BurmaNet News, January 20, 2005

[Editor]

January 20, 2005, Issue # 2639


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar military intelligence trials delayed: source
Irrawaddy: Burmese reactions to Condoleezza Rice’s Burma comment
Xinhua: More anti-govt armed members surrender in Myanmar
DVB: KNLP implicated in arms sales to Burmese rebels
SHAN: Second call to form advisory council

BUSINESS
Xinhua: Myanmar to export sculpture, furniture to China

REGIONAL
AFP: Red Cross helps Myanmarese detainees in Andamans
AFP: Tsunami quake may have activated Thai fault line

INTERNATIONAL
Financial Times: The limits of human rights legislation

OPINION / OTHER
The Hindu: Censor's pen makes it difficult to read between the lines

_____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 20, Agence France Presse
Myanmar military intelligence trials delayed: source

Yangon: The trials of more than 300 people, including 26 high-ranking
officers from Myanmar's disbanded military intelligence unit, have been
have been delayed to allow legal teams time to fully prepare, a source at
the country's largest prison said Thursday.

The trials were due to begin Thursday, but a legal expert inside the
Insein prison near Yangon said 10 tribunals inside the jail were still
being set up and proceedings would not begin until Monday at the earliest.

"They will have access to their own defense lawyers and hand-picked family
members will be allowed to attend the trials," said the source, who did
not want to be named.

The trials are expected to be concluded at Insein prison within 45 days
once they begin. Thousands of people have been summoned for closed-door
preliminary hearings in recent months.

Among those summoned were military intelligence personnel, government
employees, civilians and members of former ethnic armed groups known to
have been deeply involved with military intelligence in various business
enterprises, prison sources have said.

Former premier Khin Nyunt headed military intelligence for two decades.
But it has been at the centre of a wide-ranging purge following his
sacking and arrest in October on corruption charges. The government began
completely dismantling it last month.

Two of Khin Nyunt's children are among those charged.

Some of those facing trial at Insein may be accused of conspiring against
the state. Most face up to seven years in jail on charges of bribery and
corruption, as well as illegally possessing foreign currency, a legal
expert said.

Khin Nyunt himself faces several charges including high treason, abuse of
power and graft, but is unlikely to be put on trial at this time, sources
said.

The military has ruled the country since 1962. The opposition National
League for Democracy won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take
power.

_____________________________________

January 20, Irrawaddy
Burmese reactions to Condoleezza Rice’s Burma comment - Shah Paung

During her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, US Secretary of State
nominee Condoleezza Rice named Burma as one of a group of nations (the
others being North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Belarus and Zimbabwe) that were
“outposts of tyranny”. Below are reactions from a veteran politician in
Rangoon and an exiled activist.

“I don’t see that she can add much change [for Burma],” said veteran
politician Amyotheryei Win Naing, leader of the Rangoon-based National
Politicians Group-Myanmar. “[But] pro-democracy groups will be pleased
with her [sweet] words.”

Zin Linn, head of the information department of the exiled National
Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, or NCGUB, speaking from
Bangkok, said the group expected that the US to take more interest in
Burma and play a more active role if Condoleezza Rice is appointed
Secretary of State.

Amyotheryei Win Naing added that he thought the United State should pay
more attention to the Burma issue and should act by liaising with Burmese
politicians inside the country to promote reform and democracy.

Condolezza Rice is President Bush’s National Security Adviser and is one
of his most trusted aides. The National Security Adviser is a White House
staff appointment. The Secretary of State is a cabinet position, so
requires the Senate’s approval, but the Republicans hold a comfortable
majority in the upper house of the legislature, so Rice’s confirmation is
expected to be little more than a formality.

_____________________________________

January 20, Xinhua General News Service
More anti-govt armed members surrender in Myanmar

Yangon: A total of 35 more members from some anti-government armed groups
in Myanmar laid down their arms in the last quarter of 2004, official
newspaper The New Light of Myanmar reported Thursday.

The surrender has brought the total to more than 200 in the whole year.

These members, who "exchanged arms for peace" with the government between
October and December, include those from the Kayin National Union (KNU),
Shan United Revolutionary Army (SURA), National Defense Army (NDA) and All
Burma (Myanmar) Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF).

They brought along with them a total of 380 rounds of arms and ammunition
among others, the report said.

Of these armed groups, the KNU is the largest one fighting with the
government for more than five decades. Meanwhile, a planned third round of
peace talks between the government and the KNU in October last year was
suspended until now as it coincided with a surprise reshuffle of the
government's cabinet then, in which change of prime minister took place.

Official statistics show that since the government adopted a policy of
national reconciliation in 1989, a total of 17 anti- government armed
groups have made peace with the government, returning to the legal fold.

_____________________________________

January 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
KNLP implicated in arms sales to Burmese rebels

Kayan New Land Party (KNLP), one of the Burmese ethnic national groups
which signed ceasefire agreements with Burma’s military junta, State Peace
and Development Council (SPDC), is being implicated in arms sales to
ethnic groups opposing the junta. The KNLP agreed to attend the
junta-sponsored “National Convention” to be resumed on 17 February and no
KNLP has been arrested so far. Four arms dealers close to the party are
being tried at the Rangoon Division court for selling 40 assorted weapons
to armed ethnic Chin and Naga groups based on Indo-Burmese borders. Naing
Ngwe Ya who is defending the four accused told DVB that a man named Do
Kyin Htan allegedly bought weapons from the KNLP and went to sell them at
the Indian-Burma border, and he was charged with Act 13a for leaving the
country illegally and an act relating to illegal weapon sales when he
returned to Burma. The remaining three; Khin Maung Soe, Peter and Do Kyin
Mann are being charged with emergency act 11b relating to arms sales. He
added that the prosecuting was unable to provide evidence but photographs
of weapons supposedly sold including shoulder-held launchers, mortars,
AK-47, HK and shotguns and a letter from the army weapons inspection
office confirming that the weapons are made in Burma. The KNLP is unable
to provide witnesses for the defendants. Naing Ngwe Ya also explained that
he faced many kinds of case such as this, including rape, fraud, murder,
human trafficking, drug-trafficking, weapon-trafficking involving Burmese
soldiers as the accused have the rights to defend themselves within legal
boundary. He hinted that increasing people have been committing heinous
crimes due to the mismanagement of the country economy by the junta.

_____________________________________

January 20, Shan Herald Agency for News
Second call to form advisory council

Two weeks after the Shan State Army "North" had broached the subject, a
hitherto little known group from Burma's largest state has presented a
13-page proposal to the country's military government, according to
sources from the northern border:

Myohsetthit Shan Pyi (New Generation - Shan State) suggests on 10 December
members of the said council should be chosen from people outside the
military government, opposition parties and armed organizations.
"Successive military governments have been unable to differentiate between
(genuine) politicians and those who makes a living on politics," reads the
paper. (It's time the government) join hands with politicians who have
stood out for national politics up to this day with a sense of devotion to
their country."

The paper blames successive governments since 1962 (the year the military
took power) for steadfastly practising a divide and rule policy that in
time gave rise to a lack of trust even among the ruling power and
culminated in the October purge.

"In the democratic culture, there is no enemy, only opposition," it
maintains, explaining at length that one does not necessarily becomes an
enemy because one is not in the same party.

The authors also comment on the 1990 general elections. While conceding
that it could be "classified as an utterly fair and impartial election
when measured with a global ruler," it argues that for the non-Burman
states, it failed to represent them. "(They) aspire to determine their own
destiny." However, their aspirations were thwarted when "a big political
party from Burma Proper" took advantage in the state constituencies, while
the right to vote was banned in "black areas" where most armed resistance
movements were still fighting against the government and had yet to
conclude truce pacts with Rangoon until a year earlier.

Accordingly, parties representing the states won less than 15% of the
total seats.

The paper followed a similar proposal by Shan State Army "North" on 25
November to Rangoon through Maj Gen Myint Hlaing, Commander of
Lashio-based Northeastern Region Command.

The group's leader U Myint Than "Maths" of Taunggyi was later invited to
Rangoon to make out his case, said a source. "Actually, it was written at
the request from the authorities," the source told S.H.A.N.. "But since
then we have yet to hear anything, either official or unofficial."

_____________________________________
BUSINESS

January 20, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to export sculpture, furniture to China

Yangon: Myanmar will export 900 tons of sculpture and furniture to China
as part of its bid to penetrate the international market, a local news
journal reported Thursday.

The export products worth 360,000 US dollars include 600 tons of sculpture
and 300 tons of furniture manufactured by five cooperatives in the
country's Mandalay and Sagaing divisions, the 7-Day quoted the
cooperatives sources as saying.

The transaction will be done in phases within two years, the report said.

Myanmar's sale contract of the value-added wood products was reached with
Chinese traders during last December's Myanmar-China border trade fair
held in the border town of Muse linking China's Ruili in Yunnan province.

The value-added timber products were among exhibits in the fair along with
handicrafts, marine products, gem items, personal and household goods and
others.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has agreed in principle with three European countries
-- France, Italy and Germany on the direct export of its value-added
timber products on a long-term basis without transiting through India,
Thailand and Malaysia where logs were processed with value added.

Myanmar exported over 200,000 cubic-tons (283,000 cubic-meters) of teak
every year mainly to India, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia, of which India
was the biggest buyer.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been establishing wood-based industry, giving
priority to manufacturing value-added finished wood products for export.
Accordingly, a number of wood-based industrial zones is being set up for
the purpose since export of wood log is being restricted and export of
teak log by the private sector has been banned since 1992 when the
government enacted the Forest Law.

Official figures indicate that the country earned about 377 million US
dollars through timber export in 2003-04, accounting for 15 percent of the
total export value.

Timber stands as the country's third largest export goods after mineral
and agricultural products.

Myanmar ranks the fifth in the world with a coverage of 52.28 percent in
terms of forest with a major share of the world's teak stock. The
country's forestry sector has already teamed up with other members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the development of the regional
criteria for forest resources and forest resource export-oriented
industries to remain sustainable and competitive in the international
market.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

January 20, Agence France Presse
Red Cross helps Myanmarese detainees in Andamans

Port Blair, India: The Indian Red Cross on Thursday moved to assist 227
Myanmarese held in primitive conditions despite serving their sentences on
this tsunami-wrecked archipelago.

The Red Cross sent officials to the territory where fishermen from
Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka live behind barbed wire and cut off from
the outside world.

The prisoners, mainly fishermen caught in Indian territorial waters over
the last year, have completed their sentences but New Delhi insists that
their repatriation is the responsibility of their governments.

"The Indian Red Cross has asked us to extend news to these detainees which
will also enable their families in Myanmar to put pressure on the
concerned authorities to hasten their repatriation process," Red Cross
official Basudev Dass told AFP.

Port Blair deputy police chief Vasudev Rao said India was in contact with
Myanmar over the early repatriation of the detainees from Port Blair,
where the towering waves wrecked harbours and jetties.

"The talks are on and as soon as the mode of transportation is finalised
they will be sent back," Rao said in the Andamanese capital.

The Red Cross's Dass said pressure would also be applied to other
governments to speed up the repatriation of two other men -- one Sri
Lankan and one Bangladeshi.

Five Indonesians who were pushed into Indian waters by the tsunamis were
held in the squalid facility for two days but released earlier this month
after their plight was highlighted by international media.

_____________________________________

January 20, Agence France Presse
Tsunami quake may have activated Thai fault line

Bangkok: Thai researchers and media warned Thursday the earthquake which
triggered the Asian tsunami may have moved the tourist resort island of
Phuket by 15 centimetres (six inches) and activated an offshore fault
line.

"We have sent a team to investigate initial reports that Phuket as well as
the whole area (in the Andaman Sea) has shifted southwest," the head of
Chulalongkorn University's survey engineering department, Chugiat
Wichiencharoen, told AFP.

The shift was noticed by a team of international experts from France,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Thailand which reported the
findings to the university survey team.

"The shift is a large one if you consider that the usual rate is about two
millimetres a year," said Chugiat, adding the change would however be
unnoticeable to people living in the area.

Geologists were more concerned with a 10-centimetre (four-inch) crack
discovered offshore in Ranong province near a passive fault line that
crosses the border between Thailand and Myanmar, said the Bangkok Post
newspaper.

It quoted a report saying villagers had found "a stream of bubbles popping
up from the crack in more volume and at a speed greater than those of
boiling water."

The director of Thailand's Geology Office told the rival Nation newspaper
a one kilometre (0.6 mile) stretch of the ocean floor appeared to have
split open as a consequence of the quake some 500 metres (1,600 feet)
offshore and seven metres (yards) under the water.

"It's possible that the December 26 earthquake has revived the dormant
Ranong fault. When a fault becomes active it releases bubbles," he said.

He did not say what the possible consequences of a reactivated fault line
would be.

The tsunami that killed nearly 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean was
triggered by a powerful earthquake, registering 9.0 on the Richter scale,
that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 20, Financial Times
The limits of human rights legislation - Jonathan Birchall

Alien Tort Statute: Jonathan Birchall on how two cases have tested the
scope of law allowing US companies to be sued for wrongs committed
overseas

Federal Judge John Sprizzo delivered what the US business community wanted
to hear late last year when he ruled that international corporations could
not be sued in his court over working in apartheid South Africa.

"In a world where many countries fall considerably short of ideal
economic, political and social conditions, this court must be extremely
cautious in permitting suits here based upon a corporation's doing
business in countries with less than stellar human rights records," Judge
Sprizzo wrote in his judgment dismissing the suit - South African
Apartheid Litigation MDL 1499.

The class-action litigation - brought by Ed Fagan, the flamboyant New York
attorney - relied on the controversial Alien Tort statute (ATS) of 1789,
which has been used since the mid-1990s to bring legal actions against
companies over alleged complicity in human rights abuses abroad.

"The decision should set the tone for similar lawsuits targeting US
companies doing business abroad," said Bill Reinsch, president of the
National Foreign Trade Council, which has campaigned against efforts to
apply the statute to corporate behaviour.

But if the business community felt it had won a victory in the apartheid
litigation, it suffered something of a set-back a few weeks later.

In mid-December, Unocal, the US oil company, announced that it had reached
a decision in principle to settle Alien Tort litigation over alleged
complicity in human rights abuses in Burma.

The Unocal case, which was filed in 1996 on behalf of a group of Burmese
villagers, was the most advanced of the corporate ATS cases. It had wide
support from the US human rights community - unlike the apartheid case,
which was widely expected to face rapid dismissal. The US government had
filed arguments supporting Unocal's position.

The settlement in princi ple was welcomed as a victory by the human rights
lobby (although moves to sell the company to CNOOC, the Chinese
state-controlled oil group, might have helped). But it removed an
opportunity to achieve some clarity on the question of corporate liability
under the statute.

"The issue of aiding and abetting (violations of international law) and
its availability under the Alien Tort statute was squarely presented,"
says Paul Hoffman, of the Center for Justice and Accountability, who
argued for the plaintiffs. "Now, because that is not going to be decided,
there is going to be a period of greater uncertainty for corporations."

Terry Collingsworth of the International Labour Rights Fund, who also
represented the Burmese plaintiffs, argues that the outcome of the two
cases undermines claims that the Alien Tort statute exposes companies to
excessive litigation risks.

"Just because a company is selling its product in a country, there is no
way we could sue them . . . nomatter how much we might despise the
politics of that country," he says. "The courts in Unocal required us to
demonstrate a link between the acts of Unocal and the human rights
violations suffered by our clients."

Both cases followed last summer's Supreme Court ruling on the Alien Tort
statute, which gives foreigners the right to seek redress in US federal
courts for wrongs abroad that are "committed in violation of the law of
nations or a treaty of the United States". The Supreme Court ruled the
statute could only be used against violations that are "specific,
universal and obligatory" under international law.

"It's a short list," says Mr Collingsworth. "It includes genocide,
extra-judicial killing, torture, war crimes, slavery and extreme arbitrary
detention."

Judge Sprizzo's ruling represents a narrow reading of the Supreme Court's
position. He rejected the idea that the principle of aiding and abetting
could be applied under the statute, an argument previously cited in
several other cases.

"He clearly captured the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling in terms of
taking a very narrow eye to figuring out what claims are actionable in
international law," says Owen Pell, of the New York-based law firm White &
Case, which represented the companies in the apartheid case.

However, Judge Sprizzo's rejection of aiding and abetting arguments may be
challenged by other federal judges. Mr Hoffman says: "My own view is that
it would be very surprising if the courts reject forms of aiding and
abetting liability in these cases."

Meanwhile, Unocal's settlement in principle also increases pressure on
several other energy companies facing similar cases that have survived
motions to dismiss - including ChevronTexaco, Shell and Talisman oil.

Mr Pell at White & Case argues that the outstanding ATS cases involving
oil and mining companies "probably represent what is now the cutting edge"
of the struggle over the statute, but that risk of the sort of mass action
attempted in the apartheid case has been removed.

He also warns that human rights litigation may in future target individual
company officials and directors if the door to action against corporations
under the Alien Tort statute is definitively shut.

Meanwhile - and despite the Sprizzo decision - corporate and human rights
lobbyists are eyeing each other for signs of attempts by the business
community to push for legislation to curtail the scope of the statute in
the new US Congress.

Even Republican senators, however, may be wary of giving US business
absolute immunity to legal action at home over involvement in egregious
breaches of international law abroad.

"I think a signal has been sent," says Mr Pell of last summer's Supreme
Court decision. "You companies are capable of knowing right from wrong,
and what we are telling you is that if you put yourselves on the side of
wrong, then there is some room under this statute for you to get sued. So
you better be careful to make sure you are on the right side."

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 20, The Hindu
Censor's pen makes it difficult to read between the lines - Siddharth
Varadarajan

Yangon: If a Bollywood heroine's piya were to go today to Rangoon and wish
to send an e-mail rather than using the telephoon, he better make sure
it's not Hotmail, Gmail, Sify or Yahoo.

For along with the hundreds of websites that Myanmar's military rulers
block access to, most popular web-based email services are also firewalled
out. The idea is to prevent dissident groups (like mizzima.com) from
disseminating information within the country. English language newspapers
from the West are accessible but Indian news sites weren't until the
Indian embassy requested that they be unblocked. One can also access
Google without a problem, but a search for the key words `Myanmar' and
`human rights' is likely to generate an error message: "Inappropriate
search field".

The Internet being what it is, of course, local residents can always open
an account with less well-known email providers and receive `contraband'
information in their inboxes. And the situation today is a huge
improvement over what prevailed earlier, when there was no Net and modems
were illegal. But the systematic censorship of the web here suggests the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) government is perfectly capable
of adapting its political and administrative practices to the changing
technologies and modes of communication that economic openness inevitably
brings.

Sanitised pages

As for older media technologies like newspapers, good old-fashioned
pre-censorship ensures that Myanmar has the most anodyne, sanitised news
pages within 2,000 kilometres of Pyongyang.

If all one reads is English, the only daily newspaper here is the New
Light of Myanmar, a Government-run tabloid where the lead story on a
typical day last week was, `Senior General Than Shwe enjoys Tatmadaw
(Army, Navy and Air) Golf Tournament.' There are virtually no opinion
pieces, and editorials deal with such virtuous topics as `Try best to
become noble-minded nurses' and `Knowledge of history the key to a better
future.' The only news from Myanmar consists of brief accounts of official
announcements and visits, though coverage of foreign news — especially
from China, and from Iraq — is ample.

In the Burmese language, the situation is better: there is a choice of
three state-run dailies. But, in a variation on Henry Ford's dictum on the
colour of his cars, you can buy any newspaper you want but the news in
them will always be the same. There are a number of private weeklies and
fortnightlies, including Myanmar Times, an Australian joint venture. But
pre-censorship by the `Literary Works Scrutiny Committee' means the
papers' contentis tightly regulated.

Last September, a Burmese business weekly, Dhana, was reportedly suspended
after it carried a photograph of the jailed student leader, Min Ko Naing.
The photo was actually inadvertent. The paper had interviewed the famous
artist, U Thet Nyunt, who happened to be the father of the student leader,
and it was a portrait of his son which was visible in one of the photo
frames. Today, Dhana is back on the stands. And in one of those bizarre
turns of event, Khin Nyunt — the military intelligence chief and Prime
Minister who oversaw the censorship process — is in jail while Min Ko
Naing is a free man, released by the SPDC in an amnesty following Khin
Nyunt's arrest.

Reflection

The state of the media, of course, closely mirrors the state of politics
here. Though the visible trappings of military rule are absent — gone are
the ubiquitous hoardings in praise of the Tatmadaw — and Yangon is no
longer the economic backwater it was a decade ago, the SPDC regime is in
no hurry to usher in a wave of glasnost. The National League for Democracy
leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed from house arrest in May 2002, was
rearrested a year later and remains in "protective custody". Since then,
the authorities have come up with a `Myanmar Roadmap' to "genuine and
disciplined democracy" involving the convening of a National Convention. A
number of rallies and meetings with `national race groups' (i.e. ethnic
minorities) have been held and the National Convention met in May last
year. Though as many as 54 NLD delegates were invited to participate, the
party decided to stay away.

While there are many who question the credibility of this roadmap, it is
clear that the NLD has not been successful in working out a strategy that
can combine a flexible response to the SPDC's overtures with fidelity to
its basic programme. It is also apparent that pressure from the U.S. and
others is not helping the process of national reconciliation but only
hardening attitudes all around.

With the dismissal of Khin Nyunt as PM, the perception here is that the
government will adopt a tougher line towards it opponents. However,
Myanmar is due to hold the rotating chair of Asean in 2006 and it is
possible that some members of the South-East Asian grouping could insist
on more visible progress towards democratisation by then.