BurmaNet News, January 17, 2007

[Editor]

January 17, 2007 Issue # 3122


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Red Cross to cut Burma staff

ON THE BORDER
Independent: On the run with the Karen people forced to flee Burma's genocide

HEALTH / AIDS
South China Morning Post: Agents for change

BUSINESS / TRADE
UPI Energy: Myanmar: Talks with India on gas still on

INTERNATIONAL
Agence France Presse: South Africa defends vote against UN resolution on
Myanmar
National Post: RBC defends restrictions on U.S. accounts: Rules prohibit
dual citizens from 'enemy' nations

OPINION / OTHER
The Star (South Africa): SA Should return the favour - Jared Genser
The Guardian: UN vetoes prolong Burma agony - Simon Tisdall
Philippine Daily Inquirer: The Burmese peoples open heart - Debbie Stothard

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 17, Irrawaddy
Red Cross to cut Burma staff - Shah Paung

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Burma will cut its support
staff in response to the junta-led government's efforts to undermine the
relief agency's humanitarian work.

Thierry Ribaux, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Burma, said the
contracts of many relief workers would not be renewed. He declined to
specify how many jobs would be cut.

There are now 240 Burmese ICRC staff members, Ribaux said. He said the
cuts would be made in all five of the in-country sites and in the Rangoon
office.

ICRC work in Burma is now “very limited,” Ribaux said, adding, “The ICRC
is still waiting to discuss its situation with the Burmese military
government.”

In November, 2006, the government ordered the ICRC to close five of its
field offices, in Mandalay, Moulmein of Mon State, Pa-an of Karen State,
Taunggyi and Kengtung of Shan State. Later, the five field offices were
allowed to reopen but work in orthopedics and other areas were not allowed
to continue.

The Burmese government has denied the ICRC permission to visit the
country's prisons since December 2005.

Currently, the regime allows only the junta-backed Union Solidarity and
Development Association and Myanmar [Burma] Women’s Affairs Federation to
visit prisons.

In early January, the government granted amnesty to 2,831 prisoners to
mark the 59th anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain.
Among those released were 43 political prisoners. Recently the authorities
also released five prominent student leaders, including Min Ko Naing.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners [Burma],
there are 1,097 political prisoners in Burmese jails.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 16, The Independent (UK)
On the run with the Karen people forced to flee Burma's genocide - Pete
Pattisson

Karen State: When the Burmese soldiers arrived at his village, Maung
Taungy knew what would happen next. Seven villagers were arrested, their
feet bound together with rope, and they hung upside down for hours.
Exhausted and with their ankles lacerated, the men, suspected of being
linked to the Karen resistance army, were then beaten. The soldiers did
not stop until they were dead.

"After that," remembers Maung Taungy, an ethnic-minority Karen from
eastern Burma, "we became the virtual slaves of the army. They ordered us
to clear the whole jungle so that they could see approaching enemies. We
had to wade through chest-deep water full of snakes to get the area
cleared. The work was endless, we made roads, dug trenches, cut bamboo and
made fences. We had no choice but to escape."

Maung Taungy now lives in Ei Tu Tha camp for internally displaced people,
ineastern Burma. An estimated 27,000 Karen have fled an offensive by the
Burmese army in northern Karen State, which began last February. Fifty
five thousand Karen remain in hiding in the jungles bordering Thailand,
refugees from the world's longest-running civil war, between the Burmese
army and the Karen resistance, the Karen National Liberation Army. More
than one million Karen have been displaced since 1996 in the face of
systematic human rights violations including rape, forced labour and
torture.

And the situation is worsening. "We'd faced problems with the Burmese army
since the 1960s, but the situation now is worse than ever," says Maung.
According to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, in the past year alone
232 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed, forcibly relocated or
otherwise abandoned. The Karen Human Rights Group claims the most recent
offensive by the Burmese army is part of a deliberate policy of ethnic
cleansing that amounts to crimes against humanity.

Yet the international community is doing little. On Friday a US-sponsored
UN Security Council resolution calling for the restoration of democracy in
Burma and an end to human rights violations was vetoed by Russia and
China; their first joint veto since 1972. They argued that the resolution
was outside the remit of the Security Council as Burma posed no threat to
international security. The Burma Campaign UK points out that China and
Russia are both significant arms suppliers to Burma's regime, and are
seeking investment opportunities in Burma's large-scale gas reserves. A
report commissioned by Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel in September 2005
compared Burma with other countries where the Security Council has
recently intervened in internal conflicts, including Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan. The report identifies five criteria for intervention,
including the overthrow of an elected government and human rights abuses.
Burma was the only country that met all five criteria.

The current offensive in Karen State follows a clear pattern. Burmese
troops force Karen civilians to relocate to villages already under their
control. Old villages are burnt down and land-mined to stop villagers
returning. Forced labour is demanded for months at a time. Anyone caught
trying to leave is shot. Without access to their farms, many Karen suffer
severe food shortages. A September 2006 report by the Back Pack Health
Workers Team, which provides medical care to victims of the conflict,
warns of a health catastrophe in eastern Burma as a direct result of the
army's human rights abuses.

Escaping the conflict can be as dangerous as staying. Heavily pregnant Eha
Hsar Paw took two weeks to reach Ei Tu Tha camp. Shortly after arriving
the camp medics told her the baby inside her was dead, killed by the
stress of the journey. It was the fifth child she had lost. "Our whole
village was burnt down by Burmese soldiers in February 2006. Since then we
have been hiding in the surrounding jungle. The soldiers would just shoot
anyone they saw, even children," she said. "If they found our rice they
would burn it, they cut holes in our cooking pots and tore up our clothes.
The journey here was very difficult. We arrived at one village expecting
to be able to buy food, only to find that they were also getting ready to
leave and so they wouldn't sell any to us. One of my children died in the
jungle before we left and another died when we reached this camp. It was
hard to leave our village, but if we had stayed there we would all be
dead."

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

January 15, South China Morning Post
Agents for change

Health workers are running the gauntlet of border guards to cross into
Myanmar, where an Aids crisis is being fuelled by government bans and
ignorance

The article and photograph were provided by a correspondent who could not
be identified because of the difficulties faced in reporting on Myanmar

Lugging an empty vinyl bag in one hand and with a handbag on her shoulder,
 Chong Nunboi crosses into Myanmar every morning among the stream of
Indian traders. To officials on both sides of the border  she's just an
ordinary businesswoman hurrying to shop in the popular Chinese goods
markets in the Myanmese town of  Namphalong.

But as soon as the 35-year-old tribal woman is out of the sight of the
Myanmese immigration officials, she neatly folds the vinyl bag and puts it
in her handbag, before swerving into one of the nearby villages to start
her day's work as a community health worker.

"Every day I meet intravenous heroin users, prostitutes and ordinary
villagers to explain how they could prevent the infection of diseases like
HIV or hepatitis," said Chong Nunboi, a  Myanmese ethnic tribal woman
living in Moreh, a border town in the  northeastern Indian state of
Manipur.

"I also advise people on how to get medical help in Burma or India in case
they get the diseases."

As a growing number of international charities suspend their operations
due to increasing pressure for reform of Myanmar's junta, community health
workers such as  Chong Nunboi do their best to provide basic medical care
to some of Asia's most vulnerable people.

In a country where HIV/Aids and malaria are rife, it's an overwhelming
task for any health worker. UNAids, the UN body co-ordinating the global
fight against the disease, estimates about 620,000 people, aged 15 to 49,
are infected with HIV in Myanmar. But on the border, where the junta casts
its shadow over every section of society, health workers face the
additional burden of risking their lives every morning when they go to
help the ill.

"Sometimes in the villages I also distribute essential medicines supplied
by NHEC," she said, referring to the National Health and Education
Committee, an organisation set up by Myanmese pro-democracy activists in
exile. "Although I'm doing exactly what a community health worker does
elsewhere in the world, I often have to work undercover to save myself
from being troubled by the military."

To maintain her fake identity as a trader in the eyes of the  Myanmese
border police, every evening she carries cheap clothes or consumer goods
from markets in Tamu, south of  Namphalong, for some shops in Moreh.

Myanmese military intelligence officers would not knowingly allow Chong
Nunboi and her colleagues into Myanmar because they work for the NHEC,
which the regime  regards as being linked to what it views as terrorists.

Lamlhing Touthang, a Namphalong-based health worker, recently returned
home after participating in an NHEC-organised, month-long HIV care
training camp in Manipur. On her return she was interrogated for more than
five hours by Myanmese military intelligence officials, who suspected her
of having a role in "anti-national" activities, suggesting she doubled  as
a political agent for the pro-democracy activists in exile.

"From my bag   [Myanmese intelligence officers] got nothing except some
NHEC pamphlets on awareness about Aids and malaria," she said.

"Yet they threatened me not to go out of the country again for 'so long'
in future. Also they asked me not to maintain any communication with the
NHEC."

Now  Lamlhing Touthang and her Myanmese colleagues have officially become
volunteer workers of a small Myanmar-based health NGO,  their new role
helping to keep the intelligence officers at bay.

"Just to avoid troubles in the field our health workers flaunt the
identity cards of some Burmese NGOs," said Aung Kyaw Oo, Indian-based
chairman of NHEC's western region. "But those NGOs operating under many
restrictions under the military regime have no access to the developed
world to import modern care and treatment for the HIV victims in Myanmar.

"Except for a few hospitals in cities, there are no trained government
doctors to handle HIV victims in the rural areas, where as many as 85 per
cent of the carriers of the virus are living.  If the junta allowed the
international medical aid groups to function freely inside Myanmar, the
problem would have not turned that acute for the HIV victims inside
Myanmar."

In the face of pressure from the junta, many international medical
charities are winding up operations in Myanmar. In 2005, Global Fund for
HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria cancelled its US$37.5 million programme
in the country, blaming government restrictions on its movements that made
functioning nearly impossible. Médecins Sans Frontières was forced to pull
out of Karen and Mon states last year for similar reasons.

In October, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was
ordered to close all of its offices outside of Yangon, after the
organisation reported rampant infection of HIV and other infectious
diseases among inmates in the country's prisons.

Last month, after the move was criticised by many international agencies,
Myanmar hinted it could allow the reopening of ICRC field offices, but
would not allow access to detainees or prison visits by the organisation.

According to UNAids, the western part of the country is most neglected
where HIV and Aids treatment is concerned. The agency reported recently
that not a single Aids patient received free antiretroviral drugs from the
government.

"If the rule book is followed, all HIV-infected children should be given
ART [anti-retroviral treatment]. But not one of the estimated 8,000 to
10,000 children in Sagaing division and Chin state have access to these
vital medicines. It's a horrible example of indifference meted out to its
HIV-positive children by a government," said another Manipur-based NHEC
executive, who wished to be identified only as Dr Thura.

"Many quacks are still spreading HIV dangerously in rural areas and many
villagers - to get common medicines injected - are still receiving help
from intravenous heroin users who use used needles for the injections and
charge half of what it would cost at a doctor's clinic.

"In terms of awareness, most HIV-affected areas [in Myanmar] today
continue to lie in the same phase where neighbouring Thailand or India
were 15 years ago. At least on humanitarian grounds an urgent intervention
is necessary."

Early last year, two workers of the Burmese Solidarity Organisation - a
Myanmese pro-democracy group working with the NHEC - were abducted by
Myanmese military commandos from Moreh.  Concerned NHEC officials then
closed down their medical bases and moved to Indian villages further from
the border.

But despite such threats,  the NHEC is now building two special homes
where orphans of the HIV/Aids crisis in two Indian border districts of
Manipur and  Mizoram will receive refuge once they leave Myanmar. The
orphanages will also function as hospitals where trained doctors will be
on hand.

"With the logistical help of friends in India and some western countries
we are going to start these orphanages-cum-hospitals where we hope to be
able to provide ART on a regular basis as well," said Dr Aung Kyaw Oo. "In
the absence of ART the epidemic is worsening in the country."

Dr Thura said that in the past three months the NHEC health workers
received more than 2,000 requests from gravely ill Myanmese Aids victims
from Chin and Sagaing.

"Since the number of such poor people seeking free ART are constantly on
the increase [in western Myanmar] and it's impossible for us to help such
a huge population settle in India, we have also sent proposals to our
friends seeking help in starting ART relief centres in border districts
close to Myanmar," Dr Thura said.

She said 80 per cent or more of the suspected HIV carriers in Myanmar did
not know  they were carrying the virus, and sex workers did not carry
condoms as it was considered proof of prostitution.

Shalom, another Manipur-based medical NGO working in the field of HIV and
Aids, is also in the process of setting up two hospices in the border
towns of Moreh and Champhai.

Shalom director Dr Vanlalmuana Pachhuau said funding often was not a
problem for such projects when they were targeted to serve the people
inside Myanmar. "The miseries of HIV and Aids victims in Myanmar are
well-known around the world. A number of funding agencies are ready to
fund our projects and by the middle of next year we hope to start our
hospices."

But Dr Aung Kyaw Oo fears the planned HIV relief projects run by the NHEC
in Indian border states could still face risks from the Myanmese junta.

"When the SPDC [ruling junta] cannot allow an organisation as apolitical
as the ICRC to serve the Burmese people freely, it can never tolerate us
because it thinks we are spies and a part of a western network engaged in
attempts to overthrow the military government," Dr Aung Kyaw Oo said.

"Since it will not be able to order the closure of our projects, because
they're not based in Myanmar,  [SPDC] could go to the extent of placing a
ban on patients seeking any relief from us or any agency outside the
country."

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

January 17, UPI Energy
Myanmar: Talks with India on gas still on

New Dehli: Myanmar and India are still discussing the price of gas and the
proposed pipeline between the two countries is a possibility, a top
Myanmarese official said.

"We think the price of $6.5 per mmBtu at which we are selling gas to
Thailand is a good price," U Soe Myint, director-general of Myanmar's
Energy Planning Department, told the Asian Age paper in comments published
Tuesday.

He said the former Burma had found new oil fields and was ascertaining
their quality, noting that a decision would be made by late July.

Indian news reports had said the project had been shelved because Myanmar
was weighing a liquefied natural gas project aimed at East Asia instead.

Myint said, however, than no decision had been taken.

"The main issue is the price and we are ready to sell in any form given we
are offered the right price," he said.

But he did not say what price India had offered.

India's state-run Gas Authority of India Ltd. wanted to pipe natural gas
from Myanmar through India's northeast and had bid on gas from Shwe & Shwe
Phyu fields in A-1 block and Mya field in A-3 block, the Asian Age
reported.

India's state-run ONGC Videsh and GAIL hold a 30 percent stake in A-1 and
A-3. New Delhi wants all the gas from these blocks.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 17, Agence France Presse
South Africa defends vote against UN resolution on Myanmar

Pretoria: South Africa defended Wednesday its decision to vote against a
US-led United Nations Security Council resolution urging democratic reform
in Myanmar, saying the measure went beyond the council's mandate.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said although South Africa was
concerned about human rights violations in Myanmar, the situation there
was not a threat to world peace and therefore did not warrant Security
Council intervention.

"We are deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Myanmar and
will continue to seek the release of opposition leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi.
We will continue to fight for democracy, human rights and freedom in
Myanmar," he told reporters.

China and Russia vetoed Friday a draft UN Security Council resolution
urging Myanmar's rulers to free all political detainees and end sexual
violence by the military, dealing Washington a major setback.

Also opposing the text Friday was South Africa, which early this month
joined the council as a non-permanent member.

"The draft resolution did not fit with the UN charter which limits the
Security Council to dealing with matters posing a threat to world peace,"
Pahad said.

"We hope the (UN) Human Rights Council will take up the matter as others
have to enable us to get peace and democracy in Myanmar. It is interesting
that the regional group ASEAN does not see Myanmar as a threat to peace
and security."

The United Nations has estimated there are 1,100 political prisoners in
Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962 and was formerly
known as Burma.

____________________________________

January 17, National Post (Canada)
RBC defends restrictions on U.S. accounts: Rules prohibit dual citizens
from 'enemy' nations - Allison Hanes

Toronto: Canada's largest bank admitted yesterday it is quietly closing or
refusing to open certain U.S-dollar accounts for Canadians holding dual
citizenship with six countries considered enemies of the United States.

A spokesman for the Royal Bank of Canada said the prohibition is not the
bank's policy but rather its way of applying a raft of strict U.S.
government laws aimed at cutting off sources of terrorist financing and
snuffing out money laundering.

"It's a cost of doing business. We have to do it," said David Moorcroft, a
spokesman for RBC.

"This is a U.S. regulation that exists for their currency to use their
payments and clearing systems. So if you want to use U.S. dollars to make
payments through the U.S. system, you've got to obey their rules."

The restrictions affect Canadian citizens who also carry the passports of
Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba and Burma, also known as Myanmar.

Mr. Moorcroft said the number of accounts closed or refused is "minuscule"
compared with the 600,000 U.S.-dollar accounts RBC provides to Canadian
individuals and businesses -- service that could be jeopardized if it
failed to comply with American requirements.

"The amount of trade that requires payments every day across the borders
is billions of dollars," said Mr. Moorcroft. "If that couldn't take place
in an efficient, effective and quick way it would be terrible.
"We give a very efficient quick service and we're proud to do that."

The RBC restriction also applies only to U.S.-dollar accounts that use the
U.S. banking system, a type of account not all banks in Canada offer.

Payam Eslami, a Montrealer born in Iran, was outraged when he went to his
local Royal Bank branch three weeks ago and told he could not open an
account because of his ties to his homeland-- even though he became a
Canadian citizen as a boy.

A friend who already had a U.S.-dollar account at RBC was told to bring in
her passport, questioned about her dual citizenship, then had her
privileges revoked.

Mr. Eslami, 27,has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights
Commission.

"I am a Canadian citizen. I just want to be treated like all other
Canadian citizens," he said. "We are being told we are second-class
citizens."

Each Canadian bank seems to be applying have its own interpretation of
U.S. laws.

A Scotiabank representative said yesterday dual citizenship with one of
the six blacklisted countries would not necessarily disqualify a client
from opening a U.S. currency account.

"If they have the correct ID, if they fulfill the requirements under know
your customer procedures, if they satisfy the anti-money-laundering
procedures, then we would open the account," said Frank Switzer of
Scotiabank.

TD Canada Trust and BMO Bank of Montreal both denied having any
nationality- based prohibitions.

Thomas Velk, a banking professor and the director of McGill University's
North American Studies program, said the public fails to understand that
even when they have American-dollar accounts through Canadian
institutions, they are really doing their banking in the U.S.

And it is the United States' prerogative to control and protect its
currency - which he said is used in as much as 70% of international
business transactions.

"The demagoguery about the Americans beating us over the head with their
laws is just crock," Prof. Velk said. "When you open an American account
you should not think of it as Royal Bank of Canada, but as the Royal Bank
of New York. Then it would be a lot clearer."

Montreal constitutional rights lawyer Julius Grey said Canada's human
rights laws were founded on cases where minorities were denied equal
treatment to the rest of society. He predicts any court challenge of the
U.S. banking regulation's application in Canada would have a good chance
of succeeding.

A spokesman for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Ottawa has no
jurisdiction over U.S. banking.

"Canadian banking legislation guarantees access to basic banking services
in Canadian dollars to all Canadians," said Eric Richer. "It is up to
Canadian banks to determine themselves how to comply with U.S. law with
respect to their U.S. dollar accounts."

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 17, The Star (Johannesburg, South Africa)
SA Should return the favour - Jared Genser

On 12 January 2007, on a vote of 9-3 with three abstentions, the UN
Security Council rejected a non-punitive resolution seeking to press the
Government of Burma to speed up democratic reforms in that Southeast Asian
nation.  Despite having the requisite nine votes required for the
resolution to be adopted, it failed because of a double-veto by permanent
Council members China and Russia.  Joining these two dissenters was the
curious vote of South Africa.  After the vote, Council members took turns
making public statements explaining their positions.

The impeccably-dressed Permanent Representative of South Africa to the
United Nations leaned forward and spoke forcefully into his microphone as
he addressed the Security Council.  Most fundamentally, he said, the
inclusion of "this item" on the Security Council's agenda does not fit
within the mandate of the UN Charter, which requires the Council only to
consider issues that constitute a threat to international peace and
security and bans the organization from considering matters within the
domestic jurisdiction of a country.

So were these the comments of South Africa's UN Permanent Representative
Dumisani S. Kumalo last week?  Actually, no.  The above description
summarizes the statement of South Africa's then UN Ambassador Brand Fourie
during the first-ever discussion about South Africa held in the UN
Security Council on 1 April 1960.  Despite Mr. Fourie's strong remarks, at
that very same meeting the Security Council adopted a resolution
condemning the South African government's apartheid policies and urging
further action.  With the passage of time, South Africa has apparently
forgotten that this historic first discussion about apartheid in the
Security Council only happened after a group of 30 nations, including the
then-democratic Government of Burma, wrote a letter to the Council in
March 1960 requesting it urgently address the situation there because of
the large-scale killings of unarmed and peaceful demonstrators against
apartheid.

As a teenager growing up outside of Washington, D.C., I attended a number
of rallies protesting apartheid in front of the South African Embassy in
the mid-1980s.  And I was excited at the opportunity to live and work in
South Africa after finishing university in the mid-1990s.  Through these
experiences, I developed a strong affinity for South Africa and grew to
love the country and its people.  As a result, I am profoundly saddened
that a now democratic South African government could so callously provide
support for one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world
today.

So why is South Africa willing to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the
Burmese people?  First, Ambassador Kumalo claimed the country is simply
"not a threat to international peace and security."  A report issued by
former Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Czech Republic President Václav Havel
explains the threat in painstaking detail.

Since 1996, it is estimated that over 2,900 villages have been destroyed
by the military junta in Burma creating over one million refugees who have
fled to neighboring countries.  There are 600,000 internally-displaced
persons in the country who live in appalling jungle conditions.  The
military junta is estimated to have over 800,000 people in forced labour
in the country, systematically uses rape as a weapon of war against ethnic
minority women, and forcibly employs over 70,000 child soldiers.  Burma is
also the number two exporter of heroin and opiates in the world and a
major producer of methamphetamines.  And the country's failure to address
its HIV/AIDS crisis has led to new strains of the disease being spread
along drug routes into China and Thailand.  The cross-border effect of the
situation in Burma is significant and more severe then in many other
circumstances where the Security Council has intervened for the first
time, most notably, back in South Africa in 1960.

Second, Ambassador Kumalo argued the situation in Burma is best left to
the new Human Rights Council and other UN organs.  Surprisingly, he
appears unaware of the history of the UN's attempts to help the Burmese
people.  Over the past 15 years, both the General Assembly and former
Commission on Human Rights adopted a total of 29 resolutions
unsuccessfully urging change in Burma.  It is precisely because of the
severity of the situation and the abject failure of prior UN action that
the situation needs to be addressed by the Security Council.

Lastly, Ambassador Kumalo argued that having the Security Council adopt a
resolution on Burma would compromise the efforts of the "good offices" of
UN Under-Secretary Ibrahim Gambari to achieve national reconciliation in
the country.  While this argument might be reasonable if made by another
country, it isn't from South Africa.  In recent years, South Africa has
voted to kill or has abstained from resolutions in the General Assembly
that established and encouraged the UN's involvement in the national
reconciliation process in Burma.  To now suggest that a Security Council
resolution would interfere with a process South Africa has long opposed is
disingenuous at best.

The world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Burmese
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said to the international
community "please use your liberty to promote ours."  I hope the people of
South Africa tell its government that it should stand in solidarity with
the suffering people of Burma and not with the generals oppressing them.

Jared Genser is a lawyer in Washington, D.C. and a Visiting Fellow at the
National Endowment for Democracy.  This article represents his personal
views.

____________________________________

January 17, The Guardian
UN vetoes prolong Burma agony - Simon Tisdall

Burma's military junta has been crowing this week over the defeat of a US-
and British-backed United Nations security council resolution condemning
the regime's egregious human rights abuses. It is a sickening sound for
millions of oppressed Burmese effectively imprisoned in their own
homeland. And the decisive UN vetoes cast by China and Russia, supported
by South Africa of all countries, have dealt another Darfur-scale setback
to the international community's newly proclaimed "responsibility to
protect".
For once, the Bush administration, democracy and human rights campaigners,
and aid agencies are mostly in the same corner. "The US is deeply
disappointed by the council's failure," said acting UN ambassador
Alejandro Wolff. "The resolution would have been a strong and urgently
needed statement about the need for change in Burma whose military regime
arbitrarily arrests, tortures, rapes and executes its own people and wages
war on minorities within its own borders while refugee flows increase,
narcotics and human trafficking grow, and communicable diseases remain
untreated."

Britain's ambassador, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, said the decision to force a
vote was an attempt to "do the right thing by the people of Myanmar
[Burma]".

Mark Farmaner, of the independent pressure group Burma Campaign UK, said
poverty and humanitarian problems were worsening, especially in ethnic
minority regions targeted by the junta. "Over 20,000 people have been
forced from their homes since government troops began an offensive in the
Karen areas last March. They have been unable to return," he said. New
restrictions were also making foreign aid agency work increasingly
difficult. Burma's average per capita income has been estimated at $175
(£90) a year, much lower even than neighbouring Bangladesh. Child
malnutrition and mortality rates are reportedly rising.

But the UN defeat was a blow, not a knockout punch, Mr Farmaner said. "The
whole process has massively pushed Burma up the international agenda. The
Asean states [Association of South-East Asian Nations] are taking a
stronger line. The UN secretariat is involved. Ibrahim Gambari, the UN
undersecretary general, has been there twice. There has been nothing like
this before." He said there were also signs of strengthening internal
political opposition, notably the 88 Generation Students group's peaceful
"white expression" campaign and a protest petition signed by half a
million people.

In power since 1988, the generals annulled the National League for
Democracy's sweeping 1990 election victory and jailed its leader, the
Nobel peace prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. She remains under house arrest
and more than 1,000 supporters are still in prison. The regime says its is
pursuing a "road map to democracy" but the officially supervised process
is widely derided as a sham. Meanwhile, the junta's leader, Senior General
Than Shwe, continues to defy external pressure for meaningful reform - a
stance now boosted, at least temporarily, by Chinese and Russian vetoes.

China defended its action, arguing that the security council was not the
place to tackle such issues. "The situation in Myanmar does not constitute
a threat to regional and international peace and security [as the US had
argued]," a Beijing statement said. The council was in danger of exceeding
its remit. Russia and South Africa, mindful perhaps of similar US attempts
to pressure Zimbabwe, offered similar excuses. Official Burmese media
hailed their action as a "victory for people who love truth" and a defeat
for "western meddling".

But more obviously self-interested calculations are also in play. China's
growing economic relationship with the junta includes a planned
trans-Burma pipeline from Sittwe, on the Bay of Bengal, to Yunnan province
that will potentially carry all Beijing's Middle East oil imports. China
is also deeply interested in exploiting Burma's large natural gas reserves
and other natural resources. Although it does not like the regime,
Beijing's other overriding priority is stability and border security.

For its part, India would like to curb China's influence in Burma while
maximising its own. Like Russia, it is a significant arms supplier. It,
too, is placing energy, trade and security concerns, notably over
separatist insurgents in Assam state who seek refuge in Burma, before
democracy promotion and human rights.

And when a shared desire by the two emerging Asian superpowers to wipe
America's eye in their own backyard is also factored in, hopes of rescuing
Burma's people from Burma's despots look sickly indeed.

____________________________________

January 18, Philippine Daily Inquirer
The Burmese peoples open heart - Debbie Stothard

As the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations posed for the
traditional group photo at the 12th Asean Summit in Cebu, many must have
been secretly grimacing behind their smiles at the thought of the
troublesome regime in Burma (Myanmar).

While Burma’s ruling military junta dusts off its 10-year-old excuse it is
democratizing step-by-step, the Burmese people have courageously embarked
on a simple quest to communicate with their dictatorship. The Open Heart
campaign has ordinary people writing directly to Senior General Than Shwe
to communicate their grievances. For most of us in the  Asean, writing a
letter may be routine, but for these people, it is a peaceful assertion of
their freedom of expression.  By including their identity details, it is
also an act of defiance because hundreds of people have been jailed in
Myanmar for much lesser acts.

While cynics may claim that people cannot eat democracy, the people of
Burma realize that they are literally being starved by a dictatorship. In
2006, the price of rice rose by 30 percent, even as the military diverted
national funds to acquire new military hardware and to complete a new
state-of-the-art capital. While child malnutrition reached 70 percent in
many regions of the country and 25,000 people were displaced by military
attacks in 2006, Than Shwes daughter was bestowed with gifts worth $50
million at her scandalously extravagant wedding last July.

The Asean must take responsibility for the deteriorating situation in
Burma. By using engagement as a euphemism to   shield the Burmese
government from pressure, the Asean has emboldened it to misbehave
further.

Burma joined the Asean in 1997. At the time, around 210,000 refugees had
fled the country. Now the number is five times higher, more than a million
asylum-seekers have left the country, and another million of its people
are internally displaced. And since then, Burma has acquired the dubious
distinction of being the world’s No. 2 producer of heroin, opium and
amphetamines. Burma now exports annually about 900 million amphetamine
pills to Thailand alone. It is also a net exporter of HIV/AIDS to its
neighbors, making border areas in India and China home to the highest
rates of drug addiction and HIV infection.

Apparently unsatisfied with its notoriety, Burma has gone on to recruit
the worlds largest number of child soldiers   (70,000) and is the only
government in the world still using antipersonnel land mines on a regular
basis, usually against civilians in rural areas. The traditional and
non-traditional threats to regional security are indisputable.

The repression has not just impoverished civilians and lower-ranking
soldiers; it has caused such widespread human tragedy that ordinary people
have been moved to risk detention and further persecution by writing
letters to their dictator. They realize they must speak for themselves
since over 1,000 of those who have done so from charismatic democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi to ethnic, student and labor leaders and
journalists have been gagged and detained.

In the face of this courage, it is startling and disappointing that the
Asean leaders seem to have chosen to  disempower themselves of a peaceful,
political solution to the Burmese problem. The Asean has expressed its
desire to see reforms in Burma and has gone as far as openly expressing
frustration and anger at its government. Unfortunately, Asean leaders seem
to feel that this is all they can do.

Asean leaders know very well that the Burmas so-called roadmap to
democracy hinges on the drafting of a new constitution to guarantee
military dominance over the Parliament and the Cabinet. The drafting
process has excluded 90 percent of the elected legislators and subjected
participants to conditions described by a United Nations expert as a mass
house arrest. In November 2005, ethnic Shan leaders who attempted to
discuss the constitution-drafting process independently were rounded up
and sentenced to between 70 and 106 years in jail!

Asean leaders know that they cannot be jailed or tortured by the Burmese
government for speaking up. They also realize that Burma has treated them
with contempt by abusing their solidarity and severely undermining their
credibility.

The Asean will not be able to earn the respect or get the cooperation of
Burma’s ruling generals unless it is willing to back rhetoric with
leverage. The Asean is in a position, through Indonesia’s seat on the
United Nations Security Council, to compel the regime to deliver genuine
reforms.

Burma is already on the official agenda of the Security Council. What is
needed is a non-punitive resolution. The Asean has the opportunity to
empower itself by engaging in this process. If not for the sake of the
people of Burma, then for its self-respect.

Debbie Stothard is a coordinator of Altsean-Burma (Alternative ASEAN
Network on Burma), a broad regional network of groups and individuals
supporting human rights and democracy in Burma. Stothard, a Malaysian, has
been working on Burmese issues for more than 18 years.