BurmaNet News, January 21, 2005

[Editor]

January 21, 2005, Issue # 2640


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: NMSP to hold meeting over attendance of Burma’s convention
DVB: UNDP says it didn’t refuse to defend a Burmese political prisoner

ON THE BORDER
SHAN: Burma opens wider door for gamblers
Star Online: A place that truly surprises

BUSINESS
Xinhua: Myanmar launches ICT week to promote IT development

REGIONAL
Economist: The forgotten; After the tsunami

INTERNATIONAL
DVB: Japan will continue to persuade Burma junta to talk to opposition

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Rice’s ‘tyranny’ statement fires hope and enthusiasm

_____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 20, Democratic Voice of Burma
NMSP to hold meeting over attendance of Burma’s convention

One of the armed ethnic national groups, known as ceasefire groups, which
signed ceasefire agreements with Burma’s military junta, State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), New Mon State Party (NMSP) is planning to hold
a meeting to discuss the matter of resuming the attendance of the
“National Convention” organised by the junta. The meeting was originally
planned to be held on 13 January, but it was postponed because of the
health condition of NMSP chairman Naing Htin. "Now that he is recovering
and we are going to have the meeting soon," the NMSP spokesman Naing Thein
Win told DVB. But he made no comment about the meeting. But political
observers said that NMSP leaders are in a quandary as to attend the
convention or not. Some leaders want to quit the convention outright as it
could offer nothing to Mon people but some want to resume the attendance
as the party doesn’t want to be the only quitter among ceasefire groups.
Political observers in Rangoon are urging ceasefire groups including NMSP
to hold a preliminary meeting among themselves so as to prevent the
previous scenario of being rejected by the junta when they put forward the
ideas on federated Burma.

_____________________________________

January 20, Democratic Voice of Burma
UNDP says it didn’t refuse to defend a Burmese political prisoner

An official of the Rangoon branch of UNDP told DVB that his organisation
didn’t refuse to appear as witness at a court for a Burmese political
prisoner who was charged with distributing leaflets containing UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights as reported. The official said that
no request was made from either the court or the lawyer of Saw Pan Koo, a
youth member of National League for Democracy (NLD) from Bogale Township
in Irrawaddy Division. He also expressed his serious concern over the
case, and he insisted that the charge was a mistake as it could not be a
criminal proceeding to distribute the leaflets as the contents are
included in the school curriculum with the agreement of the junta. He also
said that the leaflets have been distributed legally at the information
centre and anyone could come and pick them up. Earlier, the lawyer of Saw
Pan Koo, U Tin Win told DVB that the UNDP official in Rangoon did not show
up at the court hearing but he said the authorities have now also dropped
the charge of distributing leaflets against Saw Pan Koo. But they are
continuing to charge and detain him with the original charge of trying to
celebrate the Burmese National Day, his laywer said. DVB: 20 Jan 2005

_____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 21, Shan Herald Agency for News
Burma opens wider door for gamblers - Hawkeye

Hurt by China's closure of its borders to its lavish gamblers, Burmese
authorities have given green light to Thai casino owners in Tachilek to
expand their establishments, according to sources in Chiangrai:

"It means there will be sub-contractors who will be running their own
operations by paying the big dealers who are already firmly established in
Burma, such as the Regina in downtown Tachilek and the Paradise Resort in
Monghpong at the Golden Triangle," said a professional card artist in
Maesai, Tachilek's Thai twin city in Chiangrai province. "Normally Thais
coming to Burma pay 10 baht (now 100 kyat or $0.10 since the new border
trade unit took over earlier this month) for entry, but for gambling
visitors, it is 200 baht ($5). Rooms in Regina that ordinarily costs Baht
5,000-10,000 per night are free for them throughout their stay."

Due to Chinese restrictions on their blacklisted gamblers, all gambling
establishments along the Burma border from north to south: Laiza and Mai
Jayan in Kachin State, and Muse, Laokai (Laukkai), Panghsang and Mongla in
Shan State are all suffering from reduced income, according to a Chinese
born Shan businessman in Dehong prefecture, opposite northern Shan State.

Beijing's closure has not been selective either. "It's borders with Laos,
Vietnam and North Korea are also saying no to all of its gamblers," he
said. "The reason is the number of crimes and official misappropriations
of public funds have been on the rise and the government wants to put a
stop to them."

The Regina is owned by Kiatichai Chaichaowarat, former MP from Udon Thani,
and the Golden Triangle Paradise Resort by the Phosuthon brothers and
Somsak Thepsuthin, who is a minister in the present Thai government.

_____________________________________

January 16, The Star Online
A place that truly surprises

K.P. Lee discovers the shady underbelly of the strangely schizoid border
region of China’s Yunnan province.

Delve no further than the veneer of genteel superficiality and sunny
Ruili, with its well-tended palms and spacious, clean pavements, could be
a most agreeable town. A place for an afternoon of shopping for
semi-precious stones, or savouring a refreshing glass of fresh tropical
fruit juice under a gaudy parasol.

To this ambience is added a dash of colour not often seen elsewhere in
Han- dominated China. The signs of life in this small town in the extreme
south-west cor- ner of Yunnan province are louder, more garish and, in the
midst of the uniformity of a billion look-alike Chinese, seemingly more
attractive.

The people here – darker and more exot- ic – reveal faces from Myanmar and
further afield, Bangladesh and India. In Ruili’s market, chapatti and
curry for breakfast is a realistic option, while women dressed in longyi,
the traditional Burmese sarong, going about their daily business of
trading and shopping all contribute to the impres- sion this is an exotic
albeit undemanding place of rural innocence.

Ruili comes alive at night: these food stalls do a roaring business late
into the night.But, alas, the illusion – for that is what this is – stays
intact only as long as the sun is in the sky. When night falls, a murkier
complexion emerges that reveals that nothing in this town is quite what it
seems.

Located close to China’s border with Myanmar on the old Burma Road between
Kunming and Lashio, Ruili, with a border crossing that’s closed to
everyone except local traders, is officially a dead end at the edge of
China. Getting here from Kunming, the Yunnan provincial capital, is such a
long, hard haul that it’s difficult to imagine anyone just casually
stumbling upon this remote outpost – everyone who is in Ruili must be here
deliberately.

And that’s something to keep in mind as you join the late night crowd of
thousands that seem to have emerged from nowhere, all streaming towards
the busy food stalls that sell everything from lamb stew to dog meat
satay, then following huge flashing neon signs leading to thumping roller
discos, nightclubs and karaoke bars.

Who are these people? And where were they during the day?

Pillar of the economy

I discerned a clue to those questions in the many shops in town that only
raise their shutters to trade at night. These ubiquitous night businesses
don’t have, or need, sign- boards: what’s on sale is obvious. In each
shop, up to 10 girls, some no more than teenagers, sit on sofas staring
blankly into television sets under pink fluorescent lights, or squat
around low tables playing mah-jong. And all can be bought for the right
price – by the hour, night, and, one imagines, for a lifetime.

“Come here, sit down and have a cup of tea. We have very pretty girls
here, just come and take a look,” is a typical invita- tion to step
through the open shop front.

By the number of brothels operating openly, there is little doubt
prostitution is a key pillar of the economy. Unlike in other places where
such establishments are disguised as massage parlours or health centres
hidden in seedy back alleys, there seems little need for pretence here.

The world’s oldest profession dominates commerce to such an extent that
whole length of one of Ruili’s major thoroughfares, Maohan Lu, has hardly
any other stores.

Other businesses like restaurants and banks are squeezed out onto side
streets, for the red light district is the central business district.

The Wa people of Myanmar have traditionally been poppy farmers. In China,
they have moved on to grow other crops like sweet corn. I counted more
than 50 such shops in the small town centre alone on Maohan Lu and its
adjoining streets that were strangely legitimised by the symbols of civic
affluence – bright new sodium street lighting, wide pavements, and
strolling families among the well-watered and aestheticallylit palm trees.

As business isn’t particularly brisk, some girls appear willing to chat.
Xiaoli from Chengdu in Sichuan province seems typical.

“I broke up with my boyfriend and needed some money. That’s why I am
here,” she said. Dressed in a simple white blouse and jeans, she claims to
be 21 years old, but looks and sounds 16.

Xiaoli says she was lured here by a girl- friend offering “job
opportunities”, not knowing she would end up a sex worker.

“Now that I am here, what else can I do? I have only been doing this for a
few weeks but I will go back home by Chinese New Year after I have earned
some money.”

Many girls like Xiaoli, however, don’t make it back home. For Ruili is not
a town of brothels for nothing: non-governmental organisations working
with sex workers in Thailand are convinced it’s a hub in a sophisticated
smuggling business that stretches all the way from China to Singapore.

They say Ruili is a key transit stop en route to the more “lucrative
markets” further south. Even as these girls appear to be exploited here,
one can imagine exploitation would have only just begun for them as
smugglers, agents and corrupt officials en route to a go-go bar in Bangkok
or karaoke lounge in Kuala Lumpur demand their share of the spoils of a
well-established trade.

The drug connection

But the route that crosses the porous border near Ruili, down Myanmar’s
Shan State to the border town of Tachilek, across from Mae Sai in northern
Thailand is hardly a one-way street.

If human traffic moves down one way, the trade in illicit drugs from the
Golden Triangle finds its most promising market by moving in the opposite
direction to China.

For hundreds of kilometres along the mountainous Yunnan border, China
meets the part of Myanmar controlled by an assortment of armed groups,
like the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) and the United Wa State
Army (UWSA), regarded by international drug enforcement officials as the
world’s largest armed drugs operations.

These groups, which have signed cease- fire agreements with the Myanmar
military junta, are given free reign to control the areas bordering China
and Thailand where farmers traditionally grow poppy for opium, the raw
material for heroin.

Little wonder then that with a deadly cocktail of easy sex, cheap drugs
and a large migrant population, Ruili has the unen- viable distinction of
being the place with the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in China.

China’s Yunnan province, together with Thailand, are the major
transhipment routes for heroin from Myanmar, the world’s second largest
producer of illicit drugs after Afghanistan, according to the US State
Department’s narcotics bureau.

“Although Thailand remains an impor- tant route for Burmese heroin to exit
South-East Asia, trafficking through China has increased significantly
over the past several years,” it said in a report. And the Burma Road from
Ruili to Kunming had become the premier drug smuggling highway.

Becoming legit

Chen Chow, a primary school teacher in Xi Men, a small village bordering
an UWSA- controlled area in Myanmar, sees the drug business going on every
day from the windows of his classroom.

“Half the students in my class are from across in Myanmar and their
parents are all Wa poppy farmers,” he said. “Everyone there is counting on
this coming harvest as their last chance to make a big profit.”

But since international organisations, like the World Food Programme,
began assisting former poppy growers with cash comensations and crop
replacement programmes, the armed groups – at least out-wardly – have
started to move into different businesses.

Former drug lords have been granted the mark of semi-respectability by
venturing into “legitimate” businesses like banking, airlines and hotels,
and now circulate with- in the highest social circles of Myanmar’s capital
city, Yangon.

Investment has also reached the newly established “opium-free” regions on
the border with China and Thailand, spurring development of a different
kind.

At Mong La, located across the border in Myanmar south of the Yunnan town
of Jinghong, NDAA chief Lin Minxiang has built what locals describe as
“the Las Vegas of the jungle” complete with multiple casi- nos, brothels
and transvestite shows, all overlooked by his hilltop mansion.

And new casinos are sprouting all along the border. At Jiegao, a few
kilometres across the border from Ruili, agents are offering to “smuggle”
visitors across the closed Myanmar border.

“Just 150 Yuan (about RM68) for a tour of the sights, but it’s free if all
you want to do is gamble,” says a man calling himself a travel agent.
“Don’t worry. You don’t need a passport or ID. It’s very safe, and you
don’t have to pay until you get back. Satisfaction guaranteed.” It sounds
too good to be true.

I ask how exactly we are to cross the border under the gaze of so many
Chinese and Myanmar guards. The answer is hardly reassuring. “We take you
by taxi to a place along the river and bring you across by a small boat.
There, another taxi will meet you. We will smuggle you back the same way,”
he says.

Across the border from Ruili alone, there are 12 such casinos, says Tuan
Li Chueen, a baccarat croupier for one of the gambling outfits. Although
the casinos are in Myanmar, most of the staff there are Chinese, she says.
All transactions are conducted in Chinese Yuan.

“It’s just a job for me but you get paid well, more than anything here,”
Tuan says as she rushes through a lunch of noodles close to the border
post. “I’m late for work already. It’s the holidays and the crowds are
always good. The Chinese really like to gamble.”

She declines to answer a question on the owners of the casinos. “Well,
they are ‘businessmen’ from Myanmar. I think you already know,” she
smiles.

When I tell her of my reluctance to cross the border illegally, she says I
have nothing to fear. “You know, the casino I work for is run
professionally. It’s very nice inside: you’ll enjoy it!”

After Tuan leaves the table, the noodle stall owner, who had apparently
been lis- tening in on our conversation, cautions me. “Don’t listen to
her. Never visit those casinos. You will lose everything, every single
yuan you have will be gone. We hear tragic stories every week: it’s a big
scam,” she says.

That seems to be part of daily life here in these parts: activities
illegal anywhere else are accepted business practice and there are no
certainties – except that nothing comes with guarantee. This is truly a
place that never fails to surprise.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS

January 21, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar launches ICT week to promote IT development

Yangon: Myanmar unveiled a series of ICT week activities here Friday to
promote the development of the country's information technology (IT)
sector.

The week-long activities, held at the Yangon ICT Park, include exhibition
of ICT (information and communications technology) products from companies
both at home and abroad, ICT-related talks and workshops as well as ICT
contests.

The Yangon ICT park, built at a cost of about 10 million US dollars, was
inaugurated in January 2002 to provide modern communication services to
local and foreign IT companies for e( electronic)-commerce, e-learning and
other IT-related works.

Following the establishment of the ICT park in the capital, there emerged
the second in Mandalay, the country's second largest city, in August 2003,
creating higher standard education and job opportunities for the young
generation and giving rise to computer training centers and helping set up
the e-government system in the country.

For education and human resources development in the IT sector, the
government is also offering encouragement and incentives to investment in
the field.

Myanmar has been implementing an ICT development master plan under the
Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) for the progress of the sector.

The ICT development is among the four priority areas under the IAI agreed
at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in
2000, aimed at narrowing the development gap among the regional members by
assisting the four newer members -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Besides, efforts are also underway to systematically implement the tasks
under e(electronic)-ASEAN Framework Agreement (AFA) which calls for
development of information infrastructure, emergence of e-commerce and
e-government systems, lifting of restriction on ICT commodities, services
and investment and increasing of them, and building of ICT capacity to
create an e- society after reducing the digital divide among regional
members.

Thanks to the move, Myanmar has been on a par with other regional members
in terms of work progress, having launched e-visa, e-passport,
e-government portal and e-procurement and contributing much to the
effective management of government bodies.

Myanmar introduced e-education system in early 2001. Being a signatory to
the e-AFA initiated at 2000 Singapore summit, Myanmar has formed the
e-National Task Force to support the IT development.

Meanwhile, the country has also signed a series of memorandums of
understanding in 2003 with companies from Malaysia, Thailand and an ASEAN
organization on ICT development.

Myanmar has been awarded for ICT development in 2003 by the Asian Oceanian
Computing Industry Organization.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

January 22, The Economist
The forgotten; After the tsunami

Migrants from Myanmar are suffering in Thailand

Khao lak: Of all the countries struck by the Indian Ocean tsunami, Myanmar
may have got off lightest. Its official death toll is just 59. Exiled
opposition groups are sceptical of this figure, given the track record of
Myanmar's secretive regime, though aid agencies broadly concur. But while
those at home escaped the worst, Myanmarese workers in neighbouring
Thailand have suffered a double calamity.

Around 120,000 of them work in southern Thailand, half of them illegally,
in fishing, construction and agriculture. At least 2,500 are estimated to
have died in Phang Nga province, which took the biggest hit on December
26th. One fishing village was reduced to mud and rubble, while most of the
resorts on nearby Khao Lak beach are now fit only for the bulldozer.

Now the migrants who survived the tsunami are caught in a bind. In recent
weeks, Thai police have rounded up migrants, accusing them of looting or
illegal entry and deporting them. Even documented workers say they are too
scared to come out. The Thai government claims that humanitarian
assistance has gone to all who needed it, regardless of nationality or
legal status. But aid workers say local officials and villagers are loth
to share their funds with the Myanmarese. In any case, few migrants speak
Thai or are bold enough to press for help.

Myanmar's embassy hasn't even bothered to inquire after its nationals, let
alone sent officials to the scene. The confirmed death toll in Thailand is
5,322. But the corpses of suspected migrants go unclaimed because
Myanmarese are too afraid to visit the mortuaries where Thai and foreign
forensic teams are busy trying to identify the victims. Myanmarese
volunteers have estimated the death toll in Phang Nga by interviewing
villagers, migrants and their employers. The rest is deduction. "We have a
growing number of bodies that are unidentified. No one is claiming them.
The assumption is they are Myanmarese," said a UN official.

There is some hope, though, that market forces could help the survivors.
The rebuilding of damaged resorts has begun, even before government money
starts to flow. Banks are rolling over loans to property investors. All
this should mean plenty of dirty, dangerous jobs for Myanmarese migrants.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 20, Democratic Voice of Burma
Japan will continue to persuade Burma junta to talk to opposition

The Japanese government is to keep on “persuading” Burma’s military junta,
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to start political dialogues
with the main opposition group, National League for Democracy (NLD) and
ethnic national groups to solve the problems of the country, said a
Japanese official during a recent interview with DVB. The director of
Southeast Asian Affairs of the Japanese Foreign Department, Mizu Koshi
told DVB that the Japanese government wants the junta to work for the
emergence of democracy in Burma and that he doesn’t want to make any
comment on the junta-sponsored “National Convention” as it is not known on
what basis the junta is going to reconvene it. But when asked about his
government attitude on the unilateral nature of the convention, the
official replied that his government has always urged the junta to talk to
the NLD and the like “whenever there is an opportunity”. Burmese political
activists in Japan expressed their despair at the Japanese government’s
lukewarm foreign policy on Burma. “I am very depressed by the fact the
Japanese government even doesn’t know that the NLD urged the junta to have
a political dialogue before the resumption of the convention. If the
Japanese government is to use positive foreign policies (towards Burma),
it needs to listen to both side,” said one of the protesters who have been
staging demonstrations in front the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 21, Irrawaddy
Rice’s ‘tyranny’ statement fires hope and enthusiasm - Aung Zaw

The world listened warily as US president George W. Bush delivered his
inaugural speech.

Although the address was filled with words and thoughts of “freedom” and
“liberty”, the immediate question being asked is whether the
administration’s war machine will now go to Iran or North Korea.

As violence grows in Iraq, skeptics ask whether Bush will deliver freedom
to the world or more carnage? Their doubts are shared in almost every
corner of the world— in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Yet in Burma, a country run for decades by a powerful dictatorial regime,
people are pleased with the Bush administration. The home-based opposition
and activists in exile are hoping that the administration will do more on
Burma.

Burma? Yes, that country flanked by two powerful giants, China and India,
and which is not on Washington’s top priority list.

In today’s Burma there is consequently a mixed reaction to Bush’s second
term of office.

Some dissidents who have been deeply frustrated by their long struggle,
see a ray of hope. And the ray has been cast by Bush’s new Secretary of
State, Condoleezza Rice.

During her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, just before Bush’s
inauguration, Rice named Burma as one of a group of nations that she said
were “outposts of tyranny” (the others were North Korea, Iran, Cuba,
Belarus and Zimbabwe).

“In our world, there remain outposts of tyranny, and America stands with
oppressed people on every continent, in Cuba, and Burma, and North Korea,
and Iran, and Belarus, and Zimbabwe,” she declared.

The comment pleased a number of Burmese dissidents.

Zin Linn, head of the information department of the exiled National
Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, or NCGUB, said in Bangkok that
the group expected the US to take more interest in Burma and play a more
active role.

Dissidents in Rangoon, however, voiced frustration as they countered a
situation of despair in the country.

The main opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for
Democracy, or NLD, has shown little enthusiasm about Rice’s statement.

 Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National
University of Singapore, thought US policy towards Burma would remain
unchanged. He thinks that Washington’s policy on Burma would stay the
same regardless of what party won the White House.

Speaking to the BBC’s Burmese Service in London, U Lwin, Secretary of the
NLD, expressed his doubt about US political leverage on Burma and said he
doesn’t expect any dramatic policy shift in Washington’s Burma policy.

Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National
University of Singapore, thought US policy towards Burma would remain
unchanged. He thinks that Washington’s policy on Burma would stay the same
regardless of what party won the White House.

Kyaw Yin Hlaing believes, however, that Washington will have to make a
hard decision in 2006, when Burma is due take over chairmanship of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, and hold a regional
summit.

He said one possibility is that Washington may not send its officials to
Asean meetings in 2006, if they are held in Burma.

Speaking to the BBC’s Burmese Service, Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Sihasak Phuangketkeow, said Thailand would continue to pursue dialogue
with the generals. Though Bangkok wanted to see political development in
Burma the approach might differ from Washington’s.

To the Burmese opposition, Bush is anyway siding with a good cause.

Burmese dissidents wanted Bush to win in 2004 because they believed “the
administration will keep a strong policy on Burma.” Washington remains one
of the strongest vocal critics of the Burmese junta, and there are calls
for even tighter sanctions.

In July 2004, Bush signed a law extending a range of trade sanctions on
Burma, imposed the previous year as a penalty for failing to improve its
human rights record, clamp down on drug trafficking or release opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

The Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act 2003 includes a ban on US
investments in, and imports from, Burma, as well as financial services and
certain property dealings. Since 1988 the US has also had an arms embargo
in place and bilateral aid has been suspended.

Burma’s ruling generals have felt Washington’s wrath for years, in the
form of trade sanctions, visa bans on families and associates of military
leaders and other measures.

After the bloody massacre of democracy demonstrators in 1988, Washington
downgraded diplomatic relations with Burma, and relations remain rocky
today.

Since 1988, the US government has strongly criticized the junta for its
routine human rights abuses and its refusal to hand over power to the 1990
election winner, the NLD. The Burmese government has constantly accused
Suu Kyi of being a puppet of the west, yet strong US support for the
democracy leader has not waned.

The junta also keeps its anti-US stance, at least in its newspapers.
Articles appearing in state-owned papers continue to blast US
“interference” in internal affairs.

Some articles also accused Washington of attempting to make Burma its
client-state.

As for the Burmese people themselves, they hope for more extreme action
from Bush. Inside Burma, many opponents of the military genuinely hoped US
troops would come to topple the Burmese dictators after they finished with
Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Ross Dunkley, chief editor of the Myanmar Times, a semi-government
publication in Rangoon, has said: “One thing is pretty common. They all
want George W. Bush and the UN to come into Myanmar (Burma) with a whole
lot of guns and airplanes and jets and to solve the problem. They believe
that's possible."

Other opposition groups inside and outside Burma favor increased pressure
and tougher sanctions against the generals.

After hearing Bush’s speech, in which the American President emphasized
his country’s intention to expand freedom and support the growth of
democratic movements and institutions around the world, some Karen leaders
along the Thai-Burmese border reacted with enthusiasm.

Padoh Mahn Sha, Secretary General of the Karen National Union, or KNU,
hoped that Bush would take the Burma question to the UN Security Council.
“The US should apply all kinds of pressure to see tangible results in
Burma,” the Karen leader said.

But will Bush send his bombers to Rangoon?  The answer, of course, is no.
The generals in Rangoon are not about to hit the ground.