BURMA RELATED NEWS

BURMA RELATED NEWS - JULY 16-18, 2011
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Suu Kyi 'to attend' Myanmar memorial for hero father
By Soe Than Win | AFP News – 21 hours ago
Myanmar has invited democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi to attend a ceremony to honour her father, the country's liberation hero General Aung San, a government official said Sunday.

The 66-year-old is expected to attend the annual Martyrs' Day events on July 19 for the first time in nine years following her release from house arrest soon after November's controversial election.

An invitation was sent to Suu Kyi's Yangon home on Thursday, the official said, adding that the Nobel Peace Prize winner was thought likely to agree to attend the ceremony at the Yangon Martyrs' Mausoleum.

"Government officials, led by the Yangon mayor, will attend the ceremony in the morning," he added.

A friend of Suu Kyi confirmed she had received the invitation and told AFP she was planning to go to the event, which marks the assassination of her father and eight other independence leaders on July 19, 1947.

The official invitation comes in the same month that Suu Kyi tested the boundaries of her freedom with her first trip outside Yangon.

During the four-day excursion to the ancient city of Bagan earlier this month, she refrained from any overtly political activities that might have antagonised the government -- which
remains dominated by the army.

Sources from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party said she had planned to march to the Martyrs' Day ceremony with up to 500 of her supporters, potentially risking a clash with the authorities.

It was not clear whether Suu Kyi still plans to go ahead with the march now that she has an official invite.

The NLD, which won a landslide election victory two decades ago that was never recognised by the junta, was disbanded by the military rulers last year because it boycotted the recent vote, saying the rules were unfair.

Suu Kyi spent much of the last 20 years as a prisoner in her crumbling lakeside mansion and some observers think the new government would have no qualms about limiting her freedom again if she is perceived as a threat.

Part of the democracy icon's potency as a campaigner for political freedom stems from Myanmar's reverence for her father.

General Aung San is widely loved for winning independence from the British, but he died a year before colonial separation. The country was soon plunged into sporadic civil war and nearly half a century of junta rule from 1962.
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The Australian - I'm a war criminal, says Burmese refugee who claims to have carried out 24 executions
From: AAP
July 18, 2011 3:38PM

A BURMESE refugee living in Australia claims to have carried out 24 executions while working undercover for Burma's military regime.

Htoo Htoo Han, now an Australian citizen, also says he was involved in at least another 100 murders.

Mr Han says he performed the executions during the 1988 anti-government uprising that swept Burma, resulting in thousands of deaths.

“I did it, I am a war criminal,” Mr Han said.

“For so long I have lived like an animal.

“Now I want to release what I carry inside for 20 years. I want to say sorry to the mothers and fathers of the people I killed.”

Mr Han says he led a group that infiltrated student groups and masqueraded as protesters.

As leader of the group he was also indirectly involved in at least 100 other murders.

“We destroy them ... destroy means kill,” Mr Han said.

He said he killed his victims with a bullet to the back of the head, but is aware of others who were buried alive and their bodies incinerated.

“Just bang, very quick. I don't do torture,” Mr Han said.

Mr Han, 44, now a father of three young children, has come forward because he says he can no longer live with his guilt.

He expects to be dealt with and is ready to turn himself over to Australian authorities.

Mr Han says he worked as an undercover officer in Burmese military intelligence from 1987 until 1992, leading a group whose main role was to identify targets and kill them.

An Australian citizen for more than a decade, Mr Han says he turned his back on his former Burmese masters before coming to this country, a decision that he claims resulted in an attempt on his own life.

Since arriving here he has campaigned widely in Australia against his former government, speaking in schools and using his artistic skills to focus on repression and human rights abuses around the world.

He insists he has not engaged in any criminal activity in Australia.

In 2003, SBS television made a documentary around a campaign he conducted in Australia to raise awareness of human rights abuses in Burma.

Mr Han says he is prepared to face whatever justice he deserves, including a long jail term.

He also acknowledges he may never see his children again, but he hopes they will come to understand what he has done.

“I am prepared for this. I think my wife and kids for sure will cry a lot,” he said.

“But in Burma a thousand mothers cry.”

Mr Han said he chose to approach the media with his story, fearing it might not be told if he went directly to authorities.
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The Age - Burma refugee says he was a killer
Dan Oakes
July 19, 2011

THE Australian Federal Police will investigate claims by a Burmese refugee living in Australia that he murdered dozens of political dissidents in Burma while working as an undercover agent for the military regime in the late 1980s.

The man, Htoo Htoo Han, told The Age yesterday he can no longer keep his past a secret and has begged for forgiveness from the families of his victims.

''I want to apologise to the people of Burma,'' he said. ''I want to say sorry for what I've done, please forgive me for what I did, for the people who will never come home.

''I have achieved a lot in Australia, I've become an artist, been involved in global justice issues, environmental issues. I'm a changed person.

''So I became very guilty about something I did when I was very young. I have nightmares, I couldn't sleep, I struggle with this nightmare for a very long time. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.''

Mr Han - an Australian citizen who has married and has three young children - has been a prominent figure in the Burmese refugee community in Australia, which was yesterday reeling in the wake of the 44-year-old artist's claims, originally reported by Australian Associated Press.

Mr Han told The Age yesterday he could not remember exactly how many people he had ''destroyed'' while working undercover for the military intelligence service in the wake of the anti-regime uprising in 1988. It is impossible to verify Mr Han's claims, but he provided The Age with a list of 24 people aged between 18 and 48 he claims to have murdered, along with the locations in which the killings took place and descriptions such as ''student'', ''Islam'' and ''Burmese Communist Party''. He said the actual number of people he killed was greater.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland described the claims as ''extremely serious'' and said they would be referred to the AFP for ''assessment''.

''Australia has a strong framework in place for protecting the Australian community from the perpetrators of war crimes and for ensuring their proper investigation and prosecution,'' the spokesman said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop last night called for Mr Han's claims to be referred to the International Criminal Court for investigation.

Mr Han said that as a young army officer, he was ordered to infiltrate the student opposition movement. He then identified targets for assassination and arranged for them to be arrested by security services.

He said he would then put a hood over their heads and shoot them in the back of the head. Their bodies were taken to a cave to be burned and their ashes thrown into a river, leaving no evidence of the executions.

Mr Han said he spared many of his intended victims because of their age, or because he knew them or their families.

He said he was later imprisoned in Burma in order to spy on opposition members in jail, before travelling to Thailand in 1993 and infiltrating the Burmese student movement in exile. He arrived in Australia in 1996 and was eventually given citizenship.

Burmese community members were in shock yesterday over Mr Han's claims.

Prominent Burmese dissident Dr Myint Cho said he found it difficult to believe Mr Han was capable of what he claimed to have done.

''To be frank, Htoo Htoo Han is unlikely to be a war criminal,'' Dr Cho said.
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Herald Sun - Australian Federal police to assess Burma war crime claim
From: AFP
July 18, 2011 7:52PM

THE Australian government said today it would refer claims from a Myanmar refugee that he had committed war crimes in his former homeland, including carrying out 24 executions, to the federal police.

In a report carried by the Australian news agency AAP, the man said he had been an undercover military intelligence officer in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from 1987 to 1992.

He said had shot 24 people in the back of the head during the 1988 anti-government uprising and, as leader of a group which infiltrated the student movement to target and kill protesters, was also implicated in at least 100 further killings.

"I did it, I am a war criminal," he said.

"For so long I have lived like an animal.

"Now I want to release what I carry inside for 20 years. I want to say sorry to the mothers and fathers of the people I killed."

The man, who is now an Australian citizen and has lived in the country for more than a decade, could not be contacted but told AAP he was prepared to turn himself in to Australian authorities.

"These statements are extremely serious and the matter will be referred to the Australian Federal Police for assessment," Attorney-General Robert McClelland said in a statement.

"Australia has a strong framework in place for protecting the Australian community from the perpetrators of war crimes, and for ensuring their proper investigation and prosecution."

Australian Federal Police said they were aware of the man's statements but refused to speculate on what actions they could take against him.

"The AFP encourages any person who may have further information to provide that information to the AFP," a spokeswoman said.
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Asian Correspondent - Burma deserves ‘Commission of Inquiry’ than ASEAN’s chair
By Zin Linn Jul 18, 2011 7:18PM UTC

The new military-backed namesake civilian government of Burma faces no-win situation to acquire ASEAN’s backing for the 2014 chairmanship. If ASEAN acknowledged Burma as chairman of the group, it would definitely dishonor the name of the regional association. Burma under the former military junta missed a chance its turn as chair of ASEAN in 2006 because of strong international objections led by Western countries.

In 2004 August, activists in ASEAN area launched an international campaign calling for Burma to be disqualified from chairing the regional bloc in 2006, saying it would affects the grouping’s credibility and reputation.

At that time, a delegation led by Dr Gothom Ariya, the then secretary-general of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia) presented Thai Foreign Ministry officials an open letter with signatures by organizations from the region, East Asia, Europe and North America. Copies of the letter addressed to respective ASEAN governments were delivered by a group of activists to member nations’ embassies in Bangkok.

The Then activists spotlighted the ASEAN diplomats in Bangkok especially about a vital report – ‘A Licence to Rape’ – released in 2002 by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN). It described thoroughly the use of rape or shameful maneuver by the Burmese soldiers. The accusations were scrutinized and confirmed International organizations and foreign governments that using rape as weapon really was taking place. As the report exposed concrete evidences, the junta’s denial of it was in vain.

Moreover, the activists also explained about the most atrocious chapter of contemporary Burmese history or the latest assassination attempt by the Burmese military junta on the pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi – leader of the National League of Democracy (NLD) and her entourage at Dapeyin on 30 May 2003. Burmese troops and government sponsored goons and thugs attacked the NLD motorcade led by Aung San Suu Kyi who fortunately survived with injuries, subsequently arrested and put under house arrest.

The officials from the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon visited the site of the May 30 violent attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters and told that there was a premeditated ambush on the Lady’s motorcade. Circumstances and reports from local residents around Dapeyin indicated that the regime-backed thugs conducted the attack.

As a result, Burma lost its opportunity of becoming chairman of the ASEAN in 2006 due to tough international disapproval.

Now, another chance for Burma comes out again in 2014. Senior diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are likely to think about international opinion when they decide on whether to allow Burma to chair the regional grouping by 2014.

“We live, interact, synergize and benefit from our relationship with the (rest of the) world. Certainly we will be open to hear their sentiments,” Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary-general, told reporters Jakarta on 13 July, according to Ria Rose Uro (Interaksyon.com).

He emphasized that “ASEAN is where it is (today) because of the goodwill of dialogue partners.”

The secretary-general is attending the ministerial meetings which will run from July 15 to 23. Consideration of the matter is with the foreign ministers meeting (FMM).

Earlier, Indonesian parliamentarian Eva Kusuma Sundari, president of the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Caucus on Myanmar (AIPMC), warned about the potential backlash from Western governments should Burma (Myanmar) take over ASEAN’s chairmanship.

Sundari said that based on their interactions with government officials in Australia, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), the would-be impact “will not be good for ASEAN as a whole.”

“You cannot help it. These governments still look at Aung San Suu Kyi as the icon of democracy in Myanmar,” she stressed.

However, most important point to put into consideration for Burma is no other than its human rights record.

Human Rights Watch pointed out in its 6 May Statement that Burma has failed to address concerns repeatedly raised by ASEAN leaders in past summits.

“Rewarding Burma with ASEAN’s chairmanship after it staged sham elections and still holds 2,000 political prisoners would be an embarrassment for the region,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) released a press statement on 21 June denouncing the Burmese government’s armed forces for using use of rape as a weapon of war in northern Burma offensive. According to the press release, at least 18 women and girls were gang raped by Burmese soldiers; four of whom were killed after being raped. The soldiers killed three girls and raped a woman in front of her husband, who was then forced to work for them. In frontline areas, Burmese soldiers are committing crimes freely as there are no effective or appropriate penalties in place by senior authorities.

A press release has been delivered 14 July by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) condemning Burma Army of using rape as war weapon. The Burma Army is clearly authorizing rape as a terror policy in its offensive against the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N), according to information documented by SWAN and SHRF.

In such a situation, ASEAN must think very cautiously to accept Burma at its chair so as to avoid the grouping’s ethical standard. It will be better for ASEAN to support a UN-led ‘Commission of Inquiry’ into longstanding allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Burma.
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Asian Tribune - ASEAN must respect the ASEAN Charter to consider Burma for its chair in 2014
Tue, 2011-07-19 00:50 — editor
By - Zin Linn

The new military-backed civilian government of Burma is still in a vicious circle to gain ASEAN’s backing for the 2014 chairmanship. If ASEAN endorsed Burma’s chairmanship of the group, it would unquestionably dishonor the name of the regional bloc. Burma under the former military junta missed a chance its turn as chair of ASEAN in 2006, because of strong international disapproval led by Western countries.

In 2004 August, activists in the ASEAN region launched an international campaign calling for Burma to be disqualified from chairing the regional bloc in 2006, saying it would affects the grouping’s credibility and reputation.

At that juncture, a delegation led by Dr Gothom Ariya, the then secretary-general of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia) presented Thai Foreign Ministry officials an open letter with signatures by organizations from the region, East Asia, Europe and North America. Copies of the letter addressed to respective ASEAN governments were delivered by a group of activists to member nations’ embassies in Bangkok.

The Then activists underlined the ASEAN diplomats in Bangkok, a very important report – ‘A Licence to Rape’ – released in 2002 by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN). It described comprehensively the use of rape or shameful maneuver by the Burmese armed forces. The allegations were scrutinized and confirmed by International organizations and foreign governments that using rape as weapon truly was taking place. As the report exposed concrete evidences, the junta’s denial failed.

Furthermore, the activists also explained about the most atrocious chapter of contemporary Burmese history or the latest assassination attempt by the Burmese military junta on the pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi – leader of the National League of Democracy (NLD) and her entourage at Dapeyin on 30 May 2003. Burmese troops and government sponsored goons and thugs attacked the NLD motorcade led by Aung San Suu Kyi who fortunately survived with injuries, subsequently arrested and put under house arrest.

The officials from the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon visited the site of the May 30 violent attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters and told that there was a premeditated ambush on the Lady’s motorcade. Circumstances and reports from local residents around Dapeyin indicated that the regime-backed thugs conducted the attack.

As a result, Burma lost its opportunity of becoming chairman of the ASEAN in 2006 due to tough international condemnation.

Now, another chance for Burma comes out once more in 2014. Senior diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are expected to think about international opinion when they decide on whether to allow Burma to chair the regional grouping by 2014.

“We live, interact, synergize and benefit from our relationship with the (rest of the) world. Certainly we will be open to hear their sentiments,” Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary-general, told reporters Jakarta on 13 July, as said by Ria Rose Uro (Interaksyon.com).

He highlighted that “ASEAN is where it is (today) because of the goodwill of dialogue partners.”

The secretary-general is attending the ministerial meetings which will run from July 15 to 23. Consideration of the matter is with the foreign ministers meeting (FMM). Earlier,
Indonesian parliamentarian Eva Kusuma Sundari, president of the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Caucus on Myanmar (AIPMC), warned about the potential backlash from Western governments should Burma (Myanmar) take over ASEAN’s chairmanship.

Sundari said that based on their interactions with government officials in Australia, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), the would-be impact “will not be good for ASEAN as a whole.”

“You cannot help it. These governments still look at Aung San Suu Kyi as the icon of democracy in Myanmar,” she stressed.

However, most important point to put into consideration for Burma is no other than its human rights record. Human Rights Watch pointed out in its 6 May Statement that Burma has failed to address concerns repeatedly raised by ASEAN leaders in the past summits.

“Rewarding Burma with ASEAN’s chairmanship after it staged sham elections and still holds 2,000 political prisoners would be an embarrassment for the region,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The Kachin Women’s Association Thiailand (KWAT) released a press statement on 21 June denouncing the Burmese government’s armed forces for using of rape as a weapon of war in northern Burma offensive.

According to the press release, at least 18 women and girls were gang raped by Burmese soldiers; four of whom were killed after being raped. The soldiers killed three girls and raped a woman in front of her husband, who was then forced to work for them. In the frontline areas, Burmese soldiers are committing crimes freely as there are no effective or appropriate penalties in place by their senior officers.

A press release has been delivered on 14 July by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) condemning Burma Army of using rape as war weapon. The Burma Army is clearly authorizing rape as a terror policy in its offensive against the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N), according to information documented by SWAN and SHRF.

In such a situation, ASEAN must consider very thoughtfully to allow Burma at its chair in order to avoid the grouping’s ethical standard. Neglecting Burma’s continuous violation of human rights, ASEAN should not offer its chairmanship to an unclean member like Burma.

Looking at the facts on the ground in Burma, there are more military attacks in the ethnic minority areas, more rape-cases as a terror policy, more forced labor, more child soldiers, more political prisoners, more refugees, more abuses of law, more restrictions toward media, more control on Internet users and civil societies.

In a word, while dealing with the Burma question, ASEAN must stand for the ASEAN Charter that specifies the loyalty “to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

Hence, ASEAN needs to be very cautious and to put more pressure on Burma until the essential benchmarks for chairmanship are carried out before 2014. It will be better for ASEAN to support a UN-led ‘Commission of Inquiry’ into longstanding allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Burma.
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EDITORIAL: Burmese army's licence to rape is region's shame
By The Nation
Published on July 18, 2011

Burma's horrific military tactics drag on thanks to Asean's silence, inaction

In 1989, following the collapse of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), a number of armed ethnic armies entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with Rangoon. The fighting stopped, to a degree, but deep down nobody believed it would last. It was just a matter of time before the various groups resumed fighting.

For more than two decades, the so-called peace deals rested on shaky ground with little effort to resolve differences and allow them to integrate into Burmese society and administration. The ethnic armies held their turf, running special administrative areas with a high degree of autonomy. Some entered into the lucrative drug trade. Others went into logging and gems.

The ceasefire deals were the work of former security tsar General Khin Nyunt in the years following the bloody crackdown on huge nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. But with the regime intelligence chief ousted and put under house arrest in October 2004, things haven't been the same. Hardliners in junta were determined to disband the ethnic armies and put them under the command of the country's notorious army, locally known as the Tatmadaw.

Other groups who refused to come into the "legal fold", such as the Karen National Union, continued their armed struggle. Gross human rights violations have been committed for many years as the Tatmadaw classed civilians in areas where rebel forces were active as allies of enemy fighters. Rangoon intentionally uprooted and attacked civilians in a bid to deny rebel groups any form of support. This tactic, part of the notorious 'Four Cuts' policy, displaced hundreds of thousands of villagers, many of whom made their way to refugee camps dotted along the Thai-Burma border. But the Tatmadaw didn't stop there. Rape was has long been employed as part of their ugly tactics to demoralise ethnic armies and the local population.

A hard-hitting report released in 2002 by the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) - 'A Licence to Rape' - outlined in great detail the use of such a despicable ploy. International organisations and foreign governments looked into the allegations and confirmed the practice really was occurring. That was nine years ago. The junta denied it - as they do with virtually every accusation - but things appear to have hardly changed over the past decade.

Today, with a number of former ceasefire groups facing the guns of the Burmese military, the use of rape has extended to women from these ethnic communities as well. At this moment, the northern part of Shan State is the centre of attention. The area is of "crucial strategic importance for Burma's military rulers, who are seeking to secure it for major Chinese investments, including hydropower dams and transnational gas and oil pipelines," according to a recent statement released by SWAN and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF).

"Foreign governments dealing with Burma should not be silent about these atrocities. 'Business as usual' means ongoing rape in our communities," SWAN's Hseng Moon said. The latest report about rapes in Shan State comes only weeks after the Kachin Women's Association Thailand denounced the rape of 18 women and girls during renewed fighting last month in Kachin State in the far north.

Rape brings stigma, shame, and reluctance on the part of victims to speak out about what happened to them. But an increasing number of women and girls from Burma - the ones that survived - have begun to tell of their experiences of rape and other forms of sexual violence in the country's war-torn areas. Burmese Army deserters confirm that rapes occur regularly and usually go unpunished. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women has published material that corroborates details in 'A Licence to Rape' and adds many new cases.

Nevertheless, years on, a UN investigation has yet to take place, because the military junta refuses to grant the UN access to the country. Incidents of rape continue to be reported, and the Burmese military must surely know what is happening. But the junta engages in Orwellian double-speak. It has rejected the reports, instead launching its own investigations, which are conducted in such a manner one can hardly have confidence in their credibility.

While the United Nations and a number of Western countries have spoken out against the use of rape in Burma's military campaigns, members of the Asean community have been conspicuously quiet.

In 2000, the UN Security Council recognised that gender-based violence thwarts security and adopted Resolution 1325, which calls on parties in conflict to respect the rights of women and children, and particularly to prevent gender-based violence. In 2004, Asean governments vowed to end the impunity states like Burma have enjoyed and signed the Declaration to Eliminate Violence Against Women in this region. But these resolutions won't mean much unless action is taken.

Burma refuses to live up to the standards of decency that Asean has set for itself. That says a lot about its government and its military. But what about Asean countries and the organisation itself? Surely more can be done. Sadly, there seems to be little political will to do anything about ongoing atrocities in Burma. Asean needs to act, because its credibility erodes every day that nothing is done.
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The Nation - 544 Burmese detained in Mae Sot, off ranong
Published on July 19, 2011

Thai Navy officers rounded up 44 Burmese on a long-tail boat off Koh Phayam in Ranong yesterday, while police arrested 500 migrants at an empty factory in Mae Sot suspected to be an illegal holding centre to supply workers to Bangkok.

Third Naval Area chief Vice Admiral Choomnoom Ardwong said the crew of a gunboat patrolling the border off Koh Phayam saw a suspicious long-tail boat entering Thai waters. It had 30 men, 12 women and two children from Burma on board without proper papers.

The Burmese boat driver, identified only as Toey, 43, said he was paid Bt5,000 per trip to transport people from Koh Song in Burma to a Thai client in Phang Nga's Khura Buri district. The migrants hoped to find work in Phuket, Toey told the officers. Je Sa, 23, said she hoped to get a job in a Phuket tailor shop, as an agency told her she would get a Bt6,500 monthly salary plus accommodation, so she paid a Bt20,000 fee to an agent to travel to Thailand.

Meanwhile, Tak police raided an unnamed establishment on Sri Panich Road in Mae Sot and rounded up 500 Burmese workers. Initial police inquiries found that the site, an empty factory with unknown owners, was used to hide workers before they were registered and sent to Bangkok.
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Pattaya Mail - Myanmar calls off import ban on Thai goods
Monday, 18 July 2011 By MCOT

BANGKOK, July 17 - Myanmar's Commerce Ministry annulled its import ban on 15 Thai items from Thailand, according to Thailand's director-general of Trade Negotiations Department.

Ms Srirat Rastapana said the 15 types of merchandise were fresh fruits, monosodium glutamate (MSG), chewing gum, sweet drinks and other beverages, crackers, wafers, cake, canned food, instant noodles, liquor, beer, cigarettes, plastic products, and other controlled goods.

The annulment was made last month after over ten years of prohibition. However, licences to import these goods are obligatory and to be issued by the Commerce Ministry of Myanmar.

Representatives of Thailand's Trade Negotiations Department had travelled to Myanmar twice in October and December last year in order to negotiate the issue, for Thailand saw that the 15 types of goods were popular among Burmese consumers, particularly sweet drinks and other beverages, canned food and MSG.

The import ban will directly benefit Thailand's importers as in 2010 Thailand had exported goods to Myammar for Bt7.7 billion.
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Pattaya Mail - Myanmar workers flocking to Thailand ahead of wage hike
Sunday, 17 July 2011 By NNT

TAK, 15 July 2011 – A number of Myanmar citizens have been arrested in Tak province after entering Thailand with the intention to find jobs and take advantage of the new government’s wage hike policy to 300 THB a day.

On the occasion of Buddhist Lent this year, tens of thousands of people from Myanmar are crossing the border into Mae Sot district of the northern province of Tak to spend their four-day holiday visiting temples and making merits. The atmosphere in the Mae Sot Municipality has been full of energy, benefiting the trade of local products.

However, officers of the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division have apprehended a total of 50 Myanmar nationals, comprising 40 men and 10 women, for planning to seek illegal employment within the Kingdom. Their agents reportedly escaped.

According to the interrogation, the border crossers were about to travel from Tak to the nearby Kamphaeng Phet province to board a bus to Bangkok, where they would look for employers in order to be registered as a legal worker afterwards. They claimed that their motive was the incoming government’s policy to increase the minimum wage to 300 THB per day, which would allow them to make a good living.
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Monday, July 18, 2011
The Japan Times - India trying to woo Myanmar from China
By HARSH V. PANT
Special to The Japan Times

LONDON — Even as a senior Burmese diplomat in Washington has defected, Burmese prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has suggested that some people, both at home and abroad, have deceived themselves into thinking a new government has brought change to her country.

Political dynamic is undergoing a slow transformation in Burma (aka Myanmar) and the neighboring states are being forced to respond accordingly.

Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna was in Yangon last month to engage the new civilian government which came to office in March. His visit came a year after the visit of Myanmar's reclusive military leader, Gen. Than Shwe, who heads the State Peace and Development Council, to India, which rolled out a red carpet for him and signed a raft of pacts including treaties on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, counter terrorism, development projects, science and technology and information cooperation.

This time, too, even as Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao reached out to Suu Kyi, two issues were front and central — energy cooperation and insurgents operating in India's northeast who manage to use the 1,650-km-long India-Myanmar border for their hiding purposes.

India plans to invest more than $1 billion in Myanmar's energy sector over the next few years.

Among the infrastructure and development projects that were discussed include an India-Myanmar-Thailand highway project, a hydro-electric project to be built by the NHPC, a truck assembly plant by Tata Motors and a border trade point on the Mizoram-Myanmar border.

In an attempt to restructure the India-Myanmar border areas, Myanmar has agreed to give citizenship cards to people of Indian origin even if they lack relevant documents.

After being a strong critic of the Myanmar junta, India muted its criticism and dropped its vocal support for Suu Kyi since mid-1990s to help pursue its "Look East" policy aimed at strengthening India's economic links with the rapidly growing economies in East and Southeast Asia.

More important has been the realization that China's profile in Myanmar has grown at an alarming pace.

India's ideological obsession with democracy made sure that Myanmar drifted toward China.

India has been forced to take a more realistic appraisal of the developments in Myanmar and shape its foreign policy accordingly. India had few options other than to substantively engage the junta as Beijing's trade, energy and defense ties with Myanmar surged.

As India realized that one of its closest neighbors and a major source of natural gas, Myanmar, is coming under China's orbit, it reversed its decades-old policy of isolating the Burmese junta and has now begun to deal with it directly.

India therefore cannot afford to toe the Western line on Myanmar. India's strategic interests demand that India gently nudge the Myanmar junta on the issue of democracy.

India's relief efforts after tropical cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008 earned it a great deal of appreciation. India has gained a sense of trust at the highest echelons of the Myanmar's ruling elite and it would be loath to lose it.

Not surprisingly, therefore, India remains opposed to Western sanctions on the country.

After six years of discussions, India agreed to the building of Sittwe port in 2008 at a cost of $120 million. This will provide an alternative route to connect with Southeast Asia without transiting Bangladesh.

India has also extended a $20 million credit for renovation of the Thanlyin refinery, and it supported Myanmar against the U.S. censure motion in an attempt to lure the junta to grant preferential treatment to India in the supply of natural gas.

Bilateral trade between India and Myanmar today stands at almost $1 billion.

The junta has cooperated with India in eliminating Naga insurgents who find sanctuaries in Myanmar's border areas. India's long border with Myanmar is an open one where the tribal population is free to move up to 20 km on either side.

Apart from India's existing infrastructure projects in Myanmar, which include the 160-km India-Myanmar friendship road built by India's Border Roads Organization in 2001, India is looking into the possibility of embarking on a second road project and investing in a deep-sea project (Sagar Samridhi) to explore oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal as well as the Shwe gas pipeline project in western Myanmar.

Even as the Burmese military junta was readying for a violent crackdown on monks and democracy activists, the Indian petroleum minister was in Yangon signing a production deal for three deep-water exploration blocks off the Rakhine coast.

While India did support the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution against Myanmar, it tried to tone it down to little effect as it tried to balance its democratic credentials with its desire to retain its influence with the Burmese military government.

India has found it difficult to counter Chinese influence in Myanmar, with China selling everything from weapons to food grains to Myanmar.

There is no escaping the clout that China wields in Myanmar. Chinese firms get preferential treatment in the award of exploration blocks and gas supplies, apparently in recognition of China's steady opposition to the U.S. moves against Myanmar's junta in the United Nations.

India will find it difficult to project power in the Indian Ocean if the Chinese naval presence increases in Myanmar. China's growing naval presence in and around the Indian Ocean region is troubling for India as it restricts India's freedom to maneuver in the region.

Of particular note is what has been termed as China's "string of pearls" strategy, which has significantly expanded China's strategic depth in India's back yard. Chinese naval bases in Myanmar have been cited as part of this strategy.

Some of these claims are exaggerated as has been the case with the Chinese naval presence in Myanmar.

The Indian government, for example, had to concede in 2005 that reports of China turning the Coco Islands in Myanmar into a naval base were incorrect and that there were indeed no naval bases in Myanmar. Yet the Chinese thrust into the Indian Ocean is gradually becoming more pronounced than before.

The Chinese may not have a naval base in Myanmar, but they are involved in the upgrade of infrastructure in the Coco Islands and may be providing some limited technical assistance to Myanmar.

The United States is anxious that the junta in Myanmar will use it s growing engagements with India to gain greater global legitimacy.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has suggested that India's growing role in global politics should be used to penetrate the tight military clique that runs Myanmar and that New Delhi should "encourage interlocutors inside [Myanmar] to embrace reforms."

Although India is under tremendous pressure to demonstrate its credentials as a responsible global stakeholder, it is unlikely that India will take a strong anti-military posture vis-à-vis Myanmar. Indian strategic interests demand a robust partnership with Myanmar.

For New Delhi, the promotion of democracy is a luxury it cannot afford at the moment.

Harsh V. Pant teaches at King's College in London.
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Asia Sentinel - China Ignores Own Irrawaddy Dam Study
Written by Our Correspondent
Monday, 18 July 2011

China Power Investment’s assessment calls for Burma’s Myitsone Dam to be scrapped

The state-owned China Power Investment Corp. is continuing with the controversial Myitsone Dam on Burma’s Irrawaddy River despite its own 945-page environmental impact study calling for the project to be cancelled, according to a report by the Burma Rivers Network, which obtained a copy of the study.

The decision to ignore the negative environmental assessment is hardly unusual. A fondness for massive engineering projects on the part of China’s leaders, many of them engineers, has kept Beijing continuing to build, with the consequences to be dealt with later. The consequences have often been disastrous.

A case in point is the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River, the world’s largest hydropower dam, which also went ahead over the objections of environmentalists. In May, in a rare admission, the State Council issued a warning that a combination of environmental, construction and migration disasters is causing “urgent problems.”

While the Three Gorges dam has been beneficial to the region, the State Council said, “Urgent problems must be resolved regarding the smooth relocation of residents, ecological protection and geological disaster prevention.” Among these problems are that water quality in the Yangtze is said to be worsening because the dam prevents dispersal of pollutants. Algal blooms continue to develop progressively and soil erosion is causing riverbank collapses and landslides.

In Burma, thousands of workers and equipment already have been moved to Kachin State and construction has begun on the Myitsone facility and a second one, the Chibwe, over the objections of local villagers, according to the Burma Rivers Network.

Six villages have already been forced to relocate from the catchment areas although villagers complain that the relocation camp provides inadequate health and education facilities and that there is neither enough farmland nor water. The dams are opposed by affected communities across Burma. China Power’s own assessment warned that “the majority of local races oppose construction of the dams” and called for consultation with and consent of affected peoples, according to the NGO.

Although finished in late 2009, the assessment has never been made public, the NGO said. It was funded by China Power and was conducted by a team of 80 Burmese and Chinese scientists, according to the Burma Rivers Network, which opposes the construction of the dam and six others planned by Chinese engineers on the Irrawaddy and its tributaries. The Irrawaddy is Burma’s most important river and one of the major waterways flowing out of the Himalayas. The report, prepared on data gathered by the scientists over five months from January through May 2009, dealt with proposed dams on the Irrawaddy, N’Mai and Mali rivers in Kachin State.

The team recommended a longer and more comprehensive environmental assessment, saying the fragmentation of the river by a series of dams would pose “very serious social and environmental problems not only at upstream of dams but also to very far downstream to the coastal delta.”

The study predicted severe negative impacts on plant diversity, key biodiversity areas and conservation corridors.

If the Burmese and Chinese governments “were really concerned about environmental issues and aimed at sustainable development of the country, there is no need for such a big dam to be constructed at the confluence of the Ayeyawady (Irrawaddy) River, the NGO quoted the study as saying. “Instead two smaller dams could be built above Myitsone to produce nearly the same amount of electricity. Hence respecting the Kachin cultural values which surpass any amount of the overall construction costs.”

The Myitsone project, the report said, should be avoided “due to the changes in downriver hydrology which may affect navigation, the riverine ecosystem and delta ecosystem and will lead to negative impacts on the economy.”

China has been stubbornly pushing ahead with a series of dams, not just on the Irrawaddy but the Mekong as well over the objections of environmentalists who say the dams threaten to wreck the ecology of the rivers.

According to the Myitsone dam assessment obtained by the Burma Rivers Network, “the dams will impact millions that depend on the river and threaten biodiverse ecosystems: The fragmentation of the Irrawaddy River by a series of dams will have serious social and environmental problems not only at upstream of dams but also very far downstream to the coastal area.”

“Chinese companies are increasing their investments in Burma yet they are not following their own standards” said Sai Sai, coordinator of the Burma Rivers Network, in a prepared release. “While CPI Corporation is hiding its assessment from the people of Burma, construction of the dams is speeding ahead. China Power Investment is speeding ahead with its dam plans, ignoring Chinese and international standards for conducting proper assessments.”

The Kachin Independence Organization warned China’s government in March 2011 that construction of the Myitsone Dam might result in civil war. The warning came true. In June fighting broke out between Burmese Army and the Kachin Independence Organization, resulting in the shutdown of China’s Dapein hydropower station in Kachin State. Burmese soldiers, however, appear to have quelled the insurrection with overwhelming firepower.

The Burma Rivers Network urged that the dam projects be immediately stopped and that the economic, social, security and environmental impacts of dams throughout Burma be publicly disclosed.
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Three hydel power plants to come up in Mizoram
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS – 6 hours ago

Aizawl, July 18 (IANS) The state-owned North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd. (NEEPCO) will set up three power plants in Mizoram, generating a total of 1,526 MW, officials said here Monday.

The two sides signed a Memorandum of Agreement last month 'for commissioning three hydel power projects (815 MW, 635 MW and 76 MW), with a cumulative generation capacity of 1,526 MW,' a NEEPCO spokesman told IANS.

Mizoram has many rivers, creating a huge scope for setting up hydel power projects.

The Tlawng, considered the most important river in northern Mizoram, flows north to join the Barak river in southern Assam's Cachar district. The Kolodyne, which originates in neighbouring Myanmar, has four big tributaries linking eastern and southern Mizoram with Myanmar and western part of the state with Bangladesh.

The official said that the NEEPCO authorities led by its new chairman-cum-managing director Prem Chand Pankaj would soon start talks for settling land acquisition and other logistical issues.

'NEEPCO would add an additional 5,000 MW of power in northeast by the end of 12th Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17),' Pankaj told reporters in Agartala last week.

Currently, the NEEPCO, under the union power ministry, has been executing three hydro-electric and two gas-based thermal power projects in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura with a total generation capacity of 920 MW.

'We are planning to form joint ventures with various state governments of the region to convert the viable existing open cycle plants to combined cycle plants, thereby increasing efficiencies as well as capacity of the operational power projects,' the NEEPCO chief said.

The corporation, set up in April 1976, operates five power stations - three hydro-electric and two thermal - in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura, generating a total of 1,130 MW. It accounts for around 50 percent of the northeast region's installed capacity.

Currently Mizoram is generating around 40 MW of electricity from some diesel power stations and nine micro hydel stations against the peak hours demand of over 100 MW in the state. The shortfall of power is now met from the regional grids and through load shedding.
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IBNLive.com - Mizoram bans import of pigs from Myanmar
PTI | 07:07 PM,Jul 18,2011

Aizawl, July 18 (PTI) Mizoram government issued an order banning import of pigs from neighbouring Myanmar as a swine disease known as Procine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) was found in that country, state Animal Husbandry and Veterinary (AHV) department officials said here today. Padam Chhetri, Disease Investigation Officer of the AHV department told PTI that though no specific information was received from the Centre, the prevalence of PRRS was known. "Manipur has already banned import of pigs from Myanmar," Chhetri said, adding that the PRRS caused respiratory problems in the infected animals, especially pregnant swines and might result in eventual death. The order would initially be for two months.
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National Geographic - Myanmar
Land of Shadows
As it emerges from isolation, the nation of Myanmar is caught between repression and reform, dark and light.
By Brook Larmer
Photograph by Chien-Chi Chang

It's the magic hour in Yangon, when the last rays of sunlight, softer, cooler now, bathe the crumbling downtown in a golden glow, beckoning residents out into the streets. Giggling children race to buy fresh sugarcane juice. Women with cheeks daubed with a paste made of bark—the alluring Burmese sunblock—haggle with a fishmonger. In the street, bare-chested teenage boys in a circle play a rowdy game of chinlon, a sort of acrobatic Hacky Sack, while potbellied men in T-shirts and longyi, the traditional Burmese sarong, sit on the sidewalk chewing red wads of betel nut.

The carnival-like atmosphere doesn't last. Night falls fast in the tropics, and the power shortages that plague Myanmar give the sudden transition a spooky edge. A decaying colonial-era government building goes black. The alleyway next door emits the bluish glow of television sets powered by portable generators. Under the trees the vendors are invisible, but candles illuminate their wares: circles of silvery fish, clusters of purple banana flowers, stacks of betel leaves. And lined up in a blue wooden case, pirated DVDs of American movies and music.

"Welcome to the Hotel California," calls out a voice from the shadows in perfect English. Three young men sit on plastic stools in the street, laughing at the greeting. The DVD vendor, a skinny 29-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses and a pink button-down shirt, leaps up with a smile. Though his schooling ended in fourth grade, he speaks English in an eruption of phrases gleaned from Hollywood movies and 1950s grammar books. Meeting an American, he says, makes him feel "over the moon, on cloud nine, pleased as punch."

The three "bosom buddies"—Tom, Dick, and Harry, as they call themselves—meet almost every evening to practice their English idioms. Tonight, over cups of milky tea, they will banter for hours, showing off new expressions like nuggets of gold. Now, in the dark, the three friends hesitate for a minute, puzzling over the lyrics of an old Eagles hit. "Hey, maybe you can help," Tom says. "What do they mean when they say, 'We are all just prisoners here of our own device?'"

Myanmar is a land of shadows, a place where even the most innocent question can seem loaded with hidden intent. For most of the past half century this largely Buddhist nation of some 50 million has been shaped by the power—and paranoia—of its military leaders. The tatmadaw, as the national military is known, was the only institution capable of imposing its authority on a fractured country in the wake of independence from Britain. It did so, in part, by pulling Myanmar into a fearful isolation, from which it is only starting to emerge.

This isolation, deepened by two decades of Western economic sanctions, may have preserved the nostalgic image of Myanmar as a country frozen in time, with its mist-shrouded lakes, ancient temples, and blend of traditional cultures largely unspoiled by the modern world. But it also helped accelerate the decline of what was once referred to as "the jewel of Asia." Myanmar's health and education systems have been gutted, while the military—with some 400,000 soldiers—drains nearly a quarter of the national budget. Most notoriously, the tatmadaw's brutal suppression of ethnic insurgencies and civil opposition has made Myanmar a pariah nation, a distinction it now seems eager to shed.

Out of this tableau of darkness have come some fleeting rays of light. The country's first parliamentary election in 20 years, held last November, heralded the advent of what military leaders call "discipline-flourishing democracy." Though marred by widespread fraud and intimidation, the elections have given Myanmar its first nominally civilian government in half a century. Longtime military strongman Than Shwe officially retired in April, even though the new president is none other than his loyal deputy former Gen. Thein Sein, who has exchanged his army uniform for civilian clothes.

If one of the regime's election goals was to win legitimacy at home and abroad, another was to erase the memory of the 1990 elections. In those polls, held two years after the tatmadaw gunned down hundreds of antigovernment protesters, the junta denied the sweeping victory of the main opposition party, the National League of Democracy (NLD). Then for much of the next two decades, it put top opposition figures in prison and kept under house arrest the party's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Lady, as she is known, pushed the NLD to boycott last November's polls, which she, then still under house arrest, was barred from participating in. Joining such an "unfair" exercise, she argued, would give legitimacy to a regime that in 2007 again resorted to lethal violence—firing on protesting Buddhist monks—and a year later neglected the victims of Cyclone Nargis. That catastrophe left approximately 140,000 dead and nearly a million homeless. Not everybody agreed with Suu Kyi; some opposition figures believed that the transition to civilian rule, however flawed, offered their last hope to remain relevant.

Less than a week after the 2010 election, as military-backed parties claimed an overwhelming victory, came another glimmer of hope: Suu Kyi's release. Then 65, the Nobel laureate had spent 15 of the previous 21 years in detention, and the world rejoiced at her freedom. The sight of the Lady thronged by young followers led some to believe that a new era was dawning. But Suu Kyi harbors no such illusions. "Society has changed enormously," she said, marveling at the ubiquity of mobile phones, Twitter, and Facebook when I interviewed her in February. "But politically, there is no difference at all."

It is tempting to see Myanmar as a simple morality tale, a battle between light and darkness. But the Lady and the generals don't represent the only poles vying for the country's future. Within the ranks of both the military and the opposition there are voices, still muted, pushing for greater flexibility and reform. Beyond this contest among the elites, there are the ethnic minorities, who make up about a third of the population and occupy more than half the territory. The question of how to govern this kaleidoscope of restive groups has vexed Burmese rulers since the time of the ancient kings, and any real progress will depend on their accommodation. "If the ethnic groups are left out of the equation," one foreign diplomat says, "this place could fall apart."

The stakes for Myanmar's future are higher than ever, in part because the country—wedged between China and India—has again become a geopolitical chess piece. Even as the United States and other Western governments continue imposing sanctions to punish the regime for its human rights violations, China, Thailand, and other competing Asian powers have poured money into Myanmar to exploit its resources—oil and gas, timber, gems, minerals, and hydropower. The foreign investment, worth billions of dollars a year, has blunted the impact of sanctions but inflamed tensions in some ethnic areas where resources are most plentiful. Nothing yet has shaken the government's grip on power—or the fear and paranoia it inspires. But Myanmar, finally, is coming out of hibernation.

The barefoot magician twirls a rope around a volunteer's neck, and the audience hushes in anticipation. Rows of gaping boys and girls stretch back to the entrance of the dilapidated building. Across the street outside, men lingering in an open-air tea shop crane to see. Myanmar is a country infused with magic, a place where animistic spirits, called nats, inhabit every banyan tree, where astrologers are called upon to guide key decisions. The magician knows, even if the children do not, that some of the men standing outside are not part of the invited audience but spies for the police's Special Branch.

This, after all, is no ordinary magic show. Sitting in the front row, a ring of jasmine flowers in her hair, is the Lady herself, Aung San Suu Kyi. It is Children's Day at the NLD's Yangon headquarters, an event timed to coincide with the birthday of Suu Kyi's father, Burmese independence hero Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947. Images of father and daughter—strikingly similar, save for his military uniform—hang above the NLD's entrance, along side walls, and in laminated pins on the shirts of children in the audience.

But now all eyes are on the magician slowly weaving the rope around the volunteer's legs, arms, and torso, and even through his clothes. A young girl shoots a glance at Suu Kyi, who winks back in reassurance. This man is not a real prisoner, her smile suggests, even if the party elders flanking her have each spent more than a decade in the junta's jails. The magician barks out an instruction, and with a sudden yank, the rope snaps away. The prisoner is set free. Cheers fill the room, and Suu Kyi, tossing her head back, lets out an unbridled laugh.

If only it were that easy. Even with her freedom restored, Suu Kyi still seems bound by invisible tethers. The global icon is not simply burdened with high expectations. Her party is in limbo. Banned for boycotting last year's election, the NLD now runs the risk of violating the country's restrictive association laws with every gathering it holds. Even with the Children's Day event, says Win Htein, one of Suu Kyi's closest confidants, "we're defying restrictions."

From her office on the second floor of a building overlooking a busy street near the heart of Yangon, Suu Kyi can see the Special Branch men in the tea shop across the way. "I don't know why they bother," she sighs. Despite a trace of nostalgia for her privacy—"I keep wondering when I'll have time to read and think again," she says—Suu Kyi has thrown herself into a whirlwind of meetings with diplomats, journalists, ethnic groups, civic organizations. So far, though, the men she needs to meet most—the generals—have ignored her overtures. "We keep the door open," Suu Kyi says. "Nothing will be accomplished without dialogue."

Over the years cartoons in the state-run media have depicted the elegant Lady as an evil ogre with fangs, feeding on Western handouts. The attacks ceased for a few months after her release. But when the NLD issued a statement in February defending Western sanctions against the regime, an editorial in an official newspaper, the New Light of Myanmar, warned that Suu Kyi and her party would "meet their tragic ends." A rhetorical threat, perhaps, but few can forget the attack on her convoy the last time she was free, in 2003; it left at least a dozen followers dead.

Sanctions may be one of Suu Kyi's last cards. A wide spectrum of international observers—including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—has judged sanctions ineffective in Myanmar, largely because other countries, such as China, have no qualms about doing business with the government. "We're willing to compromise," Suu Kyi insists. But after two decades of sacrifice, she won't call for an easing of sanctions unless there are serious concessions, starting with the release of Myanmar's more than 2,000 political prisoners. "If sanctions are not effective," she asks archly, "then why are the regime and its friends so desperate to see them disappear?" It seems that the government covets the one thing the Lady has that it has never possessed: legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

If you come to Nay Pyi Taw looking for clues about Myanmar's leadership, the first thing you'll find is an unsettling void: smooth ten-lane roads with manicured roundabouts but scarcely any vehicles, clusters of color-coded government housing complexes with no children in sight, a copy of Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda with not a single Buddhist monk chanting prayers. It all feels like an abandoned movie set until you drive toward the military zone, an off-limits area where Than Shwe keeps his home and secretive high command. There, beyond the rumbling army trucks and the vast parade ground, stand the symbols of the regime: massive statues of Myanmar's three most revered ancient kings.

Welcome to the Abode of Kings, Myanmar's capital as of 2005, a strange utopia built on fear and hubris. A former mailman who honed his skills in the army's psychological-warfare department, Than Shwe self-consciously assumed the mantle of Myanmar's ancient monarchs—to the point where supplicants reportedly must use a royal form of Burmese to address him and his wife. Myanmar's kings had a penchant for building new capitals as legacies of their rule, from the pagodas at Bagan to the royal palace in Mandalay. Now there's Nay Pyi Taw.

The new capital may feel soulless, but for rulers distrustful of their own people, it could be a masterpiece of defensive urban planning. Worried about an imminent attack in Yangon, Than Shwe poured several billion dollars into building the city on scrubland in central Myanmar, safe from killer storms, foreign invasion, and domestic protests. In design, Nay Pyi Taw is not really a city but a series of isolated zones dispersed over an area larger than Rhode Island. Government ministries, once clustered in crowded Yangon, are laid out at wide intervals, accessible only by heavily patrolled roads. The military zone is a bubble within a bubble, forbidden to all but top officers—and reportedly honeycombed with underground bunkers.

In a city built by construction workers earning less than a dollar a day, the generals have splurged on some extravagances: an Olympic-size soccer stadium, a zoo equipped with an air-conditioned penguin house, a safari park, even a 480-acre "landmark garden" with miniature reproductions of Myanmar's most famous sites, including wooden houses inhabited, on occasion, by ethnic minorities in native garb—a sort of human zoo.
The generals' obsession with one legacy of British colonialism—golf—has spawned five new courses. The farmers whose village was bulldozed to build the City Golf Course now weed fairways on their ancestral land—and smile deferentially when officials play through. Beyond its elitist appeal, the golf course provides a refuge where business deals are quietly negotiated, with bribes purportedly masked as losing bets. A 26-year-old female caddy wearing bright red lipstick has learned the rules of discretion. "I'm only supposed to smile," she says.

The capital does have one concession to democracy: a parliament complex consisting of 28 gargantuan pagoda-topped buildings rising above two faux suspension bridges. When parliament opened in February—the first session in 22 years—the 659 new MPs were herded into this self-contained world and kept in isolation for weeks. No media or spectators were allowed; the MPs themselves were forbidden to use mobile phones or email. "It was sad and funny," a Burmese businessman in Yangon says. "Here were all these MPs launching a new democracy, and yet they were huddled there like prisoners."

Deep in the hills of northeastern Myanmar a young woman in a bamboo hat walks along a riverbank toward a sacred place: the convergence of two rivers that gives birth to the Ayeyarwady (known to the outside world as the Irrawaddy), the lifeblood of the nation. This spot is revered by Burmese of all faiths. But it is woven into the very identity of the ethnic Kachin minority, whose ancestors settled in this area centuries ago. At her wedding the Kachin woman and her husband (who asked not to be named) promised to emulate the union of the Mali and Nmai Rivers. Her family still comes to the confluence to make offerings on the first morning of each new year. "It's in our blood," she says.

All this will soon be gone. Around the Ayeyarwady's next bend Chinese workers are laying the groundwork for a 500-foot-tall hydroelectric dam, the first—and biggest—of seven dams slated to be built. Part of a joint venture between China Power Investment (CPI) and Myanmar's regime-friendly Asia World, the Myitsone Dam is expected to have a generating capacity of 6,000 megawatts of electricity, more than the country as a whole now produces. By the time the dam is finished in 2019, it will flood an area larger than New York City, wiping out dozens of villages, including Tang Hpre, where the Kachin woman lives. From the riverbank she points to a white sign on a nearby hill. "The water will rise that high. Can you imagine living under that threat?"

Anger about the dam reverberates far beyond Tang Hpre. "The dam has become a rallying cry for the Kachin people," says Brig. Gen. Gun Maw of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a rebel group whose 17-year-old cease-fire with the Burmese government began unraveling late last year. Along with soldiers from other ethnic groups, the KIA has resisted the regime's demand that it re-form itself into a border-defense force under Burmese military command. The dam controversy only fuels the rising tension. "For months we've been asking Burmese authorities to clarify where the electricity will go, but we've received no reply," the 49-year-old rebel chief says. "I think we all know. China is very hungry for electric power." Indeed, according to a CPI document, most of the electricity will go directly to China.

Of all the foreign countries rushing in to exploit Myanmar's resources, China has been the most aggressive. Part of its nearly ten billion dollars in direct investment is going to the construction of pipelines to carry oil and gas from the Burmese coast to the Chinese border—a shortcut that also hedges against the risk of shipping through the narrow and pirate-infested Strait of Malacca. In Kachin State, which shares more than 600 miles of that border, Chinese companies are rushing in to extract gold, jade, and teak, as well as hydropower. As one Kachin activist says, "The Chinese won't stop until they've sucked us dry."

For the past year and a half the Burmese government has been demanding that Tang Hpre's 1,400 villagers move to a new settlement ten miles away to make way for the dam. Defiance has been virtually unanimous. Last year a series of bomb blasts hit dam-related sites across the valley, forcing several hundred Chinese workers to evacuate and delaying the project. The authorities arrested 70 Kachin youths in connection with the bombings. The woman in the bamboo hat insists that her resistance is nonviolent. "The government tells us not to fix up our homes, to let them crumble," she says. "But no, that only makes us determined to make them more beautiful than ever, to show that we will not move, even under threat of death."

Down on the bank of the Ayeyarwady, she peers into a deep pit of sand and rock. Her mission today is not to pray or protest but to join the search for gold. "Try over here," she instructs a Kachin teenager blasting the sand bank with a hose, as youngsters shovel the loosened sand onto an inclined ramp. Over the past few months villagers have noticed more boats full of Burmese and Chinese workers heading upriver to dredge for gold. She wonders if Tang Hpre's forced resettlement is a ploy to let the Chinese control another of the Kachins' precious resources. "We don't want to lose our home," she says. "But we need to get as much gold as we can before the Chinese come and the waters rise. This is ours."

For a moment the loquacious DVD vendor is at a loss for words. Tom and his two young friends have been chatting in the dark about the glories of Yangon—its ethnic diversity, its hip-hop scene, its crumbling colonial architecture—when the subject turns, inevitably, to the future.

"I'm sweating bullets," Tom finally says. It's not just a new expression he's trying out. Recent power cuts have hurt the meager profits he brings in for his wife and daughter—about $50 a month—and having a black market job makes him jittery. Even with the protection money he pays the cops, he barely escaped a recent police sweep. Were it not for his fleet feet, he might have wound up in jail and lost his inventory, including a prized Tom Cruise compilation disk. The Top Gun star, he says, is "the apple of my eyes."

Later, chewing on a wad of betel nut, Tom confides his great ambition: He wants to go abroad. In this desire he is not alone. Each year tens of thousands of Burmese laborers head to Singapore and Malaysia, where they can earn upwards of $300 a month. Dick, an underemployed English teacher, says he may try to find a sales job in Singapore. Tom has the U.S. in mind. "It is the land of milk and honey," he says. "And Angelina Jolie."

Even with his ebullient English, Tom's lack of higher education and financial assets dims his chances for a U.S. visa. But he seems so intoxicated by the idea—or is it the betel nut?—that he loses his inhibitions. "Under this dictatorship we live like pigs snorting in the dark!"

The outburst unnerves his friends. "He's shooting off his mouth," Dick whispers when Tom goes off to deal with a customer. "He shouldn't be airing his dirty linens in public."

At the end of the evening, Tom packs up his DVDs, and the three friends walk down the deserted street to his bus stop. "Things are getting a little better here," Harry says. "We've all got mobile phones and email now, so we can keep in touch with the outside world." Tom doesn't seem to be listening. As he hops onto the bus, he offers—with a devilish grin—a seditious farewell: "See you after the insurrection!"
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Monsters and Critics - Thai police kill suspected drugs trafficker
Jul 18, 2011, 10:13 GMT

Bangkok - Thai police on Monday shot dead a suspected drug trafficker and seized more than one million crystal methamphetamine tablets in Chiang Rai province, which borders Myanmar, a news report said.

Acting on a tip-off about a significant drug delivery, police set up a road block in Chiang Rai, 600 kilometres north of Bangkok.

Two suspected traffickers crashed their pickup truck through the barriers, prompting police to give chase until the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed in to a ditch, the Bangkok Post online news reported.

Police said they shot one suspect after he opened fire. The other man escaped.

Found in the truck were 1,078,000 crystal methamphetamine pills, also known as ice. The haul, a total of 73 kilograms, would have been worth an estimated 500 million baht (16.7 million dollars) in Thailand, the report said.

Chiang Rai province borders Myanmar, which is the main supplier of methamphetamines, heroin and opium in South-east Asia.
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Sunday Times - Myanmar crew mutinies for pay, better facilities
African crew who were former hostages of Somali pirates, live on handouts in Colombo port
By Leon Berenger

A group of foreign sailors staged a mutiny onboard their vessel earlier this week, after the owning company had defaulted in the payment of wages and failed to address other issues such as basic facilities and safety measures onboard.

The 14 sailors from Myanmar, part of a 26-member crew on the Panama-flagged MV Goti Pride staged a lightning strike onboard the vessel, demanding full payment of back wages, if they are to call off their action, General Secretary- National Union of Seafarers Sri Lanka (NUSS), Palitha Atukorale said.

He said that the South Indian owned company Goti Coast to Coast had a questionable reputation with regard to wages of the crew and other welfare issues.

“This is not the first time that we had received complaints from the crew of this vessel that sails between Colombo and Male on a regular basis”, Mr. Atukorale said.

He said the crew had resumed operations on the ship on Wednesday this week, after an agreement was signed between the NUSS on behalf of the crew and Kannath Vishvakumar, a representative of the company, who was rushed to Colombo from Chennai.

Mr. Vishvakumar told the Sunday Times that the company had agreed to promptly settle all dues, and that he would also look into the safety issues raised by the crew.

The remainder of the crew, including the captain, are Indian, and they have no issue, he said. The Chief Mate of the vessel Win-ko-ko Zau told the Sunday Times that the welfare benefits on the vessel was near zero, where even fresh water was scarce.

“Apart from the wages, time and again we even informed the company of the shortages related to the safety issues onboard the vessel, but they fell on deaf years. That is why we decided to mutiny on reaching Colombo Port,” Mr. Zau said.

Meanwhile, in a related development, a group of eight African fishermen who have been stranded at the Colombo Port since February this year, are now forced to live on handouts inside the harbour, maritime officials said.

The group- six from Kenya and two from Mozambique, is refusing to leave until they receive their due wages, they said. Their issue is currently before court, after the boat owner based in Taiwan had directed the agent representative in Colombo to auction the vessel and settle the wages of the crew.

The Africans were part of a 23-member crew on the Yu Fa 227 that was hijacked on May 7 last year by Somali pirates, and held captive for some nine months before they were released.They later landed at the Colombo Port in the early hours of February 2.

The remaining crew- mixed bag of fishermen from the Philippines, China and Indonesia, have since returned to their respective countries.
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Inquirer.net - Asean to hear other opinions on Burma bid
5:15 am | Sunday, July 17th, 2011

JAKARTA—Top diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) would consider international opinion when they decide whether or not to allow Burma (Myanmar) to chair the regional bloc by 2014, according to Asean secretary general Surin Pitsuwan.

“We live, interact, synergize and benefit from our relationship with the (rest of the) world. Certainly we will be open to hear their sentiments,” he told reporters attending a media conference here on Wednesday.

Asean foreign ministers will be meeting sometime this week or next week to decide on the matter, Pitsuwan added.

Earlier, Indonesian parliamentarian Eva Kusuma Sundari, president of the Asean Interparliamentary Caucus on Myanmar (AIPMC), warned of a possible backlash from western governments should Burma, a military dictatorship, be allowed to take over the Asean chairmanship.

Burma has been denounced by many nations for its dismal human rights record. It only recently released Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi after 21 years in custody. The International Labor Organization has accused Burma of crimes against humanity for what it said was systematic forced labor in the country.

Sundari said that based on their interactions with government officials from Australia, the United States and the European Union, the would-be impact of Burma’s assumption of the rotating chairmanship “will not be good for Asean as a whole.”

Asean is composed of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

“You cannot help it. These governments still look at Aung San Suu Kyi as the icon of democracy,” the Indonesian parliamentatian stressed.

But she pointed out that western government officials did not spell out the measures they would be taking should Burma assume the Asean leadership.

Burma was supposed to assume the rotating chairmanship this year but Asean leaders decided to push it forward to 2016 during a summit in 2006.

Last January, Burma asked Asean leaders to advance its chairmanship to 2014.

During the 18th Asean Summit in May here, the region’s foreign ministers asked Indonesia to assess the readiness of Burma to lead the 10-country bloc.

Pitsuwan said recent signals from Naypyidaw, Burma’s center of government, indicated the country was ready to receive such an Indonesian diplomatic mission.

Such a mission, he added, is “a reflection of Asean’s support to Burma on a road to opening up.”

Pitsuwan said the parameters for evaluating Burma’s 2014 chairmanship bid varied among the member-states’ diplomats. But many of them shared common concerns with civil
society and democratization activists. Ryan D. Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao
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Hindustan Times - Two militants, four Myanmarese nationals held in Manipur
Press Trust Of India
Imphal, July 16, 2011
Last Updated: 14:09 IST(17/7/2011)

Two militants and four Myanmarese nationals have been arrested in separate incidents in Manipur Friday, official sources said. Sources said a cadre of banned People's Liberation Army (PLA) identified as M Ibomcha (22) was arrested along with a 9 mm pistol with a magazine and some rounds of ammunition during a search operation at Serou Lamkhai in interior Thoubal district by a combined team of police commandos and 27th Assam Rifles battalion personnel on Friday.

In another incident, commandos attached to Imphal West district police station during a search operation arrested an insurgent of United National Liberation Front (UNLF) identified as Ton Meitei (22) from Naoremthong area Imphal Friday evening, sources said.

In yet another incident, Assam Rifles personnel arrested four Myanmarese nationals while checking passenger buses at Sita junction area in Manipur's interior Chandel district bordering with Myanmar on Friday, sources said.

The four foreigners were identified as Md Sohiab (24), Md Yunus (24), Md Fauque (25) and Abdul Wahab (25), sources said adding that they were from Kotaw, Membu, Suigong and Tatan areas in upper Myanmar.

The four were arrested for not having valid travel documents, and were handed over to nearby Tengnoupal police station, sources said.
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Washington Post - Gems auction nets $1.5 billion for Myanmar despite US sanctions
By Associated Press, Published: July 15

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s state-sponsored gems auction has reaped another $1.5 billion in foreign exchange despite U.S. sanctions against the industry.

The weekly “Voice” news magazine reported Saturday that 22,317 lots of jade, 284 lots of gems and 355 lots of pearls were sold July 1-13 at the mid-year Gems Emporium .

Some $2.8 billion was earned at the main auction in March and more than $1.44 billion at last year’s mid-year auction. Myanmar is one of the world’s biggest producers of jade and rubies.

The sales are a major foreign exchange earner for the military-dominated government, which faces sanctions from the West because of its poor human rights record. In 2008, the United States enacted legislation banning the import of gems from Myanmar.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Arab News - Myanmar invites bids for 18 onshore oil blocks
By REUTERS
Published: Jul 15, 2011 23:14 Updated: Jul 15, 2011 23:14

YANGON: Myanmar has invited bids for companies to operate 18 onshore oil blocks scattered across about half a dozen provinces on a production-sharing contract basis, the largest number in a single such offer in recent years.

Bidders are allowed to submit up to three proposals for three onshore blocks, the Ministry of Energy said in an announcement in the official English daily, New Light of Myanmar.
Proposals should be submitted by Aug. 3, 2011.

Myanmar has been exploring oil and gas at 49 onshore sites and 26 offshore blocks in Rakhine, Tanintharyi and Mon states after entering joint ventures with foreign companies since 1988.

Myanmar’s crude oil reserves are estimated at 3.2 billion barrels, the energy ministry has said. This compares with China’s proven oil reserves of 14.8 billion barrels, Malaysia’s 5.8 billion, Vietnam’s 4.4 billion and Indonesia’s 4.2 billion barrels, at the end of 2010, according to the BP Statistical Review.

The country’s proven gas reserves tripled in the past decade to around 800 billion cubic meters, equivalent to more than a quarter of Australia’s, BP Statistical Review figures show.

Myanmar’s ruling military junta handed power to a nominally civilian government in March after elections last November that were widely dismissed as a sham. The elections were intended to create the impression of a democratic transition after 49 years of direct army rule.

Neighboring Thailand and China are the biggest investors in Myanmar’s energy sector.

Last October, China’s state energy group CNPC started building a crude oil port in Myanmar, part of a pipeline project aimed at cutting out the long detour oil cargoes take through the congested Malacca Strait.

Companies from Australia, Britain, Canada, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam have also reached energy deals with the government.

Total foreign direct investment in the oil and gas sector has amounted to $13.5 billion since 1988, official data show.
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The Irrawaddy - Farmers at Risk of Pesticide Poisoning
By NGA HTUN Monday, July 18, 2011

KALARGYIGONE, Rangoon— What Ko Zaw knows about the dangers of pesticides is that he would die if he drinks them. Like other farmers in the surrounding area, the 28-year-old doesn’t take any preventative measures such as using a mask, gloves or boots while spraying pesticide on his crops.

“While spraying pesticides, I sometimes put a betel quid into my mouth with my unwashed hands… See nothing has happened to me,” Ko Zaw said in his village of Kalargyigone, which lies one-and-a-half hours by bus from former capital Rangoon.

Asked about any health problems he has, Ko Zaw pauses a moment and reveals that he sometimes suffers from headaches, nausea and joint pain. But he is not sure whether these sicknesses are associated with side effects of pesticides.

In this agricultural country—70 percent of the Burmese labor force toils in the fields—experts warn there are many farmers like Ko Zaw who are unaware of the danger of pesticides and their side effects, and are slowly poisoning themselves as a consequence.

“Most farmers don’t have adequate knowledge on the dangers of pesticides and how to use them in a safe way, which is threatening both their health and the environment,” said an expert from Development for Environmental-friendly Agriculture and Rural Life of Myanmar.

“If they [farmers] don’t suffer any side effects from the pesticide immediately, they assume they will never suffer them. They actually don’t know that side effects can come to them later.”

Compared with other countries in the region, Burma still has the lowest rate of pesticide use, according to experts. However, agricultural experts warn the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has increased in recent years.

While some chemical containers have safety instructions and directions for use in Burmese script, some pesticide bottles only have foreign language instructions that farmers cannot understand. But farmers say they have no problem with the issue.

“For how-to-use instructions, we just ask the sellers. For safety instructions, we don’t bother to ask because we don't need… Everybody knows they [pesticides] shouldn’t enter our body,” said one farmer from Kalargyigone.

Most of the farmers know that pesticides can enter their body by swallowing, but many remain unaware that they can also be absorbed through the skin or inhaled.
Out of ignorance, in some rural areas of this country farmers even open pesticide bottles with their teeth.

A former government official who worked with the Ministry of Agriculture said, “Most farmers don’t take any awareness training regarding how to use pesticides and just copy what the other farmers in their surroundings do.”

She also said that even though there are safety instructions available when using pesticides, most farmers don’t take them into account.

In order to monitor pesticides and their residues in food and the environment, the government passed the Pesticide Law in 1990. Under this legislation, any pesticide is subject to be tested and approved before it is distributed.

However, there are some pesticides available in markets that don’t have the government’s approval.

As farmers are not aware of the dangers of pesticides, they unwittingly let themselves become vulnerable to leukemia, cancers, infertility, spontaneous abortions, genetic damage, liver and kidney dysfunction and neurological damage.

Even if they suffer health problems such as headaches, nausea, breathing difficulties, eye or muscle pain, tissue swelling, numbness in the hands and feet, anxiety or sleep disorders, farmers do not know to consult doctors to see whether these symptoms are associated with pesticides.

In some parts of the country—such as villages around the Inle Lake, one of the popular tourist areas of Shan State—experts warn pesticide-related cases have already been seen, although no data is available on how many cases are there in a year.

Farmers in the Inle Lake grow tomatoes, a main crop, on man-made floating islands. In order to produce plump and highly profitable pest-free tomatoes, they use pesticides and chemical fertilizers extensively.

But the problem remains that these toxic substances sink into the water that they use for cooking, bathing and cleaning.

“The water in the lake is now becoming polluted through the over-use of fertilizers and various kinds of pesticides,” a research scientist who studied Inle Lake for many years told The Irrawaddy.

“This makes the people living in the lake vulnerable to any sort of pesticide-related illness.”

According to some health workers, ever more people around Inle Lake are suffering from muscle pains, nerve problems and kidney problems, which they assume a caused by pesticide-poisoning.
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The Irrawaddy - 28 Govt. Troops Killed in Ambush: KIA
By WAI MOE Monday, July 18, 2011

Officials of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) claim 28 government troops were killed during skirmishes in southern Myitkyina over the weekend—the most Burmese Army casualties since the current Kachin State conflict began on June 9.

KIA sources told The Irrawaddy that they ambushed a military supply column and the high number of government casualties—which included a major—was due to the surprise nature of the attack which took place in unfamiliar surroundings for government troops. A KIA soldier was killed and four others were injured in the fighting.

La Nan, joint-secretary of the KIA's political wing the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), said: “Information is still being collected about the casualties, but is possible that the Burmese Army column included around 60 troops who engaged with KIA soldiers.”

In the skirmishes, 11 government troops including two officers—a captain and a lieutenant—were captured. Along with the soldiers, KIA sources said they seized a 60mm motor, a two-inch motor, a MG47 machine gun and other MA rifles.

Government troops battling the KIA over the weekend were from Infantry Battalion (IB) 21 under the Northern Regional Military Command. IB-21 is one of three battalions operating together against KIA mobilizations in Kachin State, alongside IB-29 and IB-37.

These latest clashes come after two secretaries of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party—former government ministers Aung Thaung and Thein Zaw—traveled to Kachin State capital Myitkyina to meet with members of the Kachin Nationalities Advisory Committee on July 14-15.

However, the government in Naypyidaw’s indirect negotiation with the KIO through the committee seems to have been unsuccessful, while some members of the advisory border committee warned the former ministers that the situation could get worse without a political dialogue.

The two former ministers told Kachin negotiators that they would report what was said at the meeting to Naypyidaw, KIA sources said.

Due to intensifying conflicts and high numbers of casualties in northern and eastern Burma, high ranking government and military officials held an emergency meeting in Naypyidaw at the weekend.

Members of the government’s National Defense and Security Council (NDSC), such as President ex-Gen Thein Sein, First Vice President ex-Gen Tin Aung Myint Oo and Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Gen Min Aung Hlaing, reportedly appeared at the meeting.

Also present were Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Lt-Gen Soe Win, Union Defense Minister Maj-Gen Hla Min, Foreign Minister ex-Col Wunna Maung Lwin, Home Minister Lt-Gen Ko Ko and Minister of Border Affairs Maj-Gen Thein Htay.

Although not strictly members of the NDSC, former ministers Aung Thaung and Thein Zaw also reportedly attended the meeting. However, NDSC member Lower House Speaker ex-Gen Shwe Mann and Upper House Speaker ex-Maj-Gen Khin Aung Myint were absent.

Meanwhile, an operational meeting on ethnic issues was also held at the headquarters of the North-East Regional Military Command in Lashio. Tactical officers from the Triangle Regional Military Command, Eastern Regional Military Command and the Middle-East Regional Military Command came to the meeting, according to military sources.
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The Irrawaddy - Smoke and Mirrors: Thein Sein’s Illusory Economic ‘Reforms’
By NAING KO KO Friday, July 15, 2011

Some politicians in Asia, particular in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), have been flattering Burma’s new president, Thein Sein, for his supposed economic reforms. They claim that his administration is a moderate civilian government that will liberalize Burma’s economic policy and integrate the country into the regional economic and trade orders. They have even advocated the abandonment of economic sanctions imposed by Western countries against Burma and its leaders.

But were the actions that Thein Sein and his administration took with respect to economic policy in its first 100 days really that encouraging?

The answer is no. While Thein Sein has parroted the clichés of clean government, good governance and poverty reduction, he has not instituted any meaningful reform since taking office. In fact, he has re-installed an old-style big-government, with his 36 ministers and deputy ministers still interfering with many business sectors and essentially running a planned economy.

Although he has cancelled some economic commissions, including the Burma Trade Council, Thein Sein’s big government has empirically not been able to create any productive public goods or deliver efficient services. In addition, he has not been successful in erasing Burma’s name from the list of international credit risks, as the economy is the most unproductive and corrupt in many years.

The new government took office with many expectations, but its initial actions have resulted in many disappointments. There is no strong evidence of significant economic liberalization apart from the window dressing of anti-poverty campaigns, privatization and special economic zones.

More precisely, Thein Sein has not implemented any economic growth policies to help the country catch up, in terms of growth, with neighboring economies, whose per capita GDP and incomes are nearing the status of advanced economies.

In contrast, Thein Sein’s regime is wandering without any clear direction. For example, no one knows how Burma’s budget is actually divided and how much foreign reserve and/or debt the country has. Thein Sein should release the country’s actual economic data quarterly and systematically.

Presently, Burma’s economy is one of the poorest in terms of per capita income, marginal productivity of labor and marginal propensity to consume. Millions of people are living on less than two dollars a day while financial institutions, the stock exchange and private money markets have been ignored.

Because Thein Sein’s administration still holds a monopoly on the country’s money market, households and individuals encounter severe credit and capital constraints because they cannot access global monetary institutions and international financial markets. As a result, few are able to start new businesses.

Moreover, Thein Sein has not tackled unemployment, which is a major problem in Burma and has a significant effect on levels of production and income. The government has not produced any fiscal stimulus plans, e.g. a job-creating and income-generating policy. As a result, there has been an exodus of millions of Burmese job seekers to neighboring countries in search of jobs and better salaries in labor-intensive job markets, especially in Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore.

Remarkably, Thein Sein has instituted only two major policy reforms within his first 100 days in office. The first was an anti-poverty campaign, under which he has held some anti-poverty conferences and solicited suggestions from both well-respected Burmese economist professor U Myint and some anti-poverty experts from overseas. However, he missed a great opportunity to get all stakeholders, especially, Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, involved in his poverty-reduction process, and without their input, his anti-poverty campaign won’t be fruitful.

One of the ugliest results of Thein Sein’s economic policy is over-pricing in the markets. The prices of computers, cars, mobile phones and real estate are skyrocketing because of the lack of competitive markets due to state monopolies. A shocking fact is that while the cost of a mobile phone Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) in Thailand is only 50 baht (US $2), a SIM in Burma cost from $500 to $1,700 in 2011 (down from $2,770 in the 2000s).

The government’s monopolistic behavior encourages corruption, poverty, greed and organized crime in both reality and economic theory. The cabinet should study anti-trust law, which should be introduced in the country.

Four out of Burma’s top ten richest men, including Khin Shwe and Win Myint, are sandwiched into Thein Sein’s cabinet. They have hegemonized current economic activities and underpinned the economic lifeline between the cabinet and the military.

A shameful outcome is that they have confiscated rural and urban lands held by poor citizens for use in their mega-projects, violating personal property rights and the rule of law as they go.

The second shining spot in Thein Sein’s economic policy is the Davoy Special Economic Zone, from which the administration expects to get $5.8 billion in foreign investment. If this project comes to fruition, millions of unemployed rural households would be employed and commodities and services would smoothly flow from India to Vietnam. However, due to the lack of an innovative foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, the economic zone won’t receive foreign capital investment in the medium term because Western investors will not participate. With the lack of Western FDI, technology transfer and knowledge-spillover, the Davoy Special Economic Zone won’t be implemented until the long run.

In sum, Thein Sein and his administration need a Plan-B to achieve investor confidence and economic growth. Without reshaping the country’s economic structure, institutions and political landscape, his economic plans cannot be successfully implemented. Until he reforms economic policy, the people of Burma will suffer more pain and lose out on the possibility of increased income and production.

Naing Ko Ko, a former political prisoner in Burma, is currently a post-graduate student studying economics in New Zealand.
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5,000 kyat denomination counterfeit notes found in Rangoon bank
Monday, 18 July 2011 20:26 Ko Wild

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – 5,000 kyat denomination counterfeit notes were found early in July in Myanmar Citizens Bank (MCB) in Kyautada Township in Rangoon Region, Rangoon media has reported.

The Modern News journal said the counterfeit notes were repeatedly found in deposits made by some palm oil agents, the journal reported, citing an MCB official.

Bank official said a counterfeit note was inserted in every 100-note stack of the currency deposited.

“I think this may be organized crime. Previously we found only one or two counterfeit notes in about six months. We have never found many counterfeit notes like this,” a bank official told Modern News.

However, economist Khin Maung Nyd said the total number of counterfeit notes did not exceed 100.

The bank staff had to compensate for the counterfeit notes and torn notes from their own pockets which cost more than 450,000 kyat (US$ 563), the journal reported.

The case reportedly has not yet been taken to the police.

Other banks such as Kanbawza Bank, Asia Rangoon Bank, Tun Foundation Bank and MCB Mandalay branch bank all said they have not detected any counterfeit notes.

Some of the counterfeit notes of 5,000 denomination were first put into circulation by the Central Bank in October 2009 and the Central Ban issued a notice about the counterfeit bills. The notice said the counterfeit notes had no watermark on the left bottom corner and middle right corner.

Counterfeiting carries a prison term of a minimum 10 years to up to life and a fine. Users of counterfeit notes are liable to a 7-year prison term, or fine or both if they knowingly and intentionally use counterfeit notes.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) Burmese service reported that a policeman was arrested for using a 5,000 denomination counterfeit note in Bago Myoma market in January 2010.

Pyi Myanmar journal reported in May 2010 that the Dawbon police station arrested three people with 1,000 kyat denomination counterfeit notes worth 1 million kyat and genuine notes of similar denomination worth 100,000 kyat. They obtained the counterfeit notes in Myawady Township on Thai-Burma border, the journal reported.
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Thailand launches crackdown on Burmese illegal workers in Mae Sot
Monday, 18 July 2011 20:49 Tun Tun

New Delhi (Mizzima) – About 200 Burmese illegal workers have been arrested per day in Mae Sot, Thailand, after authorities launched a crackdown this weekend, according to the Joint Action Committee for Burmese Affairs (JACBA).

July 14 was the deadline for a migrant to register for a work permit in Thailand. During the registration period, the Ministry of Labour ordered police not to arrest migrant workers.

Two days after the deadline, Thai authorities launched the crackdown.

“They arrested illegal workers in accordance with their action plan to send back illegal workers to their motherland,” Moe Kyo, a JACBA official, told Mizzima.

Most of the illegal workers who have been arrested are itinerants and construction workers.

“The Burmese workers were arrested either in factories or in their apartment blocks. Most of them were arrested while they are going to markets or their work,” Moe Kyo said.

Illegal workers can be sentenced to five years in prison or fined from 20,000 baht (about US$ 675) to 100,000 baht. Most of the Burmese illegal workers were sent back to Myawaddy on the Burmese side of the border shortly after they were arrested.

According to workers’ rights groups, up to 100,000 Burmese workers in Mae Sot did not register for work permits.

Many illegal workers were also found to be in possession of forbidden items including illegal drugs, forestry products and orchids.

Estimates place the number of Burmese workers in Thailand at more than 2 million. About 1.5 million have temporary passports or legal work permits, according to workers’ rights activists.
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NLD to march to mausoleum to commemorate 64th Martyrs’ Day
Monday, 18 July 2011 15:36 Ko Pauk

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will deliver a speech at NLD headquarters on Tuesday to mark Martyrs’ Day in Rangoon.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) will also hold a march to the Martyrs’ Mausoleum to honour Burma’s fallen heroes.

Phyo Min Thein, the organizer of the ceremony, told Mizzima that NLD leaders would participate in marching to the Martyrs’ Mausoleum, but it was not sure whether Suu Kyi would accompany the group or not.

State-run newspapers reported on Sunday that the mausoleum would be open to the public and authorities requested visitors to cooperate in security measures at the entrance and exit streets in the area.

“There are many cars carrying riot police posted at the north gateway to Shwedagon Pagoda near Martyr’s Hill,” Phyo Min Thein said.

In 1989, a march was planned to mark Martyrs’ Day, but Suu Kyi herself cancelled the ceremony shortly before the designated time. On July 20, she was put under house arrest and held until 1995.

Phyo Min Thein said, “The situation is different from 1989. In 1989, orders No. 2/88 and 8/88 were imposed. Now, there is no similar rule like those orders. I hope that we will be able to march peacefully and bow to the Martyrs’ tomb because we have a civilian government that has promised to work toward democracy.”

Another NLD said, “As aunty (Suu Kyi) said, we hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Our objective is to pay respect to the martyrs. We will face any problem that we encounter. The Martyrs’ Mausoleum is opened to the public just a day each year.”

At the NLD headquarters, party members will offer food to monks early Tuesday morning. Around 10 a.m., Suu Kyi will deliver a speech. Ohn Kyaing, a central executive committee member, will deliver a talk, and activists Yarzar and hip-hop singer Zeyar Thaw will display wall posters.

NLD members in other towns including Sagaing and Kyaukpadaung will offer food to monks to commemorate Martyrs’ Day.
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DVB News - Burmese officials captured by Kachin army
Published: 18 July 2011

Two Burmese army officials and three soldiers have been captured by the insurgent Kachin Independence Army (KIA) following two days of heavy fighting in northern Burma.

At the weekend a key highway linking Bhamo town to the Kachin state capital of Mytikyina was engulfed in a series of fire-fights after a truck carrying Burmese soldiers was stopped by Kachin troops.

The fight continued into Sunday when the KIA captured the five during an ambush. “They were found hiding in a drain after being pinned down in the [16 July] fight,” said a KIA source. “They were three privates and two officials – a sergeant and a captain.”

They are now in the group’s headquarters in Laiza, and no details have been given on their identity.

The capturing of troops has been a common tactic of both sides since heavy fighting broke out in Kachin state in June, but sometimes with grisly results: on 12 June the corpse of a captured KIA solider was returned displaying signs of torture, despite what the group had claimed was an agreement to exchange hostages unharmed.

The KIA claims the five men are being treated well in Laiza, but no independent verification of their condition can be obtained.

Thousands of ethnic Kachin have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of fighting, which was triggered by the KIA’s refusal to transform into a government-controlled Border Guard Force.

Large areas of Kachin state have also been brought to a standstill – buses are refusing to travel along the Bhamo-Myitkyina highway, and locals report of being stranded away from their homes.
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DVB News - Burmese shelling forces SSA from bases
By NANG MYA NADI
Published: 18 July 2011

Several bases belonging to the Shan State Army (SSA) in eastern Burma have been evacuated following a week of heavy fighting close to Kehsi township, as Burmese forces continue to advance on the insurgent group.

Sources close to the SSA claimed the group moved due to the human costs of conflict on the surrounding civilian population, with Burmese shells said to have hit villages close to Kehsi in southern Shan state.

A heavy barrage of attacks on SSA positions in Nampook, Loikong, Loihsai and Hpatnam since 11 July has increased pressure on the group as it struggles to keep hold of Wanhai, the headquarters of the SSA’s northern faction.

Shan leaders accused the Burmese army last week of using fighter jets to bomb positions around Wanhai, a rare occurrence in the central government’s decades-long conflicts with ethnic armies in the border regions.

Sai Hla, spokesperson of the SSA, said that around 1000 Burmese troops are currently advancing toward Wanhai as of 3pm on Saturday last week, following the group’s decision to pull out from several bases.

“They fired artillery in the hills and a lot of shells landed in [nearby] villages so we decided to withdraw,” he told DVB. “Now they are close to Wanhai – about eight miles away. I think there will be serious fighting again if they get closer.”

Fighting has raged between both sides since the SSA’s refusal to become a government-controlled Border Guard Force (BGF), escalating around March this year. The once disparate SSA-South and SSA-North also rekindled an alliance in May this year, and are both engaged in fighting against government troops.

More than 1000 people are believed to have fled the fighting in southern Shan state, among them 700 pupils from primary and secondary schools in Hpatnam, Kenglonm, Wanhai and Parkhee townships.

A number of schools have been closed since fighting began, and local government officials reportedly evacuated teachers to Mongshu town.
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DVB News - Critical report on China-backed dam smothered
By FRANCIS WADE
Published: 18 July 2011

An internal report in 2009 by the China Power Investment Corporation, the company behind the hugely controversial Myitsone dam in northern Burma, that called for the lucrative venture to be scrapped appears to have been ignored, with work speeding ahead on a project set to displace thousands of people and cause far-reaching environmental problems.

The lengthy report detailed the environmental consequences of what will become Burma’s largest hydropower development, located on the Irrawaddy river in Kachin state, and which is now at risk from heavy fighting between government forces and insurgent groups.

Effectively compiled as an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), a mandatory practice for Chinese companies before they push ahead with infrastructural projects both at home and abroad, the report says that “there is no need for such a big dam to be constructed at the confluence of the Ayeyawady [Irrawaddy] River”.

A synopsis of the report was carried last week on the website of Burma Rivers Network, which closely monitors the social and environmental impacts of the various energy initiatives that pockmark Burma’s waterways.

Upon its slated completion date in 2017, the Myitsone dam will become the world’s fifteenth biggest hydropower structure. Development of the dam is expected to cost close to $US4 billion.

Burma Rivers Network estimates that around 15,000 people will be displaced around the dam site, while the sizeable changes in the Irrawaddy river’s flow will “impact millions of people downstream who depend on the Irrawaddy for agriculture, fishing, and transportation”.

Those concerns appear to have been echoed by the authors of the report, 80 of whom were scientists from Burma and the rest from the Changjiang Institute of Surveying, Planning, Design, and Research (CISPDR) in China. Funding for the report was provided entirely by the China Power Investment (CPI) Corporation.

“If Myanmar [Burmese] and Chinese sides were really concerned about environmental issues and aimed at sustainable development of the country, there is no need for such a big dam to be constructed at the confluence of the Ayeyawady [Irrawaddy] River,” it said, urging instead for two smaller, but equally efficient, dams to be built above Myitsone.

“The construction of the dam on the Irrawaddy should be avoided due to the changes in downriver hydrology which may affect navigation, riverine ecosystem and delta ecosystem and will lead to negative impacts on the economy.”

It continued that the Myitsone venture risks the “disappearance and forever loss [sic] of the cultural heartland of Kachin people…”

Despite EIA’s being obligatory for Chinese companies, Burma has no environmental regulatory mechanisms, and the smothering of CPI’s report will do little to allay concerns that the EIAs demanded by Beijing are for little more than cosmetic purposes. This is the first time that this report has been made public.

“Chinese companies are increasing their investments in Burma yet they are not following their own standards” said Sai Sai, coordinator of the Burma Rivers Network. “While CPI Corporation is hiding its assessment from the people of Burma, construction of the dams is speeding ahead.”

China is closely watching the security of its energy ventures in northern and eastern Burma following months of heavy fighting in the border regions. Speculation has mounted that the Burmese government is looking to rout insurgent groups from areas close to such projects is hungrily tapping.
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