BurmaNet News, August 27, 2010

[Editor]

August 27, 2010 Issue #4029


INSIDE BURMA
Reuters: Myanmar junta leaders quit military posts – source
Mizzima: Three political parties enter into alliance

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima: Border Guard Force accepts children from DKBA

ASEAN
AFP: EU sees wider S.E. Asia trade talks

REGIONAL
Mizzima: New Delhi says no clandestine Burmese nuclear program

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: US updates Burma travel information
Mizzima: Britain issues fresh travel alert ahead of elections

OPINION / OTHER
Independent (UK): Burma’s generals act to ensure there are few witnesses
to election – Andrew Buncombe
DVB: How the CIA bedded down in Burma – Joseph Allchin




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 27, Reuters
Myanmar junta leaders quit military posts – source – Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's top three rulers resigned from the military
Friday, a senior army source said, paving their way to assume the most
powerful roles in the country after a parliamentary election in November.

The resignations mean military junta supremo Than Shwe and right-hand men,
Muang Aye and Thura Shwe Man, are now civilians and can take the posts of
president, vice president or government ministers after the November 7
polls, the first in two decades.

"All top leaders have given up their military positions and the vacant
positions have been filled by juniors," a military source told Reuters,
requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The government will be formed by a civilian president chosen by the upper
and lower houses following the nomination of three people. The two
unsuccessful candidates become vice presidents.

The shake-up raises the possibility of 77-year-old Than Shwe, Myanmar's
leader since 1992, being selected president, while his close allies Muang
Aye, 72, and Thura Shwe Man, 62, become vice presidents.

Such appointments would reinforce a widely held view among political
analysts that the elections amount to a charade in which Myanmar's top
generals simply exchange army fatigues for civilian clothes without
altering the nation's power structure.

It follows similar resignations earlier this year by 27 military
officials, many of whom are now government ministers, which allows them to
contest the polls under a party believed to be backed by the armed forces.

The source said it was likely Than Shwe would remain Myanmar's head of
state as leader of the State Peace and Development Council, as the junta
calls itself, until the country's president is chosen after the election.

COSMETIC CHANGE

The November 7 polls will be the first in the former Burma since 1990,
when the party of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi swept to victory but was
denied the chance to rule. The result was ignored by the regime and
annulled in March this year.

Critics have dismissed the polls as an elaborate stunt to cement the
army's grip on politics, with elected civilians given roles as lawmakers
but powerless to veto policy decisions still likely to be made, or at
least influenced, by the military.

According to Myanmar's 2008 constitution, the November 7 ballot will elect
lawmakers for parliament, the senate and 14 regional assemblies, but not
the government itself.

The source said Adjutant General Thura Myint Aung, a highly respected
career soldier among the top five generals in the ruling junta, would take
over from Than Shwe as commander-in-chief.

He will be tasked with appointing of hundreds of lawmakers in parliament,
the senate and regional assemblies, in accordance with a constitution that
grants the military a quarter of seats across the entire legislature.

"This development now create a lot of interest around the world about
these elections," said Derek Tonkin, a Myanmar expert and former British
ambassador to Thailand.

"The emergence of a new commander-in-chief and the timing of Than Shwe's
resignation will raise a lot of questions about what their motives are
here."

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alex Richardson)

____________________________________

August 27, Mizzima News
Three political parties enter into alliance – Salai Han Thar San

New Delhi – Attempting to strengthen their collective position as the
November polling date nears, three Rangoon-based political parties have
formed a political alliance, according to party sources.

The Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics (UMFNP), 88
Generation Student Youths (Union of Myanmar) and Myanmar Democracy
Congress Party (MDCP) on August 21 agreed that only one candidate from the
three parties should contest in each constituency.

“Our three parties formed a political alliance for the forthcoming
election. If one party of our alliance contests in a constituency, the
other two parties will not contest in that constituency,” UMFNP chairman
Aye Lwin told Mizzima.

On August 21, the Myanmar Democracy Congress Party invited 24
Rangoon-based political parties to attend a meeting to form a political
alliance and to allocate the constituencies for each party to contest.

However, veteran Shan politician Shwe Ohn passed away on the same day,
leaving only the three parties in alliance to attend the proceedings.

One hundred to 150 candidates from the political alliance will contest in
constituencies throughout Rangoon, Pegu (Bago), Irrawaddy, Mandalay,
Magway and Sagaing Divisions and Chin State, UMFNP chairman Aye Lwin said.
At least 50 of the 150 candidates will be from Aye Lwin’s UMFNP party.

“Every political party is warmly welcomed to join our political alliance,
even if they have different policies. We want to apportion the
constituencies for the parties in alliance to avoid competing with each
other,” he explained.

Similarly, the Democratic Party (Myanmar), National Democratic Force
(NDF), Union Democracy Party (UDP), Rakhine Nationals Development Party
(RNDP) and Shan Nationals Democratic Party (SNDP) met in Rangoon with the
intention of forming a similar alliance in early July.

However, although the five parties met, being busy with trying to collect
the required number of party members (1,000) and preparing to submit
candidate lists within 16 days, they could not discuss the subject of a
political alliance, according UDP Vice-Chairman No. (1) Htay.

Unless political parties form an alliance to apportion constituencies for
candidacy, the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP)
will gain further advantages, a veteran journalist in Rangoon commented.

“If more than one pro-democracy political party contests in the same
constituency, the USDP will take advantage. For instance, if both the
Democratic Party (Myanmar) and NDF contest in the same constituency, the
votes of the pro-democracy voters will be scattered between the two
parties. If so, the junta-backed USDP will win easily in that
constituency. If only one pro-democracy party contests in a same
constituency, there will be a greater chance of victory,” he furthered.

NDF leader Khin Maung Swe said that his party would cooperate with other
pro-democracy parties to avoid contesting in the same constituencies. He
added that his party would not contest in constituencies where the UDP
will contest.

“If pro-democracy parties clash with each other in the same
constituencies, not only the parties but also the people will lose. So,
the pro-democracy parties must negotiate with each other to allot
constituencies,” he said.

Among the 47 political parties that have applied for registration, the
electoral commission has approved 42, while 26 have submitted lists of
party members, according to the August 25 issue of the state-run newspaper
New Light of Myanmar.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 27, Mizzima News
Border Guard Force accepts children from DKBA – Kyaw Kha

Chiang Mai – At least 40 child soldiers have joined the ranks of the
Burmese regime’s new border forces, after a number of Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army battalions this month came under junta command, a fellow
soldier revealed today.

A child soldier wears the Burmese Army shoulder patch of the 707th
Artillery Operations Command, based in Kyaukpadaung, Mandalay Division in
central Burma. At least 40 child soldiers this month joined the ranks of
the Burmese regime’s new Border Guard Force, transferred after Democratic
Karen Buddhist Army battalions came under junta command, fellow soldiers
said. Photo: Mizzima
“In the past, they [the children] were DKBA soldiers but now they have
become BGF soldiers,” a soldier from the Border Guard Force (BGF) central
office told Mizzima. “As far as I know, there are about 40 child soldiers
in the 999th Brigade and Kalohtoobaw’s battalion alone,” he added.

Some officers and soldiers from the DKBA (which reportedly had more than
7,000 troops) resigned, some retired and some joined the BGF, so it is
estimated that about 1,000 DKBA troops have rejected the junta’s proposal
to join the force.

A former DKBA soldier from the 7th battalion under the 999th Brigade said:
“The force’s priority is to accept the youths. Some are about 16 years
old, but they appear older than 20. Some children were forced to join the
DKBA and some joined of their own accord.”

The DKBA recruited many child soldiers, Aung Myo Min, director of the
Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) based in Thailand, said.

“DKBA has become a subordinate of the junta’s army, so handling the child
soldiers’ case has become the duty of the State Peace and Development
Council [SPDC, Burma’s ruling military junta]. If it really wants to
eliminate child-soldier cases, it must not allow this [accepting child
soldiers into the BGF] to happen,” Aung Myo Min said.

“The SPDC 
 should give those children immediate help and send them home.
The junta has the duty not to accept the children in the Border Guard
Force”, he added.

Burma signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in
1992, so if the Burmese Army, or the BGF, used child soldiers, they could
be charged with violation of that convention, he said.

The junta formed the committee for the prevention of military recruitment
of underage children on January 5, 2004, with the co-operation of UN, but
since then observers and some UN reports have said the committee had taken
no action and that the Burmese Army was still recruiting child soldiers.
The UN labour organisation, the ILO, has reported widespread cases of
kidnapping used in such “recruiting”.

____________________________________
ASEAN

August 27, Agence France Presse
EU sees wider S.E. Asia trade talks

Danang, Vietnam — The European Union expects to conclude a free trade deal
with Singapore by the end of next year and is likely to begin talks with
other Southeast Asian nations soon, a top official said on Friday.

The EU's trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, also said Europe still hopes
to ultimately reach a region-wide deal with the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN).

He said a regional pact has not been possible partly because of
military-ruled Myanmar, which is under European sanctions.

Another hindrance was the differing levels of economic development within
the 10-member ASEAN, he told reporters after talks with Southeast Asian
economic ministers.

Attempts to reach a pact with all of the ASEAN members except Myanmar,
Cambodia and Laos were suspended last year, after which the EU began
looking at bilateral pacts.

De Gucht said two rounds of talks have been held with Singapore -- the
region's most developed economy -- and a third is to take place next
month.

"Negotiations with Singapore are going well," he said. "We expect these
negotiations being closed and having come to a positive end before the end
of next year."

He added that formal free trade talks with Vietnam are likely to begin
before the end of this year, followed by other countries "in the coming
months."

De Gucht declined to name the other nations but he told AFP that each of
the seven that participated in the earlier suspended talks "have expressed
in one way or another interest".

ASEAN itself is working towards a single market and manufacturing base by
2015.

De Gucht said that once such an integrated market is achieved it would
make sense for the region's bilateral trade pacts to be consolidated into
a region-wide deal.

Asked whether such a deal could, however, be reached unless the human
rights situation in Myanmar improves, he told AFP: "It's obvious that we
are not ready, the European Union is not ready, to negotiate with Myanmar
but who knows what the political situation will be in Myanmar in five
years or in seven years."

The EU is the bloc's largest foreign investor, and second-largest trade
partner, with two-way trade worth almost 172 billion dollars last year.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

August 27, Mizzima News
New Delhi says no clandestine Burmese nuclear program

Chiang Mai – India has weighed in on the debate surrounding a clandestine
Burmese nuclear program, concluding that its eastern neighbor is without
such a project.

Speaking yesterday in New Delhi, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M.
Krishna said while New Delhi does not believe Burma presently operates a
nuclear program, it continues to monitor the situation for any signs that
could lead to a different conclusion.
"Myanamar [Burma] asserts that it has no nuclear program on its anvil. The
government of India will have to believe [the official statement],"
Krishna said in India’s upper house of parliament. "We will also gather
through our own intelligence what is happening. The government always
monitors [nuclear] developments closely because it concerns our security."

The announcement from New Delhi will do little to clear the smoke
surrounding what some observers believe is a secret nuclear program that
could conceivably produce weapons grade material within a matter of a
decade.

In early June, US Senator Jim Webb was at the last moment forced to cancel
a trip to Burma owing to the release of a Democratic Voice of Burma
documentary claiming to offer definitive proof of the regime’s nuclear
ambitions. Washington-Naypyitaw relations have soured since the cancelled
trip, as the Obama administration’s cautious approach to engagement with
Burma’s generals appears at a standstill.

Earlier this month, the White House gave notice that it supports a UN
inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by Burmese military
authorities.

Regional trading partners as well as UN Security Council members China and
Russia have consistently maintained that Burma poses no regional security
threat. Beijing and Moscow have used the assessment to dismiss UN Security
Council Resolutions targeting Burma, arguing that such action falls
outside the remit of the Security Council owing to the lack of a
recognizable international security threat originating from Naypyitaw.

It is expected that India will assume a non-permanent two-year seat on the
Security Council commencing January 2011.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 27, Irrawaddy
US updates Burma travel information – Lalit K. Jha and Alex Ellgee

In an update of its travel advisory for Burma, the US State Department on
Wednesday urged Americans to exercise caution if they visit Burma in the
run-up to this year's election.

The advisory, available on the State Department website, warns US citizens
that they could be deported or detained if they engage in any activity
deemed political by the Burmese authorities, including distributing
pro-democracy literature or visiting the homes or offices of opposition
politicians.

Taking photographs of “anything that could be perceived as being of
military or security interest” could also result in problems with the
authorities, according to the State Department's Country Specific
Information report on Burma.

The advisory said the military junta is sensitive to foreigners,
especially those coming from the West, and the US in particular.

“In the past year, the Government of Burma has deported a number of US
citizens engaged in teaching and training programs in Mandalay and other
locations in Upper Burma,” it said.

In some cases, the individuals were sponsored by the US embassy. Although
their activities were apolitical, their deportations demonstrate the
Burmese regime’s sensitivity to activities by foreigners, the State
Department said.

Meanwhile, nearly 100 foreign relief workers in the Irrawaddy delta are
allegedly being sought for overstaying their visas, according to NGO
sources in Burma.

One healthcare worker told The Irrawaddy that military intelligence
officers have been visiting NGO offices in the delta area in search of
foreign relief workers whose visas have expired. He said the authorities
are believed to have a list of around 100 overstayers, although this
number could increase if the junta continues to deny visa renewals for aid
workers.

Currently, most NGO workers have to leave the country every three months
to renew their visas. However, many choose to remain in the country after
their visas expire and pay a fine of US $5 per day for overstaying.

“When you're running a project far away in the delta, it's not that easy
to go back to Rangoon and fly to another country,” said one NGO worker who
wished to remain anonymous.

The regime said it has stopped issuing visas to many aid workers because
“the relief period is now over” in the delta, more than two years after
Cyclone Nargis devastated the region in May 2008.

However, some say the tightening of visa restrictions is due to the
regime's reluctance to allow large numbers of foreigners to remain in the
country during this year's election, which is scheduled to take place on
Nov. 7.

____________________________________

August 27, Mizzima News
Britain issues fresh travel alert ahead of elections – Ko Wild

The political situation in Burma remains unsettled and tensions could
resurface ahead of elections in November, the British foreign office
warned its citizens in a travel-advice update for the Southeast Asian
country on Tuesday.

The notice said: “Security forces are on increased alert. Visitors and
residents should exercise caution, avoid all demonstrations and large
gatherings and avoid taking photographs or videos of the military, the
police or demonstrations as doing so could be interpreted as provocative.”
uk-visa-in-election

The foreign office did not specify the exact locations to avoid in its
notice but mentioned places frequented by expatriates and foreign
travellers.

The update also noted “a general threat from terrorism in Burma”, citing
the Thingyan water-festival blasts in Rangoon in April.

“On 15 April 2010, there were three bomb explosions during festivities at
Kandawgyi Lake, in central Rangoon. At least 10 people were killed and 170
injured. This incident was the worst of its kind since May 2005 when
explosions in two shopping centres and a trade fair killed at least 23
people and injured more than 150,” it said.

Also mentioned were explosions at the Myitsone dam project in northern
Kachin State, the blasts near Kawkereik on the Thai-Burmese border, the
three explosions in Moulmein last May and, in September, seven explosions
on the outskirts of Rangoon. It gave detailed lists of the casualties from
these blasts.

The British government had said the results of the planned elections would
be unacceptable and had also endorsed the forming a UN commission of
inquiry on human rights violations in Burma. It had also urged the release
of all political prisoners including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and called for the regime to engage in dialogue with opposition and ethnic
groups.

The travel alert also noted the violent crackdown on demonstrations led by
monks in September 2007, which left many killed, but said however: “There
have been no large protests against the government since 2007.”

It continued to warn however that: “The political situation continues to
remain unsettled and you should continue to avoid all demonstrations and
large gatherings. It is illegal to protest or form assemblies of people in
Burma. Tensions could resurface as preparations for the elections in 2010
gather momentum.”

It further pointed out potential heightened tensions surrounding the
detention of Suu Kyi, mounting hostility between the State Peace and
Development Council (Burma’s military junta) and the Wa army in northern
Shan State, and the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO).

It reminded travellers that the military regime tightly controls freedom
of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion in Burma and
that the junta had arrested, jailed and deported foreign nationals who had
publicly advocated reform.

During the crackdown on the “saffron revolution” (after the colour of
monks’ robes) that took place in September 2007, Japanese video journalist
Kenji Nagai, 50, was shot dead while recording the protests. Judging from
a photo of his death taken by Reuters photographer Andrees Latif, the
soldier responsible is believed to be from one of the Light Infantry
Divisions in charge of crowd control in Rangoon at the time of protests.

British embassy officials are not allowed to travel freely outside Rangoon
without prior permission from the Burmese government, except to a limited
number of destinations so that consular assistance in an emergency may
therefore be restricted or delayed, and the British nationals should visit
only the permitted places, the travel advisory warned.

The United States also warns its citizens over travel in Burma. The travel
notice issued by the US State Department mentions brutal killings during
the 1988 mass uprising and murder attempts against Suu Kyi in Depayin in
2003, when her convoy was attacked by at least 5,000 thugs from the
junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association. About 70
National League for Democracy supporters were killed.

Tourists have not needed to apply for visas from Burmese embassies and
from May could easily obtain visas on arrival at Rangoon’s international
airport. However, the junta recently announced that such visas would be
suspended from September 1 and that travellers would again need to apply
for visas at Burmese foreign missions.

Observers suggested that the suspension was to restrict the number of
foreign nationals coming in to Burma in the run-up to elections on
November 7.

According to official figures, more than 6,000 British travellers visited
Burma last year and 3,226 visited Burma in the first five months of this
year. They are among travellers mainly from the rest of Europe, America,
Asia, the Middle East and Oceania.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 27, The Independent (UK)
Burma’s generals act to ensure there are few witnesses to election –
Andrew Buncombe

For all its boasting that elections due to be held on November 7th will
usher in a new era of democracy for Burma, it appears the military junta
that controls the country is keen to ensure there are few independent
observers on hand as possible when the election is actually held.

Over the last 10 days there have been a series of reports that the
authorities there are tightening visa restrictions and threatening to
expel aid workers who have been helping in the recovery of Cyclone Nargis.

Government officials have been visiting aid organisations and asking for
information about the visas of international staff. One report suggests
the junta is searching for around 100 foreign aid workers said to be on a
list of individuals who have overstayed their visa. At the same time,
state media has reported that a recently introduced and highly popular
visa-on-arrival scheme is to be suspended, at least until after the polls
on November 7th.

“The rumours that this was going to happen have been around for some time.
We have heard from aid organsations who have been visited by officials,
wanting to know about everybody,” Mark Farmaner, of the Burma Campaign UK,
told me this week. “The generals are taking the toughest line they can.
They don’t want reporting about people being able to report about people
being forced to vote for pro-junta parties, about bribes and blackmail.”

Two weeks ago, the authorities told NGOs and UN agencies that ongoing
recovery efforts to help people still affected by Cyclone Nargis were to
be centralised and organisations would have to obtain new memorandums of
understanding (MOUs). As part of the process, they also warned that visas
issued to aid staff working on Nargis-related issues would not be extended
and that no new visas would be granted. As a result, said the UN, upwards
of 90 international humanitarian workers now had “uncertain visa status”.

“[This] comes as a surprise, but we are appealing for an interim period
with extensions of agreements and visas, during which the agencies can
apply for their new MOUs,” Bishow Parajuli, the UN’s senior official in
Burma, recently told a UN information service. “With the election period
coming up, we know everyone will be very busy, so we are concerned that it
might take too long to get new memorandums of understanding, and
assistance might be interrupted, which would have negative consequences
for the people in need of continued assistance.”

Cyclone Nargis, which struck in May 2008, left more than 130,000 people
dead and millions requiring help with food and shelter after it devastated
the Irrawaddy Delta. Under intense international pressure, the junta –
widely condemned for its slow and inefficient response to the disaster –
eventually relaxed visa restrictions to allow aid workers to enter the
country. [I covered the aftermath of the cyclone and was witness both to
the junta's wretched response and to its efforts to keep reporters and aid
workers out of the delta.]

The Irrawaddy website reported this week that the junta’s list of
humanitarian staff in breach of visa regulations totals more than 100. One
health worker told website that military intelligence officers had been
checking offices in the delta area to identify and locate those who had
overstayed.  Most NGO workers are required to leave the country every
three months to renew their visas. Others find it easier to overstay their
visa and pay a $5 per day fine. One foreign NGO worker who has been in
Burma for three years, said: “The government does not want us to be here
during the election because they are scared we will send reports about
what is really happening here to people around the world.”

Also this week, the US state department issued a rare travel advisory on
Burma, warning that in the last year the authorities there “had deported a
number of US citizens engaged in teaching and training programs in
Mandalay”. It added: “Although their activities were apolitical, their
deportations demonstrate the government of Burma’s sensitivity to
activities by foreigners.”

The military authorities, headed by Gen Than Shwe (above), insist that
elections due to be held on November 7 will lead to full democracy, though
they have been widely condemned in the west. They have also said
independent election monitors will not be permitted. In the absence of
professional monitors, detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose
party is boycotting the polls, has asked her party members to do the task
unofficially.

____________________________________

August 27, Democratic Voice of Burma
How the CIA bedded down in Burma – Joseph Allchin

“
in pursuit of the fundamental US goals of peace, democracy and
reconciliation in Burma.”- US Congressional Statement, October 2009.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief was asked to come to the
transmissions room in the US embassy in Rangoon. It was 1992 and Richard
Horn had only recently been made DEA chief in what was then the world’s
largest producer of heroin, Burma.

“A day or two after Horn had this conversation over the phone with another
DEA agent, a guy at the embassy that runs all the transmissions told Horn
that he may want to look at something. It was a cable from Huddle to
Huddle’s headquarters, quoting verbatim a conversation that Horn had had
two nights before,” says Brian Leighton, Richard Horn’s lawyer for one of
the longest-running court cases in US history, Horn vs. Huddle & Brown.

Huddle and Brown were officially State Department, but in reality Brown
worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), one of the US’ many
intelligence bodies with a long history in Southeast Asia, whilst Huddle
assisted the agency from his position as Charges d’Affaires of the Rangoon
embassy.

“The lawsuit was a class action in which they were accusing the CIA of
interfering with their anti-drug activities,” explains investigative
journalist Dennis Bernstein.

“Horn’s confrontation came in Burma when he was trying to cut a deal
through the UN to get a crop substitution program in place. He had people
he was working with towards that end, not in a legal way but in a quiet
way because so much of this was controversial with the military; a monster
of a dictatorship, a narco-dictatorship really.”

Leighton continues: “[Arthur] Brown, the CIA official, requested Horn to
introduce him to his liaison with the Burmese government, introduce him to
his informants, then they requested the DEA to provide in documents the
names and dates of birth of their informants, allegedly so the CIA knows
that if they deal with a person they know that he or she is also an
informant for DEA, which is bullshit.”

One informant was a man named U Saw Lu, a Wa ethnic leader who was a DEA
‘asset’. He inspired Horn with the ‘novel’ drug eradication plan that
involved crop substitution and foreign aid to wean drug-producing areas
away from manufacturing.

What the Horn case documents is a spat between US government departments
or the people representing them which resulted in a 16-year legal battle,
a US$3 million payout for the plaintiff, and which saw the CIA lie in
court about Brown’s security status, claiming at the time that he was
covert when in actual fact he was not.

In any case nobody in the CIA was held accountable and the reasons for the
spat are even murkier still. Despite having represented Horn for 16 years,
Leighton knows little about the situation in Burma during the time his
client was allegedly bugged by the CIA. Horn also refused to speak when
approached by DVB.

The dispute is therefore presented as a simple case of an anti-drugs
agency, the DEA, trying pragmatically to work with the Burmese government
to fight ethnic rebels who are opposed to the despotic, yet drug-free
junta, whom the CIA wants to remove. But this, it seems, could not be
further from the truth.

US-trained torturers

Khun Myint Tun is an MP-elect from the 1990 elections for Thaton in Mon
state, running for the National League for Democracy (NLD). As it became
apparent that the NLD would win the polls, the military government
prevented parliament from sitting, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But like many MP’s, Khun Myint Tun was arrested for the so-called crime of
being selected by a democratic mandate, and like many prisoners in Burma,
his welcome to captivity was torture. During his torture however his
captors, members of Burma’s military intelligence (MI) – at the time known
as the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI) – told him that
they had been trained in the US.

Why had members of a military intelligence under the Burmese Path to
Socialism era been trained in the bastion of ‘freedom and democracy’,
possibly in torture techniques, almost certainly in how to interrogate
peaceable democrats?

One such American-trained intelligence officer is a man named Aung Lynn
Htut, who has since defected and now resides in the US. He told DVB that
he had studied in the US on a “special course
with the CIA. I studied VIP
special security course – at that time I studied a shooting course,
driving course, incident management”.

This was in 1987, a year before Burmese students would take to the streets
and the world would start to roundly condemn the brutal dictatorship
controlling the country.

“Before 1988 our intelligence and American intelligence was very close,”
he says, before adding however that the now-defunct DDSI had later ferried
CIA agents around Burma in their helicopters on trips to see northern
ethnic rebels. “At that time in our intelligence office there were around
30 officers who had taken the course with the CIA in the US. But the CIA
recommended me, and between 1992 and at least 2000, we did an opium yield
survey with the CIA agents.”

Other sources speak of a close relationship between the agents of the CIA
and the DDSI during the nineties, as the two played tennis together and
enjoyed a social relationship outside of work; or, as prominent Burma
journalist and scholar, Bertil Lintner, put it, the CIA were “practically
in bed with the [DDSI]”.

So after 1988 the CIA was actively working with both DDSI and the DEA on
its counter-narcotics operations. As Huddle was fishing around for
information on Horn’s “assets”, and during the time that courts reveal
that Horn was bugged, one of these so-called assets, U Saw Lu, is believed
to have informed Horn of the business dealings of a DDSI officer. He
allegedly told Horn that the late Major Than Aye was involved in the drugs
trade. Major Than Aye was based in Lashio in Burma’s eastern Shan state
where the majority of the heroin is produced.

“Major Than Aye was one of my bosses, he was very close with the ethnics
along the northern border” says Aung Lynn Htut. “I remember U Saw Lu – at
the time he was very close with the DEA chief, Richard Horn. Richard was
very tough; Horn and CIA was a problem!”

Indeed before long Major Than Aye had caught up with U Saw Lu and the
whistleblower was captured. According to investigative journalist Dennis
Bernstein, U Saw Lu was hung upside down for 56 days with 220 electrodes
clipped to his body; when he passed out, a doctor was on hand to revive
him by pouring a bucket of urine over his face. Major Than Aye oversaw the
torture; a vindictive punishment, perhaps combined with the ‘refined’
techniques of the world’s most omnipresent intelligence agency.

On death’s door U Saw Lu was saved by the Wa leader Chao Ngi Lai, who
phoned then-head of DDSI, Khin Nyunt, and said the ceasefire deal between
the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Burma’s largest ethnic army, and the
junta was over unless U Saw Lu was released. Needless to say, the junta
knew how much money the Wa and other northern drug producers had: a number
of banks owned by them and their business cronies are widely believed to
have laundered money for them in Rangoon. The junta therefore knew how
many guns the Wa could buy, and U Saw Lu was released.

Indeed Major Than Aye was said to have been dealing with none other than
Lo Hsing Han, a man who started his career in the CIA-backed Kuomintang
(KMT) Chinese nationalists who fought out of the Shan hills in their
failed attempts at raiding communist China. Their major source of income
was the heroin trade, which as prominent historian Alfred McCoy has
exhaustively documented, was ferried to markets in the CIA’s infamous Air
America airline.

Lo’s underground businesses went from strength to strength and his
‘legitimate’ enterprise, the sanctions-listed Asia World Company, was set
up with the profits from the drugs and which he ran with elements of the
Burmese state.

Asia World is now a major recipient of contracts from the junta, with its
fingers in the Shwe gas pipeline, the Myitsone dam and other lucrative,
and often Chinese-funded, projects, and through such patronage is one of
Burma’s largest conglomerates. Its ample wealth is enough to support Lo’s
son, Steven Law, as he races round Rangoon and Singapore in his
Lamborghini.

So how had Major Than Aye known that U Saw Lu was a DEA asset and that he
had informed them of his activities? Could a bugged conversation between
Horn and Saw Lu have been the subject of discussion over a post-tennis
whiskey between CIA and DDSI agents, just as Horn’s conversations were
with colleagues back in Washington?

Khin Nyunt meanwhile was at this time an important player in the Burmese
junta, both as Prime Minister and intelligence chief, and seen as number
three in the chain of command. He was also thought to be a fairly
approachable character for the west; as Dr Zarni of the London School of
Economics (LSE) notes, he was viewed as “the only general in the country
whom the outside world could do business with”.

Cautious belief in Khin Nyunt was fairly common, even though his
intelligence network was an imposing enemy of anybody pushing for
progressive change in Burma, as well as involvement in the brutal
suppression of activists which included torture of the sort meted upon U
Saw Lu with training from the CIA. However it is believed that his network
of spies had become too powerful and too friendly with western diplomats
and interests, and may have sought to betray Than Shwe’s established
order.

As Aung Lynn Htut recalls, “Khin Nyunt and parties tried to approach the
US government via the CIA and other people. They wanted understanding
between the American and Burmese government”.

In any case Khin Nyunt would have been a key player in arranging for his
spooks to get training from the CIA in the States, even though this was a
long-running program. His style was very different to the reclusive Than
Shwe’s: Lintner recalls him as “flamboyant” and hungry for attention.

Khin Nyunt was renowned for making strategic ententes with opposition
blocks, a facet that was extremely successful at neutralising any serious
alliance between the ethnic armies and the democracy movement, as ethnic
armies signed a slew of treaties with the junta which sidelined them to
the feudal warlording and narco-business that has entombed many regions in
medieval poverty, while a few families traipse the countryside in huge
4-wheel drives.

The intelligence chief’s connections in the US meanwhile were deep,
particularly in the early 2000s when he worked to repair relations with
Washington. This time was seen as the most hopeful for Washington-backed
reform in Burma. Then, it all seemingly dried up as Khin Nyunt was removed
from office by Than Shwe in 2004, apparently for “health reasons”.

So was the CIA really working to fight drugs and defend human rights? If
the personnel they chose to associate with are anything to go by, these
considerations were far from their priority.

Vested interests

The thaw of the Cold War has hardly set in in the hills of northern Burma,
where the battles between communists and western-backed groups have heirs
everywhere. But could the US be fighting a new cold war or, in the
parlance of our days, a ’soft war’ against China?

In the 1930s, shortly after the crash of 1929, the capitalist system had
heaped distress upon working people the world over and the Soviet Union
looked like it could dominate the rest of the century with its apparently
starkly different system. The ensuing post-war period gave the world the
Cold War in which in all corners of the globe, the two protagonists
battled it out for client states. The architecture of that war is still in
place, with US nuclear weapons still waiting to the south and west of
Russia and thousands of US forces stationed globally. The intelligence
services however were as integral to that war as any faculty of either
force.

In fighting this war, intelligence services backed enemies of enemies
seemingly without consideration for justice or any semblance of concern
for the desires of the inhabitants of the client states, spawning such
movements as the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, dictators like Augusto
Pinochet in Chile, Joseph Mobutu in Zaire, or the Contra rebels in
Nicaragua. In Burma, leaders such as Ne Win were quietly supported and
spied upon, in Ne Win’s case by his American wife, whilst the anti-Mao KMT
forces were allowed, and apparently even assisted, to produce narcotics to
fight the enemy to north.

Such information is often the result of exhaustive journalistic
endeavours, ones that, as the case of Gary Webb demonstrate, sometimes
come at great cost. And so it is that our times and this region have been
wracked by stand-offs in areas like the South China Sea as both powers
posture and seduce the smaller nations of the region like cheap wrestlers
at a dubious fair.

With each small nation on a veritable swing-ometer of allegiance, the US
recently celebrated the 15th anniversary of its normalisation of relations
with Vietnam, a small nation deemed so “terrifying” 50 years ago that it
induced the dropping of 300 tons of bombs for every man, woman and child
of that country, by sending a nuclear-powered ’super carrier’, the USS
George Washington, to its waters: a sadly ironic gesture given the
brutality that continuation of hegemony requires.

As US-based intelligence firm Stratfor notes, “there is the added fear
that as China becomes stronger, the United States will become more
aggressive.”

The impetus to combat China can easily be seen and it is this that
Bernstein suspects is a primary motive of US intelligence in the post-war
period. “The CIA was really interested in something else; they wanted to
use [Burma]. This is the emerging China century, the CIA is interested in
the border, they are interested in the influences China has in the region

So the CIA is being more like a corporate frontline police force,
‘cleansing’ to make way for business. They weren’t interested in crop
substitution or trying to end the poppy trade or trying to end the flow of
heroin into the US – that was the cross-purpose; that’s how Horn came into
this and in the process several of Horn’s sources were brutally tortured.”

That Burma is a strategic goal for China is undeniable: the Shwe gas
pipeline is ample evidence, and this context provides little reason why
the US can afford not to take action.

Lintner corroborates that “covertly cooperation continues [between the
Burmese intelligence and CIA after 1988] and the main reason for that is
China”, but he contends that the relationship goes back right the way to
the Burmese Path to Socialism and Ne Win, a man whom Lintner describes as
a “fascist” and whose fight with communism was armed by the west, most
prominently the US.

Dr Zarni sees it differently: “If US intelligence was interested in Burma
vis-a-vis China’s influence, the opposition would be getting everything it
needs to change the regime.”

So why hasn’t the CIA backed the opposition in its attempts to hedge out
China? Lintner talks of CIA officials in Burma lampooning him and other
journalists for giving the junta “bad press” during their blood-soaked
suppression of opposition protests in 1988. “The CIA has always had its
own agenda and it has nothing to do with democracy or human rights or
anything like that,” he tells DVB. “It’s other issues like China.” As the
backing of Ne Win, or the examples of Laos and Cambodia demonstrate, the
CIA is not prone to back neutralist open governments; reactionary, violent
men like Khin Nyunt, Chiang Kai-shek, Suharto and Ne Win serve them the
best.

So as the chords America’s founding father’s echo in the speeches and
statements of elected leaders, it seems that the CIA is, in reality, the
‘pragmatist’ hidden beneath a vocal, sugar-coated crust, with little real
impetus or effect. As Aung Lynn Htut told DVB, “the CIA is a policy maker”
fashioning policies as devoid of ideals and justice as any political body,
and with the singular ruthless aim of furthering US strategic and
political power whatever the cost.

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire,
it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should
it be left to irresponsible action” – George Washington, 1st President of
the United States.