BurmaNet News, March 11-13, 2006

[Editor]

March 11-13, 2006 Issue # 2917

INSIDE BURMA
DVB via BBC: Burmese military parade moves to new capital
Irrawaddy: “Free Win Tin” demand on jailed journalist’s birthday
IMNA: 18th anniversary of 1988 democracy uprising

ON THE BORDER
Thai Press: Documentary film records plight of Karen people displaced
Irrawaddy: Human Rights media awarded in Bangkok

BUSINESS / TRADE
AFP: In Myanmar visit, Indian president jockeys with China for energy
Financial Post: China embraces Myanmar regime and $1.2B in trade

HEALTH / AIDS
AFP: Myanmar battles first bird flu outbreak

INTERNATIONAL
DVB: Nuclear energy: Is Burma/Myanmar the new Iran?

OTHER
DVB: Student leader Min Ko Naing on Burma’s Human Rights Day

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 11, Democratic Voice of Burma via BBC
Burmese military parade moves to new capital

Sources close to the War Office said there have been some problems between
troops, arriving at the new administrative capital Kyatpye to take part in
the Armed Forces Day military parade, and their commanding officers over
deceptive parade location. Many soldiers were not informed that the Armed
Forces Day [27 March] parade will be held at the new capital Kyatpye while
some were told they would be going to Rangoon. It has been learned that
soldiers who have never visited Rangoon are the ones who are very
disappointed and angry.

Previously, soldiers were given Sunday off and allowed to go sightseeing
in Rangoon, but at Pyinmana, there is nothing for sightseeing and they
will not be allowed to venture out of their camps for security reasons.
Some commanding officers, especially those who had been to Rangoon for the
annual parade, themselves are said to be angry too. Moreover, some
battalion commanders who just followed orders are also at a lost, camping
and staying in a near isolated capital. Due to the tension, the military
police are said to be closely monitoring the situation.

There will be no parade rehearsals this year due to security fears.
Sources told DVB [Democratic Voice of Burma] this year's parade will be
held in a low-key manner and as a way of warding off evil.

It is not known who are going to present flower garlands to the soldiers
during the parade, but sources close to the military said that civil
servants and local residents are likely to be forced to do the honour of
presenting the garlands to the soldiers.

____________________________________

March 13, Irrawaddy
 “Free Win Tin” demand on jailed journalist’s birthday - Khun Sam

Organizations seeking press freedom have marked the 76th birthday of
Burma’s longest-serving journalist prisoner Win Tin with calls for his
release from jail.

In a statement marking Win Tin’s birthday on March 12, Reporters Without
Borders and the Burma Media Association called for his “unconditional
release” and claimed that “his health has seriously deteriorated after 16
years in prison.”

Win Tin, formerly editor of the influential newspaper Hanthawaddy and
vice-chairman of the Writers’ Union, and an active participant in the 1988
pro-democracy uprising, was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years on
charges that included “anti-government propaganda.”

Win Tin also served as a secretary of Burma’s opposition National League
for Democracy and was senior advisor to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi. He has won international recognition for his pro-democracy
involvement, and in 2001 he was awarded the World Association of
Newspapers Golden Pen of Freedom and the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press
Freedom Prize.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association charged that
despite two heart attacks and a prostate condition Win Tin had been denied
“proper medical treatment.” He was also denied the opportunity to write.

A close friend, Maung Maung Khin, visited Win Tin the day before his
birthday and told The Irrawaddy that the veteran journalist was in poor
health and needed medication. Yet he was determined and forthright. “He
should be freed,” Maung Maung Khin said.

Maung Maung Khin said that at Saturday’s meeting Win Tin had welcomed the
recent NLD proposal for the formation of a “people’s parliament” on the
basis of the results of the 1990 election in return for recognition of the
junta as an interim government. He quoted Win Tin as saying: “That
proposal is good and essential. We need to knock at the door.”

Maung Maung Khin said prison officials had monitored their conversation
and took a note of what was said, as was the practice at all the
bi-monthly visits he made to Win Tin.

Meanwhile, Geneva-based Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media
Association, based in Oslo, said Win Tin has been denied visits from the
International Committee of the Red Cross since the start of 2006.

____________________________________

March 13, Independent Mon News Agency
18th anniversary of 1988 democracy uprising - Joi Htaw

Former students who took part in the in 1988 democracy uprising held its
18th anniversary to honour students who sacrificed their lives for human
rights in Burma (Myanmar) in Mae Soat today.

Bdo Mehn Shar, KNU secretary, other political leaders and about 100 people
joined the function, said Ko Kyaw Htin, who had experienced the uprising
as a YIT student. He was also one of the organizers of the anniversary
function.

“The intention today is to honour Ko Phone Maw, Ko Soe Naing and all
students’ leaders including Yangon Institute of Technology students who
were killed in Burma during the 1988 democracy uprising,” said a former
student Ko Kyaw Htinwho was part of the uprising.

Burma’s 1988-democracy uprising started after student leader Ko Phone Maw
was assassinated on March 13 during YIT student’s riots. At the
anniversary function in 1989, students and politicians including Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi had decided that March 13, the day marking the history of
Burma’s democracy movement would be Myanmar’s Human Rights Day.

“It can also be said that on the first anniversary we decided to fight
against the rule of the military regime till it is finished,” Ko Kyaw Htin
added.

A National League of Democracy (NLD) statement said that they would fight
for the people in various ways till the military regime collapsed.

Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) and Students and Youth
Congress of Burma (SYCB) also held Myanmar’s Human Rights Day in New
Delhi, said Ko Aung Myo Min, director of HREIB.

“The trainers in New Delhi elaborated on child’s rights, women’s rights
and the current human rights situation in Burma. Other organizations sang
the Human Rights song,” added Ko Aung Myo Min.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 13, Irrawaddy
Human Rights media awarded in Bangkok - Sai Silp

Human rights activists gathered in Bangkok yesterday to discuss the role
of the media in addressing human rights issues in Thailand and Burma,
while the Somchai Neelaphaijit Fund awarded its first batch of Human
Rights Media Awards.

The panel included Charm Tong, a rights activist with the Shan Women’s
Action Network, who told The Irrawaddy today that human rights abuses
along the Thailand-Burma border go largely unreported in the Thai media,
and are completely ignored by Burmese media because of censorship.

“Human rights abuses by Burmese soldiers against ethnic people should be
reported on more by the Thai media to make people more aware of their
situation and why they have fled across the border to Thailand,” she said.

Thai Senator Jon Ungpakorn told the discussion forum that the media could
become a channel to provide vital information to Thai government officials
about human rights issues along the border and potentially influence Thai
policy on Burma.

In addition to the panel discussion, the Somchai Neelaphaijit Fund—named
after a Thai Muslim lawyer abducted in Bangkok in March 2004 and presumed
murdered for his efforts to expose human rights abuses—granted its first
Human Rights Media Awards for excellence in reporting on human rights
issues.

Among this year’s winners were Theerayut Bunpaepol, from the Thai News
Agency, for excellence in online media, and Suppara Chanchidfar of
Sarakadee Magazine for excellence in print media.

Angkana Neelaphaijit, wife of Somchai Nellaphaijit, was this year’s
recipient of the Human Rights Defender Award, received on behalf of her
husband for his efforts to seek justice for victims of human rights abuses
in southern Thailand.

____________________________________

March 13, Thai Press Reports
Documentary film records plight of Karen people displaced by Salween river
hydroelectric dam project

The scene of a Karen woman giving birth on a forest floor one dark night
is one of several that brought viewers close to tears as they viewed a
documentary film on recent relocations of ethnic Karenni and Karen people
in Burma (Myanmar), the Bangkok Post reports.

The documentary was screened last week at a seminar on dam projects on the
Salween river that flows through Burma and runs along part of the
Thai-Burmese border in Chiang Rai province. The seminar was organised by
major organisations and certain Senate panels.

The documentary was intended to inform people outside Burma about the
plight of minority groups. Their conditions are expected to get worse once
the construction of hydropower dams on the Salween river, as agreed
recently by the Thai and Burmese governments, is completed, said Moo Moo,
a Karenni girl who represents the Karenni Development Research Group, a
non-governmental organisation campaigning for sustainable development.

Ms Moo Moo called on the Thai government to reconsider its support for the
projects.

The Thai and Burmese governments in May 2005 signed a memorandum of
understanding to develop the projects. Seven months later, the Electricity
Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) signed an agreement with Burma's
Hydroelectric Power Department to kick off the first dam project of Hutgyi
with an estimated capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts.

Five dam sites were plotted by means of satellite surveys _ two on a
stretch of the Salween along the Thai-Burmese border and the other three
in Burmese areas occupied by minority groups.

Egat cited Thailand's need to build up a reserve in order to meet an
increasing demand for electricity.

However, Ms Moo Moo said she feared the dams, including the Weigyi dam to
be built on Karen and Karenni land, would hurt the two minority groups.

When the Burmese government launched its project to build Lawpita, a
hydropower dam, in a Karenni-occupied area, troops were sent in to move
local people out by force, said Ms Moo Moo.

There was also a marked increase in sexual violence and forced labour as a
result, she said.

She claimed the Salween dam projects would affect at least 30,000 Karenni
people and a small Yintalai tribe with a population of about 1,000.

A young Tai man who calls himself Sai Sai said Tai people in Shan state,
where the largest dam _ Ta Sang _ is to be built, have similar concerns.

He claimed many people who refused to flee fighting in the state were
forced by Burmese troops to guard roads which are frequently attacked by
anti-government forces.

Once the dam construction begins, government troops are likely to force
local people to guard dam property, he said.

Pianporn Deetes, of the Southeast Asia Rivers Network which campaigns for
sustainable development of river basins in the region, said increasing
government troop movements had taken place in the areas that appear to
coincide with dam construction activities.

By moving local people out, she said, the project developers could claim
construction of the dams was not going to affect anybody _ since there was
no one living in those areas.

Mae Hong Son mayor Suthep Nuchsuang accused Egat of failing to properly
inform the public about the dam projects.

He doubted Egat had ever taken into account the possible impact of a
transboundary migration of minority groups from Burma.

Tens of thousands of such migrants have already arrived in Mae Hong Son,
he said.

Thailand should also take the issue of morality into account. ''Tai people
in Shan state will be severely affected if the dams are built, because
they live on the plains, which are prone to flooding,'' he said.

An Egat official testifying before the Senate natural resources security
sub-committee said Egat would meet its Burmese counterpart next month to
discuss the likely impact on ethnic minorities.

Vasant Panich, a human rights commissioner, said the National Human Rights
Commission would look into the matter although he was still uncertain
whether the commission was empowered to examine issues involving projects
in another country but jointly developed by a Thai entity.

''Human rights are borderless. If we successfully do this, we may set a
new standard for such transboundary projects where treatment of human
rights is concerned,'' he said.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

March 12, Agence France Presse
In Myanmar visit, Indian president jockeys with China for energy

India's president left Myanmar this weekend with a new deal on natural
gas, joining China in a race for the country's resources that weakens
international demands for democratic reforms, analysts said Sunday.

Myanmar is under a patchwork of US and European sanctions, imposed over
human rights abuses by its military rulers and to press for the release of
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Neighbors in Southeast Asia have become increasingly vocal in their
concerns about Myanmar's failure to deliver on promised reforms.

Despite regional frustration at repeated delays in a visit by an envoy
from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
analysts said there's only so much the region or the West can do.

"The geopolitical situation favors the Burmese military a lot. ASEAN is
limited, in that Burma can do a lot because of China and India engaging
the Burmese military," political analyst Aung Naing Oo said, referring to
Myanmar by its former name.

Myanmar, which borders both China and India, possesses signficant untapped
natural gas reserves off its western Arakan Coast.

Neighboring Thailand already pipes natural gas from Myanmar's offshore
reserves in the southeast in the Andaman Sea. Energy-hungry China and
India hope for a similar arrangement from the reserves off Arakan.

China signed a deal with Myanmar in November to consider building a
pipeline from the Shwe field to its Yunan province.

Indian President Abdul Kalam left Yangon on Saturday with a similar
agreement to explore transport options.

India has been trying to negotiate a three-billion-dollar deal to run a
pipeline from Myanmar across Bangladesh to the eastern Indian city of
Kolkata, but failed to make headway in the talks.

The agreement signed Thursday would allow studies into running a much
longer pipeline through northeast India, which borders Myanmar, or
converting the gas to liquefied natural gas for shipping.

But the scramble for Myanmar's natural resources has immunized the junta
from the pain of western sanctions and demands for reforms, Aung Naing Oo
said.

"Although India always claims they are a great democracy, they want closer
ties with the Burmese military," he said.

During Kalam's trip, Indian officials said the president never mentioned
Aung San Suu Kyi in his talks with the generals, even though India and the
United States made a joint statement calling for her release during
President George W. Bush's visit just one week earlier.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won 1990 elections but was never allowed to
take office, has spent more than 10 of the last 16 years in detention.

Myanmar political analyst Win Naing said India couldn't afford to talk
directly about Aung San Suu Kyi or specific human rights abuses, for fear
of alienating the generals and losing ground to China.

"The Indian president might discuss with our senior general about
democracy and national reconciliation," but only in loose terms, Win Naing
said.

"India is striving for better bilateral relations with Myanmar by
competing with China."

Myanmar businesses are also keen to boost trade with India, a country that
many here see as a natural partner because of its significant Indian
community, estimated at about one million people.

Two-way trade currently stands at about 400 million dollars, one-third the
level of Myanmar's trade with China, Sein Win Hlaing, head of Myanmar's
chamber of commerce, told AFP.

"It doesn't mean that these two countries are competing to influence
Myanmar. We all benefit from it," Sein Win Hlaing said.

Whether the new gas reserves in western Myanmar go to India or to China --
or a combination -- the profits will go directly to the military at the
expense of the nation's impoverished people, analysts said.

"The riches from sales of natural resources always disappear into thin
air. We don't know how this money is spent," Aung Naing Oo said.

____________________________________

March 11, Financial Post
China embraces Myanmar regime and $1.2B in trade: '25th province': Beijing
resists global efforts to end military dictatorship - Tim Johnson

Ruili, China - China has tossed an economic lifeline to the military
regime of Myanmar and the lifeline passes through this border city.

Every day, hundreds of trucks disgorge all manner of goods for trade.
Across the border, Chinese work crews build roads, fell forests, and
operate gold and jade mines. A major cross-border oil and gas pipeline is
in the works.

China has a habit of coddling repressive regimes. In places such as Sudan,
Iran, Zimbabwe and Myanmar, all under some type of international sanction,
it has stepped in with diplomatic protection, usually in exchange for
market access for its goods or a stake in oil fields or other natural
resources.

As China occupies a greater place on the world stage, it faces
international pressure to help deal with global trouble spots rather than
shore up tyrannical regimes. It has responded in one area: Beijing hosts
six-nation talks to coax North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons
programs.

Yet in remote corners such as this one, snug against the hilly frontier
with the nation once known as Burma, China is resisting global efforts to
end a decades-old military dictatorship. How it deals with Myanmar
reflects how it wields its power in the early 21st century.

In the past few months, Beijing has signed several energy deals with
Myanmar, which has the world's 10th-largest known reserves of natural gas.

In November, PetroChina ironed out a deal for 6.5 trillion cubic feet of
gas to be piped from Myanmar's offshore fields to Kunming in China's
Yunnan province.

A month later, Myanmar got a partial payback. China, which occupies one of
five permanent seats on the UN Security Council, helped to derail a U.S.
push to investigate and punish Myanmar for widespread repression of its
citizens.

"That's why they didn't have a formal investigation. It was an informal
discussion," said Josef Silverstein, a scholar on Myanmar affairs in
Princeton, N.J.

In Ruili, a city of 120,000, an economic boom is the result of a trade
bonanza with Myanmar, some of it in vast illegal logging along the
2,200-kilometre border.

Gong Nengzheng, Ruili's ebullient Mayor, explained how China's unusual
trading arrangements with Myanmar work.

"We build roads for them, and they give us merchandise, like seafood and
minerals," he said.

China also is building internal roads and railways to facilitate trade.
Chinese companies have built 305 kilometres of highway in Myanmar and will
soon construct a 107-kilometre rail link to Lashio, a final link of a
pan-Asia network. China provides all know-how, equipment and labour.

Myanmar residents near the Chinese border use water and electricity
service from China. Those who can afford them have Chinese cellphones.

The country's growing dependence on China has disheartened some ethnic
Burmese.

"It is the 25th province of China," said U Aung Kyaw Zaw, a longtime
resident of Ruili. "It is an economic colony."

During the 1970s and much of the 1980s, relations between China and
Myanmar were tense. Beijing backed an insurgency across the border.

But both nations experienced large pro-democracy protests (Burma in 1988
and China in 1989) that rattled their governments. Isolated from the West,
they changed their views of each other.

China started seeing Myanmar, Asia's poorest nation, as a repository of
raw materials and a potential outlet to the Indian Ocean. Myanmar's
leaders lobbied for diplomatic support, trade and billions of dollars in
weapons sales from China.

China vowed not to meddle in Myanmar's affairs in return for investment
deals, a template for Chinese behaviour in Africa and the Middle East.

"They are finding weak countries that have dictatorial governments, with
rich material resources and no infrastructure," said Sarah "Meg" Davis, a
scholar of ethnic minorities in China. "They go in. They prop up the
dictatorial governments. And they get a big cut of the timber and energy."

After a Feb. 14-18 trip to China, Soe Win, Myanmar's Prime Minister, said
Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, had pledged unwavering support and
opposed "imposition of economic sanctions" at the United Nations.

China is leery of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy advocate who was
denied power after her party swept 1990 elections and has been kept
largely under house arrest since. Instead, it appears to want Myanmar's
military leaders to reform the economy without loosening their grip on
power.

"They would like to see the Burmese economy develop more rapidly and more
effectively, so they could make more money," said Robert Taylor, a Myanmar
expert at the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies in Singapore.

Chinese merchants already smell profit.

With a tour group in tow, guide Sun Dehong said he was bringing business
owners from inland China to "do research about the business situation" in
Myanmar.

"They want to export Chinese products, like motorcycles, phones, clothing
and motor pumps. They come from Fujian, Sichuan. They are all business
people," he said.

Bilateral trade between China and Myanmar hit US$1.2-billion last year.

Ruili officials say the border is on the cusp of greater trade. An
expressway from the provincial capital, Kunming, will be finished next
year. At the Ruili end, officials have built a 10-lane border customs
facility. Already, 12,000 people cross every day.

Emerging out of vacant fields and ponds, the tax-free Jiegao Special
Economic Zone has mushroomed, and now has more than 1,000 stores and 80
jade factories.

At a jade and pearl market, store owner Yang Zhanwei hailed China's
economic development.

"Burma has no industry," said Mr. Yang, who deals in petrified wood
dealer. "I think China helps Burma's economy a lot. But if Burma would
open up more, it could develop faster."

Chinese analysts describe Beijing's policies toward Myanmar as pragmatic
and useful for both sides, similar to how Washington deals with Saudi
Arabia. They say China may be offering vital economic trade, without
getting much sway in return.

Many outsiders concur that the generals in power appear resistant to most
pressure, even from such a strong economic ally as China.

"We have a regime there that can survive," said Mr. Taylor. "Seventeen
years of the regime, and they haven't budged an inch.... They can
stonewall anybody."

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

March 13, Agence France Presse
Myanmar battles first bird flu outbreak

Yangon: Myanmar quarantined at least four farms and began culling poultry
Monday after announcing its first outbreak of bird flu, amid fears about
whether its creaking health system could deal with any human cases.

The military-ruled country's top veterinary official Than Hla said no
humans had been infected so far but added that "many" farms may have birds
carrying the deadly H5N1 strain.

"No people have been infected so far," Than Hla told AFP by telephone from
the central town of Mandalay.

"We suspect many chicken farms are infected, but so far four or five farms
have been quarantined," he added.

"Some farms have thousands, some have hundreds of birds. We are planning
to kill these chickens."

Myanmar's notoriously secretive rulers informed the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organization early Monday that it had detected the H5N1 virus,
which can be deadly to humans, after 112 birds died mysteriously on March
8 near Mandalay.

"I'm not sure they found bird flu in dead chickens or dead ducks, but it's
certainly poultry or some sort," Laurence Glesson, a senior FAO official
said in Bangkok.

However, Myanmar apparently made no public announcement to its people
about the outbreak. Only a handful of residents in Mandalay, contacted by
telephone, had heard the news on shortwave radio stations broadcasting
from overseas.

"Our government has not said anything about it," said one woman in
Mandalay, who asked not to be identified. "No one is sick in our
neighborhood, so we don't have to worry."

Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962, is one of the
world's most isolated nations, but the World Health Organization said the
junta was cooperating well with international organizations on bird flu.

"In fact, they are very active. Every time there is a rumor about bird
flu, they send a team of investigators. This time, they sent out a team
and (the result) was positive," a WHO official said from Yangon.

The junta once dismissed global concerns about a bird flu outbreak in
Myanmar, saying the country's mountainous borders were protection against
the virus.

The government started a public awareness campaign last year about H5N1,
which has killed nearly 100 people mostly in Asia since 2003 and is
spreading rapidly through Europe and parts of Africa.

But the WHO said the campaign was hampered by a lack of financial
resources and argued that Myanmar's dismal health care system, after years
of US and European sanctions, was ill-equipped to cope with possible human
cases.

"In terms of personnel, they are very capable. But in terms of supply,
equipment and facility, they need support. In the future if there is a
human case, they need upgraded medical facility," said the WHO official,
who declined to be named.

"We need to do a lot of upgrading to handle (possible) human cases... At
the moment, we are lucky that we don't have human cases. But we are very
concerned. When you have (bird flu) in animals, it could happen to
humans," she said.

Meanwhile, an official at the Mandalay General Hospital said doctors have
converted a special quarantine room created three years ago during the
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare to accommodate any bird flu
patients.

"We have prepared a room with equipment to treat anyone who might have
bird flu," she said. "So far, we haven't received any patients."

In Yangon, a veterinary official said additional testing was being done in
the capital on the dead birds from Mandalay, but that officials had not
yet checked poultry in Yangon's market to see if they carried the disease.

Experts fear that bird flu may mutate into a form that can pass easily
between humans, sparking a deadly pandemic.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 11, Democratic Voice of Burma
Nuclear energy: Is Burma/Myanmar the new Iran?

”As the world watches the twists and turns of Iran's path toward the
Security Council, the military regime in Myanmar (Burma) may be quietly
selling its energy resources to finance the acquisition of nuclear
technology,” claimed an online article published in the Daily Star on 11
March.

The article, written by Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, the
global political risk consultancy, and senior fellow at the World Policy
Institute, first pointed out the brutality of Burma’s military junta, the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), which routinely harasses and
imprisons opposition activists, and uses citizens as slave labour.

And he continued that the recent discovery of a substantial gas field off
Burma's northwest coast shows that the country has become an important
natural-gas provider for Asia's wealthiest countries, and he warned the
find could prolong the military rule in Burma.

“Just as Iran's energy wealth frustrates US and European efforts to
sanction Tehran, foreign competition for gas contracts will obstruct
international attempts to pressure Myanmar toward democratic reform,” said
Bremmer. “The Myanmar junta knows when it approves these deals that it's
giving its Asian neighbors an important stake in the regime's survival.
China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, is an
especially useful provider of diplomatic cover. Energy revenues also help
finance the domestic repression that keeps the opposition in check and the
generals in charge.”

Bremmer also said that the riches generated by Burma's natural-gas
deposits may provide the junta with enough cash to realize its
long-standing ambition to purchase nuclear technology from the Russian
government, and more worryingly from North Korea.

“Maybe the Myanmar government believes a nuclear weapon offers the
ultimate insurance against a US invasion,” argued Bremmer. “After all, the
United States invaded Iraq, which did not have nuclear weapons, but has
not attacked North Korea, which does”.

He also reasoned that Burma’s close relationship with China could add to
the growing list of irritants in US relations with China. “As China's
dependence on Myanmar's energy grows, we can expect Beijing to help the
junta resist international pressure -- just as they have done for
authoritarian regimes in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.”

He concluded the article by saying that although the United States and
several other countries would like to move Burma onto the Security
Council's formal agenda and pressure the junta into reform and greater
transparency, the more dependent Burma's neighbours become on the
country's energy resources, the less likely it is that any international
body can force change on this regime.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 13, Democratic Voice of Burma
Student leader Min Ko Naing on Burma’s Human Rights Day

 “We understood from the beginning that a very valuable thing could not be
obtained easily. Therefore, we had already sacrificed what we had to
sacrifice. We are all still ready for our country if more is necessary.
Compared to the past, we are closer to the goal our country wants to
reach.”

“If I have to talk about 13 March, 1988 – we were students who became
human beings in the dark age of 26 years. As we had to go through the dark
age since we were born, the situation was so bad that we didn’t know how
much rights we had. Only when Ko Phone Maw fell, did we realise that we
would have to create, demand and fight for students’ rights. For this, we
realised pragmatically that we have to sacrifice our lives. 18 years
later, however much suppressed, the blood of those students who became
human beings after that dark age ending (19) 88 – is still very red. It is
the blood of courage of students in whichever age or era they are in. When
they realise why their older brothers, the students who preceded them
sacrificed their livelihoods and lives, they will know what to do. We have
nothing in particular to tell them. However much you try to cover up the
truth, it will inevitably re-emerge when it is the right time.”

“We still haven’t reached our goal. It is very important that we keep the
spirit of a long distant runner as we need to keep on maintaining the
long-term morale. We understood from the beginning that a very valuable
thing could not be obtained easily. Therefore, we had already sacrificed
what we had to sacrifice. We are all still ready for our country if more
is necessary. Compared to the past, we are closer to the goal our country
wants to reach. When it comes to the pragmatic situation, we have the (19)
90 election to show as palpable evidence. There is also an organisation
which was voted by 82% of the population to represent them. And, there is
an offer to ‘wash the slate clean’ (forgive and forget) for our
sacrifices. The international (community) also understands that the offer
is based on a feasible basis and it is the gentlest possible offer. We
need to react to it wisely. We all need to drive on by concentrating on
this offer. While there is a good chance, if the other side (the military
junta) reacts to the offer and cooperates, our country will become a
dignified one. We are at a crucial time for the whole of our national
dignity. We, the students will always be with (on the side of) the people.
We will be working with all our might – I want to say thus on behalf of
all, at the anniversary for the record.”