BurmaNet News, June 10-12, 2006

[Editor]

June 10-12, 2006 Issue # 2981


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Aung San Suu Kyi feeling better after illness: party
AP: New attacks by Myanmar army displace 4,100 more ethnic Karens: relief
group
Xinhua: Myanmar plans festivals to attract more tourists
Irrawaddy: Laughing all the way to prison

ON THE BORDER
Embassy of Japan in Thailand via Thai Press Reports: Japanese government
provides assistance for family planning for Karen people on border of
Thailand-Myanmar

REGIONAL
AP: China signs pact to provide Myanmar with US$200 million loan
Mizzima: Bangladeshi intellectual calls for support for Burma

INTERNATIONAL
AP: Report: Chinese arms exports are fueling conflicts in Sudan, Nepal,
elsewhere
New York Times: Burmese woman can stay

OPINION / OTHER
Dallas Morning News: Free Myanmar - Rena Pederson
Nation: Burma mulls its next move in Asean - Kavi Chongkittavorn

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 11, Agence France Presse
Aung San Suu Kyi feeling better after illness: party

Yangon: Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was feeling better
Sunday after suffering from stomach troubles and remained at home under
the care of her personal physician, her party said.

"Her family doctor is taking very good care of her. We are sure of that,"
said Nyan Win, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy. "The
latest information we have is that by yesterday, she was recovering."

Reports of her illness had on Friday prompted the US State Department to
say it was "very concerned" and call on the country's military rulers to
ensure she received prompt treatment.

Nyan Win on Saturday said that the 60-year-old Nobel peace laureate had
been briefly hospitalized on Friday for treatment.

But on Sunday he said "it was a misunderstanding," and that the party was
still trying to confirm whether she had been taken to hospital.

Myanmar's police chief, Major General Khin Yi, said that the doctor had
treated her at home Thursday for digestive problems and that she had not
left the house.

Aung San Suu Kyi's doctor could not be reached for comment on her
condition, but Nyan Win said the physician could still be caring for her
inside the lakeside home where she is under house arrest.

The daughter of the country's independence hero Aung San has spent more
than 10 of the past 17 years under house arrest, with only a short-wave
radio to connect her to the outside world.

The junta last month defied international demands for her freedom and
extended her house arrest by another year.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in detention since a May 2003 attack on her
convoy by junta-backed militia in the country's central region.

She was thrown into prison after the assault but, following a
gynecological operation four months later, allowed to return home -- again
under house arrest.

Just last month, more than two years after being barred from seeing
foreigners, Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed by the junta to meet with UN
Under Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari.

The UN envoy said after the surprise meeting that Aung San Suu Kyi's
health was good, but reported that she would like visits by her doctors
"to be more predictable and regular".

Hopes had swelled for her release after the meeting, but the junta --
accused by various governments and non-governmental groups of human rights
abuses -- extended her house arrest.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was among world leaders who expressed
profound disappointment over the junta's decision.

Her National League for Democracy party won a landslide election victory
in 1990, but the military government never recognized the result.

____________________________________

June 11, Associated Press
New attacks by Myanmar army displace 4,100 more ethnic Karens: relief
group - Grant Peck

Bangkok: Attacks last week by Myanmar's army displaced more than 4,000
members of the country's Karen minority, bringing the number of homeless
since the end of February to more than 18,000, a refugee relief
organization said Sunday.

The Free Burma Rangers, a private group that sends food and other
humanitarian supplies for displaced persons into eastern Myanmar from
northern Thailand, said the current offensive by Myanmar's military
against Karen guerrillas is the largest since 1997.
Refugees and aid groups have said the offensive has been accompanied by
killings, torture, forced relocations, the planting of land mines and
destruction of food supplies.

Last month, British lawmakers called for urgent aid for Karen refugees,
joining growing calls for the U.N. Security Council to act swiftly against
the offensive. U.S. congress members, the European Union and human rights
groups have launched similar appeals.

Myanmar's critics also castigate the ruling junta for refusing to hand
over power to a democratically elected government and continuing to detain
political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar's junta acknowledged last month that the army is targeting the
Karen ethnic minority area, saying the offensive is necessary to suppress
bombings and other anti-government attacks.

There were three major clashes between Myanmar troops and Karen guerrillas
on Friday in Myanmar's Kayin State also known as Karen State said a
spokesman for the Rangers, who asked not to be named to protect his
personal safety.

He said the fighting had displaced 1,100 people in the state's Papun
district, and another 3,000 people further north also were forced to flee
their homes.

The Karen people have sought autonomy in Myanmar, also called Burma, for
nearly six decades in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies. The
conflict has uprooted hundreds of thousands of Karen, including well over
100,000 now in refugee camps in Thailand.

"These attacks on innocent civilians in the Karen State, the largest in 10
years, constitute war crimes," said Jeremy Woodrum of the U.S. Campaign
for Burma. "With the U.N. Security Council about to weigh a resolution on
Burma for the first time in history, they underscore the urgency of
action."

"The United Nations has been completely ineffective in blocking the
destruction of 2,700 villages by Burma's military regime in eastern Burma
over the past 10 years," Woodrum said in an e-mail.

The Washington, D.C.-based group lobbies to encourage democracy in Myanmar.

____________________________________

June 12, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar plans festivals to attract more tourists

Yangon: Myanmar is planning some tourism festivals to attract more
tourists worldwide to the country with assurance of taking security of the
visitors, the local weekly Voice reported Monday.

Quoting the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, the report stressed the
important role of the private sector in the development of tourism
industry.

The ministry is urging private tour operators to cooperate with the
government, saying that assistance will be rendered to them in the
implementation as well as to win international links with regard to the
sector.

According to the ministry's figures, in the fiscal year 2005-06, which
ended in March, a total of 660,206 tourists visited Myanmar. Of them,
cross-border tourists accounted for the majority with 427, 980, while
227,300 entered through Yangon check point and 4,918 through Mandalay and
Bagan's.

The fiscal year's tourist arrivals have hit a record high in the past five
years, registering an earning through tourism during the year at over 150
million U.S. dollars, up from only 17 million dollars in the previous
year.

The figures also indicate that there are 596 hotels, motels and guest
houses in Myanmar providing a total of over 18,500 rooms. The number of
travel agencies in operation stands over 500.

More figures reveal that contracted foreign investment in the sector of
hotels and tourism has so far amounted to 1.06 billion dollars since
Myanmar started to open to such investment in late 1988. The investment in
hotel projects amounted to over 580 million dollars.

____________________________________

June 2006, Irrawaddy
Laughing all the way to prison - Ko Thet

Censors fail to gag popular Burmese comedian

Zarganar, the former dental surgery student who became one of Burma’s
best-loved comedians and a mordant satirist, has had his teeth pulled by
the censors. “No more public performances,” they told him last month,
prompting threats by his colleagues—including well-known actors and
directors—to cease production work in a display of sympathy.

The ban extends to all news about Zarganar in the Burmese press. The
Orwellian regime has effectively made him a “non-person.”

Zarganar’s gag slipped, however, when The Irrawaddy contacted him by
telephone at his Rangoon home. The irrepressible comedian chuckled as he
talked about the regime’s latest attempt to silence him.

It was an interview in April with the BBC’s Burmese service that sparked
the latest ban, Zarganar said. He had criticized official regulations that
he said robbed Burma’s water festival of much of its traditions.

Zarganar, 46, and many of his colleagues had questioned what they saw as
an effective ban on the water festival’s tradition of Than Gyat, the
satirical stage shows that formed a popular part of the celebrations. Than
Gyat pilloried government corruption and inefficiency and drew attention
to the country’s social and political problems.

It was only a matter of time before the regime stepped in—Than Gyat
scripts now have to undergo strict scrutiny by the censors, ensuring that
the shows lose all their original sting.

Zarganar’s troubles with the regime date back 26 years, to the time when
he was a third-year dental surgery student, registered under his real
name, Maung Thura. He was a natural comedian and performed in shows at
Burma’s universities. Soon he was a household name.

After completing his studies, obtaining a bachelor degree, Maung Thura
took to the stage full time, adopting the name Zarganar. It means
“Tweezers” and was a witty farewell gesture to a dentist’s career he
swapped for the vagaries of cabaret and the stage.

Before the 1988 student uprising, Zarganar and his troupe entertained
delighted audiences with their satires on the government and its corrupt
ways. He got away with a highly popular play, “Beggar,” which ridiculed
the late dictator Ne Win and his cronies. Friends and colleagues marveled
that he stayed out of trouble and out of jail.

That all changed in 1988. He plunged himself into the uprising, agitating
for change and addressing the crowds of demonstrating students. He was
inevitably arrested, interrogated for eight days and then locked up in
Insein prison for nearly a year, accused of being an “instigator” in the
uprising.

At the time of the 1990 election he was again arrested for giving
political speeches. His father, the writer and artist Nan Nyunt Swe, was
also politically active, speaking at one time in National Day celebrations
in Suu Kyi’s house and subsequently banned by the regime’s censors.
Zarganar’s mother, Kyi Oo, won election as an independent candidate in the
1990 poll.

A four-year prison sentence now awaited Zarganar. One year after the
prison doors again closed on him, he was awarded the Lillian Hellman and
Dashiel Hammett Award, given by the Fund for Free Expression, a committee
organized by New York based Human Rights Watch.

After his release from prison in 1994, Zarganar was allowed to participate
in video productions, working as producer, director, scriptwriter and
actor. But his work was closely scrutinized by the censors and military
intelligence, in a cat-and-mouse game in which Zarganar and his audiences
took delight in sidestepping the authorities.

They didn’t always succeed, and much of his work never reached a public
audience. Last February, his video movie, with the prophetic title “Run
Out of Patience,” was banned.

Zarganar certainly hasn’t run out of patience. “There are always
under-the-table jokes and behind-the-curtain humor,” he told The
Irrawaddy.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 6, Embassy of Japan in Thailand via Thai Press Reports
Japanese government provides assistance for family planning for Karen
people on border of Thailand-Myanmar

The official hand over ceremony of the project "Empowering of Women and
Youth on the Border of Thailand - Myanmar," coordinated by the Planned
Parenthood Association of Thailand (PPAT) through the Grant Assistance for
Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP), will take place on June 5, 2006
at the office of PPAT in Bangkok. Mr. Yoshinobu Hiraishi, The Deputy Chief
of Mission of the Japanese Embassy, attended the ceremony.

It is estimated that around one hundred thousand refugees who have fled
from Myanmar are living on the Thailand-Myanmar border. While new refugees
are still coming in, the increasing population in refugee camps on account
of the high birth rate has become an issue. At the same time, in Karen
villages around the refugee camps, people can not receive adequate medical
services due to the language barrier. The implications are particularly
serious for women and young mothers who lack access to basic health
education.

The PPAT has been implementing education and awareness programs about
family planning and reproductive health in refugee camps and Karen
villages in Tak and Mae Hong Son provinces. The PPAT has been also holding
clinics for health checks and birth control assistance for couples of
child-bearing age.

At the request of the PPAT, the Japanese government has provided financial
assistance for the production-cost of posters, VCDs, and so on for
education, and the purchase of equipment and a four wheel drive vehicle.
The total amount of assistance was US$59,270 (approximately 2.3 million
baht). Through this project, activities in mountain areas will become
easier with more possibilities to expand. As the birthrate falls, women's
health will also improve. Besides this, it is expected that the
strengthening of educational activities in refugee camps will help to
prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to control population growth.

The Government of Japan is willing to support projects that benefit Human
Security through the GGP scheme.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 10, Associated Press
China signs pact to provide Myanmar with US$200 million loan

Yangon: China has signed an agreement to provide Myanmar with a special
low-interest loan, state-run newspapers reported Saturday.

The pact was signed Friday in Yangon by Central Bank Governor Kyaw Kyaw
Maung and Vice-Chairman of China Export and Import Bank of the People's
Republic of China Su Zhong, reported The New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

The report did not give the amount or other details of the
government-to-government loan.

However, a Chinese embassy official said the loan was for US$200 million
(€165.2 million) in buyer's credit, and had been agreed upon during a
visit to Beijing by Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Soe Win in February this
year.

The loan is earmarked for five different government ministries, but no
details were available on what it would be used for, said the official,
who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the
press.

China is Myanmar's most important ally, providing economic, military and
other assistance, while Western nations shun the military-ruled country
because of its poor human rights record and failure to restore democracy.

___________________________________

June 12, Mizzima News
Bangladeshi intellectual calls for support for Burma - Siddique Islam

Speakers at a discussion on Burma in Dhaka on Saturday urged the
Bangladesh government to call for the immediate release of detained
National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

The discussion on ‘Solidarity with the Democratic Struggle of Burma’ was
led by prominent Bangladeshi intellectual Kabir Chowdhury who called on
the government to support Burma’s pro-democracy movement, citing
Bangladesh’s long tradition of cultural and trade relations with Burma.

“We urge the government from this meeting to place a formal demand for
Aung San Suu Kyi’s immediate release,” Chowdhury said.

He also pointed out similarities in the political situations in Burma and
Bangladesh, saying while Burma was ruled by direct martial law indirect
military rule prevailed in Bangladesh.

Justice Golam Rabbani, who attended the discussion, labeled Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi a symbol of “democracy and human rights”.

“Anyone who has minimum conscience should raise voice for Suu Kyi's
freedom and the democratic struggle in Burma,” he said.

President of Bangladesh’s Communist Party Manjurul Ahsan Khan, Jatiya
Samajtantrik Dal President Hasanul Haque Inu, Dr Hamida Hossain and Waliur
Rahman also attended the discussion.

The event was organised by the South Asian Peoples’ Union against
Fundamentalism and Communalism.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 12, Associated Press
Report: Chinese arms exports are fueling conflicts in Sudan, Nepal,
elsewhere - Gillian Wong

Beijing: China's sales of military vehicles and weapons to Sudan, Nepal
and Myanmar have aggravated conflicts and abetted violence and repressive
rule in those countries, Amnesty International said in a report Monday.

The report by the London-based human rights group sheds light on an area
of Chinese foreign policy that its government doesn't disclose: assistance
to regimes embroiled in internal conflicts and often shunned by the West.

The group said China has shipped hundreds of military trucks to Sudan and
Myanmar's military, and rifles and grenades to Nepal's security forces.

"China has used the phrase 'cautious and responsible' to describe its arms
export licensing, however its record of trading arms in conflict-ridden
countries like Sudan and Myanmar show their actions are anything but,"
Colby Goodman of Amnesty International's arms control campaign said in a
statement.

A duty officer in the Foreign Ministry's spokesman's office, who refused
to give her name, said Monday that the agency would look into the
assertion but had no immediate comment.

China rarely confirms sales of weapons and military equipment abroad, a
secrecy that is compounding U.S. concerns about how it is using its
rapidly rising economic and diplomatic power abroad. Senior U.S.
government officials have publicly criticized China for a robust military
buildup at home and a lack of transparency in its defense policies.

The Amnesty International report said a U.N. investigation in August 2005
showed China shipped more than 200 military trucks to Sudan, where
large-scale violence in the Darfur region has claimed at least 180,000
lives and forced more than 2 million people from their homes since 2003.

The trucks were exported by Hubei Dong Feng Motor Industry Import and
Export Co., a company based in the central Chinese province of Hubei, it
said.

It also expressed concern that an American company might be involved. The
report said the model of military trucks exported to Sudan were likely
fitted with engines manufactured by Cummins Inc., a Columbus,
Indiana-based maker of diesel engines with several ventures in China.

In a letter Amnesty International provided to The Associated Press,
Cummins said that particular truck model was powered by engines produced
by a joint venture between Cummins and a Chinese company.

Cummins was unaware that its engines would be installed in vehicles to be
sold to Sudan for military use, the company's president of engine
business, Jim Kelly, said in the letter.

While the Amnesty International statement did not say exactly how that
batch of trucks was being used in Sudan, the rights group said that in
2004 when massacres were widespread in Darfur, the Sudanese military and
Arab militias known as Janjaweed traveled in military trucks. In some
cases, the trucks also transported people for executions, the report said.

China also regularly supplies Myanmar's military junta with equipment,
including an August 2005 shipment of 400 army trucks, despite its
involvement in the "torture, killing and forced eviction of hundreds of
thousands of civilians," the human rights group said.

The military has controlled Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1962. The
current junta took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a pro-democracy
movement. In April, Myanmar troops uprooted more than 11,000 ethnic
minority civilians, often employing torture, killings and the burning of
villages, according to reports from inside the country.

China also exported nearly 25,000 Chinese-made rifles and 18,000 grenades
early this year to Nepal's security forces, which at the time were
fighting thousands of anti-monarchy demonstrators with tear gas, rubber
bullets and live ammunition, the statement said.

Amnesty International also said illicit trade in Chinese-made pistols was
growing in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and particularly South Africa.
The pistols are commonly used for robbery, rape and other crimes in South
Africa, it said.

____________________________________

June 12, The New York Times
Burmese woman can stay

Washington: A Burmese woman who was denied asylum in the United States
because she had offered material support to an armed group that opposes
the authoritarian government in her country won the right to stay here
temporarily after a panel of immigration appeals judges ruled last week
that she faced the likelihood of torture in Burma.

The woman, who is being detained in Texas and whose name has not been
released, was one of nearly 500 Burmese asylum seekers threatened with
deportation because of their indirect support for the rebels.

A provision in the antiterror law known as the USA Patriot Act denies
entry to the United States to anyone who has provided material support to
a terrorist or armed rebel group, even if that support was coerced or if
the aims of the group match those of American foreign policy.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 10, Dallas Morning News
Free Myanmar - Rena Pederson

People around the world will stand up for Aung San Suu Kyi and other
political prisoners this month, says Rena Pederson. Will the United
Nations?

The last time I saw Aung San Suu Kyi, she was waving goodbye from the
steps of her family's worn-down home in Rangoon, a slender, solitary
figure standing her ground just a few yards from the armed guards keeping
her prisoner in her house.Three years later, she is still under heavy
guard. A brutal military junta continues to pillage the country. Although
Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 with a
stunning 82 percent of the vote, the military has refused to hand over
power peacefully.

Ms. Suu Kyi reportedly was hospitalized this week with severe diarrhea and
weakness after a delay because her physician had trouble getting
permission to see her. Concerns about her life have been growing since she
was attacked during a speaking tour three years ago and dragged back into
custody. One of her supporters recently e-mailed me, "They've tried to
murder her before. They will try again."

A breakthrough nearly occurred May 27. Rumors were rampant the generals
would release her because of international pressure. They didn't.

In the past, she has refused to be released unless other political
prisoners, who are in worse conditions in gulags, are also freed. Perhaps
she once again put principle above her own safety. That's why she won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Now the question is how much more suffering in Myanmar, the country
formerly known as Burma, will it take before the U.N. Security Council
acts? The council has stayed mum while the junta has waged war on its own
people. The list of horrors is like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse:

"Ethnic cleansing" in the Karen state is reaching Balkan proportions.

The military has burned more than 2,700 villages to suppress dissent.

Government soldiers have used rape as a "weapon of war" against ethnic
women as part of their terror campaign.

More than a million people have been displaced.

HIV/AIDS is on the rampage, spilling over into India and other neighboring
states. The government spent a meager $70,000 to combat the spread last
year.
Myanmar still is one of the leading sources for opium in the world.

More than a third of the nation's children are seriously malnourished, and
more than 70,000 have been forced into the army.

Diseases like bird flu and other infectious diseases pose serious risks to
the region.

The best hope now is for the Security Council to pass a resolution calling
for the unconditional release of all political prisoners and real movement
toward democracy. It is long past time to put the issue on the formal
agenda.

To its credit, the U.S. has been ratcheting up the pressure for action.
The problem is that Japan has joined with China and Russia in blocking the
issue, most likely out of strategic sensitivity to its neighboring
mega-powers. Yet, Japan should be a leader for good governance in the
region. Japan can't call itself a democratic ally if it can't stand up to
thugs like the Myanmar junta.

If Japan votes "no" to a resolution, it will be as much a vote against the
U.S. as Myanmar, since Japan prospers under the U.S. security umbrella.
And a vote against the U.S. would be evidence that Japan is becoming the
ally of China and Russia.

The next few weeks will be telling. On June 19, Aung San Suu Kyi will turn
61. Worldwide demonstrations are being planned on her behalf. On June 17,
the weekend before her birthday, people are being asked to symbolically
lock themselves in their houses for 24 hours to show solidarity - no TV,
no phone, no friends, no family. Ms. Suu Kyi has endured that kind of
isolation for 10 of the last 17 years.

Her critics say she is not perfect, she should have called for public
strikes, she should play hardball, she should do this, she should do that.
Instead, at the point of a gun, she quietly keeps insisting that
nonviolence and democracy are the answer.

It's time for Security Council members to put down their microphones and
listen to the soft voice of integrity coming from Rangoon.

Rena Pederson is vice president of communications for Higher Ed Holdings.

____________________________________

June 12, The Nation
Burma mulls its next move in Asean - Kavi Chongkittavorn

Asean leaders were relieved when the Burmese regime in Pyinmana recently
informed them officially that the country would skip its turn to host the
2008 ministerial meeting after the Philippines next year. Singapore was
next in line and has already agreed to host the event.

The reason the junta leaders gave was that they were simply not ready as
they were still consolidating power in their new capital. But the junta
reiterated to Asean that its road map for democracy and political reform,
which it adopted in October 2003, would proceed as planned. The hope is
that by next year, Burma will have a new constitution, approved in a
referendum, and an elected government for the world to see. That was made
clear.

Upon a close scrutiny, however, one can detect two ulterior motives
lurking behind Burma's decision. First, the willingness Burma showed in
giving up its turn to take the Asean chairmanship this year is directly
linked to its concerted efforts to appease fellow members. Burma's failure
to show real commitment to the group and to political reform has been a
real nightmare for Asean in the past year.

Overall, the core Asean members have toughened their views and position on
the junta. However, the grouping's image and reputation has continued to
take a beating due to the continuing political deterioration inside Burma.

Since the extension of Aung San Suu Kyi's detention last month,
international sentiment has become more sympathetic to her plight and her
aspirations for Burma. The latest news that she has been hospitalised also
heightens the sense of urgency that something must be done at the highest
level to bring further pressure to bear on the junta regime.

The ongoing effort at the UN Security Council, pushed by the United States
and Western countries, to discuss the Burmese situation together with a
resolution points to increased frustration by major powers over the
political impasse there.

The junta hoped that its early notification of relinquishing its turn to
play host next year would generate goodwill from the feeling that Pyinmana
was being considerate to other members this time around. Its position is
also understandable in view of the fact that hosting the Asean meeting
would entail opening up the country to outside scrutiny and visits by
foreign guests.


When Asean foreign ministers met in Laos last year, they used peer
pressure to force Burma to withdraw from taking the chairmanship this
year. Instead, the Philippines will take over from Malaysia at the meeting
in July. At first it was thought that Burma's recess would last for only a
year or two; whenever it felt ready to take the chairmanship, Asean
foreign ministers would accept it, as Thai Foreign Minister Kanthathi
Suphamongkon pointed out. But at this juncture, Asean is having serious
second thoughts. Kanthathi has since also expressed disappointment with
Suu Kyi's continued detention.

That leads us to the second point. The five-year term of the current Asean
secretary-general, Ong Keng Yong of Singapore, ends next year and Thailand
is next in line to provide a successor. The Thai government has not yet
considered who this should be, although initial discussions on potential
candidates were held at the Foreign Ministry.

Bangkok has at least one year to come up with a name, which must be
approved by the Cabinet. Apparently, the government is reluctant to do so
now as its bid for the UN secretary-general's post, for which it announced
its candidacy almost three years in advance, is moving into the final
phase.

But for the Burmese, Thailand's choice for the next Asean
secretary-general is pivotal. Ong has been quite effective when it came to
commenting on Burma: he has been candid about the situation there and the
perceived roles of India and China as Asean's dialogue partners. But
nobody knows whether such forthright assessments will be the norm for
Thailand's candidate.

Burma thinks taking up the Asean chairmanship in July 2008, after
Singapore and before Thailand, would be ideal to take advantage of its
eastern neighbour's stance and cooperation. It is difficult to predict the
Thai political scenario over the next two years, but Burma is obviously
betting on Thai support if it decides to go ahead.

The longer Burma waits the more complications it will generate as Asean is
now moving ahead with drafting its charter. Among other principles and
norms, collective responsibility could in future be Asean's new core value
to counterbalance its principle of non-interference in member states'
internal affairs. If this is approved and subsequently included in the
charter, Burma's future in Asean will be subject to a legally binding
framework.