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BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Burma’s Suu Kyi ‘to face trial’
Burma’s Suu Kyi ‘to face trial’
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to face trial for breaching the conditions of her detention under house arrest, her lawyer has said.
Ms Suu Kyi will stand trial on 18 May, the lawyer, Hla Myo Myint, said.
She was taken to a prison from her home in Rangoon, where she has spent most of the past 19 years, to hear the charges.
A US man whose uninvited visit to her home led to the charges, will also be tried on immigration and security offences, the lawyer added.
“ If somebody shows up at her door step in violation of Burmese law she can not be held responsible for it ”
Lawyer Jared GenserThe American man, John Yettaw, was arrested after swimming across a lake to her house and staying there secretly for two days.
The charges are yet to be confirmed by the government.
But it looks as though this is a device to keep her detained until elections due in 2010 which the generals think will give them some legitimacy, says BBC South-East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.
Another of her lawyers said they would contest the charge.
“The charge is going to be violating the conditions of her house arrest and what her lawyer is going to argue is that of course that’s ridiculous because, yes under the terms of her arrest she cannot invite people to visit her but she of course did not invite this person to visit her,” Jared Genser told the BBC.
“If somebody shows up at her door step in violation of Burmese law she can not be held responsible for it.”
Security stepped up
A spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD), Nyan Win said he had been informed of the plan to try Ms Suu Kyi and two women who live with her by her lawyer, who visited Ms Suu Kyi in her off-limits house on Wednesday.
She was driven in a police convoy from her house to the prison, eyewitnesses said.
Reports say security has been stepped up at the Insein prison.
The Nobel Peace laureate has been under house arrest for much of the past 19 years.
The latest detention began in May 2003, after clashes between opposition activists and supporters of Burma’s (Myanmar) military government.
The house arrest was extended last year – a move which analysts say is illegal even under the junta’s own legal limits.
It is now due to expire at the end of May.
Earlier this month, the military government rejected an appeal for the 63-year-old to be freed, despite NLD claims that she was suffering from low blood pressure and dehydration.
Ms Suu Kyi was detained after the NLD’s victory in a general election in 1990. Burma’s junta refused to allow the party to assume power.
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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8049187.stmPublished: 2009/05/14 05:54:41 GMT
© BBC MMIX
IRC | …Disgraceful Refugee Score Card
29 Sep 2007 – The Los Angeles Times on September 29, 2007 published the following article by Anna Husarska, the IRC’s senior policy adviser.
For those who help resettle refugees in this country, the big date annually is Sept. 30, the end of the federal government’s fiscal year. Because refugee arrivals are allotted per fiscal year, that’s when we can measure how well — or poorly — the administration performed in accepting refugees. This year’s score card is not good; the numbers have only slowly increased after the drop in admittees since the 9/11 attacks.
Although the Bush administration set a ceiling of 70,000 total refugees for fiscal year 2007, and budgeted for them, only 41,765 had arrived by Sept. 14, and the plan is to bring in 6,000 more before Sunday’s deadline.
Why such low numbers? One factor is the outrageous practice of denying admittance to bona fide refugees because of post-9/11 anti-terrorist legislation, which brands some of them as terrorists or supporters of terrorism.
The Hmong who fought under CIA command in Laos, for example, have been deemed under the post-9/11 laws as belonging to a “terrorist organization,” and they and those associated with them are now denied entry to the U.S. The same applies to Montagnards from Vietnam, staunch U.S. allies. Colombians who paid ransoms to save the lives of their kidnapped loved ones are considered guilty of giving material support to terrorists and denied access.
After a barrage of criticism in the media, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security issued a few targeted waivers. Those who associated with certain armed resistance groups (mostly Burmese combatants opposing the military regime in Myanmar) received waivers. Thanks to the waivers, more than 14,000 Burmese refugees will have been admitted this year. But the combatants are still banned.
This belated righting of a wrong shows that admitting more refugees — and in large numbers — is possible. As such, it constitutes a clear indictment of this administration on the most shameful chapter in the recent history of resettlement: the admission (or rather nonadmission) of Iraqi refugees into the United States.
From April 2003 to April 2007, fewer than 500 Iraqis were allowed into the U.S. as refugees. (To put this number in perspective, between May and December 1975, 131,000 South Vietnamese political refugees arrived in the U.S.)
In February, it looked as though the Bush administration was finally recognizing that that was unacceptable. An Iraq Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Task Force was established, and the State Department said it would admit 7,000 Iraqi refugees by Sept. 30. Considering the exodus from Iraq of more than 2 million people, and considering that the U.S. bears a special responsibility for the war in Iraq, this was very low. But it was a small step in the right direction.
Then nothing much happened. In March, eight Iraqi refugees were admitted; in April, one; in May, one; in June, 63; in July, 57. The outrage on editorial pages and among advocacy groups was reinforced by letters from U.S. military personnel whose endangered translators and local staff were denied entry. Congressional hearings were held, and legislation was proposed. Still, from October 2006 through the end of August, only 719 Iraqi refugees had been admitted to the U.S.
Who deserves blame? Officials of the Homeland Security and State departments say the delays are not because of them, but because the U.N. has been slow in processing refugees.
Really? In February and March, I traveled to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey and visited the offices of the U.N. and of nongovernmental organizations preparing the refugees’ cases. Everywhere I met Iraqi refugees ready to be interviewed by U.S. officials and saw stacks of refugees’ files already screened by the U.N.
When a State Department official was gently questioned about the delays during a congressional hearing, she said that Homeland Security treats the Iraqis differently and that their extended security checks take longer.
Is that so? Each September, the administration engages in a last-minute, Herculean effort to improve the score card of refugee admissions. Overall numbers are not available, but taking a sample of the airline bookings for refugees being resettled by just the International Rescue Committee this year, more Iraqis are expected to arrive in September alone (151) than in the previous 11 months combined (113). But the total number of Iraqi refugees will be nowhere near the declared goal of 7,000.
Whether on purpose or by lack of commitment, the Bush administration failed to meet its own minimal standard of offering a haven to a few thousand of the most vulnerable Iraqis.
This is wrong. Such failure makes the U.S. lose hearts and minds across Iraq.</blockquote
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BreakingNews.ie
Burma summons top US diplomat
05/10/2007 – 07:15:55The top US diplomat in Burma was summoned today for rare talks with the hardline government a day after its leader announced a conditional offer to meet detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Shari Villarosa, the highest American official in Burma, received word yesterday that she had been invited to meet the military-led government that orchestrated a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last week, the US State Department said in Washington.
Villarosa has been a vocal critic of the crackdown. During her visit, she was expected to repeat the US view that the regime must meet democratic opposition groups and “stop the iron crackdown” on peaceful demonstrators, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The talks are being held in Naypyitaw, the regime’s remote capital carved out of the jungle about 240 miles north of Rangoon.
Hoping to deflect outrage over soldiers gunning down protesters, Burma’s junta chief Senior General Than Shwe announced that he was willing to talk to Suu Kyi, the democratic opposition leader – but only if she stopped calling for international sanctions.
Than Shwe also insisted that Suu Kyi stop urging her countrymen to confront the military regime, state television and radio said in reporting on the conditions set by the junta leader during a meeting this week with a special United Nations envoy.
The surprise move appeared to stave off economic sanctions, thereby keeping Burma’s bountiful natural resources on world markets, while also pleasing giant neighbour China, which worries that the unrest could cause problems for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The state media announcement came a few hours before UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari briefed UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in New York on his four-day trip seeking to persuade Burma’s military leaders to end the crackdown on democracy activists.
Many governments have urged stern UN Security Council action against Burma, but members China and Russia have ruled out any council action, saying the crisis did not threaten international peace and security.
State media in Burma gave new figures yesterday for the number of people arrested during last week’s bloody assault by troops. The reports said nearly 2,100 people had been detained, with almost 700 already released.
The government has said 10 people were killed when security forces broke up the mass demonstrations, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of Buddhist monks who were leading the protests.
In reporting on Than Shwe’s meeting with Gambari, state media quoted the general as saying that “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions”.
While Suu Kyi has previously voiced support for economic sanctions against the junta, she has not publicly called for the devastation of her homeland or the government.
“If she abandons these calls, Senior General Than Shwe told Mr Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” the state media report said.
The report’s use of the title “daw” was a conciliatory gesture. “Daw” is a term of respect for older women in Burma and it was an unusually polite reference to Suu Kyi, a far cry from the usual way state media denigrates her as a foreign puppet or worse.
Reaction to the olive branch was mixed.
“I don’t believe there’s one iota of sincerity” in the junta’s offer, Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers professor and Burma expert, said from Princeton, New Jersey.
But, Silverstein added, he thought Suu Kyi would take up the offer, since she has requested such talks over a decade.
Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general’s proposal. “Applying such conditions shows the government is not really sincere about meeting her,” he said.
Oxford-educated Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her democracy campaign. Her party won elections in 1990 but the junta refused to accept the results.
Burma has been ruled by the military since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising in bloodshed that killed at least 3,000 people.
© Thomas Crosbie Media 2007</blockquote
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found at the blog, Sacred Media Cow
Man- hunt @ midnight in Rangoon – Notes from across the border at
Published by Angad October 5th, 2007 in Burma.This is an extract from an update sent by Ben Hur. I have edited certain bits out, for various reasons.
Hi Everyone,
Thank you all for moving so fast. Here I am sending the latest situation in Burma (Up to October 04, 6:00 pm)
The junta has announced curfew since a week ago, the troops has raided many monasteries, they visited house to house around mid-night and picked up whom they suspected as the protest leaders in Rangoon, the former capital city of Burma.
Till today evening (around 3:00 pm Burma time) the Light Infantry Batallion No. 66 has seized two of the biggest monastery in Rangoon.
The ShweMaw monastery which situated in South Okkalapa township was seized around midnight. All 30 monks (Including the senior reverend monk) were arrested. A source, who is staying beside the monastery, said “It seems like the troops raiding a terrorists camp. Thereafter the blood stained monastery was locked and pasted the poster which mentioned it is strickly prohibited to enter”.
Around at 3 pm Burma time, the same thing happened at Maggin monstry in Tingankyin township, where all the monks have been arrested (not confirmed in numbers) but 9 Koyins (junior monks or monks below teenagers) were sent to another monastery.
Though thousands of activist has been arrested, the junta has released less than 50 activists and claimed that they has released them almost all of them. While many of the parents doesn’t know whether their children are dead or alive, or even they doen’t know that whether they were arrested or not. When those who were released today claimed their goods like hand phone, Ipods, golden chain, wallets, camera and other valuable things, they were warned by the concerned authorities that they would be sent to hard labor camp if they try to accuse the authority by making claims. So, most of them doesn’t dare to claim but just keep quiet. (NB: Though cell phones are cheap here, the cost of a single mobile hand phone cost minimum 30 lacs or 3 million Kyats. and to get this handphone activate, they must give atleast the same price to the authority as a bribe)
It is also learnt that though there is no demonstration in Rangoon, more than 190 NLD members were arrested.
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Indian Justice Party activists, Buddhist monks protest against Myanmar crisis
Malaysia Sun
Friday 5th October, 2007
(ANI)New Delhi, Oct 5 : Activists of the Indian Justice Party today joined Buddhist monks to stage protest against Myanmar military junta.
“The Government of India should come forward, and send the necessary army to Myanmar as they had given army to the Pakistani East Bengal previously,” said Damaviyo Mahathero, a Myanmarese protestor.
The protestors also said they did not appreciate the ‘non-interference’ stance of the Indian government.
In Yangon, the pro-democracy movement led by monks is being violently repressed by the military government and at least nine people have died in the crackdown.
Meanwhile, continuing its crackdown following last week’s protests, the military has reportedly arrested scores of Myanmarese.
The international community has expressed concern over the violent crackdown.
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IRIN Asia | Sri Lanka:
Monks show solidarity with Myanmar protesters
humanitarian news and analysis
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
SRI LANKA: Monks show solidarity with Myanmar protesters Photo: Amantha Perera (IRIN)
COLOMBO, 4 October 2007 (IRIN) – A group of monks chanting from sacred Buddhist scripts is not a typical scene near the UN compound in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, but 100 monks from Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand and Bangladesh were there to support the pro-democracy protests in Myanmar.
The demonstration was led by two of Sri Lanka’s most prominent monks, Madoluwave Sobitha Thero and Belanwila Wimalarathne Thero. The group presented a petition to the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Neil Buhne, seeking greater UN intervention in Myanmar and calling for an end to the junta’s assault on the protests.
The demonstrators then moved on to the embassies of the USA, UK, Russia, China, India and France to deliver copies of their petition.
“Myanmar is a Buddhist country, we share the same heritage,” Sobitha Thero said. “What we are asking for is that the Myanmar government stops the harassment of Buddhist monks, who hold a special place in both our societies, and restore the will of the people.”
Buddhists a force within Sri Lanka
Monks play a leading role in Sri Lankan politics. No government can be elected or survive without the support of the Buddhist clergy and politicians have routinely sought the approval of the monks when pressing for new policies and on occasion shelved them when faced with their opposition. Recently their influence has grown. Eight Buddhist monks from the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) political party are members of parliament and a lay member of the JHU is a government minister.
The JHU has not openly come out against the crackdown in Myanmar. However, its parliamentary group leader, Ellawala Medananda Thero, said it also did not condone the brutal assault on monks.
“Monks should not be beaten, assaulted and shot dead on the streets when they are staging peaceful protests,” Medananda Thero told a press conference in Colombo on 2 October.
The Sri Lankan government’s only reaction to the crisis in Myanmar has come from Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama: “Sri Lanka is eager that Myanmar resolves all issues through a peaceful process of national reconciliation and political accommodation,” he told the UN General Assembly in New York.
International protests
Similar Buddhist protests have been held in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan and Israel.
“This sends out a signal to the junta that Buddhists all over the world, especially in countries like Sri Lanka, support us,” Ykk Asma Thero, a Buddhist monk from Myanmar, who was part of the Colombo protests, told IRIN. “We hope and pray that the junta changes, but we will keep up with our campaigns if it does not.”
Sri Lankan monks also say the local protests are a sign that at least part of the clergy is actively engaged in upholding basic rights. “Human rights are universal, it is the same here and in Myanmar,” Badegama Samitha Thero, a Sri Lankan monk who has served as an elected member of parliament, told IRIN. “As monks we carry an extra responsibility when they are challenged.”
ap/bj/mw
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Myanmar restores Internet links, say online users
INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
Agence France-Presse
Last updated 01:19am (Mla time) 10/06/2007
YANGON–Internet connections in Myanmar were restored late Friday, users said, a week after the military regime cut the links to stop the flow of news and images on its bloody crackdown on mass demonstrations.
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Al Jazeera
Myanmar Admits Thousands Arrested
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2007
0:39 MECCA TIME, 21:39 GMT
Myanmar’s military government has admitted arresting more than 2,000 people in its crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.The announcement by state media came as the UN envoy to Myanmar gave the secretary-general a grim report after returning from a four-day mission on Thursday.
Ban Ki-moon said his special envoy Ibrahim Gambari had delivered “the strongest possible message” to Myanmar’s military rulers but the envoy reported that it did not seem to have had much of an effect.
China praised Gambari’s talks with Myanmar’s military rulers but, together with Russia, made clear the crisis was an internal matter and did not threaten international peace.
China said it was opposed to any security council action.
Its ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, said: “There are problems there in Myanmar but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal.
“No international-imposed solution can help the situation.”
Open session
But China and Russia relented on their initial demand that the security council session where Gambari would give his report be held behind closed doors.
They had said Gambari would feel greater freedom to be forthright in a closed session but in the end agreed with the rest of the council to have Gambari brief members on Friday morning at an open meeting.
Myanmar’s representative has been invited to speak as has Singapore’s, the country being the current head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The council will then hold consultations behind closed doors.
Al Jazeera’s UN correspondent, Mark Seddon, said the open session was unprecedented on the issue of Myanmar and indicated the council’s intent to show Myanmar’s rulers that the eyes of the international community were on them.
He added that this could be the beginning of sanctions against Myanmar and there was talk that Gambari would return to the South-East Asian nation in November to see what progress was being made.
Suu Kyi offer
Possibly hoping to head off any sanctions, state media reported on Thursday that Myanmar’s ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, had agreed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained opposition leader.
But she must end her support for sanctions against the government and give up “promoting confrontation and utter devastation”, state media said.
The military also announced that it had arrested more than 2,000 people during the crackdown on the greatest challenge to military rule in 20 years.
Gambari was dispatched to Myanmar after troops opened fire on anti-government protesters last week.
State media said 10 people were killed, but foreign governments and dissident groups put the toll in the hundreds and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of monks.
The government is continuing to round up suspected activists.
Separately, the US state department said the Myanmar government had invited the US envoy in Yangon for talks on Friday and the envoy is likely to reiterate the US view that the military rulers must “stop the iron crackdown” and start a “meaningful” dialogue with all democratic opposition groups.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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Irrawaddy
Overnight Arrests of Monks Continue in Rangoon
by Wai Moe
October 4, 2007
Five monasteries were raided in Rangoon and about 36 monks were arrested overnight on Wednesday, after receiving beatings from soldiers.
“They (soldiers) came and searched for monks on their lists,” a monk told The Irrawaddy. The soldiers had photographs of monks, and if they found a monk who was in a photograph, they arrested all the monks in the monastery, said the monk.
Raided monasteries included Shwetaungpaw, Dhammazaya and Sandilayama monasteries in South Okkalapa Township and Zayawaddy and Pannitayama in North Okkalapa Township. Two mobile telephones that belonged to monks were also seized by troops, said the source.
The raids in the North Okkalapa monasteries started around 10 p.m. and ended in early morning, said Nilar Thein, a leader of the 88 Generation Students group.
“Monks requested soldiers not to use violent acts on them. But soldiers neglected their requests.” she said.
The raids on monasteries in South Okkalapa Township began at midnight and ended at dawn. Everyone in the monasteries, including laymen, women and children, were taken away.
Security forces also entered a monastery at Chauk Htat Gyee Pagoda in Rangoon searching for specific monks.
At Maggin Monastery in Rangoon, authorities took photographs of HIV positive laypeople that are housed at the monastery and questioned them regarding interviews with a foreign radio station.
Sometimes arrests are like “kidnappings,” said one source, because soldiers might ask for up to 200,000 kyat (about US $130) for the release of unimportant detainees.
Overnight raids on monasteries began on September 26, the day the junta started its crackdown on peaceful protesters.
“I also heard some monks under detention at GTI (the Government Technology Institute) died,” said a Rangoon resident.
Soldiers are also looking for people who provided water or food to monks during the mass protests, said one source.
Also on Wednesday night, soldiers, searching for information, entered the home of a prominent former student leader, Min Ko Naing, who is under arrest.
In Taungdwingyi in central Burma, three men, Aung Ko, Kyaw Naing and Bo Ni, were arrested around midnight on Wednesday. All are members of the National League for Democracy.
According to Rangoon residents, security checkpoints are still scattered around the city. Soldiers stop and search civilians, particularly young people who carry bags.
Dissidents in Rangoon estimate there are 1,200 monks detained among an estimated 3,000 people arrested during the mass protests in Burma.
Monks are currently detained in Insein Prison, the Government Technology Institute and Kyaikkasan Stadium in Rangoon. Many monasteries in Rangoon remain locked up, and monks are unable to go out for alms, say Rangoon residents.
Irrawaddy.org
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
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Al Jazeera
Myanmar Officer Flees Crackdown
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2007
12:55 MECCA TIME, 9:55 GMT
A senior officer from Myanmar’s ruling military is in hiding after defecting from the country saying he could not bear the responsibility of opening fire on anti-government protesters.
‘Nay Lin Tun’ – not his real name – escaped last Thursday, shortly before the army launched its violent crackdown on protesters and Buddhist monks.
He is the most senior military man to have deserted so far, and says he was forced to flee after being ordered to fire on monks, or face execution.
He is currently in hiding with his son, but the rest of his family remains in Myanmar and for their safety his identity is being kept a secret.
As a devout Buddhist, Nay Lin Tun says he could not bring himself to fire upon the protesters, particularly the monks.
But he knew that if he refused to follow orders, he would almost certainly be arrested and perhaps face a firing squad.
In the end, Nay Lin Tun’s Buddhist beliefs overruled his military discipline and he deserted.
Myanmar’s military
Army has had prominent role in Myanmar’s history, having led the push for independence from Britain
Senior General Than Shwe retains an iron grip on the country through two key posts – as head of state and head of the military
Below him are generals who are regularly reshuffled to stop them gaining too much power
Next come the officers who are graduates of the elite Maymyo military school
Officially there is no conscription, but human rights groups say Myanmar is the world’s biggest recruiter of child soldiers
Petty criminals, orphans and the poor are also forced to join the army’s lower ranks
But observers say there are growing tensions in the army, with factional rivalries and uncertainty over a successor to Than Shwe
‘Sons of Buddha’”I am a Buddhist. I don’t want to kill monks,” he told TV2 Norway after his escape.
“Monks are the sons of Buddha. So I left my position and fled the country.”
Before the recent protests Nay Lin Tun had previously been an officer fighting Karen rebels east of Yangon.
When he decided to escape last week he contacted those former enemies who smuggled him and his son across the border into Thailand, where they are now in hiding.
Speaking to TV2 he said that even though he and his son had escaped Myanmar they were still not safe.
Myanmar has demanded he be returned to the country and he said he fears assassination or that the Thai authorities might send him back.
“If I go back, I will surely be killed,” he said.
He says he wants to apply for asylum in Norway, where he has friends and which is a base to a large number of Myanmar exiles.
Nay Lin Tun’s actions give a rare insight into Myanmar’s secretive army of which only a little is known.
Desertions
Myanmar’s army has a force of more than 400,000 soldiers.
Treatment and training is harsh and insiders say there is a great deal of discontent within the ranks and an increasing number of desertions.
Zaw Oo, a lecturer at Chiang Mai University and head of the Vahu Institute, an independent think tank specialising in Myanmar, told Al Jazeera that Myanmar’s army is not a monolithic force and is facing critical challenges.
In particular he said mid-level officers – those in charge of managing the foot soldiers – face huge frustrations.
“Burma is now facing a very tough economic crisis and this is also affecting the rank and file of the army,” he said, using the country’s former name.
“Last year the army lost at least 10,000 troops who deserted because they can no longer live under the very harsh conditions.”
But despite this, fear remains the glue holding Myanmar’s army together, with strict punishments for soldiers who do not toe the line.
Speaking to TV 2 Nay Lin Tun said most officers in the army are “like robots”, afraid of the consequences of refusing to follow orders.
He said that while there are other officers like him who are sympathetic to the protesters, it is very unlikely there will be any kind of mutiny against the country’s military rulers.
Source: Al Jazeera
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Arrests made by truckoads in Myanmar
The Times of India
4 Oct 2007
YANGON: Myanmar’s junta arrested more people on Wednesday hours after the departure of a UN envoy who came to the country to try to end a ruthless crackdown on protests which sparked international outrage.
At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Yangon, the former Burma’s biggest city and centre of last week’s monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.
In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in the devoutly Buddhist country and starting point for the rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken, she said. “They warned us not to run away as they might be back,” she said after people from rows of shop houses were ordered onto the street in the middle of the night and many taken away.
The crackdown continued despite some hopes of progress by UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari on his mission to persuade junta chief Than Shwe to relax his iron grip and open talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he met twice.
Singapore, chair of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which Myanmar is a member, said it “was encouraged by the access and cooperation given by the Myanmar government to Mr Gambari”.
Gambari, in Singapore on his way back to New York but unlikely to say anything publicly before speaking to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, was expected to return to Myanmar in early November, sources said.
But there were no indications of how his mission and international pressure might change the policies of a junta which seldom heeds outside pressure and rarely admits UN officials. “I don’t expect much to come of this. I think the top leadership is so entrenched in their views that it’s not going to help,” said David Steinberg, a Georgetown University expert on Myanmar. “They will say they are on the road to democracy and so what do you want anyway?”, he added, referring to the junta’s “seven-step road to democracy”.
The first of the seven steps was completed in September with the end of an on-off, 14-year national convention which produced guidelines for a constitution that critics say will entrench military rule and exclude Suu Kyi from office. The protests, the biggest challenge to the junta’s power in nearly 20 years, began with small marches against shock fuel price rises in August and swelled after troops fired over the heads of a group of monks.
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UN envoy ends Myanmar trip
International Herald Tribune
UN envoy ends Myanmar trip
By Seth Mydans
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
BANGKOK: A United Nations envoy to Myanmar met Tuesday with both the leader of the military junta and the leader of the democratic opposition, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, completing a four-day trip that followed the brutal suppression of mass popular demonstrations.
The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, met first with the country’s military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, bringing a message of outrage from the outside world at the crackdown that began last week, with soldiers firing into crowds and arresting hundreds of the Buddhist monks who had led the demonstrations.
Gambari then flew from the country’s remote, militarized capital, Naypyidaw, to the nation’s main city, Yangon, where he met for a second time with Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he had also visited on Sunday.
These alternating visits raised hopes that he might be fostering some kind of rudimentary dialogue.
But one Western ambassador cautioned against expecting immediate results in a standoff that has continued since the junta took power after a bloody crackdown in 1988. Than Shwe and his fellow generals have confined Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.
“I don’t expect great changes to come from Gambari’s visit,” said the diplomat, who spoke anonymously according to his embassy’s policy. “I expect the opening gambit of the generals to be a very tough one. But in the longer term, I think this is not going to go away. It is important to keep the pressure on them.”
Yangon was grimly quiet during Gambari’s visit, with armed soldiers guarding streets that had been filled last week with up to 100,000 protesters led by columns of Buddhist monks, the largest protests since this junta took power.
But the junta’s crackdown on its people continued with reports of house-to-house searches and the continuing detention in harsh conditions of thousands of monks and their supporters.
There was no immediate word on the content of Gambari’s visits. He is to report back to the Security Council on his return.
The Western diplomat said four detention centers were being built around Yangon, including one at an institute of technology and one at a race course, indicating that the military planned to hold the monks and others for long periods.
“You wonder what’s going to happen to all these monks,” said the diplomat. “Surely they aren’t going to let them back into the community. There are a lot of these poor guys detained and presumably a lot of them murdered.”
It was impossible to verify the number of arrests, injuries and deaths since the military began its crackdown before dawn last Wednesday. Human rights groups and diplomats agree that the number of dead is far higher than the 10 acknowledged by the junta. But beyond that, any number is speculation, they said.
Human rights groups said many people were in hiding or on the run, fearing arrest after taking part in the protests or in smuggling out the photographs and videotapes that have caught the world’s attention.
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Myanmar comes face to face with a technology revolution
International Herald Tribune
By Seth Mydans
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
BANGKOK: It used to be easier: Close the borders, set up roadblocks, stop the trains, cut telephone lines, and then crack down on your people with impunity. This is what the military in the former Burma did when it crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.
Last week, when the generals began attacking Buddhist monks and their supporters in the streets of Myanmar, they discovered that the world had changed. People were watching.
The junta had come face to face with a revolution in the technology of resistance in which a guerrilla army of citizen reporters was transmitting videos, photographs and news reports over the Internet even as events were unfolding.
The images made their way on to television screens and into newspapers and the world was flooded with scenes of tens of thousands of red-robed monks in the streets and of chaos and violence as the junta stamped out the biggest popular uprising in two decades.
The old technology of guns and clubs had been ensnared by the immediacy of electronic communication in a way the world had never seen.
“For those of us who study the history of communication technology, this is of equal importance to the telegraph, which was the first medium that separated communications and transportation,” said Frank Moretti, executive director of the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning in New York.
And this is only the beginning of the revolution, said Mitchell Stephens, a journalism professor at New York University and the author of “A History of News.”
“There are fewer and fewer events that we don’t have film images of. The world is filled with Zapruders,” he said, referring to Abraham Zapruder, an onlooker who was the one person who filmed the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963.
On Sept. 22, when monks gathered at the gate of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had not been seen in public for four years, one of them held up a mobile telephone camera and captured her image behind the shaved heads of the men in front of him. Last week, when a soldier shot and killed a Japanese video journalist, Kenji Nagai, someone high in a building filmed the scene.
And then, in one of the most heavily censored countries in the world, people found ways to get these words and pictures out.
They sent SMS text messages and e-mails and posted daily blogs, according to some of the exile groups that received their messages. They posted notices on Facebook, the online social networking Web site. They sent tiny messages on e-cards. They updated the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
They also used Internet versions of “pigeons” – the couriers reporters used in the past to carry out film and news – handing their material to embassies or nongovernmental organizations that had access to satellite connections.
Just as important, these images and reports were broadcast back into Myanmar by foreign radio and television stations, informing and connecting a public that receives only propaganda reports from its government.
And then, on Friday, the flow of images stopped.
“Burma is blacked out!” wrote a blogger called Dathana, who had been one source of information for the outside world. It was the last message he sent.
Using technology in as heavy-handed a way as it had used truncheons, the junta simply closed down the nation’s two Internet providers. In keeping with the country’s self-imposed isolation over the past half-century, it cut itself off from the virtual world just as it had from the world at large.
Most overseas cellphone communications and land lines were severed or hampered as well, and soldiers on the streets confiscated cameras and video-telephones.
“Finally they realized that this was their biggest enemy, and they took it down,” said Aung Zaw, editor of an exile magazine called Irrawaddy whose Web site has been a leading source of news over the past weeks.
His Web site has been attacked by a virus whose timing raises the possibility that the military government has a few skilled hackers in its ranks.
At the same time, the junta turned to the oldest tactic of all to shut off information – fear. Local journalists and people caught transmitting information or using cameras are being threatened and arrested, exile organizations said.
In one final, hurried telephone call, Aung Zaw said, one of his longtime sources said goodbye.
“We have done enough,” he said the source told him. “We can no longer move around, it is over to you, we cannot do anything anymore. We are down. We are hunted by soldiers, we are down.”
And yet in the battle for the soul of their country and for the support of the world, the junta is losing even as it wins, said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
“By shutting down the Internet they show themselves to be in the wrong, that they have something to hide,” he said. “On this front, even a closed-down blog is a powerful blog. Even silence on the Internet is a powerful message.”
China’s problems are of a different order of magnitude, he said, as a huge, sophisticated nation seeks to balance the openness its economy needs with the control its government demands. It could not consider cutting itself off as Myanmar has done, and so control of the Internet is an industry in itself.
“In China it’s massive,” he said. “There’s surveillance and intimidation, there’s legal regulation and there is commercial leverage to force private Internet companies to self-censor themselves. And there is what we call the Great Firewall, which blocks hundreds of thousands of Web sites outside of China.”
But even a country as isolated as Myanmar, he said, cannot live in the modern world without the Internet. The tourism industry, foreign investors, businesses of all kinds depend on it. And when, inevitably, connections are restored, the junta’s opponents will be connected to the world again.
The challenge of amateur reporting is quality as well as technology, said Vincent Brossel, head of the Asian section of the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders.
“Rumors are the worst enemy of independent journalism,” he said. “Already we are hearing so many strange things. So if you have no flow of information and the spread of rumors in a country that is using propaganda – that’s it. You are destroying the story, and day by day it goes down.”
The technological advance on the streets of Myanmar is the latest in a long history of revolutions in the transmission of news, from the sailing ship to the telegraph to international telephone lines and the telex machine to computers and satellite telephones.
“Today every citizen is a war correspondent,” said Phillip Knightley, the author of “The First Casualty,” a classic history of war reporting that begins with letters from soldiers in Crimea in the 1850s and ends with the “living room war” in Vietnam in the 1970s, when people could watch a war on television for the first time.
“Mobile phones with video of broadcast quality have made it possible for anyone to report a war,” he wrote in an e-mail. “You just have to be there.”
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Myanmar junta unplugs Internet
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/04/asia/04info.php
By Seth Mydans
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
BANGKOK
It was about as simple and uncomplicated as shooting demonstrators in the streets. Embarrassed by smuggled video and photographs that showed their people rising up against them, the generals who run Myanmar simply switched off the Internet.
Until last Friday television screens and newspapers abroad were flooded with scenes of tens of thousands of red-robed monks in the streets and of chaos and violence as the junta stamped out the biggest popular uprising there in two decades.
But then the images, text messages and posts stopped, shut down by generals who belatedly grasped the power of the Internet to jeopardize their crackdown.
“Finally they realized that this was their biggest enemy, and they took it down,” said Aung Zaw, editor of an exile magazine called Irrawaddy, whose Web site has been a leading source of news over the past weeks.
His Web site has been attacked by a virus whose timing raises the possibility that the military government has a few skilled hackers in its ranks.
The efficiency of this latest, technological crackdown raises the question of whether the much-vaunted role of the Internet in undermining repression can stand up to a determined and ruthless government — or whether a tiny, economically isolated country like Myanmar is an exception.
“The crackdown on the media and on information flow is parallel to the physical crackdown,” said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with Human Rights Watch, “and it seems they’ve done it quite effectively. Since Friday we’ve seen no new images come out.”
There are just two Internet service providers in Myanmar, and it was not complicated to shut them down, he said. Along with the Internet, the junta cut off most telephone access to the outside world. Soldiers on the streets confiscated cameras and video-recording cellphones.
In keeping with the country’s self-imposed isolation over the past half-century, Myanmar’s junta seemed prepared to cut itself off from the virtual world just as it had from the world at large.
At the same time, the junta turned to the oldest tactic of all to silence an opposition — fear. Local journalists and people caught transmitting information or using cameras are being threatened and arrested, according to Burmese exile groups.
In one final, hurried telephone call, Aung Zaw said, one of his long-time sources said goodbye.
“We have done enough,” he said the source told him. “We can no longer move around. It is over to you, we cannot do anything any more. We are down. We are hunted by soldiers, we are down.”
There are still images in the pipeline, Aung Zaw said, and as soon as he receives them and his Web site is back up again, the world will see them.
But Mathieson said the country’s dissidents were reverting to tactics of the past, smuggling images out through cellphones by breaking the files down and reassembling them.
It is not clear, though, how much longer the generals can hold back the future. Technology is making it harder for dictators and juntas to draw a curtain of secrecy around themselves.
“There are always ways people find of getting information out, and authorities always have to struggle with them,” said Mitchell Stephens, a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of “A History of News.”
“There are fewer and fewer events that we don’t have film images of: the world is filled with Zapruders,” he said, referring to Abraham Zapruder, an onlooker who was the only person who recorded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Before last Friday’s blackout, Myanmar’s hit-and-run journalists were staging a virtuoso demonstration of the power of the Internet to outmaneuver a repressive government. A guerrilla army of citizen reporters was smuggling out pictures even as events were unfolding, and the world was watching.
“For those of us who study the history of communication technology, this is of equal importance to the telegraph, which was the first medium that separated communications and transportation,” said Frank Moretti, executive director of the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University.
Since the protests began in mid-August, people have sent images and words through SMS text messages and e-mails and on daily blogs, according to some of the exile groups that received their messages. They have posted notices on Facebook, the social networking Web site. They have sent tiny messages on e-cards. They have updated the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
They also used Internet versions of “pigeons” — the couriers reporters used in the past to carry out film and news — handing their material to embassies or nongovernment organizations that had access to satellite connections.
Within hours, the images and reports were broadcast back into Myanmar by foreign radio and television stations, informing and connecting a public that hears only propaganda from its government.
These technological tricks may offer a model to people elsewhere who are trying to outwit repressive governments. But the generals’ heavy-handed response is probably a less useful model.
Other nations, with larger economies and more ties to the outside world, have more at stake. China, for one, could not consider cutting itself off as Myanmar has done, and so control of the Internet is an industry in itself.
“In China it’s massive,” said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
“There’s surveillance and intimidation, there’s legal regulation and there is commercial leverage to force private Internet companies to self-censor,” he said. “And there is what we call the Great Firewall, which blocks hundreds of thousands of Web sites outside of China.”
Yet for all its efforts, even China cannot entirely control the Internet, an easier task in a smaller country like Myanmar.
As technology makes everyone a potential reporter, the challenge in risky places like Myanmar will be accuracy, said Vincent Brossel, head of the Asian section of the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders.
“Rumors are the worst enemy of independent journalism,” he said. “Already we are hearing so many strange things. So if you have no flow of information and the spread of rumors in a country that is using propaganda — that’s it. You are destroying the story, and day by day it goes down.”
The technological advances on the streets of Myanmar are the latest in a long history of revolutions in the transmission of news — from the sailing ship to the telegraph to international telephone lines and the telex machine to computers and satellite telephones.
“Today every citizen is a war correspondent,” said Phillip Knightley, author of “The First Casualty,” a classic history of war reporting that starts with letters home from soldiers in Crimea in the 1850s and ends with the “living room war” in Vietnam in the 1970s when people could watch a war for the first time on television.
“Mobile phones with video of broadcast quality have made it possible for anyone to report a war,” he said in an e-mail interview. “You just have to be there. No trouble getting a start, the broadcasters have been begging viewers to send their stuff.”
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UN reports detentions in Myanmar
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/04/asia/04myanmar.php
By Thomas Fuller
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
BANGKOK: A local staff member of the United Nations in Myanmar and three of her family members were taken from their home in Yangon before dawn Wednesday as part of a continuing crackdown on demonstrators, a United Nations official said.Charles Petrie, the most senior official for the United Nations in Myanmar, said the 38-year-old woman, her husband and two relatives were detained by security forces at 4 a.m.
The worker’s arrest is one of an unknown number of nighttime abductions as part of a crackdown by the junta after demonstrations over the past month, the largest protests against the junta in nearly two decades. The number of people killed or detained is unknown.
Yangon residents say helicopters fly over the city throughout the night as military trucks patrol the streets with loudspeakers blaring intimidating messages.
Shari Villarosa, the highest ranking United States diplomat in Myanmar, said the message, broadcast in Burmese, was roughly this: “We have your pictures. We’re going to come and get you.”
“I think they just are arresting anybody that they have the least bit of suspicion about,” Villarosa said. “This is a military that rules by fear and intimidation. Wouldn’t you be terrified if you were subject to being rousted out of bed at 2 o’clock in the morning, taken away and never knew why?”
The issue of nighttime raids was raised by Ibrahim Gambari, the special envoy of the United Nations, during a meeting Tuesday with Myanmar’s top general, Than Shwe. Three United Nations workers detained last week have been released. One said he had been taken to a university in Yangon where about 800 people were held in squalid conditions.
Gambari, who was scheduled to fly to New York late Wednesday to report on his trip to the United Nations secretary general, declined to speak with reporters during a stopover in Singapore.
There are 3,000 United Nations staff members in Myanmar, mainly working on alleviating poverty.
Petrie said, “We’re concerned with what seems to be happening at night — there are arrests and people being detained.” But he added, “Our sense is that the UN is not being targeted,” but rather was “being caught up in broader events.” Some 80 monks and 149 women, possibly nuns, who had been rounded up last week were freed Wednesday, according to Reuters. The news agency quoted one of the monks saying he had been interrogated but not physically abused.
A relative of three of the released women was also quoted saying those being interrogated were divided into four categories of connection to the demonstrations: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.
The government says 10 people were killed in the crackdown, including Kenji Nagai, a Japanese journalist, whose body was scheduled to be flown back to Japan on Thursday. Diplomats and Burmese dissident groups say they believe the death toll was higher.
Japan’s foreign minister, Masahiko Komura, said Wednesday that Tokyo was considering cutting back its aid to Myanmar to protest Nagai’s death and the crackdown, according to Kyodo news agency. Annual aid to Myanmar from Japan is about $25 million.
The European Union agreed Wednesday to toughen sanctions against Myanmar but did not announce specifics — final details will be decided at a meeting for foreign ministers on Oct. 15, an official said.
“The principle of strengthening sanctions was agreed,” said Manuel Carvalho, a spokesman for the Portuguese government which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
The European Union suspended trade privileges and defense cooperation with Myanmar in the 1990s and restricts its aid to humanitarian assistance.
Diplomats say new sanctions are unlikely to include the oil and gas sector, the main source of foreign exchange for Myanmar’s military government. Thailand pays more than $2 billion a year for Burmese natural gas that travels through a pipeline built and operated by a consortium led by Total, the French oil company. Carvalho refused to give details of the new sanctions, saying only that the point is to differentiate between the authorities and the population. European Union ambassadors also agreed Wednesday to examine an increase in humanitarian aid for Myanmar.
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Technorati Tags: Burma
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Irrawaddy
Security Forces Raid Homes Under Cover of Darkness
by Yeni
October 3, 2007 – In the dead of night, Burma’s security forces are hunting down pro-democracy protesters in Rangoon, checking on residents and pulling people out of their homes.
Residents say military trucks patrol neighborhood streets during the night with loudspeakers broadcasting warnings: “We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!”
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva condemned “violent repression” in Burma and called on the junta to allow its investigator to visit for the first time in four years.
“Light must absolutely be shed on what happened,” Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Burma, told the council, which adopted a resolution by the EU deploring the killings, beatings and detentions.
“We are deeply concerned by the fate of thousands of peaceful demonstrators who have been arrested,” Pinheiro said.
In Burma, figures on the number of dead, injured, disappeared or arrested varying widely depending on who is reporting the numbers.
While the official government figure for dead and injured demonstrators in Rangoon is 10 dead and 11 injured, two leading advocacy groups say the number of dead nationwide is probably at least 130 and people imprisoned during the course of the protests could exceed 3,000.
“According to hospital sources, witnesses and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, we concluded that the death toll reached 130 on September 30,” Nilar Thein, a leading activist of the 88 Generation Students who is in hiding, told The Irrawaddy by phone on Wednesday.
The opposition group said at least 2,000 people—including 135 women and nuns; 80 elderly monks and 50 novice monks believed to be age 5 to10—are detained in a windowless building on the campus of the Government Technical Institute in Insein Township in Rangoon alone.
Tate Naing, the secretary of Thai-Burmese border-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said the group is concerned by reports that detainees were being moved to a new location—two police battalions based in Hmawbi Township on the outskirts of Rangoon.
“We are very concerned about the reports we received now,” Tate Naing said. “Unconfirmed reports are saying that some detainees have even been moved to the hard labor camps outside of Rangoon.”
“We also are gravely concerned about the conditions of detention. We believe that many of the detainees sustained injuries during the demonstrations, but they are not being provided proper medical attention,” the AAPP said. “All those being held are not given enough food or water, and many are kept in crowded facilities where the spread of disease is likely.”
The main detention locations are believed to Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison; the Government Technical Institute in Insein Township, near Insein Prison; Kyaikkasan Stadium in eastern Rangoon; and two police battalions based in Hmawbi Township, located on the outskirts of Rangoon.
On Wednesday, the junta released 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns who were rounded up last week in a crackdown.
In one of the first sinister descriptions of the detention process, a relative of three released women told Reuters that people being interrogated were divided into four categories: passers-by; those who watched; those who applauded and those who joined in demonstrations.
One of the freed monks told the news agency that the monks were held at a government technical institute in northern Rangoon’s Insein Township and subjected to verbal—but not physical—abuse during interrogations.
Meanwhile, residents living near monasteries in Rangoon are on alert in an effort to counter the roundup raids by soldiers.
“We have asked the monks to make noise if the security forces surround the monastery,” a Rangoon resident said. “Then we can gather to confront the soldiers.”
On Tuesday, Buddhist faithful prayed and touched their foreheads on the ground at one shrine in downtown Rangoon while two dozen soldiers patrolled outside. But there were no barricades along the street and stores were open even in the late afternoon. Rangoon and Mandalay are under a dusk to dawn curfew.
Irrawaddy.org
http://www.irrawaddy.org/<
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Irrawaddy
Junta Leader’s Family Still Out of Burma—Says Diplomat
by Violet Cho
October 3, 2007The family of Burma’s junta chief, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, is still out of the country following the bloody crackdown on monks and pro-democracy demonstrators, according to a Western diplomat in Rangoon.
Than Shwe’s family, including his wife Kyaing Kyaing, appears not to be in the country, said a diplomat who asked to be anonymous. He said he had no idea of the family’s whereabouts.
So far, the rumor mill has covered a wide base: Than Shwe’s family is said to be in Vientiane, Laos; Macau, China; or Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The family is believed to have left Rangoon on the day security forces opened fire on protesting monks and demonstrators.
The Bangkok-based newspaper The Nation earlier reported that Than Shwe’s wife had fled to Thailand. Then, she was reported to be in Dubai, where she was allegedly spotted by some Burmese who live there. That report said Burmese tycoon Tay Za was accompanying the family.
Tay Za is a close business associate of Than Shwe’s family and is the CEO of the Htoo Trading Company and the owner of Air Bagan.
Irrawaddy.org
http://www.irrawaddy.org/<
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The protests have been suppressed so the nightly news shows have dropped the story.
But before you get comfortable and turn to the networks’ new season TV shows, take one more look at what’s still happening in Burma. The following video is from an AlJazeera report:
Region’s energy needs enable Myanmar junta
International Herald Tribune
By Thomas Fuller
Monday, October 1, 2007
BANGKOK: For two decades, Asia’s biggest powers have grappled with the question of how to respond to the unrelenting repression of Myanmar’s junta. In neighboring Thailand, the answer comes each time Thais pay their electricity bill.
Natural gas from Myanmar, which generates 20 percent of all electricity in Thailand, keeps the lights on in Bangkok. The gas, which this year will cost about $2.8 billion, is the largest single contribution to Myanmar’s otherwise impoverished and cash-strapped economy.
Thailand’s gas deal highlights the dilemma facing China, India, Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries, as they vie for Myanmar’s hardwoods, minerals, gems – and access to its market of 47 million people.
At a time of spiraling energy prices, the prospect of extracting resources appears to override the embarrassment and shame of dealing with a junta that has attracted world notoriety. The countries that have the most leverage over Myanmar seem the most reluctant to use it, analysts say.
From the perspective of Myanmar’s generals, the gas purchases by Thailand are only the beginning of what promises to be a significant infusion of cash. Myanmar will soon announce the winner of a concession in the even larger Shwe gas fields off the coast of western Myanmar. Companies from India, China and South Korea have put in bids for those contracts.
In eastern Myanmar, Thai companies are building hydropower plants and have contracts to pay the government billions of dollars for the electricity generated there.
“For a country that’s used to a hand-to-mouth existence there is suddenly a bonanza of foreign exchange,” said Sean Turnell, a specialist on the Myanmar economy at Macquarie University in Australia. “Burma is now getting the wherewithal to tell the world to bug off. It strengthens their position immeasurably.”
The cash has allowed the generals who run Myanmar to buy weapons from China and helicopters from India, order a nuclear test reactor from Russia and construct their new capital at Naypyidaw, north of Myanmar’s main city, Yangon.
“The natural gas drastically changed the military government’s fiscal position,” said Toshihiro Kudo, director of the Southeast Asian Studies Group at the Institute of Developing Economies, a research organization run by the Japanese government.
Myanmar’s gas reserves are small by global standards. BP, the oil company, estimates that Myanmar’s total reserves are 538 billion cubic meters, or 19 trillion cubic feet, far less than the reserves of nearby Malaysia or Indonesia. But the billions of dollars these gas fields will produce is very valuable to the ruling generals, whose sources of financing are extremely limited due to U.S. sanctions.
Last year Myanmar sold $2 billion worth of gas to Thailand, which amounted to more than 40 percent of the country’s total exports for that year. Largely because of the gas deal, Thailand is Myanmar’s biggest trade partner, not China, as is widely reported.
“Thailand and Myanmar are increasingly integrated, increasingly dependent on each other,” Kudo said. As a result, he said, “I don’t think that Thailand is applying any very serious pressure on the military government.”
There is a stark contrast in Thailand between public anger over the beatings and the business-as-usual attitude that underlies Thai policy toward Myanmar. At the United Nations last week, the Thai prime minister, Surayud Chulanont called the Myanmar crackdown “unacceptable.” Newspapers have run scathing editorials about Myanmar’s generals. And Thailand remains a refuge for Burmese dissidents.
But the bottom line, Thai officials say, is that Thailand is competing for the world’s energy resources, and if it doesn’t buy the gas, someone else will.
“We need power,” said Suthep Chimklai, director of the system planning division at the electricity authority. “We need to balance our sources by importing more power from our neighboring countries.” Thailand also buys small amounts of electricity from Laos and Malaysia.
To keep up with its demand for electricity, Thailand is building four power plants, all of which are designed to run on natural gas. If the supply of gas from Myanmar were disrupted, Suthep said, “it would be a serious problem.”
The natural gas reaches two power stations on the outskirts of Bangkok by way of a pipeline laid a decade ago by Total, the French oil company; Unocal, the American oil company which has since been absorbed by Chevron; and PTT Exploration and Production, Thailand’s leading company in the field.
According to Thailand’s Power Development Plan, the government plans to ramp up energy imports from Myanmar, thus further bolstering the financial position of the junta.
Thailand’s policy calls for buying an additional 8,200 megawatts from Myanmar over the next 14 years. Most of this is likely to come from hydroelectric power plants on the Salween River. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand has completed feasibility studies on a dam at Hat Gyi in Myanmar’s Karen state. A private Thai company, MDX, has been given a contract to complete a larger dam at Tasang in the Shan state.
Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production has won the rights to explore three potential off-shore sites in the Gulf of Martaban, south of Yangon.
Sondhi Boonyaratglin, the army chief who led Thailand’s military coup last year, said last week that Thailand should stay engaged with Myanmar. “There are many friendly nations who help Myanmar like China and Korea because Myanmar is a country with plenty of natural resources that the powerful nations want to obtain,” Sondhi said.
For China, the attraction of Myanmar is both economic – China is Myanmar’s biggest importer – and geostrategic. As part of its bid for the gas fields in western Myanmar, China has proposed building a pipeline running from the Indian Ocean to Yunnan Province. An additional pipeline could carry crude oil, allowing ships coming from the Middle East to pump oil directly into China without making the long journey through the Straits of Malacca.
For Myanmar, the gas fields would mean more cash. Turnell estimates that gas pumped from Shwe platforms would have a value of $2 billion a year.</
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