BurmaNet News, September 21, 2005

[Editor]

September 21, 2005 Issue # 2807

"We would like to accept the prize for all women who are fighting for
human rights and equality in Burma. We are glad that the world has not
forgotten women from Burma,"
- Thin Thin Aung of The Women’s League of Burma upon receiving the Peter
Gruber Foundation’s Women’s Rights Prize on behalf of WLB, as quoted in
Mizzima, September 21, 2005


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar opposition thanks Havel and Tutu for report to UN
Irrawaddy: Head of Thai Army ends Rangoon visit
Irrawaddy: Ceasefire group coup turns deadly
Irrawaddy: Burma’s killing fields

HEALTH / AIDS
DVB: Jealousy begins at home: Health charity closed down by Burma junta

DRUGS
Irrawaddy: Big heroin stash seized in Shan State

BUSINESS / TRADE
AP: Thailand: Free trade deal may take time

INTERNATIONAL
AP: Thai Foreign Minister criticizes US policy on Burma
Mizzima News: WLB and SWAN collect Peter Gruber's Women Rights Prize

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Thai-US relations on cruise control

PRESS RELEASE
Women’s League of Burma: 40,000 people from Burma appeal to the UN
Security Council

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 21, Agence France Presse
Myanmar opposition thanks Havel and Tutu for report to UN

Yangon: Myanmar's opposition National League for Democracy on Wednesday
thanked former Czech president Vaclav Havel and retired South African
archbishop Desmond Tutu for a report calling for new UN efforts to bring
reforms to the military-ruled state.

"The NLD thanks the ex-Czech president and the bishop for their complete
report, calling on the UN Security Council to consider the Myanmar issue,"
the party said in a statement.

"The NLD always welcomes all attempts of political reform to make this a
democratic nation," said the statement.

The party is headed by detained Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Havel and Tutu on Monday released a report that compared the situation in
Myanmar with seven countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan and Rwanda, in
which the Security Council had previously intervened. It said the
situation in the Southeast Asian state was "far worse."

The 70-page report, prepared by global law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray
Cary, details what it called the deterioration that had occurred in
Myanmar stemming from the rule of the current military regime.

The report recommended that the UN Security Council adopt a resolution
compelling Myanmar to work with the office of UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan in implementing a plan for national reconciliation and a restoration
of a democratically-elected government.

It also wants the Security Council to urge the military junta to provide
access to the UN for humanitarian aid to be given to "vulnerable" groups,
and to seek the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The military rulers have placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for
much of the past 16 years -- the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize
recipient.

Her party won 1990 elections but was never allowed to govern. Its offices
have been shut down by the military junta.

____________________________________

September 21, Irrawaddy
Head of Thai Army ends Rangoon visit

Supreme Commander of the Thai Armed Forces General Chaisit Shinawatra was
due to return to Bangkok this evening after a two-day visit to Rangoon
during which he met with top junta officials including Snr-Gen Than Shwe.
At the invitation of second in command Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, Gen
Chaisit’s visit to Rangoon included meetings with other top Burmese
officials including Prime Minister General Soe Win, Gen Thura Shwe Mann
and Secretary-1 Lt-Gen Thein Sein. The visit also included a visit to
Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda, where Gen Chaisit made a cash donation, The
New Light of Myanmar reported today. The visit marks the second time the
head of Thailand’s Armed Forces has met with counterparts in Rangoon this
year.

____________________________________

September 21, Irrawaddy
Ceasefire group coup turns deadly

Violence broke out among members of the ethnic ceasefire group New
Democratic Army-Kachin near the China-Burma border town of Hpimaw in
Kachin State, Burma on September 19 days after a coup removed the group’s
chairman from power, a source in the area confirmed today. An NDA-K
officer living in Hpimaw said that a gun battle between factions in the
group left 10 dead and seven injured. The fighting began when a group of
NDA-K soldiers supporting the recent coup confronted multiple cars
traveling to Hpimaw from Mankye full of troops opposing the ouster of the
group’s chairman.

The coup that removed NDA-K Chairman Zahkung Ting Ying from power occurred
on September 14, while the chairman was visiting Rangoon. Senior members
of the group initiated the coup after objections had been raised about the
chairman’s alleged stranglehold on local business in Kachin State as well
as his use of predominantly Chinese soldiers for his personal security
team. More than 80 people have been arrested in the days following the
coup, including several of the chairman’s family members and security
personnel.

____________________________________

September 21, Irrawaddy
Burma’s killing fields - Yeni

Landmines take a heavy toll in lives and livelihoods

A dozen or so years ago, Mee Reh was helping to secure a rebel-held area
of Burma’s eastern Karenni State with landmines. Today he is helping to
secure a new life for landmine victims.

Mee Reh, 38, is one of 11 workers making artificial limbs at a small
workshop in a Karenni refugee camp in Thailand’s northern Mae Hong Son
province. The enterprise is run by Handicap International, an
international organization working to ban the use of landmines and to help
landmine victims.

Mee Reh is himself the victim of a landmine explosion, losing a leg while
he was in action with Karenni National Progressive Party forces against
Burma Army troops in the early 1990s. He found medical care in neighboring
Thailand, where he was fitted with an artificial leg. After his recovery
he found work in the Handicap International Workshop, which has so far
manufactured around 100 prostheses.

Although there are no official statistics on landmine casualties in Burma,
the International Campaign to Ban Landmines estimates that around 1,500
people die or suffer serious injury every year. A reliable indication of
the scale of the landmine threat is disclosed by figures showing the
International Committee of the Red Cross alone has provided Burmese
victims with more than 4,600 prostheses and 3,000 crutches since 1999.
Only Afghanistan receives more assistance of this kind from the ICRC.

Statistics are also lacking about the number of landmines sown in rebel
areas of Burma, although accounts received from military sources indicate
that the total runs into perhaps hundreds of thousands. Many of them were
sown during Burma Army action against communist rebels in the 1980s—one
former Burma Army regular who fled to Thailand said his unit had laid
about 30,000 in just one area of Shan State while fighting Communist Party
of Burma forces. The minefields were never cleared, and death and serious
injury still threaten unwary villagers, particularly children.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines reports that landmines are
found in nine of Burma’s 14 states and divisions. Most are to be found in
Karenni and Shan states, eastern Karen State and the southern Mon and
Tenasserim divisions, but there are also minefields on Burma’s borders
with India and Bangladesh.

The problem is compounded for international agencies by Burma’s refusal to
sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Seeking to deflect criticism of its
increasingly isolated stand on the issue, a Rangoon representative at a
regional landmine seminar in Bangkok two years ago said that his
government’s confrontation with rebel groups prevented it from signing the
treaty.

The rebel groups make no secret of their use of landmines. “We know how
landmines affect our communities, but what should we do?” said a Karenni
commander. “This is war. We have to fight with the same weapons as the
enemy.”

Mine production takes a large slice of Burma’s defense budget. The Myanmar
Defense Products Industries No 4 plant at Prome in central Burma produces
two varieties of landmine, the MM1 and the MM2, both modeled on Chinese
fragmentation and blast mines. The rebel groups also have production
facilities.

Neither side pays much attention to marking minefields and the cost to
rural life is correspondingly high. The location of old minefields is
often forgotten, only to enter local records when villagers or their
livestock detonate a mine. “The first evidence of a minefield can be a
death or injury,” says a report by the Nonviolence International movement.

Even if a villager survives a mine blast injury, he finds himself on the
“fast track to poverty,” according to Bangkok-based landmine researcher
Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan. A breadwinner is maimed, and even if his injuries
can be treated the costs involved saddle his family with an unbearable
burden of debt, he says.

Government troops have allegedly come to recognize villagers as a cheap
and effective mine-clearing force, and even the International Labour
Organization has documented cases where civilians and convicts are
compelled to walk ahead of military units to detonate mines that might be
in their path. “This practice occurs,” confirms Moser-Puangsuwan. A survey
taken by one humanitarian aid group in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma
border found around seven percent of the interviewed refugees suffering
trauma because of being used as “human mine-detectors.”

Mines are laid not only in areas of militarily strategic importance but
are increasingly used to protect industrial installations. In Karenni
State alone, a regime-laid minefield surrounds Burma’s main hydroelectric
power plant, Lawpita, and regime forces and rebels alike have sown mines
around gem workings on Yadana mountain.

Burma’s mine-laying policy has implications beyond Rangoon’s national
frontiers, as Thailand’s government discovered when it sent a team to the
Thai-Burma border region in late 2003 to inspect proposed development
sites. The region was full of mines, the team reported. Thai contractors
hired to assist in the construction of a controversial dam on the Salween
River opposite Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province have reportedly been
unable to move their heavy equipment across the border because of the
minefields in the area.

For Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, the only practical solution to the problem is
an immediate halt to mine-laying, as part of a “balanced and nationwide
ceasefire.” He says: “A halt in the use of anti-personnel landmines should
be encouraged in the interim as a confidence-building measure. Even if
they [regime forces and rebels] cannot stop the war today, they can stop
using landmines.”

Meanwhile, landmines remain a pressing humanitarian issue. Handicap
International is just one of several organizations working to assist
landmine victims. Some independent groups work within rebel-controlled
areas, even carrying out emergency surgery and amputations. Others—such as
Medecins Sans Frontieres, the International Rescue Committee, the American
Refugee Committee, Aide Medicale International and the German Malteser
Hilfsdienst—are active in refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. Dr
Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border, also
sees its troubling share of landmine victims.

The number of victims treated by these voluntary services runs into the
thousands. The ICRC statistics alone—around 8,000 prostheses and crutches
provided since 1999—give a chilling picture. Raw statistics that tell
their own story of human suffering and misery.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

September 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
Jealousy begins at home: Health charity closed down by Burma junta

Burma’s military junta, State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
authorities at Monywa, Mandalay Division in central Burma, closed down a
health charity because they failed to take control of it for political
propaganda purposes.

Monywa-based Golden Heart health support association, which has been
providing free medical cares to the poor and needy, especially to HIV/AIDS
sufferers, was forced to close down and cease its activities by the order
of Northwest Military Command commander Maj-Gen Tha Aye on 2 August.

The charity was set up by some generous local business owners in April
2002, and it had been providing monetary support to very poor patients.
Because of its effectiveness, it boasted more than 700 regular donors
within three years, and successfully and accountably managed tens of
millions of kyat donated.

“Their (the authorities’) excuse was the association has no official
license, but I learnt that the real reason is not that,” a Monywa resident
told DVB. “The authorities want to control the association. But when it
resisted their attempt, they closed it down thus. Nevertheless, the
association was registered.”

He added that the authorities threatened those who intend to continue with
their charitable activities with a six month imprisonment, and donors with
a three year sentence.

The organisation had been run by the local people and volunteers under the
leadership of a 24-member non-political committee.

“People trust them and there are many donors,” the resident said. “They
also publish reports of their activities each month for their donors. How
much they had supported, how many people they supported, how much it cost,
how much is the income, what is the amount of the remaining money; they
describe thus exactly. There are around 10m kyat still remaining. They
have donated more than 19m to the patients now.”

He maintained that the authorities banned the charity because they are
jealous of its success and want to save their face by means of ‘souring’
the grapes. “But it is clear that they don’t care for the welfare of the
people. They can’t provide a single thing to the poor. At the hospitals,
you have to buy even the bandage and spirit, he said.

Other local residents told DVB that the authorities banned the charity
after the UNDP granted 6m for favouring its effective and successful
actions. Earlier on, the junta-sponsored Union Solidarity and Development
Association (USDA) wanted to take over the organisation but failed to do
so and forced the organisation to close down thus with the help of the
military commander.

____________________________________
DRUGS

September 21, Irrawaddy
Big heroin stash seized in Shan State - Yeni

Burma Army forces have seized more than 400 kg of heroin in eastern Shan
State, Thai and UN officials confirmed on Wednesday. The stash, with an
estimated street value of tens of millions of dollars, was the biggest
drugs bust in Burma this year. The heroin was believed to be destined for
overseas markets, said Pitaya Jinawat, director of the northern regional
office of Thailand’s Narcotics Control Board.

Thai officials are cooperating with Burma in its campaign to stamp out the
drugs trade, and liaison offices have been opened in areas bordering
Thailand and China.

The seized heroin was found in a convoy of trucks in Mongpiang, a small
town located about 100 km west of Kengtung. A Rangoon-based UN source said
it was suspected that the heroin was being trafficked by a Chinese
syndicate under the protection of United Wa State Army soldiers.

The UWSA is reported to be heavily involved in the drug trade despite an
assurance that its territory will be “opium free” by the end of 2005.

“The drug producers are trying to produce as much as they can before the
deadline,” Pitaya said.

The seizure of the heroin has had little coverage in Burma’s
state-controlled media, and Rangoon authorities declined comment when
approached by The Irrawaddy.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

September 21, Associated Press
Thailand: Free trade deal may take time - Foster Klug

Washington: Thailand's foreign minister says Thai misgivings about a
U.S.-Thai free trade agreement could push negotiations into next year, an
apparent blow to President Bush's hope that a deal be completed sooner.

Bush and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra agreed during a meeting
Monday to make "vigorous efforts" to reach a free trade pact. A fifth
round of trade negotiations is scheduled next week in Hawaii.

Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon said Tuesday in an interview
that Thailand wanted to ensure its companies had fair access to U.S.
markets and that prices for certain goods, including medicine, wouldn't
rise in Thailand as a result of an unfair free trade agreement.

A desire for a timely agreement is something we have shared since the
beginning, but the most important aspect of the FTA is that it has to be
fair," Kantathi said. "We'd like to see an FTA in which, once we sign, we
can smile and look forward to the future together, rather than cry."

Trade agreements often set off tough political battles in the United
States, as was the case with the recent approval of the Central American
Free Trade Agreement; any Thai-U.S. agreement would need the OK of
Congress.

Still, both leaders seemed optimistic about the negotiations when they
appeared before reporters on Monday. Thaksin said officials were "pressing
ahead with the FTA."

But on Tuesday, Kantathi spoke of Thai worries. He suggested the United
States should consider removing trade barriers against Thailand that were
set up to protect American shrimpers' who complained that they couldn't
compete with Thai shrimp dumped on the U.S. market. Kantathi said
antidumping measures should be lifted because many Thai shrimpers had
their boats and shrimp farms destroyed or damaged in the December tsunami.

"There are some points in which we will have to try to work together to
come to a good understanding," Kantathi said. "It has to be fair, and our
private sector has to be happy."

Thailand's exports include computers and transistors in addition to seafood.

Kantathi also spoke about Myanmar, defending Thailand's decision to serve
as a "door to the world" for the isolated country. He said engagement with
Thailand's reclusive neighbor was hastening democracy in the military-run
country.

Myanmar's generals, Kantathi said, have told Thai officials that they will
meet in November and hope to have a draft of a new constitution finished
and a referendum on the document voted on in a matter of months, "rather
than open-ended or taking years."

The United States is deeply skeptical of dealing with the generals, and
has leveled sanctions on Myanmar. Washington wants the release of
opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and
other political prisoners and the restoration of freedoms lost when the
military took power in 1962.

When asked if the differing policies involving Myanmar, also known as
Burma, were causing tension in the U.S.-Thai relationship, the foreign
minister said: "Different countries have different approaches. We don't
have a problem with that. But the goal is the same."

Kantathi went on, however, to criticize a policy of sanctions and
disengagement, which is favored by the United States.

"If you isolate one of the world's most isolated countries, then the
people will be hurt and change will be even harder," he said.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 21, Associated Press
Thai Foreign Minister criticizes US policy on Burma - Foster Klug

Thailand’s Foreign Minister, Kantathi Suphamongkon, has defended his
government’s policy on Burma, saying Bangkok’s engagement was hastening
the achievement of democracy in the military-run country. Thailand served
as a “door to the world” for Burma, Kantathi said in an interview in
Washington on Tuesday.

“Having that door exposes Myanmar [Burma] to the international community
and then the signals can be sent in,” Kantathi said. “If you close the
door, the chances of things improving will decrease.”

Kantathi criticized the US policy of sanctions on Burma and disengagement
with Rangoon. “If you isolate one of the world’s most isolated countries,
then the people will be hurt and change will be even harder,” he said. “We
are result-oriented. We know that to shut the door would just be a signal
to continue with the same situation.”

Asked if the differences in approach to Burma were causing tension in the
US-Thai relationship, the foreign minister said: “Different countries have
different approaches. We don’t have a problem with that. But the goal is
the same.”

Burma’s generals, Kantathi said, had told Thai officials that they will
meet in November and hope to have a draft of a new constitution finished
and a referendum on the document voted on in a matter of months, “rather
than open-ended or taking years.”

_____________________________________

September 21, Mizzima News
WLB and SWAN collect Peter Gruber's Women Rights Prize

Four exiled women leaders from different ethnic backgrounds of Burma
received the Peter Gruber's Women Rights Prize in New York, USA on
September 19, 2005.

Thin Thin Aung, presidium board member and Nang Yain, general secretary of
the Women's League of Burma, (WLB) and Hseng Moon and Nang Hseng Noung
from Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN) accepted the US $ 200,000 prize
given by Peter Gruber Foundation.

SWAN and WLB were chosen as the recipients of the 2005 award by a panel of
women that included a judge from the International Criminal Court in The
Hague and the president of the Global Fund for Women.

SWAN expressed appreciation and thanked the Peter Gruber Foundation for
recognizing the collective efforts of SWAN, by awarding the 2005 Women's
Rights Prize.

Thin Thin Aung of WLB said, "We would like to accept the prize for all
women who are fighting for human rights and equality in Burma. We are glad
that the world has not forgotten women from Burma."

She said work was on to increase women's political participation and
women's participation at all levels of decision making in the exile
political movement. "We aim to use the award money for this program."

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 21, Nation
Thai-US relations on cruise control

The US looks the other way while Thaksin appeases Rangoon, rolls back
civil liberties at home. It was no surprise that the much-awaited meeting
between US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
turned out to be an uneventful one.

It came at a time when Thaksin’s popularity at home is taking a big dip
with all kinds of bad publicity related to media freedom and violation of
human rights. Furthermore, the letter signed by 11 US Congressmen
submitted to Bush on September 12 underscored real issues concerning
Thai-US relations. The letter urged Bush to publicly raise issues related
to democracy and civil liberties and Thailand’s continued support for
Burma.

Somehow, Bush failed to do that. Instead, he praised Thailand’s efforts to
combat the spread of bird flu. For want of anything better to say, Bush
said Thaksin is “a good friend and a very thoughtful leader” when it comes
to the effort to contain the spread of the potentially devastating flu
pandemic.

Bush told the press that Thailand leads in putting systems in place that
will track the viruses that attack different birds, and will watch very
carefully to make sure that there is no bird-to-human transmission in the
country. Well, when the bilateral relations are in trouble, talking about
bird flu does provide an opportunity for kind words.

Credit must be accorded to both leaders for coming up with a backslapping
but lacklustre joint statement which tried hard to stress their
commonality. Any person who came across the section referring to Burma in
the joint statement would think that it came from Rangoon. In a previous
joint statement in June 2003, the US was more forthright on Burma. This
time around the US came up with a lame position on Burma vis-a-vis
Thaksin, who is the staunchest supporter of the regime.

Both sides also failed to mention the conflict in Thailand’s three
southernmost provinces; the emergency decree that could result in serious
violation of human rights and roll back civil liberties; or Burma and
Thailand’s treatment of Burmese misplaced persons. When the world’s most
powerful country chooses to tolerate such behaviour, that could send the
wrong message to other despotic or repressive regimes around the world.

It is not as if Thai people need the US to guarantee our civil liberties,
but a discussion on Thaksin’s autocratic tendencies would be a nice
gesture. But Burmese people probably do need moral support and concrete
pressure from Washington in their struggle for democracy.

Obviously, Thailand and the US want to strengthen and broaden the scope of
their relations on the two issues of trade and security. The US wants to
conclude the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Thailand by next fall, but
the Thai side seems reluctant. So far, Thaksin has failed to heed
criticisms from civil society regarding a possible backlash against the
Thai-US FTA.

On security, the US continues to view Thailand as an important strategic
partner, but not at the level, say, of Japan or Singapore. Thailand’s
continued recalcitrance to join the Proliferation Security Initiative
disappoints the US. Last year Thailand signed the Container Security
Initiative as part of the anti-terror campaign. They agreed to start a
senior-level bilateral dialogue on strategic and security issues in
Bangkok this fall. The purpose is to come up with a comprehensive “Plan of
Action”, whatever that means.

Overall, the joint statement looks like an exchange of wish-lists which
each side would like the other to do.

Thaksin did his part to boost Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart
Sathirathai’s bid for the UN top position next year. But Bush remained
non-committal. Actually, it was a bit embarrassing that this issue was
raised because it is still too early. Moreover, the US has never made its
decision known regarding a choice until the last minute.

Thaksin has visited Washington and met with Bush three times. But somehow,
Bush has never accorded him the time and diplomatic pleasantries that he
wanted, let alone an official visit. Thaksin requested this trip towards
the end of last year to try to shore up his sagging image. He got it. Now,
what?

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

September 20, Women’s League of Burma
40,000 people from Burma appeal to the UN Security Council

More than 40,000 refugees, migrant workers and civil society organizations
from Burma signed the petition calling on the United Nations Security
Council to address the issue of Burma at its upcoming meeting in October.
This appeal is submitted by Burma’s multi ethnic nationalities, including
the Karen, Karenni, Kayan, Mon, Burman, Tavoy, Shan, Chin, Rakhine, Lahu,
Kachin, Lushine, Kuki, Wa, Pa-O, and Palaung people, in commemorating the
International Day of Peace which falls on September 21, 2005.

The petition highlights the situation of Internally Displaced Persons,
refugees and migrant workers, HIV/AIDS epidemic, child malnutrition, child
soldiers, and sexual violence that women face as constant threat in
conflict areas and in neighboring countries and calls on the UN Security
Council to look into the issue of peace and human security in Burma and to
take necessary actions for the followings:

1.	The release of 1991 Noble Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, ethnic
leaders and all political prisoners;
2.	Meaningful dialogue between the military government, democratic
oppositions led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and ethnic nationalities;
3.	The declaration of nationwide ceasefire and withdrawal of troops from
ethnic areas;
4.	The end of sexual violence against women by military troops and
protection of women and children in armed conflict areas;
5.	For the migrant workers to be able to fully enjoy labor rights adopted
by respective host countries; and
6.	The right for the people of Burma to return home peacefully and safely.

Starting from 1st September, about 35 workshops on Peace Education were
organized with more than 2,000 participants and prayers, vigils, peace
rallies, and public forums are held in the border areas of India-Burma,
China-Burma, Bangladesh-Burma, and Thai-Burma, and in New Delhi. It is
estimated that about ten thousand people will be attending the prayers,
vigils and peace rallies tomorrow on the International Day of Peace.
Prayers and vigils in some areas will be led by Christian and Muslim
religious leaders and in other areas alms will be offered to monks at
Buddhist monasteries to be followed by Dhamma recitations about peace.

“As we are holding these prayers, vigils, rallies, and forums, the WLB
calls on the SPDC to immediately release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, ethnic
leaders and all political prisoners; the religious leaders inside Burma to
jointly make efforts for the national reconciliation; the SPDC and all
armed groups to observe the International Peace Day by ceasing fire on
this auspicious day; and the women’s organizations inside the country,
including Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, to urge the Burma army to
declare nationwide ceasefire,” said Khin Ohmar, the coordinator of the
Women as Peace Builders Program of the Women’s League of Burma (WLB).

The main objectives of these prayers, vigils, rallies, and forums are –
(1) to publicize and encourage people to participate in the global
movement for peace on earth as part of the   International Day of Peace
for all people around the world; (2) for every human being to have the
spirit of peace and to act to eradicate violence; (3) for the people of
Burma to realize and be devoted to the true essence of peace; and (4) for
the change in current political situation of Burma.

Women’s League of Burma (WLB)
Contact persons:	   Khin Ohmar on Mobile – 66 1 884 0772;
Naw Khaing Mar Kyaw Zaw on Mobile – 66 1 181 5144
Lway Nway Noung on Mobile – 66 7 173 9065

WLB PO Box 413, Chiang Mai 50000
E-mail: wlb at womenofburma.org	Web: www.womenofburma.org