BurmaNet News, August 8, 2008

[Editor]

August 8, 2008 Issue #3530


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Many in Rangoon wear black on 8.8.88 anniversary
Irrawaddy: Conditions in Delta far starker than portrayed by Regime
Telegraph (UK): Security crackdown in Burma on eve of uprising anniversary
Mizzima News: Protests in Arakan state's Taungup, 20 arrested
DVB: Student injured at hard labour camp

ON THE BORDER
New York Times: Mrs. Bush meets with Burmese refugees

ASEAN
Philippine Daily Inquirer: RP drops anti-Myanmar stance for ASEAN charter

REGIONAL
Narinjara News: Arakanese community stages protest in Dhaka against 2010
election

INTERNATIONAL
VOA: Cyclone Nargis underscores challenges in delivering aid to Burma

OPINION / OTHER
The Atlantic Monthly: Lifting the bamboo curtain – Robert D. Kaplan
Bangkok Post: Why US president met the Burmese at envoy's house – Thanida
Tansubhapol
Guardian (UK): Burma's bitter remembrance of '8/8/88' – Benedict Rogers
Times (UK): Behind the story: it's like arresting Rowan Atkinson or Ricky
Gervais – Kenneth Denby
Irrawaddy: Searching for democracy twenty years on – Editorial


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 8, Irrawaddy
Many in Rangoon wear black on 8.8.88 anniversary – Min Lwin

Many Rangoon residents donned black clothing to mark Friday’s 20th
anniversary of 1988 uprising, and noticeably more police and plainclothes
security personnel were seen on city streets.

Members of Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy held a
commemorative rally in Yenangyaung Township, Magwe Division, and food
offerings were made at eight of the city’s monasteries to mark the
occasion. Offerings were also made at monasteries in Rangoon.

Although security was tightened in Rangoon and other centers, no arrests
were reported on Friday. The previous day, however, the authorities
arrested Myo Teza, a leader of the All Burma Federation of Students’
Unions, and two of his colleagues.

Students at Rangoon University reported tightened security at the campus,
where entry was restricted to two gates. University staff had reportedly
been warned not to tolerate any political activity by their students.

In a statement marking the anniversary, the 88 Generation Students Group
urged the Burmese military government to release all political prisoners,
including Aung San Suu Kyi and ethic leaders and to begin talks with Suu
Kyi. The statement repeated the group’s rejection of the regime’s plan to
hold a general election in 2010.

In several cities around the world, including in such Asia countries as
Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, anti-regime protesters held
anniversary demonstrations in front of Burmese and Chinese embassies.

_____________________________________

August 8, Irrawaddy
Conditions in Delta far starker than portrayed by Regime

A rare bird's-eye look at Burma's Irrawaddy delta shows the devastation
still left from Cyclone Nargis—broken levies, flooded farm roads, the
shattered remains of bamboo huts and trees strewn like matchsticks along
the coast.

Conditions are far starker than reflected in the assessments from Burmese
government and even in the recent optimism of some UN officials, The
Associated Press has concluded from a review of data, a private flight
over the delta and interviews with victims and aid workers.

Three months after a disaster that claimed nearly 140,000 lives, thousands
of villagers are still getting little or nothing from their government or
foreign aid groups.

"We lost everything—our house, our rice, our clothes. We were given just a
little rice by a private aid group from Rangoon. I don't know where the
government or foreign organizations are helping people, but not here,"
said Khin Maung Kyi, a 60-year-old farmer who lost six children to the
killer storm.

Some areas have received help in the delta, Burma's rice bowl set amid a
lacework of waterways. During a flyover, brand-new metal roofs atop
reconstructed homes glittered in the tropical sunlight, farmers in
cone-shaped hats worked in green rice paddies, and gangs of workers
struggled to remove debris from canals and repair broken embankments.

But progress is slow and behind where it should be.

"The situation in Myanmar [Burma] remains dire," said Chris Kaye, who
heads relief operations for the UN World Food Program. "The vast majority
of families simply don't have enough to eat."

Some grim recent statistics from foreign aid agencies working in the delta:

_ A survey of families in 291 villages showed that 55 percent have less
than one day of food left and no stocks to fall back on. Some 924,000
people will need food assistance until the November rice harvest, while
around 300,000 will need relief until April 2009.

_ The fishing industry, the delta's second-most-important source of income
and food, remains devastated. More than 40 percent of fishing boats and 70
percent of fishing gear were destroyed and very little has been replaced.

_ More than 360,000 children will not be able to go to elementary school
in coming months because at least 2,000 schools were so badly damaged they
cannot reopen anytime soon.

"The vast majority of people have received some assistance. But very few
people have received enough assistance to get them through the next three
months, and almost no one has received enough assistance to enable them to
rebuild their lives," said Andrew Kirkwood, who heads the aid agency Save
the Children in Burma.

Kirkwood said three months after such a disaster, aid agencies would
normally be rebuilding schools, health clinics and other facilities. But
in Burma, he said, the first phase of emergency distribution of food and
basics is likely to continue for another three months.

More upbeat assessments have come from other quarters. Some have noted
that a second wave of death from disease and starvation anticipated by
some relief agencies never occurred.

"It has gone much better than anyone expected," said Ashley Clements, a
spokesman for World Vision, an international Christian relief and
development agency, citing the resilience of the victims and the speed of
the aid response.

"The message I want the world to know is that the government, UN agencies
and other organizations ... are making good progress," said Ramesh
Shrestha, a UN representative in Rangoon.

However, almost at the same time the UN's humanitarian news service, IRIN,
published a report about conditions in the delta titled "Life is totally
bleak." Chronicling the plight of several families, it noted that many
people lack food and shelter.

Some foreign aid workers caution that their agencies refrain from exposing
problems for fear the government will curb or halt their access to
victims.

"Our operations are contingent on having a positive relationship with the
government," said Kaye, the UN World Food Program chief in Burma. "So we
have to work out a fine balance, so that the difficult issues are dealt
with, but in a spirit of cooperation. What we have learned over the years
is that direct confrontation with the government is not the way to solve
problems."

The United Nations' humanitarian chief, John Holmes, recently noted that
the process of getting to the delta is "still more bureaucratic and
unpredictable than in the ideal world." The extent of the devastation also
remains unseen because access is most difficult further south and away
from the main townships, areas that can only be reached through narrow
waterways with very small boats.

"I think that's where the needs still are quite considerable and that's
where we'll focus the relief efforts over the next few months," he said.

The recovery has been slowed by the military government's xenophobia and
poor performance, the difficulties of operating in the delta and in one of
the world's poorest countries, and the sheer magnitude of the calamity.

The United Nations says the government's foreign exchange system has
resulted in the loss of as much as 25 percent of relief aid. This is
because Burma requires the conversion of foreign aid money into Foreign
Exchange Certificates at a set price and then into the country's national
currency, the kyat. The certificates have been worth as much as 25 percent
less than the market value of an equivalent number of dollars.

"This is a big concern," said Dan Baker, the UN humanitarian coordinator
for Burma. "The donors aren't going to give us money if they know they
will (lose) a percentage of that."

To date, relief funds from foreign donors have come to US $339 million,
according to the United Nations.

Victims complain about the dearth of official assistance. The real
post-cyclone heroes have proved to be individual donors, small private
groups and Buddhist monks—some of whom have been harassed, curbed and
sometimes arrested by the junta for their efforts.

The scale of the disaster would put even the most advanced nations to a
severe test. According to a recent assessment, total damage in the delta
and parts of Rangoon is estimated at $4 billion.

Meanwhile, many villagers continue to suffer—and are far less diplomatic
about the military regime than some aid workers.

"I don't expect any help from the government. I just know that if I ask
them for help I would have to give them something in return. But I have
nothing now," said Khin Maung Kyi, the farmer from the delta area of
Kungyangone.

All the storm left him were six acres of rice fields. But he no longer has
children to work in the fields, and he and his wife are weak from the lack
of food, blistering sun and monsoon rains.

"We have no plan for the future," he said. "The only thing we have to
think about now is how to find food for tomorrow. Having enough food to
eat like we had before seems to be a dream now."

____________________________________

August 8, Telegraph (UK)
Security crackdown in Burma on eve of uprising anniversary

Police and militia have staged a show of force in Burma on the eve of the
20th anniversary of a major uprising which left 3,000 civilians dead.

The situation on the streets of the capital, Rangoon, was tense last
night, with hundreds of police and pro-government militia deployed near
the city's landmarks.

Buddhist monasteries, which were the focal point of pro-democracy protests
by monks last year, were being closely monitored.

The military rulers fear a repeat of the 1988 demonstrations - known as
the 8/8/88 protests - which lasted six weeks and saw hundreds of thousands
of people take to the streets. Government forces responded with a bloody
crackdown in which 3,000 people were killed and declared martial law the
following year.

The protests are saw the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi to the forefront of the
country's pro-democracy movement.

Last night, additional barriers and a fire engine were stationed outside
the home of the Nobel laureate, who has been under house arrest for more
than 11 of the past 18 years.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy party, said
the anniversary marked "an important historical turning point".

The presence of troops on the streets was the only sign of the anniversary
inside a country where the population is still struggling to survive in
the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis which killed at least 130,000 people in
May. But protests flared outside Burmese embassies in other Asian
capitals.

In Bangkok, democracy activists demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy,
accusing China of supporting the Burmese generals.

"We are here because China is the main supporter of the military regime,"
said Kyaw Lin Oo, an activist. "We want the Chinese government to
understand the actual cost of their support to the people inside of
Burma."

But in Rangoon, Min Aung, a dissident, said little could be achieved by
protests which once threatened to topple the regime.

"I've totally lost hope that change will come through mass protests," he
said. "It's difficult to organise protests now because most of the leaders
are in jail or in hiding."

____________________________________

August 8, Mizzima News
Protests in Arakan state's Taungup, 20 arrested – Phanida

Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the '8.8.88'  uprising today, at
least 20 youths in Taungup town in Burma's Arakan state were arrested
after they took to the streets and began marching in protest.

The protesters, mainly youths from Nat Maw village, were whisked away by
the police as they marched across Taungup township police station, sources
said.

Thein Naing, Joint Secretary of the Taungup Township National League for
Democracy, Burma's main opposition party, told Mizzima that about 25
people from Nat Maw village on Friday marched along the streets of Taungup
town.

"They begun marching from Chaung Kauk ward and came along Ottama street
but when they arrived in front of the township police station, the road
was blocked with barbed wire barricades. They were taken away by the
authorities," Thein Naing said.

Villagers of Nat Maw, about three miles from Taungup town, on Thursday
held a similar protest march joined by a larger crowd of nearly 200
people.

On Thursday, about 200 villagers of Nat Maw held a commemoration service
on the eve of the 20th anniversary of '8.8.88' protests at two Buddhist
monasteries and held a brief demonstration in front of the monasteries.

"About 200 students, and youths including youth members of the NLD offered
'Swan' to the monks in commemoration of fallen comrades and held a brief
demonstration in front of the monasteries," Thein Naing said.

While it was not clear, how the demonstrations were held on Thursday, so
far there are no reports of any arrest related to the event.

Sources said, authorities had tightened security, with security personnel
seen everywhere in and around Taungup town.

Thein Naing said, Burmese Army LIB 544 based in Taungup had taken charge
of security and police had blocked the road as well as the water way.

"Soldiers in full battle gear are seen every where in the town. I think I
saw at least 60 of them," Thein Naing said.

Taungup town is about 250 miles northwest of Rangoon, Burma's former capital.

Meanwhile, in Rangoon, sources said heavy security presence is felt, with
soldiers seen everywhere in important street junctions and squares
including Sule Pagoda square in the heart of the city, and Shwe Dagon
Pagoda, the holiest shrine of the country.

Observers believe the heavy security presence is preventive measures by
the junta to stop any movement or protests by activists in commemoration
of the 20th anniversary of popular protests in August 8, 2008, which was
brutally suppressed by killing at least 3000 people.

____________________________________

August 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Student injured at hard labour camp – Naw Say Phaw

Ko Nay Linn Soe, one of 10 Muslim students who were recently sent to
remote prison labour camps, is in hospital after being hit by a boulder
while he was working.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Ko Nay
Linn Soe was injured while working at the labour camp in Mon state's Taung
Soon township where he is detained.

"Ko Nay Linn Soe had a boulder fell on top of him on Monday and he was
submitted to Taung Soon hospital's emergency ward," said Tate Naing of the
AAPP.

"His family went to see him on Wednesday."

Tate Naing said Taung Soon prison labour camp was one of the most
notorious prison labour camps in Burma.

“There have been suicides every month as some of the inmates cannot stand
the hard work and the pain anymore," he said.

“A lot of inmates there also die from several diseases due to the lack of
health assistance," he went on.

"It is very rare for an inmate to go home alive after being sent to the
camp.”

Tate Naing criticised the Burmese authorities for holding young people in
hard labour camps.

“All these youths should be sent back to the main prison – if not, there
will be growing pressure from the international community and the regime
will have to defend itself against accusations of crimes against humanity
in the future," he said.

Ko Nay Linn Soe was one of 10 Muslim students sentenced to two years’
imprisonment last month and sent to hard labour camps for their
participation in demonstrations in September 2007.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 8, New York Times
Mrs. Bush meets with Burmese refugees – Steven Lee Myers and Thomas Fuller

Prodded by his English teacher, a teenage refugee from Myanmar wrote a
compound sentence on a primitive chalkboard for the benefit of the
American first lady, Laura Bush, and her daughter Barbara.

 “My life in refugee is better than Burma,” he wrote in English he was
still perfecting, referring to Myanmar by its traditional name, “but I
don’t have opportunity to out outside of my camp.”

Mrs. Bush, who has made democracy in Myanmar one of her public causes,
brought her campaign — and a large contingent of reporters — to the very
edge of the country, visiting a clinic in Mae Sot, and, 37 miles north,
Mae La, the largest of nine Burmese refugee camps along the Thai border.

Her visit, with meetings between Mr. Bush and exiled Burmese advocates and
journalists in the capital, Bangkok, amounted to an unusual and up-close
barrage of American criticism of Myanmar’s military government, led by
Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

Mr. and Mrs. Bush spoke out the day before the anniversary of an uprising
in Myanmar on Aug. 8, 1988, that was violently suppressed, driving
thousands of Burmese into Thailand.

“Twenty years have gone by,” Mrs. Bush said, after spending the morning at
the Mae La camp, which sprawls over the hills six miles from the Burmese
border. “Everything is still the same, or maybe worse, in Burma, a country
that was once the breadbasket that could feed itself and exported food.
Now half the people who live in Burma suffer from malnutrition and
hunger.”

The Bush administration has sought to intensify pressure on Myanmar’s
leaders, financially and diplomatically, though to little immediate
effect. Last week, Mr. Bush signed a law tightening American sanctions on
gems from Myanmar and expanding limits to include Burmese stones cut or
polished in other countries.

Mr. Bush, speaking in Bangkok, called on Myanmar’s leaders to free
political prisoners, including the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
who has spend much of the past 18 years under house arrest. He strongly
criticized the junta’s slow response to the cyclone that struck the
Irrawaddy Delta in May, leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing.
And he ridiculed the Constitution ratified shortly afterward by a
referendum widely considered fraudulent.

“I think the Constitution is a sham Constitution,” he said. “This is a
society that’s not interested in democracy. They have proved they’re not
interested in democracy.”

It is not clear how effective the new sanctions will be. Myanmar has been
under military rule for 46 years, and the junta’s grip on power seems as
strong as ever, despite widespread protests by monks last year and efforts
by the United Nations to push the generals toward democracy.

Mrs. Bush, who took up the cause of Burmese democracy after discussing
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fate with Elsie Walker Kilborne, a cousin of the
president, took advantage of Mr. Bush’s visit to Thailand to see firsthand
the Burmese displaced by violence and repression.

Many of the estimated 140,000 Burmese living in refugee camps in Thailand
fled the violence in 1988 or are the children of those who did, though the
camp Mrs. Bush visited opened even earlier, in 1984, as members of the
ethnic Karen group fled an armed conflict with Myanmar’s authorities. A
generation has been born and reared in the camps, and as the teenage
student noted, Thai law forbids them to leave. Many of the younger people
are effectively stateless.

“Our dream is we want to go home,” said Mahn Htun Htun, the elected vice
leader of Mae La. “But there’s no peace and democracy in Burma, so it’s
impossible to go home.”

He said that more refugees keep arriving, having escaped the violent
reprisals from last year’s street protests, the devastation of the May
cyclone and the poverty and deprivation of life under military rule.

Since the easing of a restriction forbidding anyone associated with the
Karen’s armed conflict with Myanmar authorities to enter the United States
to, the number of refugees has accelerated. Since 2005, more than 30,000
have resettled in the United States.

Mrs. Bush urged other countries — including China — to join in choking off
the sources of revenues that, as she said, prop up Myanmar’s military
rulers. The United States, as a matter of policy, refers to the country as
Burma, as do most of its democratic opposition leaders.

“And we urge the Chinese to do what other countries have done, to
sanction, to put a financial squeeze on the Burmese generals so that they
will reach out to the people in the country of Burma,” Mrs. Bush said,
speaking to reporters beneath a open-sided structure with a roof of
thatched leaves.

In Bangkok, Mr. Bush heard contrasting views on the effectiveness of
American sanctions from the advocates he met. Win Min, one of the nine
dissidents and academics he had lunch with behind closed doors, said the
president seemed convinced that the sanctions should remain in place.

“He’s worried that if he reverses the policy the Burmese military will see
it as a reward, as support for them,” Mr. Win Min said. “They will be more
arrogant.”

By contrast, Aung Naing Oo, a former student activist who teaches at
Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand, said she told Mr. Bush that
the international community should try to engage Myanmar’s ruling
generals.

Ms. Aung Naing Oo said she told Bush that “if you want to help Burma, you
have to have some sort of relationship with the Burmese military.”

“It will take time for the military to understand what democracy is all
about,” she said. “The military has been in power since 1962. We can’t
undo the 46 years of military rule overnight.”

Steven Lee Myers reported from Thailand and Thomas Fuller from Bangkok.

____________________________________
ASEAN

August 8, Philippine Daily Inquirer
RP drops anti-Myanmar stance for ASEAN charter – Ronnel Domingo

Malacañang is pressing the Senate to ratify the proposed charter of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations by November in an effort to dispel
concerns that the country could become a stumbling block in providing the
regional group a legal personality.
Full ratification of the ASEAN charter by all 10 member-nations will
enable the ASEAN to evolve from what critics describe as “a mere talk
shop” into an intergovernmental-organization that is based on rules and
accountability.

Vidal E. Querol, Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia, said in an interview
the Philippines had nothing against the ratification of the ASEAN charter.

Querol’s disclosure appears to be a turnaround from President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo’s statement to fellow ASEAN leaders in November 2007,
when she said Congress would find “extreme difficulty in ratifying the
charter” until military-ruled Myanmar (Burma) freed Nobel Peace laureate
Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi, leader of the National League of Democracy party that won the
national elections in 1990, has been under house arrest since 2003. She
had been in a similar situation in 12 of the past 18 years.

So far, seven of the 10 ASEAN members have ratified the charter, the
latest among them Myanmar. Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and
Vietnam had earlier ratified the document.

The two others who have yet to ratify the charter are Indonesia and
Thailand, which like the Philippines, are original members of this group
that marked its 41st anniversary yesterday.

Malaysia and Singapore make up the rest of the original five members.

“(Malacañang) forwarded the ASEAN charter to the Senate in June,” Querol
said. “The Philippines has nothing against ratification.”

The ambassador added that all that was left now was to allow the Senate to
go through its usual process of deliberation.

ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday it was just natural
for the last three countries to take the longest time to ratify the
charter “because their processes are the most participatory” among the 10
members.

“Some need only the agreement of their Cabinets while some need to go
through their parliaments or Congress,” Surin said.

“Non-ratification so far does not mean non-acceptance of the charter. We
should not look at that as a nuisance,” he added.

The ASEAN’s target for full ratification is by end of 2008 but Querol said
Malacañang hoped the Senate would have made a decision by November, in
time for the 14th ASEAN Summit to be held in Bangkok.

“ASEAN is being revitalized to turn this tapestry of hopes into a robust
architecture that reflects our hopes for the region,” Surin said.

ASEAN has been criticized for its “ineffectiveness” in acting on pressing
matters such as oppressive governments and disaster response, mainly
attributed to the group’s basic principle of making decisions by consensus
and non-interference on internal matters.

In the 12th summit held in Cebu in 2007, ASEAN leaders agreed to build the
ASEAN Economic Community—integrating the 10 disparate economies into a
single market—by 2015

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 8, Narinjara News
Arakanese community stages protest in Dhaka against 2010 election

During a protest staged in Dhaka today, the Arakanese community in
Bangladesh called for the Burmese military junta to discontinue the
national election they are planning to hold in 2010.
The protest was staged in front of Dhaka's high court against the Burmese
military government on the 20-year anniversary of the 8-8-88 nationwide
uprising in Burma.

Ko Kyaw Myint, one of the protest organizers said, "The election in 2010
is not useful for the people and will not fulfill our hope of democracy in
Burma. It is only for the Burmese army to continue their rule in Burma by
the military system. So we oppose the election and demand a stop to all
preparations for the 2010 election."

Ko Kyaw Myint is a joint secretary of the All Arakan Students and Youth
Congress, which led today's protest in Dhaka.

The protest began when Burmese democracy activists gathered in front of
the Bangladesh high court and shouted many anti-military government
slogans. There were over 50 Arakanese exiles that participated in the
demonstration.

"We also demanded they release immediately all political prisoners
including democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo, because their
detention is unjust and unfair, and is furthermore against the current
laws of Burma," said Ko Kyaw Myint.

During the protest, demonstrators loudly shouted the following demands:
"Stop 2010 SPDC election," "Start useful tripartite dialogue with the
SPDC, democratic forces, and ethnic nationalities," "Release all political
prisoners."

The Arakanese community in Bangladesh typically holds such demonstrations
in the capital on the occasion of such historic days for Burma, in order
to attract the attention of Bangladeshis and the international community
to the plight of the Burmese.

Many Bangladesh journalists came to the protests to report on the story
for their respective media outlets. The demonstration ended peacefully
after two hours.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 8, Voice of America
Cyclone Nargis underscores challenges in delivering aid to Burma – Pros Laput

In May, Cyclone Nargis devastated much of Burma. It also demonstrated the
weakness of the international community in trying to deal with the
country. For weeks, the military government blocked efforts to help more
than two million survivors of the storm. This final report, in a
three-part series, looks at the challenge the international community
faces in responding to the humanitarian crisis. Heda Bayron has this
report, from producer Pros Laput.

The damage from Cyclone Nargis was quickly apparent. Some 140,000 people
were dead or missing. Hundreds of thousands were homeless. And thousands
of homes, schools, businesses and farms were destroyed. But the biggest
challenge in helping survivors was not flooding or displacement. It was
the military government. For weeks, it refused most international aid.

The U.S. Aircraft Carrier Essex, carrying helicopters and tons of water
and food, waited off Burma's coast for more than three weeks. It waited
for approval to start ferrying its cargo inland to the Irrawaddy Delta.
Approval never came.

"That is truly unfortunate because these helicopters represented immediate
heavy lift capacity in the area of the delta," said World Food Program
spokesman Paul Risley.

Burma's government also sat on visa applications from the United Nations
and humanitarian agencies.

It took pressure from the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations to persuade Burma to allow foreign aid workers to enter the
country.

"The U.N. has had limited impact, not so much the effort," said Thitinan
Pongsudhirak, who heads the Institute of Security and International
Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. "The effort is there.
They made strident effort. But the outcome, the effects has been limited."

Two months after the disaster, people in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta
still wait by the road for help. They are storing the meager donations
they have received. They know it will take months to recover their lost
crops and incomes.

Although the evidence proves otherwise, Burma's generals say the need for
relief is now over.

On a recent visit to China, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
praised that country for reaching out for help in response to the May
earthquake. Rice said an approach to Burma must be found.

China and India could provide one. Both have extensive diplomatic and
economic ties to the government in Rangoon.

"It has been sad that the Burmese authorities have instead of making
possible the international community response to their people, that they
put barriers to that response," Secretary Rice said. "We will continue to
talk to China and others who have influence."

Relief groups are still urging the country's generals to open up.

"The authorities of the country need to open up to an international relief
effort," said Richard Horsey, spokesman for the United Nations Office for
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "There aren't enough boats, trucks,
helicopters in the country to run the relief effort at the scale we need."

However, for years, Western governments have asked Beijing and New Delhi
to help push Burma's military to allow political reforms, tolerate dissent
and free jailed critics. So far, they have made little headway.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 8, The Atlantic Monthly
Lifting the bamboo curtain – Robert D. Kaplan

As China and India vie for power and influence, Burma has become a
strategic battleground. Four Americans with deep ties to this fractured,
resource-rich country illuminate its current troubles, and what the U.S.
should do to shape its future.

Monsoon clouds crushed the dark, seaweed-green landscape of eastern Burma.
Steep hillsides glistened with teak trees, coconut palms, black and ocher
mud from the heavy rains, and tall, chaotic grasses. As night came, the
buzz saw of cicadas and the pestering croaks of geckos rose through the
downpour. Guided by an ethnic Karen rebel with a torchlight attached by
bare copper wires to an ancient six-volt battery slung around his neck, I
stumbled across three bamboo planks over a fast-moving stream from
Thailand into Burma. Any danger came less from Burmese government troops
than from those of its democratic neighbor, whose commercial interests
have made it a close friend of Burma’s military regime. Said Thai Prime
Minister Samak Sundaravej recently: the ruling Burmese generals are “good
Buddhists” who like to meditate, and Burma is a country that “lives in
peace.” The Thai military has been on the lookout for Karen soldiers, who
have been fighting the Burmese government since 1948.

“It ended in Vietnam, in Cambodia. When will it end in Burma?” asked Saw
Roe Key, a Karen I met shortly after I crossed the border. He had lost a
leg to a Toe Popper anti­personnel mine—the kind that the regime has
littered throughout the hills that are home to more than a half- dozen
ethnic groups in some stage of revolt. Of the two dozen or so Karens I
encountered at an outpost inside Burma, four were missing a leg from a
mine. Some wore green camouflage fatigues and were armed with M-16s and
AK-47s; most were in T-shirts and traditional skirts, or longyis. Built
into a hillside under the forest canopy, the camp was a jumble of
wooden-plank huts on stilts roofed with dried teak leaves, with a solar
panel and an ingenious water system. Beyond the camp beckoned perfect
guerrilla country.

Sawbawh Pah, 50, small and stocky with only a tuft of hair on his scalp,
runs a clinic here for wounded soldiers and people uprooted from their
homes, of whom there have been 1.5 million in Burma. The Burmese junta,
known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has razed more
than 3,000 villages in Karen state alone—one reason TheWashington Post has
called Burma a “slow-motion Darfur.” With a simple, resigned expression
that some might mistake for a smile, he told me, “My father was killed by
the SPDC. My uncle was killed by the SPDC. My cousin was killed by the
SPDC. They shot my uncle in the head and cut off his leg while he was
looking for food after the village was destroyed.” Over a meal of fried
noodles and eggs, I was inundated with life stories like Pah’s. Their
power lay in their grueling repetition.

Major Kea Htoo, the commander of the local battalion of Karen guerrillas,
had reddened lips and a swollen left cheek from chewing betel nut. Like
his comrades, he told me he saw no end to the war. They were fighting not
for a better regime composed of more enlightened military officers, nor
for a democratic government that would likely be led by ethnic Burmans
like Aung San Suu Kyi, but for Karen independence. Tu Lu, missing a leg,
had been in the Karen army for 20 years. Kyi Aung, the oldest at 55, had
been fighting for 34 years. These guerrillas are paid no salaries. They
receive only food and basic medicine. Their lives have been condensed to
the seemingly unrealistic goal of independence; since Burma first fell
under military misrule in 1962, nobody has ever offered them anything
resembling a compromise. Although the junta has trapped the Karens, Shans,
and other ethnics into small redoubts, its corrupt and desertion-plagued
military lacks the strength for the final kill. So the war continues.

Endless conflict and gross, regime-inflicted poverty have kept Burma
primitive enough to maintain an aura of romance. Like Tibet and Darfur, it
offers its advocates in the post-industrial West a cause with both moral
urgency and aesthetic appeal. In 1952, the British writer Norman Lewis
published Golden Earth, a spare and haunting masterpiece about his travels
throughout Burma. The insurrections of the Karens, Shans, and other hill
tribes make the author’s peregrinations dangerous, and therefore even more
uncomfortable. He found that only a small region in the north, inhabited
largely by the Kachin tribe, was “completely free from bandits or
insurgent armies.” Lewis spends a night tormented by rats, cockroaches,
and a scorpion, yet wakes none the worse in the morning to the “mighty
whirring of hornbills flying overhead.” His bodily sufferings seem a small
price to pay for the uncanny beauty of a country of broken roads and no
adequate hotels, where “the condition of the soul replaces that of the
stock markets as a topic for polite conversation.” More than 50 years
later, what shocks about this book is how contemporary it seems. A Western
relief worker arriving in the wake of last spring’s devastating cyclone
could have followed Lewis’s itinerary and had similar experiences. By
contrast, think of all the places where globalization has made even a
10-year-old travel guide out of date.

But Burma is more than a place to feel sorry for. And its ethnic struggles
are of more than obscurantist interest. For one thing, they precipitated
the military coup that toppled the country’s last civilian government
almost a half century ago, when General Ne Win took power in part to
forestall ethnic demands for greater autonomy. With one-third of Burma’s
population composed of ethnic minorities living in its fissiparous
borderlands (which account for seven of Burma’s 14 states and divisions),
the demands of the Karens and others will return to the fore once the
military regime collapses. Democracy will not deliver Burma from being a
cobbled-together mini-empire of nationalities, even if it does open the
door to compromise among them.

Moreover, Burma’s hill tribes form part of a new and larger geopolitical
canvas. Burma fronts on the Indian Ocean, by way of the Bay of Bengal. Its
neighbors India and China (not to mention Thailand) covet its abundant
oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones, timber,
and hydropower. China especially needs a cooperative, if not supine, Burma
for the construction of deepwater ports, highways, and energy pipelines
that can open China’s landlocked south and west to the sea, enabling its
ever-burgeoning middle class to receive speedier deliveries of oil from
the Persian Gulf. These routes must pass north from the Indian Ocean
through the very territories wracked by Burma’s ethnic insurrections.

Burma is a prize to be contested, and China and India are not-so-subtly
vying for it. But in a world shaped by ethnic struggles, higher fuel
prices, new energy pathways, and climate-change-driven natural disasters
like the recent cyclone, Burma also represents a microcosm of the
strategic challenges that the United States will face. The U.S. Navy
underscored these factors in its new maritime strategy, released in late
2007, which indicated that the Navy will shift its attention from the
Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific. The Marines, too, in
their new “Vision and Strategy 2025” statement, highlight the Indian Ocean
as among their main theaters of activity in coming years.

But toward Burma specifically, U.S. policy seems guided more by strategic
myopia. The Bush administration, like its predecessors, has loudly
embraced the cause of Burmese democracy but has done too little to advance
it, either by driving diplomatic initiatives in the region or by
supporting any of the ethnic insurgencies. Indeed, Special Operations
Command is too preoccupied with the western half of the Indian Ocean, the
Arab/Persian half, to pay much attention to Burma, which lacks the
energizing specter of an Islamic terror threat. Meanwhile, the
administration’s reliance on sanctions and its unwillingness to engage
with the ruling junta has left the field open to China, India, and other
countries swayed more by commercial than moral concerns.

But some Americans are consumed by Burma, and they offer a window onto
different, and perhaps more fruitful, ways of engaging with its complex
realities. I saw Burma through the eyes of four such men. In most cases, I
cannot identify them by name, either because of the tenuousness of their
position in neighboring Thailand, whose government is not friendly to
their presence, or because of the sensitivity of what they do and whom
they work for. Their expertise illustrates what it takes to make headway
in Burma, while their goals say a great deal about what is at stake.

For the full article, please visit

____________________________________

August 8, Bangkok Post
Why US president met the Burmese at envoy's house – Thanida Tansubhapol

It was no secret that US President George Bush wanted to meet Burmese
dissidents during his stay in Bangkok. The process was secretly and
carefully arranged, given the sensitivity of the issue, which could have
affected Thailand's relations with Burma.

After delivering his speech at the Queen Sirikit National Convention
Centre and visiting the Mercy Centre in nearby Klong Toey, Mr Bush rushed
back to the residence of US ambassador to Thailand Eric John on Wireless
road. The ambassador's house had been chosen as the venue for his meeting
with 11 Burmese dissidents, where they discussed the political situation
in their country and what role Washington should play in ending the
Burmese military's rule.

The Burmese stayed overnight in Bangkok to prepare for their key meeting
with the US leader, who made it clear in his speech that he is determined
to restore democracy to Burma. The Burmese stayed at the Landmark Hotel
before being moved to the ambassador's residence, a Burmese source said.

The meeting with Mr Bush was timely given it was held on the eve of the
20th anniversary of the Aug 8, 1988 bloodshed when the Burmese military
cracked down on pro-democracy activists.

All the Thai officials responsible for protocol were excluded from this
arrangement. There was a reason for their exclusion. The US knew the Thai
government did not want the talks to be held in a way that would give
Rangoon the impression Bangkok was involved.

The Thai government did not allow the US to use any hotel as a venue for
the talks, the same source said.

Using the US ambassador's residence or the US embassy in Bangkok was the
perfect way out because those two venues are US territory. The government
can say it had no involvement in the meeting because it was not held on
Thai territory.

____________________________________

August 8, Guardian (UK)
Burma's bitter remembrance of '8/8/88' – Benedict Rogers

For Olympic China, 8 is lucky. But on the 20th anniversary of a massacre
in Burma, it's an ideal time to break with the junta.

The world's eyes are on China today, as the Olympic games begin. But as
the athletes compete, our attention is divided. Media talk is not simply
of sport, but of China's human rights record and murky foreign policy.

Meanwhile, the people of Burma remember the massacre of thousands of
pro-democracy protestors on this day 20 years ago. On August 8 1988, after
months of demonstrations, the military opened fire on civilians. In a
single day, several thousand were killed, and "8/8/88" became etched in
blood.

Twenty years on, Burma's crisis has deteriorated even further. The
protests last September, and the regime's calculated denial of aid to
victims of Cyclone Nargis this year, brought rare world attention. Both
events illustrated the true character of the illegal military regime that
has terrorised Burma for 46 years.

Burma's democracy leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National
League for Democracy (NLD) overwhelmingly won the 1990 elections, remains
under house arrest. Earlier this year, her detention was extended even
though her sentence had expired, and the regime declared that she should
be flogged. Over 2,000 political prisoners face torture in Burma's jails.
Over 70,000 child soldiers have been forced into the Burmese army, and
ethnic groups live with a daily diet of crimes against humanity, including
rape as a weapon of war, forced labour, human minesweepers, religious
persecution, torture and killings. Over 3,200 villages in eastern Burma
alone have been destroyed by the army since 1996, and over a million
people have been internally displaced, some forced to flee to Thailand,
India, Bangladesh and further afield.

Following Cyclone Nargis, Burma's junta put its callousness on full
display by refusing, then restricting and diverting humanitarian aid
efforts. Now the regime is accused of siphoning off millions of dollars
from international relief funds.

Largely unknown to the world, two further humanitarian crises are
developing. In eastern Burma, hundreds of thousands are on the run in the
jungle, hunted by the army, with little access to shelter, food or
medicine – while in Burma's western border areas, the Chin people are
facing famine. Once every 50 years, the bamboo flowers, killing the bamboo
– the Chins' major source of food and building material – and causing a
plague of rats, who multiply and destroy rice fields and food stocks. Over
200 villages and 100,000 people face starvation. As in the cyclone, the
regime has not only failed to help, it is actively obstructing the small
efforts being made to deliver relief.

It is difficult to imagine a worse regime, one guilty of every possible
crime against humanity. The time has come for clear, bold action against
it. That means financial sanctions, targeting the generals' personal
assets. The US has led the way on this, and European countries, Singapore
and Japan should follow. It means a universal arms embargo, imposed by the
UN security council, and intense pressure on Burma's neighbours, China,
India and Thailand. And it means clear, tangible benchmarks with specific
deadlines for progress, set by the UN. The first should be set this month
when the UN special envoy visits, requiring the release of political
prisoners by the time Ban Ki-moon visits in December.

It also means two even bolder steps: a challenge to the regime's UN
credentials, and a referral to the international criminal court (ICC). The
generals' legitimacy should be clearly challenged. They have no right to
rule, having lost the 1990 elections and rigged a referendum on a
constitution this year, and have proven themselves completely unfit to
govern. A legitimate alternative, consisting of exiled elected
representatives, exists and could take Burma's seat in the UN general
assembly. Undertaking such action would sow doubt in the minds of Burma's
neighbours as to the long-term viability of the junta.

Above all, it is time to stop the diplomatic ducking and weaving, and call
the generals what they are: criminals. The decision to prosecute Sudan's
leader Omar al-Bashir and the capture of Radovan Karadzic, set a clear
precedent. The generals should be brought to the ICC, through a referral
by the UN security council. Failing that, other mechanisms such as the
international court of justice (ICJ) should be explored. Some argue it
will drive the regime further into its trenches, but it depends how it is
done. It has the potential to strengthen Suu Kyi's hand. With the threat
of prosecution looming, but the option of a way out, the junta may be
enticed to the negotiating table. The generals have shown that the
language they understand is force. Twenty years on from "8/8/88", pressure
must be dramatically intensified – and China, in full view of the world
today, has an opportunity to end its support of these criminals and behave
responsibly on the world stage.

____________________________________

August 8, Times (UK)
Behind the story: it's like arresting Rowan Atkinson or Ricky Gervais –
Kenneth Denby

Until the generals revoked his performance licence Zarganar was one of the
funniest men in Burma but when I met him in Rangoon, in May this year two
weeks after the cyclone, there were few jokes to be cracked or laughs to
be had.

He had just returned from another trip to the Irrawaddy delta, bearing
film of the scenes in some of remote villages stricken by the storm —
heartbreaking, stomach-turning images of rotting bodies, desperate people
and government neglect.

Zarganar is always careful to emphasise that he is not a political
activist. He kept his distance from the National League for Democracy of
Aung San Suu Kyi and the 88 Generation of student activists and with good
reason — to declare yourself a member of the political opposition in Burma
these days is to resign yourself to constant spying, low- level harassment
and probably arrest and imprisonment. His band of film-makers, actors and
celebrities consciously avoided direct engagement with the junta’s
politics. But the work to which they committed themselves — raising and
distributing aid to the victims of the cyclone — was inescapably
political. By their discipline, efficiency and humility, Zarganar’s
people, who deliberately avoided identifying themselves with the name of
any organisation, showed up the incompetence, indifference and arrogance
of the Government.

Their status as celebrities gave them a kind of protection that ordinary
citizens did not enjoy.

To arrest Zarganar (his stage name, which he adopted as a student of
dentistry, means Tweezers), would have been like arresting Rowan Atkinson
or Ricky Gervais.

Twice before he was hauled in by the police, only to be released after a
few days or weeks.

This time, it seems, his luck has run out. It could be years, even
decades, before the junta decides to free him.

____________________________________

August 8, Irrawaddy
Searching for democracy twenty years on – Editorial

Two decades have passed since the streets of Burma were filled with
hundreds of thousands of triumphant demonstrators chanting over and over
again, "We want democracy."

Unfortunately, their calls for creating a democratic, free and prosperous
nation fell on the deaf ears of the power-crazy generals who only saw the
wishes and desires of the demonstrators as a threat to their very
existence.

August 8, 1988, known as “the day of four eights [8.8.88],” when a
nationwide pro-democracy uprising broke out across the country, was a
major turning point in Burma's political history. An estimated 3,000
protestors were killed on the streets, shot by the security forces to
quell the nationwide outcry.

Although 20 long years have passed since then, the country is still ruled
by a clique of generals whose hands are stained with the blood of unarmed
civilians, monks and young students. In August 2008 and in the following
years, the Burmese regime locked up nearly 2,000 political prisoners,
along with the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung
San Suu Kyi.

Paradoxically, the regime led by Snr-Gen Than Shwe thought it could save
the country from "disintegration" and "anarchy." The most disturbing thing
is the generals' stubbornness and unwillingness to make the courageous
decisions that are imperative if national reconciliation is to be brought
about in Burma. The army, in power since 1962, has presided over a
dramatic political and economic decline, and Burma is now one of Asia’s
poorest states.

Whenever the people of Burma call for change, however, they meet only
further brutality and state-sponsored violence.

The last time demonstrators took to the streets, in monk-led protests in
September 2008, the regime again reacted with uncompromising violence,
cracking down with its customary brutality. Homes were raided, prominent
members of the 88 Generation Students group and other activists were
seized and ruthless manhunts were unleashed to capture those who escaped
the terror.

Then came Cyclone Nargis in May this year, and again the regime displayed
little concern for the people, making totally inadequate and delayed
attempts to help the victims. Even now thousands are homeless and face a
daily struggle for food.

The junta has not yet shown any real commitment to political reform,
despite its announcement of 2010 elections, while the economy stagnates
and society remains crippled.

The past 20 years have shown the Burmese army, the Tatmadaw, to be the
world's most corrupt armed forces, commanded by generals who have no moral
or legal authority to govern Burma, while practicing barbarism, tyranny,
anarchy, militarism and enslaving Burmese citizens.

Yet some of Burma’s neighbors—notably Thailand, China and India—are keen
to keep on good terms with the Burmese generals for their own business
interests, while the UN Security Council has yet to take any effective
action against Burma’s ruling generals.
Twenty years on, the blood on the Burmese generals’ hands is still warm,
and those who shaking these stained hands should realize they are dealing
with one of the cruelest and most brutal regimes in the world. They should
recognize the words of the courageous Burmese people who sacrificed their
lives for their country, words which have lingered on through 20 years of
oppression: "We want democracy."