BurmaNet News, August 22 - 24, 2009

[Editor]

August 22 – 24, 2009 Issue #3782


INSIDE BURMA
Washington Post: Strategies of dissent evolving in Burma
Irrawaddy: Suu Kyi asks for return of family doctor
Narinjara: Poster campaign in Arakan for Daw Suu's release
Kachin News Group: Irrawaddy hydropower project to displace many Kachin
villagers


ON THE BORDER
SHAN: Tension sparks people to flee into China

HEALTH / AIDS
Mizzima News: Dengue kills three, afflicts over 300 in Arakan State

REGIONAL
AFP: Hundreds rally for Suu Kyi

INTERNATIONAL
Newsweek: The swimmer speaks
Sydney Morning Herald: 'Evidence lacking' of Burma's nuke plans
Irrawaddy: ‘Than Shwe should be the first to blink’: Diplomat

OPINION / OTHER
The China Post: Burma's junta plays hardball in the face of wavering West
– John J. Metzler
VOA: Burma's other prisoners still a concern – Editorial



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 24, Washington Post
Strategies of dissent evolving in Burma; Activists find political
breathing room in humanitarian nonprofit groups

RANGOON, Burma -- Call it the evolutionary school of revolution. After
years of brutally suppressed street protests, many Burmese have adopted a
new strategy that they say takes advantage of small political openings to
push for greater freedoms. They are distributing aid, teaching courses on
civic engagement and quietly learning to govern.

"We are trying to mobilize people by changing their thought process," said
an entrepreneur in the city of Mandalay who is setting up classes on
leadership. He added half in jest, "Civil society is a guerrilla
movement."

Government critics including many Burmese say opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi's return to house arrest this month underscores the junta's
resolve to keep her out of reach of the population ahead of parliamentary
elections next year that many dismiss as a sham. But a growing number of
educated, middle-class Burmese are pinning their hopes on what they call
"community-based organizations," finding outlets for entrepreneurship and
room to maneuver politically in a country with one of the world's most
repressive governments.

At first light on a recent Sunday, a dozen doctors piled into two old
vans, stopped for a hearty breakfast of fish stew and sticky rice, then
headed out to dispatch free medicine and consult villagers an hour outside
Rangoon. The group first came together two years ago to care for
demonstrators beaten by security forces during monk-led protests. When
Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit in May 2008, killing an estimated 140,000
people, the doctors joined countless Burmese in collecting emergency
supplies for survivors while the junta rebuffed foreign aid dispatches.

Like many of those ad hoc groups, the doctors have since developed an
informal nonprofit organization, meeting regularly and volunteering at an
orphanage and in villages near Rangoon. The group's leader secured funding
from a foreign nonprofit agency and named his team "Volunteers for the
Vulnerable," or V4V.

But to avoid having their activities labeled as activism, the leader
negotiates weekly with the authorities for access to the villages under
cover of an anodyne Burmese fixture -- the abbot of a local Buddhist
monastery.

For their own safety, the V4V founder said, "not even all our members know
the name of the group."

Successive military governments in Burma since 1962 have clamped down on
civil society and forbade associations of more than five people. Burmese
say they have come to see the activities of semi-illicit groups such as
V4V as rare outlets for entrepreneurship and for maneuvering politically.

"There is still room to change at the small scale," said an AIDS activist,
sipping juice in a teashop. "Many people say civil society is dead. But it
never dies. Sometimes it takes different forms, under pretext of religion,
under pretext of medicine."

A 32-year-old writer here said his father was a local township
representative for Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy,
which won 1990 elections but was never allowed to take power. Suu Kyi has
been confined to house arrest for 14 of the past 19 years, and the number
of political detainees is estimated at about 2,000.

But the young writer sees a role for himself beyond the opposition party.

He said his life was transformed after he took a three-month course at a
Rangoon nonprofit agency called Myanmar Egress, which runs classes for
Burmese interested in development. Like many of the people interviewed for
this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

He then quit his job at a business journal to freelance opinion columns
under a pseudonym and has co-founded a nonprofit with other Egress alumni.

"I came to realize my daily life is being involved in politics, in the
political economy," he said, a resolve triggered by the scenes of poverty
he witnessed along his daily commute on a creaking, overcrowded bus
through Rangoon. "My belief is that without political knowledge . . .
people will just go around town and get shot. I am doing what I can as an
educator and a journalist."
Civic Duties

Many people in Rangoon expressed feeling a similar sense of duty as they
have watched their military rulers decimate the education system and
deepen poverty through mismanagement of the economy. In the past 50 years,
Burma has fallen from among the richest countries in Asia to the bottom of
regional development rankings.

"In Burma, the middle class is very thin," said a 38-year-old graphic
designer who in 2004 helped found an undercover nonprofit group that
recruits potential political leaders. "We need to grow, strengthen that.
Most democratic countries have a broader middle class. It is the only way
to go forward."

Such groups have also allowed urbanites to network in ways previously
inconceivable.
Humanitarian and Political

On a recent afternoon, students crowded into a musty hotel conference room
for a three-hour lecture on civil society sponsored by Myanmar Egress.

Ten minutes before the class was to begin, barely a seat was vacant and
still the students poured in, laughing, chatting or rifling through notes
that curled at the edges in the damp heat. "They have a thirst for
knowledge. They want to know. . . . They don't even take a break," said a
28-year-old Egress teacher, observing the 105 young adults from the back
of the room. "This place is quite free, the only place we can talk about
these things."

Some members of the groups reject any political motive in their
activities, describing them as purely humanitarian. But others say that in
Burma the two are intrinsically linked.

"At every meeting of nonprofits, the solution is always, in the end,
political," said a Rangoon scholar who works with a foreign development
organization.

The scholar is associated with a loose circle of influential academics,
writers, negotiators between the junta and restive ethnic minorities, and
businessmen at home and abroad who share a goal of finding a way through
the political impasse.

"It's not that we oppose the NLD, but at least we take advantage of the
opening space. . . . The NLD can't set a course. We have to find an
alternative," said the scholar, who served 15 years in prison for writing
about human rights.

But Suu Kyi's trial has made him less sanguine about prospects for change
in next year's elections, the country's first since 1990. Going forward,
he said, the key is "to prime the population for the transition."

____________________________________

August 24, Irrawaddy
Suu Kyi asks for return of family doctor – Wai Moe

Burma’s pro-democracy leader is seeking to have her regular physician, Tin
Myo Win, reinstated as her primary doctor, following her return to her
home after being sentenced to 18-months of house arrest.

Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyer, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that since
she returned home on August 11, the authorities sent another doctor to
check on her health.

“She told officials that she wanted her family physician, Dr Tin Myo Win,
to take care of her health,” Nyan Win said. “So far, I don’t think Dr Tin
Myo Win has been able to visit her.”

Tin Myo Win was a leading pro-democracy activist during the 1988 uprising
that toppled the 26-year rule of the late dictator Ne Win.

After the military coup in September 1988, Tin Myo Win became a member of
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). In the following year, he
was jailed.

He was the only regular visitor to see Suu Kyi during 2003-09, when he
performed monthly check ups.

His is regular visits were suspended when he was arrested and questioned
after  the American intruder John Yettaw entered Suu Kyi’s lakeside house
in Rangoon in early May.

Nyan Win said Suu Kyi’s lawyers have asked the authorities to allow a
meeting with their client to talk about an appeal of her conviction.

Last week, Suu Kyi asked clarification from authorities about one of eight
conditions of her house arrest concerning visitors.

Suu Kyi was sentenced to 3-year imprisonment for violating the terms of
her house arrest. Yettaw received a 7-year sentence. Her sentence was
reduced to18-months under house arrest.

Yettaw was granted amnesty after US Sen Jim Webb met with Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

____________________________________

August 24, Narinjara
Poster campaign in Arakan for Daw Suu's release

Taungup: Unknown democratic activists in Taungup of Arakan State started
distributing posters and pamphlets calling for the release of Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Burma, said an NLD member in the
town.

"We saw some posters and pamphlets with Daw Suu's portrait in the gate of
my house in the early morning of Sunday. But I did not know who
distributed the flyers in front of my house. In the posters and pamphlets
there is some text calling on the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
unconditionally and immediately," he said.

Another townsperson from Gu Dar Ward said, "I saw a poster with the
portrait of Daw Suu with her father, national hero Aung San, in which the
activists demanded the release of Daw Suu now. I heard many posters were
distributed by the activists throughout Taungup."

The posters were likely distributed during the night throughout the wards
in Taungup, including Gu Dar, Chaung Gauk, Kan Pai, Thein Daung, and Kai
Chay Bridge.

A team of police from Taungup quickly reached the locations soon after
information spread about the posters. The police team seized all posters
and brought them to the police station.

"Despite the police seizing the posters, some townspeople, mostly youth,
brought the posters to show among their friends one after the other," the
source said.

Police in Taungup are now searching for the people who distributed the
posters but have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the action.

"In Taungup, the White Campaign for Daw Suu's release is being carried out
by democratic activists and this poster campaign is related to that," said
the NLD member.

Taungup is located in southern Arakan State and has been the site of many
demonstrations against the military government since 2007. Taungup has
played an important role in the Burmese democracy movement and nearly a
dozen activists from the town have been sentenced to prison for their
involvement in anti-military government protests.

____________________________________

August 24, Kachin News Group
Irrawaddy hydropower project to displace many Kachin villagers

The Burmese military junta plans to shift ethnic Kachin villages around
the hydropower project area in the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy River
(also called Mali Hka River in Kachin) in Burma's northern Kachin State,
said local sources.

Over 60 Kachin villages, around the hydropower project site near the
confluence of Mali Hka River and N'mai Hka River also called Mali-N'mai
Zup in Kachin and Myitsone in Burmese, 27 miles north of Myitkyina, the
capital of Kachin State, are on the list of villages to be moved by the
junta, said a local watchdog group.

On August 5, officials of Myitkyina Town Administrative Office (Ma-Ya-Ka)
including officials of multi-government departments in the town held a
meeting with villagers of Chyinghkrang in the zone to be cleared, 17 miles
north of Myitkyina. The villagers were officially told to shift by the
Ma-Ya-Ka officials, said villagers.

Simultaneously, commander Maj-Gen Soe Win, of the Myitkyina-based Northern
Regional command (Ma-Pa-Kha) met the same villagers next day. The
villagers were told by the commander that they would have to move, added
villagers.

The commander told the villagers by demonstrating with a bulldozer on the
hill near the village that "You Kachins have lived on the mountain forever
but you don't know about terrace cultivation. You don't need to dwell in
the valley," villagers of Chyinghkrang quoted him as saying.

During the two-day meeting, some villagers attended without wearing
clothes on the upper part of the body to show their displeasure regarding
the plans of moving the villages, said participants.

Salang Tsa Ji, general secretary of Kachin Development Networking Group
(KDNG), based on the Sino-Burma border told KNG today, the junta has
sanctioned 35 miles of land around the hydropower project site to the
Burma-Asia World Company which has started inspection with the Chinese
government's China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) since 2006.

The land includes about 2,000 acres of rubber plantation of Salang Wadu
Sin Wa and over 300 acres of rubber plantation of Salang Yup Zau Hkawng,
the owner of the Jadeland Myanmar Company, added KDNG general secretary
Tsa Ji.

Local eyewitnesses said, the Asia World Company has been mining gold in
Loiyang Bum Mountain, which is situated between Mali Hka River and N'Mai
Hka River, near the confluence since last year.

On June 16 at Hebei Hall of the Great Hall of the People in China's
capital Beijing, Burmese Ambassador to China U Thein Lwin and CPI
president Mr. Lu Qizhou signed an agreement to implement hydropower
projects in Mali Hka River, N'Mai Hka River and the Irrawaddy River
confluence in Kachin State, according to the junta-run newspaper the New
Light of Myanmar dated on June 21, 2009.

Following the agreement, the junta's No. 2 in the military hierarchy Vice
Snr-Gen Maung Aye visited the Irrawaddy River confluence on July 19, said
local residents.

Soon after Snr-Gen Maung Aye’s visit to the hydropower project site, each
family in the villages around the project site were forcibly made to sign
on a special form regarding displacement. The form was provided by the
Asia World Company by the firm’s personnel accompanied with policemen and
government land-survey officers, said villagers of Tang Hpre at the
confluence.

A villager of Tang Hpre said they had to fill up the form and give the
family members' list along with their occupations, house status, number of
fruit trees in the house compounds and the size of family-owned land and
plantation.

The Kachin villagers around the hydropower project site are yet to be
instructed to move to new areas. They have not been offered any
compensation for their loss by either Asia World Company or the junta,
said villagers in the zone.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 24, Shan Herald Agency for News
Tension sparks people to flee into China – Hseng Khio Fah

Latest reports from the Sino-Burma border say almost all of people in
Laogai were reported to have been fleeing into China’s Mansan Township
after receiving a typed announcement in Chinese by the Kokang leaders this
morning.

The statement issued by the Kokang leaders said “People need not be
panicked by the current situation but they have to be prepared all the
time,” according to a copy sent to SHAN.

In the meantime, some local Burmese authorities of Laogai-based Regional
Operations Command (ROC) and some Kokang leaders met at a hotel, which is
located on the way to Si Aww village this morning, but no details have
been disclosed. People therefore started fleeing despite the announcement,
said a local resident who declined to be named.

“Not only people but also cars were almost gone. All shops are closed,” he
said, “Internet connection was also cut down since 2 pm (Burma Standard
Time).”

All prisoners in Kokang jails were also released, according to him.

Tension between the two sides has been on the rise after local Burmese
authorities recently entered Kokang’s gun factory and seized all weapons.

On 23 August in the morning, more than 150 troops of the Burma Army from
Hsenwi and Kutkhai were reported to have arrived in Laogai. Three days
earlier, about 200 troops from Lashio were sent.

On 23 August, about 30 Kokang officials were also reported to have met in
an area controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), on the south bank
of the Namting, according to local sources.

Right now, thousands of troops of the Burma Army have been taking
positions in Kokang area. Security on the way from Kunlong and Laogai has
also been tightened by the Burmese military. Rice and food supplies were
also banned to be brought into Kokang areas, said another resident.

The tension between the Burma Army and the Kokang high since the Burma Amy
sent an armed force to investigate reports of Kokang force having an armed
factory on 8 August.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

August 24, Mizzima News
Dengue kills three, afflicts over 300 in Arakan State

New Delhi – At least three people have died and 329 people infected with
dengue fever this year in Sittwe and Kyaukphyu of Arakan State in western
Burma, according to information from the Ministry of Health.

According to the ministry of health, two people in Sittwe, capital of
Arakan state, have died and another in Kyaukphyu town.

"Though dengue is not very dangerous yet two people died in our town
scaring people. There are many dengue afflicted child patients in hospital
but I cannot tell the exact number. Besides, there are many more
unreported cases in the villages. The villagers cannot afford treatment at
the hospital. Only the affluent in the town can get admitted to the
hospital.

"Dengue has infected not only children but adults as well.  There are many
people from different age groups being treated at our hospital. Most
patients are children and the fever lasts less than a week after which the
patient is out of danger," a doctor in Sittwe Hospital said.

But some patients need to be treated for over a week.

"My daughter had dengue since the beginning of this month and was
hospitalized as soon as she was infected. Now she has been discharged.
Though her condition has improved she has not yet fully recovered. She has
been absent from school for over two weeks," a mother of a child patient
in Sittwe told Mizzima.

Teachers are worried about their students as many are absent from schools.

"There are many children who cannot come to school because of the flu.
Their friends say they either have flu or dengue fever. Some could not
come to school for a whole month. We are worried about their education
given the long absence from classes," a class teacher in the State High
School No. 2 in Sittwe told Mizzima.

Though the symptoms of this disease are coughing, sneezing, fever and body
ache but in this type of influenza, similar symptoms are not found, and
there are only sudden high fever plus headaches.

Rash, bleeding from the nose and gums, blood stains in the urine and stool
were found in these patients. Patients are known to become unconscious,
have convulsions, perspire with high fever, vomit continuously and suffer
from shock.

Dengue fever cases were also reported in Pyi, Pa-an in Karen State and
Htantalan town in Chin State.

The Health Ministry release said that about 30 people die of dengue fever
in Rangoon annually.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 24, Agence France Presse
Hundreds rally for Suu Kyi

TOKYO – SOME 300 Myanmar people held a rally in central Tokyo on Sunday,
demanding the military junta release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi, whose house arrest was extended this month.

The demonstrators, many wearing T-shirts with her picture, marched through
the streets of the Shibuya district in downtown Tokyo, shouting slogans in
unison and handing out leaflets to weekend shoppers.

They carried signs saying 'Unjustice Court of Burma' or 'Free Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi,' using a Burmese honorific for Suu Kyi, who has been detained for
14 of the past 20 years.

Earlier this month a prison court in Yangon convicted the Nobel Prize
laureate for breaching security laws and sentenced her to house arrest for
18 months, drawing international condemnation.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 22, Newsweek
The swimmer speaks – Tony Dokoupil

John Yettaw, just back from his Burmese prison odyssey, explains how he
unwittingly created an international diplomatic crisis.

How was a retired bus driver from Missouri able to make a flipper-clad,
two-kilometer swim to the heavily guarded house of Burmese pro-democracy
leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, one of the world's most famous dissidents? While
John Yettaw languished in Burmese jail during his trial for "illegal
swimming," all we could do is speculate. But now, in an exclusive
interview with NEWSWEEK, Yettaw has offered an explanation: Burmese
security officials let him. "I don't know why they didn't stop me," he
says. "The man with the AK-47 shook my hand and let me in."

In his first full-length interview, conducted by telephone from his home
in central Missouri, Yettaw addressed the rationale for his undiplomatic
dip, responding to critics and speaking at length about his commitment to
Burma. "I want to free Myanmar. I want to stop the suffering there. I am
antijunta. I will never be at peace, emotionally or psychologically, until
that woman is free, until that nation is free," he said.

Yettaw burst onto the front pages of the world's papers in May, when he
had made an uninvited two-day visit to the home of Suu Kyi. "The Lady," as
locals call her, trounced opponents in the country's last open election in
1990, but the junta refused to recognize the results and has kept her
under arrest for 14 of the past 20 years for trying to topple the regime.
She was due to be released on May 27, just weeks after Yettaw showed up,
well ahead of next year's landmark national elections—the first in two
decades. But earlier this month, Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18 more months
of home confinement. On Sunday, Yettaw was freed from seven years of hard
labor when U.S. Sen. Jim Webb negotiated for his release; he was deported
back to the United States.

A quixotic man who didn't have a passport until last year, Yettaw is an
unlikely protagonist on the international political stage. The junta has
said it believes that antigovernment activists used Yettaw to embarrass
its leaders, while Suu Kyi's supporters say that the government used the
American as a pretense for keeping their best-known critic under house
arrest rather than risk igniting the opposition ahead of the 2010
elections. Yettaw's family, for its part, doesn't know what to believe.
After years of questions that have gone unanswered and behavior that
doesn't quite add up, they have come to accept Yettaw the way he
is—bighearted but unsteady—without asking too many follow-ups.

Late Thursday night, the 53-year-old Missourian remained an enigmatic
figure, failing to clarify lingering questions and offering rambling and
occasionally contradictory responses. "I have to be careful what I say or
it will hurt the people of Myanmar," he explained, using Burma's other
name. Echoing his court testimony, he says he traveled to Burma hoping to
visit the Nobelist Suu Kyi—and to warn her that he'd learned, in a divine
vision, terrorists were planning to assassinate her. He denied that the
military junta ruling the country had put him up to the visit. "I've been
accused of being CIA, of being on the books of the junta. The idea is just
ridiculous," he said.

Still, the question remains: why didn't guards stop Yettaw as he made his
way across the lake to the home of the country's most famous prisoner?
Yettaw had made a similar aquatic bid for the Suu Kyi house in November
2008, but he was turned away by her on-site companions. He told family
that he had been captured by guards at gunpoint on his way back from her
house. The guards, he says, apparently unaware of his first attempted
visit to Suu Kyi's house, bought his story that he had fallen into the
lake while fishing and let him go.

It's not clear why authorities took a harder line this time, putting
Yettaw on trial and ultimately sentencing him to jail. He says he doesn't
know, but indicates that authorities did not seem too concerned about
stopping him: instead, a group of guards languidly threw rocks at him as
he paddled along. "I told [the judge at trial], Haul them in here and ask
them for yourself." He added: "Maybe they were just lazy, or untrained or
so cocky that they didn't think anyone would try to swim by them," Yettaw
said. "Maybe they are so used to people being scared that they didn't
expect anyone to do something so courageous."

Yettaw declined to say where he initially got the idea to visit Suu Kyi by
crossing the lake. But according to one Western diplomat, who requested
anonymity in order to speak freely, intelligence reports show that senior
Burmese officials were told to come up with a way to keep the Lady
incarcerated, as her May 27 release date loomed. Around a week before
Yettaw's second swim, this person says, two men posing as members of the
reform-minded National League for Democracy allegedly approached Yettaw in
Mae Sot, an untidy border town in Thailand, and told him that the Lady was
ready to receive him. (The Burmese government did not respond to requests
for comment.)

Yettaw won't say what he and Suu Kyi discussed once he made it to her
house. "It is so personal that I have no right to discuss our conversation
with anyone, not with my wife and not with my children," he said, adding
that he is "brokenhearted" that she is under house arrest once more.
Still, he doesn't see his actions as the cause of her predicament. "I
didn't put her there. I didn't imprison that woman."

Actually, he says, his visit may have even saved Suu Kyi from the
terrorists he believes were out to get her. He is not a hero, though: "I
don't like titles. You can call me John." He bristles at the suggestion
that he is unstable and possibly mentally ill, as some people, including
one of his three ex-wives, has suggested. "I am not crazy. I am not
insane. I am not bipolar."

Since touching down in Springfield, Mo., on Wednesday, Yettaw has kept a
low profile—ducking out of an airport side door without picking up his
luggage in order to avoid the waiting scrum of reporters and
photographers. "I was really worried that he would be different or
changed," Yettaw's 21-year-old daughter Carley, says. "But he wasn't. It
was just like seeing my dad regular. It wasn't a big deal." His wife Betty
has also downplayed the homecoming, focusing instead on the financial
burden of her husband's long trip. Although Webb helped secure his
release, Yettaw had to pay his own travel expenses and foot the bill for a
nurse assigned to monitor his health. "They are breaking us," says Betty,
who is also keen to deflect criticism of John. "Yeah, [Suu Kyi is] back
under house arrest, but people who didn't know where the heck Burma was,
who couldn't find it on the map for all their life, now know."

For now, Yettaw is taking his return to America "one day at a time." Later
this month, he plans to pick up his three youngest children—he has five
surviving kids in all—in California, where they stay with their mother
every summer. He also intends to spend some time working on his two book
projects: a "dissertation" about forgiveness (although he is not enrolled
in an academic program) and a book "about a higher power, about
recognizing the bitter and the sweet."

Would he go back to Burma? "Not without my family," he said, "and not
without an invitation."

With Lennox Samuels In Thailand

____________________________________

August 24, Sydney Morning Herald
'Evidence lacking' of Burma's nuke plans

Information leaking out of Burma raises suspicions of a clandestine
nuclear program in cahoots with North Korea but there's no solid evidence,
a new study says.

The paper, released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
says any suggestion of a secret weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program
conducted by a rogue state like Burma must be cause for serious concern.

The author, Griffith University research fellow Andrew Selth, said no one
could underestimate the lengths to which Burma's military leaders would go
to stay in power and to protect the country from perceived external
threats.

"Some of the information that has leaked out of Burma appears credible,
and in recent years other snippets of information have emerged which,
taken together, must raise suspicions," he said.

Relations between Burma and North Korea, which both achieved independence
in 1948, have been traditionally patchy but warmed in 1988 when Burma was
ostracised by the west after the abortive 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

Mr Selth said reliable information was scarce but it seemed that Burma had
purchased weapons and munitions from North Korea. Periodic visits of North
Korean freighters to Rangoon have prompted speculation that Burma has
acquired more advanced weaponry, such as SCUD-type missiles.

Media reports last month claimed Burma had embarked on a secret nuclear
weapons program, aided by North Korea which has long conducted a
clandestine nuclear weapons program, testing devices in 2006 and 2009.

Mr Selth said the US had steadfastly refused to accuse Burma of a secret
WMD program, probably because it did not feel there was sufficient
reliable evidence to mount a public case.

"Understandably, foreign officials looking at this issue are being very
cautious. No one wants a repetition of the mistakes which preceded the
2003 Iraq War, either in underestimating a country's capabilities, or by
giving too much credibility to a few untested intelligence sources," he
said.

Mr Selth said the challenge was to determine if Burma had such a program
and if so, to do something about it.

He said Burma's regime did not seem to fear international criticism or the
threat of increased sanctions.

"The exposure of a WMD program would probably see Burma expelled from
ASEAN," he said.

"Even if that were to occur, however, the generals seem prepared to see
Burma return to its pre-1988 isolation and poverty, if that was the price
they had to pay to remain masters of the country's and their own destiny."

____________________________________

August 22, Irrawaddy
‘Than Shwe should be the first to blink’: Diplomat

As Burma’s state-run media continues to call on Washington to lift
sanctions following the highly publicized visit of pro-engagement US
Senator Jim Webb, a Western diplomat close to US officials says it is now
up to the Burmese regime to make the next move.

“I don’t think the US will be the first to blink. [Junta leader Snr-Gen]
Than Shwe should be the one to blink now,” said the Bangkok-based
diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said that Than Shwe needs to demonstrate that he is genuinely
interested in political dialogue by releasing Burma’s 2,100 political
prisoners and allowing international monitors to ensure that next year’s
election is credible.

So far, however, the regime in Burma hasn’t done anything to suggest that
it wants to make political progress in the country, he said.

“Tangible and meaningful actions are needed, not just words,” he told The
Irrawaddy.

During his visit to Burma last weekend, Webb—who is also the chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific
Affairs—met with both Than Shwe and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

He also secured the release of American John William Yettaw, who had just
been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for swimming to Suu Kyi’s
lakeside home.

Suu Kyi, who had been put on trial for allowing Yettaw to stay overnight
to recover from muscle cramps, received a three-year prison sentence that
was immediately reduced to 18 months under house arrest.

“If they are serious about the new relationship with the US, they should
commute Suu Kyi’s sentence completely and free her immediately,” said the
Western diplomat.

After Webb’s visit, dissidents both inside and outside of Burma began to
speculate about whether the US was going to shift its policy. However,
given the ongoing political stalemate, Washington is not likely to make
any major changes in its Burma policy, the diplomat said.

Indeed, the Obama administration has been careful to reiterate its
position that encouraging national reconciliation in Burma, and not
engagement with the regime, remains it top priority.

“We continue to look for signs that the Burmese government is prepared to
embark on a meaningful dialogue with Aung Sun Suu Kyi, along with the rest
of the democratic opposition,” the Assistant Secretary of State for Public
Affairs, P J Crowley, told reporters at a daily State Department press
briefing shortly after Webb’s visit.

In a statement thanking the regime for Yettaw’s release, the White House
called on the junta to go further and free all political prisoners. “We
urge the Burmese leadership in this spirit to release all the political
prisoners it is holding in detention or in house arrest, including Aung
San Suu Kyi,” the statement said.

It seems unlikely, then, that Washington will relax its sanctions on the
Burmese junta as long as it continues to persecute its political
opponents.

“How can the US lift its sanctions without action in Burma?” asked the
Western diplomat, adding that Than Shwe has “done nothing to loosen his
grip.”

During his meeting with Webb, Than Shwe reportedly told the senator that
he could not allow UN chief Ban Ki-moon to meet Suu Kyi during his visit
to Burma in June because she was on trial at the time. However, it is
widely believed that his determination to isolate the pro-democracy leader
stems from his strong personal animosity toward her.

Webb was the first senior US official to meet with Suu Kyi in more than a
decade. In 1994, Congressman Bill Richardson spoke with the Nobel Peace
Prize laureate for five hours at her house, accompanied by a reporter from
The New York Times.

By contrast, Webb’s meeting with Suu Kyi took place at a government guest
house and lasted less than one hour.

A Burmese source in Rangoon confirmed that the regime imposed a strict
time limit on the meeting, effectively preventing Webb and Suu Kyi from
discussing the issues of sanctions and engagement in any depth.

This may account for the confusion over what Suu Kyi said to Webb about
her stance on engagement. Although Webb said at a press conference
following his trip to Burma that Suu Kyi seemed open to the idea of more
“interaction” between the regime and the West, she actually said that
there was a greater need for domestic dialogue, according to her lawyer.

Webb, who is known for his strong criticism of US sanctions on Burma, will
brief US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on his visit when he returns
to Washington.

During a recent visit to Southeast Asia, Clinton hinted that the Obama
administration might be prepared to “open up doors for investment and for
other exchanges that would help the people of Burma,” but made this
conditional on Suu Kyi’s release.

Since then, the regime has given no indication that it is interested in
meeting this precondition for engagement, meaning that for the time being,
at least, efforts to improve relations between Washington and Naypyidaw
are at a standstill.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 22, The China Post
Burma's junta plays hardball in the face of wavering West – John J. Metzler

PARIS -- When a kangaroo court in Rangoon slapped an additional sentence
on the already incarcerated pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the
world winced. To be sure there was the perfunctory outrage, especially in
Europe where French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the sentence on this
Nobel laureate "a brutal and unjust verdict." And the European Union
presidency demanded her "immediate freedom without conditions."

Yet half a world away in the never-never land of Burma's socialist
republic, the ruling junta felt assured they would ride the most recent
ripple of world outrage as much as they survived the near political
tsunami wave of condemnation over their blundered and callous handling of
foreign aid after a devastating typhoon in May 2008 killed over 100,000 of
their own people.

Days after the verdict, the U.N. Security Council, despite laudable
pressures from Britain, France and the United States, could barely summon
a mild verbal rebuke to the Burmese generals. Given strong resistance by
China and Russia, a Council statement (not a resolution) expressed
"serious concern" over the court sentence, but could not utter the word
"condemnation" as many countries including the U.S. had wanted.

At the time of independence from Britain after WWII, Burma held so much
promise. A resource-rich and bountiful land, which could and should have
been a model Southeast Asian state, sadly instead, the country slipped
into the grip of a military rule whose bizarre blend of socialism,
nationalism, self-reliance and crony corruption, made the country now
known as Myanmar, a regime isolated save for a few friends like the
People's Republic of China and North Korea. Burma which has been under
military rule since 1962 plans an staged election next year, without of
course the pesky participation of opposition politicians like Suu Kyi who
may actually win as did her forces in 1990 before the results were
overturned. She has since spent 14 of the past 20 years under house
arrest.

Much of the international community has been striving for the release of
Aung San Suu Kyi and many other political prisoners. In Western Europe,
Burma's tragedy has long been a cause celebre much like the case of Tibet.
Significantly the Bush Administration, the U.S. pushed hard for political
openness but to little avail. And the United Nations has sent numerous
envoys to the Southeast Asian land but with little tangible result. In
early July U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Rangoon to try his
diplomatic persuasion skills with the ruling generals. He came back
embarrassingly empty handed.

U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) an Obama confident, recently visited
Rangoon to try his hand at unlocking the bizarre maze of Burmese politics.
On the one hand Webb succeeded in freeing an imprisoned American John
Yettaw, an eccentric who triggered the whole fiasco in the first place by
sneaking into Suu Kyi's residence back in May and allowing the Junta the
perfect excuse to slam the laureate with a new trial for having broken the
terms of her house arrest. But Webb's mission to Myanmar by the Chair of
the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific
affairs, brings a whole new legitimacy to a sordid regime long shunned by
the West for good reason.

Though Senator Webb has reflected the Obama Administration's wish for a
more "constructive" American engagement with Burma's rulers, the aftermath
of his dialogue with dictator General Than Shwe now faces a number of
hurdles, most especially Aung San Suu Kyi's vocal and politically active
supporters in the U.S., Europe and needless to say Burma itself.

On the other hand, Washington's gripe with the Junta rests primarily on
human rights grounds and lacking freedoms. Let's face it, while Burma is a
totally wretched regime, it does not really pose a regional danger to its
neighbors, nor it does have any historic conflict with the U.S., as does
say North Korea. But this is not the time to end or ease economic
sanctions

But why now? Clearly Washington wants to wean the Rangoon rulers from
their political and military dependence on People's China. This may be
wishful thinking. Mainland China has a long border with Burma, and looks
to the Southeast Asian state as a natural resource entrepot for minerals,
rubies and timber, as well as a geopolitical backdoor to the Bay of
Bengal. In other words this is Beijing's neighborhood. It is quite naive
for Washington to assume otherwise.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and
defense issues. jjmcolumn at att.net

____________________________________

August 21, Voice of America
Burma's other prisoners still a concern – Editorial

Burmese authorities have freed John Yettaw, who was convicted and
sentenced following his uninvited visit to pro-democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi’s house. In charges stemming from that incident, Ms. Suu Kyi was
given an additional 18-month sentence, extending a detention that has
lasted for much of the last 19 years.

While the United States welcomes Mr. Yettaw’s release, it remains very
concerned about the continued detention of Ms. Suu Kyi and more than 2,100
other political prisoners, including Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, and Su Su
Nwe, who have been denied their liberty because of their pursuit of a
government that respects the will, rights, and aspirations of all Burmese
citizens.

While traveling in Burma in early May, Mr. Yettaw swam across a lake near
Ms. Suu Kyi's home, driven he said by a vision that terrorists were bent
on killing her. He was sentenced to a 7-year prison term, including 4
years of hard labor, on charges that he violated the terms of her house
arrest. For allegedly harboring him, Ms. Suu Kyi’s sentence extends a
detention that has lasted for much of the last 19 years.

President Barack Obama said he was pleased with the Burmese government's
decision to free Mr. Yettaw. Burma has essentially been a military
dictatorship for most of the last 47 years, and the U.S. has been looking
for signs that Burma is fundamentally changing its policies. Mr. Yettaw's
release, however well intended, is not an indication that that is
happening.

Thousands of political activists remain in jail. Their release would be
significant. Burma's military leaders should also engage in a meaningful
dialogue with their political opponents and move toward a peaceful
transition to genuine democracy and national reconciliation.