BurmaNet News, July 8, 2010

[Editor]

July 8, 2010 Issue #3996

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Regime separates assets of USDA and USDP
Mizzima News: Students make risky public call for right to form unions

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Burma on new China ‘watch list’ for resources
VOA: ILO: Forced labor still widespread in Burma
New York Times: Owner of exploded rig is known for testing rules

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: EU sanctions on Tay Za's son upheld

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Burma’s nuclear ambitions could divert international focus –
Mark Farnmaner
OneIndia.in: Freedom at what cost? – Radha Radhakrishnan
DVB: Where life begins at 14
 - Joseph Allchin


PRESS RELEASE
Ten Alliances: Burma’s democracy leaders hold parliamentary hearings in
Kuala Lumpur; Malaysian MPs support call for national reconciliation
Burma Campaign UK: Burma regime continues to target civilians, UK tells UN
Security Council



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 8, Irrawaddy
Regime separates assets of USDA and USDP – Nayee Lin Latt

The office of the Burmese military regime's auditor general is producing a
list of properties owned by the Union Solidarity and Development
Association (USDA) to show whether they belong to the state or to the
party formed by the association to run in this year's election.

A source close to the auditor general's office told The Irrawaddy that the
list was drawn up to avoid complications arising from the fact that the
Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) grew out of the USDA, a
state-sponsored organization formed under the patronage of the ruling
regime.

“All the possessions of the USDA will be examined to show the division
between the party and the association,” said the source.

The USDA was formed by the regime as a mass civic organization in 1993. It
claims to have more than 24 million members nationwide, including civil
servants 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, Thein Sein and 26 ministers and senior officials formed the
USDP to contest the election later this year. The Election Commission
officially recognized the USDP as a political party on June 8.

A senior military officer at the Ministry of Defense in Naypyidaw said the
USDA will continue to function as a social organization that uses
state-owned properties, which must be clearly distinguished from the
USDP's assets. Otherwise, he said, the party will be criticized for not
acting in accordance with the law.

“The party will purchase buildings, vehicles and office equipment from the
association. They need to do it according to the election law,” he said.

At the end of this month, the USDP will reportedly put up signboards at
buildings owned by the party, according to sources.

Under Chapter III, Section 12 (a-5) of the Political Parties Registration
Law, a party “shall not have the right to subsist as a political party if
it is 
 found that the organization obtained and used directly or
indirectly money, land, house, building, vehicle, property owned by the
State.”

Some observers have noted that since the USDA's assets belong to the
state, any use of the association's property by the USDP would constitute
a violation of the Political Parties Registration Law.

However, a USDP official told The Irrawaddy that the party will legally
acquire assets from the USDA with money donated by some of the country's
leading businessmen.

It is believed that about 25 businessmen close to the regime have donated
large sums of money to the USDP.
____________________________________

July 8, Mizzima News
Students make risky public call for right to form unions – Nyein Thu

Rangoon – A group of students publicly distributed leaflets near a crowded
junction in Rangoon yesterday, urging people to boycott the junta’s
forthcoming elections and calling for the freedom to legally form student
unions, witnesses said.

At least seven students near Hledan Junction in Kamayut Township handed
out the leaflets to passers-by that described the junta’s elections
scheduled for this year “a fake”. The gathering also commemorated the 48th
anniversary of the July 7 massacre at Rangoon University in 1962, during
the dictatorship of late General Ne Win.

“I saw students distributing the leaflets. I was curious to know what they
said,” a young man told Mizzima. “The leaflets called for the right to
organise student unions legally, boycott of the ‘fake’ election and to
oppose the military dictatorship.”

“I felt nervous to take it, so I dropped it”, he added.

According to a man who lives in a condominium near the junction, the seven
youths, who he said might be university students, gathered at around 10
a.m. He estimated their ages at more than 20.

The students also handed out the leaflets to passengers waiting at bus
stops, according to an official from the umbrella division of the Ministry
of Industry No. 1.

In 1962, students from Rangoon University staged peaceful protests on July
7 against the Ne Win government, citing anger at “unjust university
rules”. Ne Win sent troops to disperse the uprising, at which they shot
dozens of students dead and dynamited the historic Student Union building
the next morning with students still inside.

A report on the Democracy for Burma website said the army took some of the
students’ bodies away, though some were still alive, and crushed them at
the sewage treatment plant in Rangoon.

After Ne Win’s military coup in March 1962 Rangoon University was put
directly under the control of the Directorate of Higher Education, a junta
agency.

According to official figures, 16 students died and 70 were injured at the
university in July 7 protests.

“But, we learned that at least more than 100 people died. We could say
because 86 people were taken to the Rangoon Hospital and 68 people were
taken to the Mingladon Defence Services General Hospital, according to
reliable sources,” the former secretary of 62 generation students’ All
Burma Federation of Student Unions told Mizzima, adding that the fate of
those taken to Mingladon hospital was unknown.

The ABFSU has carried on its revolution against dictatorship underground
as successive Burmese dictators have continued to ban student unions.

Rangoon University has been at the centre of civil discontent throughout
its history. All the nationwide strikes against British colonisers in
1920, 1936 and 1938 began there and anti-colonial leaders such as Aung
San, U Nu, U Thant, and ironically Ne Win, were alumni. The tradition of
protest at the university continued, also in 1974 and 1988 and more
recently in 1996.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 8, Irrawaddy
Burma on new China ‘watch list’ for resources – William Boot

BANGKOK—China has put Burma on a special “watch list” for potential
acquisition of urgently needed natural resources, including coal, gold and
copper as well as oil and gas.

All China’s land border neighbors are the subject of a resources study
with a view to future acquisition, Beijing’s Ministry of Land and
Resources has disclosed in the Chinese official media.

The study follows a the rejection of some takeover bids made by Chinese
state firms in minerals-rich Australia, where China has already spent
billions of dollars acquiring coal and gas assets.

State-owned Chinese companies venturing abroad are backed by huge national
reserves of more than US $2 trillion, and the results of the neighbors’
resources study will be assessed by Beijing’s ministry of finance, the
China Business Journal reported.

The study includes Burma, Mongolia, Russia’s Siberian Far East, Vietnam,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the paper reported.

It comes as China prepares to become Burma’s biggest natural gas buyer,
after it acquired all the gas to be produced from two blocks in the Shwe
offshore field in the Bay of Bengal.

But despite huge and increasing imports of gas and oil, China’s main fuel
remains coal and millions of tons are being bought from Australia,
Indonesia and South Africa.

China is also the world's biggest buyer of copper, iron ore and some
foodstuffs.

Burma has coal, copper and gold.

The recent discovery of new coal reserves in Burma was highlighted by
Chinese state media only this week.

“Newly found coal in the Mongma area holds the highest deposit of quality
coal and it is estimated to yield thousands of tons of the mineral
annually,” said the People’s Daily, noting that China is among several
countries vying to help develop Burma’s coal industry.

Burma and Beijing signed a deal on mining among 15 cooperation agreements
during a visit in early June by China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.

“One of China’s big five energy firms, the Guodian Corporation, is
supposedly going to build a coal-fueled electricity generating plant in
Burma, but there must be doubts about that as much of Burma’s current coal
output is exported to China and Thailand,” industry analyst-consultant
Collin Reynolds told The Irrawaddy this week.

“Burma is desperately short of electricity but Chinese know-how would be
needed to revamp Burma’s power transmission infrastructure for any
expansion in power capacity to be any use.

“China’s Yunnan Province adjoining northern Burma is also desperately
short of electricity and coal,” Reynolds said.

According to unspecified “statistics” Burma has 82 “coal mining blocks”
which “produced 233,983 tons of coal in the fiscal year 2009-10,” the
official Chinese news agency Xinhua said this week in a report on
Beijing’s new assessment of its neighbors assets.

 “Burma's generals have never hesitated from selling out their country's
resources for short-term cash or political protection, and so we cannot
see this latest announcement from China as anything but confirmation that
the scouring of Burma will go on and on,” prominent Burma economy analyst
Sean Turnell told The Irrawaddy.

 “In a country where nothing else can be relied on, this one is in the
back of the net,” he said, referring to China’s assessment of Burma’s
natural resources.

Turnell is an economics professor at Macquarie University in Australia and
co-editor of the Burma Economic Watch bulletin.

Despite its highly polluting nature—except maybe when burned in costly
plants using the latest technology—coal is being increasingly seen in Asia
as the best cheapest substitute for oil and gas.

To underline this trend, Thailand’s state oil and gas giant PTT announced
just this week that it intends to expand its acquisition of coal resources
abroad.

PTT’s offshore gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand, as well as concessions
held by its subsidiary PTTEP in Burma, supply about 70 percent of
Thailand’s electricity generating fuel.

But the Thai government has ordered diversification of power fuel to
reduce dependency on gas

____________________________________

July 8, Voice of America
ILO: Forced labor still widespread in Burma – Ron Corben

Bangkok – The United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO) says
Burma has made limited progress in curtailing the use of forced labor.

Steve Marshall, the International Labor Organization's liaison officer in
Burma, says over the past three years there have been "significant steps"
toward eliminating forced labor in the country. The most progress has been
in private organizations and the civil administration.

"To an extent, the government has passed laws which say that forced labor
is illegal, which is a very important first step of cours," said Marshall.
 "The government has undertaken quite a lot of educational activity among
local authorities particularly within the military as to the law and the
responsibilities under the law."

Burma's military government has long used forced labor in everything from
building roads to carrying military supplies through the jungle. At its
extremes, there have been reports of people being pressed to walk through
mine fields as human minesweepers.

Rights groups say thousands of Burmese are forced to work against their
will, including children and the elderly. Many suffer abuse, including
gang rape and murder.

Marshall said Thursday in Bangkok the military particularly continues to
use forced labor.

"There are some indicators within the civilian side of the administration,
which is very good," said Marshall.  "In the military side of the
administration, there is no clear evidence of any change whatsoever."

One area of progress has been a new system that allows citizens to
complain to the ILO. That has helped the rescue children forced to join
the military.

In its new report, the ILO report says the government now regularly
discharges under-age soldiers if complaints are filed.

Some armed ethnic groups also use child soldiers and Burma's government
has allowed the ILO to talk with them to try to end the practice.

Marshall says there are moves to write new labor laws to allow trade
unions once a new parliament is convened after elections later this year.

Regional political analysts say Burma's government appears to be taking a
more cautious approach in dealing with labor and economic issues ahead of
the elections. The vote will be the first in 20 years and is expected to
place the government under the international spotlight.

____________________________________

July 8, New York Times
Owner of exploded rig is known for testing rules – Barry Meier

Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling company, but until its
Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, few
Americans outside the energy business had heard of it. It is well known,
however, in a number of other countries — for testing local laws and
regulations.

Human rights advocates have called for an investigation into Transocean’s
recent dealings in Myanmar. They cite its involvement in a drilling
project that apparently included a company that is suspected of having
ties to two men accused of laundering money for Myanmar’s repressive
government, which is under United States trade sanctions.

Transocean has disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings
that its drilling equipment was shipped by a forwarder through Iran and
that until last year it held a stake in a company that did business in
Syria. The State Department says Syria and Iran sponsor terrorism.

In Norway, Transocean is the subject of a criminal investigation into
possible tax fraud. The company has said in S.E.C. filings that Norwegian
officials could assess it about $840 million in taxes and penalties. The
filings also said that a final ruling against Transocean could have a
“material impact” on the company, which has suffered a drop in its stock
price of more than 40 percent since the Gulf of Mexico incident.

And in the United States, a federal bankruptcy judge recently found that
one of Transocean’s merger partners had repeatedly abused the legal system
to try to avoid potential liability in a pollution case in Louisiana.
Transocean is also the target of tax inquiries in the United States and
Brazil.

Transocean declined though an outside spokesman to make company officials
available for comment. The company said in a statement that it had always
acted appropriately and believed that it would prevail in any
investigations.

It is not unusual for large multinational companies like Transocean to
find themselves in legal or tax controversies around the world and
Transocean has noted the issues that face it in public filings. The
company’s most significant safety problem overseas involved a 2007 episode
in which eight people died off the coast of Scotland when a support vessel
capsized while towing a huge chain used to position a Transocean rig. A
Norwegian board of inquiry found that missteps by several parties,
including Transocean and the support vessel’s owner, had contributed to
the incident.

But the company’s practices in the United States and abroad have come
under new scrutiny since the oil spill in the gulf. Last week, the
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana,
said that the panel would investigate whether Transocean had used its
corporate base in Switzerland to exploit United States tax laws.

In its dealings with lawmakers, Transocean has stood its ground. Last
month, in response to a demand that Transocean delay a planned
distribution to shareholders of $1 billion in dividends, the company
declared that paying the dividend “in no way affects Transocean’s ability
to meet it legal obligations.”

Transocean has largely blamed BP, the well’s operator, for the spill,
describing it as a company that took shortcuts on safety. Transocean has
had a long relationship with BP, and for the last two years, BP has been
Transocean’s largest single customer, accounting for 12 percent of its
$11.5 billion in operating revenue in 2009, public filings show.

Industry analysts said that strong ties between the companies reflected
the fact that both had staked their financial futures on pushing oil
exploration as far off shore as possible. Transocean, which drills in some
30 countries and employs more than 18,000 people, owns nearly half of the
50 or so deepwater platforms in the world.

“These people are capable and considered the gold standard of deepwater
drilling,” said Peter Vig, managing director at RoundRock Capital
Management, an energy hedge fund in Dallas.

Transocean’s evolution into the world’s biggest deep-sea driller follows a
decade-long acquisition and merger spree.

It began in 1996 when a Texas-based company called Sonat OffshoreDrilling
acquired Transocean ASA, then Norway’s largest offshore driller. Three
years later, the company, now known as Transocean, shifted its
headquarters for tax purposes to the Cayman Islands from Houston, though a
vast majority of its executives still work in Houston. In subsequent
years, it acquired or merged with other drillers including R&B Falcon, the
drilling unit of Schlumberger and GlobalSantaFe. Then, in 2008, for tax
purposes, it moved its headquarters again, this time to Switzerland from
the Cayman Islands.

The tax investigation in Norway involves how Transocean represented the
sale of 12 drilling rigs owned by its Norwegian subsidiary to another
company unit, said a spokeswoman for an agency known as Okokrim, which
investigates economic and environmental crimes.

The case “raises several important questions regarding the taxation of
multinational corporations,” said the spokeswoman, Mie Skarpaas, who
declined to discuss the investigation further.

A Norwegian newspaper, Dagens Naeringsliv, reported several years ago that
a Transocean rig, while returning from a repair yard in Norway to a
drilling site in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, diverted for
several hours into British waters. During that time, Transocean
transferred ownership of the rig between subsidiaries and later argued
that it did not have to pay Norwegian taxes because profits on the
transaction had been earned outside the country. The company subsequently
settled the case involving that rig.

In 2008, Norway’s highest court ruled that Okokrim and tax authorities
could share documents and computer files seized during raids of Transocean
and Ernst & Young which was the company’s tax adviser. That ruling also
said that at least three people, including two Ernst & Young employees,
were under investigation in connection with the episode.

In its statement, Transocean said that its “tax returns are materially
correct as filed” and that it “will vigorously defend any claims to the
contrary.” A spokesman for Ernst & Young, declined to comment.

In Myanmar, formerly Burma, a Transocean rig was under contract to a
Chinese government-controlled oil company, Cnooc, as recently as this
spring. Another apparent stakeholder in the drilling site, according to
Cnooc, was a Singapore business. That business has been linked to two men
identified by the United States Treasury Department in 2008 as major
operatives and money launderers for the Myanmar government. At the time,
American authorities described both men as longtime heroin traffickers.

Transocean said in a statement that its contract was with Cnooc and did
not mention either man. Transocean also said it had not violated the trade
sanctions against Myanmar. “No Transocean affiliate that is subject to the
U.S. ban has ever done business in Myanmar,” the company said.

In the United States, the recent ruling by a federal bankruptcy court
judge involved one of Transocean’s merger partners.

Judge Kevin Gross of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District
of Delaware found in May that the partner, GlobalSantaFe, had entered into
a misleading bankruptcy scheme that included the use of shell companies to
avoid potential liabilities in an oil pollution case. Judge Gross found
the actions so egregious that he ordered GlobalSantaFe and related units
to pay $2 million in sanctions to another company involved in the case.

In a statement, Transocean said the issues involving GlobalSantaFe had
occurred before their 2007 merger.

Judge Gross did not mention Transocean by name. But in his ruling, he said
that GlobalSantaFe and its units were still involved in a “gamesmanship
with the judicial system” to thwart potential claims.

Asked about Judge Gross’s ruling, Transocean said, “We are confident we’ll
prevail in the remaining legal issues that have yet to be decided.”

Walter Gibbs contributed reporting.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

July 8, Irrawaddy
EU sanctions on Tay Za's son upheld – Simon Roughneen

BANGKOK—In a May 19 court judgment that went almost unnoticed, Pye Phyo
Tay Za, the son of junta-linked businessman Tay Za, lost a legal bid to
have EU sanctions against him overturned and was ordered to pay the court
costs for the Council of the European Union.

Pye Phyo had argued that he is neither a member of Burma's military
government nor associated with it, and does not benefit from “the
administration of that government.” His lawyers, London-based law firm
Carter-Ruck, claimed that “neither the applicant [Pye Phyo] nor his father
received any benefits from the regime.”

But Tay Za is widely-regarded as having built a multifaceted,
multi-billion dollar business empire based on close connections with
Burma's ruling military, including junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

And in a statement that may have undermined Pye Phyo's own case, his
lawyers also argued that, “the fact that the applicant is the son of a
person whom the Council considers to have benefited from the military
regime of Myanmar [Burma] does not give him the requisite connection with
that regime.”

Similarly, Pye Phyo claimed that his two-year shareholding in two of Tay
Za's Singapore-listed companies, “does not show that he benefited from any
advantages that his father’s companies may have received from the military
regime in Myanmar.”

In rebutting the contention that neither Tay Za nor his son Pye Phyo
benefit from the regime, the opposing lawyers said: “As regards family
members of such leading business figures, it may be presumed that they
benefit from the functions exercised by those businessmen, so that there
is nothing to prevent the conclusion that such family members also benefit
from the economic policies of the government.”

In light of fears that Pye Phyo's attempt to have EU sanctions against him
lifted was a ruse to enable Tay Za to find a way around sanctions, the
Council said that, “the applicant was aware of the reasons for which such
restrictive measures specifically apply to him, since he states in
paragraph 37 of the originating application that there may be a risk of
his father circumventing the freeze on his own assets by transferring his
funds to other family members."

Pye Phyo contended that he “does not frustrate the process of national
reconciliation, respect for human rights or the democratization of
Myanmar,” reminding the Council that he has not been involved in politics
or government inside Burma.

But his younger brother, Htet Tay Za, reportedly bragged in a notorious
2007 email, sent in response to new US sanctions on the junta, that even
though "the US bans us, we're still [expletive deleted] cool in Singapore.
We're sitting on the whole Burma GDP. We've got timber, gems and gas to be
sold to other countries like Singapore, China, India and Russia."

Tay Za often flies to Singapore on business, where both Pye Pho and Htet
were schooled. Two large banks in the city-state—OCBC and DBS—have denied
functioning as repositories for billions of dollars of gas revenues
derived from the Yadana pipeline project.

According to Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK, the case and outcome
“gives an indication that stronger, carefully targeted sanctions could
have an impact,” but adds that carrots should be put on the table as well
as an incentive toward reform.

EU sanctions on Burma were renewed under the rubric of the “Common
Position” recently. The measures are criticized for being weak and
insufficiently-well targeted in some quarters, while elsewhere it is
argued that sanctions have not pushed the junta toward reform, and so a
new “engagement” approach is needed.

Still others say that it is not sanctions per se that are the problem, but
the role of government and business in China, India, Thailand, Singapore
and Malaysia, all of which offer political and commercial alternatives to
the junta and thereby undermine the sanctions.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 8, Irrawaddy
Burma’s nuclear ambitions could divert international focus – Mark Farnmaner

Rumors about a secret nuclear program in Burma have been circulating for
years. They were so persistent it seemed likely there was something behind
them, but there was no evidence to back the claims. Some individuals
published exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims, which had the opposite
effect they had intended, making observers more sceptical, believing the
claims were politically motivated.

However, in recent months there have been a series of reports from
defectors claiming Burma does have nuclear ambitions. The latest, in a
documentary made by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), and broadcast on
Al Jazeera, have gained international attention. The reports even led
American Senator Jim Webb to cancel a visit which he had planned to use as
a launchpad for persuading the US to adopt a policy of appeasement towards
the war criminals ruling Burma.

The documentary has detailed photographic evidence which has been verified
by experts. Burma’s generals may still be a long way from developing
weapons, but it appears that at the very least, the intention is there.

Burmese exiles and others around the world who support Burma’s democracy
movement have jumped on this news, hoping that this is what it will
finally take to get the international community to take action. Here is
yet more evidence, they say, that the dictatorship is a threat to
international peace and security, and of how they misuse the country’s
resources while the population slips deeper into poverty. Surely now the
international community will finally wake up and pay attention? Can they
really allow these people to remain in power?

But rather than persuade the international community to finally take
action against Burma’s generals, the opposite could happen. If allegations
of Burma’s nuclear program are comprehensively proved, then the focus of
the international community is likely to move away from human rights and
democratization, and onto an agenda of nuclear disarmament that could
include economic and political ‘carrots’ that will entrench the
dictatorship.

One example of how international focus can be diverted by a dictator's
nuclear ambitions is Iran. Human Rights Watch has described the country as
a ‘human rights disaster.’ Many of the human rights abuses committed by
the government will be familiar to people from Burma, even if they are not
on the same scale: the detention and torture of political activists; the
suppression of free speech including jailing of journalists; the use of
sexual violence; and the repression of ethnic minorities. But how much
attention is paid to these human rights abuses in Iran by the UN Security
Council and international community?

There is also evidence that Iran funds and arms groups in neighboring
countries, which means the Security Council could intervene. There have
been six Security Council resolutions and one Presidential Statement on
Iran. None are on human rights.

"While the international community has focused on Iran's nuclear
ambitions, Tehran has been methodically crushing all forms of dissent
inside the country," said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at
Human Rights Watch. "Journalists, lawyers and civil society activists who
used to speak to foreign media and human rights groups are increasingly
reluctant, fearing phone and internet surveillance."

The international community’s approach to Iran fails to give much hope for
those wanting action on Burma. The approach to North Korea leaves even
less hope.

North Korea’s record on human rights is even worse than Burma’s. There are
more than 200,000 political prisoners, and in the 1990s the dictatorship
allowed around 1 million people to die from famine. Like Burma, North
Korea qualifies for UN Security Council attention as a non-traditional
threat to the peace.

There have been four UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea. None
are on its human rights record. The entire focus has been on persuading
North Korea to drop its weapons program. The USA and international
community were even prepared to fund and build ‘proliferation proof’
nuclear reactors for North Korea, providing the dictatorship with tens of
millions of dollars for this purpose.

In 2007, as part of another deal to try to persuade North Korea to abandon
its nuclear program, the US released $20 million in frozen banks accounts
of North Korea’s corrupt and brutal rulers. Human rights just were not a
factor.

The lesson from Iran and North Korea is that human rights takes second
place to stopping nuclear proliferation. Another lesson is that even when
a nuclear program is involved, China and Russia are still likely to block
effective economic sanctions.

Doubtless, Burma’s dictators would be delighted if international attention
moved away from their human rights record. Already some speculate that a
factor in US engagement with Burma has been its growing relationship with
North Korea, and their trade in arms and other technologies.

If concrete evidence of Burma’s nuclear program was discovered, Burma
might, just might, finally face the kind of effective financial sanctions
we have asked for on human rights grounds for so long. But based on
precedent it is also possible that they could be charmed, wooed and
bribed, and significant concessions made to persuade them to abandon the
program.

Burma’s generals are brutal, but they are not stupid. A nuclear program
could be their ticket to relaxing international pressure for democratic
reform and normalising international relations. The exact opposite of what
so many have been hoping will come out of recent revelations.

Mark Farmaner is Director of Burma Campaign UK.

____________________________________

July 8, OneIndia.in
Freedom at what cost? – Radha Radhakrishnan

Freedom. That aspect of life which many people living in democratic
nations take for granted. Freedom for many of us is second to breathing.
We don’t realize what we are missing till we are in some form of captivity
or till our freedom to do what we want to do is curtailed.

Imagine being ousted from your own country, not being able to enter it
even once for more than four decades
Imagine living in your own country in
house arrest for over 14 years at different points in time between 1998
and till date.

This is what Nobel Laureates Dalai Lama
and Aung San Suu Kyi have endured in their life. One is fighting for
people of Tibet and another for people of Myanmar.

There are some things common among both leaders. The Dalai Lama was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle in 1989 while
Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Both are also
recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in
the United States of America.

The Dalai Lama received the award in 2007, while Suu Kyi received it in
2008. They are influenced by Buddhist teachings. More importantly, both
are fighting in their own way for the freedom of their people and to
restore the process of democracy in their respective countries.

The Dalai Lama was pressurized by the Chinese Military in 1951 who wanted
to take control of Tibet. When the uprising in 1959 was unsuccessful he
fled Tibet and since then is settled in Dharmashala in India.

He has established a government-in-exile. Talking to a group of Chinese
journalists recently, the Dalai Lama said, “Using violence in the form of
fear and repression cannot solve human problems because fear saddles the
mind with needless suspicions and anxiety and blocks the trust and
friendship essential to bring real peace and harmony”.

Returning to Burma to nurse her ailing mother Suu Kyi plunged into
Myanmar’s (then Burma) cry for democracy. She became part of National
League for Democracy (NLD).

Her party won a landslide victory in general elections in 1990 with her
certain to be the Prime Minister of to be formed government. But the
Burmese regime never recognized the election verdict. She is still in
detention with all visitors banned including her family and friends. She
has no access to phone or mail.

She is quoted as saying, “Isolation is not difficult for me. Maybe it’s
because of my Buddhist upbringing.”

The Dalai Lama turned 75 on July 6, 2010 and Suu Kyi turned 65 on June 19,
2010. To the establishment in their country they are dissidents. To their
people they are the saviors. To the people of the world, they are the most
audible voice against oppression.

In the modern world, The Dalai Lama and Suu Kyi represent resilience,
bravery, courage, non-violence and more importantly humanity. Both
symbolize people’s strong desire to be free.

____________________________________

July 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Where life begins at 14
 - Joseph Allchin

It has been said that George Orwell’s best book about Burma is not Burmese
Days, but his dystopian master piece, 1984. If this analogy were to be
carried forward, Burma’s Winston Smith may just reside in a refugee camp
in western Thailand.

Soe Lwin is very much the product of a brutal ‘thought police’. At a young
age both his parents were targeted by Burma’s military intelligence (MI).
His mother was a teacher, perhaps the despot’s greatest threat. His father
meanwhile was one of Burma’s many protesters who challenged the country’s
rulers in the late 1980s.

Their thirst for change landed both of them in jail for spells of several
years at a time when Soe Lwin, aged just 11, stayed with his grandmother.
“I felt nothing at the time, I knew nothing about politics,” says Soe
Lwin.

With his family’s activities, his parents release from jail and the
troubles in the country, it was not long before Soe Lwin was engaged in
distributing political, pro-democracy pamphlets with a group of fellow
school students, some his mother’s pupils. “When my father was released he
taught me about politics, what was right and wrong”.

When the knock came at the door three years later and it was him the MI
asked for, 14-year-old Soe Lwin put it past even Burma’s authorities to
jail someone of his age. On 4 April 1994, Soe Lwin was detained for the
second time, having already been interrogated and briefly held in January
of the same year.

“They came to my house early in the morning, I heard my father talking to
some people. I was upstairs at the time; I heard them ask him ‘Where is
your son?’”.

Shackled, hooded and defiant, he was taken to an interrogation centre in
his native Tavoy, southern Burma. “At the time I wasn’t afraid of
them
they asked me nothing at first. First they beat me, brutally, because
I wasn’t afraid of them. I thought I was too young, so I thought I
wouldn’t get put in prison”.

And so began what was to turn into six months of interrogation, a period
when guards old enough to be his father would take turns at beating and
interrogating him and his comrades, fellow teenagers.

“They beat me again and again, and I said no, I know nothing. Finally they
kicked me in the ribs, breaking one of [them], and finally I passed out,”
Soe Lwin says of his initial days in interrogation. “They beat me till
they got tired. My whole body was bruised”

“The first questions were: ‘Who gave you the pamphlets? Do your parents
force you to do politics and who are your friends co-operating in this
case, distributing pamphlets on public places?”.

He suspects that one of the group “sang”, as he terms it – gave the game
away and ,under deadly torture, confessed, implicating Soe Lwin as a
leading figure in the group’s distribution network. “I didn’t confess, I
didn’t tell anything. There was a girl among us; there was a total of
eight of us, and finally she ’sang’ – she told them everything”.

“One of my friends died in the interrogation centre; an eigth grade
student. He was just 13, one year younger than me. Min Zaw Oo was his
name. Originally he was from a village and he came to the town to go to
school.”

In October of that year, the MI tortured Soe Lwin for the last time by
sticking needles under his finger nails; a practice he testifies by
displaying still disfigured nails. They took him to stand trial before a
judge, now permanently deaf in one ear. On arrival in court, however, the
judge refused to conduct the trial due to his abject physical condition.
“My body was full of wounds,” he said, his adolescent body too broken and
tortured even for a Burmese courtroom.

So the MI took him to the local jail where his torturers were again turned
away, their captive again considered too battered to be held. He was
finally hospitalised and kept there for a month before he stood trial, and
was sentenced to 24 years. He spent a few days in Magwe jail before being
transferred to Insein prison in Rangoon.

“When I entered the prison I wasn’t beaten again but, psychologically, I
was attacked in so many ways”.

In the dystopian nightmare of Orwell’s book, the protagonist, Winston
Smith, is finally ‘broken’; finally taught to respect authority by ‘room
101′. The concept has now entered the English language as a place
where one is exposed to one’s worst fears, where one’s mind is
purposefully attacked and traumatised to crack the dissident’s
independence and spirit.

“I could not bear to be psychologically attacked, I wanted to be beaten. I
couldn’t bare it. In interrogation I was used to being beaten; they would
beat me till I was numb. In prison at night they asked me: ‘Are you afraid
of ghosts?’ If I said yes, I was threatened at night; when I said I was
not, they would bring a criminal outside my cell and beat him brutally
before my eyes to intimidate me
I was verbally abused almost every day.”

The human spirit is honoured by death, honoured because its physical
presence exists to challenge the world around. In the theatre of political
control, the mind must be infiltrated. Unlike Orwell’s dark fantasies, the
bludgeons of Than Shwe’s military intelligence seemingly clobber for the
single principle of respecting authority.

Prison conditions were predictably dire for Soe Lwin, with only 15 minutes
allowed  outside the cell each day to shower. Food was poor; passed
beneath the iron door. The only exercise was pacing up and down within the
cell.

“From 1994 to 1999 I was in Insein prison. In 1999 I was transferred to
Moulmein prison [in Burma’s eastern Mon state].”

In Moulmein, Soe Lwin met some rebel leaders from the Mon ethnic group.
Committed doctors, they took Soe Lwin under their care and taught him. It
is around this time that he started writing; after three years of having
his will crushed, his mind destroyed by the prison conditions, his
intellect flowered again in the form of poetry;

Umpium

The Road
Too curvy
Too twisted
Too steep
By one mishap,
life can be lost
In this place,
for how long
for how far
will one stay and where to go?

Knowing no one here
Breathe the air here
straight in to the lung
Only when I get to the town,
Will I throw up this air
and inform of the issues of this place.

And so the years went by. Now with greater purpose, Soe Lwin entered his
adult years behind bars, seeing out his youth with the guidance of fellow
prisoners of conscience; seeing out a youth bereft of the formative
experiences of youth and the initiations that characterise this time of
our lives: the nascent freedoms, the innocence and expansion of horizons.

But Soe Lwin’s tale is far from unique. Kyaw Hsan is a new arrival,
struggling to find his way in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.

As a child he studied at a monastic school in Rangoon. In similar fashion
to Soe Lwin, his studies were punctured by the anxiety of current affairs
in Burma and the political stranglehold on the country. Friends at school
had a small group who would meet and roam the city distributing leaflets
of news from exiled media groups and the opposition National League for
Democracy (NLD). Often a pile of leaflets was left on the top of a bus, so
as the vehicle drove through the streets the pile of pro-democracy ‘rags’
would flutter down to those passing by, as innocently as freshly fallen
rain.

An NLD meeting changed everything. On the 16 September 2000, at the second
anniversary of the Committee Representing the Peoples’ Parliament (CRPP),
activists attempted to celebrate at the NLD office in Rangoon. Very few
MPs made it, but Kyaw San was among several hundred people attempting to
gather to honour a people’s parliament. Military Intelligence waited
outside.

“I tried to escape through Rangoon [after the meeting] and the police
followed me,” he says of the day his freedom was lost and his youth all
but ceased. “I was running for two or three hours. They caught me and
cuffed me; they covered my head and drove me to a navy base.”

Kyaw Hsan was 15, and he has not seen his mother since. She lives in a
small town near Sittwe in western Burma. On that day he recalls being
beaten severely by multiple policemen, who used the butts of their rifles
to beat him until he lost consciousness.

He was interrogated for a month; a month of solitary confinement and
regular torture, with wild claims being put to the 15-year-old about him
having connections with “international groups”.

“Finally you cannot deny any longer. At three or four o’clock in the
morning, there would be two or three people beating you in your small
room,” he says.

Roughly three years into his sentence, news reached the peeling walls of
Insein jail of the re-arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s opposition
leader. Kyaw Hsan was amongst hundreds of prisoners who protested, their
tortured spirits pressing at the bars, as Burma’s democracy icon was once
again jailed.

And for his troubles, for demonstrating for the prime minister-elect, he
was confined to ’special treatment’. A despicably time-honoured practice
was thrown Kyaw Hsan’s way, like the African slaves of old or the inmates
in Pol Pot’s S-21 torture centre. He and his comrades were shackled
together, lying along the wet floor. In one inch of fetid water, Burma’s
dreamers were left for 32 days without respite. Analogies of animals go so
far, and the constant damp conditions resulted in tuberculosis, an
abhorrent affliction skipping cruelly in tandem with tyranny.

Life goes on

But Soe Lwin, despite the reflectiveness of his poetry and the company of
fellow exiled dissidents, has no sense of forgiveness for the crimes
committed against him that have sapped his youth.

He tells his story from a hut on the fringes of his home country in the
border refugee camp of Umpium Mai, but he is not registered here and so
does not receive the rations or any other benefits that refugees receive;
he is effectively stateless.

After 15 years of detention, Soe Lwin was released and returned home, but
the very next day the thud of military intelligence came at the door once
more. His father was threatened for trying to organise the community to
upgrade the rutted mud track that ran outside their house.

Soe Lwin’s life meanwhile was haunted by his status as a ‘dissident’. He
says that former friends would not associate with him. He recalls sitting
alone in the local tea shop, former friends at nearby tables and potential
informers at others.

This miserable home-coming induced Soe Lwin to embrace his status as a
dissident and seek his Mon comrades that he had made in jail, the doctors
who had taught and assisted him whilst in detention.

Kyaw Hsan faired no easier. On release from jail his health was so bad,
stricken as he was with tuberculosis, that he spent a further year
quarantined in a hospital. On recovering he left for his grandfather’s
house in Rangoon and found similarly that his former friends were aloof or
simply not amenable. He sought to return to his studies and, after several
months, his former college was visited by MI who informed the institution
that, being a former prisoner, they could not let him sit his exams.

He describes this time as one in which he became increasingly withdrawn,
recalling his grandfather and visitors attempting to coax conversation out
of him. Finally his grandfather saw fit to tell Kyaw Hsan that his hopes
lay elsewhere, beyond his homeland; a homeland that now resembles a jail.

The notion of innocence is broadly recognised and associated with
childhood. Whilst child labour, even if it be in armed services, does not
innately challenge innocence, it has a practical element that is often a
result of poverty. The jailing and torture of minors, who in most contexts
are not even considered legally liable, is a direct and violent rejection
of most notions of innocence.

Like Orwell’s work, a brutal attempt at mind control, the only way that
such minor crimes could induce lethal torture and sentences longer than
murderers receive in many instances is a fear of the free will; a will
deemed so threatening that it must be crushed at such a formative age.

How rational such a fear is, is hard to say. Indoctrination at an early
age is a hallmark of not just totalitarian societies, but a huge and
controversial issue in ‘freer’ societies where manipulation of the young
is a multi-billion dollar industry.

In any case, Burma’s totalitarian ‘hard coercion’ has existed for almost
half a century, and has resulted in a drying-up of a once intellectually
vibrant society which is now shorn of education; a result of study being
viewed as ‘threatening’. The stunting of such institutions diminishes year
after year any hopes of redemption and an end to such practices, as fear
is engrained deeper and deeper.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a
revolutionary act.” – G. Orwell

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

July 8, Ten Alliances
Burma’s democracy leaders hold parliamentary hearings in Kuala Lumpur;
Malaysian MPs support call for national reconciliation





Representatives of the Ten Alliances of Burma’s democracy and ethnic
rights movement held hearings in both the Lower and Upper houses of
Parliament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 7 and 8 July, respectively. Based
on the undemocratic flaws in the 2008 Constitution and the military
regime’s unjust election laws, the delegation called for the government of
Malaysia to denounce this year’s elections unless the military regime
changes course.

“Elections in Burma cannot be free, fair or inclusive as long as political
prisoners such as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are kept behind bars, ethnic
communities are being attacked by the military, and the regime refuses to
engage in dialogue with key stakeholders in the country. If the regime
refuses to meet these benchmarks, Malaysia and countries around the world
must denounce these elections as the sham they are,” said Ma Khin Ohmar,
Foreign Affairs Secretary of Forum for Democracy in Burma, and member of
the Foreign Affairs Coordinating Team (FACT) of the Ten Alliances.

In the Lower House of Parliament, the delegation met with Minister in
Prime Minister's Department Dato' Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz, Opposition
Parliamentary Leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Seri Anwar
Ibrahim, and Senior Opposition Leader and ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary
Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) Malaysia Chapter Chairperson YB Lim Kit Siang.

Members of AIPMC expressed their support for the NLD and other democratic
parties who decided not to run in the election, and endorsed the democracy
movement’s call for inclusive dialogue and national reconciliation. The
MPs also called on ASEAN to suspend Burma’s membership in the bloc if the
military regime does not uphold the principles of democracy, abide by the
ASEAN Charter, and release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi.

“These elections will not be a step forward for Burma or the region. The
new government will be built on the broken foundation of a deeply flawed
constitution—written by the military, for the military. It won’t take long
for this unsteady house to break apart and for the effects of another
autocratic regime to be felt throughout the region.So we will boycott this
elections.” said Hkun Okker, Joint General Secretary (3) of the National
Council of Union of Burma (NCUB).

Khin Ohmar and Hkun Okker were joined by U Win Hlaing, MP-Elect, National
League for Democracy, Ma Khin San Htwe, representative from the Women’s
League of Burma, and Ko Moe Zaw Oo, Coordinator of FACT.

The Ten Alliances of Burma’s democracy and ethnic rights movement
represent the most broad-based and multi-ethnic cooperation of political
and civil society organizations from inside and in exile working for
national reconciliation, peace, and freedom in Burma.


For more information, please contact:

Khin Ohmar, Foreign Affairs Secretary of Forum for Democracy in Burma
(FDB): +66 (0)818840772 (Thailand) / +6019-2306995 (Malaysia)

Moe Zaw Oo, Coordinator of the Foreign Affairs Coordinating Team (FACT):
+66 (0)877735580 (Thailand) / +6019-2306995 (Malaysia)
____________________________________

July 8, Burma Campaign UK
Burma regime continues to target civilians, UK tells UN Security Council

The British government has told the United Nations Security Council that
Burma’s military dictatorship continues to target civilians, particularly
from ethnic minorities, during a debate on the protection of civilians in
armed conflict on 7th July 2010.

“The Burmese military regime continues to target civilians, particularly
people from ethnic minorities. The use of rape and other forms of sexual
violence remain a serious concern, as do the use of child soldiers and
forced labour for military use,” said Philip Parham, Deputy Permanent
Representative of the United Kingdom.

Burma Campaign UK welcomed the British government bringing up Burma in the
debate, and focussing on the situation of ethnic minorities, which rarely
gets attention from the international community.  However, although what
Philip Parham described to the council are war crimes and crimes against
humanity, he failed to describe them as such.  In March the UN Special
Rapporteur on Burma called for a UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes
and crimes against humanity in Burma.

“It is a very welcome step forward for the UK to be raising attacks
against ethnic minorities at the highest level in the UN Security Council,
said Zoya Phan, International Coordinator at Burma Campaign UK. “We need
to see more countries doing this, and for them to be stating clearly that
these are war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the present time
China and Russia might veto a resolution establishing a commission of
inquiry, but they can’t veto the UK and others speaking the truth about
the dictatorship breaking international law.”

Section of Philip Parham’s speech referring to Burma:

“The United Kingdom is greatly disturbed by the continuing growth in the
number of people displaced within their own country as a result of
conflict - a record high of over 27 million in 2009. This is an acute
problem, for example in Burma, where we remain deeply concerned about the
lack of progress towards national reconciliation. The Burmese military
regime continues to target civilians, particularly people from ethnic
minorities. The use of rape and other forms of sexual violence remain a
serious concern, as do the use of child soldiers and forced labour for
military use. Protecting civilians, wherever and whoever they are, is the
best way to prevent displacement and consequent deprivation.”

The full speech is available at:
http://ukun.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=22500749