BurmaNet News, January 22 - 24, 2011

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January 22 – 24, 2011 Issue #4125

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Than Shwe threatens coup d'Etat
DVB: Political prisoners ‘given amphetamine’

ON THE BORDER
AFP: Thai police to deport 91 Rohingya to Myanmar
DPA: Press freedom group criticizes Thai plan to deport photojournalists

BUSINESS / TRADE
DPA: Myanmar's tourism industry at a crossroads

REGIONAL
Guardian (UK): Burmese migrant workers: caught between a tyrant and a tiger
Nation (Thailand): Troops called to factory over 'tense' stand-off with
Burmese workers

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Watchdog spotlights Myanmar rights abuse

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: Speaking truth to Burma – Aung Zaw
Asia Times: Farce follows tragedy in Myanmar – Bertil Lintner
Irrawaddy: Burma's half-baked presidential election – Htet Aung




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 24, Irrawaddy
Than Shwe threatens coup d'Etat – Wai Moe

Snr-Gen Than Shwe reportedly reminded military commanders that they must
be prepared to launch a coup d'etat if the incoming Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP) fails to meet the country's needs.

Military sources told The Irrawaddy that the junta strongman made the
remark while chairing the last of his four-monthly meetings with military
commanders and government ministers ahead of the opening of Burma's
parliament.

The sources said that the series of meetings began last week and are
continuing. Like previous meetings, Than Shwe and the leading generals
from the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) were scheduled to sit
with members of the military council and key military commanders of the
Tatmadaw (Burmese armed forces) before a separate meeting with government
ministers.

Sources speculate that since these four-monthly meetings are used by Than
Shwe to define the power structure within Burma's military hierarchy, he
is expected to take this opportunity to outline the division of power
between the two “backbones” of future military rule—the Tatmadaw and the
incoming USDP, a proxy political party backed by the junta.

During the meeting with military commanders, Than Shwe reportedly talked
about imminent issues such as the new government and parliament, security,
state development projects, the responsibilities of the new commanders,
tensions with ethnic armed groups, as well as the status of the dissident
movement in the wake of the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi.

A notable comment by Than Shwe at the meeting was to define the Tatmadaw’s
role in the coming years within the new parliament, military sources said.

Than Shwe reportedly told his commanders that the Tatmadaw must only work
for “the sake of the nation and people,” and not for a particular
political party. He reportedly added that the Tatmadaw must be ready to
launch a coup d'etat if the USDP “fails to fulfill the nation and the
people's needs.”

“He [Than Shwe] is playing at divide and rule between the lion and the
army,” said a source who spoke on condition of anonymity, referring to the
USDP as the lion due to its logo.

Although not represented in such high numbers in parliament as the
military and the USDP, the other factor that Than Shwe is counting on is
his network of business cronies who have secured and will continue to
dominate the country's economic resources.

Observers said that through the three arms of his power— the military, the
USDP and business cronies—Than Shwe believes he can reign indefinitely.

The sources said that ahead of the opening session of parliament on Jan.
31, the talk of the town in the military-ruled nation is who will be
chosen as president.

“Some businessmen are betting each other on who will be the president,”
said a Rangoon-based businessman. “The money is on either Than Shwe or his
close aide, Shwe Mann.”

____________________________________

January 24, Democratic Voice of Burma
Political prisoners ‘given amphetamine’ – Maung Too

Political prisoners in Burma are being given amphetamine during
interrogation in an effort to extract more information, according to a
Thailand-based campaigning group.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPP) had
received several complaints of prisoners being drugged by military
intelligence in interrogation centres in Rangoon.

Aung Khaing Min from AAPP said that it was likely they were given the
stimulant mixed in with their food to avoid detection, but had complained
later to visiting family members that believed they had been drugged.

“They [prisoners] are being given it during interrogation to disorientate
them so that intelligence can get more details,” Aung Khaing Min said.

The group’s head, Tate Naing, told DVB that if the accusations turned out
to be true, Burmese intelligence would be guilty of “committing a serious
crime
and they can get serious punishments if they continue to do this”.

The government’s Prison Administration Department was unavailable for
comment.

One of those believed to have been given amphetamine is Sithu Zeya, the
DVB reporter recently sentenced to eight years in prison after being
caught photographing the aftermath of the Rangoon bombings in April last
year.

According to AAPP, there are currently 2,189 political prisoners in jails
across the country, down from 2203 in December last year after 16 were
released.

“We have a plan to bring the matter of human rights violations in Burma to
international rights groups, including the United Nations,” said Tate
Naing. “If the situation gets seriously bad, then there must be an
investigation in any way possible.”

The UN has been under pressure to launch a probe into whether war crimes
and crimes against humanity are occurring in Burma, particular in the
ethnic border regions which have hosted decades-long conflicts.

But the issue of Burma’s political prisoners languishing in jails and
labour camps across the country has become a focus for rights campaigners,
particularly prior to November last year when opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi was still under house arrest.
Torture is common among political prisoners, many of whom spend periods in
solitary confinement or are sent to remote jails where access for visiting
family members is difficult.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

January 24, Agence France Presse
Thai police to deport 91 Rohingya to Myanmar

Bangkok — Police in Thailand have arrested 91 Rohingya boat people after
they landed on the country's southern coast and are planning to deport
them to Myanmar, they said Monday.

The Muslim, Bengali-speaking Rohingya of Myanmar are described by the
United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

The group, all men of different ages, were detained after coming to shore
on Saturday evening with boat engine problems, according to Visit
Tangpong, police chief in Trang province's Kantang district.

He said he thought the group were on their way from Myanmar to Malaysia.

"We are providing basic humanitarian assistance with food and water, but
they were illegal immigrants. We have to follow our laws," he said.

Police Colonel Putthipong Musikul, of the immigration office in Songkhla
province where the group are being held, said they would be sent back,
probably within one or two days.

Mainly Buddhist Myanmar effectively denies citizenship and property rights
to the Rohingya, leading to their abuse and exploitation and prompting
many to flee the country, often to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

In the past the Thai navy has been accused of sending desperate
asylum-seekers back to sea and casting them adrift, drawing fire from
human rights activists.

____________________________________

January 22, Deustche Presse Agentur
Press freedom group criticizes Thai plan to deport photojournalists

Bangkok – A New York-based press freedom group said Saturday it was
concerned about the Thai government's plan to deport two foreign
photojournalists for illegally entering Myanmar.

Thailand-based John Sanlin, a Myanmar passport holder, and Pascal
Schatterman, a Belgian national, were arrested Thursday as they re-entered
Thailand after illegally crossing into neighbouring Myanmar.

On Friday a Thai provincial court found both foreigners guilty of
violating immigration laws, for which they were fined 500 baht (16
dollars), taken into custody and told they would be deported.

'We call on Thai authorities to reconsider the deportation of journalists
John Sanlin and Pascal Schatterman and take into consideration the
prospect that Sanlin will suffer severe reprisals if he is forcibly
returned to Burma,' said Shawn Crispin, the South-East Asia representative
of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

'Thailand has long been a safe haven for exiled journalists to report
freely on Burma. CPJ encourages the Thai government to maintain that
important press freedom role for the region,' Crispin said.

Both Sanlin and Schatterman had crossed into Myanmar, also called Burma,
to cover an escalating armed conflict between Myanmar troops and ethnic
Karen insurgents.

Thailand has provided refugee camps with international assistance for up
to 150,000 Karens fleeing fighting in Myanmar for the past two decades.

The country has also offered sanctuary for scores of Burmese political
activists and an estimated two million Burmese labourers.

There have concerns that the Thai government may become less tolerant of
the large numbers of Burmese expatriates following Myanmar's general
election of November 7, 2010, which could bolster the credibility of the
military junta that has ruled the country since 1988.

The polls, criticized by western democracies for being neither free nor
fair, were won by the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party
(USDP), which is packed with ex-military men.

The first parliament session is scheduled to convene on January 31.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

January 24, Deustche Presse Agentur
Myanmar's tourism industry at a crossroads – Ko Ko and Peter Janssen

Yangon – By Myanmar standards, 2010 was a golden year for tourism. Those
working in the sector said they hoped recent political developments might
make it easier to attract still more foreigners although there was not
much faith in the military regime's appetite for change.

An estimated 300,000 foreign tourists visited the country last year,
government sources said, a 30-per-cent increase over 2009 and better than
the previous record from 2006, the official Visit Myanmar Year.

But even the recent increase does not do justice to the potential of the
country, whose abundant natural and cultural charms should make it one of
the top tourist destinations in South-East Asia.

'The amount of 300,000 tourists is not too big compared with neighbouring
countries like Thailand, Malaysia, even Laos,' said Tin Tun Aung, general
secretary of the Myanmar Travel Association.

Last year, an estimated 15 million tourists visited Thailand, 17 million
went to Malaysia and 1 million travelled to Laos.

Myanmar's tourism sector has had its fair share of hard knocks in recent
years.

It has been hit by the same phenomena as the rest of the world: the
outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003; the
tsunami of 2004; high oil prices in 2008; and the global financial
meltdown in 2009.

But Myanmar, also called Burma, has also had its own special hiccups.

There was the brutal military crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks
in September 2007, and then in May 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed an
estimated 138,000 people and left much of the Irrawaddy Delta in shambles.

A political stigma is also attached to visiting Myanmar, which has been
under military dictatorships since 1962.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's democracy icon, previously opposed foreign
tourists visiting her country as she threw support behind economic
sanctions imposed on her country by Western democracies.

She has since mellowed her stance on sanctions, saying they should be
limited to those that have a minimal negative impact on Myanmar's people.

Suu Kyi was freed from seven years of house detention November 13, six
days after Myanmar held its first general election in two decades, but it
remained unclear how the recent political developments would impact
tourism.

'I don't think that tourist movements have much to do with politics,
really,' said Luzi Matzig, director of the Bangkok-based Asian Trails
company, which specializes in tours to Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and
Thailand.

'If a tourist wants to go to Mandalay or Pagan, it's good to hear that
'The Lady' [Suu Kyi] has been freed, but will that influence his decision
to visit Myanmar? I don't think so,' Matzig said.

Myanmar tour operators attributed last year's good performance more to a
relaxation in visa regulations than political developments.

'One of the reasons why the tourism industry had a good year in 2010 was
because of the introducing of arrival visas,' said Nay Zin Latt, vice
chairman of the Myanmar Hoteliers Association.

The visa on arrival was introduced early last year but suspended in
September, apparently in preparation for the military's well-staged
general election on November 7.

Reintroducing the measure would make the country a more appealing travel
destination.

Another welcome change would be to stop requiring tourists to buy foreign
exchange certificates, which force visitors and tour operators to buy the
local currency, the kyat, at an inflated exchange rate.

'We did not get profits as expected last year,' Lin Oo, a Myanmar tour
operator, said, citing a weak dollar and the gap between the official and
actual exchange rate between the kyat and dollar.

The tourism industry is awaiting the establishment of a new government,
perhaps by late February, to see if it could look forward to any positive
changes.

'Overall, there should be much relaxation of regulations for the
development of this sector,' Lin Oo said. 'We also need good
infrastructure, better road transport, telecommunications, internet
facilities and easy access to the country.'

Most were skeptical that Myanmar's incoming government, packed as it is
with ex-military men, would share the tourism sector's priorities.

'The members of the warrior feudal class that rules the country have never
been tourists in their entire lives,' said Maung Zarni, a Britain-based
Burmese political activist and academic.

The country's leaders 'have absolutely no clue as to what tourism is all
about,' said Zarni, who once worked for the state-run agency Tourist
Burma.

'The country does need regulated mass tourism if it is going to bring
substantial revenues, create jobs and have a liberalizing impact,' he
said.

'All this needs serious vision, planning and an attitude change on the
part of the state's leaders, but that's not on the horizon,' Zarni said.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

January 24, The Guardian (UK)
Burmese migrant workers: caught between a tyrant and a tiger – Joseph Allchin

Malaysia's economic boom has been driven by the exploitation of cheap
migrant labour, from Burma and Thailand. Underpaid and with no rights,
this is their story

They were not illegal, nor criminals, not protesting nor agitating. For
900 Malaysian ringgits (around $290) a month they had travelled, through a
broker, to the southern Malaysian town of Johor. There to bend the metal,
mould the bars and solder the nuts that will bolt together the terrific
rise in Asia's economies.

However the 35 Burmese workers found that, after two months, instead of
the promised amount, they were to receive 640 a month, with no overtime
pay, as promised.

So the workers organised, led by five individuals. They initially
complained to their employers.

The employers immediately called the police, all 35 were detained on 12
January. No charges were brought, and 30 were released that day.

"Whenever workers do actually complain to their employers or against
[them], employers tend to discriminate against them or even terminate
[their contracts]," says pioneering Malaysian human rights lawyer, Charles
Hector.

Before any legal rationale could be brought, or advocates or government
bodies mobilised, the five leaders were whisked away to the airport for
deportation, because, as Hector notes, "the employer wins by default if
they are deported", they cannot compete in a labour dispute, and migrant
workers are not allowed to be members of a union or stay in Malaysia
without employment.

Out of the five leaders who complained, three have been forced back to
Burma despite signing a three-year contract, two, however are missing.

Malaysia's growing "tiger economy", is driven by a workforce of around 20%
migrant labour, with an estimated 500,000 from Burma, many of them
illegal, taking their place at the bottom of Malaysia's semi-apartheid
ethnic mix.

With GDP per capita hard to record in Burma, the IMF estimated in January
2009 that it was around $250. This compares with the IMF's 2010 estimate
for Malaysia of $7,775.

Despite a constitution and laws pertaining to universal rights in
Malaysia, law enforcement and other political precedence places migrant
workers at immediate disadvantage. All companies in Malaysia that hire
foreign labour are required to pay a levy. This is very often deducted
from workers' pay, even though the practice was made illegal in April
2009.

Tun Tun, head of Burma Campaign Malaysia, notes that the overwhelming
ethos is for employers to take responsibility for their workers as opposed
to the workers having rights as individuals. He points out that when you
arrive in Malaysia as a tourist, you need no visa and can rapidly leave
the airport. However, migrant workers have to wait for their employer to
pick them up and take them, in custodial fashion, to wherever they please.

Not all Burmese are just economic migrants. Many of those who eke out a
living between the concrete apartment buildings and highways of Kuala
Lumpur have fled political oppression in their homeland.

Kyaw Hsan was jailed in Burma at the age of 15. His "crime" was
distributing pamphlets about democracy, with news and information that
circumvented Burma's draconian military censors. He would leave pamphlets
on the roof of a bus, so as it drove through the streets of Rangoon they
would flutter down, as innocently as freshly falling rain. He was picked
up outside a meeting of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
on 16 September 2000.

His confinement was marked with weeks of torture, including night-long
beatings by teams of guards. This was followed, in 2003, by periods of up
to 32 days chained to a wet floor with dozens of other prisoners for
protesting the rearrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.

He contracted tuberculosis, which quarantined him for a further year after
his release from Rangoon's colonial-era Insein jail.

Beyond the scars marking his body, and despite his affable nature, the
psychological toll is unmistakable. At the time of writing, a combination
of dislocation, alcohol and the breakdown of a relationship had led to
angry outbursts, which saw him lose his job as a waiter.
In exile

The isolation is palpable in divided Kuala Lumpur. On a busy rush hour
Kyaw Hsan intervenes to protect a young Burmese who has been set upon by
up to a dozen Malays. They beat him and take his phone, but he mistrusts
the police so much that a foreign escort to the station to report it is
deemed necessary.

Ko Harun, meanwhile, has weathered exile for longer. He fled his native
Burma because of thediscrimination faced by the Rohingya minority. The
Rohingya, he estimates along with many observers, are the most oppressed
minority in Burma; despite having been in the country for about 1,000
years, they are denied citizenship rights.

Since he left Burma he has been arrested four times in Thailand and five
times in Malaysia. In Thailand he says he was caged up with gang members
who would violently steal his rations.

He has been "sold" to traffickers by Thai officials, after being handed
over by Malaysian authorities. He was lucky enough to be able to borrow
the fee to remove himself from bondage.

Conditions in Malaysian jails are horrendous, causing what the Malaysian
press call riots but are actually hunger strikes or peaceful protests,
complaining about the overcrowding, the constant outbreaks of
leptospirosis, a disease caused spread through urine-contaminated water,
or simply the length of detention.

The two missing worker leaders have not been heard from. Like an estimated
190,000 other Burmese in Malaysia, they are at the mercy of a divided,
hungry nation.

• Joseph Allchin is a journalist with the exiled Burmese news network the
Democratic Voice of Burma.

____________________________________

January 25, The Nation (Thailand)
Troops called to factory over 'tense' stand-off with Burmese workers – Jim
Pollard

Police and troops have been brought in to help resolve a "tense" dispute
between hundreds of Burmese workers and bosses of a pineapple canning
factory west of Bangkok accused of mistreatment, underpayment and beating
workers' representatives.

Non-government groups that advocate for migrant workers voiced concern
yesterday for the safety of 700 Burmese at V&K Pineapple Canning Co
factory in Ratchaburi province - after the arrival of about 200 police and
troops on Monday afternoon.

MAP Foundation said the workers went on strike on Monday morning to demand
better working conditions at the factory, located amid about 16,000
hectares of pineapple plantations.

"The workers can no longer tolerate the sub-standard conditions, and the
constant deductions from their paypackets without any explanation," a
statement by MAP said. "Whenever the workers have asked for an explanation
of the deductions they have been threatened with deportation.

"Then [on Sunday], workers were outraged when a worker was beaten by a
Thai foreman first in the market and then back in his room. When a Burmese
interpreter came to clear up the situation, he too was beaten," it said.

The workers demanded to negotiate directly with the factory owner. "They
want to be paid the full legal overtime rates; plus an explanation of the
various deductions made from their pay packets before they receive them,"
MAP said.

They also demanded more toilets. At present, there were only four toilets
for workers.

They said they needed full compensation for accidents at work, and
improved access to healthcare.

"They have called for an end to discriminatory practices between the
treatment of Thai and Burmese workers."

Many of the workers at the factory hold temporary passports and migrant
workers cards. The minimum wage in Ratchaburi is Bt180 baht a day.

"In September last year, MAP Foundation had to contact the Labour
Protection and Welfare office when 12 women workers at the factory
complained that the employer confiscated their personal documents. One of
the women, who was pregnant, was refused treatment at hospital because her
work permit and health card were held by the employer," the statement
said.

V&K Pineapple Canning Factory produces canned pineapples and dehydrated
fruits which are exported worldwide including Europe, America, Canada,
South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Bosses for the company were unable to be contacted by press time on Monday.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 24, Agence France Presse
Watchdog spotlights Myanmar rights abuse

Bangkok – About half a million people are internally displaced by conflict
in eastern Myanmar, where both the state army and rebels continue to
recruit child soldiers, a top rights group said Monday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in its annual report, said the state army was
responsible for direct attacks and abuses against civilians in conflict
areas, some of which have been wracked by civil war since independence in
1948.

Among the abuses listed were widespread forced labour, extrajudicial
killings, forced expulsion of the population, the widespread use of
anti-personnel landmines and sexual violence against women and girls.

The group also listed torture, beatings and the targeting of food
production as well as confiscation of land and property in the ethnic
areas where fighting continues.

The report comes as Myanmar, military ruled since 1962, prepares to open a
new parliament this month following an election in November, which was
slammed by the West as a sham aimed at shoring up military power.

"The Burmese military continues to direct attacks on civilians in ethnic
areas, particularly in Karen, Karenni, and Shan states of eastern Burma,
and parts of western Burma in China and Arakan states," the report said.

It said about 500,000 were internally displaced owing to conflict in the
east, while more than 140,000 refugees are in camps in Thailand.

While 28,000 minority Rohingya are in official refugee camps in
Bangladesh, another 200,000 live in border areas, the report added.
Millions more migrant workers from Myanmar live in neighbouring Asian
countries.

"All parties" in the country's conflicts continue to actively recruit and
use child solders, even though the government has been co-operating with
the International Labour Organisation to demobilize these youngsters.

"Non-state armed ethnic groups have also been implicated in serious abuses
such as recruitment of child soldiers, execution of Burmese prisoners of
war, and indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines around civilian
areas," said the report.

Most insurgent groups -- who seek more autonomy and rights -- have agreed
to truces with the junta, but HRW said tensions had increased owing to the
regime's plans to transform ceasefire groups into "border guard forces".

Ahead of the election -- the country's first in 20 years -- the government
pressured these armed movements to give up their weapons or come under
state control -- a move most resisted, sparking fears of renewed conflict.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 24, Wall Street Journal
Speaking truth to Burma – Aung Zaw

The junta cannot be allowed to win its war against the journalists who
resist its tide of lies.

It's a sad thing to watch your country die a slow death. This is what is
happening in Burma today, and like millions of other Burmese living in
exile, I am alternately depressed, disgusted and outraged by what I see.
It is as if the blood that was spilled when the current military junta
seized power in 1988 has never stopped flowing.

Elections held late last year—Burma's first in more than 20 years—were an
attempt to staunch this hemorrhaging with a flimsy gauze of lies. It was
no coincidence that the country's ruling generals announced their plans to
hold these elections soon after brutally cracking down on the "Saffron
Revolution," the monk-led mass demonstrations of September 2007. Something
had to be done to erase the unsightly images of blood-soaked bodies.

Although a handful of overseas "Burma experts," junta apologists and
well-meaning but uninformed humanitarian aid workers will tell you
otherwise, Burma is not on the road to recovery after the beating it
received over the past two decades. Any impartial Burmese will tell you
that the country is still in the throes of social and economic decline.
The junta's new era of "disciplined democracy" only forestalls the next
political crisis or outbreak of ethnic-based civil war.

As painful as it is to know all this, however, there is no sense averting
our eyes or burying our heads in the sand. Indeed, the evidence that Burma
is bleeding to death is all around us, in the faces of the estimated two
million Burmese who have fled to Thailand to escape persecution or
poverty.

Luckily, millions of Burmese both within Burma and around the world are
fighting back. As the editor of The Irrawaddy, a magazine that is named
for a river that is symbolic of Burma's long and often tortured history, I
have tried to fight back in my own way, by joining forces with other
exiled journalists to resist a tide of lies with a river of information
about what is really happening inside the country.

We make no apologies for believing that journalists must tell the truth,
and not simply present different versions of the facts put out by various
interested parties. We don't take sides on the basis of political
affiliation—we have found fault with Burma's pro-democracy icon, Aung San
Suu Kyi, and her party, the National League of Democracy, as well as with
the junta and a host of other stakeholders—but we will always come out on
the side of those with the courage to speak the simple, honest truth.

It hasn't always been easy. Recently we came to the difficult decision to
end publication of our print magazine—our signature product since our
founding in 1993—to commit more of our limited resources to reaching wider
audiences both inside Burma and abroad. In addition to our Burmese- and
English-language websites and blog, we are producing a television program
for the Democratic Voice of Burma and a radio program for the
Washington-based Radio Free Asia.

For all these efforts, The Irrawaddy depends on support from international
donors. This means that we have always had more than our fair share of
financial ups and downs. Overall, though, we have continued to grow, from
two or three reporters barely getting by on a couple thousand dollars in
1993 to a staff of around five dozen now, with reporters both inside and
outside Burma working on a budget last year of nearly $1 million. While we
acknowledge that we are far from financially self-sufficient, we have
always guarded our editorial autonomy, and most of our donors have
respected this.

Recently, however, we have seen disturbing signs that some in the donor
community are abandoning our side amid the junta's war of attrition
against its critics and opponents. Last year one of our donors circulated
an email to fellow donors, without our knowledge, announcing that it had
decided we were no longer worthy of its support. The email accused us of
being a "donor stooge"—language that echoes that of the regime's official
mouthpieces, which were quick to pick up this "news" and declare our
imminent demise.

We are not alone in feeling the chill from some donors who have decided
their money would be better spent within Burma. While we continue to enjoy
solid support from most of our long-time donors, there is a dangerous
trend among some others to buy into the junta's line that assisting exiled
civil society groups and refugee organizations is merely prolonging
Burma's conflict. The elections, they say, point the way forward.

Do they really believe this? It's difficult to imagine any intelligent
observer of the situation inside Burma today actually accepting the notion
that the election was anything other than a complete farce. And yet,
incredibly, some in the West are now criticizing us for our "negative"
take on the elections and our efforts to expose some of the shady
junta-affiliated organizations now posing as potential "partners" for
international donors. It is perhaps the ultimate irony of Burmese
journalism that some of my colleagues inside Burma—where draconian
censorship is the norm and reporters are routinely locked up—commiserate
with me for having to be a bearer of bad news that some in the "free"
world simply don't want to hear.

Journalists inside Burma know, but can't report, that the recent wave of
"privatization" inside Burma is nothing more than the formal transfer of
the country's wealth to a few dozen junta cronies or relatives of top
generals, and not a sign of economic reform. And so it falls to us to
reveal, for instance, that for every major investment these self-styled
entrepreneurs make, hundreds or even thousands of people are summarily
evicted from their homes. No inside media will report that the generals'
sons and daughters confiscate state-owned prime spots and buildings in
Rangoon, for instance, or that junta cronies are stashing millions of
dollars in Singaporean banks and buying expensive condominiums overseas.

The generals would like to think that our days are numbered, but they are
wrong. It is not funding from the West that sustains us, but the desperate
desire of the people of Burma to hear the truth told about their country.
As long as the regime continues to deny them their right to know, our own
struggle will continue.

Mr. Aung Zaw is founder and editor of The Irrawaddy magazine. He received
the Prince Claus Award for Journalism in 2010.

____________________________________

January 24, Asia Times
Farce follows tragedy in Myanmar – Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK – If Karl Marx was right that history repeats itself first as
tragedy and then as farce, Myanmar may have just entered the farcical
phase of its long-running military rule. The first general election held
in over 20 years last November and announcement that a new elected
National Assembly will be convened on January 31 have not excited many
ordinary Myanmar citizens, but have led to wild speculation among foreign
pundits about what it all means for the country's political future.

Many seem to have forgotten that a similar "transition" to "civilian rule"
occurred in 1974, following a rigged referendum on a new constitution in
1973. The then ruling junta, the Revolutionary Council, gave way to the
military-controlled Burma Socialist.

Program Party, which formed a government made up of retired army officers.
The transition in retrospect was a tragedy as it solidified the one-party
system that Myanmar, then known as Burma, already had in place and
precipitated economic decline in what was previously one of Southeast
Asia's most prosperous countries.

The 1974 constitution guaranteed the military's grip on power and made its
original 1962 military putsch legal. That military-dominated political
arrangement lasted until a nationwide uprising for democracy erupted in
1988, which the military crushed through lethal force and in the aftermath
reintroduced direct military rule through the State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC) junta. The SLORC later changed the country's
name from Burma to Myanmar and rebranded itself as the State Peace and
Development Council in 1997.

Now under a new constitution that was adopted after a similarly
well-orchestrated referendum in 2008, more than one political party is
officially allowed in Myanmar. But the dominance of the military's new
Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) proxy, which swept over 80%
of the seats in last November's rigged polls, is complete. The new charter
also reserves 25% of the National Assembly's seats for the military.

The military is nonetheless taking no chances. On the campaign trail and
after the election, candidates and MPs elect have had their freedom of
speech severely restricted. Any speech deemed by authorities as a threat
to "national security, the unity of the country and the constitution"
threaten to land the speaker in prison for up to two years.

In late December, the state-run daily New Light of Myanmar newspaper
spelled out the military's intentions more clearly: the opposition should
stop calling for "national reconciliation" and instead support the
government to achieve "national reconsolidation". "Indirect and direct
approaches designed to control the ruling government will never come to
fruition," the paper stated.

Despite these restrictions, some foreign analysts are holding out hope for
democratic change. Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Thailand,
suggested farcically in his newsletter that "the elections, flawed as they
are, could provide a catalyst." For exactly what, however, the former
envoy did not make clear.

Priscilla Clapp, a senior American analyst and former Yangon-based US
diplomat, seems convinced that an army reshuffle a few months before the
election, in which more than 70 senior and many more junior officers
retired to have the constitutional right to "contest" the polls will pave
the way for a new, presumably more reform-minded, generation of army
officers. And with new "civilians" in government, she suggests, change is
in the air.

Whether military officers were in or out of uniform made no difference in
1974 - and is even less likely to do so today considering the military's
ironclad grip on power. Nor will a few muted opposition voices in the
National Assembly be of any democratic significance. In the old, pre-1988
National Assembly, the official media routinely reported that delegates
always "discussed in support of proposals" submitted by the real military
rulers of the country.

If any of the handful of non-USDP assemblymen dare to challenge military
orders, the authorities have constitutional means to deal with such
dissent, including through legal military takeovers. In case of a
"national emergency", clause 413 of the new charter gives the president
the right to hand executive as well as judicial power to the
commander-in-chief of the defense services, who "may exercise the said
powers and duties himself or empower on any suitable military authority"
to do the job for him.

The new National Assembly will consist of an Upper House with 168 elected
seats and 56 reserved for the military, and a Lower House with 330 elected
and 110 military seats. With solid majorities of 129 seats in the Upper
House and 259 in the Lower House that the USDP achieved through the rigged
November elections, plus the 25% of seats reserved for the military, the
new system will ensure in a new legal way the continuation of the old
military-ruled order.

Negligent neighbors
Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
have hailed the election as progress and called on Western nations,
including the US, to drop their economic and financial sanctions. At an
ASEAN meeting on the Indonesian island of Lombok on January 17, the host
country's foreign minister Marty Natalegawa described the elections as
"conducive and transparent" and said that the 10-member bloc would like to
see "the immediate or early removal or easing of sanctions that have been
applied against Myanmar by some countries."

Many ASEAN countries have vested economic interests in Myanmar and through
economic engagement policies have over the years undermined the West's
sanctions regime.

Meanwhile, there is little indication that Myanmar's military leadership
is in much of a democratic mood. At a passing out parade at the Defense
Services Technological Academy on December 17, military chief General Than
Shwe told the graduates that "you can confront anything and win if you
avoid the opponents' strong points, exploit their shortcomings and strike
at their weaknesses."

The military rank and file has clearly taken that advice to heart. The
opposition's strong point is pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who
was detained and barred from participating in the election and released a
week after the polls. The weakness of the opposition was its lack of
unity: Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, split in half
over whether or not it should take part in the election.

Those who favored participation probably now regret it; the new National
Democratic Front, set up by former NLD members, won a paltry 16 seats in
both houses. Predictably, NDF candidates competed on an unequal playing
field. According to several eyewitness reports in several constituencies
in Yangon and elsewhere, where a candidate other than the one from the
USDP appeared to be winning, boxes of "advance votes" were brought in to
prevent such a result. In other places where the USDP seemed to be faring
poorly, the vote counting was conducted in secret.

Opinion is also divided in countries traditionally critical of Myanmar's
rights-abusing regime. In the US, Virginia Senator Jim Webb, once one of
Myanmar's staunchest critics, has flip-flopped to become a staunch
advocate of lifting sanctions and engaging the regime. In the European
Union, several countries are already doing business with Myanmar despite
the sanctions. In its December 14 edition, The Myanmar Times quoted Myint
Soe from the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and
Industry as saying: "Among the European nations, Germany is one of our
largest trading partners, even considering the sanctions." And sanctions
do not cover pre-existing investments in the lucrative oil and gas
industry, where France's Total is a major investor.

Voices are now being heard in other EU countries, especially among their
Bangkok-based envoys, advocating for engagement with the regime based on
perceptions that decades of sanctions have failed to achieve democratic
change. This argument, or course, fails to take into account that other
countries' engagement policies have similarly failed to achieve positive
political change.

ASEAN has long engaged Myanmar through trade and investment initiatives.
However, in a confidential US diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks in
December, Singapore's senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew described Myanmar's
generals as "stupid" and "difficult to deal with". Dealing with the
regime, Lee said, was like "talking to dead people" - a damning assessment
of ASEAN's "constructive engagement" policy from one of the region's most
business-minded leaders.

Viewed in this light, Myanmar's initial tragedy of 1974 has turned into
the farce of 2010. In effect, the old repressive one-party system has been
reintroduced in everything but name. As the new rules guarantee, a few
opposition voices will make little difference under the new military
dominated dispensation. Even authoritarian-run China and North Korea are
formally multi-party states under the leadership of their de facto ruling
communists - China has eight parties other than the dominant Communist
Party while North Korea allows for three. Such comparisons are more apt
than hopeful speculation that Myanmar's elections and new parliament
represent genuine democratic change.

Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the author of several books on Myanmar. He is currently a
writer with Asia Pacific Media Services.
____________________________________

January 24, Irrawaddy
Burma's half-baked presidential election – Htet Aung

Burma, the only nation in the Southeast Asian region without a
constitution for 22 years, will soon adopt a constitutional government
which will be headed by a president as the Head of State.

The recent promulgation of the Presidential and Vice-presidential
Electoral Law and Bylaw shines a new light on the half-baked presidential
election, and reveals the much-detailed process of the two-step
presidential election—the first step being to elect and select three
vice-presidents, and the second step to elect a president.

Chapter 2 of the bylaw details the procedure and process for the elected
members of parliament (MPs) from both the “Pyithu Hluttaw” (People's
Assembly or Lower House) and the “Amyotha Hluttaw” (Nationalities'
Assembly or Upper House) to nominate one vice-presidential candidate each.
That candidate does not need to be an MP, according to both the 2008
Constitution and the Presidential Law and Bylaw.

The two candidates for the two Houses can be nominated individually or by
consent of an internal pact. But the MPs must strictly follow a detailed
process that begins with receipt of the nomination form, to filling it in,
to submitting it to the House Speakers.

According to Articles 6 to 12 of the bylaw, the House Speakers and Deputy
Speakers will take no more than one day to scrutinize the qualifications
of the candidates and announce the candidate list.

Under the supervision of the House Speaker, the election for the two
vice-presidents will be held in the Lower House and Upper House
respectively.

If there is only one nominee, the House Speaker must declare that the sole
candidate is elected to that position. If there is more than one nominee,
the MPs will elect one through a secret ballot. The House Speaker, despite
his or her role as supervisor, must also vote. The ballot paper will
contain the names of the candidates, and the MPs have to tick one and put
a cross beside the other(s).

However, what is most surprising is that within this election law—even
though it was drawn up clandestinely and unilaterally by Burma's military
generals—there are no details whatsoever about how the third
vice-president should be elected from among the military appointees.

Moreover, although the process for selecting the first two vice-presidents
is clearly described by the bylaw in Chapter 2, there is nothing written
about where the election for the military vice-president will be held.

Therefore, given the command hierarchy of the Burmese military, we can
assume that the third vice-president will be selected (not elected) by the
military candidates of both parliaments under the supervision of the
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

The second step is to elect a president. This will occur at a session of
the “Pyidaungsu Hluttaw” (the combination of the Lower and Upper Houses
known as the “Union Parliament”) by a simple majority vote. However,
before this can go ahead, a designated body will examine whether the
vice-presidents meet the prescribed qualifications in the constitution, as
well as in the presidential law and bylaw.

The body is to be composed of seven representatives: the two Speakers and
two Deputy Speakers of both Houses, and an MP representing each of the
three groups from the Presidential Electoral College.

If the designated body finds that any of the elected vice-presidents do
not meet the prescribed qualifications, it can reject the candidate and
inform the respective presidential electoral college group to submit a new
vice-president, according to Article 29 of the bylaw.

Burma's new presidential system therefore allows for a person who was not
elected in the general election to become a vice-president. If that
persons were to be elected by the new bicameral parliament in the
presidential run-off, Burma would find itself ruled by a president who has
risen to power without ever facing a popular vote.