News & Articles on Burma

Burmese Soldiers Die For Nothing On Kachin Frontline
Written by: Asian Correspondent
October 6, 2011 By Zin Linn
Political analysts and observers are deeply concerned about widespread war in Kachin State in Burma. The Thein Sein government has been slammed for breaking every promise with the ethnic ceasefire groups.

KIA officials repeatedly said the civil war will spread across Kachin and Shan states if the government continues its war against the Kachin Independence Organization. The latest series of armed clashes in Kachin state have prompted observers to say that intentional warfare in the border regions may not be avoidable.

The government’s poor handling of the Kachin situation seems to be pushing the nation into an abysmal series of tragedies. New military offensives by the Burmese army on the Kachin, Karen and Shan armed groups will steer the nation into a vicious downward spiral.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi released a statement in June calling for both the government and the KIO to stop heavy fighting immediately in order to protect people’s lives and properties. It also called for peaceful talks between stakeholders to settle the decade-long political crisis of the country.

However, the government has turned a deaf ear to calls for peace.

Although government troops have suffered heavy casualties, the decision-makers are still dragging their heels about stopping this useless confrontation. They have no sympathy for their fallen soldiers.

Ongoing civil war in Kachin State has been intensifying in various fronts. On Tuesday, Burmese armed forces expanded their offensive in central Kachin State. The fighting took place around Ja Ing Yang Village, near Sinbo, in central Kachin State.

The People’s Army soldiers under the KIA’s 3rd Brigade in eastern Kachin geared up for self-protective warfare. During fighting against the People’s Army under the KIA, several government soldiers died in action, local residents said Wednesday.

As the momentum increases in the civil war in Burma’s northern Kachin State, about 40 Burma Army’s soldiers were killed in a single day, a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) source in the war zone confirmed on Tuesday.

According to one KIA officer in the frontline, there were no KIA casualties in Tuesday’s battle.

Skirmishing between government troops and Kachin people’s armed forces has been taking place daily in different areas in the Shadan Pa Valley, close to Ja Ing Yang, according to local inhabitants.

According to KIA officials in Laiza, since the last week of September hundreds of government troops have arrived in those areas likely to launch a new offensive against the KIA headquarters at Laiza.

The KIA strongholds at Laiza – Alen Bum, Laisin Bum, Hpalap Bum and Mai Ja Yang – in eastern Kachin State are close to the Chinese border, which is approximately 25 miles west of the current battle sites.

The Burmese army is heightening its offensives against the KIA strongholds, since Shadan Pa and Ja Ing Yang are situated at strategic positions, KIA officials said. The fighting continues in the two areas, natives in the war zone said. There are casualties daily.

The President of Burma should take into consideration that all the fallen soldiers – Burmese or Kachin – are citizens of this nation. If the new president and the government truly want to reconstruct the country into a democratic and developed society, all the wars with respective ethnic rebels including KIO/KIA must be immediately stopped.

If President Thein Sein has genuine inspiration of poverty alleviation, he must stop all forms of civil conflict that make the country underprivileged in the region. Most analysts agree that allowing civil war and saying poverty alleviation looks like an impractical guiding principle.

So, it is really important for the president to end the civil war, especially war against Kachin. By doing so, president has to show the country is on the right reform path and can gain trust domestically and internationally. http://www.eurasiareview.com/06102011-burmese-soldiers-die-for-nothing-on-kachin-frontline-oped/
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The Japan Times: Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011
Dams muddy China's image
By BRAHMA CHELLAN

NEW DELHI — China's frenzied dam building at home and abroad is emerging as a flash point in inter- and intrastate relations in Asia. Burma's decision to suspend work on a controversial Chinese-funded dam marks a tactical retreat on a project that has symbolized China's resource greed and is a trigger for renewed ethnic insurgency in areas of northern Burma (aka Myanmar).

The Myitsone Dam, where work is being halted, is one of seven dam projects in northern Burma sponsored by China to generate electricity for export to its own market, even as much of Burma suffers from long power outages every day. China also has been erecting dams on its side of the border on the rivers flowing to Burma and other countries — from Russia to India.

The projects have drawn attention to their mounting environmental and human costs. In Burma, the submergence of vast tracts of land and the forced displacement of thousands of residents have instigated new interstate disputes, leading to renewed fighting and the end of a 17-year ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and government forces.

The giant, 3,200-megawatt Myitsone Dam — at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River, the cradle of Burmese civilization — was conceived as China's project for China. The suspension of work on the largest dam project, so as to help stem a groundswell of public anger, represents a blow to China and a victory for local communities who had battled to protect their livelihoods and environment.

Burma is just one of several countries where hydropower projects financed and built by China have triggered local backlashes. China — the world's biggest dam builder at home and abroad — is currently erecting giant dams in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, besides damming transnational rivers on its territory and thereby spurring growing concerns in downstream countries.

China contends that its role as the global leader in exporting dams has created a "win-win" situation for the host countries and its companies.

Yet, evidence from a number of project sites shows that, until Chinese dam builders embrace environmental-sustainability standards, those dams are imposing serious social and environmental costs. China is demonstrating that it has no qualms about building dams in disputed territories, such as Pakistan-held Kashmir, or in areas torn by ethnic separatism, like northern Burma, or in other human rights-abusing countries.

In Pakistan-held Kashmir, it has even deployed thousands of People's Liberation Army troops at the dam and other strategic projects. Yet it loudly protests when foreign firms seek to explore for oil in blocks offered by Vietnam and others in the disputed South China Sea.

China's declaratory policy of "noninterference in domestic affairs" actually serves as a virtual license to pursue dam projects that flood ethnic-minority lands and forcibly uproot people in other countries, just as it is doing at home by shifting its dam-building focus from internal rivers to international rivers that originate in the Tibetan Plateau, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria.

Today, as many as 37 Chinese financial and corporate entities are involved in more than 100 dam projects in the developing world. Some of these entities are very large and have multiple subsidiaries.

For instance, Sinohydro Corporation — which is under the supervision of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China's State Council and is made up of 10 holding companies and 18 wholly owned subsidiaries — boasts 59 overseas branches.

The frenzied dam-building at home and abroad has spawned two developments:

(1) Chinese companies now dominate the global hydropower-equipment export market. Sinohydro alone claims to control half the market.

(2) The growing clout of the state-run hydropower industry in policymaking has led China to aggressively seek dam projects overseas by offering attractive, low-interest loans and to increasingly tap the resources of rivers flowing to other countries from Chinese-ruled territories.

It was HydroChina, the country's largest dam builder, that last year revealed government-approved sites for new mega-dams, including one larger than the Three Gorges Dam to be built virtually on the disputed border with India.

In a number of nations, ranging from Burma and Congo to Laos and Zambia, Chinese dam construction is aimed at creating the energy infrastructure to extract mineral ores and other resources to feed the voracious demand in China.

Burma is not the only case where Chinese dam building has triggered violence. From Sudan to the restive Shiite-dominated areas of Pakistan-held Kashmir, such projects have sparked violent clashes and even police shootings.

In Burma, however, the violence spread from the Myitsone Dam — where several small bombs went off in April 2010 — to other Chinese projects, including the Dapein and Shweli dams.

China's dam projects in developing countries showcase its growing economic ties with them. In reality, however, these projects often serve to inflame growing anti-Chinese sentiment in those countries.

China has contributed to such sentiment by refusing to abide by international standards or its own regulations, including the State Council's 2006 directives that Chinese overseas businesses, among other things, "pay attention to environmental protection" and "support local community and people's livelihood cause."

The perception that China is engaged in exploitative practices abroad has been reinforced by the fact that it brings much of the workforce from home to build dams and other projects. This practice runs counter to the Chinese Commerce Ministry's 2006 regulations — promulgated after anti-Chinese riots in Zambia — that called for "localization," including hiring local workers and respecting local customs.

China can stop its dam builders from further undermining its image by enforcing its regulations and embracing internationally accepted standards.
Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the independent Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and the author of the newly released "Water: Asia's New Battleground." http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/eo20111006bc.html
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JAKARTA GLOBE
In Surprising Burma, Seize the Moment
Thant Myint-U | October 06, 2011

Burma is at its most important political watershed since the establishment of army rule in 1962.

Over the next few weeks, the Obama administration can make a big difference in determining whether historic reforms under way there will lead to Asia’s newest democratic transition. President Obama should publicly support those changes, and back up those words with actions to end the country’s isolation, before hard-liners who oppose reform are able to push back.

Six months ago it was difficult to be optimistic. Elections had been held but they were widely condemned as being far from free and fair. And although Burma’s aging autocrat, Gen. Than Shwe, retired, the constitutional leadership that replaced his junta included many of the same former generals. Few expected more than minor reforms.

But U Thein Sein, the new president and himself a former general, surprised everyone. In his inaugural address to Parliament, he spoke forcefully of combating poverty, fighting corruption and working for political reconciliation.

By June, state pensions for nearly a million people, most of them very poor, were increased by as much as a thousandfold, taxes were reduced, and trade cartels were dismantled.

The government redrafted banking and foreign investment rules and began revising its foreign exchange rate policy — all of this in consultation with businesspeople and academics. That alone was a huge step, because army rulers had long shunned civilian advice.

Then, on July 19, Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who was released from house arrest in November, was invited to the annual Martyrs’ Day ceremony.

The holiday memorializes the 1947 assassination of her father, who is considered the architect of the country’s independence. Thousands of her supporters were permitted to hold their first lawful march in years and several independent newspapers came to life. Suu Kyi’s name, which couldn’t be mentioned in print a year ago, began to appear regularly on the front pages.

By August, Parliament began debating sensitive issues, like the release of political prisoners, and passed laws legalizing microfinance for the rural poor and allowing independent trade unions. All Internet restrictions were soon lifted.

On Aug. 18, at a meeting with dozens of independent civic groups, the president called for peace talks with the country’s ethnic-based rebels and invited exiles to return. The next day, he met for over two hours alone with Suu Kyi.

I saw her soon afterward for the first time in over 20 years. She told me she believed the president was genuine in wanting change and that she hoped we were at the dawn of a new era in Burma.

This past week, we’ve seen previously unimaginable developments. On Friday, following increasing popular agitation, the president halted work on a $3.6 billion hydroelectric dam being built by China to send power to Chinese provinces next door. This was a victory for Burma’s nascent environmental movement and the area’s minority Kachin people. That the president would stop a Chinese-backed project of this size was the clearest sign yet that the country was at a turning point.

But monumental challenges remain — for example, even though the government agreed recently to a cease-fire with the country’s largest ethnic-based militia, deadly clashes continue with smaller militias fighting on behalf of minorities in the mountains to the north and east. It is hard to imagine a successful democratic transition while these long-standing and often brutal little wars continue.

Reformist voices are not the only ones in the new system, and a hard-line pushback is far from inconceivable. So the Obama administration needs to do three things, and do them quickly.

First is to unambiguously voice its support for the reforms under way, while at the same time being patient and refraining from demanding too much too fast. The alternative to what is happening is not a perfect revolution; the alternative is going back to square one.

Second, the administration needs to ensure that the reform efforts receive the technical advice and knowledge they desperately require. After decades of isolation, Burma suffers from a dearth of skilled people in every field, from banking to environmental regulation to public health. So the United States should lift all restrictions that limit the United Nations and international financial institutions like the World Bank from offering Burma their technical expertise.

Third is to move toward ending trade embargoes against Burma. Responsible trade and investment can play key roles in creating jobs, helping build a new middle class and hastening democratic change.

What we’re seeing today is Burma’s best chance in half a century for a better future. America needs to help end Burma’s isolation, urgently.

The New York Times

Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official, is the author of “Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.” http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/in-surprising-burma-seize-the-moment/469773
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Burma’s new threat to global security
By JANET BENSHOOF
Published: 6 October 2011

For over forty years, Burma’s military rulers have ignored the rules of law that govern civilized nations. General Than Shwe and his fellow perpetrators enjoyed an unfettered rule by crime only because of the global community’s long standing “whine and wait” policy towards Burma.

However, the latest power ploy by the military – establishing a “civilian” sovereign state without sovereign powers – makes such inaction untenable. Given its lack of sovereign powers, control over its people, laws, and territory, Burma’s new “civilian” government is illegitimate. The most fundamental and accepted law of nations obliges all states to treat Burma’s constitution and the elections arising from it as “null and void.”

Let me explain how this happened and why Burma’s form of government is a new threat to global peace and security.

Burma’s new constitution, implemented on 31 January 2011, establishes the sovereign state of “the Republic of the Union of Myanmar” as being composed exclusively of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The military (“Defense Services”) is a separate, legally autonomous entity, outside of and supreme over the sovereign state. The new government of Burma, represented by the Head of State President Thein Sein, is incapable – even if willing – to enforce any laws, civil or criminal, against the military. All military affairs, civil or criminal, are under the exclusive control of the commander-in-chief. No law applies to the commander-in-chief, not the constitution or any rules spanning from controlling finances to nuclear development.

This bold attempt to establish a permanent “law free zone” for the military has escaped the notice of the global community. In fact, the influential International Crisis Group goes even further, enthusiastically describing Burma’s constitution and elections as “improv[ing] the prospects for incremental reform.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The military’s stranglehold over Burma is impervious to political reform given its constitutional basis.

Even if Aung San Suu Kyi were President of Burma tomorrow, she would lack the legal capacity to be able to enforce compliance with Chapter VII Security Council Resolutions, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the Genocide and Geneva Conventions, the ASEAN Charter, and international laws regulating trade when they apply to military-owned companies in Burma. Neither the executive nor judiciary can end the constitutionally-guaranteed impunity of the military for past and present war crimes and genocide, including the use of rape as a weapon of war and child soldiers.

Although the military currently lacks nuclear capability, its fixation on mimicking the “North Korea model” of using the potential of nuclear weapons as a bargaining tool on the world stage is a serious threat. The military’s access to mineable uranium and billions of dollars are strengthened by a constitutional structure that ensures their legal autonomy and control over Burma’s energy development projects, including nuclear power.

The issuance and implementation of this illegal constitution is an act of state of the utmost gravity under international law, violating the most central premise of the United Nations Charter; that all Member States are able and willing to comply with Security Council mandates necessary to secure global peace and security.

Burma now must incur the legal consequences of its “serious breach of peremptory norms.” Under international law all states are under an absolute obligation not to recognise the constitution and its subsequent elections and to take all measures possible, both collectively and individually, to ensure Burma revokes its constitution and invalidates the elections. This intransgressible legal duty of non-recognition cannot be ignored in favor a political strategy that accepts the validity of the 2010 elections. This was made plain by the Security Council in 1984 when it enforced this sanction of non-recognition mandating states treat the South African apartheid constitution and elections as null and void.

Enforcing the most fundamental law of nations is critical for the people of Burma for whom the new constitution legitimises their permanent status as prisoners of their own county. Equally important is for the world community to stop treating Burma as immune from consequences for its illegal acts. Continuing a “whine and wait” policy towards Burma, or worse, supporting the new illegal regime, should not be considered as viable political options.

Janet Benshoof is president and founder of the New York-based Global Justice Center. http://www.dvb.no/analysis/burma%e2%80%99s-new-threat-to-global-security/17971
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Shan army ‘ready for govt talks’
By DVB
Published: 6 October 2011

The opposition Shan State Army will come to the negotiating table, but only once a formal invitation is sent by Naypyidaw, the group said, marking perhaps the first step in an effort to end renewed fighting in eastern Burma.

It comes on the heels of other offers of “peace talks” to warring rebels groups in the country’s border regions. Burma’s periphery, from Mon state to Kachin state in the north, has been beset by heavy fighting since elections last year.

Major Sai Lao Hseng, spokesperson of the Shan State Army’s (SSA) political wing, the Shan State Restoration Council, said that only an official offer of dialogue would be accepted.

“We would like the government to make an official proposal with official representatives and then we could engage in peace talks after hearing the government’s demands.”

Naypyidaw’s approach to the SSA reportedly went via government-affiliated militia groups in Shan state. It has also sent high-level delegations to the Wa and Mongla ethnic groups in northern Shan state, and a state-level delegation to the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Earlier this week the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) responded to similar offers of talks by demanding that dialogue only takes place if the government agrees to negotiate with an alliance of ethnic armies, and not individual groups.

Both the KNLA and the KIA are part of the 12-member United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), as well as the armed New Mon State Party (NMSP). The spokesperson of the NMSP, Nai Hongsar, also stated that the group would only negotiate as part of the alliance.

President Thein Sein’s political advisor, Nay Zin Latt, recently travelled to Indonesia. Billed as a ‘study’ visit, the delegation sought to get to grips with Indonesia’s transition from military rule and cessation of conflicts with ethnic minority groups – something the new Burmese government has pledged as a goal. http://www.dvb.no/news/shan-army-%e2%80%98ready-for-govt-talks%e2%80%99/17985
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As Conflict Heats Up, Kachins Pray for Peace
By SAI ZOM HSENG Thursday, October 6, 2011

“We are asking for God's mercy to give us justice and equal rights for our people,” said Naw Sai, an ethnic Kachin man living in Myitkyina, the capital of northern Burma's Kachin State, explaining the purpose of a prayer event recently organized by the Myanmar Christian Council.

The event, which took place at churches throughout the city from Sept 28 to Oct 4, brought together a community growing increasingly anxious about a war that has reared its head after a decade and a half of relative peace, and now shows no signs of abating.

“We believe that our difficulties will not always be with us and will one day disappear. To make that day come very soon, we are asking for the mercy of God,” said Naw Sai.

Gam Shaung, a Christian minister from Myitkyina who asked not to be identified by his real name, said that local people want to see an end to the conflict between Burmese government troops and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and need to find a way to calm their souls.

“The people know that the Kachin fighters are fighting for our land and dignity, and they want to support them in some way,” he said. “Therefore we decided to organize this seven-day prayer event, and will hold similar events in the future.”

Many others, he said, have been praying privately since the fighting broke out earlier this year.

Kachin communities inside Burma are not alone in praying for an end to the conflict now raging in their homeland. Kachin people living in foreign countries are also gathering at their churches and to pray for a KIA victory.

According to a Kachin student living in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, special prayer meetings are usually held after regular Sunday services. He said that although they wanted peace, they did not want it to come without achieving any real benefit for the Kachin people. He added that people's faith in God helped them to remain strong in spirit in the face of this crisis.

A ceasefire agreement signed by the Burmese military regime and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political wing of the KIA, in 1994 first showed signs of unraveling a year ago, when KIA troops fired warning shots at a Burmese army helicopter near Laiza, the KIO's headquarters, on Sept 23, 2010.

This was followed by a skirmish between KIA and Tatmadaw (Burmese army) troops in February of this year, after which Burma's state-run media stepped up its rhetoric against the Kachin army, referring to them as “rebels.”

The tensions that led to these incidents stem from the KIA's refusal to become part of a Border Guard Force (BGF) scheme first proposed by Burma's then military regime two years ago. Under the BGF plan, armed ceasefire groups would be allowed to retain their weapons, but only as part of a BGF under Burmese military command.

In the early stages of the current conflict, skirmishes took place only in the area around Laiza, near the Sino-Burmese border. More recently, however, the fighting has spread to northern Shan State, where there a few hundred KIA troops are operating.

At the end of last month, KIA Brigade 4 lost its headquarters at Loikang, near Kutkai Township in northern Shan State, after a huge military offensive by Tatmadaw troops.

Despite these setbacks, however, Kachin leaders remain defiant, saying that armed struggle remains the best way to achieve their long-term goal of turning Burma into a federal union with equal rights for the country's ethnic minorities.

Hkun Sa Mahkaw, the general secretary of the UK-based Kachin National Organization (KNO), said that reaching this goal would not be possible without the KIO and KIA, and so he continued to support their efforts.

“We raised awareness among the local Kachin community, we told them what is happening and what we need. Then we organized prayer services based on our religion and collected donations to support our troops financially,” Hkun Sa Mahkaw told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday.

Some military observers say that it is only a matter of time before the Tatmadaw starts a major offensive in Kachin State, and that the KIA will be hard-pressed to defend itself because of its relative lack of resources.

But Hkun Sa Mahkaw said he believes that the solidarity of the Kachin people, both inside the country and abroad, will keep the revolution alive.

“When the Burmese government took control of the Hpakant area, the KIO/KIA called on local people to contribute to its war funds. We also support them financially, not because we've been ordered to do so by the KIO/KIA, but as an expression of our solidarity,” said Hkun Sa Mahkaw, adding that Kachins living in the UK meet for prayer services almost every Saturday.

But religious gatherings are not the only way for Kachin people to show their support for Kachin soldiers fighting on the front line.
Since fighting broke out, many Kachins have started using the KIA flag as their profile picture on social websites such as Facebook and Hi5. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22208
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Myanmar, Thailand to strengthen ties
Published: Oct. 6, 2011 at 2:05 AM

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Thailand will seek to strengthen ties with neighbor Myanmar, visiting Thai Prime Minister Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told her hosts.

During her one-day introductory trip to Myanmar, which currently has a civilian government, Shinawatra met with President Thein Sein and praised the country's progress in promoting democracy and reconciliation, the Thai News Agency reported.

Both Thailand and Myanmar, which was formerly called Burma, are members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations. She invited Thein Sein to visit Thailand.

In her talks with Myanmar leaders, the Thai leader stressed her country's policy of not allowing any armed group to use its territory to launch any offensive move against the Myanmar government, the report said.

She urged Myanmar's cooperation to reopen the border checkpoint at Tak's Mae Sot-Myawaddy as a way to boost trade and other economic cooperation. The checkpoint was closed last year.

The report quoted President Thein Sein as saying the process would be speeded up once bridge repairs are completed.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/10/06/Myanmar-Thailand-to-strengthen-ties/UPI-72241317881159/#ixzz1a0ZBkE4f
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Pipelines to China Become New Target For Burmese Activists
By BA KAUNG Thursday, October 6, 2011

Chinese-backed strategic oil and natural gas pipelines under construction in Burma have become the new target for Burmese activists following President Thein Sein’s suspension last week—under heavy public pressure—of the controversial Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam hydropower project in Kachin State.

Citing human rights violations, activists on Thursday called for the similar suspension of the US $ 2.5 billion oil and natural gas pipelines being constructed by state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC). The pipelines are to start at the Bay of Bengal in Arakan State on Burma's western coast, travel through central and northeastern Burma, and end in Yunnan Province, China.

“Widespread land confiscation to make way for the pipeline corridor has already left countless people landless and jobless, while others along the pipeline are facing human rights violations and exploitation,” said a group of Burmese activists from the Shwe Gas Movement, a campaign group opposing the exploitation of Burma’s natural gas reserves, in a statement on Thursday.

Map showing the route to be followed by the China-Burma oil and gas pipelines. (Photo: Shwe Gas Movement)
The oil pipeline, which CNPC was granted exclusive rights to build and operate, is even more economically and strategically important to China than the $ 3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, which was expected to generate 6,000-megawatts of electricity that would be sent mostly to China.

The pipeline, with an estimated capacity of 20 million tons of crude oil per year that will enjoy tax concessions and customs clearance rights from the Burmese government, will enable China to bypass the Strait of Malacca when importing crude oil from the Middle East and Africa, saving an estimated 1,200 km shipping distance.

As part of the oil pipeline project, China is also constructing a deep-water crude oil unloading port and oil storage facilities on Burma’s Maday Island off the coast of Arakan State—an investment that will provide China with crucial access to the geopolitically strategic Indian Ocean, where the US is poised to increase its navy presence in the coming decade.

The gas pipeline, scheduled to be completed in 2013, will be used to transport Burmese natural gas from the Shwe Natural Gas Fields located off the Arakan coast to Yunnan Province.

The pipeline projects have angered the people and politicians in Arakan State, which is rich with Burma’s largest oil and natural gas reserves but has a poor electricity supply.

On Sept 27, Ba Shin, an opposition MP representing Kyaukphyu Island off the Arakan coast, submitted a question to the national Parliament in Naypyidaw, asking whether his constituency would receive a share of the natural gas extracted from the Shwe Natural Gas Fields for the purpose of improving the island’s electricity supply.

In response, Energy Minister Than Htay reminded Ba Shin that the previous military government awarded China the right to purchase and export the natural gas generated by the Shwe Natural Gas Fields for the next 30 years, and therefore the gas was unavailable for local use.

“People opposed the Myitsone Dam because they don't want their natural resources being used to line the pockets of the regime and corporations with atrocious reputations, all at the expense of local people. The Shwe Gas Project must be stopped, recognizing that like the dam, it will be destructive socially and economically,” said Wong Aung, an Arakan activist with the Shwe Gas Movement.

On Monday, China's Xinhua news agency reported that construction of the pipeline was "proceeding smoothly" and that CNPC said it gave $1.3 million to Burma this week to help build eight schools in the country, as part of an agreement signed in April to provide $6 million of aid.

"Construction of the fourth stage of the oil and gas pipeline [within Burma] commenced on October 1, which is being built by CNPC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Co. The pipeline project will continue after the rainy season in Myanmar [Burma]," Xinhua said.

Any major obstacle to pipeline construction, such as the broad-based public movement which prompted the Burmese president to suspend the Myitsone Dam project, could be a devastating blow to China-Burma relations.

Napyidaw's decision to suspend construction of the Myitsone Dam has already angered Beijing, which has called for the protection of the legal rights of the Chinese companies that have invested in the project.

In addition, the lead Chinese investor in the dam project warned the Burmese government of possible legal action.

Jim Della-Giacoma, the South East Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, said that the Myitsone Dam crisis has the potential to weaken the Sino-Burma relationship, particularly if it comes to be seen as some sort of strategic rebalancing of Burma's international relations.

“The relationship is deeper and wider than just one dam, but this is clearly a significant decision that probably involves environmental, political and other factors,” he said in an interview with The Irrawaddy.

But since Naypyidaw's decision is apparently part of a more calculated effort by Thein Sein to win support from the Burmese public for his reform agenda and improve Burma's standing in the West while still retaining close ties with China, the new president is expected to appease China by offering economic concessions and ensuring the successful continued construction of the pipelines.

However, even if the same type of public resistance that formed in the case of the Myitsone Dam project does not materialize, the oil and natural gas pipelines will still pass through conflict zones in northeastern parts of Burma, where Shan and Kachin rebels are operating. Military clashes between government troops and those ethnic armed groups have been ongoing since June and have escalated over the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, according to unconfirmed reports, Burma’s Vice-President Tin Aung Myint Oo will visit China in the next few days, leading a delegation of government ministers, including the minister of the Ministry of Electric Power No. 1, possibly in an effort to patch-up the relationship strained by Myistone Dam suspension. http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22207
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October 5, 2011 9:59 pm
When a hero’s image signals a new Burmese dawn
By David Pilling

Of all the remarkable things that have happened in Burma in recent weeks, one of the most intriguing is the sudden reappearance of a photograph of General Aung San, the country’s independence hero. When Aung San Suu Kyi, the general’s daughter and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, recently met Thein Sein, the quasi-civilian president, a photograph of her father was, almost miraculously, hanging in the presidential palace.

As far as symbols go, this is pretty potent stuff. Images of Aung San were once ubiquitous. They used to grace banknotes and the walls of public offices. But when his daughter became the icon of democracy in the 1990s, the national hero’s picture vanished faster than you could slip on your jackboots.

Fortunately, the changed atmosphere in Burma – renamed Myanmar by the generals who shot their way to power in 1962 – goes well beyond the reappearance of a photograph. Last week, much to the anger of Beijing, Burma suspended the construction of a controversial $3.6bn dam that was to have supplied energy to China. Naturally, construction could start again at the drop of an edict. But the gesture was seen by many as a rare concession to public opinion.

Since mid-August, there has been a flurry of small, but significant steps from the government that came to power in last November’s “election”. Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy boycotted that poll, conducted according to rules that virtually ensured victory for its khaki-turned-mufti politicians.

Since then, Mr Thein Sein, a former military man and now president, has engineered at least the semblance of change. His government has in a few weeks set up a human rights panel; allowed the visit of a previously banned UN rapporteur on human rights; introduced a law to legalise trade unions, and unblocked previously censored international websites, such as the BBC.

Ms Suu Kyi, under house arrest until November, has been permitted to travel outside Rangoon and to hold public rallies. An interview with her was published in the tightly controlled Burmese press. A year ago, it was practically forbidden to utter her name.

Evidently encouraged, the Lady, as she used to be called, agreed to meet Mr Thein Sein on August 19. There are rumours of talks about bringing the NLD back into the political process. One western diplomat who met Ms Suu Kyi recently says she is exhilarated by the changed atmosphere.

Of course, she may be being lured into a trap. Those who have seen false dawns before are rightly cautious about how enduring such changes will be. A decade ago, Ms Suu Kyi held secret talks with Khin Nyunt, former military intelligence chief and prime minister. She was subsequently released from house arrest in 2002. But the thaw was brief. This time, too, hardliners could stage a counter-offensive.

None of the changes set in motion by Mr Thein Sein has yet been enshrined in law. That makes them little more than promises. They could be aimed solely at winning Burma greater international respectability. The new government badly wants to take up the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014. It also wants the US and Europe to water down sanctions. Some parts of the government, thought to be uncomfortable at China’s growing influence, seek greater engagement with the west.

The Europeans, long disenchanted with sanctions, may be willing to budge. In April, the EU relaxed financial and travel restrictions on some members of the new government. Diplomats stress they will not do more unless they see substantial progress. But in principle they will consider further measures.

A crucial test of whether changes are real should come within weeks. The government has promised to release some of its 2,000 political prisoners. Diplomats say they will scrutinise the roll call of those let out. They want to see senior members of the NLD as well as prominent dissidents walk free. Of course, that alone would solve little. The government’s most intractable problem remains its conflict with several ethnic minorities. Democracy remains a far-off dream.

Still, Ms Suu Kyi told the BBC this week that she believed the president genuinely wanted change, although she recognised the fragility of the process. After all, prisoners can be rearrested and photographs taken down. Asked whether the wheels of democracy had started turning, she said: “I think I’d like to see a few more turns before I decide.” At least something has been set in motion. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6ec7e2de-ef3b-11e0-918b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1a071aEMG
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Myanmar independence hero Aung San back in the limelight
By Peter Janssen Oct 6, 2011, 5:02 GMT

Yangon - When Myanmar President Thein Sein held conciliatory talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in August, he made sure that Suu Kyi's famed father, Aung San, was part of the picture.

A portrait of Aung San, an independence hero and founding father of the Myanmar army, was on the wall behind Thein Sein and Suu Kyi as they shook hands for state media after a meeting that has set a new tone for national politics.

Thein Sein's predecessor, Senior General Than Shwe, who led the junta that ruled Myanmar from 1992 to 2010, was well-known not only for his dislike of Suu Kyi but also for distain for her father, who was gunned down by political rivals in 1947.

Prior to the Thein Sein-Suu Kyi meeting, no official portraits of Aung San were hung in government offices in the capital, Naypyitaw.

'Thein Sein sent a message to the people that he is a follower of Aung San,' said Kwin Maung Swe, leader of the National Democratic Force, an opposition party in parliament.

'Hanging the portrait was a message to the whole country that he will not deny the Aung San image,' Kwin Maung Swe said.

The National Democratic Force, a breakaway faction from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, plans to propose to parliament that Aung San's portrait be reinstated on the kyat bank notes, a practice that was discontinued under Than Shwe's rule.

'He is a national hero,' Kwin Maung Swe said. 'We are trying to take things back to normal times.'

There are other signs of an Aung San revival in Myanmar.

Children openly sell small posters of Aung San and his famous Nobel Peace Prize-winning daughter to motorists in the country's largest city and former capital, Yangon, and the state-controlled media has been full of articles about the Aung San legacy in recent weeks.

'Aung San's image has been brought back again,' said Tin Oo, deputy leader of the National League for Democracy and a former general. 'Now the younger soldiers are beginning to understand who was the hero of independence and the father of the army.'

Before the rise of Suu Kyi as the country's champion of democracy in the aftermath of a brutal army crackdown on anti-military demonstrations in 1988, her father was revered by the military as the army's founder and a hero of the country's struggle for independence from Britain, its former colonial master.

Aung San portraits graced kyat notes and hung in government offices, and the anniversary of his assassination, Martyr's Day, was a national holiday marked by solemn state commemorations.

After Than Shwe moved the capital to Naypyitaw in 2005, Martyr's Day was presided over by the Yangon governor.

Unlike Than Shwe, Thein Sein, who took office in March, has acknowledged that he needs Suu Kyi on his side to achieve his goals: securing the position of the military establishment that still runs the country, ending Myanmar's pariah status in the world community and easing economic sanctions, observers said.

'If the regime thinks that Aung San Suu Kyi will now play ball, then reviving Aung San as the father of it all is fine with the army,' said Robert Taylor, author of The State of Myanmar. 'After all, he was their founder, so back to normality.'

Myanmar military strongman Ne Win, who overthrew the county's fledgling post-independence democracy in 1962, did not play down the Aung San legacy because it enhanced his own.

Both Aung San and Ne Win were members of the Thirty Comrades, young revolutionaries who sided with the Japanese in ousting the British forces at the beginning of World War II, who then turned on the Japanese before the war ended.

Many have criticized Suu Kyi for agreeing to meet with Thein Sein before the new government has made substantive concessions, such as freeing about 2,000 political prisoners and opening peace talks with ethnic minority rebel groups, which have been fighting the army for decades.

'They've kind of hijacked Aung San and Aung San Suu Kyi for their own purposes,' said Bertil Lintner, a well-known Myanmar expert and author of The Land of Jade.

But for Suu Kyi and her followers, small progress is deemed better than none at all.

'So long as we can make one inch of progress, we will work together,' Tin Oo said.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1667048.php/Myanmar-independence-hero-Aung-San-back-in-the-limelight
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October 06, 2011 17:15 PM
Penang Police Detain 77 Myanmar Illegal Immigrants

BALIK PULAU (Penang), Oct 6 (Bernama) -- Penang police detained 77 Myanmar illegal immigrants during a four-hour operation from 8 am along the coast of Pulau Betong here Thursday.

South West District Police chief Supt Hatta Md Zin said the men, aged between 19 and 23, were hiding in the jungle there.

"Some fishermen saw them swim to shore after their boat anchored some 28 nautical miles from Pulau Betong," he told reporters.

Two of them were found to have on them United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards.

Initial investigations revealed that the boat had been carrying 115 Myanmar nationals, he said.

Police are tracking the other 38 Myanmar nationals who are believed to be still hiding in the jungle," he said.

Those arrested were taken to the South West District Police headquarters before being handed over to the Immigration Department, he added.

-- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=618164
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Laptop reveals Maoists trained in Burma
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 6 October 2011

Maoist rebels in northeastern India were trained at camps across the border in Burma, according to police in New Delhi who claim the details were discovered on a laptop belonging to an arrested member of the group.

Two men from the group, commonly known as the Naxalites, were detained by police on Saturday last week on suspicion of smuggling arms. According to the Times of India, the men, identified only as Dilip and Arun, were carrying a laptop that contained files on joint training operations with the outlawed People’s Liberation Army (PLA), an ethnic separatist group from Manipur.

Naxalite rebels have been described by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the country’s “greatest security threat”. They are active in a belt that runs from the Nepalese border south through nine Indian states.

“Crucial details related to Naxal operations and some maps of Myanmar [Burma] showing the place where a joint training camp is to be held in a few weeks were recovered from their laptop,” a policeman told the Times of India.

The group is composed largely of disaffected tribal villagers who inhabit states such as Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand. In response New Delhi created the Salwa Judum militia, which is blamed for brutal reprisals and forced relocation of communities to stem the support network of the rebels.

The PLA was recently accused of receiving Chinese help, with Beijing ostensibly supporting its fight for an independent state in a bid to assume control over the northeast Indian states it claims as its own. The PLA is also linked with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).

The timing of the news about training camps in Burma, and China’s role in the insurgency, may not be a coincidence: President Thein Sein is set to make his first visit to the world’s largest democracy since being elected to office, and India has been stringently pressuring the Burmese to do more to combat groups who shelter along the remote shared border between the two countries.

The supposed common ambition of both governments to eliminate these groups resulted in an allegation from the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) that the Indians had been supplying artillery to the Burmese to help fight the rebel outfits. Able to hit targets from over 40 kilometers away, these weapons give the Burmese a significant advantage over their foe.

But the commitment of the Burmese to rooting out Indian separatist insurgents has been questioned by some, including journalist and author Bertil Lintner. He described an alleged recent assault on the ULFA as a “phantom operation”.

Indian requests for Burmese action, including those made by Foreign Minister S M Krishna on a visit to Naypyidaw in June, have persisted for years, but with little tangible effect.

The Naxal struggle was born in May 1967 and named after the village of Naxalbariin northern West Bengal state. The insurrection began when police opened fire on protesting landless farmers, sparking outrage.

Their struggle is synonymous with the failure of the Indian government to combat the ravishes of poverty in rural areas. States such as Bihar are renowned for feudal caste ridden politics in which tribal or Adivasi communities bear the brunt, with the World Bank noting that over 56 percent of tribal children are clinically underweight. It has also stated that “inequalities in nutritional status widened” during the 1990s, a period of rapid economic liberalisation.

Nationwide, the World Bank notes that the “prevalence of underweight among children in India is amongst the highest in the world, and nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Tribal lands in states such as Chhatisgarh are also rich in minerals. The state produces some 15 percent of India’s steel, with companies such as South Korea’s POSCO involved in mining that has displaced tribal communities.

India has recently set a target of doubling trade with Burma to $US3 billion over the next five years and is keen to compete with China for influence over Naypyidaw. Given its proximity to both Burma and China, suppressing insurgency in India’s volatile northeast is an essential component of this goal. http://www.dvb.no/news/laptop-files-show-maoists-trained-in-burma/17998