BurmaNet News, October 2 - 4, 2010

[Editor]

October 2 – 4, 2010 Issue #4055


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Journal suspended for cartoon
DVB: Politicians rue ‘no vote’ campaign

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Thailand to send refugees and opposition back to Burma?

BUSINESS / TRADE
DPA: Laos, Myanmar to step up cooperation on immigration, drugs

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Europe, Asia leaders to urge free, fair vote in Myanmar
Guardian (UK): Burma activists say hands up for democracy

OPINION / OTHER
IHT: Myanmar’s sham election – Nick Clegg
IHT: The case for a Burmese vote – Philip Bowring
Nation (Thailand): Burma's elections to test Thai will
Washington Post: Will Obama's foreign policy follow his new democracy
rhetoric? – Fred Hiatt
Irrawaddy: Why soldiers don’t rebel in Than Shwe’s Burma – Dr. Zarni
Guardian (UK): Burma: We must show our solidarity with the democracy
movement – Editorial
DVB: Ditch sanctions for a ‘parallelist’ strategy – Derek Tonkin

PRESS RELEASE
Burma Action Ireland: Burma Action Ireland welcomes Irish Government’s
support for UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights abuses in Burma
Actions Birmanie (Belgium): A warm welcome to the Burmese criminals!





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 4, Irrawaddy
Journal suspended for cartoon – Wai Moe

Burma’s censorship board suspended the Rangoon-based weekly, The Favourite
Journal from publication for two weeks for publishing a cartoon the
censorship board alleges was joking about the junta-backed Union
Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

“The  Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) under the Ministry
of Information ordered the journal to suspend publication for two weeks
because of a cartoon in last week's publication,” an editor of a private
journal in Rangoon said on Monday when speaking anonymously to the The
Irrawaddy.

“The cartoon depicted a man in a white shirt, green longyi and a hat. As a
white shirt and green longyi are the uniform of the USDP, the censorship
board suspected the cartoon was joking about the USDP,” he said.

An official from the journal declined to comment on the censorship board’s
action but she and other Rangoon-based journalists confirmed that
publication has been stopped for two weeks.

The popular journal’s suspension followed the PSRD’s previous action
against The Modern Times for its weather headline, “Will it come in
September?”,  which authorities felt was too sensitive. The journal was
forced to suspend publication for a week.

This was a month after The Voice Weekly was suspended for two weeks in
July over a commentary about the powers and prerogatives that the
constitution will give the next president,  though the article was
non-critical, said the Paris-based NGO, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF).

RSF noted that Burma’s more than 150 privately-owned newspapers and
magazines are subjected to pre-publication censorship, that the Southeast
Asian Nation ranked 171 out of 175 countries in its 2009 Press Freedom
Index and 12 journalists and two bloggers are in prison.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Politicians rue ‘no vote’ campaign – Htet Aung Kyaw

Two politicians running for elections next month have said that the ‘no
vote’ campaign promoted by opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s party will
scupper any chances of democratic reform in Burma.

One of the hopefuls, Thu Wei, from the Democratic Party (DP), told DVB
that it is “very likely” that the opposition will lose the 7 November
polls if Burmese decide not to head to the ballot stations. The DP is one
of a small handful of opposition parties contesting the polls, Burma’s
first in two decades.

“There is the question of what kind of people will boycott the elections,
and the answer is only those who dislike the military government. This
will make it very convenient for the government and the USDP,” he said.

But the opposition appears to have a mountain to climb if it is to gain
any leverage in a post-election Burma: the DP will only field 60
candidates, while the USDP, or Union Solidarity and Development Party,
which is headed by Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein and is expected to
win, has close to 1000.

Moreover, it is widely believed that the USDP has the tacit backing of
Burma’s top brass, whom critics say are looking to maintain power under
the guise of a civilian government.

The boycott debate has split the pro-democracy movement both inside the
country and internationally: instead of the elections being a question of
who to vote for, the discourse now focuses on whether any vote would
weaken or strengthen the military regime.

“If people are not voting, it would only make us and other democratic
parties lose votes and lead the government parties to win,” Thu Wei added.

Following the disbandment of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy
(NLD), a number of senior members formed the National Democratic Force
(NDF), which is now fielding around 160 candidates for the vote. The
formation of the party however angered the old guard of the NLD, which has
been pushing for a nationwide boycott of the elections.

But Thu Wei’s views were echoed by Sai Ai Pao, chairman of the Shan
National Democratic Party (SNDP), who said that a boycott would further
weaken what are already slim chances of any opposition clout in the new
parliament.

Numbers of constituencies are reported to have only one candidate
standing, likely belonging to the USDP which is fielding candidates in all
of Burma’s constituencies. As well as political power, the USDP is also
believed to have massive financial backing – a key factor given that each
party has to pay 500,000 kyat ($US500) per candidate. The average annual
salary in Burma is little more than US$200 per person.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 4, Irrawaddy
Thailand to send refugees and opposition back to Burma? – Simon Roughneen

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya is working on a plan to repatriate
Burmese refugees and intellectuals after the Nov. 7 election, saying that
the Thai government will assist in their return to "half-democratic”
Burma.

He told a US audience that upon his return to Bangkok, he will “launch a
more comprehensive program for the Myanmar people in the camps, the
displaced, the intellectuals who run around the streets of Bangkok and
Chiang Mai province, to return to Myanmar after the elections.”

The remarks were made at a forum at the Asia Society in New York on
Thursday, when Kasit discussed the political situation in Thailand, as
well as regional issues and US-China relations.

Kasit said he believes the elections will not be up to international
standards, but will be “ a start,” and that non-Burmese should “believe
the aspirations of the ordinary Burmese who are being given the first step
back towards an open democratic society.”

Thein Oo, a Thailand-based member of the National League for Democracy
(NLD), says that the Thai foreign minister's remarks are out of sync with
what the international community is saying about the poll. “These
elections are for the generals, who have been committing crimes in our
country for many years, and will continue to do,” he said.

Thailand has long functioned as a refuge and support base for Burmese
opposition leaders, activists and ethnic parties. Hundreds of thousands of
Burmese refugees have passed through Burma, with an estimated 140,000
still in camps along the border. Some 2 to 3 million Burmese have fled a
stagnant economy at home and are migrant workers in Thailand, with many
Thai businesses dependent on cheap Burmese labor.

Amnesty International's Southeast Asia representative Benjamin Zawacki
told The Irrawaddy that “Thailand has a long history of sharing the
refugee burden in Southeast Asia, and while that history has been
blemished during the past two years in relation to the Rohingya boat
people and the Lao Hmong refugees, Amnesty is confident that Thailand will
not allow false hopes to triumph over reality on the protection of Burmese
refugees.”

Wong Aung, the coordinator of the Thailand-based Shwe Gas Movement, which
raises awareness about the role of Burma's growing natural resource
revenues in sustaining military rule in the country, said he is “concerned
about the growing economic ties between Thailand and Burma,.” which he
feels may be underwriting Bangkok's closer alignment with Naypyidaw.
Thailand is Burma's largest trading partner. Oil and gas exploration and
production company PTTEP, which is 51 percent owned by the Thai
government, announced a deal to buy gas from Burma's offshore M9 field in
late July. Days before the deal was inked, Tawin Pleansiri, the
secretary-general of Thailand’s National Security Council, was quoted by
the Thai News Service as saying that conditions for Burmese refugees to
return home “would probably be after the general elections take place.”

The repatriation plan, if it goes ahead, will be resisted in Thailand and
overseas, according to human rights lawyer Somchai Homlaor. He told The
Irrawaddy that “any such plan would be against Thai law and international
law and would be resisted by the UN and the international community.”
Repatriating or deporting refugees to their country of origin, when there
are concerns about human rights in that country, contravenes the principal
of non-refoulement.

Over 2,100 political prisoners are locked up inside Burma, numbers that
doubled after the crushing of the 2007 Saffron Revolution. Hundreds of
thousands of Burmese citizens, mostly from ethnic minorities, are
displaced internally within Burma. Somchai said that the Burmese
government after the election “will not be democratic” and that “the
situation there will not get better,” meaning that “refugees will face
persecution” if they are sent home.

More than 3,000 villages in the east of the country have been destroyed
since 1996—a number roughly equivalent to the estimated number of villages
destroyed in Darfur—and there is growing international clamor for a
Commission of Inquiry to be established to look into possible war crimes
in Burma.

“Without resolving all the problems in Burma and a change of government to
a full democracy, it will be far too early to send people back there,”
concluded Thein Oo.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

October 4, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Laos, Myanmar to step up cooperation on immigration, drugs

Vientiane – Laos and Myanmar  agreed to increase cooperation along their
common border to fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration, Lao and
Myanmar government media reported Monday.

The agreement came during a three-day visit to Laos by Senior General Than
Shwe, chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of the Union of
Myanmar, which began on Friday.

Than Shwe, regarded as the highest figure in Myanmar's secretive and
diplomatically isolated ruling junta, met with Lao President Choummaly
Sayasone and agreed to deepen the two countries' already close ties.

"We came here on a goodwill visit with the belief that it would further
strengthen the mutual friendship and cooperation between the two nations,"
Than Shwe was quoted as saying by the Myanmar News Agency.

"I have been here three times, and I am very glad to learn that Laos has
developed more year by year."

Choummaly congratulated Myanmar's military strongman on plans to hold the
first national elections in two decades.

"We also believe that Myanmar will be able to hold the elections
successfully on November 7 to build a modern and developed democratic
nation," the president said. "We will fully support the elections."

Further bilateral talks would address problems of illicit drug trafficking
and illegal immigration along the countries' shared border, a Lao Foreign
Ministry statement said.

The state-run Vientiane Times said the two leaders attended a ceremony to
witness the signing of a pact to establish a joint border committee at the
provincial level.

During the weekend visit the two leaders also agreed to work together to
build a Laos-Myanmar Friendship Bridge and a road link from Myanmar to
Vietnam.

Both countries are members of the 10-member Association of South-East
Asian Nations but remain relatively isolated and have fallen far behind
other members economically.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 4, Agence France Presse
Europe, Asia leaders to urge free, fair vote in Myanmar

Brussels – European and Asian leaders will urge Myanmar's junta to release
political prisoners and ensure November elections are free and fair,
according to a draft summit statement obtained by AFP on Monday.

The leaders of 46 nations from the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) will
encourage the military regime to "take the necessary measures to ensure
that these elections would be free, fair and inclusive," according to the
text to be adopted on Tuesday.

Free elections "would mark a step towards a legitimate, constitutional,
civilian system of government," the provisional document states.

"The timely release of those under detention would contribute to these
elections to be more inclusive, participatory and transparent," it says.

Myanmar is preparing for November 7 polls that critics have dismissed as a
sham due to the exclusion of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is
under house arrest, and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The junta announced last week that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
would be released after the the first elections in two decades.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg urged ASEM leaders meeting for
the two-day summit in Brussels to "speak with one voice against the gross
mistreatment of the Burmese people."

"That means being unequivocal: These elections will be neither free nor
fair," Clegg wrote in a column in the International Herald Tribune, adding
that the election result was a "foregone conclusion."

"Burma's military regime should know that, until it satisfies
international demands, it will meet the same disapproval whether it looks
East or West," he wrote, using Myanmar's former name.

____________________________________

October 3, The Guardian (UK)
Burma activists say hands up for democracy – Jack Davies

With more than 2,000 political prisoners held in Burma, opponents of next
month's elections say they are a farce

romola garai Romola Garai is one of the high-profile names to have
highlighted political prisoners in Burma. Photograph: Karen Robinson for
the Observer

Two years ago Aye Min Soe was known the world over, star of
Oscar-nominated documentary Burma VJ, the shot-in-secret story of Burma's
2007 Saffron Revolution. Today, the former political prisoner leads an
anonymous existence, stateless, penniless and vulnerable, on the
Thai-Burma border. Mired between UN and Thai government bureaucracy, his
application for refugee status has stalled. He has no documentation
allowing him to be in Thailand, he cannot work, and is regularly
threatened with deportation back to Burma.

"If I was sent back to Burma, I would be arrested and jailed straight
away. I might be killed. I thought I would be free when I escaped from my
country, but I am not. I feel I am still in prison."

Aye Min's story is typical of Burma's political exiles, says photographer
James Mackay, who has spent two years travelling the world, seeking out
the country's diaspora of former political prisoners, documenting their
stories.

"In prison you are told: 'You are not a person, you are a prisoner.' But
even when you are released, you are never given your life back. You are
watched everywhere you go, nobody will employ you. You are watched from
the moment you leave prison, until you flee the country, and even after
that."

Even Though I'm Free, I Am Not is the title of an exhibition of Mackay's
portraits of more than 160 former political prisoners, currently on
display at Amnesty UK's London headquarters. Each portrait is shot in the
same way: the subject facing the camera, their right hand raised, palm
forward. On their palm is written the name of a political activist still
in prison.

The exhibition features a photograph of U Win Tin, the elder statesman of
Burma's democracy movement, unbowed by 19 years in jail. In a defiant and
dangerous gesture, his hand bears the name of Burma's most famous
political prisoner, his friend and colleague Aung San Suu Kyi.

Every former political prisoner carries the burden of friends left behind.
Currently, 2,183 political prisoners sit in jails across Burma, the
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says. Only around 200
former prisoners are free around the world. And, as the country withdraws
into further isolation ahead of its first elections in a generation next
month, there is little prospect any will be released soon.

Six weeks out, the junta's famously paranoid generals are shutting off the
country, denying visas to visitors and cancelling those of foreign
nationals already in the country. Few will see the election that even
fewer believe will be either free or fair.

The British government has dismissed the election as illegitimate. "More
than 2,000 political prisoners are being held in Burma, which makes it
impossible for a meaningful election to take place," said Jeremy Browne,
minister of state at the Foreign Office. Tomorrow, Browne travels to
Brussels with Nick Clegg to discuss the Burma situation with other
European and Asian ministers at the ASEM (Asia Europe Meeting) summit. To
help highlight the plight of the prisoners, figures such as David
Miliband, Desmond Tutu and actor Christopher Eccleston have demonstrated
their support for Amnesty's campaign by also marking their palms with the
name of a political prisoner – Amnesty is encouraging anyone who wishes to
show their solidarity to do likewise and upload a photograph via their
Flickr group.

Among Burmese, opinion is divided over the merit of even participating in
the election. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy – which
comprehensively won Burma's last election in 1990 but was never allowed to
take office – wants a boycott after the junta's new electoral laws
excluded her from running. And while the junta has ostensibly allowed
opposition parties to be formed in Burma, it closely censors their
campaigning. Only the junta's own Union Solidarity and Development party
has the money to compete in all 498 seats. The election will also enact a
new constitution in Burma, one that guarantees 25% of parliamentary seats
to the military, as well as control of key ministries. Critics, such as
Suu Kyi, see the elections as a public relations exercise, designed to
placate an outside world increasingly frustrated with Burma's
intransigence. The poll, they argue, will be rigged to formalise military
rule in a country that's known no other for nearly half a century.

Others disagree, arguing that an election is a step, however flawed,
towards democracy. Thirty-seven parties have registered for the poll,
nearly half representing the country's ethnic minorities.

On the streets of the capital, taxi drivers and stallholders won't discuss
politics, even obliquely. Those who do are too willing, likely spies for
the regime. I meet with two student activists, on condition that their
anonymity is protected.

They arrive separately, in a room of a hotel they've nominated, taking
circuitous routes to ensure they aren't followed. Their work is "quiet"
they say, speaking to fellow students about the regime's abuses, and
international efforts to force change. Burma wants, "aches for", change,
they say. But they disagree fervently on the election, and whether Burma's
citizens should participate.

"The election is a sham. It will only make the military stronger. Burma
will not change, because the vote won't count. The army will win," one
says.

"But people must vote," his colleague interrupts. "Full democracy will not
happen overnight, it will happen slowly. This election will give us a
taste for democracy, and once the people have had a small taste, they will
want more."

Even Though I'm Free, I Am Not is at Amnesty UK Human Rights Action
Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2, until 13 October. Read more on the
Burma campaign at www.amnesty.org.uk/hand/. Jack Davies is an Observer
journalist writing under a pseudonym

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 4, International Herald Tribune
Myanmar’s sham election – Nick Clegg

We are now a month away from the first elections in Burma in 23 years.
That should give us cause to celebrate. Sadly, that is wishful thinking.
Burma's 55 million people continue to suffer brutal oppression. Abject,
needless poverty is, for most, a daily reality. These elections will be
little more than a sham to perpetuate military rule.

So when Asian and European leaders meet on Monday in Brussels, the U.K.
will be calling for us to speak with one voice against the gross
mistreatment of the Burmese people.

That means being unequivocal: These elections will be neither free nor
fair. Opponents of the ruling party lack resources and are systematically
targeted by the current regime. Thousands of political prisoners remain
incarcerated. Various ethnic parties have been refused the right to
participate. Last month the military dissolved the National League for
Democracy - its biggest perceived threat.

The situation is little better for those parties which are being allowed
to participate. The regime they oppose has passed deeply unfair election
laws and runs the election commission. In Burma all media is heavily
censored by the state.

So the election result is a foregone conclusion. Under the constitution a
quarter of seats are already reserved for the military. In half of the
remaining seats parties loyal to the regime will run uncontested, their
opponents unable to field a candidate. The regime is therefore guaranteed
a substantial majority - before a single vote is even cast.

The consequence for Burma is the return to power of a ruling elite that
has presided over widespread human rights abuses, including arbitrary
detentions, enforced disappearances, rape and torture. That same regime
has been guilty of profound economic mismanagement and corruption. While
they routinely blame sanctions for weak development, the truth is that
they have squandered Burma's natural resources and export opportunities.
The country's infant mortality rate is now amongst the highest in Asia.

These failings are undeniable. Yet some are tempted to overlook the deep
flaws in the approaching election. Clearly, it would be more convenient
for the international community to quietly agree that any election is
better than no election. Burma would recede in the mind, allowing us to
''move on.'' That is attractive for nations that insist we should not
interfere in one anothers' affairs. And the West could not be accused, as
it sometimes is, of attempting to recreate the world in its own image.

These are not reasons to ignore the truth. The European Union has already
made it clear that sanctions - targeted at the regime and its sources of
revenue - will not be lifted until genuine progress is made on the ground.
We must now work with our Asian partners, using our collective clout, to
push for that progress. Members of the Asia-Europe Meeting group, or ASEM,
account for nearly 60 percent of the global population - and the same
proportion of global trade. Burma's military regime should know that,
until it satisfies international demands, it will meet the same
disapproval whether it looks East or West.

Not only is that our shared moral duty, but it is in our strategic
self-interest too. Without a process of national reconciliation in Burma,
the risk of instability is real. Ethnic cease-fires look increasingly
fragile. A return to conflict would have devastating humanitarian
consequences, undermining regional security and leading to further refugee
flows into neighboring countries and beyond.

So we must continue to exert pressure on the regime to engage all
opposition and ethnic groups in a meaningful dialogue. The objective must
be a fair settlement that gives ethnic groups a political voice and
protects their minority rights. All prisoners of conscience - including
the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi - must be released without delay.
Reconciliation must be geared toward the social and economic development
that has long evaded the Burmese state.
This week is an opportunity for Asian and European nations to reaffirm
that message. Military men must know that swapping their uniforms for
suits will not change the demands of the international community. We will
not be pacified by a democratic facade. Our expectations will not drop.

____________________________________

October 4, International Herald Tribune
The case for a Burmese vote – Philip Bowring

Hong Kong — The elections set for Nov. 7 in Myanmar are a travesty of
democracy — but they are welcome nonetheless.

Their main purpose is to dress the military regime in new civilian-looking
clothes; a secondary purpose is to appease international criticism by
putting on an electoral show. The possibility of real change in the power
structure is the last thing the generals have in mind.

Yet the generals are sowing some seeds of change which might in time
flower into something more plural and democratic, and provide regional as
well as national forums for future debate. Meanwhile money from gas,
minerals and privatization of state assets is seeping into a once austere
military-socialist system, corrupting it and slowly undermining it.

In short, it is hard to argue that Myanmar will be any worse after the
elections than it is now. It might start getting better.

The main opposition group, the National League for Democracy headed by
Aung San Suu Kyi, whose victory in the 1990 election was overturned by the
military, has good reason to boycott the polls. Its leader is under house
arrest and unable to run. The apparatus of an oppressive regime and its
captive media makes campaigning — and boycott calls — hazardous. Hundreds
of political prisoners remain in jail, including monks held in the wake of
the 2007 demonstrations in which many were killed. Government-backed
parties, principally the Union Solidarity Development Party and its allies
in ethnic minority regions, are destined to win. The military also has 25
percent of the seats allotted to it.

In the longer run the N.L.D. itself may be best served by its boycott. But
Myanmar could also be served by the prospect that a few members from other
opposition parties will be elected and create a thin democratic wedge.

A comparison can be made between Myanmar and the last decade of Suharto’s
rule in Indonesia, when some parliamentary opposition became possible and,
as the offspring of generals, sought wealth and business through access to
government contracts and privatizations. Pluralism and competition began
to sprout.

Of course there are many differences, not least that Suharto had a
relatively open economy. But in Myanmar the generals are taking off their
uniforms to become civilian ministers. Their families and associates are
enjoying the fruits of privatization, and opening bank accounts in
Singapore.

However badly managed Myanmar’s economy and its major domestic enterprises
may be, plenty of money will come from new gas, pipeline and power
projects to keep many a well-connected ex-officer in the style to which
Southeast Asian businessmen have long been accustomed, and there will be
many opportunities to acquire state and joint-venture assets. The power of
money will be diversified.

Competition is growing for foreign deals after years in which China had a
near-monopoly. In response to India’s bid for Myanmar gas and American
attempts, so far unsuccessful, to engage with the military, China has been
further bolstering its ties, most recently by inviting the Myanmar leader
Than Shwe to Beijing. China is well aware that the United States is now
more interested in limiting China’s influence than punishing the generals
for repression.

While China officially welcomes the approaching elections, it may well be
worried about the weakening of its own influence in the long run, or of a
nationalist backlash against Chinese influence. Indians once ran much of
Myanmar’s trade, only to be expelled, and have their assets seized,
following the 1962 military coup.

The ultimate impact of elections on Myanmar’s rebellious ethnic minorities
is also an issue for China — as it is for the integrity of a Myanmar in
which only 70 percent of the population is ethnic Burmese. A semblance of
democracy and devolution could start to bring an end to decades of
intermittent conflict — or it could be the precursor of more warfare,
particularly in the Shan and Kachin states, which abut China’s Yunnan
Province.

China wants peace in these regions, but preferably through the
government’s accommodation with rebel groups and not central government
control. It wants to avoid crises such as the one in 2009, when 30,000
refugees fled to China to escape an army offensive. Meanwhile the Yunnan
provincial government and Chinese businessmen mostly just want
uninterrupted trade — which includes drugs and illegal mining and logging.

For Myanmar as a whole, the generals are trying to modernize their control
system. But whether in the longer term they can keep control of change is
questionable. Therein lies hope.
____________________________________


October 4, The Nation (Thailand)
Burma's elections to test Thai will

The general election orchestrated by the Burmese military regime, come
November 7, will provide the much needed instruments for all concerned to
adopt a variety of exit strategies regarding Naypyidaw. Again, the Burmese
generals, especially General Than Shwe, have the correct reading on
international hypocrisy and lack of conviction - explaining why they can
outlast short-lived global sentiment and repeatedly deploy the same
strategies over and over again. Just take as an example the latest measure
to free opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi - a week after the poll.

Western countries which used to preach democracy and human rights are now
in limbo because Burma is opening up with new plans to run the country
with those same generals in civilian clothes. After more than two decades
of engagement, they are suffering from severe fatigue related to Burma.
Like Asean, they all want out of the quagmire as soon as possible. The
love-hate poll has indeed become a necessary evil for all. After all, both
the US and Europe want to do business and invest in Burma's energy sector
and counter China's influence inside the country. Deep down, the generals'
flirting with nuclear proliferation also worries the Western powers.

Doubtless, Burma - as it understands the helplessness of both regional and
international communities - is astutely playing real politics. The final
stage of the seven-point roadmap of installing a regime with new clothes
could be accomplished within this year. It's regrettable the international
community does not have an audacity of purpose and perseverance like the
Burmese generals.

But the most disturbing aspect of all these exit strategies is the Thai
attitude towards post-election Burma. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told
a US audience recently that Thailand had a plan to repatriate Burmese
refugees and those in exile back to Burma. He said that the Thai
government would even assist in their return to "half-democratic" Burma.
Kasit, who used to be one of the strongest champions of Burmese in exile
here, must be kidding saying that in front of a Washington audience.
Obviously, he is testing local and international opinion regarding the
future of an estimated four-million Burmese living in various capacities
and status.

Thailand has been a haven for refugees from neighbouring countries since
World War II. The Indo-China crisis in the 1970's saw more than three
million refugees cross over to Thailand. Somehow we managed it and were
given credit for their complete repatriation. By all means, we should
continue to extend our hospitality to all of them. Certainly, there are
ways to improve the lives of these people and ensure their eventual return
to their homelands. However, international support must be forthcoming as
the Thai government does not have sufficient resources to maintain them
long-term.

The Abhisit government has made clear that it respects human rights and
integrity of all concerned, including those residing in Thailand. The
prime minister must make sure he follows every word he has uttered in the
past. He should reiterate this message during his one-day visit to Burma
on October 11 to impress on Burmese junta leaders that the world and Asean
are watching the upcoming poll. Thailand, under his leadership, must not
and should not tolerate any undemocratic exercise in Burma that would
eventually lead to cross-border problems.
____________________________________

October 4, Washington Post
Will Obama's foreign policy follow his new democracy rhetoric? – Fred Hiatt

After enjoying a good run in the 1980s and 1990s, democracy has been
playing defense lately. Dictators have grown wise to people power.

China, Russia, Iran and Cuba have been more successful exporting and
extolling their systems than democracies have been in promoting theirs.

In his first two years, President Obama seemed only sporadically attuned
to this negative shift. In Cairo, Oslo and elsewhere, he spoke powerfully
about freedom, dignity and democracy. But democratic allies felt that his
focus was on improving relations with authoritarian powers, while
democracy activists felt there was always some priority higher than
theirs: nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism, climate change.

Then a couple of weeks ago, in his second annual address to the U.N.
General Assembly, Obama declared that "freedom, justice and peace in the
lives of individual human beings" are, for the United States, "a matter of
moral and pragmatic necessity."

"So we stand up for universal values because it's the right thing to do,"
the president said. "But we also know from experience that those who
defend these values for their people have been our closest friends and
allies, while those who have denied those rights -- whether terrorist
groups or tyrannical governments -- have chosen to be our adversaries."

Most interestingly, Obama appealed to younger democracies to incorporate
their values into their foreign policy, too.

"Recall your own history," he urged them. "Because part of the price of
our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others."

Behind that appeal is a frustration with countries such as Brazil that,
even as they evolve democratically, retain a dictator-tolerant worldview.
India, an older democracy but an emerging power, rolls out the red carpet
for Burma's strongman; South Africa indulges the depredations of Robert
Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe.

Obama soon will embark on a trip through Asia designed in part to put meat
on the bones of his new rhetoric. He will visit the democracy success
stories of India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan; he will announce
grants for nongovernmental organizations that the administration hopes
will flower into the kind of domestic lobbies that can push their own
governments to promote democracy abroad.

Ultimately, other nations will test Obama's actions against his words.
Democracy promotion must always compete with other core interests in
American foreign policy, but if freedom is, as he said, a "pragmatic
necessity," then there have to be times when it takes precedence over
those other interests.

It's hard to find such examples in his first two years. The administration
criticized the narrowing of freedom in Russia, but cooperation on Iran was
a higher priority. It chided Hosni Mubarak for choking civil society in
Egypt, but the autocrat's cooperation on Israel-Palestine mattered more.

Sadly, in fact, it seemed fellow democracies often paid a higher price for
real or supposed human-rights failings: Colombia, for example, where human
rights was the excuse for not promoting a free-trade agreement.

If Obama's speech signals a genuine shift, we will see the administration
insist on election monitors in Egypt or withhold aid if Mubarak says no.
It will wield real tools -- visa bans, bank account seizures -- to
sanction human-rights abusers in Russia and China. It will not only claim
to support a U.N. inquiry into Burma's crimes against humanity but will
call in chits from friends in Thailand, Singapore or India to make such an
inquiry happen.

And maybe the administration will stop sabotaging Obama's message on his
most active foreign policy front: the war in Afghanistan. There, in its
almost aggressive insistence that the war is about protecting the U.S.
homeland -- and only about protecting the U.S. homeland -- the
administration undercuts its claim to be a champion of "universal values."

U.S. security can be the only justification for risking American lives
abroad. But "standing up for the freedom of others," to quote the
president again, has always been part of why Americans fight.

The world sees that Afghans and Pakistanis suffer most from this war and
that Afghans, especially Afghan women, will suffer most if the war is
lost.

So when the White House derisively proclaims that Afghanistan will never
be a true democracy, when it almost proudly insists that the war has
nothing to do with Afghanistan's freedom and everything to do with
destroying al-Qaeda and protecting New York -- it powerfully, and
needlessly, wounds Obama's message.

____________________________________

October 4, Irrawaddy
Why soldiers don’t rebel in Than Shwe’s Burma – Dr. Zarni

Besides seeing the generals’ Burma as a world-class disaster of rights
abuses and poverty, one fruitful way to understand it would be to view it
as a country that is subject to a military-led process of
“re-feudalization” of the soldiering class, which is reshaping the country
along precolonial feudal lines with adverse domestic and regional
consequences.

Despite an outward appearance of modernity—the MiG-29s, sub-machine guns,
alleged nuclear and missile programs, smart western military uniforms and
the democracy double-speak—the military has, since 1962, morphed into a
ruling class whose interests, concerns and values have long diverged from
those of the country’s multi-ethnic peoples under its lordship.

No doubt personal loyalty towards particular senior or junior generals has
played a role in the officer corps, especially those in strategic
positions, “hanging together” during crises such as the monk-led uprising,
instead of shifting their allegiance back to their real masters, the
country’s citizenry, as in the cases of the military in Marcos’
Philippines and Suharto’s Indonesia.  But ultimately, the non-occurrence
of this most crucial shift may come primarily out of their vested class
interests and privileges, soaked in an evident class consciousness as the
“patriotic warriors.”

The problem, of course, is that while the ruling military is regressing,
the public in Burma has moved onto a recognizably modern mental space
where notions of democracy and human rights have taken root, even among
the country’s “great unwashed,” and the traditions-bound Buddhist clergy. 
The Burmese as multi-ethnic people may not have internalized democratic
values; but they have certainly embraced the most minimalist reading of a
democratic process: the right to pick their own leaders and
representatives.  This societal development is of no small import as it
has indicated a break with its feudal past.

Also times have changed outside Burma’s national borders. Even the
Association of South East Asia Nations (Asean) has manufactured the Asean
Human Rights Charter, with its dominant discourse of “Made-in-Singapore”
Asian values giving way to the alien lingo of a “civil society.”

Burma’s pervasive human rights and humanitarian problems however, are only
symptomatic of a problem far more fundamental than various policy regimes
(constructive engagement, sanctions, or a combination of both “carrot and
stick” under the new label of “pragmatic engagement”) are prepared to even
acknowledge, namely the re-feudalization of the warrior ruling class and
its societal and regional consequences.

If the international community is serious about helping to empower Burmese
“civil society” it needs to come to grips with the fact that the liberal
language of human rights and humanitarianism don’t do justice to the
people’s predicament.  Burma’s agrarian societies are no longer prepared
to accept their own military’s class control, domination and exploitation
concealed in the language of self-interested nationalistic paternalism.

Laying the foundations for re-fuedalization

The Burmese problem is not simply the country’s successive ruling cliques
of generals (since Ne Win’s era), and their cronies (since the-collapse of
Ne Win’s socialist program in 1988), aggrandizing themselves at the
expense of the public at large. Those of us Burmese who grew up hearing
the hope-filled speculations that things would get better once Ne Win’s
reign was over are no longer fooled by this “once-the-old-guards-are-gone”
buzz.  As the Burmese saying goes, “once you have been dead you know the
cost of the coffin.”
Playing naïve or pragmatic in dictatorial polity is best left to
opportunists.

The old generation of
nationalist-liberators-turned-nation-destroying-despots, General (later U)
Ne Win and his military deputies, for example, left intact a process of
distinct class formation, with recognizably feudal features (minus the old
cultural and customary constraints, for instance, Indic moral guidelines
over the rulers’ conduct).

Nearly seventy years since its founding by Aung San, the Tatmadaw officer
corps, and the soldiering class as a whole, have come to view themselves
as a cut above the predominantly agrarian masses. There exists no remedy
for this class pathos. This ruling class has set the country’s political
clock to the monarchical era while the basic structure of the economy
under their rule is stuck in the colonial, pre-World War II days, as the
Burmese economist U Myint has pointedly remarked.

Since the collapse of Gen Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Program Party, the
regime in Naypyidaw has jumped on the bandwagon of “marketization,” albeit
in its own limited and warped way.

Under the banner of privatization, public assets (land, forests, immovable
infrastructure such as office buildings, power industry, and so on) are
being divided among the families of senior and junior generals, as well as
their cronies who, inter alia, serve as the former’s portfolio managers.

With all these signs of bountiful state-sponsored cronyism, the country’s
soldiering class has taken an increasingly kleptocratic turn, which is a
throw-back to the old feudal days during which the monarch and his men
“ate” the kingdom in terms of land, labor, and natural resources. The
Burmese have a wonderfully descriptive term of capturing this type of
phenomenon: “hungry hounds stumbling on a pagoda feast.”

Be that as it may, it is worth pointing out that Gen Ne Win and his men
deliberately set in motion the revolutionary process of class formation—
revolutionary in the sense that the military that was created by, of and
for the sons of the people (Pyi Thuu Tatmadaw, for instance) no longer
sees itself as part of the people. It is now a class of the heaven-born,
entitled to rule—not govern—the country in accord with the needs, concerns
and interests of the senior and junior generals and so on.

All these men began their military careers as cadets or other ranks
pledging before every meal the mantra, “We pledge our allegiance to the
country that feeds us.”  As a class, they have failed to uphold this
cardinal pledge, rather acting trigger-happy, “shooting to kill”
indiscriminately any segment of society—monks or muslims, Bama or Karen,
farmers or laborers, young or old.  And evidently somewhere along their
career path, the military has drifted away from their sense of gratitude
to the country and honor to serve the people, towards an
institutional/class allegiance and personal loyalty towards the chief.  It
is rather telling when some ex-military officers who publish their
biographies (ex-Brig Gen Tin Swe and ex-Lt Gen Tun Kyi, for instance) and
the in-service soldiers describe not the people but the armed forces “as
the mother and the father.” This represents a fundamental regression with
dire national consequences, for the military as an institution and the
soldiering class no longer serves or defends the people from any enemy,
including unscrupulous military leaders.

Furthermore, the Tatmadaw set up its own economic base and interests,
fostered a distinct class consciousness (informed by their own sense of
superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the society), wrote its own radical
revisionist Burmese history where the military was the sole national
liberator and the sole guardian of the nation. Indeed the military’s
propagandists and in-house historians have attempted to erase from public
consciousness the historical fact that virtually every segment of Burmese
society, both the ethnic majority and minorities, all gave their share of
contributions to the emergence and subsequent maintenance of sovereignty
and territorial integrity.

'Refeudalization' post-1988

Since 1988, four significant features and/or developments distinguish the
present phase of this class formation from the previous socialist
revolutionary phase of military rule: refeudalization of the country’s
military class and political culture; (paradoxically) removal of any
cultural/traditional constraints on governmental conduct (for instance,
the conditioned belief in one’s own honor as a warrior or the Indic code
and notions of “righteous ruler” who is said to posses, among other
things, compassion, wisdom, integrity, sacrifice, fairness and so on);
creation of a crony capitalist economy via a pool of its own economic
agents (better known as “cronies”); class consolidation and reproduction
through a combined policy of setting aside a very high percentage of
admission slots in military academies exclusively for the army-bred, and
of careful screening of family backgrounds of officers and their spouses,
especially for influential posts within the military; and, last but not
least, the widespread practice of active participation of the wives of
military officers in the intra-military and political affairs (for
instance, hiring and firing of deputies for their husbands) or managing
the flow of bribes and business deals.

Perhaps most important, the military-led class formation has turned
decidedly feudal.  Some of the more superficial acts of refeudalization of
the military  and the State include Snr-Gen Than Shwe's and his family’s
well-known royal pretensions, with family members addressing one another
using the arcane language of the long-gone feudal courts which today is
spoken only in the Burmese theater, building a brand new capital and
naming it and all its residential quarters and streets auspicious-sounding
old royal names selected from Buddhist Jartaka tales, or requiring
comically obsequious gestures and demeanors from all subordinate members
of Burma’s bureaucracy, military and society (for instance, subordinates,
their spouses and families being pressured to get down on their knees even
in informal gatherings, activating the royal protocol of subordinates
speaking only when spoken to, in the presence of their military superiors,
or the Cyclone Nargis victims being instructed to greet Than Shwe and
other generals during their propaganda journeys to the Irrawaddy Delta as
if they were Boddhiisattva or would-be-Buddhas). In Burma’s post-feudal
society the military-led refeudalization has gone to comical extremes as
the scenes of Burmese citizens kowtowing to these military men of
vainglory become too much to stomach.

Beyond psychological and behavioral dimensions, the deeper and more
institutional acts include, in effect, reinstituting the old feudal
practice of sanctioning and encouraging regional commanders and other
military officials to extract revenues and labor from local communities
under their direct military and administrative control, giving rise to
competition among military commanders in collecting the greatest quantity
of funds and other resources from respective local populations.

Paving the way for cronyism

To paraphrase the late Ernest Gellner (“Nationalism,” 1997), probably the
most brilliant student of nations and nationalisms, in feudal society it
is power that generates wealth, not the other way round.  Economically,
Than Shwe whetted, and subsequently unleashed, the economic appetite of
other senior and junior warriors. As a point of departure from Ne Win’s
regime, which pushed out a large number of alien commercial and technical
elements from the economy—in the case of 300,000 Indians, out of the
country altogether—with its catastrophic nationalization scheme, Than Shwe
and his deputies have strategically chosen to build and expand the
military’s economic and commercial base.  In so doing, they have resorted
to nepotistic practices, which involve patronizing only the army-bred,
ex-military officers and business-minded civilians who have
unquestioningly embraced the primacy of the military class in Burmese
society.

Here the best known case is Tay Za, one of Burma's wealthiest tycoons,
army-bred, who got expelled from the once prestigious Defense Services
Academy for violating the Academy’s then strict code of conduct for
cadets. The sons of Thura Shwe Mann, until recently the regime’s
third-ranking general, have also joined the country’s top 10 influential
and richest “businessmen” while the famous tycoon Zaygaba Khin Shwe, a
close friend of former Brig-Gen Tint Swe and his personal staff officer,
Capt (and later Gen) Khin Nyunt, was a civilian staff and “socialist
workers’ representative” of the Army Engineering Corps during the
socialist period.  Khin Shwe is contesting in the November ‘election’ as a
candidate for the regime’s Union Solidarity and Development Party
(junta-backed USDP Campaigning through Nargis Projects, Irrawaddy, 30 Sept
 at http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19596), while his daughter
is married to one of Shwe Mann’s sons.

There are lesser known cronies, who are army-bred and thus army-backed,
(for instance, Hla Maung Shwe of Myanmar Egress, a regime’s proxy “civil
society” organization).  It is, without a doubt, to the military rule and
the generals that these men, and many others like them, owe their personal
fortunes.

Some of these men no doubt hold good intentions for the country. And many
show concern for the troubled state of the affairs on the ground.  But
they have little or no choice other than to act loyally toward the
military regime and follow the generals’ “advice” in times of the
military’s needs.  In exchange for their entrepreneurial services to this
growing military class, of which they have long been an integral part—for
some, since birth—the ruling junta has allowed Burma’s nouveau riche to
exploit the country and its resources.  Recently, Yuzana Htay Myint,
another in-house businessman, has been permitted to take over 100,000
acres in the Kachin’s ancestral land, originally designated as a national
tiger reserve.

In his otherwise insightful analysis titled “The Future of Tatmadaw’s
Political Role in Myanmar: Prospects and Problems,” even Maung Aung Myo, a
former lecturer at Burma’s National Defence College, observed that the
Tatmadaw has been “hijacked by a small group of generals” for their own
personal aggrandizement. But it is, upon closer examination, a case of
intra-class symbiosis where juniors and seniors divided their ill-gotten
gains at the expense of the citizenry. If anything is being hijacked it is
the country and its future—hijacked by its own soldiers.

In feudal systems of Burma’s bygone eras, all the king’s men served at the
monarch's pleasure, and they rose and fell, lived and died, precariously.
This scenario has been re-enacted in Than Shwe’s Myanmar—as it was in Ne
Win’s Burma. Whimsically, these despots carried out large scale purges
(for instance, the purge of Military Intelligence under the directorship
of Brig Tin Oo in 1983 and the ouster of Gen Khin Nyunt and dissolution of
the entire Directorate of the Defense Services Intelligence in 2004.)
Consequently, military officers, as well as other ranks, have opted to
optimize their administrative and political authorities by translating
them into riches through bribery, big and small, while in office. To get
rich quick was indeed glorious for Deng’s China post-Mao. But in Than
Shwe’s Myanmar, “eating” as much of the country as fast as you can may not
be glorious, not at least in the eyes of the traditionally pious Buddhist
population; but it has become the wisest and most strategic course of
action for virtually all Burmese military officers who are clever enough
to recognize that theirs is a class kleptocracy.  only the morons remain
moral in this new thoroughly feudalized military class.

No wonder that Burma consistently ranks at the bottom of Transparency
International’s Corruption Index.

Patronizing and 'incentivizing' the commercial classes

Institutionally, since the early 1990s, the Ministry of Defense has taken
over State enterprises and re-established them as the Tatmadaw’s solely
owned businesses. Now the military has its hand in virtually every
economic pie, from poultry farms, small factories, real estate, tourism,
transportation, construction, rental business of regimental facilities to
shipping, power, banking, export and import, agriculture, energy and
mining. Virtually no business entity of commercial significance can
operate without being linked to the military, institutionally or to
individual commanders, thereby bringing the commercial elements in society
under the Tatmadaw’s effective control.

Unlike Ne Win’s socialist military government, the regime in 2010 doesn’t
alienate the commercial elites. Instead, the generals have made local
entrepreneurs work for military rule through an evolving economic and
political symbiosis. The military, in this new arrangement which harks
back to the old monarchical days of commercial and trade monopolies, has
learned to patronize the economic class for its own benefit.

In fact, Than Shwe has effectively used the twin elements of greed and
pervasive anxieties and uncertainties about the soldiering class’s future,
encompassing both the officer corps and the emerging crony capitalists.
Internationally, Than Shwe knows only too well how to dangle this
possibility of Burma’s economic liberalization post-election. It doesn’t
take much brilliance or a doctorate in international affairs or economics
to figure out the fact that the business of the post-Cold War world is
business.

With the generals’ election approaching, and the regime-released buzz
about freeing the world’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu
Kyi, a long list of western governments and their development agencies, as
well as western commercial interests—especially agri-businesses, energy or
resource extractors from Norway and Sweden to Germany, Britain and the
US—can barely conceal their enthusiasm to march to South East Asia’s last
remaining commercial frontiers.

While talking up, and priming, Burma’s “civil society” along free market
lines, and repeating the meaningless mantra of a “free, fair and
inclusive” election in Burma, the United Nations (for instance, the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights or the UN Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and Pacific) as well as certain European governments
are in effect cheer-leading what they anticipate as the imminent
marketization of one of the world’s last remaining “virgin economies.” If
Than Shwe’s in-house feudal hounds are feasting on the ground, foreign
vultures are swirling around in the Burmese sky, only waiting for the
right moment (say “post-election”) to move in and devour what’s left of
Burma after the fast-eating Thais, Chinese, Indians, Singaporeans, Koreans
and Malaysians.

Power and wealth have always ganged up against the rest in all societies,
as Adam Smith perceptively noted in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments
(1759)”.  Two centuries on, today’s governments (and now multilateral
agencies as well) universally perform institutional foreplay before the
domestic commercial classes and corporate paymasters penetrate these
virgin or not-so-virgin markets in hitherto closed societies.  And we, the
poor, are supposed to feel grateful for this gang rape.

Only time will tell whether the forces of the “free market” will overpower
Burma’s soldiering  class, unlike the military in Indonesia, Philippines
or Turkey, marching backward along feudal lines and attempting to
consolidate its class hold on Burmese society, economy and polity while at
the same time strategically parroting “democracy and market.”

Small wonder that soldiers don’t rebel in Than Shwe’s Burma.

____________________________________

October 4, The Guardian (UK)
Burma: We must show our solidarity with the democracy movement – Editorial

We may not be able to do much to help Burma's political prisoners, but as
the country's sham elections near, even small gestures of support are
important

Next month, Burma will hold its first election for 20 years. Often, the
reappearance of ballot boxes after such a long interval is cause for
celebration. Not so in Burma, where the poll is widely seen as a cynical
exercise, adding a veneer of civil legitimacy to the ruling military
junta.

The generals are closing the border and rescinding visas to prevent
outside monitoring of the poll. Ordinary Burmese are reported to be
divided over whether or not to participate. Some think it is worth
pursuing the charade, if only to get the country into the habit of voting.
There are 37 parties registered to take part.

But the National League for Democracy, which won the election in 1990 but
was never allowed to take power, is boycotting it. Its leader, Aung San
Suu Kyi, is one of an estimated 2,183 political prisoners. Their families
and friends are kept under surveillance, harassed and intimidated.

Tomorrow deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will attend an Asia-Europe
summit, where he must press the case of Burmese democracy. International
pressure has so far had little impact. The regime is supported by China,
the regional superpower, which prefers not to see democracy movements
active in its back yard.

But the situation is not hopeless, if only for the reason that Burmese
democracy activists themselves have not given up hope. Their cause is
being highlighted in a new campaign by Amnesty International in the run-up
to the election – a photo petition including politicians, religious
leaders, activists and refugees, holding a hand up in protest at the
regime, a political prisoner's name inscribed on their palms.

The images, powerful though they are, will not move the generals, but that
is beside the point. They are meant to stir the consciences of citizens in
free societies, to demand solidarity with the political prisoners. That
solidarity is a small step, but every step helps breaks the silence that
amounts to complicity in Burma's captivity.

____________________________________

October 4, Democratic Voice of Burma
Ditch sanctions for a ‘parallelist’ strategy – Derek Tonkin

In 2007 the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee conducted a
comprehensive review of the effectiveness of economic and financial
sanctions in the resolution of conflicts in various parts of the world.
They based their inquiry on long-standing criteria agreed in 1999 by all
political parties which saw sanctions as a potentially useful diplomatic
tool, provided they were properly targeted, commanded international
support particularly from countries in the region, and had only minimal
effect on the population.

On Burma, the Committee’s conclusions were that the results were
discouraging and they recommended an urgent review of sanctions policy
with a view to deciding whether it was worth continuing. The British
Government declined, without giving any good reason.

This episode highlights a major difficulty with sanctions policies. There
is often a sense of outrage at events to which governments feel a need to
respond by taking action which, however ineffective it may eventually turn
out to be in resolving situations, nonetheless meets the popular demand
that “something must be done”.

The case of Burma is indeed a good example. After the suppression of the
August 1988 general strike and uprising, most Western governments imposed
an embargo on the supply of arms and military equipment and suspended
bilateral development aid. By June 1989, Aung San Suu Kyi was reported as
calling for trade and economic sanctions, but it was not until 1997 that
the US and EU began to respond seriously. By 2010, the US has ratcheted up
sanctions to the point of virtual economic warfare, though the EU has been
more selective in its measures.

That Western sanctions have not had any significant effect, and indeed
have very probably made matters worse, is not entirely due to Western
incompetence. The military government in Burma has shown remarkable
resilience in meeting the challenge of sanctions, and has been greatly
helped by the fact that not a single Asian neighbour has followed the
Western lead and has benefitted enormously from the bonanza of natural gas
revenues from Burma, which will within three years increase substantially
as gas and oil transit pipelines to China are completed and become
operational.

Western sanctions, though, have also been peculiarly inept. Trade
sanctions by the US mainly hit the labour intensive garment industry,
which in Burma is of little interest to the regime as it is scarcely
profitable. In the EU the incidence of forced labour was presented as a
reason in 1997 to suspend the Generalised System of Privileges for Burma,
even though the labour intensive industries of garments and seafood
exported to the EU had no record of forced labour practices. More recently
in 2008 investment and financial sanctions were directed at companies
engaged in manufacturing or retailing products made in targeted sectors of
the economy, like timber, metals and precious stones. Many of these
‘enterprises’ were no more than retail shops or small family businesses
with no known affiliations to state, military or ‘crony’ interests.

The present situation is that the West is stuck with sanctions which
everyone agrees are ineffective, but which are politically very difficult
to remove. The assumption is that they must be having some effect and that
they should stay until there is political reform in Burma. When the US
embarked on their policy of engagement, the US Deputy Secretary Kurt
Campbell made it clear to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 30
September 2009 that “lifting or easing sanctions at the outset of a
dialogue without meaningful progress on our concerns would be a mistake.
We will maintain our existing sanctions until we see concrete progress,
and continue to work with the international community to ensure that those
sanctions are effectively coordinated.”

This is the classic “conditionality” approach, which to the West sounds
perfectly reasonable: sanctions can only be lifted in response to
political progress in Burma – the traditional “carrot and stick” approach.
Unfortunately, in a situation where sanctions applied are bearable and a
regime is engaged in what they see as a vital political process – the Road
Map to Democracy in which elections in 2010 are an integral part –
conditionality is doomed from the start. The US administration however has
particular difficulties because congressional opinion in both Houses is
hostile to any supposed concessions, so in a very real sense Kurt Campbell
has found his hands tied.

If conditionality is an unpromising policy for dealing with Burma, what
alternatives are there? The first essential is to review existing
sanctions and eliminate those which are targeted against the wrong people.
The next step is to examine thoroughly what other sanctions might be
applied. Can gas revenues, earned in Thailand and now banked in several
countries with which Burma conducts trade like China, Russia, Singapore,
Hong Kong and Dubai, be interdicted through political and regulatory
measures, such as denying banks holding such accounts access to US
financial facilities?

The answer is likely to be only with considerable bilateral damage to US
and EU relations with the countries and national banks concerned. It would
accordingly be quite counterproductive for the West to embark on any such
action which, even if successful, would only be likely to result in an
interruption of gas supplies to Thailand, over 20 percent of whose total
energy and 30 percent of whose natural gas imports are now supplied from
Burma. Thailand has enough problems of its own without having to face
West-induced electricity blackouts and short-time at industrial plants in
the Bangkok region.

Whatever new administration emerges in Burma after the elections, the West
should aim to establish early contact and to see what prospects there are
for engagement on matters of mutual interest and concern. There are areas
in which cooperation should be possible, such as narcotics control, piracy
off the coast of Malaysia and Indonesia, trafficking in women and
children, control of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and the
re-engagement of international financial institutions. The very presence
in the country of technical and development experts in various fields
should help both to contain human rights abuses and to develop trust which
is currently almost non-existent.

This in turn offers the opportunity for parallel initiatives: in
discussing industrial promotion, or the introduction of trade unionism,
for example, the West would inform Burma that in the context of helping to
resolve urban unemployment, the ban on the export of garments to the US is
being lifted, while in the context of the review of Generalised System of
Preferences (GSP) in the EU, concessions previously enjoyed could be
resumed on the same grounds. The negotiating skill needed is to present
such moves not as concessions, but as mutual measures. The parallelism
then emerges when the Burmese administration responds by showing how, for
example in the labour field, new rules for trade unions are being
elaborated and forced labour reduced. The US may then find that the
assurances it is seeking on nuclear proliferation are more readily
forthcoming; at present there is simply no incentive for the Burmese
leadership to respond to US pressures in this field.

The temptation to identify linkage should be resisted. Any implied quid
pro quo is better left unstated. In some cases, the conduct of parallel
negotiations in different rooms or at different times could depend on the
success of both sets of negotiations. Such “parallelism” is of the essence
of diplomacy and is based on putting aside the cruder methods of carrots
and sticks which so rarely work.  Changes result from the internal dynamic
of contact and engagement in which trade, investment and tourism can also
play an invaluable role.

The first steps are to find the political will and to accept the political
risk of failure. Nothing ventured, though, nothing gained.

Derek Tonkin is a former British Ambassador to Thailand and currently
Chairman of Network Myanmar

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

October 2, Burma Action Ireland
Burma Action Ireland welcomes Irish Government’s support for UN Commission
of Inquiry into human rights abuses in Burma

Burma Action Ireland welcomes the decision of the Irish Government to
support the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes
and crimes against humanity in Burma. Ireland joins France, United
Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Netherlands, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania in backing the proposal for an
investigation into human rights abuses in Burma.

In March 2010, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Burma called on
the UN to consider the possibility of establishing a Commission of Inquiry
into crimes committed in Burma which violate international law, stating
that the abuses were ‘a state policy that involves authorities in the
executive, military and judiciary at all levels’.  Human rights violations
committed by the Burmese military include deliberate and indiscriminate
attacks on civilians, sexual violence against women and young girls,
forced labour, use of child soldiers, forced displacement of more than a
million people, torture, and summary executions.

“Ireland’s support for a UN Commission of Inquiry is a positive
development” said Keith Donald, Chairperson of Burma Action Ireland. He
added “We urge the Irish Government to work within the European Union to
include support for a UN Commission of Inquiry in the annual Burma
resolution of the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly.”

Note to Editors

·        Burma, a country with a population of over 50 million, has one of
the world’s worst human rights records.

·        The United Nations General Assembly has adopted 19 resolutions on
the situation in Burma since 1991. The Resolutions, which are not binding
under international law, have made many requests to the dictatorship
ruling Burma, the overwhelming majority of which have been completely
ignored. The language used in past UNGA resolutions relates to 15 possible
war crimes and crimes against humanity. Despite 17 calls for inquiries
since 1997, the UNGA has not established its own inquiry into these
abuses.

·        Burma Action Ireland is a voluntary group established in May 1996
to raise awareness in Ireland of the current situation in Burma and the
nature of the ruling regime. BAI is non-party political,
non-denominational and committed to non-violent means.


For further information:

Caoimhe Hughes - Burma Action Ireland: 087 126 1857
____________________________________

October 3, Actions Birmanie (Belgium)
A warm welcome to the Burmese criminals!

Nyan Win, Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs, is given a good reception
in Brussels at the occasion of the Asem8 Forum.

In his last March report, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations,
O.Quintana, condemned the junta in strongest terms : " Given the gross and
systematic nature of human rights violations in Myanmar over a period of
many years, and the lack of accountability, there is an indication that
those human rights violations are the result of a State policy that
involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all
levels" and went on to specify that: " some of these human rights
violations may entail categories of crimes against humanity or war crimes
'.

Following these recommandations, 12 countries, of which 8 EU Member
States, have recently called for the establishment of a commission of
inquiry on the war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by the
Burmese junta.1

Not only is Belgium dragging its feet by not having yet joined the list of
countries in favour of this initiative. It is also laying the red carpet
for the Burmese criminals’ spokesperson to walk upon!

ACTIONS BIRMANIE CONDEMNS THIS OUTRAGEOUS PRESENCE IN BELGIAN TERRITORY !!

STOP IMPUNITY

BELGIUM MUST SUPPORT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF

INQUIRY WITH A MANDATE TO EXAMINE THE CRIMES COMMITTED IN BURMA!

The countries in favour of an international commission of inquiry are the
following :
USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France, The UK, Netherlands ,Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Ireland

Contacts:

Pierre-Yves Gillet : +32(0)495/252488 pierre_actionsbirmanie at skynet.be
Benoît Bourtembourg : +32(0)478/980670 benoit.bourtembourg at skynet.be