BurmaNet News, May 10, 2006

[Editor]

May 10, 2006 Issue # 2959


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Rumored shake-up as Burma shuns Asean defense forum
Mizzima: Magwe students demonstrate against university authorities
DVB: Renowned Burmese writer Dagon Taryar urges the people of Burma to
unite for peace
SHAN: Watch out for the Russian navy

ON THE BORDER
AP: Marauding elephants kill Myanmar refugee boy, hurt 30 others at
Bangladesh camp

REGIONAL
AFP: Asian governments meet to intensify fight against human trafficking

INTERNATIONAL
AP: Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China win seats on new rights council despite
poor rights records

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Drum beats louder for UN action on Burma - Jared Genser

PRESS RELEASE
Women's League of Burma calling the United Nations Security Council to act
to stop the current attacks on civilians in Karen State

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 10, Irrawaddy
Rumored shake-up as Burma shuns Asean defense forum

Asean defense ministers—excluding Burma—meeting in Kuala Lumpur agreed on
Wednesday to establish a new military security grouping of the Southeast
Asian countries.

In a joint statement at a press conference, the ministers reaffirmed goals
“to bring Asean’s political and security cooperation to a higher plane to
ensure that countries in the region live at peace with one another and
with the world at large.”

The decision takes the 10-member 39-year-old Asean beyond its previous
role of building closer economic ties, observers noted.

Burma excused itself from the inaugural meetings of defense chiefs on the
grounds that its defense chiefs had more pressing domestic commitments.

However, there are strong rumors circulating inside Burma of an imminent
leadership shake-up, which may be the real reason why Than Shwe—both
regime leader and defense minister—stayed away.

Sources told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that Than Shwe may be about to
shake up his cabinet.

The sources speculate that Prime Minister Gen Soe Win, Minister of
Industry-2, Maj Gen Saw Lwin and Minister of Immigration and Population
Maj Gen Sein Htwa are to be retired or sacked.

Than Shwe recently vacationed in Arakan State during the water festival
and some observers think he may have used this time to plan personnel
changes.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak, told reporters
that Burma would be invited to the next meeting of Asean defense
ministers, to be held in Singapore.

“Whether in fact they participate or not is something we cannot speculate
on,” Najib said. “We can all draw our own conclusions, but we hope that in
future they will be part of the process.”

Burma often avoids regional defense chief gatherings, but the military
regime has developed defense ties with India, China and Russia. This year,
Burma has participated in joint naval exercises with India.

____________________________________

May 10, Mizzima News
Magwe students demonstrate against university authorities - Min Thu

Hundreds of students from the Magwe Government Technology University in
central Burma staged a protest against university authorities on Tuesday
over rising bus fees.

A resident in Magwe told Mizzima the peaceful protest came after bus
prices for the students doubled amid bus shortages.

“About 250 students marched from downtown to the university which is
located seven miles east of Magwe,” the resident said.

Students at the university said they were protesting the rise of bus fees
from 1500 kyat to 2700 kyat and the failure of the university to provide
more transport.

Over-crowded buses meant some students were forced to walk home, a student
said. Previous calls from the students for the university to address the
issue were reportedly met with a response of “manage it yourselves” from
the university administration board.

Following the protest, local authorities increased the number of buses and
teachers are monitoring students during bus trips to make sure there is no
further unrest.

____________________________________

May 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Renowned Burmese writer Dagon Taryar urges the people of Burma to unite
for peace

In order to achieve true peace in Burma, a political front made up of all
political forces must be formed and all the groups must join hands and
carry out political actions in unison, a renowned and well-respected
Burmese author Dagon Taryar urged on his birthday today.

Dagon Taryar who celebrated his 87th birthday made the comment during a
telephone interview with DVB from his home at Aungban in southern Shan
State.

He stated that although it is difficult to gain peace in the current
situation of Burma, if political forces, literary forces and the people
join hand, the country will surely obtain peace. He added that if the
ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
really wants peace, it must cooperate with political forces.

The comment of Tagon Taryar followed that of another renowned writer Ludhu
Daw Ama who said that the people of Burma must ‘explode’ in order to get
what they want, democracy and human rights.

“Our country tends to explode from unexpected places. Only then would the
camp be dismantled. That’s what I think. I think that we have to explode,”
said Ama from her home in central Burma’s Mandalay. “You can’t just
despair, my sons (children). You have to do something. We have to find a
way by public (movement) means, to do things needed to be done. If you
don’t do that nothing will happen. They will go on like that.”

A bigger public birthday party for Tagon Taryar will be held at the Maha
Gandayon Buddhist monastery on this coming Sunday to accommodate more
guests and it will be attended by local friends and literary friends from
Rangoon and Mandalay.

____________________________________

May 10, Shan Herald Agency for News
Watch out for the Russian navy

Burma's invitation of Russian trawlers to its waters during Gen Maung
Aye's high profile visit to Moscow, 2-7 April, could be a smoke signal for
the Russian navy to lend a hand in the Burmese rulers' ongoing defenses
against an anticipated American invasion, according to a source close to
the Burmese military.

The cue, said the source from the fishery business circle, was the talks
between Livestock and Fishery minister Maung Maung Thein and his
counterpart there. "When the Russian minister told him he'd like his
fishing boats to roam the Indian Ocean as soon as possible, Maung Maung
Thein was said to have replied something like 'That makes two of us,'" he
said.

Russia's other rival China has already established its naval presence in
the area since 1992, when Beijing and Rangoon concluded an agreement to
build major naval facilities on Hainggyi Island in the Irrawaddy delta and
the Great Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal.

In August 1994, 3 Chinese trawlers flying Burmese flags were intercepted
by the Indian navy. In the boats were electronic surveillance and radio
equipment leading to the arrest of the 55 Chinese crewmen.

Maung Aye's Moscow visit was prompted by the generals' failure to secure
long term support from China and India, reported Irrawaddy on 4 April
quoting diplomats in Bangkok. It later reported Eric John, US Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, saying
Washington had no plans to attack Burma.

The April visit had concluded with Russia's agreement to supply a wide
range of arms including air defense systems and MIG-29 fighters in
exchange for access to Burma's rich natural resources, according to
reports from Moscow.

Vice Senior General Maung Aye was accompanied by Secretary-1 Thein Sein
and ministers from foreign, national planning, science, commerce and
livestock ministries.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 10, Associated Press
Marauding elephants kill Myanmar refugee boy, hurt 30 others at Bangladesh
camp - Tofayel Ahmed

Cox's Bazar Bangladesh: A pair of wild elephants, apparently foraging for
food, rampaged Wednesday through a camp sheltering Myanmar refugees in
southern Bangladesh, killing a child and injuring about 30 others, an
official said.

The elephants, who came down from hills bordering Bangladesh and Myanmar,
also destroyed five straw-and-bamboo sheds in a two-hour dawn raid, before
camp inmates and guards scared them away with fire torches and sticks,
Siddique Ahmed, a Bangladeshi refugee official, said.

One of the elephants picked up a 9-year-old boy with its trunk and hurled
him to the ground, killing him instantly, Ahmed said. At least 30 others
were injured as they scrambled to flee from the marauding elephants.

Authorities have ordered extra patrols at the camp, which houses nearly
8,000 Muslim refugees from Myanmar.

About 21,000 Myanmar Muslims, known as Rohingyas, still live in two
refugees camps in bordering Cox's Bazar district, about 298 kilometers
(185 miles) south of Dhaka, the national capital.

They were among more than 250,000 Rohingyas who fled alleged military
oppression in Myanmar's Arakan state in the early 1990s. The others have
been repatriated home in phases over the years.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 10, Agence France Presse
Asian governments meet to intensify fight against human trafficking

Phnom Penh: Officials from Southeast Asia and China met Wednesday in
Cambodia to strengthen their combined efforts to fight human trafficking
in the region.

More than 30 senior officials from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar,
Thailand and Vietnam began a three-day meeting to review their three-year
plan to combat the widespread problem.

The six countries, which adopted the plan last year, will also make plans
to fight trafficking over the next decade.

"We must work together to provide an effective and cooperative model to
fight human trafficking as a region," said Ing Kantha Phavi, Cambodian
minister of women's affairs, at the start of the meeting.

"It is important that we join the forces of not only the heads of our
national governments in the region but also between individual
ministries...to combat the specific aspects of the trafficking problem in
our respective countries," she added.

The strategy focuses on strengthening law enforcement as well as
protecting and rescuing victims. It also sets standards for
anti-trafficking work in Asia.

The UN Inter-Agency Project on human trafficking in the region issued a
statement at the meeting that outlined the different types of trafficking.

Some widespread forms include the smuggling of people from Cambodia,
China, Laos and Myanmar into Thailand for labor, and the trafficking of
Cambodian children to Thailand and Vietnam to beg.

Trafficking of boys for adoption and of women and girls for forced
marriage and the sex trade is also common, it said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 10, The Associated Press
Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China win seats on new rights council despite poor
rights records - Edith M. Lederer

United Nations: Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new
U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights
records, but two rights abusers Iran and Venezuela were defeated.

Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members
elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human
Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some
countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect
one another from condemnation. The 47 were chosen from among 63
contenders.

"The spoiler governments, the governments that have a history of trying to
undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the
old commission are now a significantly reduced minority when it comes to
the council," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Even before the vote, Roth said the council was much improved over the
discredited panel because many countries accused of violations who had
been members didn't seek seats, including Sudan, Zimbabwe, Libya, Congo,
Syria, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Yvonne Terlingen, U.N. representative for Amnesty International, said it
was "fairly pleased" that the countries elected would provide a good basis
for a new "strong and effective human rights body."

"Some countries have been elected with weak human rights records, but they
also are now committed to uphold the highest human rights standards," she
said.

The United States opposed the establishment of the council, saying it did
not go far enough to prevent rights abusers from winning seats, and the
U.S. decided against being a candidate.

But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg said "on the
whole, we think it is an improvement over the commission."

"We are committed to engaging actively in the coming weeks with all of the
elected members ... to make sure that this body is effective," she said.
"We think think that the real test of this council will be whether it can
take effective action in serious cases of human rights abuse like Darfur,
... Burma, North Korea and other places."

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., a critic of the U.N., said Cuba's
election showed the new council suffers from the same weakness as the
commission and "is the perfect example of the U.N.'s failure to reform."

Russia was a candidate in the most hotly contested regional group Eastern
Europe which fielded 13 candidates for six seats. It was the only group
where a second round of voting was needed. The other winners were
Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

The 13 African winners were Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana,
Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and
Zambia.

The 13 Asians elected to the council were Bangladesh, Bahrain, China,
India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, South
Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka. The defeat of Iran in that category
"just shows their lack of standing in the international community," said
Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

In Latin American and the Caribbean, the eight seats went to Argentina,
Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

The seven countries elected from the Western bloc were Britain, Canada,
Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland.

Associated Press Writer Paul Burkhardt contributed to this report.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 10, The Nation
Drum beats louder for UN action on Burma - Jared Genser

The news from Burma keeps getting worse, and yet the world is standing
idly by and failing to act, as this growing crisis in Asia is overshadowed
by the confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme and the ongoing
genocide in Darfur, Sudan. According to recent news reports, Burmese
troops are waging their biggest military campaign in recent memory,
uprooting more than 11,000 ethnic Karen and conducting a widespread
campaign punctuated by killing, torture and the burning of villages.

In a little-noticed move last week that may help spur calls for action on
Burma, the UN Security Council unanimously affirmed that all states have a
"responsibility to protect" innocent civilians from genocide, ethnic
cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including through
actions binding on all states under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The
timing couldn't be better.

Last September, former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel and Bishop
Desmond Tutu commissioned my law firm to produce "Threat to the Peace: A
Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma". The report argued that
the military junta is not just a threat to its own people; the worsening
crisis in Burma has serious transnational effects that are destabilising
the broader region.

First, the military junta continues to thwart the will of its own people
as expressed in the 1990 election.

Second, the military junta has committed grave, systematic and widespread
human-rights abuses against the Burmese people. Such abuses include the
destruction of more than 2,700 villages since 1996, massive forced
relocations, rape of ethnic minorities by government soldiers, widespread
forced labour and the use of than 70,000 child soldiers by the regime.

Third, as a result of these abuses, more than 700,000 refugees have poured
out of Burma into neighbouring countries, especially Thailand.

Fourth, Burma is one of the world's primary producers of heroin and
amphetamine-type stimulants. The trafficking and use of these drugs are of
enormous concern to the international community and particularly to the
region.

And finally, as a result of Burma's status as the heroin supplier for the
region, HIV strains that originated in Burma are now being spread to
neighbouring countries along the heroin routes, as a result of
needle-sharing.

In a historic briefing on December 16, the Security Council finally took
up the situation in Burma for the first time. Since then, the already
terrible situation has only been getting worse. Not only did the military
junta move its capital to Pyinmana, further withdrawing its key leadership
into the jungle, but it also has spurned all moves attempting to even
engage in dialogue about the growing crisis.

After a recent trip to Rangoon on behalf of Asean that was delayed for
months, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar came back
empty-handed. He recently commented, "There is a feeling that Myanmar
[Burma] is dragging us down in terms of our credibility and image." And
the ruling junta, led by General Than Shwe, has rejected all dialogue with
the National League for Democracy (NLD), going so far as to label it a
terrorist group and implicitly threaten a further crackdown.

The time has come for the UN Security Council to take binding action on
Burma. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been
under house arrest again since 2003. All attempts by the international
community to pursue national reconciliation have been flatly rejected.
Burma is a threat to the peace, and its ruling junta has only expanded its
persecution of the ethnic minorities of the country. Whether the UN can
find a way to deal with the situation in Burma is in many respects not
only a question for Burma, but a challenge to the UN's ability to carry
out its own charter.

By adopting a binding resolution requiring action by the military junta,
the Security Council can force the generals back to the negotiating table,
ensure UN agencies access to provide humanitarian relief, secure the
release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners of conscience and bring an
end to the tragedy that has befallen all Burmese. Serious leadership by
the UN Security Council now will send a clear message to the generals that
business as usual will no longer be tolerated. For the world to ignore the
suffering of the Burmese people and the dangers posed by the Burmese junta
would be an abrogation of our collective responsibility.

Jared Genser is an attorney with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP in
Washington DC.


____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

May 8, Women's League of Burma
Women's League of Burma calling the United Nations Security Council to act
to stop the current attacks on civilians in Karen State

The Women’s League of Burma is appalled and sickened by the current
Burmese military regime’s offensive against civilians in Karen State. This
deliberate and direct targeting of civilians in armed conflict by the
military regime clearly violates international humanitarian law and
demonstrates that conflict in Burma is not appeasing.

The WLB supports its member organization, the Karen Women’s Organization’s
call for urgent action by the United Nations Security Council to stop this
reprehensible violence. The Burmese military regime’s forced relocation
campaign on-going in northern and western Karen State since November 2005
is the largest military offensive since 1997. To date, around 13 000 Karen
have been forcibly displaced in Nyaunglebin, Toungoo and Muthraw districts
as military regime soldiers attempt to forcibly relocate people to
military controlled zones. Extrajudicial killings, forced portering,
destructions of homes, fields, and food stocks are also reported.

New landmines laid by the regime soldiers along the border are preventing
displaced people from seeking or receiving humanitarian assistance. This
begins a new round of death and displacement for Karen civilians, with
particular burdens on women and children. Recent decisions at the UN World
Summit and by the UNSC now affirm a collective responsibility of all UN
members to protect civilian populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity in the absence of government
protection.

The WLB strongly urges the United Nations Security Council to take urgent
and appropriate action regarding the human rights crisis underway in
eastern Burma. It urges the UNSC to take action in accordance with its 28
April 2006 resolution 1674, “On protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict”
and its 31 October 2000 resolution 1325, “On Women, Peace and Security.”

The current attack on civilians in Karen State is precisely an occurrence
for which these two UNSC resolutions were adopted and should trigger
immediate UNSC action and place Burma on the UNSC agenda. The WLB also
urges the international women’s community to act in solidarity and
pressure the UNSC to take relevant action.

For further information, please contact:

Nang Yain, General Secretary at +61 9 858 4668
Naw Sanda Waie, Joint General Secretary 2 at +61 9 851 9510