BurmaNet News, February 19, 2008

[Editor]

February 19, 2008 Issue # 3405


INSIDE BURMA
BBC News: Burma confirms draft constitution
BBC News: Burma: Sandwiched between giants
Associated Press: Japanese police to probe journalist’s death in Burma
Mizzima News: Distribution of 'Myanmar Nation' halted
Mizzima News: Air Bagan flight overruns runway, no passenger injured
DVB: Locals coerced into joining USDA

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Bombs explode in Tachilek

BUSINESS / TRADE
Earthtimes, UK: Myanmar-Japan trade up 33 per cent last year
Irrawaddy: Tay Za takes over village for its jade

ASEAN
TNA: Thailand to raise Myanmar issue at ASEAN retreat

REGIONAL
BBC News: UN envoy welcomes Burma timetable

INTERNATIONAL
Mizzima News: EU reiterates calls for reform in Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Wallstreet Journal Asia via Irrawaddy: Karen Killing
The Observer: The only winner in Beijing will be tyranny

PRESS RELEASE/STATEMENTS
Press Release: Nine Nobel Peace Prize Recipients Call for Arms Embargo and
Targeted Banking Sanctions on Burma
Press Release: Council on the European Union, Council Conclusions on
Burma/Myanmar
Statement: Nobel Laureate Appeal



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

February 19, BBC News
Burma confirms draft constitution

Burma's military government has announced that a draft of the nation's new
constitution has been completed. The draft will be put to a referendum in
May, and be followed by elections in 2010, according to state media.

According to the French news agency AFP, the constitution will bar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from standing as a candidate.

Ms Suu Kyi's party said it was "unjust" to ban her from standing before
the draft was even approved.

In a statement read out on state media, Supreme Court Chief Justice Aung
Toe said that "after repeated discussions" the constitution had been
agreed on by all commission members.

Little is known of the contents of the document, which was drawn up
without the participation of the country's political opposition or ethnic
groups.

The country has not had a constitution since the military seized power in
1990, after refusing the recognise Ms Suu Kyi's victory in the national
election.

The pro-democracy leader has spent most of the years since then in jail or
under house arrest.

'Unjust'

Speaking during an informal meeting of ministers of the Association of
South East Asia Nations (Asean), Burma's Foreign Minister Nyan Win
reportedly said that Ms Suu Kyi would be barred from running for office
under the draft constitution.

According to AFP, this is because she married Michael Aris, a British
citizen who died of cancer in 1999.

A spokesman for Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party,
also called Nyan Win, said it was "unjust for the authorities to talk in
advance about the elections" before election laws were put in place.

Critics have questioned whether the Burmese government really intends to
stick to the schedule for democratic elections, after years of delays over
its "roadmap to democracy".

____________________________________

February 19, BBC News
Burma: Sandwiched between giants

Burma lies between two emerging Asian powerhouses - China and India.
Almost six months after the suppression of pro-democracy protests, a BBC
correspondent reports from the country's main city, Rangoon.

"You can take my picture but please don't put it in any magazines," the
old man said with alarm.

Then he paused and shook his head apologetically. "We live in fear in this
country," he said.

I'll call him Tin Ngwe. Printing his real name would probably land him in
jail; printing mine would get me on a journalist's blacklist.

I followed him as he shuffled around the Shwedagon temple complex in the
shadow of the huge golden stupa which forms the spiritual centre of
Rangoon.

Last September, when hundreds of Burmese monks took part in a three-week
protest against the government, Shwedagon became their focal point.

I asked Tin Ngwe where all the monks were now, as I had only seen a
handful in what is one of Burma's most important religious sites.

He led me away from the crowds to the eastern gate, and pointed to the
road below, where the first demonstration by monks had begun.

"Thirty-one of them," he said, "all shot".

Many other monks and protesters are, according to human rights groups,
still being held in jail.

Last week the Burmese state-controlled media announced that a national
referendum on a new constitution would be held in May, and general
elections in 2010.

No-one I met had any faith in the promise.

A young man in his 30s told me: "We read that paper and we laugh. It's
already taken so long. I know my country and I know my government. It
won't happen."

It has been 18 years since the last polls. The government lost them to
Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, so they ignored the
result.

In August 1988 the military government crushed a national uprising,
killing an estimated 3,000 people.

Ms Suu Kyi has spent most of her time since then either in jail or under
house arrest, where she is today.

Chinese influence

Many observers believe the junta has decided to make this new promise of
elections because of pressure from China.

Beijing's influence in Burma is considerable, if not yet decisive.

I recently asked a Rangoon-based diplomat what role she thought China was
playing in the country.

Speaking off the record, she answered "whatever best protects their
commercial interests".

The Chinese were not bothered by the fate of Aung San Suu Kyi or the
progress of reform, she said - they just want things stable so they can
keep doing business.

And old Tin Ngwe agreed. He told me that in the long run it did not really
matter what the government promised to do, because "the Chinese will be
running the country soon".

"They are buying up everything we have," he said. "We should be a rich
country, we have gems, jade, gold, everything but diamonds, but the people
are still poor.

"This government steals everything from us and sells it to the Chinese. Go
downtown," he said. "You'll see them."

Indian competition

But the commercial hub of Rangoon is not only dominated by Burma's huge
northern neighbour, China.

Burma is sandwiched between two emerging Asian giants.

Both are seeking the regional upper hand. Both are still wary of each
other, with a legacy of mistrust stretching back to a border war in 1962.

Off a corner of Maha Bandoola Garden street in downtown Rangoon, I found
some of the men benefiting from India's decision not to take a stand
against the junta and to actively oppose sanctions.

Sitting in a huddle around an Indian Paan-wallah, who was making something
like chewing tobacco but from betel nut, were four Muslim businessmen from
Mumbai.

"There are a lot of Indians here," I said to one in Hindi. "The Indians
are here, the Chinese are over there," he said with a smile.

"Where are the Burmese?" I asked him. "Up there," he said with a
dismissive wave.

"This place is going down man," he added, then lent back on his chair and,
smiling again, he said: "But there are good gems here."

Meanwhile, uptown, his foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, was doing
business with the military junta.

A few years ago Delhi did try to take a principled stand against one of
its rogue neighbours, by threatening action against the King of Nepal in
the dying days of his autocratic rule.

But the Chinese simply offered the king their support instead, so India
had to back down.

Delhi has learnt from that lesson. It is clearly not about to risk losing
Burma and the prospect of new gas, oil and infrastructure projects.

The Indian press are already being briefed about Delhi's growing
influence, with claims that Mr Menon's chat with the Burmese generals
secured another visit to Burma by the UN secretary general's special
adviser Ibrahim Gambari.

Mr Menon is a busy man. A few weeks ago he was in Beijing lauding the
signing of a document between the Indians and Chinese that promised a
"shared vision" for the future.

The consequences of that seem to suggest a shift in perspective more from
the Indian side than from China's, which has never claimed to be a
champion of human rights.

Unfortunately for many Burmese, this "shared vision" suggests that the
world's largest democracy has decided to turn a blind eye to the violent
suppression of democracy in the country next door - at least, that is,
while the Burmese junta still have something to bargain with.

____________________________________

February 19, Associated Press
Japanese police to probe journalist’s death in Burma

A team of Japanese police arrived Monday in Rangoon to hold talks with
Burma officials about investigations into the killing of a Japanese
journalist during the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September
2007.

Kenji Nagai, 50, a video journalist for Japan's APF News, was among the 31
or more people estimated by the UN to have been killed in Rangoon in the
September 26-27 crackdown, when soldiers used automatic weapons to quash
protests led by Buddhist monks.

Video footage of Nagai's death appearing to show a soldier shooting the
journalist at close range was televised around the world.

The four-member police delegation and other Japanese officials who arrived
two days earlier will meet officials from the Home Ministry Tuesday to
discuss progress on the investigations by Burmese authorities, said an
official, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak
to the media.

Burma's military government said Nagai's death was an accident and that he
had not been deliberately targeted.

But commentaries in the state-controlled press suggested that he was
responsible for his own fate because he came into the country pretending
to be a tourist and then put himself in a dangerous situation.

Japan, Burma's largest aid donor, announced in October last year it was
canceling a grant worth 552 million yen (US $4.7 million) for a business
education center slated for the Rangoon University campus, in response to
the crackdown and death of Nagai.

____________________________________

February 19, Mizzima News
Distribution of 'Myanmar Nation' halted – Nem Davies

The Burmese military junta has banned the publication and distribution of
'Myanmar Nation' weekly journal after detaining its Chief-Editor and
Manager last Friday.

The Censor Board instructed the publisher to stop publishing and
distribution of the weekly journal which was to be distributed today, a
source close to the journal told Mizzima on condition of anonymity.

"The Censor Board called our publisher yesterday and told him to stop
publishing and distribution of our weekly journal and to convey this
message to us. They also instructed us to close our journal office
temporarily. We had to pile up the journal copies at our office after it
was printed. We planned to start distribution today," he said.

"The Censor Board didn't send an official letter to inform us. We haven't
yet received the official letter from the Censor Board. They just informed
the publisher from whom we hired the publishing license to publish our
journal. We received this ban order only through the publishing license
owner. When we contacted the officials from the censor board to elaborate
on their ban order they just told to us that they would deal only with the
publishing license owner," he added.

Daw Khin Swe Myint, wife of U Thet Zin, told Mizzima that the local
authorities told her that they would take away chief editor U Thet Zin and
Manager U Sein Win Maung just to interrogate them and it had nothing to do
with the journal's publishing. Now they have ordered us to stop publishing
and distributing the journal.

"On the day they took away U Thet Zin, the official told us to continue
our journal publication and the arrest and interrogation of my husband U
Thet Zin and manager had nothing to do with the journal. We had to hastily
finish our weekly publication. Then you can see what happened," she said.

The journal had printed 5,000 copies which cost Kyat 1 million.

"If we had stopped printing and publishing work on Friday, we would not
have wasted so much manpower and money. We had to do hard work to finish
the graphic designs and other necessary works. Now all the manpower and
money we have spent are wasted," she added.

"They just said they would like to inspect the copies, nothing more than
that. All the articles and materials printed in our journal have been
cleared by the censor board. We can print only after getting clearance
from the censor board. Now they have ordered us to stop at the
distribution stage. We are surprised with the order," she also said.

___________________________________

February 19, Mizzima News
Air Bagan flight overruns runway, no passenger injured – Maung Dee

A domestic passenger carrier flight broke down at an airport in Northern
Burma on Tuesday afternoon after failing to take-off due to engine
failure.

The Air Bagan flight, scheduled to take off for Myit Kyi Na to Putao town
in Burma's northern state of Kachin, broke down after overrunning the
airport's runway for nearly three hundred feet as it fail to take-off, a
source close to the airline said.

"It happened as the plane can't take off despite running on high speed. It
overruns the runway for three hundred feet," the source said.

The source said the pilot broke his arm, but none of the 57 passengers on
board were killed, adding that the plane was damage on left wind and on
the main body.

This is the second time that Air Bagan had technical problems. In 2007,
the airline's ATR 42 plane landed with its engine on fire at Heho Airport
in Shan State. While there were no casualties and major injuries, a
foreign tourist was reported suffering from slight injury as he was
leaving the Aircraft from an emergency exit.

___________________________________

February 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
Locals coerced into joining USDA – Yee May Aung

Residents of Hlaing Tharyar township in Rangoon have complained that the
government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association is forcing
locals to join the organisation against their will.

U Tin Yu, a resident of Hlaing Tharyar township ward 8, said the local
USDA group called ward residents together for a neighbourhood meeting last
week to announce that a concrete road was to be built in the ward.

"Hlaing Tharyar ward 8's USDA official Thant Sin called us into a meeting
and said the association was going to build a concrete road in our ward,”
Tin Yu said.

“We were all happy until they told us we had to join the USDA in exchange
for their efforts."

Tin Yu said people from other wards had also been forced to enrol in the
USDA at similar meetings in their neighbourhoods.

Rangoon residents have speculated that the authorities’ forced enrolment
of people in the USDA could be in order to gain as many supporting votes
as possible in the upcoming national referendum.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

February 19, Irrawaddy
Bombs explode in Tachilek – Violet Cho

Four small bombs exploded outside a casino in the Golden Triangle Paradise
Resort Hotel in Tachilek on Monday.

No one was injured and damage was minor.

Tachilek, a border town opposite Mae Sai, Thailand, is infamous for heroin
and methamphetamine smuggling and has a history of violent incidents.

The state-run media in Rangoon reported on Saturday that unnamed groups
were preparing to launch destructive attacks within the country. Tachilek
is 340 miles from Rangoon, in far northern Burma.

A Burmese merchant who lives in Tachilek who asked not to be named said
the bombs were not powerful.
He said the explosions were the result of business conflicts in the city.

“These four bombs must have been planted by businessman who competes with
each other,” he said.

The Golden Triangle Paradise Resort Hotel is owned by two Thai businessmen.

A source close to state authorities in Tachilek said the authorities
believe the bombs were the work of ethnic Shan rebels in protest against
the military government.

Three bombs exploded last month at a railway station in the new capital,
Naypyidaw, and at a circus show in Rangoon, killing two people and
injuring five others.

Terrorist bombings are not common in Burma.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

February 19, Earthtimes UK
Myanmar-Japan trade up 33 per cent last year

Bilateral trade between Myanmar and Japan reached 322 million dollars in
fiscal year 2006/07, up 33 per cent on the previous year, media reports
said Tuesday. Myanmar's fiscal year ends on March 31.

Japan's main import items from Myanmar included fishery products,
textiles, agricultural products and timber, while its main exports to
Myanmar were machinery, automobiles, electronics, iron and steel, cotton
and plastics, said The Myanmar Times, a weekly.

"Fishery items are the largest import sector to Japan, with textiles and
footwear the second largest," Eitaro Kojima, managing director of Japan
External Trade Organisation (JETRO), told the newspaper.

The JETRO chief added that in the near future Japanese companies may shift
to garment imports from Myanmar as suppliers in southern China are
becoming more expensive.

"The cost of production and labour is getting higher and higher in China,
so Japanese investors are trying to shift their factories into other
countries in Asia that will be more cost effective, such as Bangladesh,
Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam," Kojima told The Myanmar Times.

Myanmar's garment and textile exports to Japan have nearly doubled in the
last three years, as have the exports of footwear, he said.

Kojima acknowledged that some Japanese investors had put their Myanmar
plans on hold after September, last year, when Yangon was rocked by
monk-led protests against the oppressive ruling regime, but opined that
the incident would have little affect on overall trade.

The US and the European Union tightened their economic sanctions against
Myanmar after the September incidents that left more than 30 people dead.

Japan has never imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar but decided to cut
its aid to the pariah state in the aftermath of the September crackdown in
which one Japanese photo-journalist, Nagai Kenji, was shot dead.

On Monday, a delegation from Japan's Royal Police arrived in Yangon to
investigate the death of Kenji.

____________________________________

February 19, Irrawaddy
Tay Za takes over village for its jade – Saw Yan Naing

Burmese tycoon Tay Za, a business crony of junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe,
has confiscated an entire village in upper Burma to make land available
for jade mining, according to a local resident.

More than 300 people have been relocated without compensation from the
confiscated village, Tayor Gone, near Phakant, Kachin State, the source,
Ma Grang, told The Irrawaddy.

Tay Za claimed the village belonged to him, Ma Grang said. He had also
ordered a church to be removed from the village by the end of February
because it stood in the way of his planned jade mine.

Tay Za’s company, the Htoo Trading Co Ltd in Rangoon, was not available
for comment on the report.

Htoo Trading Co Ltd is a leading teak exporter and is also involved in
tourism, real estate and housing development. Tay Za also owns Burma’s
o¬nly private airline, Air Bagan.

Business sources in Rangoon report that the young tycoon traveled recently
to Pusan, South Korea’s largest port, to purchase a freight ship and a
tanker.

He is believed to have procured a loan of US $10 million from the military
government to buy the two vessels, reportedly as part of a plan to create
Burma’s first privately operated international shipping line.

Because of his close business and social ties to Than Shwe and other
military leaders, Tay Za is a prominent target of US sanctions. In October
2007, the US put Air Bagan, on its blacklist.

____________________________________
ASEAN

February 19, Thai News Agency
Thailand to raise Myanmar issue at ASEAN retreat

Thailand's Foreign Minister assured a visiting senior United Nations
official on Tuesday that the country is willing to support UN efforts to
restore national reconciliation in Myanmar and that the kingdom will raise
the issue at a regional ministerial meeting in Singapore.

Speaking to journalists after UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro
paid a courtesy call on him here, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama
reaffirmed that Thailand, as an incoming chair of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), would raise the Myanmar issue in
discussions with his counterparts in the Singapore retreat.

ASEAN foreign ministers gather at Singapore's Sentosa Island Tuesday for
their annual retreat focussing on implementation of the 10-nation group's
charter and speeding-up its integration.

The two-day gathering is also to focus on regional developments, a
statement from Singapore's Foreign Affairs Ministry said.

ASEAN groups Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia,
Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Mr. Noppodon also said that he assured Ms. Migiro that Thailand is willing
to support the mission of UN special envoy to Myanmar Ibrahim Gambari as
he returns to the neighbouring country.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon assigned Mr. Gambari as his
special adviser, to pursue continued cooperation with the Myanmar leaders
and all relevant parties to the national reconciliation process to making
tangible progress towards the restoration of democracy and the protection
of human rights in Myanmar.

Mr. Gambari returned to Myanmar for his second visit last November since
the September anti-government protests in which scores of protesters were
killed.

The UN deputy secretary-general urged Thailand to play an active role in a
process which will transform Myanmar to democracy and national
reconciliation through a national referendum on a draft constitution in
May that will lead to a general election which she described as a positive
move, the Thai foreign minister said.

Myanmar's leaders announced in early February that they would hold a
referendum on a new constitution in May followed by elections in 2010, a
move critics said was aimed at deflecting pressure after last year's
crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the Asian country.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

February 19, BBC News
UN envoy welcomes Burma timetable – Michael Bristow

Mr Gambari has visited Burma twice since the September protests.  The UN's
special envoy for Burma says the nation's plan for a constitutional
referendum and multi-party elections is a "significant step".

Ibrahim Gambari said this was the first time the Burmese government had
set out a timetable for political reform.

It marked the first "established timeframe for the implementation of
(Burma's) political roadmap", he said.

But the UN envoy said the referendum had to be credible and include
genuine political participation.

Last week, Burma's military leaders announced that a referendum on a new
constitution would be held in May, followed by national elections in 2010.

The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was not
involved in drafting the constitution, and analysts believe it is likely
to bar the party's detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from standing.

Mr Gambari is in Beijing to enlist Chinese help in persuading Burma to
establish a more democratic and open political system.

He spoke to journalists following what he described as "open and
constructive" talks with Chinese officials.

During the press conference, Mr Gambari was careful not to suggest China
had more influence over Burma than any other country.

But afterwards he admitted China and India were the countries with the
most leverage.

Mr Gambari will next visit Indonesia, Singapore and Japan as part of his
efforts to push forward reform in Burma.

He was last in Burma in November last year, but said he hoped to return
before April.

"The authorities had said they would receive me after the middle of April,
but we have reason to believe they are reconsidering," he said.

Although the envoy said he was not frustrated by the apparent lack of
progress, he added that there needed to be tangible results.

These included lifting restrictions on Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house
arrest, and establishing a more inclusive political system.

The UN envoy has been working on a political settlement since Burmese
troops used force to end anti-government protests in September last year.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

February 19, Mizzima News
EU reiterates calls for reform in Burma

The European Union, yesterday, once again ingeminated its demands that
Burma's ruling junta amend its ways or face further punitive measures.

A five-pointed epistle from the EU's Council in Brussels, where Foreign
Ministers were gathered for a routine meeting, warned that further
sanctions could be forthcoming if the junta does not respond to
international pressure.

"The EU stands ready to review, amend or reinforce the measures it has
already agreed in the light of developments," came the words of caution
from Brussels.

Last year the EU further tightened sanctions on the regime following
September's Saffron Revolution, targeting the financial assets and travel
of junta officials and companies with whom they are associated.

The missive, "Council Conclusions on Burma/Myanmar", also echoed
long-standing positions of the EU in urging the junta to release all
political prisoners, enter into a genuine dialogue with opposition leaders
and accept, as soon as possible, further visits to the country from both
the United Nations Special Envoy to Burma and the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma.

The EU remains steadfast in its belief that "only a process that involves
the full participation of the opposition and ethnic groups will lead to
national reconciliation and stability".

Ibrahim Gambari, the Special Envoy to Burma, had been informed that he
will not be invited to return to Burma till the middle of April. The EU's
Envoy to Burma, Piero Fassino, recently returned from a tour of regional
neighbors.

Burma is to again be a point of discussion at next month's European
Council meeting, to be held March 13 and 14.

A shock announcement earlier this month by the junta of a referendum to be
held in May, followed by elections in 2010, has done little to break an
icy stalemate between much of the international community and Burma's
generals.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

February 19, Wallstreet Journal Asia via Irrawaddy
Karen Killing – Aung Zaw

On Valentine's Day, two gunmen walked up to a wooden house in this border
town and assassinated one of Burma's most prominent ethnic minority
leaders. The killing inflicts a serious blow to Burma's flagging
pro-democracy movement.

Mahn Sha was the leader of the Karen National Union, an armed rebel group
fighting for autonomy from Burma's ruling military junta. He joined the
KNU in 1966 after finishing his studies in history at Rangoon University.
Over the next few decades, he rose steadily through the ranks, finally
serving as General Saw Bo Mya's personal secretary. At the KNU's 12th
Party Congress in 2000, he was elected secretary-general, the third
highest-ranking position in the KNU.

A Buddhist in a mostly Christian movement, Mahn Sha was unusual for his
ability to win support from across Burma's various pro-democracy
movements. As KNU leader, he spearheaded several rounds of peace talks
between the Karen and the ruling Burmese military junta. He also supported
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. When the
KNU delegation went to Rangoon in December 2005 for peace talks, the
regime requested that Mahn Sha be excluded from the discussions -- surely
a sign of his moral authority.

Unfortunately, Mahn Sha didn't preside over a unified movement. The KNU is
rife with grave internal conflicts, mostly over whether to talk or fight
with the ruling junta -- something the former secretary-general was
careful not to expose in interviews with the international press. These
divisions have only served to strengthen Burma's generals, who employ a
"divide and conquer" strategy to weaken pro-democracy groups -- as well as
brute force, as last year's killings in Rangoon demonstrated.

Mahn Sha himself recognized the danger from internal party conflicts. On
Burma's Union Day, a celebration of the country's independence from
Britain and two days before his untimely death, he told Irrawaddy
magazine: "So 60 years have been wasted in vain, and instead of
prosperity, we have fallen into poverty because of the military
dictatorship. There is no security. That's why we want to establish a
democracy and federal union, which is the best form of government to bring
all the ethnic nationalities together."

In fact, his assassination could be the result of those very divisions
with the Karen movement itself. The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, a
Karen group that broke away from the KNU in 1995, is now allied with the
Burmese army. In January last year, another group, the Karen National
Liberation Army Peace Council, also split from the KNU, and its leader,
former KNLA 7th Brigade commander Htain Maung, signed a ceasefire
agreement with the regime. Since Htain Maung's surrender, there have been
several assassination attempts and killings among Karen groups, but mostly
within Burma. On Jan. 29, for instance, Htain Maung's son-in-law was
killed when a bomb was placed under his bed in Karen State in Burma. The
breakaway faction accused the KNU and Mahn Sha of planning the killing.

Still, there was little reason for Mahn Sha to fear for his life in
Thailand. Since the start of the Cold War, Bangkok enforced a "buffer zone
policy" with respect to its neighbors. Ethnic Burmese minorities such as
the Karen, Mon and Shan rebels enjoyed relative freedom in Thailand, and
-- most importantly -- access to arms which they then shipped back into
Burma to rebels fighting for autonomy.

It's unclear if Mahn Sha's assassination signals an end to these "buffer
zone" freedoms. Thailand is now a major trading partner of Burma, dealing
mostly in gas, teak and other natural resources. The new, democratically
elected government in Bangkok has been unusually silent on the killing,
leading many Karen to wonder if the still-unknown culprits will ever be
brought to justice.

The KNU named a new secretary general, 61-year-old Htoo Htoo Lay, last
week. But the party's president, Saw Ba Thin Sein, and its vice president,
Tamala Baw, are in poor health. Mahn Sha was a respected, articulate KNU
leader who fought his entire life for freedom and democracy. If the Karen
can't get their act together soon, they may soon sink into irrelevance --
and with them, so too will Mahn Sha's vision of a free Burma.

Aung Zaw is the editor of Irrawaddy magazine, a publication based in
Thailand that covers Burma.

___________________________________
February 19, The Observer
The only winner in Beijing will be tyranny – Nick Cohen

At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, spectators will watch as
athletes from the worst regimes on the planet parade by. Whether they are
from dictatorships of the left or right, secular or theocratic, they will
have one thing in common: The hosts of the Games that, according to the
mission statement, are striving "for a bright future for mankind" will
support their oppressors.

The flag of Sudan will flutter. China supplied the weapons that massacred
so many in Darfur. As further sweeteners, it added interest-free loans for
a new presidential palace and vetoes of mild condemnations of genocide
from the UN. In return, China got most of Sudan's oil.

The Burmese athletes will wave to the crowd and look as if they are
representing an independent country. In truth, Burma is little more than a
Chinese satellite. In return for the weapons to suppress democrats and
vetoes at the UN Security Council, the junta sells it gas at discounted
rates far below what its wretched citizens have to pay.

There will be no Tibetan contingent, of course. Chinese immigrants are
obliterating the identity of the occupied country, which will soon be
nothing more than a memory. Athletes from half-starved Zimbabwe, whose
senile despot props himself up with the Zimmer frame of Chinese aid, will
be there, however.

As will teams from the Iranian mullahocracy, grateful recipients of
Chinese missiles and the prison state of North Korea, for whom China is
the sole reliable ally.

BEIJING VS BERLIN

With Steven Spielberg citing China's complicity in the Sudan atrocities as
his reason for withdrawing as the Olympics' artistic adviser, comparisons
with the 20th century will soon be flowing. Will Beijing be like the 1936
Berlin Olympics Hitler used to celebrate Nazism? Or the 1980 Moscow games
the US boycotted in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? I
suspect the past won't be a guide because the ideological struggles of the
20th century are over. China's communists are communists in name only.
They are not helping dictators because they are comrades who share their
ideology. They have no ideology beyond national self-interest and a
well-warranted desire to stop the outsiders insisting on standards in
Africa or Asia they do not intend to abide by.

Human Rights Watch points out that if, say, Sudan were to change into a
peaceful state with a constitutional government, the Chinese would not
care as long as the oil still flowed. China's post-communists are like
mafiosi. It is not personal, just business.

They are happy to do deals with anyone, as former US Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger recognized when he set himself up to be PR man for so many
of the corporations that went on to benefit from the Communist Party's
repression of free trade unions.

Campaign groups and governments that want to promote the spread of
democracy have been far slower to understand that the emerging power of
the 21st century will be every tyrant's first customer and banker of last
resort and then adjust their tactics accordingly.

Their failure may be because it is far from clear what fresh tactics are
on offer. Take the supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi campaigning for a
democratic Burma. Their demonstrations outside Chinese embassies have had
no effect.

They persuaded British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to raise Myanmar in
meetings with the Chinese leadership, but again Brown was unlikely to have
made an impression.

Their other successes look equally fragile. The EU has imposed sanctions,
but Western energy companies ask with justice why they should be told not
to compete for gas contracts the Chinese will snap up.

More importantly, they are running into a problem familiar to anyone who
campaigned against 20th-century dictatorships: where to find allies.

If you are protesting about an aspect of US policy -- Guantanamo Bay or
attitudes to global warming -- this is not an issue.

You can ally with and be informed by US activists, journalists, lawyers
and opposition politicians. The resources of the civic society of a free
country are at your disposal and you can use them to shift US opinion. A
subject of the Chinese Communist Party who helps foreign critics put
pressure on Beijing risks imprisonment, and none but the bravest do.

PETERING OUT

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband showed he understood the dilemmas
of the new century when he gave a lecture in honor of Aung Sang Suu Kyi in
Oxford last week. He described how the great wave of democratization,
which began with the fall of Franco's dictatorship in the 1970s, moved
through South America, the Soviet empire, South Africa and the tyrannies
of East Asia, was petering out.

The foreign secretary was undiplomatic enough to continue that the
economic success of China had proved that history was not over and he was
right. Its combination of communist suppression with market economics is
being seen as a viable alternative to liberal freedoms, notably by Putin
and his cronies, but also by anti-democratic forces across Asia.

The only justification for the Beijing games is that they will allow
connoisseurs of the grotesque to inspect this ghoulish hybrid of the worst
of capitalism and the worst of socialism close up. The march of China's
bloodstained allies round the stadium will merely be the beginning.

The International Olympic Committee and all the national sports
bureaucracies will follow up by instructing athletes not to say a word out
of place.

The free-market chief executive officers of Coca-Cola, McDonald's, General
Electric and all the other sponsors who have made money out of China will
join the communists in insisting that outsiders have no right to
criticize. Any Chinese dissident who hasn't been picked up before the
world's journalists arrive will face terrifying punishments if he speaks
to them.

I know sportsmen and women are exasperated by demands to boycott events
they have dreamed of winning for years. Why should they suffer when no
business or government is prepared to turn its back on the vast Chinese
market? For all that, they still should not go.

The hypocrisy of the 2008 Olympics will make all but the most hard-hearted
athletes retch. They will not look back on it not as a high point of their
careers, but a nadir.


____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE/STATEMENTS

February 19, Press Release
Nine Nobel Peace Prize Recipients Call for Arms Embargo and Targeted
Banking Sanctions on Burma – The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu

Nine Nobel Peace Prize recipients today released a public statement
calling for the international community and the United Nations Security
Council to impose arms embargoes on the Southeast Asian country of Burma.
The move comes after the country's ruling military regime carried out a
massive crackdown on demonstration Buddhist monks and civilians in October
2007. The regime has since launched a nationwide dragnet, arresting and
torturing thousands of dissidents.

Reads the statement: "We appeal to the members of the Security Council,
and the international community, to take action quickly on measures that
will prevent the sale of arms to the Burmese military, including a ban on
banking transactions targeting top Burmese leaders, as well as state and
private entities that support the government's weapons trade."

The statement was issued by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and signed by His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Mairead
Maguire, Rugoberta Menchu Tum, Prof. Elie Wiesel, Betty Williams and Jody
Williams.

In 2006, Burma was voted onto the permanent agenda of the UN security
Council for the first time in history, On October 11th, 2007 the UN
Security Council issued its first-ever Presidential Statement on Burma,
calling on Burma's military regime to "... create the necessary conditions
for a genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned parties
and ethnic groups in order to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation
with the direct support of the United Nations."

Burma military regime has defied the Council's demands, refusing to
release political prisoners and instead proceeding with a vote on a new
constitution written by hand-picked delegates of the military regime.

The UN Security Council imposed arms embargoes on apartheid South Africa
after the Sharpeville Massacre and Soweto Uprising. "Now it is time for
the UN and individual countries to immediately impose arms embargoes and
targeted banking sanctions on Burma following the Saffron Massacre," said
Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu. "The election promised by the military regime
is a complete sham," he added.

The call by the Nobel laureates reflects the desire of Burma's democracy
movement inside the country. Two leading organizations, the 88 Generation
Students and the All Burma Monks Alliance recently issued statements
rejecting the referendum of the military regime and calling for arms
embargoes and banking sanctions.

Burma is ruled by one of the world's most brutal military regimes. The
regime has incarcerated Aung San Suu Kyi, the world's only imprisoned
Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Nearly 2,000 political prisoners including
hundreds of Buddhist monks are locked up. Meanwhile, the military regime
has destroyed 3,200 ethnic minority villages in eastern Burma and hundreds
of thousands of villagers to flee their homes as refugees and internally
displaced.

According to the respected arms sales monitoring organization, the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China is the leading
supplier of arms to Burma military regime. Others include Ukraine, Poland,
India and Russia.

____________________________________

February 19, Council on the European Union
Council Conclusions on Burma/Myanmar


The Council adopted the following conclusions:

"1. The European Union remains deeply concerned by the situation in
Burma/Myanmar and urges the authorities to take rapid steps to transition
to a democratically elected government. The Council notes the authorities'
announcement on 9 February of a referendum on a new Constitution in May
2008 and multi-party elections in 2010. It underlines that only a process
that involves the full participation of the opposition and ethnic groups
will lead to national reconciliation and stability. To this end the EU
reiterates its call for the release of all political detainees, including
Aung San Suu Kyi, the start of a substantial time-bound dialogue with all
political stakeholders, and full respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms.

2. The EU reiterates its full support to the UN Secretary General's good
offices mission to help the transition to democracy in Burma/Myanmar, and
calls on the authorities to re-admit UN Special Adviser Professor Ibrahim
Gambari as soon as possible and to fully cooperate with him and the UN
Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar Sergio
Pinheiro.

3.  The EU commends the work of Special Envoy Piero Fassino in
co-ordinating the EU’s diplomatic efforts with Asian partners, and
reaffirms his role in supporting and promoting the UN mission.

4. The EU continues to support the humanitarian needs of the people of
Burma/Myanmar and has recently increased aid to that end.

5. The EU remains determined to assist the people of Burma/Myanmar to
achieve stability, prosperity and democracy. The EU stands ready to
review, amend or reinforce the measures it has already agreed in the light
of developments."

____________________________________

February 19, Statement
Nobel Laureate Appeal

The peaceful, nonviolent marches by the Burmese Buddhist monks in 2007
asking for peace and dialogue towards a political settlement of the
problems confronting that country galvanized the attention of the
international community. They marched to support the lay population who
publicly and bravely protested grievances against the regime. We watched
in horror as their peaceful overtures were met with a violent crackdown by
Burma's military junta lead by General Than Shwe. The subsequent dragnet
he ordered has resulted in arrests, torture and killings that continue to
his very day.

In spite of the overwhelming desire of the Burmese people for political
change the regime has made no overtures and no progress on national
reconciliation. They continue their refusal to engage the Burmese people
and ethnic groups in substantive, meaningful dialogue. We stand firmly in
support of our fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and have repeatedly
call for her release, as well as the release of Buddhist monks and all
political prisoners in Burma. The regime's "roadmap" and decades-long
constitution process is flawed: it does not include participation of the
National League for Democracy. The NLD and Burma's ethnic nationalities
must play an inclusive role in determining a negotiated settlement and
transition to democracy.

We can not, and we will not, forget the events of the Saffron Revolution
and the courage of the Burmese people in asserting their right to live in
peace and freedom. Despite decades of repression and in a world wracked by
violence, their peaceful demonstrations represent a model for the proper
and rightful expression of political dissent of which they are entitled.

Many of the arms used by Burma's military regime to retain its hold on
power have been sold to the regime by foreign governments.  This is not
acceptable - no nation should sell arms to a regime that uses weapons
exclusively against its own people. We call upon the international
community to actively work to implement arms embargoes against the regime.
Further, we appeal to the members of the Security Council, and the
international community, to take action quickly on measures that will
prevent the sale of arms to the Burmese military, including a ban on
banking transactions targeting top Burmese leaders, as well as state and
private entities that support the government's weapons trade.

S/agreed:

Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Shirin Ebadi
Adolfo Perez Esquivel
Mairead Maguire Rugoberta Menchu Tum
Prof. Elie Wiesel
Betty Williams
Jody Williams