BurmaNet News, August 16, 2006

[Editor]

August 16, 2006 Issue # 3026


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Junta soldiers pursue runaway Shan renegade
Mizzima: Six hundred students in central Burma forced to join USDA
IMNA: The day the sky was on fire

ON THE BORDER
SHAN: Thais, junta exchange fire
Irrawaddy: Karen villagers compensated in lead poisoning case

HEALTH / AIDS
AP: Britain pledges US$36 million to fight AIDS, malaria in Myanmar

BUSINESS / TRADE
Reuters: China denies plundering world's rain forests

REGIONAL
Mizzima: Activists dare Burmese Ambassador to speak 'the truth'

INTERNATIONAL

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Just like the real thing - Aung Lwin Oo

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INSIDE BURMA

August 16, Irrawaddy
Junta soldiers pursue runaway Shan renegade - Khun Sam

The Burmese army is reported to be hunting for hundreds of armed members
of the breakaway Shan State Army-South group Brigade 758 who fled their
new junta-designated home in Shan State barely one month after
surrendering.

Sources say junta troops have tightened control in the Le Char area of
northeastern Shan State where Brigade 758, led by their commander,
Moengzuen, had supposedly begun to settle peacefully in early July on land
granted to them.

Moengzuen said he and his men had gone over to the junta because they no
longer wished to fight alongside the SSA-S. However, SSA-S spokeswoman Nam
Khur Hsen said Moengzuen subsequently broke with the regime after the
government had failed to grant him a special region with his own control
and had pressured him to fight against the SSA-S.

The junta claimed the defectors numbered 800, along with their weapons,
but other sources said the figure was much lower.

Nam Khur Hsen said Brigade 758 had disappeared into the jungle with their
weapons, which the army had returned. She said increased army activities
in pursuit of the group had led to clashes with units of the SSA-S proper.
“We have had minor clashes with Burmese troops almost everyday at the
moment, but the junta’s operation seems mainly to be looking for
Moengzuen’s group,” she said.

Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Shan Herald news agency, said Moengzuen was
now reportedly in contact with all non-junta groups in Shan state,
including the SSA-S.


____________________________________

August 16, Mizzima News
Six hundred students in central Burma forced to join USDA - Nga Ngai

With the threat of being barred from appearing for their examinations
hanging over their heads, about 600 students in central Burma have been
forced to become members of the government backed Union Solidarity and
Development Association (USDA), said a student union in exile.

The threat revolved around joining the USDA failing which the students
would be barred from sitting for their examinations.

The spokesperson of the Thailand based Foreign Affairs Committee of the
All Burma Federation of Student Unions told Mizzima that students of the
Government Technological College in Myingyan Township in Mandalay division
were forced to sign up for membership with the USDA by their teachers, who
are under orders from the township peace and development councils and the
USDA.

"After the teachers told the students to become members of the USDA, a few
students resisted. But they could not stick to their stand when they
learnt that they would be ultimately barred from appearing for their
examination. So they signed-up on the last day -- August 7," said Zin
Maung, spokesperson of the ABFSU (FAC).

The ABFSU in a statement released yesterday condemned the authorities for
their coercive tactics and called for an end to pressurizing students to
join any group if they did not want to.

"Pressurizing and forcing students to sign-up for membership is gross
misuse of power. It is tantamount to abusing the rights of the students
and this is unacceptable because it can irrevocably damage the student
teacher relationship, which can have a series of negative impacts," Said
Zin Maung.

____________________________________

August 15, Independent Mon News Agency
The day the sky was on fire - Chan Mon

“The fireball shot up 100 feet with a frightening 'Whoosh
.Whoosh' sound
as the Kanbauk-Myaing-Kalay gas pipeline exploded on February 1. The
villagers watched in shocked silence” said Myit Twe still traumatised.

People living around a radius of three kilometers around the explosion
site smelt the gas and saw the blaze. “The Boom Boom, was laced with the
Whoosh..Whoosh. The villagers near the explosion site spent a sleepless
night,” Myit Twe added.

Despite the flames and the smell of the gas frightening them, the families
settled down because they had seen such a sight before. This is the third
time such an explosion has taken place near the village, Myit Twe added.

The most recent explosion has added to the villager’s woes for the local
military commander has ordered villagers to patrol the gas pipeline and
fence part of it that is above the ground so that rebels cannot cause an
explosion. The military has also told the people that they would have to
take responsibility if the gas pipeline blew up near their village or farm
again.

The local commander had also threatened to kill the villagers and shift
the villages should the explosion recur. He addressed the villagers in
foul language at a meeting a few days after the gas pipeline exploded near
their village.

At the meeting, the commander from Infantry Battalion No.62 based in
Thanpyuzayart town angrily shouted at the villagers suspecting that rebel
groups in Kwan-hlar village, Mudon Township, exploded the pipeline.

About 100 men from Kwan-hlar, Yaung-daung and Hnee-padaw villagers were
ordered to patrol the pipeline everyday as punishment.  The people of
Kwan-hlar and Yaung-daung village have been prohibited from going out of
the village and troops have been checking each home in the villages and
going over the list of family members in search of rebels. More than ten
villagers including Nai Rae-Jae, the secretary of Village Peace and
Development
Council, were arrested.

Although the army claims that the explosion was caused by the rebels,
local people believe it blew up on its own because gas leaks regularly
near their village. There have been three explosions already because of
basic technical flaws during construction.

The pipeline transmits gas from Yatana-Gas offshore, Kanbauk on Tenasserim
Division to the Maying kalay cement factory in Hpa-an Township, Karen
State.

This is the second gas pipeline in Myanmar (Burma). The first one
transmits gas from Kanbauk to Thailand.

This gas pipeline where the explosion occurred was laid in early 2002 by
the Myanmar Oil & Gasoline Enterprise (MOGE) for the cement factory. Some
portions of the pipeline are above the ground and some are underground.
The pipeline passes through streams, farmland, plantations, many villages
and some towns along Tenasserim Division, Mon State, and Karen State.

“The first time the explosion occurred all the people in the village fled.
Some went with their cars; some went with carts and some ran in the middle
of the night. Some houses were burnt down after people carelessly left
fires burning in their home while escaping. People thought that the dam
built on the east of their village had burst. But it was the gas pipeline
which blew up,” Myit Twe said talking of his experience in 2000 when the
military was testing the transmission of gas.

In the 2003 explosion, people in the area smelt gas. Hundreds of people
moved away to avoid the smell of gas and stayed with the poor in the
village, he added. A farmland turned into a crater following the fire and
the explosions.

In late 2005, gas leaked twice into a small river near his village and
local authorities repaired the 24 inches wide and 2-centimeter thick pipe.
The pipeline is over 200 kilometres long. The pipeline was laid in early
2000 and has been unsafe ever since.

The pipeline touches many streams, water bodies in the farms, which local
people rely on for drinking and cultivation. During rainy season, the
pipeline goes underwater. It also passes in front of people’s houses and
gas can easily seep into the wells.

Local environment workers say the explosion and the unsafe manner in which
it has been laid is damaging the environment and livelihoods of people
living along the pipeline.

The gas pipeline blew up at least five times, three times in Mudon
township, once time in Thanbyuzayart township and twice in Ye township. A
Karen rebel group caused the explosion once.

“We can easily ensure that the gas is transmitted safely,” a student from
Earth Rights International, who did field work in the area said.

Although there are regular explosions and leakage of gas, the military
government has done precious little to ensure safety and reinstall some
parts that are exposed.

“The local authorities should educate people to avoid breathing in the
gas,” said an Earth Rights International worker who did research work on
the gas pipeline in Burma. He felt that regular explosions would effect
the environment along the pipeline.

According to Human Rights Foundation of Monland and Earth Rights Workers,
the government had no prevention plans .The Thais had told the gas company
to arrange for compensation for people’s land and resettlement for safely
transmitting the gas through the Kanbauk-Bangkok pipeline. Total company
assured people that the long gas pipeline would ensure a higher living
standard. They had also promised reforestation along the pipeline passing
through Tavoy district to Thailand.

“There was no compensation to the people and there was no reforestation
programme and safety measures along the Kanbauk- Maying kalay pipeline
neither was there humanitarian support because the project was that of the
military regime,” explained Nai Kasauh Mon, Director of Human Rights
Foundation of Monland.

Despite being aware of the danger from the gas project the people did not
protest given their experience of the regime’s cruelty during the 1988
movement when they shot and killed protestors.

The military regime had promised local people that there would be
electricity in the area after the pipeline was laid. Locals recall a
manager working on the pipeline saying this while copying a document in a
computer shop in Moulmein.

All they authorities have done is built a gas releasing station. It
releases gas for about 48 hours (two days two nights) for repairing the
gas pipeline. The flames shoot up to a height of over two trees placed to
end and villagers nearby have to suffer extreme heat. There is always the
smell of gas in the village and people are barred from cooking when the
gas is released. The trees around the village have died following repeated
release of gas, said Mehm Nae a villager living near the station.

Community Earth Rights workers are worried because there can be no
cultivation in the soil along which the gas pipeline passes and places
where there have been explosions.

“If we eat the vegetables or fruits, grown on soil where the explosions
have occurred, we don’t know what poison will enter our system,” said an
Earth Rights worker.

When the gas pipeline exploded in March 2003 in Lamine sub Town, Ye
Township, people were afraid that their homes would be burnt down. “My
family collected valuable belongings and tried to escape. But we didn’t
know which way to escape. Panic-stricken villagers were desperate to
escape. We could smell the gas and the authorities told us not to not to
light the fire or cook because of the explosion in the part of the town
near the railway station,” Ma Moo a university student and an eye witness
said.

During this explosion the residents thought that a war had broken out for
all they could hear was the loud explosions and thought the area was being
bombed.

When they smelt the gas the next day residents realized there was an
explosion in the pipeline. Some planned to move their house far from
pipeline and into the hills.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 11, Shan Herald Agency for News
Thais, junta exchange fire

As officers from both countries were getting ready to hold the 48th
meeting of township level border committee (TBC) in Chiangrai yesterday, a
clash broke out between the two armies--inside the Thai territory--on the
border, according to Shan State Army sources.

The 5-minute exchange of fire took place southwest of PangNoon, the scene
of the 2001 confrontation between the two countries, in Mae Fa Luang
district, Chiangrai province, between a 15-men patrol from Phamuang Force
and a 5-men patrol led by Sgt Kyaw Min from the Burma Army’s
Mongyawng-based Light Infantry Battalion 311, between 0830-0900. The
intruders later retreated back into Burmese soil.

The Thai Army meanwhile gave a slightly different version of the incident:
their patrol had bumped into unidentified armed men who were believed to
be escorting a consignment of drugs from Punako, Mongtoom tract, Monghsat
township, into Thailand along the well-known Maejok-Hmong Kaolang route.

No casualties on either side were reported.

Back at the TBC 48 meeting, Lt-Col Zaw Moe Aye, head of the Burmese
delegation and Chairman of Tachilek District Peace and Developmemt
Council, was said to have dropped a bombshell by announcing that Burma
would not be responsible for the shooting of the Thai Army helicopter on 9
July as it had infringed Burmese skies, a sudden U-turn from its earlier
stance: that it would compensate Thailand for damage to the chopper.

____________________________________

August 16, Irrawaddy
Karen villagers compensated in lead poisoning case - Sai Silp

A Thai court on Tuesday ordered a lead mining company in the country’s
Kanchanaburi province, bordering Burma, to pay 4 million baht (US
$105,000) to eight inhabitants of a Karen village poisoned by contaminated
water from a local stream.

More than 100 Karen people living in lower Klity village were said during
the court proceedings to be suffering the ill effects of drinking water
from the stream, which was found to be contaminated by lead waste from the
mine, owned by Thailand’s Lead Concentrate Company. A provincial medical
team found earlier this year that blood samples from 70 village children
had levels of lead above the acceptable standard. A number of children
were reported to have been born in recent years with lead-related
disabilities.

The eight villagers awarded compensation, in a Kanchanaburi provincial
court ruling, were singled out as having suffered the most from the lead
contamination. One of their lawyers, Surapong Kongjantuek, of the Thai
Lawyer Council, said the villagers were unhappy with the settlement and
were considering whether to lodge an appeal. Surapong said the villagers
regarded 4 million baht insufficient compensation for “the long-term
sickness and paralyzation of many people, including their children.” The
money didn’t even cover medical treatment, they complained.

The villagers had also demanded compensation for the environmental damage,
but the court ruled against them on technical grounds.

Nevertheless, 22 Klity villagers are proceeding with a case before
Thailand’s Administrative Court against the country’s Pollution Control
Department, claiming the department failed in its responsibility to clean
up the local environment. Surapong said the case wasn’t expected to be
decided until next year.

The department’s Management Bureau said it is monitoring the Klity water
quality and ruled recently that it’s safe to drink provided it is
filtered.

Villagers first drew attention to the quality of their water in 1998 in a
letter of complaint to the Pollution Control Department. Tests that year
found high levels of lead in the water, the mine was shut down and the
Lead Concentrate Company was fined 2,000 baht ($52). No criminal charges
were brought.

Woralak Sriyai, an environmentalist with the Sueb Nakasatien Foundation,
said that although the problem had existed for several years government
action had been slow.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

August 16, Associated Press
Britain pledges US$36 million to fight AIDS, malaria in Myanmar

Yangon: Britain has pledged US$36 million (euro28 million) to fight AIDS,
malaria and tuberculosis in Myanmar, three of the leading causes of death
in the Southeast Asian country, the British Embassy said Wednesday.

The pledge is part of a US$100 million (euro78 million) joint donor
program to fight the three diseases over the next five years in Myanmar,
where 3,000 people died of malaria last year and an estimated 12,000
succumbed to tuberculosis.

More than 300,000 adults or 1.3 percent of the population were infected
with the HIV virus in 2004, and there were about 25,000 new infections
each year, the embassy said in a statement.

"The fund is a joint response to Burma's health needs," said the statement
dated Aug. 10, referring to Myanmar by its former name. The other donors
include Australia, the European Union, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
The Netherlands has agreed to contribute euro3 million (US$3.8 million),
of which euro1 million ($1.27 million) is to be disbursed this year, the
statement said.

The pledges are meant to compensate for the loss of a US$98 million
(euro77 million) grant that was suspended by the Geneva-based Global Fund
to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in August 2005.

The Global Fund cut its funding because of the military junta's travel
restrictions on aid workers in Myanmar.

"We know that working in Burma is difficult but our recent experience
makes us believe that it is possible to make a difference," the British
statement said, adding that the goal was to save 1 million lives during
the five-year program.

The British contribution will be administered through international and
local non-governmental organizations, U.N. agencies, the private sector,
public health authorities, the statement said.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

August 15, Reuters
China denies plundering world's rain forests

Beijing: China on Tuesday denied accusations of plundering the world's
rain forests to meet booming demand for wood.

Environment groups say China is at the heart of a global trade for lumber
it sells to markets in the United States and Europe and that much of its
plywood exports comes from illegal logging.

Domestic demand from a fast-growing economy only adds to the problem, they
say.

"As for the question that China's large demand for timber assists illegal
logging and smuggling from Asia, this statement has no basis,"State
Forestry Administration spokesman Cao Qingyao told a news conference.

"The Chinese government consistently upholds and puts in practice
collective international responsibility, opposing and cracking down on
illegal logging in illegal wood imports," Cao said. "We have very strict
import controls."

Global Witness, a British-based non-governmental organisation, said last
year China imported timber from Myanmar alone worth an estimated $350
million, almost all of it illegal.

But the group conducted an investigation in May that showed Chinese
checkpoints had been sealed to log transports from the former Burma, where
years of military rule and ethnic unrest in remote mountain areas have
lead to widescale forest clearances.

A report issued in March by the Centre for International Forestry Research
and other groups found about 70 percent of all timber imported into China,
now the largest consumer of wood from tropical developing countries, was
converted into furniture, plywood and other processed products for export.

China accounted for over half the log exports from Papua New Guinea,
Myanmar and Indonesia, the report said.

Cao said that over the next few years China's timber trade would be
stable, with exports not exceeding imports, though that for certain
products, like paper, there was still a lack of domestically sourced wood.

"But at the same time, we export a large amount of wood, and in 2005 our
exports exceeded imports," he said.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 16, Mizzima News
Activists dare Burmese Ambassador to speak 'the truth' - Mungpi

Activists on Tuesday dared the Burmese Ambassador to the Philippines,
Thaung Tun, who is briefing foreign correspondents in Makati, to speak
"the truth" and reveal the real situation in Burma.

Protesting outside the hotel, where the Burmese Ambassador was meeting
press correspondents, the Free Burma Coalition, Philippines (FBC-Phil), an
umbrella group of activists and Burma supporters, demanded that he stop
telling 'fairy tales' to the world.

Egoy Bans, spokesperson of the FBC, in a statement released today said,
"Predictably, the Ambassador will tell the media a fairy tale to hide the
real picture inside Burma."

Thaung Tun at the meeting told reporters that Burma plans to push ahead
with its roadmap to democracy by resuming the stalled constitution
drafting convention, which is the first step of the roadmap, as early in
October.

He also appealed to the international community to be patient as the
failure to complete the constitution could lead to civil strife.

He indicated that the junta is unlikely to invite the pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to join the convention as
it had refused to attend earlier.

Critics have slammed the national convention as a sham, as it failed to
involve the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi led NLD.

"Any genuine roadmap to democracy will start with a genuine dialogue and a
halt to all human rights violations. They [the junta] should stop all
sorts of human rights violation and attacks and release political
prisoners," Bans told Mizzima.

"If we see these things and the government opens up to a dialogue with the
NLD and ethnic groups then that is a sign that they are heading towards a
genuine roadmap to restoration of democracy," added Bans.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 16, Irrawaddy
Just like the real thing - Aung Lwin Oo

Nearly 10 months have passed since Burma’s military rulers shifted their
capital to Naypyidaw, outside Pyinmana, in central Burma. In that time,
the junta has apparently transformed their new administrative outpost into
a full-blown city.

The latest touch, according to a report on Tuesday in the Rangoon-based
Weekly Eleven journal, is a near-full size replica of Shwedagon pagoda.The
new pagoda, called Oakpartathanti, will stand just a foot or so shorter
than the original on a hill outside Naypyidaw, where it will be visible
from all main roads leading to the new administrative city.

An announcement last week that Burma’s National Library was sold has left
the former capital’s literary circles dismayed, as the contents of the
library are expected to join the generals in their jungle outpost.
Rangoon-based The Myanmar Times reported this week that the Ministry of
Livestock and Fisheries will establish a new dairy zone for cattle in the
new capital on 800 acres of land near Naypyidaw.

As progress continues in the areas of infrastructure and public works, the
ruling junta also seems to be cleaning up its image in the new capital.
Many critics regarded the move to Naypyidaw as the irrational act of an
increasingly paranoid leader. Visits by foreign dignitaries in recent
weeks, however, may be part of an effort to legitimize the new capital in
the eyes of the international community and spin it as a sign of progress.

“The capital is absolutely amazing, in terms of size and the level of
construction. Everything is booming in every respect,” The Myanmar Times
quoted Raymond Krommenacker, regional coordinator of the Asia and Pacific
Economies section of the World Trade Organization as saying. “It is
emblematic of the desire of the authorities to push things forward and
upward.”

The hills of Pyinmana and Naypyidaw have long been important symbols for
Burma’s early resistance movements in their fight for independence from
the British. They were also strategically important during World War II.
Now, Burma’s generals have taken a fancy to them. Hotels, resorts, and
golf courses are cropping up quickly, while infrastructure projects
abound. New highways and rail lines are being built, and the junta is said
to desire that Naypyidaw become a transportation hub for the rest of the
country.

Private business contractors are reportedly being pressured to meet
construction deadlines and maintain the standards expected of a great
capital city. Government ministers and other high-ranking officials
increasingly spend more of their time in Naypyidaw.

Foreign missions remain in the former capital Rangoon, but diplomatic
visits to central Burma have begun in earnest. In early 2006, UN Under
Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari met Snr-Gen Than
Shwe in Naypyidaw, as did Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo last
week. Even Thailand’s embattled caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra was allowed an unannounced one-day visit.

Next up on the guest list? According to Romulo, Than Shwe has extended an
invitation to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in advance of
the upcoming Asean Summit in December. Not a bad idea to cosy up to the
current chair of Asean, show off the new city, and claim progress toward
reform.

Naypyidaw apparently offers the generals all the comforts of Rangoon,
without any of the disadvantages: a seacoast vulnerable to foreign
invasion, a city with a long tradition of civil uprisings whose streets
are full of bloody memories, and that highly irritating lady in her
dilapidated lakefront home.

And now, a nearly life-size replica of the country’s most revered holy
site—also, ironically, a focal point of anti-government activity in the
past.

Perhaps the generals think the appearance of progress will be enough to
secure the good will of their neighbors. Judging by recent responses from
the WTO and Asean, perhaps they’re right.