BurmaNet News: October 22, 2003

[editor at burmanet.org]

October 22, 2003 Issue #2352

INSIDE BURMA
JEN: Myanmar rally resolves to support junta 'road map' to democracy
DVB: 11 dead, 14 injured in religious riots in Kyaukse
SCMP: Setback fails to deter Karen guerillas
Xinhua: Myanmar reforms national convention committee
Irrawaddy: Ceasefire Groups Prepare for National Convention

DRUGS
DVB: Ethnic groups reject government claim of drop in poppy cultivation

REGIONAL
Nation: China will attempt to break Burma deadlock
Bernama: Mahatir comments on Burma
BP: Province of Yunnan Promotes Gateway Status to Asean Region

INTERNATIONAL
Boston Globe: Katie Redford’s Pipe Dream


----INSIDE BURMA----

Japan Economic Newswire   October 22, 2003
Myanmar rally resolves to support junta 'road map' to democracy

YANGON: A mass rally Tuesday in Myanmar's ancient city Bagan, attended by
nearly 25,000 delegates from across the country, passed a 'Bagan
Declaration' supporting Myanmar's ruling generals' seven-step 'road map to
democracy,' newspapers in Yangon said Wednesday.

The delegates came from nongovernmental organizations, ethnic minorities
and the members of the 'Union Solidarity and Development Association
(USDA),' which organized the rally.

The USDA is a junta-sponsored 'social organization.'

Bagan was seat of the 11th century Myanmar kingdom, culture and civilization.

According to the 'declaration,' the Bagan rally 'unanimously supported' a
resolution for public participation for the successful implementation of
the 'road map for democracy.'

The junta's so-called road map was put together in the face of
international criticism of the generals' detention of democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this year.

The road map has received little support from the outside, although
neighboring Thailand has been pressing at international meetings for some
recognition of the plan to eventually make Myanmar democratic.

The generals called a general election more than a decade ago, but then
refused to vacate office when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won
in a landslide over junta-supported candidates.

Suu Kyi has been in detention since May 30, following a 'clash' in
northern Myanmar between her supporters and pro-junta demonstrators.


Democratic Voice of Burma   October 22, 2003
11 dead, 14 injured in religious riots in Kyaukse

Religious riots erupted between Buddhists and Muslims in Kyaukse, Mandalay
Division, 19 October evening killing 11 people and seriously injuring 14
others. A one-year old child was among the dead and the injured were taken
to Kyaukse Hospital for treated.

The riots, which broke out on 19 October evening at 1800 [local time],
subsequently came under control at about 2300 when Mandalay-based four
army companies including No 14 Police Lone Htein [Riot] Battalion,
arrived.

Two Muslim mosques, two big stores, 26 houses, and some cars and bicycles
were torched and destroyed. Kyaukse Township police personnel and Pyithu
Swan Arr Shin [people's voluntary forces] members who tried to control the
riots were struck by catapults and rocks. One deputy superintendent of
police and one Swan Arr Shin member were wounded in the attack.

Although no one knows how the religious riots started, it has been learned
that authorities have cut off telephone links and have issued a temporary
state of emergency in Kyaukse. Furthermore, a Mandalay resident told DVB
buses plying between Mandalay and Kyaukse have been stopped.

The Mandalay resident also said that local authorities have issued
warnings to people residing near a Muslim Mosque in Mandalay since last
night. When similar religious riots broke out in Kyaukse District on 10
October authorities had to issue a temporary curfew.


South China Morning Post   October 22, 2003
Setback fails to deter Karen guerillas:  Using prisoners as human
minesweepers may have helped the Myanmar Army seize a strategic position
in its long-running battle with the rebel forces, but the war is far from
over
By Nelson Rand

Earth-shattering thunder over the jungle canopy made it difficult to
distinguish the storm from incoming mortar rounds as 80 ethnic Karen
rebels were trying to fend off about 400 attacking Myanmese soldiers last
Tuesday. Pounding the Karen lines with artillery, machine-guns,
rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, junta soldiers aimed to
take the high ground on the mountain where the rebels were dug in with
fewer men and less powerful weapons - but with the distinct advantage of
firing down on the Myanmese ascending the heavily mined mountainside.

After a fierce battle that lasted about 30 minutes and brought the closest
attackers within 100 metres of rebel positions, the junta soldiers ceased
fire and retreated - leaving four of their soldiers dead according to
radio transmissions intercepted by rebels later that day.

The defenders of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) held off the
initial assault without taking casualties, though they were wet, cold and
tired - and without eliminating the threat of the 400 Myanmese soldiers
still within striking distance of their jungle trenches. Two days later,
the Karen guerillas tactically retreated into the surrounding jungle and
the soldiers took over their 7th brigade headquarters at Ta Kaw Bee Tah in
Myanmar's Myawaddy township.

Last week's fighting was the latest in a decades-long war between Yangon
and the Karen, who are fighting for an independent homeland in eastern
Myanmar - one of the longest unresolved conflicts in the world waged by
one of the largest ethnic groups in Southeast Asia without an independent
state.

Numbering about seven million, the Karen inhabit the mountainous jungles
that straddle the border of eastern Myanmar and western Thailand. When
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, received independence from Britain in
1948, the Karen demanded an independent state of their own - as promised
to them by the British during the second world war, when Karen fighters
sided with them during the campaign for Burma.

In 1949, the Karen took up arms for their independence drive and have been
fighting ever since.

The capture of the KNLA's 7th brigade headquarters was the main objective
of a junta offensive that began on August 5, according to KNLA Colonel Saw
Ner Dah Mya. But he says the capture was not a setback as his men had just
tactically retreated and will "continue to harass the Burmese with
guerilla fighting".

"Our objective is to hurt them as much as possible," the colonel says. The
KNLA has seven brigades, totalling about 5,000 fighters.

Two days before Tuesday's battle, 11 Myanmar army porters reached KNLA
positions after escaping and walking through the mine-infested jungle for
four days. They were all taken from jails in Myanmar and forced to carry
ammunition and supplies for the army.

One of the escapees, 46-year-old Zaw Win, says he was forced to carry
2,000 rounds of ammunition weighing about 25kg for more than one month. He
was taken from a prison in Pegu Division where he was jailed for
involvement in an underground lottery. He says about 1,000 forced porters
- mainly prisoners - are being used for this offensive, which includes 10
battalions of government troops, according to Colonel Ner Dah.

"All the porters are afraid," Win says. "They want to run away but they
are afraid of landmines and they don't know the way."

The 11 escaped porters add that at times they were used as "human
minesweepers" - walking in front of the soldiers in places suspected of
being mined - a practice that has been reported in the past by various
human-rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Win says when the porters were walking with Myanmese soldiers they had to
keep pace or they were punished. "You cannot rest. If you do they will
kick you or hit you with a stick," he says.

The escapees are all underweight and say they were only fed once a day for
more than a month and then nothing during their four-day ordeal to rebel
lines - where they said they were being treated well. Many of them, such
as 26-year-old Thang Saw, have badly cut shoulders from rope burn caused
by carrying supplies on their backs in bamboo baskets. Saw was also taken
from a prison in Pegu Division where he was jailed for knife-fighting.
Asked what he thinks about the soldiers for whom he was forced to porter,
he replies: "They are very, very cruel."

Win says the porters were told by their captors that if they escaped and
managed to reach KNLA positions, the rebels would kill them. But he says
it wasn't the rebels he was afraid of, so he took his chances and fled his
unit on the morning of October 8 with another porter, 45-year-old Aung
Min. Their captors were wrong. "I'm just afraid of the SPDC," Win says,
referring to the acronym of the State Peace and Development Council, the
official name of Myanmar's ruling junta.

With 11 fewer porters and an unknown number of soldiers dead and wounded
(the government does not release casualty figures and the junta has
remained silent on the latest fighting), the Myanmar Army has accomplished
its objective of capturing the KNLA's 7th brigade headquarters. But with
80 Karen guerillas looming in the nearby jungle and reinforcements being
sent to the area, keeping it may prove difficult.

GRAPHIC: (Photo: Nelson Rand); Karen rebels have vowed to continue their
54-year struggle for independence.


Xinhua General News Service   October 22, 2003
Myanmar reforms national convention committee

YANGON, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) --The ruling Myanmar State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) has reformed a management committee under its National
Convention Convening Commission (NCCC) as another follow-up of the
re-establishment of the commission, the official newspaper The New Light
of Myanmar quoted a government order as reporting Wednesday.

The 43-member National Convention Convening Management Committee was
reformed with Auditor-General Major-General Lun Maung as Chairman and
Director of Supply and Transport Major-General Than Htay and Deputy
Minister of Hotels and Tourism Brigadier-General Aye Myint Kyu as
Vice-Chairmen.

The NCCC was initially re-established on Sept. 6 with five members headed
by SPDC Second Secretary Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, and 13 more
members were added on Sept. 23. It was followed by a re-arrangement on
Oct. 2 of a 35-member work committee, led by Chief Justice U Aung Toe.

The government's series of move was made in preparation to reconvene the
long-suspended national convention, which constitutes the first step of a
seven-point political "road-map" announced on Aug. 30 by new Prime
Minister General Khin Nyunt five days after he took up his post.

More steps are expected to be taken to draft a new constitution through
the convention, to adopt the constitution through national referendum, to
hold general election to produce parliament representatives, and to
convene the parliament to elect state leaders and form a new government.

However, no specific time table has been set for the reconvening of the
convention, and no any indication was made when opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi (ASSK) would be released and if her National League for Democracy
(NLD) would be allowed for inclusion in the road-map.

Myanmar's national convention, based on the follow-up process of the 
government-sponsored 1990 general election, began in January 1993 but has
adjourned for more than seven years since March 1996 following the
walk-out of the NLD from the convention in 1995. The NLD overwhelmingly
won the 1990 general election with 392 out of 485 parliamentary seats.

The planned resumption of the convention also came amid western countries'
increased pressure and tightened sanctions on Myanmar, especially from the
United States and the European Union, for continued detention of ASSK
since May 30 incident. In the incident ASSK's convoy was reportedly
ambushed by government supporters on her political trip to the north of
the country, resulting in, as claimed by the government, four deaths, 48
injuries and 136 arrests in the bloody clashes between NLD supporters and
pro-government protesters.

Following the incident, the government detained ASSK in the name of
protection and since then the international community, including the
United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the United
States and other western nations, have been pressing Myanmar for her
release.


The Irrawaddy   October 22, 2003
Ceasefire Groups Prepare for National Convention
By Naw Seng

Three ceasefire groups from Burma’s Shan State have laid out the
conditions which must be met to guarantee their participation in the
National Convention.

Fifteen leaders from the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Shan State Army
(North) and the National Democratic Alliance Army met in Pangshang, Shan
State from Oct 13-15 to discuss the National Convention, the first step of
Prime Minister Gen Khin Nyunt’s proposed road map to democracy.

A joint statement released after the meeting calls the National Convention
"central to the resolution of our internal problems," and states that the
groups will agree to send delegates if they are invited by the junta, but
only if certain conditions are met. The statement was received by the
Chiang Mai-based Shan Herald Agency for News.

The conditions include freedom of meeting among ethnic leaders, free
choice of delegates, inclusion and participation of all "proper"
delegates, freedom of discussion and activities during the convention and
assurance that the convention will "lay down democratic principles."

Sao Seng Suk, a veteran Shan analyst, thinks that China’s business and
political connections to the UWSA will push the Wa group to participate in
Burma’s democracy process. "I think they made preparations because of
China’s involvement," he said.

The foreign ministers from China and Thailand agreed yesterday to host a
meeting of "like-minded nations" in Thailand later this year to back the
road map drafted by the Burmese junta.

Mai Aik Phone, Gen-Sec of the Palaung Liberation Front, believes that the
UWSA is reviewing its relationship with both the Burmese military
government and China. Relations between the UWSA and the junta have become
sour, he said.

In early August, Wa leaders asked Burma’s military government to recognize
the United Wa State Party, the UWSA’s political wing, as a legitimate
political organization. The junta has not yet replied to the request.

Last month, the Kachin Independence Organization, one of the largest
ceasefire groups, welcomed the resumption of the National Convention with
similar conditions.



----DRUGS----

Democratic Voice of Burma   October 22, 2003
(translated by BBC Monitoring Service)
Ethnic groups reject government claim of drop in poppy cultivation

Col Tin Hlaing, the State Peace and Development Council's home affairs
minister, said on 14 October that Burma was able to reduce illicit poppy
cultivation and narcotics drugs production without receiving any
international assistance.

He claimed Burma has achieved a 41 per cent reduction in poppy cultivation
and a 26 per cent reduction in opium production within a three-year span.

Col Tin Hlaing made the claim at a regional anti-drug meeting (24th
Meeting of ASEAN Senior Officials on Drug Matters, ASOD) held in Rangoon
and stated that the objective of Burma is to be totally drug free by the
year 2014.

But, Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) and Palaung State Liberation Front
(PSLF) objected Col Tin Hlaing's claims and added that poppy cultivation
has increased in the Shan and Palaung regions.

DVB correspondent Maung Too filed this report.

Maung Too : At yesterday's meeting, Col Tin Hlaing said poppy cultivation
of 250,000 acres in 2001 has decreased to 150,000 acres in the 2002 poppy
cultivation season indicating a 41 per cent drop in illicit poppy
cultivation with estimated production declining from 1,100 to 800 tonnes.
Col Tin Hlaing gave a similar report at the Central Committee for Drug
Abuse Control meeting held on 9 October and exclaimed that illicit poppy
cultivation has dramatically decreased especially in northern Shan State.
In contrary to Col Tin Hlaing's speech, a spokesperson for the Shan
State-based SHAN said not only has illicit poppy cultivation remain large
in Shan State it has also increased in the Wa region.

SHAN spokesperson : We do not know how Col Tin Hlaing based his facts but
in northern Shan State the illicit poppy cultivation has really declined
and the UN has also endorsed it. But, local people said as much as poppy
cultivation has decreased in the north, it has increased in the south and
in the east. If the poppy farmers have no money they were given loans to
cultivate. While in some cases intimidation was even applied. When the UN
personnel went to Wa region and took the opium cultivation survey, they
said illicit poppy cultivation has increased by 21 per cent. That is why
we cannot understand what Col Tin Hlaing was claiming.

Maung Too : Similarly, PSLF General-Secretary Mang Aik Pon said he does
not accept Col Tin Hlaing's claim that illicit poppy cultivation has
decreased.

Mang Aik Pon : I do not see any decline in the cultivation but I noticed
the relocation of the poppy fields. There is no reduction and cultivation
seems normal. In Mu-se and Namhkam regions, the illegal poppy fields have
been relocated because they are not allowed to cultivate in blatant and
known locations so they had to move out to unknown destinations to
cultivate poppy.

Maung Too : At present, raw opium, heroin, and amphetamine tablets
produced in Burma are not only flooding Thailand, they are also being
trafficked to Malaysia, China, and India.



----REGIONAL----

The Nation (Thailand)   October 22, 2003
China will attempt to break Burma deadlock

China yesterday pledged to support Thailand in its efforts to break the
political deadlock in Burma and coax the military-ruled nation toward
national reconciliation and democracy, the Foreign Ministry said
yesterday.

Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said China, a major ally of
Burma, agreed to join an international forum on Burma if the ruling
military junta agreed to take part in such a forum.

On the sidelines of the Apec summit, Foreign Minister Surakiart
Sathirathai met his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, to discuss the
setting up of a forum to consider Burma's political road map to democracy.

Sihasak said it was still not clear when, or where, such a forum would
take place.

Surakiart earlier invited 'like-minded' countries to join the forum, but
he did not say who those countries might be.

Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt responded positively this month when
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra proposed the forum on the sidelines of
the Asean summit in Bali.

Thaksin also discussed the Burma crisis with US President George W Bush.
But the two leaders had different opinions on how to resolve the deadlock
in Burma.

Meanwhile, Burma's ruling junta yesterday condemned Bush for using the
Apec summit as a grandstand to support opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

'The government of Myanmar [Burma] was disappointed to hear that, during
the Apec summit, the United States opposed Myanmar's progress toward
democracy and continued to advocate policies which undermine Myanmar's
social, political and economic stability,' a government statement said.

International condemnation of the junta was aggravated in May with the
arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel laureate is now under house arrest. The last person to visit her
was UN Special Envoy Razali Ismail.

In August, Khin Nyunt unveiled a seven-point road map to democracy, which
included a pledge to have 'free and fair' elections at an unspecified time
in the future.

'The international community should give support to Burma if they [the
military regime] make real progress on what they propose to do,' Sihasak
said.

Thailand did not agree with imposing sanctions on Burma, he said, because
that was not a viable option to achieving the ultimate goal.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday said he met Khin Nyunt
on the sidelines of the Asean summit, and suggested the Burmese leader
exercise his leadership powers to release Aung San Suu Kyi and move the
country on the path to democracy.

'I am sure Myanmar is aware of that concern,' he said, adding that Japan
would like to renew its ties with Rangoon when the political crisis is
resolved.

Japan is a major donor to Burma, but it froze financial assistance to
Rangoon after Suu Kyi was arrested.


Bernama news agency web site, Kuala Lumpur, in English   October 21, 2003
MALAYSIAN PREMIER SAYS AUSTRALIA "DEPUTY SHERIFF" ROLE IN ASIA "NOT
APPRECIATED" (excerpt)

During the press conference, Dr Mahathir was also asked on the Myanmar
(Burma) issue in which he said that ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian
Nations) was critical of Myanmar but was also aware of the latter's
problems.

"That is why we did not call for liberal democracy where people can riot
or bring down the government. We should have democracy... (agency
ellipsis) basic democracy where people have the right to choose the
government without having to have a revolution," he said.

As for his earlier remarks of expelling Myanmar from ASEAN, he said that
was as a last resort. However, he said ASEAN had listened to Myanmar and
felt that the country had made an attempt to move in the right direction.
"As such, we should not create problems for Myanmar by imposing
sanctions," he said.

Asked to comment on the outcome of APEC, he said the declaration was
something that he would not reject "as it leaves room for the kind of
interpretations and recognition for the WTO (World Trade Organization)".

On security issues brought up during the meeting, he said security was
important in terms of getting economies to grow such as in the case of
security in travel and the like. "But we are not interested in other
aspects of security such as military action," he said.


Bangkok Post   October 22, 2003
Province of Yunnan Promotes Gateway Status to Asean Region
By Chatrudee Theparat

The southwestern province of Yunnan, which borders Burma, Laos and
Vietnam, is wooing investors by positioning itself as a gateway for Asean
nations to the sprawling China market.

The director of the Border Trade Department of Yunnan, Gu Yu Chang,
yesterday told delegates at the Apec Investment Mart that it was seeking
investment in bio-resources, tourism, minerals, hydropower and tobacco.

Mr Gu said Thai investors could also enjoy facilities expected to set up
in line with improved economic ties between the two countries.

The countries have signed a free trade deal for fruit and vegetables,
which started on Oct 1, and industrial goods, to start in 2005. They are
now in the process of improving transport and communication links,
distribution and customs procedures.

New roads are being built to link northern Thailand to Laos, Burma and
southern China.

The province has 10 airports to provide links to the capital, Kunming.
More than 100 domestic and international air routes connect Yunnan with
Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, Macau, Vientiane, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Hanoi
and Japan.

Mr Chang said Yunnan needed the expertise of Thai investors, especially in
fruit packaging and preservation.

However, he said the province also had the potential for large investments
in hydropower due to its rich water resources.

The development and transmission of Yunnan's electricity to other parts of
China and to neighbouring countries is a priority for the province, he
said.

Initial construction of the Jinhong hydropower station is under way and
other large hydropower projects are in the pipeline.

Mr Chang said Yunnan's tobacco industry also had potential, with cigarette
sales contributing up to 60 percent of the province's revenue.

He also said Chinese firms were interested in investing in technology in
northern Thailand's special economic zone.


----INTERNATIONAL----

The Boston Globe   October 22, 2003
Katie Redford’s Pipe Dream – Her professor told her it couldn’t be done,
but the activist is using a 200-year-old law to go after human rights
abuses in Burma
By Bella English, Globe Staff

NEW YORK - When Katie Redford first turned in a law school paper
suggesting the use of an ancient federal statute to fight human rights
abuses in Burma, her professor gave her an A. But he warned that such a
case would never occur. "Don't be an idealist," he chided.

That was nearly 10 years ago. Today that student paper, "Using the Alien
Torts Claims Act: Unocal v. Burma," is the basis of a lawsuit that is in
both state and federal court in California. And Redford is the spark
behind the groundbreaking case. The act dates back to 1789, when George
Washington signed the fledgling nation's first Judiciary Act. An obscure
provision in it appears to give foreigners the right to sue in federal
court over violations of international law. Though the act has been used
to sue individuals, it has never been used successfully to sue a
corporation for human rights abuses.

   In her 1994 law school paper, Redford had argued that such violations
would include human rights abuses by the Burmese military, which was
guarding construction in its country at a pipeline partly owned by
Unocal, a California oil company. That is precisely what will be argued
by lawyers on Dec. 3, when the case is heard in California Superior
Court.

As for the federal case, a decision on whether it will proceed to trial is
pending. A three-judge appeals panel reversed a lower court's decision and
ruled that Unocal may be liable for "aiding and abetting" the military in
forced

labor, murder, and rape since the company hired the soldiers and provided
maps and information about the pipeline. The lower court had dismissed the
suit because the company did not directly participate in the alleged
abuses - though the judge said there was evidence that Unocal knew forced
labor was being used and that it benefited from the project.

Unocal has appealed the appellate court's ruling. Redford says she is
confident the case will proceed to trial. "You can't put corporations
above the law when fighting human rights abuses," says Redford, now a
35-year-old mother of two.

Redford had a sheltered childhood in Wellesley, the daughter of a
businessman and a social worker. Her mother, Noel, still lives in the
family home; her father died when she was 15. Redford's younger brother,
Michael, lives in Boston, where he teaches English as a second language.

After graduating from Wellesley High School, Redford chose Colgate
University in rural upstate New York - for its swimming pool. "Things are
kind of random when you're 18," she says, laughing. But she quickly found
that spending six hours a day in the water as part of the swimming and
diving teams was too much. She quit and began playing rugby, a Division I
sport at Colgate. "Our motto was 'elegant violence.' We used to go play
other schools, and they'd say, 'Oh, the anorexics are here.' Or 'Don't
break a fingernail, girls.' But we were fast. We won much more than we
lost."

Redford knew she wanted to be a lawyer but felt she had not yet seen the
world. After graduating from college, she signed on with the WorldTeach
program and found herself teaching English in a village on the
Thai-Burmese border.

It was 1991, and the AIDS epidemic was rampant in Thailand; Redford kept a
box of condoms on her desk for her students. She also began to hear about
problems with excessive logging in the jungle and started incorporating
lessons on AIDS and the environment into her English classes.

On her summer break she visited a Thai refugee camp and lived with a
family who had fled the Burmese military dictatorship. There she taught
English in a bamboo hut. Along the border, bombs would explode from
battles between the military and its opposition. Every day brought new
streams of refugees, with tales of rape, torture, killing, and forced
labor.

"The stories were just jaw-dropping," she says, sitting in a small, stuffy
office in lower Manhattan, where she has come to consult on the Unocal
case with lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Please don't
forget about us," the refugees pleaded. "Use your freedom to promote
ours."

It was a phrase that stuck with her as she headed home to enroll in law
school at the University of Virginia. Redford went to class with great
ambivalence, feeling a tug between her head and her heart. "Over there, I
felt like I'd found my calling, but I also recognized that becoming a
lawyer would be a tool to help."

As soon as school was out for the summer, she left again for Thailand,
this time as an intern for Human Rights Watch, documenting abuses
associated with forced labor. She returned to the same refugee camp to
live with the same Burmese family she had stayed with the summer before.
The father, a pro-democracy activist, arranged to sneak her into Burma.
(The military, which staged a coup in 1988, officially changed the
country's name to Myanmar the following year.   Everywhere Redford went,
people told her: "If you want to talk about human rights abuses, you must
find Ka Hsaw Wa." He was a student activist who had fled to the jungle and
was collecting villagers' tales of abuse under the junta.

When Redford found him, he hired a boat, and a small group spent three
weeks paddling up the Salween River, stopping at villages near the front
lines of fighting between the military and the opposition. "I interviewed
people who had been raped by the military, who had been relocated at
gunpoint and had seen their villages go up in flames," says Redford, who
speaks Thai. "To add insult to injury, they were being forced to labor on
logging."

During the trip, Redford contracted malaria. But she delayed her research
by only one day while she visited Doctors Without Borders inside the
"liberated territory," controlled by the opposition. "It was like everyone
I was interviewing had malaria and they'd been raped and tortured," she
says. "I couldn't wimp out."

She lost 20 pounds, wrote up her report, and returned home to law school.
Besides malaria, she'd contracted another condition on the trip: a secret
crush on Ka Hsaw Wa. "But this was completely ridiculous; it was worse
than Tarzan meets Jane," she says. They came from two different worlds:
While she was playing rugby and partying in college, he was challenging
the military dictatorship, getting arrested, and being tortured. In 1988,
when the military staged a coup, he fled to the liberated territory.
Instead of fighting, he picked up a pen and began recording the villagers'
stories.

Meanwhile, as her classmates were donning suits and interviewing with law
firms, Redford started a human rights group on campus. The summer after
their second year, she and two classmates got a fellowship to look at the
World Bank's presence in Thailand and Burma. But Ka Hsaw Wa told them the
real story was the Yadana Pipeline, being built by French company Total
and Unocal, which is headquartered in El Segundo, Calif. The 39-mile
natural gas line cuts through the Burmese jungle to the Thai border.

"Thousands of villagers were being conscripted by the military to build
barracks - men, women, children, the elderly, the sick," says Redford. The
lawsuit includes 14 "Jane and John Doe" plaintiffs. There's the woman who
alleges the military forced her family to leave their home and kicked her
baby into the fire, where he died. There are stories of the regime
torturing village leaders when they failed to provide enough porters for
pipeline work. There are stories of rapes and killings.

The $1.2 billion pipeline project is the largest source of foreign money
for the military, says Redford, and has been used to buy weapons to
further the junta's brutal rule.

When villagers began asking Redford and her law school classmates whether
it would be illegal to blow up the pipeline, Redford knew she had to find
a legal way of stopping the abuses. "We were horrified and embarrassed
that an American company was doing business with this dictatorship," she
says.

For its part, Unocal says the claims have no merit. "We really see it as
an attempt to utilize the judicial process for political purposes - that
is, people dissatisfied with the Myanmar government," says Charles
Strathman, an attorney for the company. "We think that's best left to US
foreign policy and Congress and the administration, as opposed to
involving parties like Unocal. . . . We were simply an investor. All of
the alleged victims . . . were not US residents or citizens, and all the
actions were actions of a foreign government."

That summer between Redford's second and third year of law school, a
romance began to bloom between her and Ka Hsaw Wa. "My thought was, she
comes from America and she must have a big heart for human rights abuses
to care so much about my country," says Ka Hsaw Wa. Says Redford: "He had
this kind of passion and compassion for the suffering people, as he called
them, and a total commitment to letting the world know what was
happening."

And malaria aside, she says, she found the whole experience of going into
a war zone and traveling "on a wild river in the jungle" romantic. That
and the fact that Ka Hsaw Wa, with his "dashing good looks," helped nurse
her back to health.

But when summer ended, Redford had to leave him and return to law school.
Her third year, she did an independent research project on the Alien Torts
Claims Act and Unocal's role in the Burmese pipeline, the paper that
earned her an A. She also wrote a grant proposal to start EarthRights
International, a nonprofit human rights organization. The day after she
took the bar examination, in 1995, she returned to Thailand to live and
run the newly formed group with Ka Hsaw Wa and a fellow law school
graduate.

"We had $30,000, and we were clueless," says Redford. She laughs. "We
didn't listen to people who told us it couldn't be done. That's why I
think it's so important for young people to do this kind of work. Older
people wouldn't do it."

Kenny Bruno, the campaigns coordinator for EarthRights, agrees. "Katie was
outraged by the injustices and in a way was naive enough to think she
could take them on. A lot of people would be daunted, but she was young
and energetic. She's had one hand holding a baby on her breast and the
other on a cellphone, saving the world."

In November of 1996, Redford and Ka Hsaw Wa were married in a Thai
village; they honeymooned in Phuket. The following October, she filed Doe
v. Unocal, and in March of 1997 it became the first case in which
jurisdiction was granted over a corporation for human rights abuses
overseas.

That's when Redford sent a note to her old law school professor - the one
who told her not to be an idealist. "I said something like, 'Ha ha, I
guess we see who's right.' It was good-natured," says Redford. He sent
back a note of congratulations, adding: "You're right - for the time
being."

Since then, Redford says, her former professor, Jack Goldsmith, has been
writing about the case. "He's like the poster-child scholar for the other
side," she says. It did not surprise her when he was nominated by Attorney
General John Ashcroft to head the office of legal counsel for the Justice
Department. She attended a recent confirmation hearing, where she and her
old professor hugged and promised to meet for lunch.

Redford thinks it's ironic that the Justice Department has joined Unocal
in a friend-of-the-court brief. "Our country has the strongest sanctions
against Burma that we've ever had against any country. It's just a
transparent effort to protect [the Bush administration's] corporate
friends."

As for Goldsmith, who was confirmed as assistant attorney general this
month, he says of Redford: "I like Katie very much. I admire her. She was
a great student who has done great work." He won't talk about the case,
though he has written that he believes certain aspects of the lawsuits are
wrongheaded.

Redford and her husband live in a pink house in Takoma Park, Md., with
their 6-year-old daughter, Alexis, and 2-year-old son, Htooeh. "We don't
want to spend money to repaint the house," says Ka Hsaw Wa, who is 33. He
spends time directing EarthRights International, speaking to groups about
human rights abuses in Burma, and traveling back and forth to Thailand,
where he slips across the border to his homeland. He is at the top of a
military blacklist and hasn't seen his mother or siblings in 15 years.

Often Redford accompanies him. Sometimes they take the children. "Alexis
has had her passport since she was 5 days old," Redford says. If you ask
her what her parents do for a living, the first-grader replies: "They help
the people, the trees, and the animals."

Her mother laughs. "She thinks that's what all parents do for a living."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, 1. A paper Katie Redford wrote as a law student has become
the basis of a suit against oil company Unocal. / GLOBE PHOTO / JOE
TABACCA 2. Katie Redford first got involved in the fight for Burmese
rights as an English teacher in Thailand. She saw law as a way to help. /
GLOBE PHOTO / JOE TABACCA