BurmaNet News, June 8, 2005

[Editor]

June 8, 2005 Issue # 2735


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Doctors confirm torture of NLD Youth member
Irrawaddy: Junta postpones deadline for drug-free Wa State

BUSINESS / MONEY
International Herald Tribune: China firm weighs bid for Unocal

REGIONAL
Xinhua via BBC: Chinese, Burmese leaders exchange messages on ties
anniversary
Thai Press Reports: Thailand: Foreign labourers buried alive under rice sacks
Nation: Rights groups want UN brief made public

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Myanmar migrants abused, exploited in Thailand: Amnesty
Asia Times via Inter Press Service: A cheer for Myanmar's lady in waiting

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: What we can do about Burma

PRESS RELEASE
Amnesty International: Thailand: Abuses and exploitation of migrant
workers exposed

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 8, Irrawaddy
Doctors confirm torture of NLD Youth member - Khun Sam

A team of medical experts has concluded that a National League for
Democracy youth member reported dead on May 10 died as a result of
extensive injuries inflicted during interrogation sessions conducted by
Burmese military intelligence operatives.

Tate Naing, secretary of the Thai-based Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners (Burma), said that one of the four experts, Dr Zaw Zaw
Oo from Mayangone Hospital in Rangoon, filed a report on June 7th
confirming that the victim, Aung Hlaing Win, had been pronounced dead upon
arrival at the hospital. Bodily injuries included 24 external bruises, 3
broken ribs, a bruised heart, swollen throat and infected stomach and
intestines.

Tate Naing accused military authorities of murdering Aung Hlaing Win,
failing to secure an arrest warrant or inform his family of the arrest,
destroying evidence—in the form of the body which went missing—and
attempting to bribe the victim’s family.

Aung Hlaing Win, a 30-year-old youth member of the NLD in Hlaing Township,
was arrested on May 1 by four plain-clothes military intelligence agents
while eating at a local restaurant. Nine days later, army officer Lt-Col
Min Hlaing went to the victim’s house and informed his family that he had
died of a heart attack on May 7 at the interrogation centre. The officer
reportedly proceeded to offer the family 100, 000 kyat to pay for funeral
arrangements. The offer was declined.

The family reported the death to the police and filed an official
complaint with the help of special NLD lawyers. Tate Naing says that the
court has so far not accepted the lawyers’ legitimacy and the case is
proceeding with court-appointed attorneys, a claim corroborated by NLD
lawyer Nyan Win.

Meanwhile on June 6th, Kyaw San, an elected representative and chairman of
NLD Tantse Township, Sagaing Division, was sentenced at Rangoon’s Insein
Court to 7 years imprisonment on a charge of illegal import-export.

____________________________________

June 8, Irrawaddy
Junta postpones deadline for drug-free Wa State

Burma’s military regime told leaders of the United Wa State Army to
postpone a ceremony scheduled for June 24, during which they were to
officially announce its areas “drug-free,” according to a spokesman of the
UWSA. Aung Myint said Wednesday by phone from Rangoon that the UWSA
cancelled all invitations that had already been sent to diplomats, UN
representatives and journalists. He could not confirm, however, the length
of the postponement. The junta had publicly promised no opium would be
produced any more by the end of 2005.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / MONEY

June 8, The International Herald Tribune
China firm weighs bid for Unocal; CNOOC responding to Beijing's oil quest
- David Lague

Beijing: A leading Chinese oil producer, CNOOC, said on Tuesday that it
was considering making a competing bid to Chevron's $16.4 billion offer
for Unocal as soaring energy demand increases pressure on China to pursue
oil supplies.

"The company announces that it is continuing to examine its options with
respect to Unocal," CNOOC said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock
Exchange. "These options include a possible offer by the company for
Unocal, but no decision has been made in this respect."

Energy industry analysts in Beijing say that divisions between CNOOC's
foreign nonexecutive directors and its Chinese management have delayed any
firm decision to bid for Unocal, which has extensive oil and natural gas
reserves in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and Myanmar.

Energy consumption has been soaring in China, the world's fastest growing
economy and now the second-biggest consumer of oil, behind the United
States. To increase energy security, the government has urged CNOOC and
two other major oil companies, PetroChina and China Petroleum & Chemical,
to seek investments in offshore oil and gas reserves.

"We think China will rely on imports for the next 20 years, especially
crude oil, and the government is also trying to increase the amount of
natural gas in the consumption mix," said Ma Shang, a an energy analyst
for Fitch Ratings. A bid for Unocal is "a good chance for CNOOC to get a
large amount of reserves," Ma said.

If CNOOC does make a successful bid, it would be China's biggest foreign
investment, dwarfing Lenovo Group's $1.75 billion purchase of the personal
computer business of International Business Machines that was completed
last month.

China's demand for petroleum has far outstripped domestic production, and
the country last year imported 123 million metric tons of oil, according
to Chinese media. These imports accounted for more than half of
consumption.

If CNOOC bids for Unocal, it would need to top Chevron's April 4
cash-and-stock offer for the El Segundo, California, company, which last
year had earnings of $1.2 billion on revenue of $8.2 billion

A successful bid would also need to account for a $500 million fee that
Unocal agreed to pay Chevron if the offer is terminated in favor of
another deal.

Energy industry analysts said the size of the potential deal had opened up
the divisions on the board of CNOOC. The government owns 90 percent of
CNOOC, China's third-biggest oil producer.

Ma said the Chinese directors, including the chief executive, Fu Chengyu,
backed a bid because it would deliver oil and gas reserves just as time
dependence on imports was set to increase. But the foreign independent
directors argue that it would expose the company to excessive levels of
debt.

Market analysts point to the departure of Erwin Schurtenberger, a
high-profile independent director and former Swiss ambassador to China,
who resigned soon after the Chevron offer was announced, as possible
evidence of high-level disagreement and tension.

CNOOC said Schurtenberger had resigned for health reasons.

_____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 8, Xinhua News Agency via BBC
Chinese, Burmese leaders exchange messages on ties anniversary

Beijing: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Snr Gen Than Shwe, chairman of
Burma's State Peace and Development Council, exchanged congratulatory
messages to warmly celebrate the 55th anniversary of the establishment of
diplomatic relations between the two countries on 8 June.

In the message, Hu Jintao said: China and Burma are neighbours linked by
mountains and rivers; and the peoples of the two countries are "paukphaw"
[Burmese word meaning "relatives"] with deep ties. After the founding of
new China, Burma was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic
relations with China. In the past 55 years since the establishment of
diplomatic ties, bilateral relations, guided by the Five Principles of
Peaceful Coexistence initiated by the two countries, have stood up to
tests of the fast-changing international situation, as well as changes in
the domestic situation of each country, always retaining vigorous
vitality. China cherishes Sino-Burmese traditional friendship and is
willing to work together with Burma in further deepening mutually
beneficial cooperation between the two countries in various fields and
promoting all-round, in-depth development of Sino-Burmese
good-neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation in the new century,
remaining Burma's good neighbour, good friend and good partner forever.

In the message to Hu Jintao, Than Shwe said: Since the establishment of
diplomatic relations between the two countries, Burmese-Chinese friendship
and cooperation have continued to develop in depth, while areas of
cooperation have expanded continuously. Burma sincerely hopes to continue
the close cooperation with China. It is believed that in commemorating the
55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, the "paukphaw"
ties, which have already existed between the two countries, will be pushed
to a new height.

On the same day, State Council Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice-President Zeng
Qinghong and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing also exchanged congratulatory
messages respectively with Soe Win, prime minister of the Burmese
government; Maung Aye, vice-chairman of the State Peace and Development
Council; and Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win.

____________________________________

June 8, Thai Press Reports
Thailand: Foreign labourers buried alive under rice sacks

Two foreign workers were killed yesterday and three were left in critical
condition after being buried alive under heavy sacks of rice chaff at a
Chachoengsao-based rice bran oil factory.

Police who investigated the accident at the SNB rice mill in Bang Pakong
district in the early hours of Saturday morning were greeted by the sight
of hundreds of heavy sacks which had fallen from a 20 metre-high pile.

The Cambodian and Myanmar workers were said to have been carrying the
sacks to a truck when the accident occurred. An autopsy revealed the two
Myanmar workers to have died from suffocation and internal bruising.

Pol. Capt. Watcharaphol Supharee, an investigative officer at Bang Pakong
district police station, blamed the accident on the fact that the night
shift workers were tired, and had acted carelessly as a result.

____________________________________

June 7, The Nation
Rights groups want UN brief made public - Subhatra Bhumiprabhas

Human rights groups have demanded the government publicly release its
answers to 26 queries from the UN Human Rights Com-mittee about what is
happening in this country.

The government is to furnish the answers with the committee by July and
rights groups argue the answers should be a matter of public record.

"In answering the UN committee, it [the subsequent inquiry] has to be
conducted on behalf of the state, not in the name of Thai government.
Therefore the government should let the public know and open [the matter]
for public participation," said Union for Civil Liberties
secretary-general Phairoj Pholphet.

The UN's Human Rights Committee recently listed 26 issues to be taken up
after Thailand submitted an initial report on civil and political rights,
submitted under the mandate of the International Convention on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Thailand is a signatory. The Kingdom
signed onto the convention in 1996.

Thailand's report was submitted last year and the committee requested
extra information about violence in the South, the war on drugs, a missing
human rights lawyer and human rights violation of refugees and migrant
workers from Burma.

These issues were not included in last year's report.

Speaking at a forum at Chulalongkorn University, Phairoj also demanded the
government reveal the report for public comment. Human rights groups in
Thailand are writing a joint report in response to the government's report
and answering the UN's 26 queries, he said.

Kraisak Choonavan, chairman of the Senate committee on Foreign Affairs,
said his committee had also compiled several investigative reports on
human rights violations and was willing to share the facts with both the
government and NGOs.

"But I would ask the government not to use the police report on the Tak
Bai incident, which was embarrassing," the senator said.

Somchai Homla-or, chairman of the Thai working group on human rights
defenders, said the government should send the right people to answer the
committee's questions in Geneva next month.

"But I doubt if the government will be able to [adequately] answer these
questions," he said, adding that there were 1,639 cases of "silent"
killings during the government's war on drugs and the perpetrators
remained at large.

Wan Hea Lee, acting representative of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights
for the Asia-Pacific, said who represented Thailand in Geneva would be an
indicator of whether the Thai government was taking the UN seriously.

The committee may ask more questions of the Thai government if it thinks
it is necessary, she said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 8, Agence France Presse
Myanmar migrants abused, exploited in Thailand: Amnesty

Bangkok: Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand face a lack of basic human
rights and are routinely abused, paid below the minimum wage, arbitrarily
arrested and forced to live in unhealthy conditions, Amnesty International
warned on Wednesday.

The London-based human rights watchdog, in a report based on interviews
last year with 115 Myanmar migrants, said the Thai government has failed
to address key problems faced by the labourers from the neighbouring
country formerly known as Burma.

"They remain extremely vulnerable to exploitation, particularly to
extortion and physical abuse, at the hands of smugglers, employers or the
local police," Amnesty said in its report.

Thailand, in a memorandum with Myanmar's military government, has
guaranteed registered migrant workers the same rights as Thai nationals.

"However... in practice migrant workers are routinely not paid the legal
minimum wage, nor are they permitted to organize or enter into collective
bargaining, both rights which Thai workers are in principle entitled to,"
the report noted.

Shakedowns and arbitrary arrests were common, and the deaths of labourers
attempting to flee Thai authorities have been reported, it said.

Thousands of Myanmar migrants belong to ethnic minority groups from areas
in internal armed conflict, and Thailand should ensure they are not sent
back against their will as they would be "at risk of serious human rights
violations were they to be returned to Myanmar".

One 23-year-old migrant told Amnesty: "The Thai people regard us as
garbage -- they don't see the Burmese as helping the economy. We take jobs
which they won't do. They see us as trouble-makers, never as friends."

Thailand established a registration system for migrants in 2001. Last year
some 850,000 people from Myanmar registered, but tens of thousands more
are believed to be working in Thailand without documents.

As Thailand becomes more prosperous, "fewer Thai people are willing to
work in jobs which are commonly known as 'dirty, dangerous and demeaning',
and Burmese nationals have arrived in Thailand in increasing numbers to
fill the labour shortage," the report said.

A 24-year-old migrant from Yangon described the abusive conditions at a
Thai wool factory where he had earned 3,000 baht (75 dollars) per month.

"I worked from 8am to 9pm, sometimes until midnight, with no overtime
pay... Thirty of us men lived in a hall, about 30 feet by 10 feet (nine by
three metres), sleeping side by side."

Amnesty also criticised Thailand's poor efforts to assess the impact of
last December's tsunami on Myanmar migrants. Migrant support groups and
the Law Society of Thailand estimate up to 2,500 Myanmar migrants went
missing in the waves.

"There appears to have been no concerted effort to track missing Burmese
migrant workers by the Thai authorities," Amnesty said.

_____________________________________

June 9, Asia Times via Inter Press Service
A cheer for Myanmar's lady in waiting - Marwaan Macan-Markar

Bangkok: Though she appears destined to mark her 60th birthday as a
prisoner of Myanmar's military regime, jailed opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi will not be forgotten by the country's diaspora and her legions of
sympathizers across the world.

>From Scotland to Thailand and Texas to Tokyo, plans are afoot to highlight
her courage as a champion of democracy on her birthday, June 19.

The messages appearing on the web pages of one Myanmar pro-democracy group
- the Washington DC-based US Campaign for Burma, or USCB (Myanmar was
formerly known as Burma) - reflect the moral high ground Suu Kyi enjoys on
the world's political stage. After all, not only is she a Nobel Peace
laureate, but she is the only one among the other winners of the global
peace prize who is a prisoner. Her plight has prompted South Africa's
Bishop Desmond Tutu, another Nobel Peace laureate, to declare on the USCB
website that "as long as she remains under arrest, none of us is truly
free".

Other supporters plan to raise a cry for her freedom by staging protests
outside Myanmar's embassies in capitals across three continents. These
cities including Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, London and Washington DC.

"This outpouring of support will not be easy for the military regime to
sidestep," Debbie Stothard of the Alternative Association of Southeast
Asian Nations Network on Myanmar, a regional human-rights lobby, told
Inter Press Service. "Despite her isolation, she still commands immense
support and solidarity."

Over the years, Suu Kyi's birthday has become a "powerful focal point"
used by human-rights groups and critics of Myanmar's military junta to
highlight Suu Kyi's ill-treatment and the ongoing plight of many political
prisoners in Myanmar, said Stothard.

Currently, there are close to 1,300 political prisoners in Myanmar's
jails, including parliamentarians, writers, Buddhist monks and
pro-democracy activists. Win Tin, a 75-year-old journalist, has been in
prison for 16 years.

Such victimization followed the harsh crackdown on a democracy uprising in
Myanmar in September 1988. The results of a parliamentary election in May
1990, which the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party Suu Kyi
heads, won by a landslide, were then ignored by the junta. After that, the
military government that had ruled the Southeast Asian country since a
1962 coup continued in power with increasing brutality.

The junta's treatment of Suu Kyi has, in fact, come to symbolize its
ironclad rule. Her latest stretch under house arrest, which began in May
2003, is the most severe of the nine years and 230 days she has spent as a
prisoner of the ruling generals.

She has had no contact with the diplomatic community for months, she has
been denied meetings with UN officials and non-governmental groups and all
communication with other NLD leaders has been cut off. Even Suu Kyi's
personal physician, Dr Tin Myo Win, has been restricted from meeting her,
unlike during the two previous periods she was under house arrest, from
1989-95 and 2000-02.

"Earlier, her family doctor was free to visit Aung San Suu Kyi, even twice
a week," NLD member Zin Linn told IPS. "But now he has to get permission
from the government before he goes, and his visits have become rare, once
a month or even longer."

According to Zin, himself a political prisoner for seven years in the
1990s, the doctor is now subject to a level of checks that was absent
before. "They conduct a body search and go through his medical equipment
before and after he visits Aung San Suu Kyi at home."

For Myanmar journalists in exile, there is little mystery behind such
treatment. "This is an attempt by the regime to completely cut her off and
make her politically irrelevant," said Aung Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy,
a weekly news magazine on Myanmar's affairs published in northern
Thailand.

The silence from Suu Kyi and the world she currently inhabits reflects how
far the junta has gone to isolate her, noted Aung Zaw. "There is no news,
not a word coming out from her and what she is doing. It was never the
case before."

Yangon's fear of Suu Kyi's popularity stems from the hundreds of thousands
of people who came to hear her during the political campaigns she
conducted after she was released from 19 months of house arrest in May
2002.

During her one year in freedom that followed, she is reported to have
visited 135 townships and 12 states and provincial regions in Myanmar. The
crowds she drew during those gatherings came from Myanmar's many ethnic
communities.

Then in May 2003 the junta struck: thugs linked to the military regime
attacked Suu Kyi and leading members of her political party while they
were campaigning in a town north of Yangon. Suu Kyi and senior NLD leaders
were placed under house arrest soon after.

But attempts to silence Suu Kyi have proven counterproductive, since the
level of support she enjoys within Myanmar has not waned, said Stothard.
Some of these sympathizers, in fact, have taken a grave political risk to
sign a petition being circulated in Myanmar calling for Suu Kyi's
unconditional release, she revealed.

"To sign this petition is an act of defiance," Stothard said. "The people
are doing so because she is such a powerful political symbol in Myanmar.
People believe in her."

To date, close to 300,000 people have signed the petition, which also
calls for the right to freedom of association for all political and ethnic
groups in Myanmar, said NLD's Zin Linn. "This petition will be submitted
to the regime and the UN."

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 7, Wall Street Journal
What we can do about Burma - Paul Fireman

Defeating apartheid would have been impossible without corporations
world-wide mounting economic pressure to help release South Africa from
the grip of a criminal regime. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a leading voice in
that fight for freedom, declared, "Tough sanctions, not constructive
engagement, finally brought the release of Nelson Mandela and the dawn of
a new era in my country." In 1993, when Archbishop Tutu looked to the
brutality of the junta controlling Burma, he called it "the South Africa
of the '90s." More than a decade has passed, but Western corporations are
still playing key roles in boosting the Burmese economy that finances the
junta's rule.

In the past few months, a 23-year-old refugee from Burma has documented
reports in horrifying detail that demand our attention. She described an
incident in which 10 Burmese soldiers stormed a farm and raped a young
woman in her hut for eight hours straight. The woman was seven months
pregnant at the time. Her husband was tied to a nearby tree and forced to
hear the entire assault. The soldiers then dragged him away, and the woman
never saw him again. A few days later she gave birth alone in the jungle.

The most shocking thing about this story is how commonplace it has become
in Burma. For years now Burmese soldiers have been attacking women and
even children in fields as they plant sugar cane, on riverbanks as they
wash clothes, along roadsides as they forage for wild vegetables. But
these rapes are not random crimes. They are part of the Burmese military's
strategy to intimidate and control ethnic groups.

The brave young woman who reported these stories was Charm Tong, a refugee
who works on the dangerous frontlines in the fight for the rights of
oppressed Burmese nationalities. For exposing military violence against
women and children and courageously advocating for their rights, Charm
Tong received the Reebok Human Rights Award last month.

As I listened to Charm Tong's stories, I felt reassured that Reebok's 1996
decision to refuse to do business in Burma was the right one. But her
reports of these recent atrocities are evidence that not enough companies
have joined us in creating economic pressure to fight the systematic,
deliberate cruelty of the junta. We need many more corporations around the
world to join us in defending human rights in Burma.

Why focus on this regime? Despite a lack of enemies outside its borders,
Burma has one of the largest armies in Asia. It spends nearly half its
budget on the military. At the same time, the United Nations reports that
Burma -- once one of Asia's healthiest economies -- is now home to one of
the world's poorest populations. It has also become one of the worst
providers of health care, with one in 10 children dying before turning
five.

But the junta's human-rights record provides an even more urgent reason.
The regime has renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council in
an attempt to mask its appalling record. That record includes the massacre
of thousands of civilians, the widespread use of slave labor, the routine
torture of 1,300 political prisoners, the forced removal of 1.5 million
people from their homelands, and, as now documented, rape as a weapon of
war against ethnic minority women and children.

It's impossible to conduct business in Burma without supporting this
regime. In fact, the junta's core funding derives from foreign investment
and trade. But foreign investment and aid yield little benefit to the
nearly 50 million citizens who live under the military's ruthless campaign
of intimidation. Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically
elected leader now under house arrest, has pleaded with the world to apply
economic sanctions against Burma until democracy can free the country from
the military's brutal grip.

Over the years many foreign companies in a wide range of industries have
responded to those pleas by withdrawing their business. These include
adidas-Salomon, H&M, IKEA, Newmont and British Petroleum. But some of the
regime's principal business partners continue to be multinationals, many
based in Europe. Those lifelines must be cut to weaken the regime's hold
on the people of Burma.

Governments can, and should, do much more to enact humane responses to
this crisis. But the experience of apartheid demonstrates a powerful role
for businesses to play. I urge corporations around the world to work
together once more, this time to help restore human rights and democracy
to Burma.

Mr. Fireman is chairman and CEO of Reebok International Ltd. The 16th
Reebok Human Rights Awards were presented on May 11 in Los Angeles.
_____________________________________

June 8, Bangkok Post
Dark days amid relentless junta crackdown - Larry Jagan

Burma's military rulers are at one of the most crucial crossroads since
they seized power nearly 17 years ago

Burma's military leaders are facing increasing international isolation and
internal strife as they strive to strengthen their control. The regime's
failure to find those behind last month's bomb blasts in the capital has
left the generals reeling.

Massive security measures have been imposed all over Rangoon. Metal
detectors have been installed at the shopping malls and hotels. Road
blocks have been established along the roads out of the capital almost
every 30 kilometres. Buses are stop-ped and the passengers searched.

''I couldn't sleep on the bus because every time I drowsed off the bus
stopped and I was woken up and forced to get off the bus as the soldiers
searched the bus,'' complained one recent passenger who had travelled from
Moulmein to Rangoon.

The passengers on a flight from Kawthaung to Rangoon were all arrested
because the authorities suspected somebody had carried a bomb on the
airplane.

The regime has also stepped up its surveillance of the country's internet
using the facilities of Bagan Cyber Tech, the company originally owned by
the son of the former intelligence chief Khin Nyunt. Firewalls have been
upgraded and messages with key words are being blocked, according to a
source close to the company. The number of words that are being screened
has been increased, and now includes the Karen National Union ethnic
rebels and the government-in-exile NCUGB.

In the weeks since the bomb blasts there have been hundreds of hoax bombs.
Fake bombs, including newspapers stuffed in bags have been left outside
cinemas, malls and hotels, according to a Rangoon resident. The
authorities rush to the locations, cordon off and search the area.

There has been a spate of bomb threats to key commercial centres in the
city. Letters and even e-mails have been sent. Two weeks ago Yuzana Plaza
Hotel, near the Shwedagon temple received more than 40 letters threatening
to blow up the shopping stores in the mall.

The internationally renowned Traders Hotel in the downtown area has also
been targeted with bomb threats. ''We are all very scared,'' say the
staff. The management is certainly taking the threats seriously. They have
even taken the unusual step of sending their night staff home in hotel
cars for security.

There are signs that further bombs have been detected and defused,
according to Asian intelligence sources. But the regime is silent on this.
Instead, they have effectively blacked out all news on the event.

Although the junta says less than 20 people died in the explosion, there
were more than 60 victims, including several men in green. The bomb blasts
in the heart of Rangoon at several key commercial centres has rattled the
regime. So stunned and shocked are Burma's military leaders that they are
lashing out at everyone: ethnic rebel groups, students, the CIA and
Thailand have all been blamed.

There are wanted posters for Muslim men posted around the city of Pegu,
about 100 kilometres northwest of Rangoon, according to eye-witnesses.

More than 500 Muslims, mostly in the western state of Arakan that borders
Bangladesh, have been detained, according to activists. Several Muslim
traders in Rangoon have also been picked up.

But the opposition political activists have borne the brunt of the
military's crackdown. More than 600 pro-democracy politicians and students
have been detained. At least two have died during interrogation, according
to government sources.

''The regime is still in the dark as to who was be-hind the bombs and are
chasing their tails,'' said an Asian diplomat in Rangoon.

Junta supremo General Than Shwe has taken over control of the
investigations, but his protege, Rangoon commander and head of the new
military intelligence branch, General Myint Swe is in charge of the
day-to-day operations with the help of the 11th Light Infantry Division
based in the capital.

''The generals do not seem to trust the police to investigate the
incident,'' according to Thai military intelligence sources.

In the meantime, the regime is continuing its witch-hunt against the
family and supporters of the former prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt, who was
put under house arrest last October.

His two sons, the businessman Ye Naing Win and the military officer Zaw
Naing Oo, have been indicted on dozens of corruption charges.

They are facing more than 400 years in jail when the court passes its
judgment later this week, according to sources close to the family. It is
almost certain Gen Khin Nyunt himself will be put on trial in the near
future. Two months ago, some 40 former military intelligence officers were
found guilty of corruption and other economic crimes and sentenced to
hundreds of years in prison.

The regime is now stripping them of their wealth and possessions. The
families have all been told they can only own one house and one car,
according to a source close to the former officers. The wives' jewellery
has also been confiscated.

Forty of Khin Nyunt's top officers and aides have been sentenced to more
than 100 years in jail for economic crimes and most of their valuables
confiscated.

Thousands of other former intelligence officers and foot soldiers are out
of work and desperate. Many people have suggested that they may have been
behind the bombings, but this is highly unlikely.

This mass sacking of military intelligence and the campaign against Gen
Khin Nyunt and his supporters has shocked many in the army.

''It's a form of cannibalism: the army is eating its own flesh,'' a
retired Burmese military officer said.

This has all contributed to a growing resentment within the military and
government.

''All we are doing is putting innocent people in jail,'' a policeman
investigating one of Gen Khin Nyunt's senior generals confided to friends.

Many junior officers in the army are now questioning the country's
leaders' ability to rule. ''We would have died for General Ne Win, but not
these guys. They only want to hold power,'' an army major recently
confided to his family.

A climate of fear exists in Rangoon like never before. ''Everyone is too
frightened to talk, businessmen are keeping quiet and several top
policemen are lying low and trying to get upcountry for cover,'' says a
foreign businessman with close links to the regime.

Several businessmen have been arrested and are being interrogated in the
country's infamous Insein prison.

Rangoon has become eerily empty since the bomb blasts. Far fewer people
than usual dare step out to shop at the supermarkets, eat at restaurants
or attend parties. Taxis drivers are complaining that there are few
potential customers. Many of the stalls in Scott's Market are closed and
very few people wander around it.

Many Burmese believe the atmosphere is similar to the period before the
pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in 1988.

''Burma may be about to implode in the same way the authoritarian Eastern
European regimes did more than a decade ago,'' said a senior European
diplomat in Rangoon.

_____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

June 8, Amnesty International
Thailand: Abuses and exploitation of migrant workers exposed

Burmese migrant workers in Thailand are routinely paid well below the Thai
minimum wage, work long hours in unhealthy conditions and are at risk of
arbitrary arrest and deportation, said Amnesty International today in a
new report.

The report exposes a lack of basic labour rights and highlights the abuse
and exploitation of migrant workers by smugglers, Thai employers and
police. This includes frequent shakedowns by police in order to extract
bribes.

A new registration process taking place from 1 - 30 June 2005 for migrant
workers from Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, permitting them to remain in
Thailand until June 2006, is an opportunity for the Thai government to
ensure strong protection for migrant workers.

"The Royal Thai Government should ensure that the security forces do not
arbitrarily arrest migrant workers, particularly in order to extract
bribes," said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for
Asia.

"It should protect migrant workers from mistreatment, harassment and
intimidation by employers, police and local officials, and ensure that
they are not returned to countries where they risk torture and
ill-treatment."

Amnesty International interviewed 115 Burmese migrants in seven locations
in Thailand. The interviewees were working or looking for work in the
fishing, manufacturing, agricultural, construction industries, or as day
labourers or domestic workers.

One Burmese migrant worker told Amnesty International: "The Thai people
regard us as garbage -- they don't see the Burmese as helping the economy.
We take jobs which they won't do. They see us as trouble-makers, never as
friends."

Amnesty International called on the Thai government to ensure that all
workers in Thailand enjoy basic labour rights, including adequate wages,
resaonable working hours, and safe and healthy working conditions.

Background

Hundreds of thousands of Burmese migrant workers are employed in various
sectors of Thai industry including fisheries, garment factories, domestic
and construction work, hotels and restaurants, and agriculture.  As
Thailand has become more prosperous, fewer Thai people are willing to work
in jobs commonly seen as "dirty, dangerous, and demeaning". Burmese
workers have arrived to fill the gap.

For several years the Royal Thai Government has dealt with the labour
shortage by establishing a series of registration processes for migrant
workers.  Although flawed in both policy and implementation terms, these
registrations have been a good faith attempt to regularize and establish a
legal framework addressing the flow of migrants.

For the full text of the report, Thailand: The Plight of Burmese Migrant
Workers, please go to: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGASA39012005

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