BurmaNet News, July 23-25, 2005

[Editor]

July 23-25, 2005 Issue # 2767

"We always take care of the interests of our friends and partners."
- Burma Foreign Ministry official Thaung Tun responding to the debate over
Burma’s slated hosting of the Asean chairmanship, as quoted in Reuters,
July 25, 2005.


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Members of two Shan groups disarm
AFP: Myanmar's convicted PM: from pinnacle of power to decades of detention
Economist: The mess that the army has made of Myanmar
SHAN: Junta having all eyes on outsiders
Kaowao: Detainees interrogated after Rangoon explosion

BUSINESS / FINANCE
Japan Economic Newswire: Myanmar to send about 2,000 workers to Japan
annually
Irrawaddy: Thailand signs petroleum deal in Rangoon

ASEAN
Reuters: Myanmar keeps ASEAN guessing over chairmanship
AP: ASEAN split over Myanmar issue at security meeting, say diplomats
AP via Irrawaddy: Burma should not chair Asean, say lawmakers
AP: ASEAN nations agree to consider rights panels on women, children

REGIONAL
Japan Economic Newswire: Thai deputy premier meets Myanmar leaders ahead
of ASEAN meetings

OPINION / OTHER
New York Times: Off the Road to Burma
Economist: How to save Myanmar

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 25, Irrawaddy
Members of two Shan groups disarm - Nandar Chann

The Burmese junta disarmed members of two separate ethnic ceasefire groups
in northern Shan State on Sunday, according to sources in the groups.

Soldiers from the Shan State Army, led by Sai Yee, and the Shan State
National Army’s Brigade-6, led by Brigade Commander Sai Ku—119 soldiers in
all—surrendered unconditionally to Burma’s military government, the
official New Light of Myanmar reported on Monday. The surrender ceremony
was held in Lashio, the capital of northern Shan State, on Sunday morning.

Soldiers from SSNA Brigade-6 had been left behind in Shan State when their
leader Col Sai Yi broke a ceasefire agreement with the junta last April
and united with Shan State Army-South, led by Col Yawd Serk, which
continues its armed opposition to the Burmese junta.

“They might have been under pressure from the junta,” Capt Sai Win Ngwe, a
liaison officer for the SSNA, said on Monday by phone from Ruili, China,
near the Burma-China border. He also said that soldiers from the ceasefire
groups are often unable to escape because they have families and
businesses in the region, making them more susceptible to pressure from
Rangoon.

Lt-Gen Thein Sein, a senior member of the junta, and Maj-Gen Myint Hlaing,
commander of the army’s Northeast Command and members of ethnic ceasefire
groups in northern Shan State attended Sunday’s ceremony.

But two other ethnic minority groups from the area, the United Wa State
Army and Myanmar National Democracy Alliance Army (Kokang), were not
invited to attend, according to ceasefire group sources.

In April 2005, SSNA and Palaung State Liberation Army surrendered their
arms to Rangoon troops, but tensions between Shan ethnic ceasefire groups
and the Burmese army increased after Maj-Gen Sao Hso Ten, president of the
Shan State Peace Council, was arrested for illegally attending a meeting
in Taunggyi in early February.

The SSPC is an umbrella group comprising the Shan State Army-North and the
SSNA.

____________________________________

July 24, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's convicted PM: from pinnacle of power to decades of detention

Yangon: Myanmar's former premier Khin Nyunt once wielded immense power in
this military-ruled state, but the general's recent corruption conviction
cements his downfall despite signs the junta will let him serve his term
at home instead of prison.

With a secret tribunal in the notorious Insein prison handing down a
44-year suspended sentence Friday, the deposed premier, 65, faces the same
disgrace as his mentor Ne Win, the founder of the country's military
dictatorship who ended his days under house arrest tainted by corruption.

"The former prime minister doesn't have any chance to be able to come back
to a government position. He is finished," an Asian diplomat in Yangon
told AFP.

His sons, also on trial, face the prospect of life behind bars, with the
tribunal sentencing Zaw Naing Oo and Ye Naing Win to terms of 68 years and
51 years respectively, according to a legal source following the case.
Unlike their father, they are to serve their sentences in prison, the
source said.

It was not immediately clear whether Khin Nyunt or his sons would be
allowed an appeal.

Khin Nyunt, ousted in an October purge, owed his rise to prominence to the
patronage of the military strongman who controlled Myanmar for more than
two decades after taking over in a bloodless coup in 1962.

As a trusted member of Ne Win's military intelligence circle, he rose
through the ranks but was derided by some members of the military for not
serving as a frontline soldier.

The lack of support from the wider military ranks ensured he would never
rise higher than number three in the junta. But he was still a key player
and was military intelligence chief for two decades.

Friday's sentencing proved deeply ironic in that it occurred at Insein,
Myanmar's largest prison and the very facility to which Khin Nyunt's
intelligence services sent hundreds of political dissidents for
incarceration and, according to scores of human rights groups, torture.

He also ends up under house arrest in Yangon, just as the junta's
arch-rival Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel peace
laureate.

Foreign governments and diplomats in Yangon had considered the slight,
bespectacled man in his army uniform to be one of the most accessible and
reasonable figures in the junta hierarchy.

And while he once helped crack down on pro-democracy demonstrators he
eventually became the reformist-leaning face of Myanmar's military
leadership.

Khin Nyunt was the most senior general willing to enter a dialogue with
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained for most of the past 15 years.

He was seen a hard-working pragmatist responsible for shaking up Myanmar's
foreign policy and deeply involved in helping Myanmar to become a member
of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) in 1997.

The general also played a key role in persuading nearly 20 ethnic groups
opposed to the regime to sign up to ceasefire agreements.

"He has done much since this government took power in 1988," the Asian
diplomat said.

"He worked together with government leaders such as Senior General Than
Shwe (the junta supremo) and General Maung Aye (his number two), and that
is why I think maybe Than Shwe didn't like the idea of Khin Nyunt serving
his time in a jail."

U Lwin, spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
(NLD), said he was not expecting the junta to allow Khin Nyunt to avoid a
lengthy prison stay.

"When I heard the news I was surprised. It was very strange," he said.

Some 300 people linked to the former premier have stood trial, with more
than 40 tried and convicted, mainly for economic crimes.

Khin Nyunt first headed military intelligence in 1984. In 1988 he was
involved in the brutal suppression of mass demonstrations against military
rule leaving hundreds or thousands dead, according to various estimates.
The military reasserted control.

Under its leader, military intelligence wielded broad powers, repressing
political opposition and commanding economic activities in many sectors
including lucrative cross-border trade.

Fifteen years later in 2003, Khin Nyunt became prime minister and
announced the junta's much derided "roadmap to democracy" to try to soothe
international anger over Aung San Suu Kyi's detention.

He was seen as breaking ranks with his hardline colleagues by favouring
dialogue with the NLD leader. The pair met after UN-brokered secret talks
started in 2000.

But leader Than Shwe is vehemently against any role for Aung San Suu Kyi,
and with Khin Nyunt now ousted and replaced by a hardliner there is little
movement within the junta to challenge the senior general's position.

____________________________________

July 23, The Economist
The mess that the army has made of Myanmar

Yangon: Brutality and neglect by Myanmar's military regime have created a
pariah state with a wretched and desperate people

FOR proof of how grim things have become in Myanmar, consider how locals
talk about America's invasion of Iraq. There is no griping about
violations of Iraqi sovereignty, no carping about the mysterious absence
of weapons of mass destruction, no horror at the bloodthirsty insurgency
that has ensued. Only one criticism is ever voiced: why hasn't America
invaded Myanmar too? A monk, a taxi driver, a student, all shyly ask your
correspondent whether America might not be prevailed upon to topple their
dictatorial regime next. The country is stuck in such a rut that the
prospect of a foreign invasion is a fond hope, not a fear.

It is against this backdrop of military misrule that the Association of
South-East Asian Nations meets next week in Laos to decide what to do
about Myanmar's impending chairmanship of the regional club. On the one
hand, ASEAN is first and foremost an economic grouping, which does not
normally concern itself with the political conduct of its members. Several
other members, including Laos, the summit host, are hardly models of
democracy. On the other hand, it would be enormously embarrassing for
Myanmar's internationally reviled and economically illiterate generals to
represent South-East Asia to the world. America, which has denounced
Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny", has said that it will stay away from
any events hosted by the military regime.

So the other members of ASEAN have been hoping that Myanmar might find
some face-saving excuse to pass up on its turn to hold the group's
rotating chairmanship. Indeed, Major-General Nyan Win, the country's
foreign minister, may still announce as much in the next few days. After
all, whenever pesky United Nations envoys or human-rights investigators
ask to visit Myanmar, the top brass simply declare that they cannot find
any time in their busy schedules.

But Myanmar's generals also have a strong sense of their own dignity, and
might be worried that caving in to ASEAN would be seen as weakness. What
is more, excluding Myanmar from the chairmanship would run counter to
ASEAN's own argument that it is better to engage the military regime than
to ostracise it. Whatever is decided, the process will be closely watched
and fiercely disputed by partisans in the never-ending debate over whether
the generals respond better to carrots or to sticks.

In a sense, the argument is moot. Whichever decision ASEAN comes to,
nobody imagines that the generals will behave much better as a result, let
alone undergo a sudden conversion to democracy. Indeed, the junta looks
more entrenched than at any point in the 17 years since it took power. Its
internal and external critics do not seem to be making any headway. In the
meantime, the life of ordinary Burmese is becoming ever more miserable.

The army has ruled Myanmar since 1962. In 1988, a popular uprising led by
disgruntled monks and students prompted a group of generals to sideline
the long-serving strongman, Ne Win, and call elections. But when these
were held, in 1990, the junta refused to honour the result, a landslide
win for the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
Instead, the generals simply locked up their political opponents and
continued to run the country as a military dictatorship.

Since then, the NLD has been in a quandary. The State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), as the junta calls itself, still claims to be
committed to an eventual transition to democracy. It has conducted
desultory consultations over a new constitution, and even held periodic
negotiations with Miss Suu Kyi, who has won international acclaim, and a
Nobel Peace Prize, for her peaceful, patient and dignified resistance—but
precious little else. Most of the time the junta has kept her under house
arrest, while political repression and economic hardship have gone from
bad to worse.

In 2003, the SPDC unveiled a seven-point "road map" to democracy. But the
road, predictably, is long and winding. The first item on the junta's
agenda is the completion of the new constitution. It duly assembled a
"National Convention", heavily stacked with pro-regime delegates, to take
up where the previous such body had left off. There would be no going
back, the generals said, on clauses in the draft document reserving a
quarter of seats in the national parliament, and a third of seats in
regional parliaments, for the army.

Nor would the clause barring Miss Suu Kyi from the presidency be revoked.
(The official reason for the ban is that she was married to a foreign
national: her British husband, Michael Aris, died in 1999.) Miss Suu Kyi
is being kept under house arrest during the convention, and this prompted
the few NLD members who had been invited to the convention to boycott it.

The NLD says it is willing to be flexible if the generals would only agree
to negotiate. There is talk of ending the party's support for
international sanctions and calling for more foreign investment and
tourism. A prominent role for the army in politics is not out of the
question, says Bo Hla Tint of the opposition's government-in-exile. But
previous attempts at negotiation have not ended happily.

In 2002 the junta released Miss Suu Kyi from one of her many stints under
house arrest, and announced that it would pursue talks "facilitated" by
the UN. Miss Suu Kyi began touring the country, in a bid to rebuild the
NLD and hearten her supporters. Huge, enthusiastic crowds greeted her
everywhere, despite much official intimidation. The generals, doubtless
alarmed by her popularity, locked her up again in May 2003 and called off
the talks.

Since then, the government has closed all the NLD's offices save its tiny
and dilapidated headquarters in the capital, Yangon. Although some
long-jailed dissidents have recently been released, younger activists are
still frequently arrested. More than 1,000 political prisoners, including
many NLD supporters, remain behind bars. Miss Suu Kyi herself is held in
"virtual solitary confinement" according to the UN. No one but her doctor
and two maids are allowed into her house, and she has no access to a
telephone, correspondence, newspapers or the internet. The other, elderly
leaders of the NLD, deprived of contact with Miss Suu Kyi and harassed by
the authorities, look somewhat at sea.

Observers believe that the junta is busily undermining the party in
preparation for elections to be held some time after the constitution is
completed next year. In this scenario, the generals' despised civilian fan
club, the Union Solidarity and Development Association, would transform
itself into a political party. The electoral rules would then be written,
and the vote rigged, to guarantee its victory. With a constitution that
granted it sweeping powers, and a compliant parliament, the army could
then preside over a sort of Potemkin democracy.

The junta seems to have equally unreasonable plans in store for the ethnic
minorities who make up 40% of Myanmar's population, and who dominate the
country's border regions. Numerous ethnically based rebel outfits have
fought against the central government on and off since independence in
1948. Over the past decade or so, the regime has managed to arrange uneasy
ceasefires with 17 of them, leaving only a few more still fighting. Now it
says that the 17 ceasefire groups should disarm, and pursue their goals
through the political process outlined in the road map.

Most of the groups view this as a trap. The architect of the truces, Khin
Nyunt, a former number three in the SPDC, fell from grace last year and is
currently on trial for corruption. Representatives of the ethnic militias
are still participating in the National Convention, but the junta has
ignored most of their suggestions. Any hint of federalism seems out of the
question, as does a rejigging of provincial boundaries or administrative
hierarchies to give disgruntled minorities more autonomy.

Indeed, the junta recently signalled its intransigence by arresting the
leader of one ceasefire group, the Shan State National Army (SSNA), along
with various other politicians from Myanmar's biggest ethnic minority, the
Shan. It seems to be gambling that most of the groups that agreed to a
ceasefire will not dare to go back to war. After all, the ranks of the
army have more than doubled since 1988, to roughly 380,000. The revenue
from gas exports has allowed the regime to upgrade its weapons, while
improved relations with India and Thailand have removed the rebels' past
sources of arms and sanctuary.

But the junta's bet could yet sour. Only one small group has surrendered
its weapons. Others, especially the United Wa State Army (UWSA), remain
well armed thanks to revenues from drug trafficking. The SSNA, for one,
broke with the regime after the arrest of its leader, and merged with
another rebel outfit. The ensuing upsurge in fighting in Shan State has
displaced as many as 200,000 civilians, according to human-rights groups.
Were the regime to pick a fight with the UWSA, the fallout would be even
worse.

Nonetheless, all the signs indicate that the top brass is determined to
press on with its plans, even in the face of fierce resistance. It was Mr
Khin Nyunt, the general who was purged last year along with all of his
allies in government, who made the greatest effort to cultivate friends
and placate detractors. Since his departure, the junta has abruptly ended
overtures to critics such as Amnesty International and the International
Labour Organisation. It has not allowed either the UN's special envoy or
its point man on human rights in Myanmar to visit in over a year.

Instead, it appears to be digging in, literally: the army is shifting its
headquarters to a series of underground bunkers in a town called Pyinmana,
in a remote, hilly region of central Myanmar. The rest of the government
may follow, in what looks like a crude attempt to protect the authorities
against future invasions or uprisings. Many members of the opposition take
the move to Pyinmana as proof that only foreign pressure will help to rein
in the SPDC.

But, if anything, foreign pressure is decreasing. America did ban imports
from, and financial transactions with, Myanmar in 2003. But the European
Union is toying with greater engagement. Last year, for example, it
permitted Burmese officials to attend its annual summit with ASEAN for the
first time. Both America and the European Union have resisted activists'
demands that they ban all investment in Myanmar, allowing both Unocal and
Total, two big oil firms, to continue to operate there. Japan, which
suspended its aid programme after Miss Suu Kyi's arrest in 2003, has
resumed it again.

Myanmar's neighbours, meanwhile, have become much friendlier in recent
years. Under the leadership of Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand has buttered
up the generals in the hope of stemming the flood of methamphetamines
across the two countries' long border. (Mr Thaksin's family also has
business interests in Myanmar.) China, never the fiercest proponent of
democracy, has taken advantage of good relations with the junta to
establish its only toehold on the Indian Ocean, in the form of a military
surveillance station in the Coco Islands. Myanmar's friendship with China
has also prompted an anxious Indian government to cosy up to the generals.
In January, it signed a deal to build a pipeline across Bangladesh to
import Burmese gas. With so many close friends in the region, western
sanctions and boycotts carry relatively little sting.

In fact, the worst damage to Myanmar's economy is wrought by the generals
themselves. Sean Turnell, of Australia's Macquarie University, points out
that they grew up under a socialist regime, and have little understanding
of market forces. They meddle in everything, change regulations, and issue
or revoke licences and permits at whim. They fund big budget deficits by
printing money (or "borrowing" it from the central bank, as official
statistics have it), a policy that has provoked double-digit inflation
(see chart on previous page).

In 2003, they refused to take any action to prevent a run on the nation's
banks. They operate an absurd system of at least three exchange rates,
with all the concomitant inefficiencies and opportunities for corruption.
The Heritage Foundation, an American think-tank, considers Myanmar's
economy the most distorted in the world save for North Korea's.

The result is a country where everything is in short supply. Power is
erratic, cars are rare and telephones are unreliable. Farmers are never
sure whether they will be forced to sell their crops to the government at
below-market rates, and so don't plant as much as they might. Border
crossings with Thailand, through which most imports pass, are often closed
without warning for long periods. Goods are endlessly repaired and
recycled, for want of replacements: all over Yangon, tradesmen can be seen
gluing books back together, soldering ancient transistors, or respooling
the tape on old audio-cassettes. The generals, however, are in total
denial. They claim the economy is growing at a steady clip of 10% or more
a year.

No wonder, then, that living conditions are deteriorating rapidly
throughout Myanmar. The UN ranks it among the least developed countries in
Asia, on a par with Cambodia and Bangladesh. But even that assessment may
be over-generous, since it relies on the government's rosy statistics. In
2002, before the latest economic downturn took hold, the UN found that the
average household was spending 70% of its income on food. Since then,
hunger and malnutrition can only have increased. Some three-quarters of
the population live below the poverty line, according to one aid worker's
estimate.

The government allocates only 3% of its budget to health and 8% to
education, while 29% goes to the military. Foreign donors are loth to lend
to such a pariah. America and others block loans from the World Bank and
the Asian Development Bank, a measure supported by the NLD. Meanwhile,
less than half of children complete primary school. Doctors complain that
even basic supplies—bandages and painkillers—are hard to obtain. AIDS has
become a "generalised epidemic", with 1.2% of the population infected with
HIV. Almost 100,000 new cases of tuberculosis are detected every year.

The situation is particularly bad in Myanmar's border areas, where
government brutality and neglect, coupled with long-running ethnic
rebellions, have lowered living standards yet further. The army often
resorts to murder, rape, theft, arbitrary arrest, relocation and forced
labour. In a recent report, Guy Horton, a human-rights activist, argues
that these abuses are systematic, deliberate and aimed specifically at
ethnic minorities, and so constitute genocide. He cites written orders
from senior officers to raze villages and to kill "anyone related with the
enemy". Estimates of the total number of people killed in the border
region range as high as 10,000 a year. Many more die of disease or
starvation brought on by the conflict.

The border zone also has the highest prevalence of AIDS in the country. In
Hpa-an, not far from the Thai border, 7.5% of pregnant women test positive
for HIV. A recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations, an
American think-tank, argues that Myanmar is exporting AIDS around the
region. Genetic analysis shows that certain strains of AIDS prevalent in
India and China originated in Myanmar.

Some Burmese hope that these grim conditions will eventually provoke their
fellow citizens into an uprising. They did, after all, take to the streets
in 1988 to protest against the economic mismanagement and political
oppression of Ne Win's regime. Those demonstrations, although violently
repressed, paved the way for the 1990 election.

But the junta has been working assiduously since then to prevent any
repetition. The authorities have clamped down particularly ferociously on
students and monks, who led the protests in 1988. Universities, which were
simply closed for several years, have now reopened—but in distant suburbs,
far from any likely venues for demonstrations. At the first hint of
trouble, classes are suspended and campuses roped off. Monasteries are
also under surveillance. Troublesome ones have their funding cut. Some 300
monks are currently in jail.

Nonetheless, there are some signs of unrest. In May, three big bombs
exploded in Yangon, killing at least 11 people and injuring over 100.
Smaller devices explode from time to time in both Yangon and Mandalay. The
SPDC dismissed the senior ranks of the army's intelligence service last
year, along with Mr Khin Nyunt, who used to head it. The purge must, at
the very least, have damaged the regime's spy network, and might also have
started an internal rift.

But Aung Zaw, an exiled Burmese journalist, worries that protests or even
coups, should they materialise, would not necessarily lead to any
improvement. Instead, he argues that worsening living conditions,
increasing government paranoia and growing popular resentment will simply
breed greater violence. "There's a sense of hopelessness," he laments.

____________________________________

July 25, Shan Herald Agency for News
Junta having all eyes on outsiders - Oong Pawng

The order is out to units in northern Shan State to keep an eye on
foreigners engaged in humanitarian activities, according to reports from
Lashio, the state’s northern capital.

The order, issued by the regional commander Maj-Gen Myint Hlaing, was
relayed by Col San Shwe Tha, Commander of the Kutkhai-based Strategic
Command No.1, to subordinate units along the Sino-Burma border on 17 July.
It directed all those concerned to keep track of all foreign workers
whether they be from the UN or NGOs, as the government has reason to
believe “that their primary mission” in Burma is intelligence gathering
“whatever their pretexts are”.

The immediate cause for the issuance for the order was said to be the
prompt reporting of several events  by foreign-based radio stations, such
as the arrests of 4 members of the ceasefire group Shan State Army ‘North’
south of Muse on 5 July on the same evening.

The generals’ growing xenophobia is being reinforced by the Burma-based UN
agencies’ acknowledgement that data weaknesses remain a major obstacle in
their operations, according to one Burma watcher.

There are several international NGOs and local NGOs operating in Burma. 8
of them are reportedly working with the World Food Program in Shan State
North alone.

Irrawaddy also reported on 21 June it has been getting more and more
difficult for foreign NGOs to obtain travel permits outside Rangoon.

____________________________________

July 22, Kaowao
Detainees interrogated after Rangoon explosion

Mon members accused of state assassination plot two years ago are being
interrogated after the bomb explosion in Rangoon recently, says a Mon
political source from Rangoon.

“Some were taken away by authorities to be investigated by the (SPDC) who
suspected them of being linked to the bomb blast in Rangoon,” the
political activist from the capital said.  Among the 12 people who were
charged of national betrayal on July 17, 2003, some were released but some
members are to remain in Insein prison.

“I doubt some of them will be released soon after SPDC continues with the
investigation,” he added.  Mon activist Nai Shwe Marn or Chan Hong Sar was
released last April. However, NMSP member Nai Yekha or Ne Win is still in
the prison.  Nai Gain, another NMSP soldier arrested two years ago was
convicted to serve a 19-year prison term in Moulmein for his alleged
connection with Nai Yekha.

Chairman of Township Mon Literature and Culture Committee Nai Sein Aye was
arrested by the No.4 Military Training School’s commander based in
Wae-kali village, Thanbyu Zayat on July 8.  Nai Sein Aye also was a senior
leader of Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) and is active for social
activities in the local community.

His Township Mon Literature and Culture Committee was rejected for
registration by Thanbyu Zayat  Township authorities and committee members
were forced to sign a document promising that they will not conduct any
political activities.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / FINANCIAL

July 23, Japan Economic Newswire
Myanmar to send about 2,000 workers to Japan annually

Yangon: Myanmar will send about 2,000 workers to Japan annually to work as
trainees in the small and midsize enterprises, according to local media
reports.

Under a technology transfer agreement between Myanmar's Labor Ministry and
the semiofficial Japan International Training and Cooperation
Organization, 40 licensed employment agencies in Myanmar will recruit
trainees to work for JITCO-approved Japanese employers, the Myanmar Times
and Khit Myanmar weeklies reported this week.

Myanmar's Labor Ministry earlier this month granted permission for
representatives of the employment agencies to travel to Japan to source
job offers, the papers said.

Each Japanese employer will be allowed to recruit a maximum of nine
Myanmar trainees, who have at least three years of worksite experience,
and 200 learning hours at Japanese language classes.

According to JITCO figures, only 254 JITCO-supported trainees came from
Myanmar between 1992 and 2003. That compares with 200,189 from China,
37,2943 from Indonesia, 20,337 from the Philippines, 14,393 from Thailand
and 12,929 from Vietnam, for example.

JITCO has framework agreements with governments of 15 partner countries --
14 Asian countries and Peru.

____________________________________

July 25, Irrawaddy
Thailand signs petroleum deal in Rangoon - Clive Parker

Thailand moved to secure further oil and gas interests in Burma on Monday,
signing a petroleum exploration agreement in Rangoon witnessed by the Thai
Energy Minister Dr Prommin Lertsuridej.

Maroot Mrigadat, president of PTT Exploration and Production, which signed
the agreement, announced his company’s intentions earlier on Monday in a
statement to the Thai stock exchange. “The investment is in line with the
company’s overall strategy to expand overseas,” Maroot said.

The deal means PTTEP—which is 64 percent state-owned—has exclusive rights
to explore block M-11 in the Gulf of Martaban, where it plans to complete
seismic surveys, and drill one exploration well. No extensive assessment
has previously been carried out in the block, although “it lies in a very
promising area,” according to PTTEP spokesman Sidhichai Jayant.

Negotiations between PTTEP and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise had been
conducted “very quietly until very recently,” he added.

The value of PTTEP’s investment in M-11 was not immediately clear,
although it is thought the company has been granted the customary three
year tax holiday by the Burmese government, which will only make money
from the deal should oil be extracted.

M-11 is the latest of five blocks PTTEP has secured off the coast of
Burma’s Arakan State since the end of 2003, areas in which it plans to
invest more than US $23 million in the next five years.

PTTEP also owns a 19 percent stake in the controversial Yadana gas
pipeline. The majority stake-holder is the French company Total, which has
come in for wide international criticism for its participation in a
project allegedly involving human rights abuses.

____________________________________
ASEAN

July 25, Reuters
Myanmar keeps ASEAN guessing over chairmanship

Vientiane: Myanmar's military government hinted on Monday it may skip its
turn as chairman in 2006 of the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN), sparing the 10-member bloc criticism over Yangon's human rights
record.

After a meeting of ASEAN officials before the annual foreign ministers'
get-together, this year in Laos, a Myanmar delegate said Yangon was not
deaf to concerns at the sluggish pace of reform and the detention of
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

"We always take care of the interests of our friends and partners,"
Foreign Ministry official Thaung Tun told Reuters.

However, he said he was not aware that a decision on Myanmar's scheduled
chairmanship -- which has led to threats of U.S. and European boycotts of
high-level meetings with ASEAN -- had been made.

"We have the human resources and the facilities to take on the privilege
and honor of hosting the ASEAN summit and related meetings," he said. "It
is not a problem for us."

Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win was due to arrive in Laos on Monday
evening ahead of Tuesday's meeting with his counterparts, most of whom are
begging him -- if not necessarily expecting him -- to announce Yangon's
decision to step aside.

Echoing the sentiments of most ASEAN leaders, Thai Foreign Minister
Kantathi Suphamongkhon said last week Bangkok had heard "positive" noises
from Yangon about foregoing the alphabetically rotating annual
chairmanship.

However, the military junta, one the most reclusive and isolated
governments in the world after losing elections in 1990 by a landslide but
choosing to ignore the results, is keeping everybody guessing right down
to the wire.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said he thought an
announcement would come.

"At the very least, we can expect to learn that decision. We don't know
what kind of decision that will be," he said.

____________________________________

July 25, Associated Press
ASEAN split over Myanmar issue at security meeting, say diplomats - Vijay
Joshi

Vientiane: Southeast Asian nations were split over whether military-ruled
Myanmar should heed U.S. pressure to forgo their bloc's chairmanship,
marring their annual security dialogue with Western and Asian partners,
diplomats said Monday.

The conference through Friday among the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations and 14 Asia-Pacific partners had anti-terrorism efforts on
the agenda, and ASEAN nations also prepared an accord on boosting
cooperation during disasters such as December's tsunami.

Australia was set to sign a document on its intent to join a regional
nonaggression pact to warm ties with neighbors that often have viewed it
with mistrust.

The meeting received a blow Monday when host Laos announced that Japanese
Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura would not attend. No reason was given.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had announced earlier that she
would not attend. ASEAN diplomats read that as a snub over the group's
failure to get Myanmar's junta to hand power to a civilian government and
free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The U.S. and European Union have threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings if
Myanmar takes up the chairmanship of the bloc late next year as scheduled,
and many Southeast Asian nations fear that could endanger trade ties with
the West.

The bloc's members - who insist on deciding all issues by consensus - are
divided over Myanmar, with about two-thirds of the members against the
military-ruled country taking up the chairmanship, ASEAN spokesman M.C.
Abad said.

Another ASEAN diplomat said Cambodia and communist countries Laos and
Vietnam are Myanmar's main backers, urging it not to buckle under
pressure. He spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid a diplomatic row.

The diplomat said Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win would indicate the
junta's stand during an informal dinner with his ASEAN counterparts later
Monday. But Malaysia's Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the issue
would not be discussed ministers until Tuesday.

"There will be a decision," Syed Hamid said. "Any interpretation that
ASEAN is going to be divided, and therefore lead to an impasse, I don't
think will arise."

ASEAN's mixed signals to Myanmar have complicated efforts to get the
country to reform, said U.N. envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismail, who was in
Vientiane to meet with Nyan Win.

"It is not as if ASEAN countries have been collectively strong in putting
out a clear signal to Myanmar," Razali told The Associated Press.
Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have been "quite
forthright, but we have not heard from the others," Razali said.

Criticism from the West tends to have little effect on Myanmar's leaders,
who decide matters "in their own time," he said.

Still, there were indications that Myanmar could voluntarily give up the
chairmanship, Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said in Bangkok
on Monday.

"Myanmar has sent a good signal that it will take into account the
importance of ASEAN's interests and will not do anything that will
obstruct the development of ASEAN and its relation with other countries,"
he said.

Meanwhile, Laotian Deputy Foreign Minister Bounkeut Sangsomsak said
Japan's absence "will not effect most of the meeting," and should not be
seen as a Myanmar-related pressure tactic.

Machimura went to London on Sunday for talks with European leaders on
Japan's proposal to expand the U.N. Security Council and to give Japan and
some other countries permanent seats. He was due back in Japan this week,
and it wasn't clear why he couldn't attend any of the Laos meetings ending
Friday.

One of the highlights in Vientiane will be Australia's signing of a
declaration of intent to join a nonaggression pact with ASEAN. Canberra
would then be expected to sign the pact by December, helping its campaign
to boost trade ties with Asian neighbors.

The meetings also will discuss terrorism and agreements on sharing
intelligence, officials said.

ASEAN nations Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are holding ministerial
meetings this week.

They are joined for meetings of the broader, security-oriented ASEAN
Regional Forum by Australia, Canada, China, European Union, India, Japan,
Mongolia, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russia,
South Korea and the United States.

____________________________________

July 25, AP via Irrawaddy
Burma should not chair Asean, say lawmakers

Asean should bar Burma from taking over its chairmanship next year if the
military-ruled country refuses to voluntarily skip its turn, Southeast
Asian lawmakers said Monday. Burma’s chairmanship could be deferred by a
year if the ruling junta can present Asean with a detailed time frame for
political reform that includes participation Aung San Suu Kyi and other
activists, legislators from six Asean nations said in a statement. “If
Myanmar [Burma] refuses to accede to Asean’s polite diplomacy, we urge
Asean to take the initiative to deny Myanmar [Burma] the chair,” said the
Asean Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Democracy in Burma. “Asean must
safeguard its own credibility and legitimacy by making clear it will not
be swindled by the Myanmar [Burma] regime's diversions and rhetoric.”

The caucus comprises dozens of lawmakers from Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand. However, their comments are
not binding on their individual governments.

____________________________________

July 25, Associated Press
ASEAN nations agree to consider rights panels on women, children

Vientiane: Southeast Asian nations have agreed to consider creating panels
on the rights of woman and children as possible precursors to a regional
human rights commission, an official said Monday.

Indonesia proposed a regional rights commission with investigative powers
in 2003, but its colleagues in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
are still mulling that - a contentious topic in a region plagued by
frequent human rights violations.

In the meantime, the bloc has decided to consider two separate commissions
on women's and children's rights, said Marsuki Darusman, co-chairman of an
ASEAN working group on the topic.

"It is good news. It is a happy day for human rights," said Marsuki, a
former chairman of Indonesia's Human Rights Commission.

It was unclear whether the interim ASEAN commissions would have
investigative powers or the authority to impose penalties on rights
abusers. But Marsuki said the panels would have "mechanisms for redressing
grievances."

He did not say when they might be set up.

The commissions should have investigative and possible prosecutorial
powers, "otherwise there won't be much effect, said Chang Lih Kang, an
official with the Malaysian human rights group Suaram.

"We know that there is persecution of ethnic women in Myanmar and serious
human trafficking problems in countries such as Vietnam. Such commissions
can only be effective if they have legal powers," Chang said.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

July 25, Japan Economic Newswire
Thai deputy premier meets Myanmar leaders ahead of ASEAN meetings

Yangon: Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai arrived in Yangon
on Monday as a special envoy of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and held
talks with Myanmar's top leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe, diplomatic sources
said.

Surakiart met with Than Shwe at the parliament building for about an hour
before meeting with Gen. Thura Shwe Mann, the third-ranked leader in
Myanmar's junta, at the Defense Ministry compound in northern Yangon.

No details of the talks were, however, made available.

Analysts in Yangon believe Surakiart's visit is significant because it
comes just ahead of the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Vientiane on
Tuesday.

The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are
expected to discuss whether Myanmar, which has been under increasing
international and even regional fire for its poor human rights record and
foot-dragging on democratic reform, will be allowed to assume the next
chairmanship of ASEAN.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 25, The New York Times
Off the Road to Burma

On her recent visit to Thailand, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
she was there to show that she cares about Southeast Asia. If so, skipping
this week's meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a bad
way to show it.

No American secretary of state has missed the annual Asean meeting in more
than two decades.

The State Department says she is not going to Asean because of other
''essential travel'' in Africa, but that is unconvincing. Many Asean
diplomats believe the real reason is to shun Myanmar, formerly known as
Burma.

That military dictatorship is in line to claim the rotating chairmanship
of Asean next year, and the United States and the European Union have
rightly threatened to boycott next year's summit meeting if that happens.
But it's hardly a reason to avoid this year's meeting in Laos --
especially since the Burmese junta is expected to relinquish the
chairmanship.

Participating in the Asean meetings is a good way for Washington to
develop trust, confidence and cooperation in the region, especially on
antiterrorism efforts. It also provides a useful setting for diplomatic
discussions that would be awkward to arrange otherwise. At last year's
regional forum, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with North Korea's
foreign minister to discuss nuclear weapons. Ms. Rice should not pass up a
chance to press Myanmar's foreign minister on his country's abysmal record
on human rights and democratic values.

Avoiding such a confrontation is not a sign of either resolve or strength
but of a risky disengagement by Washington.

_____________________________________

July 23, The Economist
How to save Myanmar

Ostracising Myanmar has not helped its people. It is time to explore the
possibility of a deal

THE West's policy on Myanmar isn't working. It is now 17 years since the
generals massacred demonstrators in their thousands, and 15 since they
lost an election and promptly ignored the result. For much of that time,
Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroic and inspiring leader of Myanmar's democracy
movement, has enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the only Nobel
laureate to be under arrest. Myanmar's "government" is among the world's
most incompetent, its people among Asia's poorest, its record on human
rights at the bottom of the pile. Sanctions, ostracism and tough talking
have clearly all failed to make the slightest dent in the regime's
behaviour. Miss Suu Kyi, who was beaten up in 2003, remains under house
arrest. It is said that the top general, Than Shwe, cuts meetings short at
the very mention of her name.

But the East's policy on Myanmar isn't working either. Instead of
ostracism, it has tried engagement, and in spades: investment in Myanmar's
energy sector, admission to the Association of South-East Asian Nations
(ASEAN), the premier regional club, regular dialogue on everything from
trade to cultural exchanges. None of this, either, has wrung the slightest
concession out of the generals—and while China, for one, may not mind too
much about this, others, such as India and Indonesia, do. When ASEAN's
leaders gather in Laos this week, the embarrassments of its own approach
will be clear. Myanmar is due to take over the rotating chairmanship of
the organisation at the end of this year, which will expose it to
international ridicule and boycott unless the other members succeed in
twisting the generals' arms hard enough to make them yield the honour. So
far, the arm-twisting has failed (see pages 23-26).

One problem with both approaches is that the two tend to cancel each other
out. Western sanctions can hardly be expected to succeed if big eastern
countries simply ignore them. (Not even Europe and America follow exactly
the same tactics: America bans all financial transactions with Myanmar,
but European banks continue to provide an economic lifeline.) Engagement
is hampered if Myanmar continues to be seen as a pariah. But a more
fundamental problem is that no one really takes Myanmar seriously enough.
Most countries, whatever their attitude toward the regime, treat Myanmar
as a backwater rather than a pressing strategic concern. That is a
mistake. For one thing, Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of
heroin. It cheerfully exports drugs, refugees and disease to its
neighbours and beyond. Its many rebellions regularly spill into Thailand,
India and Bangladesh. It hosts China's only military base on the Indian
Ocean, and so plays a crucial part in the growing rivalry between Asia's
two rising powers. It has big reserves of natural gas, which it already
sells to Thailand and plans to market further afield.

The world needs to recognise that there is little hope of influencing the
regime unless a more coherent policy can be found, even if that has to
mean easing up on the generals in some limited respects. As a start,
Europe and America should at least co-operate with one another. They might
also try harder to persuade their allies in Asia that a better-run Myanmar
is in everyone's interests. The United Nations should also play a more
active part. At the moment, it is reduced to begging the regime to admit
its special envoy, who is supposed to be "facilitating" a non-existent
dialogue between the generals and the NLD opposition movement. But the
real achievement would be to marry the western and eastern approaches.
Just as ASEAN should not hesitate to punish the generals, the rest of the
world should not shrink away from rewarding them for any positive steps
they take. At the moment, countries like America insist that they will not
reduce pressure on Myanmar until the junta gives way to a democratic
government.

That should always be the ultimate goal, of course—and not one that can be
postponed indefinitely. But it would not hurt to spell out exactly what
steps outsiders would like the generals to take, how quickly they should
be taken, and what the consequences of each stage of compliance or
defiance would be. For example, foreigners might agree to restore full
diplomatic relations if the junta released Miss Suu Kyi. Next, they could
trade a big infusion of aid for, say, an effective ceasefire in various
war-torn corners of the country. Then they could offer to drop sanctions,
should the junta ever cut some sort of a power-sharing deal with its
opponents. Diehard opponents of the regime will complain that any
concessions simply reward the generals for their intransigence, and give
them an incentive to haggle over every step down the road to reform. But
the alternative, an insistence on the regime's unconditional surrender,
has got them precisely nowhere over the past 15 years. None of these steps
would be irreversible, and there would be plenty of other penalties
foreign governments could impose if the generals regressed.

Even Miss Suu Kyi herself has already conceded that an absolutist approach
is not practical. She has negotiated personally with the generals, while
her colleagues in the NLD hint that they might accept all manner of
compromises if they felt it was in the best interest of ordinary Burmese.
And there is no doubt that ordinary Burmese have an interest in improving
the government's disastrous economic management, checking the alarming
spread of AIDS and putting an end to Myanmar's endless guerrilla wars, in
addition to political reforms.

It is possible that the generals might ignore any overtures, no matter how
generous. Some close observers of Myanmar predict that this is the most
likely outcome. One school of thought holds that its generals are
indifferent to both carrots and sticks. The junta is steeped in the
isolationist philosophy of Ne Win, Burma's strongman from 1962 to 1988. It
is so paranoid that it is digging an underground headquarters in a remote
region of central Myanmar, for fear that rebels or outside invaders might
somehow seize control of the capital, Yangon. Maybe a step-by-step plan,
implying a degree of cautious engagement in return for real reform can do
better. It is worth trying—but only provided the generals are willing to
play ball.