BurmaNet News, April 2, 2009

[Editor]

April 2, 2009, Issue #3683


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Opposition members jailed for bomb plot
Xinhua: Myanmar to punish performances against traditional culture in
water festival
Reuters: U.S. donates rice for Myanmar cyclone survivors

ON THE BORDER
DVB: Refugees protest against cuts in UN support
DVB: Murder near China-Burma border being linked to child trafficking
IMNA: Undocumented migrant workers receive free TB tests and treatment

HEALTH / AIDS
DVB: Children and the poor hit by cholera outbreak
Xinhua: Myanmar to launch first private air ambulance

ASEAN
AP: Philippines urges Burma to protect human rights

REGIONAL
Irrawaddy: Singapore, Malaysia ban Burmese pickled tea

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Japan's Myanmar refugees rally

OPINION / OTHER
UPI: Visit to UNDP ends in Rangoon prison – Awzar Thi
DVB: Change is needed from the outside – Francis Wade



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Opposition members jailed for bomb plot – Nan Kham Kaew

Seven members of opposition party National League for Democracy accused of
a bomb plot were sentenced on Monday to five years imprisonment despite a
distinct lack of evidence, said the wife of one.

The sentences were handed down exactly one year after they were first
detained at Rangoon's Insein jail.

"(The police) could not provide any evidence," said Kyin Nu, wife of
imprisoned Aung Than Tun.

"He was arrested because they claimed he was found at Minthagyee teashop,
and by using the statement of an informer."

Kyin Nu added that Minthagyee teashop closed down over four years ago.

"We assume that they were arrested because they are NLD members," she
said, adding that some of the police who questioned the suspects were
subsequently promoted.

Another of the accused, Aung Kyaw, was arrested shortly before his son's
funeral, his wife Ma Chaw said.

"They came to arrest him in the evening, on the fourth day after the death
of our child," she said.

"They told him to come with them for a short while. He told them he
couldn't because he had to arrange for our son's funeral."

Two of the accused were already serving lengthy prison sentences.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win said the latest imprisonments show that the
government is doing opposite of its promises to ease repression of
opposition parties.

"In our view, these are signs of more oppression on NLD members and all
pro-democracy activities."
____________________________________

April 2, Xinhua
Myanmar to punish performances against traditional culture in water festival

The Myanmar authorities have warned of severe action to be taken against
performances and singing deemed as not conforming to Myanmar culture in
the upcoming Myanmar traditional water festival, the leading local weekly
Yangon Times reported Thursday.

The authorities have issued rules for artists to abide by when launching
the water festival, calling for staying away from dressing in a decadent
way, dressing with political sign and singing in an uncultured manner.

Video tape records covering the event will serve as evidences to charge
those who broke the rules, the state-organized Myanmar Music Association
said, warning that rule breakers will be revoked with their business
license and vocalists be banned from singing if so found.

This year's Myanmar traditional Thingyan Water festival will start from
April 13 and will run for four days until April 16 before the new year day
ushers in on April 17 according to the Myanmar lunar calendar.

The Myanmar water festival represents a unique and entertaining event, and
people of all ages, especially the young ones, have started making plan to
spend the long holidays.

____________________________________

April 2, Reuters
U.S. donates rice for Myanmar cyclone survivors – Aung Hla Tun

The United States has donated more than 16,000 tons of rice to help
survivors of last year's devastating cyclone in military-ruled Myanmar,
officials said.

The rice is part of a $28 million American food aid package distributed
through the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) to survivors of Cyclone Nargis,
which left 140,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million people severely
affected last May.

"The United States government is the WFP's single largest donor for the
cyclone victims," said Chris Kaye, the U.N. agency's country director,
speaking to Reuters on Wednesday at a WFP distribution camp near Labutta
in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta.

Nearly a year after the cyclone struck, many people are still living in
temporary shelters and access to food and clean water remains a challenge.

The U.S.-donated rice is expected to benefit 350,000 people. Some of it is
being distributed under food-for-work projects managed by non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to support the rebuilding of roads and dykes.

Larry Dinger, U.S. charge d'affaires in Myanmar, said Washington had
provided a total of $74 million in humanitarian assistance to Nargis
survivors "as part of America's commitment to the welfare of the Burmese
people."

Over the years Washington has tightened sanctions on the military, which
has ruled the former Burma for more than four decades, to try to push the
regime toward political reform and improving human rights.

But sanctions have not worked, and neither has a policy of engagement by
Myanmar's regional neighbors.

The Obama administration announced in February that it was conducting a
review of its policy toward Myanmar to find new ways to sway one of the
world's most reclusive regimes.

(Editing by Darren Schuettler)

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Refugees protest against cuts in UN support – Naw Noreen

A Burmese refugee family staged hunger strike outside a United Nations
office in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka earlier this week in protest
against the UN decision to halt financial support to families.

The family, who brought with them their two-year-old son, held the hunger
strike in front of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees office on 30 and
31 March.

It was prompted by the announcement on 25 March that the UNHCR office in
Dhaka was cutting support, including for child education and healthcare,
to Burmese refugees.

"We wrote a letter to UNHCR representatives saying that we are facing many
kinds of problems due to the [financial] cuts and they gave us no
response,” said Tin Tin Win, the mother of the family.

“We were also intimidated by various means. We have applied for the
resettlement for over a month, but no answer was given," she said.

The UNHCR office eventually promised to provide 9,000 taka ($US130) a
month to the family. Previously, their monthly support sum had been 30,000
taka.

____________________________________

April 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Murder near China-Burma border being linked to child trafficking – Naw Say
Paw

Locals in a Chinese border town have said there could be a link between a
young Burmese boy found murdered on Monday and increased incidences of
child trafficking on the China-Burma border.

Nine year-old Myo Ko Ko and his younger brother went missing on 27 March
after begging on the streets of Jiang Phong in China, near the border with
Burma. Myo Ko Ko was found with his hands tied and fatal head wounds.

“The corpse was found by the bank of Ruili river near the bridge,” said an
eye-witness.

“His mother said they were collecting drinking water bottles.”

Chinese authorities are questioning other children begging on the street,
another resident said, adding that police believe it was fellow Burmese
beggars who were responsible for the murder.

The same day the corpse was found, however, police from Muse, a town on
the Burmese side of the border where Myo Ko Ko’s parents live, seized two
children who had been kidnapped from nearby Lashio, he said.

This has led to suspicions that Myo Ko Ko’s death is also linked to
trafficking.

“Now that the trafficking of adult girls is becoming harder due to
intensive arrests, the sales of children are becoming very profitable,"
the resident said.

The director of Thailand-based Human Rights Education Institute of Burma,
Aung Myo Min, said there has been an increase in child trafficking on the
China-Burma border.

“This kind of thing used to be abundant on the Thai-Burma border,” he said.

“But as the fight against child trafficking inside Thailand had increased
[along with] an increase in protection among the public, child trafficking
moved to the China-Burma border.

Aung Myo Min pointed to the deaths of tens of thousands of children during
the 2008 China earthquake as perhaps being part responsible for the rise
in child trafficking.

“In order to fill this gap, a new market emerged for adopting other
children, some suggested, so and it needs to be dealt with seriously," he
said.

“The reasons why children are stolen and trafficked these days are the
lack of concise and firm prosecution, and bribe-taking among people
responsible.

Chinese and Burmese officials were not available for comments.

____________________________________

April 2, Independent Mon News Agency
Undocumented migrant workers receive free TB tests and treatment

A Thai health group has begun testing Burmese migrant workers for TB in
Mararchai due to a fear of infected migrants spreading it through
Thailand.

One of nurses involved in the testing told IMNA,” The Ministry of Public
Health has directed local Thai doctors to test people for TB as there is a
fear that it’s on the increase. We have the budget to test Thais but not
migrant workers so we’ve accepted assistance from the International
Organization of Migrants (IOM) to test the migrants for free.”

Commencing on 31st March, Smut Sakron Province Health Office has been
providing free TB tests to those migrants without IDs. According to one of
the participating doctors, this is because such workers have not been
tested before.

“We’ll not be testing documented migrant workers because they have the
chance to be tested once a year in our hospitals, whereas those without
the proper documents haven’t had this opportunity,” explained the doctor

Another doctor said, “We will test 5000 of them this month and later we
will continue testing the others. If any migrant tests positive for TB
we’ll provide free treatment.”

A migrant worker said that before testing takes place, they must provide
names, phone numbers and an address so that they can receive their results
a week later. One of the doctors added that workers with the disease are
required to take the course of treatment for two weeks, during which time
they must stay away from their factory jobs.

Testing is not compulsory, according to a factory manager, so migrants can
refuse if they wish. This is in contrast to the situation in Three Pagodas
Pass, on February 20th when migrant workers were forced by factory owners
to submit to TB testing, carried out by Thai doctors. They were told by
their employers that if they refused to be tested they would lose their
jobs.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

April 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Children and the poor hit by cholera outbreak – Naw Noreen

Authorities in central Burma have been distributing medicine after an
outbreak of cholera began to take its toll on young children and people
living in poor housing.

The outbreak started over a week ago in Magwe. The poorer wards of
Myohaung and King, with high population density, are thought to be worst
affected.

Authorities believe the outbreak was caused by people living in lean-tos
along Magwe river discarding sewage into the river.

A local resident said that these people have been moved from the area by
authorities, who then began placing disinfectants in water tanks.

“[Officials] came down from Naypyidaw and are systematically supervising
the health department and handling the outbreak,” said the resident.

Children between the ages of five and eight have been particularly
affected, said the resident, adding that both hospitals and charitable
private clinics are full of patients.

Last year, the authorities cracked down on mohinga stalls and snack shops
after an outbreak of cholera.

____________________________________

April 2, Xinhua
Myanmar to launch first private air ambulance

A Myanmar private healthcare company is planning to operate the first
private air ambulance in the country using chartered plane to facilitate
patients in emergency need, the Yangon Time journal reported Thursday.

Using chartered plane, the company will also provide such services as for
important business trip and single-day trip, the report said, adding that
the company will use an 18-seat aircraft to start the flight service
destined to any part of the country.

There are three private airlines flying domestically which are Air
Mandalay, Yangon Airways and Air Bagan in addition to the state-owned
Myanmar Airways.

According to the civil aviation authorities, 11 foreign airlines and the
Myanmar Airways International are operating between Yangon and eight
destinations, namely Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing via
Kunming, Calcutta, Chiang Mai, Chinese Taipei and Doha.

The 11 foreign airlines flying Yangon comprise Air China, Thai Airways
International, Indian Airlines, Qatar Airways, Silk Air, Malaysian
Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Mandarin, Jetstar Asia, Phuket Airline and Thai
Air Asia.

____________________________________
ASEAN

April 2, Associated Press
Philippines urges Burma to protect human rights – Jim Gomez

Burma should free all political detainees and fulfill a long-standing
pledge to democratize, the Philippine foreign secretary said on Thursday.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations plans to launch a landmark
human rights body in October during its annual summit. But diplomats have
acknowledged it will have no power to investigate and punish violators.

Constrained by the 10-member bloc's policy of noninterference in each
other's domestic affairs, the body cannot force compliance. Still, its
creation has been hailed as a milestone for a region with a long history
of human rights abuses.

Romulo singled out military-ruled Burma for its dismal rights record and
said Asean must recognize that it has human rights problems and think
about how it can protect "basic freedoms" to give the regional rights body
"an auspicious beginning."

Myanmar has long been a source of embarrassment for Asean, which has
repeatedly criticized its ruling generals but chose to engage it
politically rather than ostracize it. The Philippines, along with
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, is among the most vocal critics of the
junta within the grouping, which was founded in 1967.

"Since its acceptance into the Asean family in 1997, Myanmar has stated
its commitment to democracy and to embark on a national reconciliation
process," Romulo said in a statement. "Fulfilling these commitments would
be showing true progress."

Carrying out its promise before the rights body's launch would make the
body "credible not only to the world community but more importantly to our
own peoples," said Romulo.

Romulo also reiterated his call for Burma’s ruling junta to free
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and allow the unconditional
participation of her party, the National League for Democracy, in free
national elections to be held in 2010.

Asean includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It admitted Burma in 1997,
despite strong opposition from Western nations.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

April 2, Irrawaddy
Singapore, Malaysia ban Burmese pickled tea – Min Lwin

Malaysia and Singapore have banned certain brands of Burmese ready-made
pickled tea that uses a dangerous chemical dye, according to health
officials.

The Malaysian Health Ministry conducted test on tea products imported from
Burma, after Burma banned more than 100 brands of pickled tea that use
Auramine 0, a yellow coloring agent usually used in the textile and animal
hide industries, said Bernama, the Malaysia National News Agency.

Nooraini Mohd Othman, the ministry's director of Food Quality and Safety
Division, was quoted as saying that the inspections were done after
Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority detected Auramine 0 in tea
imported from Burma and imposed a ban on certain brands.

"Offenders can be fined up to RM 20,000 or jailed five years or both,"
said Nooraini Mohd Othman.

The moves by Singapore and Malaysia follow announcements by the Burmese
health ministry on March 12 and 19 that 100 brands of ready-made pickled
tea leaves were ordered to be taken off the market.

Sun Ni, a Burmese shop owner in Perak, Malaysia, said several dozen
Burmese shops in Malaysia stopped selling the ready-made pickled teas two
days ago.

However, some shops in Thailand, where hundreds of thousands of Burmese
live, are reportedly still selling the ready-made pickled teas.

“We are still exporting Yunzana pickled tea to Thailand,” said a Burmese
food dealer in Kawthoung opposite Ranaung, Thailand.

Food safety standards in Burma are low to non-existent, and people
generally have a lack of knowledge about health standards.

“In Burma, there are quite a lot of foods which should not be consumed,”
said one official with knowledge of the food industry. “If you check light
snacks for children, you will find some using dangerous chemicals.”

According to experts, some ready-made food for children contains chemicals
dyes, soda and other dangerous chemicals that could affect growth rate.

“The people should be given more information about food ingredients and at
the same time, companies should provide more details about their
ingredients,” said a nongovernmental agency official who requested
anonymity.

A housewife in North Dagon Myothit in Rangoon said, “We didn’t know that
the chemical dye in pickled tea could cause health problems. We are going
to be more careful about food in the future.”

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 2, Agence France Presse
Japan's Myanmar refugees rally

SEVERAL dozen Myanmar protesters rallied outside Japan's foreign ministry
on Thursday, calling on Tokyo to freeze all aid to their country's
military regime.
Some 30 asylum seekers from the isolated Southeast Asian country also
known as Burma chanted slogans against the junta and held a banner that
read: 'The Japanese government must stop supporting the Burma Army
Regime.'

Myanmar's ruling generals say they plan to hold elections next year under
a constitution approved last year, but critics have called the vote a sham
designed to entrench the junta's rule.

'Japan, stop supporting the 2010 election!' the Myanmar nationals chanted,
waving photographs of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace
Prize winner under house arrest in the capital, Yangon.

Myanmar has been ruled since 1962 by the military, which ignored a 1990
landslide win by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and has
been condemned for widespread human rights abuses.

'I want the Japanese government to condemn the military junta and
completely suspend all of its foreign aid,' said rally leader Myint Swe,
28.

'If they keep offering aid, even if it's some funding for training
purposes, it may end up being misused by the corrupt regime.'

Japan in 2003 suspended most of its assistance to Myanmar other than
emergency aid and some training funds, and it cut its assistance further
after the regime cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2007.

But Japan refuses to join Western allies in slapping sanctions on Myanmar.

China, which often spars with Japan for influence, is Myanmar's main
political and commercial partner.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 2, United Press International
Visit to UNDP ends in Rangoon prison – Awzar Thi

Among the many people in Rangoon’s central jail who shouldn’t be there are
a couple of journalists. These two did not write or say anything against
the government. They didn’t do anything that constituted a threat to the
army or its hold on power. Yet they were imprisoned on a charge of
inciting others to “commit an offence against the state.”
How this happened illustrates the difficulties faced by people in Burma
wanting to improve their society without putting themselves at risk.

The story begins just after Cyclone Nargis hit the country last May. The
house of 24-year-old reporter Eint Khine Oo in the outer suburbs of
Rangoon was not too badly damaged. After she and her family had patched it
up, she started travelling around nearby areas to see how she could help.
She worked with the local Red Cross, and sent some news to her journal,
Ecovision.

Around a month later she ran into 29-year-old Kyaw Kyaw Thant, another
reporter and a former editor of the popular Weekly Eleven journal. He had
also been looking around to see what was going on and what he could do
about it. Like so many people, he brought food and money to cyclone
victims. He gave the money to Red Cross personnel to pay for some
medicines.

The two of them got talking. Local authorities were trying to force a
group of homeless people staying at a religious hall to go back to their
now nonexistent houses. The people didn’t want to stay in the hall, but it
was raining and they had no materials with which to make temporary
shelters back where they had come from.

The reporters spoke with Red Cross country staff and agreed to go to the
International Committee of the Red Cross in town, in the naive hope that
they might be able to get some assistance there. But rather than going by
themselves they decided it would be better if some of the people in need
of the materials came too.

On June 10 a group of them set off early, along with one of the Red Cross
staffers. They arrived at the office not long after it opened. They got no
promises, but were told that donors would be alerted to their request.

After that, they decided they might as well go to the United Nations
Development Program and try their luck there as well, with 16 women and
kids from among those who had joined them at the first office. Had they
known what was going to happen next, they would have gone straight home.

They arrived at the U.N. office during lunch break. The local Red Cross
staffer decided to leave. The others were standing around outside when
suddenly a group of plain-clothed men came upon them. One told Eint Khine
Oo that he was an official. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Get in
the car.”

Kyaw Kyaw Thant was standing a short distance away reading the public
notice board. Some came up to him. “Are you together?” one asked. “Yes,”
he replied innocently, and was thrust into the same vehicle. The group of
mothers and children were rounded up and brought to the township police
station too; they were allowed to go home after 12 days.

The police accused the two journalists of trying to make trouble by
bringing the group to complain that they hadn’t received help and that
local government officials weren’t doing their jobs. In closed court
hearings, both of them strongly denied this, saying that they had merely
been motivated to help cyclone victims like tens of thousands of other
citizens, and they hadn’t said or done anything against the government.

Even the witnesses that the prosecutor brought to argue his side of the
case supported the defendants’ account. One of the women who had been
arrested outside the United Nations building said they had gone to ask for
materials because they had been told they would have to leave the
religious hall.

A government council chairman admitted that it had taken over two weeks to
start documenting the extent of cyclone damage and the number of persons
affected in his wards. Up until then only local people had turned up to
help. And yes, they had been trying to get everyone out of religious halls
because the buildings needed to be cleaned and repaired.

Judge Than Than dutifully recorded all these things and then pronounced
the accused guilty. Handing down the maximum sentence of two years’
imprisonment to each, she said that Kyaw Kyaw Thant had no evidence to
prove that he was innocent. Apparently no one has told Judge Than Than
that it is the prosecutor who has to prove the case against the defendant,
not the other way around.

Eint Khine Oo and Kyaw Kyaw Thant are not the only people to have been
jailed for helping out in the weeks after the cyclone, when the military
regime refused offers of emergency foreign assistance. Others included
renowned comedian Zarganar and human rights defender Myint Aye. But those
two were speaking to the overseas media and had been involved in the
monk-led protests of the year before, among many other things.

By contrast, the two journalists did everything, as they understood it, by
the book. They worked quietly, talked with local Red Cross personnel – who
in Burma are proxy government authorities – and went with them to the
offices. They did not criticize anyone, just requested assistance for some
people in need.

The problem is that in Burma “the book” doesn’t exist. The rules of the
game are written daily, according to circumstances. The case of Eint Khine
Oo and Kyaw Kyaw Thant shows just how hard it is for people in Burma, who
want to help their fellow citizens while not overstepping the mark, to
know where the mark is.

Democracy activists and human rights defenders like Zarganar and Myint Aye
consciously cross the line between what is permitted and what is
prohibited. Other people like Eint Khine Oo and Kyaw Kyaw Thant only find
out that they have become enemies of the state by accident. This knowledge
comes suddenly. Its cost is measured in years behind bars. It is a cost
that shouldn’t have to be paid, a cost that is much too high.

-- 

(The Asian Human Rights Commission has issued an Urgent Appeal on the case
of Eint Khine Oo and Kyaw Kyaw Thant. It can be read at:
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3136/)

--

(Awzar Thi is the pen name of a member of the Asian Human Rights
Commission with over 15 years of experience as an advocate of human rights
and the rule of law in Thailand and Burma. His Rule of Lords blog can be
read at http://ratchasima.net.)
____________________________________

April 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Change is needed from the outside – Francis Wade

Last week was a confusing week for the ruling regime in Burma, normally
comfortable behind the thick veil woven by its hermit tendencies.

On three separate occasions in as many days the country was catapulted
onto the world’s stage, dragging behind it a nearly half-century old
record of human rights abuses that would put most tyrannical rulers alive
today to shame. The need for the spotlight to be redirected towards Burma
couldn’t come sooner, as doubts in the international community about the
failure of current policy towards the junta finally start to seep out, and
new tactics urgently need addressing.

First came the UN ruling on Tuesday that opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi’s ongoing detention was illegal under the regime’s own stated laws.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years, since her
National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in the 1990
general elections. The ruling was unprecedented, and particularly potent
given how seldom the UN accuses a state of violating its own law.

Then came a rare visit from a senior US government official the following
day, one of only a handful of top-level figures that have visited Burma
since the US slapped far-reaching sanctions on the regime following the
1990 elections. The exact intentions, and outcome, of the meeting have
been vague; typically, state-run media in Burma spoke of “cordial
discussions of mutual interests and promotion of bilateral relations”
between the two countries.

Regardless, news outlets around the world leapt to their feet at the
prospect of policy change, perhaps spurred on by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton’s comment in February that the US needed to review its
stance on Burma in light of the failure of sanctions. While the White
House has so far publicly denied that the talks were a sign of a softer
approach, Aye Tha Aung, of Burmese parliamentary group the Committee
Representing the People’s Parliament, who met with the US official on
Thursday, said the two talked of “new types of sanctions that will only
cause effect directly on the government and business companies tied to
them.”

That would be the hope. Former US deputy secretary of state, Matthew
Daley, boasted in 2003 that the package of sanctions imposed in July that
year had disrupted much of Burma’s industry to the point where the junta
were unable to salvage it. Some 40,000 people from the garment industry,
mostly women, lost their jobs, he continued. Internationals NGO’s later
reported that many of them ended up in the sex industry.

Similarly, two weeks ago reports surfaced of women crossing from northern
Burma into China to work as prostitutes following the collapse of the jade
industry. Just days prior to this, the BBC reported that many workers in
Burma’s jade industry blamed the collapse of the industry on the ban
imposed on imports of Burmese gems to the US, further fuelling allegations
that sanctions have been misdirected.

The Burmese government must have raised another eyebrow on Wednesday after
the European Union’s special envoy to Burma, Piero Fassino, announced it
would consider easing sanctions when they come up for renewal in April “if
there are some positive steps in the direction of our goal.”

The ruling State Peace and Development Council have penciled in March 2010
for Burma’s first general election in 20 years, although the rewritten
2008 constitution guarantees entrenchment of military rule. It is a
revision of this, and the lifting of crippling restrictions on opposition
groups, that would constitute a “positive step” in the EU’s mind, although
there has been no hint that the constitution will receive anything but a
nudge in the right direction from its authors.

Unsurprisingly, speculations are rife as to what last week’s events mean
for Burma. Tuesday’s UN ruling opened the world’s eyes to the impunity
under which one of the world’s most isolated regimes freely operates.
Alongside arbitrary imprisonments (currently 2,128 political prisoners –
activists, journalists and lawyers - languish in Burma’s jails, some with
sentences of 65 years), the regime is known to recruit more child soldiers
than any government in the world. Amnesty International has condemned the
military’s use of rape as a means of intimidation, while widespread use of
forced labour in infrastructural ‘development’ projects, previously funded
by overseas aid, has been well documented.

In this context, the succession of sanctions packages placed on the
country over the past two decades, aimed at financially suffocating the
regime, were initially justified. Yet the sudden, and unannounced, visit
by a US official last Wednesday, along with the EU’s tentative statement
the same day, may finally be an admittance that this method has failed.

No change

What the cocktail of sanctions, disengagement, and vocal condemnation have
achieved over a 20-year period is very little. The opposition leader
remains under house arrest, her imprisonment continually extended year
after year, and opposition party members are locked up on a weekly basis.
Anyone deemed guilty of dissent continues to be imprisoned, often under
the most spurious of charges (read ‘sedition’ for six students currently
on trial for collecting and burying corpses following cyclone Nargis last
year). Land seizures, forced displacement, and the government’s hand in
the burgeoning opium trade last year earned Burma the penultimate spot,
alongside Iraq, in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions
Index. In short, state-sponsored abuses, impunity and corruption are as
commonplace as they were the day the sanctions arrived.

Crucially, amidst the rubble of a crumbling economy brought on both by
sanctions and wild financial mismanagement by the government, Burma has
tightened its relationship with neighbouring China. Last Thursday China,
who in 2008 shielded the regime from scrutiny by vetoing a UN resolution
to ease repression and release political prisoners, signed a deal to build
cross-border oil and gas pipelines connecting Burma’s vast off-shore
natural gas reserves with its energy hungry population. It has been this
relationship, along with the help of substantial Indian investment, that
has handed the regime a lifeline and held them back from all-out collapse.
It is also this factor, not readily addressed when George Bush slapped on
another batch of sanctions in 2007, that has made Burma less inclined to
bow to outside pressure.

It is also likely that the West’s almost total diplomatic disengagement
from Burma has added to the ruling junta’s almost pathological fear of
foreign interference. This factor has been the source much of its recent
erratic behaviour, for which hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens
have borne the brunt. Perhaps its most shocking manifestation was the
refusal of aid following cyclone Nargis last year, with the government
claiming it had the situation under control while 138,000 people were left
to die. Likewise, press censorship has been strict to the point that
foreign journalists are no longer allowed in the country, and Burmese
reporters passing information out of the country are handed painfully long
prison sentences. Not surprisingly, Burma was placed fourth from bottom in
last year’s Reporters without Borders’ Press Freedom Index.

Also, wary of its apparent susceptibility to an invasion, the government
moved its capital away from the coast, 350 miles deep into the Burmese
jungle where only government officials and amiable foreign diplomats can
enter. The analogy this move offers couldn’t be more poignant: total
disengagement has pushed Burma further behind its fortifications and
denied the outside world access when it is most needed. Sanctions could
have brought the walls tumbling down, were it not for the powerful pocket
of nations that stepped in to support it.

What is needed is a wholesale review of international policy to Burma.
Sanctions do not work when the target is propped up by a country, perhaps
equally indifferent to international law and pressure, with the clout that
China does. Neither has the softer approach of diplomatic engagement
influenced the regime. The US and EU have so far only taken an either/or
approach, but recent events show they could be nearing an acknowledgment
its failures.

However, the painfully slow bureaucratic process needed to overturn a
major foreign policy package could prove costly. Burma’s neighbour may
soon become its spokesperson, the only medium through which the
international community can access the hermits inside their jungle
retreat, and heaven forbid this happening. China’s fiercest criticism of
the Burmese government, that they show “restraint” following the shooting
of protesting monks in September 2007, is a measure of how high the issue
of human rights sits on their policy agenda.

With the flicker of a light from the US and EU, it is now up to the
international community to act constructively, and to rid itself of the
notion that diplomatic engagement cannot successfully be employed
alongside well-targeted sanctions. Unless the outside world learns from
recent history, the Burmese government will be forever free to repeat the
past at the cost of the millions forced to keep its wheels turning.