BurmaNet News, May 19, 2005

[Editor]

May 19, 2005 Issue # 2722

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Burma’s censorship board gets a new director
AP via Irrawaddy: Police doubles reward for Rangoon bombers

ON THE BORDER
Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Thailand and Myanmar to sign MOU to exploit
Salween River

DRUGS
AFP: Mekong countries pledge fresh commitment to fighting drugs
SHAN: Opium galore in the north

BUSINESS/Money
AFP: Myanmar expanding airport for 2006 ASEAN meeting: Singapore firm

ASEAN
International Herald Tribune: Junta is expected to forgo Asean helm

REGIONAL
Mizzima News: Burmese refugees are under threat from the UNHCR; campaigners

INTERNATIONAL
International Herald Tribune: A witness's plea to end Myanmar abuse
Mizzima News: US and Canada take steps against Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Bangkok Post: Burma trivialises terrorist attacks

ANNOUNCEMENT
Parliament of Canada: House of Commons passed the Burma Motion

______________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 19, Irrawaddy
Burma’s censorship board gets a new director - Ko Jay

A military officer, Maj Tint Swe, has become director of Burma’s Press
Scrutiny and Registration Board, according to media sources in Rangoon.

A prominent journalist in Rangoon said Maj Tint Swe, who took up his
duties on Wednesday, has written articles on military subjects for a
number of weekly journals, including Eleven News Journal, under the
pseudonym Ye Yint Tint Swe.

Maj Tint Swe replaces Maj Aye Tun, who was forced to retire after Prime
Minister and Military Intelligence Chief Gen Khin Nyunt was arrested last
October on charges of corruption and disobedience. Aye Tun was a former
military intelligence officer and was known in the media for his strict
censorship policy.

The Press Scrutiny and Registration Board has just banned the weekly
Rangoon-based Voice journal from publishing issues in May.
Meanwhile, some journalists in Rangoon are reporting an apparent
relaxation in the way the regime is allowing its press conferences to be
covered. Live television coverage was allowed of the regime’s most recent
press conference, the first time journalists can remember being accorded
this latitude.

Even questions and answers at the press conference, called following the
Rangoon bomb blasts, were televised live.

Burma Foreign Correspondents Club member Hla Htway, who reports for the
Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun, told the BBC Burmese radio
service that although Burma was far from allowing a “fully free press...in
my view, we will reach a semi free press one day.”

______________________________________

May 17, Associated Press via Irrawaddy
Police doubles reward for Rangoon bombers

Police distributed leaflets Tuesday at major road junctions and other
public places offering the reward for information on recent bombings in
Rangoon, which killed 19 people and injured 160 others. “Anyone who can
provide information leading to the arrest of the bombers will be given a
reward of 10 million kyats (US $10,500),” says the leaflet. Police has
previously offered 5 million kyats reward and the Police Chief Brig-Gen
Khin Yi told reporters at the press conference on late Sunday that the
reward would be doubled “to give a greater incentive to the public” to
help.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 19, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Thailand and Myanmar to sign MOU to exploit Salween River

Thailand is planning to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) this
month with Myanmar (Burma) to jointly develop the Salween River which
partly defines the two countries' border, a Thai minister said on
Thursday.

Thailand's Energy Minister Viset Choopiban said he expected the MOU to be
signed with Myanmar before the end of May.

"The joint development of the Salween will include the construction of
five to six hydro-electric dams on the river which will generate 15,000
megawatts of electricty," Viset told reporters.

He said that the dams, which would require private financing, would help
reduce Thailand's dependency on imported oil.

The dam projects would not be eligible for soft loans from the World Bank
or Asian Development Bank since they would be partly in Myanmar, which
faces economic sanctions from the U.S. government for its poor human
rights record and failure to introduce democratic reforms.

Thailand-based environmentalists were perplexed by the timing of Viset's
MOU announcement.

"It's quite strange for him to make this announcement after the recent
bombings in Yangon that the Myanmar military blamed on Thailand," said
Witoon Permpongsacharoen, director of the TERRA (Towards Ecological
Recovery and Regional Alliance), an environment protection group.

On May 7 three bombs were set off at two Yangon departments stores and the
Yangon Trade Centre, killed at least 19 people and injuring 162 others.
Myanmar's military leaders later blamed the explosion on rebels trained by
a "superpower," in a neighbouring country, presumably Thailand.

Thailand has denied abetting the bombings.

Besides on-and-off plans to exploit the Salween for electricity by
Thailand and Myanmar, the Chinese government has announced its intention
to construct at least 13 dams on the Upper Salween in Yunnan province.

The plans have been delayed, at least temporarily, by a Chinese
environmentalist group called Green Watershed, said Witoon.

_____________________________________
DRUGS

May 19, Agence France Presse
Mekong countries pledge fresh commitment to fighting drugs

Nations skirting Asia's Mekong River on Thursday pledged refreshed efforts
to tackle mushrooming illicit drugs in their region as their ministers met
in northwestern Cambodia.

Ministers from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam met
for the two-yearly talks in Siem Reap, the gateway town to the Angkor Wat
temple complex, to consider progress of a 1993 pact aimed at stemming
drugs.

"Highlighting the sixth Ministerial Meeting was the adoption of the Siem
Reap Declaration as a renewed commitment to take actions against illicit
drugs," a statement from the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said (UNODC).

Among the issues the countries said they would focus on were exchanging
information, controlling the chemicals needed to make illicit drugs,
controlling amphetamines, providing drug treatment and sustainable
alternative development.

Five projects worth 10.6 million dollars are currently in operation under
an action plan implemented as part of the 1993 pact, to which the UNODC is
also a party.

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier opened the meeting with a
warning that regional cross-border crime was flourishing because of open
frontiers.

"With the openings of international borders and the development of closer
and more friendly economic and social relations among countries in the
region we are facing more crime," the prime minister told ministers and
officials.

"What I am saying here is that organised transnational crime is like a
monster... It is a many-headed monster, but there is only one body:
transnational crime, and it is clearly organised.

"One of its heads is producing and trafficking illegal drugs."

The premier said money laundering was a particular concern for the Mekong
sub-region "because this money will fund terrorist activities".

Host Cambodia is seen as an increasingly important trans-shipment point
for illicit drugs in the region, while the United States has criticised
Myanmar, the world's number-two opium producer, for failing to meet its
international anti-drug commitments.

_____________________________________

May 19, Shan Herald Agency for News
Opium galore in the north

There is no denying that opium output in the north has soared high again
after a 3-consecutive forced abstinence imposed by the ousted spy chief
Gen Khin Nyunt, reports Hawkeye from Northern Shan State:

Hundreds of bags of chicken manure were seen on the road sides, in full
view of passers-by, in Hsenwi and Kunlong where extensive fields were
reported during the growing season. By harvest time in February and March,
thousands of outsiders were swarming into the townships of Lashio,
Tangyan, Hsenwi, Kunlong, Kutkhai, Muse and Namkham, offering their
services to collect the opium sap. "Since last year, opium prices have
risen," said a businessman who is visiting the border. "So are the wages."

The prices, 450,000 - 550,000 kyat ($ 450 - 550) per joy (1.6 kg) in April
last year went up to as much as 1,000,000 ($ 1,000) at the end of the
year. It is now steadying itself at around 800,000 kyat ($ 800).

Down south along the Thai border, it is 13,000 baht ($ 325).

Accordingly, the hired laborers, who used to be paid 1,000 -1,200 kyat ($
1-1.2) per day last year were now receiving 1,500 - 2,000 ($ 1.5 - 2) plus
three free meals a day.

In Namkham's Panhsay tract, where villages under the protection of militia
leader Kyaw Myint, 45, had been spared region wide crackdown in the past,
the acreage had increased by at least 30% this season. "Each household
that had been working at 2 acres last year was now doing 3 acres on the
average," said a local farmer. "Also, the yield had been good: 4 joy per
acre compared to 2.5 joy per acre last year when the fields suffered
heavily from drought."

A local businessman who also had his own poppy field estimates the total
output at a minimum of 4 tons in Panhsay tract alone, twice as much as it
was last year.

Also, unlike most surrounding areas, farmers in Panghsay enjoy the
advantage of not having to bother about local Burmese officials coming in
to collect taxes. "It is taken care of by Kyaw Myint, who knows the
regional commander (Maj Gen Myint Hlaing) well," he declared.

Apart from the weather, the increase has been attributed to the
countrywide clamp down on pro-Khin Nyunt elements that began last October.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / MONEY

May 19, Agence France Presse
Myanmar expanding airport for 2006 ASEAN meeting: Singapore firm

Myanmar's international airport will be nearly tripled in size as part of
a major expansion in preparation for next year's ASEAN summit, a
Singaporean company that won the revamp contract said Thursday.

Publicly listed CNA Group Ltd. said it had secured a 10.6-million-dollar
contract to design, supply, install and commission 24 engineering systems
for the new and existing terminal buildings at the Yangon International
Airport.

This includes the baggage handling system, security check equipment and
airport docking guidance system, it said in a press statement.

CNA Group Ltd. said the Myanmar government began ground work at the
existing 11,000 square-metre (118,360 square feet), two-storey terminal
building in January this year, and the project is due to be finished by
the third quarter of 2006.

The expansion will increase the built-up area to about 30,000 square
metres and will include a new VIP building and departure halls that can
cater for an annual capacity of approximately 2.7 million passengers.

"The project, which will elevate Yangon airport to international
standards, is part of Yangon's preparation for the upcoming ASEAN Summit
Meeting scheduled for the latter part of 2006," the statement said.

Military-ruled Myanmar is next in line to take over the alphabetically
rotating chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) from Malaysia next year.

The chair means Yangon is due to host the ASEAN leaders' summit in late
2006 and the foreign ministers' meeting in mid-2007, which includes a
regional security forum involving the United States, China, Russia and the
European Union.

However, pressure is mounting to block Yangon from assuming the ASEAN
chair unless the ruling military junta frees democracy icon Aung San Suu
Kyi and implements concrete political reforms.

The United States and the European Union have warned they will boycott
ASEAN meetings if Myanmar is allowed to chair ASEAN, which also includes
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand
and Vietnam.

Analysts and some foreign ministers from the region have also warned that
ASEAN risks losing its credibility if Myanmar is allowed to chair the
group.

_____________________________________
ASEAN

May 19, International Herald Tribune
Junta is expected to forgo Asean helm

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, hoping to save the
group from embarrassment, now say there is an increasing chance that
Myanmar will voluntarily withdraw from its scheduled chairmanship of the
organization next year.

Legislators across the region, led by members of the Malaysian Parliament,
had previously hoped to pressure Asean to bar Myanmar from the
chairmanship because of its poor human-rights record, its failure to
democratize and its detaining of Aung San Suu Kyi, the noted opposition
figure.

The efforts appeared to be faltering, when a debate on the issue was
halted in Malaysia's Parliament on April 28. But diplomats suggest another
route through the impasse can be exploited - a voluntary withdrawal by
Myanmar, so long as publicity on the issue remains subdued to allow the
military junta in Myanmar to save face.

"I wouldn't say it's been a negotiation, but we've had discussions among
Asean foreign ministers on this, and also some bilateral discussions,"
said Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"I think the Myanmar side is aware of the situation and the complications
it could cause if, under the present circumstances, Myanmar takes up the
chair," Sihasak added. "I am sure, at the present time, Myanmar wants to
concentrate on its internal priorities."

The issue of Myanmar's heading Asean, starting in July 2006, became a
global concern after the United States and other countries said they would
boycott meetings for which Myanmar was host because of its rights record.

Myanmar continues to quell dissent in any form and to delay progress
toward democracy, while keeping Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize
winner, under house arrest.

People within and beyond Asean have warned the group's leaders that it
risks isolation and damaged credibility if Myanmar is allowed to hold the
chairmanship. But Asean members - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar - have
a tradition of non-interference in each others' domestic affairs and
failed to reach agreement on whether to chastise Myanmar publicly or to
alter the rotating chairmanship.

This approach is now giving way to one allowing Myanmar to withdraw from
the chairmanship on its own.

"There are now different vibrations going on," said Lim Kit Siang, the
Malaysian opposition leader and a member of the Malaysian Parliament's
Myanmar caucus. "One is something which the Thai foreign minister has
intimated, which is that they may, on their own, step down."

The Thai foreign minister, Kantathi Suphamongkhon, described a voluntary
withdrawal from the chairmanship by Myanmar as a possibility in talks last
week with the U.S. deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, who
recently made an extensive tour through Southeast Asia.

Spokesmen for foreign ministries within Asean said the position now is
that Myanmar will make its own decision about the chairmanship. They added
that Myanmar has indicated it will take into account Asean's broader
interests.

"We realize that this is a tough decision for Myanmar to make," said
George Yeo, Singapore's foreign minister. "We hope that the Myanmars would
make the decision on this soon. I am not unhopeful."

Yeo said that during a recent visit to Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, by
Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, Myanmar officials had told
Lee "that Myanmar was not a 'selfish' country and would take into account
Asean's views and consider Asean's interests."

Diplomats said that a Myanmar withdrawal would help to avoid a potential
split in Asean, but would work only if the withdrawal was seen as
voluntary and not in response to outside pressure.

"We want Yangon to make its own decision on the matter after taking into
account the views expressed," the Malaysian foreign minister, Syed Hamid
Albar, told Bernama, the Malaysian news agency, last weekend.

"We are trying for a voluntary withdrawal, a recuse, by the Myanmar
government, but we can't have outside pressure if this is going to work,"
the diplomat said.

Another diplomat based in Kuala Lumpur agreed that talks behind the scenes
are now aimed at a result whereby Myanmar would back off from the
chairmanship of Asean. "But the less it is talked about the better for
this to work. It has to actually be their choice," the diplomat said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.

In May 2004, members of the Malaysian Parliament formed a bipartisan
caucus to raise pressure on the issue. In November 2004, a workshop was
held with delegates from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand,
Cambodia and Malaysia, which led to the formation of the Asean
Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus and encouraged the formation of
parliamentary caucuses across the region.

The chairman of the Malaysian caucus and the region's caucus, Zaid
Ibrahim, pressed Malaysia's Parliament - with apparent government support
- to debate the Asean chairmanship.

"A week before the debate, I was told that the government had changed its
mind," Zaid said.

He said the debate was probably stopped because Myanmar had complained
that public criticism of its internal affairs had gone far enough.

"I suspect something must have happened between Rangoon and Kuala
Lumpur,'' he said, using the old name for Yangon.

Even if Myanmar voluntarily withdraws from the chairmanship, Zaid said,
this is "the wrong way to go about it."

A key issue, Zaid said, is whether Asean has the will to formulate
democratic benchmarks for membership.

"I think they will get Myanmar to withdraw but I don't know the
mechanism," he said. "I don't know if the price is our silence, but it
could be."

Even if Myanmar withdraw, the issue could remain open. "Based on past
experience, Myanmar usually reneges on its promises," Zaid said.

Asean ministers are scheduled to reach a final decision on how to handle
the Myanmar issue when Laos, the outgoing holder of Asean's chair, hands
the reins to Malaysia at a summit meeting in Vientiane, the capital of
Laos, in July.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 18, Mizzima News
Burmese refugees are under threat from the UNHCR; campaigners

An Indian non-government organisation, advocating refugee rights, has
condemned the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), New
Delhi for failing to provide Burmese refugees their rights to live with
dignity and honour.

The New Delhi based rights group, the Other Media, in an open letter to
the UNHCR’s Chief of Mission Mr. Lennart Kotsalainen, said the agency was
preoccupied with evolving strategies and tactics to avoid its primary
responsibility of rendering protection and care to the Burmese refugees in
New Delhi.

Such policies were detrimental to the interests of refugees, said the letter.

There are over 1500 Burmese refugees living in New Delhi, out of which
1,000 have been granted UNHCR recognition as refugees. The UNHCR
recognised refugees receive Indian Rupees 1400 (US Dollar 32) as
subsistence allowance.

However, in mid 2003, the refugee agency started phasing out the
subsistence allowance. Since then the tragedies and hardships faced by the
Burmese refugees in their survival have increased manifold. The act was
strongly opposed and condemned by regional organisations as well as the
refugee communities as there were no alternative options provided to the
refugees for their survival.

The predetermined decision to discontinue the Subsistence Allowance by
UNHCR may have been due to resource crunch within UNHCR but it is not
based on any imperatives of real life situation of refugees in India, said
the letter.

The UNHCR, however, declined to comment on the letter.

Prior to the SA phase out, the UNHCR introduced a self-reliance programme
in which it claimed to have arranged job placement for refugees by giving
them computer and English language training. However, the number of
refugees employed under the scheme was extremely low.

Mr. Ravi Hemadri, Executive director of the Other Media told Mizzima News
over telephone that there was a widening gap between the refugees’ and the
UNHCR’s programmes. And the gap, he said, was insincerity on the part of
the UNHCR [New Delhi Office] to find a durable solution to the problems of
Burmese refugees.

The programmes and projects of the UNHCR have not helped the Burmese
refugees, rather they acted counter productive, said the Other Media.
Thus, "Refugees are under threat from the UNHCR," it said.

With the military’s brutal crack down on the 1988 general uprising for
democracy and human rights in Burma, thousands of Burmese people including
students, intellectuals and monks have fled to neighboring and other
countries, including India.

After the first Burmese national, who got registered as a refugee with the
UNHCR in 1990, the number of Burmese refugees increased to hundreds. With
the constant and systematic human rights abuses perpetrated by the ruling
Burmese military junta, over 500 Burmese nationals arrived New Delhi in
2002, increasing the total population to over 1500.

However, preoccupied with the notion that those Burmese nationals are
economic migrants, the UNHCR refused to grant recognition as refugees,
causing a devastation in the living condition of the newly arrived Burmese
Asylum Seekers.

In the past the UNHCR had been instrumental in providing Burmese refugees
with a monthly SA, and also resettling those facing security threats, in
third countries.

Beginning May 9, UNHCR is currently undertaking a survey of the Burmese
refugees. According to the external relations officer of the UNHCR, Ms.
Nayana Bose, the survey is likely to be taken to higher level based on the
recommendations and comments of the consultant.

But she decline to comment on the survey and the possible outcome, saying,
“It’s too early to come up with any conclusion or recommendations, as it
is not even halfway through yet".

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 19, International Herald Tribune
A witness's plea to end Myanmar abuse

Over the last five years, Guy Horton has been secretly entering Myanmar to
gather evidence of human rights abuses that he hopes will open the door to
international action against the nation's military rulers.

With the financial backing of the Dutch government and a major
nongovernmental aid organization, he has made a number of journeys into
the nation's "horseshoe," the ethnic regions around central Myanmar,
formerly called Burma, that he says have become killing fields.

Using victims' statements, photographs, maps and film, and advised by
legal counsel to the UN tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, he purports to
have documented slave labor, systematic rape, the conscription of child
soldiers, massacres and the deliberate destruction of villages, food
sources and medical services. His brief was simply to ensure that the
evidence met the standards of international law.

The result is a 600-page report - "Dying Alive: A Legal Assessment of
Human Rights Violations in Burma." On Thursday, Horton left his base in
northern Thailand to present the report to U.S., British, Canadian and
Dutch officials who are familiar with his project.

Horton's motivation to investigate abuses in Myanmar stemmed from his
friendship in England with the late husband of the country's leading
dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi. His project concludes as the military junta
in Yangon comes under mounting international criticism.

Myanmar's neighbors in Southeast Asia have grown increasingly impatient
with the nation's human rights record, and the United States and the
European Union are suggesting a boycott of meetings of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations if Myanmar assumes the association's helm on
schedule next year. Several officials in the region have suggested, albeit
tentatively, that Yangon stand aside unless it shows marked improvement on
human rights questions.

For Horton, however, the time for symbolism has passed. In presenting his
evidence, he is urging the international community to become proactive in
protecting Myanmar's hundreds of thousands of displaced people. He even
dares to use the word "genocide."

"The violations inflicted on the Burmese people in general are undoubtedly
crimes against humanity," Horton, 54, said in a recent interview. "But the
destruction of the homes, medicines and food of hundreds of thousands of
ethnic people may amount to an attempt to commit genocide. If an
international court were to arrive at the same conclusion, it would oblige
humanitarian intervention. And that could put the Burmese regime in some
peril."

Aung Zaw, who edits The Irrawaddy, a magazine published by exiled Burmese
from Chiang Mai, believes genocide is a "heavily loaded" word in Myanmar's
case.

"The junta targets everyone," he said, "including other Burmans. Do they
forcibly relocate and loot and rape? Yes. There is a war going on with the
ethnic insurgencies, and obviously civilians will be hurt. But I doubt if
the junta has any specific campaign against one race."

(Burmans are the nation's ethnic majority, with an estimated 60 percent of
the country's population.)

In any case, "Dying Alive" paints a picture of systematic suppression,
drawing on a range of documents, including reports from the Thailand Burma
Border Consortium (a collection of Western aid agencies) that map 2,536
forcibly evacuated villages and 526,000 displaced people, in eastern
Myanmar alone. It also cites estimates by a British Myanmar specialist,
Martin Smith, that since 1948 in the country's conflict areas, millions of
people have been uprooted and an average of 10,000 have died every year,
mostly from preventable diseases.

"Typically," Horton said, "the army will move into a village, confiscate
anything of value, slaughter the animals, and destroy the cooking pots and
looms. The village is burned and usually mined. The inhabitants are
relocated to a new site, usually with inadequate food and water, where
they're forced into labor schemes such as road-building. In the long run,
many just can't survive."

In the report, Horton recommends legal action against the junta. There
would be at least three ways to go about this, he concludes.

The most potent, and the most difficult to achieve, would be to prosecute
the junta in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Although
Myanmar is not party to the court, it could be referred to that body by
the UN Security Council. Another course would be to prosecute in national
courts, like those in the United States or Britain.

Easiest to initiate, Horton believes, would be for another country to
bring a "civil" action in the International Court of Justice, also based
in The Hague.

In justifying his reference to possible genocide, Horton cites the 1948
Genocide Convention, established after the Nazi Holocaust, and ratified by
Myanmar in 1956. The convention identifies one expression of genocide as
"deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

"This," he said, "opens the possibility for any signatory nation to submit
a case involving genocide or attempted genocide to the International Court
of Justice."

Cherif Bassiouni, professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago and an
architect of the International Criminal Court, said that in an action
initiated by another nation, a ruling by the International Court of
Justice to the effect that Myanmar had an obligation to prevent and to
stop the crime of genocide would be "rather certain."

Horton's longest trip was a month long reconnaissance of Myanmar's Karen
State in 2000. The journey began ominously.

"I was only 15 yards into Burma when I learned that the Karen guide I'd
arranged to meet had been shot dead," he said. "The soldiers came looking
for me that night, and I hid in a hut. God knows how they didn't find me.
I still remember the sound of the bayonets being fixed - a terrible
sound."

Much of that early trip was taken on the back of a 75-year-old elephant.
"That was often the only way I could travel," Horton said. "It's very
tough country, and littered with land mines. But the elephant remembered
the vanished tracks, from the days before land mines. It just crashed its
way through.

"I kept coming across traumatized people - ragged, terrified and on the
run. Many of them had wounds. Almost every conversation began with, 'When
they came and burned the village.' At one village, two toddlers had been
thrown into the flames, and a baby shot in its father's arms."

Horton also ran across numerous Burmese army defectors.

Initially financed in 2000 by the Jubilee Campaign, a British church
group, Horton applied in 2002 to the Dutch Ministry of Development
Cooperation for additional funds. A well-known aid group (which requests
anonymity because of its continuing operations in the region) also
supported the project.

The deputy speaker of the British House of Lords, Baroness Cox, visited
Horton last year for a briefing in connection with the report. Also in the
loop are Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and the Human
Rights Committee of the Canadian Parliament.

Over the next six weeks, Horton will meet government officials in London,
Ottawa and The Hague. In New York he is to brief the United Nation's
"Burma Committee," and in Washington, Feinstein will broker meetings
between Horton and congressional leaders.

_____________________________________

May 19, Mizzima News
US and Canada Take Steps Against Burma

The US and Canada have stepped up pressure on Burma’s ruling military
junta. In the last few days, both nations have made clear their
disapproval of the dictatorship and have taken stern actions against it.

Renewing economic sanctions against Burma, American President George W.
Bush notified the Congress on Tuesday last that the state of emergency
would be extended beyond Friday, when it would have ended without
presidential action.

"The crisis between the United States and Burma arising from the actions
and policies of the government of Burma that led to the declaration of a
national emergency on May 20, 1997, has not been resolved," Bush said in
his message to the Congress.

This move came soon after the Burmese government made allegations against
US following the recent bomb blast in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, the Canadian House of Commons, in a resolution adopted
yesterday, called on the Government to impose a legal ban on further
investment in Burma. The motion was initiated by Bloc Quebecois with the
support of Rights and Democracy, the Canadian Friends of Burma and the
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma. The motion called for
an economic embargo on Burma, a forceful condemnation of the human-rights
abuses committed by the military regime, and pressure on the international
community to help the country achieve a peaceful transition to democracy.

During the visit to Canada in November and December 2004, Prime Minister
Dr Sein Win testified before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and
International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Trade in the Canadian Parliament. Explaining the
developments in Burma, he told the House of Commons and the Canadian
Government that "we are hundred per cent behind" the motion Bloc Québécois
had tabled.  He said, "We would like to see this passed and supported by
all the parties so that our request to the Canadian government at this
juncture will be successful."

The political relationship between the United States and Burma is
strained. Official relations between the two countries have been cool
following the 1988 military coup and the violent suppression of
pro-democracy demonstrations.

On May 20, 1997, former President Bill Clinton put the sanctions into
effect to punish the ruling junta in Myanmar, after the military mounted
repression against the democracy movement, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the
1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 19, Bangkok Post
Burma trivialises terrorist attacks - John Macgregor

Burma has turned serious terrorist attacks against cities into both farce
and confusion with its ridiculous charge that the murderous violence was a
plot by Thailand and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Such a
risible conspiracy theory is better suited to the outer limits of
outlandish internet chatrooms than international security and diplomacy.
The generals of the Burmese junta have actually made it more difficult to
determine who is behind an escalating terrorist campaign aimed at killing
innocent women and children, and to stop them. The breathtakingly bizarre
conspiracy invented by Rangoon illustrates just how out of touch the
generals have become over 43 years of unbroken military rule.

Following the ''logic'' of the Burmese charges is difficult. Thailand must
have been involved in three murderous bomb attacks in Rangoon on May 7
because there are people in Thailand who know how to make and use time
bombs. The CIA must have been involved because the US opposes the military
dictatorship. Since there are Karen, Karenni and Shan groups opposed to
the Rangoon dictatorship, their agents must have planted the bombs which
killed 19 in Rangoon, and must have been responsible for earlier bombings
in Mandalay and elsewhere.

Anyone who accepts such reasoning deserves a free class in basic logic.
That includes the men who run Burma as their personal fiefdom. The Thai
government, virtually alone and against the wishes of both its citizens
and its closest Asean allies, has supported the junta against countries
demanding democratic reform. No nation on earth has provided more
international support or greater diplomatic sympathy for the murderous
generals who rose to rule Burma stained by the blood of thousands of their
pro-democracy demonstrators killed in the suppressed uprising of August
1988.

The US government has strong and enforced laws against the use of violence
against foreign nations by private citizens, and has never called for the
use of force against Burma. There is no shred of evidence CIA agents
operate in Burmese opposition camps or refugee centres _ let alone that
they would support the use of bombs in Rangoon malls. Nor is there a
single, documented attack on civilians by any Burmese group of any
nationality in 58 years of independence fighting.

Scientists say extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Thailand
and the US are deeply involved in the war against terrorism. When Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says, ''We do not harbour terrorism'', it is a
highly credible statement of policy _ not empty words. The only
extraordinary action by the Burmese junta is the unfriendly, xenophobic
and unsupportable finger-pointing. The conspiracy claim would be
laughable, except that nearly 20 Burmese are dead and dozens of Burmese
and Thais are recovering from bomb wounds. The junta has actually diverted
attention from those responsible for the May 7 bombings in Rangoon.

It is vital to identify and neutralise terrorists who purposely set out to
kill and maim only innocent bystanders. Thailand has become a victim of
such attacks over the past 18 months, and officials should know as soon as
possible if there are links between the Burmese and Thai attackers. The
Burmese junta once again is shirking its duty in an ever smaller world.

The junta's nonsensical rantings against Thailand and the US are similar
to those about the drugs trade. According to Rangoon, Thailand and India
are responsible for the methamphetamine trafficking because the drug
makers import needed chemicals from the neighbouring countries. Burma, of
course, is the world's leading government recipient of drug laundry money,
in the form of so-called investment such as ports, highways and tourist
hotels. Burma's preposterous claims about the bombing are ultimately
unfriendly and un-neighbourly actions. Thailand should reconsider its
attempts to bend over backwards to help non-existent democratic reform.
The government should act in the interest of Thailand and democracy, not
the interest of Rangoon.

_____________________________________
ANNOUNCEMENT

May 18, Parliament of Canada
Burma Motion

The Canadian House of Commons has passed the Burma Motion by a vote 158 to
123 on 18 May 2005 calling on the Canadian Government to condemn more
forcefully the repeated and systematic human rights violations committed
by the military junta in power in Burma.

The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has the
honour to present its

SECOND REPORT

In accordance with its mandate under Standing Order 108 (2) and the motion
adopted on October 14, 2004 by the Committee, its Subcommittee on Human
Rights and International Development has considered the issue of Human
Rights in Burma and recommends the following:

That the Committee is of the opinion that the government must:

a) condemn more forcefully the repeated and systematic human rights
violations committed by the military junta in power in Burma, particularly
those involving certain minority groups, including arrests and
imprisonment without trial, summary and arbitrary executions, torture,
rape, kidnappings of women, men and children, forced labor, denial of
fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of assembly, association and
_expression, the recruitment of child soldiers and massive relocations of
civilian populations;

b) urge the authorities in Burma to release immediately and
unconditionally all political prisoners, in particular Nobel Laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), to end
their harassment of them, to abolish all repressive laws and measures
contravening international human rights conventions, and to take action to
end the appalling humanitarian crisis facing hundreds of thousands of
displaced people and refugees at Burma's borders (with China, India,
Bangladesh and Thailand);

c) provide tangible support to the legitimate authorities in Burma,
specifically the government in exile (the National Coalition Government of
the Union of Burma) and the Committee Representing the People's
Parliament;

d) impose more comprehensive economic measures on Burma, and in particular:

- review the effectiveness of the Export and Import Permits Act;
- review the feasibility of fully invoking the Special Economic Measure
Act; and
- impose a legal ban on further investment in Burma

e)  bring pressure to bear on the United Nations Secretary General and the
international community, in order to establish a framework, primarily
though ensuring the spread of embargo, to bring the military junta to
negotiate a peaceful transition toward democracy, in cooperation with the
NLD and representatives of ethnic minority groups, as set out in all the
resolutions of the United Nations on Burma since 1994;

f) call upon the authorities in Burma to include the National League for
Democracy (NLD) and other political parties in the on-going process of the
National Convention, and warn that any outcome from the convention without
the participation of the NLD and other parties will not be recognized.