BurmaNet News, April 22, 2010

[Editor]

April 22, 2010, Issue #3946

INSIDE BURMA
Guardian (UK): Burma's hip-hop resistance spreads message of freedom
Mizzima News: NLD Youth rolls out human rights aims
Mizzima News: Khin Maung Swe may run solo after May 6
Irrawaddy: Delta faces immediate water shortage
KNG: Myitsone bomb blast suspects arrested

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Wa hosts allies for security talks
KNG: Saboi Jum brothers want KIO to accept BGF
Financial Times (UK): South-east Asia: Activists worry about ‘black hole’
of Burma

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: India eyes $5.6bn Burma hydropower deal

INTERNATIONAL
DVB: US rep says China ‘stealing Burma’
Irrawaddy: Obama Administration defends Burma policy
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (US): Lugar seeks $250,000 to aid health clinic
for Burmese

OPINION / OTHER
Sydney Morning Herald: Sanctions will force Burmese junta to negotiate –
Eva Sundari
The World Today (UK): Succession strategy – Ashley South


____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 22, Guardian (UK)
Burma's hip-hop resistance spreads message of freedom – Jack Davies

Thxa Soe's music gives country's youth a focus for dissatisfaction with
the junta despite strict censorship

Taunggyi, Shan state – Burmese hip-hop artist performs in Yangon. 'Some
people in government like me, some people hate me.'

Burmese hip-hop artist performs in Yangon. 'Some people in government like
me, some people hate me.' Photograph: New York Times/Redux/eyevine

They know every word. Boys, bare-chested and sweating in the April heat.
Girls clutching digital cameras, their faces streaked with paste to
protect them from the sun. They answer the call-and-response lines with
increasing excitement. By the time Thxa Soe reaches the chorus, the crowd
have taken over. With fists pumping the air, they roar his words back at
him.

This is a summer music festival, soaked in alcohol and drenched in sweat,
the same as anywhere. But this is Burma, and nothing is the same here.

The barricades keeping the audience from the stage are ordinarily used to
control rioters. They are ringed with razor wire. At the very front of the
crowd, two novice monks, wrapped in the maroon robes that have come to
symbolise defiance in Burma, dance and play air guitar. And everywhere,
the Tatmadaw – Burmese military officers – armed and helmeted, watch over
all.

Everything is watched in Burma, everything is scrutinised, and everything
is controlled. Books cannot be published without government approval, song
lyrics are vetted by a censorship board for anti-government sentiment
before they can be recorded. Anything even vaguely critical of the ruling
military junta is swiftly outlawed, any attempt to circumvent the regime
brutally repressed.

But an imported art form – hip-hop – is providing a subterranean vehicle
for quiet, yet significant, dissent among Burmese youth.

Burma has a history of revolutionary music. Traditional protest songs,
known as thangyat, were once used to air grievances, both small, against
neighbours, and large, against authority. Following the 1988 student
uprising, however, the music was banned outright by the ruling military
junta.

But hip-hop's fluid lyrics wrapped in rhymes and youthful argot make it a
perfect modern format for subtly spreading an anti-authoritarian message.

Thxa Soe is one of Burma's leading hip-hop stars, and one of its most
outspoken. He first heard hip-hop as a student at the SAE Institute in
London, instantly admiring the quicksilver rhymes and daring lyrics of Dr
Dre and Snoop Dogg.

But he also had an interest in the traditional music of his homeland, and
began researching the hundreds of documents held in the UK. "In the
British Library, I discovered these traditional songs, [with] original
Burmese-language lyrics, that nobody had performed for hundreds of years.
They were taken from Burma in the 1780s. Many songs that people had never
heard."

He began combining the two art forms, meshing the ancient melodies with
computer-generated beats, and near-forgotten Burmese-language words with
his own modern lyrics.

"I like, and people like, the freedom of hip-hop. There is not much
freedom in rock, but in hip-hop you have freedom to express, express your
ideas. And this is our hip-hop, for Burmese.

"I have too many words, not only me, too many teenagers have too much to
say. Because our country is a very closed country, and the older people
have a closed mind, a concentrated mind."

The Burmese people have been promised elections this year, the first in
two decades. No one at this concert has ever cast a ballot. But even
before a date has been set, the poll has been written off by the
international community as a sham. The main opposition party, the National
League for Democracy, which won 80% of seats in the last election in 1990
but was never allowed to take office, will not contest it.

It opposes new election rules laid down by the junta which forbid the
participation of its leader, the Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu
Kyi, because she is serving a prison term. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 15
of the past 21 years under house arrest, put there by the same military
generals now legislating to keep her from taking part.

There will be no campaign in Burma this year, no discussion of policies,
opposition and government, and no international oversight to ensure the
polls are "free and fair".

More than 2,000 political prisoners remain in Burmese jails, and rebel
armies in several eastern provinces, including in this state, the Shan,
run a fierce resistance against the military's brutal rule.

"The election will not bring democracy," the Guardian hears more than once
in Taunggyi. But through music, there is opportunity for expression.

Meeting foreign journalists is dangerous, so Thxa Soe speaks to the
Guardian several days after the concert at a house 500km south, in Burma's
capital, Rangoon.

The 29-year-old flew under the junta's radar with his first album, but he
is now a victim of its success. Its popularity has meant he is closely
watched by the government censors.

Outright criticism of the government is forbidden, but he skates close to
the edge of what is acceptable in the junta's eyes, and his songs are
regularly banned.

On a recent album, fully three-quarters of the tracks were forbidden,
fearful of reprisals from the junta, fled Burma.

"[I said to him:] 'Hey man, you can't be paranoid, but you don't want to
face [this] kind of problems, you need to get out from this country.' So
he decided he want to get out, so I helped him go to America."

But even the seemingly anodyne can land musicians in trouble in Burma. One
of Thxa's songs recently banned had as its only lyrics: "Hey hey, how are
you?"

Famously paranoid, tThe Burmese government is undoubtedly aware its young
people are pushing the boundaries of what it will tolerate.

The regime's mouthpiece, state-run newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar,
regularly rails against foreign art forms and entertainment.

Police regularly seize from street vendors bootleg copies of albums and
live performances they have banned, but, cheap and quick to reproduce,
they are never off the streets long.

Thxa Soe says he has chosen to stay in Burma, despite the risks, because
he sees his voice as important in his homeland. "It is very difficult
being a musician in Myanmar. You are not free. You are always being
watched, for what you say, and you are being told what you can say and
what you cannot. [But] I believe music can change a country, not only our
country, but the whole world."

And there are others in Burma finding an outlet for dissent in music. A
group known as Generation Wave, its exact membership unknown, secretly
records and distributes anti-government albums across the country,
dropping them at the tea shops that are the social hubs for Burma's
underground political network.

They write songs such as Wake Up, a call for young people to join the
pro-democracy movement, and Khwin Pyu Dot May (Please Excuse Me), the
story of a young man asking his mother's permission to join the struggle.

Most of its members keep their identities a secret, after high-profile
member Zayar Thaw was jailed for six years for forming an illegal
organisation.

But the threat of prison has not stopped Burma's young flocking to the
group, as fans and as members.

"We welcome young people to participate in our movement against the
regime," a performer known only as YG says. "Our songs honour mothers and
revolutionists. We want young people to be active and interested in
politics. Every youngster can be an activist."

As the grinning teenagers leave the Taunggyi concert, steam rising from
their sweat-soaked bodies in the now cool midnight mountain air, a young
man yells out to the Guardian Thxa Soe's banned song lyric: "Hey, hey, how
are you?"

Innocent enough, but in Burma, everything has meaning.
Censored by the state

Thxa Soe's record with Burma's notorious censorship board, run by the
ruling military junta, is patchy. On his most recent album, nine of 12
songs were banned.

One song titled Hey, We Have No Money was allowed but another, Water,
Electricity, Please Come Back, an obvious comment on Rangoon's
inconsistent power supply, was forbidden.

The titles of Thxa Soe's albums – Blend Of Music, Mix Or Don't Mix If You
Want To – reflect his musical style, which combines traditional Burmese
songs and lyrics with hip hop-style beats and words.

He has been criticised by the censorship board for "ruining" traditional
Myanmar music, and the Myanmar Theatre Association has forbidden musicians
in traditional orchestras from using their instruments to play
contemporary music.

____________________________________

April 22, Mizzima News
NLD Youth rolls out human rights aims – Khai Suu

New Delhi – Human rights issues will be the focus of National League for
Democracy (Youth) activities once the party ceases to exist as a legal
entity, a party spokesman said yesterday.

Electoral law provisions published last month by the military regime were
causing the party to expire, – Rangoon Division Hlaing Tharyar Township
National League for Democracy (NLD) Youth information department joint
chief Khai Soe said.

“After the NLD took the decision not to stand for election, our party
programmes and activities will be more clearly directed on human rights
issues and activities 
 Because we think, under the 2008 constitution, the
human rights situation will worsen before and after the election”, Khai
Soe told Mizzima.

“I have experience in this issue as I am the former political prisoner. I
fully comprehend the dangers that lie ahead 
 But we cannot be afraid 
”
he said. “We must face this situation and do what we should. We will work
on these activities for the development of rights in Burma and to put our
work back on a democratic track.”

The policy will be put to work within the legal framework by starting in
Pegu, Irrawaddy and Magwe divisions, he said. Among the activities, the
group will expose oppression by local authorities, land-grabbing,
extrajudicial killings, forced recruitment of child soldiers and forced
voting in the forthcoming elections.

“We will support the families of political prisoners by visiting their
homes for counselling. And we will encourage them and discuss with them
their right to choose whether or not to vote and that no force should be
exerted. We will tell them to inform us when they experience these kinds
of oppression and we will convey these violations to the people who
deserved to be informed”, Khai Soe said.

He also said that he will start this activity alone but that he has many
supporters. He has to fill the vacuum left by rights activist Suu Suu New,
who is serving a prison sentence for her work.

Khai Soe was sentenced to a seven-year jail term in 1998 by the Insein
Special Tribunal after being charged under sections 5(j) of the 1950
Emergency Provisions Act and 17(1) of the 1908 Unlawful Associations Act.

(Section 5(j): to affect the morality or conduct of the public or a group
of people in a way that would undermine the security of the Union or the
restoration of law and order; Section 17(1): Whoever is member of an
unlawful association, or takes part in meetings of any such association,
or contributes or receives or solicits any contribution for the purpose of
any such association, or in any way assists the operations of any such
association, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term [which shall
not be less two years and more than three years and shall also be liable
to fine].)

After his release from prison, he has engaged in social work and became an
NLD member in 2007.  “I gave vocational training to children in abject
poverty and school dropouts by finding donors. And also I provided
training in hairdressing to young prostitutes who had been pushed into the
flesh trade because of economic hardship and poverty. I organised them to
get back on track,” he said.

____________________________________

April 22, Mizzima News
Khin Maung Swe may run solo after May 6

New Delhi – Fissures in the National League for Democracy have deepened
over the re-registration issue, with party Central Executive Committee
member Khin Maung Swe leaning towards going it alone after the May 6
deadline for registration, when the group will cease to exist as a
political entity.

Khin Maung Swe has however let it be known he would continue to be loyal
to National League for Democracy (NLD) founder Aung San Suu Kyi and the
party until the deadline. He is among the few leaders likely to form a
party or contest as independents, yet they are averse to being branded
disloyal to the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi, analysts believe.

The main opposition party had unanimously chosen against re-registration
with the Election Commission after deciding against contesting the polls.
It had said its decision was based on its view that the electoral laws
were “unjust and unfair”.  Khin Maung Swe was among the few who disagreed
with the party on the issue.

“I shall do nothing until the last date for registration, which is May 6
in keeping with my loyalty to both NLD and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” he said.

May 6 is the last date for registration with the Election Commission in
accordance with this year’s Political Parties Registration Law. Soon after
Khin Maung Swe was publicly critical of the NLD over its decision not to
run, a rumour spread that he would join the race anyway. He denied the
claim, citing his indecision on the matter.

“It’s not true that I will contest the elections. I have not yet decided
to contest as an individual. It is just speculation by some people. I have
no intention to do anything for the time being for I am in a wait-and-see
mode,” the NLD Information Department member and Central Executive
Committee (CEC) member told Mizzima.

If political parties, which won in the 1990 general elections like the
NLD, do not re-register with the commission, their legal status will
automatically be void.

Fellow CEC member Dr. Than Nyein, Rangoon Division Vice-Chairman, who
nurses a similar opinion on re-registration, also said he would continue
to be loyal to the NLD until the cut-off date.

“We are members of NLD as long as NLD exists until May 6. We have not yet
taken any decision on electoral issues,” he said.

But both declined to say what they would do after the May 6 deadline.

____________________________________

April 22, Irrawaddy
Delta faces immediate water shortage - Kyaw Thein Kha

Tens of thousands of people in areas affected by Cyclone Nargis face
immediate water shortages almost two years after the cyclone, a UN
official said on Thursday.

“Around 180,000 people face immediate water shortages, mostly in the
severely affected townships of Labutta, Bogalay and Mawlayminegyun,” said
Aye Win, a UN information officer based in Rangoon.

Agencies, including the UN Development Program, and NGOs have mobilized
resources to provide drinking water to 135,000 people. Water, sanitation
and hygiene remain under-funded sectors, said Aye Win.

According to UN, the number of people who are estimated to be in need of
assistance has been reduced by half compared to last year. During the peak
of the 2009 dry season (March to May), more than 350,000 people faced
difficulties in accessing sufficient drinking water and water for their
daily needs.

“The water in the lakes is drying up because of the dry season. We cannot
dig wells in the Labutta area.

The water in the soil is salty. We cannot drink. The water in the lakes of
Pyinsalu and Thingyangyun villages don't have water anymore. The villages
near the sea are worse,” said a resident of Labutta.

In a report by Integrated Regional Information Networks of the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Daniel Collision, the
director of Save the Children, said, “The main challenge is that there is
insufficient good quality water sources across the delta.”

“More than 70 percent of people rely on ponds as their main means of
access to water, and insufficient water sources are cited as the main
reason for household water shortages, so there is a in-built long-term
problem,” he said.

The villagers in some Nargis affected areas have to buy water from the
boats loaded with water containers. In some villages, the authorities
distribute some amount of water to local residents.

“The ward council support only a one gallon container of water per day. We
can use that only for cooking and drinking,” said a villager of Pyinsalu
village near Labutta. More than 140,000 people died and about 2 million
were displaced following the cyclone in 2008 in the delta region of Burma.
In Labutta Township, 80,000 people died.

At the Regional Partnership Conference held in November 2009 in Bangkok,
more than 160 countries, including Australia, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia,
Japan, New ZealandZealand, Norway, the Netherlands, the European
Commission, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom,
pledged to contribute US $88 million for post-Nargis recovery.

Of the amount, $6.48 million was pledged for water, sanitation and
hygiene, but $16.16 million is needed to address the needs in those sector
up to July 2010, according to the UN.

____________________________________

April 22, Kachin News Group
Myitsone bomb blast suspects arrested

The Burmese military junta has arrested five people on suspicion of
triggering the April 17 serial bomb blasts in the controversial Myitsone
dam project site, which killed four and left more than 12 injured.

The accused is Ze Lum, who owns a rubber plantation near the site in
Chyinghkrang village. He has three children and lives 8 miles from
Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State. He was arrested along with his four
employees by the township police on April 18 said local residents.

Kachins and other ethnics from Burma in UK protested for stopping
Irrawaddy Myitsone dam projects in Kachin State, northern Burma. Photo:
KNO.
“Maybe they (junta) arrested him because they thought he hatched the plot
as he lost around 50 acres of rubber plantations, which was burnt down
earlier for the construction of the project,” said a local source.

Township police searched his house when they arrested him. Later the
authorities released two employees but are still detaining Ze Lum and two
other employees.

“He had asked for compensation of around 30 million to 40 million Kyats
(US$3,061 to $4,082) from Asia World Company because they burnt down his
rubber farm. Possibly that is why he was arrested,” said residents.

The local people felt he was innocent.

The authorities are investigating and questioning all other rubber farm
owners close to the blast site.

Yesterday, Burmese military officials ordered people living in 8 mile to
assemble and questioned them, said a villager.

Ze Lum made money from his gold mining business along with his brother Ze
Dau in 2003. The family is known to neighbours as hard working and honest
people.

“It’s not possible he did it. He is kind and honest. He is being framed,”
said the source who knows the accused well.

In Saturday’s bomb blasts in five different places in Lungga Zup and
Chyinghkrang village near the dam construction site the victims were
mostly Chinese workers. Nearly 300 Chinese workers fled to China-Burma
border in four buses along with the injured and the dead.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the bomb blasts, junta’s
northern commander Maj-Gen Soe Win telephoned and asked the Kachin
Independent Organization (KIO) whether it had a hand in the blast.

Following the phone call representatives of the KIO including its General
Secretary Dr. Lahkyen La Ja, Col Hkawng Lum and other high ranking
officers went to meet Maj-Gen Soe Win in Myitkyina and explained that the
KIO was not involved.

The KIO is now into joint investigations with the junta on the 27 bomb
blasts of 39 bombs planted. The explosions destroyed at least seven
buildings and 10 vehicles, a large electric generator, a garage, two
entrance gates and a 2000 gallon fuel tank in the dam project site.

The Myitsone hydro power project is being implemented by China state owned
China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), Burmese firm Asia World Company
and the regime’s No.1 Ministry of Electric Power.

The construction started in 2009 December despite opposition to the
project by local people, who feared environmental devastation, relocation
and a grave threat to their lives should the dam collapse, given it is
only 100 kilometers from a fault line in Yunnan province in China.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 22, Irrawaddy
Wa hosts allies for security talks – Wai Moe

As the junta’s deadline for the Border Guard Force (BGF) plan passes on
Thursday, the largest of Burma's armed ethnic groups, the United Wa State
Army (UWSA), which has upward of 20,000 troops, met this week with its
allies to discuss the potential threats they face in the near future,
sources close to the groups told The Irrawaddy.

“The ethnic groups have learned a lesson from the failure of their Kokang
allies, and are preparing a united front against any threats to the
development and stability of their territories,” said a source who spoke
on condition of anonymity.

Since Naypyidaw first proposed transforming the various ethnic cease-fire
groups into BGFs one year ago, groups such as the UWSA, the Kachin
Independence Organization (KIO), the Kokang army (officially called the
Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army), the Mongla-based National
Democratic Alliance Army and the Shan State Army-North, have formed
alliances with each other.

Following the Burmese army's seizure of the Kokang headquarters in Laogai,
near the Chinese border, in August last year, the cease-fire groups have
reportedly pledged to stand alongside one another if one group is
attacked.

The Burmese army knows that with the UWSA involved, any conflict with the
ethnic groups could potentially involve a lengthy and bloody campaign. A
couple of days before the deadline, the UWSA sent a letter to the junta
saying it rejects the BGF proposal.

According to sources, the Wa leadership reportedly said in the letter that
their stance had not changed since their previous letter to Naypyidaw on
April 3. It also said that the Burmese regime, or any other party, is
welcome in the Wa region if they want to help create development and
stability. However, anyone who “seeks to destroy” the region’s peace and
development would be considered an enemy, they said.

Contrary to Naypyidaw's demands, the Wa leaders insisted that any BGF unit
stationed in Wa territory must be headed by Wa commanders with Burmese
army officers assigned to deputy commander positions. Furthermore, the
UWSA proposed that general staff officers could be assigned from the
Burmese army, but that all deputy staff officers must come from the UWSA.
The Wa said it would allow six lower-ranking Burmese officers in each
battalion, whereas the junta demanded 27 rank and file military personnel.

The junta rejected the Wa's terms on April 9 during a meeting between Wa
leaders and a government delegation led by Lt. Col. Than Htut Thein, who
is a general staff officer in the Triangle Regional Military Command,
according to The Shan Herald Agency for News, which monitors affairs in
Shan State.

Saengjuen Sarawin of The Shan Herald Agency for News said that both the Wa
and the Burmese army are preparing for conflict. He said the Burmese have
reinforced troops and military facilities in northern and southern Shan
State, while the UWSA has done similarly in their own territory.

Another major ethnic cease-fire group, the KIO, based in northernmost
Burma, was due to hold BGF negotiations with government officials on
Thursday in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State. Burmese Prime Minister
Gen Thein Sein and the chief of the Military Affairs Security, Lt-Gen Ye
Myint, who is the chief negotiator with the cease-fire groups, are
scheduled to attend the meeting.

The KIO is yet to announce its acceptance or rejection of the BGF
proposal. The group proposed that Kachin troops join a “Union Defense
Forces,” in the “spirit of Panglong,” referring to a 1947 agreement that
granted the Kachin and other ethnic groups full autonomy and internal
administration of frontier areas.

Kachin sources said KIO associates in Myitkyina could face retaliatory
measures after the deadline passes, noting that a Kachin official was
recently arrested in Myitkyina because he traveled to his family home
without travel documents.

Analysts have said the BGF issue is posing a dilemma for the Burmese army
as the generals’ proposal has failed to bear fruit.

Meanwhile, Chinese premier Wen Jaibao postponed his trip to Burma, Brunei
and Indonesia, from April 22 to 25, due to the deathly earthquake in
northwestern Qinghai Province, according to the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs Web site.

As the Chinese are traditionally and geographically close to the Wa,
Beijing has repeatedly called for peaceful solutions on ethnic issues in
Burma.

____________________________________

April 22, Kachin News Group
Saboi Jum brothers want KIO to accept BGF

In what might lead to fresh fissures in the Kachin community, prominent
peace mediators Rev. Dr. Saboi Jum and his younger brother Hkun Myat are
seriously suggesting that the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)
accepts the Border Guard Force proposed by junta supremo Snr-Gen Than
Shwe.

The Saboi Jum brothers have told the KIO, the last remaining Kachin armed
group refusing to accept the BGF that “It (BGF) is the key and the door
can be opened by only a key”. It means the relation between the junta and
the KIO will end if the latter rejects the BGF, said a KIO official in
Laiza headquarters.

Saboi Jum and Hkun Myat attended the latest KIO’s public meeting
explaining its stance and the “lack of positive result on BGF negotiations
with the junta after 15 times”, in Laiza headquarters in east Kachin State
on April 16. But the two brothers had to go back home in Myitkyina without
getting a chance to talk to KIO leaders, said participants.

Earlier this month, three other Kachin leaders who sided with the junta
were--- Dr. Tu Ja, former Vice-president No. 2 of KIO, Zahkung Ting Ying
leader of New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) transformed to BGF and Col.
Lasang Awng Wa leader of KIO split Lasang Awng Wa Peace Group transformed
to a militia group. They also suggested that the KIO accept BGF ---or else
it will have trouble in terms of existence.

Saboi Jum is the former general secretary of Kachin Baptist Convention
(KBC) and founder and director of Shalom Foundation (also called Nyein
Foundation), one of the largest national NGOs in Burma. His brother Hkun
Myat is a businessman.

The two brothers, a pastor and a businessman mediated in a big way and
successfully helped sign a ceasefire agreement between the junta and the
KIO on 24 February, 1994.

The 16 year-old ceasefire has not helped usher in democracy and ethnic
Kachin rights, so criticism by Kachin people of the two brothers has only
mounted. The criticism revolves around the duo creating personal wealth
through business, given their proximity to the ruling junta. They are not
for the Kachin people.

Saboi Jum was general secretary of KBC during 1993 to 2000 and Kachin
Baptist followers expected him to be a saviour of the Kachin people.
However he did not fulfill the Kachin people’s aspirations.

In 2007, Saboi Jum was pressured to join the signature campaign in an
appeal letter to junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe to halt the Irrawaddy
Myitsone dam project by the Kachin Nationals Consultative Assembly. But he
refused to sign.

In December, last year, Saboi Jum visited Washington D.C and suggested to
U.S. officials to withdraw the economic sanctions on Burma and support the
junta’s general elections in 2010.

KIO delegates led by Chairman Lanyaw Zawng Hra will meet the junta’s
Northern Regional Commander Maj-Gen Soe Win today in Myitkyina but the KIO
will refrain from providing the junta-demanded answer— on whether it will
accept the BGF, said KIO officials.

____________________________________

April 22, Financial Times (UK)
South-east Asia: Activists worry about ‘black hole’ of Burma – Tim Johnston

All day the boats chug back and forth across the sluggish Moei river below
the Wang Pha clinic in western Thailand, carrying everything from timber
and tea to migrants and malaria.

The Moei forms the border between Thailand and Burma, but if it is a
negligible barrier to goods, people, and disease, it is a huge one in the
fight against malaria.

South-east Asia does not have the same kinds of infection rates that are
seen in Africa: the average person around Wang Pha gets an infectious bite
about 0.6 times a year, compared with more than 300 times for parts of
Tanzania.

However, the Thai-Cambodian and Thai-Burmese borders have the dubious
distinction of being the source of resistance to anti-malarial drugs.

Chloroquine and melfloquine, both huge pharmacological breakthroughs in
their day, met their match in the jungles of south-east Asia and
surrendered.

And it is in this area that doctors such as François Nosten first started
to notice tolerance to the drug artemesinin, the newest and current best
hope against malaria.

“I can still get the same number of patients cured, but it takes a little
bit longer,” says Prof Nosten, the director of the Shoklo Malaria Research
Unit, a collaboration between Ox­ford University in the UK and Thailand’s
Mahidol University.

No one is entirely sure what is happening with artemesinin tolerance.
Around the Cambodian town of Pailin, where it was first observed, it now
takes artemesinin-based combination therapy (ACT) five to seven days to
clear the parasite from the bloodstream, up from 48 hours when it was
first used.

Prof Nosten says Shoklo has studied the genome of the tolerant strain and
has yet to find significant differences. He even suggests it is possible
the strain has always existed but has only recently become noticeable
because ACTs have eliminated most of the sensitive parasites, leaving the
tolerant ones.

Shoklo has its offices and main laboratory in the Thai city of Mae Sot and
runs a series of clinics up and down the Burma border. Prof Nosten says
the work of the Global Fund and other agencies is having a significant
impact in Thailand and Cambodia, but Burma is a “black hole”, a source of
disease untouched by international funding.

He says that, as artemesinin tolerance spreads, Burma is a disaster
waiting to happen: “You can probably stop it in Cambodia, you can probably
stop it in Thailand, but if it reaches Burma you have lost.”

The answer, Prof Nosten believes, is to democratise diagnosis and treatment.

Since simple, cheap and reliable diagnosis kits have become available,
Shoklo has experimented with training villagers to diagnose and treat
locals. The faster a patient is treated, the less chance of extending the
cycle of infection.

“You need to get the guy to the clinic within 48 hours, and how can you do
that if the clinic is five hours walk away?” he asks.

The programme has had an extraordinary effect. In 2007, the Shoklo network
treated 60,000 cases of falciparum malaria; last year it treated 35,000.

The problem is Burma, but in this case it is not that the area just across
the river is a war zone, nor is it the result the legendary intransigence
of the Burmese authorities: it is what the blue line of the Moei
represents to the international authorities funding the fight against
malaria.

“You have all the money being concentrated on this side of the border,”
says Prof Nosten. “Research is global and they see the border as a wall.”

A short walk across the border from the Wang Pha clinic, lies Koko
Hospital, sleepy in the baking heat of the late dry season. Dr Naw Baw,
the hospital director, has tried to set up a similar scheme, but she has
no money and the terms of Prof Nosten’s funding prohibits him from sharing
his.

“Different organisations have different ideas, and some are frightened to
come here,” is all she will say of international reluctance to fund
projects.

It is an attitude that infuriates Prof Nosten. He understands why Thailand
would be reluctant to give some of its hard-won Global Fund money to
Burma, and is unsurprised that Burma – which again became eligible for
Global Fund grants last year – has not spared any for the remote border
region opposite Wang Pha.

What he cannot understand is why the funding has been structured so as to
make it difficult to obtain money for cross-border programmes.

“If we stop at the border, we will not be able to stop resistance,” he
says. “We have the tools, the drugs, even the money. The only problem is
the politics.”

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____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
India eyes $5.6bn Burma hydropower deal – Joseph Allchin

India’s state-owned National Hydro Power Company Limited (NHPC) will
increase its investment in Burma to the tune of an extra $US5.6 billion as
Burma aggressively expands its energy sector.

The head of the NHPC, S K Garg, told the Wall Street Journal the company
was “inching towards Myanmar [Burma]. We have already sent our team to
Myanmar for further survey and investigation for two projects.”

Little is known of the location of the projects, but the Wall Street
Journal suggests that they could be two new 510-megawatt and 520-megawatt
dams.

The NHPC already has a major presence in the country, primarily at the
Tamanthi dam on the Chindwin river in Burma’s northern Sagaing division.
The project has a capability of providing 1200 megawatts of electricity,
80 percent of which it is believed will go straight to India.

As of 2007, according to research by the Burma Rivers Network (BRN), over
380 families had been displaced by the Tamanthi dam and none had
reportedly received compensation. It is estimated that the dam will
eventually displace some 30,000 people in 35 different Kuki ethnic
villages.

Sai Sai from BRN said that these people have absolutely no input or “right
to participate” in the decision-making process for the dam, a fact that is
clearly against the first recommendation of the World Commission on Dams:
“Development needs and objectives should be clearly formulated through an
open and participatory process, before various project options are
identified,” it says.

Added to this, the Chindwin river is the only known habitat of the Burmese
Roofed Turtle, a species that will be lost forever by the construction of
the dam.

The Wall Street Journal further notes that within India “progress on
hydroelectric power capacity addition has been slow due to environmental
concerns and issues related to resettlement of people displaced because of
the construction of dams”.

This would suggest a strong incentive for India investing in Burma’s
hydropower sector, given BRN’s concerns about a lack of accountability in
the process.

The Tamanthi dam is being constructed by the NHPC in collaboration with
Swiss company Colenco Power Engineering Ltd. According to Garg, quoted in
the Indian press, the NHPC is also involved in the 642-megawatt Shwezaye
dam.

BRN believes that construction of the Tamanthi dam had been suspended
after it began in 2007, suggesting that renewed investment of the sort
mentioned by Garg may be needed to finish it, although at present details
are not available.

It is believed however that consultants had been engaged by NHPC, but
their findings had not yet been put to the government in Naypyidaw.

China is without doubt the leading investor in Burma’s hydropower sector,
with numerous projects on rivers across the country, many of which have
attracted international controversy and condemnation.

The drying of the Mekong river is partly blamed on Chinese dam
construction, whilst Kachin organisations and individuals have strongly
petitioned against forthcoming dam projects on the Irrawaddy river,
including the Myitsone dam.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 22, Democratic Voice of Burma
US rep says China ‘stealing Burma’ – Francis Wade

Burma is becoming a “subservient province of Beijing” and risks being lost
to its bigger neighbour “for generations to come”, a US congressman has
said.

Speaking in fiery tones before the House of Representatives on Tuesday,
California representative Dana Rohrabacher warned that the pariah
Southeast Asian state was the victim of a “Chinese power grab”.

“China is literally stealing Burma from its own people, and it is
accomplishing this monumental crime with the assistance of Burmese
government officials whose lust for power is greater than any loyalty to
their own national homeland,” he said.

He added that “the patriots and freedom-loving people of Burma will either
join against tyranny and foreign domination, or their country will be lost
for generations to come.”

Chinese presence is indeed growing in Burma as Beijing looks to tap the
country’s vast natural gas reserves, as well as secure an overland
pipeline route to Yunnan province for Middle Eastern oil being offloaded
in the Bay of Bengal.

Bilateral trade between the two countries reached $US264 million in
February this year alone, up 92 percent year on year, according to the
Xinhua news agency. Of that, $US215 million was Chinese exports to Burma.

Last month however a leading US senator acknowledged that it was strict
Western sanctions promoted by Washington that had pushed Burma closer to
China.

The US has long been concerned with growing Chinese influence in Southeast
Asia, a region that US presence in has waned in recent decades as efforts
have been concentrated on the Middle East and Latin America. Moreover, the
US has vehemently opposed the current military government in Burma, which
receives its strongest backing from Beijing.

Washington has however had a tempestuous relationship with Burma: in the
1950s, president Eisenhower installed and armed Chinese nationalists in
Burma to carry out cross-border operations into Mao-ruled China, despite
the protests of the U Nu administration in Burma, its first civilian
government after British rule ended.

Several analysts, including the leading Southeast Asia scholar George
Kahin, have said that the huge surplus of arms in Burma that resulted from
this initiative, coupled with a need to bolster the army in lieu of
possible retaliation from China, was a key factor in fomenting military
rule in Burma.

But the adamantly nationalist ruling generals in Burma are also known to
be concerned about over-dependence on China, and thus China’s leverage in
the country. China meanwhile has expressed concern that instability in
Burma, particularly along the China-Burma border, could jeopardise
business interests there.

“Burma is not completely dependent on China but dependent enough; they’ve
lost their economic independence,” said regional expert Bertil Lintner.
“They’re in the clutches of China; there’s nothing they can do about
them.”

Chinese imports, particularly in textiles and heavy machinery, dominate
Burma’s domestic market, but beyond beyond the economic ties there is also
a strategic element to the close cooperation between the two countries.

“It’s more than a relationship of convenience – it’s a military
relationship,” Lintner said. “There are Burmese officers who have
undergone military training in Kunming [in southern China].”

____________________________________

April 22, Irrawaddy
Obama Administration defends Burma policy – Lalit K Jha

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday defended its policy of
engagement with the Burmese military junta following calls from several US
senators to review the policy.

P J Crowley, the US assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said
the administration would continue its new policy of simultaneous
engagement and economic sanctions and hoped that dialogue with the junta
would yield positive results.

“The challenge of Burma wasn't created in one year; it's not going to be
solved in one year,” Crowley said.

“We have shifted to a policy of engagement following a comprehensive
review of our Burma policy. We did it because, quite honestly, sanctions
alone have not yielded results either. We have begun high-level dialogue
with the government of Burma on a wide range of issues of interest and
concern, and we will continue this conversation,” he said.

During the annual session of the UN General Assembly in September 2009, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the new policy for Burma that
included simultaneous engagement and sanctions.

Since that time, the Obama administration has had two rounds of talks with
the junta, but without apparent success as evidenced by the military
regime's continued pursuit of its heavily criticized election process.

“As we said, we've been disappointed with some steps that Burma has taken
recently, particularly with respect to its election laws,” Crowley said.
“Burma has an ongoing challenge. It has to solve much of its challenge
internally, with broader dialogue with various elements of Burmese
society. It has to open up its political process to more participants.”

“We will continue to send that strong message to Burma. I think that we
would hope that over time it will yield results. But we are not surprised
that this has been a difficult process,” he said.

In response to a question, Crowley said, “We have already indicated our
concerns and that under these circumstances we would not recognize the
[election] result.”

Reacting to reports that North Korea exported weapons to Burma last week,
Crowley said it is the responsibility of the Burmese government to abide
by the UN Security Council resolutions regarding North Korea.

“All states, including Burma, have a special responsibility to be vigilant
and transparent in their dealings with North Korea. We have long-standing
concerns about military links between North Korea and Burma, and we expect
all UN member states, including Burma, to carry out their obligations
under UN Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874,” Crowley said.

____________________________________

April 22, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (US)
Lugar seeks $250,000 to aid health clinic for Burmese – Sylvia A Smith

A $250,000 infusion of federal cash would help a Fort Wayne clinic treat
Burmese refugees who have high rates of infectious diseases, Sen. Richard
Lugar, R-Ind., told a Senate committee.

The weekly clinic would treat the refugees for latent tuberculosis,
hepatitis, lead poisoning and parasites, Mayor Tom Henry said in a letter
asking Lugar to make the request. Henry said treating the refugees soon
after they arrive in Fort Wayne would help prevent the spread of disease
to the rest of the city.

Henry said Fort Wayne has struggled to provide services for the 6,000
Burmese refugees who have been settled in Allen County since 2007.

He said the city’s medical and social services experts “agree the Burmese
are a more medically complicated population than previous waves of
refugees.”

The refugees are unfamiliar with the U.S. medical system, don’t speak
English, have transportation problems and often don’t have medical
insurance, Henry said. The clinic would be located close to where many
Burmese live, and would be staffed with interpreters and educators, as
well as medical personnel.

Lugar asked for the money to be included in the 2011 budget that pays for
health and labor programs.

sylviasmith at jg.net

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 22, Sydney Morning Herald
Sanctions will force Burmese junta to negotiate – Eva Sundari

The past 20 years has seen massive foreign investments in Burma and a
policy of unconditional engagement pursued by neighbouring countries,
including my own, Indonesia. This practice of unprincipled engagement,
which ASEAN has been guilty of, has failed to bring positive change to my
Burmese neighbours who show so much courage and hope.

The benefits of foreign investment and trade have not reached the ordinary
people of Burma. Instead poverty has increased and health spending has
fallen, while the human rights crisis has peaked and so has sexual
violence, torture and murder of women by military forces armed with newer
weapons. Burma's humanitarian crisis continues to worsen with tragic
consequences. One in 10 children die before their fifth birthday, a figure
that doubles in eastern Burma where the military is attacking civilians.
Children are still being forcibly recruited into the armed forces despite
the regime's pledges to stop. The cost of unconditional engagement has
also implicated Indonesia and ASEAN in the tragedy of the Rohingya
boatpeople. There has not been one single political democratic reform, and
it is unlikely that Burma's scheduled 2010 election will bring about any
significant change.

Income from foreign investment projects enables the military dictatorship
to continue abusing human rights. These abuses, including slavery,
torture, extrajudicial executions, rape, forced displacement have been
well documented across Burma. The International Labour Organisations and
International Tribunal into Crimes against Women in Burma have both named
Burma's oil and gas industry as being linked to human rights violations.

Foreign trade and investment channels money to the military, who continue
their brutal repression, and to individual generals to shore up their own
financial situations and security. This leaves no reason to engage with
anyone who advocates for political change; foreign investment in Burma
brings no one to the negotiating table.

Last year we saw Aung San Suu Kyi successfully use existing sanctions as
leverage to enter into talks with Burma's junta for the first time in
nearly two years and to meet diplomats from the US, UK and Australia for
the first time in six years.

Despite what has been reported in the media, Suu Kyi has not indicated any
drastic change to her position on sanctions nor has she called for the
lifting of existing sanctions. Not unless, of course one would think, if
the regime themselves show concessions in the lifting of its arbitrary
control over laws, land and citizens.

New targeted trade and investment sanctions, especially if they include
Burma's oil and gas industry, will strengthen Suu Kyi's and Burma's
democracy movements bargaining position.

In addition to providing Suu Kyi with more leverage, new targeted trade
and investment sanctions will play a role in:

* Protecting national resources, such as oil and gas reserves, from being
exploited by the military junta for their sole benefit.

* Preventing human rights violations from occurring along project sites
and by denying the military regime billions in revenues; and

* Ensuring foreign companies are not complicit in or linked to the
violation of human rights abuses in Burma.

A multilateral approach to sanctions against Burma already exists. The US,
EU and Canada have adopted trade and investment sanctions and private
companies and individuals have voluntarily enacted sanctions. The
introduction of targeted trade and investments sanctions by individual
countries would strengthen this multilateral approach. This is especially
important given the direct channel of oil and gas profits into the
military's pockets, an industry that Australia's Twinza Oil is beginning
to invest in.

ASEAN has had to accept our responsibility for Burma's crisis, because we
continue to contribute to the military junta's political and economic
strength. By not using all available tools to bring about change in Burma,
such as imposing targeted trade and investment sanctions, other nations
are doing the same, and thus must join ASEAN in assuming blame for the
situation in Burma.

Australia has a strong reputation as a defender of democracy and regional
security. This reputation may be in jeopardy, should the necessary steps
to stop Australian companies funding human rights abuses in Burma not be
taken. This year is going to be a defining one for Burma. Let us work
together to send a clear message to the military junta, ASEAN governments,
the international community and to our brave neighbours, in the form of
Burma's multi-ethnic community who are united in calls for democracy, that
Australia is committed to pinpointing pressure in order to bring key
players to the negotiating table.

Eva Sundari is a Member of Parliament in Indonesia and a member of
Indonesia Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP). She is ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus regional vice-president and Indonesia's
National Burma Caucus chairwoman.

____________________________________

April 22, The World Today (UK)
Succession strategy – Ashley South

The Burmese people are probably about to get their first chance to vote in
twenty years. Things did not go well last time; the military prevented the
winners taking power. Now, new groups are
emerging to try to take advantage of the limited opportunities on offer.

The Burmese military government issued five laws on March 8, providing a
framework for elections which are likely to be held later this year. While
a number of opposition activists and politicians will boycott the polls,
others are preparing to participate in the first opportunity to vote since
1990.

The elections are the brainchild of junta supremo, Senior General Than
Shwe, and represent his ‘succession strategy’ – a way of easing himself
out of the day-to-day running of the country, while ensuring that no
single person can consolidate power, and represent a threat to his
continued pre-eminence behind-the-scenes. The polls could still be
cancelled, if Than Shwe and his inner grouping feel they are losing
control of the process. In this scenario, the most likely pretext would be
to fabricate some kind of national emergency, perhaps by provoking a
resumption of conflict with armed ethnic groups, most of which have agreed
ceasefires with the military government over the past twenty years.

Assuming that they do go ahead, the elections are likely to result in a
consolidation and legitimisation of continued military control in
Burma/Myanmar. For this reason, many opposition activists are opposed to
the process. These include Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National
League for Democracy (NLD), won the last elections in 1990, only to be
denied the opportunity of forming a government by the military. The NLD
has recently announced it will not register to contest the elections.

However, some non-military-controlled actors, including groups which are
outright opposed to the government, are nevertheless preparing to
participate. These include representatives of Burma’s ethnic nationality –
or minority – communities, which make up about a third of the population.

ANY CHANGE WILL HELP

Why are independent candidates interested in contesting the polls? Not
because of any great enthusiasmfor the process, which will be tightly
controlled by themilitary regime, but rather
because they see little alternative but to go along with the government’s
plans, and in some cases, even glimpse a few potential opportunities. The
elections are likely to result in the creation of more political space; a
relative concept in such a repressive country. Certainly, they will
introduce opportunities for a broader range of economic actors to make
their interests felt, including many closely associated with the military.

To many activists and observers, any change is better than the status quo;
constitutional
rule-of-law, however problematic, being preferable to continued rule by
military fiat. Indeed, to the extent that the elections are Than Shwe’s
‘exit strategy’, many proponents of change in Burma argue that the process
should be encouraged.

Most observers of the Burmese political scene are familiar with two main
branches of the opposition: the urban-based, pro-democracy movement, led
by Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest;
and a loose alliance of ethnicnationalist insurgents, who once operated
across large swathes of the country, but in recent years have been
restricted to a few jungle enclaves along the Thai border. The Burma Army
continues its brutal counter-insurgency campaigns in these border areas,
which have displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.

THIRD FORCES

There are however, other important sectors of the political scene. These
include armed ethnic ceasefire groups which have ended outright
hostilities with the central government, and political elites who have not
taken up arms, but rather seek to work for change from within
military-controlledMyanmar. Among the former, probably the best prepared
are Kachin nationalists, including a number of senior officials recently
retired from the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) – which agreed a
ceasefire in 1994 – who are preparing to compete in the polls through a
new vehicle, the Kachin State Progressive Party.

This group is likely to appeal to large numbers of the Kachin population
in northern Burma. However, it may yet be denied the chance, if the
military government insists on trying to bring the armed wings of the KIO
and other ceasefire groups under the direct control of the Burmese army,
before the election. Such a development might be designed to provide a
resumption of armed conflict – not just in Kachin State, but in other
restive border areas.

Another interesting set of alliances is emerging in the Karen ethnic
community. Two Karen parties are likely to participate in the elections,
one in Karen State, adjoining Thailand, and another in the old capital of
Rangoon, and further to the west, in the Irrawaddy Delta, including areas
affected by
Cyclone Nargis two years ago. The latter party will attempt to appeal
beyond a purely Karen constituency, to members of other ethnic groups,
including Burmans, whose villages are often interspersed with those of the
Karen. An important set of emergent players is associated with the ‘third
force’ in Burmese politics, which is seeking to mobilise support primarily
among the Burman majority.

This mostly civilian network is positioning itself as an alternative to
military-backed parties, which is nevertheless independent of the NLD and
its ‘politics of dissent’. After sixty years of armed ethnic conflict, the
elections are a rare opportunity for ethnic nationalist and other elite
groupings to outline their political objectives, and compete on the
national political stage. Having said this, most ethnic parties are
focusing on winning seats in provincial legislatures, rather than the two
national-level assemblies. They are hoping to gain enough seats to
leverage at least some concessions on the issues which have structured
ethnic and state-society conflict for over half a century.

In particular, ethnic nationalist politicians hope to begin using minority
languages in schools and local government departments, in areas where
their populations live, and to have some say over the proceeds of natural
resource extraction, and the use of government funds.

They also hope to promote the creation of greater political ‘space’,
within which civil society-based approaches to community development can
flourish, and provide a vehicle for long-term, bottom-up democratisation.
The main risk of participation in the elections is that this will
legitimise the process, and support the consolidation of militarised rule.

Those taking part may also undermine their own standing in disgruntled
ethnic communities. Their attempts to promote incremental change in this
way are therefore quite principled, and in many cases decidedly brave.

International Agendas

Regarding the international aspect of the elections, the China angle is of
considerable importance. Burma’s giant neighbour to the north is its main
geo-strategic patron.
It offers cover for the generals’ misrule and human rights abuses – for
example
in the United Nations Security Council – in exchange for access to the
country’s natural
resources. Less influential, but still of some note, are the various
Association
of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries which border Burma to the south
and east, and are looking for stability and investment opportunities.

Despite – or perhaps, even because of – the lofty rhetoric of western
actors, European and North American countries have very little influence
on the political situation. Regardless of whether the British or United
States governments – or the European Union – like it or not, the elections
will take place, and if they do not, this will not be because of western
pressure. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of Burmese
politics, in an era of declining western influence globally.

Those inside the country seeking to participate in the elections, are
hoping to make the best of a poor set of options. They are surely better
placed than exiled politicians and their sympathisers to judge the
opportunities and constraints locally.

Ashley South is an independent writer and consultant, specializing in
politics and humanitarian issues in Burma/Myanmar and Southeast Asia.