BurmaNet News, July 23, 2009

[Editor]

July 23, 2009, Issue #3760


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar grants lawyers access to Aung San Suu Kyi
Mizzima News: NLD at a 'critical stage': Win Tin

HEALTH / AIDS
DVB: Displaced in Burma lacking medical aid

ASEAN
AFP: US presses Myanmar on NKorea, Suu Kyi at rare talks
AFP: Asean rejects US call to expel Burma
Nation (Thailand): Asean offers to help Burma

REGIONAL
AFP: Myanmar activities fuel NKorea nuclear suspicions: expert

OPINION / OTHER
Economist: The Lady should be for turning
UPI: Burma's petty persecution of ordinary folk – Awzar Thi




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 23, Associated Press
Myanmar grants lawyers access to Aung San Suu Kyi

The legal team of Myanmar's jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
was given access to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Thursday, a day before
her trial is to resume for final arguments, her lawyer said.

Authorities in the military-ruled country denied permission for Suu Kyi's
lawyers to meet her Wednesday, according to Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi's
defense lawyers as well as spokesman for her party.

Nyan Win said the legal team was allowed to meet her for over two hours
Thursday to finalize their 23-page closing argument.

Suu Kyi, 64, is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by
harboring an uninvited American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home
and stayed for two days. She is being detained at Myanmar's notorious
Insein Prison.

Suu Kyi, who was been under house arrest for nearly 14 of the last 20
years, faces a possible five-year prison term.

The decision to allow legal access to Suu Kyi came as U.S., European and
Asian officials — including the top diplomat from Myanmar — wound up a
conference in neighboring Thailand at which Myanmar's human rights record
was in the spotlight.

The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Suu
Kyi's local supporters, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to
keep her detained through elections planned for next year. The verdict is
expected sometime next month.

Also on trial, and facing the same charges as Suu Kyi, are two female
members of her party who were her sole companions under house arrest. The
American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, is charged with
trespassing.

Yettaw has pleaded not guilty and explained in court that he had a dream
that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and he had gone to warn her.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962.

Suu Kyi's opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar's
generals refused to relinquish power.

____________________________________

July 23, Mizzima News
NLD at a 'critical stage': Win Tin – Myint Maung

A leader of Burma’s opposition party – National League for Democracy (NLD)
– said the party’s leadership has reached a 'critical stage' as most
members of the party’s executive committee are aging and faced with
worsening health.

Win Tin, a veteran journalist and member of the Central Executive
Committee (CEC) of the NLD, said with most CEC party members over the age
of 80 and confronting severe health problems, the party is at a
crossroads.

“The leaders are already at the age of retirement from party work, but
with so many things yet to be done it is difficult for them to retire.
They are also facing severe health problems, so the party is at a
crossroads,” Win Tin said.

He said with Aung San Suu Kyi and Vice-Chairman Tin Oo still under
detention, the party cannot renew its registration and inject young blood
into the party’s leadership, as it would essentially remove Aung San Suu
Kyi and Tin Oo from the committee.

“With Daw Aung San Suu Kyi still under detention we cannot renew our party
registration. And we cannot include more people in the committee, as we
would like to do, because the election commissioner will check and we can
only renew the registration with the people they approved,” Win Tin
explained.

NLD CEC Chairman Aung Shwe, Vice-Chairman U Lwin and members Lun Tin,
Nyunt Wei, Hla Pe, Than Tun, Win Tin and Thakin Soe Myint are all in their
80s and 90s and reportedly experiencing increasing health concerns.

“U Aung Shwe is over 90 now. He has not been able to come to the party
office for months. I don’t think he can come in the next two to three
months either. U Lun Tin’s eyesight and hearing are poor too. He has to be
escorted to the office. He is paralyzed and is now confined to his bed. U
Hla Pe’s health is also not so good, while U Than Tun suffers from
frequent headaches,” elaborated Win Tin.

He added that he himself has been suffering from a heart problem as well
as a low pulse rate and low blood pressure, in addition to diabetes and
arthritis. He may also have to undergo an operation to combat
deteriorating eyesight.

“My heartbeat is only 48 beats per minute. The normal is about 80 beats
per minute. I cannot move easily. I get exhausted after taking four or
five steps. My physician instructed me not to take liver, innards, tomato
and bean sprouts, and to instead take only fish and meat with other
healthy foods,” said Win Tin, who has his next medical check-up scheduled
for August 3rd.

Yet, despite his poor health, he said he will not forego traveling to
Insein prison on Friday, where a special court is to hear final arguments
relating to the ongoing trial of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

July 23, Democratic Voice of Burma
Displaced in Burma lacking medical aid – Naw Noreen

Internally displaced persons hiding in jungles in eastern Burma are
suffering from outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever with almost no
medicine or medical facilities, according a Karen aid group.

Around 9000 people in Bago division’s Taung-ngu district are internally
displaced (IDPs) and are having difficulty accessing food, water and
medicine, said the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People
(CIDKP).

The prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases soars during the rainy season,
and is a particular threat to people living in bush areas.

“Their traditional method of making smoke to keep mosquitoes away is
dangerous because the Burmese army might see [the smoke] and find them,”
said Saw Eh Wah from the CIDKP.

At least two or three people in each household are infected with either
malaria or dengue fever, many of whom are pregnant women and children
under age of 10, he said.

No deaths have yet been reported and IDPs are said to be using traditional
medicines to combat the diseases.

“There are no hospitals or clinics; sometimes they get one or two medical
workers from the Karen National Union and the Free Burma Rangers [medical
group],” he said, adding that the IDPs are using “herbs and tree roots” as
medicine.

Burma is also home to over 500,000 internally displaced persons, the
majority of which are in eastern Karen state.

Many of these have been forced out of their homes by fighting between the
Burmese army and the Karen National Union.

A report released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in June said
that around 723,571 people are considered to be stateless in Burma, the
world’s third highest population of stateless persons.

____________________________________
ASEAN

July 23, Agence France Presse
US presses Myanmar on NKorea, Suu Kyi at rare talks

US officials urged Myanmar to obey UN sanctions on North Korea and to
review its treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi in a rare meeting between the two
countries, a US official said Thursday.

The talks happened late Wednesday on the eve of Asia's biggest security
conference in the Thai resort island of Phuket, which US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton is attending, a senior State Department official
said.

Clinton did not attend the meeting with the representatives from the
reclusive, junta-ruled nation.

The State Department said the US officials urged Myanmar to implement the
terms of UN Security Council resolution 1874, which imposed sanctions on
North Korea over its recent missile and nuclear tests.

Clinton had raised concerns earlier Wednesday over the possible transfer
of nuclear technology from Kim Jong-Il's communist regime to
military-ruled Myanmar.

The US officials also "noted that the outcome of the trial of Aung San Suu
Kyi would affect our willingness and ability to take positive steps in our
bilateral relationship."

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is currently on trial for breaching
the terms of her house arrest after an incident in which an American man
swam uninvited to her lakeside house in Yangon in May.

She faces up to five years in jail and is being held in the city's
notorious Insein prison.

Clinton said on Wednesday that if Myanmar frees Aung San Suu Kyi "that
would open up opportunities at least for my country to expand our
relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma," she said,
referring to Myanmar by its former name.

Japanese officials said that Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win had pledged
that his country would oblige by the UN sanctions on North Korea when he
met his Japanese counterpart Hirofumi Nakasone on Wednesday.

"The Myanmar foreign minister mentioned very clearly that Myanmar is a
member of the United Nations, Myanmar also is obliged to fully comply with
any UN Security council resolutions, including 1874," said Kazuo Kodama,
the Japanese minister's press secretary.

"That is I think a very reassuring message from the Myanmar foreign
minister," Kodama said.

____________________________________

July 23, Agence France Presse
Asean rejects US call to expel Burma

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will not consider
expelling Burma over the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi because it was
unlikely it would solve the problem, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said
Thursday.

His statement came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on
the regional bloc to consider expelling Burma if it does not free the
Nobel laureate.

Although Asean and Western countries share the same goals regarding
democracy, the suggestion could not be taken up for a number of reasons
said Mr Abhisit, the current Asean chairman.

"There are not enough grounds to do that," he said.

"We have already done what we can under the Asean mechanism. If Burma is
expelled it will further isolate the regime, and would that solve the
problem?"

Mr Abhisit said he hoped Wasbhington and the European Union would both
understand Asean's position.

"We are still insisting on our policy of constructive engagement and hope
that the US will understand," he said.

He, however, called on the Burmese junta to take some action to improve
relations with the United States.
____________________________________

July 23, Nation (Thailand)
Asean offers to help Burma

Members of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) offered yesterday to help Burma
promote democracy, human rights and well-being among its people - and
avoided mentioning the controversy over pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi.

"Asean as well as members of the ARF would like to work with Myanmar
[Burma] and are ready to assist Myanmar in its efforts to promote
democracy, human rights and well-being among her people," said Foreign
Minister Kasit Piromya.

"We have asked Myanmar's foreign minister to convey this sentiment to the
Myanmar leadership. It is hoped that Myanmar will be responsive to the
international community's concerns," said Kasit, in his capacity as
chairman of the 16th Asean Regional Forum, which concluded yesterday.

The international community has called on Burma to release all political
prisoners, including Suu Kyi, and to include all stakeholders in the
democratisation process.

Earlier yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who represented
the United States

during the ARF, insisted that Suu Kyi must be released unconditionally.

Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for many years, was charged in
May with violating the terms of her confinement by "harbouring" an
American who swam to her lakeside house.

Clinton, who used the term "Burma" rather than "Myanmar", also called for
a fair and open election in the country next year.

In a related development, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday
downplayed a suggestion from Clinton that Burma should be kicked out of
Asean because of its poor human rights record.

Abhisit said an isolated Burma would not help the reconciliation and
democratisation process in the military-run state. He said Asean would
continue to engage Burma and assist with its reconciliation process.

Asked if Asean should expel Burma if it did not free Aung San Suu Kyi,
Clinton replied: "It would be an appropriate policy change to consider."

Kasit told a press conference yesterday that the ARF also urged North
Korea return to the Six-Party Talks about the nuclear crisis on the Korean
Peninsula.

"The goal is to bring about peace and stability to the Korean Peninsula
and de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. We urge [North Korea] to
return to the Six-Party Talks, to look beyond the past and join others in
finding a way forward," Kasit said.

He also told reporters the ARF strongly condemned the bombings last Friday
in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. He said the attacks on two US-owned
hotels were "a reminder to us that terrorism remains a very real threat to
peace and stability - nationally, regionally and internationally".

Security yesterday was tighter than normal on the last day of meetings
between Asean foreign ministers and dialogue partners.

Soldiers carrying assault rifles lined up along the road that leads to the
media centre at the Laguna Beach Resort, where the closing ceremony took
place.

Representatives from the participating countries and Asean
Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan were present during the event.

Foreign ministers from the 10 Asean member states met their counterparts
from 26 countries and the European Union to discuss political and security
matters.

Established in 1994, the ARF consists of 26 countries and the European
Union. They are the 10 Asean states, 10 dialogue partners (Australia,
Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, and
the US), and seven Asia-Pacific nations (Bangladesh, Mongolia, North
Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and East Timor).

____________________________________
REGIONAL

July 23, Agence France Presse
Myanmar activities fuel NKorea nuclear suspicions: expert – Simon Martin

There is no hard evidence that two of the world's pariah states are
sharing nuclear technology, but one US expert says some of Myanmar's
activities raise suspicions of such links with North Korea.

After years of rumours, the issue hit the headlines this week when US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised fears of possible nuclear and
other military cooperation between Stalinist North Korea and
military-ruled Myanmar.

"We know that there are growing concerns about military cooperation
between North Korea and Burma, which we take very seriously," Clinton said
after talks with Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva, using Myanmar's former
name.

Clinton, visiting Thailand for Thursday's Association of Southeast Asian
Nations Regional Forum on security, also told the country's Nation TV that
"we worry about the transfer of nuclear technology."

Suspicions of military links grew after a US navy destroyer last month
began tracking a suspect North Korean ship reportedly heading for Myanmar.
The cargo ship later turned back.

The Kang Nam 1 was the first ship to be shadowed since the UN Security
Council in June slapped tougher sanctions on the North to try to shut down
its nuclear and missile programmes.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security
(ISIS) has for years been watching for signs of nuclear projects in
Myanmar.

"We have found no evidence of work by Burma on any major nuclear projects
... but we are suspicious about some of Burma's activities," its president
David Albright told AFP in emailed comments.

Albright cited the presence in Myanmar for at least the past two years of
North Korea's Namchongang Trading Corp. (NCG), or people associated with
the company.

NCG was the key North Korean entity assisting a Syrian reactor project
that was bombed by Israel in 2007, Albright said. It was one of five North
Korean entities targeted in another round of UN sanctions last week.

One Seoul-based analyst said it could make sense for Myanmar to get into
the nuclear business.

"Myanmar would feel the temptation to get nuclear weapons to enhance the
prestige of the military junta and fend off international pressure over
its human rights," said Jeung Young-Tae of the Korea Institute for
National Unification.

Myanmar's purchases of dual-use equipment including machine tools from
Europe in 2006 and 2007 raised suspicions, Albright said.

"The end-use declarations are inconsistent and the equipment ... is odd
for Burma to acquire. However, its potential use is hard to determine," he
said.

Albright also cited Myanmar's past interest in buying a reactor from
Russia. The project stalled due to foreign protests and supposed lack of
money, raising the possibility that it may turn to North Korea.

Concrete evidence is lacking.

"Over the last two years, we have analysed many photos of sites acquired
by opposition groups, but we found that none of them had any convincing
nuclear signatures despite the claims of these groups," Albright said.

Baek Seung-Joo, of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, said the
Southeast Asian state has no particular reason to crave such technology.

"It has no hostile nuclear-armed neighbours. It has no direct threats from
China, India or Pakistan."

However, Baek said Myanmar has a strong need for the North's conventional
military equipment.

Indications of a Yangon link to the North's lucrative missile business
emerged in June when Japanese police arrested three men for trying to
export dual-use equipment to Myanmar via Malaysia.

The equipment, a magnetometer, can be used in missile guidance and control
systems.

Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said
Myanmar seems to lack the human resources to run a nuclear programme and
there is no hard evidence of one.

"If it is starting at a very low level of development, North Korea could
provide a lot of help covering the basics and training personnel," he
said.

"The most important thing in any nuclear programme is the human resources."

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 23, Economist
The Lady should be for turning

JULY 20th marked the 20th anniversary of the day when military rulers
first placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. The leader of Myanmar’s
democracy movement has since spent more than 13 years detained at home or,
as now, in a Yangon prison. She awaits the verdict of a sham trial in
which she was charged with breaking the terms of her detention after an
uninvited American, a nut, swam across to her lakeside home. Miss Suu Kyi
plays a long game. But so does the military. It seized power in 1962. It
has used force to put down two extraordinarily brave sets of pro-democracy
protests, in 1988 and 2007. And it has ignored the result of free
elections in 1990, convincingly won by Miss Suu Kyi’s National League for
Democracy.

Miss Suu Kyi, 64 and frail, has not wavered in her call for the junta to
respect the election result and free what are now thought to be 2,100
political prisoners. She has long argued for countries to apply pressure
by forbidding companies to trade with Myanmar or invest in it. The West
has responded with sanctions regimes. Britain’s prime minister, Gordon
Brown, recently called for even tougher financial measures against
Myanmar.

There is no doubting Miss Suu Kyi’s courage. A decade ago she turned down
the generals’ offer to leave the country (presumably, for good) to care
for her dying husband. She never saw him again. Two sons have not seen
their mother for years. Miss Suu Kyi’s moral stature puts her on a level
with other imprisoned or exiled symbols of quiet resistance, the Dalai
Lama and Nelson Mandela. She keeps democratic hopes alive in Myanmar; and
around the world she inspires campaigners for freedom in the face of
thuggish regimes. Elegant and dignified, she is the person any engaged
liberal at Harvard or Oxford most wants to invite to dinner but can’t.
This year garden parties at British embassies celebrating the Queen’s
birthday were decorated with portraits of Miss Suu Kyi. At the embassy in
Jakarta, a picture of her is projected onto an outside wall. She is,
literally, democracy’s poster girl.

For weeks the military regime has delayed pronouncing a verdict in its
trial, perhaps so as not to embarrass fellow members of the ten-country
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), meeting for its annual
summit this week in Thailand. Yet few doubt but that Miss Suu Kyi will be
put away for even longer. Her house, which has become a shrine to the
democracy movement’s living deity, may be confiscated and razed. Myanmar’s
leaders have called for elections next year, but on terms that ensure the
military is the force behind civilian rule. Having Miss Suu Kyi to stand
and fight is not part of the programme.

An even longer game, then, for Miss Suu Kyi and her supporters. But is it
the right one? A growing body of opinion thinks not. It follows a tedious
ritual. The world calls for freedom and democracy. The United Nations
dispatches a representative to Yangon. He is fobbed off. The Lady
continues in detention. The UN’s most recent big cheese was none other
than the secretary-general. Ban Ki-moon left Yangon earlier this month
without being allowed to meet Miss Suu Kyi.

This costs more than just wasted journeys. Myanmar is rich in natural gas,
timber and gems. China and India, strategic rivals to east and west,
chummy up to the junta. The Burmese elite has second homes and bank
accounts in Thailand. Russia sells the generals arms, as does China, and
both provide cover for the generals on the Security Council. So Myanmar
does now in fact engage with the world—but its engagement takes the ugly
form of a rapacious capitalism with amoral partners. Hillary Clinton, on
her first trip to Asia as secretary of state, admitted that isolation
“hasn’t influenced the junta”. An American review of Myanmar policy is
under way, but official silence over Miss Suu Kyi’s trial hints at a
certain confusion. Because there is no engagement, America’s soft power
has no traction.

Worse, everyone from the UN down views Myanmar through the lens of
democracy above all else—even development. For a desperate country with
shocking rates of disease and mortality such a priority is dubious at
best, shameful at worst. If nothing else, it fails to acknowledge how
development can improve local governance. In the Irrawaddy delta in the
wake of cyclone Nargis, which struck last year killing 140,000, deciding
how humanitarian aid should be spent has increased civic participation and
local autonomy in the face of an uncaring regime. Yet apart from Japan,
official aid levels to Myanmar are pitiful compared even with other poor
countries.
Icon or obstacle?

Lastly, depicting Myanmar as a kind of velvet revolution gone wrong, as
Thant Myint-U, a historian of Burma, points out, is to ignore a big part
of the picture. The paranoid regime’s inward-looking cast is conditioned
by centuries of invasions, among them by the British and, after
independence in 1948, by American-backed Chinese Nationalists. Since
independence, the military has faced dozens of communist and ethnic
insurgencies. It is true that since the 1990s, ceasefires have been signed
in all but two. But independent Burma did not emerge as a unified state
and, under early democratic rule, insurgencies flourished. The remaining
conflicts, financed by drugs trafficking, are the longest-running wars in
the world. They cannot simply be ignored.

Sanctions have helped bring about no democratic transition in Asia—on the
contrary. So imagine if the West reversed policy, dropped sanctions and
pursued engagement. The generals have already looked at the development
paths blazed by China and Vietnam and said they want to follow. In
comparison to the regimes in those two countries, Myanmar’s badly lacks
legitimacy. So Mr Thant says that development could bring about swift
changes to the political landscape, as eventually happened in Indonesia.
Development, in other words, could be the fastest path to democracy. Will
the courageous Lady admit as much?

____________________________________

July 23, United Press International
Burma's petty persecution of ordinary folk – Awzar Thi

Two years ago a court in Burma sentenced five farmers to four years’ jail
for allegedly causing a public disturbance; a sixth man received eight
years for two counts of the same offence. Tomorrow, on July 24, the five
will have served half of their terms. In all likelihood, they will have to
serve the other half before being released.

The six were imprisoned because they had the audacity to talk about human
rights and tried to help people where they lived who had problems with the
local authorities.

In April 2007, a group of thugs under orders from the village council
attacked Ko Myint Naing, the one who was sentenced to eight years. He
suffered serious injuries and was hospitalized in Rangoon. He responded by
laying charges against the attackers. After that, he and the five farmers
– U Win, Ko Kyaw Lwin, U Myint, U Hla Shein and U Mya Sein – were accused
of stirring up trouble and jailed.

A lot has happened since. The men were in prison throughout the historic
monk-led protests of August and September 2007. They were in prison during
Cyclone Nargis and the farcical constitutional referendum of May 2008.
They have been in prison through two birthdays of their children, two
harvests of wet season paddies, two of dry. They will probably still be in
prison when some kind of general election is called next year, and when a
parliament of sorts sits for the first time in over two decades after
that.

All of these things would have happened with or without the six being
behind bars. Their captivity is immaterial to the state as a whole. None
are prominent political activists whose lives are celebrated abroad and
whose circumstances provoke serious responses from international agencies.
None would have made a difference at a national level. They were
neighborhood activists, concerned with the things that mattered in the
lives of people around them.

It is for precisely this reason that their stories deserve to be recalled
and their names known. It is through stories of people like the Hinthada 6
that the features of social control in Burma today are most clearly
defined. In their tale of injustice is the pettiness and futility of
oppressive rule. In their imprisonment is the pointless vindictiveness of
a form of government premised upon the regular performance of violence
against its citizens, however large or small, and for whatever reason.

Burma’s dictatorship does not persist through the making of grandiose
statements about national identity that most people ignore or through the
building of pompous edifices in a new capital that most citizens have
never seen. It persists through bullied victories and countless petty
squabbles, through the petulance of minor bureaucrats, through the
conspiring of police with councilors, and councilors with judges to
achieve their own ends. It persists by daily putting down people like
Myint Naing, U Win, Kyaw Lwin, U Myint, Hla Shein and Mya Sein.

The stuff of military rule in Burma can’t be found by gazing at the big
picture. It is not in the pie graphs of global agencies or the photo
opportunities of generals at special events. It is in the ugly details,
the nitty-gritty. It is in the story of six men convicted in Hinthada, and
so many others like them whose stories have not yet been told. That’s why
this second anniversary of their imprisonment deserves to be remembered
and recounted.

(Articles, appeals and documents on the Hinthada 6 can be read at:
http://campaigns.ahrchk.net/hinthada6/.)

--

(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)