BurmaNet News, August 23, 2005

[Editor]

August 23, 2005 Issue # 2788


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar urges UN to reconsider cut off of aid to fight deadly diseases

ON THE BORDER
Mizzima News : Burmese students demand release of imprisoned co-students

REGIONAL
Irrawaddy: Thailand urged to ease migrant labor regulations
AFP: Thailand risks creating "lost generation" of 100,000 child migrants: IOM

INTERNATIONAL
Financial Times: Donors reaffirm stand against Aids in Burma
Bangkok Post: The sense of urgency grows at the UN

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 23, Associated Press
Myanmar urges UN to reconsider cut off of aid to fight deadly diseases

Yangon: Myanmar has urged the United Nations to reconsider its decision to
cut off assistance to fight AIDS and other deadly diseases because of the
military government's travel restrictions on aid workers, official
newspapers said Tuesday.

The U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has ended all
support to the Southeast Asia nation - where AIDS looms as a massive
problem - saying "the regime is making it impossible for us to work
there."

The Geneva-based fund said it's main partners in Myanmar, also known as
Burma, were unable to carry out their work properly after the government
put severe travel restrictions on aid workers last month.

Myanmar's Country Coordinating Mechanism - which is chaired by the health
minister - said that it "strongly deplores the negative impact it will
have on people in need and refutes the reason given for termination."

The statement, issued Aug. 19 and published in the New Light of Myanmar
Tuesday, said the decision also contradicts the world body's millennium
development goals.

But the CCM said the restrictions are only temporary, "and do not justify
irreversible termination of grants. The Global Fund's response is clearly
disproportionate."

The statement added that Myanmar will continue to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and
malaria and "urges the international community to respond positively in
the spirit of social justice to this unjust action."

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

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

The Global Fund had promised to spend more than US$98 million ([euro]80.4
million) over the next five years to fight tuberculosis, malaria and
HIV/AIDS in Myanmar. The organization was planning the treat 5,000 AIDS
patients over the next two years, but had not yet started any treatment.

____________________________________
ON THE  BORDER

August 23, Mizzima News
Burmese students demand release of imprisoned co-students - Han Pai

The students who took part in the 1998 student strike and the All Burma
Federation of Students Union (Foreign Affair Committee) ABFSU-FAC jointly
demanded that the junta release all imprisoned students on the 9th
anniversary of the 1998 student strike on August 24.

Ko Zin Maung who took part in the 1998 strike said. " They have been
releasing political prisoners in dribs and drabs since last year. But
there are many leading 1998 student strikers still behind bars.

The military regime awarded long term prison sentences to leading
strikers. Ko Myo Min Zaw was sentenced to 52 years imprisonment, Ko Aye
Aung to 45 years, Ko Thet Win Aung to 59 years and Ko Myo Min Htike to 52
years respectively.

In the aftermath of the 1996 student movement, students went underground.
The students decided to launch a movement when NLD set the August 21,1998
deadline to call for the Parliament to be convened, student leader Zin
Maung said.

" When the military junta failed to give in to their demand on or before
August 21 1998 when the 60-days ultimatum passed, we decided to launch a
student strike in a crowded place near our campus like the Hle Dan
junction. In this strike we expressed our support and solidarity to the
NLD. As per our decision, all student groups staged a student strike on
August 24, supported by the Committee Representing People's Parliament
(CRPP), which transformed the people's movement eventually, Ko Zin Maung
added.

About 2, 000 students staged a strike at Hle Dan junction on August 24,
1998 for about one hour, chanted slogans supporting CRPP and NLD. They
also distributed leaflets and statements on the day. The strikers
dispersed soon after the riot police arrived on the scene. After that,
over 200 students were arrested in connection with the strike, Ko Zin
Maung added.

The 1998 student strikers who are taking refuge in Thailand and elsewhere
will jointly launch a campaign with ABFSU (FAC) for the release of all
imprisoned students with the support of local NGOs.

ABFSU (FAC) also launched a signature campaign for release of imprisoned
students on its website (www.abfsu.net).

_____________________________________
REGIONAL
August 23, Irrawaddy
Thailand urged to ease migrant labor regulations -  Yeni

Bangkok: A group of leading international organizations concerned with
migrant issues released a report on Tuesday calling for improvements in
processing and resettling immigrants to Thailand, particularly those
coming from Burma.

The report, titled “International Migration in Thailand,” proposes
improved refugee screening on the Thai-Burma border and an easing of
formalities allowing migrants to work in Thailand. The report calls for a
cheaper and simpler method for issuing work permits, the provision of 
better information about the rights of migrants and their families and
effective inspection of workplaces by the Thai Labor Ministry to ensure
compliance with labor standards and the enforcement of legislation
combating human trafficking.

Anti-AIDS measures are also proposed by the report, including information
and prevention programs targeting mobile or difficult-to-reach migrant
populations.

The report, presented in Bangkok on Tuesday, was commissioned by the
International Organization for Migration, the International Labour
Organization, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the United Nations
Development Program.

One of the report’s authors, Jerrold W. Huguet, told a press conference at
the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, Bangkok, that poverty was
the main reason for migration to Thailand. Conditions of employment for
migrant workers were not good, the report said—“Migrant workers are not
permitted to form labor unions. The migrants are reluctant to join unions,
and Thai unions are hesitant to include migrants in their meetings.”

Another author of the report, Sureeporn Punpuing, drew attention to the
situation of domestic workers, most of whom are women. These workers were
“particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse because they often work
in isolation and are not covered by labor regulations.”

Last year, some 129,000 migrants applied to Thai authorities for work
permits as domestic servants, although the report estimates that 70,000
others were working without registration papers. About two-thirds of the
domestic workers were from Burma, the report says.

The situation of the 93,000 migrant children registered by the MOI as
living in Thailand is also highlighted by the report. About 63,000 of the
children are from Burma, the report notes.

____________________________________

August 23, Agence France Presse
Thailand risks creating "lost generation" of 100,000 child migrants: IOM

Bangkok: Thailand risks creating a "lost generation" of more than 100,000
migrant children who are stateless and deprived of education, the
International Organisation for Migration said Tuesday.

The children of migrant workers are not given Thai citizenship if they are
born there, and because many of their parents are in the country
illegally, most are not eligible for schooling, the IOM said in a new
report.

"We have a generation growing up that is stateless," IOM regional
representative Irena Vojackova-Sollorano told a press conference.

Experience elsewhere in the world had shown that "when we have a
generation that grows up without any structure, without any education,
without any sense of belonging, it's a potentially a generation which is
lost," she said.

The IOM said the Thai government last year had registered almost 1.3
million adult migrants from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar and found they had
93,000 children living with them, including 63,000 Myanmar children aged
under 12.

But education ministry figures showed that only 13,500 children under 15
years from these three countries were attending Thai schools.

Children under 15 are not allowed to work under Thai law.

"These children are in a kind of limbo, not going to school, not legally
being able to work, yet they're in Thailand," said the report's author
Jerrold Huguet. "So you can imagine the vulnerability of that very large
population."

Child migrants were learning to speak Thai almost as well as their mother
tongue, but they were not learning either language well enough to be fully
literate, he said.

"They're not really being qualified for future labour force participation
in Thailand, aside from really unskilled minimum wage work."

"At the same time, they're not being qualified for returning to their home
countries, so I think it is a very serious issue."

The report recommended that the Thai government work toward ensuring all
children born in Thailand receive birth certificates.

"It is strongly encouraged that children born to nationals of neighbouring
countries are recognised as nationals by those countries," it said.

"The Thai government is encouraged to initiate cooperation with
neighbouring governments in this regard."

Thailand's education ministry was also urged to work with schools to
ensure that its policy of universal access to education was enforced and
applied to all child migrants regardless of their parents' status.

The report also said that some 500,000 Thai children aged under 14 years
have one parent working overseas.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 23, Financial Times
Donors reaffirm stand against Aids in Burma - Amy Kazmin

Bangkok: UN agencies, European governments and international aid
organisations yesterday affirmed their com mitment to fighting Burma's
Aids epidemic, despite last week's decision by the Global Fund to Fight
HIV/ Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria to withdraw from the military-ruled
country.

In Rangoon, UN agencies and humanitarian aid donors are discussing how to
fill the financial gap left by the Global Fund, which was to have spent
Dollars 98m (Euros 79.5m, Pounds 54m) over the next five years in Burma.
International charities say they will continue to tackle one of south-east
Asia's most serious Aids epidemics.

"It is very regrettable the fund has been terminated but it doesn't mean
that we can't work in Burma in other ways," said Claire Moran, Burma
programme manager for the UK's Department for International Development.

"These diseases are critical humanitarian problems for Burma and ... the
international community as a whole has to look at what can be done," she
said. "We can't wait for a change in the political context."

The Global Fund, a public/ private partnership that has raised Dollars
3.7bn in 127 countries, decided last week to terminate its grants for
Burma, citing new travel curbs on foreign aid workers.

The move angered many aid workers, who have advocated more humanitarian
support for Burma despite the country's virtual pariah status in the west.

"Programmes were just getting started," said Roger Walker, Burma country
director for World Vision. "To have the plug pulled like that has been
devastating."

Statistics about Burma are sketchy, but up to 610,000 of the country's 50m
citizens are living with HIV, about 46,000 of whom are in urgent need of
life-saving anti-retroviral drugs. Multi-drug resistant TB is also
spreading rapidly.

While UNAids is nearing the end of a Dollars 24m three-year programme to
fight Aids in Burma, the Global Fund's project was the biggest health
initiative envisioned for the country. The programme was to have provided
anti-retroviral drugs to about 5,000 people over two years, vastly expand
existing condom promotion programmes, increase HIV testing, provide
mosquito nets to prevent malaria, and strengthen TB controls.

Yet since the funds were approved in August last year the initiative has
been under attack from some US congressmen, who oppose any increase in aid
to Burma, especially if channelled through government officials such as
public health workers.

Some in Rangoon believe the junta's new travel restrictions - which have
undoubtedly made life more difficult for foreign aid workers - were a
convenient excuse for the fund to back away from the politically
controversial programme.

But one western Aids professional said the Global Fund's initiative for
Burma had been misconceived from the start, and probably would have been
terminated because of its inability to meet stringent performance
benchmarks.

"What we had here was a package of assistance for Dollars 98m that was not
viable and not defendable," said one worker. "It was an extreme package
that over-funded government services in an irresponsible way, and was not
viable from a political, ethical perspective."

____________________________________

August 20, Bangkok Post
The sense of urgency grows at the UN - Larry Jagan

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is seriously considering visiting Burma
later this year, to try and revive the UN's efforts to help bring
political change to Burma

Ali Alatas, a special envoy of the UN secretary-general, has just
completed a three-day mission to Rangoon where he discussed the country's
political future and a possible visit by Kofi Annan to Burma later this
year.

He is the highest-ranking UN official to visit Burma since the UN special
envoy Razali Ismail visited Rangoon in March last year.

The former Indonesian foreign minister is one of a number of Kofi Annan's
special envoys for UN reform and the Millennium Development Gaols. While
publicly he and other UN officials insist that the trip's primary purpose
was to discuss these issues with Burma's top generals, Mr Alatas also
passed on a message from the secretary-general to the country's top
general, Than Shwe.

Mr Annan is seriously considering visiting Burma later this year to try
and revive the UN's efforts to help bring political change to Burma.

For more than 18 months now, the UN's special envoy for Burma, Razali
Ismail and the special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Professor
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, have been repeatedly refused access to the country.

Burma's top military leader invited Mr Annan to Burma when they met at the
Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta in April.

But Mr Annan cannot visit without at least a guarantee that he would be
allowed to meet the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The UN has repeatedly called for Aung San Suu Kyi's release since she was
placed under house arrest in May 2003, after her car was attacked by
pro-government thugs while she was touring in the north of the country.

The plan for Mr Annan's possible visit to Burma, was one of the key
messages from the UN secretary-general, which Mr Alatas conveyed to Gen
Than Shwe during his trip to Rangoon.

No date has been proposed for the visit, according to UN officials in New
York. While they continue to insist that he is very busy and unlikely to
visit Burma this year, there is a growing sense of urgency. There is no
doubt that the UN is desperate to resuscitate its efforts to help Burma's
reform efforts.

The opposition National League for Democracy is also anxious that Mr Annan
visits Burma. They have insisted that he must see their leader, Aung San
Suu Kyi, and that the visit take place before the National Convention
resumes drafting the new constitution.

The convention is due to reconvene in November to put the finishing
touches to the charter before putting it to a referendum next year.

The decision to send Mr Alatas to Rangoon as a special envoy for Mr Annan
was taken by top UN officials, including Mr Annan, at a special meeting on
Burma in New York on June 28.

Apart from the top dozen UN officials, the special envoy Razali Ismail and
the UN country representative in Burma, Charles Petrie, took part in the
meeting via satellite video phones.

The meeting to discuss the UN's policy towards Burma was arranged by the
secretary-general's special assistant Mark Malloch Brown, the former head
of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The top-level meeting is part of the international organisation's plans to
review policy in major areas of concern. At the time, only Iraq and the
Sudan had been given such a thorough top-level review.

The UN is anxious to rejuvenate its role in bringing about political,
social and economic reform in Burma as well as supporting the country's
humanitarian needs.

UN officials are seriously concerned at the regime's continued snub of its
key envoys, particularly Mr Razali, who has been trying to help facilitate
a dialogue process between the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the
generals over the past five years.

There is some concerne within the UN that the organisation's apparent
stress on democratisation and human rights may have limited the UN's
potential role in the past few years.

The UN's top leadership believes a more nuanced policy towards Burma is
now needed.

The UN is particularly perturbed by the regime's lack of cooperation with
its two envoys and the growing restrictions being placed on UN staff and
projects in the country.

Many in the UN also fear that Burma is in danger of collapsing back into
civil war. A briefing paper circulated to the participants ahead of the
meeting suggested that many of Rangoon's cease-fire agreements with the
ethnic rebel groups were seriously in danger of unravelling, which would
increase instability and insecurity in the country.

On top of that, UN officials in Burma are convinced that the country is in
the midst of a humanitarian crisis. HIV/AIDS is rampant throughout the
country. While the UNAids boss in Rangoon, Brian Williams, says more than
half a million people may be suffering from the disease, activists suggest
that prevalence rates across Burma are at least double that and exceed
10%.

More than 60% of Burmese children are suffering from acute malnutrition,
the head of the World Food Programme (WFP), James Morris, told journalists
in Bangkok earlier this month after visiting projects in Burma.

In some places this was substantially higher, according to WFP local
surveys, he said.

Only 20% of students who started primary school graduated, Mr Morris added.

There is a genuine desire on the part of the UNs senior leadership to
review all options and to come up with a greater coherence in the UN's
response to Burma, according to a senior UN official who attended the
meeting in New York.

This does not mean the UN plans to abandon its efforts to encourage
political reform.

In fact, the UN wants to revive Mr Razali's role as a mediator.

Earlier this year Mr Annan rejected the UN envoy's offer to resign.
Instead, the top UN leaders decided to send Mr Alatas to Rangoon to sound
out the regime on the secretary-general's proposed visit and Mr Razali's
position.

Senior General Than Shwe reportedly told Thai Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra that Mr Razali would never be welcomed back to Rangoon, when
they met in Rangoon last December.

The envoy, a former Malaysian diplomat briefed Mr Alatas, who is an old
friend, before he went to Rangoon.

During his visit, Mr Alatas did not request a meeting with the opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The former Indonesian foreign minister is no stranger to Burma. He visited
Rangoon two years ago as a special envoy of the Indonesian president
Megawati Sukarnoputri, representing Asean at the time the regional
grouping was anxious to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. She had
been detained only months previously. He did not see her then, either, as
she was in hospital undergoing a hysterectomy operation.

The UN's top leaders are scheduled to meet again in New York in September
to continue their review of the UN's Burma policy. Any decision on Mr
Annan's possible visit to Burma is likely to be taken at that meeting.