BurmaNet News, November 26 - 29, 2010

[Editor]

November 26 – 29, 2010 Issue #4092


INSIDE BURMA
Al Jazeera: UN envoy meets Suu Kyi
DPA: UN chief of staff calls on Myanmar to free all political prisoners
AP: Myanmar restricts speech of new parliament members
Irrawaddy: Suu Kyi meets with CRPP
Mizzima: NY Times misreads Suu Kyi: NLD

ON THE BORDER
DVB: Border flare-up sparks refugee turmoil

BUSINESS / TRADE
IHT: An industrial project that could change Myanmar

REGIONAL
Irrawaddy: Amid calls for 'Panglong II,' Ramos-Horta offers to mediate

OPINION / OTHER
DVB: New Myanmar is the hell-hole old Burma (Pt. 1 & 2) – Amartya Sen
Washington Times: Lift sanctions burden from Burma; Further punishment for
Rangoon only benefits China – Brahma Chellaney
Irrawaddy: Only Than Shwe can get West to lift sanctions – Editorial
Bangkok Post: General Than Shwe has a game plan – Larry Jagan





____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

November 27, Al Jazeera
UN envoy meets Suu Kyi

Myanmar pro-democracy leader holds talks with UN special representative
after her recent release from house arrest.

A senior United Nations official has met Myanmar's recently released
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon.

Vijay Nambiar, the UN special representative on Myanmar, held nearly two
hours of talks with Suu Kyi and senior members of her officially disbanded
National League for Democracy on Saturday.

In brief remarks to reporters after the meeting, Suu Kyi said that the
talks at her lakeside home were "very valuable".

"But one meeting is not enough. I hope this is the first of many meetings.
I think we may need many and frequent meetings to sort out all the
problems we are facing," she said.

Suu Kyi was released on November 13 after more than seven years under
house arrest and has since held a number of meetings with diplomats, UN
representatives, politicians and international agencies.

Democracy campaign

The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has made it clear since gaining
her freedom that she plans to continue her campaign for a democratic
Myanmar but has been careful not to explicitly challenge the ruling
generals.

"This is the highest profile visit Aung San Suu Kyi has received since
coming out of house arrest," Al Jazeera's special correspondent in
Myanmar, who we are not naming due to reporting restrictions, said.

"I don't think there is any kind of suggestion that he [Nambiar] is going
to be a go-between in negotiations between Suu Kyi and the generals here
... but certainly I am sure he will be discussing with Suu Kyi the
question of dialogue.

The government has given her a largely free rein since her release, the
country's supreme court, however, recently refused to reinstate her party,
which was officially disbanded after failing to register itself ahead of
national elections on November 7.

Dominated by parties made up of former military officials or supporting
the current military government, the election was widely criticised
abroad.

Nambiar, the chief of staff for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, will
also hold talks with the foreign minister and secretary-general of the
military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party on Saturday, The
Associated Press news agency reported, citing diplomatic sources.

However, he is now expected to visit the capital Naypyidaw during his
two-day stay in the country.

This is Nambiar's first visit to Myanmar since he took over the position
of former special envoy Ibrahim Gambari who last visited the country in
June 2009.

He is a former Indian ambassador to China and is believed to have a good
relationship with Beijing, a key ally of the Myanmar government.

____________________________________

November 28, Deustche Press Agentur
UN chief of staff calls on Myanmar to free all political prisoners

Yangon – The chief of staff of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday
called for the release of all remaining political prisoners in Myanmar and
a 'national dialogue' in the wake of the country's first general election
in two decades.

Vijay Nambiar was in Myanmar over the weekend to assess the political
climate after the country's ruling junta held a general election on
November 7 and released opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from seven
years of house detention a week later.

'The UN calls for the release of all remaining political prisoners,'
Nambiar said in a statement he read before departing for Singapore.

He added that the UN wanted to see the government hold a 'national
dialogue' with all the concerned parties in the post-election period.

Nambiar on Saturday held a 90-minute interview with Suu Kyi at her
National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in Yangon.

'The conversation was very good,' Suu Kyi said. 'It was a valuable
meeting. We heard the views of the UN secretary-general but one meeting is
not enough. We need more meetings.'

Nambiar said Sunday the goal of his trip was to hold talks with all
parties concerned, to encourage a national dialogue between the government
and opposition groups and 'to reconfirm the UN's long term commitment to
Myanmar.'

He said he wished to return to Myanmar in coming months.

Nambiar, who is also Ban's special envoy on Myanmar affairs, was the first
senior UN official to meet with Suu Kyi since her release on November 13.

Ban and Western democracies have long been demanding the release of Suu
Kyi and 2,100 other political prisoners languishing in Myanmar jails for
years.

Her release came a week after Myanmar held a general election for the
first time in two decades.

The balloting was dominated by the pro-junta Union Solidarity and
Development Party, but the military-staged exercise has been widely
criticized by Western democracies as a sham.

Observers said they believe Suu Kyi's release was designed to deflect
international criticism from the fraudulent electoral process and calm
public outrage in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi is hoping the UN will pressure the regime to hold a dialogue with
her and other opposition groups before lifting economic sanctions.

Her NLD was excluded from the election by regulations imposed by the
military shortly before the vote.

Myanmar has been ruled by military dictatorships since 1962. The previous
general election of 1990 was won by the NLD, but its elected lawmakers
were blocked from assuming office.
____________________________________

November 27, Associated Press
Myanmar restricts speech of new parliament members

Yangon, Myanmar – Freedom of speech for members of parliament in
military-controlled Myanmar will be restricted under laws that dictate the
functioning of the newly elected government.

The curbs announced Friday in an official gazette also set a two-year
prison term for any protest staged within the parliament compound.

They come after elections this month that were swept by the
military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Final results have
yet to be announced, but a tabulation based on state media reports shows
the party garnered nearly 80 percent of the seats in the two-house Union
Parliament.

The laws, signed by junta chief Gen. Than Shwe, stipulate that
parliamentarians will be allowed freedom of expression unless their
speeches endanger national security, the unity of the country or violate
the constitution. They also provide a two-year prison term for those who
stage protests in the parliament compound or physically assault a lawmaker
on its premises.

Also, anyone other than lawmakers who enters the parliament hall when the
body is in session faces a one-year prison term and a fine.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962 and the Nov. 7 vote was widely
criticized as unfairly designed and fraudulently executed.

The Union Election Commission has repeatedly corrected announced results
that showed turnout exceeding 100 percent in some constituencies and when
two pro-junta candidates were declared winners in constituencies in Kachin
State where elections had been canceled.

The results ensure the military retains power behind the scenes as well as
overtly in parliament, which will become a powerful body. The president,
who will come from the ranks of the victorious party, will appoint Cabinet
ministers and can call the military to step in case of a national
emergency.

The previously elections in 1990 were overwhelmingly won by the National
League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, but the military did not
recognize the results.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was recently released from her
latest period of house arrest. She has been in detention for more than 15
of the last 21 years.

____________________________________

November 27, Irrawaddy
Suu Kyi meets with CRPP – Sao Zom Hseng

The first meeting between recently freed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi and members of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament
(CRPP), a committee formed by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
(NLD), took place on Friday afternoon.

The secretary of the CRPP, Aye Tha Aung, said following the meeting that
the CRPP believes a Panglong-style conference is necessary to achieve
national reconciliation and improve the country's situation.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Friday, Aye Tha Aung said that those
attending the meeting agreed that “the first step towards national
reconciliation is to build unity between the ethnic groups in line with
the spirit and policies of the first Panglong conference.”

Tin Oo, the NLD vice-chairman, and Win Tin, the NLD secretary, also
attended the meeting, and Aye Tha Aung said the existence of the NLD was
also discussed at the meeting.

“The NLD was the winning party and received the support of many citizens
in the 1990 elections, so the NLD will still exist with the help of law
experts working for the party,” the CRPP secretary said.

The CRPP was formed on Sept. 16, 1998 by the NLD after the Burmese
military junta failed to respond to renewed calls to recognize the results
of the 1990 elections. Some CRPP members were immediately arrested after
they demanded a new parliament be seated in accordance with the 1990
election results.

____________________________________

November 27, Mizzima News
NY Times misreads Suu Kyi: NLD – Ko Wild

Chiang Mai – The New York Times misread party leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s
views by reporting that she disagreed with supporters’ efforts to bring
the military junta to the International Criminal Court for crimes against
humanity, a National League for Democracy leader said of an article
published three days ago.

“We already have talked about that. At the 16th paragraph of the report,
the newspaper quoted her [Suu Kyi] as saying ‘I’ve never said I want them
to be brought into the international court’. Of course, that’s what she
said. She said it for the sake of national reconciliation,” Win Tin told
Mizzima.

“But it did not mean she disagreed with her supporters’ efforts to bring
the junta to the International [Criminal] Court. The newspaper said in
paragraph 15 
 that ‘She said she did not endorse moves among her
supporters overseas [to try to bring the junta leaders into international
court for crimes against humanity]’. In fact, that’s not what she meant.
That’s the reporter’s view,” the NLD co-founder added.

Win Tin reiterated that Suu Kyi agreed with the setting up of a UN
commission of inquiry to investigate the junta’s crimes against humanity
because she thought such as probe would uncover the truth.

In March, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in
Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, issued a report after his visit to Burma to
the UN Human Rights Council, which stated that in Burma, there existed a
pattern of “gross and systematic human rights abuses that suggested the
abuses were state policy that involved authorities at all levels of the
executive, military and judiciary”.

Qintana’s report also stated that the “possibility exists that some of
these human rights violations may entail categories of crimes against
humanity or war crimes under the terms of the [Rome] Statute of the
International Criminal Court”. So, he urged the UN to launch a commission
of inquiry to investigate such crimes by the junta.

Along with Burmese pro-democracy organisations in exile, at least 10
countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and the United States, have supported calls for such a UN
commission of inquiry on the junta’s war crimes and other human rights
violations in Burma.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

November 29, Democratic Voice of Burma
Border flare-up sparks refugee turmoil – Maung Too

A fresh outbreak of heavy fighting in eastern Burma has caused more than a
thousand refugees to cross back and forth over the border with Thailand,
barely three weeks after a mass exodus left 20,000 displaced.

The latest flare-up comes after weeks of low-intensity conflict between
the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), whose
decision not to become a Border Guard Force has angered the ruling junta.

Gunfire was heard on Saturday in Hpalu village, close to the border town
of Myawaddy, which was the epicentre of the eruption earlier this month.
Several artillery shells landed close to Hpalu, injuring at least one
villager, the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) reported.

The majority of the 1,000 who initially fled returned earlier today, but
roughly 10 minutes after the last boatload arrived on the Burmese side of
the Moei river separating the two countries, mortars started again.
Numbers of people have since crossed back to Thailand now.

Major Saw Kyaw Thet, a strategic commander in the DKBA, said that Burmese
troops had attacked their Hpalu outpost in an effort to clear an escape
corridor for troops trapped in Wawlay, where the DKBA had its
headquarters.

One Burmese solider was killed and seven injured. When asked if he saw the
dead and wounded, Saw Kyaw Thet replied: “Of course. They are very near to
us.”

The refugees are sheltering just south of Thailand’s western border town
of Mae Sot, which lies across the Moei river from Myawaddy. Mae Sot hosted
up to 17,000 thousand Karen earlier this month after similar fighting
turned Myawaddy into a war zone.

Matt Finch, from the KHRG, said that Hpalu villagers had told the group
they were warned by the DKBA on Thursday last week that heavy fighting may
recommence, and began crossing over then.

Burmese troops around Wawlay, which until its capture by junta forces on
10 November had been a key stronghold of the DKBA, have been restricting
the movement of locals in recent weeks, and had now altogether barred them
from leaving to the area, Finch said.

He said locals had also been monitored and arrested by the Burmese army,
while troops had broken into houses to check whether civilians were
holding supplies for the DKBA or allied armed groups, such as the Karen
National Liberation Army (KNLA).

“It’s important to note that these aren’t isolated clashes, but that the
conflict has been ongoing,” he warned, adding that it was imperative on
Thai authorities to give the refugees a safe haven after reports emerged
that there had been confusion over whether they were allowed to stay in
Thailand.

Additional reporting by Francis Wade

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

November 27, International Herald Tribune
An industrial project that could change Myanmar

Dawei, Myanmar — The vast, pristine stretch of coastline here is almost
deserted, save for fishermen hauling their bountiful catches onto
white-sand beaches. But a deal signed this month would transform these
placid waters into a seaport for giant cargo ships. Cashew nut groves and
rice fields would be plowed under and replaced with a warren of factories,
refineries and an expansive coal-burning power plant.

Myanmar, which is run by a repressive military regime that controls both
economic and political life, recently captured the world’s attention with
its first elections in two decades and the release of Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi, the country’s leading dissident, from house arrest.

But the Dawei Development Project, as it is known, could have as much of
an impact on Myanmar’s future as the decades-old political chess games
between the military and its opponents — and perhaps more.

The deal, signed Nov. 2, calls for what would be by far the largest
industrial area in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. In an
impoverished, relatively cloistered country where malnourishment is
widespread, the factories and refineries could provide jobs on an
unprecedented scale, not unlike the special economic zones that China and
Vietnam set up in recent decades.

“We need tons of workers,” said Premchai Karnasuta, the president of
Italian-Thai Development, a conglomerate based in Bangkok that was awarded
the contract after years of negotiations and surveys of the area. “We will
mobilize millions of Burmese.”

A work force on that scale seems years away; engineers at the company
speak of hiring tens of thousands of people over the first five years of
construction. But analysts see the project as a landmark development for
the region in many other ways.

Foreign companies building plants here would be freed from the restraints
of increasingly strict antipollution laws elsewhere in the region. For
Thailand, the project would be a cheap and convenient way to export its
dirty refineries across the border.

“Some industries are not suitable to be located in Thailand,” Abhisit
Vejjajiva, the Thai prime minister, said in explaining the project to
viewers of his weekly television address recently. “This is why they
decided to set up there,” he said, referring to Dawei.

The project is also crucial for geo-strategic reasons: Construction of a
deep-sea port would create a shortcut between Europe and Indochina.
Companies in Thailand and the fast-growing economies of Vietnam and
Cambodia could save fuel and time by bypassing the long journey through
the Strait of Malacca, a detour of several thousand kilometers.

The project has backing at the highest levels of both the Thai and Myanmar
governments, including Myanmar’s dictator, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who
appears to be treating it as an experiment in opening the largely
state-controlled economy.

“Than Shwe said he wanted this project to be like the Shenzhen economic
zone,” Mr. Premchai said at a news conference this month, referring to the
city where southern China’s industrial transformation began three decades
ago.

Virgin territory

Italian-Thai has been awarded a huge chunk of territory for the project —
250 square kilometers, or about 97 square miles, more than four times the
size of Manhattan. There are also plans to develop hotels and resorts
further down Myanmar’s wild and sparsely populated southern coast, which
extends 500 kilometers, or about 300 miles, south.

The coastline here is a rare blank slate in an otherwise crowded part of
the world. In addition to the power plant, the company is planning a steel
mill, an oil refinery, a petrochemical complex, a shipbuilding yard, a
fertilizer factory and many other facilities.

Workers have already broken ground — construction on the road to Thailand
is under way — but there remains the possibility that the project will
founder. Ethnic rebels inhabit the hills around the site, though they have
been relatively quiet in recent years.

Sean Turnell, an expert on the Burmese economy at Macquarie University in
Sydney, said he was optimistic about the project’s prospects, provided
that Italian-Thai can follow through with financing and that the Myanmar
government does not interfere.

“Will the government really leave this alone? In the past they haven’t
been able to resist the temptation,” Mr. Turnell said.

Italian-Thai — which gets its name from a partnership formed five decades
ago between an Italian engineer and a Thai medical doctor — has been given
exemptions from import duties and a 75-year concession to build and
operate the heavy-industrial part of the project, as well as a 40-year
concession for light industry, like garment factories. After that,
according to the deal, the concession can be extended, or control can
revert to the Myanmar government.

The company estimates that infrastructure for the project will cost $8
billion; it says it has secured the financing, from a private bank that it
would not name. Other companies, including the Thai petrochemical giant
PTT, have expressed interest but have been ultimately noncommittal.

One of the largest Thai banks, Kasikorn, said it would not offer financing
for projects in Myanmar because of “political risk.”

Anan Amarapala, vice president of the marine division of Italian-Thai,
said Chinese companies had no such fears. “Japanese, Korean and Chinese
companies have been flying in nonstop to meet us,” he said in an
interview.

The Thai government, for its part, is highly supportive of the project. It
has been under consideration since the late 1990s, and all Thai
governments, before and after the 2006 military coup, have supported it —
a rare example of unanimity across Thailand’s fractured political
landscape.

In that sense, the Dawei project highlights the ineffectiveness of
economic sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on
Myanmar’s junta. Myanmar’s neighbors, especially Thailand, China and
India, have been rushing to do business with the country.

Mr. Premchai, the president of Italian-Thai, said there was so much
interest from other nations that when the military government asked him
for a decision, he could not hesitate. “They asked me, ‘Are you interested
in doing this project?’ I thought if we didn’t take it, the foreigners
would definitely get it. So I said, ‘I’ll take it,”’ Mr. Premchai said.

Chinese businesses are already dominant in many parts of Myanmar. A
state-owned Chinese firm has begun construction of a pipeline that will
carry gas and oil from another port in Myanmar, near the city of Sittwe,
to southern China. The purpose of that project is much the same as
Dawei’s: bypassing the transportation chokehold of the Strait of Malacca
and speeding up oil shipments from the Middle East for China’s
energy-hungry economy.

A free hand

For Thai companies, the business environment in Myanmar could hardly be
more different from that at home — or more convenient for them. In
Thailand, new private development requires environmental impact reports
and hearings with local residents, obstacles that have snarled a number of
high-profile projects.

In Dawei, the government simply told local residents to leave.

A group of farmers interviewed in their fields said they had not been
consulted about the project but were told by a local leader that they
would have to move. They were offered land elsewhere, they said, but it
was not suitable for grazing cattle or cultivating rice. The idea of
working on the project itself did not seem to entice them, and no
representatives from Italian-Thai had made any offers yet, they said.

“Maybe there will be opportunities,” said one farmer. “But right now, we
are in trouble.”

Local residents said the residents of 19 villages, each home to about
5,000 people, would be forced to leave. That number could not be
confirmed. Italian-Thai said it calculated that 3,800 households would
have to move.

“We are still in the process of negotiating with the villagers,” said Mr.
Anan of Italian-Thai. As in most parts of Myanmar, which underwent a
massive nationalization of assets in the 1960s, the land belongs to the
state.

“It is totally different from Thailand,” Mr. Anan said in an interview.
“Thais would argue about compensation and go to court. That’s not the case
with this project.”

For foreign companies, the project also means less environmental
oversight. In the case of Thailand, new laws that require more
environmental safeguards have slowed the expansion of the industrial
complex at Map Ta Phut, the country’s largest petrochemical facility.

Local residents at Map Ta Phut have pointed to data indicating higher
cancer rates and polluted air and groundwater — and government studies
have backed them up. A group of residents filed a lawsuit that last year
led to a court injunction on future development; the injunction was later
lifted, after protracted negotiations.

By contrast, Italian-Thai officials said that there were no laws in
Myanmar covering environmental protection but that they had conducted
their own assessment of the likely impact in Dawei.

“You have to think of Myanmar as Thailand 50 years ago,” said Surin
Vichian, the project manager in charge of engineering. “There’s nothing in
the country but wilderness and cheap labor.”

The Dawei project would help Thailand meet its energy needs while avoiding
the brunt of the pollution from the power’s generation. A massive
6,000-megawatt, coal-fired power plant planned for Dawei would transmit
power to Thailand.

Thailand already relies heavily on Myanmar for energy; the Dawei project
is only a few dozen kilometers south of a pipeline to Thailand built more
than a decade ago by the U.S. oil company Chevron and the French oil
company Total, and which supplies electricity for greater Bangkok. The
sale of gas to Thailand, worth $4 billion last year alone, has been
crucial in helping buttress the power of the military leadership in
Myanmar.

The Dawei project includes a profit-sharing agreement with the Myanmar
government, but executives from Italian-Thai said they could not divulge
details.

A PowerPoint presentation prepared by Italian-Thai and obtained by the
International Herald Tribune described the site, known as northern
Maungmagan, as ideal. The water is deep enough to accommodate ships and
oil-carrying supertankers with loads of up to 300,000 tons, it said. A
number of islands help form a barrier for the port. The adjacent area is
largely flat and has plentiful water supplies, making it suitable for
factories and refineries that will manufacture plastics and other
petrochemical products.

The city of Dawei does not seem entirely prepared for what is coming. It
has four traffic lights, dilapidated British colonial villas and
horse-drawn carts that clip-clop along potholed streets. The region’s
poverty and its decrepit infrastructure have left it isolated from central
Myanmar, let alone the rest of the world.

The mountainous jungle along the Thai border to the east is so thick that
smugglers bring in motorcycles from Thailand on bamboo poles, because
there are no paths on which to ride them. But once the planned highway is
completed, it is conceivable that Bangkok will be just a few hours’ drive
away.

The company said the first phase of construction — the road to Thailand, a
water reservoir, and the coal-fired power plant, among other projects —
would be completed within five years, while finishing the whole project
would take a decade.

The Thais are drawing on their experience in building Map Ta Phut, the
massive petrochemical complex linked to pollution and higher cancer rates.
Somchet Thinaphong, who helped devise the master plan for Map Ta Phut, is
the managing director of Dawei Development, which is to oversee the
project.

“This will be exactly 10 times bigger than Map Ta Phut,” Mr. Somchet said.

U.N. official to visit

A senior U.N. official was to visit Myanmar over the weekend to meet the
country’s military rulers and the recently released democracy activist Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats said Friday, The Associated Press reported
from Yangon.

Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff for the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon,
was probably coming to “feel the temperature” in the country following the
first election in 20 years and the democracy leader’s release from house
arrest, one diplomat said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

November 28, Irrawaddy
Amid calls for 'Panglong II,' Ramos-Horta offers to mediate – Simon Roughneen

Bangkok — Despite doubts about how Burma's ruling generals will respond to
recent calls for renewed talks to resolve the country's ethnic issues,
supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi say they believe her proposal for a second
Panglong Conference is vital to any future reconciliation and reform in
the country.

“The international community perhaps does not fully understand the
importance of resolving ethnic issues and preventing renewed conflict in
Burma,” said Khin Ohmar, the coordinator of the Burma Partnership, a
Thailand-based coalition of Burmese civil society groups.

Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta (Source: Reuters)
Burma is the site of some of the world's longest-running civil conflicts,
and recent months have seen increased troop levels in ethnic minority
regions near the Thai, Chinese and Indian borders. Ethnic groups have
consistently called for a federal polity in Burma, instead of a centrally
governed unitary state. The 2008 Constitution provides for regional
parliaments, but these fall short of what the ethnic leadership wants.

Nai Hang Thar, the secretary of the New Mon State Party, representing one
of Burma's largest ethnic minority groups, says that “there are many
people ready to follow [Suu Kyi's] lead,” while Chin leader Kyae O Beak
Thung said that “We hope to meet with Daw Suu as her father triumphantly
discussed with ethnic leaders in Panglong.”

The 1947 Panglong Conference was held by Aung San, Burma’s first
post-independence leader and the father of Suu Kyi. The aim was to find
agreement among Burma’s main ethnic groups on a decentralized governance
system for the new state.

The recently released Suu Kyi wants to hold “a 21st-century Panglong
Conference,” according to Moe Zaw Oo, the joint secretary of the National
League for Democracy (Liberated Area), claiming that she is “uniquely
positioned to facilitate progress toward genuine national reconciliation.”

However, there is long-established opposition to “the spirit of Panglong”
among Burma’s military elites. The 1962 coup that first brought the
Burmese military to power was justified by apparent threats to national
unity and stability by the provision of autonomy to ethnic groups.

To date, the ruling junta has not commented on or reacted to Suu Kyi’s
release or her statements since then, and the junta’s track record does
not suggest it will compromise.

Nonetheless, earlier today Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta signaled
his desire to visit Burma in 2011 and meet with Suu Kyi and the country's
military rulers.

Ramos-Horta spoke to Suu Kyi by telephone prior to his announcement,
telling her that “it is time to establish a certain distance in order to
give space for dialogue between the ruling regime and opposition, in the
attempt to find a path for the gradual evolution of the situation in the
country.”

Like Suu Kyi, Ramos-Horta is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, but he has
tempered his opposition to the ruling junta in recent times, calling on
the US and EU to drop sanctions against the regime, according to Soe Aung
of the Forum for Democracy in Burma.

Shortly after her release on Nov. 13, Suu Kyi said that she will consider
the sanctions after consulting with the Burmese people. The statement
issued by Ramos-Horta today made no mention of whether the pair discussed
the sanctions issue.

“I hope he will not be led along by the generals,” said Khin Ohmar when
asked about the Timorese President's suitability as a mediator. “It will
be interesting to see how Than Shwe responds to this,” she added.

Based on past experience, Ramos-Horta may have his work cut out for him
persuading junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe to enter into any dialogue
process.

Speaking at a forum on post-election Burma, held at Bangkok's
Chulalongkorn University on Tuesday, Aung Naing Oo, head of the Chiang
Mai-based Vahu Development Institute and a frequent critic of his fellow
Burmese exile activists, suggested one potential carrot.

There is “a need to bring the military out of isolation, and perhaps hint
to them about ending the arms embargo for example, at least to convince
them to enter into dialogue,” he said.

It is not clear whether Ramos-Horta hopes to visit before or after the
formation of new government in Burma, which may take place in early to
mid-February. By that time, Indonesia will have assumed the presidency of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which Timor-Leste is
seeking to join. The consent of the Burmese junta is needed before Dili
can accede to Asean.

Ramos-Horta was previously touted as a potential mediator in Thailand’s
political conflict, which culminated in a bloody stand-off between the
Thai army and an armed faction of the anti-government “Red Shirts,” and
ultimately ended on May 19 when the army overran the protester stronghold
in central Bangkok.

Since her release, Suu Kyi has spoken of the need for “a peaceful
revolution” in Burma, but has simultaneously held out olive branches to
the junta, suggesting that she might be willing to support calls for the
removal of sanctions and reverse her previous opposition to foreign
tourists visiting the country.

On the other hand, she has sought the reinstatement of her National League
for Democracy party, which was legally dissolved after it boycotted the
Nov.

7 general election, which was won by the junta-backed Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP) in a landslide amid widespread allegations of
“advance voting” fraud and ballot stuffing. Official results have not yet
been released, but the USDP has been accredited with 76 percent of the
vote, according to Chinese state media.

Suu Kyi has pledged to look into allegations of electoral fraud, and
according to Burma Partnership, ordinary Burmese are willing to cooperate.
However, a fee of one million kyat (US $1,136) is needed to file one
allegation of fraud with the authorities, with a two-year jail terms
possible if the case is lost.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

November 24 and November 29, Democratic Voice of Burma
New Myanmar is the hell-hole old Burma (Pt. 1 & 2) – Amartya Sen

I spent my childhood in Burma, and indeed it is difficult for me to talk
about Burma without a deep sense of nostalgia. My earliest memories are
all of Burma, where I grew up between the ages of three and six, where the
world presented itself to me, as I started sensing that there existed an
external world beyond me.

My father was a visiting professor at the Agricultural College in
Mandalay, on leave from Dhaka University. My first memory of striking
natural beauty is that of sunrise over the hills, seen from our wooden
house on the eastern edge of Mandalay. It was a thrilling sight, even for
a young boy. My first recollection of warm human relations, stretching
beyond my own family, are also of kindly Burmese society. Mandalay was a
lively city in the 1930s, and Burma an immaculately beautiful country. The
richness of the land and the enormous capacity of the Burmese people to be
happy and friendly shone brightly through the restraining lid of British
colonialism. After a short period of independence from British rule and a
brief experience of democracy, Burma has been in the grip of a supremely
despotic military rule for almost half a century now. There initially were
some ups and downs, but over the last couple of decades there has been
nothing but downs and downs.

The country has steadily fallen in the economic ranking of poor countries
in the world and is now one of the absolutely poorest on the globe. Its
educational and health services are in tatters; medicine is difficult to
get and educational institutions can hardly function. There is viciously
strict censorship, combined with heavy punishment for rebellious voices.
The minority communities – Shan, Karens, Chins, Rohingyas and others – get
particularly cruel and oppressive treatment. The shocking litany of
different cases of arbitrary imprisonment, terrifying torture,
state-directed displacement of people and organized rapes and killings.
When the population faces a catastrophe like Hurricane Nargis in May 2008,
the government not only does not want to help at all, its first
inclination is to ban others in the world from helping the distressed and
destitute people in the country.

The military rulers have renamed Burma as Myanmar and the renaming seems
perhaps understandable. For the country is no longer the Burma that
magnificently flourished over the centuries. New Myanmar is in fact the
hell-hole version of old Burma. What is striking is that tyranny has grown
steadily in Burma precisely over the decades in which democracy have made
major progress across the globe. When the great late leader Aung San, who
led Burma to independence, was gunned down on the 19 July 1947, there was
no democratic country in Asia or Africa. India became independent next
month, and established a flourishing, multi-party democracy soon
thereafter. And one by one a great many countries moved from authoritarian
rule to democratic forms of government.

China, even though it does not have a multi-party democracy, gives
plentiful evidence of being deeply concerned, in the systematic and
dedicated way, with the wellbeing of its population, in terms of removing
poverty, advancing education and health care, and promoting exceptional
material and intellectual progress. I know that there are limits to that
and issues of human rights come up in that context, as they recently did
in the context of the Nobel Peace Prize award. But, it would be a great
mistake not to see the commitment of the government to what it sees as the
well-being of the people, in terms of their own perspective. And that is
where the contrast is.

Burma, on the other hand, has moved exactly in the opposite direction. Ne
Win, the military leader, began with the caretaker government in 1958 and
then seized power in 1962; Burma has had a continuous sequence of military
rule since then, with the grip of uncaring oppression, steadily growing in
its reach of enforcement, with total indifference to the well being of the
people. One of the foundational questions to be addressed at a meeting
like this one, is how has the long process of Burmese descent into hell
been possible in a world that has been moving exactly, steadily, and
firmly in the opposite direction? What does it tell us about global
relations and what can we do about it?

I shall take up these difficult issues to date presently. But before that,
I ask a basic question: individuals and groups act on the basis of
reasoning in undertaking actions. The reasoning can be primitive or
sophisticated, and the wisdom of actions and the resulting consequences
cannot but depend on the quality and reach of such reasonings. These
reasonings often go by the name of incentives, to which reflective agents
tend to respond. When we are concerned with changing behaviours and
policies, as we have to be in this case, we have to examine carefully what
incentives do different agents involved – the Burmese government, the
citizens, and neighbouring countries and the world at large – have in
contributing to changing things in Burma.

An incentive may not be based only on crude self interest, for human
beings are capable of understanding other kinds of reasons that can also
move and inspire us. Indeed, we will never be able to understand why
functioning democracies prevent famines from occurring if we believe that
everyone only acts according to their narrowly defined self interests. A
famine never threatens more than a small proportion of the population,
usually no more than five or 10 percent. I have certainly in my two
decades of study never encountered a famine affecting more than 10 percent
of the population, a small minority which couldn’t sway the election. And
it is through the ability of people in general to understand each other’s
predicament, through exposure to news and public reasoning, that makes a
minority cause a commitment for the majority of people. Self-interest and
prudence, important as they are, are embedded within a larger totality of
action-related reasoning. The question that does arise is: how should we
think of the Burmese hell hole with this broad understanding of incentives
and human reasoning at the national, regional and global levels today?

First, the Burmese government: if one thing is clear from the experiences
of the past, it is that the military rulers in Burma see the division
between “we rulers” and “they the people” to be an unbridgeable gap,
unless the maltreatment of the people can somehow rebound against the
interests of the rulers themselves. The control of news and censorship
make open and public discussion impossible. If democracy is governed by
discussion, as John Stuart-Mill made us understand, there is an
uncrossable barrier there, as things stand in Burma. Do the Burmese
government have any reason to remove or relax this barrier now? It is hard
to think that there is any indigenous force in that direction. What about
exogenous influence?

The pressure for this is likely to come from Burma’s powerful neighbours,
China in particular, but also India and Thailand. More of that presently,
because that is not an immutable situation. But with the fears and
anxieties that the Burmese government often display, the global community
can do something here if they include the subject of censorship and news
control among the conditions to be negotiated between the Burmese
government, and say, the United Nations. It is not enough when the weak
voice of the UN emissaries assure that the Burmese government has promised
to lift the harshness of the regime. And it is not adequate for the Asian
leaders to announce cheerfully that they gave the Burmese leaders an
“earful”. The military butchers are happy to have their earful so long
that they hands remain free.

There is a real need for insisting that concrete steps be taken by the
government right now. With effective arrangement for verification and
assessment. There is much of it that the Burmese military rulers are
concerned about – world opinion – with the impression of being almost
paranoid about it. And it is easy as to why they see this as an important
requirement of their long run viability. Because that is indeed the case.

Can the world do anything unilaterally, rather than only through listening
to the confusion that the military regime wants, to cultivate about what
is really going on inside Burma? This brings me to the subject of
sanctions and embargoes.

There are a lot of complex issues but also some things made more complex
than they need be. If the reasoning presented so far is correct, then it’s
right to expect that the regime would worry least about those embargoes
that harm the general population and most about those that hit things
about which they particularly care – because that is the nature of the
incentives; it is not like a case of hitting a government country where
the government is actually bent on the well-being of the people. What we
need is identification of targeted sanctions, and a replacement of
restrictions that can hurt the general population with sanctions that
target the rulers in particular.

There is a timing issue here and some observers are understandably worried
about the signalling that will go with any reduction of sanctions at all
at this time. If the announcement about the lifting, of any kind of
lifting, were to come shortly after the fraudulent election, since any
lifting might be misconstrued as a belief that has now emerged that there
is some hope that there are better things to come from military rule. This
is, indeed, a serious concern. But I don’t really think that this is
likely to happen if the strategy behind targeted sanctions, and taking
into account the incentives involved, is fully explained loudly and
clearly. The lifting of non-targeted sanctions has to be combined
simultaneously with specific embargoes that hit the military regime in
general and the rulers in particular.

The combined changes have to be announced not as a lifting of sanctions,
but with clarity about how to make the sanctions more effective, aiming
not at the general population, but at the rulers at whom the sanctions are
addressed. The constraining of oppressive powers of the regime and the
facilities that dictatorial rulers seek for themselves is the issue at
hand and it’s really the articulation of that that is clue to the timing
issue.

So what are these targeted restrictions?  At the top of the list must be
an embargo on arms and armament of all kinds, and the removal of any
military assistance that the Burmese government gets in a direct or an
indirect way.  Similarly, financial restrictions can impact on those
trades in which regime leaders are particularly involved. This is a large
list varying from particular minerals and gems, jade and others, to oil
and gas, and there will be a strong need for examining the pros and cons
of each of these putative candidates for restriction, taking into account
the impact of the contemplated actions, both on the general population,
which has to be avoided as much as possible, and on the tyrannical leaders
– the beneficiaries of the system – who are being targeted.

Travel bans on individuals running the regime are also an important area
of action that can be contemplated. Some of the top leaders of the
military regime seem to be eccentric enough in their behaviour pattern to
have no interest in travel outside Burma. But many of the active operators
are interested in being able to move freely across the world, which can
lift their own localized lifestyles, help them to get medical attention
when needed, and also allow them to conduct business profitably to
themselves and to the regime.

This is of course not the occasion to try to draw up anything like a
specific list of what should be placed under more control and what
sanctions should be relaxed and reduced, but the general principle should
be clear: the object of sanctions is not to make the population undergo
hardship for the sins of the rulers, but to restrict the tyrants and the
oppressors in the regime. The philosophy of sanctions has to be understood
with clarity and explained with very strong responsibilities of particular
countries rather than the world at large. There are certainly significant
asymmetries in what the different governments can do, and the roles of the
neighbours are particularly important for the operation of the Burmese
military regime.

The Chinese government is the most important player in this area, both
because it has done business with the regime for a long time and has
provided indirect patronage to the regime. And given its veto power in the
Security Council, its support is especially important for the Burmese
rulers. Chinese trade and business are extensive in the country. These
interests apply not only to oil and gas exploration, but also, very
extensively, to general business. From what I understand from visitors to
Mandalay – I have not been there since I was six – it is now largely a
Chinese-run city.

To emphasize the special role of China is not any reason for not
scrutinizing the roles of other countries in the region, particularly
India and Thailand. Both of these countries have extensive business
relations with Burma, free trade agreement from the regime, and in the
case of India, also getting Burmese help with dealing with some rebellions
in the Northeastern region of India that borders on Burma. At one level,
it’s not hard to see why India and Thailand, in addition to China, have
been tolerant of the Burmese regime and indeed supportive of it through
political relations.

And yet the violation of the political morality in these relations is
extraordinarily acute. I have to say that as a loyal Indian citizen, and
as the only country I’m a citizen of, it breaks my heart to see the Prime
Minister of my democratic country, and as it happened, since I know him
well, one of the most humane and sympathetic political leaders in the
world, engaged in welcoming the butchers from Burma and to be photographed
in the state of cordial proximity.

I’m also concerned that public discussion of the Burmese situation and
India’s Burma policy has been so conspicuous by its near absence in India.
This is not because there is any kind of governmental restriction of
discussion on this subject or any fear of public penalty for expressing
disapproval of the government of India’s stand on Burma. The newspapers
are quite ready to carry any such critique. I know from my own personal
experience that when I expressed my total disagreement with the Indian
government’s policy on Burma at a public meeting in New Delhi, chaired as
it happened by the Prime Minister himself, the papers were perfectly
willing to report fully my concerns and my thesis.

The problem arises rather from a change in the political climate in India,
in which now, what is taken to be national interest, gets much loyalty,
and India’s past propensity to lecture the world on global political
morality is seen as a sad memory of Nehruvian naiveté. It’s worth
remembering that after the military takeover of Burma, the government of
India did for a great many of years provide support for the democracy
movement in Burma and particularly with Aung San Suu Kyi, who happens to
be a graduate of Delhi University before she went to Oxford. As India has
redefined itself, partly in imitation of China, the country has
increasingly been dominated by much narrower national concerns than those
that moved Gandhi and Nehru.

If there is going to be a change here, the best hope for it in India lies
certainly in arousing public interest in this issue.  The findings of the
United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the happenings in Burma, indeed
the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry on Burma, would make
headlines in Indian news coverage and will certainly influence political
dialogue within India.

In some respect, the situation is similar in Thailand as well.  And I have
to say that some of the papers there have indeed carried editorials
criticizing Thai policy regarding Burma and Burmese refugees in Thailand.
In my last trip to Thailand, to Bangkok, I saw a main editorial in The
Nation that was very critical on that. As an avenue of change for Burma,
this is not an easy route to public discussion. But it would be silly not
to pursue this, and silly also to underestimate its ultimate power in
countries like India and Thailand, even as other policies are pursued
across the globe about tackling the ruthless dictators of modern Myanmar.

There are so many issues to discuss that I can’t cover within my limited
time, but I’m looking forward to the Q and A, but I end this presentation
on the use of reasoning and incentives with three final observations:

First it is hard to persuade governments like India, Thailand, or for that
matter, China, that their policies regarding Burma, are exceptionally
crude and valuationally gross, if the Western countries with their sharper
rhetoric in denouncing Myanmar, do not do what is entirely within their
power to do with their own Burmese involvement. Several European
countries, as well as countries elsewhere, have strong business relations
with Burma, for example, in oil exploration. At a different level, neither
the European Union nor the United States, nor Switzerland, Australia, or
Canada, has used their power of financial strength against the regime,
demanding substantial change in their policies. This makes it harder to
press the offending neighbours when global action is so limited. It is for
this reason, among others, that a greater global awareness and more
concerned global action would be very important in bringing about a real
change in the situation in Burma – both in terms of the direct impact in
Burma as well as on its impact on the neighbouring countries to Burma.

Second, provincial reasoning for any country’s so-called national interest
calls not only for thoughts regarding here and now, but also about the
future, indeed even the long-run future. This applies as much to China as
it does to India and Thailand. Given the history of oppressive regimes in
the world, the tyrants of Burma will sooner or later fall. The memory of
the turmoil of Burmese people will last well beyond that. There are some
lessons of history here and some analogies to draw on. The United States
might have thought that it was doing what the US administration imagined
to be in the US national interest in supporting brutal right-wing
dictators in Latin America in the world of yesterday. But the intensity of
anti-Americanism that is one of the most potent forces in contemporary
Latin American politics today brings the culpability of the past into the
attitudes and reflections of the present. The ghost of today will haunt
the present-day collaborators of military butchers, tomorrow.

Third, there is a kind of defeatism about Burma which seems to have caught
hold of the thinking of many people in the world who worry about Burma,
but feel no hope of real change, and thus look for little mercy, that I
think is a very serious issue to be concerned. I think we have to be more
forward-looking, more confident that with more reasoned public effort
across the globe a great deal more could be achieved and things could
change. It is important, to begin to talk about what forgiveness. But of
course the sight of forgiveness, the possibility of forgiveness, brings
about the possibility of non-forgiveness, of that situation.  It’s a very
good time to think, not just about tomorrow, next month, next year, but
what at the end, of where the Burmese leaders would go, where would they
find refuge, would they get some kind of immunity, which would be
generous. I think we have to change the dialogue in that direction. The
dialogue is much, much too defeatist today, and this is I think one of the
problems that bothers me most as I think about what’s going on in Burma
today.

Towards the end of March 1999, when I was at Trinity College in Cambridge,
I received a phone call one morning from one of my old friends from
Oxford, Michael Aris, the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi. I knew that he was
extremely ill from prostate cancer then. I knew also that it had
metastasized and we knew that his time was coming to an end. Michael told
me in this rather unexpected but very powerfully articulated call, as he
had done many times earlier, that the one focus of his life was to help
Suu Kyi.  Despite his illness, he sounded adamant, and explained to me,
even as his voice was fading over the phone, the need for focus in
confronting Burmese tyrants. “Make no mistake, Amartya,” Michael told me,
“this disease will not, it cannot, kill me. I have to recover and be
active again to help my Suu and my Burma.” This was on the 24 March 1999. 
I received a call on the 27 March that Michael had died.  It was, as it
happens, also his birthday.

Michael Aris is no longer here to tell us that we must have focus in our
action, but his parting message is important. We can control and confront
the tyrants – do our duty to Burma – only if we do not lose focus. The
need for that concentration has never been greater than it is today, when
the monstrosities of the regime continue undiminished; when the
preordained electoral arraignments confuse and confound well-meaning
people; when the world seems at a loss about what can be done to help the
Burmese people. There is everything to fight for, with clarity and with
reason.

This article is adapted from a speech given on 20 September for Human
Rights Watch by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, and titled ‘A Return to
Civilian Rule?’

____________________________________

November 29, The Washington Times
Lift sanctions burden from Burma; Further punishment for Rangoon only
benefits China – Brahma Chellaney

With the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from prolonged
house detention, it's time for the United States and its European partners
to moderate their sanctions policy against Burma so as to create
incentives for greater political openness and to insulate ordinary Burmese
from the rigors of the penal actions.

There is no reason why a weak, impoverished Burma should continue to be
held to a higher human rights standard than an increasingly assertive
China. Why deny Burma the international trade opportunities that have
allowed the world's biggest executioner, China, to prosper?

The defining events that led to the crushing of pro-democracy forces in
Burma and China occurred around the same time more than two decades ago,
yet the West responded to the developments in the two countries in very
different ways.

China's spectacular economic rise owes a lot to the Western decision not
to sustain trade sanctions after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of
pro-democracy demonstrators. The Cold War's end facilitated Washington's
pragmatic approach to shun trade sanctions and help integrate China with
global institutions through the liberalizing influence of foreign
investment and trade.

That the choice made was wise can be seen from the baneful impact of the
opposite decision in favor of sustained sanctions against Burma, which
brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators 10 months before Tiananmen
Square and subsequently held but refused to honor the outcome of a
national election in 1990. Had the Burma-type approach centered on
escalating sanctions been applied against China internationally, the
result would have been a less-prosperous, a less-open and a potentially
destabilizing China today.

By contrast, the continuation of sanctions and their subsequent expansion
against Burma snuffed out any prospect of that country emulating China's
example of blending economic openness with political authoritarianism.
Indeed, the military's attempts to open up the Burmese economy in the
early 1990s fizzled out quickly in the face of Western penal actions.

Today, the release of Ms. Suu Kyi offers the U.S. and Europe an
opportunity to recalibrate the sanctions policy by drawing on the lessons
of the past two decades.

The first lesson is that the economic sanctions, even if justified, have
produced the wrong political results. Years of sanctions have left Burma
without an entrepreneurial class or civil society but saddled with an
all-powerful military as the sole functioning institution.

A second lesson is that the expansion of sanctions has not only further
isolated Burma, but also made that country overly dependent on China, to
the concern of the nationalistic Burmese military. At a time when the
United States is courting communist-ruled Vietnam as part of its "hedge"
strategy against a resurgent China, it makes little sense to continue with
an approach that is pushing a strategically located Burma into China's
strategic lap.

Yet another lesson is that the sanctions have hurt not their intended
target - the military - but the ordinary Burmese. By cutting off
investment and squeezing vital sectors of the Burmese economy - from
tourism to textiles - the sanctions have lowered the living conditions of
the Burmese and shut out liberalizing influences.

The blunt fact is that after being in power for nearly a half-century, the
military has become too fat to return to the barracks. In fact, it won't
fit in the barracks.

With no hope of a "color revolution" in Burma, demilitarization of the
Burmese polity can at best be a step-by-step process. In that context, the
recent elections, although far from being free and fair, have helped
revive a long-dormant political process, given birth to new political
players and institutions (including a bicameral national parliament, 14
regional parliaments, a president and a civilian federal government) and
implicitly created a feeling of empowerment among the people. In addition
to the new institutions and players, the country has a new flag, a new
national anthem, a new capital and a new official name, with the "Union of
Myanmar" tag giving way to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar."

With the military now in the throes of a generational change, the revived
political process has created new space for the democracy movement, as
symbolized by Ms. Suu Kyi's own release just five days after the election.
But with the opposition splintered and the military's grip on power as
firm as ever, Ms. Suu Kyi cannot bring about tangible pro-democracy
reforms without co-opting influential elements within the armed forces.

Now is the time, with Burma in flux, for the United States and its allies
to get out of a self-perpetuating cycle of sanctions and help carve out
greater international space in Burma in the hope of building a civilian
institutional framework for a democratic transition. Each step toward
greater political openness in Burma ought to be suitably rewarded. In
fact, encouraging Western investment, trade and tourism will help undercut
Chinese influence and aid civil-society interests.

More broadly, democracy promotion should not become a geopolitical tool
wielded only against the weak and the marginalized.

Can one principle be applied to the world's largest autocracy, China -
that engagement is the way to bring about political change - but an
opposite principle centered on sanctions remain in force against Burma?
Going after the small kids on the global block but courting the most
powerful autocrats is hardly the way to build international norms or
ensure positive results. As the Nobel Committee bluntly pointed out while
awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu
Xiaobo, "China is in breach of several international agreements to which
it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political
rights."

An uncompromisingly penal approach against Burma has had the perverse
effect of weakening America's hand while strengthening China's. This was
best illustrated during the Bush administration, which, after slapping the
harshest sanctions on Burma, turned to Beijing as a channel of
communication with the Burmese junta.

President Obama began on the right note by exploring the prospect of a
gradual U.S. re-engagement with Burma, with his envoys meeting with the
Burmese foreign minister and other officials. Yet, on his recent India
visit, Mr. Obama attacked Burma three times, reflecting his frustration
with the painfully slow progress to create a real democratic opening in
that nation.

Despite Mrs. Suu Kyi's release, the seeds of democracy will not take root
in a stunted economy. External penal actions without constructive
engagement and civil-society development in a critically weak country are
self-defeating.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China,
India and Japan" (HarperCollins, 2006).

____________________________________

November 29, Irrawaddy
Only Than Shwe can get West to lift sanctions – Editorial

Recently, The Irrawaddy published a news piece under the headline “West
Waits for Suu Kyi Sanctions Signals.”

“American and European business organizations are reconsidering their
position on Burma following the freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi,” the article
said, reporting on the growing sense of anticipation that the Nov. 13
release of the Burmese pro-democracy icon might bring an end to a
decades-old ban on doing business with the country's military rulers.

“It’s fairly clear that the sanctions haven’t brought political change,
but instead have outsourced jobs from US firms to their competitors in
other countries that trade freely with Myanmar [Burma],” the article
quotes Tami Overby, the US Chamber of Commerce's vice president for Asia,
as telling The Wall Street Journal.

“American firms would urge Congress and the [Obama] administration to
consider easing the sanctions if Ms. Suu Kyi and the opposition signal an
openness to revisions in the sanctions regime,” Overby added.

These remarks betray once again the misguided view held by many in the
West that Suu Kyi holds the keys to removing the sanctions against the
Burmese junta. Instead of putting this burden on the shoulders of Burma's
democratic opposition leader, critics of sanctions should be asking what
the regime itself has done to give Western countries a reason to shift
their policy.

The answer, of course, is precious little. Suu Kyi has been freed, but
that still leaves more than 2,000 other political prisoners languishing in
Burma's gulag. If the regime had any interest in getting the West to drop
its sanctions, it would, at the very least, unconditionally release all of
these detainees.

Sanctions-bashers occasionally pay lip service to the plight of Burma's
prisoners of conscience, but their real concern is clearly that they are
losing investment opportunities to China and the junta's other greedy
regional “partners”.

While sanctions critics often insist that an influx of foreign capital
would raise Burma's standard of living, the evidence suggests otherwise.
The massive flow of cash coming into the country from around Asia has done
nothing to alleviate the desperate poverty of ordinary Burmese, and
there's no reason to believe that Western cash would have a more
beneficial impact.

Increasingly, however, Western corporations are feeling that they are
missing the boat in Burma, and so they are reviving tired old arguments
about how their presence in the country would somehow enlighten the
generals by introducing them to the ways of the West.


>From a purely profit-driven perspective, it's hard to blame them for

wanting a piece of the action. China, Thailand, India, Singapore and South
Korea have all heavily invested in Burma's primary industries, and new
opportunities are opening up in other sectors, including manufacturing.

Chinese companies alone invested US $8 billion in Burma in the first six
months of this year, mostly in gas, oil and hydroelectric development
projects, according to a Reuters report based on official Burmese
statistics.

And neighboring Thailand has even bigger ambitions, with plans to develop
a deep-sea port and 64,000-hectare industrial zone in Tavoy, in southern
Burma's Tenasserim Division.

The framework concession agreement on the project, signed between
Bangkok-based Italian-Thai Development and the Burmese Port Authority, is
worth $13.4 billion and is expected to transform the area into a major
transport and manufacturing hub.

“We need tons of workers,” said Italian-Thai's president, Premchai
Karnasuta, in a recent article by The New York Times. “We will mobilize
millions of Burmese.”

What's missing from this, however, is any discussion of how such
investment will improve lives in a country that was once one of the most
developed in the region, but has since been reduced to a shambles by its
inept and avaricious rulers.

Just as they think nothing of locking people up for expressing their
opinions, Burma's rulers don't seem too concerned about most citizens'
lack of access to basic health care and education. As long as this remains
the case, there is no reason to believe that lifting sanctions will serve
any purpose other than to enrich Western corporations and, of course, the
generals.

So why hold Suu Kyi responsible for the sanctions policy? Although she
widely seen as the voice of her people, she is not the conscience of the
West, which is obliged by its own professed values, and not the views of
one woman, to insist that Burma's rulers respect the rights of its people.

____________________________________

November 27, Bangkok Post
General Than Shwe has a game plan – Larry Jagan

Aung San Suu Kyi has been free now for over a week. She has met many
activists and supporters as she starts to plan for the future. She has
already spoken with several world leaders, including United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III,
and plans to have talks with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva next week,
according to the National League for Democracy's senior spokesman, Win
Tin.

But for many in Burma nothing has changed. The junta is still entrenched,
and the chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, Than Shwe,
seems disinclined to talk to Mrs Suu Kyi. However things are changing, and
may not include the pro-democracy opposition. Mrs Suu Kyi's release may in
fact be a side-show, a diversion to draw attention away from these
developments.

For Senior General Than Shwe certainly has a game plan. One in which the
elections held some two weeks ago are central. There is no doubt that
those recent elections were fraudulent, possibly the worst electoral
manipulation ever, but Sr Gen Than Shwe is going to stand firmly behind
them _ believing they give him a form of legitimacy.

China has already enthusiastically endorsed the elections, while the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations has given them lukewarm support.
Even India has been reticent to approve them, especially after US
President Barack Obama harangued the parliament and government on his
recent visit to New Delhi.

Asia's only truly democratic country is in a real quandary _ national
interests aside, Indians cannot be seen to approve the election results
with such deception involved. New Delhi's diplomatic solution is neither
to support nor reject them.

But almost unnoticed amid the euphoria of Mrs Suu Kyi's release, the
regime very quietly announced the final results last week, with the
pro-junta United Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) winning a little
more than 75% of the seats in the two national parliaments and the 14
regional assemblies.

So Gen Than Shwe has got what he wanted: to control all the country's
chambers of parliament and be able to exert power over future
developments. But the big question remains, what form will this new
so-called civilian administration take? And how will the SPDC chairman
manipulate the process?

Since the elections, Gen Than Shwe has visited the presidential palace on
at least three or four occasions, giving rise to rumours that he is
planning to become Burma's first president.

But this is not his game plan, according to sources in the military. Thura
Shwe Mann _ the first third most powerful general in the SPDC, who was
forced to retire to fight the elections _ seems destined to take that
post. Gen Thura Shwe Mann was introduced to China's leaders during Gen
Than Shwe's visit to Beijing several months ago as the future president,
according to Chinese diplomats in the new capital of Naypyidaw.

Although the presidency may be a foregone conclusion, there are tussles
taking place for other key posts in the new administrative system. But the
most bitter battle, at the moment, is for the position of Speaker of the
House.

Strenuous jockeying is already taking place in Naypyidaw between Burmese
Prime Minister Thein Sein, former secretary one Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo, and
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan. There are others who also covet the
position.

The speaker is going to be the most powerful post in the parliament, below
that of the president, controlling how often the assemblies meet, and what
goes on the agenda.

So what is Gen Than Shwe's future?

Well, he is certain to remain as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
He cannot afford to relinquish this position, or else his power base would
evaporate overnight. He must keep control of the army, and he can only do
that by remaining as the man in charge. He will definitely do that for a
year or so _ then he may give way to someone else he trusts, once the new
system of government has settled down.

After which he is likely to become the honorary president of the USDP.

But Gen Than Shwe is also going to an MP! The 166 military positions in
parliament _ under the constitution, 25% of the seats in all legislatures
are reserved for serving soldiers _ will be filled by almost all the
current top brass in the army, with Than Shwe at this caucus' helm.

Many analysts had thought there might be room for change if there was a
dialogue within parliament between soldiers and civilians.

This is clearly not going to be the case with Gen Than Shwe in charge of
the military bloc. He may also want to be the defence minister in the new
regime _ to further consolidate his power base.

The stacking of parliament with all the current military commanders also
raises fears that parliament will not only be a rubber stamp, but that it
also won't meet very often. It must, under the constitution, convene once
a year. The old Burma Socialist Programme Party assembly, under former
strongman Gen Ne Win, met four times a year. There is no reason to believe
that Gen Than Shwe plans to meet more often than that. Of course the
speaker can call an extraordinary meeting of parliament if enough MPs
petitioned for it.

So the speaker is going to be pivotal for Gen Than Shwe's strategy to
succeed, though already he has enough parliamentarians on his side to make
sure the parliament only meets when he wants it to.

In the end it will be the executive _ the cabinet and ministers _ that are
going to be in charge of the day-to-day running of the country. It seems
that Gen Than Shwe still believes his constitution has created a
parliamentary system, according to sources close to the top brass, whereas
in reality it is more like a presidential system, not unlike the United
States and the Philippines.

The president _ at least formally _ appoints the cabinet. Under the
constitution that means ministers do not have to elected MPs, unlike the
president or the chief justices in the regional legislatures. This does
not seem to have quite dawned on Gen Than Shwe yet. So it will be crucial
who gets these lucrative ministries and how open they are to advice and
new ideas.

There is much discussion at the moment in Naypyidaw about a broad cabinet
that could win national consensus, including some representatives from the
ethnic minorities and the democratic opposition. Though at present this
seems to be constrained by the idea that the junta needs to do the
horse-trading between the parties that have won seats in the parliament,
along the lines of what happens in "real" democracies like India and
Thailand.

Of course, if Gen Than Shwe was really strategic, and interested in
gaining international credibility, he might consider casting his net much
wider than the parliament in search of ministers who could make a major
contribution in the final stage of the roadmap. This would involve in due
course a real transfer of power to civilians over the next few years.

One thought though, which Gen Than Shwe is unlikely to entertain, would be
to try to enlist the support of some of the NLD, including possibly
inviting Mrs Suu Kyi to participate _ perhaps as education minister, which
she indicated to Khin Nyunt before her release in 2002 was her ideal post,
senior military intelligence officers told this writer at the time. But
things have changed since then: her party is now banned and the regime is
trying to boost support for its farcical election.

Until these issues are finalised there is unlikely to be any dialogue
between the regime and Mrs Suu Kyi. And any prospect of national
reconciliation and talks will rest with the future president, Thura Shwe
Mann, as will the fate of the ethnic minority cease-fire groups.