BurmaNet News, October 6, 2010

[Editor]

October 6, 2010 Issue #4057


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima: Arakanese activists post notices urging poll boycott
Reuters: Thirty killed in Myanmar boat accident, many missing

ON THE BORDER
Reuters Alternet: Nine thousand nights - Refugees from Burma: A peoples'
scrapbook

BUSINESS / TRADE
Gulf Times (Qatar): Myanmar to set up 2 hydropower plants

ASEAN
DPA: ASEAN head hopes for new beginning after election in Myanmar

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Former UN Rights Officials call for Burma inquiry
AFP: World parliaments urge release of jailed Burma MPs
UPI: France shrugs off Suu Kyi release claims
Kyodo: Myanmar blasted in ASEM talks for detaining political prisoners

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Democratic space and a military apartheid – Htet Aung
Tribune Media Services (US): World nuclear club has yet another applicant:
Burma – Joel Brinkley




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 6, Mizzima News
Arakanese activists post notices urging poll boycott – Khaing Suu

New Delhi – Notices urging the public to boycott the Burmese junta’s
elections next month and oppose its constitution were posted on lamp posts
and fences in 15 villages across Arakan State early yesterday morning,
youth activists said.

The notices on white card posted in the villages of Taunggok Township in
the western Burmese state bore the phrases “2008 constitution” and “2010
election” crossed out, with “Boycott the Election” underneath, and
measured 8x6 inches eight.

“The notices were stuck up on lamp posts along the main road and on fences
in 15 villages. But the papers were removed by police and local
authorities since early morning,” Aung Tha Hla, an activist from Taunggok,
told Mizzima.

A group of young activists from 15 villages including Maei, Sarpyin,
Tanlwellchaung, Ywama, Lamu, Taintaung, Myotaung, Saidipyin and Yanmyoaung
villages posted a total of about 800 of the notices.

Mizzima contacted Taunggok Police Station seeking comment on the case but
the officer in charge refused to provide any response. Three local
residents said they were unaware the notices had been distributed.

____________________________________

October 6, Reuters
Thirty killed in Myanmar boat accident, many missing

Yangon – At least 30 people were killed and about two dozen are missing
after a ferry carrying mostly students and teachers capsized in Myanmar's
southern Irrawaddy delta region on Wednesday, witnesses and authorities
said.

Most of the passengers were young students travelling to watch a football
match when the overloaded boat sank in Labutta township, 160 km (100
miles) southwest of Yangon, the commercial capital of the former Burma.

Boat accidents are common in the impoverished army-ruled country where
several sinkings or collisions involving overloaded vessels occur each
year. About 40 people were killed when a passenger boat sank in the Yway
River in July 2008.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun. Writing by Jason Szep)

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 6, Reuters Alternet
Nine thousand nights - Refugees from Burma: A peoples' scrapbook

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article
or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's
alone.

Bangkok – For over 60 years the remote and beautiful areas along Myanmar's
border with Thailand have been a battleground between the country's
national army and its indigenous ethnic groups.

The conflict, the world's longest running civil war, has forced tens of
thousands to flee their homeland, formerly known as Burma. Many have
crossed the border into Thailand hoping for a better life only to end up
languishing for years in refugee camps.

Since 1984 when the first mass exodus of 10,000 Karen refugees arrived in
Thailand, nine camps have been established along the 2,000-km (1,240-mile)
border, housing about 150,000 people, according to the Thailand-Burma
Border Consortium (TBBC).

This non-governmental organisation has been working with refugees from
Myanmar for more than 25 years.

It has now published a scrapbook filled with tales from the refugees and
others who have met them. The book's title, "Nine Thousand Nights", refers
to the time that has passed since the first camp was set up. Below is a
collection of pictures from the book, courtesy of TBBC and the
photographers.

For more, visit:
http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/52132/2010/09/6-035124-1.htm

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

October 6, Gulf Times (Qatar)
Myanmar to set up 2 hydropower plants

Myanmar has agreed to build two hydropower plants aimed at exporting
around 575MW of electricity to energy-starved Bangladesh, top officials
said in Dhaka yesterday.

A high-powered Bangladesh delegation received Myanmar’s consent over
cross-border electricity trade during its recent visit to the country,
said a senior Power Ministry official.

He said a Myanmar delegation would visit Dhaka shortly to sign a
memorandum of understanding on the electricity trade between the two
neighbouring countries.

Before signing the final deal, Myanmar has sought power purchase guarantee
from Bangladesh, said the official, also a member of the delegation that
visited Myanmar.

The power plants having the electricity generation capacity of 500MW and
75MW respectively have been planned to be installed at Michuang and Lemro
areas under Rakhine state in Myanmar, which are close to Bangladesh’s
Cox’s Bazar.

Bangladesh never dealt in electricity with overseas countries before.

____________________________________
ASEAN

October 6, Deutsche Presse Agentur
ASEAN head hopes for new beginning after election in Myanmar

Singapore – The head of the Association of South-East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) on Wednesday said next month's general election in junta-ruled
Myanmar could start a new era in the country, offering hopes of better
integrating it into the international community.

Myanmar's military junta, denounced for its human rights abuses and
failure to implement democratic reforms, has set elections for November 7,
the first in 20 years.

But it introduced election laws that bar many top opposition figures from
running, including Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 15
of the past 21 years under detention.

'There will be a new Myanmar after the election because there will be a
new group of people,' ASEAN's Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan told a
forum on Asian politics in Singapore.

There would be a new beginning, 'probably not as new as we would like it
to be,' but it was going to be a start on a different level, he said.

'That would probably make it easier (for Myanmar) to engage with the
international community,' Surin said.

'Let us hope for the best,' he said.

Myanmar has been ASEAN's albatross ever since the country joined the
organisation, which also includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, in 1997.

ASEAN member states' position of non-interference in one another's
internal affairs has undermined any past efforts to tackle Myanmar
questions.

Myanmar would like to play a bigger role in ASEAN and to chair the
association, Surin said, adding that 'in order to do that it will have to
do something inside.'

He said that the expectations and the pressure on Myanmar would have an
effect, 'not at the speed that we would like but it is working and
evolving.'

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 6, Irrawaddy
Former UN Rights Officials call for Burma inquiry – Lalit K Jha

Washington — Two top former human rights officials of the United Nations
on Tuesday urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN
Commission of Inquiry to investigate war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Burma, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on the
Situation of Human Rights in Burma.

The request was made by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil and Yozo Yokota of
Japan, who served as the special rapporteurs on the Situation of Human
Rights in Burma in (2000-2008) and (1992-1996), respectively, in a letter
to Catherine Ashton, the high representative of the EU.

“As former UN special rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar [Burma], it
is our firm conclusion that the pattern of human rights violations
perpetrated by the military regime in Burma/Myanmar is severe, widespread
and systematic, and directed at civilians, and may therefore violate
international human rights and humanitarian laws,” Pinheiro and Yokota
said.

“As the current special rapporteur has concluded, the abuses are a matter
of state policy and there is more than sufficient evidence to justify the
creation of such a Commission of Inquiry," the letter said.

Pinheiro and Yokota also urged that the EU should propose the commission
in a forthcoming UN General Assembly resolution. “It is essential to send
a strong message to the regime ahead of the elections that the
international community will not continue to tolerate its violations of
international humanitarian law and that impunity must end," they wrote.

The letter noted that evidence of the widespread and systematic use of
forced labor, rape as a weapon of war, the forcible conscription of child
soldiers, religious persecution, torture and killings is well documented
and has been presented by many respected human rights organizations
including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International
Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and Christian Solidarity Worldwide
(CSW), among others.

Copies of the letter were sent to the government of Belgium, the current
president of the Council of the European Union, foreign ministers of EU
member states and permanent representatives of EU member states to the
United Nations in New York and Geneva.

 “Since 1996, over 3,500 villages in eastern Burma alone have been
destroyed, and at least half a million people internally displaced.
Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee to the borders of
neighboring countries, and beyond. These violations of international
humanitarian law have been documented by the UN in numerous resolutions
by the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, and in our own and
other reports of Special Rapporteurs,” the letter said.

The two former UN officials said the new Constitution, which will come
into force after the regime’s elections in November, contains a clause
providing blanket immunity for all crimes, past, present and future,
committed by the military, and guarantees the military a quarter of the
parliamentary seats.

“The election laws issued earlier this year, the recent de-registration of
Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, and the
regime’s decision to exclude many ethnic populations and parties from
participating, mean that the forthcoming elections offer little hope of
meaningful change in Burma. The elections, in our opinion, will perpetuate
military rule and result in continuing human rights violations,” they
said.

So far, 13 nations have expressed their support for the establishment of
the UN Commission of Inquiry in Burma, including the United States, United
Kingdom, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary,
Ireland, Lithuania, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Estonia, which
became the 13th supporter on Saturday.

Aung Din of the US Campaign for Burma said the European Union is the major
author of the Burma draft resolution at the UN General Assembly and it has
been working on a draft in Brussels since September.

Pro-democracy activists including the US Campaign for Burma are pushing
the EU to include the language, "calling for the secretary-general to
establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations
in Burma" in the draft resolution, which will be submitted to the UN
General Assembly soon.

So far, the EU hasn't agreed to the proposal.
____________________________________

October 6, Agence France Presse
World parliaments urge release of jailed Burma MPs

The world association of parliaments on Wednesday called on Burma to
immediately release 12 lawmakers from jail ahead of elections next month.

In a resolution, the human rights committee of the Inter Parliamentary
Union (IPU) urged Burma's military junta to "immediately and
unconditionally end their incarceration."

"Twelve parliamentarians are continuing to languish in prison simply for
having exercised their rights to express themselves," it said.

The committee raised "serious doubts" about the junta's desire to ensure
that the historic elections were a "sincere" reflection of the will of
Burma's people.

Mexican senator Rosario Green, the head of the committee, underlined that
the 12 were among 2,100 political prisoners on the country.

"They have all been sentenced on the basis of legal proceedings which
blatantly disregarded their right to a fair trial," she said

Green said that in the past the IPU's watchdog had examined "many" other
cases of parliamentarians in Burma "who at one time or another ended up in
prison for speaking their minds."

"None of them can stand in the elections, because all those who have been
the subject of a conviction are automatically disqualified," she added.

On Tuesday, European and Asian leaders at an EU-Asia summit in Brussels
joined forces to urge Burma's junta to release political prisoners and
ensure that the November 7 elections were free and fair.

Critics have dismissed the elections 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 country's first elections in two decades.

The IPU is an association of 155 parliaments from around the world.

Green said her human rights committee had examined the cases of 305
parliamentarians from 35 countries, notably including disappearances in
Eritrea and Rwanda.

____________________________________

October 6, United Press International
France shrugs off Suu Kyi release claims

Washington – The possible release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest by
authorities in Myanmar is in no way "a measure of clemency," French
authorities say.

Suu Kyi's name was apparently added to the voter list for the elections
scheduled for November. She has been under house arrest for nearly 15
years. Her National League for Democracy won 1990 elections though the
military leadership refused to sanction the results.

Authorities announced last week they would release Suu Kyi before the
November vote. The French Embassy in Washington shrugged off the move by
the military junta in Myanmar.

"In no way at all can this be deemed a measure of clemency on the part of
the junta," an embassy statement read. "Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi's term of
house arrest ends on Nov. 13 this year."

Myanmar said the election is meant to usher in a new era of civilian
leadership in the country. Critics complain the election process is
controlled by military authorities, who are guaranteed a 20 percent
allocation of the seats in parliament.

Suu Kyi is challenging her detention, though the opposition Democratic
Voice of Burma says she isn't allowed to discuss the case with her lawyer.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

____________________________________

October 6, Kyodo News
Myanmar blasted in ASEM talks for detaining political prisoners

Brussels -- The military-ruled Myanmar was blasted Tuesday by several
countries from the European Union for detaining political prisoners, and
many fear the upcoming election in the country will not be free and fair.

Among the countries that made strong remarks criticizing Myanmar at the
Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels were Britain and the Netherlands, while
Mongolia, from the Asian side, joined hands with them to blame the junta
government, diplomatic sources told Kyodo News.

Britain said that the current government in Myanmar is a military regime
and has failed to cooperate with the United Nations, according to the
sources.

London was also quoted as telling other ASEM leaders that more than 2,000
people are still under detention and thus it is unlikely that the
"election will be free and fair," saying it is "a complete disgrace."

In concluding the remarks during the summit talks, Britain suggested that
Myanmar should release the country's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi,
the sources said.

The Netherlands also urged Myanmar to attach importance to freedom of
movement and freedom of expression and to release those under detention,
while Mongolia questioned Myanmar why there have been so many people being
detained in prisons and whether Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
will be allowed to take part in the Nov. 7 election, according to the
sources.

Mongolia, meanwhile, expressed its sympathy to Suu Kyi in light of the
fact that she has been under house arrest or in jail for much of last two
decades, and asked why she continues to "suffer a lot in this country."

While facing the critical statements from the European partners, Myanmar
gently responded by saying that the "election will be conducted in a free
and fair manner and inclusive," but did not further elaborate, the sources
said.

Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win, the country's only top-level official
invited by the European Union to the summit, was quoted as briefly
replying that the election will be joined by 27 political parties and many
people will be voting.

The European Union was not originally happy sitting and working
face-to-face with Myanmar's top leaders and, therefore, participants of
the ASEM summit in Vietnam in 2006 decided to allow only a foreign
ministerial-level official from the country to take part in any later ASEM
summit meetings.

In a chairman's statement of the latest ASEM summit which just wrapped up
late Tuesday afternoon, the ASEM chiefs "encouraged the government of
Myanmar to take the necessary measures to ensure that these elections
would be free, fair and inclusive, and would mark a step towards a
legitimate, constitutional, civilian system of government."

"The timely release of those under detention would contribute to these
elections to be more inclusive, participatory and transparent" and they
"also touched upon the issue of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the statement said.

Some said it is considered quite unusual for Myanmar to allow the call for
a "legitimate, constitutional" government in the chair's statement and
also allow the mention by name of Suu Kyi.

The European Union has long been the most vociferous in demanding Myanmar
mend its ways.

Besides particular topics on human rights and democracy in Myanmar, the
ASEM leaders also touched on various global issues and problems during
their two-day talks, including the strengthening of partnerships between
the two blocs of Asia and Europe, the economic governance, climate change,
sustainable development, piracy at sea, reform of the United Nations and
nuclear nonproliferation.

ASEM, launched in 1996, is composed of 46 countries -- the 27 members of
the European Union and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Russia and South Korea as well as two organizations.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 6, Irrawaddy
Democratic space and a military apartheid – Htet Aung

With Burma's general election just around the corner, many regional
observers are predicting some form of political change; even if they do
all agree that the election itself will be no more than a sham.

This was a common view at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok on Oct. 5
when a public forum was held titled “Transition to Democracy in Southeast
Asia: Similarities and Differences with the Upcoming Election in
Burma/Myanmar.”

“It is a sham election and everybody knows it, including the [Burmese]
military,” said Dr. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the director of the Institute
of Security and International Studies (ISIS), who was one of the panelists
at the forum. “But it certainly will have an opening and a potential for
new dynamics to emerge. This is where the space has to be considered for
expansion.”

During his seminar—titled “Thailand's Lost Democratic
Consolidation”—Thitinan compared the upcoming election in Burma with the
Thai military-sponsored election held in 1957 after a military coup, when
the then Thai coup leader formed a political party and became prime
minister after his party won the election.

Thitinan briefly analyzed the up and down struggle for democracy in
Thailand since the 1957 military coup, including the mass demostrations in
1973 and 1992, and the drawing up of a new Constitution in 1997, something
the speaker characterized as “a constitution to end all constitutions.” He
then reminded the audience how that Constitution was put to the sword by a
subsequent military coup in 2006.

However, Thitinan offered optimism, saying that Burma's election
represented an “opening-up”; but he noted the downslide of democracy in
Thailand, a country he said that was once an example in the region.

Taking Burma as a country in transition to democracy, the forum looked to
the experiences of elections in the Southeast Asian region and used the
transitional lessons of Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia to shed some
light on what might and might not unravel in Burma.

The other panelists at the Chulalongkorn forum were: Dr, Maung Zarni, a
Burmese research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political
Science; Mohammad Hatta, the Indonesian Ambassador to Thailand; and Youk
Chang, the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. About 100
academics, diplomats and students participated in the forum.

Recalling an article in the New York Times published two weeks before the
polls criticizing the 1990 Burmese election, Zarni, a staunch critic of
the Burmese military regime, opened his seminar on Tuesday by saying that
today's discussion was exactly the same as the political debate that was
going on 20 years ago.

Zarni predicted the political landscape of post-election Burma would
practice “constitutional military rule with a select mix of feudalism and
crony-capitalism.

“When we say 'Constitutional Monarchy' in history, it is to curb the role
and authority of the Monarch and Monarchy,” said Zarni, reflecting the
Burmese regime's attempt to institutionalize 'a constitutional military
rule' through an election.

“But in our case, the distortion is that the 2008 Constitution is
expanding and legitimizing military rule,” he said.

The 2008 Constitution—the third in the country since independence from
British colonial rule in 1948—has, for the first time, given the military
the supremacy it has always sought. Moreover, the military's directly
appointed representatives are constitutionally guaranteed 25 percent of
seats in the national and regional parliaments.

However, when discussing how democracy—manifested through the electoral
process—had fulfilled the desires of Southeast Asian people and the point
in transition where countries see themselves, several panelists from
Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia presented vastly different criteria when
presenting examples from within their different historical, ethnographic
and geographic settings.

One common view at the forum was that those three countries had striven to
maintain economic development despite their internal political conflicts.
Thitinan said that even in war-torn Cambodia, where recently constructed
high-rise buildings have helped develop the Phnom Penh skyline, signs of
progress were evident—something that is sadly lacking in Burma.

Youk Chang, a former refugee who fled to Thailand and was later resettled
in the United States before coming back to his homeland, reflected on the
international community's involvement in Cambodia's transition to
democracy, citing the United Nations-supervised Cambodian election in
1993.

He said that the political feeling in Cambodia at that time was that
democracy must come first, with justice second. After more than a decade,
the issue of justice has finally reared its head through the opening of a
tribunal to try those accused of genocide during the Khmer Rouge era.

However, when asked whether democracy had taken root in Cambodia, his
answer was simple: “Cambodia has no democracy.”

Unlike Cambodia and Thailand, Burma has within its borders an armed ethnic
resistance—one of the world's longest running civil wars— which will not
cease after the election. Indeed it is likely to intensify, given the
recent rising tensions between the junta and the ethnic cease-fire groups.

On the subject of the ethnic issue in Burma, the panelist from Indonesia
told the audience how his government solved the heated conflict in Aceh in
the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami.

“We had the upper hand at that time,” he said. “If we took advantage of
this, the violence would have continued. We needed peace and so we sought
it.”

He said that the conclusion of the Aceh conflict was due to the
government's peace initiatives, such as the release of political
prisoners, and the provision of land and revenue to the rebel groups.

The clear parallel in Burma's case is that the profiteers of the military
junta have only shown interest in securing everything for themselves—in
particular, natural resources such as oil, natural gas, teak, minerals and
gems, all of which are largely indigenous to and must be exploited from
the ethnic states. Little, if anything, has been paid back into the
socioeconomic development of the ethnic areas over the past 20 years.

Asked to elaborate on his stated viewpoint about the 'democratic space'
that would open up in Burma, Thitinan told The Irrawaddy that “the
democratic space is very little—in fact, almost none.” Despite that, he
said he maintained a positive outlook toward the election.

As one who has resisted the longest dictatorship in the region and who has
had to live in exile due to his political beliefs and active participation
toward democratic change in his homeland, Burmese scholar Dr Zarni said:
“The 2008 Constitution was designed to introduce a military apartheid in
the country.”

____________________________________

October 6, Tribune Media Services (US)
World nuclear club has yet another applicant: Burma – Joel Brinkley

Standing before the United Nations atomic-energy agency in Vienna a few
days ago, a Burmese diplomat declared that his nation’s nuclear program is
“for peaceful development purposes” only. For good measure, he added,
reports that Burma is “attempting to develop a nuclear-weapons program”
are “unfounded allegations.”

Haven’t we heard that before? And who’s next? Venezuela, Yemen — Belarus?
Just as Burma was making its declaration in Vienna, Hugo Chavez,
Venezuela’s ever-pugnacious president, declared that his country, too, was
launching a “nuclear-energy project for peaceful purposes — and they
aren’t going to stop us!”

That’s confidence-inspiring. But Chavez is an inveterate loudmouth, and if
he were going to build a nuclear weapon, he’d brag about it.

The other two bete-noire nuclear states are equally voluble. North Korea
loves to bluster and threaten to use its weaponry against South Korea and
the U.S. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, protests so much that he
has convinced most everyone that Iran is working on a bomb.

But Burma is a different beast. Everyone should be concerned because Burma
may be the world’s most secretive state. In fact, a few years ago the
ruling military junta abruptly abandoned Yangon, the nation’s capital for
centuries, and built another one deep in the jungle — isolated and largely
empty.

The generals never explained. They never explain much of anything — for
example, why they spend 3 percent of the nation’s income on health and 23
percent on defense, even though Burma has no natural, external
adversaries.

But Burma experts say the generals still fear an invasion from somewhere,
perhaps the U.S., at any time. So they moved the capital to a near-secret
location. That way, no one could see what they were doing. But they forgot
about spy satellites. Photos showed them digging fortified tunnels in the
hills surrounding Naypyidaw, the new capital.

Then, a year ago, well-placed defectors said the generals were seriously
at work on nuclear weapons. And guess who was helping them. North Korea.

North Korea is already known to be helping Iran with its nuclear program.
Why not Burma, another renegade state — a neighbor with vast natural-gas
reserves? At about that time, the U.S. Navy, working on intelligence
provided by South Korea, trailed a fully loaded North Korean freighter
steaming toward Burma. The South Koreans had said the ship carried
missiles and nuclear-weapons equipment. With a warship on its tail, the
ship turned around and went back home.

Early this year, a Burmese court sentenced two government employees to
death for leaking details of a secret government trip to North Korea. Then
in June, an expat Burmese opposition group published a report in which a
former U.N. nuclear inspector who had examined photos smuggled out of the
state, concluded that Burma “is probably in violation of several
international agreements concerning nuclear proliferation.”

At a congressional hearing last summer, Scot Marciel, deputy assistant
secretary of state for the region, acknowledged: “We’ve certainly read
with interest the recent reports on a possible nuclear initiative by
Burma” which “would be tremendously destabilizing for the entire region.”
But “I can’t say too much” about it in the open. Would he be so reticent
if there was nothing to it?

In July, Jane’s Intelligence Review published its own analysis of photos
that showed machine tools and other equipment that it judged to be part of
“a nascent program” to build nuclear weapons. Later Burma tried to keep
secret a four-day visit by North Korea’s foreign minister, Pak Ui Chun.

So, at the end of September, Tin Win, that Burmese diplomat, told the U.N.
that his country was not trying to build a bomb.

All of this is so familiar — and scary. How many renegade states can be
allowed to acquire nuclear weapons before one of these lunatic leaders
uses one?

The danger is real, and as the continuing proliferation amply
demonstrates, the international deterrent strategy is anemic at best.


Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a
former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York
Times.