BurmaNet News, May 28, 2010

[Editor]

May 28, 2010, Issue #3972

INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Suu Kyi would snub US senator
Irrawaddy: Junta to reshuffle regional commanders
Irrawaddy: Than Shwe’s electronic dream
Kachin News Group: First village forcibly relocated for Irrawaddy dam project

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima News: Mon leaders resign after decades of struggle
New Light of Myanmar: Coord meeting on Myanmar workers in Thailand

BUSINESS / TRADE
Mizzima News: Transocean drilled in Burmese waters linked to drug lord

REGIONAL
AP: North Korea exporting nuke technology to Burma: UN experts
Asian Tribune: Protest in Sri Lanka against Aung San Suu Kyi's detention

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: US Senators condemn Burma's regime

OPINION / OTHER
DVB: ‘In an age of intolerance, solidarity inspires’ – Benedict Rogers
Irrawaddy: Jim Webb: A big fish for Burma's top general? – Htet Aung



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 28, Democratic Voice of Burma
Suu Kyi would snub US senator – Nay Htoo

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would likely refuse to meet
with US senator Jim Webb on looming visit to Burma, long-time party
colleague Win Tin has said.

Webb is due to visit Burma this week as part of a regional delegation that
will also take him to South Korea and Thailand. His last trip to Burma, in
August 2009, secured the release of US citizen John Yettaw, who was
imprisoned for swimming to Suu Kyi’s Rangoon compound.

But, said Win Tin, the visit “would not be welcome” by members of the NLD:
“I do not believe that NLD general secretary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will
want to meet him also,” he added.

Webb was criticised by members of Burma’s pro-democracy movement for his
inability to pressure the junta to free Suu Kyi whilst successfully
bringing Yettaw back to the US.

Some also see his anti-sanctions stance as too soft on the ruling
generals. Win Tin questioned whether his trip was related to murmurings in
the US senate about ramping up sanctions.

“So are you going to talk about ending those sanctions again? Are you also
going to give advice to the military government on ways to end the
sanctions? If you do, we are not going to stand for it,” Win Tin said.

Phyo Min Thein, chairman of the Union Democratic Alliance, a party which
has registered to contest the elections this year, said he will be issuing
a three-point proposal to Webb similar to one presented to US assistant
secretary of state, Kurt Campbell, who visited Burma earlier this month.

“If the government wants to ensure fairness, independent international
experts should be brought in to monitor the elections,” he said. “I will
ask Mr Jim Webb to persuade the Burmese government to do that.”

He added that he would press Webb to urge the junta to form a transition
government comprising military and civilian officials before the
elections, which many regard as a sham aimed at cementing military rule in
Burma.

Webb’s visit coincides with the scheduled visit to Burma by the Chinese
premier, Wen Jiabao who is due to meet junta chief Than Shwe to discuss
strengthening trade and cooperation. China’s foreign ministry said that
bilateral trade between the two countries last year reached more than
$US2.9 billion.

____________________________________

May 28, Irrawaddy
Junta to reshuffle regional commanders – Wai Moe

During its four-monthly meeting in Naypyidaw this week, Burma's military
junta reportedly decided to reshuffle its regional military commanders and
other senior military posts.

Military sources in Napyidaw said at least five of the Tatmadaw's (Burma's
armed forces) thirteen regional military commanders will be affected by
the coming reshuffle. And according Burmese military observers, six of the
most senior regional military commanders are likely be promoted following
the four-monthly meeting.

The senior commanders expected to be promoted are: Maj-Gen Wai Lwin of the
Naypyidaw Command, Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut of the Northeastern Command,
Maj-Gen Thet Naing Win of Southeastern Command, Maj-Gen Tin Ngwe of the
Central Command, Maj-Gen Thaung Aye of the Western Command and Maj-Gen
Khin Zaw Win of the Coastal Command.

“It is quite likely they [the senior commanders] will be promoted, as
junior officials are waiting to take over their position,” said Win Min, a
Burmese researcher on Burma military affairs. “They could be promoted as
chiefs of special operation bureaus, chiefs of other posts in the war
office in Naypyidaw, or other minister posts.”

Of the regional command posts, the one most likely to be reshuffled is
that of the chief of military affairs security (MAS), formerly known as
military intelligence. Military sources said Lt-Gen Ye Myint, the chief of
the MAS, has become unpopular with Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the junta leader and
commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw, for failing to convince ceasefire
ethnic groups to join the junta's Border Guard Force plan.

During the last four-monthly meeting in November, Than Shwe reportedly
told Ye Myint that he must successfully handle the ethnic group issues or
be replaced.

Brig-Gen Myat Tun Oo, the commander of the 101 Light Infantry Division in
Pakokku, who was previously assigned to talk with the Karen National Union
over a ceasefire deal, is expected to be appointed to a leadership
position on the Border Guard Force issue, said military sources. It is
unclear, however, whether Tun Oo would replace Ye Myint or they would work
together.

Also on the agenda at the four-monthly meeting is the question of which
military officials will be assigned to the military's allocated seats in
parliament at the time of this years election and which will become
members of a yet to be formed military commission.

Although Than Shwe, 77, vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, 72, the junta's No. 2
ranking official, and other aging top generals may retire from their
military posts in the future, they are likely to manage the country's
military affairs through the the new commission, which observers liken it
to the State Peace and Development Council.

Another issue expected to be decided and announced following the
four-monthly meeting is the reshuffling of current government ministries.

Although Burmese officials told a US delegation earlier in May that Prime
Minister Thein Sein and other top ministers would remain in their posts
until the next government is formed, sources said some ministers who are
members of the prime minister's Union Development and Solitary Party could
resign from their government positions next month.

“The order [for the ministers to resign] is expected to be issued by
Naypyidaw in early June. Director-general and managing directors could
become temporary ministers,” said a source from Naypyidaw.

Than Shwe is attending the four-monthly meeting, which as of Friday was
still ongoing.

“The four-monthly meeting will last for almost this entire week. It is
expected to be finished on Saturday as all military commanders are
scheduled to come back to their bases on Sunday,” said a military source
who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Irrawaddy correspondent Min Lwin contributed to this story.

____________________________________

May 28, Irrawaddy
Than Shwe’s electronic dream – Min Lwin

Burma's military junta has expanded its Fiber Optic Cable (FOC) project to
its Eastern Regional Command, bringing to a total four military regional
command centers whose electronic systems are linked to Naypyidaw via the
country's most modern network.

The FOCs have been laid in Pekon, Aung Pan and Kalaw townships in eastern
Shan State, according to local people and military sources. The FOC
cables—which are individually no wider than a strand of hair—transmit
Internet, telephone and cable TV.

Local people in an area controlled by the ethnic cease-fire group, the
Kayan New Land Party (KNLP), said that two- and six-feet deep trenches
were dug to hold the FOC pipelines that were installed in late April. The
cables connect the Burmese army's Eastern Regional Command, based in the
Shan State capital of Taunggyi, to its Triangle Regional Command center,
based in Kengtung.

Since 2000, the Burmese junta has implemented an FOC project in its
Western Regional Military Command center in Arakan State; in Northern
Regional Command in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State; and in its
Northeastern Regional Command center in Lashio in northern Shan State.

The FOC program is conducted by the Directorate of Signals and overseen by
the Ministry of Defense. According to military sources, a map of the
cables' transmission routes has been kept so secret that even staff
officers at the Directorate of Signals do not know the details.

Sources have speculated that junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe is personally
involved in the project and is insistent that the military maintains an
independent electronics network from the rest of the country. He is
reputedly concerned that military communications are intercepted by
hostile agencies, ethnic insurgents, cease-fire  groups or foreign
intelligence agencies.

“Tet Chauk [Military Chief Than Shwe] has a dream about military
communications,” said a military source in Rangoon. “He is suspicious of
wireless communication, because he thinks it will be intercepted by
hostile organizations. That's why he wants all his military bases to be
linked by FOCs.”

“Than Shwe’s dream is to hold his four-monthly meetings via electronic
links, so no  regional commander need come to military headquarters,” said
a retired commander who spoke to The Irrawaddy. “At the same time, he
believes the FOCs will prevent any information being intercepted.”

____________________________________

May 28, Kachin News Group
First village forcibly relocated for Irrawaddy dam project

Things at the contentious Irrawaddy Myisone dam project in northern Burma
have come to a head with the Burmese military junta forcibly relocating
the first of the ethnic Kachin villages, said village sources.

The move comes a day after the Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG)
in an open letter to Hu Jintao, President of People’s Republic of China,
requested yet again to put a stop to the dam project. He was urged to halt
the project given apprehensions of the negative impact on millions of
people downstream of the river.

In a surprise move, the axe fell on Mazup Village, or Mazup Mare in
Kachin, which houses 63 households, with over 150 people. All the
villagers were shifted to the new house blocks of 40 x 60 sq-ft
constructed by the authorities in Lungga Zup village, 18 miles north of
Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, according to the sources.

Mazup village was located between Mali Hka River and N’Mai Hka River, near
the confluence (Myitsone in Burmese) of the two rivers, 28 miles north of
Myitkyina. The soil here is fertile and yields good crops, said villagers.

About 200 people--- dozens of government employees from different
departments in Myitkyina, members of the junta-backed Union Solidarity and
Development Association (USDA), Burmese Army officers and dozens of
civilian workers, who have been ordered to help in the relocation, threw
in their lot on the relocation activities, eyewitnesses told Kachin News
Group.

The entire villagers in Mazup was forcibly relocated today to the junta's
new place in Lungga Zup village, 18 miles north of Myitkyina by Burmese
junta. Photo: Kachin News Group.

Following frenetic activity they forcibly relocated all the villagers in
trucks to the new place, added eyewitnesses.

The junta has already constructed 600 houses in new places in Lungga Zup
for villagers to be relocated from the project site, said residents of the
dam site.

On May 1, the junta’s Kachin State Administrative Office (Ya-Ya-Kha) or
Kachin State Peace and Development Council (KSPDC) announced the
relocation of all villages in the dam site in the wake of the serial bomb
blasts at the site on April 17.

Meanwhile the junta is yet to identify the perpetrators of the blasts.
Sources close to investigators in Myitkyina said “the perpetrators will
never be identified.” Many people believe that the junta triggered the
explosions to help it relocate villagers from the dam site amidst
heightened security.

The Irrawaddy Myitsone dam is being constructed by state-owned China Power
Investment Corporation (CPI) with financial and technical support jointly
with the Burmese firm Asia World Company and the Ministry of Electric
Power-1 since December 21, last year.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 28, Mizzima News
Mon leaders resign after decades of struggle – Phanida

Chiang Mai – Three top leaders of the New Mon State Party, which has
rejected the junta’s offer of bringing its troops into a junta-controlled
Border Guard Force, resigned from the party on May 18, a party spokesman
said.

The party accepted the resignations tendered by party joint secretary Nai
Chan Twe and central executive committee members Nai Tin La and Nai Kho
Sap, who no longer wanted to work for the party, Nai Chay Mon said.

Nai Tin La had served for party for 25 years and Nai Chan Twe and Nai Kho
Sap had served for party for at least 30 years. “They might want a change
as they have been [participating] in revolution for a long time”, Nai Chay
Mon said.

The relationship between the New Mon State Party and Burma’s military
regime is tense and both sides are on standby for military action.

Those who resigned from the party might support a new ethnic Mon group,
the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMRDP), the NMSP speculated. The
AMRDP’s registration with the Election Commission was approved on May 24.

AMRDP nominated 53 candidates to stand for election and would be led by
retired Mon State education chief Nai Ngwe Thein. It was formed in
Mawlamyaing on April 7 and intended to contest the election in Mon and
Karen states and in Tanintharyi and Pegu divisions, the party chairman
told Kaowao, the Mon news agency based in Thailand.

____________________________________

May 28, New Light of Myanmar
Coord meeting on Myanmar workers in Thailand

Yangon – The coordination meeting on the National Project on employment of
Myanmar workers in Thailand and recruitment of fresh Myanmar workers and
legally dispatching to Thailand, which covers the process of verification
of Myanmar nationality, issuing of temporary Myanmar passports and
dispatching fresh Myanmar workers to Thailand was held at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Nay Pyi Taw this afternoon.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs U Maung Myint and
officials overviewed the whole project and discussed the matters in
details on the latest development of then process of verification of
Myanmar nationality, issuing of temporary Myanmar passports at the centres
of Kawthoung, Tachilek and Myawady, receiving demand letters for fresh
Myanmar workers forwarded by Thai companies, applying Myanmar temporary
passports by fresh Myanmar workers, dispatching fresh Myanmar workers to
Thailand, transferring the Myanmar temporary passport issuing centre from
Kawthoung to Ranong to speed up the process of issuing passport during the
monsoon season. As of 26th May 2010, a total of 90,918 temporary Myanmar
passports have been issued to the Myanmar workers at three centres.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 28, Mizzima News
Transocean drilled in Burmese waters linked to drug lord – Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai – Swiss-American firm Transocean, presently embroiled in the BP
Gulf of Mexico disaster, did exploratory drilling last autumn in Burmese
waters owned by a partnership between a Chinese state-run energy company
and a firm owned by Stephen Law, a junta crony alleged by the US to be a
major drug-money launderer, according to corporate filings with the US
stock market regulator.

Stephen Law, (a.k.a. Tun Myint Naing), his Singaporean wife and his “narco
warlord” father are on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control’s (OFAC) blacklist, officially called the Specially
Designated Nationals (SDN) list. All three are also on a similar European
travel ban and sanctions lists.

The SDN blacklist targets the Burmese junta’s senior leadership, its
cronies and the financial networks that continue to support the military
dictatorship. The US Treasury website states that when an individual, firm
or other entity is added to the sanctions list “any assets the designees
may have subject to US jurisdiction are frozen, and all financial and
commercial transactions by any US person with the designated companies and
individuals are prohibited”.

Transocean International’s corporate 8-K filing to the US Securities and
Exchance Commission on November 2 last year shows that Chinese state-run
energy company CNOOC hired Transocean’s semi-submersible Actinia, a
Panamanian registered drilling rig, to operate in Burma from last October
to December. An 8-K form is the “current report” companies must file with
the US market regulator to announce major events that shareholders should
know about. The 82-metre-long, 78-metre-wide rig was hired at a daily rate
of US$206,000. Transocean could not be reached for comment.

According to the CNOOC website, all of the firm’s stakes in Burma’s gas
industry are held in partnership with China Focus Development (formerly
known as Golden Aaron) and China Global Construction, with CNOOC as the
operator. China Focus Development is a privately owned
Singapore-registered firm whose sole shareholders are Stephen Law and his
wife Ng Sor Hong (a.k.a. Cynthia Ng). The US and EU sanctions list show Ng
Sor Hong to be chief executive of the firm, which is also among more than
a dozen companies controlled by Law on the OFAC blacklist of banned
Burma-related entities.

Industry journal International Oil Daily reported last February that the
CNOOC-China Focus Development partnership held onshore blocks C-1, C-2 and
M and offshore blocks A-4, M-2 and M-10. It also said CNOOC’s attempt in
2008 to swap its stake in two of its blocks with the Thai national oil
firm PTEEP was vetoed by the Burmese regime.

Law’s Sino-Burmese father Lao Sit Han (a.k.a. Lo Hsing Han) is believed by
US drug-trafficking analysts to have controlled Southeast Asia’s
best-armed narcotics militias during the 1970’s.

According to the US Treasury in February, 2008: “In addition to their
support for the Burmese regime, Steven Law and Lo Hsing Han have a history
of involvement in illicit activities.”

“Lo Hsing Han, known as the ‘Godfather of Heroin’, has been one of the
world’s key heroin traffickers dating back to the early 1970s. Steven Law
joined his father’s drug empire in the 1990s and has since become one of
the wealthiest individuals in Burma,” the Treasury statement said.

Calls for a US government investigation

In an interview with Mizzima, Wong Aung of the Shwe Gas movement called on
the US government to immediately probe the links between Transocean and
Stephen Law.

“Transocean’s drilling for Stephen Law’s natural gas consortium appears to
be a serious breach of American sanctions on Burma,” he said. “The US
government must investigate Transocean’s Burmese operations as soon as
possible and send a clear message that it is not acceptable for
multinational firms such as Transocean to do business with Burma’s most
notorious narco-oligarch.”

Last month Transocean was involved in what has been described as one of
the worst environmental disasters in US history. On April 20, 2010,
Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico while it
was drilling under contract for oil giant BP. The explosion killed 11
workers.

Early this month at a special US congressional hearing convened to
investigate the disaster, senior executives from BP, Transocean and
contractor Halliburton all testified the other firms were responsible for
the blast and subsequent unprecedented oil spill.

Following the hearing, a furious US President Barack Obama chided the
executives for their refusal to accept responsibility saying, “I did not
appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle”. He added that
the millionaire executives were “falling over each other to point the
finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been
impressed with that display and I certainly wasn’t”.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 28, Associated Press
North Korea exporting nuke technology to Burma: UN experts – Edith Lederer

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea is exporting nuclear and ballistic missile
technology and using multiple intermediaries, shell companies and overseas
criminal networks to circumvent U.N. sanctions, U.N. experts said in a
report obtained by The Associated Press.

The seven-member panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against
North Korea said its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved in
banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma. It
called for further study of these suspected activities and urged all
countries to try to prevent them.

The 47-page report, obtained late Thursday by AP, and a lengthy annex
document, details sanctions violations reported by U.N. member states,
including four cases involving arms exports and two seizures of luxury
goods by Italy — two yachts and high-end recording and video equipment.
The report also details the broad range of techniques that North Korea is
using to try to evade sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council after
its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Council diplomats discussed the report by the experts from Britain, Japan,
the United States, France, South Korea, Russia and China at a closed-door
meeting on Thursday.

Its release happened to coincide with heightened tensions between North
Korea and South Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean navy ship
which killed 46 sailors. The council is waiting for South Korea to decide
what action it wants the U.N.'s most powerful body to take in response to
the sinking, which a multinational investigation determined was caused by
a North Korean torpedo.

The panel of experts said there is general agreement that the U.N.
embargoes on nuclear and ballistic missile related items and technology,
on arms exports and imports except light weapons, and on luxury goods, are
having an impact.

But it said the list of eight entities and five individuals currently
subject to an asset freeze and travel ban seriously understates those
known to be engaged in banned activities and called for additional names
to be added. It noted that North Korea moved quickly to have other
companies take over activities of the eight banned entities.

The experts said an analysis of the four North Korean attempts to
illegally export arms revealed that Pyongyang used "a number of masking
techniques" to avoid sanctions. They include providing false descriptions
and mislabeling of the contents of shipping containers, falsifying the
manifest and information about the origin and destination of the goods,
"and use of multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and
financial institutions," the panel said.

It noted that a chartered jet intercepted in Thailand in December carrying
35 tons of conventional weapons including surface-to-air missiles from
North Korea was owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates, registered
in Georgia, leased to a shell company registered in New Zealand and then
chartered to another shell company registered in Hong Kong — which may
have been an attempt to mask its destination.

North Korea is also concealing arms exports by shipping components in kits
for assembly overseas, the experts said.

As one example, the panel said it learned after North Korean military
equipment was seized at Durban harbor in South Africa that scores of
technicians from the North had gone to the Republic of Congo, where the
equipment was to have been assembled.

The experts called for "extra vigilance" at the first overseas port
handling North Korean cargo and close monitoring of airplanes flying from
the North, saying Pyongyang is believed to use air cargo "to handle high
valued and sensitive arms exports."

While North Korea maintains a wide network of trade offices which do
legitimate business as well as most of the country's illicit trade and
covert acquisitions, the panel said Pyongyang "has also established links
with overseas criminal networks to carry out these activities, including
the transportation and distribution of illicit and smuggled cargoes."

This may also include goods related to weapons of mass destruction and
arms, it added.

Under council resolutions, all countries are required to submit reports on
what they are doing to implement sanctions but as of April 30 the panel
said it had still not heard from 112 of the 192 U.N. member states —
including 51 in Africa, 28 in Asia, and 25 in Latin America and the
Caribbean.

While no country reported on nuclear or ballistic missile-related imports
or exports from North Korea since the second sanctions resolution was
adopted last June, the panel said it reviewed several U.S. and French
government assessments, reports from the International Atomic Energy
Agency, research papers and media reports indicating Pyongyang's
continuing involvement in such activities.
These reports indicate North Korea "has continued to provide missiles,
components, and technology to certain countries including Iran and Syria
... (and) has provided assistance for a nuclear program in Syria,
including the design and construction of a thermal reactor at Dair
Alzour," the panel said.

Syria denied the allegations in a letter to the IAEA, but the U.N. nuclear
agency is still trying to obtain reports on the site and its activities,
the panel said.

The experts said they are also looking into "suspicious activity in
Burma," including activities of Namchongang Trading, one of the companies
subject to U.N. sanctions, and reports that Japan in June 2009 arrested
three individuals for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer —
which measures magnetic fields — to Burma via Malaysia allegedly under the
direction of a company known to be associated with illicit procurement for
North Korea's nuclear and military programs. The company was not
identified.

____________________________________

May 28, Asian Tribune
Protest in Sri Lanka against Aung San Suu Kyi's detention

Colombo – A section of Buddhist monks, Catholic  priests, Muslim clergymen
and human rights activist in Sri Lanka have written to foreign missions
located in Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to exert pressure on Burmese
Junta government to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political
prisoners who are detained in Myanmar.

This move comes in the light of the said group of around 50 persons
protesting outside the Myanmar Embassy in Colombo on Wednesday.

They were chanting slogans that called for the release of the Nobel Peace
Prize winning political detainee. The group also was calling for the
immediate establishment of parliamentary rule in Myanmar.

The protest took place to mark the parliamentary election victory of the
National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Suu Kyi, in May 27, 1990. The
military junta refused to recognize the results, and continued to place
Suu Kyi under house arrest.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 28, Irrawaddy
US Senators condemn Burma's regime – Lalit K. Jha

Washington—Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1990 election in
Burma in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming
number of seats but the military regime refused to transfer power, six US
senators condemned the regime for its past and present oppression.

Senators Mitch McConnell, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Judd Gregg,
John McCain and Sam Brownback condemned the military regime both for its
refusal to transfer power to the NLD in 1990 and its plan to hold a new
election this year without the participation of the NLD and other
pro-democracy forces.

“On the twentieth anniversary of this election, we reaffirm our conviction
that the people of Burma deserve the freedom to choose their future for
themselves,” the senators said in a joint statement.

“We condemn the continuing dictatorship imposed by the junta and call on
its ruling generals to release all prisoners of conscience immediately and
unconditionally, and to begin a genuine political dialogue with opposition
and ethnic groups and leaders, including with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” they
said.

The senators also condemned the junta's election laws, which required the
NLD to expel its imprisoned members in order to register for the new
election, saying that the election laws confirm that the vote the junta
has promised later this year represents yet another mockery of the
democratic process in Burma.

“Rather than accept the junta’s outrageous election laws, the NLD is now
forced into dissolution. While we recognize that this was a painful
decision for the NLD’s leaders, we applaud and honor their courage in
upholding the principles that have guided their efforts since the party’s
founding,” the senators said.

While the NLD may have lost its legal status in Burma, it has not lost its
legitimacy in the eyes of millions of people in Burma and around the
world; that is a power far beyond the reach of the junta, the senators
said.

“The junta’s recent actions should prompt the President to exercise the
authority provided to him by Section 5 of the 2008 Tom Lantos Block
Burmese JADE Act to impose targeted banking sanctions against the regime
and its leaders,” the senators said. They also urged the Obama
administration to nominate a special representative and policy coordinator
to Burma, as required by US law.

Aung Din, the executive director of the US Campaign for Burma, expressed
appreciation for the senators' strong and consistent support of the NLD
and Aung San Suu Kyi. “This is a clear message from the United States to
the regime that it's showcase election will not be recognized by the
international community,” he said.

“I am hoping that the senators' message will also remind the US
administration to strengthen and maximize pressure on the regime, so its
engagement with the regime will become more effective," Aung Din said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with MSNBC, US Sen Jim Webb offered a different
perspective on US relations with Burma, arguing that the US should
continue its recent policy of engagement with the military junta.

“We see a transition that the United States should be engaged in, rather
than turning our back to and saying we‘re not going to talk to people
simply because they politically don’t agree with us,” said Webb, who will
begin a three-day visit to Burma on June 4.

“The connecting fabric in many of these situations is China not stepping
up in a cooperative way, in a way that equals its emerging power in the
region. Korea’s a good example of that, because China could be a major
force in terms of calming things down on the Korean Peninsula. They have
not yet done it. They did not do it with these meetings that Hillary
Clinton had there. And China sort of views North Korea as a buffer state.
They have a self-interest in not seeing a unification of Korea. And so we
need to have them step up,” he said.

Webb visited Burma in August, becoming the first US senator to do so in
more than ten years. He remains the only American official to meet with
the country’s top leader, Snr-Gen Than Shwe. He also met with imprisoned
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and obtained the release of American
prisoner John Yettaw.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 28, Democratic Voice of Burma
‘In an age of intolerance, solidarity inspires’ – Benedict Rogers

When I visited the makeshift camps for Rohingya refugees on the
Bangladesh-Burma border, I made up my mind there and then that I would not
rest until their plight received the attention it needs and deserves.

In all my travels to places of poverty, conflict and oppression, I don’t
think I have seen human misery on such a scale. It was wet season and the
rain seeped through the ground and dripped through the roof of every
shack. Children were malnourished, some chronically, and the sick were
dying with no access to medical care. Teenagers were teaching younger
kids, because there was no schooling available. They told me that they
themselves should still be in education, but there were no opportunities
for them and so they shared their limited knowledge with those younger
than them.

Fear and despair haunted the eyes of most people I met, as they told me
that they were a people “at the brink of extinction”. Despite having lived
in northern Arakan state, Burma, for generations, they said that Burma’s
regime does not regard them as citizens. “The Burmese tell us ‘you are
Bengali, go back to Bangladesh’. The Bangladeshis tell us, ‘you are
Burmese, go back to Burma’. We are trapped between a crocodile and a
snake.”

For pure humanitarian reasons, I believe it is not only morally right, but
imperative, to speak up for the beleaguered Rohingya. Medicins Sans
Frontieres (MSF) ranks them among the ten people groups around the world
most at risk of extinction. They are in urgent need of humanitarian help
and advocacy.

However, I believe it is also in our interests to help the Rohingya. It is
in the interests of all the people of Burma to include and involve and
welcome the Rohingya as full and equal citizens and as allies in the
democracy movement. Burma cannot be a true democracy, respectful of human
rights, if when the time comes for freedom, the Rohingya continue to be
denied citizenship, marginalised, oppressed and alienated. Freedom for
Burma must mean freedom for all its people. Human rights are universal if
they are to mean anything.

As a Christian, I believe first and foremost that my faith teaches me to
speak out for the oppressed, of whatever religious or racial background.
My compassion can never be restricted to helping fellow Christians.
However, there are occasions when my fellow Christians, among the Chin,
Kachin, Karen and Karenni for example, need help. I documented their
plight in my report Carrying the Cross: The military regime’s campaign of
restriction, discrimination and persecution against Christians in Burma.
When it was published, my Rohingya friends issued a statement endorsing
the report, and spoke at the launch event. They, the Muslim Rohingyas,
stood in solidarity with the Christian Chin, Kachin, Karen and Karenni. In
an age of extremism, religious intolerance and religiously-motivated
conflict around the world, that spirit of solidarity is a powerful
inspiration. They were there when my fellow Christians needed a voice; it
is right, therefore, that I should be there for them. Religious freedom is
indivisible – if one group wants the right to practice their faith
peacefully, they must champion that right for all.

I once asked a Rohingya friend whether there was a risk of the Rohingya
Muslims being radicalised. With a book of Martin Luther King’s speeches in
his hands, he nodded gravely. Yes, he said. “If our people continue to be
persecuted by the regime, sidelined by the democracy movement and ignored
by the rest of the world, and if radical Islamists come and offer help,
there is a risk that our people will be influenced by that and turn to
extremism.” That, surely, is reason enough to reach out to the Rohingya,
for the last thing Burma needs right now, on top of all its other woes, is
rising militant Islamism.

So for all these reasons, primarily the humanitarian need, I have been
working for the Rohingya. I produced a report on my visit to the
Bangladesh-Burma border, I have arranged briefings for Members of
Parliament, and drafted parliamentary questions to raise the plight of the
Rohingya in parliament. In November 2008, I took three Rohingya to
Brussels, to brief members of the European Parliament, Commission and
Council. And earlier this month, Maung Tun Khin, President of the Burmese
Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK), and I, travelled to Washington DC.

In Washington DC we spoke at a briefing in the US congress, met officials
in the state department, and talked with staff of various senators and
congressmen. We had half an hour with congressman Joseph Pitts, and – most
significantly – an hour and a half with congressman Chris Smith. These two
men are both committed Christians, and champions of human rights and
religious freedom. Both were unaware of the plight of the Rohingyas, but
when they heard about the grinding, dehumanising treatment they face at
the hands of the regime – restrictions on movement, marriage, access to
education, and freedom of religion – they were deeply moved.

Congressman Smith is tabling the first ever resolution focused on the
Rohingya in the US congress as a result. The resolution urges the junta to
restore the Rohingya citizenship status, calls for the US government to
provide assistance, and recommends the establishment of a UN commission of
inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity, including in northern
Arakan.

People have commented on the inter-faith collaboration shown by Christian
Solidarity Worldwide and the Rohingya working together. Personally, I long
for a day when such collaboration is unremarkable. In an era of religious
extremism and intolerance, those of us who are motivated by our faith
tradition to be voices of freedom, peace and human rights should work
together. In Burma, that is particularly needed.

Division, whether on religious, ethnic or political lines, has hindered
the struggle. Burmans, Arakanese and others need to recognise that their
enemy is not the Rohingya, and that in fact with the Rohingya together
they have a common enemy: the regime. One Rohingya leader told me that his
vision is for Burma to be a beautiful garden, in which different flowers
with different colours grow side by side in the same soul – individual,
distinct, unique, but united. So I urge every Christian and every Buddhist
to speak out for all the people of Burma, including the Rohingya, who
desperately need a voice.

Benedict Rogers is the East Asia Team Leader at the international human
rights organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and author of A Land
Without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma’s Karen People (Monarch,
2004). His new book, Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant, is published by
Silkworm Books this month.

____________________________________

May 28, Irrawaddy
Jim Webb: A big fish for Burma's top general? – Htet Aung

US Sen Jim Webb, who last August became the first high-profile American
official in two decades to meet Burma's Snr-Gen Than Shwe, will start his
second three-day visit to Burma on June 4.

The details of his trip remain veiled, and observers are wondering whether
Sen Webb, the chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will have a second chance to
meet junta-chief Than Shwe.

Will Than Shwe give Webb, a former boxer, a right jab knock-out by
refusing to meet with him? Or will he allow the senator a second round and
the chance to become the rare American to build a cozy relationship with
the reclusive general?

The strongest concern that Webb conveyed during his first trip was China's
growing influence over Burma and the region, and the consequent threat to
the security and national interests of the US.

However, it is not known whether he shared his worries about Chinese
influence directly with Than Shwe, who is very close to the Chinese
leadership, and if he did, whether the general was at all responsive.

If a second meeting with Than Shwe does take place, from a policy
standpoint it would be Webb's advocacy of the withdrawal of US sanctions
on Burma, rather than his anti-China views, that would most endear him to
the junta leader.

Webb expressed criticism of US sanctions in his article, “We Can't Afford
to Ignore Myanmar,” published in The New York Times soon after he returned
to Washington from his first trip.

“Indeed, they [sanctions] have allowed China to dramatically increase its
economic and political influence in Myanmar [Burma], furthering a
dangerous strategic imbalance in the region,” Sen Webb wrote.

It is difficult to accept the logic, however, that the withdrawal of US
sanctions on Burma will contain China's influence over the country and the
region.

During his first trip, Webb shared all of his concerns with Burma's
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who categorically rejected his
views on removing sanctions, saying that she didn't see China as a
“fearful influence,” the term that the senator used during their meeting.

“China is Burma's neighbor and wants to be a good friend of Burma,” Suu
Kyi said in a message, through her lawyer, to her supporters after the
senator's trip.

Even if Webb is able to convince some people with his Cold War nightmare
scenario, he shouldn't overlook the fact that Burma's military rulers
since Gen Ne Win's era have never fully trusted the United States. And the
senator, a Vietnam War veteran, should bear in mind that Burma's military
previously had the capacity to play the US and Russia off against each
other during the Cold War.

Coincidentally (or maybe not), Sen Webb's June 4 visit will follow Chinese
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's trip to Burma on June 2, during which the
prime minister will discuss energy and aid, according to the Chinese
foreign ministry.

Than Shwe will undoubtedly welcome his paukphaw [brother] from China with
a red carpet, and it will be interesting to see how he welcomes his guest
from the US.

If the junta-chief is interested in dealing with an anti-China advocate
from the US in the wake of a visit by his Chinese brother, even the
removal of sanctions would be his second priority.

His primary reason for meeting Webb will be his desire to gain legitimacy
in the eyes of the US and the international community for Burma's 2010
election.

On Than Shwe's fishing expedition for that legitimacy, and for the removal
of sanctions, US Sen Jim Webb would certainly be a big catch.