BurmaNet News, June 15, 2006

[Editor]

June 15, 2006 Issue # 2984


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima: NLD to launch appeal for detained poet
Narinjara: People forced to attend the ceremonies of castor oil plantation
SHAN: Ceasefire factions keep up "uncivil" war
DVB: Appeals for five NLD lifers from Rangoon submitted
Xinhua: Myanmar steps up cracking down on gambling on World Cup
Mizzima: KIO president dies of liver cancer

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: ILO demands concrete action from Burma
Fort Wayne: Book helps Burmese kids carry on legacy

OPINION/OTHER
Guardian: Remember Asia's Nelson Mandela: a political act of the first
importance

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 15, Mizzima News
NLD to launch appeal for detained poet - Ngunte

The Pegu division of the National League for Democracy said today they
planned to appeal the detention of member Aung Than, who was sentenced to
19 years in prison for publishing a book of poems.

Aung Than and university student Zeya Aung were arrested by Burmese
authorities near the Thai-Burma border town of Myawaddy on March 29 and
were charged with associating with outlawed organisations, violating
publishing acts and illegally crossing an international boundary.

Both received 19-year prison sentences on June 9 for publishing a book of
poems titled 'Dawn Hman', or 'Outrage', considered by the military to be
anti-government.

Chairman of the NLD's Pegu division, lawyer Myat Hla told Mizzima, "We are
noticed that we can appeal within 60 days, so we will appeal. Right now we
are preparing for the appeal".

Authorities have reportedly released six of the 10 people originally
arrested in connection to the book of poems after six days of
interrogation.

Along with Aung Than and Zeya Aung, Aung Aung Oo, owner of the A20
computer publishing shop where the book was published, and Sein Hlaing
were sentenced to 14 and seven years in prison respectively.

Zeya Aung, Aung Aung Oo and Aung Than were reportedly sent to the
notorious Insein prison in Rangoon while Sein Hlaing is still being held
in Pegu.

____________________________________

June 15, Narinjara News
People forced to attend the ceremonies of castor oil plantation

In Arakan State, the military government has six crops of the state
cultivation, namely pepper, onion, teak, rubber, palm oil and castor oil.
The latest most important crop for the junta is castor oil.

To meet the projected target, battalions are instructed to plant castor
oil in mass. To this end, private farms have been confiscated by the
battalion personnel. At the same time, the military officers have forced
the private cultivation.

On the12th of June, plantation ceremony of castor oil plants was staged in
Shwe Yin Aye village, as the kick start of major castor oil plantation in
Maung Daw Township. The ceremony patronized by General Khin Maung Than, a
member of SPDC, and Major General Maung Shin, the newly appointed head of
the provincial level authority, the Arakan State Peace and Development
Council.

Five hundred people from Maung Daw city were also forced to attend this
ceremony of castor oil plant cultivation.

One of the forced attendees says “I am only a clothing shop keeper. I have
nothing to do with castor oil industry. But I was afraid of reprimand from
the junta if I was not there, so I attended the ceremony. Many other
people also attended the ceremony out of fear.”

Since they have to spend the whole day at the ceremony in the rain, the
people not only lost their time but also faced difficulties.

Another ceremony of castor oil plantation was staged in Thone Mile Village
in Maung Daw Township on the 13th of June, also attended by the same
senior junta Generals. Again, people were forced to attend, and they were
also told to buy castor oil saplings from the army orchards for the
private cultivation.

Since these ceremonies coincided with the rainy season, the start of rice
cultivation period, many farmers who have been forced to attend the
ceremony are facing the lost of time for their own rice cultivation.

Though the junta initiated many “state crops” projects in Arakan, none of
them has been successful.

____________________________________

June 15, Shan Herald Agency for News
Ceasefire factions keep up "uncivil" war

More than 7 months have passed since the ceasefire group Shan
Nationalities People Liberation Organization (SNPLO) broke into two
warring factions and latest reports from the border say as yet there is no
sign of warming-up from either side:

The faction supporting the ageing Takley, 77, who was unseated in October
and is currently under virtual house arrest in Taunggyi, is led by the
group's Chief of staff Hso Pyan, who has moved his troops, 250-strong, to
an unspecified base east of the Pawn, following bloody clashes between the
two sides.

At Nawnghtao, Hsihseng township, west of the Pawn, where Takley was
previously headquartered, Hkun Chit Maung, the new chief of the SNPLO that
has been renamed PaO Regional Nationalities Unity Organization(PNUO) has
taken over with less than 100 troops, reinforced by friendly forces from
the PaO National Army(PNA), another ceasefire group headed by Aung Kham
Hti. Apart from the PNA, Burma Army units are also patrolling the area
ostensively to protect Nawnghtao from attacks by Hso Pyan.

So far no action has been taken against Hso Pyan by the Burma Army, which
is regarded by some sources as being pro-Chit Maung.

Hkun Mankoban, MP (in exile), Faikhun(Pekhun) township, who comes from the
area, however dismisses  the said supposition as shallow. " Rangoon is
merely adopting the ya-le-kyay, kyet-le-maw (Until the soil is crushed and
the chickens are worn out from fighting) stance," he says.

 One of the casualties was Maj Kyaw King, a veteran Kayan (Padaung)
commander, who was charged by Hkun Chit Maung as attempting to return to
the armed struggle against Rangoon and executed on 22 March. At present,
no large scale battles are reported, but hit-and-run encounters continue
between the two sides.

PaO, together with the Palaung, constitutes one of the two largest
non-Shan ethnic groups in Shan State. They took up armed struggle on 11
December 1949, but "exchanged arms for democracy" in Taunggyi in 1958.
They returned to the armed struggle again in 1 966. One of the two main
groups, PaO National Army (PNA) made peace with Rangoon on 27 March 1991,
and the other, Shan Nationalities People Liberation Organization (SNPLO)
on 9 October 1994. The SNPLO is allied to the United Wa State Army.

____________________________________

June 14, Democratic Voice of Burma
Appeals for five NLD lifers from Rangoon submitted

Final special appeals for five National League for Democracy (NLD) members
from Rangoon Kamayut Township including Khin Kyaw who were each given life
sentence, were submitted to the High Court on 13 June.

The appeals were submitted by their legal representative Myint Thaung, and
whether they would be accepted by the court or not will only be known in
the coming month, NLD lawyers told DVB.

Detained with Khin Kyaw are Ahlon Township NLD chairman Ba Myint, member
Ba Tint, Thaketa Township member Thet Naing Aung and Kamayut Township
member Aung Myo San. They were arrested in December 2004 and given life
sentences on 13 July the following year under ‘state security’ laws.

____________________________________

June 15, Xinhua
Myanmar steps up cracking down on gambling on World Cup

The Myanmar Police Force is stepping up cracking down on gambling on
soccer matches of the current 2006 World Cup through viewing TV live
broadcast.

Under a special program, the Myawaddy Television (MWD) of Myanmar is
telecasting every day over the one-month-long World Cup soccer matches
which kicked off on June 9 in Germany.

Both the bookmaker and the gambler will be taken action, the police
authorities warned, urging people to stay free from the crime.

World Cup fever is prevailing in Myanmar with conversations everywhere
from roadside to offices and homes dominating the topic.

Other crime cases, which the authorities are also combating, include
illegal two- and three-digit Thai lottery which are seen everywhere.

The measures are introduced at national level, a township police chief was
quoted by Thursday's local Khit Myanmar as saying.

Myanmar has been launching crime-free-week campaign every month starting
January this year in a bid to further bring down the crime rate.

Patrolling by the police force members is seen done round the clock over
townships in Yangon ever since.

The authorities also introduced education on crime prevention through
exhibitions and distribution of pamphlets against crimes.

During the first crime-free-week campaign, four townships in Yangon were
reported free from crime occurrence.

In previous months before the campaign was introduced, there had been a
number of cases of theft, robbery, cheat and murder occurring in Yangon.

The authorities attributed 80 percent of the crime cases to the negligence
of the victims against crime.

The authorities claimed that the number of crime cases in Yangon which has
a population of over 6.5 million out of the country's over 55 million, is
still far less than that compared with cities in other countries.

____________________________________

June 15, Mizzima News
KIO president dies of liver cancer - Nga Ngai

President of the Kachin Independence Organisation Lamung Tu Jai died this
morning from cancer of the liver, according to officials.

The 77-year-old had been admitted to Mansi hospital in China and died
while travelling back to Kachin State.

"He died on his way back to the headquarters, Laiza, this morning at 10am
from the hospital as he said that he would like to die in his country,"
colonel James Lum Dau, the KIO's vice-foreign affairs officer, said.

Born on March 5, 1930 in Kun Long village, Kutkhai township in northern
Shan State, Tu Jai is the fourth son of Lamung Tu and Labya Htu. As a high
school student, he joined the Union of Burma's Kachin battalion No.4.

He served in the army as a corporal before applying to the Officer
Training School. But he decided to then take leave and return home to sit
his high school exams in Theindi township.

Tu Jai later joined general Zau Seng for the founding of the KIO in 1961.
He has held the position of president since taking on administrative
responsibilities in the organisation shortly after its formation. Tu Jai
left behind two daughters and three sons.

A funeral is expected to be held for the former leader before June 18 at
the KIO's headquarters in Laiza, near the China-Burma border.

It is unclear who will succeed Tu Jai as the leader of the organisation.
Vice-president general Zawng Hkra will act as caretaker president until
the group's central committee chooses a replacement

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 15, Irrawaddy News
ILO demands concrete action from Burma - Clive Parker

The International Labour Organization on Thursday told the Burmese
government it must make rapid progress in dealing with forced labor or
face the possibility of being referred to the International Court of
Justice in The Hague.

Following an unprecedented one and a half days of discussion on Burma’s
case at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, which ends on
Friday, the junta narrowly avoided immediate action, but was warned it had
much further to go.

“The Committee was extremely concerned by the continued widespread use of
forced labor by the Burmese authorities. It was of the opinion that the
recent steps taken by Burma came very late and did not go far enough,”
said Richard Horsey, the ILO’s representative to Burma.

In an effort to placate the labor body, the junta released prominent
rights activist Su Su Nway on June 6 and said it would stop prosecuting
those reporting alleged forced labor for a period of six months. The
regime failed, however, to release another prominent detainee, Aye Myint,
despite strong pressure to do so by the ILO. He is currently serving a
seven-year sentence in Pegu prison.

The ILO committee “set out a number of further steps that Burma must now
urgently take, and authorized the ILO Governing Body in November to take
specific action in a number of areas, if necessary,” Horsey said. These
will be made public on Friday in Geneva.

Firstly, the junta has been asked to prove it will abide by the moratorium
it proposed at the beginning of the month by ceasing all legal proceedings
against forced labor complainants by the end of July, by which time Aye
Myint must also be freed.

If this moratorium is breached or does not lead to the establishment of a
credible mechanism by which forced labor complaints can be dealt with in
Burma, then ILO members would then immediately consider referral to the
ICJ.

The junta has been asked to establish a credible complaints assessment
mechanism prior to the next ILO Governing Body meeting in November when
the situation will be reviewed. The Burmese government has proposed
creating a panel composed of Horsey and a junta official to jointly assess
forced labor complaints.

“The [ILO] committee underlined that progress could only be made if the
government of Myanmar [Burma] really committed itself to ending forced
labor—a step that was indispensable for the modernization and development
of the country—and resumed genuine cooperation with the ILO,” the
conclusions noted.

The conclusions following Tuesday’s contentious discussion on Burma have
been described by observers in Geneva as a compromise between an extremely
concerned workers’ group—which represents 25 percent of committee
members—and government members making up 50 percent.

“The conclusions are the result of a compromise,” said Janek Kucziewski,
director of trade union rights at the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions, based in Brussels. “We would have wanted an immediate
referral to the ICJ.”

Sources present at the discussions say that Belarus, China and Cuba, among
others, sought to avoid immediate punitive action against Burma despite a
general feeling among ILO members that “there is almost no patience left.”
Many are said to be “very skeptical” over assurances by the Burmese
representative in Geneva, Nyunt Maung Shein, that progress has been, and
will continue to be, made.

Nyunt Maung Shein and the Director General of Labor Chit Shein—who is
based in the new capital Naypyidaw—were both unavailable for comment on
Thursday.

____________________________________

June 14, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Book helps Burmese kids carry on legacy - Nicole Lee

Maung Maung Ohn of Fort Wayne drew this image for the children’s book,
“The Lady in Waiting: A Story of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.”

Two years ago, Kyaw Soe (pronounced “jaw-so”) was researching information
for a Martin Luther King Jr. literacy fair for the Boys & Girls Clubs of
Fort Wayne.

The fair was hosted by Indiana Reading Corps, a state initiative of the
national AmeriCorps literacy program. Soe, who directs the local program,
looked for children’s books about King and found more than he needed.

And this got him thinking.

Soe, a Burmese refugee who fled his native country in 1993, began to look
for children’s books on Aung San Suu Kyi, the most revered and well-known
freedom fighter in his home country. He didn’t find any children’s books,
so he decided to write one for fourth- and fifth-grade students.

Fifty free copies of “The Lady in Waiting: A Story of Aung San Suu Kyi of
Burma” will be distributed Sunday during the second annual literacy fair
in her honor. The day has a two-fold purpose – to commemorate Suu Kyi’s
birthday and promote education. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been
under house arrest in Burma for 10 of the last 17 years.

Suu Kyi, who will turn 61 on Sunday, was a co-founder of the National
League of Democracy, a group that won governmental elections in 1993.
However, the communist government in power refused to relinquish control
to Suu Kyi and her party.

The book details Suu Kyi’s childhood, education abroad at England’s Oxford
University, her marriage and rearing of two sons, and a decision to be
exiled from her family when she returned to Burma to fight injustice.
Written in English and Burmese, the book also pays homage to Suu Kyi’s
father, Aung San, who led the Burmese independence struggle from the
British in 1948.

Portraits of Suu Kyi grace the walls of many Burmese homes in Fort Wayne,
but some Burmese children don’t realize her significance, said Soe.

“This book will help the (young) generation here to understand (Aung San
Suu Kyi) and, hopefully, share the book with other friends in their
class,” he said. “They must know who she is so they can carry on (her
legacy).”

Soe is still looking for a publisher, and his ultimate goal is to
distribute the book to children here and abroad. In Burma, a country also
known as Myanmar, it is illegal to display photos of Suu Kyi.

The ink illustrations in the book were drawn by Maung Maung Ohn, a refugee
who lives in Fort Wayne with his wife Thay Thay Phoye and their
10-year-old son.

Maung Maung Ohn was a professional artist in Burma, but he became a
government target when he used his art to protest against dictatorship.

Ohn created portraits of the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther
King Jr. and other human rights leaders for a “Peace Makers” exhibit that
will be displayed Sunday. He also draws family portraits as a memento for
Burmese refugees who have been separated from their families for years.

The children’s book is an excellent way to connect what’s happening in
Fort Wayne to what’s happening in the world, said Dr. Richard Johnson, one
of the speakers for the Aung San Suu Kyi literacy fair.

“We have conflicts, but we must continue to think about how can resolve
them,” said Johnson. “Patience is right, and belief in humans is right.”

____________________________________
OPINION/ OTHER

June 15, The Guardian
Remember Asia's Nelson Mandela: a political act of the first importance
-Timothy Garton Ash

Western policy cannot change Burma by itself. Aung San Suu Kyi needs the
clout of Asian democracies

Next Monday is the 61st birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi. Unless she is back
in hospital, where she was recently treated for a stomach ailment, she
will presumably mark that birthday on her own, in the run-down villa on
the shore of Inya lake where she has spent more than 10 of her past 17
years under house arrest. We don't know what she will do, what she is
writing or what she is thinking. Her isolation is almost total. According
to recent reports, she sees only a housekeeper, the housekeeper's
daughter, a gardener and occasionally her doctor. It seems unlikely that
she will even be able to talk on the telephone with her sons, Alexander
and Kim, who live in the west.

We are told she spends much time meditating, playing the piano and keeping
fit, but that is hearsay. The last foreigner to meet her was a UN envoy,
Ibrahim Gambari, who said she was well and expressed his hope that she
could make a "contribution" to political progress in Burma, now officially
known as Myanmar. There were rumours that her house arrest would be
lifted. A few days later the military regime extended her detention order
for another year. So much for dialogue. As the local joke goes, George
Orwell wrote not just one but three books about Burma: Burmese Days,
Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I will never forget meeting Suu Kyi in Rangoon - now officially known as
Yangon - some six years ago, when she was still able to leave her house. I
went on to lecture about transitions to democracy, with her chairing and
interpreting, to an intense, brave group of activists from the National
League for Democracy (NLD). Unthinkable today, in a country that has gone
backwards while all around are going forwards.

I'm sure she will be bearing her solitary confinement with fortitude,
grace and the Buddhist life-philosophy that is so important to her. Yet I
feel a terrible sense of frustration in writing about her and her
country's predicament. What new is there to say? That she is a heroine of
our time, an Asian Nelson Mandela. That the Burmese generals run one of
the worst states in the world, spending some 40% of the country's budget
on the military, while most of their people live in poverty and disease.
(The Burmese health system is ranked 190th out of 190 countries by the
World Health Organisation.) That dialogue with the NLD, which
overwhelmingly won a democratic election in 1990, is the key to political
change. All true. All said a thousand times already. All to no apparent
effect. Groundhog day in Yangon.

But if Suu Kyi doesn't give up, we have no right to. Instead of saying
"happy birthday", which would seem grotesque in the circumstances, here
are three modest thoughts about possible ways to thaw this frozen
conflict. First of all, remembering Burma is itself a political act of the
first importance. As the Czech writer Milan Kundera famously observed,
"the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting". Forgetting Burma is just what its rulers want us to do. No
news from Burma is good news for them, bad news for their people. (There's
a challenge for the free media of the world here: how do you cover the
story when there is no story?) We have to keep hammering away, even if it
means repeating the same lines for years and years. After all, though the
comparison is hardly encouraging, Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27
years; and yet South Africa moved in the end.

Second, while paying all respect to Suu Kyi's often repeated call for
tight sanctions against the military regime, we should think again about
the mix of our policies. For example, is there more we can do to alleviate
directly the suffering of the population from the effects of Aids or drug
addiction without giving an unacceptable payoff to the regime? The Free
Burma Coalition activist and analyst Zarni has recently argued that both
the western policy of sanctions and the eastern policy of constructive
engagement have failed. He suggests that the starting point for moving
towards a more effective combination of the two might be to try to see the
world through the greedy but also anxious eyes of the Burmese military.
What mixture of carrots and sticks would have a chance of persuading them
to loosen up?

One thing should be clear after 16 years: no western policy, however
carefully designed, can work on its own. We simply don't have enough
leverage in this largely self-sufficient Asian country, tucked in between
the two Asian giants, India and China, and its south-east Asian
neighbours, such as Thailand. If you doubt that we are already in a
multipolar world, look at Burma. If the internal key to change is the
reopening of dialogue between the military regime and the NLD, the
external key is a change in approach by at least one, and preferably
several, of its Asian neighbours.

Where to begin? Surely in India, a country where Suu Kyi went to school,
and whose culture she studied and admires - and the world's largest
democracy. One hardly expects communist China to press for liberalisation
and democracy in its disgraceful little neighbour, but it is disappointing
that democratic India has been so timid in policy towards its Burmese
neighbour.

If we look to India for leadership in this respect, then we must start by
listening to what Indians themselves have to say. The shape of the
conversation should not be (Washington speaking): "Hey, Indians, you must
take our self-evidently correct western template and help us impose it on
Burma." It should be: "We're wondering whether you think, judging by your
own lights and values, that this is acceptable behaviour in your own
immediate neighbourhood? And if not, how do you suggest we work together
to catalyse peaceful change there?" Better still, that debate should be
initiated and carried forward inside India by intellectuals, commentators
and politicians who argue that respect for human rights and respect for
basic liberties are as much Indian values as they are western values.

This is the shape of the new world order, if there is to be one. We
liberal internationalists in the west don't need to change that much of
what we say; but if we are to achieve liberal ends in an increasingly
multipolar world, then we do have to rethink how we say it, and to whom.
And we have to listen more than we have for the last 500 years.

"To see a world in a grain of sand" exhorted the poet William Blake - a
line that Suu Kyi must have studied when she read English literature at St
Hugh's College, Oxford - just a couple of hundred metres from where I'm
writing these words. And contemplating the lot of one brave woman in a
lakeside house on a solitary birthday can lead us to a new understanding
of the world we're in. So: have as good a birthday as possible, Suu, and
many happier ones to come.