BurmaNet News, May 6, 2009

[Editor]

May 6, 2009, Issue #3705


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima News: Junta sets deadline for ceasefire groups to transform
The Australian: Burma cyclone orphans nobody wants
Kachin News Group: Farmers live under duress of Burmese Army
DPA: Man arrested for Myanmar swim

BUSINESS / TRADE
RFA: In Burma, China’s presence grows

HEALTH / AIDS
Xinhua: Myanmar introduces project on HIV prevention for migrant workers
Xinhua: Diarrhea under control in Myanmar former capital: official

REGIONAL
Mizzima News: South Korean legislators to visit Burma

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Experts challenge Than Shwe’s rice production claims
Irrawaddy: Rights groups focus on Burmese children

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: No room for wishful thinking in sanctions debate – Aung Zaw




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 6, Mizzima News
Junta sets deadline for ceasefire groups to transform – Solomon

The Burmese military junta has told ethnic ceasefire groups they have till
September this year to transform their groups, an ethnic Wa rebel group
told Mizzima.

A top official of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), one of the largest
rebel groups in Burma which has a ceasefire agreement with the ruling
junta, said the regime wants them to transform or at least reduce the
number of armed men.

“They [junta] set September as the deadline for reforming our army,” the
UWSA official, who wished not to be named, said.

The message was conveyed to the group, during a meeting with the junta’s
Chief Military Affairs Security (MAS), Maj-Gen Ye Myint on April 28, in
Tang Yang town in North eastern Shan state.

The official said the junta wants a reduction in the size of the rebel’s
army and to include Burmese soldiers in the group. The regime will also
have controlling command of the rebel’s army, the official said.

For a battalion, the junta wants the size reduced to 326 soldiers and to
include about 30 soldiers from the Burmese Army.

The junta’s demand is the latest in a series of efforts that it has been
making to control the armed rebel groups. In late April, the junta met
several ceasefire groups including the UWSA, Karenni National Progressive
Party (KNPP) and Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO).
The official said, the junta wants to have control over the rebel group’s
army and manage them and is willing to take responsibility even by way of
payment of salaries for the troops.

The demands were made during a meeting between the Burmese delegates led
by Maj-Gen Ye Myint and Wa leaders led by vice Chairman Xiao Minliang at
Tang Yang, the official said.

“Maj-Gen Ye Myint told us that we should set age limits for our new
recruits at between 18 to 50. Everybody who is over the age of 50 should
be retired,” he added.

The UWSA, a group that broke off from the former Communist Party of Burma
(CPB), said they have not decided on the junta’s proposals but will soon
come up with a decision after consulting and having meetings.

“We have not decided anything yet. Now we are planning to have discussions
with all of our soldiers and our people. We need to take their opinion and
note their desires,” the official said.

Like the UWSA, the Kachin Independent Organization/Army (KIO/A), said they
are also preparing for a public meeting to garner opinion on the junta’s
proposals put forward by the Northern Command Commander Maj. Gen. Soe Win,
who met the KIO leaders at Myitkyina, Capital of Kachin State, on April
28.

A Major from the KIO, who wished not to be named, told Mizzima, “We will
be holding public meetings with our people after May 10.”

The Major said he believes that the people and the KIO members are likely
to disagree with the junta’s proposals, when they have the meeting in KIO
controlled area of Laiza on the Sino-Burma border.

“If we give into whatever the junta demands, what is the point of being
into an armed struggle? It would also make no sense of our over 40 years
of resistance,” the Major said.

However, he declined to mention what the KIO as a group might decide.

Similarly, the junta held separate meeting with leaders of the Shan State
Army -North (SSA-N), Myanmar National Democratic Allied Army (MNDAA), New
Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) and National Democratic Allied Army (NDAA).

The junta’s demand that the ceasefire armed groups transform their armies
and hand over the management to the junta, is a step below its original
plan of disarming the ceasefire armed groups before the planned general
election in 2010.

A Sino-Burma border based analyst Aung Kyaw Zaw said, ceasefire groups
will now have meetings among themselves, and it is very much unlikely for
the majority of them to comply with the junta’s demand.

But those groups that are weaker militarily might as well consider the
junta’s demand as it could be viewed as a way out for them.

“I don’t think it will be possible for stronger groups to comply with the
demand but some like the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army [DKBA] are likely
to comply as they are already been on the side of the junta,” said Aung
Kyaw Zaw.

“It is impossible for the ceasefire groups to comply with the junta’s
demand. Now all the groups are planning to stand as one and raise just one
voice,” he added.

____________________________________

May 6, The Australian
Burma cyclone orphans nobody wants – Kenneth Denby

AYE Myat Mon and her little brother, Ye Htet Kyaw, who clung together
during the terrifying hours of Cyclone Nargis, are two among a multitude
of lost children in Burma.

Across the Irrawaddy Delta, countless parents and children were pulled
apart by winds strong enough to uproot trees and waters that rose above
the roofs of their bamboo houses.

Children spent the night huddling in branches, drifting for hours in
boats, or clinging on to driftwood to end up kilometres from where they
began.

Those who survived were given over to aid workers.

A little more than a year later, Aye Myat Mon, 6, and Ye Htet Kyaw, 3, are
the only remaining orphans of the storm.

Their story is part of a greater and unexpected success: an example of
how, despite the intransigence of Burma's dictatorship, foreign and local
organisations achieved what once would have seemed miraculous.

They found homes for the children separated from their families by Cyclone
Nargis: all except two.

Aye Myat Mon remembers clearly the night the storm came.

"It was so noisy, as loud as the sound of a car," she says.

"Dad was outside and mum went out to look for him. But the storm got
stronger and stronger, and we were all separated. And then the house fell
down and my big sister and little brother and me ran outside."

The three children took shelter and when the storm receded their parents
and house were nowhere to be seen.

The uninjured siblings walked back into the devastated village of Pan Chin.

About 140,000 people died in the storm.

Aye Myat Mon and her siblings were taken to the regional capital, Labutta,
where their names were added to a long list of children separated from
their parents.

The Government reluctantly admitted organisations such as Unicef and Save
the Children to work with the local Red Cross in sorting through 1000
names gathered for the Labutta district alone.

Many parents had given up their children for dead and of the 535 families
reporting missing children, numerous matches were made.

Names were consolidated into a database containing as much detail as could
be extracted from the children: names of village, parents, relatives and
photographs of the children.

Armed with these, a team of 30 locals travelled by boat, scooter and on
foot to track down anyone who knew the lost children.

"There were many, many cases where they went into a village, showed a
photograph and found a mother who thought her child had died," an aid
worker said.

In half the cases, both parents were found to have died but relatives and
friends were identified and many of those were willing to take care of,
and in some cases, adopt a child.

But no one could find relatives of Aye Myat Mon and her siblings.

The problem was not just that they were almost certainly dead, but they
had been migrant workers without strong local roots.

The children were well looked after in the care home in Labutta.

They went to school for the first time and had more toys, better food and
more attention than they would have had in their village, and Ye Htet Kyaw
was found to have tuberculosis.

Then something happened that was a blessing and a sadness: older sister
Aye Aye Soe, 12, was reunited with her father.

Although only a half sister to her younger siblings, she had lived with
them all their lives, and her natural father wanted her to go with him.

At first she resisted leaving her sister and brother, but last month she
moved to the village of her father and stepmother, leaving Aye Myat Mon
and Ye Htet Kyaw on their own.

Aye Myat Mon says she does not miss her big sister, but carers say she
cries sometimes and calls out her name.

The database has been shut down and soon they will be sent to a foster
home or orphanage.

"No one wants to be their guardian," an aid worker said.

"They're the last kids left. It's sad."

Aye Myat Mon does not want to leave. She likes it in the big empty house
with her red cuddly hippo and brother.

She does not know why her parents do not come, but believes they are alive
and that one day they will all be together and happy again.

____________________________________

May 6, Deutsche Presse Agentur
Man arrested for Myanmar swim

A US citizen was arrested on Wednesday for swimming in Yangon's Inya Lake,
which rims many compounds of the politically famous or notorious, military
sources said.

Yettaw Gohn Yllian, 53, was detained by police early on Wednesday and
questioned by the military's Special Branch after he was caught swimming
in Inya Lake at 05:45, a military official who asked to remain anonymous
confirmed.

When asked by police why he was swimming in the lake, Yllian responded, "I
felt very hot and wanted a swim".

His bag, which he presumably left on the lake's shore while swimming,
contained a small knife, camera, computer memory stick and flashlight,
sources said.

Yllian, who arrived in Yangon on a tourist visa on May 2, was taking his
early morning dip in front of the government-owned International Business
Centre, near former military strongman Ne Win's lakeside family compound.

Other well-known residents on Inya Lake include democracy icon Aung San
Suu Kyi, who has been under detention at her family compound for the past
six years, and the US embassy.

____________________________________

May 6, Kachin News Group
Farmers live under duress of Burmese Army

Farmers in Burma's northern Kachin State are being meted out ill treatment
in the name of growing summer paddy by local Burmese Army battalions, said
local farmers.

Farmers, who are mainly into cultivation of monsoon paddy in Kachin State,
are being forced to grow summer paddy. Some of their buffalos and oxen are
being slaughtered for beef or sold for money in the market, while some are
being used in the paddy fields for ploughing by Burmese Army troops,
complained local farmers.

In Burma, summer paddy is grown in March and harvested in late May before
the onset of the monsoons in June.

Last March, the Burmese Army's Infantry Battalion (IB or Kha La Ya) No.
142 based in Dawhpumyang in Bhamo district deliberately drove seven heads
of cattle into their summer paddy fields. Three cows were slaughtered
while the rest received gun-shot wounds, said local farmers.

The current price of a cow is between 500,000 Kyat (US $490) and 600,000
Kyat (US $588) in Kachin State, said local farmers.

The cattle are owned by Kachin villagers in Dingga village in Dawhpumyang
sub-township. They also grow summer paddy in the fields which are
temporarily seized from Dingga farmers, according to farmers of the
village.

Again on April 26, Burmese soldiers of IB No. 142 drove a herd of cattle
belonging to Dingga farmers to the seized paddy fields and the cattle
owners were threatened with imprisonment. The soldiers also demanded fines
ranging between 30,000 Kyat (US $29) and 80,000 Kyat (US $78) per cow
because the cattle ate their summer paddy, added local farmers.

Local farmers said the soldiers fence their summer paddy fields only on
one side and the cattle enter the fields from the sides without fences.

At the moment, farmers in Dingga village are spending their days in
nightmarish conditions because they may be fined or imprisoned when they
check for their cattle in the summer paddy fields where soldiers
deliberately drive cattle, the farmers said.

Similarly, another Burmese Army battalion, IB No. 58, based in Waingmaw
town is also treating local farmers shabbily in the name of growing summer
paddy, said farmers in Waingmaw.

Farmers who grow paddy in monsoon by using water from Washong Dam, the
government’s irrigation project, have been ordered to grow summer paddy
with their own money by the IB No. 58, said farmers.

Some farmers' paddy fields have been temporarily seized by soldiers. Again
the local people's cattle entering the summer paddy fields are also
slaughtered by soldiers, according to sources close to cattle owners.

Most farmers in Kachin State are reluctant to grow summer paddy because
the farmers cannot start ploughing monsoon paddy in time. They have to
skip cultivating monsoon paddy because of the summer paddy, said local
farmers.

Usually, farmers in Kachin State rely on monsoon paddy which starts to
grow from June and they do not need to put much effort to grow it, said
local farmers.

Meanwhile, the Burmese military junta is forcibly selling a new variety of
paddy seed to farmers in Kahcin State for 7,000 Kyat equivalent to US $
6.8 per Tin (1 Tin = 40.9 Litre) and claiming that Kachin State will be
the fourth largest rice producing state in the country. This is being
proclaimed by pasting posters around Kachin State.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 6, Radio Free Asia
In Burma, China’s presence grows – Tyler Chapman

Chinese’s economic presence in Burma is growing fast, filling in where
sanctions have forced the United States and its allies out.

It was 7 a.m. and the sun, still low in the sky, was already heralding
another sweltering spring day in one of Burma’s gateway cities to China.

I had just emerged from my hotel to visit a nearby tea shop for breakfast
when a man coming toward me began waving his arms and shouting. I looked
behind me to see why, but there was no one there.

Then I recognized him, a village leader from one of the mountain tribes I
had visited a week earlier. What a surprise to see him now, hundreds of
miles from home, in a Callaway Golf cap and aviator glasses.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Going to China.”

“What for?”

“A car.”

Burma is not exactly awash with car dealerships. Western economic
sanctions against the ruling junta, along with import taxes of up to 40
percent of a car’s value, have seen to that.

But where sanctions have closed Burma off from the United States and
Western Europe, China has stepped in with open arms.

“Can you get a visa to China?” I asked the man.

“Five minutes,” he said. “No problem.”

I didn’t ask how he would pay for a car. Certainly his village was
prosperous, but not that prosperous.

Could he be smuggling something to China to finance it?

Burmese jade and rubies, now on the West’s strict embargo list, bring
premium prices just across the border in China, as do drugs made in Burma,
especially methamphetamines.

I would never know.

Demand outstrips supply

One thing I did know: A car in China is far cheaper than one in Burma.

Unofficial estimates put the number of cars in Burma at 300,000, about
half of them in Rangoon. That’s roughly one car for every 170 people.
Demand outstrips supply. Even a 20-year-old Toyota Corolla can bring as
much as U.S. $45,000.

The man’s plan was to cross into China, buy a car at Chinese prices, then
try to bribe Burmese customs officials to let the car into the country
with a break on the import tax.

Before we said goodbye, he and I exchanged telephone numbers. He gave me
five numbers, including one for calling him on a Chinese mobile network
that reaches into Burma. You buy the SIM card for the Chinese network, put
it in your cell phone, and make overseas calls more cheaply than on the
Burmese government network.

“We have become a province of China,” a friend told me.

Indeed.

Arriving in Rangoon on one of the three morning flights from Bangkok, I
did a quick survey of the passengers in line at immigration. Many of them
were carrying red “People’s Republic of China” passports, with Dell
laptops slung over their shoulders.

Trade and investment

Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city, has become a magnet for Chinese
investors and businessmen—so much so that there are now daily flights to
and from Kunming, the capital of China’s nearby Yunnan province.

Trade between the two countries increased by 40 percent in 2007, according
to the latest official figures.

And it was lopsided in China’s favor. China sent Burma nearly U.S. $1.7
billion worth of goods—everything from pots and pans to motorbikes—and
Burma sent back just U.S. $371 million, mostly farm products.

“The good news is that China sends us stuff that we wouldn’t get
otherwise,” a Burmese friend said. “The bad news is that most of it is
cheap and poorly made.”

China is in the process of developing two major projects in partnership
with Burma’s military government. They will assure China a role in Burma’s
economy for a long time to come.

The first is a U.S. $2.55 billion pipeline linking the natural gas fields
off Burma’s southwest coast with China. The pipeline will run 3,800 miles
(6,080 kms) overland through Mandalay and on to Yunnan province.

A parallel oil pipeline will enable Chinese tankers from the Middle East
and Africa to offload their cargoes off Burma instead of having to sail
around Southeast Asia to the ports of eastern China.

The second project involves building a series of dams on the upper
Irrawaddy River in Burma and connecting them to the Chinese power grid.
Burma will get a share of the electricity in return.

Eyes on Washington

Human rights groups say both projects will displace dozens of villages and
thousands of people. It’s a price the villagers will inevitably have to
pay for China’s economic development and its diplomatic support for the
Burmese junta. There is no recourse.
Even so, people in Burma pay close attention what’s happening in the
world, especially in Washington. They hope someday China’s stranglehold
will come to an end.

I was talking with a garage owner in a small rural town when, out of the
blue, he said:

“We’re waiting to see what [President] Obama will do to help us.”

Tyler Chapman is a pseudonym to protect the author's sources. This is his
second visit to Burma for Radio Free Asia.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

May 6, Xinhua
Myanmar introduces project on HIV prevention for migrant workers

Myanmar has introduced a project on HIV prevention for migrant workers
moving into the country's two border areas of Tachilek and Muse for
livelihood, the local Biweekly Eleven reported in this week's issue.

The project, to be implemented by Myanmar's Anti-Narcotics Association
(MANA) with the cooperation of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),
directs at young migrant workers including women coming to work at the
border areas or crossing border.

Prevention against the spreading of HIV among them and reproductive health
education will be covered by the project as an initial phase, the report
said.

HIV prevention work through education is urgently needed to be carried out
on such migrant groups whose undertakings are posing a high level of
danger to the society, the health ministry said, warning that HIV
prevalence rate has attained the most critical point especially in the
border areas where socio-economic status is complicated.

The authorities has launched education campaign in eastern Shanstate in
2008, the report said, pointing out that the border town of Tachilek
stands a main channel for trafficking women and children to Thailand and
its nearby areas during the year.

The education campaign on HIV prevention is being extended to Muse in
northern Shan state, project official of the MANA was quoted as saying.

With the assistance of UNFPA, measures are being taken to educate those
moving across border for their living especially in their entertainment
sector, it said.

Moreover, two Myanmar cities in the northern part -- Lashio and Mandalay
were found with most HIV-carrying sex workers, according to the health
ministry.

Of the 945 sex workers examined during a census conducted for six areas in
the country in 2007, 147 were found infected with HIV with those from
Lashio accounting for 22.7 percent, Mandalay 22.6 percent, Myitgyina 17.9
percent, Taunggyi 14.4 percent, Yangon 9.6percent and Kengtung 1.2
percent.

The HIV victims, aged from 30 to 34, took 22.8 percent, while those from
25 to 29 represented 18 percent, 20 to 24 17.3 percent, the figures
showed.

More figures revealed that a total of 2,190 people, engaged in the sector,
were exposed as carrying HIV in 2008.

However, according to a latest report of the UNAIDS, the number of people
infected with HIV in Myanmar dropped to 240,000 in 2007 from 300,000 in
2001, thanks to the government's anti-HIV efforts for years.

HIV/AIDS is among the three major communicable diseases of national
concern designated by Myanmar. The other two diseases are tuberculosis and
malaria.

Myanmar treats the three diseases as priority with the main objectives of
reducing the morbidity and mortality in a bid to become no longer a public
problem and meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

____________________________________

May 6, Xinhua
Diarrhea under control in Myanmar former capital: official

Diarrhea has been under control in all affected townships in Myanmar's
former capital of Yangon, the local 7-Day News quoted the Yangon City
Development Committee as reporting Wednesday.

Diarrhea, which occurred in some five townships in Yangon division --
Thakayta, Dopon, Pazaungdaung, North Okkalapa and Hlaingtharya, had killed
four people since its outbreak in mid- March, earlier report said.

Over the disease-hit period, the authorities gave oral vaccination to a
total of 5,440 people in the North Okkalapa township, the most sensitive
township in the division, prompting the effective control of the disease.

The cause of diarrhea was blamed for having unclean drinking water,
blocking of drains with rubbish and absence of fly-proof latrine.

Diarrhea, originated from some wards in Thakayta township, was said to
have been caused by unclean water in Myakantha pond from where township
people used to take out and consume.

Diarrhea mostly occurs in summer from March to April and pre- monsoon
period from April to May.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 6, Mizzima News
South Korean legislators to visit Burma – May Kyaw

Two South Korean legislators will visit Burma on Friday to convey
President Lee Myung Bak’s message and to invite representatives from the
military junta for the forthcoming meeting between South Korea and the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Mr. Huh Tae Yeol and Mr. Cho Hae Jin, who commenced their Southeast Asian
trip to Thailand on Wednesday, will arrive in Burma on Friday on a two-day
visit. The two legislators are scheduled to meet Burmese Prime Minister
Thein Sein, an official at the South Korean embassy in Rangoon said.

Mr. Kwong Jae Hwan, the first secretary of South Korean embassy in Rangoon
said, “The two legislators are visiting Burma mainly to invite Burmese
government representatives to the ASEAN meeting in South Korea and also to
present the President’s felicitation”.

The two legislators will reach Rangoon on May 8 and will visit Naypyitaw,
Burma’s new jungle capital, on May 9.

“They will visit Naypyitaw and meet the Prime Minister and will return to
Rangoon on May 9. I don’t think they will have time to visit South Korean
companies, which are engaged in exploration of natural gas in Burma,” the
first secretary added.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has despatched 10 representatives to
ASEAN countries with invitations for the ASEAN-South Korean meeting to be
held on Jeju Island on June 2 and 3.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 6, Irrawaddy
Experts challenge Than Shwe’s rice production claims – Arkar Moe

Claims by Burmese junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe that Burma is enjoying a
rice production surplus are being greeted with skepticism by the experts.

Than Shwe made his claims—including a statement that Burma is making
remarkable progress in agriculture—one day after the first anniversary of
Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the country’s richest rice producing
region. Farmers there are still struggling to restore their destroyed
paddy fields.

In a report issued in July 2008, three months after the cyclone hit
Burma’s Irrawaddy delta, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said 63
percent of the paddy fields there were still under water, up to 85 percent
of seed stocks had been destroyed and 75 percent of farmers lacked
sufficient seed to prepare for a new harvest.

Earlier this week, as Than Shwe was delivering his disputed report to a
Naypyidaw meeting, an official of the World Food Program said most
households in the delta were worried about food shortages. “In fact, even
some farmers who own dozens of acres of paddy are unable to feed
themselves,” he said.

Reporting to the Naypyidaw meeting on Monday, Than Shwe said—according to
the state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar—“due to remarkable
progress in the agricultural sector, the nation had not only
self-sufficiency but also surplus in food.”

The paper said Than Shwe told the meeting that when the present government
came to power in 1988 paddy output was just over 600 million baskets
annually (a basket is 33 kilograms). Today, Than Shwe claimed, annual
output was about 1,600 million baskets, and efforts were being made to
increase this to 2,000 million baskets.

“Complete rubbish,” was the reaction of Burma expert Sean Turnell,
associate professor at Australia’s Macquarie University “Burma’s rice
production is routinely, ludicrously exaggerated.”

Turnell said: “Farmers are under the gun to report good production numbers
to their superiors, like the pattern of the former Soviet Union and other
places. Meanwhile, bribes and corruption grease the wheels along the way.”

If Burma really had tripled its rice production, said Turnell, the country
would once again be one of the world’s largest rice exporters.

However, Burma exports only a small amount of rice—much of it a broken,
poor quality product which finds customers in Africa.

Far from having a surplus, said Turnell, Burma faced widespread food
shortages this year.

A leading Burmese economist who requested anonymity told The Irrawaddy,
“Than Shwe’s speech may have been intended to counter the UN and other
international organizations reports about food shortages in Burma.”

____________________________________

May 6, Irrawaddy
Rights groups focus on Burmese children

A US-based human rights advocacy group, the Watchlist on Children and
Armed Conflict, called on Wednesday for the UN Security Council to protect
the tens of thousands of children "who are raped, abducted and recruited
as soldiers" in Burma.

The group has released a 60-page study, “No More Denial: Children Affected
by Armed Conflict in Myanmar (Burma),” to mark the first anniversary of
Cyclone Nargis that hit Burma in May 2008 and "to draw urgent attention to
the plight of children who have been subject to heinous violations of
their rights every day since the cyclone and for decades prior."

The report documents killing and maiming of children, child soldiers,
rape, abduction, forced displacement, attacks on schools, denial of
humanitarian access and other violations. It also charged the UN Security
Council with remaining largely silent despite evidence from UN and local
sources of these violations.

According to the report, children as young as nine constantly face the
threat of forced recruitment by security forces, non-state armed groups
and civilians, even in public places such as bus or train stations and
markets.

"Approximately one in five children in the eastern conflict areas dies
before reaching the age of five, often due to denial of humanitarian
assistance and medical treatment by the Myanmar authorities. This rate is
comparable to some the world's deadliest conflict zones, including
Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan," the report said.

The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict was formed in 2001 by a group
of leading human rights and humanitarian organizations in response to the
need for improved monitoring and reporting on violations against children.
Today, these organizations form Watchlist's international Steering
Committee.

    —CARE International
    —Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
    —International Save the Children Alliance
    —Norwegian Refugee Council
    —Women's Refugee Commission
    —World Vision International

Last month, the Annual Report of the UN Secretary-General to the Security
Council on Children and Armed Conflict was released. It reported that the
Burmese military regime’s army and nine armed ethnic groups are still
recruiting child soldiers.

The report accused both the Burmese junta and an array of armed ethnic
groups, including ceasefire groups and active anti-government forces, of
continuing to engage in the practice of recruiting child soldiers.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 6, Irrawaddy
No room for wishful thinking in sanctions debate – Aung Zaw

Burma’s Foreign Minister Nyan Win has called during a recent visit to Cuba
for an end to sanctions imposed on developing countries—including his own.
Nyan Win’s call came as the US conducts a review of its policy on Burma.

The former army officer, whose loyalty to Than Shwe is not in doubt, may
have thought that Cuba is the right place to call for lifting sanctions as
President Barack Obama recently made some conciliatory gestures towards
the regime in Cuba. But Cuba is not alone.

Obama has been extending an olive branch to the members of the “axis of
evil” and “outposts of tyranny” so loudly condemned by his predecessor,
George W Bush. They include North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Burma.

Now the Burma policy forged by the Bush administration is under review, a
process that began when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Asia
in February.

During her Asian tour, Clinton said neither sanctions nor engagement had
succeeded in bringing about change in Burma.

A month later, Stephen Blake, director of the US State Department’s Office
of Mainland Southeast Asia, visited the Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, where
he met Nyan Win. Blake was the highest-ranking US official to visit Burma
in recent years.

Burma’s state-run media reported that Blake and Nyan Win discussed issues
of mutual interest and the promotion of bilateral relations.

Blake’s visit and Clinton’s remarks on Burma stirred speculation about a
possible policy shift by the Obama administration. There has even been
some talk of a relaxation of sanctions—although Richard Verma, the
assistant secretary for legislative affairs who handles relations between
the State Department and Congress, wrote a letter to Republican
Congressman Peter King saying reports that the US would lift sanctions
were “incorrect.”

According to an AFP report, Verma said: “The sanctions that the United
States and other countries maintain against the regime are an important
part of our efforts to support change in Burma.

“While we are currently reviewing our Burma policy, we can assure you that
we remain committed to delivering a firm message on the need for real
reform, including the initiation of a credible and inclusive dialogue with
the democratic opposition and the release of political prisoners.”

In July 2008, the US signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE
(Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act 2008. The act has three aims: to
impose new financial sanctions and travel restrictions on the leaders of
the junta and their associates; to tighten the economic sanctions imposed
in 2003 by outlawing the importation of Burmese gems to the US; and to
create a new position of “US Special Representative and Policy Coordinator
for Burma.”

Recently, the EU renewed its own economic sanctions on Burma for a further
year, during a foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.

The EU said it would continue to work to establish an open dialogue with
the ruling
generals. It also called for the junta to conduct a genuine dialogue with
opposition and ethnic groups.

So in the foreseeable future, Burma will continue to be punished by the
Western sanctions since no single tangible positive development has been
detected in the country. But, on the other hand, the old debate over
sanctions has returned.

Thaung Htun, representative of the exiled government of Burma, wrote in
European Voice that the debate so far has tended to see sanctions as a
silver bullet.

“However, it defies logic or precedent to assume sanctions can, as a lone
policy tool, generate the sort of drastic reform in Burma that is needed,”
Thaung Htun said.

He argued that the government in exile supported sanctions because “they
have an impact on the Burmese regime and this has been admitted time and
again by the generals.”

But, he added, “it has never envisaged a system of Cuba-style blanket
blocks on Burmese economic activity. Any sanctions must be targeted to
maximize the impact on the junta and to minimize pressure on ordinary
Burmese people.”

However, Burmese opposition and critics of the regime inside and outside
Burma favor US engagement in Burma but they are cautious. They want
sanctions to be maintained until the regime relaxes its grip on power.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has advocated pressure and sanctions on
Burma, wrote in the Washington Post recently: “America should engage
Burma, but it should not engage in wishful thinking.

“Nothing in our experience suggests that offers of aid will cause Burma’s
generals to change course; unlike some authoritarian regimes, this one
seems to care not a bit for the economic well being of its country.”

The irony is that the regime in Burma is eager to improve its relations
with the US but is not ready to offer anything tangible.

Burma still holds more than 2,100 political prisoners, including Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and there are no signs that the
regime is going to free them and embark on genuine political reform.

So what is the US policy on Burma and rogue regimes like North Korea and
Iran likely to be?

Jackson Diehl wrote in the Washington Post recently: “The first wake-up
call has come from North Korea—a state that, according to established
Democratic wisdom, would have given up its nuclear weapons years ago if it
had not been labeled ‘evil’ by Bush, denied bilateral talks with
Washington and punished with sanctions. Stephen Bosworth, the
administration's new special envoy, duly tried to head off Pyongyang's
latest illegal missile test by promising bilateral negotiations and
offering ‘incentives’ for good behavior.”

How has North Korea reacted to the arrival of Obama in the White House? It
has fired its missile, anyway, expelled UN inspectors and announced that
it was returning to plutonium production.

What about Iran? Jackson Diehl wrote: “Obama sent a conciliatory public
message to Iranians, and the United States joined in a multilateral
proposal for new negotiations on its nuclear program. The regime responded
by announcing another expansion of its uranium enrichment facility and
placing an American journalist on trial for espionage.”
Than Shwe, for his part, is eager to normalize relations with the US but
he is one sided and doesn’t understand the language of compromise.

First, the regime rejects all international appeals to release Suu Kyi and
other political prisoners. Nor does Than Shwe listen to international
appeals for a review of his “road map” to make it inclusive. He is not
interested.

While not bothering to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Cyclone
Nargis, Than Shwe has arrogantly claimed at a top brass meeting that Burma
has almost tripled its rice production over the past two decades, boasting
a food surplus despite the destruction in the delta and reports of famine
and food shortage in Chin State.

“There is no need to worry about food even when the nation's population
reaches 100 million,” Than Shwe boasted.

A leader of one of the poorest countries in the world clearly doesn’t
believe in wishful thinking.