BurmaNet News November 24, 2004

[Editor]

November 24, 2004, Issue # 2608

INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima: Profile political prisoner release another junta ploy
IHT: Myanmar prisoner release in doubt
AFP: Myanmar's national convention to start in February: junta

HEALTH/AIDS
Irrawaddy: HIV Increasingly Striking Women in Asia

GUNS
AP: Bangladeshi border guards seize weapons cache

REGIONAL
NDTV: Convention to resume in Feb: Myanmar

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: New Zealand PM concerned at Burma’s stalled reform
Berkeley Daily Planet: Big business keeps eye on historic human rights case

OPINION / OTHER
Mizzima: What Do The Present Releases indicate?

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

November 23, Mizzima
Profile Political Prisoner Release Another Junta Ploy - Marwaan Macan-Markar

The initial euphoria that greeted the freedom granted to nearly 4,000
prisoners, recently released from jails in military-ruled Burma seems to
be dissipating fast. For all it may be, this amnesty might not necessarily
translate into possible political reform.

The profile of most prisoners freed, the timing of their release and the
reasons being offered by Rangoon's junta have fed this assessment. And
this undermines any hope the military rulers may have had of profiting
from this goodwill gesture.

For one, only between 20 to 28 of the 3,937 prisoners granted freedom on
Nov. 18 were jailed for their political activities. The majority was
thrown behind bars by the oppressive regime due to alleged crimes,
including theft.

Currently, Burma has close to 1,400 political prisoners held in harsh
conditions within the 39 prisons spread across this South-east Asian
country. They include parliamentarians, writers, pro-democracy activists
and Buddhist monks. Among them is Win Tin, a close aide of Nobel Peace
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in jail since 1989 for his
political beliefs.

''The release of the prisoners suggests nothing other than an effort to
please the international community,'' Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner,
told IPS. ''Most of the prisoners had finished their terms, so they were
not being released for special reasons.''

According to Bo Kyi, who also heads the Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners in Burma, a group based in the northern Thai town of
Mae Sot, the junta is still committed to jailing citizens who challenge
its political view.

''Last week they arrested three members of the NLD,'' he said, referring
to the National League for Democracy, the political party headed by Suu
Kyi that won a landslide victory at the 1990 elections but was denied
power by the junta. Suu Kyi, herself, is currently under house arrest.

This mass prisoner release is nothing new in military-ruled Burma.

The country's hardline military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, had
sought to woo the international community with similar ploys before.

In 2001, the release of nearly 200 political prisoners from jails such as
the notorious Insein, in Rangoon, was typical. It happened when the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is officially known,
was under fire from the international community. Then, too, the prisoners
released had served their full sentence, and were not freed by a special
amnesty.

Now, three years later, Burma's strongman is facing a more formidable
array of critics on the international stage. It  follows the sacking of
Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt from his prime minister's post on Oct.  19. Khin
Nyunt, who is under house arrest, was appointed premier last year and soon
convinced some Burma watchers that he was a moderate keen on pushing ahead
with political reform.

His successor, Lt-Gen. Soe Win, is regarded as a military hardliner and
has been named by Burmese political exiles in Thailand as having been the
primary figure behind an attack led by thugs, linked to the junta, on Suu
Kyi and her NLD supporters in May last year.

Besides the usual critics like the U.S. government, Britain and other
European Union countries, Burma finds itself feeling the heat from
regional allies who together with it are in an economic bloc of South-east
Asian nations.

On another front, a body of regional parliamentarians led by a bi-partisan
group from the Malaysian legislature is also exerting pressure on the
regime.

In addition, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) added its voice
this month to the growing number of U.N. bodies and officials losing
patience with Rangoon's lack of political reform. The Geneva-based labour
agency, in fact, has threatened to consider imposing sanctions against
Burma for its continued use of forced labour.

''If the SPDC is sincere about reform, it should start by releasing all
political prisoners,'' Soe Aung, foreign affairs spokesman for the
National Council of the Union of Burma, a group of Burmese political
exiles, told IPS. ''Then it must start talks for the restoration of
democracy with the NLD and other ethnic political parties.''

Burma watchers also feel that the SPDC is gaining little sympathy by
blaming Khin Nyunt and the military intelligence division that he headed
for much of the country's political troubles. Last week, for instance,
Rangoon accused Khin Nyut's intelligence network for imprisoning the
nearly 4,000 people who were given amnesty last week.

''Khin Nyunt was part of the problem, but Than Shwe cannot get away making
him a scapegoat because all levels of the military regime have oppressed
the people,'' added Soe Aung.

Burma has been under the jackboot of the generals since a military coup in
1962. In 1988, students led the way towards a democratic uprising, which
was brutally crushed by the junta, with over 3,000 pro-democracy
protesters killed.

One of the famous student leaders in that mass uprising, Min Ko Naing, was
arrested in March 1989. He was among the 4,000 released last week after
enduring over 15 years of solitary confinement.

During his incarceration, the 42-year-old Min Ko Naing became known as
Burma's second most well-known political prisoner after Suu Kyi.

''His release cannot be ignored since he is well respected and has the
potential to reorganise,'' Beejoy Sen of the Burma Lawyers Council told
IPS. ''Than Shwe can use it to his advantage against his critics. But he
will have to do more to win sympathy, like making the release a process
towards political change.'' (IPS)

____________________________________

November 24, International Herald Tribune
Myanmar prisoner release in doubt; Most political inmates still held, an
exile says

Myanmar appears to have stopped releasing prisoners, less than a week
after it pledged to free nearly 4,000 inmates, a Burmese exile who
monitors political prisoner issues said Tuesday.

The exile, Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner who is joint secretary of
the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, confirmed media
reports from Yangon, the Myanmar capital, that the releases may have
halted, with no prisoners reported freed Monday.

He said that only 28 of Myanmar's hundreds of political prisoners had been
included so far in the announced release of 3,937 prisoners, and that the
remainder of the several hundred prisoners freed since Friday had been
common criminals.

The junta announced the prisoner release Thursday, saying that the inmates
due to be freed had been improperly jailed by the Military Intelligence
Bureau, formerly headed by Khin Nyunt, who was dismissed as prime minister
last month.

Bo Kyi said the announcement was an attempt to win over the international
community, which has imposed sanctions on Myanmar, and did not reflect
change in the junta's attitude toward dissent.

He suggested that the announcement had been timed to impress Myanmar's
partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, before
member nations' leaders convene in Laos next week for an annual summit
meeting. Myanmar is due to assume Asean's presidency in 2006.

"They want to reduce international pressure," Bo Kyi said. "They want to
give a weapon to Asean to lobby at the United Nations, the United States
and the European Union" against sanctions.

Bo Kyi noted that many political prisoners remained in prison and said
that those released had nearly or entirely completed their sentences,
sometimes by a matter of years.

For example, Min Ko Naing, a student protest leader who was released
Friday, had in fact completed his sentence in 1999, Bo Kyi said.

Moreover, he said, political arrests have continued, with three members of
the opposition National League for Democracy arrested 10 days ago. The
league is headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest in
Yangon.

Arrests are proceeding as before, "but now when they arrest the activists,
it is the police," he said, not military intelligence, doing it.

Bo Kyi's organization estimates that Myanmar's government is holding about
1,400 political prisoners in various locations around the country,
including 200 to 300 members of the National League for Democracy, nearly
300 monks and more than 100 members of various ethnic rebel groups.

Bo Kyi, 40, served seven years and three months in prison on charges
linked to political activism. He was incarcerated for part of that time in
Myanmar's notorious Insein Prison, which was built in 1892 near Yangon,
and he was also held in prisons in Mandalay and Tharrawaddy.

He was arrested in March 1990 after taking part in demonstrations and
released in January 1993. He was arrested again in 1994 for refusing to
work as an informer and for refusing to stop working as a teacher. The
authorities had objected to his role as a teacher because he had been a
student activist.

He described horrific conditions, including insufficient food and poor
health care, as well as beatings, shackling and isolation. He spent one
year in solitary confinement.

Bo Kyi said he was physically tortured only during a two-week punishment
period, imposed because he had been discovered to be in possession of a
piece of paper, which is forbidden by the authorities, and some money.

During that period, he said, he was beaten every day with a rubber stick,
once until he lost consciousness, and was forced to sleep on a concrete
floor.

Even outside of the punishment period, he said, he was subject to
psychological torture.

"Usually I was locked in a tiny cell," he said. He was let out for 20
minutes a day to take a shower. He constantly worried about the
possibility of punishment or transfer to a remote location.

Disease is common among the prisoners, he said, particularly heart
disease, hypertension and skin diseases, although he added that conditions
are now somewhat better than when he was a prisoner.

Political prisoners can now read religious and official journals, for
example, he said, but the health care is still deficient, with not enough
medicine or doctors.

____________________________________

November 24, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's national convention to start in February: junta

Myanmar's junta said Wednesday a national convention labelled the first of
the seven steps in its democracy roadmap would restart later than billed
in February.

Senior junta member Lieutenant General Thein Sein told state media that
ethnic armed groups who had signed ceasefire agreements with the regime
would attend the convention, which is aimed at drafting a new
constitution.

The timing of the restart had been thrown into doubt by the ouster of the
roadmap's chief architect General Khin Nyunt, who was sacked as premier
last month and placed under house arrest for alleged corruption.

"The country will go ahead with the seven point road map because it is not
a policy conceived by one person but it's a policy that's been decided by
the collective leadership," Thein Sein was quoted as saying by the New
Light of Myanmar newspaper on Wednesday.

"The national convention which is the most important step in the seven
point roadmap will continue until it comes to a successful conclusion."

The attendance of the 17 main groups on ceasefire had been thrown into
doubt following the political demise of Khin Nyunt who brokered the deals.

The convention had been expected to resume around October but Thein Sein
-- who is also chairman of the National Convention Convening Commission --
said after the upheaval last month it would restart in January.

Khin Nyunt outlined the roadmap in August 2003 in response to
international condemnation over the detention of democracy leader Aung San
Suu Kyi and the lack of democratic reforms.

The reform plan, which is supposed to conclude with multi-party elections,
has been dismissed as a sham by key critics the US and Europe.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, boycotted the
convention which lasted two months before it was adjourned in July.

More than 1,000 delagates took part in the first stage of discussions from
various sectors of Myanmar society including political parties, labourers,
farmers, intellectuals and civil servants.

The talks were held behind closed doors at an isolated convention centre
outside of the capital Yangon.

The sacking of Khin Nyunt and the rise of military hardliners within the
Myanmar administration raised fears of an even tougher approach to any
opposition in Myanmar.

The junta last week announced the release of almost 4,000 prisoners but
only a few hundred have been released so far, according to witnesses and
the opposition.

Security remains tight around the home Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday,
according to an AFP correspondent.

_____________________________________
HEALTH/AIDS

November 24, Irrawaddy
HIV increasingly striking women in Asia—Associated Press

Women in East Asia are contracting HIV at a faster rate than in the rest
of the world, and there’s a worrying new trend in Thailand: men who have
visited prostitutes are increasingly passing on the infection to their
wives, the United Nations says.

In many parts of the world, but particularly in Asia, more women than men
are getting the disease because it has spread beyond the brothels where
most infections occurred 12 years ago, said the latest global HIV status
report published Tuesday.

Women have also seen higher rates of infection than men because it is
easier for them to get HIV—the virus that causes AIDS—through heterosexual
intercourse.

Some 2.3 million out of the 8.2 million people currently living with HIV
in Asia are women—an increase of 56 percent since 2002. Nearly 50 percent
of the 39.4 million people infected with HIV worldwide are women,
according to the report. The epidemic has claimed about 540,000 lives in
Asia so far in 2004.

In Thailand, about 90 percent of HIV transmission 12 years ago was between
prostitutes and their clients. But now, about half of all infections are
occurring in the wives of men who visit prostitutes.

Most new HIV infections in Asia occur when men buy sex, a practice that an
estimated 5 to 10 percent of men in the region—many of them married or in
steady relationships—engage in, said the report, citing household surveys
in several countries.

The disease has spread through Asian countries at various speeds and
levels of severity.

While national infection rates remain lower than in other parts of the
world, particularly Africa, the large populations of many Asian countries
mean that vast numbers of people are stricken with the illness.

While countries such as Cambodia, Burma and Thailand were hit early the
epidemic, others—including Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam and China—are only
beginning to see the disease spread rapidly and must launch efforts to
stop it.

AIDS has now been detected in all parts of China, spreading mainly through
intravenous drug use and prostitution. It is also frequently transmitted
sexually from injecting drug users to their partners in China.

In Burma, a large percentage of injecting drug users have gotten HIV, with
as many as 78 percent testing positive for the virus in some areas of the
military-ruled country last year. In India’s Tamil Nadu state, about half
of sex workers have been found to be infected with HIV.

But Bangladesh, East Timor, Laos, Pakistan and the Philippines, among some
other Asian nations, have particularly low infection rates and still have
the opportunity to thwart serious outbreaks, the report said.

_____________________________________
GUNS

November 24, Associated Press Worldstream
Bangladeshi border guards seize weapons cache

Border troops in southeastern Bangladesh have discovered an arms and
ammunition cache, possibly smuggled from Myanmar, officials said
Wednesday.

The weapons were found Tuesday in Naikkhongchari forest in the district of
Bandarban that borders Myanmar and the east Indian state of Mizoram, said
the Bangladesh Rifles, the country's border security force.

The haul included seven AK-47 and two M-16 assault rifles, a rocket
launcher and more than 1,600 rifle bullets, it said in a statement. It
didn't say where the weapons might have came from, but two officials
speaking on condition of anonymity pointed to Myanmar.

Bandarban is one of three hill districts where tribal rebels waged a
25-year insurgency seeking greater power in the region until 1997, when
they signed a peace deal with the government.

But some groups in the district oppose the truce and still kidnap, extort
and smuggle arms.

The troops raided the forest after a tip-off from intelligence sources a
day after armed tribesmen fatally shot a soldier and stole his submachine
gun in the area, the statement said.

Police questioned three suspects in connection with the soldier's murder.

No one was arrested during Tuesday's forest raid, the statement said.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

Nov 24, New Delhi Television
Convention to resume in Feb: Myanmar

Military-ruled Myanmar will resume its convention to draft guidelines for
a new constitution in February next year, a top member of its junta said.

Lt Gen Thein Sein, in remarks broadcast late last night on state radio and
television, said the convention would resume as part of the junta's
so-called road map to democracy, which is supposed to lead to free
elections at an undetermined time in the future.

Thein Sein, chairman of the National Convention Convening Commission, did
not give an exact date when it would resume its work.

Promised reforms

He also reiterated comments made last month that the government remained
committed to the road map, which was announced last year by Gen Khin
Nyunt. The General was ousted as Prime Minister on October 19.

Although he has been accused by the junta of corruption and
insubordination, it is widely believed that he was pushed out because he
was seen as too willing to compromise with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi's pro-democracy movement.

Khin Nyunt's ouster raised concern that Myanmar would retreat from its
promised reforms.

Especially concerned were Myanmar's fellow members of the Association of
South-east Asian Nations, who had encouraged the regime in its gradualist
approach. (AP)

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

November 24, Irrawaddy
New Zealand PM concerned at Burma’s stalled reform—Associated Press

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark expressed concern Wednesday over
stalled democratic reform in Burma. Her comments came just days before she
attends a summit of the 10-nation grouping of Southeast Asian states.

“The issue (of Burma) is certainly of concern to us and it’s also an issue
of concern to them (Asean),” she told reporters as she confirmed she will
attend the organization’s leaders’ summit in Vientiane, Laos, on Monday
and Tuesday.
The leaders of Australia and New Zealand have been invited to the Asean
summit for the first time since 1977, in an indication that relations
between the two blocs are thawing after years of suspicion from Asia that
their southern neighbors were too westernized.

Burma’s political deadlock is expected to be a major topic for Asean
leaders at the gathering.

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, and
relatively moderate prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt was fired last month on
corruption allegations.

“Some thought is going into how the issue of Myanmar (Burma)—and the fact
that it is due to take the chair of Asean in 2006—can be managed,” she
said.

Clark said she discussed Burma during bilateral meetings with leaders from
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore at a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in
Chile last week.

A top member of the junta in Burma said Monday it will resume its
convention to draft guidelines for a new constitution in February next
year.

Lt-Gen Thein Sein, in remarks broadcast late on Tuesday on state radio and
television, said the convention would resume as part of the junta’s
so-called road map to democracy, which is supposed to lead to free
elections at an undetermined time in the future.

Clark said she expected the summit to see the “launch of negotiations on
an ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade area” and to launch a “new era
of relations with Asean.”

_____________________________________

November 23, Berkeley Daily Planet
Big business keeps eye on historic human rights case—Anna Sussman

For the first time ever, an American company will be put on trial for
human rights abuses committed by a government with which it did business.
Unocal, the $11 billion California oil giant, is accused of being
‘vicariously liable’ for the rape, torture, murder and enslavement of
villagers by the company’s hired security forces along the site of an oil
pipeline built with Unocal’s help in southern Burma in the 1990s.

“Unocal had nothing to do with any human rights abuses whatsoever,” says
Daniel Petrocelli, the company’s defense counsel. Unocal, he says, did
“everything in its power to prevent even the potential for any abuses
accruing” in connection with the pipeline project.

The “vicarious liability” charge specifies that the defendant was aware of
crimes being committed within its auspices, and did nothing to stop them.

The federal case, Doe vs. Unocal, marks the first time a multi-national
corporation could be legally bound to international human rights law, and
its outcome is being closely watched by human rights advocates and
business leaders alike.

The plaintiffs also filed a case in California state court in 2000,
arguing that Unocal’s forced labor practices violated California business
law. A trial date was recently set for June 21, 2005, in California civil
court. If found guilty in either case, Unocal will be forced to pay an
award to the villagers.

“The mere fact that we’ve gotten this far has had a very positive effect
on corporations and how they conduct their business,” says Dan Stormer,
lawyer for the plaintiffs. “The existence of the case, and the successes
that we’ve had, has held Unocal and other corporations up to public
scrutiny.”

Hundreds of American businesses are arguing that the case will harm U.S.
business interests. USA*Engage, a coalition of over 600 corporations, as
well as lawyers for President Bush, have filed briefs on behalf of Unocal,
arguing that if the matter is not dismissed its continuation could deter
future economic engagement with foreign countries, and that similar cases
could impede the war on terror by condemning governments that are
otherwise on good terms with the United States.

“The Bush administration has been very, very hostile toward this and other
similar cases,” says plaintiffs’ lawyer Judith Chomsky.

The case rests on the Alien Tort Claims Act, a 1789 law originally used to
prosecute pirates in international waters. Since the 1980s, the law has
been used to uphold human rights law against individuals responsible for
massacre and torture abroad. The Unocal case will be the first time the
law is used to sue a company.

Bill Reinsch, president of the American Foreign Trade Council said he is
concerned about using U.S. courts to fight wrongs committed by other
people, in other countries. “We are dealing with U.S. law and the way the
founding fathers wrote it,” he says, arguing that the Tort Claims act was
not intended to address human rights issues. “We shouldn’t go around
ignoring that because we have a sympathetic case.”

One of the plaintiffs, Jane Doe, has testified that her husband was shot
when attempting to flee forced labor on the pipeline, and that her baby
was killed when thrown into a fire in retaliation for his attempted
escape. All 12 plaintiffs remain anonymous for fear of repercussions
against them and their family members.

The case has become a sort of poster child for a long line of similar
cases against multinational corporations and the security forces they
often use to protect their projects in the developing world. A group of
Nigerians are trying to sue Chevron for the murder of protestors at
Chevron’s Parabe offshore platform and the destruction of villages in the
oil-rich Niger Delta region. Eleven villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, are
suing Exxon Mobil, and a group of labor leaders from Colombia are suing an
Alabama-based mining corporation on behalf of the families of slain
workers.

David Vogel, business professor at University of California, Berkeley, and
author of “Kindred Strangers: The Uneasy Relationship Between Politics and
Business in America,” says that past efforts to get corporations to follow
human rights law mostly sought voluntary corporate compliance. “What makes
these cases unusual,” Vogel says, “is that they actually attempt to use
the legal system to improve U.S. corporate standards.”

The Unocal case was born 10 years ago when a Burmese refugee approached a
young American law student in Thailand. The refugee said that hundreds of
Burmese villagers where fleeing forced labor on an oil pipeline being
built with the help of an American company, and asked if the U.S. legal
system could help. The law student brought the question back to lawyers in
the United States, and they began to plan the case.

The business community fears that the case could leave Americans on the
sidelines of lucrative ventures, including oil markets. “We do not want a
group of folks who have differing points of views to stand in the way of
the rights that companies have to conduct business where they believe it
makes most sense to conduct business,” explains Unocal lawyer Daniel
Petrocelli. “Otherwise we’ll become an isolated economy, and that’s of
course inimical to the values that this country has always espoused, which
is to press ahead to the next frontier and engage the world.”

Burmese villagers still living near the pipeline site say that as the case
progresses there is less use of forced labor, according to Burmese
activist Ka Hsaw Wa, of EarthRights International. “The pipeline
operators, the military and corporations and the villagers all listen to
news about the case on the radio. The majority of people know about the
case over there,” Wa says.

Anna Sussman covers Burma and Southeast Asia for radio and print outlets.
She is a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

_____________________________________

OPINION / OTHER

Nov 23, Mizzima
What Do The Present Releases indicate? – B.K. Sen

Events are fast overtaking the political front in Burma, so it appears
that.3,937 have been set free and at least two dozen members of NLD in
addition. The stunning news was the release of Min Ko Naing, who
spear-headed the pro–democracy movement of 8.8.88 (August 8, 1988) and
became the legendary figure. Many political analysts have been proved
wrong and some are dumb-founded.

Analysts ponder whether it was foreign pressure that forced the military
into conceding the gesture. Some say it happened because of regional
pressure; some are of the view that it was to dilute the economic crisis
in the offing.

Critics say these are gimmicks to buy international sympathy and find a
scape-goat for the gross violations of human rights the military has
committed during its reign of nearly 50 years.

Be that as it may. The hard fact is that the releases are especially
significant from a legal perspective, it is that political prisoners who
had been illegally put behind bars for years have been given  freedom.

Whatever may be the reason or motive of the junta is not very relevant.
What is important is whether the step to release is a step forward to
revive the peace process. What is important is that the junta has in so
many words admitted the detention was illegal by orders of Military
Intelligence, an arm of the junta. It stated that the releases were made
because the prisoners were "inappropriately arrested" by the intelligence
machine purged in October. It has to be clearly understood what it means
in law; there is no such term as "inappropriately". There is a term
"irregularities." But irregularities do not vitiate a trial. The Military
Intelligence (MI) headed by the purged Chief Khin Nyunt has been
dismantled and the Law of the National Intelligence Bureau has been
withdrawn. Therefore it is contended that MI committed large-scale
illegalities.

This is exactly what the democrat activists have been saying. Their stand
has been vindicated. The culpability of the Head of the State is thereby
not absolved. It will be in the fitness of things if cases of torture,
disappearances are also revealed. Let us take that Khin Nyunt is the prime
culprit. It will be an act of truth and reconciliation if the Head of the
State also discloses the list of the persons who died in the 8.8.88
uprising and where the responsibility lies, how the Intelligence service
worked.

The Iraq war was due to wrong intelligence, it has been contended. The
same could be also the case of Burma's decade of military rule. Starting
from the Ne Win regime, the Military Intelligence created division between
the Army and the people and trampled Rule of Law. For Gen Than Swe, much
more remains to be done. The release of Daw Aung San Su Kyi from house
arrest and release of many other political prisoners are necessary, being
the only norm according to Rule of Law. The events have boosted the
chances for igniting brokered reconciliation talks which collapsed and
were substituted by the National Convention. The prison releases have
initiated a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the freedom of
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and
greater democratisation.

Whether it is resumption of dialogue or the National convention, it
behooves Gen.  Than Shwe to talk to the leaders first separately but
inclusive and then come to a decision about the advisability of going on
with the National convention or revamping it according to the suggestions
made by the opposition. He has to convince the stake-holders about his
sincerity and political will, that he was not Khin Nyunt, full of deceit.
Political process at this juncture is earth-shaking in Burmese politics.
He has to build up mutual trust, confidence building by actions at least
removing the State Protection Law, Press Act and a few draconian laws and
investing the Supreme Court with writ powers that use Habeus Corpus &
Mandamus more.  The opposition may then agree to participation of the army
in politics as "a sunset clause" in the six basic principles laid down by
the junta - provided freedom of expression is restored. As for the
opposition, they must seek to seize the initiative from the hands of the
junta and not leave it to it for everything being dictated.

If the people, soldiers and the moderate officers in the Army know the
reasonableness of the opposition blue-print for political change, the
elite in the Army will be more prone towards political change. If the
opposition holds on to the 1990 election results as sine quo non it would
mean the return to barracks for the army. The opposition does not yet have
the force to dictate terms to the army.

However, the sanctity of the 1990 election has to be guaranteed but in
view of radical changes a new political course could be chosen by
consensus of all parties.