BURMA RELATED NEWS - OCTOBER 10, 2011

China, Myanmar to discuss suspended dam project
China, Myanmar to discuss suspended dam project in move to avoid potential rift
On Monday October 10, 2011, 10:35 am EDT

BEIJING (AP) -- China says Myanmar has agreed to hold further talks on a major dam project that was suspended apparently without warning by the country's president.

The announcement follows talks Monday between Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Myanmar counterpart, Wunna Maung Lwin, who is visiting Beijing as a special envoy of President Thein Sein.

The official Xinhua News Agency gave few details, but said the sides had "agreed to properly settle matters."

Thein Sein announced the suspension of the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project on Sept. 30, drawing sharp criticism from the Chinese company behind the project but praise from activists who say it would displace many villagers and upset the ecology of the Irrawaddy River.

The dam has also been criticized because about 90 percent of the electricity it would generate would be exported to China, while the vast majority of Myanmar's citizens have no power.

The decision was seen as a huge turnabout in relations with China, Myanmar's second-biggest trading partner after Thailand, and is likely to have political repercussions.

Beijing has poured billions of dollars of investment into Myanmar to operate mines, extract timber and build oil and gas pipelines. China has also been a staunch supporter of the country's politically isolated government.

China Power Investment Corp. has threatened legal action over the move.

Wunna Maung Lwin's visit appears to be an attempt to repair the damage to ties, although it isn't clear if the project will be resumed.

In a later meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the foreign minister was quoted as saying that Myanmar "treasures its friendship with China, treats China's relevant concerns seriously, and is willing to work closely with China to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation."
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UPDATE 3-China urges protective steps after 13 killed on Mekong
Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:06am EDT

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Thirteen Chinese nationals were killed in an attack on the Mekong River near the Thai-Myanmar border, a Thai official said according to Chinese media, in an assault that prompted Beijing to urge stronger protection in the area used by drug runners.

The victims were crew members on two cargo ships attacked on Oct. 5 in the "Golden Triangle", where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet, a region notorious for drug smuggling, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Sunday.

Earlier reports said 11 or 12 sailors were confirmed as dead. But the Xinhua news agency cited a Thai official who said all 13 crew members of the two boats died.

The bodies were retrieved near Chiang Saen, a river port in north Thailand, with hands bound and eyes covered with adhesive tape, the China Daily reported. They had been shot.

China's growing presence in Asia, Africa and other parts of the world has prompted attacks, kidnappings and hijackings, and the issue has become a sensitive one for Chinese officials, who do not want to appear weak in protecting nationals.

Chinese officials "will continue to pay close attention to developments and we urge the countries concerned to quickly establish the truth about the incident, capture the criminals, and protect the safety of the Mekong River", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a daily news briefing.

Crew on another boat who saw the attack said eight or so armed men stormed the ships, the China News Service reported.

The attackers appeared to be smugglers seeking to use the seized ships to traffic drugs, said the report, citing Thai media. The owner of one of the boats attacked said robberies were common on the river, said the China Daily.

Thai river police recovered the two boats after a gunfight with the men onboard and found five sacks holding a total of about 900,000 pills of methamphetamine, or "speed", an illegal stimulant, said the China Daily, citing Thai news reports.

The Mekong snakes from China into Southeast Asia, where it forms the border between Myanmar and Laos, and then Thailand and Laos. In 2001, the four countries signed an agreement to regularize shipping on the river.

The 4,900-km (3,050 mile) river also flows through Cambodia and Vietnam before reaching the sea.

China has ordered Chinese passenger and cargo vessels to suspend trips along the Mekong, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu.
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Myanmar seeing 'dramatic developments': US official
AFP News – 6 hours ago

A top US official on Monday said there are "dramatic developments under way" in Myanmar, where the military-backed government has shown increasing signs of political reform.

Kurt Campbell, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said there had been "very consequential dialogue" between democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and the leadership.

He told a Bangkok lecture that while concerns remain, "it is also undeniably the case that there are dramatic developments under way".

President Barack Obama's administration, which has pursued both diplomatic engagement toward and continued sanctions against Myanmar, has welcomed signs of political change in the Southeast Asian nation.

But it has stopped short of changing its stance on the country amid continuing concern over the country's 2,000-odd political prisoners and over human rights abuses in conflicts with armed ethnic minority rebels.

"We have made clear our desire to see continued progress on issues such as prisoner releases," said Campbell. "We will match their steps with comparable steps."

Campbell made his remarks as Myanmar government officials said that a prisoner amnesty which would include political detainees was imminent. Rights groups have long said is that the release of political prisoners is essential.

In a recent surprise move last month, Myanmar President Thein Sein ordered work on a controversial $3.6 billion mega dam to stop after rare public opposition to the Chinese-backed hydropower project.

Resistance to the Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River has been building as pro-democracy and environmental activists test the limits of their freedom under the new nominally civilian regime.

The decision to halt the project was the latest in a series of actions apparently aimed at reaching out to critics of the government, which came into power in March after the first election in two decades, held in November.

Thein Sein, a former general who shed his uniform for the election, has also held talks with opposition figurehead Suu Kyi and has surprised many by promising a range of political and economic reforms, although sceptics argue nothing has yet been done that could not be easily reversed.

Suu Kyi for her part has said she believes Thein Sein genuinely wants to push through reforms, but cautioned it was too soon to say whether he would succeed.

The United States has in particular welcomed the leadership's dialogue with the Nobel peace laureate. It praised the dam decision, saying it showed the military-backed leadership was listening to its people.

Campbell was one of several top US State Department officials to hold rare talks with Myanmar's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin in Washington recently.
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Myanmar president to visit India
By Indo Asian News Service | IANS – 6 hours ago

Yangon, Oct 10 (IANS) Myanmar President U Thein Sein will pay a goodwill visit to India in the near future to promote bilateral relations and cooperation, said an official announcement here Monday.

Thein Sein and his wife will pay the visit at the invitation of Indian President Pratibha Patil, the announcement said without giving the date of his visit, reported Xinhua.

Thein Sein's forthcoming visit will be his first to India after assuming presidency March 30.

In 2006, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam visited Myanmar and in 2009, Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari paid an official visit to the country.

According to official statistics, Myanmar-India bilateral trade reached $1.071 billion in 2010-11, with India standing as Myanmar's fourth largest trading partner after Thailand, Singapore and China.

Of the total, Myanmar's exports to India amounted to $876.91 million, while it imported goods valued at $194.92 million from India.

Agricultural products and forestry products are leading items in Myanmar's exports to India whereas medicines and pharmaceutical products are topping its imports from India.
India stands as a major buyer of Myanmar's beans, taking up 70 percent of the latter's exports of agricultural produce.

Meanwhile, India's contracted investment in Myanmar amounted to $189 million as of June 2011 since the government opened to foreign investment in 1988, of which $137 million were drawn into the oil and gas sector in 2007.

India stands 13th in Myanmar's foreign investors' line-up.
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Washington Post - Senior US diplomat says Washington will respond to liberalization moves by Myanmar
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, October 10, 6:49 AM

BANGKOK — A senior U.S. diplomat said Monday that Washington will respond with reciprocal measures to moves by Myanmar’s military-backed government to become freer and more democratic.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell said elections that brought a civilian government to power in March were flawed and the United States still has many concerns about issues in Myanmar, “but it is also undeniably the case that there are dramatic developments under way.”

The senior U.S. diplomat for the Asia-Pacific area, said the U.S. believed that Myanmar’s military-backed government was making progress toward democratic reforms, and that Washington would reciprocate by loosening its tough policies in order to encourage the process.

Campbell, speaking at a lecture in the Thai capital, Bangkok, cited a “very consequential dialogue” between new President Thein Sein and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a major positive development. In public speeches Thein Sein has also appeared conciliatory about easing limits on freedom of speech and holding talks with ethnic rebels.

“We have stated clearly that we are prepared for a new chapter in our relations,” Campbell said. “I think it would be fair to say that we will match their steps with comparable steps and we are looking forward in the course of the next several weeks to continuing a dialogue that has really stepped up in recent months.”

The United States has long imposed political and economic sanctions on Myanmar because of its former military junta’s failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government and its poor human rights record.

The U.S. could ease restrictions on financial transactions and travel by top Myanmar officials, and also unblock aid by some multilateral agencies as well as resume its own assistance.

Campbell said areas where Washington hopes for more progress include freedom for political prisoners, talks with ethnic minorities who have been battling for greater autonomy, and an end to reported military assistance from North Korea that violates U.N. nonproliferation resolutions.

“It would be fair to say that compared to what we’ve experienced in the past, there are clearly changes afoot, but we are at the early stages of that process and we are looking to see whether they will be sustained, whether they will continue and whether they will grow,” Campbell said.
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MYANMAR: Landmines take toll on livelihoods in east

SHWE KYIN, 10 October 2011 (IRIN) - After losing a leg to a landmine 12 years ago, Zaw Lwin, 42, no longer ventures into the hilly forests of Shwe Kyin - an area that once sustained his livelihood.

"Today I have neither the legs nor the courage to go to the forest," said Zaw Lwin, who was returning home from gathering gingko nuts when he stepped on a landmine.

Shwe Kyin, in the eastern part of Myanmar's Bago Region, continues to be a source of income and danger for many local residents. Despite the threat of landmines, residents scour the forest in search of bamboo, wood and gingko nut, used in popular Burmese side-dishes.

About 40 landmine explosions occur every year in Shwe Kyin, with a population of 87,000, half of these during "gingko season" between June and August, said a local health worker.

In Myanmar, 34 of the country's 325 townships - home to 5.2 million people - are considered landmine-contaminated, according to a 2010 report from Geneva Call.

The threat to Burmese residents and their livelihoods continues to grow, said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan of the Geneva-based International Campaign to Ban Land Mines.

"Some years, fewer mines may be laid depending on the amount of armed conflict," Moser-Puangsuwan said. "Each year mines are laid, it means more land is denied for other uses, and more possibilities of becoming victimized by them, because no one is clearing them."

Since losing his right leg, Zaw Lwin has worked as a carpenter, earning 25 percent less than before. His family of six now relies on his wife's earnings from selling vegetables.

Landmine culture

Myanmar, not a signatory to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, has one of the highest rates of antipersonnel mine deaths and injuries in the world, surpassed only by Afghanistan and Colombia, according to ICBL. Anti-personnel mines have caused at least 2,800 injuries and fatalities in the past 10 years in Myanmar, ICBL reports.

Both government forces and various non-state armed groups use landmines heavily, aid groups say.

In the northern part of the country, where Myanmar military forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have been fighting since a ceasefire ended in June, both sides use landmines, severely affecting livelihoods, said La Rip, coordinator of Kachin Relief Action Network for IDP and Refugee (RANIR).

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are especially vulnerable to landmine accidents because they move around frequently. In the most mine-contaminated areas, both IDPs and long-term residents sometimes abandon fertile land because of the threat, said Christopher Hamish, research coordinator for the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), which operates across rural eastern Myanmar.

Plagued by armed conflicts for more than 50 years, the eastern Bago Region, including Shwe Kyin and northern Kayin State, are the most landmine-contaminated in Myanmar, according to local NGOs.

Landmines are typically deployed in mountainous areas where government soldiers cannot maintain permanent control but establish camps, conduct patrols and implement operations aimed at clearing the areas of both non-state armed groups and civilians, explained Hamish.

"In many of the areas where displaced civilians live, government forces treat all people as members of non-state armed groups who may be lawfully attacked," he said.

The Myanmar military is the only state force confirmed to regularly use anti-personnel landmines since 1999, according to the ICBL.

No demining yet

The government has yet to allow international agencies to demine.

"We can't know for sure when demining can begin," said Dominik Urban, head of protection with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), adding that a ceasefire between the government and ethnic groups was essential.

Meanwhile, people in mine-contaminated areas continue to risk their lives to make a living.

Tun Tun Win, 27, lost his right leg while cutting bamboo in Shwe Kyin eight years ago. Now he rows a boat in the rainy season for about 3,000 kyat, or US$3.50 a day, and pans for gold in the dry season.

Yet, searching for sites to pan gold in the forest is as risky as searching for bamboo, he said. "But I can't care. I have to take risks," the father of two said.
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Asian Correspondent - Burma Army must stop using rape as terror weapon for its dignity
By Zin Linn Oct 10, 2011 11:51PM UTC

Three Chinese women were gang-raped Friday by Burmese soldiers under Burma Army’s Military Operation Command-3 (MOC-3). The commander of MOC-3 is Brig-Gen Myat Kyaw and the troops are under the direct control of Northern Regional Command (NRC), based in Myitkyina, in Kachin State, referring officials from Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Kachin News Group said.

Each woman was raped by at least ten Burmese soldiers at the banana plantation in Shadan Pa, between the Namsan Hka River and Munglai Hka River, west of Myitkyina-Manmaw (Bhamo) Road, sources close to the victims said.

One of the three women was unconscious for hours at the nearby public hospital in Laiza, the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Organization, said hospital sources.

There are altogether ten battalions Under the MOC-3 command. They are Mogaung-based Infantry Battalion No. 74, Namti-based Light Infantry Battalions No. 381, 382 and 390, Kawa Yang (Mogaung)-based LIB No. 383 and 384, Nammar-based LIB 385 and 386, Mali Zup (Hopin)-based LIB No. 388 and 389, the source said.

The troops from all the battalions have been deployed in the area of the banana plantation since September, to seize the KIA strongholds near the China border. There are over 30,000 acres of banana fields in Shadan Pa and the land has been rented from the KIO since 2008 by Chinese businessman, Lau Ying, of Yunnan province, southwest China, quoting local residents the KNG said.

There are more than 20,000 Chinese and Burmese workers on the plantation and the KIA told all workers to return to their homes repeatedly and KIA’s last warning to plantation workers was issued on September 15th, KIA officials in Laiza said.

A report by the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT) entitled “Burma’s Covered Up War: Atrocities Against the Kachin People”, released on 7 October, stated the Burma Army broke a 17 year ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and has committed killings, torture and sexual violence, displacing over 25,000 people.

The report said 37 women and girls were raped and 13 were killed during the first two months of the conflict in Kachin State.

KWAT spokesperson, Shirley Seng, said, “Some women were gang-raped in front of their families. In one case, soldiers slaughtered a woman’s grandchild in front of her before raping and killing her also.”

It became a war zone when the Burmese government broke its 17-year ceasefire and started a large-scale offensive against the KIA on June 9th.

The Shan Women’s Action Network’s landmark ‘License to Rape’ report in 2002 cited 173 incidents of rape by Burmese troops in the Shan state alone, between 1996 and 2001. Of these, around 61 percent were believed to be gang rapes, while a quarter resulted in deaths.

The Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) also released a press statement on 14 July by condemning Burma Army of using rape as war weapon. The Burma Army has evidently given permission its soldiers to use rape as a terror weapon in its offensive against the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N), according to information documented by SWAN and SHRF.

“Burma Army troops are being given free rein to rape children, the pregnant and the elderly,” said SWAN coordinator Hseng Moon. “We strongly condemn these war crimes.”
While President Thein Sein has been swearing to build a democratic nation, his military wing has been violating the basic human rights up until now. All these war crimes violated by Burma Army will become troubles for the President.

So, before too late, the President must control the whole army and release a decree calling nationwide ceasefire. It is a shame not only for the President Thein Sein government but also for the whole nation that Burma Army has allowed rapists in its national defense service.
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Sydney Morning Herald - Burma to free political prisoners: claim
Hla Hla Htay
AFP - October 10, 2011 - 10:44PM

Burma is on the verge of freeing political prisoners, officials say, as the United States hails "dramatic developments" in the country after decades of military rule.

The release of the country's estimated 2000 political detainees, who include pro-democracy campaigners, journalists and lawyers, has long been a top demand of Western nations which imposed sanctions on Burma.

"Political prisoners will be released. But we still do not know whether all of them will be freed," a government official who did not want to be named said on Monday, adding that the pardon was expected "within days".

A second official said the release would come before President Thein Sein leaves on Wednesday on an official visit to India.

An amnesty would be the latest sign of political change under a new nominally civilian government that has reached out to critics including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, freed in November after seven straight years of detention.

A top US official, Kurt Campbell, on Monday hailed recent developments in Burma, including what he described as "very consequential dialogue" between Suu Kyi and the leadership.

Campbell, one of several US officials to hold rare talks with Burma Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin in Washington recently, said while concerns remain, "it is also undeniably the case that there are dramatic developments under way".

US President Barack Obama's administration has pursued both diplomatic engagement towards and continued sanctions against Burma.

But it has maintained sanctions amid continuing concern over political prisoners and human rights abuses in conflicts with armed ethnic minority rebels.

"We have made clear our desire to see continued progress on issues such as prisoner releases," Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said at a Bangkok lecture.

He hinted that concrete moves towards democracy by Burma could lead to an easing of sanctions.

"We will match their steps with comparable steps," he added.

The new regime, which came to power after controversial elections held a few days before Suu Kyi's release, appears keen to improve its international image and in August held the first talks between her and Thein Sein, a former general.

In a rare concession to public opinion in the authoritarian nation, the government last month suspended construction of a controversial mega-dam, risking the anger of traditional ally China which is backing the project.

Suu Kyi, whose party won 1990 elections by a landslide but was never allowed to take power, has said she believes Thein Sein genuinely wants to push through reforms, but she cautioned it was too soon to say whether he would succeed.
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Monday October 10, 2011
The Star - China, Myanmar to "properly settle" dispute over dam

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Myanmar have agreed to "properly settle" a dispute over Myanmar's suspension of a dam built and financed by Chinese firms as a Chinese leader hoped "friendly consultations" would bring a solution to ensure cooperation and stable ties.

Myanmar's new civilian president, Thein Sein, suspended the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam in northern Myanmar on Sept. 30 after weeks of rare public outrage over the project in the reclusive and repressive country also known as Burma.

The shelving of the project, agreed by Myanmar's then ruling generals in 2006, was also an unprecedented challenge to China's extensive economic interests in Myanmar, which has long been shunned by the West because of its poor human rights record.

Last week, China called for talks over the dam, which was being built mainly to serve China's growing energy needs but had become a symbol of resentment in Myanmar over China's influence.

Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, visiting China as a special envoy of Thein Sein, met China's Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to be China's next president, and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

The two ministers "agreed to properly settle matters" related to the project, and both sides pledged to increase cooperation, the Xinhua news agency said, citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry, without giving details.

"On the problems that have emerged during the course of cooperation, (I) hope both sides, through friendly consultations, will seek a proper solution to ensure China-Myanmar cooperation in various fields and a healthy and stable development of relations," the Foreign Ministry quoted Xi as saying in a statement on its website.

It was the first meeting between officials from China and Myanmar since the project was suspended.

The seniority of the officials involved in the talks and the speed with which the meeting was arranged apparently underscored the importance that China places on the project.

The dam at the confluence of the Mali and Nmai rivers, whose waters flow down into the central Irrawaddy river basin, would flood an area about the size of Singapore.

Many people in the area, which is close to the border with China, as well as environmentalists, have opposed it.

Chinese officials have called the project environmentally safe and a boon to development in Myanmar, struggling with poverty and isolation after years of military rule.

Myanmar's vice-president, Tin Aung Myint Oo, will visit China this month to discuss the dam, a senior Myanmar official said on Friday.

In recent years, Myanmar's leaders have embraced investment from China as a deep and lucrative market for the former British colony's energy-related resources and to counterbalance the impact of Western sanctions.

While China and Myanmar have close economic and political ties, including the building of oil and gas pipelines into southwestern China, there are also deep mutual suspicions.
Thein Sein became president after elections late last year that officially restored civilian rule in Myanmar after nearly 50 years of military rule.

He is due to make his first state visit to another important neighbour, India, from Oct. 12 to 15.
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China, Myanmar agree to cooperate on suspended joint hydropower project
English.news.cn 2011-10-10 17:16:21

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- China and Myanmar on Monday agreed to properly settle matters related a suspended joint hydropower project in Myanmar, and both sides pledged to increase cooperation and work toward bringing mutual benefits to the two nations.

The agreement was reached in Beijing during talks held between Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Myanmar counterpart U Wunna Maung Lwin, who is visiting China as a special envoy of Myanmar President U Thein Sein.

According to a press release issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry after the talks, the two sides have conducted a thorough consultation over the Myitsone hydropower plant project, which was ordered to be suspended by Myanmar's president.

The two foreign ministers also exchanged views on bilateral relations and other issues of common concern, with both voicing commitments to push forward the bilateral comprehensive and strategic partnership in a bid to achieve joint development, said the press release.

Vice President Xi Jinping also met with U Wunna Maung Lwin on the same day. Xi urged the two sides to properly settle relevant matters that have emerged during the course of cooperation through friendly consultations.

China always attaches great importance to the China-Myanmar good neighborly and cooperative relations and is willing to continue its efforts to promote the bilateral pragmatic cooperation based on principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, the press release quoted Xi as saying.

U Wunna Maung Lwin conveyed and passed on greetings and a personal letter from Myanmar President U Thein Sein to President Hu Jintao.

He said U Thein Sein and the Myanmar government highly value its friendly relations with China and has been paying close attention to China's relevant concerns.

Myanmar will work closely with China to strengthen the mutually beneficiary cooperation and further enrich the comprehensive and strategic partnership between the two nations, U Wunna Maung Lwin said.

The Myitsone hydropower plant project started in December 2009. With an installed capacity of 6,000 megawatts (mw), it is estimated to yield 29,400 million kilowatt-hours a year upon completion, which had been slated for 2019.
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October 10, 2011 19:54 PM
Myanmar Nationals Top Asylum Seekers List

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- Myanmar nationals are the largest number of asylum seekers in Malaysia, Dewan Rakyat was told Monday.

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz said until Aug, 7,582 of the total 10,850 asylum seekers were Myanmar nationals.

Statistics by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur showed there were 94,843 'persons of concern' where 83,993 were refugees and 10,850 were asylum seekers.

"Of the total, 67,145 were men and 27,698 women with Mynamar nationals the majority with 7,582 asylum seekers," he said in a written reply to Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut) here.

Lim asked about the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia and laws that guarantee their welfare and safety while in detention.

Nazri said although Malaysia did not sign any agreement on refugees, no illegal immigrants holding UNHCR cards had been arrested on humanitarian grounds.

Malaysia is not signatory to United Nations Convention Relating to The Status of Refugees 1951 and Protocol Relating to The Status of Refugees 1967.

"Malaysia has allowed the refugees to stay here temporarily until they are relocated to a third country," he said.

However, since Malaysia did not sign any agreement on refugees, the government could not guarantee their welfare and safety.
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With China looking on, India to host Vietnamese, Myanmarese leaders
Calcutta News.Net
Monday 10th October, 2011 (IANS)

India is set to give a major impetus to its Look East policy when it hosts the leaders of Vietnam and Myanmar this week amid their straining ties with China.

Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang comes here on a three-day visit starting Tuesday, followed by Myanmar's President U. Thein Sein the next day.

The two leaders come here ahead of the 18-nation East Asia Summit in Bali next month. India is becoming an increasingly important player in ongoing efforts to evolve an inclusive regional architecture in Asia.

Scaling up economic, energy and strategic ties with the these Southeast Asian countries is high on New Delhi's agenda as more countries in the region look to it to balance what is widely seen as China's increased assertiveness in the region.

Both countries are experiencing strains in their ties with China.

Myanmar has cancelled a Chinese dam project on environmental grounds, and Vietnam, Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy, is engaged in shadow boxing over competing claims over South China Sea.

Significantly, the Vietnamese president comes here weeks after External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna's visit to Hanoi last month that saw India's state-owned ONGC Videsh sealing pacts for oil exploration in offshore blocks off the South China Sea.

Beijing, which claims full sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, has objected to the oil deals in the disputed territory. India has defended the move, saying its cooperation with Vietnam in accordance with international laws and underlined the need for freedom of navigation in South China Sea.

Ahead of his visit, President Truong defended Hanoi's deal with New Delhi, saying foreign companies were welcome to work in oil and gas projects in the continental shelf and exclusive economic zone of Vietnam. Underlining the growing strategic partnership with India, he stressed that these investments were in conformity with Vietnamese laws.

The intensification of defence cooperation will also be be high on the agenda.

There is also speculation about Vietnam's keenness to get small nuclear reactors from India.

India is interested in selling the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, an Indo-Russian joint venture, to Vietnam. New Delhi has already been assisting Hanoi in bolstering its naval and air capabilities. Vietnam has allowed India access to the Nha Trang port, which is situated close to the strategic Cam Ranh Bay.

Besides closer cooperation in areas like capacity building and training, the two countries are also expected to energise their economic ties.

Bilateral trade is estimated to be over $2 billion. India and Vietnam signed an agreement in 2003 that envisaged the creation of an 'Arc of Advantage and Prosperity' in Southeast Asia. They will also explore expanding investment opportunities in areas like energy, steel, and pharmaceutical sectors.

China will also be a looming shadow when the energy-rich Myanmar's president holds talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later this week. He would also be going to Gaya and Sarnath, important stops on the Buddhist pilgrimage circuit.

'India attaches great importance to its relations with neighbouring Myanmar. The visit of the president, soon after his election earlier this year, would further consolidate the multi-faceted bilateral relations,' India said in a statement Monday.
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ABS-CBNNEWS.com - Pinoy, Myanmar films in running for movie award
Agence France-Presse
Posted at 10/10/2011 9:53 PM | Updated as of 10/10/2011 9:53 PM

BUSAN, South Korea - A movie shot secretly in Myanmar is in the running for a major award at Asia’s top film festival this week with its director saying he wanted to portray the "real" state of life in the country.

"It is about the truth of Burma," said Myanmar-born director Midi Z of his first full-length feature, "Return To Burma."
"It is reality cinema."

The film is among 13 wildly diverse productions from 12 countries vying for two New Currents awards at the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), open to first or second-
time Asian filmmakers and carrying prizes of US$30,000.

Midi Z revealed he had shot 90 per cent of the film in Myanmar and had sneaked his cameras and a small crew into the country after finding official regulations for filming "just far too restrictive."

"It is very personal," Midi Z said of the film, the title of which uses Myanmar's alternative name. "Most of the film belongs to my own experiences."

"Return to Burma" charts the story of how a man returning to the country of his birth finds the situation has not changed in the years since he left, despite what he had imagined. The director was born in Myanmar but left for Taiwan when he was 16 to further his studies.

Other countries represented in this year’s New Currents include Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Iran, and the collection of films reflects the "incredible diversity and talent" of Asian filmmaking, according to veteran Taiwanese director Yonfan, who heads the awards jury.

Filipino director Loy Arcenas has produced "Nino," a family drama set within the world of opera, and said he had focused his attention on how human beings behave.

"To me that is the most exciting thing about life," said Arcenas. "It is a small film but that is the beauty of this award -- it gives small filmmakers a chance to find an audience."

Topics covered by other productions in the running for the awards include "The Passion of a Man Called Choe Che-u" by director Stanley Park, a historical drama looking at the life and times of a 16th century Korean priest, and "Starry Starry Night" from Tom Lin Shu-yu, based on a Taiwanese fairytale about two children who run away from home.

The award winners will be announced on Friday, the final day of this year’s festival.
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Washington Examiner - Kan. school district hiring Myanmar translator
By: The Associated Press | 10/10/11 5:01 AM

A southwest Kansas school district is hiring a translator to help its 35 students from the southeast Asian nation of Myanmar.

The High Plains Daily Leader (http://bit.ly/oSP5hF ) reports the board of Liberal USD 480 has voted to create a new paraprofessional position in teaching English as a second language.

Several families from the country formerly known as Burma have arrived recently in Liberal. District official Laura Cano says communication can be difficult, and not just because of the language barrier. Cano says there are also cultural issues.

For example, she says, some students don't understand that they must attend school all day, every day. She says that some attend part of the day, then simply go home.

The new position will be funded with money set aside for bilingual classrooms.
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October 10, 2011, 9:00 AM ET
Wall Street Journal - Myanmar to Phase Out Old, Rusty Clunkers
By WSJ Staff

Myanmar’s reforms are picking up speed – and that includes getting rid of some of the rusting heaps of metal, also known as cars, that clog Yangon’s rutted roads.

Yangon has one of the oldest vehicle fleets in the world, thanks to tough restrictions on car imports imposed years ago by the government as part of its efforts to exert maximum control over the local economy.

While Havana is home to scores of classic American cars from the 1950s and 1960s, Yangon is dominated by deteriorating 1980s-era rattletraps from Japan, especially old Toyotas and other cast-offs with rusted-out floorboards, exposed wiring and see-through doors that long ago would have been consigned to the scrap heap elsewhere.

Now Myanmar authorities are switching gears. After launching a series of other reforms in recent months – including expanding access to the Internet and relaxing curbs on the media – officials have agreed to start phasing out some of the oldest cars with a new program somewhat reminiscent of the 2009 “cash for clunkers” program in the U.S.A.

Under the complicated new scheme, vehicles that are at least 40 years old – and have eligible license plate numbers – can be traded in for highly-coveted permits which then can be used to import newer models. Other jalopy owners are being advised to watch the local news each day for updates that are expected to expand the trade-in program to include at least some cars as young as 20 years old, though many details remain unclear.

Authorities say the program is designed to help get some of the heaviest-polluting – and most-dangerous—cars off the road once and for all. But business leaders say a bigger motive is to help boost the U.S. dollar, which has fallen significantly against the Myanmar kyat over the past year, slashing profits for influential export-oriented businesses in the country. Transactions involving imported cars typically must be handled in dollars, which means anyone looking to bring a new car into the country must buy up a lot of greenbacks on the local market to facilitate the deal, which in turn helps push the value of the dollar higher. Sure enough, the dollar has climbed 10% or more versus the kyat over the past couple of months.

Whatever the motivation, the program certainly has revved up a lot of people. Owners of Yangon’s really-old cars, for instance, are thrilled as the program has driven up demand – and prices – for their vehicles, many of which would never be allowed on the roads in most developed countries.

But people whose cars as of now aren’t included – including once-precious Nissan Super Saloons and Toyota Corollas from the 1980s and 1990s – are flipping out, as the reforms send values for their Back to the Future-era speedsters skidding. With so few new cars entering Myanmar each year, many middle-class car owners were banking on their middle-aged vehicles to hold their value – or perhaps even appreciate – despite having broken power windows and A/C on the fritz. For some people – many of whom paid $25,000 or more – those cars represented their life’s savings.

Now demand for 1980s and 1990s models is crashing. Min Aung, 34, said he bought a 1988 Nissan Super Saloon two years ago for around $23,000 after coming back from working in Japan for five years. But after the car swap announcement, the price for his car model dropped in half, he said, to about 10 million kyats. “Do you know how difficult it is to make 10 million kyats in this country, and lose it overnight?”

Clearly the road to reform in Myanmar will be a rocky one.
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Bangkok Post - EDITORIAL: How long can this go on?
Published: 10/10/2011 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The new, vicious drug war in the North makes it clear that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has much more business to attend to than she had time for last week. The deaths of 12 or more innocent people, and the fear of honest people even to do business on the Mekong River are unacceptable. The Burmese military juntas have tolerated or acquiesced in the illicit drug business for far too long already. The weekend bloodshed showed that Burma is not even mildly serious about combatting the savage drug gangs. Now that China has been dragged so brutally into the problem, the region must put far heavier pressure on Burma to clean up this problem.

The source of the violence in the North, and the root source of the drug abuse in Thailand are the same. Leaders of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) established an international criminal enterprise during the 1990s. They set up major drug-producing factories inside Burma. At first, their major target for drug peddling was Thailand, specifically young people in Thailand.

Over several years, the Wa leaders joined with criminals in Thailand to move their methamphetamines, and then with the Taiwan-based 14K triad to sell heroin for shipment further abroad.

More recently, the Wa have re-sited their drug factories from the Thai border region to a single location further north, closer to China.

According to Thai intelligence and anti-drug officials, the centre of illicit methamphetamine manufacturing is now at Pang Sang, southwest of Lashio in the Shan State. The city has long been the "safe house" for the corrupt Wa leadership, and the centre for the drug lords' finances. Two big banks closely identified with the Southeast Asian illicit drug trade have major branches in Pang Sang.

The drug smuggling trail now reportedly starts in Pang Sang, and couriers move southeast towards Thailand. Authorities believe that a major casino opposite Chiang Sae district of Chiang Rai is a front and conduit for the smugglers.

Last week, in a daring and bloody operation to move a million or more speed tablets into Thailand, gang members hijacked two China-flagged ships on the Mekong River. They apparently killed all the crewmen, with 12 bodies washing up in or near Thailand. This major escalation must be stopped.

In 2000, the Wa strongman Pau Yu Chang promised Khin Nyunt, then a powerful member of the Burmese military junta, that he would end the drug trade by 2005.

Otherwise, he said infamously, "You can chop my head off". It would be good to take up his offer, at least to the point of putting him under arrest. There are arrest warrants for him in Thailand and the United States. The US and Thai authorities also have warrants to arrest the Wa military leader Wei Hsueh-kang, and his corrupted Thai associate Surachai Ngernthongfu, alias Bang Ron, who has ruined the lives of thousands of his countrymen.

It would be an improvement to bring justice to these men and others. And good luck as well to the current drug crackdown under Ms Yingluck's auspices. But for now, there is just one good solution. The new Burmese government can only be credible if it moves aggressively against the Pang Sang criminals and their drug factories, for a start. The very highest Thai and Chinese government leaders and diplomats must make this clear to Burma. The sooner the better.
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The Irrawaddy - Thein Sein Visits India for Security Talks
By WAI MOE and ZARNI MANN Monday, October 10, 2011

Burma President ex-Gen Thein Sein kicks off a three-day visit to western neighbor India on Wednesday's Buddhist full moon during which the two countries are excepted to focus on security cooperation and trade.

On Monday, Burma’s state-run-newspapers reported that Thein Sein and his wife, Khin Khin Win, will pay a good will visit to the Republic of India beginning at the important Buddhist site of Bodh Gaya.

Although Thein Sein’s visit this week will be his first trip to the South Asian giant, it is his second state visit since his cabinet was sworn in on March 30 after being invited to China in late May. His India visit on Oct. 12-15 comes shortly after Burma’s suspension of the Chinese-funded Myitsone Hydropower Project which provoked an angry response from Beijing.

C.S Kuppuswamy, a consultant with the New Delhi-based South Asia Analysis Group, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that Thein Sein’s visit, like Burmese leaders’ previous trips, is more likely to focus on security issues at India’s northeastern border and bilateral business ties.

“I don’t think this will be linked to the China-Burma dam affair. That is only a dispute between China and Burma,” he said. “His trip to India will not affect the China-Burma relationship because their relationship is deeply rooted. It will also not affect the India-China relationship either.”

“However, if the US relationship with Burma improves, that will give China more to worry about,” he added.

Ahead of Thein Sein’s visit, while strategically counterbalancing China’s influence in the region as a key issue, Indian media groups have hailed the two countries aim to strengthen security and trade ties.

New Delhi’s The Pioneer said a high-level Burmese delegation was coming to the Indian capital to boost security and trade relations despite risking Beijing’s ire over the Sept. 30 decision to suspend the Chinese-invested Myintsone Dam.

“New Delhi is also understood to be keen to put Myanmar [Burma] in its strategic scheme of 'Look East Policy' to counter Beijing’s rise,” The Pioneer reported on Sunday.

However, Burma President Thein Sein is not the only head of state from Southeast Asia heading to India this week. Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang is also scheduled to visit the South Asian giant. Vietnam has been India’s strategic ally since Hanoi allowed the use of Nha Trang Port by India.

“The visits, which will be closely followed by Beijing, come at a time when both countries are having their own difficulties with China,” The Times of India said on Monday. It explained that China has been rubbing up against Vietnam on South China Sea territory disputes and Burma surprised everyone by stalling the Myitsone Dam.

But the newspaper also said that both Vietnam and Burma have maintained deep engagement with Beijing.

For the government in New Delhi, the traditional concern regarding relations with Burma is to do with border security between the two countries.

“Placing a heavy premium on security ties, India and Myanmar are working to institutionalize regular defense exchanges such as visits of army chiefs and chiefs of naval staff and exchanges between other security forces,” the Hindustan Times, New Delhi’s leading newspaper, reported on Saturday.

“This, along with other security and economic issues, will top the agenda when new President of Myanmar U Thein Sein arrives on his first official visit to India,” the newspaper added.

Since Burma shares a 1,643 km boundary with India along the South Asian nation’s northeastern four states—where there are insurgencies against New Delhi—the Indian government has been attempting border security cooperation with its Burmese counterparts since adopting a “Look East Policy” in 1991.

Like the Burmese junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s trip last year to India, this week's Burmese delegation is scheduled to begin its visit in Bodh Gaya and two other holy places before heading to New Delhi to meet the Indian leadership on Oct 14.

According to Burmese monks in Bodh Gaya, the Burmese embassy in New Delhi is preparing to hold a religious ceremony during Thein Sein’s visit.

Meanwhile, Thein Sein and Lower House Speaker ex-Gen Shwe Mann met separately with Chinese Ambassador to Burma Li Junhua in Naypydiaw on Friday. Thein Sein was accompanied by Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and Electric Power-1 Minister Zaw Min during the meeting.
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The Irrawaddy - Interview with Editor of The Irrawaddy Published in Burma
By SAI ZOM HSENG Monday, October 10, 2011

For years, Burma’s Press Censorship and Registration Division (PSRD) banned the publication of interviews with internal and exiled opposition figures and journalists who were critical of the government. But on Oct. 3, the PSRD allowed a prominent Rangoon-based journal, the Weekly Eleven, to publish an interview with Aung Zaw, the exile-based editor of The Irrawaddy.

The interview, conducted on-line, covered a wide range of issues that included Burmese President Thein Sein’s decision to suspend work on the Myitsone Dam, Western sanctions on Burma and its leaders, the issue of political prisoners and press freedom.

“I am pleasantly surprised that the censors approved my interview,” Aung Zaw said. “I can’t imagine such an interview being allowed to be published under the previous regime. If the officials in Burma’s intelligence service were still in power, this would not happen.”

In the interview, Aung Zaw told the Weekly Eleven that, “In the 1950s and early 1960s, Burma published credible and respectful newspapers and had the highest standards for professional journalists in Southeast Asia. I think it is now time to restore our credibility. The government should encourage it and we are ready to help them out.”

The Irrawaddy editor also spoke about the reform-minded King Mindon, who in the 19th century instituted liberal press freedom laws in Burma, sent young scholars to Western countries and encouraged the start of the Mandalay Gazette.

Aung Zaw also welcomed the decision to lift the ban on certain websites, including The Irrawaddy. “People in Burma need accurate information,” he said, adding that Burma needs a healthy media to provide such information.

With respect to sanctions, Aung Zaw said in the interview that sanctions are both politically symbolic and a method to modify the behavior of the regime. But he also said it is time for Burma to integrate into the world community and not depend on China alone, and to make this happen Burma should make political reforms.

Regarding China, he said that the relationship between China and Burma is much more complex than what people see on the surface. He also mentioned China’s desire for strategic access to the Bay of Bengal and the oil and gas pipelines and railway projects that China is building through Arakan and Shan states.

In that regard, he cautioned that Burma must preserve and conserve its resources, because once Burma is opened up, investors will come and invest in the country. But no one will come and invest in Burma if nothing is left, he said.

Aung Zaw also noted that while Burma is going through a political transition, if it is a genuine transition it must be peaceful and ethnic minorities must be involved. Without the participation of ethnic groups, he said, Burma will not achieve peace and stability.

Responding to a question about the recent dialogue between Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein’s administration, Aung Zaw said that it is a good sign that they are talking, but the discussions should lead to some tangible benefit for the people of Burma.

He said that Burma needs both a credible government and a credible opposition.

He agreed with the description by local Burmese of the current political atmosphere as a time of uncertainty when a person “could not be sure whether someone is your brother or not.”

“I think we will be able to see each other with clarity after this ambiguous step,” he said.

Although the November 2010 election was widely criticized, Aung Zaw said that President Thein Sein has the opportunity to make genuine reforms, and if he does so then, “People will acknowledge and recognize the government.”

When asked about a possible return to Burma, he noted that many prominent exiles are still waiting to see since there is currently no official amnesty.

“I want to return to Burma to publish both English and Burmese languages newspapers, when Burma is free and there are no restrictions on the press,” he said, but also stressed that the release of political prisoners—particularly journalists, photographers and bloggers who are now behind bars—is a priority before that can happen.

“We will go back to Burma with dignity,” Aung Zaw said.

Following the Weekly Eleven interview with Aung Zaw, PSRD director Tint Swe told Radio Free Asia on Saturday that his own department should be shut down.

“Press censorship is non-existent in most other countries as well as among our neighbors, and as it is not in harmony with democratic practices, press censorship should be abolished in the near future,” he said, adding that newspapers and other publications should accept press freedom with responsibilities.
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The Irrawaddy - Suu Kyi Non-committal on NLD Registration
Monday, October 10, 2011

RANGOON—Whether her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) will re-register as a political party and contest parliamentary elections remains very much uncertain, said party leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday.

The NLD has been disbanded since it boycotted Burma's parliamentary elections last year, saying the military-drafted Constitution and the election laws contained undemocratic elements.

Her comments on Saturday came after the country's Election Commission submitted a bill last week to amend the Political Parties Registration Law promulgated last year by the previous government.

The registration law contained several controversial pre-conditions, such as that the prohibition of prisoners from joining political parties; and that parties must vow allegiance to the military-drafted Constitution widely denounced as undemocratic by the opposition.

Suu Kyi was under house arrest before the Nov.7 general election, and would have had to be expelled from her party according to this law. As it transpired, the NLD decided not to contest the elections.

Technically, the NLD remains as an illegal party. However, after recent rounds of talks between Suu Kyi and government officials, there were signs that the government wants the NLD to register, and in return it will revise the party registration law.

The bill submitted last week proposed that the ban on prisoners be removed from the Political Parties Registration Law, and that the clause requiring parties to safeguard the Constitution be amended to state that parties must “honor the Constitution.”

Legal observers say this paves the way for the NLD to become a registered party and to contest by-elections later this year.

But Suu Kyi said that since the bill has not been passed yet, it is still impossible for the NLD to make a decision whether it will register and contest the elections for the vacant parliamentary seats.

“How can we decide before the bill is even enacted?,” she told the reporters after a meeting with visiting Norwegian deputy minister for foreign affairs, Espen Barth Eide, in Rangoon on Saturday.

Whether the NLD will contest the by-elections also remains undecided, she said, adding that the party will make decisions based on the changing developments.

She also noted that Burmese and Chinese governments should resolve any difficulties in bilateral relations by peaceful negotiations, bearing in mind the long-term interests of both countries.
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Journal covering ethnic issues to be launched soon
Monday, 10 October 2011 22:29 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - A new weekly journal called “The Union” covering events in ethnic areas of Burma will be launched soon, Phyo Wai Lin, the editor, told Mizzima.

The journal will cover political, economic and social events in ethnic areas and could be launched in November, although it has yet to receive a publishing license, he said.

“In Burma, there is no nationwide media that can report events in the ethnic areas. So we want to report about these events,” said Phyo Wai Lin. “It is important for me to publish the journal at this time, to let the public to know about the ethnic people and their role. I think that it’s past time to do it.”

“Mostly, current news journals can not report about events happening in ethnic areas. So, there is no space to give us a voice. We can express our views only if the media asks us,” Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP) trustee Saw Than Myint said.

When a publisher license is granted, the journal will appoint reporters and hold journalism-related training.

“Now, the political system has changed. I hear that the publishing license will be granted,” Saw Than Myint said. The journal applied for a license in July.

In related areas, Tint Swe, the director general of the censorship board, told Radio Free Asia (Burmese Service) on October 8 that there should be no prior censorship in Burma because it was incompatible with democratic practices.

He said: “Both in our neighbouring countries and the world, a censorship department prior to release should not exist. According to my own view, the process of censoring manuscripts prior to publication is not in keeping with modern times. I believe that the system of censoring manuscripts before publication is not needed anymore.”

However, an interview in the Messenger Journal with international legal consultant Than Maung about a Memorandum of Understandings between the former Burmese junta and international companies and organizations has recently been censored. Also, the censorship board did not allow reports of the fighting in Kachin State, according to an editor in Burma.

Meanwhile, there is a government military offensive against the Kachin Independence Organization underway in Kachin State and state-run newspapers have not reported it.
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Myanmar is Becoming Burma
Monday, 10 October 2011 13:30 B.G. Verghese

(Mizzima) (Commentary) – Myanmar seems to be returning to Burma. The good news has trickled in after talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the new civilian president, Thein Sein, established a framework for national reconciliation and graduated democratic reform.

A political amnesty is on the anvil and moves are afoot to liberalise trade and investment regimes. The new government has invited Burmese refugees who fled the country after the military takeover to return and assist the process of national reconstruction.

Perhaps even more significantly, work on the US$ 3.6 billion, 6,000-megawatt Myitsone dam on the upper Irrawaddy River, under construction with Chinese assistance, has been suspended as being “against the will of the (Kachin) people).” The decision was announced in parliament and suggests that the Burmese leadership is not going to kow-tow to its giant neighbour which has established a major presence in the country during the past 22 years of isolation and Western sanctions, which started after 2003. This does not bring Chinese collaboration to an end by any means as numerous other large hydroelectric, hydrocarbon, port and other infrastructure projects are moving forward.

It does, however, suggest that the new regime is mindful of ethnic minority and ecological sensitivities. After years of cease-fires based on a policy of live and let live, the regime sought to integrate ethnic nationality armies into the Myanmar armed forces on the eve of the last elections by declaring them national border guards under the command of the Tatmadaw. Most refused, and four insurgencies have resumed in consequence. Aung San Suu Kyi has appealed for restraint, a further cease-fire and peace talks, to which the regime has not been entirely unresponsive.

This too marks a potentially significant development as its resolution will determine whether Burma is to be a truly federal state, with ethnic nationalities enjoying considerable autonomy, or remain a largely centralised polity at war with itself. Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San, the Father of the Nation and first prime minister, had negotiated the Panglong agreement with the minorities in 1948. The one issue on which it broke was on the interpretation of whether the option to review federal ties after a decade implied a choice of independence or only a re-jigging of the federal arrangement. It was on the identical issue in regard to the 9-Point Hydari agreement that the Naga leader, Phizo, broke with the Indian State.

The Thein Sein government is seeking foreign investment and collaboration in every field. It is a country with enormous land and natural resources (minerals, bio-diversity, hydro power and hydrocarbons) but currently lacking in human capital - administrative, entrepreneurial, institutional, scientific expertise – after decades years of military rule. It is because of this that it has farmed out major development projects, including plantations, to China, its Asean neighbours, Japan, India and others. Only a small fraction of its 40,000-meawatt hydro potential has been harnessed though almost 14,000 megawatts worth of projects have been signed up (especially with China on the Irrawaddy). With little domestic demand as yet, most of this power will be exported to China, Thailand and the Asean grid, and to adjacent Nagaland if the 1,200-megawatt Tamanthi project, part of the Chindwin cascade, comes to fruition with Indian assistance.

India’s major project so far has been the Kalewa/Kalemayo-Tamu (Moreh) highway (along which projected Indo-Burma-Asean trade has been stymied for lack of trade facilitation measures on the Indian side). An even larger project under implementation is the multi-modal Southern Mizoram-Kaladan River-Sitwe Port corridor whicb will provide India’s Northeast an ocean outlet. The Kaladan Corridor may, alas, go the way of the Kalewa-Tamu Road unless concurrent steps are taken here and now by both governments and all concerned actors – transporters, entrepreneurs, bankers, freight forwarders, hoteliers, and others – get their act together.

Around 1998, Burma had offered extensive wastelands to India to grow rice, pulses and palm oil on renewable 30-year leases. Thailand and Malaysia signed up. India was unresponsive. Whether such leases will again be on offer and will be acceptable to the ethnic minorities is uncertain. However, it is something that could be explored on the basis of cooperative partnerships with local ethnic groups, the Burma government and the Indian state or private entrepreneurs as a means of coupling ethic settlements in Burma with income and employment generation and the development of much-needed infrastructure.

Hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, onshore and offshore, is another area that holds out considerable promise.

Burma has had a long and close association with India and has applied for Saarc membership, which Delhi supports. The country is also a member of Asean of which it hopes to become rotational chair in 2014. It is in transition and holds a geo-strategic position of high importance as a bridge between Saarc, Asean and China.

Rather than be a passive spectator or late actor, India should move energetically to engage the new Thein Sein administration to assist and encourage its transition to full democracy, ethnic reconciliation and economic and social reconstruction at all levels, governmental and non-official.

Aung San Suu Kyi studied in Delhi and is greatly revered here and has high regard for this country. India’s relations with the military regime have also been maintained at an even keel and the military leadership too trusts India as a non-intrusive neighbour and long-term friend.

Why shouldn’t the government and credible civil society institutions invite delegations of Burmese parliamentarians, trade representatives, ethnic nationality groups and security analysts to visit India and talk to their counterparts and potential collaborators here? Scholarships and seats in training institutions should be readily on offer as this is perhaps Burma’s greatest need. Charter flights should be organised both ways to promote tourism and understanding. And high level Indian political and trade and investment delegations should visit Burma as early as possible.

The Indo-Afghan strategic partnership agreement signed last week on the occasion of President Karzai’s visit to Delhi need not be a model but could point a direction. Afghanistan is in flux. America’s AfPak policy has failed and it is now locked in a huge muddle and spat with a defiant but bewildered Pakistan that knows it needs to redefine itself. This again presents India with an opening and an opportunity to further its engagement with Islamabad as much as with Kabul and jointly with both. Pakistan’s concerns about winning strategic depth in Afghanistan against India are unreal in concept and substance. India is no threat to Pakistan which is its own worst enemy.
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NGO urges halt to Shwe natural gas project
Monday, 10 October 2011 13:15 Zwe Khant

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Thailand-based Shwe Gas Movement has called for the Burmese government to suspend another huge energy project, the Shwe natural gas project in Arakan State.

“Exporting the huge natural gas reserves from the Shwe Gas fields off Burma’s western coast will perpetuate the chronic energy shortages domestically,” it said in a statement released on Friday.

“The regime will earn an estimated US$ 29 billion from the sale of the gas, yet these revenues will not be used for social improvement. The revenues will disappear into a fiscal black hole that omits gas revenues from the national budget, clearly to the benefit of the regime and investors,” said the statement.

After widespread protests, President Thein Sein ordered a suspension of the US$3.6 billion Myitsone Dam project on the Irrawaddy River. The Shwe Gas Movement wants a similar order regarding the Shwe energy project, which was started in October 2009. The project includes a special economic zone that will be the largest in Southeast Asia, and includes the construction of a Kyaukphyu-Muse electric railway at a cost of US$ 20 billion.

An underwater gas pipeline would carry offshore gas from block A1 and A3 to Kyaukphyu. About 40 per cent of the project is completed and the deep-sea port at Maday Island is about 80 per cent completed, according to the Shwe Gas Movement.

Gas reserves in the two blocks are estimated at 4.5 to 7.7 trillion cubic feet. Burma will earn an estimated US$ 29 billion from the sale of the natural gas to China over a 30-year period starting in 2013.

The deep-sea port project and the joint pipeline for oil and natural gas will be completed in 2013. The electric railway for transporting goods is expected to be completed in 2015.

The huge project is part of a new sea route for oil tankers to and from the Maday Island deep-sea port. The Daewoo Company has dynamited a three-mile coral reef located near Zinchaung Village in May, the Bangladesh-based Narinjara news agency reported. The Maday Island deep-sea port is located six miles southeast of Kyaukphyu in Arakan State.

Win Aung, an official of the Thai-based Shwe Gas Movement, said, “Possible environmental impacts and people-based surveys need to be conducted. They should have transparency to the effect on people, how much the environment will be affected and how much residents will benefit from the project.”

The offshore blocks in the Shwe Gas field, the biggest natural gas field in Southeast Asia, has an estimated 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The gas blocks in the Shwe field in the western sea of Burma was discovered in late 2003. The cost of the gas pipeline linking the Kyaukphyu and Maday Island deep-sea port to Yunnan Province in China is estimated at US$ 3.5 billion.

In addition to the natural gas pipeline, an oil pipeline will be built to transport oil from Africa and the Middle East to China through the Kyaukphyu-Maday port passing along a route running through Minbu, Mandalay, Gokteik, Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Lashio, Kutkai, Muse and Kyuhkok. The oil will then be transported to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province.

Since March 2011, the Burmese Army has launched military offensives against ethnic armed groups in resource-rich areas in northern Kachin and Shan states. The conflicts have displaced an estimated 50,000 people, the Shwe Gas Movement’s statement said.

Foreign companies involved in the projects include the China National Petroleum Corporation, Daewoo International (South Korea), ONGC Videsh Company Limited (India), and Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL).

A report, “Sold Out”, released on September 6 by the Shwe Gas Movement, said that regarding construction of the deep seaport and oil storage facilities on Maday Island, the China National Petroleum Corporation has sub-contracted construction to a Burmese company, Hydro China, to supply material (sand, stones, etc.), and Asia World, which is building a reservoir system. Regarding an onshore gas terminal complex on Ramree Island, Daewoo International issued sub-contracts to Burmese companies including Myanmar Golden Crown.

Rakhine Nationalities and Development [RNDP] Party chairman Aung Mya Kyaw said, “This is connected to the interests of all citizens. We strongly object on the grounds that our people will not enjoy any benefits from the project.”

The report said that residents living around the projects in Arakan State have been used as forced labour by the Burmese army and police. In some cases, land has been confiscated by authorities that offered insufficient compensation, the report said.
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DVB News - Burma FM makes surprise China trip
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 10 October 2011

Burma’s foreign minister was in Beijing today to discuss Naypyidaw’s decision to suspend the China-backed Myitsone dam project in Kachin state, which lies at a major confluence of the IrrawaddyRiver.

Wunna Maung Lwin met with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, with whom he “pledged to work towards mutual benefit of the two countries,” according to the Chinese Xinhua news agency.

Official Chinese press gave no indication of a clear conclusion of the meeting, noting however that the FM also met with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping. He said that China“is willing to continue its efforts to promote the bilateral pragmatic cooperation based on principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit.”

Burmese Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo is also visiting China, officially to take part in a Sino-ASEAN trade fair, although it was suspected that Myitsone would be discussed.

Wunna Maung Lwin’s visit was kept quiet, but the positive noises from the meeting could indicate that the Burmese will give concessions to their Chinese counterparts on access to other projects.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Liu Weiman, was quoted by AFP as saying that the two sides had agreed in the meeting “to handle this project in the proper way and continue to move forward with bilateral relations, which are very important to us”.

The head of the Burma Rivers Network campaign group, Sai Sai, told DVB on Friday that workers from the China Power Investment (CPI) Corporation were still at the site in Kachin state. Indeed Burmese President Thein Sein said in his 30 September letter to parliament that the project, which CPI would fund to the tune of $US3.6 billion, was only “suspended”, and not cancelled.

The head of CPI, Lu Quizhou, in an interview with the state-run China Daily last week, claimed to be “astonished” by the decision, and warned that the Burmese would have “legal” issues related to the various transactions and agreements that had already been signed on the project.

The dam has been mired in controversy, particularly over the likely displacement of some 20,000 people once the area is flooded, not to mention the disruption to fisheries and water flow along the river, which is crucial to the livelihoods of thousands more downstream.

Vice President Jinping was further quoted by state media as saying that they attach “great importance” to bilateral relations, perhaps indicate grudging acceptance of the decision.

The entire project looked to generate up to 6,000 MW of electricity, 90 percent of which would be exported to China. The project would be built on a Build Operate Transmit deal, which would effectively be a lease to the Chinese company for 50 years, after which the dam would be transferred free of charge to the Burmese government. The dam was expected to have a 100-year lifespan.
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DVB News - Parliament to debate Suu Kyi’s inclusion
By SHWE AUNG
Published: 10 October 2011

Burma’s parliament is set to discuss a proposal made by the country’s election body that a law barring former political prisoners from playing a role in the government be overturned.

If successful, the amendment to the Political Party Registration Law, which was brought into force last year prior to the controversial November elections, could see individuals such as Aung San Suu Kyi become an MP.

But the spokesperson for her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), said that they would wait and see what the conditions of the amendment are before making a decision.

“It’s only a draft now and is yet to be approved,” says Nyan Win. “We might think about registration after looking at it, but I don’t want to say we will certainly do so until we have a meeting.”

The Union Election Commission’s (UEC) proposal however includes a clause that would allow newly-registered parties the same rights as existing parties, as long as they field candidates in at least three constituencies in the looming by-elections planned for later this year.

The elections in November last year were mired in controversy, particularly given the banning of Suu Kyi, whose party won the 1990 polls but was refused office. Rumours of her possible inclusion in parliament have been fuelled by a parliamentary chief Khin Aung Myint, who said she would be “welcome” to join.

Nyo Ohn Myint, from the NLD-Liberated Areas wing of the party, told DVB shortly after the announcement that while Suu Kyi may indeed be able to join the parliament, it’s unlikely she will hold a cabinet position and therefore would be out of any decision-making circles.

The request from the UEC may come as some surprise, given that it promulgated the highly restrictive laws that governed the elections last year, and which effectively ensured that the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by President Thein Sein, would win an outright majority.

Although Nyo Ohn Myint said it was unlikely Suu Kyi would choose to compete in the by election, her rhetoric with regards to the government has changed markedly over the last few months, apparently in line with increasing signs of openness from Naypyidaw.
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DVB News - China’s ebbing red tide staved by union spirit
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 10 October 2011

The great and the good have said that as the “American century” draws to an end, the new dawn will belong to China. Its influence and capital will span and alter the globe with the ubiquity of the red and white of Coca-Cola or the desktop windows that computer users hurdle on a daily basis.

So far this prognosis has built and built, but as in Burma, Asia is witnessing a reassessment – from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Hindu Kush, a storm is growing, and at its centre could be the Myitsone Dam.

That Myistone has become a symbol of democratic reform in Burma is a surprise to many, but the “suspension” of the project, whatever that truly means, should be viewed more as astute politics rather than bowing to democratic consensus.

Burma has relied on China following the international condemnation its military has attracted since it cracked down on democratic activists in the late 1980s. “China’s continued diplomatic and economic support for the current regime helps immunise it to U.S.and international pressure,” noted a 2003 US embassy cable. Such a relationship was mutually beneficial. But for the Burmese this was a knee jerk, temporary measure; as ever the nation is balancing internal and external threats to the hegemony that its leaders enjoy.

The internal threat, now that the serious ideological internal revolt has largely been neutralised by sham elections, is strongest from ethnic rebels, as the evolution of the state mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar indicates: mantras such as the “sky full of liars” that littered its pages have now lost their daily box, in favour of an ‘enlightening’ few lines on the “union spirit”.

In keeping with a reform agenda, ground must be seen to be given, and peoples appeased. But in the terror of losing position or power, ground that only foments power should be allowed. This is a natural response of the nationalist. As Ne Win’s behaviour following his coup testifies, one stokes the flames of xenophobia to appease the people, and the “union spirit” develops.

Author Bertil Lintner noted in his book, ‘Burma in Revolt’, that the anti-Chinese riots of 1967 “were clearly orchestrated by the authorities” who did not intervene until the mob reached the Chinese embassy, but who stood by whilst “many” Sino-Burmese were slaughtered.

Ne Win’s methods, as academic Robert A. Holmes noted in 1967, was to “squeeze” out non-Burman businessmen through nationalisation drives – actions that Ne Win described as “socialist” and non-discriminatory, in keeping with the vision of socialism prevalent in Germany’s Kristallnacht in 1938.

Holmes for his part attributed Ne Win’s motives to “xenophobia among the highly nationalistic members of the Burmese Revolutionary Council government who want to eliminate the vestiges of the old dominant foreign cultural and economic influences and to begin a process of Burmanization.”

That attitudes have changed little inside Burma can be attributed to these same people. These attitudes are exemplified in the business world by the likes of flamboyant military crony, Tay Za, who described competitor, Steven Law, as not “pure Burmese” in an interview with Forbes magazine. Indeed Law was born in the Kokang autonomous region on the Sino-Burmese border to an ethnic Chinese drug dealer dad. In many cases this would make him unequivocally ‘Burmese’.

Burmese foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin is already in Beijing on a damage-limitation exercise, as is Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo, whose career has been defined by China– in fighting communist insurgents, Tin Aung Myint Oo was given the title Tihar Thura, a bravery award in 1980.

As one US cable notes of such men, “It is the Burmese military, particularly those officers with direct experience confronting the PRC-supported Burmese Communist insurgency, which remains the most wary of China’s motives.”

That China receives a backlash now is in all probability no coincidence. In search of energy security, massive investments have been made not only on Burma’s unexploited rivers but also in the Shwe pipeline, which now puts Burma in a position of huge power. The military may have sold the country’s most valuable commodity, natural gas, but now has unsurpassed bargaining power over Asia’s largest economy. The strategic imperative that China also sought via a southwest corridor through Burma will now place some six percent of the oil imports to the world’s key economy in the hands of Naypyidaw as well as potentially massive quantities of freight.

China however is unsurprisingly making its presence felt in disaffected ethnic areas, where economic allegiance to Beijing is often more practical. As another US cable notes, in some ethnic border areas the “PRC renminbi, rather than the Burmese kyat, is the currency of choice.”

China is further desperate for alternative sources of electricity. Professor Shuije Yao of the UK’s Universityof Nottingham told DVB that, “China is quite desperate to diversify the kinds of energy sources, but especially the renewable sorts”. The country’s economic rise sees an extraordinary increase in carbon emissions, a rate that Professor Yao fears is growing while “energy efficiency has declined”.

This is not just a Chinese problem. China’s economic rise has been built on labour and energy-intensive cheap manufacturing exports, namely to the west. Manufacturing makes up some 46 percent of the Chinese economy. The cheapest way to source energy is from coal, which now accounts for 80 percent of electricity generation. China is expected to overtake the US as the largest economy in the world within the next decade.

Between 1990 and 2008, according to a 2010 International Energy Agency (IEA) report, “China more than doubled its per capita emissions”. Indeed in the preceding decade the per capita tonnage of carbon emissions went from a rate of 2.7 tons per head in 1998 to 5.3 in 2008. The US’ rate has averaged 19 tons over the last 20 years.

“To produce $US10,000 worth of GDP, China has to consume 1,250 kilowatts of electricity [whereas] India has to consume 780 and Britain 320. If the Chinese GDP is going to double, the Chinese demand for electricity and energy is going to double,” Professor Yao told a recent conference hosted by the Financial Times.

Needless to say much of Burma will cease to exist if China’s per capita emissions continue to increase at the current rate towards that of the US. In 40 years this could be a reality.

Bearing in mind that China’s population is now 1.3 billion and the US’ stands at a fraction of that, at roughly 300 million, should China’s 1.3 billion people each emit 19 tons of carbon per year, the country’s total carbon emissions would reach approximately 24.7 billion tons. The current world total is in the region of 29 billion tons.

China then is in a bind. The Burmese can now turn their back on the Chinese and take comfort that the west will slowly warm to the PR-savvy Thein Sein regime, sated in the knowledge that, as US Senator Jim Webb feared, the country would not become a “satellite of China.”

“The Administration, including both President Obama and Secretary Clinton, wants better relations and a stronger U.S. presence in Southeast Asia,” he tellingly said in 2009.
That fear of China is being combated across Asia, with perennial Chinese rival, India, mounting its own challenge alongside strategic regional powers such as Vietnam and Indonesia, with whom Delhi has sought joint naval operations.

China is now the largest trade partner with virtually every major nation in Asia, even those with long-standing military ties to the US such as Taiwan and Japan. Taiwan’s bid to upgrade its airforce by replacing its outdated F-5s and a Japanese-Filipino joint exercise was met by a stern warning from China that, “Certain countries think as long as they can balance China with the help of US military power, they are free to do whatever they want.”

Professor Yao believes these countries “feel vulnerable … even Japan must feel vulnerable”.

The US for its part made an accurate assessment about the dissent that Myitsone decision would elicit. A 2010 cable said that “an unusual aspect of this case is the role grassroots organisations have played in opposing the dam, which speaks to the growing strength of civil society groups in Kachin state, including recipients of Embassy small grants.”

This is the acknowledged goal of the two largest democracies on the planet, the US and India, that China’s influence must be stemmed. Former spy master Khin Nyunt was quoted in a US cable as saying, “America will be able to use Myanmar [Burma] as a staging ground to penetrate China,” a position that he believed China would not accept from Burma.

The suspension of the Myitsone dam then serves multiple purposes, with “union spirit” looming large as the eventual end. Even if the cryptic language of the dam “suspension” means that it will continue, the current administration is attempting to unite beleaguered ethnics with the Burman government of Naypyidaw.

The wider reform trend is buoyed by moves such as the Myitsone suspension, which cancel out critics who demand regime change. It also galvanises the xenophobic sentiments of a deprived people, perhaps one of the Burmese rulers’ few shared values with their subjects. The move will placate those who rightly see the exploitation of the ethnic regions as unacceptable, and opens the floodgates for the west to compete with China in a scrap that could define our troubled, young century.
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