BurmaNet News, December 7, 2007

[Editor]

December 7, 2007 Issue # 3359

INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Monasteries pass junta offerings to poor
Irrawaddy: Rumors say Than Shwe is ill—bad Karma?
Narinjara News: Monks boycott examinations
Narinjara News: Burmese authorities demean monks with nickname
Financial Times: Defiance undeterred: Burmese activists seek ways to oust
the junta
DVB: Pay rise for Shwedagon police
Irrawaddy: Boy, sister injured by land mine explosion in Pegu division
SHAN: Shan New Year faces restriction in Burma

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Myanmar woes raise fears of new migration to Thailand

BUSINESS / TRADE
Reuters: IMF sees limited sanctions impact on Myanmar
Irrawaddy: Weekly business roundup - William Boot
Mizzima News: Authorities extort money for road construction in Myit Kyi Na

ASEAN
Reuters: Manila links Suu Kyi's release to ASEAN ratification

REGIONAL
Irrawaddy: China should reconsider its support for Burma: observers

INTERNATIONAL
AP: Junta killed 31 people identifiable by name, says UN expert who
visited Myanmar
Mizzima News: EU provides 3.9 million euros for Rohingya refugees

OPINION / OTHER
Taiwan Journal: Myanmar's woes perpetuated by PRC - S.P. Seth
Christian Science Monitor: The Irrawaddy: All the news that Burma deems
unfit to print

PRESS RELEASE
Human Rights Watch: Burma: Crackdown bloodier than government admits

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

December 7, Democratic Voice of Burma
Monasteries pass junta offerings to poor

Four monasteries in Pakokku, Magwe division, which received government
food donations have passed the offerings on to the poor and refused to
give blessings to the officials.

Monks from four lecturing monasteries in Pakokku – east, west, central and
Bawde Mandi – said they wanted to show that they were continuing with
their religious boycott against the regime.

A group of government officials led by the Magwe division Peace and
Development Council chairman and the minister of electrical energy (2)
visited the monasteries earlier this month to give offerings of rice to
the monks.

The monastery head monks accepted the donations but would not give
blessings to the officials in return.

One monk from Bawde Mandi monastery told DVB that they had passed on the
offerings as a protest against the regime.

“We accepted the rice donation because it is not appropriate to reject an
offering, but then later we donated the rice to poor people in the
neighbourhood,” he said.

“This is to show that we are still carrying on with this religious boycott
of the authorities.”

Another monastery sold the rice offered to them by officials and donated
the money to a local hospital.

____________________________________

December 7, Irrawaddy
Rumors say Than Shwe is ill—bad Karma? - Wai Moe

Rumors are spreading within Burma and as far abroad as Singapore that the
health of junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe is deteriorating, with many people
suggesting he’s experiencing bad karma because of his brutal crackdown on
peacefully demonstrating monks in September.

The rumors appear to have originated with Tatmadaw soldiers whose menial
duties bring them into close contact with the 74-year-old general. From
there, reports of his failing health reached higher ranking officers.

They broke surface on Thursday after Than Shwe met a Chinese official who
reportedly urged him to adopt reforms in order to improve the country’s
economy. The general was reported to be suffering strain and
“psychological problems.”

An earlier meeting with a visitor from Beijing, a Chinese deputy foreign
minister, was also followed by a bout of ill health, ascribed by military
sources to stress. The Chinese minister was believed to have urged Than
Shwe to speed up work on the seven-step road map to democracy.

One source told The Irrawaddy that Than Shwe had been depressed by a
report by the head of the United Nations Development Programme in Burma,
Charles Petrie, who was expelled from Burma recently. The report
highlighted the junta’s economic failures and mismanagement.

Rumors of Than Shwe’s ill health also circulated among Burmese living in
Singapore, where members of the junta usually seek medical attention.
Despite his reluctance to leave the country, for fear of a coup in his
absence, Than Shwe traveled to Singapore in January this year for
treatment at Singapore General Hospital.

Than Shwe was in the hospital for about one week, but he reportedly
rejected advice to undergo surgery for a life-threatening condition,
saying he wanted first of all to consult his chief astrologer. He was said
to be suffering from hypertension and diabetes.

Many Burmese say Than Shwe’s health problems are bad karma because of his
suppression of the monks’ demonstrations. They point to the precedent of
Snr-Gen Saw Maung, regime head and commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw from
1988 to 1992, who launched a crackdown on a monks’ boycott in 1990.

He subsequently fell ill—many say with psychological problems—and was
replaced by Than Shwe in 1992. Two years later, Saw Maung died.

“Now it’s Than Shwe’s turn,” said one Buddhist resident of Rangoon. “He is
responsible for the deaths of monks and has earned bad karma. His end
could come very soon.”

____________________________________

December 7, Narinjara News
Monks boycott examinations

Sittwe: Continuing to give vent to their grievances, many monks in Arakan
State are boycotting the regime held Buddhist religious examinations by
refusing to enroll their names. The defiance is in support of the monk
alliance that has called the boycott.

"Today is the last date for enrolling for the examinations but many monks
in Arakan State refused to register their names. I heard many monks will
not come to enroll," a monk in Sittwe said.

Ninety percent of monks in Arakan State are not enrolling for  the
examinations, which will be held in March 2008, following the monk
alliance's request to boycott it in protest against  the regime's
crackdown on the monk-led 'saffron revolution'.

The Burmese military authorities pressured abbots from many monasteries
throughout Arakan to lure monks into participating in the government's
Buddhist religious examinations.

Despite the government's efforts, senior abbots have been unable to
persuade the monks into enrolling, as many of the monks oppose the
military's recent actions against monks in Burma.

The junta has conducts religious examinations for monks every year, and it
is very important for the monks in Burma . The government awards
university-level degrees to monks after their religious education is
completed successfully.

The military authorities will be holding the examinations in accordance
with their schedule, but the question remains as to how to administer it
without any examinees, the monk said.

____________________________________

December 7, Narinjara News
Burmese authorities demean monks with nickname

Sittwe:  In a bid to demean monks in the aftermath of the demonstrations
Burmese military junta authorities in Arakan State have been widely
referring to monks with the nickname "orange", rather than using the
appropriate term, said a monk from Sittwe.

"The authorities now call us 'orange', and no longer officially call us
'monks' in Arakan, and it is an extreme insult to our religion," the monk
said.

He gave an example of how the nickname is being used by saying that if
three monks are travelling from Buthidaung to Sittwe by ferry, the
authorities would refer to them as 'three oranges' traveling to
Buthidaung.

Members from many organizations backed by the Burmese military junta, such
as the USDA, fire service, police, and veteran groups, are now widely
using the term 'orange' to refer to monks in Arakan.

Ashin Inda Shaka from the western Burmese border area said that it is part
of the junta's plan to destroy the monks' image in Burma, and to devalue
their status in the eyes of the Burmese people.

The junta has been trying to destroy the reputation of monks in several
ways, including sometimes publicizing accusations that monks have sexually
abused women, he said.

Such boorish behaviour on the part of he junta officials not only damages
the image of monks, but also the image of Buddhism around the world. And
we are unable to accept such attacks on monks by military authorities in
Burma, he added.

It was learnt that many elder monks in Burma are now worried about the
state of Buddhism and Buddhists in Burma, as the religion will be
threatened with extinction if the government continues to attack monks.

____________________________________

December 7, Financial Times
Defiance undeterred: Burmese activists seek ways to oust the junta - Amy
Kazmin

In 1994 a visionary American appeared on the Thai-Burmese border,
preaching non-violence to students from Burma who more than five years
before had fled a crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising and were committed
to armed struggle against their country’s military rulers.

Gene Sharp, the Oxford-educated, Harvard-affiliated theoretician on
peaceful resistance to repression, urged the rebels to embrace non-violent
means to fight the junta. His acolyte, retired colonel Robert Helvey, a US
military attaché in Rangoon in the 1980s, expounded on how to use
military-style planning and strategising for peaceful dissent.

Initially, few of the students paid heed. But, as the futility of combat
against the powerful Burmese army grew more apparent in the late 1990s,
the dissidents turned to alternative ways to fight for democracy –
including Mr Sharp’s teachings on undermining the pillars of a repressive
regime.

Over the last three years, activists from the exile movement’s “political
defiance committee” have trained an estimated 3,000 fellow-Burmese from
all walks of life – including several hundred Buddhist monks – in
philosophies and strategies of non-violent resistance and community
organising. These workshops, held in border areas and drawing people from
all over Burma, were seen as “training the trainers”, who would go home
and share these ideas with others yearning for change.

That preparation – along with material support such as mobile phones –
helped lay the groundwork for dissident Buddhist monks in September to
call for a religious boycott of the junta, precipitating the biggest
anti-government protests in two decades. For 10 dramatic days, monks and
lay citizens, infuriated by deepening impoverishment and pervasive
repression, poured into the streets in numbers that peaked at around
100,000 before the regime crushed the demonstrations, killing at least 15
and arresting thousands.

Since then, the generals – citing exiled opposition groups’ western
connections, including foreign funding – have fulminated about what they
describe as a CIA plot to instigate mass unrest and overthrow them. This
week, Brig Gen Kyaw Hsan, the information minister, called protests a
western plot to install a “puppet government” in Burma – a theme echoed by
some critics of Washington, who have called the protesters a “human stage
prop” in a US play for geostrategic control in Asia.

Burmese opposition activists acknowledge receiving technical and financial
help for their cause but insist that the mass protests were an indigenous
response to intolerable hardship – and that the most crucial ingredient
was not foreign money but Burmese protesters’ willingness to risk harsh
punishment in order to make their voices heard.

“This is completely a Burmese movement – people are joining because of
their daily life difficulties,” says Nyo Ohn Myint, a Thailand-based
activist with Burma’s National League for Democracy, the political party
led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Nobel peace prize-winning democracy
advocate.

Burmese exiles say the generals’ obsessive focus on opposition groups’
modest foreign assistance reflects their unwillingness to admit their own
governance failures, which have fuelled the intense resentment against
them. “If they recognise it’s a Burmese movement, they have to admit that
people are very unhappy with them,” says Nyo Ohn Myint. “So they have to
use a scapegoat.”

Other dissidents suggest junta propaganda is aimed mainly at army
rank-and-file and mid-level officers, who are unhappy with worsening
hardships but would rally against a foreign threat. “They want them to
believe it’s a foreign plot so they can justify their atrocities,” says
one exiled activist who has led political defiance training sessions on
the border.

Indeed, while the generals accuse most dissidents of being traitorous
“axe-handles” and stooges of foreign paymasters, they themselves have
acquired around $2bn (£1bn, €1.4bn) worth of military hardware from China
over the past two decades and are now buying other weapons, using
resources that critics say are desperately needed for the welfare of the
population. “They are taking the natural wealth of the country and using
it to buy the tools of repression,” says David Mathieson, a researcher
with Human Rights Watch.

Burmese exiles also say international assistance for the Burmese democracy
cause is paltry compared to the help received by South Africans to battle
against apartheid or to east European dissidents for their so-called
“colour revolutions” in countries such as Ukraine. Serbian opposition
groups received around $40m worth of US assistance, including the advice
and guidance of experienced US political consultants, in the two years
before the election and mass street protests that undid Slobodan
Milosevic, the late Yugoslav president.

International donors and activists figure Burmese opposition groups
received $8m-$10m in 2006 and again in 2007 from American and European
funders for pro-democracy activities inside and outside Burma, including
health and education projects. The political defiance trainer – asking not
to be identified due to concerns about his security – likens western
support for the opposition movement as a protective “shield” for
dissidents struggling against a regime that monopolises profits from
Burma’s rich natural resources, including natural gas, to shore up its own
power. “It’s not a secret – its open assistance,” he says. “Of course, we
use this to support our colleagues inside the country.”

Two months after the crackdown, the junta seems to have regained control
over Burma, with many leading activists in prison and despair settling
over the population. The generals have made no meaningful concessions,
even expelling Charles Petrie, the top United Nations official in Burma,
for saying the protests reflected public frustration at worsening economic
hardships. This week, the regime also rejected calls for Ms Suu Kyi to
have a say on a new constitution as part of a reconciliation dialogue.

Yet exiled opposition activists still see the uprising as a partial
success that focused unprecedented global attention on the Burmese
people’s plight and their yearning to be freed from military misrule. Far
from defeated, activist exiles say they are determined to carry on the
struggle and have a stream of new recruits. “We won politically and the
regime lost in this battle,” says Nyo Ohn Myint. “But it’s just a first
episode.”

In the first years after the 1988 exodus to the Thai border, the student
rebels struggled to survive, subsisting on food handouts for refugees,
tiny amounts of cash and the help of relatively affluent, and far better
armed, ethnic insurgent groups that had been fighting the regime for
decades.

But the aspiring revolutionaries were confronted with the reality that
even the better-equipped and battle-hardened ethnic insurgents were
already on the defensive against the military. Gradually, many former
students abandoned talk of armed struggle and sought other ways to fight
the military’s grip on power.

As they did, they began to receive western help – from the
Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open
Society Institute and several European countries – for initiatives such as
documenting and publicising the regime’s human rights abuses, developing
outlets to counter the state-controlled media and networking with
disaffected Burmese inside to plan peaceful protests.

In 2006 and 2007, the congressionally funded NED, the largest financial
supporter of the democracy movement, spent around $3.7m a year on its
Burmese programme – up from $1.2m in 1996 and a mere $290,000 in 1994.
These funds were used to support opposition media including the Democratic
Voice of Burma, a radio station and satellite television channel, to
bolster dissidents’ information technology skills and to help the exiles’
training of Buddhist monks and other dissidents in techniques of peaceful
political resistance.

The inspiration for the training was Mr Sharp, whose From Dictatorship to
Democracy – a short, theoretical handbook for non-violent struggle against
repressive regimes – was published in Burmese in 1994 and began
circulating among exiles and surreptitiously among dissidents inside the
country. Some were imprisoned for years for possessing it. The book
suggests activities to chip away at the pervasive fear that he identifies
as a tool repressive regimes use to keep disgruntled populations under
control.

Yet even after years of strategising, exiled dissidents admit they were
caught off guard by the intensity of the public fury that followed the
regime’s abrupt increase in the price of subsidised fuel. The first small
protests against the price rises were led by the “88 Generation” students
– former student leaders in the 1988 uprising who spent long periods in
prison and more recently organised more modest forms of opposition, such
as encouraging people to write letters to the junta expressing their
discontent.

The fuel protests seemed to fizzle after 13 top 88 Generation leaders were
arrested in midnight raids on their homes in late August. But on September
5, armed soldiers in Pokkoku, a traditional centre of Buddhist learning,
roughed up monks marching against high prices. Days later, around 30 monks
– some of them graduates of the political defiance committee’s training –
gathered secretly and formed the All Burma Monks’ Alliance, demanding that
the junta apologise for mistreating the holy men, as well as reduce
prices, free political prisoners and begin a dialogue with the opposition
led by Ms Suu Kyi.

The alliance’s demands – and its threat to impose a “spiritual boycott”
against the regime if the generals refused – were relayed in interviews
set up by their exile contacts with the Burmese-language services of the
BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and the dissident broadcaster DVB.
After the deadline passed for the apology that never came, the
demonstrations began, escalating rapidly before they were suppressed in a
crackdown that Mr Petrie calls “extraordinarily far-reaching and
repressive.”

For many Burmese both inside and outside the country, the regime’s use of
force to quell the protests was a devastating – even if not totally
unexpected – blow, as they had hoped they were witnessing a final push
that would force the military to relinquish its total control. Yet despite
the repression, small groups of activists in Burma are still carrying out
small, sporadic acts of defiance, such as destroying copies of state
newspapers and posting placards mocking the junta.

Many trained activists are lying low inside, awaiting another chance to
act, say exiles, who themselves are continuing their defiance training on
the border. Since September, they say, they have been overwhelmed with
requests for help from Burmese who want the momentum of the struggle
maintained.

Although opposition activists clearly face formidable difficulties, such
as replacing the leaders who were rounded up, they insist the drive for
change is not over. “Every revolution, and every transition, doesn’t
happen all neat-and-tidy,” says the Burmese political defiance trainer,
who is working closely with dissidents inside. “This is the beginning of
the end of military rule. We are dreaming – and we are acting on our
dreams.”

____________________________________

December 7, Democratic Voice of Burma
Pay rise for Shwedagon police

Police officers assigned to Shwedagon pagoda have been given a salary
increase to counter discontent among the officers following the crackdown
on protestors in September.

The police officers, who work under the pagoda authorities, were awarded a
pay rise from 25,000 kyat a month to 40,000 kyat, according to a course
close to the pagoda authorities.

About 50 Shwedagon police officers took part in the crackdown on protests
at the pagoda on 26 September, but most of these were reportedly soldiers
dressed in pagoda police uniforms.

The pay increase is intended as compensation from the authorities for the
police officers, who felt that they had gained a bad reputation for their
part in the crackdown.

They also felt that had suffered from the actions of soldiers posing as
police officers at the pagoda who beat up protestors.

In addition to the pay rise, the pagoda authorities have also increased
staffing levels from just under 80 officers to more than 200 since the
demonstrations.

____________________________________

December 7, Irrawaddy
Boy, sister injured by land mine explosion in Pegu division - Shah Paung

A 13-year-old Karen boy was blinded and his 8-year-old sister was severely
injured when a land mine exploded near his village.

The boy and his sister were gathering bamboo shoots to make a roof for
their family's home when the mine was detonated near Lay Kee village on
the border of Taungu District and Papun Township in Pegu Division on
November 19.

The Free Burma Rangers, a relief team that works with internally displaced
Burmese ethnic groups, reported on Wednesday the mine blew up in the boy's
face and severely injured his eyes and throat. His sister was severely
injured also.

The mine was buried by Burmese troops about two months ago when they
attacked villages in Pegu Division, the report said.

Government troops also attacked several villages in the area and burned
villagers’ homes on Sunday and Wednesday, the report said.

Since the beginning of the dry season this year, regime troops have
increased attacks against the Karen. Rights groups are concerned that more
people will be injured by land mines.

In November 2005, the Burmese government opened a violent campaign against
the Karen in Pegu Division and Karen State.

Since then, the FBR has regularly reported cases of villagers stepping on
land mines, causing deaths and injuries. The military operations have also
sent thousands of villagers fleeing to the Thai-Burmese border to escape
the violence.

According to the Mae Tao Clinic in the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot
in Tak Province in Thailand, at least 35 people from Karen State were
admitted to the clinic with land mine injuries from January to early
December 2007.

“Most of the injured villagers were those working in the logging business,
and they were living along the Thai-Burma border,” a health worker said.
Most of the injured villagers were from Shwe Kokko, the headquarters of
Democratic Karen Buddhist Army Battalion 999.

Victims also included soldiers of the DKBA and the Karen National
Liberation Army, the military wings of the Karen National Union.

According to a Landmine Monitor report in 2007 titled Toward a Mine-Free
World, 20 people were killed by land mines and 223 were injured in Burma
in 2006. In 2005, five people were killed and 231 people injured. Both
government forces and armed groups in Burma use land mines, the report
said.

____________________________________

December 7, Shan Herald Agency for News
Shan New Year faces restriction in Burma - Kwarn Lake

Shan New Year celebrations from December 7 to10 in several towns in Shan
State will be monitored closely by Burmese junta authorities. A signed
letter is mandatory that the celebrations will not become intermingled
with any political activity, according to sources from the Shan
communities in Shan State.

In the towns of Muse and Namkham in northern Shan State, the authorities
have asked the celebration organizers to sign affidavits that they will
not perform any political activity during the festival. Celebrations are
also to be limited and watched.

 "For many years, we have played traditional games, racing and Shan
dancing all day without restrictions. These traditional activities bring
harmony and unity in our community. It is also opportunity for us to meet
each other and be in a close relationship with our Shan people, but this
year the people are upset by the order from the authorities. We will be
allowed to celebrate only one night", said a local resident in Namkham,
northern Shan State.

According to a source from Monghsu, southern Shan State, members of Shan
Literature and Culture Committees in Taunggyi, Lashio and Kengtung as well
as the capital cities of Burma such as Rangoon and Mandalay have been
ordered by regional commanders of the Burmese military regime to celebrate
the New Year with pomp.

"In Shan State and other parts of Burma , it's impossible to celebrate
without permission of the Burmese military authorities" said a Shan elder
from Muse who wants to remain anonymous.

The presidents of Shan Literature and Culture Committees have been told to
sign affidavits by Brig-Gen Aung Than Tut, the Commander of Northern
Region Command and Chairman of Shan State North Peace and Development
Council, that there will be no political uprising, gathering of the people
connected to politics, a Muse resident says.

Meanwhile, the 80th  anniversary of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej's
birthday and Shan New Year will be cerebrated at the same time in Loi Tai
Leng, the headquarters of Shan State Army (SSA) on the Thai-Burma border,
according to a source close to SSA..

 It is said that Shan New Year also will be held in many cities around the
world such as New York, London, Singapore, Jiegao and Ruili in the Yunnan
province of China, Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Thai-Burma border towns such
as Fang, Mae Hong Son and Mae Sai.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

December 7, Agence France Presse
Myanmar woes raise fears of new migration to Thailand - Benjamin Helfrich

Peeling shrimp for 14 hours a day can break the most weathered of workers,
but not Som, a Myanmar migrant toiling in a Thai factory side-by-side with
her family.

She processes more seafood with her nimble 14-year-old fingers than many
of her aging colleagues, making her a bona fide breadwinner although she
earns only about 100 baht (three dollars) a day.

Truth told, she'd rather have a pencil in her hand than a crustacean.

"I'd prefer to go to school, but I have to make money," she said while
sitting cross-legged on the floor of a drab one-room dwelling in Samut
Sakhon, a coastal province 30 kilometres (25 miles) west of Bangkok.

"I don't like (the work), but I have to do it," she added.

Seven years ago Som and her family joined the hundreds of thousands of
Myanmar migrants in Thailand, fleeing the hardships of life under the
military regime that has run their country's economy into the ground.

Some fear that further sanctions following the junta's deadly crackdown on
pro-democracy protests in September could lead to a new influx of migrants
to Samut Sakhon, making workplace abuses tougher to monitor.

"There are situations (in Samut Sakhon) that are the worst forms of child
labour and forced labour," said Thetis Mangahas, a programme manager with
the UN's International Labour Organisation.

Samut Sakhon is one of Thailand's wealthiest provinces, home to 40 percent
of the kingdom's two billion-dollar-a-year seafood processing industry.

Half of the seafood handled here ends up in the United States, with much
of the rest going to the European Union and Japan.

Mangahas estimates that as many as 10 percent of the people working in the
province face exploitation. Others, such as Thai labour activist Sampong
Sakaew, fear that number will rise if more migrants arrive from Myanmar,
formerly known as Burma.

"I think more Burmese workers are coming to Samut Sakhon right now," said
Sampong, who heads the Labour Rights Promotion Network (LPN).

"Many people are now hiding in the jungle to avoid the authorities. They
return at night and emerge in the morning for work," he added.

-- Day and night, people arrive from Myanmar --

Samut Sakhon is home to about 450,000 people, and LPN estimates that 70
percent of them are Myanmar migrants seeking work. Only 74,000 of the
migrants in the province are registered legally in Thailand, the group
says.

In 2004, Thailand declared an amnesty for the migrants and allowed them a
one-off chance to legally register for employment, according to Sampong.

But every year more and more people trek through Myanmar's
landmine-infested eastern provinces to search for a better life in
Thailand.

"Every day and every night, more and more are crossing the border,"
Sampong said.

In September, a police raid on the Ranya Paew factory unveiled wretched
conditions for 800 workers.

Police said women there were forced to shave their heads and were beaten.
Families were forced to buy rancid pork from the factory's owner while the
workers lived within the plant's barbed-wired compound.

Inside the factory, workers sometimes laboured with guns pointed at their
temples, according to LPN.

Panisuan Jamnarnwej, director of the Thai Frozen Food Association,
oversees 56 member factories in Samut Sakhon that readily employ Burmese
migrants.

"They are good at supervising and working instead of enjoying life like
the Thais," he said.

But a report by the Seafarers Union of Burma, a trade union in exile, says
that in many cases forced overtime and wages below the legal Thai minimum
of 189 baht (5.72 dollars) per day is standard.

While Panisuan is quick to defend his members saying all abide by Thai
law, he admits some working conditions in Samut Sakhon are not ideal.

"But there are slave factories everywhere, even in New York," he said.

-- School is not an option for many Myanmar children --

Thein New was lucky enough to avoid such a place.

After the 1988 student-led uprising in Myanmar, which was crushed when
soldiers killed more than 3,000 people in the streets, the 44-year-old
mother of eight joined a mass exodus to Thailand.

She and her family left their homes in Mon state, secretly crossed into
Thailand and trekked through the jungle for days before reaching Samut
Sakhon.

She has organised racks of squid at the same factory alongside many of her
kin ever since.

"Normally I get around 200 baht (six dollars) per day, and my boss lets me
quit if I get a headache," she said.

When Thein New falters, four of her children who work beside her pick up
the slack instead of attending school.

Despite a Thai law providing education for all children regardless of
legal status, just two Samut Sakhon schools accept Myanmar children, who
are then separated from their Thai peers.

Many Myanmar families depend on wages from their children and each morning
opt to bring them to the plant rather than the playground.

More that 2,800 child migrants under the age of 15 are registered in Samut
Sakhon. About 50 percent of them, like Som, have entered the workforce,
according to LPN.

Mangahas sees this as a failure of Thai policy.

"This industry allows for seasonal work and young people are the workforce
that can adapt most easily," she said. "But the policies in place don't
account for these young people and the special protection they deserve."

Thein New is sympathetic towards abused workers in Samut Sakhon and
regrets she can not help them.

"I am very lucky, but when I hear about bad employers I feel like I need
to fight against them, but I can't do it alone," she said.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

December 7, Reuters
IMF sees limited sanctions impact on Myanmar - Darren Schuettler

Tighter Western sanctions imposed on army-ruled Myanmar after its bloody
crackdown on democracy protests will have little direct impact on the
economy, the International Monetary Fund said in a report.

"The overall impact is limited because of restrictions already in place
and because the new sanctions cover only a small proportion of trade," the
IMF said in its annual review of the former Burma's economy.

"Nevertheless, in labour intensive sectors such as tourism and textiles, a
fall in demand could also have adverse consequences on employment, even if
the overall macroeconomic impact is small," the report, seen by Reuters,
said.

Tourism was growing steadily until images of soldiers firing on protesters
were splashed across newspapers and on television screens worldwide,
prompting cancellations by tour operators.

Official newspapers said on Friday coverage of the protests had "a strong
negative impact" on tourism but gave no details.

Outraged at the crackdown in which at least 15 people were killed, the
United States, European Union and other Western nations tightened or
announced new trade and investment sanctions.

But some Western firms such as France's Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile,
Research) have refused to leave, arguing it would only make matters worse.

Asian neighbours have also shunned punitive measures against the generals
as Thailand, China and India compete for a slice of the former Burma's
abundant gas reserves.

Higher gas sales have doubled the regime's foreign exchange reserves to $2
billion, equal to eight months of imports, said the report completed last
month after an IMF visit in August.

But despite its natural wealth, the nation of 56 million people is among
the poorest in Asia, with per capita GDP of $230 and pitiful spending on
social services.

"IMPLAUSIBLE"

Officially, the economy grew at a galloping 12.7 percent last year, which
the IMF said "appears implausible".

It estimated growth at 7 percent, driven by natural gas exports, higher
agricultural output and construction projects such as the new capital,
Naypyidaw.

The regime's five-year plan sees growth averaging more than 10 percent to
2010, but the IMF predicted 5.5 percent next year, dipping to 4 percent in
later years.

A fiscal deficit of 4 percent of GDP, financed by printing money, would
continue to fuel inflation of 20-30 percent a year, the highest in Asia,
it said.

It was a shock fuel price rise that sparked protests in August which
snowballed into the biggest anti-junta uprising in nearly two decades.

The United Nations' former resident diplomat, expelled for highlighting
Myanmar's economic crisis, has said the generals may face another
"explosive" situation if they ignored the grinding poverty that fuelled
the protests.

The IMF recommended targeted subsidies to improve living standards and
urged the regime to embark on economic reforms.

These included liberalising the transport and sale of farm products, which
account for 40 percent of GDP, and unifying a distorting exchange rate
system.

The official rate is 5.5 kyat to the dollar, a 24,000 percent premium over
the market rate of 1,300 kyat to the dollar.

How much of this advice the generals will heed was unclear.

The IMF said government officials were in "general agreement" with the
fund, "but need to convince the chain of command". (Editing by Michael
Battye and Alex Richardson)

____________________________________

December 7, Irrawaddy
Weekly business roundup - William Boot

Daewoo Bows to Burmese Pressure to Sell Gas to China

South Korea’s Daewoo International has finally bowed to pressure from the
Burma regime to agree to sell to China most if not all of the large Shwe
gas reserve in two offshore wells, say analysts.

In a minimum legal statement to the Seoul stock exchange, secretive Daewoo
confirmed only that the “preferred buyer” of the Shwe gas would be a
Chinese company.

Most industry observers say this means the Chinese state PetroChina company.

Daewoo, which has the majority concession on the A-1 and A-3 blocks off
the Burmese west coast near the port of Sittwe, had long resisted a sale
to China.

Other contenders for about 6 trillion cubic feet (200 billion meters) of
recoverable gas included India, Japan, Thailand and South Korea itself.

A buyer for the gas has been in contention for more than one year. For a
long time India was the preferred buyer. Then China muscled in.

“For the last six months there have been a succession of contradictory
statements about this big gas sale, but I think most observers knew that
once China entered the bidding it was over, not matter what Daewoo and
Indian government officials kept saying,” noted energy commodities
consultant Collin Reynolds in Bangkok.

The outcome is a double blow to India, whose two state owned energy
companies—GAIL  and onGC Videsh—have a combined 30 percent development
investment shareholding in the two Shwe fields.

Daewoo holds a 60 percent stake and says it has invested tens of millions
of dollars. Smaller stakes are held by Korea Gas and Myanmar Oil and Gas
Enterprise.

Both India and China have said they would build pipelines through Burma to
transport the gas home if they won the bidding.

Alternative plans involved building a plant in Sittwe to compress and
chill the gas for sea transport—a common method nowadays. This would have
enabled Daewoo to sell to several customers including Japan, Thailand’s
PTT and Korea Gas.

“The irony is they would for sure all have paid more for the gas than
China is likely to do,” said Sar Watana, a Bangkok-based commodities
analyst.

Bank’s Capital Expansion Shows ‘Confidence in Future’

Claims by Burma’s First Private Bank company that it is planning to double
its capital “in order to receive more deposits from the general public and
hence to expand our capacity to extend loans” appear to reverse recent
regime policy.

Earlier this year the state Central Bank of Myanmar told commercial banks
to limit customer deposits to 3 million kyat (US $2,300) per week. This
was because the banks could find no way to lend out deposits and turn a
profit.

“Burma’s central bank currently caps the interest rate that banks can
charge on loans at 17 percent per annum,” said Burma Economic Watch editor
Sean Turnell of Macquarie University in Australia.

“With inflation currently running at between 40 to 50 percent, lending
money is a luxury that few Burmese can afford,” said Turnell.

For Burma’s farmers, the situation is worse: for unexplained reasons the
country’s commercial banks are barred by the junta from lending to them.

Farmers can borrow only from the state Myanma Agricultural Development
Bank and are then limited to about 10 percent of what they seek.

First Private Bank—business slogan: “The Bank We Trust”— describes its
main purpose as the “provision of loans for private businesses and for
small industrial ventures.”

First Private told Burmese media that its plans to increase its authorized
capital—from 5 billion kyat ($227 million) to 10 billion—was a “show of
confidence in the future.”

Turnell said since the 2003 banking crisis “the [Burmese] financial system
remains essentially moribund.”

Bangladesh Plans to Open Bidding for Oil, Gas Exploration

Bangladesh plans to open bidding for more oil and gas exploration in the
Bay of Bengal.

The Dhaka government says it needs to open up more blocks for exploratory
drilling because of a looming domestic shortage.

Petrobangla says bids might be opened before the end of this year.
Petrobangla has previously claimed that its territorial waters contain 13
trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.

The only current producing block is operated by Cairn Energy of the UK,
near the port of Chittagong. It delivers about 170 million cubic feet of
gas a day, all used in Bangladesh.

Other companies already carrying out exploratory drilling include the US’s
Chevron and Total of France.

The Burma regime recently rejected a proposal by Bangladeshis to acquire
Burmese gas from the Shwe field, also in the Bay of Bengal, to be used to
fuel agricultural fertilizer factories in western Bangladesh. Dhaka said
it would trade fertilizer for gas.

____________________________________

December 7, Mizzima News
Authorities extort money for road construction in Myit Kyi Na

In rank display of bad governance and arm twisting the Burmese military
regime instead of providing for the upkeep of utility services have been
forcibly collecting funds from residents in Myit Kyi Na town of Kachin
state in northern Burma for road construction.

People are being made to pay as much as 200,000 Kyat (US $ 150) for
construction of new roads in the town.

Under the pretext of reconstructing the main road at Dumare quarter of
Myit Kyi Na town, capital of Kachin state, authorities as of last week
extorting money from residents, locals said.

"Those living along the road are being asked to shell out 200,000 Kyat and
for those living away from the road are giving 100,000 Kyat," a resident,
who was also forced to pay up, told Mizzima over telephone.

However, the local, who wished to remain anonymous said, the authorities
have demand a higher amount from those having a flourishing business. The
amount is as high as 300,000 Kyat.

It is not the first time that the local authorities are collecting money
forcibly. Besides road construction, authorities also collect money under
the pretext of fire security or even for government plantations, he said.

"It is not the first time, all quarters of the town have to give huge sums
of money whenever there is any road construction," the local added.

With frequent collection of money by the authorities for various reasons,
local residents, particularly those with lower incomes including widows
have been hard hit. Those who cannot afford to pay, have to resort to
selling of their homes and shifting to other localities.

"It is impossible to give such large sum of money every time. So many
people are finding it difficult to solve this problem. Some even have had
to sell of their houses," the local added.

People's average monthly income in Myit Kyi Na town could be raging from
20,000 Kyat – 30,000 Kyat (US $ 15 to 20) and having to pay huge sums of
money to the authorities is causing severe problems to the residents, who
are trying hard to make ends meet.

Despite the huge monetary contribution by locals for the road
construction, local residents said, the roads are poorly constructed.

"We will never be satisfied with their work. Because after two or three
years all portions of the road are ruined and cannot be used. They
[authorities] lack the technique and are careless rushing to finish the
job," another local resident, who was also forced to give money, told
Mizzima.

Now, the authorities have begun constructing the road in Dumare quarter
and will soon complete the half-mile project, the local said.

"We have no choice, the only way to avoid harassment is to comply with
their demand and give money, because we are helpless and no one can help
us," another local resident said.

____________________________________
ASEAN

December 6, Reuters
Manila links Suu Kyi's release to ASEAN ratification

The release of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be a key
factor in the Philippines' decision to ratify a new charter for a regional
grouping, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has said.

Arroyo, striking a tough posture, told the Financial Times that Myanmar's
military rulers must comply with the human rights elements in the charter
of the Association of South East Asian Association (ASEAN) by speeding the
move toward democracy.

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She said the release of Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years
under house arrest, will be the "number one benchmark" for Manila to
decide whether to ratify the charter of the 10-member grouping that was
signed at its meeting last month.

The charter needs ratification by all 10 ASEAN members before an economic
and security bloc encompassing 560 million people can be established.

Despite the chorus of outside disapproval, Myanmar's rulers have made
clear they do not intend to do anything outside the framework of a
seven-step democracy roadmap, which the West says will simply solidify the
military's grip on power.

At least 15 people died in a crackdown on anti-junta protests in September
crackdown, drawing unprecedented international criticism and pressure to
embark upon meaningful democratic reform including the release of
political detainees.
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(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; editing by Jeremy Laurence)

____________________________________
REGIONAL

December 7, Irrawaddy
China should reconsider its support for Burma: observers - Saw Yan Naing

China should rethink its policy of supporting the Burmese military
government, especially in light of the recent arms shipments, say Burma
observers.

On Thursday, some 400 Chinese-made FAW (First Automobile Works) armed
trucks arrived in Jiegong, a Chinese border town, due to be transported
into Burma, according to the local sources.

And according to an eyewitness, on November 6, seven large trucks
transported some 21 artillery cannons via Ruili to Muse on the China-Burma
border.

When it comes to arms sales, China definitely supports the Burmese junta
despite the unstable situation in Burma, said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese
analyst on the China-Burma border. He said that more than 1,500 armed
trucks from China were imported to Burma in 2006.

However, in November, India put on hold the sale and transfer of all arms
to the Burmese government, a decision following the junta's brutal
crackdown on peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks.

Human Rights Watch released a statement on Wednesday urging the United
Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo in response to the
Burmese military government’s continuing recruitment of children for its
national army.

An exiled Burma observer, Win Min, said that he doesn’t see any sign that
China will impose an arms embargo on Burma.

“For China, they pay for arms shipment to Burma in order to get natural
gas back from the junta,” said Win Min. “They have great business
interests in Burma, such as gas pipelines and dam projects. That’s why
they are selling it [the arms shipment] to Burma.”

Observers say that China, in supporting the junta, could be the targeted
as an enemy by the people in Burma, who are running out of patience.

“It would be best if China didn’t sell arms to Burma. In supplying weapons
to the junta, people’s annoyance will become focused on them [China],”
said political analyst Aung Naing Oo.

“They [China] should consider the event of the attack on the Chinese
consulate in Mandalay,” concurs Aung Kyaw Zaw.

In early October, the Chinese consulate in Mandalay was attacked by an
unknown motorcyclist. Some critics and local residents alike view the
isolated attack as a sign of growing discontent among the Burmese people
in Mandalay against the Chinese government.

A former Burmese ambassador to China, Thakin Chan Htun, earlier said, “If
Burmese people can’t control their annoyance against the Chinese people,
it could lead to riots between Chinese and Burmese people, just like the
riots in the past.”

In 1967, a major riot occurred between Burmese and Chinese residents in
Rangoon, the Chinese embassy was attacked by Burmese demonstrators and
more than 1,000 Chinese people were detained. Over 50 Chinese people were
reportedly killed; however, the Chinese authorities claimed that several
hundred died.

China became Burma's leading trading partner in 2005, with trade heavily
lopsided in China's favor, topping US $1.7 billion, according to Sean
Turnell, an economist and expert on Burma at Australia's Macquarie
University.

Recently, China National Petroleum Corp, the biggest oil and gas producer
in China, signed an agreement with the southwestern province of Yunnan to
cooperate in oil refining, a step toward building a pipeline to
neighboring Burma.

Analysts estimate that the role of the Chinese government is significant
in applying pressure on the Burmese military regime to initiate political
dialogue toward democratic reform in Burma, as well as China not applying
its veto on the Burma agenda at the UN Security Council.

“China should put more pressure on the junta,” said Win Min. “If not,
their business will be unstable in Burma. They should also reduce their
financial support in areas such as construction and development projects
in Burma.”

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

December 7, Associated Press
Junta killed 31 people identifiable by name, says UN expert who visited
Myanmar - Bradley S. Klapper

Myanmar's military killed 31 people who can be identified by name during a
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators more than double the amount
acknowledged by authorities, a U.N. investigator who visited the country
said Friday.

But Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N. human rights expert assigned to the
country, said the death toll was probably much higher because there were
reported cases of killings where victims' names were not given.

He gave authorities a list of 16 people killed in the military junta's
September crackdown, which are in addition to the 15 dead he said have
been acknowledged by Myanmar's authorities.

The new list "contains only those incidents where the names of the people
involved are cited," Pinheiro said in a 31-page report released by the
U.N. on Friday.

"There are a number of incidents where no names were reported but where
there were allegations of groups of people reportedly killed, which have
also been shared."

Pinheiro, who visited the country also known as Burma, from Nov. 11-15,
said the report has a "list of names of 653 persons detained, 74 persons
disappeared and 16 killed in addition to the list of 15 dead provided by
the authorities."

His report includes details of a visit to the Htain Bin crematorium, where
authorities said 14 corpses were transferred from the Yangon General
Hospital. The bodies were registered and cremated, but three of the dead
could not be identified. Eleven of those cremated died as a result of
firearm wounds.

Pinheiro also said he received "credible reports" from a monk detained
between Sept. 27 and Oct. 5 that at least 14 individuals died in custody.
These included eight monks and one boy, who died on the first day, the
monk told Pinheiro, adding that the deaths were due to poor detention
conditions.

Pinheiro said he heard that Win Shwe, a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's
pro-democracy movement, died during questioning in Plate Myot Police
Center, near Mandalay, on Oct. 9. His body was not returned to his family,
Pinheiro said.

U Thilavantha, the deputy abbot of the Yuzana Kyaungthai monastery in
Myitkyina, was allegedly beaten to death in detention on Sept. 26,
Pinheiro said.

He added that "credible sources" reported a large number of bodies wrapped
in plastic and rice bags that were burned in the early hours of the last
days of September. The burning took place at the Ye Way crematorium in
Yangon. Authorities blocked Pinheiro from visiting.

"Sources indicate that it was not usual practice for the crematorium to
operate during the hours in question, that normal employees were
instructed to keep away, and that the facility was operated on those
nights by state security personnel or state-supported groups," Pinheiro
said.

At least one report indicated that some of those cremated had shaved
heads, indicating they were monks, and some had signs of serious injuries.

Pinheiro said he expressed his concern to Myanmar's government regarding
these allegations and hoped that future investigations could shed light on
what exactly had occurred.

He urged the government to return the remains of all deceased to their
families, so that they can be given proper funerals.

On Monday, national police chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi said that 2,927
people, including 596 monks, were detained in connection with the
protests, but that only 80 people, including 21 monks, remain in custody.

Earlier Friday, Human Rights Watch also said the military killed far more
than it has acknowledged. The New York-based group said in a report that
it had documented the deaths of 20 protesters, but believes that many more
Buddhist monks, students and other civilians were killed.

Associated Press writer Alexander G. Higgins contributed to this report.

____________________________________

December 6, Mizzima News
EU provides 3.9 million euros for Rohingya refugees - Siddique Islam

The U.N. refugee agency has welcomed the European Commission's (EC)
donation of 3.9 million euros (over USD $ 5.7 million) over the next two
years to end the plight of refugees from Burma languishing in the
southeastern part of Bangladesh over a long period of time.

The contribution agreement was signed in the capital, Dhaka on Thursday by
Phiri and Ambassador Stefan Frowein, Head of the EC delegation in
Bangladesh.

"This contribution-more than doubles the amount the EC gave in 2006-07-and
underlines just how serious the European Community is about helping UNHCR
(United Nations High Commission for Refugees) and the government of
Bangladesh to bring to an end the protracted plight of these refugees,"
said UNHCR Representative for Bangladesh, Pia Prytz Phiri.

The EC has long been the largest donor to UNHCR's operations in
Bangladesh, which cost $ 54 million since the arrival of the Rohingya
refugees from Burma in 1991 and 1992, according to the UNHCR.

Most of the Muslim refugees from northern Rakhine state went back home to
western Burma soon after seeking refuge in Bangladesh, but 27,000 remain
in two refugee camps - Nayapara and Kutupalong – near Cox's Bazaar
district of Bangladesh.

"The money of course allows us to provide the daily necessities for
refugees in the camps," Phiri said. "And we are especially grateful that
the EC speeded up the process so that we will be able to spend this money
from January, without any delays."

With the backing of the EC and other donors, the UNHCR won an agreement
from the Bangladesh government for significant improvements over the past
year in the two camps, Nayapara and Kutupalong, which had been among the
worst in the world, the UN agency said in a press statement.

New shelters are being constructed for all the refugees, another grade has
been added to the informal education system, and the national school
curriculum is being introduced, the statement said, adding that the UNHCR,
with its partners, has also been able to provide literacy training for
adults, enhanced skills training and improved medical care in the two
camps.

"But just as important has been the solidarity of the European Community
in working together with UNHCR and other donors to help the Bangladesh
government find lasting solutions for the refugees. It's clear to everyone
that these people cannot go on living in refugee camps forever," Phiri
observed.

Worldwide, the EC is UNHCR's third-largest donor, having contributed more
than $79 million to the agency's global budget of $1.45 billion in 2007.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

December 7, Taiwan Journal
Myanmar's woes perpetuated by PRC - S.P. Seth

Myanmar's nightmare under its military rulers continues and shows no signs
of coming to an end in the near future. After initially seizing control of
the country in the early 1960s, the then leader of the junta, General Ne
Win, decided to turn Myanmar into his own version of an "exceptional"
country, but the people rebelled in 1988 and, for once, the military rule
appeared shaky. Not for long, however, as the generals hit back hard,
killing 3,000 people.

Following this massacre, General Ne Win ceded control to a new group of
generals who thought, for a while, that democracy might not be a bad idea
if it enabled them to stay in power democratically. They therefore decided
to hold elections. But the junta got a nasty surprise when Aung San Suu
Kyi and her National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the
1990 election. The results were ignored and the military tightened its
grip on all aspects of society, ruthlessly silencing any dissenting
voices.

Deeming Suu Kyi to be a threat to their regime, the generals placed her
under house arrest. The pro-democracy leader, also a Nobel Peace laureate,
has been forbidden from leaving the confines of her house in Yangon for 12
of the last 18 years.

The question that remains is how has a junta that has committed so many
atrocities against its own people managed to stay in power for so long?
The answer, at a very basic level, is that the regime is prepared to use
any means necessary to crush even a whiff of rebellion.

Upon further scrutiny, the answer gets a little more complicated because,
compared to other segments of Myanmar's society, the army is much more of
a cohesive unit. Over 400,000 soldiers, their families and ancillary
businesses depend on the survival of the regime. That constitutes a large
segment of the population that stands to lose its livelihood if the regime
was to be overthrown, for it is to be expected that the army will be
trimmed under the leadership of a democratically elected ruler.

There might be, as some reports have suggested, divisions at the top of
the regime between Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, General Maung
Aye. But for the army's unity to be seriously shaken, there would need to
be a dramatic level of disaffection in the middle and lower ranks. And as
these sections of the military have the most to lose, it seems unlikely
that the end of the junta is imminent. Renaud Egreteau points out in Le
Monde Diplomatique, "There have been very few cases of desertion reported
among the ranks, providing little support for claims that the military is
in danger of collapse."

Despite the hundreds of thousands of dependents, the army cannot continue
operating in a social vacuum, while all around it most of the population
is disgruntled and angry. It is imperative for the generals to maintain a
certain level of economic security, or the cauldron could rapidly boil
over. An interesting thing to note is that the recent protests in Myanmar
were ignited by a decision to increase fuel prices, further straining
people's limited means.

With this in mind, the world, in particular China, should focus on
applying more pressure on Myanmar's economy. The junta depends heavily on
China for economic support and political protection, for which Beijing is
awarded with contracts to build roads, ports and pipelines, and access to
the Indian Ocean. Being so heavily invested in the country, China could
definitely use its clout to do more to influence the generals. However,
China's policy of non-interference has conveniently allowed it access to
the wealth of an authoritarian regime normally kept at arm's length by
democratic nations. Besides, murmurings of democracy are hardly something
Chinese leaders want to encourage, as that might set a precedent for
change within China.

But, of late, with so much of their money at stake, there seems to finally
be the realization in Beijing that Myanmar might need some sort of
internal reconciliation, lest it descends into anarchy. This would explain
Premier Wen Jiabao's reported statement that "China hopes all relevant
parties concerned in Myanmar show restraint, resume stability through
peaceful means as soon as possible, promote domestic reconciliation and
achieve democracy and development."

Such platitudes are a start, but they are hardly going to be enough to
force dramatic changes. Beijing needs to be much more pro-active in
persuading the generals to enter into dialogue with Suu Kyi, because this
is the obvious first step to ending Myanmar's long period of misery.

In the same way, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
need to be much more dynamic in their approach to the problem of a
troublesome neighbor, especially since Myanmar is a member of the regional
group. Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was right in saying, "We
are most disturbed by reports of the authorities in Myanmar using violence
against the demonstrators, which has resulted in many injuries and
deaths."

Welcome as such criticism is, ASEAN, and specifically China, can certainly
do a lot more.

--S.P. Seth is a free-lance writer based in Sydney, Australia.

http://taiwanjournal.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?CtNode=122&xItem=24989

____________________________________

December 7, Christian Science Monitor
The Irrawaddy: All the news that Burma deems unfit to print

A Burmese dissident magazine based in Thailand relies on thousands of
Burmese contacts reporting from inside the sealed country

Aung Zaw got his first taste of publishing two decades ago in the kitchen
of his family's home in the old Burmese capital of Rangoon. A student of
botany protesting his country's jackbooted military regime to the alarm of
his mother, Aung Zaw began producing samizdat leaflets at night on an
antiquated printing cylinder operated as if rolling dough.

Arrest, torture, and a stint in jail followed. As the Burmese
pro-democracy uprising of 1988 was being crushed by the ruling junta and
thousands were being killed, Aung Zaw, disguised as a monk, escaped
through the land-mined jungles of Burma (Myanmar) to Thailand. Here, he
made a discovery – the "magic of the fax machine," as he puts it.
Presently, he was back in business, dispatching reports about his
compatriots' plight to human rights groups.

Now, a mere fax seems ancient beside the top-notch office tools of Aung
Zaw's current project: The Irrawaddy. Based in Thailand, the
English-language print and online newsmagazine offers coverage of Burma
and its iron-fisted military junta. The once penniless refugee now
oversees a $500,000-a-year media operation, funded largely by European
Union governments.

Aung Zaw crosses his arms and claps himself on both shoulders, saying, "A
heavy responsibility weighs on these." Then gesturing around the newly
furbished newsroom in this city in mountainous northern Thailand, he adds:
"I never thought I'd come so far!"

Burma's secretive generals probably wish he hadn't.

The Irrawaddy's reporters draw on a clandestine network of sources several
thousand strong across tightly policed Burma, from shop owners to
disgruntled officials who communicate via phone, e-mail, courier, and
meetings snatched at border crossings. The journalists also parse the
regime's propaganda statements for insight.

Earlier this year, Aung Zaw obtained a secret video of the wedding of
strongman General Than Shwe's daughter – an alleged $300,000 affair
bankrolled by arms-dealing and drug-trafficking cronies. The leaked video
enraged impoverished, long-suffering Burmese citizens, most of whom
languish on less than $1 a day.

In September when Buddhist monks, riled by skyrocketing prices, took to
Rangoon streets in silent protest, Aung Zaw began working the phones
frantically. For days, he says, he was interviewing and being interviewed
(by foreign media) often simultaneously. When the crackdown began, he
recalls. "We were speaking to a stringer on his mobile. Just then the
soldiers started shooting protesters."

Such immediate access made The Irrawaddy's website, constantly updated
daily in both English and Burmese, a must for people seeking news from the
hermetically sealed country. Hits on the site, says office manager Win
Thu, jumped threefold to 39 million a week ... until a cyber-attack
brought it down for days.

"Censorship in Burma is tighter than ever," says Zin Linn, a former
political prisoner who works as media director for a shadow government of
Burmese exiles in Bangkok. "But The Irrawaddy is on the side of truth and
dedicated to finding out facts on the ground. Often, people from Burma ask
me what The Irrawaddy says is happening in their country.

• • •

In 1994, Kyaw Zwa Moe was serving a 10-year sentence in Rangoon's
notorious Insein Prison. His crime: posting antigovernment notices in his
high school's lavatories as a 16-year-old student. Political prisoners
were forbidden to read anything except propaganda sheets. "They wanted to
imprison our minds," notes Kyaw Zwa Moe, now The Irrawaddy's managing
editor. Yet he kept returning with relish to a screed denouncing a Burmese
émigré in Thailand for publishing "lies." The "traitor" was his older
brother, Aung Zaw. "I knew immediately," he recalls, chuckling, "if the
government was denouncing him, Aung Zaw was on the right track."

A year before, with an old PC and $100 in savings, Aung Zaw had launched
The Irrawaddy from his cramped, windowless room in a rundown Bangkok
hotel. Named after Burma's largest river, it debuted as a four-page news
bulletin. He made several hundred photocopies and distributed them to
advocacy groups and embassies.

"In my simple English, I wrote a project proposal [to an aid agency]
asking for $2,000 a year," recalls Aung Zaw, who frequently punctuates his
sentences with exclamations. "For several months, nothing! Then they
called me and said, 'Can you ask for more?'" He laughs.

But Aung Zaw turns somber in his reminiscences.

His mother, a teashop owner, never got to read the magazine, he laments.
She was crushed to death by an Army truck in Rangoon not long after The
Irrawaddy launch. "In a letter she wrote me before her death she said, 'We
will reunite soon!' " Aung Zaw says. "But I couldn't even attend her
funeral."

A slender man with feline features, Aung Zaw sports the kind of ponytail
you see on portrait painters in the artistic enclaves of Chiang Mai. His
bookshelves groan under works by Turgenev, Chekov, and Camus – testaments
to his membership in a literary circle back in Rangoon.

Yet his bohemian exterior masks an imperious resolve: "The day I started
The Irrawaddy I declared my independence from party politics."

That didn't please all in the factious Burmese émigré community. Nor has
the independent-minded editor made friends by investigating controversies
about exile groups, like their alleged extrajudicial murder of suspected
government spies along the Thai-Burmese border.

"I'm not very diplomatic when I write," Aung Zaw explains. "But our job as
journalists is not to bring down the government but to seek the truth
objectively."

Still, objectivity can be a challenge. After his release in 1999, Kyaw Zwa
Moe joined his brother in Thailand, working his way up from office boy to
managing editor at The Irrawaddy. In 2005 he studied journalism on a
scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley.

"I hate those ... generals," he concedes. "But I've learned that you do a
disservice to people by [countering propaganda with propaganda]."

• • •

The New Light of Myanmar, meticulously catalogued in The Irrawaddy's
library, is a Rangoon-based government daily. It's propagandists
periodically congratulates "newly trained" journalists for answering the
call of duty.

Kaung Set isn't a journalist the junta has in mind. The journalist writes
for government publications by day and, using that pen name, secretly
works for The Irrawaddy on the side.

"Journalism is an unknown concept in Burma," says Kaung Set during a visit
to the magazine's offices here before slipping back into Burma. "Whenever
I write I'm thinking constantly how I can get past the censors – even if
it's only about fashion."

While soldiers beat, shot, and arrested monks and peaceful protesters in
September at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's holiest site, The
Irrawaddy correspondent surreptitiously took photos and e-mailed them to
The Irrawaddy – facing 20 to 30 years in prison on charges of sedition, if
caught.

"If we don't do it, no one will know what's happening to us," the reporter
stresses. "For us, truth is more precious than gold."

Last year, an Irrawaddy contact was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Yet messages and photos keep pouring in.

A new e-mail pops up on Aung Zaw's computer. Its attachment is a
handwritten letter penned in squiggly Burmese script. Desperate to tell
his story, a Burmese man had it scanned and sent to the editor from a
secure Internet connection.

"The flow of information is unstoppable," Aung Zaw says. "It's very hard
to remove the mountain, but we've started shoveling."

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

December 7, Human Rights Watch
Burma: Crackdown bloodier than government admits
Arrests Continue Amidst International Inaction

Many more people were killed and detained in the violent government
crackdown on monks and other peaceful protestors in September 2007 than
the Burmese government has admitted, Human Rights Watch said today in a
new report. Since the crackdown, the military regime has brought to bear
the full force of its authoritarian apparatus to intimidate all
opposition, hunting down protest leaders in night raids and defrocking
monks.

The 140-page report, "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests
in Burma," is based on more than 100 interviews with eyewitnesses in Burma
and Thailand. It is the most complete account of the August and September
events to date.

Human Rights Watch research determined that that the security forces shot
into crowds using live ammunition and rubber bullets, beat marchers and
monks before dragging them onto trucks, and arbitrarily detained thousands
of people in official and unofficial places of detention. In addition to
monks, many students and other civilians were killed, although without
full and independent access to the country it is impossible to determine
exact casualty figures.

"The crackdown in Burma is far from over," said Brad Adams, Asia director
at Human Rights Watch. "Harsh repression continues, and the government is
still lying about the extent of the deaths and detentions."

Human Rights Watch found that the crackdown was carried out in part by the
Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a "mass-based social
welfare" organization with more than 23 million members that the Burmese
military is grooming to lead a future civilian government. It operated
alongside the Swan Arr Shin (Masters of Force) militia, soldiers and riot
police in beating and detaining protestors.

The report documented the killing of 20 people in Rangoon, but Human
Rights Watch believes that the death toll there was much higher, and that
hundreds remain in detention. Human Rights Watch was unable to gather
information on killings and detentions from other cities and towns where
demonstrations took place.

At a news conference in the new capital at Naypidaw on December 3,
National Police chief Major General Khin Ye stated that, "Ten people died
and 14 were injured during the monk protests from 26 to 30 September. The
security members handled the situation in accord with the procedures."
Human Rights Watch has information that Khin Ye personally supervised the
brutal arrests, beatings and killings of monks at the Shwedagon Pagoda in
Rangoon on September 26.

The ruling State and Peace Development Council (SPDC) claims that overall
2,927 people, including 596 monks, were "interrogated,"and almost all have
been released. It says that nine people have been sentenced to prison
terms, while 59 lay people and 21 monks remain in detention.

Human Rights Watch said that hundreds of protestors, including monks and
members of the '88 Generation students, who led protests until being
arrested in late August, remain unaccounted for. Human Rights Watch noted
that before the protests there were more than 1,200 political prisoners
languishing in Burma's prisons and labor camps.

"The generals unleashed their civilian thugs, soldiers and police against
monks and other peaceful protestors," said Adams. "Now they should account
for those killed and shed light on the fate of the missing."

Human Rights Watch called for greater international action, including by
the United Nations Security Council, to press the Burmese government to
undertake major reforms. On December 11, the UN Special Rapporteur on
human rights, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, will present his findings on the
crackdown to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Human Rights Watch criticized the lack of action by countries with good
relations and influence on Burma, such as China, India, Russia, Thailand,
and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations members. China has made
it clear that it will not allow the UN Security Council to take up Burma
in any meaningful way. Despite the killing of a Japanese journalist by
Burmese security forces, Japan has reacted timidly.

"It's time for the world to impose a UN arms embargo and financial
sanctions, to hurt Burma's leaders until they make real changes," said
Adams. "Countries like China, India and Thailand have the responsibility
to take action to help hold the generals accountable and to end this long
nightmare of military repression."

Selected Eyewitness Accounts from "Crackdown"

"The raid at the monastery was around 1 a.m. The soldiers shouted to open
the monastery gates, and then broke the gate open by hitting it with their
truck when no one came to open. Shouting loudly, they were throwing
teargas and firing their automatic guns into the buildings of the
monastery, and used their batons to beat the monks whenever they saw them.
Many monks ran away, climbing into the trees nearby and escaping by hiding
in the houses of the neighborhood. I was injured in the head when I was
hit by baton charges. I saw pools of blood, shattered windows, and spent
bullet casings on the floor when I came back to the monastery in the
morning. We found about 100 monks missing out of 230 monks. They took our
money and jewelry, and other valuable things they found at the monastery."
- U Khanda, a monk describing a raid on his monastery, September 27

"We were so frightened. My two friends were crying loudly, and I was so
frightened that the soldiers would find us. Then the informers pointed to
the grass. Seven young people were hiding there. They got up and ran, but
the soldiers started firing into their backs. They were only able to run
six or seven steps before they fell. Three or four of the young boys aged
around 20 to 22, were gunned down straight away. The others tried to run
but were caught and taken away in the military cars."
- Thazin Aye, describing killings at Tamwe No.3 High School on September 27

"After the warnings, the soldiers in the first row shot teargas into the
crowd. Five soldiers shot the teargas. They began shooting immediately
after the announcement. People ran in all directions. Twenty soldiers came
over the barricade, climbed over, and started beating the people. Two
people died. Š It was not like in the movies. When the soldiers beat those
people, they were trying to kill them. They beat them on the head and the
abdomen. The soldiers pulled them by their legs over the barricade Š they
put the two bodies next to their trucks."
- Zaw Zan Htike, describing an incident on September 27 in downtown Rangoon

"At the time, a girl wasn't sure whether to lie down or stand up. A riot
police [officer] hit the girl on the side of her face with his baton. The
girl collapsed. She was in her 20s - there was blood running down her
face, and her skull might have been broken. I'm not sure if she died. No
one was able to help her. If we put our heads up, they would hit us and
kick us with their boots."
- Htun Kyaw Kyaw, describing arrests on September 27

To view the Human Rights Watch report, "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007
Popular Protests in Burma," please visit:
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/burma1207/

To view a web feature with exclusive new footage Human Rights Watch
obtained in Burma, including satellite maps, photos and audio commentary,
please visit:
http://hrw.org/campaigns/burma/crackdown/
http://hrw.org/audio/2007/english/burma12/burma17494.htm

For more information, please contact:
In London, Brad Adams (English): +44-20-7713-2767; or +44-79-0872-8333
(mobile)
In Bangkok, Sunai Phasuk (English, Thai): +66-81-6323052 (mobile)
In Thailand, David Mathieson (English): +66-87-176-2205 (mobile)
In Washington DC, Tom Malinowski (English): +1-202-612-4358; or
+1-202-309-3551 (mobile)
In New York, Steve Crawshaw (English, French, Russian, German):
+1-212-216-1217; or +1-646-596-3348 (mobile)
In Brussels, Reed Brody (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese):
+32-498-625786 (mobile)
In Mumbai, Meenakshi Ganguly (English, Hindi, Bengali): +91-98-200-36032
(mobile)
In Tokyo, Kanae Doi (English, Japanese): +81-3-5296-5545; or
+81-90-2301-4372 (mobile)