BurmaNet News December 22, 2004

[Editor]

December 22, 2004, Issue # 2625

INSIDE BURMA
BBC: Clashes with United Wa State Army feared amid Burmese troop
reinforcement
AFP: Four NLD party members arrested in Myanmar
Irrawaddy: Burmese Authorities After Two Suspects in Bomb Case
AFP: Myanmar restaurant explosion was a bomb: state media
Xinhua: Myanmar to host ASEAN tourism forum in 2006
AFP: Myanmar crowns a beauty queen after 43-year pageant ban lifted

ON THE BORDER
S.H.A.N.: Shan disclaim responsibility for attack last week
S.H.A.N.: Carnage reports persist

REGIONAL
Japan Economic Newswire: Myanmar woman says anxious over separation from
kids, deportation

OPINION / OTHER
Khaleej Times: Mystique outweighs morality for Myanmar tourists


______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

December 22, BBC Monitoring International Reports
Clashes with United Wa State Army feared amid Burmese troop reinforcement

Text of report by Burmese opposition radio Democratic Voice of Burma web
site on 22 December

It has been learnt that the situation between military units of the UWSA
(United Wa State Army) and the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council)
is getting tense.

It started when SPDC military units entered Wa region, Mong Mao Township
in Shan State North, for a land survey. It has been learnt that artillery
units under the Lashio-based Artillery Control Base No 902 have set up
camps in the region to conduct a land survey. Besides these artillery
units, local residents said Kunlong-based 312th Light Infantry Battalion
and Laukkai-based 128th Infantry Battalion have also set up camps.

Last week, Wa units intercepted (SPDC) units, led by Lt-Col Myat Kyaw,
commander of the 128th Infantry Battalion, to prevent the latter from
entering the region and conducting a land survey. Local residents said the
SPDC has increased the number of troops in the region days after the
incident. According to military reports from the border, this is why there
is a tense situation between the two sides and the locals are very
concerned about possible clashes.

Source: Democratic Voice of Burma web site, Oslo, in Burmese 1430 gmt 22
Dec 04

______________________________________

December 22, Agence France Presse
Four NLD party members arrested in Myanmar

Four members of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party as
well as a former member have been arrested in the capital of
military-ruled Myanmar over the past week, party officials said Wednesday.

Tun Lin Kyaw of the National League for Democracy was detained by
authorities December 14 as he staged a one-man protest against tightened
restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi, an NLD spokesman said.

"It was a (protest) action for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi," spokesman
U Lwin told AFP, adding that he was not aware of why the others were
arrested.

They include NLD members Aung Myo San who was arrested Sunday and Thein Gi
who was arrested Monday, as well as U Ba Myint and former NLD member U Ba
Thint, he said.

"We are preparing legal assitance for them," U Lwin added.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has spent much of the past 15
years under house arrest, was told last month that her detention had been
extended by another year. The extension brought sweeping international
condemnation.

Her party has also warned that the charismatic pro-democracy campaigner
has had access to her personal doctor restricted and her non-junta
security cut, moves which it says has put her health and safety at risk.

In her third period of house arrest since she was first detained in 1989,
Aung San Suu Kyi has been held since May 2003 following a clash between
her supporters and a pro-junta mob.

_____________________________________

December 22, Irrawaddy
Burmese Authorities After Two Suspects in Bomb Case

Burmese authorities are looking for two men suspected in a small explosion
at a souvenir and coffee shop in Rangoon that wounded at least one person,
government media reported Wednesday.

The two middle-aged men had lunch at the shop on Tuesday and left behind a
packet that later exploded, the Burmese-language Myanma Ahlin daily
newspaper reported. A waiter was slightly wounded in the blast, but no
damage was caused to the two-story wooden building.

The shop is owned by a French citizen who sells lacquerware and silk.
Police cordoned off the premises and closed down a nearby market popular
with tourists where a festival was taking place, witnesses said.

Police declined to comment on the case. No one claimed responsibility for
the blast, Rangoon’s third this year.

In June, four bombs exploded near the central railway station. No
casualties or damage were reported and no group claimed responsibility.
Rangoon blamed exiled dissidents in Thailand.

In November, a small explosion occurred in front of a government court
complex, causing minor damage but no injuries. No one claimed
responsibility.

Public dissent is rare in the tightly guarded capital, and anti-government
violence even more uncommon, although there is a well-organized armed
opposition to the government along Burma’s eastern border with Thailand.

_____________________________________

December 22, Agence France Presse
Myanmar restaurant explosion was a bomb: state media

A bomb caused the explosion that ripped through a restaurant popular with
foreign tourists in the capital of military-ruled Myanmar, state media
reported Wednesday.

One worker at the restaurant was wounded in the explosion, the New Light
of Myanmar newspaper reported, a day after the blast.

Police were searching for two middle-aged men who left a package in the
Zawgyi House restaurant on Tuesday morning, hours before the blast, the
newspaper said.

The Zawgyi House, a French restaurant and handicraft shop located near an
entrance to Yangon's busy Bogyoke Aung San market, received minor damage
from the small explosion, a diplomat in Yangon said.

The newspaper did not say if anyone had claimed responsibility for the
blast, at least the fourth in the city this year.

The junta has blamed three bomb blasts in June on a pro-democracy-linked
"terrorist" who was allegedly trying to disrupt a controversial meeting
reworking the country's constitution.

The diplomat in Yangon said the attack was likely undertaken to send a
message and not to kill people.

"There is a group which wants to send a signal and this time it could be a
signal to tourists," the diplomat told AFP.

"Had they wanted to cause major damage they would have done it differently."

Myanmar has been under military-dominated rule since a coup in 1962.

_____________________________________

December 22, Xinhua
Myanmar to host ASEAN tourism forum in 2006

Myanmar will host a tourism forum of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) in 2006 to seek better ways of promoting the sector in the
region, according to the Myanmar Travel Committee Wednesday.

The ASEAN Tourism Forum will be attached with a travel exposition, the
committee said, urging private tour operators in the country to cooperate
for the launching of the activities.

In June this year, the regional tourism task force gathered in Taunggyi,
eastern Myanmar's Shan state, for a series of meetings in which progress
of publishing ASEAN map in Chinese language for market promotion of the
regional tourism industry, maintenance of ASEAN tourism website,
information program for third phase of ASEAN tourism movement and
implementation of regional tourism agreement among others were discussed.

The discussions also covered investment and manpower development as well
as designation of uniform star-grade hotels in the regional member
countries.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has launched tourism promotional campaigns in some
major Asian cities including New Delhi, Osaka, Tokyo, Singapore and
Malaysia for increased tourist arrivals.

According to the Central Statistical Organization, tourist arrivals in
Myanmar stood 269,205 in 2003-04. The figures rose over 20 percent to
315,823 in the first half (April-September) alone of the present fiscal
year 2004-05 compared with the same period of the previous year.

Other statistics show Myanmar so far has 570 hotels with more than 17,200
rooms involving an investment of about 583 million US dollars plus 33
billion kyats (about 41.2 million dollars).

Contracted foreign investment in the sector of hotels and tourism has so
far reached 1.06 billion dollars since Myanmar started to open to such
investment in late 1988.

_____________________________________

December 22, Agence France Presse
Myanmar crowns a beauty queen after 43-year pageant ban lifted

A 20-year-old public relations worker was crowned Wednesday as Myanmar's
first beauty queen since the lifting of a 43-year-old ban on such pageants
by the ruling military junta.

Wearing her victory tiara, a teary-eyed Ei Yupar Win told AFP she was
looking forward to competing at a regional final in Jakarta in February
along with other finalists from the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN).

"I will try my best as a cultural ambassador... to promote our country
among other countries," the newly-crowned Miss ASEAN Culture Myanmar told
AFP soon after beating 23 fellow finalists to the title.

Ei Yupar Win clinched her victory sash in a yellow traditional long skirt
and body-hugging top in front of about 1,000 spectators.

The beauty queen, who is a first-year English student in addition to her
PR job, won three million kyats (3,000 dollars), a small fortune in the
impoverished military-ruled nation.

After seizing power in a 1962 coup, the military government of the country
then known as Burma banned beauty pageants saying they undermined Burmese
culture.

No reason has been given for the lifting of the ban, but analysts say the
country is keen to curry favour with fellow ASEAN member states.

Myanmar has faced growing concern amid some ASEAN nations over the junta's
ongoing detention of opposition pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

With the country set to take its turn at the helm of the bloc in July 2006
the regime has launched a number of initiatives, including a mass release
of prisoners.

At stage-side however, politics took a back-seat to the buzz surrounding
the event.

"I feel today the same way as the day I was on the stage 43 years ago,"
said 61-year old pageant judge, Khin Myint Myint, who was the last citizen
to don a sash when she was declared Miss Universe Myanmar in 1961.

She said the hardest thing about selecting Ei Yupar Win for the crown was
that "we have so many progressive girls in this contest."

Women entering the Myanmar competition had to be between 20 and 25 years
old, speak English, have passed a higher education exam and play at least
one traditional Myanmar instrument, she said.

"The world was interested in me because of the beauty of my eyes and a
beautiful complexion" said Khin Myint Myint, but she added that judges in
Jakarta will evaluate the finalists of Miss ASEAN Culture on intellect and
personality.

Conceding Myanmar was a little rusty on pageant protocol, one of Ei Yupar
Win's trainers told AFP that more hard work lay ahead.

"I think our Miss has the ability to be a successful cultural ambassador,
but I must train her more to be as successful as other international
competitors," said Tin Moe Lwin.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The 2005 Miss ASEAN Culture competition will be the first event of its
type and is aimed at promoting the region's cultural wealth, according to
the organisers of the Myanmar competition.

_____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

December 22, Shan
Shan disclaim responsibility for attack last week

The Shan commander whose units are active in eastern Shan State has denied
last week's ambush that killed a junta colonel had anything to do with the
Shan State Army.

Lt-Col Gawn Zeun, Commander of the SSA's Kengtung Front, who has just
returned from the annual meeting at a Shan base across Maehongson,
categorically spurned off allegations that his fighters were responsible
for the ambush on 10 December (S.H.A.N. had reported as 7 September) that
resulted in 4 dead, including Col Khin Maung Hla, Tactical Commander from
Monghsat, and 7 wounded.

According to him, the attack took place at midday between Mongtoom and Loi
Hsarmhsoong on the way to Monghsat. "The place was thick with Wa and Lahu
militia units, apart from the Burmese troops," he stated. "Beside, we
didn't have any advance warning of his coming to stage an attack."

Explosions were heard across Hua Maekham, Mae Fah Luang District,
Chiangrai province, west of the SSA's Loi Kawwan base, also this morning.
"That wasn't us either," he said. "The only thing we know is that a fight
was taking place between (Tachilek-based) Light Infantry Battalion 359 and
an unidentified armed force."

He thought it would take some time to find out what was happening. "Maybe
someone wants an excuse to whip up a new war along the border," he
ventured.

The Burma Army and Col Yawdserk's Shan State Army have already fought
three battles on the border since Thaksin Shinawatra came into power, the
third one in May-June 2002. Since then, the SSA, together with its allies,
the Karen National Union and Karenni National Progressive Party, have been
pressured to behave themselves and not to fight unless attacked.

_____________________________________

December 21, Shan
Carnage reports persist

Unconfirmed and fragmentary reports of Wa officers shooting to death 8
junta officials in Monghsat, opposite Chiangmai province, on Friday, 17
December, are continuing to haunt the border, reports King Cobra:

According to the reports, 8 of 9 Burmese officials who were holding a
close door meeting with 13 Wa officers at an unspecified venue were
killed, following a demand by the former that the Wa Army surrender their
arms by 18 January 2005.

All cellular phones made in Thailand were ordered to shut down on the next
day. Monghsat residents were also warned not to let any information out,
threatening anyone defying the order with a ten-year imprisonment.

"Granted that the reports are accurate," said a Thai border watcher, "the
Burmese (military) is only reacting in accordance with its official
procedure. They had done the same after Depayin (massacre on 30 May 2003).
But the news leaked out to the outside world anyway."

On the other hand, things appear to be quiet along the border, except for
the fact that fewer Wa fighters are seen in public since the October
"coup".

Meanwhile, wife of Wa official from Monghsat who was on a visit to Mongton
was asked whether she knew anything about the killings, to which she
replied in the negative.

Other Thai security officers wonder whether the reports are deliberate
disinformation by the junta. "Late last month, they were feeding us with
reports about (Thailand's) southern terrorists entering Burma on a mission
to blow off the Thai embassy in Rangoon," remarked one. "The result was
some of us, who were newly appointed to watch over the western border but
yet to have their homework properly done, got excited and started speaking
in praise of Burma's neighborliness."

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

December 22, Japan Economic Newswire
Myanmar woman says anxious over separation from kids, deportation

A woman from Myanmar who had been released on bail Tuesday from the Tokyo
immigration center after being detained for illegal entry and separated
from her young children said Wednesday that she was anxious during her
ordeal and worried about being deported.

'I was anxious as the children were taken away from me, and I was
pressured many times to return to my country,' Sung, 25, told a news
conference, adding that she had not seen them for 20 days.

Sung released by the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau on condition that
she post bond. Her 39-year-old husband, Maung, who was detained along with
her, remains in custody.

The couple, who married in Japan, had been living in Tokyo with their
1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter when they were taken into custody
-- in November and December -- by immigration authorities. The children
were then placed in a home for children in Tokyo.

Sung, who was holding her daughter at the press conference, called on the
authorities to release her husband, saying, 'The children miss their
father and attempt to go to the entrance when they hear sounds at night. I
want our family to be back together again.' She spoke in Japanese.

Last Friday, the couple filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court
seeking suspension and cancellation of the government's detention order.

According to the couple's petition, they belong to an ethnic minority
group in Myanmar and took part in antigovernment activities. They said
they fled to Japan to escape persecution, entering the country on fake
passports before 1999.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

December 22, Khaleej Times
Mystique outweighs morality for Myanmar tourists

YANGON - Aung San Suu Kyi’s pleas are falling on deaf ears these days. Far
from heeding the Nobel peace laureate’s cry to stay away from
military-ruled Myanmar, tourists are flocking to the mystical, isolated
Southeast Asian nation in ever-greater numbers.

Figures from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) suggest around
223,000 tourists will fly into Yangon this year, the highest total in
PATA’s eight-year records and a 10 percent increase on 2003.

The totals are still tiny compared to neighbouring Thailand, but the
increase comes despite exhortations from the likes of Suu Kyi and former
colonial ruler Britain, which has also slapped sanctions on Yangon’s
reclusive generals, not to visit.

“Your average traveller these days doesn’t really listen to government
travel advisories. It’s much more a case of ’I’ll make my own mind up,
thank you very much,’” said PATA managing director John Koldowski.

For opposition leader Suu Kyi, still under a long period of house arrest,
every tourist dollar spent is another dollar propping up the military
regime that has ruled the former Burma under various guises for the past
42 years.

The argument, outlined in travel bible The Lonely Planet, is persuasive,
and is hammered home by human rights groups such as The Burma Campaign UK
in advertisements showing “Burma” written in blood across pictures of
pristine white sand beaches.

But this is pitted against Myanmar’s ancient pagodas, tracts of unspoilt
jungle and an atmosphere of other-worldly, forgotten charm that are an
increasingly powerful draw to everybody from hippy backpackers to
big-spending culture vultures.

Most visitors have some idea of the political situation, but few are fully
aware of the accusations dissident and human rights groups make against
the junta -- among others, detaining more than 1,300 political prisoners,
producing huge quantities of heroin and using child soldiers.

“Some tourists want to see Suu Kyi’s house, but mostly they just want to
know where the cheap gem shops are and how to get the train to Mandalay,”
Maun, a tour guide, told Reuters in the shadow of Yangon’s towering
Shwedagon pagoda.

“They don’t want to talk about politics.”

Myanmar’s military government keeps a very tight grip on information,
censoring newspapers and radio, and blocking Internet sites such as
Hotmail and Yahoo that might carry news on events inside and outside the
country.

Some visitors therefore see tourism as a force for good, allowing ordinary
people access to news and views, which are otherwise unavailable.

“For me, coming here was a no-brainer, because I was born and grew up
under a dictatorship -- Nikolai Ceaucescu’s Romania,” said Radu Polizu, a
Romanian filmmaker now living in New York.

“It’s a chance to talk with the people if they want to talk. I’m happy to
listen and pass their thoughts to the outside world,” he said.

However, Debbie Stothard of activist group Altsean-Burma says too few
visitors come with such good intentions.

“Of course some tourists are well-informed, but how many travellers would
dare go into Burma with a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights in their backpack?” Stothard said.

“Many Burmese are happy to see foreigners, especially those concerned
about their plight, but they also feel unhappy that the money they spend
is going to the regime,” she said.

Ironically, the diplomatic and commercial isolation imposed on the country
as a result of the junta has made it a more attractive destination to many
travellers concerned about security in the post-Sept. 11 worlds.

“People are now fleeing to Burma from places like Thailand or Bali, where
they fear they will get blown up by Muslim extremists. Burma is a very
safe place for tourists; unfortunately, it is not a safe place for the
Burmese,” Stothard said.

So where can we go?

While stopping short of pushing Suu Kyi’s stay-away line, Lonely Planet
still pushes “ethical tourism”, urging visitors to avoid where possible
government-run travel agencies, hotels and airlines, thus depriving the
junta of hard currency.

It is an approach popular with backpackers who want to visit Myanmar with
a clear conscience.

“If you start thinking about not coming here because of the government,
you will have to start thinking about whether to go to China, Laos, Tibet,
or even the United States,” said Swiss backpacker Marcel Schonenberger.

“If that was all you thought about, it would be impossible to travel
anywhere,” he said.

There is also the question of how effective tourist bans might be, given
the junta’s proven resilience in the face of mass student protests in
1988, trade embargoes, asset freezes and visa restrictions imposed on its
senior officers.

The recent discovery of major oil and natural gas reserves off the Myanmar
coast also mean the sums of foreign exchange derived from tourism are now
a relative pittance.

Consequently, the majorities of tourists simply shrug their shoulders and
get on with enjoying their holiday in blissful ignorance of the
allegations of repression and abuse.

“I’ve been to many places in the world, including Laos with its temples,
but this is something special -- and we’ve hardly seen it yet,” said Ilan
Moshe, an Israeli tourist. “The people are very kind, gentle and
friendly.”