BurmaNet News, October 16 - 18, 2010

[Editor]

October 16 – 18, 2010 Issue #40614

QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We don't need foreign observers. We have abundant experience in holding
elections
. Besides, the election laws enacted are very balanced and easy
to understand
. The elections will be held for this country and in
accordance with the rules of the country and we do not need to make
clarification on the credibility of the election.” – Thein Soe, Union
Election Commission, Chairman (AP, AFP, Reuters)

INSIDE BURMA
Hindu: People have the right not to vote, says Suu Kyi
Reuters: Myanmar bars foreign monitors and reporters from poll
AP: Myanmar's detained democracy icon dreams of tweets
Irrawaddy: Generals unhappy about retirement
DVB: Intelligence unit to return to Khin Nyunt days

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Thai army boosts border security ahead of Myanmar vote
DVB: Junta tries old tactics on new ‘insurgents’

BUSINESS / TRADE
Hindu: Myanmar laying rail line to China

DRUGS
Sydney Morning Herald: Drug trade flourishing in Burma

INTERNATIONAL
BBC: Burmese exiles sceptical ahead of poll

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Thailand realigns its Burma policy – Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Guardian (UK): 'Miracles do happen, even in a police state': My childhood
in Burma – Wendy Law-Yone

PRESS RELEASE
AAPPB: Support Min Ko Naing and his fellow democracy activists





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

October 18, The Hindu
People have the right not to vote, says Suu Kyi – P. S. Suryanarayana

Amid “preparations” by Myanmar's military government to hold a general
election on November 7, the Supreme Court in Yangon, on Monday, reserved
judgment on the final appeal by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
against her current phase of house arrest. The court heard final arguments
in a context in which the term of house arrest is set to end in less than
a month's time.

In a parallel development, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms. Suu Kyi said “the
people have the right not to vote” in the November 7 poll. However, she
“has not formally called for a general boycott of the poll”, said her
political associate and spokesman, Nyan Win in a telephone conversation
with The Hindu from Yangon.

The junta allowed Mr. Nyan Win to visit her last Friday, nearly seven
weeks after their previous meeting. Her National League for Democracy
(NLD), de-recognised by the authorities at the start of the present
poll-process, saw the gap between these two meetings as a deliberate ploy
to keep the party in the dark about her thinking and strategy. During this
period, the junta portrayed itself as being conciliatory towards her. It
offered to facilitate her voting and release her about a week after the
November 7 poll. The promised release was, in any case, set to coincide
with the completion of her current term of house arrest.

Mr. Nyan Win said she recently wrote to the junta, emphasising she would
not at all vote in this election. And, in a message to the people, she
wanted them to remember that the military rulers did not allow the NLD,
which triumphed in the 1990 poll, to form a civilian government. The
people could, therefore, exercise their right to refuse to vote now, she
suggested.

Voting is not compulsory under the rules for the November 7 poll.

____________________________________

October 18, Reuters
Myanmar bars foreign monitors and reporters from poll – Aung Hla Tun

Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar – International poll monitors and foreign journalists
will be barred from Myanmar's first election in 20 years, its military
rulers said on Monday, deepening concern that next month's poll will be a
sham.

The United States, Britain and Myanmar's Southeast Asian neighbours had
urged the junta to allow independent election monitors at the November 7
election, which critics say will cement the military's grip on power under
the guise of civilian rule.

"We don't need foreign observers. We have abundant experience in holding
elections," Thein Soe, chairman of the Union Election Commission, told a
news conference in the capital Naypyitaw.

"Besides, the election laws enacted are very balanced and easy to
understand."

The election is the first since 1990, when Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung
San Suu Kyi's opposition party won in a landslide result that was ignored
by the military.

Critics say the ruling generals are tightly controlling campaign
activities this time to ensure their proxies win most votes and the
assemblies will be dominated by their allies.

The 10-state Association of South East Asian Nations offered in July to
send monitors to help ensure the elections would be internationally
recognised as free and fair.

"We don't need to clarify the credibility of these elections to other
people," said Thein Soe.

Foreign journalists are routinely denied official visas to report inside
Myanmar, but many news organisations had hoped to send media to cover next
month's poll, which will usher in the first civilian government in 48
years.

"Concerning the journalists, there are resident representatives of the
international news agencies in our country, and press statements will be
released in a timely manner about the elections. So there is no need to
allow foreign reporters to cover the elections," Thein Soe added.

Thomson Reuters, The Association Press, Agence France-Presse, Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) and several Japanese news
outlets are allowed to operate with accredited local journalists. Only
China's Xinhua News Agency has permission to employ foreign nationals in
the country.

(Writing by Jason Szep. Editing by Ron Popeski)

____________________________________

October 18, Associated Press
Myanmar's detained democracy icon dreams of tweets

Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
wants to get a Twitter account once she is released from house arrest so
she can get in touch with the younger generation after years of isolation,
her lawyer said Monday.

The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained by the
military government for 15 of the past 21 years, entered her latest period
of detention in May 2003, before the Twitter era started.

Her detention expires on Nov. 13, prompting speculation she will be freed
though there has been no such official announcement from the ruling junta.
The country's first election in 20 years will take place days earlier on
Nov. 7, timing that analysts say was designed to keep the opposition
leader locked away for the polls.

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's current wish is to sign up on Twitter when she is
released," said her lawyer Nyan Win, who has visited her twice in the past
week. "Daw" is a title of respect in Myanmar.

"She told me she wants to use Twitter to get in touch with the younger
generation inside and outside the country," he said. "She wishes to be
able to tweet every day and keep in touch."

Suu Kyi has no phone line or any access to the Internet, though she has a
laptop computer, Nyan Win said. He described her as computer- and
tech-savvy and adept with electronic gadgets.

Under the rules of her detention, Suu Kyi is allowed to read
state-controlled newspapers and private local news journals and magazines,
to listen to the radio and to watch state-run television but she has no
satellite dish to receive foreign broadcasts.

Her lawyers are among the few people allowed to see Suu Kyi, aside from
her doctors and occasional visits with U.N. and foreign dignitaries.

According to July statistics from the state-run Post and Telecommunication
Ministry, there are 400,000 Internet users in Myanmar — a country of about
60 million — with the vast majority of accounts in the former capital
Yangon and the second-largest city of Mandalay.

____________________________________

October 18, Irrawaddy
Generals unhappy about retirement – Wai Moe

Although junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe controls Burma’s armed forces
with an iron fist and has appointed a younger generation to the top slots
in the military hierarchy, soldiers are reportedly questioning why the
senior general and his deputy, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, have not retired
according to regulation.

The two senior leaders are being unfavorably compared with the late
dictator, Gen Ne Win, who steped down from his military post aged 60
according to military regulations.

The office of the commander-in-chief (Army) known as the Ka Ka Kyi
executed three military reshuffles and promotions this year forcing
retirements ahead of the election.

In April, prime minister Gen Thein Sein and government ministers who are
also key leaders of the junta’s Union Solidarity and Development
Party(USDP) were retired from their ranks.

In the second reshuffle, junta No.3 Gen Shwe Mann and Secretary-1 Gen Tin
Aung Myint Oo were retired from the military along with other lieutenant
generals from key military posts.

In the third reshuffle in early October, deputy commanders of the regional
military commands who ranked brigadier general were forced to retire, and
generals older than the new commanders promoted in the August reshuffle
had to leave the military.

Than Shwe designated all retired generals as USDP candidates or military
members of parliaments, which covers a quarter of the seats in Burma’s
future parliaments: the Nationalities’ Assembly (Upper House), the
People’s Assembly (Lower House) and the regional parliaments.

The reshuffle left the top two generals, Than Shwe,77, and Maung Aye,73,
in their positions while generals who are at least 20 years younger were
promoted to replace their predecessors in the top military leadership.

Though the generals affected by the reshuffle dare not publicly criticize
the order ending their military careers, it is an open secret in Naypyidaw
that generals who had not reached the retirement age of 60 were
disappointed at having to leave the military prematurely against their
wishes, military sources said.

Though not officially announced, Than Shwe changed the retirement age to
65 only for top echelon officers, according to military sources.

“The generals were not ready to take off the uniforms they had been
wearing since the began their military careers as teenagers,” said a
military officer speaking on condition of anonymity in Naypyidaw. “Now
they must face 'civilian life'.”

“Though they are still the ruling elite, the general's are finding it
difficult,” he said, describing two incidents showing disquiet in the
military.

In May, Thein Sein invited military officials and close friends to a
religious ceremony to open his new residence in Naypyidaw about a month
after he retired aged 65. Military sources said it was a sad occasion.

During the ceremony, his wife, Khin Khin Win reportedly told junior
military officers that they held a religious ceremony not because they
were “very rich” but because their “uncle” had got a gratuity from his
retirement.

Staff officers of Lt-Gen Myint Swe, who retired from the chief of the
Bureau of Special Operation-5, were surprised when the general preferred
being sent to a private hospital in Rangoon rather than a military
hospital after he was involved in accident on the Naypyidaw-Rangoon
highway in September, two weeks after the military reshuffle.

“He suffered only minor injuries,” a military source said, “But this
incident suggests that, since his retiremement, the former general trusts
private medics more than military ones.”

“Nobody exactly knows what is going on within the military. The Tatmadaw
[Burmese military] is more divided than the 'strong and united' front we
normally see,” he said.

Naypyidaw sources said retired generals privately discuss the role of the
top two generals who are a generation older than themselves, and there is
much speculation within the Tatmadaw about when Than Shwe and Maung Aye
will step down.

“After the reshuffles, there has been confusion between the retired
generals  and those who remain in the military as well as conflicts over
personal interest,” said a political observer who is close to the retired
generals.

Some of the former commanders are reportedly planning to meet the
respected former chief of staff of the armed forces, ex Gen Tin Oo, who is
now vice chairman of the opposition National League for Democracy.

Analyzing Than Shwe’s manipulation of the power structure establishing the
future constitutionalized military rule, military sources said the senior
general wants to control three key structures from central command—the
military, the USDP and the business associates of the military.

“When the 77-year-old senior general retires or dies, it will be
interesting to see who will control these key support groups of Burma’s
military rule,” the observer said. “Officially, the senior general is 77,
but former intelligence officials said he is around 80. So the end of his
era could come in just a few years.”

____________________________________

October 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Intelligence unit to return to Khin Nyunt days – Min Lwin

The new chief of Burma’s intelligence department has said that a major
shake-up will see the unit tightening security and clamping down on flows
of information.

The department will use the tactics of Burma’s former intelligence chief
Khin Nyunt, who headed the now-disbanded Directorate of Defence Services
Intelligence (DDSI) before he was purged in 2004. It then became Military
Affairs Security (MAS), but, say analysts, lost much of its strategic
cunning.

A source close to the unit told DVB that the new chief, Maj Gen Kyaw Swe,
“wants to restore the practices of the former intelligence services
because less information is being received now”.

This will involve foregoing the practice of moving MAS agents from post to
post every few moths, and will instead have to remain at their station for
three to five years.

“The newcomer does not know what the old agent was doing and agents cannot
organize the people, get information, or control the areas they are
assigned to,” the source said. “So, they want to reintroduce the old
system again and a special order to that effect was issued a few days
ago.”

Under Khin Nyunt, who headed DDSI for 20 years and became prime minister
in August 2003, Burma’s dissident community was placed under lock and key.
It is thought that the work undercover reporters do now and the amount of
information leaving the country would not have been possible in Khin
Nyunt’s day, when surveillance was all-seeing and communication among
intelligence circles proficient.

The DDSI was dismantled following his arrest in October 2004 – some
analysts believe it was the growing power of Khin Nyunt and the DDSI that
concerned junta chief Than Shwe, who imprisoned him and undertook a major
shake-up of the intelligence.

Maj Gen Kyaw Swe, who was an officer under Khin Nyunt, is also planning to
revive the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), an umbrella organization of
all intelligence departments in the DDSI’s day.

“Right now, every agency is going alone on its own; the Special Branch
comes up with its own theory, the intelligence agency another theory, and
the MAS is useless,” said the source.

“So they may even follow the pattern of the NIB and bring the Special
Branch of Police and intelligence agencies under [it].”

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

October 18, Agence France Presse
Thai army boosts border security ahead of Myanmar vote

Bangkok – Thailand has increased border security because of fears of
ethnic unrest in neighbouring Myanmar, where the junta is preparing for
the first election in 20 years, the army said Monday.

"We have stepped up security checks along the border to prevent any forces
or people fleeing from the other side, and also to prevent people and
weapons crossing the border from our side," said Colonel Padung
Yingpaiboonsuk.

He said the military would boost patrols along the border opposite
Myanmar's Karen state, where ethnic rebels continue to fight the
government, alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.

"We plan this operation until the (November 7) election ends but if the
situation is not normal we may extend it," Padung, a task force commander
in the border province of Tak, told AFP.

Military-ruled Myanmar has been plagued by ethnic insurgencies in remote
border areas for the six decades since British colonial rule ended in
1948.

Ahead of the November 7 poll, the regime has pressured armed rebels to
transform into border guard forces under the control of the state army.

"There are some groups that have not agreed with this project, and that
could lead to fighting," said Padung. "We will not allow anyone to use our
land as a base in order to create unrest in a neighboring country."

Last month the junta announced it was scrapping voting in swathes of
insurgency-plagued ethnic areas -- a move criticised as excluding millions
from a poll already seen as undemocratic.

Western countries have widely criticised the vote as a sham designed to
shore up almost five decades of military rule.

____________________________________

October 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Junta tries old tactics on new ‘insurgents’ – Aye Nai

A smear campaign is being undertaken by the Burmese junta to dirty the
name of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is now branded an
“insurgent group”, the KIA has said.

The ethnic army from northern Burma has refused demands by the junta to
transform into a Border Guard Force (BGF) and thus come under the control
of Naypyidaw, a move that has drawn the ire of the ruling generals as they
prepare for elections on 7 November.

It claims that a letter allegedly penned by senior KIA officials ordering
its troops to shoot-on-site any Burmese soldiers that stray into Kachin
territory is phoney, and designed to foment unrest.

The KIA’s spokesperson, Colonel Sin Wa, denied that the group had any
involvement in the letter, and claimed that the alleged signatory, the
‘Frontline Security Group’ of the KIA did not exist.

The shift to the use of “insurgent” is also seen as significant. The
reference was made in an article last week in the state-run New Light of
Myanmar newspaper that accuses “KIA insurgents” of planting a landmine in
Kachin state’s Mogaung township that killed one man and left two wounded.

The article added that 14 people “have fallen to victims of mine attacks
[sic] by insurgents across the nation” this year – the majority of those
are blamed on the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in eastern Karen
state, which has fought a 60-year civil war for independence.

Colonel Sin Wa refused to comment on KIA involvement in the landmine, but
a statement said the group was “opening [an] investigation on the
incident”.

It appears now that a 20-year ceasefire agreement between the KIA and the
junta is on tenterhooks. James Lundau, spokesperson of the KIA’s political
wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), said that following its
refusal to transform into a Border Guard Force, said that “the [Burmese
army] now regards us as their enemy”.

The junta had warned ethnic armies who refused the transformation that
relations would return to pre-ceasefire days, with attacks from the
Burmese army likely.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

October 18, The Hindu
Myanmar laying rail line to China – Ananth Krishnan

Beijing: Myanmar has started work on a railway line from its planned
deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu to south-western China's Yunnan province,
Chinese media reported on Sunday. The line, which will be completed in
2015, will transport Chinese goods for export, and also be used by China
to expand its access to Myanmar's natural resources. The two countries,
last year, began work on an oil pipeline from Kyaukphyu to Ruili in
Yunnan. The planned railroad will also run from Kyaukphyu, which is in
Myanmar's western Rakhine state, to Ruili and Yunnan's capital Kunming.
China's official Xinhua agency said China also planned to invest in a
special industrial zone at Kyaukphyu.

The railway project, and the development of the port, were discussed last
month during Myanmar leader General Than Shwe's talks here with Chinese
President Hu Jintao. The Myanmar's military regime leader also sought
Chinese support for elections scheduled for next month.

In recent years, Chinese companies, particularly those based in
south-western Yunnan province which neighbours Myanmar, have accelerated
investments in oil, gas and natural resources in the country. China has
also invested in developing deep-sea ports, such as Kyaukphyu in Maday
Island, part of a larger plan to secure greater access to Indian Ocean
ports and reduce its dependence on the narrow Malacca Straits for its
imports of oil from West Asia and Africa.

China eventually hopes to use Kyaukphyu as a centre for its imports of
oil. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is involved in
building both a deep-sea port and storage facilities, from where oil will
be transported through the planned pipeline, expected to be opened in
2012, to Yunnan.

____________________________________
DRUGS

October 18, Sydney Morning Herald
Drug trade flourishing in Burma – Dylan Welch

Opium growth in Burma is eclipsing all other countries in south-east Asia
and production is trending ''relentlessly upward'', the head of a UN drugs
unit will say today.

The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for east Asia,
Gary Lewis, will say in a speech that opium growing in Burma had risen
sharply in the past four years. He will also call on law enforcement and
governments to do more to tackle the threat of transnational organised
crime.

''Transnational organised crime has internationalised faster than the
ability of law enforcement and world governance to keep pace,'' he will
say.
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''It now represents [an] overarching threat to governments, to societies
and to economies. In some cases [it] has also become a threat to peace and
development, even to the sovereignty of countries.''

The speech will be made in Melbourne at the Australian Institute of
Criminology's International Serious Organised Crime conference, where
other experts to speak will include representatives from the FBI.

Mr Lewis will say a lack of accurate information about the organised
criminal syndicates - and corrupt governments that abet them - are
hampering the fight against them.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

October 18, BBC News
Burmese exiles sceptical ahead of poll - Alastair Leithead

Bangkok – With Burma due to hold its first elections in 20 years, many
commentators are already saying the vote will be neither free nor fair.

A quarter of seats in the new parliament will go to the army, and many
candidates in parties set up by the military, the strongest and
best-funded, have recently given up their uniforms in order to stand.

The high cost of fielding candidates and tough new laws means many elected
seats will be fought by no real opposition.

But opinion among Burmese exiles, commentators, international politicians,
historians and academics is split over whether the 7 November ballot
should be condemned as undemocratic or welcomed as an opportunity for
change.

Thant Myint-U, a Burmese historian and author, supports the United Nations
and foreign governments who push for improved human rights, but he
suggests they need to be more realistic about how much political change
can happen in the next few years.

"I think what might be much more possible would be some changes in
economic policies which might end up benefiting ordinary people," he said.

"We have tried for 20 years through this front door of political change
and one could argue we have gotten not very far.

"With sanctions and the withdrawal of Western companies, the West has more
or less dealt itself out of the game."

The main economic influence in Burma is now China, with billions of
dollars worth of investment in the country's raw materials, hydroelectric
power and in a pipeline being built to link China to the Bay of Bengal.

Those in the US urging a policy of engagement rather than isolation have
cited China's growing influence as an important reason to improve
relations with Burma.

"If this door of some sort of economic change is even half open it's worth
trying, again not to devalue or give up on ideas of democratic change, but
because it may be easier to fight for some kind of economic change," said
Thant Myint-U.

Principled opposition

He argues that increasing the right kind of trade and business links will
help the middle class to grow and create new dynamics. But in the northern
Thai city of Chiang Mai, exiled Burmese politicians disagree.

"We decided to boycott because we wanted to show the election will be
undemocratic and we want to stick with the 1990 election results," said
Nyo Ohn Myint, representing foreign affairs for the National League for
Democracy outside of Burma.

The NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, won the last election but the result
was not recognised by the ruling generals.

The party decided not to take part in this year's poll because it would
mean accepting the annulment of the 1990 ballot and the restrictive new
laws laid out in the 2008 constitution.

"It will be a very undemocratic, unfair and unfree election with no media
freedom, no freedom to campaign.

"It is just cosmetic, as the regime will change from a military uniform to
a civilian uniform, so I don't see any reform or any positive signs will
come before, during or after the elections."

Scepticism rules

The Irrawaddy magazine has many online readers inside and outside of Burma
and, from exile in Thailand, is a strong critic of the ruling generals and
the election process.

“I don't see [Aung San Suu Kyi] playing a formal political role, but a
very important role outside of the constitution”.

Aung Zaw is the editor, and has set up a new blog ahead of the vote. He is
very sceptical about the whole process.

"We still have over 2,000 political prisoners who won't be participating
in this election. I think it is just to keep the military dictatorship
with a civilian face," he said.

Aung Zaw believed the transition to democracy could be "bumpy, if not
bloody" because - he says - many Burmese politicians as well as ethnic
leaders have been sidelined.

"There are tensions rising in the ethnic groups who are buying arms and
will never trust the military leaders.

"I don't think the election will be free and fair. It will not bring any
legitimacy, but at the same time governments in the region are likely to
prop up and support the election outcome and may think the election is the
only game in town."

Role for Suu Kyi?

Aung Naing Oo was a student who fled Burma after violent clashes with the
military in 1988 and is now a political scientist based in Chiang Mai.

He believes human rights abuses will remain but says the election "will be
a first tiny step on a long, long road to democracy".

Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy icon who has spent most of the past 20
years under house arrest, is due to be release on 13 November.

She has taken her NLD out of the political protest on ideological grounds,
and Aung Naing Oo is among those asking what her position will be if she
is released.

"I don't see her playing a formal political role, but a very important
role outside of the constitution," he said.

"She is a very rare kind of politician - untainted - and in a country like
Burma with the worst corruption in the world we need someone to look up
to. Politics is very dirty.

"Some Burmese liken her to Nelson Mandela but I don't see it that way. To
me she is not very pragmatic in terms of her leadership - Aung San Suu Kyi
has been unable to translate her popularity, or even her election win in
1990, into power.

"But in her role as a Nobel laureate and daughter of our national hero,
she will play a very important role in the country."

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

October 18, Irrawaddy
Thailand realigns its Burma policy – Pavin Chachavalpongpun

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s visit to Naypyidaw, the capital of
Burma, on Oct. 11 has marked a new chapter in the Democrat Party’s
relations with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

It is the first time a prime minister from the Democratic Party has paid a
visit to Burma in almost two decades. During 1997-2001, Prime Minister
Chuan Leekpai refused to visit Burma because of his supposedly
pro-democracy agenda at home.

The situation surrounding the Thai-Burmese relations has changed over the
years, and so has the current government’s policy toward Naypyidaw.

Legitimate or otherwise, Abhisit’s foreign policy toward Burma reflects
the political realities in both countries. Thailand’s democratization has
in the past few years stagnated with the Abhisit government fighting for
its survival against political threats posed by the Redshirt movement.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party’s long-held pro-democracy platform has
increasingly become rhetorical. The perception of the Abhisit government
being reluctant to push for political reforms serves to belittle its
pro-democracy credentials. On this basis, Thailand is finding it more
difficult to preach to its Burmese neighbor to promote democracy and to
respect human rights.

In Burma too, an election will take place on Nov. 7, the first time in 20
years. The Burmese generals have planned this political transition
carefully, ensuring that the political power will remain firmly in the
hand of their military elite, some of whom are now wearing civilian
clothes. Like it or not, there will be no new Burma, just a more
"civilianized" and perhaps a slightly less repressive regime.

Abhisit’s visit to Naypyidaw seems to symbolize the shift of direction in
Thailand’s Burmese policy and its realistic response to Burma’s political
transition.

Currently, there are two emerging views in Thailand. On the one hand, the
advent of a civilian regime in Burma could instigate a legitimacy crisis
and the loss of justification for Thailand’s traditional hostile policy
toward Burma, which was deeply rooted in its embittered historical
interactions. After the elections, however, Thailand will unexpectedly
legitimize Burma’s civilian regime, thus debunking its old construct of
Burma posing  a threat.

The first few years after the election will be a trial period for the new
regime. There will be numerous obstacles that will challenge Burma’s new
government. The change will not be restricted within the domestic domain,
but will engender an impact on Thai-Burmese relations. With this change,
Thailand will search for a new legitimacy in its policy toward Burma.
Certain Thai governments in the past exploited the negative image of
Burma’s military regime in order to justify its foreign policy interests
and appease its international allies despite the fact that they were not
any less despotic than their Burmese counterparts.

In retrospect, Thai-Burmese relations have been marred by distorted
historical memory and the state-constructed perception of threat. Ties
have become more “normal” only when leaders of both sides agreed to let
their economic imperatives take a front seat in the conduct of diplomacy
toward each other. Skeptics may have dismissed the upcoming elections;
they believe Burma is leaping into a greater unknown.

Regardless, Burma will be recasting itself into a more recognizable
entity, not necessarily a democratic one. Asean and Thailand will welcome
the new regime, since both have already endorsed the SPDC’s roadmap to
democracy.

On the other hand, the arrival of Burma’s new government  will broaden
Thailand’s policy options. Thailand will no longer be confined within its
own self-serving discourse of an antagonistic Burma. Indeed, prior to
Abhisit’s visit, his Democrat government, known for its critical view of
Burma in the past, has gradually distanced itself from such discourse
while renewing the country’s friendly ties with the junta.

The Abhisit government has made a bold step in the new implementation of
its policy toward Burma. Departing from its pro-democracy, pro-West and
anti-junta standpoint, Prime Minister Abhisit earlier instructed the
Ministry of Commerce to put in place the necessary measures that would
increase two-way trade with the Burmese regime.

A special economic zone along the common border will soon be set up, thus
encouraging Thais to seek business opportunities in Burma. Prime Minister
Abhisit himself revealed that Thailand was in the process of upgrading the
Singkhon checkpoint in Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Muang District to serve a new
economic center in southern Burma. On top of this, Thailand has a plan to
develop a route that links Kanchanaburi with Tavoy as a western gateway to
markets in Thailand.

This policy of turning enemy land into a market place looks rather
familiar, indeed once introduced by Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan
(1988-1991), and repackaged by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
(2001-2006) as part of his vision of Thailand as a dominant player in
mainland Southeast Asia. Today, Abhisit has followed in the footsteps of
Thailand’s past leaders, even when he previously profoundly criticized
them, particularly the billionaire Thaksin, for being obsessed with
economic gains at the expense of promoting democracy in Burma.

But Abhisit could argue that Burma is now entering into a new political
phase—one with a greater sense of political openness, and that it would
only be logical if the Thai government, at present or in the future, would
diversify its options, not only concentrating on preserving its
security-centric, pro-democracy position, but also giving prominence to
bilateral economic activities. Burma in a new guise could therefore renew
the “romance” in the Thai-Burmese relationship that has been lost since
the pro-junta Thaksin government was overthrown in a military coup in
September 2006.

These two emerging trends signal a sea-change in Thai policy toward Burma.
Anti-Burmese regime movements may not like to hear this: but it is highly
possible that the new government will have the potential to help stabilize
bilateral relationship in the long-run.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a former diplomat, is the author of  A Plastic
Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations.
____________________________________

October 17, The Guardian (UK)
'Miracles do happen, even in a police state': My childhood in Burma –
Wendy Law-Yone

On 7 November, Burma will hold its first elections in two decades. Here,
the writer Wendy Law-Yone, who grew up under its repressive regime in the
1960s, relives the terrible night her journalist father was seized by the
army to be held indefinitely, and how an unlikely romance helped her find
freedom

Desire fulfilled is a dangerous thing, we are told by the moralists. Be
careful of what you want, they warn. You might end up getting it. Once,
when I was 20 years old and the thing I'd wanted above all else was
suddenly granted me, I came to understand the truth in that warning.

Where does the desire of a lifetime begin? Mine began, I think, with snow.
The earliest games I remember playing as a child in Rangoon involved snow.
Our home in those days of the early 1950s was on two floors of a
four-storey edifice called the Thomas de la Rue building. Money was minted
in that building – or had been until just before the war, when the British
were still running Burma. "Don't think money grows on trees!" my mother
was fond of saying. Of course I didn't think money grew on trees. It was
printed downstairs, on old machines. Upstairs, on the top storey, was the
North Pole: a big empty loft where I would try to lead my playmates on
pretend Arctic expeditions. Snow was a miracle, a chimera, that called me
to impossibly distant places.

As I grew older, I listened, rapt, to stories brought home by my older
siblings who had studied and travelled in America; by my father,
describing his first opera while on a press junket to Europe ("Crying over
a lost coat! Too funny!"); by multilingual friends whose parents were
posted to places like Paris, Rome, Belgrade


I couldn't wait for my turn, when I'd see for myself the wonders of a
world as sprawling as the landscape in that fairytale, "East of the Sun
and West of the Moon." At 16 – with school behind me and a music
scholarship in California awaiting me; with my blue Samsonite suitcase
packed and repacked daily, months ahead of schedule – it seemed my time
had come.

Then, in March 1963, with only three months to go, everything changed. One
night, a car drew up under our front porch and woke my mother. Seeing an
army Jeep outside, she shook my father awake. He looked at his watch as he
got out of bed. Three o'clock in the morning.

At the front door was a young man in uniform. "Uncle," said the captain,
"let's go. And don't touch the telephone, please." When she looked out the
window my mother saw that the house was surrounded. Apart from the Jeep,
there was an open truck full of armed soldiers, and an army station wagon.
In this station wagon our father was taken away.

Only later in the day, when we children woke up one by one, did my mother
realise that not only could she not tell us where he had been taken to,
she couldn't be sure who his captors were. The army, she assumed. But how
could she be certain when there was nothing to go on: no charge, no
warrant, no witnesses apart from herself?

Days passed, then weeks, then months – and still we were in the dark about
where Dad had been taken, or when if ever we would see him again. One day,
eight months after his disappearance, an official letter finally arrived.
Editor U Law-Yone (my father was editor and publisher of the leading
English-language daily, the Rangoon Nation) was "under protective
custody". He would be allowed to write one letter home every other week.
On alternating weeks he could receive one letter from home. No letter
should exceed two handwritten pages. There was no mention of visits –
then, or at any time in the five years to follow.

Not long after my father's arrest, I gathered the nerve to broach a
difficult subject: my passport. My mother looked at me, uncomprehending.
"What passport?" "Shouldn't we be applying for it?" I said. "We're running
out of time."

My mother said, "You must be joking." Then, seeing I wasn't joking, "I
can't believe this. Your father's in jail – or worse – and you're still
thinking of leaving? You are that selfish?"

I was, in fact, that selfish. It seemed to me urgent to leave, especially
because my father had been arrested. Something told me we weren't going to
see him any time soon. Prime minister U Nu and his cabinet ministers had
been picked up a year ago, when the military took over, and they were
still in jail. More and more politicians, journalists and students were
disappearing in the dragnet cast by the MIS – the Military Intelligence
Service. Businesses were being nationalised or shut down without
compensation. Foreign nationals – even those whose families had lived in
Burma for generations – were stripped of their assets and ordered out of
the country. Things were getting worse, not better, I reasoned; and what
good was I to anyone if I stayed?

My mother ended our Mexican standoff with one of her edicts. "You're not
going. And that's that." Then she burst into tears, and I went off to
seethe with self-pity and impotent rage.

Months later, following her advice to "make the best of things", I was
enrolled in Rangoon University. But halfway through the first term, both
my mother and I were summoned to the registrar's office. There we were
informed that, as the daughter of a political prisoner, I was officially
barred from classes – at the university or at any other institute of
learning.

I could see my mother biting her lip and hoped she wouldn't cry. When she
did, I hated her even more than I hated the registrar, and shot her a look
that said, "See? What did I tell you? And you wanted me to stay."

The pile-up of frustrations gave me licence, as I saw it, to sulk and
mope. To escape the assaults of a large household, I locked myself in my
room, emerging only for meals, bristling at the slightest taunt or tease
from my brothers and sisters. The bed in my room was a pull-out sofa that
I never bothered to pull out, sleeping uncomfortably on the narrow seat,
my bed of nails. I fell into the habit of sleeping fully clothed, prepared
to jump up at a moment's notice – and flee.

When not plotting revenge on one adversary or another, I was plotting
escape. I had stopped playing the piano altogether (another act of protest
which, maddeningly, no one seemed to notice), but on my portable record
player I listened to the same handful of LPs – Gershwin's Rhapsody in
Blue, Eartha Kitt, a Segovia album – dreaming all the while of faraway
places. In my fantasies, I drove the smooth highways of America in an open
convertible. I roamed the cafés of Paris, rubbing shoulders with Jean-Paul
Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. I sat in the front row of a concert hall in
Moscow, watching the hands of the great Sviatoslav Richter on the keyboard
of a Steinway grand. I dreamed, like Bing Crosby, of a white Christmas.

One day I was invited to a piano recital at the Goethe Institute in
Rangoon. The British Council and the Alliance Française had already begun
to pull up stakes and leave, but the Germans still soldiered on in their
cultural mission. During the intermission, I met an American couple who
introduced me to their house guest, another American by the name of
Sterling. We sat and talked for about 20 minutes. Then, when the concert
was over, we went our separate ways: Sterling to San Francisco, where he
was living at the time, and I to my bed of nails.

Six months later, Sterling and I were launched on a long-distance romance.
The forbidden nature of it appealed to our mutual love of secrecy, danger
and adventure. For the next year and a half, we wrote to each other almost
daily. Our letters escaped the post office censors by coming and going
through the diplomatic pouch, thanks to sympathetic embassy friends.

For the first time in a long while, I was no longer fixated on escape and
flight. I was too busy composing letters that I hoped would impress
Sterling, a journalist by profession, and the last word, it seemed to me,
in epistolary savoir-faire. I sat at my grey Smith Corona, a dictionary by
my side, a wheel-and-brush eraser at the ready. For hours I typed and
erased, often tearing the onion-skin stationery that had quickly turned
purple from my laboured prose.

We were married in Rangoon, two years from the date of our first meeting.
I was 20, Sterling 10 years older. The wedding was a subdued and surreal
affair, with the MIS tailing us to the courthouse and back – and many long
faces in attendance as the day wore on and it became obvious that the
authorities were not going to release my father for the occasion.

The ceremonies over, Sterling was once more obliged to leave: as a
foreigner, he could only stay for the duration of a 24-hour transit visa.

Over the next few months, Sterling flew in and out of the country, while I
tried repeatedly to apply for a passport – each time to no avail. It
appeared that my chances were no better now that I was married to an
American; if anything, they were worse. All Americans were potential CIA
agents in the eyes of the MIS.

It was time, we decided, for me to take the "back door" – the underground
route to Thailand favoured by smugglers, petty criminals and insurgents.
Early one morning in May, I set out for the train station with my brother,
Alban, and a gem smuggler who had agreed to lead us through the eastern
jungles to a safe crossing at the border with Thailand.

We never made it that far. At the river port of Moulmein, on the very
first leg of our journey, we were picked up by the secret police and
brought back to Rangoon. Once at the MIS headquarters, my brother and I
were separated and held in different rooms.

The interrogations lasted from nine at night to nine the next morning, the
officers working in teams of four, changing shifts at 3am. For the next 10
days, the routine was unvarying: every night, just before nine, a guard
would unlock the door to lead me downstairs, into the self-same office,
where I was asked to take a seat across the desk from the interrogators.
Just before 9am, I would be led back to my room.

Feverish with despair, I'd throw myself on to the cot that had been set up
for me in the windowless office where I slept. "What makes you think," the
colonel had said with a pleasant smile, when I had asked for the umpteenth
time, "that you're ever going to be released?"

I was doomed, I now knew. Just as my father was doomed. I was never going
to get out of jail. Nor was he. Every Christmas a card would arrive at our
house from an organisation called Amnesty International, assuring the
"prisoner of conscience" that he was not forgotten. And for a few weeks my
mother would allow herself to hope that important people outside the
country were busy engineering her husband's release. Now I saw that
nothing could possibly come of any talk of release. Now I knew what
protective custody meant. It meant you could be locked up one day just
like that, and remain locked up until God alone knew when — and not a
thing in the world could be done about it.

I made a vow to myself then: if, by miracle, I ever made it out of jail
and managed to leave the country, I would never, ever, come back to live
in such a wretched place again.

Miracles do happen, even in police states. Ten days after our arrest,
without warning or explanation, my brother and I were allowed to go home.
Even more astonishing, Colonel Chit Khin, the chief of Military
Intelligence himself, put in a bouncy appearance to sign our release
order. Reminding me that we had once played tennis to- gether, he then
assured me that an exit permit would be granted me within 10 days.

In the event, 10 days turned into three months, as a wave of violent
anti-Chinese riots brought the city to a standstill and martial law was
declared. But against all odds, just as I was beginning to give up hope, a
messenger cycled up to our front door one morning and handed me my ticket
to freedom: an exit permit and a certificate of identity, the stateless
person's passport.

On the night of 15 July 1967, I drove to Mingaladon airport in the spooky
atmosphere of a war-time blackout. Because a curfew was still in effect,
nobody came to see me off, but our driver, Maung Thein Htun, tried in his
quiet way to make up for the lonely send-off. He had brought me as a
going-away present a small paperback, a Burmese cookbook. Whenever I felt
homesick, he said, I could follow one of those recipes. Then maybe I would
think of him a little, too. From my seat in the back I could see the sad
movement of his Adam's apple.

The airport seemed utterly deserted and for once even the MIS were out of
sight. Then a Thai International attendant appeared, led me to the ticket
counter and before I knew it I was being escorted aboard Thai
International Flight TG304, where I discovered that I was the one and only
passenger.

It was my first time on a jet and I was white-knuckled: not from fear of
flying, but from fear of flying back. Just before boarding I had overheard
an exchange between two members of the ground crew. Point of no-return,
was what one of them had said jokingly. Something about how on a short
flight like the one before us (we were flying from Rangoon to Bangkok, an
hour-and-a-half away), there was no point of no-return.

No point of no-return! But what did that mean? That the plane could be
ordered to turn back at any time, right up to the verge of landing? The
alarming paradox held me in thrall for the rest of the flight – until the
plane touched down at Don Muang International airport right on schedule,
the wheels skipping a little before coming to a stop. Out on the tarmac,
two strangers were waving to me. One of them, I realised with a start, was
my husband.

Endings, like beginnings, are never as clear-cut as we wish them to be.
One life had ended for me, thank God, and a new life had begun. The
commercials on the television sets in Bangkok all seemed to shout out my
hard-won status. FREE! FREE! FREE! The world was my apple. The sky was the
limit. And I soon found out that my persistent nausea was not just a case
of nerves: I was pregnant.

There was a small problem of how we were going to live, for we had no
money. Sterling had quit his job with a San Francisco television station
to "spirit" me out of Burma, as he put it, and I, of course, had no
credentials, no "marketable skills". But we were rich, we felt, in other
ways. And we would soon be rich in the usual way, too, for someone at MGM
was "wildly excited" about a script that Sterling had written. We flew to
Los Angeles and found a cheap apartment in West Hollywood, near enough to
the studios to facilitate negotiations. (Daryl, the MGM executive, turned
out to be a bankrupt shyster who was using stolen MGM stationery – but
that's another story.)

The apartment had a large plastic tree that took up half the living space,
but we could hang things on it: clothes, large paper clips to hold
newspaper clippings, even a stuffed mouse with enormous ears, a gift to me
from Sterling, named Mousey Tung.

It was Mousey Tung I clutched to my belly when the cramps began one night.
I thought at first it might be indigestion from the excess of Kraft's
Green Goddess salad dressing I'd poured on my iceberg lettuce, but the
cramping continued for hours before letting up and allowing sleep. I felt
fine the next day – until late evening, when the cramps returned with a
vengeance. This time they lasted most of the night. Poor Mousey Tung's
wire ears were misshapen by morning. On the third night, when the dread
signs began, Sterling borrowed a friend's car to drive me to the hospital.
The young resident who examined me said, "You're trying to abort." "No,
I'm not!" I snapped, mistaking the diagnosis for accusation. He gave me an
injection and sent me home to rest.

I got into the back seat of the car so I could lie down. We drove out of
the hospital and on to roads where the signs and billboards flashing by
were exactly like the neon-lit vistas I had imagined as a teenager, when I
drove the open highways in my daydreams. But before long I could think of
nothing but the pain tearing through my abdomen. Once, when it seemed as
if we had been driving for hours, I screamed for Sterling to stop, for
God's sake, and do something, but we were on one of the great freeways of
southern California, caught on a particularly long stretch between exits,
and when Sterling screamed back, "What do you want me to DO?" I feared an
accident and went back to moaning and writhing and clawing the air.

"We're almost home, almost home," he kept saying, and I had ceased to
believe him when suddenly we were stopped right in front of our apartment
– and suddenly, miraculously, the pain stopped, too.

I was trembling with relief as I got out of the car – and still trembling
when I felt the important gush between my legs that told me it was all
over now, there was nothing to be done about it.

Once in bed I was overcome with relief that bordered on euphoria. The pain
was gone, and I was alive. Things happen for a reason, I told myself. The
baby was not meant to be, clearly. The pregnancy must have been doomed
from the start. Or maybe it was just that a price had to be paid for the
freedom I'd won – and this was the very price. I felt calm, even peaceful,
as I accepted my loss. Then I felt weak with hunger. I had a powerful
craving for my mother's chicken stew. One thing I could say about my
mother: no matter how busy she might be, or how angry at me, I could
always count on her special chicken stew to speed up my recovery from any
illness. I remembered a story she'd once told me about the child she had
lost – and suddenly it was as if she was sitting on the edge of my bed,
telling me the story again.

"Alban was just a baby, your father's deaf aunt was helping to take care
of him, when his little brother was born – 31 January, I still remember
the day. We named him John. When the baby was eight months old, he
suddenly got very sick and broke out in sores. The doctor came – and just
stood at the door to the bedroom. He took one look at the baby and
wouldn't come any closer. "Take him to the hospital right away," was all
he said.

"I suppose I knew at the back of my mind that there was a smallpox
epidemic going on, but I refused to let myself think about it. In the
hospital, of course, there was no escaping the horror. All around us
people were dying and being carried away. I stayed with the baby day and
night for I don't know how many days. I remember hearing somebody say that
human saliva could cure those sores, so I kept on licking the baby's hot
little body all over, praying and praying for a miracle.

"I don't even know how they managed to get me away from the baby when it
died, how I was able to leave him there. But I remember coming home and
the dog going wild. It just knew, I suppose. It kept jumping all over me,
licking me and making crying noises. I remember sitting in the living room
and staring at nothing for a long, long time, just like that. Daddy
brought me some ice cream, but I couldn't touch it, I couldn't look at
it."

When Sterling came to kneel by the bedside and comfort me, saying, "We'll
have another; it will be all right," I didn't know how to tell him that
what I wanted at the moment was not to have another child – it was to go
home and tell my mother I was sorry.
Three months later, our Hollywood illusions behind us, we moved to New
York City, where I found a job, a minor clerical position, with a big
German firm. My boss, a salesman by the name of Eugene Koch, seemed like
the kindest man on earth. I celebrated my first white Christmas with a
beautiful Douglas fir tree that someone had left on the street. I hadn't
met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, but I had seen Julie Christie
browsing in a tiny boutique in Sausalito. And I hadn't yet heard
Sviatoslav Richter play, but the mother of a friend of ours had two extra
tickets to the Metropolitan Opera, where I slept soundly through The Ride
of the Valkyries.

It was spring of the next year, and I was pregnant again when I received a
pile of mail that had been forwarded along to me from one past address to
another. In it was a letter from my father, sent from 116B University
Avenue, Rangoon, and dated 4 March 1968.

My darling daughter,

As soon as I came home we dashed off a cable to you. You must be footloose
somewhere because you have not yet responded. But everything here reminds
me of you: even this typewriter which was clogged up with your old eraser
shavings


Wars and rumours of war; men withering away in expectation of what shall
befall them. There has been no change since I went in


You are old enough and sensible enough to know that my imprisonment has
been a blessing in disguise. We have all recovered from the ordeal we have
been through. Other families lose the head at one fell swoop – in our case
there was a dress rehearsal to prepare everyone for the day when the show
opens in earnest,

Daddy

But the show had already opened in earnest for me. I was a grown-up now.
And if I didn't jump up and down in exultation at the news of my father's
release, it was because I had learned that beginnings, like endings, are
never as clear-cut as we imagine.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

October 18, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma
Support Min Ko Naing and his fellow democracy activists

Today Min Ko Naing will spend his 48th Birthday imprisoned and cut off
from the people of Burma. This will be the 19th year that he has spent a
day, meant for celebration, in incarceration.

Min Ko Naing has become one of the most prominent and outspoken opponents
of the military regime, expressing his political dissent through poetry
and most recently ‘Rear View Mirror’ a novel written after his first
release and published by the Assistance Association for Political
Prisoners in 2009.

Min Ko Naing has put Burma’s fight for democracy before any other
interests and in doing so risked his freedom and safety. He has been
stripped of his basic human rights yet fought back again and again each
time with more determination. To the people of Burma Min Ko Naing is an
inspiration and a symbol of strength and courage.

‘True courage can be seen in those who, armed with nothing more than their
superior moral position, stand up to a brutal armed regime; and
persistently defy their order; refuse to cower under their threats; to
simply demand the rights that should be available to all humans
that is
true courage’. Jim McNalis.

In August 1988, Min Ko Naing was elected Chairperson of the All Burma
Federation of Student Unions. After the military brutally crushed the
popular uprisings in August 1988, thousands of students and other
activists escaped to safety. However, Min Ko Naing refused to flee,
choosing instead to remain inside Burma to continue his pro-democracy
work.

Min Ko Naing was eventually arrested in March 1989 and arbitrarily
sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. He was released in November 2004
after spending 16 years in solitary confinement. In an interview following
his release, he

said, “It gave me confidence in prison to know that although my journey is
rough and dark, I am not alone, and I am with my comrades. As a result, I
have finished the long journey”.

In August 2007, Min Ko Naing led peaceful demonstrations against the
regime’s economic mismanagement, hikes in fuel and commodity prices, and
the falling standard of living. This later became know as the Saffron
Revolution. Min Ko Naing and his fellow leading activists were arrested
for their roles in organizing the demonstrations and handed down sentences
of 65 years.

Min Ko Naing has been presented with several awards by the international
community for his work towards a democratic Burma and for highlighting the
regimes’ absolute denial of freedom of expression; a basic human right and
fundamental element within a democratic society.

Let us wish this courageous leader a happy birthday and assure him and his
fellow activists that they are not alone in their fight for a democracy in
Burma.

#

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)

For more information –
Bo Kyi (Joint Secretary);   +66 (0) 819 628 713
Tate Naing (Secretary):    +66 (0) 812 878 751