BurmaNet News, April 15, 2008

[Editor]

April 15, 2008 Issue # 3444

INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar detains at least 20 activists
Guardian UK: Burmese junta arrests opposition aide
RFA: Burma: Life in Insein prison

ON THE BORDER
Reuters: Thai death truck driver surrenders to police
Thai Press Reports: Thailand DSI to seize assets of Myanmar human traffickers

BUSINESS / TRADE
Indian Express: Myanmar offers India 40,000 hectares for growing palm
oilseeds and pulses

INTERNATIONAL
BBC News: UN rapporteur warns Burma on vote

OPINION / OTHER
Progress Magazine: Words are not enough: Britain must zealously champion a
UN arms embargo on Burma
Bangkok Post: A country with no hope?

SPEECH
U Kovida: Speech before US Congress


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 15, Agence France Press
Myanmar detains at least 20 activists

Myanmar's military junta detained more than 20 activists as they walked
through the northwestern city of Sittwe in a peaceful rally against the
country's proposed constitution, an opposition party spokesman said
Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Myo Nyunt, a youth member of the opposition party and a close
aide of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested at his
grandmother's home near Yangon, said Nyan Win, spokesman for the National
League for Democracy. He was taken from his home near Yangon on Tuesday
morning.

He was given a 15-day prison sentence by a court for failing to report to
authorities when he spent a night at someone else's house, Nyan Win said.

In Myanmar, the law requires that a person inform local authorities when
staying overnight at a house where they are not listed as a member. But
Nyan Win said Myo Nyunt was sentenced because he was an active member of
the party.

The arrests came ahead of the country's May 10 referendum on a new
constitution that critics say was drafted to perpetuate military rule.

The NLD has urged voters to reject the charter because it was drafted
without any input from the junta's critics and the country's pro-democracy
movement.

The protesters were wearing T-shirts printed with the word "No," during a
5-day festival to celebrate Myanmar's traditional New Year's holiday.

Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state in western Myanmar is known for its
strong anti-military sentiment. It was the city where Buddhist monks first
joined anti-junta rallies that swelled into nationwide protests last
September. At least 31 people were killed when the military crushed the
protests, sparking global outrage.

On Sunday, some youth activists in suburban Yangon were reprimanded by
authorities and warned not to wear the "No" T-shirts, said a member of the
NLD who asked not to be named for fear of official reprisal.

"Arrests of NLD members and intimidation against opponents of the regime's
draft constitution are becoming more frequent," Nyan Win said, adding that
several activists have also been attacked by unidentified assailants.

Last week, the NLD called on international observers to take part in the
referendum. Junta officials rejected the idea of international observers
when it was proposed by United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari last
month.

The proposed constitution would ban anyone who enjoyed the rights and
privileges of a foreign citizen from holding public office. This would
keep Suu Kyi out of government because her late husband was a Briton.

The proposed charter allots 25 percent of the seats in both houses of
Parliament to the military.

It also stipulates that no amendments to the charter can be made without
the consent of more than 75 percent of lawmakers, making changes unlikely
unless supported by military representatives.

The constitutional referendum is supposed to be followed by a general
election in 2010.

Myanmar has been without a constitution since 1988, when the current junta
took power and scrapped the previous charter after violently quashing mass
pro-democracy demonstrations.

(This version CORRECTS that activist was arrested at his grandmother's house)

____________________________________

April 15, Guardian UK
Burmese junta arrests opposition aide – Ian MacKinnon

The Burmese military junta today arrested a close aide to the detained
opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.  Myo Nyunt, a youth member of the
National League for Democracy (NLD), added to the number of people
arrested in recent days.

More than 20 other party activists were held as they campaigned against
the forthcoming constitutional referendum on Sunday.

The seizures came as the UN human rights investigator for Burma, Paulo
Sergio Pinheiro, dismissed the May 10 referendum, which is part of the
isolated regime's seven-point "road map to democracy".

"The government continues detaining people and repressing people who are
trying to do some campaigning for a no [vote] in the referendum," he said.

"How can you have a referendum when you make repression against those that
are intending to say no? This is completely surreal."

The proposed 194-page constitution - finalised in February but only
revealed in leaks last month - bars 62-year-old Suu Kyi from the political
process because she was married to a foreigner, the Briton Michael Aris.

Critics of the draft constitution, which took 14 years to write, say it
has been designed to perpetuate the military's 46-year grip on power.

The NLD has urged voters to reject the document despite threats of
imprisonment for those campaigning against it.

Myo Nyunt was taken from his home near Rangoon today, while the other
activists were arrested in the city of Sittwe as they staged a rally, Nyan
Win, a spokesman for the NLD, said.

The NLD opposes the constitution because it was drafted under the
military's control. The party has said international observers must
monitor the poll if it is to have any credibility.

Pinheiro echoed the call, saying the poll would be reduced to window
dressing without independent oversight. The junta has already rebuffed an
offer of help from the UN's special Burma envoy, Ibrahim Gambari.

"It would be important to have international observers to validate the
referendum, because if not it would be just a ritual without real
content," Pinheiro said in an interview in Brussels.

The Brazilian law professor, whose term started in 2000 and ends in two
weeks, said he was "gloomy" about Burma's future.

He said he could see little transition towards democratic reform despite
the constitutional referendum, intended to pave the way to multi-party
elections in 2010.

"I don't see the most basic requirements," he said. "You don't have
freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of organisation, or
functioning of parties.

"You cannot have a political transition if you keep almost 2,000 political
prisoners and you continue the crackdown after the repression of the end
of last year."

____________________________________

April 15, Radio Free Asia
Burma: Life in Insein prison

Burmese politician Daw Nan Khin Htwe Myint represents Pa-An township in
the country’s parliament. She was one of three female university students
jailed for their part in political activism around 1975. She became a
well-known political prisoner while serving her sentence in Rangoon’s
notorious Insein Prison, a period she still remembers with pain. Now she
has dedicated her political life to Burma’s opposition National League for
Democracy (NLD). She spoke recently to RFA’s Burmese service about the
hard times, and about her hopes for Burmese women in politics:

“I’ve encountered many difficulties. When I was a student, I started to be
become interested in politics without fully understanding what was
involved. The difficulty I had then was that in a family, when a son goes
to prison, the family says, ‘Oh, he’s a son. He can take it.’ However,
when a young daughter goes to prison, the parents think, ‘Oh, my young
daughter must be suffering a lot. She must be experiencing hardship,’ and
the parents themselves have to suffer. That was a problem for our family.”

“When I was actually in prison, the difference between male and female
political prisoners was this: When I was in Moulmein prison there wasn’t
any place for female political prisoners. There was a separate place for
male political prisoners. There were many male political prisoners. In
Moulmein prison, for example, there were about 54 male political
prisoners. I was the only female political prisoner. Since there wasn’t a
separate place for me, I was kept next to the criminals. When I had to
live with all kinds of people, I started to suffer. There is companionship
if you are with people who are at the same level with you and with whom
you can have a conversation. But I had no one.”

We should not be too scared to speak up when we see injustice. For the
future of our children, we have to speak up, object, and demand things
bravely and clearly.

Daw Nan Khin Htwe Myint
“They didn’t understand these things. I was all by myself and so I became
lonely. My life was really empty. I was alone. I was there for years. As I
lived by myself for longer and longer, I started to talk to myself. I
wanted to talk. Then I started to enjoy talking to myself. I started
asking myself questions, and would answer myself a lot. I was winning in
these conversations. I became mentally weak. I lasted this long only
because I had a great conviction and a strong belief in religion. An
ordinary person can go crazy in this situation—after being alone for a
long time. So male and female political prisoners go through the same
thing, suffer the same thing. Both go to prison for six years each, but
these six years that women go through are harsher than the men’s.”

Sacrifices for the future
“My husband understands my participation in politics. But we don’t have
any children. I feel that if we have a child, what if I have to go to
prison while I’m pregnant? I won’t feel good at all. There’s no way I’m
going to take my child to prison. If I’ve already given birth and have to
leave my child outside while I’m in prison—since I would be a very loving
mother, there’s no way I can leave my child outside and go to prison.”

“So the two of us always have this problem of whether to have a child or
not. He wants children. I would also like to have our own child very much.
This is quite a big problem for the two of us. When women participate in
politics, we have to risk a lot and sacrifice a lot. I would love to see a
peaceful child, a child in my bosom, a child nursing, but I can’t enjoy
this. I have to make a sacrifice. This is a problem in my family.”

“I feel that now I’m suffering all by myself, but there’ll be many
children for the future, and we will have to sacrifice and do these things
for them. We can do these things only when there’s no attachment. So I’ll
have to stop my attachments. Only when I do this will I be able to
continue. No one can work with these attachments. For the good of the
people, I decided to let go of these things for myself.”

Kitchen, politics 'related'
“There are many women in Burma. Even though people are saying that we
don’t have much political knowledge, actually, the kitchen and politics
are directly related. We should participate in politics and be active. We,
the women and the mothers should bravely go to the referendum and vote
‘No’ [to the military junta’s draft constitution enshrining its continuing
rule] for the future of our kids and watch when they count the votes.”

“We should not be too scared to speak up when we see injustice. For the
future of our children, we have to speak up, object, and demand things
bravely and clearly.”

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 15, Reuters
Thai death truck driver surrenders to police – Viparat Jantraprap

The driver of a container truck in which 54 illegal migrants suffocated to
death on their way from army-ruled Myanmar to Thailand has surrendered to
police after a seven-day manhunt, police said on Tuesday.

Suchon Boonplong, who had been on the run since abandoning the vehicle,
said he had been hired for 74,000 baht (1,194 pounds) to drive the truck
from the border town of Ranong to the Thai resort island of Phuket, Police
Colonel Kraithong Chanthongbai told Reuters.

 "He confessed," Kraithong said. "He said he was a driver. He said he had
initially got 37,000 baht, half of the pay, and he would have got the
rest in Phuket."

Suchon is the first person to have confessed to a role in the tragedy,
which has shone a rare spotlight on the human smuggling rings and the
hundreds of thousands of migrant workers coming to Thailand from the
impoverished former Burma.

The 54 who died were among 120 people crammed into the stifling hot
container for several hours. Survivors said they pounded on the sides and
screamed at the driver as the air grew thinner after the air conditioning
system broke down.

"We contacted the driver using a mobile phone but he told us in Burmese to
keep quiet and make no trouble," Tida Toy, 21, told the Bangkok Post
newspaper. "He switched off the phone and drove on."

The owner of the 20-ft (6.1 metre) truck and the owner of a raft on which
the migrants are thought to have crossed a river from Myanmar have also
been arrested but have denied being part of a human smuggling network,
Kraithong said.

"They said they just rented the truck and fish raft. But they're still
being held in custody," he said. "We suspect more people are involved and
we will be making more arrests."

About 2 million migrants from across the region are working in Thailand,
most of them from Myanmar, where 46 years of army misrule and low-level
guerrilla war have crippled a once-promising economy.

Only 500,000 are in the country legally, labour ministry figures suggest.

Under Thai law, registered migrants have the same rights as Thais, but in
practice this is far from the case. They are routinely denied access to
such basic rights as education, medical care and freedom of movement.

The vast majority are unregistered and work illegally in factories,
restaurants, at petrol pumps and as domestic helpers, or crew on fishing
trawlers for a fraction of the minimum wage.

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Alex Richardson)

____________________________________

April 15, Thai Press Reports
Thailand DSI to seize assets of Myanmar human traffickers

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will cooperate with
Thailand's police in adopting harsh punishment as well as seizing the
assets of a gang accused of involvement in smuggling Myanmar workers to
Thailand last week, causing 54 of them to die in a suffocation tragedy, a
senior DSI officer said Monday.

Pol. Col. Suchart Wongananchai, commander of DSI's foreign affairs and
international crime office, said after visiting the southern coastal
province of Ranong on the Myanmar border to follow-up developments in
relation to 54Myanmar workers who died of suffocation in a seafood
container truck last Thursday that Thailand's response to the incident was
being closely watched by international human rights organisations.

The workers secretly entered Ranong province and were travelling to Phuket
province, locked in the storage compartment of a refrigerated seafood
transfer vehicle. A Thai businessman was apprehended Friday in Ranong, but
the truck's driver was still at large.

As anti-human trafficking laws are not yet enforced in Thailand, Pol. Col.
Suchart said the DSI had proposed that assets of those involved in this
case should be confiscated.

He said a detailed investigation was conducted after the incident and it
was found that an illegal smuggling gang would "earn not less than
Bt100,000 per trip".

Smuggling of foreign labour into the country should be considered as an
economic crime and the freezing of assets should be imposed on the
network, Pol. Col. Suchart said.

He said the 50 survivors from the tragedy would be asked to become
witnesses in this criminal case and "not accused persons", and Thailand's
Ministry of Justice would be responsible for their expenses while staying
in Thailand.

The DSI is now compiling information on gangs which smuggle Myanmar
workers to Thailand via border districts in Kanchanaburi and Tak
provinces, he said. The illegal workers are usually sent to work in the
fisheries in Samut Songkhram province, near Bangkok.
____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 15, Indian Express
Myanmar offers India 40,000 hectares for growing palm oilseeds and pulses

In a move that is likely to strengthen bilateral ties, Yangon's ruling
junta, which had earlier declined natural gas to India in favour of China,
is now offering New Delhi 40,000 hectares for growing palm oilseeds and
pulses. Within weeks of a five-day visit by Myanmar foreign minister U
Nyan Win in January, India was informed that Myanmar has earmarked 40,000
hectares on a 30-year lease for joint cultivation of palm oilseeds on a
profit sharing basis. In the contract farming model, India has asked that
exports of oilseeds should be within two weeks of its cultivation.
"Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA) has been assigned the
responsibility to submit a comprehensive proposal regarding participation
of Indian entrepreneurs in the joint venture.

It has sought some clarifications from Myanmar after which they will
submit a strategy for Indian participation," said an official from the
Ministry of Food & Public Distribution. The idea was first mooted last
September by the Committee of Secretaries, which decided to explore the
possibility of cultivating cereals and oilseeds in other countries.
Besides contract farming, Myanmar has offered three lakh tonne of pulses
to India under a government-to-government contract. India - the largest
importer of Myanmar pulses - finds it difficult to negotiate pulses from
Myanmar as private traders dominate the market. Myanmar's recent overtures
are in contrast to its earlier decision to sell gas to China from a field
that is jointly operated by India's ONGC Videsh Ltd.

In January 2007, India lost gas from the field's A-1 and A-3blocks to
China, prompting New Delhi to prod petroleum minister Murli Deora to
undertake a low-key visit even during the unrest in Myanmar. India's
Ministry of External Affairs overruled Deora and the calls by the Western
world for sanctions against Myanmar, and directed the oil minister to
honour the junta's invite as it would further bilateral cooperation. In
August, severe fuel shortage sparked pro-democracy street protests in
Yangon by Buddhist monks. It culminated in a violent crackdown by the
government in September that left several dead and hundreds injured after
the military moved in to stop the protests.


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 15, BBC News
UN rapporteur warns Burma on vote

Burma's referendum next month will be a "ritual without real content"
unless international monitors are allowed in, a top United Nations
official has said.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the Special Rapporteur on Burma, also accused
military rulers of a clampdown on people campaigning for a "no" vote.

The referendum, set for 10 May, is on whether to adopt a new constitution.

Leaders say it will pave the way for elections by 2010, but critics say it
is aimed at entrenching military rule.

The charter was drafted by the generals without input from the
pro-democracy opposition.

It allocates a quarter of seats in parliament to the military and bans
anyone who has been married to a foreign national from holding office -
ruling out detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Her National League for Democracy has called on people to vote against the
referendum.

'No transition'

Speaking in Brussels, Mr Pinheiro said that the referendum would not have
any credibility if opponents were prevented from speaking out.

"How can you have a referendum without any of the basic freedoms?" he was
quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

"It would be important to have international observers to validate the
referendum, because if not it would be just a ritual without real
content."

In a separate interview with Reuters news agency, he accused the Burmese
government of detaining "no" campaigners, and said that he saw no signs of
political change there.

"If you say a real political transition process is taking place in Myanmar
(Burma), this would be almost offensive to countries in Asia like the
Philippines and Indonesia or Thailand that passed through a transition
process to democracy," he said.

Mr Pinheiro last visited Burma in November 2007, weeks after a military
crackdown on anti-government protests left at least 31 people dead.

The Burmese government has since then refused to allow him back in.

The full text of the constitution went on sale in government bookshops on
9 April.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 15, Progress Magazine
Words are not enough: Britain must zealously champion a UN arms embargo on
Burma – Zoya Phan

In real life guns don¹t sound like they do in Hollywood movies. They are
more like firecrackers. Bombs being dropped by planes don¹t sound the same
either. I learnt first-hand how they really sound when I was 14 years old
and the Burmese army attacked my village in Karen State, Burma. It was
1995.

The government of Burma had been attacking my people, the Karen, for
almost 50 years, but in the 1990s the attacks escalated. More soldiers
came, and they had new guns and equipment. Following the failed democracy
uprising in
1988 a new dictatorship took over the country. They opened up the country
to trade and investment, and ploughed up to 80 per cent of their annual
budget into the military. My people pay the price with their blood.

It was only when I was forced to flee my country that I realised other
countries were funding and arming the soldiers that destroyed my village
and were slaughtering my people. How could countries sell them guns when
they knew they were being used for ethnic cleansing?

For the most part our appeals for help from the international community
have fallen on deaf ears. The targeted economic sanctions we asked for
haven¹t been imposed, the United Nations Security Council hasn¹t passed a
resolution calling for the restoration of democracy, and my people still
die from preventable and treatable diseases by the thousand because we
don¹t get enough aid.  If the international community won¹t proactively
intervene to help us, the very least it could do is stop arming the regime
that is killing us.

So my heart leapt with hope when Meg Munn MP, Foreign Office minister
responsible for Burma, announced this month that the UK would support a UN
arms embargo. While the European Union and United States have arms
embargoes, they have not so far made any effort to secure a global
embargo.
And until March the European Union in particular had taken no significant
action to stop trade and investment in Burma. In effect, the EU was saying
Œwe won¹t sell you arms, but we will give you the money so you can buy
them from someone else¹.

The case for a global arms embargo is obvious. On our TV screens last
September we saw soldiers open fire on monks peacefully protesting in
Rangoon. Out of sight in the jungles of Eastern Burma the regime is
engaged in ethnic cleansing, destroying more than 3,000 villages in the
past 12 years. The UN itself has accused the regime of breaking the Geneva
Convention by deliberately targeting civilians.

However, while UK support for an arms embargo is welcome, support alone is
not enough. We need to see the British government actively working to
secure an embargo. They should build an international consensus for an
embargo, securing EU support, and talking to Burma¹s Asian neighbours.
While economic sanctions might be controversial in some Asian countries,
it is hard to see how they can defend arms sales to the regime.

Let¹s start lobbying MPs and the government now to persuade them to turn
words into action, and cut off arms sales to one of the most brutal
dictatorships in the world.

____________________________________

April 15, Bangkok Post
A country with no hope?

The military dictatorship which runs Burma is taking new steps to tighten
its already fearful grip on that sad country.

What is most outrageous about this campaign of control by the generals is
the claim that its policies will be put to a vote in just under four
weeks. The world has seen many free elections, and some whose honesty was
questionable. The upcoming vote in Burma will be neither. The so-called
national referendum on the military junta's constitution is a laughable
charade which hopefully will hoodwink no one into thinking the Burmese
regime's polls bear much resemblance to an actual national election.

The May 10 referendum announced by the military junta reverses almost
every detail of a free election. The constitution which is the focus of
the polls took years to write, but never was debated by the public. A
carefully chosen and military-sequestered "national convention" was
nothing but a highly controlled rubber-stamp committee. The junta dictated
each word of the document. Citizens who want to know what is in the
194-page document being voted on next month have to pay about 30 baht to
see it; only government-run bookstores are allowed to distribute it.

The military has already begun a campaign of fear about the polls. Last
week, the army and police began a familiar campaign to beat up and warn
Burmese trying to organise a "Vote No" campaign. The main opposition
leader remains locked up and barred from political activity. In case of
doubt, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is also banned from
speaking because she once was married to a foreigner. In fact, the
military regime has been conducting constant warnings against speaking
with foreigners. It also has warned all embassies in Rangoon against what
it calls political involvement.

In Burma, speaking with an opposition member is proof in the generals'
eyes of "abetting some local political parties to destabilise the
country". Many countries ask outsiders to observe their elections as a
sort of seal of approval of honesty. The Burmese rudely rejected UN offers
of help to organise the referendum.

Last week, the junta ruled there would be no poll observers at all, except
for soldiers, of course. The opposition National League for Democracy,
minus the voice of its leader Daw Suu Kyi, asked for poll observers,
preferably foreign. Without the natural checks and balances of outside
observers, the NLD noted, the referendum could not be fair. Anyone
suggesting that soldiers could not count the votes honestly clearly was
trying to undermine the Burmese military's plan to move towards democracy.

Next month, the military will cite the referendum as a full mandate to
hold power in Burma. A parliament is due to be selected in 2010, at an
election as free and fair as the one scheduled for May 10. In Burma, the
policy continues to be: no steps forward and two steps back. While
citizens are asked to participate in a sham election, they also suffer
from the worse-run economy in the region, without hope of prosperity. The
generals have effectively encouraged a million Burmese to flee to Thailand
and work for a pittance. Burma has become a country almost without hope.

____________________________________
SPEECH

April 15, U Kovida
Speech before US Congress

Respected Congressmen, staff members, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I would like, first of all, to offer my sincere THANKS to all of you who
have given me a chance to share what I have experienced and those who are
here to listen and pay attention to what I have to say.

Secondly, I would like to thank the President of the United States and the
American people for giving me this opportunity to explain the predicament
and dire situation the people are facing in Burma on behalf of our leader
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the oppressed Burmese.

I am, as you all know, one of the participants during the so-called
“Saffron-Revolution” in September 2007. Burma is infamous for its
violation of Basic Human Rights, disrespect to the freedom of religion,
one of the least developed and poorest countries in the world with the
lowest living standard where the civil war has been going on for the past
50 years.

These are the reason why we, people of Burma, have wanted a change in the
government system. We have wanted to have a higher living standard, and
lived in a better and developed country. The people in Burma have
struggled and fought for change since 1962. We have struggled and fought
to achieve such change throughout the history and the demonstrations and
protests in 1962, 1974, 1988, 1996, 2003, and 2007 are significant. But
all of our voices, pleas and struggles were answered by the brutality of
the military government which used weapons, brutal suppressions, torture,
and imprisonments.

The international community witnessed the brutal suppression of monks who
demonstrated peacefully in September 2007. But there have been many
incidents of oppressions, violation and torture that have been going on
inside Burma without anyone knowing for many decades.

What I would like to point out here in the harmless and helpless Burmese
have very high hope and are depending on the assistance and intervention
from the United Nations and the international community in the past 20
years. Sadly and unfortunately, there hasn’t been any positive effect on
the people of Burma. There were so many decisions by the United Nations.
There were many UN representatives who have visited Burma, but the future
looks bleak. We were greatly discouraged by the fact that the Security
Council merely suggested the military which was killing its own people and
monks, to engage in talks. What I am saying to you now is exactly what the
people of Burma would like to speak out.

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Burma are not only suffering from
extreme poverty, hardship, sub-standard in health care, education and
social services but also facing oppression by the military government on a
daily basis. When monks in Burma understood, realized, and felt the
hardship the people had to go through, we decided to protest peacefully on
behalf of the people. And everyone knows how we were dealt with. We
appreciate that you are trying to oppose the constitution drafted by the
military and its hand-picked representatives. We strongly support your
effort at the UN to reject any referendum and constitutions without the
participation of all people concerned.

Right now the military government is planning to have a constitutional
referendum in May. In many areas in Burma, people are illegally forced as
well as offered financial incentives to vote. In other area, people are
threatened. Some of the activists were brutally beaten up by unknown
assailants very recently. The closer the May referendum is, the more
scared and concerned the people are about their safety and security.
Securities have been tightened inside Rangoon. Police and security forces
are deployed on the main streets of Rangoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasize the fact that we need help
and assistance in order to change the government system in Burma. We
cannot accept the constitutional referendum and planned general election
in 2010 organized by the military government which totally ignored the
results of people voices in 1990 general election, and whose sole aim is
to prolong and ensure the military influence in Burma politics for many
more years to come. We strongly urge you to reject any effort by the
military government to legitimize itself.

In conclusion, I would like to thank once again the international
community, governments and administrations, respected congressman as well
as the people who love democracy and who are supporting our course. I
thank the Refugee International to facilitate my appearance here at the
congress.