BurmaNet News, April 12, 2007

[Editor]

April 12, 2007 Issue # 3182


INSIDE BURMA
Xinhua: UN organization to help Myanmar monitor Tsunami
Mizzima: EMS opens new offices in Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Myanmar seizes key rebel bases: Thai military

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: China eying Burma as a “conduit” for oil and gas supplies
Mizzima: Indian traders meet Burmese ambassador to expedite trade

REGIONAL
AP: WWF says Myanmar hydro project will destroy Asia's Salween River
DVB: Security still tight for Burma’s PM in Singapore hospital

INTERNATIONAL
The Hankyoreh (South Korea): Myanmar, NK set for talks to normalize relations

INTERVIEW
DVB via BBC: International labour body official interviewed over agreement
with Burma

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 12, Xinhua General News Service
UN organization to help Myanmar monitor Tsunami

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(ESCAP) will help Myanmar develop an early warning system for Tsunami and
other natural disasters, said the English-language local Weekly Myanmar
Times pre-published on Thursday.

The ESCAP will set up two seismograph stations and two sea- level
measurement stations for the purpose, the state-operated Meteorology and
Hydrology Department (MHD) was quoted as saying.

The ESCAP's decision to fund Myanmar for setting up the warning facilities
is based on the fact that the region around Bangladesh and western
Myanmar's Rakhine coastal area is susceptible to earthquake and tsunami, a
MHD official said.

Tsunami data from the regional early warning center, already set up in the
Indian Ocean, will be received by Myanmar's early warning center through
global telecommunications system, said experts.

In early 2005, in a bid to strengthen its tsunami warning system, Myanmar
also set up a national committee for natural disaster prevention and
resettlement that involves many ministries.

Myanmar was not much affected by Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami that smashed across
the Indian Ocean, compared with other South and Southeast Asian nations.

Meanwhile, the MHD is also strengthening its public information work about
natural disaster and climate change by planning to produce a series of
documentaries to raise public awareness against such unpredictable mishap.

____________________________________

April 12, Mizzima News
EMS opens new offices in Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay - Ko Dee

On the orders of the military government, Burma 's Ministry of
Communications, Posts and Telegraphs have extended international express
mail services to the new jungle capital of Nay Pyi Taw and the second
largest city of Mandalay.

As part of the government's drive to move all departments to the new
capital, the EMS on April 2, inaugurated a branch office in Nay Pyi Taw
and Mandalay, an official at Rangoon's EMS office told Mizzima over
telephone.

"We are not sure of customers' demand but since we are under the
telecommunication department, we have to open in keeping with orders,"
said the official who requested anonymity.

"Now that the services are extended, people from Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay
can directly access other countries. But we will still handle incoming
mail from Rangoon," the official said, adding that the service charges
will depend on the distance and are to be paid in foreign exchange.

The EMS is likely to extend services to other parts of the country if the
current extensions prove successful, the official further explained.

EMS International said it had expanded services to 32 more countries in
July last year adding that the total number of countries to where the EMS
International is accessible is 62.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 12, Agence France Presse
Myanmar seizes key rebel bases: Thai military

Chiang Mai: Pro-government forces in Myanmar have seized four key ethnic
Karen rebel bases, after several days of fierce fighting near the Thai
border, Thai military officials said Thursday.

Myanmar's military and a pro-government militia seized the Karen National
Union bases after nearly a week of fighting that saw mortar and other
artillery being fired near the Thai border, said Colonel Kasem Tanaporn, a
Thai border official.

A few shells landed on the Thai side of the border, but no one was
injured, he said.

Some 300 people had crossed into Thailand during the week to escape the
fighting, but most had returned once the violence ended Wednesday, said
Phumchai Tapankaew, leader of a Thai district along the border.

Myanmar military analyst Win Min said that one of the bases was the
headquarters of KNU's Brigade 7, one of the most important of the rebels'
seven brigades because it controlled key border crossing points to allow
forces to slip in and out of the country.

"Compared to other brigades, Brigade 7 is not the strongest, but it's a
big area for ceremonies and border crossings," he said.

The brigade's leader, General Htain Maung, surrendered to Myanmar in
February along with 300 fighters.

"That's the main reason that they lost, because he knew the area very
well," Win Min said of the military's latest conquests.

The KNU is the largest rebel group fighting Myanmar's armed forces and one
of the few remaining ethnic insurgent groups yet to sign a peace deal with
the junta.

Myanmar, under military rule since 1962, has signed ceasefires with 17
other ethnic armed groups.

Up to 150,000 Karen refugees already live in camps along Thailand's border
with Myanmar. Many of them have been there for more than 20 years.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 12, Irrawaddy
China eying Burma as a “conduit” for oil and gas supplies - William Boot

China could end up paying the Burmese junta the huge sum of US $9 billion
as “rent” for building oil and gas pipelines across the country. The money
would not be all paid up front of course, but nevertheless at a
comfortable annual stipend of around $300 million.

Half of this sum would be for using Burma as a short-cut conduit for
shipping oil from the Middle East and Africa to China’s energy-hungry
southwest provinces. The other half would be for piping Burma’s own gas
from the Shwe offshore fields in the Bay of Bengal—assuming Beijing beats
the other secret auction contenders for the gas sale, as increasingly
seems likely.

These pipeline fees are mere small change, however, when compared with the
money changing hands for tapping Burma’s huge known stocks of offshore
gas. Gas in the Shwe fields alone is estimated by various industry sources
to be worth $12 billion, depending on how much the state agency MOGE,
Myanmar Gas and Oil Enterprise, can negotiate in the auction currently
under way, involving at least five countries.

Global gas prices have risen sharply on the back of oil price surges, and
the longer the 200 billion cubic meters in  the Shwe fields remain locked
up, the better the deal for the generals.

Separately, Thailand pays the junta about $1 billion a year for the gas it
exploits beneath Burma’s section of the Andaman Sea. Thailand is currently
importing about 32 million cubic meters a day to fuel over two thirds of
the Thai power plants.

These figures illustrate not only how rich Burma’s economy should be, but
also how brightly illuminated the country could be from its abundant
energy resources. Instead, Burma is one of Asia’s most electricity-starved
countries—second only to Laos in terms of an integrated power grid.

“It is hard to believe that a country as energy-rich as Burma has so
little electricity,” said Bangkok-based independent commodities consultant
Juergen Hartz.  “I wonder how many people realize that Burma’s 55 million
or so people have to make do with less than 7 percent of the electricity
which its neighbor Thailand, with a population of 60 million, uses each
year.

“Put into generating capacity figures, that’s 1,800 megawatts, compared
with Thailand’s 26,000 megawatts. The whole of Burma doesn’t produce
enough electricity to run the air conditioners in Bangkok.”

Many businesses across Burma, from small supply shops to hotels, have to
operate their own generators, which not only increase costs but create
noise and rising levels of pollution from diesel machinery often old and
poorly maintained.

Ironically, Burma has to import much of its diesel fuel because domestic
onshore oil fields are either exhausted or too badly equipped to function
efficiently.

“It does not take a lot of imagination to quantify the benefits of having
an adequate and reliable electricity supply,” said an officer at the UN
Development Programme in Bangkok, who spoke off the record. “However, in
Burma’s case the acute shortage of power right across such a large,
populated country is damaging to all forms of development, economically,
educationally and in health terms.”

In spite of attempts by some Western countries to isolate the Burmese
regime as a means of persuading it to liberalize, at least 15 companies
from eight countries are currently engaged in exploratory drillings in
Burma for oil as well as more gas, both onshore and offshore.

Burma’s rivers also offer considerable opportunities for generating large
volumes of electricity, as the brightly illuminated new capital of
Naypyidaw attests. Its electricity is supplied by a small hydrodam
project.

Two massive hydroelectric schemes are now planned for the Salween River in
eastern Burma, but the bulk of the nearly 10,000 megawatts they are
expected to generate—more than five times what the Burmese currently
use—will be sold to Thailand and China at undisclosed prices. Chinese and
Thai money is funding the projects.

Consultant Hartz adds: “One cannot avoid the suspicion that the generals
running Burma have two motives in mind, not one, to steal the income from
the energy resources to keep comfortably in power with a well-armed
military, but also to deliberately keep the mass of the population poor
and in the dark.”

____________________________________

April 12, Mizzima News
Indian traders meet Burmese ambassador to expedite trade - Subhaschandra M

Indian Trade bodies have urged the Burmese ambassador in India to clear
all official impediments to expedite and enhance Indo-Burma trade
cooperation.

The appraisal was made when top representatives of Mumbai-based
Indo-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Shillong-based North East
Federation of International Trade (NEFIT) and other trade bodies called on
the ambassador Kyi Thein at the latter's official residence in New Delhi
on Monday.

According to NEFIT functionaries, representatives of the Indian trade
bodies impressed upon the Burmese Ambassador on the urgent need to clear
all official obstacles so as to expedite and enhance trade between the two
countries.

The trade bodies also urged Kyi Thien to visit North Eastern border
states, including Assam, close to the international boundary to identify
the potential of integrated linkage for promotion of border trade.

The Indian delegation focused on promoting cross-border tourism through
the land route via Tamu in Burma and its opposite Indian town Moreh as
entry and exit points.

Moreover, discussions during the informal meeting also stressed on
production or screening of a documentary film, 'Erasing Boundary' to
create mass awareness on problems and prospects of international trade as
well as speedy development of infrastructure to sustain trade and tourism
momentum.

Meanwhile, Indian traders' representatives wanted the Government of India
to set up immigration counters at the Moreh border. They said that
patients from Burma were interested to come to North-east for treatment
now that the military junta has allowed travel by road.

G.L.Goenka from the Chamber of Commerce, at a session at the 3rd North
East Business Summit in Delhi said that India can expect about a million
Buddhist tourists as well.

India's Secretary Tourism Ashok Mishra said that it was feasible and his
Ministry may recommend setting up of an Immigration outpost to the
Ministry of Home Affairs, sources from Manipur information centre New
Delhi said.

The Government was also asked to change the policy about maintaining the
list of items for trade through Moreh.

The list of 22 items has failed to live up to expectations and trade
during the last five to six years has dwindled, an official posted at the
Moreh border told the Summit.

The list should be thrown open and a small list of negative items has to
be maintained, officials were told.

Manipur Governor Dr. SS Sidhu has described the North East Region as one
of the finest ethno-cultural mosaics in the world while speaking on
'Investing in the North East: The crucial question of air connectivity in
the plenary session of the Summit here with the Union minister of DoNER
Mani Shankar Aiyar in the chair.

The most interesting moment came, when Mani Shanker Aiyar taking a cue
from a question from the audience, asked the officials of the Ministry of
External Affairs to explain the rationale behind keeping the borders with
neighbouring countries sealed.

"The whole area has been locked up on security ground. Is our policy of
'Look East' going to be dictated by security concerns or commercial and
economic interest," Aiyar asked. Adding further, he said most of the
States in the North-east have zero export because of the policy of
blocking of blocking the international border with countries like Burma.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

April 12, Associated Press
WWF says Myanmar hydro project will destroy Asia's Salween River - Michael
Casey

Tens of thousands of villagers could be displaced and a fragile ecosystem
destroyed by a hydropower project on northeastern Myanmar's Salween River,
an international conservation group said Thursday.

Construction began earlier this year on the Ta Sang hydropower plant,
which includes a dam, in a joint venture between Myanmar's government and
Thai power producer MDX Group.

It is unclear when it will be finished.

WWF claims damming the Salween, one of Southeast Asia's last untamed
rivers, will "displace and negatively impact upon tens of thousands of
poor and marginalized people from ethnic minorities in that country."

"The Salween is the only free-flowing river linking the Himalayan glaciers
to the coastline of the Andaman Sea," said a statement from Robert Mather
of the WWF's Living Mekong Program.

"We are destroying the Salween before we even know what we're losing,"
Mather said. "From what little we do know about its large number of
endemic fish species and abundance of freshwater turtles, we can conclude
it is likely to be globally exceptional."

A Myanmar government spokesman, Ye Htut, said the dam site is in a remote
area and "very few people will need to be relocated for the hydro
project."

"The Myanmar government will use every means to limit (the) environmental
effect," he said by e-mail. "But we should not forget that industrialized
countries have caused more damage to the environment then developing
countries and have given very little assistance to environmental
conservation works in developing countries."

A spokesman for MDX could not be immediately reached for comment.

Local environmental groups have said damming the Salween, called the
Thanlwin in Myanmar, would degrade one of the area a UNESCO World Heritage
Site.

The government and DMX in April 2006 signed a US$6 billion (euro5 billion)
agreement to build the 7,110-megawatt plant about 480 kilometers (300
miles) northeast of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon.

Most electricity from the project will be sold to neighboring Thailand.
Myanmar, which faces constant power shortages, will get an unspecified
amount of free electricity.

The dam project is one of several planned on the Salween over the next 15
years.

Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding this month with two Chinese
firms to build a second hydropower plant on the river. It is unclear when
construction would start.

WWF and other groups have urged Thailand to better manage its energy needs
and invest in wind and biomass projects within its borders, rather than
hydropower.

"It seems more reasonable for Thailand to rely on its own reserves of
natural gas for energy security, than to be dependent on imports of
electricity from a neighboring country with a high degree of political
uncertainty," Kraisak Choonavan, a former Thai senator, said in a
statement.

Military-ruled Myanmar has drawn international criticism for stifling
democracy and its poor human rights record. It has also long faced
insurgencies among ethnic groups.

____________________________________

April 11, Democratic Voice of Burma
Security still tight for Burma’s PM in Singapore hospital

Security around Burmese prime minister general Soe Win in Singapore
General Hospital remains tight after more than two months of treatment,
according to eyewitnesses.

“He is being guarded while he is receiving his treatment. Today,
photography was banned at the hospital. While there are two or three gates
to the hospital they didn’t allow us in and forced us out. The Singaporean
government is reportedly taking charge of this security,” an eyewitness
said.

Reports on Soe Win’s hospitalisation first emerged last month when Burmese
embassy staff in Singapore told news agencies that the prime minister was
suffering from a serious undisclosed illness.

Staff at the embassy refused to comment this week when contacted by DVB
reporters. Hospital staff have also refused to comment on Soe Win’s
condition.

In an apparent attempt to curb rumours of Soe Win’s declining health,
Burma’s official state press has released several messages from the prime
minister during his time in hospital.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 8, The Hankyoreh (South Korea)
Myanmar, NK set for talks to normalize relations

Countries broke off relations after bloody 1983 assassination attempt in
S.E. Asian nation's capital

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Young-il will visit Myanmar (Burma)
late this month and hold talks to normalize diplomatic ties between the
two nations, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported on April 8, citing an
official at the Myanmar government. Myanmar cut off its diplomatic
relationship with North Korea after a 1983 bombing in Yangon (Rangoon).

North Korean agents were believed to carry out a bomb attack on a South
Korean government delegation to Yangon in 1983, part of an alleged attempt
to assassinate then South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, who was visiting
at the time. The attack killed 17 South Korean officials, including four
ministers.

At that time, then Burma government cut the diplomatic ties with North
Korea, accusing Pyongyang of masterminding the attack. North Korea still
denies involvement.

North Korea, which asked the U.S. to remove it from the list of nations
that sponsors terrorism, is aggressively taking steps to normalize ties
with Myanmar in order to resolve the 1983 Yangon bombing, which is one of
main reasons for the U.S. to keep North Korea on the list, according to
the newspaper.

In 2006, North Korea and Myanmar, two of the most isolated nations in the
world, reportedly agreed to normalize ties in principle and set out
preliminary terms at working-level meetings. However, as North Korea
tested a salvo of missiles last July and a nuclear device last October,
Myanmar suspended the procedure.

China's aggressive urging on the matter is one of the main reasons Myanmar
has agreed to resume efforts to normalize ties with North Korea, the
newspaper reported. For Myanmar's military government, which is targeted
by human rights groups as one of the harshest suppressors of democracy, a
recovery in diplomatic relations with North Korea would help it feel less
isolated, the newspaper said.

____________________________________
INTERVIEW

April 12, Democratic Voice of Burma via BBC
International labour body official interviewed over agreement with Burma

Since the Burmese military government has agreed not to take action
against people who complain about forced labour practices to the
International Labour Organization (ILO), the people should be taking full
advantage of the good opportunity, said the official in charge of the ILO
Branch Office in Rangoon today.

The official, Richard Horsey, made the comment when he was asked about the
progress made in the six weeks following the agreement between the ILO and
the military government.

Here is the interview with Richard Horsey. The first question we asked him
was about the report this week by the Weekly Eleven Journal that the ILO
had received over 50 letters of complaint:

[Begin recording] [All replies in English fading into Burmese translation]
[Horsey] That sounds very strange. No, I have not seen this article and I
do not know anything about it. But in the last report I released at the
ILO Conference, which you have already seen, I think, I mentioned only
four complaints. If I receive any more complaints I will present them at
the next conference in June.

[DVB] In the same agreement, it was mentioned that the ILO Branch Office
will be permitted to appoint additional staff. How does that stand now?

[Horsey] Well, as you know this was the conclusion of the Governing Body,
that the ILO should assign more international staff, and, we are
proceeding according to that decision.

[DVB] Another point mentioned is that you, Mr Horsey, would be allowed to
travel anywhere without restrictions. Do you have any difficulty in doing
so?

[Horsey] According to the agreement, I am free to travel. And, up till
now, this has been fine. I have no problems travelling.

[DVB] You will probably recall that while you were meeting in Geneva, U
Nyunt Maung Shein announced that two government employees had been given
six month prison sentences each in connection with forced labour
practices. When we enquired about the case, we found out that the two
persons jailed were merely two members of the ward peace and development
council and the senior official who had given the order was not included.
The villagers are saying that they are not happy about the fact that the
actual guilty party was not punished. What do you have to say about it?

[Horsey] Well, you know what I can say is that I cannot discuss about
individual cases. I am responsible for maintaining confidentiality of
individual cases. So, I cannot give any definitive answer about the case.
But, what I can say at this stage is that I will be including the
criticisms connected to the punishment in the new report that I will be
preparing.

[DVB] If someone wants to complain to you, say either because they are
dissatisfied with some sort of punishment or because they are being
victims of forced labour, do they have to come to your Rangoon office in
person to file the complaint or how do they go about it?

[Horsey] There are many means to filing complaints. They can get in touch
with me directly or through other means. The main thing is to get the
complaint to me.

[DVB] You always decline to give an answer every time we ask you what you
would like to tell the victims of forced labour so that they will be brave
enough to file a complaint. But, this time, the military government has
already said that it will not take any action, so what is your suggestion
this time?

[Horsey] Well, what I can say is that there is now an agreement since the
26th of February between ILO and the government and under this agreement,
anybody who has been a victim of forced labour can lodge a complaint with
us. We will investigate into any complaint that we receive. What I would
like to say is that anyone who files a complaint will not face any action
from the authorities regardless of whether the complaint is true or not.
This will be a good time to make use of the opportunities available. [End
recording]

That was an interview with Richard Horsey, official in charge of the ILO
Office in Rangoon, about the developments in the six weeks following an
agreement between the ILO and the military government, including the
punishment of wrong officials over forced labour practices in Aunglan
region.