BurmaNet News, August 11, 2006

[Editor]

August 11, 2006 Issue # 3023


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Romulo visit prompts disappointment and skeptism
Irrawaddy: Google blocked again
DVB: New growth amidst oppressions: Burma's NLD accepts new members
IMNA: Burmese authorities restrict sex workers in Mon State

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Thai-Burma meeting concluded amid disputes

HEALTH / AIDS
Mizzima News: Skepticism over UK's £20 million aid for Aids, TB and Malaria

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Independent assessor raises size of Shwe Gas find
DVB: Rice price refuses to drop despite arrest of dealers in Burma

ASEAN
Asia Pulse: ASEAN and US likely to conclude TIFA in Kuala Lumpur

OPINION / OTHER
New Statesman: Burma Special: The forgotten war
New Statesman: Burma Special: A nation in waiting

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 11, Irrawaddy
Romulo visit prompts disappointment and skeptism - Kyaw Zwa Moe

Burma’s main opposition movement and dissidents expressed disappointment
and skeptism on Friday over the visit by Philippine Foreign Secretary
Alberto Romulo and the prospects of anything substantive emerging from his
talks with junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

Romulo, representing Asean, arrived in Rangoon on Thursday and traveled on
Friday to the new capital, Naypyidaw, where he met Than Shwe.

 “Nobody here is interested in his trip,” said Pyone Cho, a former student
leader of 1988 nationwide pro-democracy uprising. He described such
visits as a “cliché for Burmese people, who have experienced a lot from
this kind of trip.”

Journalists working for foreign news agencies said Romulo had declined to
say anything about his trip since arriving in Rangoon, noting that in the
run-up to the visit he had said he intended to press the regime for
reform. One journalist said: “He was tight- lipped though he said loudly
what he would do here before he came.”

Myint Thein, a spokesman of the opposition National League for Democracy,
said on Friday  Romulo had not asked to meet NLD leaders, and it was
unclear whether he would be able to visit detained  party leader Aung San
Suu Kyi.

Myint Thein said the kind of visit undertaken by Romulo never brought
anything tangible, despite professions of good intentions. Although some
Asean leaders expressed disappointment with the Burmese government, they
hadn’t done anything practical yet. “To be short, Asean has lost its
credibility and needs to save face.”

Pyone Cho, who spent more than 14 years in prison for his opposition
activities, agreed that although many Asean representatives had visited
Burma no benefit had resulted for the Burmese people. The visits took
place in an absence of transparency, he said, drawing attention to Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s trip to Naypyidaw on August 2. “It’s
worse that Thaksin hinted false hope of the possible release of Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi,” said Pyone Cho.

Thaksin and his foreign minister, Kantathi Suphamongkhon, said they raised
the plight of Suu Kyi in their talks with Than Shwe, and Kantathi said the
junta was thinking of freeing her.

Pyone Cho maintained that Thaksin’s Burma visit was “an attempt to cover
his probably personal trip with [a] political issue.”

Sources in Rangoon said on Friday that Romulo would visit Mandalay,
staying there overnight before ending his Burma visit on Saturday.

____________________________________

August 11, Irrawaddy
Google blocked again

Internet users in Burma have been shut out again since Thursday from the
popular web mail and messenger programs Google Mail and Google Talk, known
as Gmail and Gtalk, respectively.  According to internet users in Rangoon,
the new blackout appeared to be a more sophisticated effort by the
military government to block the services.

Similar problems were encountered in June, when other free web-based email
and messaging sites such as Skype, Sailormoon and Mail2World were shut
down along with Google’s services. “When we use a proxy and open Gmail, a
caption reads: “Your information could be easily read by a third party,” a
Rangoon-based internet user told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

In early July, the European Parliament passed a resolution on internet
censorship condemning governments that ban content—including Burma, China
and Vietnam—as well as IT companies that work with them to impose online
restrictions. Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks
Burma as one of only 15 internet “blackholes.”

____________________________________

August 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
New growth amidst oppressions: Burma's NLD accepts new members

At a time when Burma’s military junta the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) newspapers are reporting almost daily about resignations
from the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Rangoon Dawpon
Township NLD party members told DVB that the township has registered 11
new members.

Dawpon Township NLD Organizing Committee member Kyaw Kyaw Lin said the
party has accepted the new members who have applied for membership three
months ago after having duly scrutinized their applications.

“We decided to accept the membership applications of 10 youths and one
gentleman. Dawpon Township NLD Organizing Committee unanimously agreed to
accept the 11 new members which includes Ko Soe Myint Oo, Ko Thant Zin, Ko
Lin Lin, Ko Aung Kyaw, Ko Aung Min Than, Ko Myo Min Latt, Ma Myint Myint
Khaing, Ko Myo Aung, and Ko Aye Maung. The new members were accepted after
careful scrutiny.”

When DVB contacted the NLD headquarters, NLD spokesperson U Myint Thein
confirmed the report and said there were also instances in other states
and divisions where people had applied for NLD memberships according to
their own volition.

“Well, the townships concerned made their own arrangements to organize new
members and accept the memberships. They will be subsequently sent to
headquarters through the respective states and divisions. We have received
many applications from the states and divisions to become NLD members
through their own volition. At a time when the authorities have been using
pressure, intimidation, and threat to force NLD members to quit the party,
we are refraining from making this issue seen as a retaliatory measure.
They contacted the NLD to become members of their own free will.”

____________________________________

August 11, Independent Mon News Agency
Burmese authorities restrict sex workers in Mon State - Banyol Kin

Burmese authorities have restricted sex workers in Mon State and are
making arrests. The authorities are worried that many poor people would
become involved in the sex trade.

“Yesterday they (authorities) arrested five women who are in the sex trade
on the road in Moulmein, Mon State, I don’t know what they are going to
do” said a resident.

According to the resident in Moulmein, nowadays there are more prostitutes
along the narrow streets in Moulmein than before.

Prostitution is banned in Burma. But many prostitutes work as waitresses
and sell sex. When the police come to arrest them, while they are sitting
on the road waiting for customers, they just run away. If they are unable
to run they get arrested, explained the resident.

To end sex trade in Mon State and border areas, the Burmese central
government has ordered local authorities to take serious action to arrest
sex workers.

The authorities arrested the leader of prostitutes, Daw Win in Three
Pagodas Pass Township, Karen State two months ago and sent her to jail for
one and-a-half years, according to a source close to her.

Some prostitutes moved to the Thai-Burma border where they can earn more
money. And it is generally safer than inside Burma when it comes to
arrests, according to a sex worker in Sangkhlaburi, Kanchanburi Province,
Thailand who wanted to remain anonymous.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 11, Irrawaddy
Thai-Burma meeting concluded amid disputes - Sai Silp

A Township Border Committee meeting between Thai and Burmese officials in
the Muang district of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand concluded on Friday
with Burma reversing its position on the shooting of a Thai Military
helicopter in July, according to a member of the Thai delegation.

Col Somsak Ninbanjerdkul, head of the Thai delegation, said that Burmese
officials insisted that the aircraft had violated Burmese airspace. This
contradicts Burmese claims in mid-July that the shooting was the result of
a young soldier mistaking the aircraft as belonging to the ethnic rebel
group Shan State Army.

The helicopter, belonging to the Thai Third Army’s Infantry Division 7
based in Mae Hong Son, sustained small arms fire on July 9 while trying to
deliver food and supplies near the Thai border with Burma. The crew made
an emergency landing at a nearby military base. There were no injuries and
only minor damage.

Thai Army officials lodged a strong protest over the shooting and stepped
up their presence in the area. During a meeting in mid-July to discuss the
matter, Burma’s Col Mya Han apologized for the unintentional shooting and
promised compensation for the damage and punishment for the soldier who
opened fire.

“Burmese officials said in a previous meeting that they accepted that it
[the shooting] was a mistake by a local soldier, and that they would
investigate the case and punish that soldier and his commander in that
area,” said Somsak.

When asked why they were changing their story, a Burmese official said
that the decision came from above, and warned both sides to be more
careful in the future and to raise their level of cooperation, Somsak
added.

Burmese officials also accused Thailand of supporting the rebel SSA by
organizing a meeting of soldiers in late June in Chiang Saen district,
Chiang Rai province. They also accused Thai officials of giving safe
passage to a Mon rebel leader attending a meeting in Mae Sai. The Thai
delegation denied both accusations.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

August 11, Mizzima News
Skepticism over UK's £20 million aid for Aids, TB and Malaria - Mungpi

The National Health and Education Committee, a Burmese umbrella
organization in exile, today welcomed UK's decision to contribute £ 20
million ($38 m) to Burma to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria but
remained skeptical about the benefits from the project reaching grassroots
level people, who are the most needy.

Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo, Chairman of the NHEC-Western Region, said granting of
the funds to fight the 'Three Diseases' is noble but with the present
military government it is doubtful that it will reach the grassroots.

"While these three diseases are the worst diseases in Burma, and we admit
that emergency aid is needed to fight it, the problem is the junta. We are
concerned that this aid will fall into the junta's mechanism and be used
to suppress the people," Aung Kyaw Oo, who is also a medical doctor, told
Mizzima.

UK's contribution is the first donation of an estimated $100million,
five-year health fund for the prevention and treatment of these diseases
in Burma.

The new "Three Diseases Fund" jointly developed by the UK, Australia, the
European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, is intended to
fill the gap left by the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, which abruptly left Burma last year alleging that the movement of
it's aid workers were being restricted.

Aung Kyaw Oo said the military junta out of paranoia would continue
restricting the movement of foreign aid workers and UN agencies.

"The junta looks at all foreign aid workers with suspicion and fear, so
the junta will continue to restrict their movements and it is likely that
there will be more problems between the government and the humanitarian
workers," he added.

But Gareth Thomas, the UK international development minister, on Wednesday
said, "We cannot afford to ignore this crisis any longer in Burma."

Burma, according to UN Aids has up to 610,000 people or 2.2 percent of the
population who are infected with HIV/Aids. And there are up to 97,000 new
cases and 12,000 deaths each year. Burma is on record as having one of the
world's highest incidences of TB.

In 2005, official reports showed nearly 3,000 deaths from malaria, which
accounts for more than 50 per cent of all malaria related deaths in Asia.
However, the real number is believed to be much higher.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

August 11, Irrawaddy
Independent assessor raises size of Shwe Gas find

An independent hydrocarbons consultancy based in the US has confirmed the
huge gas deposits previously reported by Daewoo International Corporation
in two blocks of the so-called Shwe fields in the Bay of Bengal off
Burma’s west coast—and given a much bigger estimate of the recoverable
quantity.

Gaffney, Cline & Associates confirmation figures suggest that over 1
trillion cubic feet of gas more than previous estimates, made by Daewoo’s
engineers, could be tapped. Daewoo said the American assessors had
provided certification that three sites already the subject of the South
Korean company’s exploratory drilling have between 4.8 and 8.6 trillion
cubic feet of tappable gas out of proven reserves ranging up to 10
trillion cubic feet.

The confirmation assessment was made on two sites within Block A-1 and the
Mya drill site in the adjacent Block A-3 off the coast of the port of
Sittwe. The assessors confirmed the Block A-1 is the biggest find with as
much of 5.6 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.

Block A-1 is currently the subject of a bidding battle between India,
China and, just last week, Thailand. The Burmese government-controlled
Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise has signed memorandums of understanding
(MoU) with India and China, but no final sales agreement has been reached.

In an announcement on its website, Daewoo said on Thursday negotiations to
sell the gas might also include South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Daewoo is
the majority development shareholder with two Indian state companies—the
Gas Authority of India Ltd and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation—but
analysts said the Burmese authorities will have the final say on who buys
most of the gas.

Daewoo said on Thursday it hoped that production in the Shwe fields could
begin in 2009. It estimated that the confirmed finds equaled the
equivalent of 600 million cubic feet per day of piped natural gas, or 3.7
million tonnes of LNG per year for 20 to 25 years. Three other offshore
blocks in the same area, off the coast of Sittwe, have still to be
explored.

_____________________________________

August 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Rice price refuses to drop despite arrest of dealers in Burma

The price of rice is still not dropping despite recent arrests of Burmese
rice merchants and dealers including former chairman of rice merchants
association U Nyein in Rangoon.

The merchants and dealers who are still detained were accused of causing
the price of rice to rise to 1000 Kyat a ‘pyi’ (approx 2kilo?) and
transporting rice of rice from region to region, according to sources
close to the merchants.

“As for the merchant, he will sell if he makes profit. If he makes no
profit, he will not sell,” a rice merchant told DVB. “As he has been
investing heavily, he will not sell it if he doesn’t make considerable
profit. If the inventory (rice in this case) is produced in a large a
mount, (the price) will drop. Without producing (enough) inventory, the
price will never drop.”

The same merchant suggested that in order to make price come down and
increase the production of rice, the government must promote the
agricultural sector and allow the merchants to sell rice freely in a
competitive way. Successive Burmese military governments have been
interfering with the lives of farmers forcing them to carry out useless
agricultural policies which neither benefit the country nor the farmers.

Meanwhile, the value of gold keeps on rising also.

_____________________________________
ASEAN

August 11, Asia Pulse
ASEAN and US likely to conclude TIFA in Kuala Lumpur

Despite failing to find a solution to the Myanmar issue, Asean and the
United States are expected to conclude the Trade and Investment Agreement
(Tifa) at the 38th Asean Economic Ministers Meeting in Kuala Lumpur from
Aug 21, a Thai Commerce Ministry official said.

Winichai Chamcheang, the Deputy Director-General of the Trade Negotiations
Department, said the US was very keen to sign the Tifa now although they
were reluctant to do so previously due to the Myanmar issue.

"The last time they (US) didn't want to sign because of Myanmar but now
they realised the issue will drag on," he told reporters here.

However, Winichai said if Tifa was concluded in Kuala Lumpur, Thailand
would not be a party for the time being as the current government was
still in the caretaker role.

He said Thailand would sign the agreement when a new government was formed
after the coming Oct 15 general election.

Winichai said if the 10-member Asean and the US could agree to the Tifa,
it would serve as a guideline for free trade area negotiations between
them.

The two-way trade between Asean, with over 500 million population, and the
US has grown tremendously over the past decade. In 2005, it totalled
US$150 billion, making ASEAN the US' fourth-largest trading partner.

Winichai also said that the AEM would discuss the progress in regional
trade negotiations, among them the Asean-US, Asean-China, Asean-Japan,
Asean-Australia-New Zealand, Asean-Pakistan and Asean-India.

He said the Kuala Lumpur meeting would also discuss ways to accelerate the
liberalisation of their services to make them more efficient and
strengthen businesses in the region.

Under the Asean Free Trade Area, tariff and customs streamlining will
focus on 12 priority sectors, namely agro business, fisheries, automotive,
wood products, rubber, textiles and apparels, electronics, information
technology, computers, healthcare, aviation and logistics.

The tariff restructuring is set for completion by 2010 while the service
sectors that will be implemented by 2015 are construction, distribution,
education, environment, recreation and sports, transportation and
communications.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 14, New Statesman
Burma Special: The forgotten war - Jacob Rigg

Burma has other woes besides a cruel dictatorship. The country is a
patchwork of ethnic groups which at best are ill at ease with one another
and at worst - as in the case of the Karen people - are in open rebellion.
Jacob Rigg reports

On 24 July 1988, journalists racing towards Rangoon leafed through their
dossiers to revisit the main players of Burma's history. They read of how
the "Thirty Comrades", led by Aung San, father of modern Burma as well as
of Aung San Suu Kyi, had allied first with the Japanese and then with the
British during the Second World War in order to gain independence; of how
Aung San's life was cut off in its prime by political rivals; and of how
General Ne Win, one of the Thirty Comrades, had seized power in 1962.

The bellicose demonstrations that sprang up after Ne Win resigned in the
summer of 1988 showed the world the violence of a junta that has been at
war with its minority groups for four decades. But getting rid of the
junta and achieving democracy will not be enough to bring prosperity to
Burma. The question of ethnic identity and conflict has vexed leaders of
the country for centuries. With the Karen, Burman, Chin, Kachin, Pao-O,
Karenni, Kayan, Shan, Salone, Rakhine, Mon and Naga all living side by
side, the picture is complex and often drenched in tears.

The first main group to settle in what became Burma were the Mon, moving
into the area as early as 1500BC. Theravada Buddhists, the Mon are thought
to have converted the Thais and Cambodians from Hinduism and Mahayana
tendencies to this strict form of the Buddha's teachings. Many westerners
know of them because of the temple at Angkor Wat, which is of Mon/Khmer
construction. This group's last kingdom, Hongsavatoi, was captured by the
Burman leader U Aungzeya in 1757, and they have been harshly repressed
ever since. In the past few decades the Mon have risen in revolt against
the central Burmese government on a number of occasions. Resistance
continued until 1995, when the Mon and the military agreed a ceasefire.
However, government troops continue to operate in defiance of the
agreement.

By 1287 a new group, the Shan, had gained control over Upper Burma. The
Shan ruled until 1604 when the Burman king Anaukpetlun invaded, and they
remained important players in Burmese power politics: centuries later,
Burman rulers still felt it expedient to take a Shan queen. When Thibaw,
the last Burmese king, took a Burman queen instead, the Shan gentry, known
as the Saophas, called their villages to arms and rebelled, precipitating
the British invasion in 1885. Under colonial rule the Shan states were
administered under a separate system as protectorates, and the British
recognised the authority of the Saophas, who enjoyed a high status. But
the rule of Ne Win and the dreaded State Law and Order Restoration Council
(Slorc) brought ethnic cleansing and economic collapse to the Shan, who
number approximately six million. Many of them now live across the border
in Thailand.

But it is those groups that have never featured as rulers of Burma that
have played the most active part in insurgency against the tatmadaw, or
armed forces. The largest of these is the Karen. Many British servicemen
who fought during the Burma campaign remember the Karen as effective and
loyal fighters against the Japanese. When the Karen revolted in 1948,
following what they saw as a British betrayal of their loyalty, they used
these fighting skills to great effect. Under the leadership of the Karen
National Union (KNU), they soon became the largest of 20 minority groups
participating in an insurgency against the military dictatorship in
Rangoon. During the 1980s the KNU fighting force numbered approximately
20,000; by this year that number had shrunk to fewer than 4,000, opposing
a Burmese army more than a hundred times that strength.

Living mostly in the hilly areas on the eastern border of Burma, the Karen
may number up to seven million, although no accurate census has ever been
produced. (The junta regularly uses population data to underestimate the
importance of ethnic groups and promote the significance of the Burmans.)
There are many divisions within the Karen, but the Kayan, or Padaung, have
drawn particular attention for their women's custom of wearing long brass
coils around their necks. In the 1990s widespread oppression by the
military regime forced many Padaung to flee into neighbouring Thailand,
where they live with uncertain legal status in the border area.

Group mentalities

Similar, smaller groups such as the Kachin and the Karenni have all fought
wars of attrition with the junta. The Kachin people are an ethnic affinity
of several hill-dwelling groups, known for their fierce independence,
disciplined fighting skills, complex clan interrelations, Christianity,
craftsmanship, herbal healing and jungle survival skills. The name Kachin
is a Burman term for these groups, the vernacular term being Jinghpaw.
Many 19th-century British sources describe them as being descendants of
Kublai Khan who moved from the Tibetan plateau between the 10th and 13th
centuries. In the early part of their history they fought the Shan among
the hills around the upper waters of the Irra waddy, Burma's main river,
which starts in the Himalayas and drains eventually into the Andaman Sea.
As the sprawling Shan kingdom broke up, the Kachin established themselves
further south and south-east. Like the Chin, another of Burma's big ethnic
groups, and the Karenni, the Kachin have fought against tatmadaw
oppression since independence.

Ethnic strife is common across the former colonies of south and south-east
Asia, but geopolitics and national postwar negotiations have made the
fighting particularly savage in Burma. Initially many of these groups,
particularly the Karen, thought that guarantees by the British government
would be enough to deliver strong positions in any post-independence
settlement. The Karen harboured hopes for a "back-door" road, running from
the "frontier areas" through a separate Karen state and onwards to the
sea, which would reduce the economic dependence of all the ethnic
minorities on the Burman-controlled Irrawaddy Delta.

While the group of nationalists led by Aung San had regular contact with
British officials, the minority position slipped away. The preoccupations
of the incoming Attlee government were elsewhere, and the Labour
government wanted to get Burma off its hands quickly. Despite promising
protection to the Karen soldiers who had remained loyal during the Second
World War, the British now abandoned Burma's minorities. By the time Aung
San was assassinated in 1947, hope of any d’tente had passed. The Karen
took up their guns and went to war - a war that would last half a century.

By the time of the coup in 1962, most of the ethnic groups which had
suffered at the hands of the Burmese army, and by now wanted autonomy,
were in open rebellion. To some degree, despite a widespread push by the
tatmadaw, that situation continues today.

However, the simple picture that pitches the evil Burman army against the
good folk of the hills is singularly unhelpful. The politics of ethnicity
in Burma is complicated. Although the tatmadaw is largely Burman, it is
not exclusively so, and neither is its brutality. In 1974 the junta
ordered Chin and Kachin soldiers to quell street protests in Rangoon.
Directly copying the British tactic of using soldiers from one part of the
country to crush protest in another, these soldiers foreshadowed the iron
fist of 1988. The ethnic insurgencies likewise suffer from factionalism,
both ethnic and political. External political influence has also had an
influence, with the Chinese funding the Communist Party of Burma's war
from the 1940s to the late 1980s, and CIA and Kuomintang involvement
further complicating the picture.

The political economy of the rebellion has fuelled both the rebel armies
and the counter-insurgency tactics of the Burmese generals. In the limited
economy of the 1950s, corruption became rife. The rebels controlled the
land borders where smuggling could take place. Jade supplied funds for the
Kachin army; teak, cattle and luxury goods from Thailand provided tax
revenue for the KNU; medicine and rice helped the Rohingyas, Muslims from
Arakan; opium helped the Shan groups. This provoked the savage-sounding
"four cuts" policy or Pya Ley Pya. Designed (as with the US "strategic
hamlets" policy in Vietnam) to cut the main links of the ethnic armies to
food, funds, intelligence and recruits, it involved horrendous suffering
for local people that persists.

In this forgotten war families have been torn apart, children butchered,
mothers raped and fathers tortured. The ghosts of the conflict are the
living as well as the dead. Villagers, occasionally disturbed by western
photojournalists, look up with sunken eyes - whole generations knowing
nothing but war; refugees who do not know whether their relations are
still alive. Tatmadaw soldiers remain trapped in this seemingly endless
cycle of violence where drug barons jostle with ethnic insurgents to
cultivate the poppy that funds every side.

Many of the groups, worn down by the tactics of the tatma daw, have drawn
up ceasefire agreements. But in the light of the constant transgression of
the most basic human rights, hopes of peace seem slim. No indigenous
institutions reflecting the aspirations of the people themselves have ever
been permitted to develop. Instead, as far back as Anawrahta, the first
Burmese king, who was famously killed by a buffalo, rulers have seen the
ethnic minorities in Burma as an inconvenience or a threat to national
security.

Suu Kyi has said: "Unity in diversity has to be the principle of those who
genuinely wish to build our country into a strong nation that allows a
variety of races, languages, beliefs and cultures to flourish in peaceful
and happy coexistence. Only a government that tolerates opinions and
attitudes different from its own will be able to create an environment
where peoples of diverse traditions and aspirations can breathe freely in
an atmosphere of mutual understanding and trust." All those who desire a
peaceful Burma must hope such a government can be formed. At present,
however, it is a distant goal.

History notes

1887: Third Anglo-Burmese War ends. The monarchy is deposed and Burma
fully incorporated into the British empire.

1947: Aung San signs agreement with Attlee allowing for self-rule within a
year. His party wins elections, but in July he is assassinated.

1962: Ne Win takes power and begins his disastrous "Burmese Way to
Socialism".

8/8/88: Auspicious date when it was hoped Burma would become free.
Pro-democracy marches meet with violence: 3,000 people are killed over the
next six weeks.

2005: The former Czech president Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu call on the
Security Council to demand change

_____________________________________

August 14, New Statesman
Burma Special: A nation in waiting - Peter Popham

It is a society infested with spies, where people live in terror of a
hardline military regime, yet the pro-democracy movement can still make
its voice heard. Will the UN Security Council at last help Burma unseat
its brutal junta?

When I first visited Burma for the Independent in 1991, months after Aung
San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) had won a landslide
election victory, the country was known as a quaint relic of empire.
Western visitors were obliged to take an expensive, one-week guided tour
of the country by bus and shaky old Fokker plane. But if the idea was to
deflect our gaze from contemporary misery to glorious heritage, it did not
succeed. As the tour bus took us through Rangoon's outskirts, our guide
scoffed at the patriotic exhortations on the billboards, and pointed out
the new roads that had been constructed by forced labour. In Bagan, that
amazing plain, full of temples, another guide told me that the entire
population of a village had been uprooted and forced to move en masse
several kilometres to the south to make way for new hotels and
restaurants. When I told him that I wanted to see where the villagers had
been dumped, a bicycle was procured and late that evening I was taken to
meet them.

It took great courage for these men and women to point out to me the
regime's crimes. That they were still willing to do so bore witness to the
depth of their estrangement from Burma's generals. In the election of
1990, the official party of the regime received a tiny fraction of the
vote, whereas the NLD won the backing of 82 per cent. Every Burmese knew
that the government, headed by the chairman of the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) junta, Senior General Than Shwe, had no right
to rule.

When I returned 11 years later, I found that, superficially at least,
Rangoon had been transformed. In the mid-Nineties, around the time of Suu
Kyi's first release from house arrest (she has endured years of enforced
solitude in her decaying villa on Rangoon's Inya Lake), the regime had
opened Burma up to foreign investors. Rangoon was rudely refashioned, new
multi-storey hotels giving the city a modern profile, coats of paint (in
lieu of gold leaf) making its ancient shrines - the stupa - shine again.

But that brief boom hit the buffers in 1997. Since then, the country has
been getting ever poorer, while its corrupt rulers get richer. Once, Burma
was known as the rice basket of south-east Asia. Today its GDP is
estimated to be $74.3bn (€38.9bn), with a GDP per capita of $1,700 (€889),
the lowest in a region that includes Bangladesh, Laos and Vietnam. Burma
ranks 190th out of 191 countries in healthcare delivery; 36 per cent of
children under five are moderately to severely underweight; one in ten
babies dies before its fifth birthday. The country's education system is
in ruins: Burma spends 0.3 per cent of its GDP on education, while its far
wealthier neighbours spend roughly 3 per cent. One-third of its children
complete less than five years of schooling. Universities are forced to
remain closed for years on end. Provision of basic services is as bad as
in the most corrupt and impoverished parts of India: neighbouring
Thailand, for example, has 20 times as many roads per square kilometre. At
the same time, 50 per cent of the regime's budget is spent on the
military.

Revenue from foreign firms contracted to exploit Burma's gas and other
resources, and kickbacks from drug producers and dealers, explain why the
generals grow richer while the Burmese standard of living continues to
slide. CountryWatch places Burma 191st out of 192 countries both in total
trade and in the ratio of total trade to GDP, but firms such as Total
continue to bail the generals out. The French oil giant signed its first
Burmese contract in 1992. In 2002-2003 it obtained gross revenue of $921m
(€482m) from the natural gas fields in the south of the country,
contributing nearly 30 per cent of Bur ma's earnings. A newly opened gas
reserve in the west of the country, now under bidding by Korean, Chinese
and Indian companies, is set to bring the regime billions of dollars in
revenue. More than 90 per cent of the world's rubies come from here. The
involvement of the Chinese, Thais and others in the timber trade is also
believed to be huge, but is off the books.

Yet the regime's failure to make political or economic reforms - "It seems
to lack both the capacity and the will to tackle the country's severe
macroeconomic imbalances," one report concluded - has led many foreign
investors to disengage, and in 2003 Burma experienced a severe banking
crisis.

Frozen in time

Politically the country remained stalled, frozen in the brutal, outrageous
aftermath of the elections of 1990. Suu Kyi was released again in 2002,
with the regime making the mistake of thinking that years of demonisation
through the state- controlled media had worked. They had denounced her
"feminine nature", her "womanly wiles"; she was no more than "an ordinary
housewife". Suu Kyi felt unable to leave her country when her husband, the
Oxford academic Michael Aris, was dying of cancer in Britain in 1999;
still, her marriage to a foreign national and her years of residence
abroad made her an "alien" who "had never tasted pickled bamboo shoot
curry". But when crowds braved the military presence to greet her at her
home or her party headquarters, the regime's error became apparent; so
they locked her up again.

The forward march of time had ceased. "Not only are events dated from
their proximity to the uprising," wrote the anthro pologist Monique
Skidmore in her book Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the politics of fear, "but
time is also conceived to move differently. Time no longer 'flows', it now
'pools'. There is no sense of progression. The nation comprises a nation
in waiting."

Skidmore, who lived among ordinary Burmese in Rangoon for several months
in the mid-1990s, found a population infested by regime spies at every
level, where a show of eager support for the junta is the price to be paid
for promotion at work or any other favour, while bribes, known as "line
money", are extorted by the regime at every turn. The ubiquitous presence
of the military, and its propensity for jailing even the mildest of
dissidents (Amnesty International says there are more than 1,000 political
prisoners in the country, including many elected MPs), have the effect of
terrorising the mass of Burmese. Skidmore recalled one woman finally
summoning the courage to whisper to her that she knew "Aung San Suu Kyi's
phone number". The mere possession of such knowledge becomes a terrifying
act of defiance.

With a population of more than 50 million, Burma is a big regional player
- too big, and too strategically placed in the armpit of China and India,
to be either ignored or readily brought to heel. Although the UN's General
Assembly and Human Rights Commission have repeatedly condemned the regime,
the UN Security Council has refused to get involved. The get-out clause
for France and China - both up to their necks in trade with the junta - is
that, however unappetising the SPDC, however gross its human-rights
violations, it presents no threat to the peace, security and stability of
the region. But last year Vaclav Havel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu took
the glaring fact of "Myanmar's" illegitimacy and sponsored a study into
its consequences. This may at last be a step in the right direction.

The Burmese junta has shown dogged persistence in keeping its country's
legitimate rulers under lock and key or in exile abroad. Today, the
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), formed in
1990 in the rebel town- ship of Manerplaw near the Thai-Bur m ese border
(where I visited the organisation a year later) is still hanging on at its
base in Washington, DC. It has a prime minister, Dr Sein Win, and its
strength is, as Suu Kyi's ecstatic welcome around the country in 2002 and
2003 proved, that it still has a network of support across Burma.

But the junta does not give an inch. In May this year, Kofi Annan's
special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was allowed to meet Than Shwe and Aung San
Suu Kyi, and came away with the impression that her liberty was imminent.
The claim made headlines around the world in the run-up to Suu Kyi's 61st
birthday. Once he was safely out of the country, however, the junta
extended her house arrest for another year. When Annan tried to speak to
Than Shwe to find out what was going on, Burma's reclusive strongman
refused to take the call.

If anything, the junta's position has hardened over the past three years.
When the former military intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt became
prime minister in 2003, he announced a "road map to democracy" that would
include parliamentary elections leading to the formation of a new
government. A little over a year later he was shunted aside, placed under
house arrest and accused of corruption. He was replaced by Lieutenant
General Soe Win, who directed the murderous attack on Suu Kyi and her
convoy on 30 May 2003. Than Shwe is said to have banned the mention of Suu
Kyi's name in his presence. Gambari reported that she is no longer allowed
regular access to her doctor.

But the Security Council is one of the few things the junta may genuinely
fear. France and Japan, another friend of Burma, have agreed to come on
board; China and Russia are finding it increasingly hard to resist the
pressure. Maybe this is what it will take to get Burmese time flowing
forward again. It is one potent weapon that has yet to be tried.

Burma by numbers

500,000 number of soldiers out of a population of 50 million

19 the annual sum, in pence, spent per person on health

30,900 hectares of opium poppies cultivated in 2003

15 years in jail: penalty for unlicensed possession of a fax machine or modem

4,445,633 number of pagodas built, according to legend, at Bagan

540,000 estimated number of internally displaced people

68 percentage of the population that is Burman. The largest other groups
are the Shan (9 percent) and Karen (7 per cent)

25 length in feet of a fully grown Burmese python, which can also live for
more than 25 years

17 percentage of schools with safe drinking water