BurmaNet News, October 4, 2007

[Editor]

October 4, 2007 Issue # 3311

INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar junta chief willing to meet Suu Kyi if she drops demands
DVB: PMLC calls for nationwide prayer meetings
Irrawaddy: Overnight arrests of monks continue in Rangoon
DVB: Civilians and monks arrested in Arakan state and Magwe division
AP: Myanmar media lashes out at foreigners
Irrawaddy: Christians in Burma pray for peace and release of detainees
IHT: Suppression up close, courtesy of the Internet
AP: Bloggers take Myanmar protests into cyberspace with Free Burma action
after crackdown

ON THE BORDER
AP: Burma's ethnic minorities endure decades of brutality

BUSINESS / TRADE
San Francisco Chronicle: Rights groups press Chevron to leave Burma

REGIONAL
Asia Times: China's media cautious on Myanmar
AP: Journalist body returns from Myanmar as Japan prepares to cut aid over
his fatal
Mizzima News: Junta accused of destroying Buddhist religion by 300 monks
in Bodhgaya

INTERNATIONAL
AP: UN chief says envoy's trip not a success
AP: China says UN envoy's meeting with Burmese leaders was a "positive"
AFP: Buddhists worldwide back Myanmar's monks
AFP: US senators jab China, India over Myanmar unrest
DPA: Defected Myanmar officer meets Norwegian diplomats
DVB: Global day of action on Burma planned for 6 October
DVB: Australian government rejects Burmese ambassador

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Cloud of pessimism hangs over Burma - Aung Zaw
The Australian: Jail just part of a journo's job in Burma

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 4, Agence France Presse
Myanmar junta chief willing to meet Suu Kyi if she drops demands

Myanmar's junta chief would be willing to meet opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi if she meets major preconditions including ending her support for
sanctions on the regime, state media said Thursday.

The announcement came as the junta announced that more than 2,000 people
were arrested during its deadly crackdown on anti-government protests
during the last week, acknowledging that some of the detainees were simply
bystanders.

Myanmar's Senior General Than Shwe made the offer to meet with the
detained Nobel Peace Prize winner during his talks Tuesday with UN special
envoy Ibrahim Gambari, state television reported.

However, his offer was contingent on Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held
under house arrest for more than a decade, making a series of concessions
that made any hope of talks appear a distant possibility.

"Senior General Than Shwe said during his meeting with Mr. Gambari that
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been promoting four things -- confrontation,
utter devastation, economic sanctions on Myanmar, and other sanctions,"
state television said.

"Then he passed his message that he would meet directly with her for
dialogue if she announces that she has given up these four things," it
added.

Myanmar again accused foreign media of stoking the protests that drew
100,000 people into the streets of Yangon on successive days last week.

"The United Nations had to send Mr. Gambari because of the one-sided
reporting of the foreign media," state television said.

Myanmar also made its first public account of the arrests in its crackdown
that left at least 13 dead as security forces used baton charges, tear
gas, and live weapons fire to break up the peaceful protests last week.

A total of 2,093 people were arrested since September 25, but 692 have
already been released, state television said.

The number includes protesters, their supporters, but also simple
bystanders who have all been accused of violating a ban on gatherings of
more than five people, state television announced.

"The government ordered people not to gather as a precaution, but people
gathered anyway," it said.

The protests were the greatest challenge in nearly two decades to the
military, which has ruled the country also known as Burma for 45 years.

The crackdown has continued despite the international community increasing
the pressure on the military, with Gambari due to brief Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon later Thursday about his four-day mission here.

"They have a curfew in place and every night they arrest people," said
Shari Villarosa, the chief US diplomat here, adding that the embassy
believes the death toll is far higher than confirmed by the regime.

While a semblance of normality has returned during daytime, long-simmering
discontent had been "heightened by anger by what has been done against the
demonstrators, the atrocities that have been committed against the monks,"
she said.

Most Yangon monasteries seem empty, leaving neighbours to wonder if the
monks have been arrested, injured or worse.

Activists who sent photos and video of the protests around the world have
now found those weapons turned against them. Security forces also recorded
the protests, apparently using the images to hunt down more activists.

Myanmar on Thursday released a 38-year-old local UN staff member, her two
relatives and driver, a day after they were detained, the UN's country
chief Charles Petrie said.

China, which has in the past blocked steps to punish Myanmar, praised the
UN mediation efforts and called for calm.

"We are pleased with the results achieved by Gambari's visit," said a
Chinese government statement without specifying what those results were.

On Saturday, supporters of the pro-democracy movement are set to join a
global day of protest called by Amnesty International, HRW and other
groups.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
PMLC calls for nationwide prayer meetings

A statement issued by the People’s Movement Leader Committee has called
for nationwide prayer meetings to honour those who were killed in the
recent protests.

PMLC was formed on 27 September and is comprised of a number of Burmese
groups including the All-Burmese Monks Alliance, the 88 Generation
Students and the Ethnic Youth Cooperation Group.

The statement calls on monks, students and civilians of all religions and
ethnic groups to gather at their own places of worship from 5 October to 7
October to light candles and observe a period of silent prayer. Buddhists
are also asked to raise sangha flags at their houses and monasteries.

“[The prayer meetings will] mark our great sorrow for the monks, students
and civilian martyrs who sacrificed their lives, under the inhumane
torturing and ruthless murdering of a handful of dictators, during the
movement to bring us national independence,” the statement says.

Guidance for prayer is also given, asking people to pray for Burma’s
freedom from suppression and the release of those detained.

“We vow to completely wipe the military dictatorship out of our new
society's history to fulfil the wish of those who have died and wanted
democracy, equality and independence,” the guidance concludes.

____________________________________

October 4, Irrawaddy
Overnight arrests of monks continue in Rangoon - Wai Moe

Five monasteries were raided in Rangoon and about 36 monks were arrested
overnight on Wednesday, after receiving beatings from soldiers.

Burmese soldiers patrol the streets in downtown Rangoon [Photo: AFP]
“They (soldiers) came and searched for monks on their lists,” a monk told
The Irrawaddy. The soldiers had photographs of monks, and if they found a
monk who was in a photograph, they arrested all the monks in the
monastery, said the monk.

Raided monasteries included Shwetaungpaw, Dhammazaya and Sandilayama
monasteries in South Okkalapa Township and Zayawaddy and Pannitayama in
North Okkalapa Township. Two mobile telephones that belonged to monks were
also seized by troops, said the source.
The raids in the North Okkalapa monasteries started around 10 p.m. and
ended in early morning, said Nilar Thein, a leader of the 88 Generation
Students group.

“Monks requested soldiers not to use violent acts on them. But soldiers
neglected their requests.” she said.

The raids on monasteries in South Okkalapa Township began at midnight and
ended at dawn. Everyone in the monasteries, including laymen, women and
children, were taken away.

Security forces also entered a monastery at Chauk Htat Gyee Pagoda in
Rangoon searching for specific monks.

At Maggin Monastery in Rangoon, authorities took photographs of HIV
positive laypeople that are housed at the monastery and questioned them
regarding interviews with a foreign radio station.

Sometimes arrests are like “kidnappings,” said one source, because
soldiers might ask for up to 200,000 kyat (about US $130) for the release
of unimportant detainees.

Overnight raids on monasteries began on September 26, the day the junta
started its crackdown on peaceful protesters.

“I also heard some monks under detention at GTI (the Government Technology
Institute) died,” said a Rangoon resident.

Soldiers are also looking for people who provided water or food to monks
during the mass protests, said one source.

Also on Wednesday night, soldiers, searching for information, entered the
home of a prominent former student leader, Min Ko Naing, who is under
arrest.

In Taungdwingyi in central Burma, three men, Aung Ko, Kyaw Naing and Bo
Ni, were arrested around midnight on Wednesday. All are members of the
National League for Democracy.

According to Rangoon residents, security checkpoints are still scattered
around the city. Soldiers stop and search civilians, particularly young
people who carry bags.

Dissidents in Rangoon estimate there are 1,200 monks detained among an
estimated 3,000 people arrested during the mass protests in Burma.

Monks are currently detained in Insein Prison, the Government Technology
Institute and Kyaikkasan Stadium in Rangoon. Many monasteries in Rangoon
remain locked up, and monks are unable to go out for alms, say Rangoon
residents.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Civilians and monks arrested in Arakan state and Magwe division

Fifty people have been arrested in Sittwe and another 50 in Pakokku, as
well as an unknown number of monks, as Burmese security forces continue to
crack down on public dissent.

At least 50 people in Arakan's capital Sittwe have been arrested so far by
authorities in connection with recent protests against government
harassment, said residents.

A large number of monks, who had been ordered by the Ministry of Religious
Affairs to return to their villages, were also arrested on their way home
for failing to show their travel documents. The exact number of monks
detained is not known.

In Magwe division’s Pakokku township about 50 people, including a people's
parliament representative, were arrested yesterday by authorities.

Pakokku residents told DVB that police officials had made the arrests at
around 1pm yesterday from several different places for an unknown reason.
Among those detained were Pakokku people's parliament representative U
Hlaing Aye, National League for Democracy member Ko Tin Nyunt, and
84-year-old U Ba Min, who has been suffering from heart problems and
hypertension and has difficulty walking.

Residents also said monks are in fear of troops raiding monasteries and
arresting them and have been forced to take turns guarding the monasteries
at night. Some monks who have left their monasteries to return to their
villages have been arrested at bus stations.

Pakokku authorities have also arrested several township NLD party members
over the past week, including U Pike Ko of the NLD organizing committee.

____________________________________

October 4, Associated Press
Myanmar media lashes out at foreigners

Myanmar's military rulers on Thursday accused foreign governments of
trying to destroy the country, while soldiers carried out more overnight
raids to arrest people suspected of joining a pro-democracy uprising.

Soldiers maintained a visible presence on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar's
biggest city, where an eerie quiet has returned after last week's deadly
crackdown on the biggest anti-government rebellion in nearly two decades.

About 200 riot police were posted near the lakeside home of democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi, two dozen inside her compound and two patrol
boats watching from the water.

With Internet access to the outside world blocked, state-controlled
newspapers churned out the government's version of the crisis and filled
pages with propaganda slogans, such as "We favor stability. We favor
peace," and "We oppose unrest and violence."

Critics from the international community and foreign media were dismissed
as "liars attempting to destroy the nation" one of many bold-faced slogans
covering The New Light of Myanmar newspaper's back page Thursday.

Propaganda is routine in Myanmar, but the media attack on foreigners could
be a sign the junta is trying to show citizens it is back in control of
the country.

State-run newspapers made no mention of Buddhist monks being detained or
of soldiers dragging people from their homes in nighttime raids.

Instead, coverage was devoted to pro-government rallies that have been
held in stadiums around the country in recent days, such as one in the
southeastern town of Myiek that New Light of Myanmar said was attended by
36,000 people.

Critics say the rallies are shams, filled with people ordered to attend by
authorities.

Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price
increase, then grew when monks took the lead last month. But the military
crushed the protests with gunfire, tear gas and clubs starting on Sept.
26. The government said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put
the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including
thousands of monks.

The body of a Japanese journalist killed in the crackdown was brought back
to Japan on Thursday. Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tokyo
was preparing to suspend aid to Myanmar in response.

A foreign aid worker said his staff told him that soldiers are continuing
to raid homes at night to arrest people who took part in the
demonstrations. Neighbors are alerting each other if they see troops
coming, he said.

A U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband,
brother-in-law and driver were freed Thursday, a day after being arrested,
said Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Myanmar. He did not
give details.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday in New York that his
special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, had delivered "the strongest
possible message" to country's military leaders about their bloody
crackdown on democracy activists, but added that he could not call his
four-day trip a success.

Gambari met with Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi twice and with the junta's
leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, and his deputies before leaving the country
Tuesday. He is expected to brief Ban about his trip Thursday, then Ban
will discuss Myanmar with the Security Council on Friday.

China, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and a close
ally of Myanmar, praised the meeting between Than Shwe and Gambari, and
appealed to all parties in the country to remain calm and resume stability
"as soon as possible."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijing has "made its
own efforts to support Ban and his Myanmar special envoy's negotiations."
It did not elaborate.

China, Myanmar's biggest trading partner, has developed close diplomatic
ties with junta leaders and is hungry for the country's bountiful oil and
gas resources. But with the Beijing Olympics only months away, China wants
to fend off criticism it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes around the
world.

Despite its appearance of control, the junta's grip may weaken over time,
an analyst said.

"Maybe the government can control this for the next weeks, months, maybe a
year or so," said David Steinberg, a Myanmar expert at Georgetown
University.

"But eventually there will be some spark that will set things off and they
(the people) will become more and more violent over time," he said in an
interview in Singapore.

For now, the people who took part in the protests say they're too afraid
to return to the streets.

One 29-year-old in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
being identified, said he had joined the protests but stopped after seeing
plainclothes security agents taking his picture. Now he wonders if there's
any hope for change.

"If the United Nations can't do anything, we will have big difficulties
overcoming our present situation," he said.

Some of the world's best-known novelists, poets and artists of Asian
heritage called on the junta to stop its repressive campaign and release
political prisoners. Thirty artists signed an "open letter to Burma," as
the country was previously called, that condemned the bloody crackdown.

Thousands of bloggers from at least 45 nations joined a cyberspace protest
of the junta Thursday by posting "Free Burma" banners on their pages,
according to the drive's Web site.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to
power after snuffing out a 1988 pro-democracy movement against the
previous military dictatorship, killing at least 3,000 people in process.

The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when
Suu Kyi's party won. The opposition leader has spent nearly 12 of the last
18 years under house arrest.

____________________________________

October 4, Irrawaddy
Christians in Burma pray for peace and release of detainees - Saw Yan Naing

Thousands of Christians began a fast throughout Burma on Wednesday to pray
for the release of arrested pro-democracy protesters and for peace to
prevail in Burma.

A local resident in Myitkyina, in upper Burma’s Kachin State, said about
6,000 people from 57 parishes in the Myitkyina region were participating
in the fast from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. in various churches. Collections were
taken for the relief of needy people.

“They pray for a change of mind by the Burmese military leaders,” he said.

Pastors of some churches were reported to have condemned the junta for its
violent crackdown on dissension.

Other fasts were being held in Bamaw, Lashio, Moekaung, Mohnyin, Kengtung,
and in Rangoon and Mandalay divisions.

The fasts were organized by members of the Myitkyina-based Kachin Baptist
Convention.

The Kachin Independence Organization, the biggest ethnic Kachin ceasefire
group, which signed a truce with the Burmese military junta in February
1994, had no comment to make on the fast, a KIO official.

____________________________________

October 4, International Herald Tribune
Suppression up close, courtesy of the Internet - Seth Mydans

It used to be easier: Close the borders, set up roadblocks, stop the
trains, cut telephone lines, and then crack down on your people with
impunity. This is what the military in the former Burma did when it
crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

Last week, when the generals began attacking Buddhist monks and their
supporters in the streets of Myanmar, they discovered that the world had
changed. People were watching.

The junta had come face to face with a revolution in the technology of
resistance in which a guerrilla army of citizen reporters was transmitting
videos, photographs and news reports over the Internet even as events were
unfolding.

The images made their way onto television screens and into newspapers and
the world was flooded with scenes of tens of thousands of red-robed monks
in the streets and of chaos and violence as the junta stamped out the
biggest popular uprising in two decades.

The old technology of guns and clubs had been ensnared by the immediacy of
electronic communication in a way the world had never seen.

''For those of us who study the history of communication technology, this
is of equal importance to the telegraph, which was the first medium that
separated communications and transportation,'' said Frank Moretti,
executive director of the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and
Learning in New York.

And this is only the beginning of the revolution, said Mitchell Stephens,
a journalism professor at New York University and the author of ''A
History of News.''

''There are fewer and fewer events that we don't have film images of. The
world is filled with Zapruders,'' he said, referring to Abraham Zapruder,
an onlooker who was the one person who filmed the assassination of John F.
Kennedy in 1963.

On Sept. 22, when monks gathered at the gate of the opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, who had not been seen in public for four years, one of them
held up a mobile telephone camera and captured her image behind the shaved
heads of the men in front of him. Last week, when a soldier shot and
killed a Japanese video journalist, Kenji Nagai, someone high in a
building filmed the scene.

And then, in one of the most heavily censored countries in the world,
people found ways to get these words and pictures out.

They sent SMS text messages and e-mails and posted daily blogs, according
to some of the exile groups that received their messages. They posted
notices on Facebook, the online social networking Web site. They sent tiny
messages on e-cards. They updated the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

They also used Internet versions of ''pigeons'' - the couriers reporters
used in the past to carry out film and news - handing their material to
embassies or nongovernmental organizations that had access to satellite
connections.

Just as important, these images and reports were broadcast back into
Myanmar by foreign radio and television stations, informing and connecting
a public that receives only propaganda reports from its government.

And then, on Friday, the flow of images stopped.

''Burma is blacked out!'' wrote a blogger called Dathana, who had been one
source of information for the outside world. It was the last message he
sent.

Using technology in as heavy-handed a way as it had used truncheons, the
junta simply closed down the nation's two Internet providers.

In keeping with the country's self-imposed isolation over the past
half-century, it cut itself off from the virtual world just as it had from
the world at large.

Most overseas cellphone communications and land lines were severed or
hampered as well, and soldiers on the streets confiscated cameras and
video-telephones.

''Finally they realized that this was their biggest enemy, and they took
it down,'' said Aung Zaw, editor of an exile magazine called Irrawaddy
whose Web site has been a leading source of news over the past weeks.

His Web site has been attacked by a virus whose timing raises the
possibility that the military government has a few skilled hackers in its
ranks.

At the same time, the junta turned to the oldest tactic of all to shut off
information - fear.

Local journalists and people caught transmitting information or using
cameras are being threatened and arrested, exile organizations said.

In one final, hurried telephone call, Aung Zaw said, one of his longtime
sources said goodbye.

''We have done enough,'' he said the source told him. ''We can no longer
move around, it is over to you, we cannot do anything anymore. We are
down. We are hunted by soldiers, we are down.''

And yet in the battle for the soul of their country and for the support of
the world, the junta is losing even as it wins, said Xiao Qiang, director
of the China Internet Project and an adjunct professor at the Graduate
School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.

''By shutting down the Internet they show themselves to be in the wrong,
that they have something to hide,'' he said. ''On this front, even a
closed-down blog is a powerful blog. Even silence on the Internet is a
powerful message.''

China's problems are of a different order of magnitude, he said, as a
huge, sophisticated nation seeks to balance the openness its economy needs
with the control its government demands. It could not consider cutting
itself off as Myanmar has done, and so control of the Internet is an
industry in itself.

''In China it's massive,'' he said. ''There's surveillance and
intimidation, there's legal regulation and there is commercial leverage to
force private Internet companies to self-censor themselves. And there is
what we call the Great Firewall, which blocks hundreds of thousands of Web
sites outside of China.''

But even a country as isolated as Myanmar, he said, cannot live in the
modern world without the Internet. The tourism industry, foreign
investors, businesses of all kinds depend on it. And when, inevitably,
connections are restored, the junta's opponents will be connected to the
world again.

The challenge of amateur reporting is quality as well as technology, said
Vincent Brossel, head of the Asian section of the press freedom
organization Reporters Without Borders.

''Rumors are the worst enemy of independent journalism,'' he said.
''Already we are hearing so many strange things. So if you have no flow of
information and the spread of rumors in a country that is using propaganda
- that's it. You are destroying the story, and day by day it goes down.''

The technological advance on the streets of Myanmar is the latest in a
long history of revolutions in the transmission of news, from the sailing
ship to the telegraph to international telephone lines and the telex
machine to computers and satellite telephones.

''Today every citizen is a war correspondent,'' said Phillip Knightley,
the author of ''The First Casualty,'' a classic history of war reporting
that begins with letters from soldiers in Crimea in the 1850s and ends
with the ''living room war'' in Vietnam in the 1970s, when people could
watch a war on television for the first time.

''Mobile phones with video of broadcast quality have made it possible for
anyone to report a war,'' he wrote in an e-mail. ''You just have to be
there.''

____________________________________

October 4, Associated Press
Bloggers take Myanmar protests into cyberspace with Free Burma action
after crackdown

Thousands of Internet bloggers from at least 45 nations joined a
cyberspace protest against Myanmar's military regime on Thursday by
posting "Free Burma" banners on their pages, according to the drive's Web
site.

The military dictatorship in Myanmar, also known as Burma, staged a brutal
crackdown on pro-democracy protests last week, with activists claiming at
least 200 civilians and Buddhist monks were killed and thousands detained.

The regime also disrupted Internet access in Myanmar, in a bid to keep
citizens from sending photographs, videos and reports to the outside
world.

According the http://www.freeburma.com Web site, the Internet protest idea
started in Germany, and spread around the world to countries including the
United States, Russia, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Ukraine and French
Polynesia. It is being run in eight languages.

"We want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people
who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons," the organizers
wrote.

As of Thursday morning, more than 7,000 bloggers had joined the protest, a
list on the home page said. Participants can download and post a variety
of banners, some showing Myanmar monks protesting, and the text "Free
Burma."

"Action needs to be taken by the international community to force the
military regime ... to step back, release all political prisoners and let
people have a say in running of their country," wrote a blogger in India,
calling himself Empty Head.

"Grassroots efforts make a difference," wrote a U.S. blogger called
Mascia. "Please speak up. Their voices have been silenced."

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 4, Associated Presss
Burma's ethnic minorities endure decades of brutality - Mick Elmore

While international attention has focused on the protests for democracy in
Burma's cities, a hidden war has decimated generations of the country's
powerless ethnic minorities, who have faced brutality for decades.

The Karen, the Shan and other minority groups who live along the
Burma-Thai border have been attacked, raped and killed by government
soldiers. Their thatched-roofed, bamboo homes have been torched. Men have
been seized into forced labor for the army, while women, children and the
elderly either hide out in nearby jungles until the soldiers leave or flee
over the mountains to crowded, makeshift refugee camps.

"Many, many thousands of Karen have died in those 60 years," Karen
National Union secretary general Mahn Sha said this week of his people's
struggle for autonomy since 1947.

The military junta has denied reports of atrocities and says the ethnic
rebels are "terrorists" trying to overthrow the government.

Burma has more than 100 sub-tribes. Burma's diverse minority groups make
up nearly a third of the country's 54 million population.

About two-thirds of the country belongs to the Burman ethnic majority. The
other ethnic groups include the Shan, the Karen, the Chin, the Mon, the
Arakan or Rakhine, and the Kachin.

Thousand of refugees, mostly from a Muslim minority known as Rohingyas,
have fled over Burma's western border with Bangladesh over the years
because of persecution by the military junta and economic hardship. The
Kachin in the far north, along the border with China, have clashed with
the central government, as have the Chin in the central western region
bordering India, and the Mon in the south along the Andaman Sea.

But the military is most aggressive in the eastern states along Burma's
1,300-mile border with Thailand—a frontier longer than the Texas-Mexico
border.

The junta has signed 27 cease-fire agreements with rebels, many of them
allowing ethnic groups to keep their arms.

The Karen National Union is the only major ethnic rebel group not to have
concluded a cease-fire and its separatist struggle is one of the world's
longest-running insurgencies.

The Karen struggle is concentrated in Karen and Kayah states in the middle
of the Thai border region, but fighting also flares sometimes in Shan
state to the north. Mon stae and Teninsarim division, which border
Thailand in the south, have been quiet for more than a decade.

After the junta's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1988,
many Burmese fled to the Thai border. The ethnic minorities did not trust
them at first, but after years of interaction and intermarriage, some of
the students-turned-soldiers settled along the border.

Now minority groups wonder if there will be a new influx of Burmese
because they led the recent pro-democracy protests in Rangoon and other
cities. The Karen held meetings to express solidarity with the
anti-government demonstrators but did organize street protests.

The current protests began August 19 after the government sharply raised
fuel prices in one of Asia's poorest countries. But they are based in
deep-rooted dissatisfaction with 45 years of repressive military rule.

"The people have decided never to stop and never to surrender. They (the
government) cannot stop all the people all the time," said Mahn Sha of the
Karen National Union.

Burmese protesters will be welcomed by the ethnic groups, but the question
remains how both can use the unrest to their advantage.

"We need to work together with the Mon, other groups, the students, to
fight the (junta). We have a common enemy and common goals," Mahn Sha
said.

"It is the beginning of the crack that could bring down the dictators.
Even if these protests are crushed, it will still be a big block out of
that tower. We all look at this with hope," Dah Say, a Karenni who is a
member of the Free Burma Rangers, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

October 4, The San Francisco Chronicle
Rights groups press Chevron to leave Burma - David R. Baker

Chevron Corp. of San Ramon is drawing harsh criticism for its business
ties to Burma, the Asian nation conducting a brutal military crackdown.

The company owns part of a natural gas project in Burma, where soldiers
crushed pro-democracy protests last week and killed at least 10 people.

U.S. sanctions prevent most U.S. companies from working in Burma, but
Chevron's investment there existed before the sanctions were imposed and
continues under a grandfather clause. As a result, the company is one of
the few large Western companies left in the country.

Now Chevron faces pressure to pull out.

Human rights activists are calling on the company to either leave Burma or
persuade the country's military rulers to stop killing demonstrators.
Bloggers are encouraging people to flood Chevron's phone and fax lines in
protest. Some are calling for a boycott.

"There's no question that the money from the pipeline project helps prop
up the military government," said Marco Simons, U.S. legal director for
EarthRights International. "If Chevron can stop people from getting killed
by using its influence, we'd certainly like to see that. In the long run,
we don't think anyone should be doing business with this government."

But Chevron doesn't intend to leave.

"Chevron is maintaining its interest in the ... project," said spokesman
Alex Yelland.

The company has been trying to build up its portfolio of oil and natural
gas projects in Asia, where energy demand is growing fast. Chevron also
has a history of working under difficult political circumstances. In some
cases, that history involved countries with questionable human rights
records or nations that ran afoul of the U.S. government. In other cases,
the company's own actions have been called into question.

Chevron has been the focus of repeated protests in Nigeria, for example,
where soldiers paid by the company have been accused of shooting villagers
and burning homes. And the company continues to work in Venezuela, despite
constant sniping between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush
administration.

Chevron has denied any part in any human rights abuses. Its executives
argue that staying in troubled countries - even pariahs such as Burma -
does more good than harm by employing locals and funding health and
education programs.

"I'm convinced that hundreds of thousands of people in Burma have
benefited," said Chevron Vice Chairman Peter Robertson, who pointed to the
community doctors and teachers his company has paid for. "They benefit
from us being there."

There's also the question of whether pulling out would work.

Chevron owns a minority stake in the Yadana natural gas field and
pipeline, a little more than 28 percent. Both China and India have been
eager to do business with Burma, hoping to secure some of the fuel
supplies that their surging economies need. If Chevron left, one country
or another would try to take its place, Robertson said.

"It's pretty clear that this is a very attractive asset, and other people
would be interested," he said.

Frank Verrastro, head of the energy program at the Center for Strategic &
International Studies think tank, said Burmese law also would force
Chevron to fork over much of the company's capital gains on the project if
it sold its stake. That could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars,
depending on the sale price. The project cost roughly $1 billion to build
in the mid-1990s and is doubtless worth far more today.

"That goes straight to the Burmese government," Verrastro said. "The
biggest conundrum right now is how to deal with bad actors who have a
resource that the world needs. And we haven't come to grips with that in
any way, shape or form."

Chevron's involvement in Burma - called Myanmar by the military junta that
rules it - already has a complicated and controversial history.

It started with Unocal Corp., one of Chevron's historic rivals. Unocal
invested in the Yadana project in the 1990s along with three other
companies: France's Total, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the
Petroleum Authority of Thailand. When Washington decided to impose
sanctions on Burma's military junta in 1997, Unocal was allowed to stay
under a grandfather clause.

Chevron acquired the stake when it bought Unocal in 2005. By then,
however, the Yadana project had become a public relations disaster for
Unocal. Burmese exiles sued the company in a U.S. court, saying the
pipeline's construction had involved forced labor and other human rights
abuses committed by the military. Unocal denied the accusations but
settled the case out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Burma isn't the only place where Chevron has faced questions about human
rights.

The company's operations in Nigeria have triggered frequent protests by
poor Nigerians who say they see little of the money flowing from the
nation's rich oil fields. Some have sued Chevron, saying that soldiers
paid by the company have killed protesters and villagers.

And in Ecuador, Chevron is fighting a long-running lawsuit concerning
oil-field pollution that residents say has contributed to a wave of
illnesses in part of the Amazon jungle. The suit alleges that Texaco,
which operated an oil-field in Ecuador years before Chevron bought the
company, left pools of petroleum and hazardous chemicals scattered around
the field, eventually covering them with thin layers of soil rather than
removing them.

In both countries, Chevron has denied the allegations, both inside and
outside court.

In Burma, Chevron acts mainly as an investor. The company does not operate
the Yadana field. That role falls to Total, which has the biggest stake in
the project, at 31 percent.

Despite its strategic location for Chevron, Yadana has its limits. The
U.S. sanctions prevent Chevron from expanding its investment, even as the
company pours money into exploring for oil and natural gas off neighboring
Thailand. And the existing operations are small compared to many of the
company's projects worldwide.

Even so, Yadana represents a key source of cash for Burma's government.

Human Rights Watch, one of the groups trying to pressure Chevron, says
natural gas sales are the government's single largest source of income,
although economic data from Burma are unreliable. Gas sales to Thailand
brought the government $2.16 billion in 2006, according to Human Rights
Watch. Most of the Yadana project's gas flows to Thailand.

"President Bush should order Chevron to cease operations in Burma
immediately," said Nyunt Than, president of the Burmese American
Democratic Alliance. "That would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from
this military. It would create great pressure on them to come to the
table."

A White House spokesman referred questions about Chevron's presence in
Burma to the National Security Council, which did not respond to a query.

Chevron pays for social programs in communities along the Yadana
pipeline's route, funding teachers, libraries and doctors. The company
reports significant declines in local deaths from malaria and tuberculosis
since the programs began.

But exerting political pressure on Burma's government is another question
entirely. Chevron has typically resisted calls for that kind of
involvement.

Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly defended that position in a
Chronicle interview last year.

"You have to be apolitical and try to remember what you're doing. What we
do well is we invest in oil and gas exploration, refining and whatnot," he
said. "We were in Angola during years and years of civil war and years
when there were clearly people in the United States who felt that Angola
was an inappropriate place to invest. And yet Angola's civil war is over.
We've had a very positive influence there. We've created a lot of jobs."

____________________________________
REGIONAL

October 4, Asia Times
China's media cautious on Myanmar - Dinah Gardner

Beijing - He lies on the ground, one hand on his belly, the other flung
out behind his head clutching a camera. A soldier in baggy khaki and flip
flops points a gun at his prone body. Panicked civilians flee in the
background, chased by more soldiers and baton-wielding police. These are
the last moments of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai's life; slain
covering Myanmar's mass pro-democracy protests in Yangon last week. (See
Myanmar's blogs of bloodshed , Asia Times Online, September 29.)

While Japanese TV showed shocking video footage of the mortally wounded
Nagai and the international press published grainy photos of his body on
the rain-damp street, China's media all but shunned the images.

Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis News was one of the few mainland
papers that printed photos of a dying Nagai. But even the paper, one of
China's boldest publications, did not dare show the whole photo. The image
carried on their website was carefully cropped to cut out the armed
soldier. The fleeing protesters had been reduced to a couple of
sarong-clad legs. Strange editing indeed - as it removes all context from
the image; the fact Nagai died covering a bloody crackdown of a civilian
protest by armed police and troops.

And while a small number of papers did print the uncropped photo – the
Beijing Times, for example, published both versions - the Nanfang Daily's
treatment reflects the country's overall timid media response to the
momentous events that unfolded on its doorstep last week.

Before the violence escalated on September 27, Chinese media coverage of
Myanmar's unrest had been low key. Most reports were buried inside
newspapers, despite the fact these protests attracted tens of thousands of
people and were the biggest demonstrations in the neighboring country for
20 years. The bulk of coverage was and still is by Xinhua, one of the few
news agencies with a Yangon bureau. On September 25 it reported the
protests saying demonstrators carried banners calling for "an improvement
to people's livelihoods, the release of prisoners and national
reconciliation", but made no mention of their demands for democratic
reform.

Most reports carried the bare bones of what was going on, ignored the
protesters, instead quoting Myanmar government sources or official media.
Initially they contradicted reports of a harsh crackdown. "Officials have
consistently exercised restraint in handling these demonstrations and have
not employed force to disperse the demonstrators," the Beijing Youth Daily
said on September 27. TV news more or less ignored the protests.

After the violence kicked off and websites were flooded with photos and
video footage of the brutal crackdown, Chinese media could no longer
ignore the story. While they reported the official death toll,
international concern and calls for restraint they largely continued to
ignore or brush over the demonstrators’ demands, giving more prominence to
the junta's official line.

While Western media were quoting Yangon consular sources on possibly much
higher death tolls and human rights organizations on the alleged arrest of
thousands of monks and protesters, the English-language China Daily
decided instead to run a story quoting only Myanmar Foreign Minister U
Nyan Win, blaming the crackdown on "political opportunists" helped by some
"powerful countries".

That theory, that it was villainous forces from outside Myanmar that
engineered the demonstrations, coupled with allegations that Western media
had been exaggerating the situation, started to crop up in the Chinese
press.

The Global Times - a tabloid published by the People's Daily group -
started the ball rolling when it sent its reporter to Yangon on September
28. In his article, translated into English on a Beijing-based blog, Ren
Jianmin threw into question all aspects of Western reports on Myanmar from
whether the country was denying journalists visas - he got in without a
problem - to whether there was any violent crackdown at all. The streets
were quiet and peaceful, he said, yet he arrived at night during a curfew.

"There has still been no believable evidence that the reports of the new
'bloody conflict' by the Western media are true," he wrote, although he
did not bother to quote protesters, locals or overseas consular staff
apart from his driver. He did, however, refer to the state-controlled The
New Light of Myanmar which claimed: "The Voice of America and the BBC have
told huge lies." As one American Beijing-based writer who focuses on
Chinese media said: "While the piece does make some good points about
international coverage, those points could easily have been made from
[their bureau in] Beijing."

Even so, Global Times is one of the few Chinese media that has been
publishing more than the dry official speak from Xinhua, points out David
Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong's China Media
Project. "Global Times ... has had a reporter filing stories regularly
from Thailand, much of it reporting statements from 'foreign' media - the
Singapore Straits Times, Thai papers, Western papers. [It has also] ...
paid particular attention to statements in the West saying China should
play a bigger role in resolving the situation."

But, it has also found academics to quote who throw doubt on the West's
motives in choosing now to interfere in Myanmar affairs. "Burma's
[Myanmar's] military junta has been in government for a number of decades
and lately America and Europe have only been paying attention to Burma
because they are interested in its resources," the Yangon reporter wrote.

A Chinese government source who analyzes international news media said the
issue was too sensitive in China to give it much prominence. "We are very
close to the government in Myanmar," he said. "Media have to be careful
how they report the situation. They don't want to cause problems between
the two countries."

"This is not a big surprise," said Bandurski. "Burma is not just a trade
partner but a political ally and neighbor of China and China has not
really shared with the outside world what its relationship with Burma
really is. Some have said Burma is a puppet regime [of China] and some
have said it's effectively a province of China.

"China is just saying it doesn't want to mess with their internal affairs.
That's just the party line, and when you have a party line like that the
media would really be pushing it to have anything more complex or deeper,
different coverage."

Bandurski adds that if this was a domestic issue it might, ironically,
prompt more media debate. "It's also an issue of foreign policy, an area
of greater sensitivity. If this was something domestic, like a draft law
or some other social issue then it's not so sensitive but since it's
foreign policy it falls into that same category as other off-limits
subjects such as religious movements, superstition, the Falungong."

Perhaps more important for Beijing, though, is that the news of the
protests and their pro-democracy content hits a bit too close to home. The
demonstrations bring back memories of China's own bloody crackdown of
democracy protests in June 1989 and the images of marching monks may
prompt fears their own disgruntled monks in Tibet might also be inspired
to make a bid for freedom. At the best of times, the media would be wary,
but with the upcoming October 15 Party Congress, editors will be even more
cautious.

Dinah Gardner is a freelance journalist based in Beijing.

____________________________________

October 4, Associated Press
Journalist body returns from Myanmar as Japan prepares to cut aid over his
fatal shooting - Mari Yamaguchi

The body of a Japanese journalist killed during pro-democracy
demonstrations in Yangon was brought back home early Thursday as Japan's
government considered reducing its foreign aid to Myanmar to protest his
death.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Wednesday that Japan was preparing
to suspend aid to Myanmar in response to the death of Kenji Nagai during
last week's military crackdown on street protests in Yangon despite
repeated international calls to end repression.

"There have been calls to freeze aid entirely, but ordinary people in that
country are already suffering. So we've decided to narrow down
humanitarian aid for now," Komura told a group of reporters.

Nagai was covering the Yangon protests for Japanese video agency APF News,
and the company's president, Toru Yamaji, brought the journalist's body
back from Myanmar, arriving at Tokyo's main international airport on
Thursday.

Nagai's body, in a casket wrapped with silky pink cloth and carrying a
bouquet on top, was to be sent to a Tokyo hospital. Police planned to
conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of his death, Foreign Ministry
officials said.

Japanese officials have said Nagai, 50, was clearly shot at close range,
not hit by stray bullets as Myanmar officials had earlier explained, and
demanded the return of the journalist's video camera and tapes believed to
have captured the shooting.

Late Wednesday, Myanmar authorities released a journalist working for a
Japanese newspaper, the Tokyo Shimbun, after six days in detention, a
paper official said. Min Zaw, a Myanmar national, was covering the street
demonstrations and was taken from his home last Friday for questioning.

Japan, Myanmar's largest aid donor, has already limited its economic aid
to Myanmar to humanitarian assistance, and is now "considering cutting it
back further," Komura said.

Humanitarian assistance directly affecting the Myanmar public, including
polio vaccination, should continue, but Japan is likely to freeze other
projects such as human resource centers, he said.

In 2005, Japan provided grants totaling 1.3 billion yen (US$11.2 million;
euro7.9 million) and 1.7 billion yen (US$14.7 million; euro10.3 million)
in technology assistance, according to the latest ministry figures.

The monthlong protests in Myanmar climaxed last week with as many as
100,000 calling for an end to 45 years of military rule.

The government says 10 people have been killed in the demonstrations. But
some activist groups place the death toll at 200 or more and say some
6,000 people have been arrested, including Buddhist monks who led the
demonstrations.

____________________________________

October 4, Mizzima News
Junta accused of destroying Buddhist religion by 300 monks in Bodhgaya

The Burmese military junta has been accused of destroying the Buddhist
religion by over 300 monks from more than 10 nations on Thursday when they
held peaceful protest rallies in Bodhgaya, in India's Bihar state. They
condemned the Burmese junta's brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks.

Monks from Burma, Bhutan, Japan, Sri Lanka, Tibet , Thailand, Bangladesh,
Vietnam, Laos, Germany , Mongolia and India on Thursday marched from Beiku
Sangha area to the Maha Bodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, chanting and reciting
Metta Sutta, the Buddhist words on loving kindness.

"We are marching and reciting the metta as the Burmese junta is now
destroying Buddhism in Burma. We are praying for our fellow monks who are
suffering at the hands of the brutal junta for the sake of 'Sangha'," said
Sayadaw (abbot) Nanda Wuntha, a Burmese monk, who led the protests.

Meanwhile, the Burmese military junta after opening firing on protesters
last week, has continued mid-night raids not only to Buddhist monasteries
but also in houses people suspected to have clapped or cheered during the
protest.

While the junta officially admits to 10 deaths during the crackdown,
activists and diplomats said at least 200 have been killed and at least
6,000 monks and activists have been arrested.

Carrying placards and banners of "Stop Killing Burmese Monks", the monks
prayed as they meditated for the return of peace in Burma, where Buddhism
can prevail in its true form.

"A lot of people joined us in our march, as they are upset about the
prevailing situation in Burma," added Sayadaw Nanda Wuntha.

The protest by monks in the historic Bodhgaya came amidst growing
international pressure on the Burmese junta to immediately end crackdowns
on monks and dissidents.

The UN Secretary-General, who is scheduled to meet his special advisor
Ibrahim Gambari, who concluded a four-day visit to Burma on Tuesday, said
that his special envoy had delivered "the strongest possible message" to
the junta on the bloody crackdowns on protesters.

Ban added that he is waiting to be briefed by his special envoy before
deciding on the next course of action.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 4, Associated Press
UN chief says envoy's trip not a success - Edith M. Lederer

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that his special envoy
delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders
about their bloody crackdown on democracy activists, but added that he
couldn't call the trip "a success."

Ban said he would meet with the U.N. Security Council on Friday to discuss
what to do about human rights abuses in Myanmar, calling the situation
there a top international concern.

"We will discuss closely with the Security Council members what action to
take in the future," he said.

Ban didn't say if he had specific steps in mind. But China, which as a
permanent member of the council can veto its actions, is a close ally of
Myanmar's government.

Special envoy Ibrahim Gambari was scheduled to sit down with Ban on
Thursday to report on his four-day trip to the Southeast Asian nation,
where troops quelled mass protests with gunfire last week and continued to
round up suspected activists.

Asked about Gambari's visit, Ban said, "You cannot call it a success."

But, he added, "I was relatively relieved that he was first of all able to
meet with leaders of the Myanmar government as well as Madame Aung San Suu
Kyi," the opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate who is under house
arrest.

Gambari urged the junta's leaders to stop repressing peaceful protesters,
release detainees, move toward real democratic reform, respect human
rights and reconcile with their political opponents, the U.N. spokesman's
office said.

In discussing the situation in Myanmar, Ban singled out the strong
statement sent to the junta by the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar.

ASEAN expressed "revulsion" at the crackdown on peaceful protesters and
strongly urged the military regime "to exercise utmost restraint and seek
a political solution."

____________________________________

October 4, Associated Press
China says UN envoy's meeting with Burmese leaders was a "positive"

China on Thursday praised a meeting between Burma's leaders and a United
Nations' special envoy as a positive step toward restoring calm in the
troubled region.

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari spent four days in Burma, where the military
junta last week launched a deadly crackdown on monks and civilians
protesting steep price hikes and 45 years of brutal military rule.

Gambari and the junta's reclusive leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe sat in the same
room together Tuesday for more than an hour in the remote capital of
Naypyidaw.

Neither side has released details of the meeting but China called it
progress.

"It is a beneficial step that Mr Gambari deeply exchanged ideas' with
Myanmar's [Burma's] leaders on the situation," Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement posted Thursday on the
ministry's Web site. "We give a positive evaluation of the efforts made
jointly by Myanmar's leaders and Mr Gambari."

Liu said Beijing, a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a
close ally of Burma, has "made its own efforts to support the UN
secretary-general and his Myanmar special envoy's negotiations" but did
not elaborate.

"We are grateful for the achievements made by Mr Gambari in this trip,"
Liu said.

China, Burma's biggest trading partner, has been in a bind since the
conflict began unfolding. The communist government has developed close
diplomatic ties with junta leaders and is hungry for the country's
bountiful oil and gas resources.

But with the Beijing Olympics only months away, China is eager to fend off
criticism that it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes around the world.

Liu said China "appeals that relevant parties of Myanmar continue to
remain calm, and resume the all-round stability of the situation as soon
as possible," Liu said.

"The Chinese side has noticed that the situation of Myanmar has in recent
days calmed down. This is the result of joint efforts of relevant parties
of Myanmar and the international community," Liu said. "The Chinese side
wishes that the situation will further develop in a positive direction."

Gambari is expected to brief UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN
Security Council on Friday on the outcome of his trip.

______________________________________

October 4, Agence France Presse
Buddhists worldwide back Myanmar's monks - Frank Zeller

The Buddhist monks who led Myanmar's protests have drawn support from
fellow believers worldwide, including Tibetan and Vietnamese spiritual
leaders who are no strangers to state persecution.

This week, as hundreds of disrobed monks could be heard chanting from
inside a windowless detention centre in Yangon, Buddhist supporters in
cities around the world continued their protest rallies and prayer vigils
for them.

Buddhist faithful have rallied, chanted and meditated in cities worldwide
for the monks, who were shot, beaten, tear-gassed and arrested last week
after they started refusing alms from soldiers and marched against the
regime.

Their involvement in worldly affairs during times of crisis recalls other
non-violent Buddhist protests from Asia's anti-colonial struggles and acts
of defiance such as the self-immolations of monks during the Vietnam war.

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile and the world's most
prominent Buddhist, was among the first to offer his support to the tens
of thousands of shaven-headed monks at the vanguard of the "saffron
revolution."

"I fully support their call for freedom and democracy and take this
opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to
support such non-violent movements," the 72-year-old said in a statement.

"As a Buddhist monk, I am appealing to the members of the military regime
who believe in Buddhism to act in accordance with the sacred dharma in the
spirit of compassion and non-violence."

The Dalai Lama said he prayed for the early release of fellow Nobel Peace
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader under house arrest who
has advocated non-violent resistance in line with her Buddhist beliefs.

The Dalai Lama may understand the plight of Myanmar's monks better than
most -- he and thousands of his followers fled to India in 1959 after
China's People's Liberation Army brutally crushed a Tibetan uprising in
Lhasa.

Buddhist monks in Vietnam also have a history of political protest.

Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire on a busy Saigon street corner in 1963
to protest the repression of Buddhism by US-backed Ngo Dinh Diem's regime.
Images of the event remain among the most powerful of the conflict.

More recently the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) ran
afoul of authorities by joining protests by dispossessed farmers and
lending them financial support, drawing fire from the state-controlled
press.

The UBCV's deputy leader Thich Quang Do, who has won been nominated for
the Nobel peace prize, has sent several messages speaking of a common
struggle with Myanmar's people.

"For almost 200 years, the people of Burma and Vietnam shared the same
fate under colonial rule, with repression of our faith and the dismantling
of our clergy," the 79-year-old wrote from his monastery.

"Over the past decades, we have both suffered oppression under military or
totalitarian dictatorships," he wrote in a letter of support. "We come
together in a common aspiration for the right to life and freedom."

Do pointed out that Buddhist monks have a long history of struggle in
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

"In the 19th century, when the British conquered Burma, they eliminated
the role of the Buddhist Supreme Patriarch, dismantled the clergy and
sought to destroy the Buddhist faith," he wrote.

"Monks and nuns in Burma rose up against this foreign aggression. Many
were arrested and imprisoned. Many died in the British jails for their
devotion to the cause of independence, freedom and Buddhism."

Buddhism is sometimes seen as a pursuit of mindfulness and spiritual
enlightenment far removed from earthly matters -- but teachers such as
exiled Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh have propagated an activist,
engaged Buddhism.

"Buddhism is for this life, for this society," said Thai social critic
Sulak Sivaraksa, author of the book "Socially Engaged Buddhism."

"If you think about the next life, that is escapism not Buddhism. Buddhism
is about awakening.

"Socially engaged Buddhism is a newly coined word in English," he said.
"But Buddhism is the teaching that you care for others more than you care
for yourself. Every step must be taken non-violently, that is the
essence."

____________________________________

October 4, Agence France Presse
US senators jab China, India over Myanmar unrest - Stephen Collinson

US senators on Wednesday demanded intense US pressure on China and India
to force them to sever ties with Myanmar's junta after a violent crackdown
on protests by monks and democracy activists.

High-profile lawmakers wanted to know how the United States could leverage
its relationship with the two giant powers for the advantage of Aung San
Suu Kyi's democracy movement.

"China needs to make it clear that it's unacceptable that those
monasteries have been cleared of monks, that people have been loaded into
trucks and driven off into God knows where," said Democratic Senator John
Kerry.

Kerry warned at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations committee's Asia
sub-panel that if China did not use its close economic relationship with
Myanmar to forge change, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing would be under a
"cloud."

The hearing came hours after Myanmar's military rulers kept up the
pressure on their people, after last week's bloody crackdown on
protesters.

Troops, who last week killed at least 13 and arrested over 1,000 people to
suppress the largest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years, made new
arrests and mounted patrols to keep the population on tenterhooks.

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, author of legislation
imposing US economic sanctions on Myanmar, joined Wednesday's hearing and
complained that efforts to pressure the junta were weakened without
Chinese and Indian backing.

"China and India are the two biggest players in Burma (Myanmar). Their
attitude seems to be largely it'd be bad for business to start siding with
the pro-democracy forces," said McConnell.

But Democratic Senator Jim Webb said that despite a punishing US and
European range of sanctions on Myanmar, it was unclear what more the West
could do to support Aung San Suu Kyi.

"You have a type of pressure which is driving authoritarian governments
toward like partners, China being the classic example with respect to
Burma," Webb said.

Scot Marciel, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs, said President George W. Bush's administration had been
doing its best to pressure China.

"While we have indications that Beijing has been quietly pressing junta
leaders to exercise restraint ... we think China can do more," he said.

"We have been pressing and we will continue to press Beijing to do more."

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted by 413 votes to two for a
resolution calling for the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi,
and an immediate halt to attacks against civilians by the junta.

It also called on China to pressure Myanmar's generals and for the UN
Security Council to act on the crisis.

A similar resolution passed the Senate on Monday.

Last week, the Bush administration slapped visa bans on more than 30
members of the Myanmar junta and their families, in addition to a
punishing range of already enforced economic sanctions.

Adding to the symbolism of the hearing, US First Lady Laura Bush called
for Myanmar's reclusive generals to "step aside" and urged the UN Security
Council to issue a resolution calling for a peaceful transition to
democracy.

"The United States believes it is time for General Than Shwe and the junta
to step aside, and to make way for a unified Burma governed by legitimate
leaders," she said in a statement.

"We urge other governments to join the United States in condemning the
junta's use of violence, and in working toward freedom for Burma," she
said.

Washington does not recognize the name Myanmar and continues to call the
country Burma.

The protests first erupted in mid-August after a massive hike in the price
of fuel, but escalated two weeks ago when the revered monks emerged to
lead the movement, drawing up to 100,000 people onto the streets.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Saturday urged Myanmar to seek stability in a
peaceful manner and work towards democracy and development.

India on Monday urged Myanmar's military regime to launch a probe into its
violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the foreign ministry said.

But critics of both nations in Congress say that is not enough.

____________________________________

October 4, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Defected Myanmar officer meets Norwegian diplomats

Norwegian diplomats met Thursday with a Myanmar army major who said he
defected to neighbouring Thailand because he did not want to shoot at
civilians and monks, a Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Bjorn Svenungsen confirmed that the meeting took place at the Norwegian
embassy, but declined to offer details or if the Myanmar officer, who in
recent interviews was identified as Major Win, had applied for asylum.

The former officer and his son, aged 17, arrived in Bangkok Tuesday after
five days on the run from Myanmar.

In recent interviews with Norwegian and Swedish media, they said they
hoped to seek asylum in Norway or Sweden.

The Oslo-based opposition radio station Democratic Voice of Burma on
Thursday said it had received accounts of new raids on monasteries in the
former Myanmar capital Yangon.

Some four to five monks were arrested, the radio station's news editor Moe
Aye said.

The station had also received reports that people were sentenced Thursday
to prison and to labour camps.

There was a heavy security presence on the streets of Yangon and no
demonstrations were held.

The station, which also broadcasts two hours of television on weekends,
said it hoped to increase its programming but was constrained by "not
enough resources," Moe Aye said, adding that at present it broadcasts
repeats of its programmes several hours a day.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Global day of action on Burma planned for 6 October

Supporters of Burmese protestors from around the world are planning a
global day of protests on 6 October to raise awareness of the situation in
Burma and call for international action.

Demonstrations are already planned in many major cities in Asia, Europe,
Africa and the Americas, and organisers hope that more locations will be
added. Most of the protests are set to start at 12 noon (local time).

Johnny Chatterton, one of the organisers of the event, told DVB that the
call for an international day of support came from online communities of
sympathisers.

“I think as soon as something started happening in Burma people across the
world wanted to unite together to show that the world condemns the actions
of the Burmese military,” he said.

Burma-focused NGOs had also been planning for an international solidarity
event, and groups such as Burma Campaign UK and Amnesty International have
been closely involved in coordinating preparations for the day.

Mr Chatterton urged people to attend local demonstrations on 6 October,
which organisers hope will keep the attention of the media and the
international community focused on Burma.

“I hope the demonstrations will show that the eyes of the world are still
on Burma and that the world still cares about the protestors,” he said.

Solidarity demonstrations have been staged in many countries already
following the Burmese government’s brutal crackdown on mass protests in
the country.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Australian government rejects Burmese ambassador

–The Australian government has refused the appointment of a Burmese
general as ambassador to Australia because of the brutality of the
military regime.

The decision to reject the appointment was made around two months ago, but
was not made public at the time. Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs
Alexander Downer gave his reasons for the refusal at a media conference on
2 October.

“Burma has a very brutal military regime and I refused to accept a general
from that regime, who has had command in a couple of provinces in Burma
over the years,” said Mr Downer.

The Minister said that a civilian and “professional diplomat” should be
sent as a representative.

“We will not be accepting anybody from the military regime in Burma as a
representative of Burma in Australia. That is completely unacceptable,” he
said.

Mr Downer went on to express his concerns about the recent brutal
crackdowns on protestors, citing estimates of at least 30 deaths and 1,400
arrests.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 4, Irrawaddy
Cloud of pessimism hangs over Burma - Aung Zaw

As a Burmese citizen and a journalist covering Burma for more than 15
years, I remain pessimistic about seeing change in my homeland.

Hopes were high when we Burmese witnessed thousands of Buddhist monks and
activists parading down the street in a peaceful manner. But our hearts
sank when troops violently crushed the demonstrations.

This week, we gnashed our teeth on hearing Foreign Minister’s Nyan Win’s
speech at the United Nations, where he claimed the situation in Burma was
returning to normal.

The regime is indeed trying now to create the impression that a normal
situation is being restored.

Internet links have been reestablished, the curfew has been relaxed, some
monks and other detainees have been released. But the crackdown continues.
Hundreds of monks and others arrested in the crackdown remain in Insein
prison and detention centers, and there are daily reports of arbitrary
arrests, detention, torture and raids on monasteries.

“It could take months for any kind of normalcy to be restored,” said a
journalist in Rangoon.

Two Western diplomats in Rangoon, US Charge d’Affaires Shari Villarosa and
British Ambassador Mark Canning, have done a great job of informing
broadcast media about the situation on the ground. Their interviews on the
BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera were highly valued by Burmese viewers, I was told.

Pessimism on Burma is growing, though, as UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari
heads for New York after ending his latest mission to Rangoon and
Naypyidaw.

A writer and friend of mine, Satya Sagar from New Delhi, wrote in an
online article for The Irrawaddy a few days ago that in sending Gambari to
Burma the UN was “dispatching a lame duck UN envoy to negotiate with the
paranoid Burmese generals. Negotiate what? Funeral services for the
innocent victims mowed down like rabbits on the streets of Rangoon?”

Gambari a “lame duck?” I guess that’s what the generals were intending,
weren’t they?

During his visit, the regime cleverly controlled his itinerary, keeping
him as much as possible away from Rangoon, scene of most of the shootings
and killings, and isolating him from diplomats, other well-informed people
and the opposition.

Gambari’s meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi were anticipated. But she is just
a hostage, and Gambari’s meetings with her won’t soften the ugly image of
what happened on the streets.

Gambari also tasted the capricious nature of the generals. He did not meet
Than Shwe in the first place but was instead received by acting Prime
Minister Lt-Gen Thein Sein, another lame duck. Then we got to see Than
Shwe and Maung Aye happily posing for a photo opportunity with Gambari.
Than Shwe had again exploited the UN for his own ends.

Gambari is walking a tight rope—if he is not “diplomatic” enough, he won’t
get a visa to enter Burma again. So “lame duck” Gambari deserves sympathy
and concern.

An elderly Rangoon woman with whom I spoke on the phone whispered over the
line: “What if they bribe him with expensive rubies? Does he know that our
Buddhist monks have been killed?”

I assured her that Gambari was no cowboy and advised her to pray for tough
UN resolve.

In contrast to the succinct and accurate assessments and reports from the
two Western diplomats, the words that came from UN representative Charles
Petrie in his interviews with CNN and Al Jazeera outraged educated and
politically active Burmese.

What was he trying to say? I could not recall, apart from such meaningless
words as “Ahhh
 Ohhh
 things are calm during the day.”

I can understand that the busy UN bureaucrat hasn’t the time to scribble
some nice catch phrases and jargon to conceal his frustration over solving
the humanitarian crisis in Burma.

My Burmese friends were enraged by Petrie’s words. “Idiot! Next time we
will ask monks to protest in front of the UNDP office,” they declared.

I intervened: “No, you don’t understand the high level politics and
shuttle diplomacy. He is an experienced UN man
 he has a mission to be
accomplished.”

“Bullshit,” exclaimed one caller and hung up.

A typical Burmese friend! He didn’t listen to me. I was going to say the
UNDP shouldn’t be singled out. What about the UNODC? (I learned that the
head of the UNODC office in Rangoon once reprimanded his Burmese staff for
accessing The Irrawaddy’s online news service).

My Burmese friends who used to work for the UN in Rangoon told me: “They
all want to paint a nice and beautiful picture of Burma and finish their
terms of duty in peace. Now the streets protests and the shootings have
given them a headache and extra work.”

The UN is part of the problem, I agree. But I also warned my friends to
watch out for some apologists like Robert Taylor and Morten Pedersen who
is probably right now in Rangoon intending to write scholarly but
distorted reports on Burma events. Perhaps monks will find a way to
protest in front of their hotels in a demonstration of “disciplinary
democracy.”

I know everyone is watching the situation in Burma closely. Our office is
flooded with statements from the White House, from Asean ministers and
campaign groups. I wonder how many more we can expect.

But action is lacking so far.

Satya wrote: “What about international sanctions on foreign companies
doing business in Burma— including dozens of Western companies apart from
those from Asia?  Why should large oil companies like US-based Chevron,
the Malaysian Petronas, South Korea's Daewoo International Corp or French
Total continue to be involved in Burma without facing penalties for their
support of one of the world's most heinous dictatorships?”

After reading this, I was gripped by fear and sadness as I realized that
within a few weeks the recent bloody events in Burma will have been all
but forgotten.

Satya also took a swipe at western hypocrisy, writing: “Following the
bloodshed in Burma the new French President Nicolas ‘Napoleon’ Sarkozy,
for instance, grandly called on French companies to freeze all their
operations in Burma. Close on his heels Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner
clarified, however, that the French oil giant Total, the largest European
company operating in Burma, will not pull out for fear they will be
‘replaced by the Chinese.’"

Britain’s new Prime Minister Gordon Brown also came in for a lashing.
“Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, also expressed ‘outrage’ at the
Burmese government's despicable behavior but was mum about UK companies
merrily investing away in Burma. Between 1988 and 2004, companies based
out of British territories invested more than £1.2bn in Burma, making
Britain the second largest investor in this supposedly ostracized country.
The sun it seems has not only set on the British Empire but—on its way
out—also deep fried the conscience of its politicians.”

US President George W Bush, who imposed new sanctions and urged the
Burmese soldiers and police not to use force on their fellow citizens,
wasn’t spared, either.

“The most predictable rhetoric of course came from US President George
Bush,” Satya wrote.

“Bush could have maybe uttered better chosen words but none of it would
have been credible coming from a man with a record of war mongering and
mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush regime's systematic
destruction of international human rights norms have robbed it of the
right to lecture even something as low as the Burmese junta about
anything. A sad situation indeed.”

What about Burma’s neighbors? Asean, India and China?

They’re just praying that the situation will return to “normal.” A
Singapore journalist told me: “Our Singapore Prime Minister was shocked.”

Well, yes. But, I asked: “Didn’t he know that this kind of brutality and
oppression has been taking place in Burma almost every day over the last
20 years?”

I understand that Singapore also has its national interests at heart. Only
a few months ago, the Singapore Foreign Minister flew to Naypyidaw on a
mission to buy sand from the Burmese.

Thailand, China and India also want to protect their trade interests in
gas and other natural resources. While urging the Burmese junta to
exercise restraint, they continue to prop the regime up.

We can expect many more statements of the kind released in Western and
Asian capitals. “What is the world waiting for?” asked a colleague, who
witnessed at first hand the events on Rangoon’s streets.

After waiting for some sign of change for the past 20 years, I’m now among
the pessimists. I only wish I were wrong.

____________________________________

October 4, The Australian (Australia)
Jail just part of a journo's job in Burma - Peter Olszewski

The fundamental rule for survival in my time as a journalist trainer at
the Australian-run The Myanmar Times in Burma was keep your head down and
if the Government says don't do it, don't do it.

Infractions are dealt with swiftly and severely, although in normal
circumstances the military doesn't shoot journalists, just gives them a
brief stretch of three to seven years prison for run-of-the-mill errors in
reporting judgment.

That's for locals. The few foreign journalists allowed entry who file
while still in the country and incur displeasure are usually simply taken
to the airport and put on the next flight to Bangkok with no hope of a
return visa.

The tragic shooting of Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai of the
Tokyo-based APF media company was well out of the ordinary, even for
Burma. But then again, the times are out of the ordinary.

While not diminishing his courage, he was also rather foolhardy because a
seasoned foreign journalist in Burma knows that when trouble occurs on the
street, stay low, stay at a distance, or stay away and acquire witness
reports from locals later.

Being arrested at trouble spots will be swift and unpleasant, and in this
case a bullet through the heart was the outcome.

But for the working Burmese journalist, time in the can is part of the job
description. Most senior journalists have served prison sentences and are
rather matter-of-fact about it. If you ask an older journalist if they've
done a spell in the notorious Insein prison (appropriately pronounced
insane prison) they usually respond, ''Yes, of course.''

But serious infractions can bring lifelong imprisonment, torture or death.

Censorship of what is published internally is far more rigid than measures
applied to reports that appear out of country, which leads to the maxim
among most experienced media people that if you want to find out what's
going on in Burma, it's best to leave Burma.

While the Burmese authorities are just about able to cope with
straight-down-the-line news reportage of accepted topics, such as the
price of pulses at the vegetable market, analysis or non-propagandist
opinion pieces are anathema to them.

While working for The Myanmar Times when the Iraq war began, the instant
call from the censors was ''No analysis''.

Censorship in Burma is of course all-encompassing, not only politically
but also culturally. For example, on The Myanmar Times, Westernised social
pages photographs of Burmese women wearing spaghetti-strap
shoulder-revealing dresses, or photos showing them drinking or smoking,
are verboten, yet the same restrictions do not apply to pictorial
representations of women from the West or other Asian countries.

Former Australian ambassador to Burma, Trevor Wilson, was reported by this
paper and other media outlets in recent days advising that however
unpalatable the junta may be, they need to be engaged, if progress is to
be made.

I saw the veracity of this viewpoint while working at The Myanmar Times:
change, albeit minimal, yet incremental, can be achieved through
engagement and negotiation.

The Myanmar Times has claimed victories such as reversing the Government's
refusal to give coverage to the AIDS problem, through dogged and
persistent persuasive arguments over a lengthy time.

On a more trivial basis, I had first-hand experience of an ability to
negotiate through engagement when one of my journalism trainees had
written a lifestyle piece about the fad for US-style break dancing among
local university students.

The feature was accepted for publication by the Times' entertainment
editor, but given a firm thumbs-down by the censor at Military
Intelligence.

A dialogue was entered into. The question was asked about why this story
was censored. The reply was that the Government wanted to promote only
traditional Burmese dancing, not modern American dancing.

Next question to the censor was, ''Is there any way this story can be
saved?''

The reply was yes, provided break dancing was not referred to as dancing
but as an American form of fitness exercise.

But while censorship can to a small degree be negotiable, any disobedience
of rulings almost inevitably means jail for someone at the office, and
repeat performances will see a publication shut down.

My Burmese boss, U Myat Sonny Swe, deputy chief executive of The Myanmar
Times, was jailed for 14 years for bypassing official censorship.

But his jailing was a sort of retrospective technical political set-up
because the paper had actually been rigidly censored by an office overseen
by his father, Brigadier General Thein Swe, head of OSS, an elite division
within Military Intelligence.

Up until late 2004 a pragmatic modernist regime led by prime minister Khin
Nyunt was slowly opening the country up, and a more modern media was a
large part of this thrust.

That faction encouraged the launch of The Myanmar Times, which is run and
part-owned by Australian Walkley award-winning journalist Ross Dunkley and
part-financed by members of the influential Clough family of Perth.

It also encouraged the establishment of a user-friendly,
non-government-run internet provider owned by the prime minister's son,
and trendy internet cafes in hip coffee houses such as Aromas, also owned
by the prime minister's son (also jailed).

The Myanmar generals are as cruel and vicious to each other as they are to
ordinary people, and during my time there one senior military official
ended up with a bullet hole in his head during a volatile meeting in the
war room.

On October 20, 2004 the hardliners, headed by Senior General Than Shwe
(Shwe means gold) took back total control of Burma again, arrested the
prime minister, declared Military Intelligence an illegal organisation and
shut it down, jailed the upper echelon, took control of the internet and
ramped up censorship at The Myanmar Times.

Those events led to the rapid economic decline that prompted the current
insurrection.

Sonny Swe's father was sentenced to about 132 years and because his office
was deemed an illegal organisation it was deemed that the censorship the
group provided was also illegal, and The Myanmar Times' deputy CEO was
retrospectively guilty of bypassing official censorship and jailed.

Day-to-day life in Burma is rife with such life or freedom-threatening
legal technicalities, and overnight reversals, especially in media
circles. It keeps players on their toes.

The right thing today can be the wrong thing tomorrow, with a 10-year
ticket to Insein prison as the pay-off.

Peter Olszewski is a former journalism trainer at The Myanmar Times and
author of Land of a Thousand Eyes, published by Allen & Unwin.