BurmaNet News, May 21, 2010

[Editor]

May 21, 2010, Issue #3967


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: State media in Burma silent on Thai unrest
SHAN: PM’s party recruits members forcibly in Shan State
Kantarawaddy Times: Heat wave, water scarcity kill livestock
Mizzima News: Counsel summoned over Suu Kyi home repairs

ON THE BORDER
DVB: Thai soldier shot dead by Burmese corporal

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: USDA to receive state-owned fuel stations
Mizzima News: Export ban hits onion farmers as prices dive

REGIONAL
Indian Express: Twelve years after arrest, Myanmar ‘gun runners’ move
court for plea bargain

OPINION / OTHER
Japan Times: Thailand risks taking road that ends in a Burma night
DVB: How to run a country like a business – Joseph Allchin
Irrawaddy: Thailand crisis followed with concern by Burmese – Editorial 
Epoch Times: The Saffron Revolution continues – June Kellum




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 21, Irrawaddy
State media in Burma silent on Thai unrest – Ko Htwe

While Thailand's increasingly volatile political crisis attracts the
attention of much of the world's media, people in Burma are getting only a
trickle of information about the situation in a country that is host to a
vast Burmese migrant population.

State-run television in Burma has provided scant coverage of the protests
that paralyzed Bangkok for the past two months. The protests ended
yesterday after Thai troops finally moved in to shut them down with a
massive show of force that sparked riots that left much of downtown
Bangkok in ruins.

According to residents of Rangoon, the only reports of the unrest that are
widely available to the public are those that appear in privately owned
weekly news journals. For more up-to-date information, some are turning to
foreign-based shortwave radio stations, the Internet, or international
news networks such as CNN, BBC or Al Jazeera.

State-owned Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV), which has a monopoly on
TV broadcasting inside Burma, has a channel—MRTV-4—that carries foreign
news broadcasts, but only with a delay that allows censors to block any
news deemed potentially harmful to the country's ruling regime.

“I haven't seen any news about Thailand broadcast on state-owned
television. I know about the situation there only through the Internet and
journals,” said  Si Thu, who lives in Rangoon.

Win Tin, a leading member of the National League for Democracy, said that
most of his information about Thailand was coming from shortwave radio
stations.

“Because of the lack of electricity, we get our news mostly from the
radio,” he said, adding that the situation in Thailand is “very
complicated and difficult to assess.”

In Burma, the Ministry of Information's Press Scrutiny and Registration
Division, which oversees the censorship board, routinely inspects and
censors books, journals and newspapers, rejecting any politically
sensitive material.

So far, however, it hasn't prevented private publications from reporting
some of the details of the crisis in Thailand.

“The state-owned media rarely reports about what is happening in Bangkok,
but our journal can report the death toll and publish some photos,” said
the editor of a Rangoon-based weekly journal who spoke to The Irrawaddy on
Thursday.

Mandalay-based freelance reporter Nyein Chan said that now that the
protests in Bangkok have been brought under control, the Burmese media may
be given more freedom to report on events in Thailand.

“Now they will be permitted to report more because the Thai army has
crushed the Redshirt demonstrators,” said Nyein Chan.  “But only journals
closely connected to the regime will be able to report freely about the
situation in Thailand.”

There are 326 licensed newspapers, magazines and journals in Burma.

____________________________________

May 21, Shan Herald Agency for News
PM’s party recruits members forcibly in Shan State – Hseng Khio Fah

The newly floated Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) led by
Prime Minister Thein Sein is on a recruiting drive in Shan State North and
Shan State East using the power of its parent organization the Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), border sources said.

All village and village tract headmen in Shan State North’s Namkham
Township and Kengtung, Shan State East are being pressured by local ruling
military junta officials and USDA officials to collect household lists
starting early this month.

Namkham alone has to provide at least 5,000 members for the party, said a
Namkham USDA member.

Namkham Township is homeland to ethnic nationalities such as Lisu, Shan,
Palaung and Kachin as well as people of different religions especially
Christians and Buddhists.

The township chairman ordered on 19 May that each quarter must send 50
members for the party, he said and added “They started collecting names
yesterday.”

Likewise, in Shan State East’s Kengtung Township, every youth above 15
years of age must apply for membership. If not they will be blacklisted
for high treason [Naing Ngan Taw Pone Kan Thu], said a member of the USDA
in Kengtung.

Local USDA officials are now conducting census and collecting family lists
in areas all around the town including the outskirts, he said.

The Chairman of the Kengtung USDA is Sai Long Hseng Leng. He is also a
general secretary of Kengtung Tai Khun Literature Association.

“The USDA says we should become PM Thein Sein’s party members because he
had developed our town and built pagodas for us,” a woman resident said.
“But we don’t see any development in our town.”

Prime Thein Sein with 20 other senior officials retired from their
military posts in late April and came to lead the USDP. The USDP was
directly formed from the state backed organization, the USDA. It applied
for party registration to the Union Election Commission on 29 April.

It is expected to contest from all constituencies in Burma in the
forthcoming election later this year.

____________________________________

May 21, Kantarawaddy Times
Heat wave, water scarcity kill livestock

Heat-wave conditions are prevailing in Burma with temperatures soaring up
to 44 degree Celsius in Dawphu village, Karenni State.

Local villagers said cattle and buffalos had died due to the extreme
weather conditions and water shortage. A Dawphu villager said. "In recent
weeks, a big buffalo died along with many newborn calves."

Dawpetdu, Dawpetphu and Dawsoku from Dawphu village rely the year round on
a small brook, three miles from their village for their and their
livestock’s water requirements.

Villagers said the excessive heat has dried up water holes in many
villages. Streams have dried up creating severe water shortage. Villagers
say there is not enough water for drinking and washing and if they need
water for themselves or their cattle and buffalo they have to walk three
miles to get it.

"There is only one lake that we can rely on to get water. Our cattle and
buffaloes don't have enough and are at risk of dying."

The villagers said it is not only their livestock that they are worried
about. "Many children are suffering from dehydration and heatstroke," they
said.

____________________________________

May 21, Mizzima News
Counsel summoned over Suu Kyi home repairs – Salai Han Thar San

New Delhi – Burma’s High Court has summoned lawyers for pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her eldest brother to present arguments next
Friday in a dispute over renovations to her crumbling lakeside villa in
Rangoon, a lawyer for Suu Kyi told Mizzima.

Aung San Oo lodged an appeal with Rangoon Division High Court on May 13
against the Rangoon Division Court’s April 6 rejection of his plea for an
injunction to stop Suu Kyi repairing her home. His probate claim to a
share in the house at No. 54-65, University Avenue is the subject of a
pending separate appeal.

The Rangoon City Development Committee on April 29 had then issued an
order to allow renovations to resume.

Suu Kyi’s lawyer Nyan Win said his main goal was to point out that the
brother’s appeal application lacked the legal references to object to the
renovation.

“When I’ve addressed the court on previous occasions I’ve made the same
assertion [that the claim lacked precedents], and this time [May 28], I
will refer to that again,” the lawyer said.

Nyan Win had asked the authorities for permission to consult with Suu Kyi
on Saturday about the case and to receive her instructions. The junta has
detained the National League for Democracy general secretary for 14 of the
past 20 years and at present she is under house arrest.

If Aung San Oo loses this current bid there are no further legal avenues
open to him. If his sister loses the case, all renovations must cease.

According to act 39 section (1), the renovation would not cause damage to
the disputed property, and no one could object to the repairs.

Despite the summons, the High Court has not ordered a halt to the
renovations, so the work would continue, fellow Suu Kyi lawyer Kyi Win
told Mizzima.

Bamboo fencing has been erected on the Inya Lake side of the house and old
roof tiles cleaned and reinstalled. The tiles were damaged when Cyclone
Nargis lashed Burma in May 2008, so Rangoon municipal authorities ordered
renovations to proceed between last November and April.

The Rangoon City Development Committee approved the start of repairs in
recognition that the building had become dangerous, but they were put on
hold on December 23 after lawyers for Aung San Oo obtained an injunction,
citing his claim on the property.

The Independent of London reported in February that the row over the house
started in 2000 when Aung San Oo, who had become a US citizen, sued his
sister in Rangoon High Court for a share in the family home. The report
said Suu Kyi won but added that in 2001, he filed another suit and that
the matter was still pending.

Suu Kyi’s father Aung San, a Burmese hero who fought for independence from
the British, and her mother, ambassador Khin Kyi, had three children.
Their middle son, Aung San Lin, drowned when he was eight. Burmese Prime
Minister U Nu gave the colonial-era house to Khin Kyi while she was
serving as envoy to India in 1960.

Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has stayed in the house since 1988
when she returned from London to take care of her ailing mother.

Suu Kyi’s house arrest was prolonged 18 months last year over the junta’s
claims she breached the terms of her detention, after American John Yettaw
had swum uninvited across Inya Lake in May and stayed in her house for two
days.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 21, Democratic Voice of Burma
Thai soldier shot dead by Burmese corporal – Naw Noreen

A Thai army soldier was been shot dead earlier this week by a Burmese army
corporal on the Thai-Burma border, locals say.

The shooting happened on the Burmese side of the Moei (or Salween) river
on Tuesday, close to Thailand’s northwestern Mae Sariang. The Burmese
soldier was from Light Infantry Battalion 434, which operates across the
river from Mae Sariang.

A local in Mae Sam Laep village, close to Mae Sariang, said the Burmese
corporal shot the Thai soldier after he refused to give a ride to two
colleagues who were critically wounded after stepping on a landmine near
their base.

“Three Thai boats were sending a group of [Thai] forestry officials to [a
village up river] and upon passing Eu Thu Tha [near LIB 434 base] they
were asked by Burmese soldiers to take two of their men who stepped on a
landmine to the battalion’s base,” said the villager.

“The Thai boats refused to take them as they were on orders to send their
officials upriver. One of the boat captains, a Thai soldier known as Ah
Young who spoke Burmese, was talking to a Burmese soldier [on the river
bank] and when he returned to the boat, he was shot multiple times in the
back by the corporal.”

The villager said Ah Young was a friend of the Burmese soldiers and had
helped them previously. The Burmese corporal who carried out the shooting
was reportedly drunk at the time.

DVB was unable to contact Thai authorities.

Saw Steve of Thailand-based Committee for Internally Displaced Karen
People (CIDKP) said similar incidents occur often at the border area.

“These happen quite often. Normally, boats will not dare to travel in the
river for one to two days following this. However, both sides will start
using the river again when [the problem] is over.”

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 21, Irrawaddy
USDA to receive state-owned fuel stations

The military regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA) will receive state-run fuel stations from the Burmese government,
according to the Ministry of Energy (MOE).

An MOE official said the regime will hand over fuel stations to the USDA,
the army-owned Myanmar Economic Holdings Company Ltd. (MEHC) and 18 other
privately owned companies.

Out of 246 stations to be transferred, the MEHC and USDA are expected to
acquire the majority.

“So far, we know that the MEHC will acquire 30 percent of the number of
fuel stations and the USDA will take no less than that,” an MOE official
said.

Other companies that will acquire fuel stations are Htoo, Max Myanmar,
Shwe Than Lwin, IGE, Zay Kabar, Eden, Dagon International, Ayar Shwe Wah,
Fisheries & Marine Products 2000, Nilar Yoma, Anawar Hlwam, Myat Myitta
Mon, Shwe Taung, Kaytumadi, Yuzana, Kaung Zaw Hein and Naing Group, the
Yangon Times reported on May 18.

Some company officials said that they will not only acquire fuel stations
from the regime but also establish new fuel stations across the country to
expand their business.

Private companies will have to pay the regime by installments but for the
junta-backed USDA and MEHC, they are expected to acquire the fuel stations
from the MOE without any expense, said an official at the Ministry of
Finance and Revenue.

“The USDA and MEHC are governmental organizations so they can acquire
these fuel stations without paying any money,” he said.

A businessman in Mandalay said he believes the USDA and MEHC will not
manage the fuel stations, but instead, they will receive income by leasing
the stations to businessmen or organizations.

Meanwhile, a Rangoon-based reporter has speculated that it would be
illegal if the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), to be formed
as a spin-off of the USDA, contests in the 2010 election while receiving
funds derived from state-owned businesses.

“It is not even in accordance with the law that they [the regime] have
promulgated. It seems that they don't care about their own law and what
others say. They will do whatever they want,” the reporter said.

Chapter 3 of the Political Parties Registration Law states that a
political party is prohibited from receiving directly or indirectly
state-owned money, land, housing, buildings, vehicles or property.

____________________________________

May 21, Mizzima News
Export ban hits onion farmers as prices dive – Myint Maung

New Delhi – Onion farmers are incurring huge losses after an export ban
was imposed to cope with supply outstripping domestic demand, traders say.

Late last year, windfall prices of 900 Kyats (US 90 cents) per viss (about
1.6 kilograms) for small bulbs and 1,400 Kyats per viss for large
motivated farmers to increase planting over the previous year. but they
could not export their crops this year. Onion prices have since fallen
gradually 150 Kyats per viss for small bulbs and 200 for large size.

A brokerage owner on the Pakokku wholesale exchange said farmers had
perhaps relied too much on their onion crops this year, chasing last
year’s prices.

“But when farmers grew more this year, onion exports were banned by the
government so they incurred huge losses in the market,” the broker said.
“They are now complaining loudly about falling onion prices”.

Major onion growing areas are Pakokku and Yenangyaung in Magwe Division
and Monywa in Sagaing Division. The major markets are Seikphyu in Magwe, 
Kyaukse in Mandalay Division, Myanugmya in Irrawaddy Division.

“The returns on our onion crop can’t even cover labour costs let alone the
input costs of seeds, kerosene, fertiliser, insecticide and other direct
costs,” a farmer from Yenanchaung said. “Despite falling onion prices,
there are no buyers in the market 
 we’ll have to use our crop as
fertiliser.”

The annual onion export price was made volatile by supply fluctuations and
the fact that exports might banned when domestic prices rise, a staff
member at the “Union of Myanmar (Burma) Federation of Chamber of Commerce
and Industry” said. The major export markets for Burmese onions are China,
Malaysia, Thailand and India.

According to the official statistics, more than 18,400 tons (18,695
tonnes) of onions were exported in the 2008-09 fiscal year. But the
domestic price for premium onions reached a record high of 1,800 Kyats per
viss in mid-August last year, and about 140 tons had to be imported for
the domestic market.

“The falling onion price is determined by supply and demand in the market.
The impact of falling prices affects producers as their income is reduced
but exporters benefit 
 [as] they [their prices] will be more competitive
in the export market,” a Rangoon University economist told Mizzima. “If
the crops reach consumers, they too will benefit from the falling prices.”

Falling onion prices in Burma are rare but they were also seen in December
2008, when they reached a record low of 160 Kyats per viss on December 15
at the Bayintnaung Commodity Exchange. In Magwe Division and in central
Burma, the price was even worse for farmers, at 50 Kyats per viss. At that
price harvesting was futile, so the farmers left their crops in the field
to rot.

A former economics professor told Mizzima that the shelf life of onions
was limited to six or seven months.

“After this period, they first lose weight. If the supply excessively
surpasses the demand and consumption, it will become waste,” he said,
adding, “they can easily rot. 
 Since this crop cannot be stored for long,
the farmers incur huge losses. When the onion export is banned at this
time, their losses will be even worse”.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 21, Indian Express
Twelve years after arrest, Myanmar ‘gun runners’ move court for plea
bargain – Ritu Sarin

New Delhi : Twelve years after they were arrested in the midst of the
mysterious “Operation Leech” in Andaman’s Landfall Islands, there is a ray
of hope for the early release of 34 Myanmar nationals who are being tried
on charges of gun running.

Earlier this month, even as the four-year long trial against the Myanmar
nationals drags on in Kolkata, defence lawyers have moved a petition to
enter into a plea bargain with the prosecuting agency, the Central Bureau
of Investigation.

The May 5 petition states that “the applicants would like to plea bargain,
to get the permanent culmination of the proceedings and to get their
release and to spare themselves from further possible detention”.

The petition also mentions the fact that the 34 accused persons already
have “under consideration” certificates from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provided they are released by the Indian
court.

Civil rights lawyer Nandita Haksar, who has been campaigning for the
release of the Myanmarese since long and also appeared in court as one of
the four defence witnesses, explained the rationale behind the move. “In
case the 34 men are acquitted, the prosecution may decide to move a higher
court and that is why we have chosen the plea bargain route,” she said.
“In any case, their maximum imprisonment period for charges they face is
seven years and they have already spent 12 years in jail, first in Port
Blair and now in Kolkata.”

While Haksar says the negotiations on plea bargain should end with a
single hearing, the CBI has told the court they would need time to decide
on the future course of action. The CBI, in fact, has been walking a
tightrope in the case and despite presenting 20 prosecution witnesses has
not been able to challenge the contention of the accused that they were
“freedom fighters” who were betrayed by an Indian Military Intelligence
agent, Lt Col V S Grewal, who had promised them a base in the Landfall
islands.

The “Operation Leech” story goes back to February 8, 1998 when the Indian
Army claimed to have caught a group of gun-runners who were aiding
anti-Indian separatists in the region. The circumstances in which
“Operation Leech” was conducted and the subsequent arrest of the Mynamar
nationals had also led to a war of words between former Defence Minister
George Fernandes and ex-Naval Chief Vishnu Bhagwat. A note dated July 27,
1998 issued by the then Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar — under instructions
from Fernandes — asked all three service chiefs to exercise “utmost
restraint in launching operations in the Andamans, “in view of objections
likely to be raised by Myanmar and Thailand”. Bhagwat had attacked this as
a needless obsession with human rights that jeopardised the Navy”s
operations .

Six leaders of the group were killed during the Operation and the rest
detained in a prison in Port Blair. The chargesheet in the case was filed
in 2004 and in 2006, the Supreme Court directed that the case be
transferred to Kolkata and despite orders for a day-to-day hearing, the
pace of the trial has been slow.

Citing “endless delays” as one of the reasons for moving the application
for plea bargain, the accused have now stated that such a compromise was
best suited “in the interest of justice and to save the precious time of
the respectable judicial machinery in India.”


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 21, Japan Times
Thailand risks taking road that ends in a Burma night – Gwynne Dyer

London — "The government does not want to negotiate, so I think many more
people will die," said "red-shirt" leader Sean Boonpracong in Bangkok on
Monday. "This will end as our Tiananmen Square." Or more precisely, it may
end up as Thailand's "8888": the massacre by the Burmese army of thousands
of civilians demanding democracy on Aug. 8, 1988.

The army still rules Burma today and commits further massacres whenever
the citizens show resistance (most recently in 2007). The Burmese army's
successful resort to violence in 1988, after so many Asian dictatorships
had been overthrown by nonviolent demonstrations, might even have
emboldened the Chinese Communists to use extreme violence on Tiananmen
Square in 1989. But I would never have put Thailand in the same category.

Even two months ago, I would have said Thailand is a flawed but genuine
democracy, and I would have pointed to the nonviolent behavior of the
prodemocracy red shirts who took over central Bangkok in mid-March as
evidence that the Thais would sort it out peacefully in the end. But a lot
of people have been killed by the Thai army since then, and now I'm not so
sure there will be a happy ending in Thailand.

It's quite possible that there will be a massacre in Bangkok, and that the
military will end up back in control permanently, riding a tiger from
which they cannot dismount. Then the whole country would start down the
road that leads to Burmese-style tyranny, isolation and poverty.

Thailand wouldn't get there right away, of course. It took 40 years of
repression to transform Burma from the richest country in Southeast Asia
to the poorest, and Thai generals are not ill-educated thugs like their
Burmese counterparts. But they would find themselves in essentially the
same position: condemned to hold the whole country hostage at the point of
a gun forever, lest they be punished by some later government for mass
murder.

The protesters in central Bangkok are already being picked off by army
snipers: five or 10 a day killed and dozens per day wounded. (The army
insists it shoots only "terrorists" hiding among the protesters, but there
is ample footage that shows unarmed people being shot down.) Almost all
the dead are civilians.

The roots of this crisis are in the military coup of 2006, when the Thai
army overthrew the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin, an
ex-policeman who became a telecommunications billionaire, was not an ideal
prime minister: His "war on drugs" involved thousands of illegal killings
of dealers and addicts, and his response to unrest in the Muslim- majority
far south was clumsy and brutal. But he endeared himself to Thailand's
poor.

Thailand has been a democracy since 1992, but Thaksin was the first
politician to appeal directly to the interests of the rural poor rather
than just bribing their local village headmen to deliver their votes. He
promised them debt relief, cheap loans, better health care, and he
delivered — but that was not how the urban elite wanted their tax money
spent.

A "yellow-shirt" movement seized control of the streets of Bangkok,
seeking Thaksin's removal and demanding strict curbs on the voting rights
of peasants because most rural people were too ignorant to make wise
choices. After months of confrontation in the streets, the army took
control in 2006, ejecting Thaksin from office, but it was not
unequivocally on the side of the yellow shirts either.

The soldiers allowed a new election in late 2007, and Thaksin's supporters
won again, of course. His opponents used the courts to dismiss two prime
ministers drawn from the pro-Thaksin party for "conflict of interest" — in
one case because the prime minister appeared on a television cooking show
— and ultimately had the whole party banned and its members ejected from
Parliament.

The rump of Parliament, cleansed of most representatives of the rural
poor, then voted in the current prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. The red
shirts are demanding his resignation and a fresh election, and their
demands may yet be met. Abhisit almost gave in last week, mainly because
the urban elite are not certain the army will act on their behalf.

Thai army officers are not usually from the privileged Bangkok elite that
sponsored the yellow shirts. Many are from humble backgrounds, and most of
their troops are country people, just like the red shirts behind the
barricades.

So Thai generals are doubly reluctant to give the order to clear the city
center: They do not want a massacre that would trap them in power forever,
and they cannot be sure that their troops would obey the order anyway.

There is still some hope, therefore, but the situation is very grave.
People are being killed every day, and there are predictions of civil war
if the protesters in Bangkok are massacred.

Nobody knows for sure which way the army will jump, but if it "restores
order" in the way that the elite wants, then a long, dark night will fall
on Thailand. Though not, one hopes, as long and dark as the Burmese night.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

____________________________________

May 21, Democratic Voice of Burma
How to run a country like a business – Joseph Allchin

Corporations have perhaps been the defining unit of human organisation of
the last 100 years. Their real birth occurred in a single law passed in
London that could be said to have spawned the modern age; the Limited
Liability Act of 1855.

This act quickly spawned similar laws in the other leading or ‘emerging’
economies of the day; France and the United States. But the key to their
success was removing accountability for the unit’s actions from
individuals – the company, a made-up entity, would take legal rap rather
than the person or people truly responsible for its actions.

And so in Burma, roughly a century and half after this ‘brainwave’, the
raw face of political domination is being converted to wholly appreciate
this notion; that instead of belligerently taking action and ignoring all
comments and criticism, one simply diffuses such lines of ‘attack’ with a
harmony-inducing quagmire of accountability.

Amongst this apparent, but seldom-mentioned, drive is the provision in
Burma’s new election laws that will permit political parties to own
companies. If the lessons of ‘advanced’ economies and their political
structures were analysed one would have to be critical of their evidently
polarising nature, even without such a gargantuan conflict of interests.

In the birthplaces of the provision for the ‘corporation’ – the US and the
UK – recent examples demonstrate that even with fair, although
oft-criticised, rules to prevent such conflicts of interests, policy is
fairly easily corrupted by the synthesis between big business and
government.

In the UK in the current epoch Tony Blair’s complicity or alliance with
Europe’s largest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, to sell an airforce
traffic control system to Tanzania, a nation without an airforce, can be
seen as exemplary. It’s a deal which then-UK development minister Claire
Short said “stank” of corruption. Tony Blair pushed the deal through
despite misgivings from his cabinet. It’s one example of BAE’s dalliance
with corruption and the British state.

In the US, former vice president Dick Cheney’s position on the board of
Halliburton had to be revoked when he took office, but that didn’t stop
the Republican continuing to grease the axel of the famed ‘revolving door’
with provisions that would out-source much of the US military’s support
services to Halliburton, awarding contracts with little, if any,
competition.

So now let us picture a scenario where there is no revolving door; one
does not need to leave the building.

The Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) in Burma for
instance, described as a ‘mass movement’, is believed to be in line to
receive state assets. Details are hard to come by but they have been given
a government technical college in Insein township, Rangoon, according to
political and economic analyst, Aung Thu Nyein.

The USDA seems to be epitomise the new face of Burmese politics and has so
far registered the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) for
elections this year. A gambling man would not have to be able to read Than
Shwe’s brain or look inside a ballot box to tip them for serious clout
based on the upcoming polls. The new party will be headed by Burmese prime
minister Thein Sein, despite a debilitating heart condition and
deteriorating health.

The USDA are part-led by a military man named Htay Oo, who also presides
over the agricultural ministry and is said to be “Western friendly” due to
his ability to charm diplomats – he recently met with US envoy Kurt
Campbell on his last visit to the country.

The USDA then appears the perfect apparel to fuse business, state and the
military; a mass organisation, a business, a political party, and with a
board of directors all drawn from the military. But where pluralism will
come from is the big issue – no party will be able to compete without the
financial backing that ownership of businesses will bring.

The newly privatised enterprises also beg other issues. Such assets were
not always state-owned – many were nationalised under Burma’s ‘Path to
Socialism’, a pock-marked path that led only to our current swamp, but
nevertheless those assets once belonged to private individuals.

In the future they will belong to those business interests who were
friendly to the military or who are the military; either way businessmen
in Rangoon have suggested that the new owners will need protection from
the military to keep such assets. Without the military, the hammer of the
law may deem them illegitimate owners.

Along with the USDA or USDP, the other big winner and a murky conduit for
power is the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Company Limited (UMEHC).
This, according to analysts, has won the largest share of privatised
assets and is run by the military’s quartermaster general as a sort of
‘military company’, or a parastatal. They part-own the Myawaddy Bank as
well as a multitude of other assets.

The UMEHC was founded in the early 1990s as part of the junta’s slow
re-branding away from the Burmese Path to Socialism. Effectively it is a
lookalike, a copy of the model of a company but very much in the general’s
image.

This factor can be seen to dominate the autocratic path that Burma under
the military generals has taken. All these facets are things that have
been devised and utilised elsewhere with provisions; what the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) would call “conditionalities”. The term
is used in the context of privatisation to imply conditions on which the
sale of assets is undertaken; entities must perform some minimal functions
in the interests of stability and the nation.

In Burma conditions exist but are not written down; rather the lack of
transparency means they exist in the sense of patronage. Essentially the
largest shareholder, the one to answer too, will always be the generals –
those who gave the managers the asset, those with guns.

The IMF notes that: “The establishment of new enterprises in transition
countries could be more important in generating growth in output and
employment” than supporting those assets that were previously in play
within the economy in state hands. This notion will have serious
ramifications in Burma, for while the IMF made this comment based on
experiences in nations such as Ukraine, the polarisation of political and
economic control was nowhere near that which exists in Burma. The Ukraine
privatised following the collapse of one power block in order to
reallocate.

A company answers to its shareholders, it seeks profits first and
foremost, and profits are easier to gain without competition. The military
will naturally then seek to limit competition, for it is a stakeholder in
these newly ‘privatised’ institutions.

Actions like mergers, fast sales and cutting costs all push share value up
because they are making easy money. So in the case of the extractive
industries, a cost-cutting dam or mine undertaken by an Indian entity
(often state-owned), for instance, would prove extremely attractive to all
parties, from the crony-run construction companies in Burma to the junta
board in charge and the foreign conglomerates, essentially because of the
lack of conditions which hamper business.

As Wong Aung of the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM) told DVB: “The regime enables
the projects to go ahead unhindered in the face of local opposition. Local
communities do not have any platforms on which to voice their concerns
about extractive projects. They have no recourse in the event of human
rights and other abuses at the hands of the military, and there are no
strong environmental protection laws that come to bear during the project
implementation.”

The one ‘party’ who will miss out are the people, not just now but in
generations to come. Companies solely acting to maximise profits are not
sustainable, and this is demonstrated amply by the recent credit crunch;
but in Burma, this will be a resource crunch.

Selling of assets will take place and the value or cash wealth of
junta-friendly companies will grow until they oversell, the resources run
out, the evaluation is proved to be phoney and investment rapidly
disappears. Then, India or Thailand, Korea or China, will have no interest
in Burma or its people. Will profit-interested private entities really
tell their shareholders that they forewent profits voluntarily in order to
offer Burma a sustainable economic future? Indeed, according to Wong Aung,
“multinational companies have no incentives to engage in sustainable
development practices”.

In the case of India it has been noted that Burma’s hydropower sector is
extremely attractive, partly because years of strife in India has enabled
a degree of accountability or at least a hesitancy. So as one unnamed
Indian executive from Power Grid Corp of India Ltd (PGCIL) revealingly
noted: “A transmission link for the evacuation of power is expected to be
set up.”

The power will be evacuated, away from the flooding, away from the
deportations and environmental destruction. ‘Power’ that is similarly
evacuated to neighbours through the Shwe and Yadana gas pipelines is known
as the “mineral curse”, and is most familiar in Africa.

With this, one does not need new enterprise of the sort that has
transformed other Asian economies. One needs ‘free reign’ to extract
commodities as cheaply as possible and avoid interference from regulation,
progressive taxation and, at times, transparency, in order to maintain
share price. In other words, this is absolute control. It has limited
affect on the economy or wealth of the nation overall and is a synthesis
between government and business.

Thus we that see not only that the people of Burma do not receive their
just deserts from the minerals that lie beneath their feet, but that the
polarisation of wealth that the extractive industries bring prevents a
redistributive effect that ‘normal’ enterprise can bring; enterprise that
relies on redistributive or essentially neutral governance. It is like the
creation of the corporation – a logical formulation or vision of economy
and society that attempts to define the masses, the ‘collateral’
stakeholders, out of nature’s endowments, out of the natural contract of
economy.

____________________________________

May 21, Irrawaddy
Thailand crisis followed with concern by Burmese – Editorial

Thailand's ongoing political crisis is being keenly monitored in
neighboring Burma.

As Thai troops stormed the Redshirt rally site, Burmese living in Burma
followed reports of the dramatic events carried by short wave radio
stations, the Internet and satellite TV. State-run newspapers were careful
not to report on the mayhem in Thailand.

State-owned Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV), which has a monopoly on
TV broadcasting inside Burma, has a channel, MRTV-4, that carries foreign
news broadcasts, but only with a delay that allows censors to block any
news deemed potentially harmful to the ruling regime.

Meanwhile, Burmese journalists working for the Burmese services of the
BBC, Voice of America , Radio Free Asia and The Irrawaddy magazine in
Chiang Mai relayed comprehensive news reports to their listeners and
readers, while bloggers also added their accounts to the coverage.

Win Myint, a BBC correspondent in Bangkok, said security was a priority
for him and many Burmese journalists while covering the Bangkok events.

“We just don't know which direction the bullets will come from,” he said.

Exiled Burmese dissidents living in the West also followed the news from
Bangkok and other riot-hit cities closely. Many Burmese dissidents now in
the West lived in Thailand for several years before migrating to Western
countries.

It's feared that the ongoing crisis will have an impact on Burmese living
in Thailand as many Burmese migrant workers lived and worked in the 
worst-hit Ratchaprasong and Bon Kai areas, where shopping malls, banks and
 residential buildings were set on fire by rampaging arsonists..

Irrawaddy correspondent Yan Naing reported from Bangkok: “The long
Redshirt protest has affected the livelihoods and incomes of thousands of
Burmese migrant workers in Bangkok, especially those who are working in
the rally site areas as housemaids, waiters and translators.”

Thailand relies heavily on migrant workers from neighboring countries, who
usually take tough, low-paying jobs in the construction, farming, and
fishing industries. Burmese women also come to Thailand where many work as
house maids or in the sex trade.

The instability in Thailand will increase the insecurity of illegal
migrant workers, who are in danger of losing their employment, forcing
them to go underground and hide from security and police officials.

Thailand currently has more than 3 million migrant workers from Burma,
Cambodia and Laos, with Burmese forming the largest contingent.

The Thai government recently ordered migrant workers to verify their
nationality in order to qualify for work permits. Many Burmese workers,
however, remain unregistered, risking arrest, extortion by the police and
security forces and possible deportation.

With the ongoing political instability in Thailand, the Burmese migrant
workers in Thailand could become further marginalized.

Burmese dissidents and NGOs operating and living in Thailand could also
suffer because of the current crisis. Several Burmese dissident groups,
civil society and media organizations, including The Irrawaddy, are based
in Thailand, some of them along the Thai-Burmese border.

Burmese predict that several Thai media personnel and human rights groups
who have constantly helped to highlight the Burma cause will be more
occupied now by the Thailand crisis.

The current Thai government is known to be critical of the Burmese
military regime, which, interestingly enough, unlike other members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has made no official comment on
the volatile situation in Thailand.

There is also concern about the security of  Burmese dissidents and their
offices in view of the continuing crackdown on the Redshirt movement.

It has been learned that several international foundations that provide
assistance to Burmese groups in Thailand have asked them to prepare
contingency plans in case of renewed violence in Bangkok or in the North,
where many Burmese work and operate.

____________________________________

May 21, Epoch Times
The Saffron Revolution continues – June Kellum

This summer marks three years since the world first saw the smuggled cell
phone footage of ferocious attacks by Burmese junta forces on the
country’s Buddhist monks. Since 2007, Burma’s monks have faced continuous
abuse and tight surveillance by the country’s military rule.

“I’m being watched all the time,” one monk said in 2009, in a report by
Human Rights Watch.

“I am considered an organizer. Between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. I am allowed to
go out of the monastery. But then I’m followed. I had to shake off my tail
to come to this meeting today," the monk said. "I’m not afraid, not for
myself. I’m not afraid to tell foreign journalists what happened. And I’m
prepared to march again when the opportunity arises.”

In 2007, tens of thousands of monks began marching to protest poor living
conditions in Burma.

The monks were shot, beaten, and arrested in droves. The monks that
remained in the country after the violence are still being detained,
tortured, and forced to do hard labor and the media's suppression by junta
powers has made it difficult for the world to know the full extent of the
atrocities.

Other monks have gone into hiding and some have fled Burma. In March,
Reuters reported that most of the monks who found asylum in the United
States and have given up their robes, find the need to support themselves
too great.

Some monks however are still active, in the wake of the revolution, a
group of senior monks formed the All Burmese Monks Alliance (ABMA), and
two other senior monks founded International Burmese Monks Organization
(IBMO). Both organizations support monks inside and outside Burma as they
continue to struggle for basic rights.

The IBMO website reminds readers that Buddha prescribed 10 rules for
kings. These rules include: almsgiving, liberality, justice, kindness and
endurance. For centuries, Burmese kings followed these rules. Even after
all that has happened to them, the monks still hold hope, and strive for
the day when Burma’s rulers will again adhere to these principles.

Buddhism is Burma’s main religion and out of a population of 54 million,
Human Rights Watch quoted estimates that there are between 300,000 and
400,000 monks, and around 50,000 nuns.

Burma’s monks have historically played an active role in both spiritual
and secular society.

Supported by patronage of kings and commoners, the Buddhist Sanghas (order
of monks), were responsible for education, yearly festivals, making
offerings (merit making), the ordination of young novices.

"Any other communal activity in the village—circled around the monastery,”
according to the Human Rights Watch report, which said that the goodwill
of the Sangha was always sought by kings and more lately by political
leaders including former opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi.