BurmaNet News, August 15, 2006

[Editor]

August 15, 2006 Issue # 3025


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar constitutional talks resume in October, military to keep role

ON THE BORDER
AFP: New capital brings Myanmar rulers closer to problem border regions:
envoy

HEALTH / AIDS
IPS: Regime resists HIV/AIDS programmes
Irrawaddy: Criticism over arrest of HIV workers

BUSINESS / TRADE
AFP: China, India duke it out over Myanmar's natural gas riches
Lloyd's List: Daewoo plans ahead for Myanmar

REGIONAL
AFP: Nobel laureate "must not rock the boat," Myanmar warns
Mizzima: Alma Mater to honour Aung San Suu Kyi

INTERNATIONAL
Canberra Times: Howard dumps asylum policy

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 15, Agence France Presse
Myanmar constitutional talks resume in October, military to keep role

Manila: Talks to draft a new constitution for military-ruled Myanmar will
resume in October but the party of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi is likely to be excluded from them, Myanmar's ambassador to the
Philippines said Tuesday.

Thaung Tun said the effort, which was adjourned in late January, was "75
percent complete" with the power-sharing provisions between the central
government and the states still to be worked out.

Despite the constitutional talks, he said the armed forces would retain a
significant role, similar to that of early, post-colonial Indonesia.

The military, which depicts the talks as the third of a seven-step process
towards democracy, has ruled the nation since 1962.

The talks have been held sporadically for more than a decade but have been
condemned internationally for failing to include Aung San Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy (NLD).

The opposition leader is under house arrest and has been in one form of
detention or another for most of the past 17 years. The NLD won national
elections in 1990 but the junta refused to step down.

The NLD has boycotted the talks to demand the release of its leader and of
other political prisoners.

"After the rains is a good time," the envoy told the Foreign
Correspondents Association when asked when the constitutional talks would
resume. "The rains for us end in October this year."

The diplomat said that at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
summit in Cebu in the central Philippines in mid-December "the authorities
would be in a position to tell you" when the constitutional talks will be
completed.

He said a key outstanding issue is "power-sharing between the center and
the states," which could nevertheless be "wrapped up in one or two
sessions."

Thaung Tun said that because the NLD had walked out after being invited
twice to previous sessions of the talks, it was "unlikely" to take part in
future sessions.

"As far as the government is concerned we can only go so far," he said.

He said the Myanmar military is amply represented in the constitutional
talks because "they want to ensure for them a role" after the democratic
transition.

"If you look at Indonesia in the beginning (they had) 30 percent of the
parliament," he said.

"I don't know the percentage being talked about but the (Myanmar) military
would want to ensure they have a fair representation in the parliament."

He said that once the talks are completed the constitution will be drafted
by "legal people. They already have a draft and they can move very fast."

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 15, Agence France Presse
New capital brings Myanmar rulers closer to problem border regions: envoy

Manila: Myanmar's abrupt move to a new administrative capital near the
remote town of Pyinmana will help its military rulers better address
problems in border areas, a diplomat from the reclusive nation said
Tuesday.

The pullout of government departments from Yangon on the coast, announced
only in November and completed in March, surprised foreign diplomats.

The administrative capital of Nay Pyi Taw near Pyinmana was practically
built from scratch at the confluence of two major mountain ranges.

It puts the capital at the geographic center of the nation, Myanmar's
ambassador to the Philippines Thaung Tun told the Foreign Correspondents
Association here.

"It would develop the hinterland," he said. "We are now concentrating on
the border regions."

He said if the government could bring development to the center "we will
have decimated our problems," which he listed as "narcotics, labor issues
and security issues."

The country has been troubled by more than a dozen insurgencies mostly by
ethnic minorities based in border areas.

"At the moment our country depends on road and rail transport. We have not
the luxury of developed air transport," Thaung Tun said.

Pyinmana is located at the "junction of many highways and railways, easier
for the civil service and the military to move around and reach many parts
of the country within a day."

He said Yangon, which had been built by British colonial rulers for about
250,000 people, was now overcrowded with close to six million. "The
infrastructure is not good enough for the increasing population."

Expanding sideways could have brought more problems, he said.

"Opening up the hinterland" has been done by other countries before, he
said, citing the capitals of Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, Libya and
Nigeria.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

August 15, Inter Press Service
Regime resists HIV/AIDS programmes - Marwaan Macan-Markar

Bangkok: While a major international conference on HIV/AIDS opened Sunday
in Canada with a message to help those affected by the disease, on this
side of the globe, in Burma, the ruling military regime moved to arrest
sufferers and campaigners.

On Friday night, a pioneering attempt by a group of Burmese living with
HIV to conduct an awareness campaign in the South-east Asian country ended
in 11 of them being arrested by the authorities in Rangoon. They were
released on Monday after a police inquiry.

The victims were members of an informal group who had rallied under the
banner, ‘Friends with Red Ribbon', which symbolises the colour and design
recognised internationally for the battle against AIDS. They were
‘'planning to hold a Buddhist traditional merit making service for their
friends who passed away with HIV/AIDS'', revealed a news alert by the U.S.
Campaign for Burma, a Washington D.C.-based organisation lobbying for
human rights in Burma.

‘'There are about 52 members in this group. Some of them are former
political prisoners,'' says Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a group based along the
Thai-Burmese border that campaigns to free the over 1,300 political
prisoners in Burmese jails. ‘'One member of this group, Than Lwin, who had
AIDS, died two days ago.''

The Red Ribbon group launched this effort to ‘'educate the Burmese society
about AIDS because they were feeling very isolated and vulnerable,'' Bo
Kyi explained during an interview. ‘'They were people with HIV from
Rangoon and from other parts of the country.''

This crackdown by the police -- on the grounds that the members had not
got police clearance to stay overnight at the Buddhist temple in the
Thingangyun township -- was not the first of its kind. In September last
year, a house rented out in Rangoon to serve as a home offering care and
counselling for people with HIV was also forced to close.

The weekend's action by the junta in Myanmar, as Burma has been renamed,
has prompted the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to
question the military regime's attitude towards combating the pandemic.
‘'This is not a very helpful course of action on the part of the Myanmar
government,'' J.V.R. Prasada Rao, head of the Asia-Pacific office of
UNAIDS, said during a telephone interview from Toronto, venue of the
week-long 16th International AIDS Conference. ‘'It sends a very negative
message.''

But doctors from Burma, familiar with the military regime's stance towards
the virus and towards people afflicted with it, are hardly surprised.
‘'There is very little support for the people with HIV to conduct advocacy
programmes or awareness programmes in the open. You are not encouraged to
work independently,'' Dr. Cynthia Maung, who runs the Mae Tao clinic in
Mae Sot, along the Thai-Burmese border, told IPS. ‘'Everything is
controlled by the officials.''

The junta's unsympathetic stance towards people with HIV in Burma adds to
a growing list of concerns that have earned it notoriety. The current
estimates by UNAIDS and other international agencies of people with HIV in
Burma range from 360,000 to 610,000 people. The adult prevalence rate
stood at between 1.3 percent to 2.2 percent people infected of the
country's 50 million people.

‘'Myanmar has one of the most serious epidemics in the region,'' UNAIDS
stated in its 2006 annual report earlier this year. The infection rates
exceed those in the two other South-east Asian countries that had long
been viewed as the epicentre of the deadly virus in the region --
Cambodia, which has a 1.6 percent adult HIV prevalence rate, and Thailand,
which has a 1.4 percent adult prevalence.

But the Burmese regime -- which till late 2003 refused to admit to an
emerging AIDS crisis and kept the issue hidden from the public -- appears
reluctant to ease the pain of its suffering citizens. In August last year,
it succeeded, after imposing tough internal travel restrictions, to force
the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to quit the
country. At the time of its departure, the Global Fund, an international
agency that offers grants to combat the world's three major killer
diseases in over 125 countries, had committed to spend 98.4 million
dollars over a five-year period in Burma. Of that, 54.3 million dollars
was for AIDS-related initiatives.

This slash in funding for AIDS programmes came on the heels of a
revelation by the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think
tank, that Burma was the main source of all strains of HIV that had spread
across a wide arc in Asia, with Kazakhstan, on one end, and southern
Vietnam, on the other.

What adds to this troubling picture is Burma's high number of patients
with tuberculosis (TB), which has become the leading killer of people
afflicted with HIV. Burma has 97,000 new cases of TB every year, according
to the World Health Organisation.

‘'Rather than helping people with HIV, the military regime tries to
isolate them and create problems between them and the rest of the people
who do not have HIV,'' says Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner, himself.
‘'It does not want anyone to speak loudly about AIDS. If you do, you get
into trouble.''

____________________________________

August 15, Irrawaddy
Criticism over arrest of HIV workers - Yeni

Activists inside and outside Burma have expressed their disappointment
over the military regime’s arrest of members of the opposition National
League for Democracy, who were providing counseling and education to
HIV/AIDS patients.

The eleven members of the NLD’s youth wing, who provide their services
under the name “Friends with a Red Ribbon” and who have completed peer
education programs with the UNDP, were arrested in Rangoon on August 13
for not informing local authorities of their overnight stay in a Buddhist
monastery. They were at the monastery to prepare for a memorial service
for those who had died of HIV/AIDS. The NLD youth members were freed on
Monday after the police station they were held in was swamped by hundreds
of supporters.

Than Naing, one of the arrested members, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday
that the real reason behind the arrests was jealousy on the government’s
part for the NLD’s success in treating HIV/AIDS patients. “The military
authority should examine what we are doing,” said Than Naing. “We are
working on this program not to gain a political advantage. This is a
humanitarian issue.”

The group of youth members was warned in advance not to hold the memorial
service by Lt-Col Maung Maung Shein, chairman of Rangoon’s East District
Peace and Development Council. According to Than Naing, authorities asked
for details about the group’s invitation letter.

“They have no idea at all about what the red ribbon—the international
symbol for AIDS awareness—represents or our dedication of the event in the
invitation letter to a friend who had departed ‘midway through life,’”
said Than Naing. “They thought those were related to a political message.”

Authorities had intended to arrest for HIV/AIDS patients and the abbot of
the monastery, Than Naing said, but agreed not to after negotiations with
the eleven NLD youth members.

Ko Ko Gyi, one of the leaders of the 88 Generation group, said that
Burma’s military leaders are largely ignorant of the threat posed by
HIV/AIDS and the devastation it has already wrought on hundreds of
thousands of Burmese.

Washington-based advocacy group US Campaign for Burma also expressed its
concern yesterday. Aung Din, the group’s policy director, said the arrest
was a serious threat to the NGO community and people working to assist
HIV/AIDS patients. “They are now experiencing a new harassment by the
military regime,” he said.

Educational programs like the one carried out by NLD youth members are few
in Burma and funded by only a handful of foreign aid agencies after Global
Fund, the world’s largest funding body, pulled out of Burma last year.
They cited travel and other restrictions by the country's
military-controlled government that impeded the delivery of medical
supplies and services as reasons for their departure.

Last week the UK announced a ₤20 million (US $36 million) aid
package for Burma to help fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The
fund is part of a ₤55 million ($100 million) grant, jointly donated
by Australia, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Several international NGOs, including Medecins du Monde, Medecins San
Frontiers, and World Vision, currently have HIV/AIDS programs in Burma,
and all have signed Memorandums of Understanding with the junta. While the
content of these MOUs has not been made public, it is known that meeting
with the NLD, or cooperating with its members, is not tolerated by the
junta.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

August 15, Agence France Presse
China, India duke it out over Myanmar's natural gas riches

Manila: China and India are racing to secure a lock on a newly discovered
offshore natural gas field in Myanmar, believed to be one of the largest
such finds in Southeast Asia, the reclusive nation's ambassador to the
Philippines said Tuesday.

The Arakan field, close to India and Bangladesh and estimated to contain
"trillions of cubic feet (tens of trillions of cubic liters)," was
discovered this year by a joint venture involving South Korea's Daewoo, an
Indian firm and state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprises, ambassador
Thaung Tun said.

He told the Foreign Correspondents Association here that the rapidly
growing economies of its two giant neighbors, New Delhi and Beijing, are
eyeing the field to fuel growth in India's planned eastern industrial
center as well as China's economically lagging interior western regions.

A gas pipeline to India "would have to go through Bangladesh and we're
having trilateral negotiations to get a gas pipeline going," Thaung Tun
added without giving details.

However, China appears to have a leg up on its regional rival.

The envoy said a state-run Chinese oil firm that he did not name signed a
memorandum of agreement with Myanmar in February to build a "dual-purpose"
pipeline from the Indian Ocean port of Sittwe to Yunnan province.

"They have started work" on the pipeline, he said without giving a
timetable for completion, explaining that "major projects like this cannot
be built in a day."

He said that aside from piping natural gas from Myanmar, the Chinese
pipeline could also take in oil shipped from the Middle East.

Myanmar for the past five years has been supplying about 20 percent of the
natural gas requirements of its eastern neighbor Thailand.

Aside from China and India, Thaung Tun said the Arakan field could also
support a plan by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to
build an ASEAN-wide natural gas pipeline.

"Exploration has confirmed that this is a major deposit, in the trillions
of cubic feet," the envoy said. "This could contribute to the regional gas
network."

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

____________________________________

August 15, Lloyd's List
Daewoo plans ahead for Myanmar

Daewoo International is looking at building a liquefied natural gas
project to sell gas from its A block gas fields offshore Myanmar after
raising reserves on them to 10trn cu ft.

The South Korean group has also started gas sales negotiations with India,
China and Thailand in order to find a market for this gas, but is looking
to ship it on LNG carriers.

Daewoo said the three fields in its A1 and A3 offshore blocks could hold
10 tcf of gas resources, of which 8.6 tcf could be recoverable. It is
looking to market the gas nearby or to ship it to South Korea or Japan and
wants the three fields on stream by 2010.

Companies from India, China and Thailand are jumping at the chance to take
the gas from Daewoo's three fields to meet growing domestic demand.

Indian companies ONGC and Gail are partners in the blocks and therefore
have the advantage in negotiating gas sale agreements.

Recent drilling has found up to 5.4 tcf of gas in the Shwe field, up from
3 tcf certified in December, plus 1.2 tcf in Shwe Phyu and 3.4 tcf on Mya
fields.

Feasibility studies have been carried out on developing these fields, but
no development plan has been agreed.

Myanmar is claiming to have the world's 10th largest gas resources with 90
tcf in 19 onshore and three offshore fields, which does not include these
Daewoo discoveries.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 15, Agence France Presse
Nobel laureate "must not rock the boat," Myanmar warns

Manila: Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi must not rock the boat, Myanmar
warned Tuesday, playing down hopes that the ruling junta would free her
during its self-proclaimed journey to democracy.

Myanmar's ambassador to the Philippines Thaung Tun denied allegations of
human rights abuses in the military-ruled state and dismissed
international pressure to win Aung San Suu Kyi's release.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) leader is under house arrest and
has been in one form of detention or another for 10 of the past 17 years.
The NLD won national elections in 1990 but the military, in charge since
1962, refused to yield power.

"The (rights) stories have always been written from across the border,"
Thaung Tun told the Foreign Correspondents Association here.

"Not much has been proven of these allegations."

Asked when the opposition leader could expect freedom, he said: "The
environment is important. I hope the international community would take
note of that. If we have a good environment we will have good results," he
added without elaborating.

Myanmar is subject to US and European economic sanctions because of human
rights abuses and the house arrest of the pro-democracy leader.

Asked why the junta appeared to be terrified of a single woman, Thaung Tun
riposted: "Why is everybody so fixated with one person?"

He said Myanmar's leaders are "trying to ensure that the aspirations of
the people are met and the only way we can do it is if foundations are
there, the road ahead is level, and the boat we are travelling together in
is not rocked."

Asked about the impact of the sanctions, Thaung Tun said: "We have enough
fuel to go to our destination and we are not going to allow others to
upset that destination."

The envoy announced that Myanmar was to resume a convention to discuss a
new constitution in October, with the NLD likely excluded from the
process.

"What we're doing is a systematic move toward democracy. We could not have
democracy in 1988 or 1989," he added.

Myanmar this year denied access to Aung San Suu Kyi by both the Malaysian
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar and Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto
Romulo, who completed a three-day visit there on Sunday.

Thaung Tun said both men had visited to "promote bilateral relations" and
"not to interfere in political affairs."

Myanmar, Malaysia and the Philippines are all members of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, which has broken with its western trading
partners by embarking on a "constructive engagement" policy with the
junta.

ASEAN also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.

____________________________________

August 15, Mizzima News
Alma Mater to honour Aung San Suu Kyi - Ne Nem

Burma’s democracy icon and Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is
currently under house arrest in Burma, will be honoured by her alma mater
the Lady Sri Ram College for Women (LSR) in New Delhi on August 21.

The ceremony is a part of the LSR’s on going golden jubilee celebrations
in 2005-2006. The programme will also seek to honour and recognize Aung
San Suu Kyi tireless efforts to restore democracy and justice to a country
ruled by military dictators since 1962.

Dr. Shernaz Cama, in charge of the golden jubilee celebrations said, “She
[Suu Kyi] has worked for the empowerment of those who are oppressed, and
she has also spoken out fearlessly.”

“We feel very proud, we feel very happy of all, as many young people and
alumna have done many things in this world in many fields of endeavor,”
she added.

Aung San Suu Kyi, better known as ‘Suu’ by her classmates, was a student
of the 1964 batch of the LSR College and studied Political Science. Her
class mates in the same batch are Dr. Neera Chandoke, professor of Delhi
University, Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, current Principal of the Lady Sri Ram
College for Women and Malvika Karlekar who is working with the Centre for
Women’s Development Studies.

In 1960 she came to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been
appointed Burma’s ambassador to New Delhi.

For her undeterred spirit in restoring peace and democracy in Burma and
her firm belief in non-violence, Suu Kyi won numerous awards including the
Nobel Peace Prize and Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International
Understanding.

After attending college in New Delhi, Suu Kyi went on to Oxford University
in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics.

She returned to Burma in 1988 to attend her ailing mother but she was
caught in the political turmoil prevailing at the time. Sensing the need
for her involvement, she plunged headlong into politics and led the
peoples’ movement that ousted the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP)
government.

Suu Kyi’s late husband Dr. Michael Aris, had said, “She [Suu Kyi] always
viewed her education in Delhi and Oxford as a preparation for serving her
own country.”

In 1990, her party – the National League for Democracy- won the election
in a landslide victory but the poll results were not recognized by the
military that came to power in a coup in 1988 after brutally cracking down
on demonstrators.

Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest, has spent over 10 years of the last
18 years in solitary confinement.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 15, Canberra Times
Howard dumps asylum policy - Ross Peake

A back-bench revolt has forced the Howard Government to dramatically
abandon its plan to harden Australia's asylum-seeker policy.

Just hours later it emerged that people smugglers, presumably from
Indonesia, had dumped eight people on Ashmore Reef off north- western
Australia.

The group, believed to be from Burma, will be taken to Christmas Island
for medical checks and then to Nauru to be held in detention.

In a humiliating rebuff to his authority, Prime Minister John Howard
dumped yesterday his proposal to send all asylum-seekers to Nauru after
being advised the Bill faced certain defeat in the Senate.

Victorian Liberal Judith Troeth told him in a private meeting she would
cross the floor when the vote was called.

The Government drafted the legislation in a bid to calm Indonesian anger
over Australia's decision to grant asylum to 43 people from Indonesia's
contested Papua province earlier this year.

Mr Howard admitted Indonesia played a role in the decision to draw up the
new policy.

"I have never denied that Indonesia was a factor," he said last night.

An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said last night that Indonesia
deeply regretted the Government's failure to legislate the policy.

The spokesman, Desra Percaya, warned Australia's failure to endorse the
legislation could be interpreted as Australia opening the door to
asylum-seekers.

Indonesia also expected Australia to continue to uphold its commitment to
respect the territorial integrity of Indonesia, he said.

Mr Howard said his authority had not been diminished by the decision to
dump the legislation.

"Given the arithmetic of the parties in the Senate it was clear that the
legislation was going to be defeated," he said.

"I believe in this Bill, I still do, but I accept that there aren't the
numbers in the Senate to pass it and I'm a realist as well as a democrat."

Senator Troeth's celebration was low key. "The matter has been resolved
and I'm satisfied with the outcome," she said.

Last week the Howard Government experienced the largest revolt in its
decade-long term when three Government MPs - Judi Moylan, Russell
Broadbent and Petro Georgiou - voted with the Opposition in the House of
Representatives on the legislation and two more abstained.