BurmaNet News, September 14, 2005

[Editor]

September 14, 2005 Issue # 2802

‘Splinter described the Burmese junta as “a cheerleader encouraging
countries like Cuba and Pakistan.”’
 - Peter Splinter, Amnesty International’s special representative to the
UN in Geneva, as quoted in “UN stalls on reforming human rights body,”
Irrawaddy, September 14, 2005


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima: SSA-N 3rd Brigade moves to HQ area under pressure from Burmese junta
Mizzima: New Burmese journal to launch in Burma
Mizzima: Myanmar Times on the rocks after share-holder pullout
AFP: For Myanmar's generals, the Moustache Brothers are no joke
Grist Magazine: Burma Save: Logging keeps Asian elephants in business ...
for now

DRUGS
Xinhua: Myanmar exposes 255 drug-related cases in August

REGIONAL
Mizzima: Identification and protection of Burma's refugee women at risk

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Bush told to press Thaksin to change stand on Burma
Irrawaddy: UN stalls on reforming human rights Body
AFP: Southeast Asian leaders stress multilateral diplomacy in talks with
Annan

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 14, Mizzima
SSA-N 3rd Brigade Moves to HQ area under pressure from Burmese junta

Relations between the SSA-N and SPDC troops have soured and the situation
is tense. There is widespread speculation of war breaking out between them
soon.

The speculation follows the Thibaw based Shan State Army – North (SSA-N)
3rd Brigade moving to the headquarters in Saint Kyawt after being
pressurized by the military regime, sources close to SSA told Mizzima.

The SSA-N 3rd Brigade started moving to Saint Kyawt, 30 miles away from
its base Eu Mu on Saturday after receiving orders from the Northeast
Command Commander Maj. Gen. Myint Hlaing to move to the headquarter area
within 15 days.

"We have heard that all the troops have arrived in Saint Kyawt today. Some
troops are still in Eu Mu to complete some unfinished work. But they are
not being allowed to keep weapons now," sources close to SSA told Mizzima.

Eu Mu is eight miles from Thibaw and Saint Kyawt is 20 miles from Thibaw.

SSA-N has three brigades. Half of the 1st Brigade is in the area under the
command of Northeast Command and another half is under the Eastern Command
area. The 3rd Brigade is based in Thibaw, Kyaukme, Namtu, Momeik, Tan
Yang, Nam Lan, Nam Khan and Muse area. The 7th Brigade is based in the
Eastern Command area.

The military regime has readied two tactical commands comprising six
battalions to attack the SSA- troops if they do not comply with their
order to move, a military source from the border said.

It is learnt that the SSA-N 1st Brigade and 7th Brigade were also summoned
to the Eastern Command HQ and met the Command Commander Maj. Gen. Ye
Myint.

____________________________________

September 14, Mizzima
New Burmese journal to launch in Burma

The Eleven Media Group is planning to launch a weekly journal next month
aimed at providing Rangoon readers with balanced news according to company
sources.

“The journal . . . will focus on public interest, not being pro-government
or anti-government. The publication is in a position to play fairly under
the existing scrutiny norms, which [apply to] all other market competitors
including The Myanmar Times”, an Eleven Media Group staff members said on
condition of anonymity.

‘Weekly Eleven’ is set to be launched early in October and there is
speculation that the new journal will be backed by relatives of ruling
military junta.

“[There is] no financial involvement of the ruling elite class. But the
proprietor has a close relationship with ex-major Tint Swe, the new head
of the press scrutiny division”, the source told Mizzima.

Journalists in Rangoon were reportedly shocked by the high wages the
publication was willing to pay their new staff.

Eleven Media Group, the leading private media group in the tightly
controlled country, publishes two weekly sports journals and a weekly
international affairs publication. It combined circulation is thought to
be about 200,000 copies a week.  One of its sports journals, First Eleven,
is the most popular journal on the local market.

At least two or three more newspapers are scheduled to be launched in
Rangoon before the end of the year. The military junta recently granted
permission for 35 applicants to apply for licenses: 20 for weekly
publications, 12 for monthly magazines and three for books.

According to figures from the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division,
Burma has about 250 monthly magazines and about 100 weekly journals.

____________________________________

September 14, Mizzima
Myanmar Times on the rocks after share-holder pullout – Alison Hunter

Sources close to the Myanmar Times, a weekly English-language newspaper
published in Rangoon have revealed several key investors have been forced
to sell their shares by the Ministry of Information.

The future of the paper, published by the 49 percent foreign-owned Myanmar
Consolidated Media, has been uncertain since major Burmese shareholders
Sonny Swe and his father Brigadier General Thien Shwe were jailed early
this year for by-passing the censorship process.

The paper had previously been censored by Military Intelligence but is now
censored through the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division under the
Ministry of Information.

According to sources close to the company, Sonny Swe's wife and the
company's deputy CEO, Yamin Htin Aung has been told by the government to
sell her shares of the company to Dr Tin Tun Oo, the owner of Thuta Swe
publishing house and the Secretary of the Myanmar Writers and Journalist's
Association.

Dr Tin Tun Oo is known to have close ties to the Ministry of Information.

Anonymous sources in Rangoon told Mizzima the government has told the
company the newspaper will be shut down if they do not comply.

Yamin Htin Aung and Ross Dunkley, an Australian businessman and
Editor-in-Chief of the publication have reportedly held several meetings
with the ministry this week to request that a different partner for the
business is chosen.

One source said Ross Dunkley is unable to accept Dr Tin Tun Oo as a
business partner and rumors are circulating in Rangoon that he also plans
to pull out of the company and leave Burma.

Others say Dunkley is trying to increase his share in the company.

Brig. Gen. Thien Shwe, despite being jailed after the country's Military
Intelligence unit was disbanded, is still officially the publisher of the
Myanmar Times leading sources to speculate this is the reason behind the
papers' current problems.

It is believed that Dunkley applied to change the name on the license with
the Ministry of Information but his application was denied.

The company is also believed to be struggling financially after drops in
advertising sales due to decisions by the censorship board to disallow
random advertisements.

Journalists in Rangoon say censorship restrictions have become
increasingly strict in past few months with changes to the censorship
board and new sets of rules.

The management of the Myanmar Times was repeatedly unavailable for comment
on this issue

____________________________________

September 14, Agence France Presse
For Myanmar's generals, the Moustache Brothers are no joke

They call themselves comedians but, in a country where open dissent
against the military rulers is not tolerated, the "Moustache Brothers" are
one of Myanmar's most enduring and courageous pro-democracy acts.


>From a cramped, makeshift theatre at the entrance to their tired house in

Mandalay, Myanmar's second biggest city, the three comedians and their
families risk prison each night by performing for tourists in defiance of
a government ban.

"We don't get scared," Lu Maw, the effervescent front man for the show,
which incorporates traditional dance and street theatre as well as
vaudeville routines, told AFP before one of the performances.

Indeed, the Moustache Brothers appear to relish their status as government
pariahs, using signs with messages such as: "Most Wanted" and "Under
Surveillance" as props for their show.

One of the jokes told each night to tourists revolves around traffic
policemen taking bribes, with the punchline focused on Lu Maw handing out
a policeman's hat to the audience in search of "donations".

Another favourite is the dubbing of the nation's military intelligence as
the "KGB" in reference to the feared former Soviet security agency.

Other routines focus on alleged government corruption and the widespread
suffering of people in Myanmar, where the military junta has ruled for
more than 40 years.

However staking a reputation as perhaps the most famous and outspoken
pro-democracy activists inside Myanmar, aside from Nobel peace laureate
Aung San Suu Kyi, has been anything but fun and games.

The two other comedians in the troupe, Par Par Lay, 57, and Lu Zaw, 52,
both served nearly six years in prison for making anti-government jokes at
a rally held at Aung San Suu Kyi's house to mark independence day in
January 1996.

Par Par Lay was apparently in rare form that day, telling more than 1,000
jokes in front of 2,000 Aung San Suu Kyi supporters, foreign diplomats and
the omnipresent government agents.

"In the past thieves were called thieves, now they are known as government
workers," Par Par Lay said, according to Lu Maw, who did not perform at
the rally under an agreement among the troupe that he not attend to avoid
the jailing that would inevitably befall the others.

"Lu Maw was in Mandalay, watching the family, holding the fort. That's why
Lu Maw was off the hook. That's why I was not arrested," Lu Maw said,
using his infectious brand of well-rehearsed English idioms and
third-person speech.

Lu Maw, who is Par Par Lay's younger brother and Lu Zaw's cousin, was
tasked with looking after the family and ensuring the Moustache Brothers
act would go on if the others were jailed.

Despite risking jail himself, Lu Maw and his wife, who is a traditional
Myanmar dancer, continued to perform for foreign tourists, all the time
calling on them and visiting undercover journalists to tell the world
about the fate of Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw.
His pleas were a relative success and, in what turned out to be a public
relations disaster for the military junta, the Moustache Brothers became a
cause celebre for famous Western comedians and actors, as well as the
foreign press and human rights groups such as Amnesty International.

The Body Shop retail chain also joined in with more than three million of
their customers marking petitions, which called for the release of the
pair, with their thumbprints.

Par Par Lay's fate was even the subject of a one-liner in the hit Hugh
Grant movie, "About a Boy".

-- 'Now, we can only perform here for foreigners' --

On July 13, 2001, Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw were released from prison after
serving five years and seven months of their seven-year sentences, an
early reprieve Lu Maw said only occurred because of the global pressure.

But the junta, who continue to outlaw virtually any forms of dissent and,
according to Amnesty, still hold more than 1,100 political prisoners, were
not about to allow the Moustache Brothers to return to their glory days.

Almost immediately after the release of Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw, the
government banned the Moustache Brothers from performing, an edict the
trio and the rest of their loyal troupe had no intention of following.

But realising that performing for local audiences would result in more
jail time, they decided to take a gamble and transform themselves into a
comedy act targetted only at foreign tourists.

"What can we do? You have to get a license to perform. We can not perform
anywhere else but here for the tourists. But the tourists tell the world
about us and our country. This is our revenge," Lu Maw said.

Unlike Aung San Suu Kyi, who has called for a tourism boycott to deprive
the military rulers of foreign currency, Lu Maw passionately welcomes
tourists.

"Tourists take photos of forced labour in Myanmar. That's why there is no
more forced labour in Mandalay, Inle Lake, Bagan," he said, referring to
some of the country's most popular tourist destinations.

And just as Lu Maw credits international pressure with the early release
of his brother and cousin, he is certain the only reason the Moustache
Brothers have not been jailed again is because of foreign interest in
them.

"I need your help, I need your assistance. With your help, we stay alive,"
Lu Maw said when the foreigner who appeared at the entrance to his
home-cum-theatre revealed himself to be a journalist.

Each night a steady trickle of tourists -- generally between six and 35
according to Lu Maw -- come to watch the performance, paying about three
US dollars for a ticket.

The show is a rare chance for foreigners to hear a local person talk in
public about the lack of democracy in Myanmar, and Lu Maw playfully warns
the audience they should be ready to run out the back exit if the police
make a raid.

Nevertheless, the abbreviated, one-hour version of the act that foreigners
see has a sad, melancholic air, and the junta may be able to claim some
form of victory in curtailing what locals recalled was once a brilliant,
dynamic show.

Lu Maw is the MC because he is the only troupe member who speaks English.
But even he has to spell out his punchlines and use cue cards to make
himself clear, while his efforts to relate to the Western world with jokes
about Hollywood stars and other celebrities occasionally fall flat.

Lu Zaw appears on the stage with his trademark rubber-faced, comic
expressions, but his eyes appear to become lost in a tragic world as soon
as the lights fade, perhaps remembering the torture that Lu Maw said he
suffered while in prison.

"From door to door, from village to village, from city to city, we
performed for more than 30 years across the country," Lu Maw recalled as
the mischievous, cheeky grin he wears for foreigners faded briefly.

"We used to perform all night, not just one or two hours. We were three
comedians, 10 female dancers, eight musicians, five -- how do you say in
English -- 'roadies'.

"Now, we can only perform here for foreigners."

But asked if the Moustache Brothers should perhaps draw the curtains on
their act and pursue safer, easier careers, Lu Maw was defiant and drew
parallels with Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest in the
southern capital of Yangon.

"Aung San Suu Kyi, she's a fighter. We also are fighters."

____________________________________

September 13, Grist Magazine (online)
Burma Save: Logging keeps Asian elephants in business ... for now -
Jennifer Hile

At a fork in the road, our guide points to the right. "That's the main
road there," he says. "We'll go on this smaller road, deep into the
jungle." A glance to the left reveals a narrow, unpaved track, which he
tells us is used primarily by logging trucks. It's the dry season in
Myanmar, and dead leaves hang like bats above us. The truck's idling motor
blends with the cacophony of insects.

I'm sitting next to one of Asia's most dedicated elephant
conservationists, Sangduan "Lek" Chailert. In 1995, Lek sold her home and
car, using the proceeds to start the Elephant Nature Park sanctuary in her
native Thailand. She also runs a program called Jumbo Express, bringing
free medical care to the animals and their owners in the countryside.

Lek's nickname means "little." She barely tops five feet, and looks to
weigh around 100 pounds -- yet she's spent her adult life throwing a
shoulder against the monumental downhill slide of Asian elephants. Three
years earlier, I had made a documentary about the sanctuary for National
Geographic. A few months of following her around with a camera had left me
in awe of her work; when she invited me to meet her for this trek, I
jumped at the chance.

Lek -- whose shaman grandfather was once awarded an elephant for saving a
man's life -- has heard that the animal's numbers in Myanmar (formerly
known as Burma) are relatively stable. That's a stark contrast to the rest
of Asia, where populations have been shattered by poaching and
deforestation. "This country," she tells me, "is one of the last places of
hope."

Pachyderms of Endearment

Myanmar is one of the last places in the world to see the centuries-old
Asian tradition of domesticated elephants and their keepers working side
by side. There are said to be hundreds of animals laboring throughout the
country, but the very thing protecting elephants there may one day do them
in. Many of them are used for logging; the country is home to more than
half of Southeast Asia's remaining closed-canopy forest. As we plan our
visit to logging camps in the central hinterlands, we know we will see a
practice riddled with irony: these creatures are surviving because they're
shielded from harm -- solely for the purpose of destroying their own
habitat.

Just how many elephants we're talking about is unknown. As I prepared for
my trip, I expected population numbers to be tough to find -- Myanmar's
iron-fisted military government keeps it largely sealed off from outside
observers -- but I was stunned to learn that current stats are all but
nonexistent for all of Asia. A lack of funds, and often political will,
means on-the-ground counts have been few and far between. (International
wildlife conservation organizations have also faced criticism for working
with ruthless leaders such as those in Myanmar for any purpose.)

Simon Hedges, Asian elephant coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation
Society, confirmed my finding. He emailed me an article he coauthored for
Conservation Biology in 2004. "For many forest elephant populations,
existing knowledge is often so inadequate that even deciding which are the
most important populations to protect is not possible," the authors wrote.
"The frequently cited global estimate of 30,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants
is often acknowledged as little more than an educated guess ...
Astonishingly, these estimates of the global population have been accepted
without revision for a quarter of a century, despite major losses of Asian
elephant habitat over this period."

When we spoke, Hedges was preparing to launch a study of the number and
distribution of elephants in Myanmar's Hukaung Valley. Its vast forests
provide ideal habitat, and scientists hope to find robust populations
there. "What we already know about [the country], however, suggests there
are smaller numbers of elephants than people had hoped," he told me.

Wildlife biologist Peter Leimgruber, of the conservation unit of the
Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, has spent years studying the
country and its wild herds. Results from a recent search are called
"sobering" on the Smithsonian's website. Leimgruber's team sighted wild
elephants only twice, and the amount of dung they encountered "implies
populations are significantly smaller than expected," he told me.

"I definitely would still consider the country a stronghold for the
species," Leimgruber says, citing the amount of remaining forest and the
importance of elephants to the culture. "But it's amazing how much we
don't know."

What we do know is this: Asian elephants once grazed by the Yangtze River
in China and in the dark forests of Sumatra. Their range covered nearly
3.5 million square miles. Now it's estimated at about 188,000 square miles
total -- a 95 percent reduction -- spread across 13 countries. It's a
patchwork of shrinking forests, fast being dismantled and piled into the
logging trucks that rumble along the continent's back roads.

Tusk, Tusk

My trip with Lek started four days ago at a guest house next to the
glittering, colossal temple of Shwedagon in Yangon (Rangoon). We rented a
car and headed for the small town of Taungoo, in central Myanmar. I was
beginning to wonder if we'd manage to find any elephants, given the grim
statistics. But it didn't take long. Just outside Yangon, we saw our first
-- in chains.

Myanmar's Department of Forestry keeps albino elephants on display for the
general public. With pink skin covered in short white hair, these
curiosities looked as if they'd been sprinkled with powdered sugar. They
stared back at me with eyes the color of pearls. I watched as the youngest
paced back and forth, reaching toward the others, bellowing and trumpeting
with frustration. He will most likely spend the rest of his life tethered
to this platform. White elephants, considered sacred throughout Asia, are
said to bring peace and prosperity to a nation. Leave it to a military
junta to shackle their good omens.

Lek and I didn't linger. As we drove off, she mused on the complexities of
the situation. "In Asia, elephants are a very mystical creature, a holy
animal," she said, important to both Hinduism and Buddhism. "But the
elephant is also used for work and making money." That contradiction means
the animals are both revered and violently subdued throughout Asia.

When we reached Taungoo, we asked the manager of our guest house to find
Maung Soe, a guide whom Lek had met three months earlier, and -- poof --
within a half hour he appeared. "Easy to find elephant logging camps," he
assured us. "Be ready at 5:30 tomorrow morning."

Now, on our fourth day out, we've been driving for five hours when Maung
Soe points out the fork in the road. Before continuing on, Lek and I hop
out to stretch our legs. She spies elephant dung, then soldiers --
evidence of what we came here hoping to find, and what we most hoped to
avoid.

As the soldiers approach, wearing olive-green uniforms with old rifles
slung over their shoulders, I realize they are younger than I'd expect.
It's quickly obvious that they aren't concerned with us. No one asks for
passports, a bribe, or any of the other harassments you hear foreigners
subjected to in this hermetic kingdom. Instead, they tell us they're here
to monitor logging operations, pointing to the small hut where they stay.
It reminds me of a stranded whale carcass: ribs of bamboo arch across the
top, with a few pieces of ripped, gray canvas overhead. A fetid trickle of
river runs adjacent.

It's no surprise the government keeps an eye on logging. In 2004, the
timber trade brought in $430 million -- 15 percent of the country's export
earnings, according to the U.K.-based Global Witness. Of that, $300
million came from teak; Myanmar provides 75 percent of the international
supply of that popular wood.

In fact, increasing global demand for teak and other woods means the
illegal trade is flourishing. "The most severe logging is taking place in
northern Myanmar" along the border with China, explains John Buckrell, a
campaigner for Global Witness. In recent years, he says, "over 98 percent
of the timber imported annually into China across the border was illegal."
Buckrell adds that the area has been described as "one of the world's
hottest biodiversity hotspots."

But logging with elephants may actually be keeping the devastation in
check. "The cutting is done selectively, one tree at a time, as opposed to
clear-cutting," explains Matthew Lewis of the World Wildlife Fund's Asian
Mammal Conservation program. "That does a lot less damage to the forest"
and doesn't require new roads to be built.

And though the work is hard on the animals -- especially on their skin and
spines, Lek tells me -- it may be better than the alternative. When
domesticated elephants are replaced by logging machinery, Lewis says,
their numbers usually plummet. They are often abandoned and become crop
raiders, likely to be shot by farmers. Or -- like many of the 3,000
elephants that were put out of work when Thailand outlawed logging in 1989
-- they wander dusty city streets as a tourist attraction. There is little
wild to return to.

Let's Get Trunky

Lek and I shake hands with the soldiers, then jump back in the truck,
bumping along for another three hours. The engine dies periodically. When
the driver gets out, he sinks into ankle-deep dirt as soft and thick as
fresh snow. We haven't seen an elephant today, but we've passed 16 logging
trucks so far, their open beds piled sky-high.

We drive southwest all day and the next before reaching the village of
Pyaung Chaung Wa, a cluster of bamboo huts along a shallow river. It's
dusk, and the men are coming home from a day's work; Lek and I are both
thrilled to see a line of elephants stretched behind them. Four adult
animals lumber along, while one baby stays within trunk's reach. She
periscopes her trunk in our direction when she sees us, sniffing the air,
then darts behind her mother's formidable backside.

The villagers gather the animals by the river and slide off their
harnesses. The elephants, wearing bells around their necks, wander slowly
down the bank to graze. The late-afternoon light casts the scene in a
dark, filtered gold.

Maung Soe points Lek and me toward a small, open platform where we'll
sleep. It stands on stilts near the river; chickens nest beneath the
floor. Children gather around us, and Lek starts giving out whistles and
balloons donated by a volunteer at her sanctuary. In no time, every child
is blowing like crazy.

"I worry that maybe one day there will be no elephants left," says Lek
that evening, after a dinner of soup with fried noodles and basil cooked
over an open fire. "I think without them, maybe all of Asia [will be] like
an empty culture." As we talk, a crowd of people three deep encircles our
sleeping platform. Every time I open my backpack or camera case, heads
crane to see inside. Travelers are rare in this area, and TV and radio
nonexistent. Tonight, Lek and I are the villagers' entertainment.

At dawn on my second morning at camp, the surrounding canyons blurred by
mist, I see the elephants marching slowly toward the village with a
hodgepodge of men and boys. I join the mahouts, or elephant keepers, to
bathe the elephants in the river, tossing bucketfuls of frigid water over
massive gray backs. The villagers are clearly surprised at my interest in
their daily life, but are welcoming and helpful. (Women in this society
are strictly caregivers and cooks, but as a foreigner, I'm exempted from
social norms.)

After the bath, the mahouts tie a wooden harness to each animal and we
head into the jungle, a trail of chains dragging behind us. We hike to a
hillside where the villagers had cut down a dozen trees a few days
earlier. Now the mahouts de-limb the trees with an axe. Then they quickly
wrap the chain attached to the first elephant's harness around the base of
one of the trees. Bamboo whips hover threateningly as she starts moving.
"Chiti! Shet tho!" the mahout hollers. Maung Soe translates the directions
behind me: "Left! Forward!" The elephant maneuvers carefully down the
steep hillside, the tree dragging behind at odd angles, catching on
debris.

At the bottom of the hill the elephant crashes into the river, deep enough
in places for the 500-pound log to half-float behind her. The rest of the
elephants and their cargo soon follow. The caravan begins making fast
progress, kicking up spray. The canyon walls tower above us, and bird
calls echo all around. I feel as if I've stepped into an ancient painting.

Sixteen Tons, and Whaddaya Get?

Later that morning, near the village, one of the elephant keepers points
out a monster tree protruding horizontally from the base of a cliff. He
guesses it weighs well over a ton. It fell years ago, and looks cemented
into the granite rocks. Nonetheless, soldiers have ordered the villagers
to extricate it so it can be used to build a nearby bridge. With
trepidation, the men chain two elephants to the ancient tree.

The animals trumpet with the effort of trying to heave it forward. The men
start shouting commands, hitting the elephants with bamboo whips, urging
them on. The tree doesn't budge. The elephants are straining so hard,
their foreheads come within a few feet of the ground with every tug.

With a loud crack, part of a chain snaps, and one of the elephants hits
the ground hard, face first. A lesion on her stomach, probably from the
friction of the chain, bursts open. The pressure of the work is obvious as
the elephant struggles back to her feet. Today, this team catches a break.
It is considered bad luck for an elephant to be seriously injured, so the
men don't tempt fate. They quietly take off the chains and let the
elephants off to graze -- the soldiers will have to wait.

Back at camp, I'm eating more noodle soup when I look up to see an
elephant dragging our overheated truck up a hill in the distance. Maung
Soe had been fiddling with the engine, trying to figure out why it kept
quitting, and it died again. The villagers decided to help out by using
the local power source. Now Maung Soe sits behind the wheel as the truck
moves forward, driver's-side door thrown open, trying to rev the engine
back to life.

While I stare at the scene, a few people around me stare at a Vanity Fair
magazine I've pulled out of my pack. I find myself wondering if we've
already done too much damage to the truck's engine to salvage it. And then
I can't help but think of the piecemeal destruction I've already seen, and
of the work of Lek, Leimgruber, and Hedges. Theirs is an uphill battle
indeed.

Jennifer Hile is a freelance documentary filmmaker and writer living in
Manhattan. Her National Geographic documentary on Lek Chailert's work,
Vanishing Giants, was nominated for an Emmy in 2003.

____________________________________
DRUGS

September 14, Xinhua
Myanmar exposes 255 drug-related cases in August

Myanmar exposed 255 narcotic-drug- related cases in August, punishing 432
drug offenders including 91 women, according to the anti-drug authorities
Wednesday.

Seizure by the army, police and the customs during the month included 97
kilos of heroin, 69 kilos of opium and 0.94 kilos of marijuana as well as
over 196,000 stimulant tablets, the Central Committee for Drug Abuse
Control said.

The stimulant seizure represented another large confiscation of such drug
tablets so far this year following the seizure of more than 100,000
stimulant tablets in June in Myanmar's second largest city of Mandalay.

In an annual drug destruction activity in June, the Myanmar authorities
put 1,906 kilos of seized narcotic drugs worth of a street value of 328
million US dollars on fire in the capital. The destruction included 759
kilos of heroin, 625 kilos of opium as well as over 3 million tablets of
stimulants.

Official statistics show that Myanmar exposed a total of 3,012
narcotic-drug cases in 2004, punishing 4,153 people in the connection.
During the year, the authorities seized 973.5 kilos of heroin and 606.8
kilos of opium, an increase of 405.4 kilos and a decrease by 874.8 kilos
respectively compared with the previous year. The stimulant tablets
confiscated amounted to 8.3 million, up 4.3 million.

Meanwhile, during the poppy cultivation season in 2004-05, a total of
3,270 hectares of such plantations were destroyed in Shan, Kachin, Kayah
and Sagaing states and divisions, the statistics indicate, revealing that
two opium refineries, one in Shan state and the other in Kachin state,
were overrun by the authorities.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 14, Irrawaddy
Bush told to press Thaksin to change stand on Burma - Aung Lwin Oo

Eleven US congressmen have called on US President George W. Bush to urge
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra during a meeting scheduled for next
Monday to end his support for the Burmese junta and to raise with the Thai
leader the issue of democratic freedoms in Thailand.

The group of congressmen, who include Congressional Human Rights Caucus
founder Tom Lantos of the Democratic Party and Republican Party veteran
Dan Burton, made their appeal in a joint letter to Bush on Monday.

They maintained that Thailand had begun to turn away from its “tradition
of the tolerance and democracy that has long served as a positive example
in Asia”. They declared that “the Thaksin government has become the
region’s chief champion of the military dictatorship in Burma.”

The congressmen drew Bush’s attention to the violence in Thailand’s
southernmost provinces and the emergency decree that, they said, gave
Thaksin “draconian powers, including censoring the media.”

In Bangkok, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said:
“Congressmen are entitled to have their views but we have our own
perspective because we’re a neighboring country of Myanmar [Burma]
We’ll
continue with this approach that we’ve pursued all along.”

Thaksin and a high-ranking delegation arrived in New York on Sunday. Apart
from a meeting with President Bush he will attend the Second Asean-United
Nations Summit and the 2005 World Summit-High-Level Plenary Meeting of the
60th session of the UN.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, called for political
and human rights reforms in Burma during a meeting with Rangoon’s Foreign
Minister Nyan Win in New York on Monday.

_____________________________________

September 14, Irrawaddy
UN stalls on reforming human rights body – Clive Parker

Agreement over a Human Rights Council, which campaigners say would help
put pressure on rights violators—including the Burmese junta—failed to
materialize prior to the opening of the UN World Summit in New York.

After lengthy negotiations over the wording of a final document to be
submitted to the 60th General Assembly, parties failed to reach a
consensus on practically all details of the proposed council: “We request
the President of the General Assembly to conduct open, transparent and
inclusive negotiations to be completed as soon as possible during the 60th
session, with the aim of establishing the mandate, modalities, functions,
size, composition, membership, working methods and procedures for the
council.”

With key issues undecided going into the beginning of the UN World Summit
later today—including whether the council would be a permanently standing
body—campaign groups described the situation as “a missed opportunity.”

“It’s very disappointing,” said Peter Splinter, Amnesty International’s
special representative to the UN in Geneva.

“We are now in a situation where practically everything of any consequence
for this new council remains to be decided,” Splinter told The Irrawaddy.

This view was echoed by Human Rights Watch in a statement late yesterday,
which suggested the UN Summit might turn out to be unsuccessful given the
final document submitted to the 60th General Assembly: “The Human Rights
Council is a litmus test for this upcoming summit, and global leaders are
in danger of failing it,” said Peggy Hicks, a representative for the New
York-based organization.

Groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam have
been lobbying governments to pass reforms which would include a permanent
human rights body to replace the current Human Rights Commission that
stands for only six weeks every spring. However, “spoiler”
nations—considered to be led by Cuba but also including Burma—are said to
have disputed this clause in the hope of avoiding added pressure over
their rights record.

Splinter described the Burmese junta as “a cheerleader encouraging
countries like Cuba and Pakistan.”

“If this discussion isn’t to become a farce
there will have to be a
standing body—a body that can meet throughout the year. I think that is
something that will be seriously pursued. To save any face, that would
have to be one of the outcomes,” Splinter said.

Democracy campaigners are also concerned that the existing UN set-up on
human rights has been undermined by countries intent on ignoring
international calls to improve their respective records. Some have
proposed new members must receive endorsement by two-thirds of the General
Assembly, although there is concern that this would ostracize “rogue
states” further.

“We are convinced
that countries like Cuba and Burma need to be brought to
account. Something needs to be done to stop the destructiveness,” Splinter
said.

However, he added that the likes of Burma should still be kept in the
fold: “Maybe without formally excluding them it would be possible to
diminish the insolence of the countries that have been very destructive.”

A decision to double funding for the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights “to enable it to effectively carry out its mandate to
respond to the broad range of human rights challenges facing the
international community” was, however, deemed one of the few “bright
lights” of the 35-page final agreement.

“It looked like it wasn’t going to be in the text and it was squeezed back
in at the last moment,” Splinter said of the decision.

A spokesperson for UNHCHR in Geneva today said any future council would
also continue the practice of appointing special rapporteurs to countries
of concern as “one of the things that has worked well during the
commission’s time.”

However, in Burma’s case, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Sergio
Pinheiro has faced a particularly frustrating period in recent times. The
junta has repeatedly refused Pinheiro access to the country since his last
visit in November 2003.

Pinheiro on Wednesday refused to make a response to the UN final agreement
on the Human Rights Council, his spokesperson saying he would not do so
“until the full facts are clear.”

_____________________________________

September 14, Agence France Presse
Southeast Asian leaders stress multilateral diplomacy in talks with Annan-
P. Parmeswaran

Leaders of southeast Asian nations, some of whom strongly opposed the
US-led invasion of Iraq, have underlined in talks with UN chief Kofi Annan
the need to strengthen multilateral diplomacy.

"We expressed support for multilateralism with the United Nations at the
core," read a joint statement by the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) after a group meeting here Tuesday.

ASEAN leaders gathered on the sidelines of the 60th anniversary of the
UN's founding, as 170 world leaders prepared to kick off a landmark
three-day summit expected to endorse a watered-down blueprint to
restructure the embattled body.

The leaders of the 10 mostly developing ASEAN states backed Annan's
efforts "in making the United Nations a more effective organization that
will continue to underpin the multilateral system and to meet the
challenges of the millennium," the statement added.

Some of the southeast Asian leaders, while backing management reforms to
bolster UN efficiency, cautioned against diluting the powers of the
secretary general, officials said.

"We support reforms but . . . do not wish to diminish the role of the UN
Secretary-General," a regional official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The association's predominantly Muslim nations -- Indonesia, Malaysia and
Brunei -- were among those opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One UN reform proposal defining terrorism as deliberate killing of
civilians was shelved after some developing nations insisted it be
balanced by an explicit statement of the right to resist foreign
occupation, the officials said.

The trade-off was an agreement to drop language exempting national
liberation struggles, such as that of the Palestinians.

However, the right to self-determination of people under foreign
occupation was included elsewhere in the text, the officials added.

"There was considerable debate on the language on terrorism and most of
the discussion has been on how terrorism relates to the right of people to
self determination," Indonesian government spokesman Marty Natalegawa told
AFP.

"We will regret it very much if our concerns on terrorism lead to diluting
of commitments by the international community to support the right of
peoples to self determination," he said.

Natalegawa said that even though Indonesia had faced terrorist attacks at
home and maintained a "strong stand" against terrorism, it was mindful of
civil liberties and understood the need to look at the root causes of
terror.

ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong told AFP that ASEAN leaders
supported proposed UN management reforms, but were especially pushing for
improvements in "working methods" within the world body.

He cited the need, for example, for closer coordination between the United
Nations and its specialized agencies, including in disaster management and
prevention as well as control of diseases such as the Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome, the Avian flu and HIV-AIDS.

On the avian or bird flu, which has killed at least 60 people in southeast
Asia, including 41 in Vietnam, the joint statement expressed concern over
its "unprecedented spread."

Public health experts fear the avian flu virus is mutating and could
spread to humans, potentially killing millions in a flu pandemic.

Annan and the ASEAN leaders agreed that "urgent steps" needed to be taken
to implement local, regional and global initiatives -- including the
private sector -- to reduce the present shortage of influenza vaccine.