BurmaNet News, March 25, 2005

[Editor]

March 25, 2005 Issue # 2683


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Indian foreign minister Singh holds talks in Myanmar
Irrawaddy: Reading the cybertech signposts
Irrawaddy: Light fading at Myanmar Times

DRUGS
SHAN: Firework keeps all happy

BUSINESS / MONEY
Xinhua: Indian firm to increase shipping services to Myanmar

REGIONAL
Reuters: Myanmar migrants pushed to end of tsunami aid line
Thai Press Reports: Thailand repatriates hundreds of migrant workers from
tsunami zone
AFP: Tsunami food crisis averted in Asia: WFP

INTERNATIONAL
AP: U.N.: Myanmar must stop forced labor

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Letters to the editor: The time is right to start increasing the
pressure on the Burmese junta

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 25, Agence France Presse
Indian foreign minister Singh holds talks in Myanmar

Yangon: Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh held talks here Friday with
Myanmar ministers during a visit aimed at strengthening ties between the
two neighbours, officials said.

Singh, on a three-day official visit, met with Myanmar's Foreign Minister
Nyan Win ahead of talks with Prime Minister Lieutenant General Soe Win.

"We discussed a whole spectrum of bilateral issues," a Myanmar official
who attended the talks told AFP, without specifying what those issues
were.

"We discovered that none of the problems we are facing are
insurmountable," he added.

India, the world's largest democracy, and military-ruled Myanmar share a
1,640 kilometer (1,000 mile) long unfenced border, and Indian separatists
have used Myanmar territory as a springboard to carry out guerrilla
strikes on federal soldiers.

On a visit to India last October, Myanmar's leader General Than Shwe
pledged his government would not let Indian rebels operate from its soil.

In December Myanmar launched a crackdown on the rebels, and heavy fighting
is said to have killed scores of troops and rebels in recent months.

The two countries, along with Bangladesh, have also agreed in principle to
cooperate in the exploration of gas and an overland pipeline project that
would send fuel to energy-hungry India.

But earlier this year the junta rejected Indian applications for onshore
oil and gas exploration licenses, and in March barred foreign firms from
onshore exploration.

An Indian official who asked not to be named described the talks with Nyan
Win as "successful," but added that more meetings were still due to be
held.

On Saturday Singh pays a courtesy call on Than Shwe before traveling to
Mandalay, a northern city with a large Indian population that serves as a
listening post as it is close to where the two countries border China.

Myanmar's junta brutally crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and
two years later rejected results of national elections won by opposition
icon Aung San Suu Kyi. She has been under intermittent house arrest for
years.

New Delhi once vocally backed Aung San Suu Kyi, but under its "Look East"
policy launched in the early 1990s, it has been wooing Myanmar's military
leadership and promoting trade and investment.

______________________________________

March 25, Irrawaddy
Reading the cybertech signposts - Shawn L. Nance

Burma’s IT drive slows on MI chief’s downfall

Rangoon: Burma’s ruling generals like to present themselves as enlightened
modernizers. Though they use outmoded methods to stifle information flows,
they pay plenty of lip service to e-projects and IT initiatives of all
sorts.

Burma’s main Internet service and satellite feed provider, Bagan
Cybertech, is one example. Last October’s coup has placed a large question
mark over its future—and consequently over the fate of Burma’s entire IT
sector. For whatever happens to Bagan Cybertech could determine what the
future holds for other enterprises that flourished when Gen Khin Nyunt was
prime minister and military intelligence, or MI, chief.

When the semi-government telecommunications company was founded in October
2000 to operate a satellite-platformed Internet service provider, Khin
Nyunt said that it marked the beginning of a new era of IT development in
Burma. At the time, the lieutenant-general was the military intelligence
chief, the chairman of the Myanmar Computer Science Development Council
and Secretary-1 of the junta that rules the country. His son, Ye Naing
Win, now in his late thirties, was Bagan Cybertech’s chief executive
officer. The two were to lead Burma into the information age.

But those plans derailed in October, when Khin Nyunt was sacked. Most
officers who worked under him were also arrested and now stand trial
before military courts on various charges related to illegal economic
activities. Ye Naing Win is also being held secretly and faces as yet
unspecified charges, though the court will likely rule on whether he was
legally permitted to do business with foreigners, says a Western diplomat.

The state-run press offered the dubious explanation that Khin Nyunt
stepped down for health reasons. More likely, however, is that the MI
juggernaut grew too strong for the liking of Burma’s defense minister and
junta chairman, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. MI kept close watch on dissidents and
army officers alike, but it also controlled an array of business ventures
ranging from construction, mining and hotel companies to manning customs
gates and granting publishing licenses.

Some of these firms have been closed; others have been seized and divvied
up among the generals and their business partners, or doled out as
political favors.

The company had just doubled its available broadband delivery speed and
was forging ahead with setting up the country’s biggest wireless network.
But the October purge has “paralyzed” Bagan Cybertech, in the words of one
businessman in the capital. Several BaganNet email users complain they
have been unable to access their accounts for months. And although the
company signed up new users in January, during the week of the fourth
annual Myanmar Information and Communication Technology fair, it is no
longer authorized to grant new email accounts.

For its part, Thailand’s Export-Import Bank was incorrectly rumored to
have temporarily closed a four billion baht (US $97 million) credit line
to the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank because of the “uncertain situation” in
Rangoon. On government orders, the bank in June approved the soft
long-term loans that aim to help Burma buy Thai services and goods
including telecommunications equipment. Shinawatra Satellite Plc, a
subsidiary of Shin Corporation whose shares are controlled by the family
of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, inked a service and procurement
contract in May 2002 to lease transponder capacity to Bagan Cybertech IDC
& Teleport. ShinSat also plans to supply 6,000 broadband satellite
terminals to Burma’s Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs, or
MCPT, by 2006.

For the moment it’s not even clear who owns Bagan Cybertech. Before the
purge, according to a report from a western embassy, the company was 49
percent owned by the privately-owned May Hka group, which runs fashion
boutiques, coffee shops and cyber cafes in Rangoon; 30 percent by MI; 10.5
percent by Aung Ko Win, the chairman of Kanbawza Bank; and the remaining
10.5 percent shared by a group of foreigners, which the diplomat described
as the company’s “brains trust.”

Now, its technical operations are likely to be run by the military signals
intelligence unit. Other duties have reportedly been taken over by
officers from the police special investigations bureau and the Myanma
Posts and Telecommunications, the state-owned monopoly telephone service
provider which also runs Burma’s other ISP. A Western diplomat tips the
military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and the high-flying
entrepreneur Te Za, who has close connections to Than Shwe’s family, to
also make a bid for Bagan.

The uncertainty even dogs company staff. A spokesperson admitted that
Bagan was “having some problems,” adding that the leadership shakeup has
unnerved the workforce. “We’re keeping a low profile now.”

Bordering Bagan’s well-cordoned office in Hlaing Township is the MICT
Park. Opened three years ago to house various software development,
data-processing and e-government initiatives, the park is now eerily
vacant. Entire buildings lie unoccupied. Those that show signs of life are
only half-full, the top floors barricaded with mops and rusty chairs.
Outside, paint peels off the walls and office workers eat lunch in the
shade. It’s hard to tell if Burma’s IT heyday has already passed or if
good times lie ahead.
______________________________________

March 25, Irrawaddy
Light fading at Myanmar Times - Aung Zaw

Rangoon-based journal loses special privileges

With the help of Burma’s spooks, Australian Ross Dunkley launched the
colorful Myanmar Times in 2000. Full of optimism and enthusiasm, he
claimed that he saw a greater openness in the country and set out to push
the envelope.

Dunkley claimed that his weekly newspaper was exercising responsible
journalism in order to create a more favorable environment for all the
media in Burma. A nice idea, but local reporters and editors didn’t agree.
They saw Dunkley as merely the junta’s apologist, saying he was committed
to promoting the cause of Gen Khin Nyunt and military intelligence rather
than any grand notions of press freedom.

The paper had its own censorship board comprising Brig-Gen Thein Swe and
other ministers who were close allies of Khin Nyunt. Without having to
pass through the usual bureaucratic channels, the special censorship board
would give the paper quick approval. This set The Myanmar Times head and
shoulders above other Rangoon publications, granting it special
dispensation to cover sensitive domestic issues such as the status of Aung
San Suu Kyi and the visits of UN special investigators to the country.
Such privileges were never offered to the local press.

But Dunkley’s mission is now in doubt. After a change of guard at the top,
The Myanmar Times can no longer obtain “special privilege” status from the
authorities. With the demise of military intelligence and Gen Khin Nyunt,
Dunkley’s future is looking somewhat dim. Several media observers have
even predicted that The Myanmar Times will be shut down. Well, that’s not
happened yet, but the paper is in trouble.

As the spook chief is now out of the picture, special permission and
privileges are no longer granted to The Myanmar Times and the paper is now
required to go through the same procedures as other periodicals in
Rangoon. More importantly, the paper has also changed its content, having
to make more of an effort to promote the government’s agenda and regularly
publish articles written by official propagandists.

The paper’s Deputy CEO, Sonny Swe, was arrested on November 26 last year
in Mandalay. His father is Thein Swe, a member of the Times’ special
fast-tracking censorship committee and the brains behind the original
launch of the paper. It is believed that one of Sonny Swe’s crimes was
bypassing the official censorship board. Originally conceived as a medium
to present Burma as being business friendly and to counter negative press
reports coming from outside of the country, the paper is generally
regarded as something of a government mouthpiece.

But not all at The Myanmar Times are in bed with the generals. Some young
reporters at the paper are complaining that there is heavy self-censorship
within the editorial department and editors (both Burmese and foreigners)
do not dare to rock the boat. “We are still colorful,” said one reporter.
“But we have to toe the official line.”

It would seem that it is no longer Ross Dunkley who is pushing the
envelope, but the generals.

Ross Dunkley has declined to comment or take phone calls from The Irrawaddy.

______________________________________
DRUGS

March 25, Shan Herald Agency for News
Firework keeps all happy - Hawkeye

The recent bonfire of poppy seeds in Lashio has made all those concerned,
from the farmers to the traders up to the government, one big happy
family, according to the business circle in northern Shan State:

"It is like a public performance," explains one local businessman in Muse,
opposite Ruili, who according to himselfs keeps my ears at the ground
level'. "The bosses want to entertain their friends and we give it to
them. Their friends are happy which in turn satisfies them. We are also
happy because they no longer bother us too much. So are farmers because
most of them have already harvested the season's crop. And life goes on as
usual for everyone concerned."

The businessman was speaking in response to questions about the 19 March
bonfire of 720 kg of poppy seeds in northern Shan State's capital,
presided over by Prime Minister Soe Win.

"The Burmese authorities certainly are well-informed of what's happening,"
said another. "But as long as they are being provided for, the traders are
not in danger of going out of business."

Outside the town limits, it is mostly the military traffickers have to
cater to, but within the town limits, it is mostly the police whom they
have to indulge, he added.

"But nobody's disappointed, because prices are keeping pace with the
pay-offs," he pointed out.

Heroin
Grade 1 - Yuan 35,000 ($ 4,375) per kg (previously yuan 33,000)
Grade 2 - Yuan 32,000 ($ 4,000)
Grade 3 - Yuan 28,000 ($ 3,500)

Yaba
WY "Four Brothers" - 300,000 kyat ($ 300) per 200 pill bag
(Reddish orange)

According to the sources, heroin is graded by its duration: while the
lower graded stuff expires (turns yellow) in a matter of months, the first
grade remains potent for at least 8-12 months. "Whether your product
becomes Grade One or less depends largely on the quality of ether (an
alcohol derivative)," yet another businessman lectures. "Some chemists,
due to shortage of chemicals, even use ether mixed with soda. That
inevitably reduces the potency."

The principal patron for Shan State's most renowned merchandise is still
China. According to Beijing, 95% of heroin used by its addicts come from
the Golden Triangle of which Burma is a part. Output by the other two,
Laos and Thailand, is considered marginal.

Shan State, meanwhile, is not without its share of addicts. The military
government of Burma has been in construction of a drug treatment center in
Tima, between Muse and Kutkhai, since last year. It was due to be
completed by September 2004. "But it's nearly finished now," assures a
government source.

______________________________________
BUSINESS / MONEY

March 25, Xinhua General News Service
Indian firm to increase shipping services to Myanmar

Yangon: An Indian cargo transport firm will increase its shipping services
between Chennai and Yangon beginning at the end of this month, said a
latest report of the local Myanmar Times.

The Gati Coast to Coast Cargo Trasport Company's MV Gati Suvidha vessels
will run four times a month between the two destinations after its first
shipping services started in February using these vessels which can carry
100 to 200 20-feet equivalent (TEU) containers to Yangon, the Indian firm
Myanmar representative was quoted as saying.

The direct shipping link saves 10 days' time to transport goods between
the two destinations, whereas it had to take 14 days to pass through ports
in Singapore, the report said.

The company has also planned to ship commodities from Myanmar to other
main ports in India via Chennai beginning in April and to Europe next
year, it disclosed.

Meanwhile, Myanmar transport officials said there is great potential to
open new ports on the West coast of Myanmar to enhance trade with India,
revealing that two deep sea ports in Western Rakhine state's Kyaukpyu and
southern Tanintharyi division 's Dawei will soon be developed to
facilitate transit trade through the country.

The Kyaukphyu deep sea-port, which will serve as a transit trade center
for goods destined to port cities of Chittagong, Yangon and Calcutta, also
stands at a point on land route connecting China's Kunming with Myanmar's
Sittwe.

With regard to the Dawei deep sea port, India is planning to start a
feasibility study on its own arrangement for building the infrastructure
which stands as one of the priorities among future programs of the
sub-regional economic grouping -- the BIMST-EC ( Bangladesh, India,
Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand-Economic Cooperation) which was later
joined by Bhutan and Nepal in July 2004.

The feasibility study was proposed by India to Myanmar at the BIMST-EC
Foreign Ministers Meeting held in Phuket, Thailand in February 2004.

On completion of the project, cargo vessels from the Middle East, Africa
and Europe can avoid crossing the Malacca Strait for access to China,
Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.

According to official statistics, Myanmar-India bilateral trade, including
the border trade, amounted to 267.17 million dollars in the first half of
2004, of which Myanmar's exports to India took 204 million.

India stands as Myanmar's second largest export market after Thailand,
absorbing 25 percent of its total exports. It plans to increase its
bilateral trade with Myanmar to 1 billion dollars by 2006.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 25, Reuters
Myanmar migrants pushed to end of tsunami aid line - Nopporn Wong-Anan

Ban Nam Khem: Pushed to the back of the tsunami aid queue, thousands of
Myanmar immigrants in Thailand are struggling to recover from the
disaster, but still prefer not to return to their military-ruled homeland.

"We are human beings as well, so we need food and other relief too," said
Mai, a jobless worker from Myanmar, recalling the times she and other
migrant workers were thrown out of the relief lines after being spotted by
Thai villagers.

"We were told to make way for Thais and only when there was some stuff
left over were we allowed to line up," the 27-year-old said in the fluent
Thai she has picked up during nine years of work in southern Thailand.

Mai is one of thousands of men and women who left their homes in the
former Burma, which has been run by a military junta for the last four
decades, to find low-end, poorly paid jobs in the fishing and construction
industries in neighbouring Thailand.

In Phang Nga, the tsunami-hit province where Ban Nam Khem village is
located, official Thai records show 31,353 Myanmar people were registered
to work, but relief groups say this is probably represents only a third of
the real total.

Ban Nam Khem alone, a fishing village which was flattened by the killer
wave, was home to 1,000 Myanmar workers, according to a network of Myanmar
advocacy groups called Tsunami Action Group (TAG).

Funded by overseas Myanmar residents and international aid agencies, TAG
has stepped in to provide aid and legal advice to 3,500 migrants who are
neglected by the Thai government, which has tended to focus its efforts on
Thai victims.

MENTAL ANGUISH

Thai and international health agencies have offered psychological
counselling to adults and children who have lost their loved ones, but
migrants like Ma Tay, who lost three of her five children, have received
nothing.

"The faces of the three children I lost are still vivid in my memory. I
want them back," a despairing Ma Tay, 32, told Reuters.

"I can't sleep at night because I am still scared of the water and ghosts
-- but my children have never visited me. I really want to see them," she
said, sitting in the tiny house her family used to shared with 10 other
workers.

The bodies of her three-year-old daughter, two-year-old son and eight-day
son have never been found, and Ma Tay said she dared not come forward
since her legal documents had been swept away and she fears being arrested
as an illegal immigrant.

TAG officials said they wanted migrants to re-register and get new ID and
health care cards, but were meeting opposition from some Thai employers
who refused to vouch for workers on their payroll so they could keep them
as virtual slaves.

"They treat their workers like cattle, and never want to let them go
free," said one Thai aid worker who did not want to be identified.

Government officials still cannot appear to be too sympathetic in case
they are accused of anti-Thai discrimination.

"Local officials are nice to us, but they can't give too much attention to
the Burmese. Otherwise the Thais who lost their documents in the tsunami
would be upset," said Karnchana Dee-ut, a TAG volunteer.

Despite the hardship and discrimination, few migrants are contemplating a
return to their impoverished homeland, preferring instead to sit it out in
Thailand and wait for economic recovery.

"I can't live in Myanmar because I would have to work for the government
five days a week for free," said Arjun Coushik, a 26-year-old Myanmar
citizen whose ancestors came from Nepal, but who has lived in Thailand for
the last four years.

"Next time, I want to born in Thailand," he said.

_____________________________________

March 24, Thai Press Reports
Thailand repatriates hundreds of migrant workers from tsunami zone

Thailand has repatriated more than 600 Myanmar migrant workers who were
caught up in the tsunami that devastated much of the Andaman coast late
last year, a charity worker said Tuesday.

Suphamitr Foundation deputy director Jittra Dharmmaborisuth said many of
the migrant workers had been working illegally and had sought help from
the foundation to repatriate them.

"A number said either they had no job or had lost their documents and
wanted to be sent home, fearing arrest by the authorities" she said.

The Suphamitr Foundation has set a centre in Phang Nga province to help
coordinate the voluntary repatriation of migrant workers, Ms. Jittra said.

Phang Nga was one of Thailand's six Andaman coast provinces hit by the
tsunami. It is still not known how many migrant workers were killed in the
disaster.

"It is impossible to assess the exact number of casualties among migrant
workers as a lot of them worked illegally and had not reported themselves
to the authorities," she said.

"Most of them worked in Phang Nga province. Some migrant workers who
survived the disaster told us that a lot of their compatriots had died,"
she said.

______________________________________

March 25, Agence France Presse
Tsunami food crisis averted in Asia: WFP

Bangkok: The starvation and malnutrition crisis feared after the tsunami
struck the Indian Ocean in December has been averted in less than three
months, the UN food agency said Friday.

Emergency efforts are winding down, but the long-term reconstruction work
continues with more than 1.75 million people in Asia and Africa receiving
aid from the World Food Programme (WFP), mostly in Indonesia, Myanmar, the
Maldives and Sri Lanka, the agency said.

"Our aim now is to help these poor people get a new start in life by
drawing on the unprecedented support for tsunami relief from the public
and private sector," Kenro Oshidari, WFP's deputy regional director for
Asia said in a statement.

"We have an opportunity today to lift some communities from the vicious
cycle of poverty and hunger that plagued their lives before the tsunami."

The organisation has shipped more than 50,000 tonnes of food -- including
fortified biscuits, rice, cooking oil and sugar -- using military
helicopters, ships, cargo ships and trucks.

In Indonesia, help for 350,000 schoolchildren, 55,000 pregnant women and
nursing mothers, and 130,000 children aged under five are now the main
recipients of food aid, the WFP said.

>From April, the programme will start giving 120,000 Sri Lankan children a
nutritious snack in school. The agency is providing food aid to a total of
709,000 people in Sri Lanka.

The WFP said it is also working with the Food and Agricultural
Organization, and the International Organization for Migration and other
bodies to clear debris in Sri Lankan fishing communities and to replace
boats and nets.

Before the tsunami, some 37 percent of the Sri Lankan communities surveyed
relied on fishing for their livelihoods. Now only one percent do,
according to WFP.

Some 8,000 people in Myanmar are being helped with four months' food,
while in the Maldives 24,000 children were fed in school for seven weeks
and another 42,000 people are receiving food rations.

Operations to help 18,000 people in Thailand, including 8,000 school
students in the six affected southern provinces, are winding down.

The WFP's Asia division also helped 31,000 people in Somalia, which was
also hit by the deadly waves.

______________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 25, Associated Press
 U.N.: Myanmar must stop forced labor - Jonathan Fowler

Geneva: Myanmar's military government must stop backsliding on its promise
to wipe out forced labor, a United Nations monitor said Thursday.

Ruth Dreifuss, a member of an International Labor Organization team that
investigated the Asian nation last month, said the international community
wants to see solid progress. Dreifuss' team cut short its mission, saying
it had been denied an expected meeting with a top junta official.

"For years we've had a contradictory message," she said following a
meeting of the ILO's governing body. "There is always a promise to do
something, a few little steps, then a terrible backlash."

ILO officials cited the treason convictions of three individuals who had
met with staff from the U.N. agency during investigations of forced labor.
Although two were released earlier this year as part of a general amnesty
of 5,000 detainees, one - U Shwe Mahn - remains in prison.

"We want clear words, a clear message and clear facts," said Dreifuss,
former president of Switzerland.

The ILO has long been an ardent critic of forced labor in Myanmar,
formerly known as Burma.

Under pressure from the 178-nation organization, the country's junta has
worked with the U.N. body in recent years on a program to halt forced
labor.

Earlier this month, Myanmar Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Soe Win wrote to
Dreifuss and other members of the ILO team, telling them his country was
"committed to the elimination of the vestiges of forced labor in close
cooperation with ILO."

"I wish to reassure you that we are against forced labor and are committed
to this principle," he wrote in the March 10 letter, which was published
in ILO documents.

On March 15, however, another senior Myanmar official slammed ILO,
accusing it of interfering in the country's internal affairs.

Labor Department director Gen. Soe Nyunt said that despite his
government's cooperation with ILO, the agency had continuously pressured
Myanmar based on false information it receives from the junta's critics.
He said the ILO was ignoring the welfare of Myanmar's 54 million people, a
claim rejected by officials from the agency.

In 2000, ILO took the unprecedented step of calling on its members to
impose sanctions against Myanmar because of the military government's
failure to curb forced labor.

In response, the junta allowed the Geneva-based organization to open an
office in Yangon in 2002. A year later, ILO withdrew its sanctions call.

In 2004, however, the ILO said that unless the junta took swift action,
the call for sanctions would be revived.

Some countries, including Japan and the United States, have already
imposed sanctions. The U.S. Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003
placed import restrictions on goods from Myanmar.

"The general view is that this wait-and-see attitude is no longer
justified," said Francis Maupain, ILO special adviser on Myanmar.

______________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 25, The Nation
Letters to the editor: The time is right to start increasing the pressure
on the Burmese junta - Sai Wansai

Re: "Burma's chance of chairing ASEAN at risk", Editorial, 24 March.

Here are some points to ponder concerning the Malaysian initiative to deny
the Burmese junta chairmanship of ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian
Nations in 2006, and what the international community and ASEAN can do to
help future political reform in Burma.

First, the most important idea that Burma is on the verge of becoming of a
"failed state" has to be accepted by all parties concerned. They should
realize that this is not in the interest of ASEAN or of any other
regional, inter-regional or international stakeholder.

Second, the EU and US, with the backing of the UN, should earnestly
advocate the idea that Burma is edging towards becoming a failed state,
and work closely with ASEAN, China, India and Japan so that real
reconciliation and democratisation can take place, according to the terms
of the UN resolution. A joint EU-ASEAN task force on Burma, as called for
by the Fifth EU-ASEAN Think-Tank Dialogue in Singapore in October 2003,
could be created to tackle and resolve the issues surrounding the country.

Third, with the possible endorsement of the UN General Assembly or
Security Council, a strategy that combines pressure on the junta and
engagement with the people should be devised to facilitate the UN
resolution. In addition, pressure and sanctions should be coupled with
benchmarks to create incentives for the SPDC (State Peace and Democracy as
received, Development Council).

Fourth, if all the possible options are exhausted, a "consensus minus one"
approach, mirroring what the Malaysians are now proposing, should be
considered.

Last but not least, if somehow the international community were able to
correct the balance of power between the SPDC on one side and the NLD
(National League for Democracy) and non-Burman ethnic nationalities on the
other, "power mediation" or "coercive diplomacy" could be applied to
facilitate a long-lasting solution to the problems of Burma.

Sai Wansai, general secretary, Shan Democratic Union