the boss informs on them
to the police,'' said Mo Shuli, a resident in another part of the town
whose nephew was recently arrested, having been found with a friend in
possession of over 1,000 grams, more than two pounds. ''The boss takes the
money, and the police here get to boast of another success.''

Mr. Mo, whose wife cut and diced sections of heart of palm to feed to a
hog that grunted impatiently in its pen nearby, made no attempt to claim
his nephew's innocence.

''The boy needed money, and nobody warned him in time,'' he said. ''He is
locked up now, and has left behind his little daughter. I am sure he is
filled with regret.''

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

December 23, Agence France Presse
Detained Myanmar opposition leader to be awarded degree by Thai university

Bangkok: Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to be
awarded an honorary doctorate by a Thai university for her role in
promoting democracy and human rights, Rangsit University said Thursday.

The Nobel Laureate will be awarded the doctorate degree in politics,
philosophy and economics for "her heart-rending commitment to the
principles of democracy, human rights and freedom," the private Bangkok
university said in a statement.

A representative of Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest in
Myanmar's capital Yangon, will attend Sunday's award ceremony on her
behalf, said the Bangkok Post.

Aung San Suu Kyi has emerged as an icon of democracy during her struggle
against Myanmar's military, which has maintained an iron grip over the
impoverished Southeast Asian nation for more than four decades.

The winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize has not been seen in public since
May 2003 when she was detained by the junta following a clash between her
supporters and a pro-government gang in the north of the country.

Myanmar's democracy figurehead has undergone two other long spells of
house arrest, one lasting for six years and the other for 19 months.

Her silence during the years of the first house arrest galvanized global
opposition to the military-regime which was denounced by the United
Nations, governments and human rights groups worldwide.

Aung San Suu Ky's National League for Democracy and security officials
said in late November that her detention had been extended by another
year. News of the extension prompted further international condemnation.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

December 23, Irrawaddy
Aung San Suu Kyi’s security - Wai Moe

Burma’s State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, extended
pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest for a further year on
November 26. Last week the junta restricted access to her doctor and
reduced the number of aides allowed to stay at her house.

The UN, the United States and opposition groups have voiced concern. Since
1988, Aung San Suu Kyi has been subjected to violent
government-orchestrated attacks several times.

In June 1989, her car was shot at by troops near Mayangone junction,
Rangoon.  The government’s excuse was that the soldiers did not recognize
Suu Kyi and the shooting was the result of a misunderstanding. The
explanation rang hollow—she was already one of the most photographed and
instantly recognizable faces in Asia.

Also in 1989, as she traveled across the country building support for her
National League for Democracy Party, or NLD, there was regular harassment
from the military. In Irrawaddy Division, for instance, Suu Kyi on several
occasions had guns pointed at her and on one occasion was told by a
captain that if she crossed the line, his troops would shoot her.

In November 1996, as Suu Kyi and NLD vice chairman Tin Oo drove to meet a
crowd near Kokkine junction, Rangoon, a 200-strong mob attacked their car
with iron bars and rocks. She was unhurt but Tin Oo suffered minor
injuries. Witnesses said the young thugs arrived on military trucks. The
attack took place in a lane in front of the house of senior NLD member Kyi
Maung—a lane to which public access is not permitted.

More recently, on May 30, 2003 Aung San Suu Kyi’s convoy was ambushed by a
government-orchestrated mob in Depayin, in Burma’s northwest Sagaing
Division. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of her supporters were killed and
hundreds more injured. Since then, Suu Kyi and Tin Oo have been under
arrest.

On December 16 this year, the NLD announced its concern for her security,
given the new government restrictions on the conditions of her house
arrest. “We are gravely concerned about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s security as
there is no one to take care of her security at present except for two
women who are assisting her,” the NLD statement said.

Up until December, Suu Kyi’s personal physician Tin Myo Win was allowed to
visit her three times a week but now he is permitted only once a week. In
the past, she had thirteen NLD guards, but the junta decreed this month
that she was allowed only six. In protest, Suu Kyi dismissed all of her
security detail.

Kyaw Thwin, an NLD member who won a seat representing Kayan, Rangoon
Division, spent ten years in prison. He claims that prison authorities
mixed galena (lead sulfide) with the drinking water and as a result many
prisoners suffered bone problems. He is concerned that the government
might try to poison Suu Kyi, an action that would be easier now that she
has no security detail.

Nyo Ohn Myint, currently foreign affairs deputy for the NLD in exile, was
one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s bodyguards in 1988 and 1989. He claims that the
role of the NLD guards is very important because they test all meals
before she eats.

“In the Ukraine the opposition leader was poisoned, so maybe Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi could be also poisoned,” said Nyo Ohn Myint. “I do not trust the
junta with her life.”