BurmaNet News, April 22-24, 2006

[Editor]

April 22 – April 24, 2006 Issue # 2947


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Never say never
The Washington Post: Burma's Dear Leader
Irrawaddy: Burmese spy reveals MI’s dirty deeds
Irrawaddy: Drunk junta officer fails to convince a tense KIO
DVB: Burmese student sued for accidentally hitting authority car with a ball

ON THE BORDER
Nation: Five Burmese legislators seek asylum at Karen camp
SHAN: Sino-Burma pipeline will set off more relocations

HEALTH / AIDS
Baltimore Sun: Struggle against disease is a fight for human rights

DRUGS
Bangkok Post: More troops sent to border

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Shan activist Charm Tong to meet British FM

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 21, Irrawaddy
Never say never - Yeni

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, again
called on the military regime to accept its proposal, made on February 12,
to convene a “people’s parliament.”

According to its statement released on Friday, the NLD has repeated its
appeal to the regime to convene a parliament comprising winning candidates
from the 1990 general election, whose results were ignored by the regime.
In return, the NLD would recognize the current regime as a “de jure”
government.

Nyan Win, a spokesperson for the NLD, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that
the country has now reached a critical point, with the economy, standard
of living and health conditions fast deteriorating.

“Burma’s current military rulers need to solve those problems with the
support of the international community,” he added. “They need their
legitimacy to be approved by the Burmese people and the international
community.”

Most opposition groups in Burma and overseas supported the NLD’s proposal
when it was first made on February 12.

But the junta has still refuses to accept the 1990 result, and said it
considers the NLD’s leader and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi and
her party, irrelevant to the country’s political process. Burma’s
state-run media has also rejected the NLD plan as impractical.

Nyan Win said if the NLD was irrelevant why did the regime arrest its
leader, intimidate members and close the party’s offices.

He also denied any formal links with four anti-government associations—the
Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, the
Thai-based Federation of Trade Unions-Burma, the All Burma Students’
Democratic Front and the National League for Democracy-Liberated Area. He
rejected the junta’s charges against the NLD made under the “terrorists”
act last week.

“We, the NLD, believe that non-violence is the only way to achieve
national reconciliation and democracy. But, as we know, they [the four
groups] also have to aim for democracy and human rights in our country,”
Nyan Win said.

The NLD has also again asked the regime to seriously review its proposal,
and respond by May 27, the same day the first multiparty elections took
place in 1990, when the NLD won by a landslide more than 80% of the vote.

 “For the benefit of the people and the country, we must work together
with the military government—even if there is some disagreement on our
political ideological approach,” Nyan Win said.

____________________________________

April 23, The Washington Post
Burma's Dear Leader - Joshua Kurlantzick

Mandalay: On a hot, dry afternoon this March, as I drove out of Mandalay,
central Burma's largest city, toward the nearby hills, I got an immediate
sense of the importance of Buddhism to everyday life here. Crumbling
pagodas overrun with vines lined the road, their statues worn smooth by
years of worshipers touching the faces.

As I wove past water buffalo and dilapidated ox carts, children and young
adults flagged me down, rattling aging silver bowls for me to stuff with
wads of kyat, the Burmese currency, to be used to restore these treasures.

But one pagoda didn't need any charity. A gleaming white structure swept
spotless by a horde of workers, the modern pagoda was built by Burma's
military regime as a supposed testament to its benevolence -- and, locals
told me, in honor of the nation's ruler, Gen. Than Shwe.

One thousand years ago, Burma's monarchs also built pagodas and other
religious structures -- more than 4,000 of them, in the central Bagan
plains -- to demonstrate the power of the throne, to earn merit for their
next life and perhaps to atone for some of their sins in this one.

Today, pagoda-mad Than Shwe is acting more and more like one of those
classic monarchs. Ten years ago, Burma was an authoritarian nation, but it
lacked the strange personality cult of totalitarian states such as North
Korea and Turkmenistan. At the time, Than Shwe was just one of three
generals heading the ruling Burmese junta and, diplomats told me, was
considered the most dimwitted of the three. He had given few speeches --
just windy discussions of agriculture, supposedly a personal interest.

But the dimwit has proven masterful; over the past five years, Than Shwe,
73, has pushed out rivals and consolidated power. Despite his shellacked
hair, wide jowls and thick glasses, he has turned himself into an object
of Dear Leader-like adoration. And his already isolated government has
become more bizarre, even moving its entire capital in recent months to a
remote jungle redoubt called Pyinmana.

Burma's metamorphosis into a more North Korea-esque state began in 2003.
After holding pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house
arrest on and off for more than a decade, the junta freed her in 2002,
supposedly at the prodding of the most liberal of the three generals, Khin
Nyunt. Optimism reigned, and Suu Kyi traveled throughout Burma announcing
"a new dawn for the country."

Then Than Shwe stepped in. Suspicious of Suu Kyi, paranoid about the
outside world and allegedly fearful of his own people, the senior general
cut short any Burmese spring. In May 2003, thugs attacked Suu Kyi's convoy
on a rural road, leaving 70 or more people dead; the U.S. State Department
has publicly said that there is credible evidence that Lt. Gen. Soe Win, a
close associate of Than Shwe, masterminded the massacre. Than Shwe has
since held Suu Kyi under house arrest.

Than Shwe then turned on his partners. In October 2004, he had Khin Nyunt
arrested and imprisoned many of his allies at Insein, a gulag that one
former prisoner called the "darkest hellhole in Burma," which is saying
something in a nation with some of the worst jails on Earth. Than Shwe
replaced Khin Nyunt with Soe Win.

The xenophobic Than Shwe has closed local publications and started pushing
out the small number of international organizations in Rangoon. The
Burmese regime essentially evicted the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a
Swiss-based peace and reconciliation group with a long history in Rangoon.
"Every NGO in Rangoon now is worried," one expatriate in the capital told
me, noting that nongovernmental organizations also are being told they
must funnel budgets through the state.

At the same time, the senior general has begun acting like a king. The
general's relatives now refer to each other by royal titles, according to
Burma analyst Aung Zaw; on a visit to India, Than Shwe reportedly required
that people sit on the floor beneath him, in tribute to his self-appointed
royal status. According to Bangkok-based Burma analyst Larry Jagan, the
general has built a palatial residence complete with pillars coated in
jade and Italian slate costing millions of dollars. When Than Shwe became
dissatisfied with the Italian slate, he had it pulled out and replaced
with even more expensive Chinese marble.

Like Burmese monarchs of old, Than Shwe also has embarked on a
pagoda-building spree. The state-run press lauds each new monument by
printing Pravda-esque encomiums and running photos of Than Shwe receiving
blessings from monks. As Jagan notes, the government produced a film in
which the face of a famous 11th-century Burmese king, who fashioned a
glorious empire, morphs into the face of Than Shwe.

As Than Shwe travels the country, he stops in villages to issue so-called
"necessary instructions" to peasants and officials on such subjects as
construction and oil drilling, about which he knows nothing. When he
arrives, the general often is greeted by rallies organized by the Union
Solidarity Development Association, a government-linked national mass
movement resembling fascist brownshirts.

Nightly television broadcasts are centered around Than Shwe: Than Shwe
giving alms to monks; Than Shwe welcoming foreign visitors; Than Shwe
blessing crops, as if he had the power to bring rain. Some observers say
broadcasts feature Than Shwe with his grandson, to perpetuate the idea of
a dynasty in the making.

This personalization of rule has made the regime more paranoid and
unpredictable. When a bomb exploded in Rangoon last year, the regime
blamed it on democracy activists and unnamed foreign powers -- i.e., the
CIA. When the International Labor Organization criticized Burma, the
country threatened to pull out of the organization. Than Shwe's regime has
expressed a desire to obtain nuclear technology, which it could
potentially finance from sales of newly discovered petroleum deposits. The
government has also developed a closer relationship with North Korea.

Than Shwe reportedly makes almost every decision alone, including the
choice to move the government from Rangoon to Pyinmana, 250 miles north,
partly because he may view Pyinmana as safer from foreign invasion, and
perhaps partly because ancient Burmese kings built capitals to leave their
imprint on the country.

Though Rangoon had served as the capital for a century, Than Shwe ordered
a vast complex built in Pyinmana, complete with bunkers, tunnels, his
palace and extensive protections -- just in case the CIA attacks.

Then one morning last November -- at a time Burmese believe to be chosen
by a court astrologer -- the regime started moving civil servants and
military officials to Pyinmana in massive truck convoys laden with
furniture. By March, dozens of construction companies were furiously
building there, and Burmese exile groups were claiming that the government
had forced people out of their homes to make way for the construction.

The regime refuses to release much information about the heavily guarded
complex. Burma's information minister told reporters that Pyinmana "has
quick access to all parts of the country" and thus would be easy to get in
and out of, even though it previously had no real airport. "It's insane,"
one diplomat told me. "Are we going to have to move our entire embassy to
that place?"

Than Shwe's bizarre approach seems to be working for him. The domestic
intelligence apparatus, consisting of thousands of informers, helps him
keep control, and in Rangoon each night I noticed far more police and
military checkpoints than I'd seen during previous trips. Since 1990, the
size of the military has more than doubled. Though the United States has
imposed sanctions on Burma, the regime has discovered new sources of
revenue: Asian nations -- in particular, China -- have expanded their
trade with Rangoon, and foreign firms have found sizable new gas reserves
in Burma.

The personalization of rule has proved disastrous for average Burmese. A
nation rich in resources has fallen to among the poorest in Southeast
Asia, with health indicators equivalent to those of sub-Saharan Africa.
(The government claims implausibly high growth rates of some 13 percent.)
In years of traveling to Burma, I have never seen the population more
desperate than this March. Beggars crowd Rangoon's sidewalks at night, or
sleep in slag piles underneath half-finished construction sites.

In the late '90s, it seemed possible that Burma, one of Asia's most
culturally rich nations, would enjoy a tourism mini-boom. The temples of
Bagan, dotted across a plain, have survived for nearly a millennium. The
region outside Mandalay contains ruins of ancient capitals of Burmese
kingdoms and hill stations that resemble British resorts. Even chaotic
Rangoon boasts a wealth of crumbling but still magisterial colonial
architecture. But the country gets fewer than a million visitors per year.
The gleaming Mandalay airport sits empty, a lone staffer wandering its
cavernous halls.

There are signs that other nations are beginning to take notice. In
December, the U.N. Security Council agreed to hold a briefing and
discussion of the situation in Burma. And Beijing does not desire
instability on its borders -- which could increase the flood of illegal
exports and migrants into China. During a recent visit by Than Shwe to
Beijing, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao expressed concern about the
flow of drugs from Burma into China, an unusual amount of criticism of
another country for any Chinese leader.

The last evening of my recent trip to Rangoon, I dined with a prominent
figure in Burma's publishing scene, who has managed to dodge new
censorship regulations and continue printing his books. As we strolled
back to my hotel, stepping over bodies slumped on the streets for the
night, he admitted that even his patience is nearing its end.

"Some of my friends moved to [Thailand] in 1990," he told me. "I thought
my work was here." He paused.

"I need a plan to get out of here."

Joshua Kurlantzick is special correspondent for the New Republic and a
visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

____________________________________

April 24, Irrawaddy
Burmese spy reveals MI’s dirty deeds - Aung Zaw

A Burmese spy, now in hiding in a secret location, spoke exclusively to
The Irrawaddy about how Burma's newly formed military intelligence service
struggles to reach the sinister standards set by jailed intelligence chief
Gen Khin Nyunt.

Kyaw Myint Myo, aka Myo Myint, said a major failing of the new
intelligence service has been its recruitment of inexperienced officials
with no idea how intelligence structures work to head departments.

New recruits, according to Kyaw Myint Myo, have received intensive
training, but it takes time to build and effectively run an intensive
intelligence network, especially the Military Affairs Security.
Previously, Burma’s military leaders depended heavily on its secret police
units to monitor and intimidate the movement of its civilian population,
dissidents at home and abroad, foreign missions, and its own government
officials and cabinet ministers.

As MAS has lost some of its clout with the regime, said Kyaw Myint Myo,
power and authority now reside with Special Branch officers working for
the Ministry of Home Affairs. He says Special Branch officers have more
experience handling security and political affairs than the new
intelligence officers.

Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful
government ministers working for the Burmese regime.

Kyaw Myint Myo, 33, has insider knowledge of how the regime's spy network
operated—since 1993, he worked for the counter-intelligence department’s
special unit # 1. He told The Irrawaddy that he reported directly to
Lt-Col Ne Lin, his boss. His previous commanders were Col Khin Aung and
Col San Pwint, both now in prison serving long sentences.

Ranked as an army sergeant, Kyaw Myint Myo admitted his latest spy
missions included monitoring Karen rebels and the armed student group All
Burma Students’ Democratic Front, based along the Thai-Burmese border.

Speaking from a secret location, Kyaw Myint Myo expressed fear for his
safety and his need to resettle in a third country. When asked if he was
afraid of being captured by Burmese dissident groups, he said: “No, but I
am worried about Burmese officials (who can come and take me back).”

The former secret agent said his personal experience with the regime was
not good, as his parents and family members were once interrogated and
briefly detained by officials when he had “disappeared” during “a secret
mission.” “I was afraid to make contact after the purge [in 2004],” he
said.

In October 2004, the Burmese military government arrested military
intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt and dismantled the once all-powerful
National Intelligence Bureau and Office of the Chief of Military
Intelligence, or OCMI. Analysts believed the purge was a result of a power
struggle between Khin Nyunt and army hardliners.

Following the purge, Khin Nyunt and several of his high ranking officials
were arrested and put on trial. Only two senior officials, Maj-Gen Kyaw
Win, deputy head of OCMI, and Brig-Gen Kyaw Thein, escaped the crackdown,
but quickly retired.

The purge not only sent shockwaves throughout the civilian population in
Burma, but had a huge effect among army officers and soldiers, who
previously had believed the armed forces were united and in harmony. In
early 2006, Major Aung Lin Htut, an intelligence officer who worked at the
Burmese embassy in Washington, sought political asylum out of fear for his
safety if he or his family returned home.

Kyaw Myint Myo claims he was lucky to escape punishment for his
intelligence work under the disposed Khin Nyunt.

Gen Myint Swe, former Rangoon Division Commander with little intelligence
background but a close ally of  Snr-Gen Than Shwe, heads up the newly
formed MAS. Kyaw Myint Myo says Myint Swe is ignorant about what is
happening in Burma.

“The government has no idea who is behind the bombing in May [2004].”
Three major explosions rocked Rangoon shopping malls last year, killing
several people, and the regime wasted little time in pointing the finger
at exiled opposition groups.

Kyaw Myint Myo says many bomb explosions in Rangoon were planted by army
and intelligence groups. “It's just to scare civilians and to alert the
army.” He added that when he was with the OCMI, he and his colleagues
sometimes received information that army factions were behind the
bombings. He said it is impossible for insurgents to enter downtown
Rangoon. “We have large security networks involving police, army,
intelligence groups and township-level ruling officials and informants [to
secure Rangoon].”

Kyaw Myint Myo was assigned to infiltrate the offices of some powerful
government ministers working for the Burmese regime, and said he gathered
information on some ministers and high ranking officials known to be
corrupt and involved in several illegal activities, including having
several mistresses. “We have files on ministers, officials and
businessmen,” he boasted.

As an undercover agent, Kyaw Myint Myo was once ordered to work at the
Ministry of Agriculture. His mission was to collect data on possible
scandals involving Lt-Gen Myint Aung, former minister for agriculture and
irrigation. The minister was later sacked.

It is widely believed that Khin Nyunt’s intelligence service had collected
information on numerous cabinet ministers and officials who were involved
in sex scandals and corruption.

The former spy said that MAS has hired foreign computer technicians and
hackers to monitor e-mail messages, telephone conversations at home and in
neighboring countries, where the regime’s critics and activists take
refuge. “They are [the technicians and hackers] North Korean, Singaporeans
and Russians.”

Kyaw Myint Myo warned exiled opposition groups to be careful of using cell
phones and internet, as all sensitive information, messages and phone
conversations are carefully monitored.

He said exiled opposition groups not only had to be worried about Burmese
informants and spies, but governments in the region with close ties to the
regime that regularly provided intelligence information. “We have photos
of [exile group] offices and houses where opposition leaders are staying.”

Kyaw Myint Myo also revealed that his counter-intelligence department had
a plan to launch the “data thief project,” in which operatives would steal
data from opposition groups inside and outside of Burma.

He warned that although Khin Nyunt was purged, informants were still
active and capable of penetrating foreign missions in Rangoon. He said
keeping a watchful eye on Burma’s main opposition party, the National
League for Democracy, was also part of MAS’s work. He says an informant at
NLD headquarters received 200,000 kyat each month. “We also collect
information on who visits NLD headquarters and from which embassy.”

Although he refused to tell the names of informants and spies who are
currently working for the military government, he did say: “You would be
quite surprised if I disclosed the names of informants at foreign missions
and opposition groups."

It is well known among activists and army intelligence specialists that
the Burmese government keeps spies in neighboring countries to collect
information about military build-ups and activities of exiled groups.

Under Khin Nyunt, the Burmese embassy in Bangkok was highly active and
believed to have a large intelligence network inside Thailand. Kyaw Myint
Myo claims that “active cells” in India and Thailand are still working for
MAS.

____________________________________

April 24, Irrawaddy
Drunk junta officer fails to convince a tense KIO - Khun Sam

The Burmese junta and one of its allies, the ethnic Kachin ceasefire group
Kachin Independence Organization, held a public briefing to scorch rumors
that they are preparing to attack the KIO.

Talking to The Irrawaddy, a Laiza resident who attended Saturday’s rally
said he was suspicious about the northern commander’s peace statement.

“They speak words of peace here, but their actions elsewhere are
different.” The resident also complained that the behavior of one of the
junta commanders—Maj-Gen Ohn Myint—was far from convincing.

“He immediately arrived in Laiza and called an emergency meeting. And how
can we see the meeting as meaningful when he was drunk?”

The public briefing was held in Laiza, Kachin State near the China-Burma
border on April 22. More than 500 people attended, including high ranking
officials from the military government, the KIO and local residents.

According to a senior member of the KIO, Burma’s northern commander
Maj-Gen Ohn Myint assured the meeting that the government had no plans for
aggression against KIO-controlled territory.

The KIO official, who requested not to be named, said KIO members and
local villages had heard that the government was preparing a military
campaign to take control of Laiza and Maija Yang, where the KIO generates
revenue from logging concessions and from selling timber to China.

He said the junta’s northern command informed the public meeting that
there was no truth to the rumors.

“They are not true. We want to maintain the peace, as we have a signed
ceasefire agreement.”

Beside the junta’s northern command, deputy commander Brig Gen San Tun and
the KIO’s vice chairman Lt-Gen Nban La, and commander-in-chief Gunhtang
Gam Shawng supported the regime’s statement.

Since a build-up of government troops in the region in recent months,
relationships between the KIO and the SPDC have been tense.

Last week, 13 soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army in Brigade-4 were
taken captive by government troops in northern Shan State. It was reported
that the Burmese Army arrested them during an operation against opium
cultivation. They are still being detained in a Burmese military camp near
Kut Khai Township.

An official of the KIO said that they are negotiating with the junta for
their release, saying the men were innocent. He warned that the KIO would
lose patience with the junta if the soldiers are not released.

“The Burmese are not consistent despite our ceasefire agreement. They
bother us in several ways.”

In early January, government troops attacked a KIO office in Nam Hkam
Township, northern Shan State, leaving five KIO soldiers dead. The
government claimed the incident took place because KIO soldiers were
outside of the agreed ceasefire designated area.  The government soldiers
took control of the area. The KIO senior member said tension in Kachin
State will continue to increase as long as the government maintains its
aggressive policy.

____________________________________

April 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burmese student sued for accidentally hitting authority car with a ball

A Burmese university student from Rangoon South Okkalapa Township was
taken to court for playing football in a field by a roadside and
accidentally hitting a car driven by a former local authority member.

22-year old Phyo Wai Soe, a third year student from Dagon University, was
sued by the owner of the car, Maj. Win Nwe, former Eastern Rangoon
District authority secretary, in early April with Act 186, for obstructing
an official on duty at South Okkalapa court,- and the trial is due to end
this coming week with the sentencing of the defender, according to his
friends.

The trial is being presided over personally by South Okkalapa Township
court judge Thet Swe Oo, and he promised Win Nwe that he would let him win
the case for sure even before the sentence is passed on the defendant. Win
Nwe himself has been threateningly bragged to people that students need to
be taught harsh lessons so that they know their place, according to local
residents.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 22, The Nation
Five Burmese legislators seek asylum at Karen camp

Five Burmese lawmakers arrived at a rebel Karen National Union camp near
the Thai border yesterday, saying they had fled Burma because they feared
persecution by its military government.

Saw Tar Ru Too, 65, an MP from the National Union Party, and U Chit Tun,
60, a member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), talked to
reporters at the Valee Key camp on the Burmese side of the border adjacent
to Tak's Phob Phra district.

Saw Tar, a native of the Karenni State, said he formerly worked for the
government as a community coordinator, but that the junta had increasingly
been suppressing the people, offering apologies but not taking action in
response to complaints.

He said that the Burma's political situation is mired in crisis.

Before he fled for the Thai border, he was working with a non-governmental
organization assisting eight rural medical clinics. He said the government
was sceptical about his work and had interrogated him while preparing to
arrest him on charges of treason, which prompted him to flee.

Chit Tun said that he left Rangoon because Burmese soldiers had arrested
the NLD's Rangoon Province committee chairman, Aung Teng. He said he had
learned that the government was also planning to arrest him, so he had
fled on 1 April. "I was arrested before on charges of participating in a
political movement and given a sentence of 23 years, but then it was
reduced to two years. If I am arrested again, the sentence would be
doubled (46 years). So I thought I had to find a way out. I would rather
escape from the country and fight rather than let them arrest me," said
Chit Tun.

He said he believed that the government had staged five explosions that
rattled the downtown area of Rangoon on Thursday [20 April]. No-one was
injured.

He said that he would continue to work with former Burmese politicians
along the border to peacefully oppose the current leadership.

____________________________________

April 22, Shan Herald Agency for News
Sino-Burma pipeline will set off more relocations

The 1996-98 forced relocation of 300,000 people from southern Shan State
will pale into insignificance in comparison to the one this year when the
construction of the oil pipeline linking Arakan State's port of Akyab
(Sittwe) with China's Kunming is expected to start, warns a senior Shan
ceasefire officer.

He was reacting to China Business' April 18 report that the oil pipeline
has been given the green light by China's National Development and Reform
Commission (NDRC) at the beginning of this month. The 1,000 km long
conduit would provide an alternative route for China's crude imports from
the Middle East and Africa and help reduce its dependence on traffic
through the Strait of Malacca, says the paper.

"It will be passing through areas north of the Mandalay-Lashio highway",
he told S.H.A.N. "Which explains why some of the ceasefire groups were
forced to surrender and the SSA (Shan State Army-North) was forced to move
south of the road last year."

Two ceasefire groups: Shan State National Army and Palaung State
Liberation Army were pressured "to exchange arms for peace" in April 2005
and the SSA-North's Third Brigade was forced to relocate from its
operational areas north of the highway in September by the Burma Army's
Lashio-based Northeastern Region Command.

"At present, the only group that remains north of the road is the KIA
(Kachin Independence Army)'s 4th Brigade," he continued. "That is why it
is under pressure to relocate."

The Burma Army’s Infantry Battalion 68 shot to death six members of the
brigade in Muse, opposite Ruili, without provocation on January 2. Maj-Gen
Myint Hlaing, Commander of the Northeastern Region, had refused to take
action on the unit despite protests from the KIA.

"You cannot expect the Army to punish (Maj-Gen) Myint Hlaing either," he
said. "Instead, he's said to have been given a new command in Pyimana
(where the military has moved its capital since November)."

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS
April 23, The Baltimore Sun
Struggle against disease is a fight for human rights - Douglas Birch

To the list of forces that can trigger a global pandemic of avian flu -
such as mutating viruses and migrating birds - some scientists add
another: regimes that that trample human rights.

Early in March, the deadly H5N1 flu strain appeared in chickens on a farm
in rural Burma, a nation ruled by a military junta since 1962 and
embroiled in a series of civil wars with ethnic separatists since it
gained independence in 1948.

The reclusive government, which calls the country Myanmar, delayed
reporting the H5N1 outbreak to the public and to international health
authorities for eight days. One result, health experts say, was that
precious time was lost before officials warned children not to play with
pet birds, a major source of avian flu among humans.

The government declared the virus under control a short time later. But
the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization reported earlier
this month that it is tracking more than 100 outbreaks of the disease in
birds near the city of Mandalay alone.

The flu has killed more than 100 people worldwide, though so far none in
Burma that are known. The Burmese government's slow response drew
criticism from doctors at Johns Hopkins Medicine and other institutions,
who increasingly see a connection between health and human rights.

The Myanmar embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for
comment. But last month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the U.S.
State Department's latest and highly critical human rights report on the
country.

Public health experts have a long history of advocacy for traditional
health issues, ranging from clean water to immunization. But today they're
just as likely to criticize allegedly repressive policies in Zimbabwe,
North Korea, Uzbekistan or other nations that they say encourage disease
and injury.

An 80-page report by a group of authors led by Dr. Chris Beyrer at the new
Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Hopkins' Bloomberg School of
Public Health warned that Burma's ruling State Peace and Development
Council, led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe, could "play a devastating role in
the evolution of Avian flu."

The secrecy and delay in reporting, health experts say, typify the
regime's approach to public health.

Nor are health experts encouraged by Burma's record in handling health
emergencies. It has one of the highest rates of AIDS and tuberculosis
outside sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Asia's highest death rate from
malaria.

"The health situation in Burma is among the worst in the world," said Dr.
Thomas Lee, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of
California, Los Angeles, and a co-author of the Burma report. "Everyone
agrees that there's a humanitarian disaster going on inside Burma with
respect to these diseases. The question is how to address it."

Some of the report's authors want international aid donors to pressure the
Burmese junta to provide medical care to insurgent areas - or at least
permit international aid groups, such as Doctors Without Borders, to work
freely there.

Beyrer, a 47-year-old infectious disease physician, epidemiologist and
associate professor, led the effort to create the Hopkins human rights
center two years ago. He has studied AIDS among prostitutes in Moscow and
heroin addicts in the former Soviet state of Tajikistan. But colleagues
say he's best known for his studies of AIDS in Southeast Asia, where he
began to work in 1993.

There, he has used data on genetic strains of HIV to track the spread of
the illness along routes taken by drug traffickers and sex workers.

The Hopkins report is a stark picture of Burma's struggle with AIDS. One
out of 29 Burmese, the authors say, is infected with HIV. The illness
causes 48,000 deaths a year there. That compares with 16,000 in the United
States.

An estimated 40 percent of Burma's 52 million citizens are infected with
tuberculosis, the report says. Each year, 700,000 Burmese contract
malaria, and 2,500 die. That represents more than half of the malaria
deaths in all of Asia - including the world's two most populous nations,
India and China.

The report notes that Burmese health authorities recently admitted that
the country is periodically raked by epidemics of cholera, plague and
dengue hemorrhagic fever. According to the World Health Organization,
Burma suffers 2 million annual cases of filariasis, which causes
elephantiasis.

Health conditions are so bad that some officials compare Burma to Angola,
the war-torn nations of West Africa and violence-ravaged Afghanistan. Yet
over the past year, a number of international aid organizations have
abandoned work in Burma, blaming increased restrictions by authorities.

The United Nations' Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
awarded Burma $98.4 million in aid in 2004. But the U.N. withdrew last
August, saying that the junta's restrictions on its operations made it
impossible to ensure that the money would be used effectively.

The U.N. special envoy to Burma quit in January, saying restrictions on
his movements made his job impossible. The French chapter of Doctors
without Borders pulled out during the last week of March.

The international group, which prides itself on working under the worst
circumstances, said the Burmese government barred it from helping people
in insurgent-controlled areas.

Burmese military forces, human rights groups say, have forced millions
from their homes in insurgent areas, burned many villages and recruited
tens of thousands of laborers at gunpoint.

Journalists and rights groups document these abuses. But health
specialists such as Beyrer say epidemiology - the study of the causes and
distribution of disease - can strengthen the argument against repressive
policies by using science to demonstrate their impact on health.

One in 10 deaths among Burmese adults, for example, results from diarrhea.
In most nations, diarrheal deaths occur almost exclusively among infants
and children. What makes Burma different?

Like a medieval army, Beyrer explained, Burma's 400,000 troops support
themselves by seizing crops and livestock from villagers. They also
recruit porters at gunpoint to carry their equipment and loot. The rule of
thumb, Beyrer said, is that every soldier has two porters.

These porters, rights advocates say, typically must find their own water
and drink out of contaminated forest streams, exposing them to microbes
that cause diarrhea. Marching through the forest also exposes porters to
malaria, for which they receive little or no treatment.

"If you looked at the statistics alone, you wouldn't recognize the
connection between forced labor and dislocation and the deaths from
diarrhea and malaria," Beyrer said.

Many international aid groups avoid taking political positions, noted Dr.
Adam Richards, a co-author of the report and Hopkins graduate. But in a
nation like Burma, he argues, that may be impossible.

Alfred Sommer, a professor and former dean of the School of Public Health,
credits the late Jonathan Mann, a Harvard AIDS researcher, with convincing
the health community that health and human rights are intertwined.

Mann, who died in a plane crash in 1998, argued that efforts to stigmatize
and quarantine people with HIV only drove the disease underground.

"He really formulated the issue that while HIV was a disastrous public
health problem, it was also an issue of human rights," Sommer said.

Mann founded the first public health and human rights center, at Harvard,
in 1993. Over the past 13 years, similar centers have opened at Emory
University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Hopkins.

The Hopkins center's approach differs from most others, several experts
said, in its emphasis on gathering statistics and publishing health
studies rather than cataloguing human rights abuses.

Previously, the concept of human rights was "largely a philosophical
construct," Sommer said. Today, advocates increasingly argue that tyranny
can be dangerous to a nation's health.

"Making human rights a part of the health agenda has in many ways changed
the nature of the discussion," he said.

____________________________________
DRUGS

April 24, Bangkok Post
More troops sent to border - Subin Kheunkaew Teerawat Kumtita

Reinforcements guard against drug traffickers

Chiang Rai: The army has deployed reinforcements along the Thai-Burmese
border to guard against drug smuggling, which is expected to intensify due
to the lingering political uncertainty.

A column of heroin traffickers tried to infiltrate Ban Mae Choke in Mae Fa
Luang district on Friday, but were intercepted by the Shan State Army
(SSA). A battle erupted in a forest, which has alerted the army to
possible incursions by the traffickers or SSA members.

Pa Muang task force commander Wanatip Wongwai said soldiers had already
been despatched to a Thai border village where eight Muser hilltribe
families live. Stray bullets from the gunfight hit the village but no one
was injured.

Maj-Gen Wanatip said troops from the 3rd Cavalry Battalion are backing
existing units along the border to stop drug smuggling in the northern
border areas.

The ongoing political stalemate, which has diverted government attention
and resources from the suppression of drugs, has increased concerns that
drug trafficking is becoming rampant again. Narcotics Control Board
director for the northern region Pitaya Jinawat said yesterday that the
political situation could give the illegal drugs trade more room to
"re-generate", and the momentum of the government's war on drugs seems to
be slowing down.

"Our drug prevention and suppression missions seem to be less vigorous at
this time," Mr Pitaya said.

Elections in recent weeks and other police missions have also led to an
insufficient number of police task force being deployed to crack down on
drug smugglers, said Mr Pitaya.

"If I was a drugs merchant, this would be the right time for smuggling,"
he said. Meanwhile, Thailand's Township Border Committee (TBC) yesterday
sent a protest letter to TBC Burma over a stray mortar shell which landed
on the village during the fight between the traffickers and the SSA.

It was also reported that another ethnic minority group, the United Wa
State Army (UWSA), plans to retaliate against the SSA for blocking the
drug trafficking operation. Some UWSA soldiers were reportedly members of
the drug smuggling gang.

The SSA said it blocked the trafficking because it did not want to be
associated with the gang bypassing a nearby SSA military base to transport
illegal drugs.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 24, Irrawaddy
Shan activist Charm Tong to meet British FM

Shan human rights activist Charm Tong, who last year met US President
George W Bush, will make another high-profile trip this week as she heads
to England, where she will discuss Burma with British MPs including
Foreign Minister Jack Straw. The two-day trip—which begins on Tuesday—will
also include a joint press conference at Westminster with shadow Foreign
Minister William Hague and a discussion with Conservative Party leader
David Cameron. Tong will also team up with the head of the Arakan Rohingya
National Organization, Nurul Islam, and Guy Horton, author of Dying Alive:
A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma, in a briefing on
Burma to the newly-founded Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

The trip will offer the increasingly high-profile Tong the chance to lobby
the British government on Burma and comes after she made a similar visit
to the US last October and November, during which she met Bush for 50
minutes at the White House.