BurmaNet News, June 23, 2005

[Editor]

June 23, 2005 Issue # 2746


ON THE BORDER
Thai Press Reports: Foreign labour registration almost meets deadline
Kaladan: Rangoon-Dhaka highway waiting for agreement

BUSINESS
Xinhua: Bangladesh puts strings for India-Myanmar gas pipeline
AP: CNOOC bid for Unocal seen as part of Chinese effort to secure foreign
oil and gas resources to meet growing energy needs

REGIONAL
SHAN: Dissident meet skim over politics

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Report calls for genocide charge against junta

OPINION / OTHER
Mizzima: ASEAN: Globalization vs. the impact of Burma's political impasse

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 23, Thai Press Reports
Thailand: Foreign labour registration almost meets deadline

The Labour Minister has asked employers to ensure their employees have
proper registration from the government's foreign labour scheme by the end
of June, while both employers and their employees would face tough legal
action.

Labour Minister Sora-At Klinpratoom said currently there are over 1.2
million illegal immigrants from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar who have been
working in Thailand, while only 849,000 have been signed up for the
government's foreign labour scheme.

Sora-At added that Thursday the 30th of June will be the last day the
government allows employers who wished to hire foreign labourers, and the
foreign labourers themselves, to register with authorities.

Therefore, the Labour Ministry has urged employers and business owners
currently hiring these labourers to act according to the law and to avoid
facing penalties.

The arrest of illegal foreign workers would be subject to 3 months in jail
and/or a 5,000-baht fine, while their employers will also be jailed for up
to 3 years and/or fined up to 60,000 baht.

____________________________________

June 23, Kaladan News
Rangoon-Dhaka highway waiting for agreement

Chittagong: Rangoon-Dhaka highway is waiting for an agreement to
facilitate construction of a 20-km road for direct link, to which Dhaka
recently sent a proposal to Rangoon.

"The construction cannot start before the agreement because this is for
the first time Bangladesh is going to implement a project in a foreign
land," said a high level official in the Ministry of Communications.

Official in the Ministry said, "The proposal has been sent in the first
week of this month and we are waiting for their response. The agreement is
necessary to ensure safety and security of the Bangladeshis who would go
to Myanmar with construction materials for the project.”

The official also said, "The necessary preparation has been completed from
our side and the physical work of the project will start after the
agreement is signed and the proposal was sent through the foreign ministry
and the foreign ministries of both countries are now negotiating on the
terms and conditions of the proposed agreement.”

The Bangladesh government has decided to construct the road with its own
funds.

The 20-km highway will require Tk. 122 crore that will start from Gundhum
in Bangladesh and end at Bawli Baza (Kyin Chaung) in Burma that estimated
by the Bangladesh communication ministry.

First foundation stone road at Gundhum was laid by Gen. Khin Nyunt, the
then Prime Minister of Burma during his visit to Bangladesh last year and
the stone of the bridge at Taungbro on Burma-Bangladesh was laid by U Nyan
Win, the Foreign Minister of Burma during his visit to Bangladesh in
February this year

The distance from Bangladesh to the existing union highway in Burma
leading to Rangoon is around 153-km. Bangladesh has taken up the
initiative to construct 43-km roads in the first phase – 23-km on the
Bangladesh side and 20-km on the Burma side.

Dhaka prepared framework of agreement on the friendship road in May after
holding a series of meeting with the technical taskforce committees of the
two countries.

The direct road link between Rangoon and Dhaka is also necessary for
establishing road communications with Thailand and China.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / FINANCE

June 23, Xinhua General News Service
Bangladesh puts strings for India-Myanmar gas pipeline

New Delhi: Bangladesh on Thursday expressed its opposition to India's
ambitious project to interlink rivers and put conditions for allowing a
gas pipeline between India and Myanmar through its territory.

At the same time, Dhaka also sought expediting of work on settlement of
the boundary dispute for which the two sides agreed to revive the joint
working group (JWG) and decided to hold meetings to sort out differences
over fencing being carried out by India.

"There is a lot of concern in Bangladesh about the inter- linking of
rivers project of India," Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Mohd Hemayetuddin
said here.

Hemayetuddin was in New Delhi to attend the two-day Foreign
Secretary-level talks between India and Bangladesh, which concluded on
Wednesday.

Noting that it was not some anti-India sentiment, he said the project
would affect the interests of Bangladesh.

"It is a matter of our survival. Bangladesh shares 54 rivers with India
and the inter-linking project could divert water at the cost of our
country," he said.

Pointing out that the matter was raised with the Indian side at the talks,
Hemayetuddin said "New Delhi had given an assurance that it will take no
step that is detrimental to the interests of Bangladesh."

"The Indian side has assured to hold consultations with Bangladesh on the
matter if required," the Bangladesh Foreign Secretary added.

He also favored water-sharing agreements on six major rivers, including
Teesta.

The two countries already have such an agreement on river Ganga.

On the proposal to construct an India-Myanmar gas pipeline passing through
Bangladesh, the foreign secretary said his country was not averse to it
but wanted India to sort out certain things.

He identified three major issues which Bangladesh wanted New Delhi to
address -- reduction of trade imbalance, providing corridor for Nepalese
goods to Bangladeshi ports and access to hydro-electric potential in
Bhutan.

The Bangladesh Foreign Secretary also virtually ruled out Bangladesh
giving gas to India, saying Dhaka would first have to assess how many
reserves it has for several decades and how it can take care of its own
needs.

____________________________________

June 23, Associated Press
CNOOC bid for Unocal seen as part of Chinese effort to secure foreign oil
and gas resources to meet growing energy needs - Peter Enav

Taipei: It began in Kazakhstan, migrated to Indonesia, and washed up in
half a dozen places in between.

Now China's growing appetite for foreign oil and gas resources has spread
to the home of the world's modern hydrocarbon industry - the United
States.

On Thursday China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd. announced it was ready to pay
US$18.5 billion ([euro]15.4 billion) to acquire Unocal Corp. of El
Segundo, California.

The offer put it at odds with U.S.-based Chevron Corp., whose earlier bid
of US$16.6 billion ([euro]12.7 billion) had been accepted by Unocal.
Unocal said it would evaluate the CNOOC offer, but emphasized that its
board's recommendation to shareholders to accept the Chevron bid remained
in place.

Foreign energy analysts say CNOOC's Unocal bid is a continuation of a
process begun by Chinese energy companies in the late 1990s aimed at
acquiring overseas energy assets to compensate for static or falling
domestic oil and gas production.

"It's been a common theme for them ... in recent years," said Daniel Hynes
of ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. "I think (this deal) is a case of the
Chinese trying to secure supply for their own purposes. With their oil
needs growing exponentially, securing this asset would put them in very
good stead for the future."

In 2004 China's oil imports exceeded 2 million barrels per day. The U.S.
Department of Energy expects that figure will climb to 9.4 million barrels
by 2025, an estimate that some experts say is conservative.

The most significant Chinese deal to date was the acquisition by
state-owned CNPC - China's largest energy company - of 60 percent of
Kazakhstan's Aktobemunigaz, and a subsequent undertaking to build a US$700
million ([euro]583 million) pipeline to move the Kazakh crude into western
China for refining.

Other large acquisitions were for oil and gas fields in Venezuela, Sudan,
Iran, Iraq, Peru, Azerbaijan and Indonesia.

But the Unocal deal would trump them all. The California company has oil
and gas reserves of about 1.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent - an
industry measure that combines the fuel potential of major hydrocarbon
variants - making it the eighth largest American oil company.

Outside of large-scale oil and gas interests in Alaska and the Gulf of
Mexico, it also has significant holdings in Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Thailand
and Indonesia - many of which would be attractive to CNOOC for
geographical reasons, analysts say.

"Unocal is strong in Asia, particularly in gas," said Victor Shum of
Texas-headquartered Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "Because of the
geographical location of projects in places like Indonesia, Thailand and
Myanmar, these assets make a very good fit for CNOOC."

Gas usage now accounts for only 3 percent of the total Chinese energy pie,
but government plans call for that proportion to double by 2010. Resources
from Unocal fields in Southeast Asia would clearly expedite the process,
serving as fuel for new electricity plants in fast-growing coastal areas.

Both Hynes and Shum said that a successful CNOOC bid for Unocal would not
interfere with efforts by energy companies in Japan and South Korea to
secure oil and gas reserves, because the commodity nature of the products
allow for them to be purchased on the open market.

However, Tetsu Emori of Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo said if a CNOOC
purchase of Unocal goes ahead, the development could worry Japanese and
South Korean companies, which are experiencing difficulties in securing
foreign sources of supply in politically stable countries.

"I think Japan and South Korea have fallen far behind China," he said.
"This is a very good purchase because it is in the United States. It is
clear we have fallen behind."

____________________________________
REGIONAL

June 23, Shan Herald Agency for News
Dissident meet skim over politics

Their style cramped by the "No politics, please!" precondition that
obliged them to limit themselves to merely giving information about their
activities and discussing more technical matters, Burma's leading
anti-Rangoon activists attending the National Reconciliation Program (NRP)
annual consultation meeting on the border of Chiangmai, 21-22 June,
contented themselves by treating political issues as sideline affairs:

The two-day gathering of more than 80 activists and donor representatives
devoted most of the time evaluating their 6-year association with the NRP,
a program directed by the Brussels-based Euro-Burma Office's Harn Yawnghwe
"to bring about a peaceful transition to democracy and the establishment
of a Federal Union of Burma," a lofty goal that is still evading the
diverse peoples of Burma, and suggesting what it could do to run better.

"We'll try to help you as best we can as long as you're relevant," said
Anette Berentzen of Danish Burma Committee, "that is, as long as what you
do helps resolve problems inside Burma."

"The key word is process," advised Dublin-based Trocaire's Sorcha Fennel.

"You can't put a date on it, and we can't put a deadline on it."

Funding decisions are jointly made by the 5-donor member Funding
Committee: Danish Burma Committee, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, Palme
Center, Trocaire and NRP, and the 18-member Program Committee appointed by
pro-democracy groups.

Since 1999, the NRP has supported state constitution drafting process,
efforts aimed at Tripartite Dialogue made by the border based Ethnic
Nationalities Council (ENC) and participation of youth and women in the
national reconciliation movement. Around $ 400,000 has been earmarked for
the current fiscal year alone, April 2005-March 2006, for meetings,
trainings, (which include Training on Federal Affairs organized by the
exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma) state
constitution drafting committees and youth and women projects.

Among the participants are well-known democracy and state rights stalwarts
such as Than Khe, Thein Oo, Daw San San, Kyaw Kyaw, Dr Naing Aung,
Professor Tint Zaw, Makaw Hkun Hsa, Hkun Okker, David Htaw, David
Tharckabaw, Nurul Islam, Sao Sengsuk, Hkun Mankoban, Zipporah Sein, Charm
Tong, Nang Yen, Rimond Htoo, Dr Lian Hmung Sakhong and Dr Suikha, among
others.

Rohingya and Nagaland representatives were conspicuous by their presence.
"To rebuild our country, every stakeholder must be recognized and involved
in the process," said Harn Yawnghwe.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 23, Irrawaddy
Report calls for genocide charge against junta - Clive Parker

A researcher on human rights in Burma and a British Member of Parliament
on Thursday called for the international community to address what they
describe as systematic violations of human rights by the junta.

Guy Horton reiterated the conclusion he came to in his report ‘Dying
Alive’ published last month that the Burmese government is committing
genocide in Shan, Karen and Karenni states. Horton, a Briton, spent five
years compiling interviews and carrying out research for the report.

“This is likely to amount to something which is possibly genocide which we
would like to have investigated,” Horton said, comparing the destruction
of more than 2,500 villages in the area he studied to that in Kurdish Iraq
under Saddam Hussein.

British MP and joint chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Burma John Bercow said that it is possible the case will be put to the
International Court of Justice, in The Hague, after support from
international lawmakers. If so, this would prompt the UN Security Council
to act against the Burmese regime. For the time being, however, he said
there was little prospect of further international action by the UN or the
EU.

Bercow gave an insight into British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s attitude
towards Burma, quoting him as saying last year: “It is only the absence of
television cameras that has prevented the true horror of what is taking
place from being known.”

Many British MPs are keen to introduce stronger measures against the
junta, Bercow added.

Also testifying during the meeting was Martin Panter, of Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, who claims to have diagnosed Karenni civilians of
exposure to chemical weapons used by the Burmese regime.

“As a civilized country, we have a responsibility to respond to this,” he
said, in a call to the British government to take stronger action against
Rangoon.

The findings of Guy Horton have proved controversial among many Burmese.
While the Burmese government has systematically denied charges of genocide
and the use of chemical weapons, many who have fled the regime also still
do not accept Horton’s charge.

However the Karen National Union, the largest exile group of Karen State,
on Thursday welcomed the report: “The KNU is an organization that believes
there is genocide [in Burma],” said the organization’s joint secretary
David Takapaw.

“Generally we agree with Guy Horton’s report, but we don’t have the means
to investigate or arrange a comprehensive investigation ourselves.”

The KNU has a genocide committee that gave evidence to Horton in producing
the document. However other KNU members have stated that violations by the
Burmese army have decreased dramatically since January last year when both
sides began working towards a ceasefire agreement. No agreement has yet
been signed.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

 June 21, Mizzima News
ASEAN: Globalization vs. the impact of Burma's political impasse - Myat Soe

A large number of U.S. companies have dug in China and are expanding
direct foreign investments. For example, General Motors, Motorola, and
Coca Cola have been investing heavily in China over the last couple of
years.

Along with the new millennium, the global economy and the borderless
world, has become a reality in the Southeast Asia region. This new climate
of globalization impacts economic developments in the region, which has a
relatively large population base, inexpensive labour, and an abundance of
natural resources. Accordingly, the region’s international business is
changing rapidly, and one primary reason is increased foreign investments
and free trade agreements. Indeed, the volume of international trade in
this region has increased dramatically over the last two decades, and the
economic activity in the region continues to burgeon.

Although the issues facing the region have been addressed in the past, one
of the important issues should be resolved. It is the ASEAN’s Burma
policy. It was derived from the policy of "constructive engagement"
initiated in 1991 by the Former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun as
Thailand's foreign policy towards Burma. This policy was later
regionalized as ASEAN’s Burma policy and it has a direct impact on
regional development and trade matters.

Even though ASEAN leaders tried to convince the region that their policy
was working, they acknowledge that it brought in extreme contradictions
among its members. Some political leaders in the region have criticized
Burma's regime and said that Burma had used ASEAN as a shield against
criticism by members of the international community including the United
Nations, EU nations and the United States. The fact of the matter is that
Burmese generals are not using ASEAN as a shield it is ASEAN which has
allowed the Burmese regime to use it as a shield.

While ASEAN leaders are out to cure the Burmese regime's political
schizophrenia, the region is loosing tremendous amount of investments and
trade opportunities from western countries. Conversely, China has shown
growing foreign investments and has become the biggest economy in the
region. Despite a severe economic downturn by its Asian neighbors, its
annual GDP growth is about seven percent. At the current growth rate,
China is projected to be one of the biggest economies in the world.

A large number of U.S. companies have dug in China and are expanding
direct foreign investments. For example, General Motors, Motorola, and
Coca Cola have been investing heavily in China over the last couple of
years. According to the latest data available to the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing, General Motors (USD 1.35 billion) -- recently opened a USD one
billion auto production joint venture in Shanghai. Motorola’s (USD 1.2
billion) -- recent investments in China include a USD 500 million
semiconductor plant in Tianjin and a new CDMA equipment manufacturing
facility in Hanqzhou. Coca Cola (USD 1.1 billion) -- Coca Cola, Fanta,
Sprite and other products are already produced in approximately two dozen
areas throughout China.  Amoco (USD 350 million) -- opened an oil project
on the South China Sea in March 1996, and recently merged with British
Petroleum.

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, said recently its
inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit US $18 billion
this year. Last year, the firm bought US $15 billion products from China
and half from direct purchasing, the other from the firm's suppliers in
China.

Indeed, while trade and investments in Southeast Asia have got a measure
of the impact of Burma's political impasse, major investors from the US
and European countries are shifting their investments to China.  The
question is: how long will the ASEAN allow the Burmese regime to use it as
a shield? How long can ASEAN afford to loose ground?

ASEAN's Burma policy has been a major stumbling block in attracting
foreign capital in the region, and it is a deterrent to regional
development.  Now, it is time to reassess ASEAN's policy toward the
Burmese ruling junta.

(Myat Soe is Research Director of Justice for Human Rights in Burma)