BurmaNet News, June 16, 2006

[Editor]

June 16, 2006 Issue # 2985


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar's military government dismisses 8 deputy ministers
DVB: Appeal submitted for solo protester Tun Lin Kyaw

BUSINESS / TRADE
Times of India: India steps on gas to block Chinese threat
Yonhap: Seoul shares end lower on weak investor sentiment, heavy program
selling

HEALTH / AIDS
Irrawaddy: EC confirms new humanitarian program for Burma
Xinhua: Myanmar launches 3D Fund to substitute GFATM

REGIONAL
Mizzima: Indian MPs call for Security Council pressure on Burma
Irrawaddy: Shan women in limbo after sex trade rescue
Thai Press: Thailand joins BIMSTEC members in promoting cultural related
industries

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Myanmar's Suu Kyi relative files first petition to UN rights council
Reuters: ILO accuses Myanmar of unprecedented forced labour

PRESS RELEASE
FORUM-ASIA: Time to make the UN matter to human rights victims

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 16, The Associated Press
Myanmar's military government dismisses 8 deputy ministers

Myanmar's military government reshuffled its Cabinet on Friday by
dismissing eight deputy ministers, state-run radio and television said.

A Supreme Court judge also was dismissed, according to the announcement
read on the evening news.

New appointments to fill the vacant posts were not announced.

Last month, the junta dismissed two Cabinet ministers and appointed four
new ministers and four deputy ministers.

The May 15 shake-up was announced after the first day of the quarterly
meeting of the junta, formally called the State Peace and Development
Council. The meeting was held for the first time at the country's new
administrative capital of Naypyidaw, 250 miles north of the old capital,
Yangon.

Several of May's Cabinet appointments were former regional army commanders.

Myanmar's military junta took power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy
movement. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi's political party won a landslide victory in general
elections.

____________________________________

June 15, Democratic Voice of Burma
Appeal submitted for solo protester Tun Lin Kyaw

An appeal was lodged yesterday at the Burmese High Court in Rangoon on
behalf of Tun Lin Kyaw who was sentenced to seven years in jail for
staging a solo protest outside the Rangoon City Hall.

Tun Lin Kyaw’s lawyer Myint Thein told DVB that the imposition of a seven
years jail term on someone who only staged a solo protest is against the
law.

“(Tun Lin Kyaw) was sentenced to seven years in jail under the 1950
Emergency Provision Act 5-J. (He) should have legal entitlements
 The
seven years sentence is not in accordance with the law. Therefore, we had
to put forward this point.”

Tun Lin Kyaw was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to seven years in jail for
demanding the release of all political prisoners including Nobel laureate
Aung San Su

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

June 15, Times of India
India steps on gas to block Chinese threat - Sanjay Dutta

With PetroChina threatening to hijack its share of gas from Myanmar, India
is pushing a $3 billion pipeline through the North-East with the aim of
skirting Bangladesh which has been blocking the political passage for a
three-nation energy lifeline.

State-owned gas utility GAIL has completed a feasibility report for laying
a 1,400-km pipeline from Myanmar's Sitwe area to Gaya in Bihar via Aizawl,
Silchar, Guwahati, Tinsukia and Bengal.

The pipeline will inject gas from Myanmar's A-1 field, where GAIL and ONGC
Videsh hold 30% equity, into the Jagdishpur-Haldia supply line at Gaya.

The report paves the way for India to do a direct deal with Myanmar. The
prospects of a pipeline through Bangladesh the cheapest option looked
uncertain as Dhaka refused to sign a three-nation MoU unless it includes
trade and transit issues with India.

The fencing between India and Bangladesh made Myanmar impatient. As
reported first by TOI on March 27, PetroChina has completed the survey for
a 2,380-km pipeline from Kyakphu in Myanmar to China's Yunan province.
Myanmar is to get soft loans in return.

Myanmar signed a gas export MoU with PetroChina in January without telling
India. Subsequently, Myanmar told India that the MoU did not imply any
"firm commitment" and it will keep in mind New Delhi's interests.

China, it seems, does not share this view and is going ahead with the plan
to lay the pipeline. Its MoU with Myanmar envisages supplying 6.5 tcf
(trillion cubic feet) of gas for 30 years from A-1 field.

To cement the deal further, China agreed to Myanmar prime minister's
request for a $84 million soft loan during his February 14-18 visit to
Beijing.

____________________________________

June 16, Yonhap (South Korea)
Seoul shares end lower on weak investor sentiment, heavy program selling

South Korean shares closed lower Thursday as massive program selling hurt
the market and investor sentiment was dented by the possibility of China
taking a credit-tightening policy. The South Korean won gained against the
U.S. dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 2.33 points,
or 0.19 percent, to 1,219.40. Volume was light at 1.93 million shares
worth 2.84 million won (US$2.96 billion), with losers leading gainers 363
to 351.

The blue-chip KRX 100 lost 12.72 points, or 0.50 percent, to 2,528.06, and
the tech-heavy KOSDAQ index was down 1.67 points, or 0.29 percent, at
575.68.

The local currency ended at 959.50 won, up 2.50 won from Wednesday's
close, as the Japanese yen strengthened against the greenback.

"Investors seemed to fail to get support from overnight gains in U.S.
stocks. They were also jittery over the hint of a tight credit policy by
the People's Bank of China," said Kim Yong-gak, an analyst at Hyundai
Securities Co.

In addition, foreign investors dumped shares for the seventh consecutive
session and heavy program selling also weighed on the market, he added.

U.S. stocks ended higher Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average
rising 1.03 percent and the tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index gaining 0.65
percent.

Affected by foreign selling, LG.Philips LCD ended flat at 29,200 won and
Samsung Electronics finished unchanged at 553,000 won.

But Hynix Semiconductor lost 0.69 percent to 28,850 won, erasing earlier
gains, as it was hit by institutional selling. LG Electronics, the
nation's second-largest electronics maker, dipped 6.64 percent to 56,200
won on forecasts of a sluggish performance in the second half of the year.

Trading company Daewoo International added 1.54 percent to 33,000 won
after an announcement that the company had discovered a natural gas
deposit in Myanmar.

Leading carmaker Hyundai Motor and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine
Engineering both ended higher after brokerages upgraded predictions on
their future performances. The carmaker rose 1.23 percent to 73,900 won
and the shipbuilder closed up 3.53 percent at 24,900 won.

On the currency market, the won gained against the dollar on the yen's
ascent versus the greenback, but dollar buying by importers and offshore
investors slowed the won's rise, dealers said.

Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, dipped sharply. The return on
the benchmark three-year Treasuries rose 0.04 percentage point to 4.89
percent, with the yield on five-year government bonds adding 0.04
percentage point to 5.03 percent.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

June 16, The Irrawaddy
EC confirms new humanitarian program for Burma - Clive Parker

The European Commission on Friday confirmed that it would go ahead with a
new program to tackle HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Burma.

It said its own funds would reach Burma by the beginning of 2007, while
its partners—including USAID and the British Department for International
Development—were likely to release their funds before the end of this
year. The exact amount of aid has not yet been announced.

The new initiative, the 3D Fund, is seen by Europe and aid agencies
working in Burma as a replacement for the Global Fund, which announced it
would withdraw its money from the country in August 2005 citing obstacles
to “effective program implementation.” Global Fund money is due to run out
in Burma around October.

The EC’s office in Bangkok confirmed its project would go ahead after its
representatives received written assurances last Friday that the EC would
be offered a certain, undisclosed level of access to the general
population and would not be subject to political interference.

“We are willing to cooperate with the [Burmese] government, but we do not
want to have interferences from anybody that is not technically linked to
the program,” said Jean-Francois Cautain, the head of the political
section of the EC’s Bangkok office.

The Burmese government in February published a set of new guidelines for
international aid agencies which said that all workers in the field would
be accompanied by a government-sponsored official.

Another controversial inclusion in the new guidelines said that all aid
funds would have to be deposited in the government-owned Myanmar Foreign
Trade Bank, and withdrawn in foreign exchange certificates, a practice
that would effectively allow the government to make financial profit from
international humanitarian funding. The EC says it has not discussed with
the government whether this point will be enforced.

The issue of the EC’s entry into Burma as a replacement for Global Fund
has prompted the continuation of a fierce debate between those that say
such projects are inconceivable in the face of a government imposing
impractical restrictions and which is benefiting politically from foreign
aid delivery, among other criticisms, and those that say the main priority
is the delivery of humanitarian aid.

When Global Fund withdrew, accusations circulated that it had come under
pressure from elements in the US, including Kentucky Senator Mitch
McConnell and the Washington-based Institute for Asian Democracy.
Supporters deny the claims. At the time of Global Fund’s withdrawal,
McConnell was unavailable for comment and the director of IAD, Michelle
Bohanna, declined to speak to The Irrawaddy.

In consultations designed to incorporate the views of all sides of the
argument, the EC has met with the Burma’s opposition National League for
Democracy both in and outside the country, UN agencies and
non-governmental organizations in Burma and exile groups in Thailand.

At a meeting in Chiang Mai on June 1, Cautain and his Bangkok-based
colleague Andrew Jacobs were bombarded by questions from the Burmese exile
media, independent health researchers and NGOs working along the border
demanding the EC specify exactly how it will operate in Burma. Critics
attending the session say the EC was unable to provide concrete details of
how it was going to implement its project or on the discussions it was
having with the Burmese government.

A copy of the EC’s strategy paper for the project obtained by The
Irrawaddy which has been updated up to the end of April is equally vague
on issues critics say are key to the success of the project, namely how
funds would be delivered, the populations that would have access to the
program and whether the EC would be assured unhindered access in Burma and
be able to import vital supplies. The final version of the paper will be
made available in September, the EC has said.

Despite criticisms, Cautain said the 3D Fund represented a positive
development: “It’s very good news for the population in Myanmar [Burma],”
he said.

“It’s nice to see that there is more international attention on the three
priority diseases in Burma,” said a public researcher and author of the
recent Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health report on HIV/AIDS,
TB and malaria in Burma who declined to be named. “But I think the key
question
that remains unanswered is ‘what have they [the EC] learnt from
the Global Fund pullout and how are they going to avoid the same
pitfalls?’ And especially in light of a situation that has deteriorated in
many respects, how do they think they can do better than the Global Fund?”

____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 16, Mizzima News
Indian MPs call for Security Council pressure on Burma - Nem Davies

Twenty five members of India's parliament have signed a document urging
the United Nations Security Council to pressure the Burmese military over
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's ongoing detention.

The members of both houses of parliament also called on the Indian
government to join international efforts to promote democracy and national
reconciliation in Burma, according to the Burma Campaign India.

The group, along with the US Campaign for Burma, has set a target of
collecting 1000 signatures from members of parliament around the world in
support of detained National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi. The signatures will be sent to the UN Security Council.

Amar Jeet Kaur, national secretary of India's communist party, told
Mizzima, "We are still hopeful that something should be done by the
international pressure . . . even from the Indian people".

"We are very happy to that those kinds of campaigns are being taken up.
And we will support that campaign," Amar Jeet Kaur said.

Member of BCI's lobby team, Ram Jee Verma, told Mizzima the signatures
collected in India would be sent to the US Campaign for Burma.

The move comes just days before Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's 61st birthday on
June 19.

"She must have good health, she must have strong spirits . . . and to see
that in her lifetime, she gets democracy for her people . . .," Ram Jee
Verma said.

In a global day of action tomorrow, activists are expected to stage a
large demonstration in New Delhi's Janta Manta Park, as well as in a
variety of countries around the world.

G. Devarajan, national secretary of the All India Forward Bloc, said
Indian MPs had a vital role to play in the promotion of democracy in
Burma.

____________________________________

June 16, The Irrawaddy
Shan women in limbo after sex trade rescue - Sai Silp

Thai officials and NGOs trying to repatriate to Thailand four Shan women
trafficked to work in the sex trade in Malaysia say they face a difficult
task.

The women have no documents although they claimed they originally worked
in Thailand, said an official of the Thai Department of Special
Investigation, which is working on the case with Malaysian authorities.
“Helping this group return to Thailand is difficult,” he said.

Suriya Kasemsirisawat, of the Anti -Trafficking Coordination Unit,
Northern Thailand, said the women had entered Thailand as migrant workers
and had then been trafficked illegally with fake passports to neighboring
Malaysia, where they had found employment as sex workers in Kuala Lumpur
and Johor Baharu.

The women had found refuge in a safe house opened last month by an NGO
called Thai Club. They joined 16 other women of various nationalities who
had been rescued from brothels by Malaysian police.

Thai Club director Sommai Rattanapitak said the Shan women had originally
come from the Burmese-Thai border town Tachilek but did not want to return
there for fear of arrest by Burmese police. Sommai, interviewed by the
Thai news website Prachatai, confirmed that it would be difficult to
resettle them in Thailand because they lacked the necessary documents.

The US government said in a report last year that several thousand women
were being trafficked annually to Malaysia from Burma, Thailand, Cambodia,
China and Indonesia. Only a few hundred were rescued and repatriated.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 16, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's Suu Kyi relative files first petition to UN rights council

A family member of Myanmar's jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
on Thursday filed the first petition with a new UN Human Rights Council
challenging her detention by the country's military junta.

The petition was filed just as the Geneva-based council officially took
over at 2200 GMT Thursday from the discredited UN Commission on Human
Rights, which has been abolished by the world body as part of UN reforms.

It was filed on the relative's behalf by American lawyer Jared Genser, who
is also president of Freedom Now, a US-based group striving to free
"prisoners of conscience" across the globe.

Freedom Now filed the petition directly to the UN Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, a five-member panel of human rights experts led by
Algerian judge Leila Zerrougui which will operate under the council.

"I think it is highly appropriate that this first case filed to this new
human rights council is on behalf of such an important symbol of freedom,
democracy and human rights in the world," Genser told AFP.

He declined to name the member of the detained leader's family who
authorized him to file the petition, saying he had to "maintain their
privacy."

Aung San Suu Kyi is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
and has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest.

Defying international demands for her freedom, Myanmar's military rulers
in late May extended her arrest for another year.

Previously, the UN working group had declared that her house arrest was in
violation of international law.

"This new petition to the working group is necessary because the latest
working group's declaration in 2004 expired when the military junta in
Burma (Myanmar) issued a new detention order on May 27, 2006," Genser
said.

"We need to reaffirm that her extended house arrest is a violation of
international law," he explained.

The petition came in the wake of a US bid to seek a UN Security Council
resolution compelling Myanmar's military junta to change its repressive
policies.

Welcoming the petition, the US Campaign for Burma, which is coordinating a
global push to free Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, said it was
a maiden test for the human rights council.

"If the UN working group decides again that the detention is arbitrary, Mr
Kofi Annan (UN Secretary-General) should take the case more seriously and
help push for the freedom of all political prisoners in Burma," said Aung
Din, the group's co-founder.

"This will be a test for the newly formed council and we hope it will live
up to expectations that it is a new effective mechanism to combat human
rights abuses everywhere," he said.

The council's predecessor had countries named as some of the world's most
notorious rights abusers among its members.

Genser said that based on past procedures, the junta would be given 90
days to respond to the petition, after which the UN working group would
give a judgment.

The junta had always argued that Aung San Suu Kyi was a threat to the
state and her house arrest was not in violation of human rights or
international law.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide election
victory in 1990, but the military government never recognized the result.

____________________________________

June 16, Reuters
ILO accuses Myanmar of unprecedented forced labour

Geneva: The International Labour Organisation on Friday accused Myanmar of
"unprecedented" use of forced labour, and gave the ruling junta until the
end of July to stop prosecuting whistle-blowers and release those
detained.

At the United Nations agency's annual conference, its 178 member states
also set an end-October deadline for Myanmar to agree to setting up a
credible mechanism for dealing with forced labour complaints. It left open
the option of referring Yangon to the world court if the deadlines are not
met.

Although forced labour is officially outlawed in the former Burma, critics
of the military which has ruled the country since 1962 say the army
frequently obliges people to do unpaid work -- often in areas where it is
fighting rebels.

Myanmar told a three-week conference it was working to wipe out the
practice through cooperation with the agency and also announced a
moratorium on prosecuting those who report abuses.

An ILO report adopted by consensus on the final day of the conference
cited an "unprecedented gravity of the forced labour situation in
Myanmar".

In unusually strong language, it declared that it was "unacceptable to the
ILO that a member state not only tolerated such practices, but was itself
responsible for them."

The ILO has been demanding Myanmar eradicate forced labour since 2000, in
line with ILO conventions banning the practice, which it has ratified.

RELEASE PRISONERS

Pledging to work with the ILO to wipe out the practice, Myanmar announced
a moratorium on prosecuting those who report abuses. It also released Su
Su Nwei, an activist jailed for reporting two village leaders who used
forced labour.

But the ILO report said that despite limited progress, "there was every
reason to believe that widespread and very serious abuses persisted".

Villagers in some areas have been detained by the army and forced to carry
supplies during military operations in terrible conditions and subject to
"brutal treatment", it said.

The ILO said Myanmar's junta should provide further details on the
prosecutions moratorium and extend it to cover prosecutions it said were
now under way in the town of Aunglan.

Any prisoners currently detained for reporting forced labour, especially
Aye Myint, should be released by the end of July, the agency said.

The lawyer was arrested in August 2005 and charged with "spreading false
information", based on a complaint letter he sent authorities and ILO's
liaison officer in Yangon, it said.

Anyone lodging a complaint during the moratorium should have immunity from
any subsequent reprisals, it added.

The ILO's governing body will re-examine whether Myanmar has complied with
its requests in November.

"The ILO expects Myanmar to take concrete and verifiable action," Richard
Horsey, ILO's liaison officer in Myanmar, told Reuters in Geneva on
Friday.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

June 16, FORUM-ASIA UN Advocacy Team
Historic opening of the Human Rights Council: time to make the UN matter
to human rights victims

On Monday, 19 June, a historic moment will take place as the newly created
United Nations Human Rights Council (Council) convenes its first-ever
session in Geneva, Switzerland, until 30 June. The Council has been
created to overcome the flaws of the sixty-year old Commission on Human
Rights, such as the inclusion of gross human rights violators in its
membership to shield themselves and their allies from scrutiny.

Yet, the key question remains—will the Council be more relevant to human
rights victims around the world and take effective measures to remedy
situations of human rights violations?

The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), a regional
human rights organisation based in Bangkok, submitted its position
paper[1] to the inaugural members of the Council, highlighting five
priority areas that the Council must address to make its work effective.

“Asia remains a region with some of the worst human rights violators where
disappearances, extrajudicial killings and persecution of human rights
defenders are daily occurrences”, said Anselmo Lee, Executive Director of
FORUM-ASIA.

He further added, “When national systems fail to deliver justice, human
rights victims only have the international human rights system to turn to.
It is therefore vital that we seize this opportunity to ensure that the
Council will demonstrate in practice that it can truly make a difference
on the ground”.

FORUM-ASIA’s position paper notes that this can be accomplished only if
the Council responds in a timely and effective manner when critical human
rights situations arise, allows non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
based outside of Geneva to participate in the deliberations of its work
with sufficient access to information, and there are concrete follow-up
actions on the ground.

The ten-page paper detailed specific recommendations for the mechanisms of
the Council, which are to be finalised within a year. Despite this
historic window of opportunity to create a means for delivering justice to
human rights victims worldwide, FORUM-ASIA expressed its concern regarding
the regressive actions by the Asian governments.

“Many Asian governments continue to take part in a coalition called the
“Like Minded Group”, which is a club of countries with poor human rights
records working collectively to undermine the international human rights
protection and monitoring mechanisms”, said Lee.

The current members of this group include Algeria, Bangladesh, Belarus,
Bhutan, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia,
Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Out of these 19 countries, 12 are from Asian governments, including the
eight Asian countries that were recently elected as the first members of
the Human Rights Council—Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Lee explained that “the members of the Council are supposed to uphold the
highest standards of human rights. Yet, these eight Asian members continue
to take part in this obstructionist group, blocking NGOs from
participating fully and trying to make the Council as weak as they can”.

The position paper highlighted some of the recent positions expressed by
the Like-Minded Group, reminding all members that the Council is intended
to be “results-oriented”, which means that it must ensure better promotion
and protection of human rights for all.

For more information, please contact Ms. Momoko Nomura, UN Advocacy
Programme officer at unadvocacy at forum-asia.org or at +66 (0)2 391 8801,
ext. 602