BurmaNet News, June 7, 2005

[Editor]

June 7, 2005 Issue # 2734


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar beefs up security, raises alarm over terror threats
Irrawaddy: Bagan Cybertech announces further internet restrictions
Xinhua: Buses in Myanmar capital to run on gas

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Shan refugees face difficulties

HEALTH / AIDS
AP: Report: 24,500 HIV-AIDS patients in Myanmar lack anti-retroviral drugs

BUSINESS / MONEY
Xinhua: Myanmar enjoys more foreign trade surplus in 2004-05

ASEAN
Reuters: Myanmar hints at alternative to ASEAN chair

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Burma to develop EU ties by opening embassy in Brussels

OPINION / OTHER
Private Eye: Brussels sprouts

REVIEW
New York Times: The road to 'Animal Farm,' through Burma

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 7, Agence France Presse
Myanmar beefs up security, raises alarm over terror threats

Yangon: Myanmar's military government has stepped up security in the
capital in a bid to alleviate fears triggered by rumours of impending bomb
attacks spread by "destructive elements," state media reported Tuesday.

The junta warned that anti-government agents were spreading fabricated
rumours of forthcoming bombings at schools and crowded places, causing
panic in the wake of last month's bomb blasts in Yangon that killed at
least 19 people and wounded more than 150.

"At present, the destructive elements invented rumours to the effect
that... bombs will explode at busy spots, supermarkets, markets and
schools in downtown Yangon with every intention of jeopardizing stability,
frightening the people, causing business in a state of disorder and
manipulating prices for self-interest," the official New Light of Myanmar
newspaper said.

"The government and departmental officials are making arrangements to
ensure security for the entire national people," it added.

"Likewise, organizations, companies and entrepreneurs are making
arrangements for ensuring security at their offices, departments,
worksites, crowded supermarkets and cinemas under the supervision of the
government."

Security forces on Monday scrambled to various locations around Yangon in
reaction to rumours that bombs had been planted at schools and markets.

Classes at several high schools, including a teacher training school near
state media offices, were disrupted when panicked parents rushed to
collect their children after hearing that bombs had been planted on the
premises, one eyewitness told AFP.

Similar threats elsewhere also proved false, according to state radio and
television announcements.

The authorities have accused unscrupulous businessmen of spreading
fabrications about terrorist plots in order to manipulate commodity
prices.

Rumors of attacks have spread quickly in Yangon since the unprecedented
May 7 blasts, which the junta have blamed on an unlikely alliance of
ethnic rebel groups, pro-democracy organizations and student groups, who
have denied involvement.

In response to the fear, the state-run Myanmar Insurance Enterprise has
introduced, for the first time, a scheme covering loss of life and
destruction of property due to acts of terrorism, an official at the
company reportedly said.

"The prevailing situation and changing conditions require us to introduce
this new insurance policy," general manager Maung Maung Thane was quoted
as saying in the Voice, a private weekly.

____________________________________

June 7, Irrawaddy
Bagan Cybertech announces further internet restrictions - Clive Parker


Bagan Cybertech, Burma’s main internet service provider, has announced
further restrictions on its services, along with significant price
increases with effect from July 1.

In announcements by email between June 2 and 5, Bagan Cybertech also told
customers that monthly charges on broadband connections would jump more
than 100 percent to FEC35. One Foreign Exchange Certificate (FEC) is
officially worth US $1.

Internet costs in Burma are already among the most expensive in the world,
with start up costs of more than $1,300 per connection.

In addition, the company announced a new set of condensed internet
packages with limits on data and even fees for downgrading to a lesser
service.

This latest announcement comes after Bagan Cybertech in January suspended
the setting up of new email accounts and internet connections, which the
company confirmed are still not available.

“We and another [internet] service provider cannot provide the equipment
[for new connections] 
 maybe in one or two months we can,” the company’s
customer services department said.

However, Bagan Cybertech’s official resellers in Rangoon were more
skeptical, with many predicting a long term absence of new connections.

“I think it won’t be possible to open a new Bagan Cybertech account for
several months or even several years,” said one computer professional in
Rangoon.

Bagan Teleport, the infrastructure arm of Bagan Cybertech, refused to say
why new services and equipment are not available.

The company recently attracted attention following a sharp decline in the
reliability of its connections and the abandonment of a previously
high-profile marketing campaign. Earlier this year, it acquired the
services of a US-based software company to develop a new firewall to
strengthen the ban on sensitive web pages. Prohibited sites have since
carried the phrase: “You have tried to access a webpage which is in
violation of your internet usage policy.”

However, a malfunction by the firewall allowed internet users in Burma to
view previously banned material, including Mizzima’s homepage, although
this has again been prohibited.

Bagan Cybertech’s demise began last October with the purge of former Prime
Minister Gen Khin Nyunt and the dismissal of his son, Dr Ye Naing Win, as
head of the company. Diplomatic sources in Rangoon say Ye Naing Win is
currently detained in Rangoon’s Insein Prison, awaiting trial on more than
30 charges, including corruption and owning illegal foreign currency.

____________________________________

June 7, Xinhua General News Service
Buses in Myanmar capital to run on gas

Yangon: Nearly all buses in Myanmar's capital of Yangon, which were
traditionally run on petrol and diesel, have been converted to run on
compressed natural gas (CNG) under an ambitious plan to modify all
vehicles in the country in terms of fuel operation.

Of the 250,000 vehicles targeted, 2,500 buses, have been changed into
CNG-operated ones, the Myanmar Times quoted sources with the Energy
Ministry as saying Tuesday.

The next step of the plan will be focusing on trucks and then private
cars, the sources revealed.

Myanmar started the move amid sustained rise of crude oil prices in the
world and the plan was introduced due partly to the abundance of natural
gas in the country.

Myanmar has been using natural gas on a limited scale to run cars after
tests on compressed natural gas were carried out in 1986.

With a total of about 476,000 motor vehicles moving in the country now,
Myanmar's petrol consumption has at least doubled in the past decade as
registered, consuming about 100 million gallons (420,000 tons) of petrol
and about 340 million gallons (1.4 million tons) of diesel annually in
most recent years.

Myanmar produced about 6 million barrels (798,000 tons) of crude oil
annually at home, yet it could not meet the demand and had to import about
130 million US dollars' worth of the oil per year.

With three main large offshore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar
possesses a total of 87 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 2.46 trillion
cubic-meters (TCM) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable
crude oil reserve, official statistics show.

Myanmar produced 9.9 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas and 7.16 million
barrels of crude oil in the fiscal year 2003-04. Gas export during the
year went to 5.66 BCM, earning nearly 600 million dollars, while crude oil
import stood at 13.18 million dollars the same year.


____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 7, Irrawaddy
Shan refugees face difficulties - Nandar Chann

As part of a plan to put pressure on ethnic Shan refugees to move back to
Burma, Thai authorities have barred the delivery of food supplies,
according to a Shan grassroots group on Tuesday.

Thai authorities have not allowed supply convoys to pass the border gates
since late May, said Seng Merng, a member of Shan Youth Network Group,
which has supplied food rations to Shan refugees since 2000.

“Refugees finally have to promise that they will move by today because
food supplies will not be allowed to reach them,” said Seng Merng, who
returned from the border last Friday.

Some refugees have moved back to Burma since June 2, and the final
deadline was eventually pushed back to June 7, according to Seng Merng.
But refugees face difficulties in returning to Burma because of the rainy
season.

On May 18, Thai Third Army Deputy Commander Maj-Gen Manas Paorik issued an
order that about 500 Shan refugees—including 200 orphans—must relocate
across the Burma border by the end of May.

About 2,000 Shan refugees have been living at the Internally Displaced
Persons Camp in the Doi Tailaeng area since 2000. In April 2004, refugees
fled to the Thai-Burma border near Mae Hong Son Province, northern
Thailand, after several artillery shells landed in the camp during an
attack by the United Wa State Army on the headquarters of the Shan State
Army-South, based on Doi Tailaeng Mountain, near the Burmese border.

On May 28, six Shan rights groups asked the Thai government to reconsider
their plan to relocate Shan refugees in Burma.

Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said that “by denying
Shan people status and humanitarian assistance, the Thai government is
violating international law and turning away from a problem at its
doorstep.”

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

June 7, Associated Press
Report: 24,500 HIV-AIDS patients in Myanmar lack anti-retroviral drugs

Yangon: Thousands of HIV-AIDS patients in military-ruled Myanmar lack
access to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs because of a funding
shortage, a U.N. representative was quoted as saying Tuesday.

Myanmar's health department can provide the drugs to only about 500 of the
25,000 victims infected with the AIDS virus who need them, the Flower News
journal reported.

"The World Health Organization and other (agencies) have been providing
assistance for the treatment, but it is not sufficient and more funding is
needed," said Dr. Sit Naing, a local representative of the United Nations'
AIDS agency.

The average monthly cost of the drugs was about 30,000 kyats (US$30;
[euro]23) per patient. The report did not specify how much additional
funding was needed to treat patients in need.

Myanmar's military government says more than 300,000 of the country's 54
million people have HIV-AIDS, but health experts believe the actual figure
is higher.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook estimates that
Myanmar's population is significantly lower - about 43 million. That
estimate takes into account excess mortality caused by AIDS, according to
the CIA's Web site.

UNAIDS, the U.N. body coordinating the fight against the disease,
estimates that more than 600,000 people in Myanmar, aged 15 to 49, are
infected with HIV.

The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has
pledged US$19.2 million ([euro]15.7 million) to combat HIV-AIDS in Myanmar
out of a total package of US$35.6 million ([euro]27.59) for the country.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / MONEY

June 7, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar enjoys more foreign trade surplus in 2004-05

Yangon: Myanmar enjoyed a foreign trade surplus of 954.55 million US
dollars in the fiscal year 2004-05 which ended in March, 837.7 million
more than that gained in 2003- 04 when it showed only 116.84 million,
according to a latest report of the local weekly 7-Day News.

The country's foreign trade volume reached 4.9 billion US dollars in the
2004-05, up 10 percent from 2003-04 when it was registered 4.5 billion.

Of the total trade volume during the year, Myanmar's exports were valued
at 2.9 billion, while its imports went to 1.9 billion. Export earnings
were topped by value-added finished industrial goods with 1.24 billion
dollars, followed by forestry and agricultural products with 427.81
million and 320.79 million respectively, the report said.

Myanmar gained for the first time such favorable balance of foreign trade
in 2002-03 after suffering deficit for the past many years.

Although the foreign trade in 2004-05 was higher than in 2003- 04, it
stood lower than in 2002-03 when it was 5.3 billion, partly due to the
declination by 50 percent in the country's garment exports during the past
three years .

Myanmar has set a target of 1.5 billion dollars of bilateral trade with
China, one billion with India and 50 million with Vietnam.

_____________________________________
ASEAN

June 4, Reuters
Myanmar hints at alternative to ASEAN chair - Geert De Clercq

Singapore: Military-ruled Myanmar, under pressure to relinquish its
forthcoming chairmanship of the ASEAN regional grouping, said on Saturday
it was too early to decide and hinted that it may be working on an
alternative solution.

The United States and the European Union have threatened to boycott
high-level meetings with the 10-member Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) if Myanmar takes over the group's chair next year without
making progress on human rights, including freeing opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi.

"Only we can decide. It is still very early," Myanmar Deputy Minister for
Foreign Affairs U Maung Myint told Reuters on the sidelines of a security
conference on Saturday.

Asked whether Myanmar would give in to international pressure and
relinquish the ASEAN chair, he said: "No, we are preparing another
situation." He declined to elaborate. Myanmar government members rarely
discuss the issue in public.

In May, Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Supamongkon hinted that Myanmar,
formerly known as Burma, could delay its turn to lead ASEAN to avoid
confrontation with the West.

One suggested solution would be for Myanmar -- under military rule of one
form or another since 1962 -- to become chairman, but for Thailand to host
all big diplomatic meetings.

"I cannot see this happening. Myanmar would not allow it. If it has to be
elsewhere, Bangkok would be the last place," former Thai deputy Foreign
Minister Sukhumbhand Paribatra told Reuters, referring to a long history
of strained relations between the two large Southeast Asian neighbours.

"ENGAGE, DON'T HUMILIATE"

Thailand has strong commercial ties with Yangon's reclusive generals and
has favoured "constructive engagement" with them rather than sanctions.

Paribatra said that if Myanmar is forced to withdraw from the ASEAN chair,
there is a danger that the country might withdraw from the organisation
altogether. He said that whatever the solution, there should be no loss of
face for Myanmar.

"The question of face is very important for the Burmese," he told Reuters
at the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Asia Security
Conference in Singapore.

Kishore Mahbubani, dean of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public
Policy and former Singapore ambassador to the U.N. agreed. "Behind the
scenes, people are working on a solution. The key thing is that nobody is
humiliated," he said.

The issue has threatened the unity of 10-member ASEAN, with some member
countries opposing Myanmar's chairmanship unless it shows concrete
progress in implementing a roadmap to democracy.

ASEAN is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore,
Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The grouping's rotating
chairmanship is based on alphabetical order. Laos currently chairs the
group.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 7, Irrawaddy
Burma to develop EU ties by opening embassy in Brussels - Clive Parker

Burma’s military government is planning to open an embassy in Brussels to
help smooth ties with the European Union, say diplomatic sources in
Rangoon and Bangkok.

Burma’s government has until now conducted dialogue with the EU through
its embassy in Paris, but diplomatic sources in Rangoon say the junta is
keen to improve relations after its embarrassment over human rights ahead
of Asia-Europe meetings in May this year and September 2004.

A representative of the Belgian Embassy in Bangkok confirmed Tuesday that
Burma was seeking to open an embassy in Brussels. “The opening of an
embassy in Brussels is a decision that is solely the responsibility of the
government of Burma,” said the diplomat, adding that Belgium was not
intending to open an embassy in Rangoon.

European diplomats say the decision is aimed at building a relationship
with the EU and not specifically Belgium.

The Belgian diplomat said Burma’s ambassador to Belgium has not yet been
appointed and no timetable had been given.

According to Belgian protocol, any country that requests to open a mission
in Brussels must also appoint a representative to the EU, who in practice
is usually the same person.

Despite the move being an open secret in Rangoon among the diplomatic
community, Burma’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to confirm or deny
the decision.

“It is too early to talk about that [establishing a Burmese embassy in
Brussels], when the time comes we will be happy to talk about it,” said a
representative of the Europe Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Recently Burma has been on a collision course with the EU, with relations
still tense. The two countries held their first ministerial-level
discussions in Kyoto at the latest Asia-Europe summit in May after the EU
reversed its decision to boycott the meeting because of Burma’s human
rights record.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 27 – June 9, Private Eye
Brussels sprouts

On April 25th European Union (EU) foreign ministers met in Luxembourg, and
quietly agreed to extend existing sanctions against Burma for another
year. No press release was issued and no statement was put on the
Commission website.

Was this because they had failed to deliver on their promise to tighten
sanctions if there was no progress towards democracy in Burma, and hoped
that no-one would notice? Yes indeed: but the ministers have plenty of
other reasons for not drawing attention to the EU's position on Burma,
which is increasing embarrassing.

Last October the EU was forced to water down proposed investment sanctions
because France was concerned they could have an adverse effect on its oil
giant Total. Instead of banning investment in Burma's oil, gas and timber
industries, where the regime earns the bulk of its income, they placed a
ban on investing in a few state-owned companies such as a pineapple juice
factory and a tailor's shop. Only after this puny ban was introduced did
the EU realise investment in state-owned companies was already banned
under Burmese law.

Meanwhile the US government, which banned investment in Burma back in
1997, much to the chagrin of its own oil companies, looks on in disbelief
as all 25 EU members have their foreign policy dictated according to the
interests of a single French oil company.

_____________________________________
REVIEW

June 7, The New York Times
The road to 'Animal Farm,' through Burma - William Grimes

Finding George Orwell in Burma
By Emma Larkin
294 pages. The Penguin Press. $22.95.

Fresh out of Eton, George Orwell spent five years in Burma as a policeman
in the colonial service. He left in 1927, fed up with ''the dirty work of
Empire,'' but the country never quite left him. It provided the material
for the novel ''Burmese Days'' and one of his most famous essays,
''Shooting an Elephant.'' In his final days, as he lay dying of
tuberculosis, he sketched out a novella, ''A Smoking Room Story,'' about a
young Englishman changed forever by his experiences in colonial Burma.

Emma Larkin pursues the young Eric Blair (the pseudonym would come later)
all over Burma in ''Finding George Orwell in Burma,'' revisiting the
places where he lived and worked to reimagine the experiences that helped
shape his political outlook and his writing. Her mournful, meditative,
appealingly idiosyncratic book is a hybrid, an exercise in literary
detection but also a political travelogue that uses Burma to explain
Orwell, and Orwell -- especially the Orwell of ''Animal Farm'' and
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' -- to explain the miseries of present-day Myanmar
(as it is now known).

''Burmese Days'' is set in Katha, in the northern part of the country, but
it took Orwell several years to get there. He began his tour of duty in
Mandalay, at the Police Training School, and then drew the short straw.
Just 19 years old, he was posted to the delta region of lower Burma, an
area renowned, Ms. Larkin writes, for having ''the largest, liveliest
mosquitoes in the Empire.'' Britons who had spent time in the delta, it
was said, were easy to spot because of their habit of darting into a room
and quickly slamming the door shut behind them, still pursued by phantom
insects.

Orwell later dismissed his time in Burma as ''five boring years within the
sound of bugles.'' In fact, he landed right in the middle of a fearsome
crime wave. Roving gangs bent on robbery, mayhem and murder had turned
Burma into ''the most violent corner of the Indian Empire.'' It was
Orwell's job to gather intelligence and, sailing up the delta's canals,
track down criminals. The fine-meshed net of British surveillance, and its
attendant bureaucracy, Ms. Larkin theorizes, proved invaluable to Orwell
when it came time to write ''Nineteen Eighty-Four.'' So did his
overpowering sense of isolation, as he labored for a system he came to
loathe.

In Orwell's time, Burma was a prosperous country. Today, under a tenacious
dictatorship that has lasted more than 40 years, Myanmar has the lowest
income in Southeast Asia and ranks as one of least-developed countries in
the world. With no external enemies, it supports an army nearly as large
as that of the United States. A Stasi-style system of secret police and
citizen informers closely monitors the population.

All-embracing censorship laws extend to ''incorrect ideas,'' ''opinions
which do not accord with the times'' and statements that, although
factually accurate, are ''unsuitable because of the time or the
circumstances of their writing.'' The ruling party of this militaristic,
underdeveloped nation has adopted a satisfyingly Orwellian name: the State
Peace and Development Council.

The only safe topics for public discussion are things like the lottery,
the weather and football. Yet in her travels, over endless cups of tea,
Ms. Larkin elicits the hushed testimony of frightened citizens desperate
for breathing room. Some simply want to try out their English, like the
would-be hipster who thinks that ''see you later, alligator'' is
up-to-date American slang. An elderly Anglo-Burmese woman, left stranded
by the end of colonial rule, reminisces about the good old days as she
fondles her last piece of English china.

Others pour out their hearts. And still others distill their anguish into
a single bitter remark. ''We Burmese people are totally content,'' one man
tells Ms. Larkin. ''Do you know why? Because we have nothing left. We have
been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until there is nothing left.''

Ms. Larkin, in reading Orwell's two political novels as sequels to
''Burmese Days,'' is not being eccentric, not in Myanmar. When the BBC's
Burmese service broadcast a radio dramatization of ''Animal Farm'' a few
years ago, listeners talked about it for weeks. For them, Orwell's parable
clearly described Myanmar's plight. The only matter of debate was which
animals represented which real-life figures.

As Ms. Larkin makes her way across the country, her movements are tracked,
sometimes blocked, by the police, military personnel, bureaucrats, spies,
informers and ordinary citizens instructed to report on any encounters
with foreigners. When registering at a guest house she must fill out forms
to be sent to nine separate departments. Shopping at a local market, a
police informer dogs her heels, asking, over and over, who she is, where
she is going and what she is trying to find out. She has changed the names
of most of the Burmese she talked to and, lest she be barred from
returning to Myanmar, has published this book under a pseudonym.

Ms. Larkin eventually makes her way to Katha, to which, she suggests,
Orwell might have been posted as punishment for shooting that elephant, a
highly valuable asset for its owner. The Katha Tennis Club, centerpiece of
''Burmese Days,'' still stands. The club building is now a government
cooperative. The tennis court, oddly enough, remains intact, complete with
umpire chairs and night-time floodlights. For Orwell, the club symbolized
all the injustice of the empire.

The empire has disappeared, but not the injustice. A Burmese friend of Ms.
Larkin's, old enough to have lived through both systems, tells her, ''The
British may have sucked our blood, but these Burmese generals are biting
us to the bone!''