BurmaNet News, June 26-28, 2010

[Editor]

June 25-28, 2010 Issue #3991

INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Suu Kyi’s lawyer warned on reporting
NMG: Monks in a spot after demolition of temples
Irrawaddy: Junta censors news about Inle Lake

ON THE BORDER
DVB: Food aid cut to Thailand refugee camps

BUSINESS / TRADE
Mizzima: Chinese arms maker’s copper mine deal raises queries over
Canadian stake
Irrawaddy: USDA hands out 'loans' to poor
Irrawaddy: Tay Za to form proxy airline
Kaladan Press: Prices of rice go up in northern Arakan markets

DRUGS
SHAN: Over 1 million meth pills burnt at Wa drug bonfire

INTERNATIONAL
Mizzima: EU cancels visit after request to meet Suu Kyi denied

OPINION / OTHER
The New Statesman: A light won’t go out in Burma - Peter Popham
Dispatch Online: Burma poll will entrench brutality - Shirin Ebadi and
Jody Williams
DVB: UN ignores Burma junta’s drugs role - Bertil Lintner

PRESS RELEASE
Burma Campaign UK: One thousand letters call on European Commission to
fund cross-border aid
G8 Muskoka Declaration Recovery and New Beginnings: Excerpt on Burma/Myanmar

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 28, Democratic Voice of Burma
Suu Kyi’s lawyer warned on reporting - Khin Hnin Htet

The lawyer for detained Burmese opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been
warned by the government not to relay her opinions about the upcoming
elections to media outlets.

Nyan Win, one of the few people permitted by the military junta to visit
Suu Kyi, told the Thailand-based Irrawaddy magazine last week that in a
recent meeting with the Nobel laureate, she said that Burmese people had
the right to choose whether or not to vote.

“The last time I met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, she talked about some
legal facts – that by law a voter has the right to vote and the right to
not vote. I told this to the media and they reported it but now I’ve been
warned against doing this again,” he said.

Suu Kyi’s response to the warning was one of “disappointment”, Nyan Win
said. “She also said it was just ‘educating about law’, and that the
government has the responsibility to help people understand the law. She
said she will complain to those concerned and asked me to find facts.”

He added that authorities told him he was restricted to reporting about
her response to her court case; in May, Suu Kyi launched a final appeal
against her house arrest, which was handed down in August last year after
she was found guilty of ‘sheltering’ US citizen John Yettaw.

Courts are yet to respond to the appeal, but the lawyers who met with Suu
Kyi on the 25 June showed her the draft statement that they will present
to the court, which the recently-turned 65-year-old made some amendments
to.

The Burmese government today enacted an unprecedentedly severe raft of
media censorship rules that will curtail the freedom of publications
inside Burma to report on the elections, slated for later this year.

Burma already has some of the world’s strictest media laws, and
authorities are expected to clamp down on reporters working for exiled
media groups as the polls near. Already some 15 journalists are behind
bars in the pariah state, some serving sentences as long as 35 years.

____________________________________

June 28, Network Media Group
Monks in a spot after demolition of temples - Zaw Gyi

Following the demolition of 30 ‘jungle-monk-temples’ on the orders of the
State Monk Association, monks who were residing there are facing myriad
problems in Myawaddy Township, Karen State.

A monk in Myawaddy said "The current chairman of the Monk Association in
Myawaddy is a pro-government monk. A total of 30 temples were demolished."

The State Monk Association issued the demolition order in the middle of
last month, a monk said.

It was found that some monks, who lived in these temples, did not abide by
the rules meant for monks. Therefore, the monk authorities ordered the
demolition, the monk added.

"Instead of demolishing the temples, monk authorities ought to have called
the monks and ordered them to follow the rules laid down. They should also
have identified the monks breaking the rules and punished them. Now all
monks are facing difficulties because of the unprincipled monks," he
added.

Even though monks, whose temples were demolished, were not arrested,
authorities have ordered not to accept these monks in temples located
downtown, putting them in a spot, the monk added.

"Now, they have to change from a monk’s life and live like ordinary
people. Some among them are pretty old. They cannot work to eke out a
living. Therefore they will become lay men in temples."

If somebody wants to build a monk temple in a village or township, the
person must apply to the State Monk Association through the township monk
association.

If a temple has no legal document from the authorities, it is dubbed
illegal. The recent demolition may have something to do with this rather
than the conduct of monks. The authorities should investigate, a monk from
Tarchilek said.

Monks said that authorities including the monk association should take
action on monks flouting rules and should allow the monks, whose temples
were demolished, to stay in temples.

____________________________________

June 28, Irrawaddy
Junta censors news about Inle Lake - Zarni Mann

Burma's military junta has ordered public servants not to respond to
questions raised by domestic and exiled media related to Inle Lake, which
dried up during this summer's drought.

Aye Myint Kyu, deputy of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism (MHT),
instructed departments and offices in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State,
and Nyaung Shwe Township not to answer questions about Inle Lake after
news reports that included photos of the dried-up lake were carried by
domestic news journals, according to sources in the hotel and tourism
business.

 “We are not allowed to say anything when journals and guests ask about
the lake. I am not sure if there was an official order, but we were told
that it was an instruction from the deputy minister,” said a hotel and
tourism staff worker from Nyaung Shwe Township.

Apart from offices under the MHT, offices in the agriculture, meteorology
and hydrology, irrigation and forest departments received the same
instruction, office staff said.

Both news journals inside Burma and exiled media groups have previously
reported on this year's drought and water shortages across the country
caused by high temperatures and late monsoon rains, as well as about a
severe drop in Inle Lake's water level. But now they are being stonewalled
by the government.

“When we asked people from the departments about Inle Lake, they said they
were not allowed to say anything. They said we had to contact Nyapyidaw if
we wanted to find anything out about the lake,” said a reporter based in
Rangoon.

News journals carrying reports related to educational activities for the
greening of Inle Lake and nearby areas have faced censorship by the
regime's Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, reporters said.

“Many of the writings in news and articles regarding the current condition
of the lake and its impact have been censored. Educational articles
without this information will be meaningless,” said a journal editor.

“People will know what they should be doing only when we can tell them
openly what is happening in our area and what we are doing to recover the
situation. Educational programs will then be effective. Preventing news
about such efforts will not bring any successful achievement,” said a
person working on greening Inle lake and nearby areas.

Inle Lake locals said that due to rains in recent days, some areas of the
lake that had previously been dry now have some water.

“The water level is still low, although there is water in the lake.
Foreigners and visitors coming to the temple have seen it [the dry lake],
so we can't hide the fact. We have no choice but to explain what had
happened when foreigners ask us, even though we were told to shut up,”
said a local guide.

Located in southern Shan State, Inle Lake is one of the most scenic places
and most popular tourist attractions in Burma. The lake is known for its
floating gardens and markets, the Phaundaw Oo pagoda and locals who row
boats by wrapping one leg around an oar.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 26, Democratic Voice of Burma
Food aid cut to Thailand refugee camps - Naw Noreen

Events have conspired to create a shortfall in funding for a prominent
Thailand border aid group, meaning that food supplies to Burmese refugees
in camps along the border is to be reduced.

A doubling in price of yellow bean, a critical foodstuff in camps along
the Thai-Burma border that house some 140,000 refugees, means that from
August this year the supply will be cut. The Thailand Burma Border
Consortium (TBBC) says that it hopes the measure will only be temporary,
but the group is facing a US$2.5 million shortfall in funding for this
year.

“It’s largely down the change in exchange rate [that has caused the
price-rise], but while some donors have increased our funding, others have
reduced it,” said Sally Thompson, deputy director of TBBC.

The absence of yellow bean, one of the three main foodstuffs in the camps,
will reduce daily energy content to just below 2000 kilocalories, Thompson
said, adding that the figure was “still within the maintenance level for
the population”.

“In the short-term we do not expect to see a deterioration in the health
of the refugees, but we will monitor this through various health
agencies.”

Refugees continue to arrive in the camps on an almost daily basis, the
majority from Karen state in eastern Burma where the opposition Karen
National Liberation Army (KNLA) has been fighting a 60-year war against
the Burmese military government.

Thompson said that “it is essential that Thai authorities allow these
people to seek asylum on Thai soil”, and that TBBC would look for ways to
maintain donor interest in the refugee situation “because it is  likely to
be ongoing”.

But a man called Jipsy, who lives in the Mae La camp in Thailand’s Tha
Song Yan district, said that the cut in food aid “will be difficult for
the refugees who don’t have jobs”.

“Here, when you are given flour, then flour is your only food – the same
thing applies to beans, whether some like eating it or not. So if [food]
is no longer given, then it will be difficult for some people,” he said.

It mirrors a similar situation during the world food crisis in 2007 when
TBBC, which has been active on the Thai-Burma border in various forms
since 1984, was forced to cut supplies to camps. This year’s food
rationing will begin in August but implementation will be staggered across
the camps, Thompson said.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

June 27, Mizzima News
Chinese arms maker’s copper mine deal raises queries over Canadian stake -
Thomas Maung Shwe

Chiang Mai – One of China’s biggest arms makers signed a contract with a
Burmese junta-controlled entity this month involving “co-operation” in a
Monywa copper mine, raising serious questions over the status of Canadian
miner Ivanhoe’s holdings in the town northwest of Mandalay and whether
Burma sanctions have been violated.

Defence contractor China North Industries Corporation (Norinco), one of
the Chinese military’s biggest suppliers, disclosed in a press release
that in the first week of this month its chairman, Zhang Guoqing, had
signed the “Monywa Copper Mine Project Co-operation Contract” with
Major-General Win Than of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited,
a major revenue generator for the Burmese military regime.

While Norinco kept from view any financial details, it did say the
agreement was signed in the presence of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and
Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein during the former’s two-day tour of
Burma. The firm makes a wide range of weapons and has long been the
subject of intense western scrutiny for its activities. The Bush
administration alleged that Norinco exported missile technology to Iran
and took steps to penalise the firm in 2003 and 2005.

Norinco’s Burmese copper play was strongly criticised by pro-democracy
rights group Canadian Friends of Burma (CFOB), who termed the deal the
“arms-for-copper” affair. The Ottawa-based advocacy group on Thursday
called for Canadian authorities to launch an independent investigation to
assess the present ownership status of the Monywa mine’s operator, Myanmar
Ivanhoe Copper Capital Company Limited (MICCL).

MICCL was created as a 50/50 joint venture between Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines
and a Burmese state-controlled firm, Mining Enterprise No. 1. MICCL has
operated Monywa, Burma’s largest mine, since production began in 1999.

In a move critics said was a blatant attempt to hide the firm’s Burmese
operations, Ivanhoe Mines reported in February 2007 that it had “sold” its
50 per cent stake in MICCL to an “independent third-party trust” in
exchange for a guarantee that Ivanhoe would receive payment when the trust
sold its stake.

Following the September 2007 “saffron revolution”, in which scores of
protesting monks and citizens were killed by junta soldiers in Rangoon,
Ivanhoe and the Monywa mine made headlines when Andy Hoffman of Canadian
national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, reported that despite Ivanhoe’s
claims it had pulled out of Burma its financial filings showed it was
still receiving profits from its 50 per cent stake in MICCL, held by the
allegedly “independent trust”.

Ivanhoe claimed in October 2007 that it had determined it was “prudent to
record a $134.3 million write-down” in the value of their 50 per cent
stake, thereby reducing its value to nothing, in what the Canadian Friends
of Burma said was a clever ploy to avoid revealing any details about the
Monywa mine in its regulatory filings.

State-controlled The Myanmar Times quoted MICCL’s general manager Glenn
Ford as saying last year that Monywa was in fact “one of the lowest-cost
production mines in the world”, despite Ivanhoe’s claim that the mine was
worth nothing.

Ivanhoe denies ‘trust’ has sold stake in Monywa When asked to comment on
the current status of the Monywa mine, Ivanhoe spokesman Bob Williamson
told Mizzima on Wednesday that the “independent trust” had not sold the 50
per cent stake to anyone. Since the trust’s creation, Ivanhoe has refused
to reveal any of the individuals or firms who oversee the entity, offering
only that they were not employees of Ivanhoe Mines.

Ivanhoe had said when the trust was created that the stake in MICCL would
not be sold by the trust to anyone it termed “excluded persons” –
employees or directors of both Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto, the
British-Australian firm that controls a sizable minority stake in Ivanhoe.
It also said “residents or entities controlled by citizens or residents of
Myanmar (Burma) or the United States” would also be barred from buying the
stake.

Source tells Mizzima sale of Ivanhoe’s stake completed last year

Contrary to that claim, however, a source in Burma’s business community
told Mizzima that the “independent trust” completed the sale of its 50 per
cent stake late last year to cronies of the Burmese junta who have ties to
Chinese business interests.

The alleged secret sale came as no surprise to CFOB executive director Tin
Maung Htoo, who believed “from the very beginning Ivanhoe has been totally
dishonest about its operations in Burma and this so-called ‘independent
trust’ charade gives Ivanhoe chairman Robert Friedland ample opportunity
to keep the mine for himself or sell to it the regime’s cronies or do
whatever he wants”.

Were Ivanhoe’s stake in MICCL to have been bought by cronies of the
Burmese regime, this would violate US and EU sanctions. In January last
year, MICCL was added to the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) list of banned entities, an action that Ivanhoe
failed to mention in any of its subsequent statements or filings that
discuss the “independent trust”. Ivanhoe also failed to tell its
shareholders that the European Union had added MICCL to its Burma
sanctions list in November 2007.

Ivanhoe’s Burmese venture refuses comment

When Mizzima called MICCL’s Rangoon office yesterday and asked who now
owned Ivanhoe’s 50 per cent stake in the joint venture, an staff member
refused to answer. Requests to speak to the company’s Monywa general
manger Glenn Ford or even learn his nationality was also declined.

While Glenn Ford was unavailable for comment, a Google search for his name
and “Ivanhoe” revealed an interesting posting in March last year by a
“Glenn Ford” on Australian business news commentary website, Business
Spectator. It said Norinco had teamed up with China’s massive Chinalco to
aim for Ivanhoe’s Burmese holdings. The posting made in reference to the
proposed purchase of Rio Tinto by Chinalco stated “Now Chinalco, in
partnership with Chinese state-owned arms dealer Norinco, is buying the
whole copper deposit of Ivanhoe and the Myanmar government.” Glenn Ford of
MICCL could not be reached to confirm if this had been his posting.

Tin Maung Htoo believed the MICCL general manager had indeed posted the
statement. “How many people named Glenn Ford are there around posting
intimate details of Norinco’s Burmese operations; Norinco’s own statement
about their Monywa copper deal would suggest that this post was genuine.”

Concerns that Chinalco had purchased the stake were also raised last year
by CFOB. Citing SEC filings from February 2008 by China Resources Limited,
a small start-up firm whose chief financial officer Gerald Nugewela was a
former MICCL employee, CFOB alleged Chinalco had bought the stake in
possible violation of US sanctions directed against MICCL. In a widely
distributed press release, CFOB quoted the following text from Nugawela’s
career summary, included in at least seven separate SEC filings:

“From 2005 to January 2007, Mr. Nugawela was employed by Ivanhoe Mines as
Commercial Manager of Myanmar Ivanhoe Copper Co. Ltd. At Ivanhoe, Mr.
Nugawela was responsible for managing treasury operations, accounting,
supply and contracts administration, output agreements, business analysis
and planning. Mr. Nugawela was instrumental in arranging the sale of the
company to Chinese Aluminum Company [Aluminum Corporation of China or
Chinalco]. He prepared the valuation model and met with prospective
purchasers in their due-diligence investigation of the company.”

In a tersely worded “open letter” addressed to CFOB that accused the NGO
of running a disinformation campaign, Ivanhoe chief executive John Macken,
while acknowledging that Nugawela had indeed worked at MICCL, denied that
he had been employed by Ivanhoe Mines as Nugawela had stated. He also
denied that Nugawela had brokered the sale, claiming that “neither Ivanhoe
Mines nor MICCL has been sold, or ever offered for sale, to anybody”.

Several lines later, Macken, in an apparent contradiction of his earlier
claim, stated the independent trust was indeed trying to sell the MICCL
stake, writing that the trust was “endeavouring to negotiate its sale to
potential buyers”.

Local villagers report pollution, high security around mine site

For many years reports from villagers living in the vicinity of the mine
are that neighbouring farmland has become too acidic to grow crops because
of chemicals used in the mining process, driving many farmers into extreme
poverty. Villagers also say that the Burmese regime has long maintained a
heavy security presence in the area. The Irrawaddy magazine reported on
Thursday that since Ivanhoe’s apparent departure “Chinese workers and
engineers” have been busy working in the area.

Extreme poverty means they cannot meet the basic needs for food, water,
shelter, sanitation and health care. The World Bank defines extreme
poverty as living on less than US$1.25 per day.

____________________________________

June 28, Irrawaddy
USDA hands out 'loans' to poor - Ko Htwe

Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) members are  offering
low-income workers and farmers in Rangoon small “loans,” which are seen as
support for government-backed political candidates, according to local
residents.

In Yankin, Kawmu and Kungyangone townships, USDA members, accompanied by
township leaders, made the offers to selected residents.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, residents in Yankin Township said:
“Three days ago members of USDA and the head of the quarter offered  the
loans.”

A youth member of the National League for Democracy in Rangoon said that
for a farmer with one acre, the USDA will loan 10,000 kyat (US $10). Many
village residents have already received the loans said a resident in
Kungyangone Township.

The USDA is a state-sponsored mass civic organization formed by the junta
in 1993, with more than 24 million members nationwide including government
civil service personnel and members of the military. The USDA Central
Panel of Patrons include Snr-Gen Than Shwe, Prime Minister Thein Sein and
other government ministers.

On April 29, the prime minister and 26 ministers and senior officials
formed the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to contest in the
election later this year. The Election Commission recognized the USDP as a
political party on June 8.

Observers said that it is hard draw a line between the USDA and the USDP,
which has been formed to offer government-backed candidates in the
up-coming election.

The United Democratic Party (UDP) recently released a statement that urged
the government to separate the activities of the two organizations. UDP
chairman Phyo Min Thein said the loans appeared to aid candidates who will
represent the USDP in the upcoming election.

Meanwhile, USDP members have reportedly are offered  5,000 kyat (US $5.18)
to residents in Puta O Township in Kachin State in northern Burma,
according to the  Kachin News Group.

____________________________________

June 28, Irrawaddy
Tay Za to form proxy airline - Wai Moe

Burmese tycoon Tay Za is to establish a proxy airline company in order to
avoid the US sanctions that have been imposed on his current airline, Air
Bagan, according to business sources in Rangoon.

Tay Za poses for the cameras in front of one of his aircraft. (Photo: AP)
The sources said that since Air Bagan was blacklisted by the US and other
Western countries, it has faced problems transferring finances and has
been denied insurance. To evade the restrictions, Tay Za has reportedly
registered another airline company with the Burmese aviation authority and
plans to buy more aircraft for domestic and international routes in that
company's name.

“Businessmen here are saying that Tay Za’s new aviation company will
likely be called 'Ever Win,'” said a business source who spoke to The
Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity. “It is now in the registration
process at the aviation authority. Tay Za’s new company would be
officially under different ownership since his name is on the [Western
countries'] sanctions list. However, the company will be run with his
money.”

The US imposed sanctions on Tay Za and other associates of the ruling
Burmese generals following the Burmese junta’s crackdown on mass
demonstrations in September 2007. According to the blacklist issued by the
US Department of the Treasury, two of Tay Za's family members, as well as
his private companies including Htoo Trading Company, Air Bagan and his
Singapore-based Pavo Trading Pte Ltd, are included in the sanctions.

In February 2008, the US extended its sanctions policy to include the Htoo
Group of Companies, Myanmar Avia Export Co. Ltd, and Ayer Shwe Wah Co.
Ltd, directed by Aung Thet Mann, the son of the junta No.3 Gen Shwe Mann.

“We are tightening financial sanctions against Tay Za, an arms dealer and
financial henchman of Burma’s repressive junta,” said Adam J. Szubin, the
director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, in
a statement at the time.

Another allegation against Tay Za among the Burmese business community is
that junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s family has financial stakes in his
companies.

Tay Za is also the owner of one of Burma's major football clubs, Yangon
United FC.

Despite the Western sanctions against Tay Za and other military cronies,
Naypyidaw has recently granted several of them business opportunities in
newly privatized state assets, including banks.

Private journals in Rangoon recently reported that Tay Za’s Air Bagan is
to purchase two Airbus aircraft as it expands routes to neighborinAC
countries, as well as purchasing two AIR 72-500 for domestic destinations.
Both aviation makers are based in Europe.

____________________________________

June 28, Kaladan Press
Prices of rice go up in northern Arakan markets

Buthidaung, Arakan State: Prices of different varieties of rice have gone
up in markets in north Arakan State, which also saw a declining trend of
some essential commodities last week, said a businessman from Buthidaung.

The prices of rice increased to Kyat 14,000 to 15,000 per 50 kg bag of
rice, which was Kyat 13,500 before the floods. Businessmen apprehend that
the price might rise further in the absence of government’s intervention.
But, a bag of 50 kg rice which has been provided by WFP to the villagers
in Buthidaung Township is being sold at Kyat 17,000 per bag.

Besides, prices of essential commodities such as garlic, onion, ginger,
edible oil, powder milk, sugar, potatoes, pea, salt, chili, turmeric, fish
and meat, have also been increasing.

Price of garlic went up to Kyat 3,000 by Viss (one Viss= 1.64 kg). It was
sold at Kyat 2,500 per Viss before the floods.

Onion is being sold at Kyat 500 per Viss while it was sold at Kyat 450
before the floods.

Price of ginger has also shot up to Kyat 3,000 per Viss while it was Kyat
2,500 before the floods.

Price of edible oil has gone up to Kyat 2,500 per Viss while it was only
Kyat 2,000 before the floods.

One Viss of sugar is being sold at Kyat at 1,500, while it was Kyat 1,300;
one Viss of salt is being sold at Kyat 150, while it was Kyat 120; one
Viss of dried Chill is being sold at 3,000, while it was only Kyat 2,500,
one Viss of potato is being sold at Kyat 900; while it was Kyat 800 before
the floods, and a bag of 50 kg chick peas is being sold at Kyat 18,000,
said another trader in Buthidaung town.

Now, one Viss of beef is being sold at Kyat 6,000, while it was only Kyat
5,000. One Viss of mutton is being sold at Kyat at 5,000, while it was
Kyat 4,500.  A big cock is being sold at Kyat 4,000 to 6,000, while it was
sold at Kyat 3,500 to 5,000 before the floods, said a local butcher of
Buthidaung.

Price of fish has also gone up. A Viss of good quality fish is being sold
at Kyat 4,000 to 5,000 and the medium quality fish is being sold at Kyat
3,000 per Viss after the floods, said a fisherman.

After floods, an egg is being sold at Kyat 100, a cup of tea Kyat 100 to
150, one gallon of kerosene is being sold at Kyat 4,000.

But, in Maungdaw north a 50 kg of rice bag is being sold at Kyat 16,000 to
18,000 while it was Kyat 15,000 per bag. Besides, the prices of all other
essential commodities are also skyrocketing, said rice trader from
Maungdaw town.

____________________________________
DRUGS

June 28, Shan Herald Agency for News
Over 1 million meth pills burnt at Wa drug bonfire - Hseng Khio Fah

The United Wa State Army (UWSA), dubbed as a terrorist organization with
connections to drug trafficking by the United States, held its 5th drug
bonfire at its headquarters Panghsang, on the Sino-Burma border on 26
June, the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

The ceremony was held downtown from 7:00 to 9:30 (Burma Standard Time). It
was presided over by Xiao Minliang, Vice Chairman of the Wa Central
Authority together with other top leaders: Zhao Zhongdang,  Bao Youliang,
Zhao Guo-ang and Zhao Wenguang, and witnessed by over 2,000 participants
including over 30 Chinese officials and media, according to one of the
participants.

No one from the ruling Burmese military junta was found at the ceremony
even though it had been invited. “Not even their men stationed in
Panghsang,” he said.

According to the Wa officials, the ceremony was held in order to reconfirm
its pledge to the world given in 2005.

“It was the 5th ceremony. We [the Wa] have been holding drug bonfire
ceremony every year since we declared our territory as drug free (in
2005),” one of the Wa officials said.

The seized drug pile was torched by one of the Chinese officials at the
invitation by Wa Central Authority. The seized drugs included: over 1
million of yaba or methamphetamine tablets, 10 viss of opium, 20 kg of
heroin, 1 kg of opium oil and other equipment. But there have been no
information on the value of the burned drugs.

According to the Shan Herald Agency for News(SHAN)’s 2009-2010 Drug Watch
report, the price of opium has been climbing up, K 1 million (US$ 1,000)
per viss along the Chinese and Thai border areas.

Afterwards, Wa officials from anti-drug force read out the list of drug
traffickers who had been arrested within 2009. There were over 100
traffickers included both ordinary people and UWSA members from top to
bottom, said another participant. “Those are now in prison with long term
sentences.”

Its deputy head of finance and Commander of the Thai-Burma border-based
171st Military Region, Wei Xuegang, is wanted both in Thailand and the US
on drug charges.

Another official then expressed their gratefulness to China and UN
agencies for providing aid, food and other substitute support during its
struggle for the elimination of drugs. The group has been doing its best
in cooperating with China and other countries in the field of drug
suppression, according to the source.

He said, “We have tried our best to block the drugs flow to neighboring
countries, especially China.”  China is one of the countries that have
been giving strong pressure to the group to stop growing opium.

Meanwhile, junta authorities had also reported holding a similar ceremony
in Rangoon, according to the New Light of Myanmar report on 26 June.

However, the report did not include details of the amount and the value of
the burnt drugs and where they were seized from as previous year. At the
junta ceremony held last year in Kokang, most drugs were said to have been
seized from ethnic ceasefire groups.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) 2010 World Drug
Report, Burma produced 330 tons of opiates in 2009, accounting for 17
percent of global cultivation, while methamphetamine seizures skyrocketed
from one million tablets in 2008 to 23 million in 2009. Opiates,
especially heroin, are the most prevalent drug in the country, the report
said.

In addition, Shan Drug Watch draft report said, more poppy cultivation was
found in the areas under the control of the Burma Army than those under
the ceasefire armies.

In 1999, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) embarked on a
15-year plan to eradicate the cultivation and production of all drugs in
Burma by 2014.  The total townships targeted were 51: 43 in Shan State, 4
in Kachin, 2 in Kayah or Karenni and 2 in Chin states.

To date, only 10 townships out of the 51 targeted “townships” could claim
as poppy free while the rest are still growing poppies, said the report.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 28, Mizzima News
EU cancels visit after request to meet Suu Kyi denied - Perry Santanachote

Chiang Mai – A scheduled European Union high-level visit to Burma was
cancelled recently after the Burmese ruling junta denied a request from
the EU Presidency Council to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

German ambassador to Burma, Julius Georg Luy, representing the EU
presidency currently held by Spain, had on June 15 asked State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) Foreign Affairs Minister Nyan Win in Naypyidaw
for a meeting with Suu Kyi, the world’s most well-known political
prisoner. It was to be part of a high-level EU visit but the junta
declined the request, months ahead of its as yet unscheduled elections.

The SPDC is the Burmese ruling junta’s self-styled title.

“I cannot comment whether the meeting’s been cancelled because of [the]
SPDC’s refusal to allow access to Aung San Suu Kyi or other reasons,” EU
regional delegation spokeswoman Suvi Seppalainen said.

She added that the high-level meeting would not take place during the
Spanish presidency of the EU, which ends on Wednesday, but was unable to
speculate whether it would be tabled again. She was also without the
agenda for the proposed meeting and had no knowledge of what was to be
discussed with Suu Kyi.

“I think it’s quite clear why it would be high on their wish list to meet
with ‘The Lady’ herself,” she said. “But unfortunately this request was
not transferred [sic] by the government.”

The junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.

In response to the junta’s decision to bar EU access to Suu Kyi, the
National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), a coalition of Burmese
pro-democracy groups and political dissidents, released a statement
condemning the military regime.

The council’s joint general secretary No.1, Myint Thein of the National
League for Democracy (Liberated Area), called upon the EU to reaffirm
international demands and denounce the junta’s upcoming election and its
results.

“They still don’t have any plans to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the
other political prisoners,” he said of the military regime. “They have
refused proposals from all world leaders to release her and have
dialogue.”

Myint Thein said the election would neither be free nor fair and that the
military had repeatedly refused to take any steps towards changing the
political situation in Burma. For those reasons he called on the
international community, including the EU, to take a stronger stance
against the junta. However the EU is not yet talking about rejecting any
election results.

“That would be premature,” Seppalainen said, adding however that the EU
was standing its ground. “We’ve been calling for free and fair elections;
this has been the EU line for a while and this has not changed.”

Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi remains under house arrest after spending
around 15 of the past 21 years held by the Burmese junta in various forms
of detention. Her National League for Democracy Party won the last
elections in 1990 by a landslide but the junta refused to allow the party
to form a government and jailed many NLD members.

The party on May 6 was declared illegal and disbanded by the ruling
military junta after the NLD chose not to re-register for upcoming
elections under electoral laws it deemed unfair and unjust as they were
targetted to exclude anyone serving a prison sentence, automatically
excluding the party’s leader and imprisoned members.

http://www.mizzima.com/news/world/4066-eu-cancels-visit-after-request-to-meet-suu-kyi-denied.html

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 28, The New Statesman
A light won’t go out in Burma - Peter Popham

Her party has been dissolved, and she is banned from taking part in this
year’s Burmese elections. But Aung San Suu Kyi, at the age of 65, remains
the most potent force fighting to preserve the opposition in her country.

Suddenly she has begun to look her age. Aung San Suu Kyi was nearly 45
when her party won a landslide victory in Burma's historic general
election of 1990, but she looked 15 years younger. Despite years of
privation and isolation inside her disintegrating lakeside villa on
University Avenue in Rangoon, she continued to look far younger than she
was. But last November, when she was photographed arriving for a meeting
at a Rangoon hotel with President Obama's assistant secretary of state
Kurt Campbell, she looked a woman of a certain age.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - daw is the Burmese honorific for an older woman -
turned 65 on 19 June. If it was a less dismal occasion than her 64th,
which she spent in Rangoon's huge, British-built Insein Prison, while
awaiting trial for allowing a deluded American called John Yettaw (who had
swum across Lake Inya using home-made wooden flippers) to spend two nights
in her home, her personal and political prospects were scarcely less
gloomy.

The good news: the military regime, led by Senior General Than Shwe, is
committed to holding a general election before the end of the year. It
will be the first since 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National
League for Democracy (NLD), won the vote by an overwhelming margin - a
victory that the regime ignored. The bad news: there is no chance of that
result being repeated this time. The NLD, the most important organised
opposition force in Burma, will not be participating.

One of the rules of this election is that parties whose membership
includes political prisoners are barred from registering. The NLD was
faced with the obligation of expelling its leader and more than 400
members who are still in prison. Aung San Suu Kyi made it clear that
taking part on such terms was unthinkable. She wanted party members to
know that, should they participate in the election, "the party would have
no dignity", her lawyer and spokesman Nyan Win said. After a painful
debate, the NLD agreed with her assessment. When the 6 May deadline
passed, it became a non-party, a political phantom.

Since her victory in Burma's first multiparty elections in 30 years in
1990, and particularly since she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the
following year, Aung San Suu Kyi has become, to the west, the symbol of
opposition. Now the caprice of the regime has robbed her of that automatic
primacy. Inside Burma, too, many are said to be puzzled and confused by
the NLD's decision not to compete.

Like the constitutional referendum of 2008, which the regime claimed to
have won with the support of more than 90 per cent of voters, the election
will probably be rigged. But that does not mean it is without
significance. "Despite the very obvious flaws in the process," says the
international think tank Transnational Institute in a new report
anticipating the poll, "it represents the most significant political
transformation for a generation."

Senior General Than Shwe, now almost 80, is likely to retire, along with
other high-ranking colleagues. "New leaders and a new political landscape
will emerge," the institute writes, "giving rise to opportunities to press
for change, as well as a new set of challenges."

It is tempting to see Aung San Suu Kyi as one of the elders who will now
shuffle off into the shadows, to be replaced by vigorous new champions of
democracy, the generational shift sweeping her away as surely as her
nemesis Than Shwe. But this is to misunderstand the situation in Burma.
First, the electoral process has been fiendishly designed to make it
almost impossible for figures critical of the regime, even if they succeed
in getting elected, to make their voices heard. There is no provision in
the parliament for an opposition - only for the government, which must be
led by a former army man. The election will not be accompanied by any
loosening of the rigid controls on the media; on the contrary, the regime
has recently invested millions of dollars in a hi-tech system for
censoring newspapers and magazines. It will be a criminal offence,
punishable by a jail sentence, for any MP in the new national assembly to
criticise the constitution - and anything he or she says on the subject
will be erased from the record. The regime clearly has no intention of
allowing new MPs the sort of holiday from government control that Aung San
Suu Kyi and her colleagues enjoyed during the democratic spring of
1988-89.

The second reason she will not be fading away is that Aung San Suu Kyi
remains an immensely potent force. That is why the regime has gone to such
extravagant lengths to marginalise her. Three times before - in 1990, 1995
and 2002 - it made the mistake of under­estimating her appeal. The first
time, the NLD humiliated the regime's proxy, the National Unity Party, by
winning 80 per cent of the seats in parliament. The second time, when she
was released from her first spell of house arrest, thousands risked jail
every week to squat outside the gates of her home and listen to her speak.
The third time, when, after months of delay, she was at last allowed to
travel outside Rangoon, peasants walked through the jungle for days for a
chance to see her.

Seven years have now passed since her convoy was attacked by regime goons
on 30 May 2003 and she again disappeared from view. Her latest spell in
detention is the longest to date, and in March the UN's working group on
arbitrary detention condemned it as being in contravention of Articles 9,
10, 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the sixth
time it has published such a view.

This has been not only the longest spell of house arrest she has endured,
but also the most restrictive. The regime has rigidly limited her access
to foreign diplomats, senior members of her party and, for a while, even
her doctor. A year ago, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, was barred
from seeing her at Insein jail. She has been photographed only a handful
of times in the past seven years, most recently on 10 May, when she and
Assistant Secretary of State Campbell held a conference under umbrellas in
the garden of a government guest house to avoid having their conversation
bugged. As recently as 2007, rebel monks succeeded in paying a visit to
her home, but today the whole of University Avenue is barricaded off, and
the only view of her house is from the other side of Lake Inya.

The tight control on her comings and goings is matched by a ban on all but
the most dismissive and hostile mentions of her in the state-controlled
press. The time in 1994 when she was welcomed amid the gleaming varnish
and antimacassars of a government reception room by Generals Than Shwe and
Khin Nyunt, both smiling fit to bust (the photo was splashed across the
front page of New Light of Myanmar), seems to belong to an altogether
different era.

Aung San Suu Kyi seems to have disappeared from the consciousness of
ordinary Burmese people. There are no photos of her on display; there are
no books by or about her in the bookshops (though titles about Nelson
Mandela and other democratic heroes are plentiful); her name is never
mentioned by tour guides or taxi drivers or hotel staff. It is as if she
had never existed. However, she has not been forgotten, but is locked away
in people's hearts and minds and interior rooms as securely and invisibly
as she is locked in her own house.

At the home of an intellectual in Mandalay, an oil portrait of her hangs
on the wall of his shabby kitchen. Another presides over a small private
library in the same city that has somehow escaped the regime's attentions.
Htein Lin, an artist who spent years in jail and who now lives in exile in
London, contrived to paint portraits of her secretly in his cell and get
them smuggled to the outside world. In Rangoon, we were given an
introduction to a beaming elf of a man in his seventies, living with his
family in a shack near a rubbish dump on the city's northern outskirts. He
had spent years in jail for petty political offences, as had his son. A
small photo of Aung San Suu Kyi in her 1989 prime was pinned to the wall
of their home. It is not surprising that Suu the Unyielding should
continue to be the icon of activists. But her appeal extends more widely,
as became clear during the nationwide rebellion of September 2007 when, in
reaction to a steep increase in fuel prices, tens of thousands of monks
marched through Burma's towns and cities.

In the most poignant of these processions, a line of monks persuaded
soldiers guarding Aung San Suu Kyi's house to let them through. They made
it to the gate of her home; she came out in tears to greet them. The
meeting was captured on a mobile-phone camera. Two days later, the bloody
crackdown began.

The encounter had a special significance that was not readily appreciated
outside Burma. In this overwhelmingly Buddhist country, the great majority
of boys are inducted as monks while they are still children, and spend
weeks or months learning the disciplines of the monastery. For centuries,
the monks have had a special relationship with power in the land, and
specifically with the king: by recognising his right to rule, they
conferred religious legitimacy on him, while for his part the king
provided funds for monasteries, pagodas and images of the Buddha. This
symbiotic relationship was destroyed when the British sent Burma's last
king, Thibaw Min, into exile in 1885, which helps explain why monks were
prominent among Burmese rebels against British rule from early on. It was
they, deprived of patronage, who most keenly felt the downfall of the
monarchy.

Burma's post-independence prime minister, U Nu, was a pious Buddhist and
was quick to restore the relationship with the clergy, but when General Ne
Win seized power in a coup d'état in 1962, he brushed aside the Sangha,
the organisation of monks, as an archaic irrelevance. Into the patronage
vacuum stepped pious laypeople who, over the years, set up meditation
centres and supported charismatic monks who, in return, instructed them in
dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) and the techniques of meditation.

By the time Ne Win realised what he had done, the lay meditation
organisations had established strong ties with the monks - ties that
persist to this day. On the face of it, there is nothing political about
these organisations; but just as the Sangha, numbering close on half a
million monks and nuns, is the only organisation in Burma that rivals the
army, the existence of these lay organisations is a passive but ominous
menace to the army's monopoly on power.

Aung San Suu Kyi has taken her own daily meditation practice very
seriously since her first years of house arrest. "It has helped to
strength­en me spiritually," she told Alan Clements, author of a book of
interviews with her entitled The Voice of Hope. "What you do when you
meditate is you learn to control your mind through developing awareness."
She confided to a friend that meditation had "saved me from depression in
the worst moments of my life . . . It's what enabled me always to hold my
head high." So when, in 2007, the monks came to her gate to greet her, it
was an acknowledgement by the Sangha of the power that she had won through
the ballot box in 1990 but of which she had been deprived ever since. And
millions of Burmese would have recognised the significance of the meeting.

With its innumerable spies, the regime is surely well informed about the
extent to which Aung San Suu Kyi still enjoys the silent but overwhelming
support of her people, which is why it remains loath to grant her any
space. But how, despite nearly 15 years of house arrest and enforced
silence and invisibility, has she been able to hang on to this support?
And what difference has it made?

In the first place, it was necessary for her to be who she is: the
daughter of Aung San, the father of the army and creator of independent
Burma, the young firebrand who managed to hop from the Japanese to the
Allied side in the middle of the Second World War and, at the end of it,
persuade Lord Mountbatten that he was his nation's best hope. He
negotiated Burma's independence in London but was assassinated in 1947
before his work could be crowned with success - and was thereby untainted
by all the mess that followed, becoming the new nation's one radiant,
immaculate hero.

At the start, in 1988, the name was everything: if Aung San Suu Kyi's
elder brother Aung San Oo, an engineer who lives in the US, had chosen to
rise to the challenge, he would have enjoyed just as strong a following as
she did, but he had no interest in politics. As with Benazir in Pakistan,
Indira in India and all the other widows and daughters in post-colonial
southern and south-east Asia, the blood was crucial. It guaranteed popular
legitimacy and gave the uprising its figurehead.

Yet she became much more than that, and is still there - still fighting -
over 20 years later. This is the product of her own extraordinary strength
of will and purpose. Her name and fame have so far deterred the regime
from killing her, though on at least two occasions

it seems to have come close to it. At any time since she was first locked
up, she could have decided to put her own life and that of her family
first and fled the country, never to return. Instead, she threw herself
into Burma's struggle, and for all the regime's efforts to thrust her into
the shadowy margins, she is still in the thick of it. Because, to quote
her hero Gandhi: "The combat itself is the victory."

So, what difference has she made? A generation ago, the regime's opponents
saw their only hope of changing the country in joining one or other of the
insurgencies raging on the borders. Taking up arms was seen as the only
option. Aung San Suu Kyi's courage and commitment have changed that. For
the first time since Ne Win's 1962 coup d'état, Burma had a plausible
alternative ruler - and one who insisted that the struggle against the
regime must be a peaceful one.

Her critics argue that this commitment condemns her movement to failure:
non-violence may have enjoyed some success as a strategy against the Raj
in India, but it is bound to fail against a regime as ruthless and as
little concerned about its foreign reputation as Burma's. In response, her
supporters point out that the revolution she is seeking to ignite is as
much moral and spiritual as political. And if it has not yet had any
appreciable softening effect on the generals, it has changed the attitudes
of a generation of Burmese activists.

As long as she is still there among them, and still fighting, it gives
them hope.

Peter Popham is on the staff of the Independent and is writing a biography
of Aung San Suu Kyi, to be published by Rider in 2011.

____________________________________

June 28, Dispatch Online
Burma poll will entrench brutality - Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams

Elections in Burma are expected for some time in 2010. The military
government claims that this is a step towards real democracy, but all
signs point to the contrary.

Under the leadership of our sister peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, the
main opposition party, the National League of Democracy, recently chose to
dissolve rather than take part in a flawed electoral process. They believe
the elections will be a sham, and further entrench the military junta’s
fierce grip on power. Under this regime, violence and abuse of basic human
rights have been a daily reality in Burma for decades.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi marked her 65th birthday (on June 19), as well as her
14th year under house arrest and almost 20 years since she was
democratically elected by the people of Burma to be their leader.

Her story is extraordinary, but also emblematic of the suffering of
hundreds of thousands of women in Burma. Like Aung San Suu Kyi, they are
trapped in a life of misery under a brutal military regime, in the world’s
largest-running, but often forgotten, civil war.

We met some of those women recently when we sat as judges at the
International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma in New York. We
heard harrowing testimony from 12 courageous women, who told of their
experiences of human rights violations at the hands of the military regime
in their country.

Chang Chang spoke of being attacked and gang-raped in her village by a
group of Burmese military soldiers. As if that was not torture enough, she
was then shamed and expelled by her community when news of the attack
spread.

Naw Ruth Tha described long days of being forced by soldiers to carry
heavy loads on her back, and long nights being raped by the same soldiers.
She was five months pregnant at the time.

Ma Pu Sein wept as she recalled the soldiers who burnt down her entire
village.

One young woman opened her testimony saying, “I share with you a common
story that in its commonness has, in time, become normal.”

Indeed, each of these women stands for the thousands of women, children,
and men who, for decades, have struggled under the oppression of the
junta. Their stories range from the imprisonment and torture of political
dissenters to the conscription of civilians to be used as sexual slaves
and human landmine sweepers.

Brutality on this level should never be accepted as normal. But with the
exception of rare instances of international attention, the world mostly
watches in silence while the regime continues to act with impunity. The
testimonies we heard at the tribunal reconfirm that the regime’s actions
amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes subject to
universal jurisdiction. These human rights violations – including those
that target women – must not be allowed to continue. The international
community must act now for justice in Burma.

One path of action would be for the UN Security Council to consider the
establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into possible crimes against
humanity and war crimes in Burma. Such a commission could be the first
step in the long journey to the International Criminal Court for the
military junta. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in
Burma, Tomas Quintana, has called for the creation of such a commission,
which has been publicly supported by the United Kingdom, Australia,
Sweden, and the Czech Republic. Along with our fellow tribunal judges, we
also called upon the Security Council to begin the process of referring
Burma to the International Criminal Court through the establishment of a
Commission of Inquiry.

The upcoming Burmese elections are another arena for international action.
Elections will be based on a constitution that was created and ratified
without consultation with civil society, including the women of Burma. The
constitution also effectively hinders the participation of women in
political office – including the generation of women inspired by the
example of Aung San Suu Kyi. The recent dissolution of the legitimate
governing party and the official opposition is further evidence of the
gravity of the problem.

Under such circumstances and in the face of decades of crimes and abuses
against the peoples of Burma by the military regime, the international
community should unite in their refusal to accept either the upcoming
elections or any government that results from them as legitimate.

It is time for the international community to show at least as much
courage as the women of Burma. Their leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has
dedicated her life – one of great personal loss and privation – for
democracy for her country. The women who testified at the tribunal in New
York also refuse to silently accept non-action. Instead, they are speaking
out, in the hope that doing so will lead to real change for their country.
We believe that it will.

In honour of Aung San Suu Kyi and the resilient women of Burma, the
international community must stand with the people of Burma in their
struggle for justice and democracy. It is time not only for the
establishment of a Commission of Inquiry but also for the international
community to denounce the upcoming elections as the sham that they are.

Jody Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Shirin Ebadi was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. They are co-founders of the Nobel
Women’s Initiative, a global organisation based in Ottawa. The Executive
Summary of the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma,
including the complete Statement of Findings and Recommendations of the
Judges, can be found at www.nobelwomensinitiative.org.

____________________________________

June 28, Democratic Voice of Burma
UN ignores Burma junta’s drugs role - Bertil Lintner

The UN’s annual day against drugs is usually celebrated with claims of
great strides in the campaign to eradicate the worldwide production of
narcotics and fanciful reports on how governments around the globe are
successfully cooperating in this noble effort. This year, however, it
seems that at least some realism has seeped into the largely fictitious
picture of the situation in the drug-producing countries that the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) usually presents to the outside world.

Burma’s drug production has surged over the past year, Gary Lewis, a
representative of the UNODC, told reporters in Bangkok two days before the
annual event. Burma, he said, had experienced a “steep and dramatic”
increase in opium cultivation, with 31,700 hectares, or 78,300 acres, of
land under poppy cultivation in 2009, up by almost half since 2006.

At the same time, the production of synthetic drugs such as
methamphetamine in the Burmese sector of the Golden Triangle has increased
equally dramatically. According to Thai military sources, between 300 and
400 million pills will be produced this year, or almost double the amount
in 2009. The main market for all these drugs is Thailand, but significant
quantities are also smuggled into China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and
India. Some Burmese heroin, but very little methamphetamine, can also be
found in Australia and North America.

The reason for this surge, Lewis told reporters, is that ethnic armies
which once fought the Burmese army and now have entered into ceasefire
agreements with the government, are coming under pressure to convert
themselves into Border Guard Forces under central command. Most drugs in
Burma are produced in areas controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA)
and its allies, some of whom are smaller groups which also once formed
part of the now defunct Communist Party of Burma (CPB). The UWSA and its
allies are preparing for war: “They are getting ready to fight. They are
selling more and more drugs so they can buy weapons to fight the
government,” the Guardian last week quoted Lewis as saying.

Statements such as these show that the UNODC may have changed its
previous, glossy image of the UWSA and its allies — and so has the Burmese
government. It is often forgotten that the first huge increase in Burma’s
production of opium and its derivative heroin occurred after the collapse
of the CPB in 1989. In the wake of the 1988 uprising in the Burmese
heartland, and the subsequent massacres in the then capital Rangoon and
elsewhere, more than 8,000 pro-democracy activists fled the urban centres
for the border areas near Thailand, where a multitude of ethnic
insurgencies not involved in the drug trade were active. Significantly,
the main drug gang operating along the Thai border, Khun Sa and his
private army, refused to shelter any dissidents; his main interest was
business, not to fight the Burmese government.

The Burmese military now feared a renewed, politically dangerous
insurgency along its frontiers: a possible alliance between the ethnic
rebels and the pro-democracy activists from Rangoon and other towns and
cities. But these Thai-border-based groups – Karen, Mon, Karenni, and Pa-O
– were unable to provide the urban dissidents with more than a handful of
weapons. None of the ethnic armies could match the strength of the CPB,
which then fielded more than 15,000 soldiers and controlled a
20,000-square-kilometre territory along the China-Burma border in the
northeast. Unlike the ethnic rebels, the CPB had vast quantities of arms
and ammunition supplied by China from 1968 to 1978, when it was Beijing’s
policy to support communist insurrections in Southeast Asia. Although the
aid had almost ceased by 1980, the CPB still head enough munitions to last
for at least ten years of guerrilla warfare against the central
government.

Despite the Burmese military’s claim of a “communist conspiracy” behind
the 1988 uprising – which then intelligence chief Khin Nyunt concocted in
a lengthy speech on 5 August 1989 – there was at that time no linkage
between the anti-totalitarian, pro-democracy movement in central Burma,
and the orthodox, Marxist-Leninist leadership of the CPB. However, given
the strong desire for revenge for the bloody events of 1988, it is
plausible to assume that the urban dissidents would have accepted arms
from any source. Thus, it became imperative for the ruling military to
neutralise as many of the border insurgencies as possible, especially the
CPB’s.

A situation which was potentially even more dangerous for the military
regime arose in March and April 1989 when the hill-tribe rank-and-file of
the CPB, led by the military commanders who also came from the various
ethnic minorities in the northeastern base area, mutinied against the
party’s ageing, mostly Burman political leadership. On 17 April 1989,
ethnic Wa mutineers stormed party headquarters at Panghsang and drove the
old leaders and their families, about 300 people, across the border into
China.

The former CPB army split along ethnic lines, and formed four different,
regional resistance armies, of which the now 30,000-strong United Wa State
Army (UWSA) was by far the most powerful. Suddenly, there were no longer
any communist insurgents in Burma, only ethnic rebels, and the junta
worried about potential collaboration between the new, well-armed forces
in the northeast and the minority groups along the Thai border – and the
urban dissidents who had taken refuge there.

Within weeks of the CPB mutiny, Khin Nyunt helicoptered up to the
northeastern border areas, met the leaders of the mutiny, and made them an
offer. In exchange for ceasefire agreements with the government, and to
sever any ties with any other rebels, the UWSA and other CPB mutineers
were granted unofficial permission to engage in any kind of business to
sustain themselves – which in Burma’s remote and underdeveloped hill areas
inevitably meant opium production.

According to estimates by the US government, Burma’s opium production
soared from 836 tons in 1987 to 2,340 tons by 1995. Satellite imagery
showed that the area under poppy cultivation increased from 92,300
hectares to 154,000 during the same period. For the first time, heroin
refineries, which previously had been located only along the Thai border,
were established along the Chinese frontier, and the ceasefire agreements
with the government enabled the traffickers to move narcotics freely along
major roads and highways.

However, by the early 2000s, opium production began to decline after the
boom years immediately after the CPB mutiny, but by then huge quantities
of methamphetamines – in the past unknown in the Burmese sector of the
Golden Triangle – were produced in laboratories in areas controlled by the
UWSA and other former CPB groups. Burma remains one of the world’s biggest
producers of illicit narcotics, and its production of opium and heroin is
still significant, as the latest figures from the UNODC show.

The political threat from the border areas was thwarted, the regime was
safe, and vast amounts of money derived from the drug trade were invested
in Burma’s legal economy. Some of Burma’s most profitable business
conglomerates and banks were established by drug barons allied with the
UWSA and other ceasefire groups. All along, the Burmese military turned a
blind eye to the traffic, and benefited from it economically. Apart from
being invested in various sectors of the national economy, drug money also
ended up in the pockets of many army officers, some of whom became
immensely wealthy.

But simply neutralising the border insurgencies was only the first step;
today, 20 years later, the government believes that the time has come to
integrate the former rebel armies, and the election that is supposed to
take place this year provided the ruling military with an excellent
opportunity to press this demand. The ceasefire groups have been told to
transform their armies into Border Guard Forces before the election so
their political wings can form legitimate political parties to take part
in the polls. But, as it turned out, the ceasefire groups were not
prepared to accept this offer.

In August last year, the Burmese army attacked Kokang in northeastern Shan
State, until then controlled by one of the smaller former CPB forces,
which had resisted the demand to accept the status as a Border Guard
Force. Huge amounts of drugs were seized in the operation against the
local militia in Kokang which, until it ceased being an ally and broke
with the government, had been praised by the authorities for its
“drug-suppression efforts.”

The UNODC and its predecessor, the UNFDAC (the UN Fund for Drug Abuse
Control), also used to praise the drug armies in similar terms. In January
1991, UNFDAC’s Don MacIntosh was present at a drug-burning show in
northern Burma where he declared: “I am pleased to be in Shan state and
have the opportunity to [attend] this important drug eradication
exercise.” The ceremony was presided over by Peng Jiasheng – the druglord
who was chased out of Kokang in August last year.

In more recent years, Jeremy Milsom, a former consultant to the UNODC, has
openly defended the UWSA leadership, including some of its most notorious
druglords. In his contribution to a book called Trouble in the Triangle:
Opium and Conflict in Burma, Milsom stated that “Wei Xuegang [a Wa drugs
baron who was close to intelligence chief Khin Nyunt], is an interesting
figure with respect to the WSR [Wa Special Region]. Having helped the
region immensely both in times of conflict and more recently by being the
principal provider of social and economic development assistance to poor
Wa farmers in the south, there is considerable respect for him. To add to
this view, according to senior Wa sources, a condition of Wei Xuegang
joining the UWSA in 1995 was that he not be involved in drug trafficking
anymore and work with the WCA [Wa Central Authority] to help phase out
drugs.”

The last sentence is puzzling, to say the least, as Wei has been involved
with the UWSA since its formation in 1989. And, after giving up his
involvement in the drug trade, Wei appears to have became a
philanthropist, Milsom contends: “Ironically, Wei Xuegang has done more to
support impoverished poppy farmers break their dependence on the crop than
any other single person or institution in Burma, and this has been done by
putting past drug profits back into the people as he perhaps tries to move
into the mainstream economy.” To most others, Wei is the driving force
behind most of the drug production in the Golden Triangle. He is wanted by
both US and Thai authorities, which have indicted him on drug trafficking
charges.

Remarkably, Milsom treats all the leaders of the UWSA as if they were
representatives of the governments of Canada or Norway, taking all their
outlandish claims at face value. He even questions whether the
methamphetamine production in the Golden Triangle is controlled by the
UWSA and its officers. The UNODC, it seems, needs to check on its
personnel in Burma. Or, at the very least, encourage them to learn more
about the country – and the Was and the geopolitical complexities of local
insurgencies and the role of the drug trade in those conflicts – before
they depart for their “project zone.”

Until recently, the Burmese government routinely praised the same
druglords as well. Major General Thein Sein, then commander of the Burmese
army’s Golden Triangle Region Command, said in a speech before local
leaders at the drug-trafficking centre on Mong La on 9 May, 2001: “I was
in Mong Ton and Mong Hsat for two weeks. U Wei Xuegang and U Bao Youri
from the Wa groups are real friends.”

Bao Youri is another UWSA leader who has been indicted by a US federal
court. Thein Sein is the current prime minister of Burma and the country’s
fourth-highest ranking general. Official complicity in the drug trade is
another question that the UN has ignored since it first became involved in
Burma in the late 1970s.

It is too early to say whether the new tunes from the UNODC will result in
any actual policy changes. But, at long last, the UNODC has publicly
acknowledged that Burma’s drug problem cannot be separated from its
decades-long ethnic conflicts. The UWSA and its allies may be financing
their respective armed forces with income from the drug trade – but their
very existence is also the direct result of the ethnic strife and the
anarchy that has been tearing Burma apart for decades. It is about time
the UNODC now recognises that no anti-drug policy in Burma has any chance
of success unless it is linked to a real political solution to the civil
war – and a meaningful democratic process in the entire country. The
alternative is what we have today: never-ending internal ethnic and
political conflicts, which will only keep drugs flowing.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

June 25– 26, G8 Summit, Canada
G8 Muskoka Declaration Recovery and New Beginnings
Excerpt on Burma/Myanmar

40. We urge the Government of Myanmar to take the steps necessary to allow
for free and fair elections. Full and inclusive democratic participation
is essential to this. We urge the Government to release without delay all
political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and engage the democratic
opposition and representatives of ethnic groups in a substantive dialogue
on the way forward to national reconciliation.

http://g8.gc.ca/g8-summit/summit-documents/g8-muskoka-declaration-recovery-and-new-beginnings/

____________________________________

June 28, Burma Campaign UK
One thousand letters call on European Commission to fund cross-border aid

More than 1,000 supporters of Burma Campaign UK have written letters to
Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner responsible for European
Union aid, calling on the Commission to review its policy of refusing to
fund cross-border aid to Burma.

Restrictions on humanitarian aid by the dictatorship in Burma mean that
there are parts of the country where international agencies, and even
local official NGOs, cannot reach. In these areas the only way to provide
life-saving aid is for local people to travel to Thailand or other
neighbouring countries and then bring the aid into Burma from across the
border.

The European Commission has consistently refused to fund such aid, and has
failed to provide an adequate explanation as to why, instead making vague
statements about accountability and monitoring. This argument is not
credible, as the British government and other EU members with strict
monitoring requirements are satisfied with monitoring of cross-border aid.

There are around 100,000 Internally Displaced People in Eastern Burma who
are in need of cross-border aid, and around 2.5 million people in Eastern
Burma for whom cross-border assistance is the only or easiest way to
deliver aid. Cross-border aid is also needed in other states in Burma.

In particular, cross-border medical aid to Eastern Burma is desperately
needed. The area has levels of poverty and disease as bad as those in the
worst conflict hit African countries.

The European Parliament has repeatedly called on the European Commission
to fund cross-border aid, but has been ignored by the Commission.

“The European Commission should be funding aid on the basis of need, and
not allow the dictatorship to stop aid to ethnic people for political
reasons,” said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator for Burma Campaign UK,
and who herself was an internally displaced person after her village was
attacked by the dictatorship. “Rather than let people die because of
restrictions by the dictatorship, the Commission must fund cross-border
aid as an alternative which will save lives. We should not have a
situation where the generals in Burma have more control over who gets aid
than European taxpayers and MEPs.”

For more information contact Zoya Phan on 07738630139.