BurmaNet News, February 2, 2006

[Editor]

February 2, 2006 Issue # 2892


INSIDE BURMA
SHAN: Yawdserk: There is no Shan Government
Irrawaddy: KNU claims mines planted in division close to Pyinmana
Narinjara News
Rumor surrounds former Chief of Staff of Arakan Army

BUSINESS / TRADE
Straits Times: Gas deal fuels China's plans for Myanmar

REGIONAL
Irrawaddy: Indonesian President’s Burma visit delayed again
Hindu: Kalam to visit Myanmar
Mizzima: NLD-LA elect new western region chairman

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: UN Security Council should put Burma on its agenda - Zo Tum Hmung

PRESS RELEASE
Asian Human Rights Commission: Burma: Supreme Court decision on human
rights defender shows Burma's "injustice system", AHRC says

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

February 2, Shan Herald Agency for News
Yawdserk: There is no Shan Government

As far as the Shan State Army 'South' is concerned, the government of Shan
State is non-existent, declared Col Yawdserk during a recent interview at
his base opposite Maehongson.

"If there is going to be any meeting between us, it will be an informal
one," the 49-year old leader of the SSA-South's political wing,
Restoration Council of Shan State, told S.H.A.N. "Formal meetings are out
of the question."

This was in response to overtures by a group of Shan activists that had
formed the Interim Shan Government (ISG) last March and declared
independence from Burma on 17 April for a face-to-face meeting to resolve
their differences.

Two of the ISG's members, "Foreign Minister" Khun Hom, and "Defense
Minister" Tun Aye, had been on the Advisory Council of the RCSS/SSA. Col
Moengzuen, Commander of the Shan State Army 'Central' set up by the ISG,
had also been commander of the SSA-South's 758th Brigade.

Col Yawdserk, whose name means 'Best in War', and not 'Warlord' as
translated by Reuters, also denied there was a major operation launched by
Rangoon against Moengzuen's forces in southern Shan State.

"We have yet to hear any clashes of significance," he maintained. "On the
other hand, we keep hearing reports of the Burma Army trying to coax him
to surrender."

The interview took place less than a week after one of the SSA South's
units was said to have put to rout a 40-men strong column from
Panglawng-based Infantry Battalion 249 on 23 January at Loi Pangkawk,
Mongkerng township. The Burma Army column left on the field 11 dead
including its commander, Captain Kyaw Oh, 1 set of radio communications
equipment, 1 M-79 grenade launcher, 1 M16 and 3 MA1 automatic rifles. On
the SSA side, there was 1 dead and 4 wounded.

The ISG meanwhile stated that with "a fully armed 2,500 troops under its
command and another 25,000 in reserve," there was no question of
surrender.

The SSA-South, whose leading members are reportedly engaged in a series of
meetings to form a representative body of Shan State, are not available
for further comments.

According to the 12 October 2004 decisions of the Ethnic Nationalities
Council that claims to represent non-Burman political fronts, parties and
organizations, the Council would be restructured based on the existing
constituent states of Burma: Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni (Kayah),
Mon and Shan.

____________________________________

February 2, Irrawaddy
KNU claims mines planted in division close to Pyinmana - Aung Lwin Oo

Burmese government troops are planting landmines in populated areas close
to Mandalay Division, where Burma’s new administrative center Pyimana is
located, in an effort to increase the regime’s control there, according to
the Karen National Union.

At least two civilians died and seven were injured in landmine explosions
in the area last month, said KNU Joint-Secretary David Takapaw.

“They’ve laid landmines in our Brigade 2 controlled area in Taungoo [Pegu
Division] and nearby districts as part of the government’s anti-insurgents
campaign,” Takapaw said.

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, a Bangkok-based Burma researcher with the
international organization Landmine Monitor, told The Irrawaddy today that
during a recent visit to a border region near Shan State he had found
evidence of the continued use of anti-personnel mines.

Last November, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines described Burma
as one of the few remaining countries producing and deploying
anti-personnel mines, while global use of the deadly devices has
decreased.

The report said landmines were found in nine of Burma’s 14 states and
divisions, while ethnic frontiers were heavily sown with the lethal
devices.

ICBL charged that government troops, as well as armed ethnic groups,
regularly use landmines to compensate for shortages in other conventional
munitions. Armed groups have the capability to make a variety of mines,
including blast, fragmentation, Claymore-style and anti-handling fuse
devices, the ICBL said.

Yan Maung, of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, has said that landmines
are commonly used by all parties in military actions in Shan State.

David Takapaw, however, claims that the KNU uses mines only against
combatants and avoids harming civilians.

According to the ICBL, only two armed groups in the Burma-Bangladesh
border region have so far agreed to give up using landmines, while Rangoon
has still to sign the UN Mine Ban Treaty.

____________________________________

February 2, Narinjara News
Rumor surrounds former Chief of Staff of Arakan Army

There has been a rumor around Bangladesh-Burma border area that the former
chief of staff of the Arakan Army (AA), Major Khaing Zaw, who surrendered
to the Burma Army was taken to Rangoon by the Military Security Force
(MSF) to be interrogated on the condition of Arakan revolutionary parties
in the Bangladesh - Burma border area and the past incident of Bo Raza's
assassination by the India Army in 1998.

Although it is still a rumor, some believe that he was arrested and
brought to Rangoon for inspection and enquiry into the situation of
Arakanese revolutionary parties staying on the Bangladesh-Burma border.

"I knew he was in Maungdaw before, but recently he was shifted to another
place. I do not know his new location," a trader from Maungdaw said.

Another source said the authorities did not trust him and his group even
though he surrendered to the Burmese authority along with nine of his
subordinates. Therefore, the authority did not allow them to remain in the
border area but sent them back to their respective home villages.

Some opposition leaders remarked that he must be properly interrogated by
the Burmese military authority because he is more knowledgeable of the
situation regarding the Arakanese revolution than others who have
surrendered.

Khaing Zaw received military training in the Karen Liberation Army and he
fought several battles against the Burmese Army in the south of Burma with
the KNU in the early 1990's. He came to the Bangladesh-Burma border
accompanied by General Khaing Raza, crossing the sea of Andaman by
speedboat from the Thai-Burma border in 1992.

He surrendered to the Burmese army with a few arms and ammunitions in
October 2005 after Bangladesh authorities tried to arrest him.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

February 2, The Straits Times
Gas deal fuels China's plans for Myanmar - David Fullbrook

After wrapping up oil and gas deals in Africa, the Middle East and Latin
America over the last year, China is now lining up to buy Myanmar's gas.

State-controlled PetroChina has quietly reached an understanding with
Yangon to pipe gas from a new offshore field to Yunnan as early as 2009.

Myanmar plans to sell 185 billion cubic metres of gas to PetroChina over
30 years via a new 800km pipeline to Kunming from exploration area Block
A1. It would take Singapore 30 years to use that much gas. Given the close
relations between Yangon and Beijing, turning the memorandum of
understanding into a deal should be just a formality.

Even furious lobbying from India is unlikely to change that. Delhi had
hoped to be the first customer for gas from Block A1, which lies under the
Bay of Bengal offshore from the Myanmar town of Sittwe and is only a few
hundred kilometres from Kolkata.

Still, with 2.5 trillion cubic metres of gas - only slightly less than in
Indonesia - estimated to lie off Myanmar's coast, there should be some
left for India. However, it is embarrassing for India because it had been
making much of joint ventures between Chinese and Indian energy companies
in Syria and Sudan. The suggestion was that there was a degree of tacit
cooperation between Delhi and Beijing over energy.

It is no surprise then that neither Myanmar officials nor PetroChina
executives have been trumpeting the memorandum, signed in early December.
PetroChina did not respond to requests for further information. Indeed the
agreement only slipped out because Indian consultants leaked it to the
Indian press.

There simply is not enough oil and gas in the world for China and India to
share. Even if China's economy stopped growing - and it doubles in size
every nine years - its oil and gas imports would continue to rise because
China's own oil and gas fields are small and shrinking.

Piping in gas from neighbouring Myanmar will help make up that shortfall.
More deals could follow as more gas is discovered. Firms are drilling
exploratory wells along Myanmar's coast. A pipeline already runs from the
offshore Yadana gas field through mountains once controlled by Karen and
Mon guerillas to power stations in Thailand.

But a pipeline to Yunnan means more than just helping to power China's
economy. It would set a precedent for more pipelines and quite possibly
roads, railways and even river shipping between nearby Myanmar ports and
central China, where the economy is not producing jobs and increasing
wages at anything like the rates seen along China's distant Pacific coast.

Gas and oil imported from Africa and the Middle East now sail through the
Strait of Malacca and up through the South China Sea to China's Pacific
coast. If these tankers could unload their cargoes into pipelines running
from Myanmar's coast to China, shipping times would be cut by as much as a
week.

That would save money, and help Chinese generals sleep easier. They worry
that the Strait of Malacca might be closed either by a terrorist attack or
a blockade caused by a crisis, say between China and America over Taiwan.

Cheaper energy would also help make places like Yunnan, Sichuan and
Chongqing more exciting to investors, who currently favour coastal
provinces despite land and labour being more expensive. Slow and congested
transport makes inland China, which is days, even weeks, from east coast
ports, unattractive.

Though there have been no official announcements, roads, railways or
rivers from Yunnan to Myanmar's coast are high on Beijing's agenda.
Chinese workers are reportedly busy building roads from Ruili in Yunnan to
Bhamo, a port on the Irrawaddy River in northern Myanmar, and from
Tengchong to Myitkyina, the northern terminus for Myanmar's dilapidated
railway.

Traders in Ruili say Chinese engineers have surveyed Bhamo's port for
expansion and even considered dredging the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy
to improve navigation.

Ruili, now a small town notorious for gambling and prostitution, attracts
migrants from across China hoping to make a quick yuan or two from border
trade. A building boom suggests people are betting on a bright future. A
new 12-lane Customs and immigration post awaits the arrival of one of
seven new national expressways announced a year ago. Locals talk of the
railway from Kunming arriving in 2007. China clearly has grand plans for
Myanmar.

And they are plans that Myanmar's military regime appears to share. In the
past, rebel armies made running a pipeline through Myanmar to China risky.
These days, most rebel armies have either surrendered or agreed to
ceasefires with Myanmar's powerful armed forces. In particular, a corridor
sweeping through southern Kachin State and northern Shan State that covers
trade routes between Mandalay and China is now quite secure.

Receipts from gas sales and transportation fees will make Myanmar's
generals even more immune to Western sanctions intended to push Yangon to
improve its dismal human rights record and restore democracy. Asean's
attempts to coax Yangon into changing its way seem even less likely than
ever to work.

Tentative gas sales, a pipeline plan and road-building are bringing China
and Myanmar closer together than ever. It means jobs for China and dollars
for Myanmar's generals. Still, those dollars might turn out to be a curse.
Oil revenues have only led to jealousies, political turmoil and fighting
in many poor countries.

The writer-researcher is based in Bangkok.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

February 2, Irrawaddy
Indonesian President’s Burma visit delayed again - Clive Parker

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has again delayed a proposed
visit to Burma, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jakarta said today.

Susilo Bambang YudhoyonoYudhoyono had been planning to visit Burma in
January as part of a mini tour of the Asean region, which will include
Cambodia and Brunei. The trip was then delayed until the middle of
February because of the Indonesian president’s tight schedule, the Foreign
Ministry said last month.

However, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yuri Thamrin said today
Yudhoyono would now probably not visit Rangoon until the end of February,
admitting that exact dates were still “not finalized.”

Suggesting the delay was now at the Burma end, or at least on the part of
one of the three countries on the Indonesian president’s schedule, Thamrin
said: “Our initial plan was to have it in the second week of February
we
have to fix it in accordance with the availability of time of the leaders
in the other countries—Brunei, Cambodia and Myanmar [Burma].”

It is still not clear whether Yudhoyono will be able to meet with the
leader of Burma’s military government, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, Thamrin said,
although this is still the hope in Jakarta.

Burma’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unavailable for comment today.

The proposed visit to Rangoon—which is likely to last either one or two
days—is planned as part of the Indonesian president’s traditional tour of
each Asean country after taking office, which in Yudhoyono’s case was in
October 2004.

The visit has taken on greater significance in the past month following
Indonesia’s unprecedented criticism of the junta when Foreign Minister
Hassan Wirajuda accused Rangoon of “disturbing the balance” within Asean.

During the same time period, the 10-member bloc has been awaiting
confirmation of Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar’s proposed
visit to Rangoon on behalf of Asean, a trip that has been similarly
delayed, with the junta saying it is too busy relocating its ministries to
Pyinmana. No reason has been offered by Burma for the latest delay in
Yudhoyono’s schedule.

Thamrin reiterated, though, that the thorny question of Rangoon’s
democratic progress would likely be a topic of conversation once the visit
does finally take place. “Of course it’s about promoting better relations
between Indonesia and Myanmar [Burma], and
I will not be surprised if—as
fellow Asean members—we share our experience of the process of
democratization,” he said.

____________________________________

February 2, The Hindu
Kalam to visit Myanmar - Amit Baruah

Singapore: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is all set to visit Myanmar in the
second week of March. This will be the highest-level visit from India to
Myanmar since Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi travelled to Yangon in December
1987. Interestingly, Mr. Kalam will be making his first visit to a
neighbouring country since taking office in July 2002.

Asked why he had travelled less than his predecessors, Mr. Kalam told
presspersons: "Fortunately, I am connected. Sitting in Rashtrapati Bhavan
... I am electronically connected". "Wherever there is minimum need, there
only I [travel]." Confirming that he will also be travelling to Mauritius,
Mr. Kalam said his visits were need-based.

Currently, he is on a three-nation tour of Singapore, the Philippines and
South Korea.

Though India and Myanmar have had high-level contacts in recent years,
with Vice-President B.S. Shekhawat visiting Yangon in November 2003 and
Senior General Than Shwe coming to India in October 2004, Mr. Kalam will
be the first Head of State to touch Myanmar in decades.

Clearly, the Government of India has shed its earlier hesitation in the
Head of State travelling to Myanmar. Officials had told this correspondent
previously that the invitation for the President had been received; but no
action had been taken on it.

____________________________________

February 1, Mizzima News
NLD-LA elect new western region chairman - Tin Zaw Moe

The National League for Democracy - Liberated Area Western Region elected
a new chairman, U Cho, during an emergency conference late last month.

U Cho told Mizzima the conference, held months earlier than usual, was
organised in accordance with party rules and aimed to address the
organisation's financial situation and leadership vacuum.

In June last year, the previous chairman, Dr Tint Swe, was removed from
his position after his colleagues said he had failed to encourage party
unity and was in violation of the group's financial and procedural rules.

U Cho, a former executive committee member and NLD organiser for Kale
township, Sagaing division, said the organisation NLD-LA faced financial
insecurity.

"We haven't yet held our new executive committee meeting and not yet
decided on the financial matters. We have got no money at all too. We are
raising finance in every possible means. We rely on ourselves now," U Cho
said.

He said a report on the group's problems had been filed the NLD central
committee but that no reply was immediately received.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

February 2, Irrawaddy
UN Security Council should put Burma on its agenda - Zo Tum Hmung

On December 16, 2005, Ibrahim Gambari, the UN’s under secretary-general
for political affairs, briefed the UN Security Council on the
deteriorating situation in Burma. Many in the international community, as
well as Burma’s democratic forces and ethnic nationalities, warmly
welcomed the closed-door session. The briefing, however, offered no
resolution. In order to have a binding resolution, Burma must be on the
Council’s agenda, and a resolution should be made in accordance with
Chapter VII, Article 41, of the UN Charter.

Christopher Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the December 16
briefing was “a good first step.”  John Bolton, the US ambassador to the
UN, called it a “significant step.” Former Czech president Václav Havel,
who along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu commissioned the report A Threat To
the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma, also
commended the briefing as “a first step” but urged the Council to “follow
up.”  UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan added that the situation “requires
further scrutiny.” The US Campaign for Burma, too, said the briefing was a
“major step forward.” Formal discussion at the Council should be the next
step.

The agreement by China—a close ally of the SPDC—to participate in the
briefing sends a significant signal to the regime. In addition, Asean, of
which Burma is a member, has moved from constructive engagement and
non-interference to a more aggressive approach in provoking change. Asean
successfully pressured the regime to forego its chairmanship of the
regional bloc and offered strong condemnation of Burma’s lack of
democratic reform recently in Kuala Lumpur.

Add to this their decision to send Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid
Albar to Burma as an envoy to assess developments in the country’s
much-touted roadmap to democracy, and their position seems clear: the SPDC
constitutes a threat to regional peace and stability. However, Albar has
sent mixed signals to the SPDC, claiming that if there is no cooperation
with the international community, the Council would take action against
them, while also stating that Burma has not posed a threat to
international peace.

Positive momentum for the Council to put Burma on its agenda seems to be
building. Opponents of the December 16 briefing, such as Algeria and
Brazil, are no longer on the Security Council, replaced on January 1, 2006
by five new members: Congo, Ghana, Qatar, Peru, and Slovakia. These new
members appear to be sympathetic toward reform in Burma. Furthermore, US
President George W Bush put Burma on the US agenda by mentioning it during
his State of the Union address on January 31, 2006 as a nation that
requires freedom. And, as usual, European nations and the US—both
democrats and republicans—are strongly united on the Burma national
reconciliation cause.

The National League for Democracy and ethnic nationalities have
acknowledged the need for a transitional period. NLD Spokesperson U Lwin’s
statement on Burma’s 58th Independence Day and the Third Ethnic
Nationalities Seminar’s statement issued on February 3, 2004 have stressed
the importance of having a transitional governing body comprising the
SPDC, NLD, other 1990 election winners, and ethnic nationalities. Hill
also promotes the idea of a transitional government.

But any move toward a transitional government should be made with the
assistance of the UN.

The SPDC has chosen to ignore the 28 previous UN resolutions. It also
chose not to cooperate with UN Special Rapporteur Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro
and Razali Ismail, former UN special envoy. During the closed-door
briefing, Gambari told council members and Annan that the SPDC has failed
to implement UN recommendations. Again, the SPDC broke its promise to
Asean’s envoy.

After the briefing, reporters asked Annan whether he believed the Council
should put Burma on its agenda, to which he replied that “we should give
them a bit of time to see how it progresses.” Since then, the SPDC has
shown no sign of softening its hard-line position. Instead, it has
remained focused on its administrative relocation to Pyinmana, its
on-going—though recently suspended—constitution-drafting National
Convention, and its political propaganda machine, the Union Solidarity and
Development Association. In order to monitor the situation, as Annan
suggested, the Council should put Burma on its agenda and issue a binding
resolution.

Zo Tum Hmung is a former president of the Chin Freedom Coalition. He
received a master’s degree from Harvard University, where he concentrated
on foreign policy.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

February 2, The Asian Human Rights Commission
Burma: Supreme Court decision on human rights defender shows Burma's
"injustice system", AHRC says

Hong Kong: The failure of Burma's Supreme Court to accept an appeal
against the sentence of human rights defender Ma Su Su Nwe speaks to the
country's "injustice system" the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said
today.

On Wednesday afternoon Supreme Court Justice Tin Aung Aye summarily
rejected an application by U Myint Thaung, Su Su Nwe's lawyer, to appeal
against an 18-month jail term imposed on the 34-year-old villager last
October in revenge for her unprecedented victory in a forced labour case.

"This summary dismissal shows how totally defunct the judicial system in
Burma has become," Basil Fernando, executive director of the Hong
Kong-based regional rights group, said.

"It is not a system of justice; it is a system of injustice," he said.

"The judge must surely have underestimated how much further this decision
has degraded the Burmese judiciary in the eyes of the world," Fernando
said.

"After this, we must question whether or not the Supreme Court has the
capacity to pass judgment in any case coming before it," he added.

Su Su Nwe's lawyers have indicated that they will now lodge an application
in the Supreme Court for a special review of the case, which is the final
avenue for appeal.

In a letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour
the AHRC again called for Burma to be suspended from the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights, criticising the body for having "failed to act
decisively" over Su Su Nwe's detention.

"The AHRC among many other agencies, together with the Special Rapporteur
[on human rights in Burma] have repeatedly informed you of these
conditions [yet Burma] is still permitted to sit as a member of the
Commission," the AHRC said.

"We fail to understand why," the letter said.

It called on Arbour "to take personal responsibility to see that Myanmar
is suspended from the Commission" and asked her not to remain "silent and
inert" over the total repression of human rights in the country.

The AHRC on Monday launched a bilingual webpage on Ma Su Su Nwe, which can
be accessed at: www.ahrchk.net/susunwe.

About AHRC The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues
in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.