BurmaNet News, August 31, 2005

[Editor]

August 31, 2005 Issue # 2793


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima: Thai Foreign Minister to visit Burma today
Xinhua: 28 anti-gov't armed members surrender in Myanmar
DVB: NLD lawyers lodge appeal to Burma’s High Court for prisoners

HEALTH / AIDS
Inter Press Service: Junta stymies Millennium Development Goals
SHAN: Rangoon ridden by “bird-flu”

REGIONAL
Independent: Two million fall victim to slave trade each year, says UN

OPINION / OTHER
Bangkok Post: An all but impossible mission

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 31, Mizzima News
Thai Foreign Minister to Visit Burma Today

Chiang Mai: Thailand Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon will visit
Rangoon today to hold talks with Burma's military junta.

He is scheduled to arrive in Burma this evening and will stay in Burma
till Thursday.  Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Sihasuk Phuongketkeow
told Mizzima that the foreign minister is scheduled to meet Burmese
foreign minister Nyan Win and will also call on Senior General Than Shwe
tomorrow.

When asked about the issues on the agenda during Mr. Suphamongkhon's visit
to Rangoon, the spokesperson said, "There are no specific issues. There
will be overall discussions covering all issues."

He added that bilateral issues will be discussed. These include economic
cooperation along the border areas and assistance to Burma on
developmental projects.However, analysts believe that domestic political
affairs in Burma are the main agenda for the meeting.

This is the first trip to Burma for Mr. Kantathi Suphamongkhon since he
took up his position in March this year.

If he meets Senior General Than Shwe, Mr. Suphamongkhon will be the first
foreign government official to meet Burmese senior General Than Shwe after
last week's rumours of a coup in Burma.

Rumours of a coup spread in and outside Burma. It related to the country's
strongman Senior General Than Shwe being ousted in a coup led by Junta's
number two General Maung Aye. However, last Sunday, the Junta's
information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan denied the rumours and
said that the head of the Junta was discharging his responsibilities round
the clock and is in good health.

____________________________________

August 31, Xinhua
28 anti-gov't armed members surrender in Myanmar

Yangon: A total of 28 members from some four anti-government armed groups
and individuals in Myanmar laid down their arms to the government forces
in the last three months, a state-run newspaper reported Wednesday.

These members, who "exchanged arms for peace" with the government between
May and July this year, include those from the Kayin National Union (KNU),
Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), led by Ywet Sit, Chin National Army (CNA)
and All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF), the New Light of Myanmar
said.

They brought along with them a total of 279 rounds of ammunition among
others, it said.

Since last year up to July this year, a total of 278 such various group
members surrendered to the government, according to official statistics.

Of the four groups, the SSA-S and the ABSDF, were declared on last weekend
by the government as unlawful associations along withtwo other
anti-government organizations -- the National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma (NCGUB) and the Federation of Trade Union - Burma (FTUB).

These organizations were outlawed for endangering the country'slaw
enforcement, stability and peace and tranquillity, the government said.

Meanwhile, 843 members of the Palaung State Liberation Army (PSLA) and
three brigades (over 600) of the Shan State National Army (SSNA), which
reached ceasefire agreements in 1991 and 1995 with the government
respectively and had been permitted to retain arms, also surrendered their
weapons to the government in the first half of this year.

Since the government adopted a policy of national reconciliation in 1989,
17 anti-government armed groups have made peace with the government,
returning to the legal fold under respective ceasefire agreements.

____________________________________

August 31, Democratic Voice of Burma
NLD lawyers lodge appeal to Burma’s High Court for prisoners

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD)
legal advocates, on 31 August, lodged appeals to the High Court in Rangoon
on behalf of two party members from Shwe Kyin Township, Pegu Division in
central Burma.

Shwe Kyin Township NLD chairman Bo Gyi and member Pe Tin were arrested on
12 May and sentenced to seven years in prison on 27 May by the township
court. The latest appeals came after judges at district and divisional
levels rejected them downright.

Similarly, other lawyers are preparing to lodge an appeal to a Rangoon
District court on behalf of private tuition teacher Aung Pe from Rangoon
Twante, who was imprisoned for saluting the picture of Burma’s nation hero
Gen Aung San and singing song in honour of him.

The authorities have at long last allowed the lawyers to go ahead with
appeals on behalf of Ahlon Township NLD chairman Ba Myint and four other
youth members, by issuing an official legal document for their clients.
Lawyers are also preparing to lodge official complaints to the High Court
regarding another NLD youth Aung Hlaing Win who was killed at a detention
centre during an interrogation session in early May.

The authorities concerned 'liquidated' his remains by means of cremation
and notified his death thereafter to his family members and they also
attempted to shut them up with meagre bribes.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

August 28, Inter Press Service
Junta stymies Millennium Development Goals - Marwaan Macan-Markar

Bangkok: Who says the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs can be boring?
Not if a military regime comes in the way of one of the global targets
prescribed by the United Nations--halting the spread of AIDS by 2015.

And more so if that regime happens to be the dictatorship that has for
over 40 years dominated life in Burma, a once prosperous South-east Asian
country, now reduced to poverty.

Rangoon’s junta appears to have preferred retaining the iron grip with
which it represses its people over plans by a leading international
funding agency to help Burma combat the threat of a worsening spread of
HIV.

The outcome was an unprecedented decision by the Global Fund to fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It cancelled all its grants to Burma and
quit in August. ''This is the first time that the Global Fund has
cancelled grants,'' Jon Liden, spokesman for the Geneva-based body, told
IPS.

It is a move that places the Burmese regime as one of the world’s worst
dictatorships since the Global Fund finances programmes on AIDS, TB and
malaria in other countries ruled by dictators.

Even Burma's regional neighbours that have communist regimes, Vietnam and
Laos, are still part of this recently-created initiative to pour in new
money to help developing countries stop millions of people dying due to
AIDS, TB and malaria.

The three-year-old fund has approved grants to 127 countries to scale-up
the drive against the three pandemics worldwide. Close to 3.1 billion US
dollars were distributed for the Global Fund-approved programmes during
the first two years, states a background note.

''Of the 3.1 billion committed over the first two years, 56 percent goes
to fight HIV/AIDS, while 13 percent goes to fight TB and 31 percent to
malaria,'' adds the note. ''Of the HIV/AIDS grants, one half of the money
is dedicated towards treatment and care, while the other half is for
financing prevention activities and HIV testing''.

These funds to combat the three pandemics are deemed pivotal for countries
to achieve the MDG target of halting the spread of the three killer
diseases by 2015.

The other seven time-bound targets governments pledged, as part of the
MDGs, included halving the number of people living in extreme poverty,
achieving gender equality in schools and reducing child mortality.

''The Global Fund-financed programmes can function in any country as long
as the government doesn't actively try to obstruct them,'' says Liden.

Burma's junta, however, proved the exception even after this fund had
approved grants totalling 98.4 million dollars for a five-year period.
Over half that amount, some 54.3 million dollars, was earmarked for
combating AIDS.

Among the programmes the Global Fund was to support in Myanmar, as the
junta has renamed Burma, were those designed to reduce the spread of HIV
through education, care and support services. Groups identified drug
users, sex workers, people with HIV, youth between 15-24 years in towns,
and sections of the general population.

But little of that could get underway due to travel restrictions that
Rangoon has imposed on all U.N. agencies and international humanitarian
groups. Nearly every aspect of the treatment scale-up in Myanmar required
travel and the restrictions imposed resulted in ''weeks of delay'' to get
permits, says Liden.

The fund's decision to terminate its relationship with Rangoon has raised
questions about the space available for humanitarian work in a climate of
oppression. ''Because of the complications of complexity in Myanmar, a
sufficient amount of flexibility is needed to deal with problems as they
come up,'' says Charles Petrie, United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) resident representative in Burma.

''The Global Fund was very strict because of the time-bound nature of the
grants, and so I understand the decision they made,'' he explained during
an interview by phone from Rangoon. '' But humanitarian action is possible
in Myanmar,'' he added.

The void left by the fund comes at a time when Burma has emerged as a
country on the verge of exploding with HIV rates that could undermine its
already weak efforts to contain the pandemic in the region.

Currently, there are an estimated 170,000 to 620,000 people living with
HIV in Burma, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
(UNAIDS). And the infection rate among its 50 million people is 1.3
percent, second in South-east Asia only to Cambodia, which has infection
rates of over two percent.

In July, a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based
think tank, painted a bleaker picture -- that Burma is the main source of
all strains of HIV that have spread across Asia, from Kazakhstan on one
end to southern Vietnam, on the other.

In some northern parts of the country, HIV infection rates were ''as high
as 77 percent,'' the report revealed, and added further that heroin routes
originating from Burma and crossing the region have been the ''greatest
contributor of new types of HIV in the world''.

Yet Rangoon’s junta chose to keep the country's AIDS crisis under wraps
till late 2003, when Khin Nyunt, a high ranking general who was appointed
prime minister, broke the silence on the subject, consequently enabling
humanitarian agencies to pursue anti-AIDS programmes openly.

The substantial amount pledged by the Global Fund was seen as welcome
relief for voluntary agencies such as World Vision. ''The Fund provided a
great deal of hope for the people who were going to benefit, including
those with HIV,'' Roger Walker, head of World Vision's office in Burma,
told IPS.

''If we cannot find replacement funds, the hopes of these people will be
dashed,'' he added.

Rangoon has displayed concern at the Global Fund quitting Burma, but there
is hardly a hint of its own role for circumstance leading to that
decision. The junta’s HIV/AIDS Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) issued
a statement describing the cancellation of funds as ''unjust''.

''The CCM concludes that this termination is against the values and
principles embodied in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, to which
the Global Fund also owes its existence,'' said the statement.

____________________________________

August 31, Shan Herald Agency for News
Rangoon ridden by “bird-flu”

Many Rangoon residents have abstained from eating chicken after an
outbreak of what was suspected as bird-flu, reports Chai Sayam from the
border:

Black patches were found on the skins of some dead chickens which
veterinarians have identified as symptoms of avian pastullarosis (A.P.), a
kind of avian diarrhea.

“However, since the government obviously doesn’t think it is such an
important matter,” said a vet, “both the business and the people are going
to suffer.”

The price of chicken, generally around 2,500  3,000 kyat ($ 2.5  3.0) per
viss (1.6 kg) has dropped to as much as 1,500 kyat ($ 1.5) in some shops.
“People still refuse to buy,” said a shop keeper.

Bird flu or chicken flu can be spread to humans and have caused deaths in
some cases.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 31, The Independent
Two million fall victim to slave trade each year, says UN - Justin Huggler

Every year, two million people are falling victim to the modern slave
trade across the world, the United Nations has warned.

Louise Arbour, the UN's High Commissioner of Human Rights, said millions
of women and children were ending up as sex slaves, beggars and forced
labourers because of human trafficking, and called for closer
international co-operation to prevent it.

Ann Veneman, the executive director of Unicef, the UN children's
organisation, said two million people were estimated to be trafficked
every year. 'No country or region is immune,' she added.

The senior UN officials were attending an Asia-Pacific human rights
conference in Beijing. China has come under intense criticism for its own
human rights record, and tight security at the hotel where the conference
was held was believed to be designed to prevent Chinese petitioners from
approaching Ms Arbour with their own complaints of abuse at the hands of
the Chinese authorities.

Human trafficking is a term for the illegal smuggling of people, not as
refugees but as cheap or slave labour.

In the Asia-Pacific region, especially south-east Asia, it is a problem of
epidemic proportions, and it is fuelled mostly by the sex trade.

Girls from poor villages, particularly in Burma, Cambodia and the
Philippines, are lured into cities or neighbouring countries, where they
are forced to work as prostitutes. They are flown abroad to work as far as
Australia, Japan and the United States.

Many are lured with promises of better-paid jobs than they could ever
dream of at home, and have no idea that they will end up as prostitutes.
Others know they are going into prostitution, but are fooled into
believing they will be paid and free to leave when they have made enough
money, but are instead forced to work as sex slaves.

The problem is 'horrendous', Ms Arbour said. 'By its very nature, it
constitutes an acute violation of human rights and reports today suggest
that more people are being trafficked than ever before.' Far from helping
the victims of trafficking, many governments punish them, Ms Arbour said.
'Often, those who are trafficked are criminalised, for example as illegal
migrants or prostitutes, when they should be receiving assistance as
victims.'

Ms Veneman said that children were not immune from trafficking, and were
forced to work as child sex slaves. 'Children are forced into
prostitution, begging and soliciting, labour on plantations and in mines,
markets, factories and domestic work.'

She told the conference that on a recent trip to Africa, she met children
who had been kidnapped and heard first-hand from some girls how they had
been forced to become child soldiers, and from others how they had been
sold into sex slavery.

'Gender-based violence in any of its forms denies girls and women their
basic rights and dignity, and harms the development of entire countries,'
she said.

Thirty-seven Asia- Pacific countries are attending the conference. Some
observers have criticised China as an unlikely setting for a conference on
human rights, given its own poor record.

A Chinese official who met Ms Arbour, Tang Jiaxuan, gave the usual Chinese
government line: 'Every country should choose its own way to protect human
rights according to its national situation.'

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 31, Bangkok Post
An all but impossible mission

The term of Kofi Annan as UN secretary-general expires at the end of next
year. The campaign for pole position to succeed him has begun, if
discreetly.

Trygve Lie, the first secretary-general, famously said his was “the most
impossible job in the world”. Required to be a politician, diplomat and
international civil servant, he is the personification of the
international interest and the voice of world conscience. He is elected to
office as an individual, not as the representative of a government or a
region, yet the regions demand “their” turn in office. He must have the
backing of all governments but owe allegiance to none. He can raise
questions but not prescribe the answer, influence events but not control
them.

The secretary-general must retain US confidence at a time when a rampant
US does not find it easy to brook any opposition. But to be credible and
respected in the rest of the world, the secretary-general must demonstrate
independence of Washington, embraced but not suffocated by it.

On the one hand, the secretary-general’s authority is less than that of a
cabinet minister. His role is to assist and facilitate the principal
political organs in making informed and sound decisions, not to make
decisions himself, to implement their decisions faithfully and report to
them accordingly.

On the other hand, he has greater authority than the head of a national
bureaucracy. He has no cabinet and minister as the final political and
policy boss. He also has greater scope to expand power and influence
through allocating resources among the departments and activities,
appointing senior staff and inserting his own preferences and priorities
when the Security Council and General Assembly are split.

He takes part in their debates and provides the logistical and
intellectual basis for many of their decisions. He must retain the
confidence of countries that constitute the voting majority in the General
Assembly and those who control the Security Council. If the Security
Council is united, he cannot be an alternative voice of dissent. If it is
divided, he cannot be a substitute for inaction by a splintered council.

The most important political role of the secretary-general is to provide
“soft” leadership: the elusive ability to make others connect emotionally
and intellectually to a larger cause that transcends their immediate
self-interest.

Rumours of US backing for a candidate from “New Europe” have concentrated
the minds of Asians who believe it is their turn for the next
secretary-general. Asians must ensure they unite behind a competent
candidate. Uniting behind a second- or third-best person simply for the
sake of group relations would cost them their turn. Failure to unite
behind a good candidate because partisan considerations trumped
enlightened collective interest and vision would also cost them their
turn.

So far, the French have made it known that they would veto any candidate
for secretary-general who did not speak French. Whatever shall we do if
Washington decides to veto anyone who speaks French?

Ramesh Thakur is senior vice rector of the UN University in Tokyo.