BurmaNet News, April 11, 2006

[Editor]

April 11, 2006 Issue # 2938


INSIDE BURMA
Kaowao News: Villagers ordered to pay 30 million kyat for pipeline blast

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Myanmar troops reportedly attacking minority villages
Mizzima: Burmese workers stage strike in Mae Sot
DVB: Exiled Burmese ratify a rough draft of federal constitution
Kaladan News: MSF lists undocumented Burmese refugees

BUSINESS / TRADE
Mizzima: New trade zone opens on China-Burma border
DVB: Nuts: Government agriculture projects ruin lives of Burmese farmers

REGIONAL
Nation: Thaksin's vanishing act: precious little remains of five years of
foreign policy
Mizzima: Burmese political situation to be taught in Indian schools

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Fiscal folly spells post-Thingyan hangover

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 11, Kaowao News
Villagers ordered to pay 30 million kyat for pipeline blast

Kwan Hlar village must pay up to 30 million kyat to repair the gas
pipeline damaged by an explosion last February, while another two
villagers were detained after being accused of undermining the security of
the pipeline, a source close to the villagers said.

Since the village is located close to the pipeline, the villagers were
ordered to compensate for damages caused by the explosion. Poor households
were forced to pay 100,000 kyat, while richer households were forced to
pay 300,000 kyat each, the source explained.

The two detainees are Mr Nai Lyeh Mon and Mr Nai Khing Maung Winn, the
village secretary and chairman. They were taken to the police station in
Mudon for interrogation and have been held for one month. Their families
were asked to bring 100,000 kyat each and their clothes to the police
detention centre.

The cease-fire New Mon State Party members have been accused of being
involved in the incident. Nai Aie Chan, a party member from the village,
is suspected by the SPDC and wants him to come in for questioning, but the
NMSP has refused to hand him over. His wife along with many NMSP members
left the village for fear of being detained. The party has denied any
involvement in the explosion.

All villages located along the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE),
Burma’s domestic gas pipeline, are responsible for its security. Every day
up to 25 villagers must guard the pipeline throughout the night. Mon
villagers fear the SPDC soldiers while guarding the pipeline and ask
Burmese nationals, who have come to work in Mon State, to guard it paying
them 3,000 kyat per day.

The Kanbauk-Myaing Kalay pipeline transmits gas from Yadana Offshore in
Tenasserim Division to Myaing Kalay cement factory in Karen State and
passes though Mon State. It blew up three times in this area.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 11, Agence France Presse
Myanmar troops reportedly attacking minority villages - Frank Zeller

Bangkok: Myanmar's regime has stepped up a bloody military offensive
against ethnic minority villagers to secure areas around its new capital,
rebel and non-governmental groups say.

Troops have killed over 100 Karen people, displaced thousands more and
burned down villages and crops in an ongoing crackdown that intensified
last month, said Karen National Union (KNU) spokesman Colonel Nerdah Mya.

"They moved their troops from Rangoon (Yangon) to the new capital
Pyinmana, which is close to the Karen Second Brigade, in order to secure
the area," Nerdah Mya told AFP, referring to a brigade of Karen guerrilla
fighters.

"They are using thousands of troops to clean up the area," he said. "They
kill, they rape, they loot, they burn, everything, so people have to flee.
If you are Karen, they will attack you. They are pushing the Karen out of
Burma."

The KNU is the largest group still battling Yangon, in one of the world's
longest-running insurgencies. Nerdah Mya says the Karen have more than
10,000 resistance fighters. The junta has ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed
groups.

The secretive pariah regime of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been
widely condemned for its human rights abuses.

In November it surprised the world by suddenly shifting its capital into a
mountainous area 320 kilometres (200 miles) north of Yangon.

Observers speculated that the inland move reflected the isolated generals'
fears of an impending US attack after criticism from Washington, or that
it followed the ancient Burmese tradition of moving capitals on auspicious
dates.

"The Burmese military try to plan for the security of Pyinmana," said a
spokesman for the Backpack Health Workers, a volunteer group who offer
medical services in the Karen area.

"They have extended their troops in the surrounding area. They have done
more forced relocations. They shoot people."

The Free Burma Rangers, a volunteer group supporting the Karen, has
published online reports and photographs in recent weeks of what it says
has been an increased military sweep southeast of the new capital.

"Villagers have been captured, shot, killed and beheaded in Western Karen
State, Toungoo district, resulting in over 2,000 in hiding and 1,000 who
have already fled to the Thailand border in March and April," they said.

In one of dozens of alleged attacks it documented, a man called Saw Po De,
40, of a village called Ker Der Gah "was captured, then later found with
his head cut off in a nearby river."

On April 5 the group reported "the Burma army is still conducting
operations against civilians."

Myanmar's Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan at a rare press
conference in Yangon Sunday confirmed there had been fighting but said
this was in response to Karen "saboteurs" committing "atrocities".

"We have kept open the door for peace," he said.

The regime also presented five people it said had confessed to working
with anti-government groups, including the opposition National League for
Democracy, headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house
arrest in Yangon.

"Things that they do to the Karen people, they will say the Karen are
doing," said the KNU's Nerdah Mya. "They control the media."

Sally Thompson, deputy head of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium group,
said 1,300 Karen had arrived in northwestern Thailand's Maeramaluang
refugee camp since the dry-season offensive started late last year.

The refugees, who had walked through the jungle for weeks, reported
Myanmar troops had burnt their villages, destroyed their crops, taken
their livestock and tried to push some into forced labour, Thompson said.

More than 140,000 refugees live in nine refugee camps on the Thai side of
the border, set up since Myanmar troops overran most traditional ethnic
minority lands in Myanmar's eastern mountainous region in the 1980s.

____________________________________

April 7, Mizzima News
Burmese workers stage strike in Mae Sot - Han Pai

About 200 Burmese workers marched in Mae Sot today in an unprecedented
strike over a disagreement with their employer.

The workers from the GS Art knitting factory said their employer owed them
back pay as well as a variety of other housing and food allowances, in a
disagreement that has lasted three months.

In January the Burmese workers asked their employer for a 50 percent
reduction on meal costs, overtime, compensation for wrongful dismissal and
deductions in their living expenses.

They said factor owners refused to meet their demands and later sacked 43
employees, who were suspected of trying to organise a strike.

Managers at the factory were not available for comment today.

Htay Htay Win, who led the workers’ strike, told Mizzima she and other
workers had been forced to go without an income because of the
disagreement.

“We have tried to reach an agreement with them for three months. In the
meantime, we have no work, no income and no labour rights at all. Their
last response to our demand is dismissing the workers,” Htay Htay Win
said.

The workers said their employer had caught wind of the coming strike and
had locked the factory’s gates, forcing strikers to scale a six-foot wall
in order to leave.

At about 9am this morning, the workers marched with banners in English,
Thai and Burmese to the Thai Labour Rights Protection Office, just half an
hour from the factory.

The workers informed police, immigration and labour officials of the
strike in advance and Thai authorities cleared traffic along their planned
marching route. When the workers reached the labour office five
representatives were allowed to express their grievances to officials.

“The officials told us that they would make arbitration in our dispute on
20th in the presence of both parties. They said such that many times many
times before but never materialised,” Htay Htay Win said.

____________________________________

April 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Exiled Burmese ratify a rough draft of federal constitution

A conference to ratify a rough draft of federal constitution which
guarantees democracy, national equality and self-determination/rule, was
held from 6 to 8 April at the Lawkheela Camp under the control the Karen
National Union (KNU) in eastern Burma near Thailand.

The consultative meet was attended by 101 representatives from 59 exiled
pro-democracy Burmese organisations including the United Nationalities
League for Democracy (UNLD), the National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma (NCGUB) and the National Council of the Union of Burma
(NCUB).

The Federal Constitution Drafting & Coordinating Committee (FCDCC)
spokesman Dr. Linag H. Sakhong told DVB that the constitution was drawn up
because the root cause of political crisis and more than 50 years long
civil war in Burma was caused by constitution crisis.

“In particular, the problems of ethnic national groups taking up arms are
connected to the nation’s constitution. Therefore, in order to solve that
problem, we believe that the method of drafting of a rough basic
constitution is very important,” said Sakhong. “We want to build a
democracy country. We want to give all ethnic nationals equality, give all
the states self-determination/rule and end the existing over 50 years long
civil war. There could be a way to solve the existing severe human rights
abuses faced by our country. Therefore, the constitution has been drafted
with the purpose that it should be helpful in obtaining true democracy and
peace.”

As the constitution was drafted for the benefits of the people and the
country, it will be put forward to the people of Burma and the
international organisations using all available means, the spokesman
added.

____________________________________

April 11, Kaladan News
MSF lists undocumented Burmese refugees

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) has started listing
undocumented Burmese Rohingya refugees in Dom Dom Meah camp, situated on
the bank of Naf River, reports our correspondent.

The Dom Dom Meah camp is an undocumented Burmese Rohingya refugee camp in
Bangladesh, where 1,200 families reside. It has not been getting any help
from any quarter. But, the refugees continue to struggle to survive,
working as laborers and rickshaw pullers.

On April 6, some delegates of the Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) visited
the camp and began making a list of the members of every refugee family in
detail for their humanitarian ground program.

The MSF delegates asked Nur Alam, the head majee of the refugee camp about
the situation prevailing in the camp and the problems refugees faced. The
delegates then made a survey of the camp.

“We are facing a crisis of fresh water. If the MSF works for us and
arranges for fresh water it will be great help to the camp,” said Nur
Alam, a leader of refugee camp.

The MSF intends to support the refugees by arranging for latrines,
tube-wells, blankets, rice, oil, sometimes beef and a variety of beans for
curry, according to sources.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 11, Mizzima News
New trade zone opens on China-Burma border - Mungpi

Burmese and Chinese officials attended the opening ceremony of a new
China-Burma border economic zone at the border town of Muse, Shan State
today.

Burmese officials from the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Transport
and the Department of Border Trade attended the opening of the special
zone designed to increase trade between the two countries, a source from
the Border Trade Department told Mizzima.

A 60-strong Chinese delegation comprising businessmen, industrialists and
the Governor of Yunnan province also attended, the source said. The new
economic zone is reported to cover 150 hectares.

But border traders told Mizzima they thought the new zone was inconvenient
for trading as it was too far from Muse where most transactions take
place. They also said recent changes to the value of the kyat had resulted
in less trade.

“Currently there are no [cargo trucks] or vehicles coming to town and the
currency exchange rate is also decreasing. Today the exchange rate is .6
(100 kyat to .6 Yuan) but tomorrow it will not be the same. We will have
to wait and see the situation,” a local businessman said.

____________________________________

April 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Nuts: Government agriculture projects ruin lives of Burmese farmers

Burma’s military government, the State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC) authorities again have been forcing farmers to grow unprofitable
summer paddy and physic nut/castor oil seed plants, causing untold
miseries and difficulties to them.

Burmese farmers who live on the western side of Pegu Division have been
ordered to grow the paddy but the authorities are not sellinging them
enough subsidised fertilisers at the official rate, 4,000 Kyats per 110lb
bag. The local officials have been siphoning off the fertilisers and
selling them on to black market traders who sell them back to the farmers
at the ‘outside’ rate, around 20,000 Kyats per bag.

At the same time, the authorities at Magwe Division, Kachin State and
northern Shan State have been forcing local people to grow physic nuts and
extorting money from them at every turn, residents complained.

“By the order of the ma-ya-ka (township authority), each household (in the
towns) must grow 300 physic nut in their compounds. Moreover, the villages
must have nurseries for the seedlings/saplings of physic nut, by the order
of ma-ya-ka. There they have to erect two signboards. They collect
(extort) 20000 Kayt form each village, by the order of the ma-ya-ka,” a
local resident told DVB. Moreover, the people also have to take the
responsibility of watering the plants in turn.

Oil extracted from the nuts are reportedly used as the main ingredient of
a type of bio-fuel in attempts to solve acute fuel shortages in Burma
while the SPDC is selling off the majority of the vast offshore natural
gas reserves to foreign countries.

The people insisted that these government projects are economically
unviable and that if the junta wants to help the people and itself, it
should stop its authorities from meddling in the affairs which they
neither understand nor try to understand.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

April 11, The Nation
Thaksin's vanishing act: precious little remains of five years of foreign
policy - Don Pathan, Supalak Ganjanakhundee

Despite all of the hoopla, none of the Thaksin administration's foreign
policy initiatives seem to have had any lasting impact.

Critics have consistently slammed his bold ideas as unsustainable and
lacking underlying principles. Worse, there have been times when the
supposed beneficiaries of Thaksin's proposals appeared to be indifferent
to their effects.

The Bangkok Process, for example, was given the cold shoulder by Rangoon.
It didn't seem to occur to Thaksin that Burma has good reason not to trust
initiatives coming out of Thailand.

The junta has consistently accused Thailand of arming Burmese insurgents,
while Thai generals argue that Rangoon is using the 20,000-strong Wa army
to keep the Thai Army in check.

In the end, the so-called process became a comfort forum for like-minded
countries who wanted to see an end to Burma's political deadlock, but
would not invest the energy and resources to pressure the junta to change
their ways. For what was billed as a "process", the Thai initiative
produced only one meeting, which took place at the Thai Foreign Ministry
in December of 2003. The so-called first-hand information provided by
Burma's then foreign minister Win Aung was the same junta line available
from its mouthpiece, the New Light of Myanmar.

In the end, the Thai government's roadmap for democracy in Burma never got
out of the starting block. The administration's main contact in Rangoon,
former prime minister Khin Nyunt, was purged in October of 2004, and since
then Thailand has been scratching its head as to how to deal with Burma.

As for other neighbours, sad to say, Thaksin's generous policies have not
been reciprocated, as evidenced by the anti-Thai riots in Cambodia and
Laos' outright refusal to take back Hmong refugees who are living in a
condition of political limbo in northeastern Thailand.

While relations with Burma were stranded in purgatory, ties with Muslim
countries in the region hit a sour note because of the government's
handling of violence in the Malay-speaking deep South.

Domestically the government proved incapable of forming a united front to
deal with the violence, so obviously one can imagine the level of
international consensus on the issue. In spite of their inability to bring
the violence under control, the one thing that all the various agencies
agreed on is that they opposed outside intervention into what they deemed
domestic affairs.

As a man who was initially billed as the next leader of Southeast Asia,
Thaksin's handling of the South may have been a fatal blow to his
aspirations as he managed to alienate Muslims, who make up about half of
Asean's citizens.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)'s harsh statement
responding to the massacre at Tak Bai forced Thailand to dispatch three
envoys to Saudi Arabia to help clear the air.

OIC representatives were invited to tour the region, but in the end
nothing really changed as the organisation slammed Thailand again
following the exodus of 131 villagers from Narathiwat, who fled over the
border to northern Malaysia.

At the 2004 Asean summit in Vientiane, Thaksin nearly brought the regional
grouping to its knees when he threatened to walk out if Indonesia or
Malaysia raised any concerns about the South. A compromise was reached
when the topic was discussed at a pre-summit working dinner on the
condition that there would be no questions following Thaksin's briefing.

But bitterness between Thailand and its Muslim neighbours did not end at
the summit in Laos. Bilateral ties between Thailand and Malaysia continued
to plummet, especially when Kuala Lumpur permitted the UN refugee agency
to interview the 131 Narathiwat villagers.

In a sign of the shifting focus, Thaksin, who was at the centre of the
2004 summit, was very much out of the limelight at the 2005 Asean Summit
in Kuala Lumpur, where Malaysia took the lead in turning up the heat on
Burma.

The meeting ended with an Asean endorsement for Malaysian Foreign Minister
Syed Hamid Albar to go to Rangoon to obtain first-hand information about
the political deadlock. On a separate issue, Indonesia exerted its growing
influence in its push for a blueprint of the Asean Security Community.

Syed may have been disappointed with Burmese foot-dragging during his
visit, but at the least, Kuala Lumpur demonstrated that it too had a stake
in the country's future because Burma's "domestic problem" was taking its
toll on the region as a whole.

In another effort to make his mark abroad, Thaksin expressed the desire to
contribute to six-party talks aimed at ending the nuclear deadlock on the
Korean peninsula and dispatched Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon to
Pyongyang for a bilateral visit last August.

Kantathi talked up the possibility of helping facilitate the stalled
six-party talks, but nothing ever came of the effort.

At the 2005 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, however, President Susilo Bambang
Yudoyono was able to claim that Indonesia had made some headway with North
Korea. Pyongyang had earlier said that it would like to see Indonesia play
a role in the stand-off.

Amid a myriad of setbacks, Thaksin still can point to the bright spot
provided by his deputy Surakiart Sathirathai. At the least, the premier
can say without hesitation that Asean has endorsed the Thai candidate to
replace Kofi Annan as UN secretary-general later this year.

And every time Thailand's envoys meet with foreign dignitaries, backing
for Surakiart's candidacy goes up a notch. The last count of supporters
announced was 128 countries.

While the past five years have seen many of Thaksin's initiatives go out
the window, Surakiart, for the time being, remains one of the premier's
last hopes for a memorable foreign-policy legacy.

This is the second of two articles on Thaksin Shinawatra's international
profile over the past five years.

____________________________________

April 11, Mizzima News
Burmese political situation to be taught in Indian schools - Mungpi

 “What should be the policy of the government of India towards the
military rulers of Myanmar?” Surprisingly, this question comes from a
cartoon character in a textbook for ninth grade political science
students in India.

The book, released by the Indian National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT), is the first in India to encourage students to think
about the political situation in Burma.

Dr Yugendra Yadav, NCERT’s chief advisor told Mizzima the book encouraged
students to think critically about Burma’s political system.

“The text book does not give answers to this question. These are questions
which are meant to be explored
 arouse curiosity
and to enable [students]
to think on their own,” Yadav said.

Indian students will learn more about Burmese politics as part of a
chapter in the book titled ‘Democracy in the Contemporary World’, which Dr
Yadav said was designed to instill the values of democracy in young
Indians.

“We feel that there is no point giving the students only examples of
democracy unless they know what democracy means. What it means to live
under undemocratic conditions,” Yadav said.

“Democracy comes through struggle . . . is what we want them to learn.”

One page in the text book includes an illustration by Burmese artist Harn
Lay, which depicts senior general Than Shwe holding a birthday cake with
detained National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi encircled
by candles.

The cartoon represents the ongoing detention of Aung San Suu Kyi at the
hands of the military, with the cake meant as reference to her recent 60th
birthday.

“[The illustration] actually depicts the situation in Burma. It shows
that
 behind the sweet talk of the military regime lays a harsh
imprisonment,” Yadav said.

The textbook is planned for use in all schools affiliated with India’s
central board of education. Ten state education boards had also agreed to
use text Yadav said.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 11, Irrawaddy
Fiscal folly spells post-Thingyan hangover - Clive Parker

Burma begins its biggest festival of the year on Wednesday, a time when
most of the population spends freely ahead of New Year’s Day on Saturday.
But as the water festival—Thingyan—gets under way, Burma is for the second
time in four years celebrating under a cloud of serious economic
uncertainty that only promises to worsen in the New Year.

Kyaw Kyaw Maung, of Burma’s Central Bank, and Information Minister
Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan on Sunday attempted to relieve fears over inflation in
yet another surprisingly open press conference by the junta. But analysts
were lesft in doubt about whether the pair provided a realistic assessment
of Burma’s economic climate.

The biggest question mark remaining after the announcement in March that
government employees would receive huge salary increases, is still: Where
is the money coming from to support such a move?

Kyaw Kyaw Maung on Sunday said increases in tax revenue would fund the
increases of between 500 and 1,000 percent for an estimated one million
workers. But while analysts agree that Burma has drastically increased tax
revenue in the past two years—by 68 percent in the 2004 financial year,
according to the Asian Development Bank in a report last week—Burma is
still believed to be spending more than it is collecting. The ADB suggests
the regime incurred a fiscal deficit of 6 percent of its Gross Domestic
Product in the 2004 financial year—the highest in the region.

With the government now less than three weeks away from having to pay a
wage bill that has increased by millions of US dollars a year, most
analysts in and outside the country say the only way the government can
realistically afford the move is by producing more kyat.

Burma has been notorious for printing its way out of economic difficulties
in the past, proven by drastic increases in the money supply over short
periods, says the Economic Intelligent Unit, and looks certain to use the
same solution again. Analysts warn, though, that such a move—at a time
when the kyat is already at an all-time low and commodity prices are
sky-high—could be devastating for the economy.

By putting the country’s mint in Wazi, Magwe Division, into overdrive, the
only outcome is yet further devaluation of the kyat and higher inflation
as more money circulates through the country’s stunted economy.

As confidence drops further in the kyat, the already fragile banking
sector looks set for even greater strain. April is typically a month in
which deposits are lower in Burma anyway—official economic data shows—as
people take out large amounts of money for the holiday period. But once
people go back to work, the increasingly low level of trust in the kyat
that has prompted the population to invest in other commodities in recent
weeks, principally gold, could mean bank deposits decrease to critical
levels.

The EIU has warned in recent reports that Burma’s banking system remains
at “high-risk” of another catastrophe similar to that of February 2003,
when a run on the banks meant people were unable to access their money.

Although banks were permitted to begin lending again months after the
crisis, reports from Rangoon suggest private banks have been unable to
increase lending because deposits are not increasing—Burmese banks are
permitted to lend up to a maximum 70 percent of deposits following the
2003 crisis. The severe lack of borrowing opportunities only adds to
Burma’s already considerable list of economic difficulties.

For the average Burmese citizen, the prospects therefore look grim. The
government’s claim that private sector workers have enjoyed increased
salaries in recent years—the reason it gave for increasing government
salaries to begin with—again looks to be unrealistic, certainly in real
terms.

Paid in kyat, most non-government workers are saddled with a stagnant wage
check that is increasingly losing value to the US dollar and which buys
less in the shops as prices rise. In Arakan State, for example, a source
told The Irrawaddy last week that a household that would have been able to
survive on 2,000 kyat (US $1.48) per day a few months ago, must now spend
between 5,000 to 6,000 to achieve the same lifestyle.

Whether government workers achieve an increase in spending power in real
terms will not become clear until next month. But with pay rises of up to
1,000 percent, Burma would have to suffer staggering inflation—even by its
own standards—for the 1 million junta-employed Burmese not to experience a
tangible financial benefit.

The net effect of the government’s decision to increase its employees’
wages is therefore a rising disparity between the spending power of
government and non-government employed workers.

With inflation tipped to increase in the long-term as the salary increases
come into effect at the end of April, the economic prospects of the
average citizen—the engine room of any economy—can only get worse.

The Burmese are unlikely to worry about this too much over the next four
days as the country goes into party mode, but most will likely be
suffering a major financial headache once the festival spending stops.