BurmaNet News, February 4-6, 2006

[Editor]

February 4-6, 2006 Issue # 2894


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar's junta puts new pressure on ethnic rebels
AFP: Myanmar hopes to complete move to new capital in February: officials

ON THE BORDER
Nation: PM's border trip catches officials off guard
AFP: Two Frenchmen cleared of training Myanmar ethnic rebels

HEALTH / AIDS
Chicago Tribune: AIDS scourge travels fast on ancient Chinese road

BUSINESS / TRADE
Xinhua: Euro replaces dollar in Burma-China border trade
Xinhua: Myanmar to establish first export, import bank

REGIONAL
Mizzima: India should promote change in Burma: MP
Mizzima: Bangladesh UNHCR issues ID cards to refugees

INTERNATIONAL
Ottawa Sun: Activist scarred for life

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Burma: Chinese asset or liability? - Vinit Vithidharm
Bangkok Post: Political gridlock tightens in Rangoon - Aung Zaw

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

February 5, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's junta puts new pressure on ethnic rebels

Mu Aye Pu, Myanmar: Squeezed between the edge of a mountain and the Moei
River that separates Myanmar from Thailand lies a small rebel camp that is
one of the last areas still held by ethnic Karen forces.

This tiny outpost of the Karen National Union (KNU), whose armed wing once
controlled vast areas along the border, reflects the fortunes of Myanmar's
128 ethnic groups, who find themselves pressured by the country's military
rulers as never before.

The KNU were the first to take up arms against the government, shortly
after the nation then known as Burma won independence from Britain in
1948, and once controlled broad swathes of territory as they fought what
has become the world's longest-running insurgency.

Many others -- including ethnic Shan, Kachin, Karenni and Mon -- followed
suit in fighting for control over their lands.

"We will never stop the struggle," KNU Colonel Nerdah Mya said.

But most of the armed struggles have stopped, or at least taken a break.

At the height of the violence, some 20 ethnic rebellions raged across the
country and rebels controlled many border areas, until then-prime minister
Khin Nyunt began negotiating ceasefires.

The generals have reached ceasefires with 17 armed groups, and talks were
underway with the KNU when Khin Nyunt was ousted in October 2004. The
junta -- which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
-- then called off the talks and they have yet to resume.

"Those who have signed ceasefires with the SPDC, they are split into two
groups. Some will be coming back and some will be joining the SPDC,"
predicted KNU general secretary Mahn Sha Lar Phan.

"Right now, the SPDC is asking them to surrender, to give up arms," he said.

That's something few of the ethnic groups say they are prepared to do.

The 17 groups that signed ceasefires agreed to stop fighting in exchange
for control over the territory where their people live.

The junta told most of them to send delegates to the regime's on-and-off
constitutional talks, which they have reluctantly attended for two years
despite winning few concessions. The latest round ended Tuesday, still
without visible progress.

"They're caught. If they don't go (to the talks), they'll be blamed for
any breakdown... so they've got to be seen to be cooperating. But actually
they're getting absolutely nothing back," said one source along the
border.

Ethnic delegates to the talks said the regime wants the rebels to
surrender and disarm before any possible elections, although everyone
agrees that polls are unlikely any time soon and would likely only be used
to entrench junta leader Than Shwe in power.
Few of the ethnic groups see any reason to trust the generals in Yangon.

"We have no idea yet whether to surrender our weapons when the elections
are held. We will consider doing so when the time comes but it all depends
on the prevailing situation then," said one ethnic delegate, who like most
people spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The groups that have signed ceasefires are eager to maintain control over
the areas that the government already allows them administer.

"Their main interest is for their races as well as for themselves. They
have their desire to rule their people in their region," said Tin Tun
Maung, a former member of the National League for Democracy who attended
the talks as an independent.

"They never show their true feelings and keep any dissatisfaction to
themselves... They want many things but are willing to settle for less at
this time," said Tin Tun Maung, who belong to the majority Burman race.

The British had promised to seek some degree of autonomy for the Karen and
many of Myanmar's other minorities once independence was granted.

The country's independence hero, General Aung San -- father of detained
pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi -- also had dreams of unity among the
ethnic minorities and the majority Burmans in the center of the country.

Those dreams fell apart after his assassination, as the country slid into
military rule.

Some, like the Wa rebels -- whom the United States accuse of running a
vast narcotics operation -- have allied with the junta, even staging
attacks on other rebels on behalf of Yangon.

But most ethnic leaders say they remain wary of the generals and want
mainly to secure the right to administer their regions.

"We will take as much as we can get... I think all the other groups have
similar thoughts like us," an ethnic delegate said.

____________________________________

February 4, Agence France Presse
Myanmar hopes to complete move to new capital in February: officials

Yangon: Myanmar's military rulers hope to finish moving government
ministries to their new administrative capital Pyinmana by the end of
February, officials said Saturday.

Some government offices will start working in Pyinmana, a mountainous
logging town in central Myanmar, from Monday -- even though they don't all
have telephone lines yet, a senior home affairs official added.

"All ministries will finish moving during the third week of this month,"
the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"People can continue contacting our main office in Yangon until the third
week of this month. We hope we can be announce the new number there (in
Pyinmana) after that. The numbers are not confirmed yet," he said.

Staff at several ministries said they would not open for business in
Pyinmana until the junta's leader, Senior General Than Shwe, holds an
official opening ceremony that has yet to be scheduled.

The defense and home affairs ministries already have had at least some
staff working in Pyinmana since December, the official said.

"Our home affairs ministry and the defense ministry opened our new offices
in there in December. Some ministries will open during the coming days.
It's up to the ministry," he said.

An information ministry official said essential staff would arrive in
Pyinmana throughout the month.

"We cannot say the shift is completely finished. But many ministries can
run their operations on Monday. Ministries are still making their own
arrangement for the move," he said.

The move has caused chaos among government workers, who are not allowed to
bring their families with them to the new government and military compound
in Pyinmana.

Many workers older than 50 are being left in Yangon to await retirement.

Myanmar's notoriously secretive rulers abruptly announced in November it
was moving the government to Pyinmanar, 320 kilometers (200 miles) north
of Yangon.

Speculation about the reason for the relocation ranges from the junta's
fear of a US invasion to astrological predictions and worries over
possible urban unrest in Yangon.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

February 4, The Nation (Thailand)
PM's border trip catches officials off guard - Jim Pollard

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's sudden decision to pay a flying visit
to the refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border caught camp officials -
and foreign diplomats invited to accompany him - by surprise. "No one
really knows what it's all about," said one camp organiser, who preferred
not to be named. Most embassies only appear to have been told about the
trip over the past two days.

Refugee support groups voiced fears yesterday that the PM might be seeking
to divert public attention from the big rally in Bangkok organised by
arch-critic Sondhi Limthongkul, by making the refugees "scapegoats" for
security concerns along the border.

"Some are concerned that it's a way of drawing attention from his problems
and that he will be using the issue of security to push up his esteem
among the people."

Thaksin is due to fly to Mae Sot this morning and tour the big Mae La camp
this afternoon with about 30 officials from the EU and donor countries
that sponsor programmes for the refugees such as the US, Japan, Australia,
Canada and New Zealand.

It looks likely that the premier will be asking envoys for more financial
support for the refugees and to increase the number of refugees they take
for resettlement. Thai officials have had a major rethink about the border
camps over the past 18 months and now appear to have accepted that
resettlement is a very good option, to reduce tensions with Rangoon and
areas adjacent to the camps, plus provide a "way out" for the refugees.

Close to 150,00 people, mainly Burmese Karen, live in nine camps, from
Kanchanaburi up to Mae Hong Song. Some of them have been languishing,
unable to work or travel outside the camp perimeters, for up to 20 years.
The ousting of the Burmese prime minister Khin Nyunt in late 2004, and the
20th anniversary last year of the establishment of the first camps, came
as a "reality check" for the government, one camp organiser said
yesterday. It forced Thai officials to concede that it might be some time
before conditions across the border were suitable for the refugees to
return.

"The National Security Council, the Interior Ministry and most other
government departments now appear to agree with [resettlement]," the
organiser said.

US officials have told the Thai-Burmese Border Consortium, the
organisation that oversees the camps, they are prepared to take about
10,000 refugees this year, mainly from the Tham Hin camp in Kanchanaburi.
The crowded conditions at Tham Hin have been the subject of strong
international criticism, and it looks likely that many of the 9,000
refugees there will be shifted abroad this year.

British refugee experts, who spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in
Bangkok this week, praised the Thai government for recent initiatives to
boost education in the camps and open the door to resettlement, but they
said donor governments needed to help Thailand share its refugee burden by
making multi-year pledges to take refugees and fund support programmes for
those in the camps.

____________________________________

February 5, Agence France Presse
Two Frenchmen cleared of training Myanmar ethnic rebels

Bangkok: Two Frenchmen are to be deported after being convicted of
entering Thailand illegally but cleared of helping train ethnic Karen
rebels on the Myanmar border, police and diplomats said Sunday.

The Frenchmen were released after a court in the border town of Mae Sot
handed them suspended jail terms on Saturday, Police Lieutenant Panuwat
Kerdsaeng told AFP.

"They were freed after admitting their illegal entry, and proving they
were just tourists and not soliders," Panuwat said, adding that they were
handed over to the French embassy in Bangkok before deportation.

A French diplomat identified two young men from the western French city of
Rennes as Guirec de Lalande de Calan and Pierre de Legge de Karlean, and
that they stated they were writing a book on Thailand.

The pair were spotted on the Myanmar side of the border last Tuesday at a
ceremony held by the Karen National Union to celebrate the 57th
anniversary of the start of their uprising against Yangon.

They were dressed in military fatigues with no labels or symbols and a
rebel spokesman described them as "French commandos helping us with
training".

They were arrested after they returned into Thailand about 100 kilometres
(60 miles) from the Mae Sot checkpoint which is the only land crossing
between the two countries.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

February 5, Chicago Tribune
AIDS scourge travels fast on ancient Chinese road - Evan Osnos

Ruili, China: This ancient road has had many names: Old tea-horse trail.
The Burma Road. Route 320. But the label that matters most today is one
that appears on no sign at all: the AIDS road.

Past truck-stop brothels and through disease-ravaged cities and villages
in China's far southwest Yunnan province, this two-lane road carves the
path of an HIV epidemic that is growing faster than international health
officials previously thought.

This is the main road through the epicenter of AIDS in the world's most
populous country, where a new national study shows that 200 people are
being infected every day. It is a central artery through which sex, drugs
and trade are spreading the virus into previously untouched swaths of the
population, researchers say.

There are ominous precedents. Key trucking routes like this helped spread
AIDS to tens of millions of people in India and Africa, the world's
worst-hit regions, starting with drug users and prostitutes, then truck
drivers and, ultimately, their families. As China's surging economy fuels
the construction of thousands of miles of new roads, health officials,
activists and frontline doctors are racing to curb the Chinese epidemic
before a similar explosion occurs.

"Most Chinese people still think that only drug users and sex workers are
affected," said Wang Jing, an HIV counselor in the provincial capital,
Kunming, "but . . . the disease has begun affecting everyone."

After initially denying it had an AIDS problem, China acknowledged the
full scale of the epidemic in 2003 and has made strides in embracing
foreign aid, tackling drug abuse and providing medical care, AIDS experts
say.

To journey along the road to Ruili, Baoshan, Mengshi, Kunming and many
stops in between is to traverse a timeline of China's struggle with AIDS:
the origins, the present and the obstacles ahead. Life along the road also
illustrates how a shortage of government funds, the stigma surrounding the
virus and public misunderstanding of its spread into the wider population
are threatening efforts to control the epidemic.

The largest survey on AIDS in China, released Jan. 25, showed that the
rate of infection is rising, with 70,000 new cases reported last year.
More important, the joint study by China, the World Health Organization
and the United Nations' AIDS program found that the disease is moving into
the general population, with a growing share of infection in pregnant
women and the spouses of men who visit prostitutes.

"Sex work is moving it toward the general population," said Henk Bekedam,
the China representative for WHO. The new infection rate, he said, showed
the situation in China was "more serious than we thought."

Ground zero of China's AIDS epidemic is this remote border town, where
Route 320 begins its 500-mile journey north to Kunming as an inconspicuous
ribbon of dirt veering over the boundary from Myanmar.

Pivotal city for centuries

Ruili has a reputation as China's gateway to Southeast Asia, where
explorers, armies and criminals have gravitated for centuries to swap
jade, arms and poppies. Some of China's earliest AIDS cases were found
here in 1989, and by the mid-90s the mix of Chinese and Burmese heroin
addicts and prostitutes accounted for more HIV cases than any other city
in the country. When the government vowed to strike hard against
prostitution, police simply closed the karaoke bars and "hair salons,"
sending sex workers into even darker corners of society.

But Ruili now illustrates China's efforts to stem the epidemic. The
government has opened 10 methadone clinics to help wean addicts from
heroin, and foreign-aid groups are permitted to promote testing and condom
use among prostitutes.

That new approach is on display at the Rainbow Center, a foreign-funded
non-governmental organization in Kunming, where former and current drug
users slip into a nondescript two-story building to spend their days
together, pick up free needles and condoms, and get tested for HIV, with
the assurance that they won't be arrested when they step outside, as they
still are in much of China.

"Many of those programs were illegal until last year," said Hu Jin of Save
the Children UK. "In the past, just holding condoms could be used as
evidence to arrest [sex workers]."

But China's challenge has moved beyond simply high-risk populations. The
task is educating a population that misperceives the virus as the
exclusive scourge of drug addicts and prostitutes. The road north through
the mountains--part of the Burma Road supply line used by U.S. and Chinese
troops in World War II--is lined with scores of hamlets such as Sugarcane
Garden Village, little more than a cluster of palm trees, small stone
homes and an elementary school. The population of 1,100 makes its living
planting vegetables and rice and selling snacks to truck drivers.

"Our No. 1 problem? Drugs," said Yang Senbin, 62, a farmer. "It will ruin
your life. We hate this problem."

Yang lives amid one of the densest concentrations of AIDS cases in China,
but asked if he has ever met a person living with the disease, he said he
didn't think so.

That's because people with HIV in China rarely dare to reveal it. In her
denim jacket and lightweight black scarf, 33-year-old Ma looks like anyone
else in a Kunming restaurant. Ma, who didn't want her full name used,
contracted HIV after 10 years of shooting heroin, which she took up as a
teenager because it seemed as though everyone else was doing it, she said.

She is hardly the image of a street addict, yet she is the face of China's
evolving HIV problem. Even though Ma works full time helping people with
HIV get access to government services, she doesn't dare tell her parents
she is sick.

"I'm afraid they will be very disappointed," Ma said.

The recent study estimated that China has 650,000 HIV/AIDS cases, revised
from rougher estimates of 840,000. That change reflects only a better
measure of how many people were infected in a limited outbreak tied to a
blood-selling scheme. As the study's authors cautioned, "those new numbers
should not mask the fact that HIV infections are on the rise."

That rise reflects in part the rapid growth of prostitution during two
decades of economic reform, which have fueled unemployment and sent
millions of peasants migrating in search of work. Chinese authorities
estimate there are 3 million to 4 million women working as prostitutes in
massage parlors and truck stops and so-called karaoke bars and hair
salons.

They are places such as the Chrysanthemum Inn, a dilapidated roadside
shack just up the road from Ruili. A bare bulb illuminates the unheated
dining room and a row of rooms--each with bare walls, a bed and a pink
blanket--are marked with hand-painted white numbers: 1, 2, 3. The
overloaded trucks that whine to a stop here are headed everywhere
--Beijing, Shanghai and beyond.

"Are you looking for a virgin?" the lead cook asked a table of visitors.
She could produce one, she said, for about $2,500. A local taxi driver
snorted and countered that he could find one for $125.

After lunch, the cook offered sex with a female kitchen worker for $6. But
asked what it would cost for sex without a condom, she said, "No way. Not
in this day and age. Everybody's afraid of dying."

To prevention specialists, that is very encouraging--far more encouraging
than the experience of one counselor who recently demonstrated condom use
to a group of peasants by employing a banana as a prop. When she returned
weeks later, she was greeted by puzzled villagers who pointed to the
banana tree, with the condom still affixed on a piece of fruit, and
complained that its presence had produced no benefit.

Nowhere is prostitution's role in the epidemic clearer than in Baoshan, a
low-slung mountain town of white-tile-covered buildings, where HIV spreads
mostly through sex rather than drugs, according to the local center for
disease control.

That means key players in the epidemic are people like 19-year-old
Fangfang, who spends her evenings wearing a denim miniskirt in an open-air
storefront of the red-light district, trying to entice passersby into
spending about $18 to stay a couple of hours. When she left her remote
Yunnan hometown two months ago, Fangfang was drawn by the whispered
promise of far rosier prospects than she found, she said.

"Friends had come back and told us how good the outside world is," she
said. "But they tricked us."

Fangfang plans to go home soon. She will tell her family she worked at a
supermarket. In the meantime, she says she uses free condoms but complains
that health workers give her only three a day, so she has to make up the
shortfall with her own money. Asked whether she knows how to avoid AIDS,
she is quick to nod but later admits she is short on details.

"Can you tell me," she said, "what are the ways the disease is transmitted?"

City health authorities estimate there are 5,000 prostitutes like her in
the Baoshan area, and they concede that, even with high-level cooperation
from party officials, they don't have the money to adequately promote
condom use among them.

"Last year the government spent half a million yuan [$62,000]" on AIDS
prevention in the area, said Yang Xuanmei, head of Baoshan's AIDS
prevention program. "That might sound like a lot of money, but we're
talking about 2.4 million people."

Condom effort uneven

As a result, prevention efforts are patchy. The government adopted a
high-profile condom distribution plan, and though condoms can be found in
the rooms of the high-end Landu Hotel, there are none at the Military
District Inn, where a stay is less than $4 a night.

Moreover, things are about to get much more complicated.

By next year, 50 miles of sleek new expressway will link Baoshan to points
south. From an AIDS standpoint, the new Baolong Highway poses multiple
threats: an influx of 10,000 mostly male workers, who later will scatter
to their home provinces, and then a fast new road to boost traffic and
speed the transfer of the virus.

The urgent task is getting the workers and drivers to use condoms, which
traditionally are unpopular in China--only 4 percent of contraceptive
users choose that method. The Asian Development Bank is sponsoring a
project to limit and measure the rise in HIV along the new highway, hoping
to raise condom use among men like road worker Zhang Mingzheng.

Zhang, 58, who was carrying rocks in the fading light of a setting sun one
recent evening, laughed when asked whether he uses condoms at local
brothels. He is too old to seek out nights like that, he said.

"But the young men, sure, in the summers they go into town," he said. "And
everyone knows the truth is people don't use condoms every time."

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

February 6, Xinhua News Agency
Euro replaces dollar in Burma-China border trade

Yangon: The European currency, euro, will be introduced in place of US
dollar in the border trade between Myanmar [Burma] and China, the Myanmar
finance authorities confirmed.

The confirmation, quoted by Monday's Voice Weekly, was made by Minister of
Finance and Revenue Major-General Hla Tun in a latest meeting here with
over 300 importers and exporters.

According to the minister, Myanmar merchants' dollar accounts, opened at
the Bank of China, were closed and will be substituted with euro accounts.

It is the first time that Myanmar formally uses euro to replace US dollar
in its border trade with China since 10 August 2003, when the government
decided that government organizations and private enterprises should use
euro in place of US dollar for international business transactions
including import and export.

The decision by a cabinet meeting then stated that if the trading partners
agree, Japanese yen or Singapore dollar are also allowed for use in the
trading activities.

The cabinet meeting also decided that border trade with five neighbouring
countries, China, Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Laos, will be conducted
in euro as well as the currencies of the countries concerned.

In face of then United States' economic sanctions up till now, Myanmar has
made some adjustments of its financial policy. Faced with a ban on
remittances of US dollar to Myanmar among a series of sanctions, the
government advised foreign embassies in Myanmar to use euro in addition to
US dollar through opening of accounts in euro in the Myanmar Foreign Trade
Bank with US dollar still in effective use.

Myanmar is to transform border trade to normal trade to enhance bilateral
trade with China.

____________________________________

February 6, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to establish first export, import bank

Yangon: Myanmar is deliberating to establish its first export and import
bank in the country to facilitate exporters and importers in their
international trading activities, the Voice Weekly reported Monday.

"Although Myanmar has Myanmar Livestock Breeding and Fishery Development
Bank, Myanmar Agricultural Development Bank and Myanmar Industrial
Development Bank for respective entrepreneurs, it has no Exporters and
Importers Bank yet for traders engaged in the business like neighboring
countries," said market information and research team of the Ministry of
Commerce.

At present, the state-owned Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank is generally and
mainly handling foreign currency transactions along with some private
banks authorized for such transactions, while the Myanmar Investment and
Commercial Bank deals with foreign investment in the country.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar commerce authorities have urged over 10, 000
registered private trading companies in the country to function fully to
boost foreign trade, calling for exporting raw goods with value added so
as to attain the target of reaching a total foreign trade volume of 5
billion US dollars in the fiscal year 2005-06 ending March.

Commerce officials have outlined some raw export commodities such as
onion, rice, beans and pulses to be processed and added with value.

Myanmar's exports are expected to hit 3 billion US dollars in the fiscal
year 2005-06 ending March, slightly up from 2.9 billion in the previous
fiscal year out of its total foreign trade volume of 4.9 billion with a
trade surplus of 954 million.

Myanmar mainly exports natural gas, marine and forest products as well as
agricultural products such as beans and pulses.

The private sector plays an important role in Myanmar's exports and
imports. In 2004-05, the private sector accounted for more than 85 percent
in its exports and more than 80 percent of the gross domestic product.

Myanmar has set a target of 1.5 billion dollars of bilateral trade with
China, 1 billion with India and 50 million with Vietnam in the 2005-06.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

February 6, Mizzima News
India should promote change in Burma: MP

India should play a leading role in promoting national reconciliation and
democracy in Burma, according to Indian member of parliament Dr Nirmala
Deshpande.

Speaking to Mizzima at the two-day National Reconciliation in Burma
conference in New Delhi today, Deshpande said India needed to help the
Burmese people mobilise to demand political change.

“We need to start from simple step
 Some kind of non-violence programs
which can mobilise people more and more. People without being big numbers,
nothing would be possible,” said Deshpande, who is also a member of the
Indian Parliamentarian's Forum for Democracy in Burma.

The Indian government has called for a democratic transition in Burma but
has stopped short of calling for the release of National League for
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi or condemning the military’s consistent
abuses of human rights laws.

Many Burma groups say India helps keep the Burmese military in power by
trading with the country and allowing the ruling generals to reap the
financial benefits.

____________________________________

February 6, Mizzima News
Bangladesh UNHCR issues ID cards to refugees - Siddique Islam,

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangladesh has
started issuing refugees with identification cards.

UNHCR will issue cards to each adult 'urban refugee' over the age of 12.
Almost 160 urban refugees live in Bangladesh, with Burmese refugees living
in Dhaka, Cox's Bazar, Bandardban, and Rangamati accounting for about 70
percent of that figure.

"We have already issued 50 percent of identity cards to the urban
refugees," a senior UNHCR official told Mizzima.

The official said refugees who had renewed their registration in 2005
would receive cards and others would be interviewed before being issued
with the identification.

Last year UNHCR Bangladesh issued 78 identity cards to the heads of
refugee families.


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

February 5, The Ottawa Sun
Activist scarred for life - Jessica Hallam

Jessica Hallam introduces 5 new faces in Ottawa, starting with a man who
fled his home, but can't escape tortured memories

Every time Kyaw Moe gets his hair cut, he warns the stylist about the scar
on his head. It's a little bit above his left ear, about the size of a
loonie, where no hair grows.

It's just one of the many marks the 33-year-old Ottawa resident is left
with from the torture he endured while incarcerated in his homeland of
Burma, now Myanmar.

"More than 14 years after, whenever I talk about the feeling of prison, I
still get chills and nervous," says Moe. "They used electric shock, they
beat me with a bayonet ... it causes swelling and infections. You live
with the scars your whole life."

Of the 18 years Moe lived in Burma, he spent two terms in prison -- a
total of nine months -- for distributing newsletters as part of a student
movement in the late 1980s.

"We students only knew a little bit about democracy -- we were living in
an isolated country," says Moe. "We demanded the military government
change to a multi-party system."

FORMED UNION

Moe and other students from his college formed a union, which was illegal,
and started holding demonstrations while secretly publishing and
distributing the newsletters.

His activism led him to work on the campaign for the National League of
Democracy, an opposition party recognized as a competitor in the national
election of 1990.

When the party won, instead of rising to power, many of its members were
arrested, or fled the country. Moe escaped to India, with 14 others.

There, he studied mass media, and found a job at a radio station in
Norway. After four years, he came to Canada as a refugee and later
graduated from the media and communications program at Algonquin College.
He now works as a counsellor at the Catholic Immigration Centre.

"We provide help to make it easier for them to get jobs, integrate into
Canadian society," says Moe.

He doesn't think that's enough.

"Because (the Burmese population) is small and new, we don't have any
social organizations," he says. "Me and my colleagues set up the Burmese
Community Service of Ottawa, an organization (that provides) supplemental
services."

Since 2004, he's taught Burmese language classes on the weekends.

Even though he now resides in a much safer country, Moe's activism has not
ceased.

FAMILY TIES DESTROYED

He works with other lobbyists to pressure the Canadian government to
increase humanitarian aid to Myanmar.

Unfortunately for Moe, this active, political drive has destroyed many
ties with his family. Making contact with anyone in his hometown is
dangerous, he says.

"Whenever I do political activity, they put pressure on my family," he
says. "That's why I can't openly communicate with them."

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

February 4, The Nation (Thailand)
Burma: Chinese asset or liability? - Vinit Vithidharm

If China is to be seen as a responsible and honourable superpower whose
"meteoric rise" is no cause for alarm in Southeast Asia, China needs,
among other things, to refine its Burmese policy.

Burma has been Southeast Asia's focus of attention in the post-Cold War
era - the largest source of the region's "non-traditional" threats and the
biggest stumbling block in the region's quest for deeper economic
development and integration. How China is perceived in the region depends
in large part on its Burma policy.

It is without doubt that the Burmese government, the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC), is one of the world's most obstinate,
repressive regimes, simply impervious to the views and sentiments of the
outside world. It is also without doubt that the SPDC, Than Shwe in
particular, is a master of political and diplomatic manoeuvrings and
extremely skilful in playing games with the outside world - knowing when
to appear soft and when to harden its position. It is also without doubt
that Burma is largely self-reliant economically. It has existed in
self-imposed isolation since General Ne Win seized power in March 1962,
making it extremely resilient in the face of sanctions by the
international community.

It is also a plain fact that the SPDC has survived the almost 18 years of
international sanctions and other pressure largely out of protection and
support in various forms by China and, to a lesser extent, India and
Thailand.

China has been the Burmese government's main guardian, standing ready to
ward off any attempt by the international community to subject Burma to
scrutiny, whether it is under the framework of the UN General Assembly,
the UN Commission on Human Rights, the International Labour Organisation
or, most recently, the UN Security Council (UNSC). After almost 18 years
in power, the current regime surely could feel comfortable enough to drag
its feet even further, as long as it felt sure that China would remain on
its side on the UNSC - the council being probably the regime's only, if
any, source of concern. Furthermore, China has been the source of
virtually everything Burma has been deprived of by the West - weapons,
essential goods, funds for infrastructure development, investment and
markets for its products.

It is another plain fact that in return for its role as main guardian and
benefactor, China has been given the green light by the regime to
establish its sphere of influence inside Burma, creating a buffer state
with its chief adversary, India. It has also been given relatively free
access through Burma to the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean. In return,
China has been allowed to expand its economic interests rapidly in this
land rich with natural resources - through natural gas, hydropower
resources, minerals of various kinds, wood, fisheries and agricultural
produce. Chinese goods are flooding markets in Burma. Many areas in
northern and northeastern Burma have become Chinese settlements.

All of these activities - but particularly its role as guardian - have
severely tarnished China's image in the region.

China is not only seen as associating with a pariah state. The country
reinforces the belief held by many in Southeast Asia that it is just an
irresponsible and unreliable superpower simply seeking to exploit the
situation in the region for its own self-interest, turning crisis into its
own opportunity at the expense of the others in the region and beyond.

More important, this has reinforced the belief in much of Southeast Asia
that the region cannot afford to see the United States disengage itself.
Surely, as long as China's image remains tainted by its association with
evils of different breeds, the region will continue to clamour for a
continued US presence as a more reliable counterbalancing force. This will
certainly not be helpful to China's aspirations for constructive
engagement with Southeast Asia and a peaceful environment conducive to
China's rapid economic development.

Certainly, China is not expected to make a U-turn in its Burmese policy -
joining the West in putting sanctions and other pressure on Burma. No sane
person would envisage that sort of conspicuous pressure on Burma by China
or Asean.

China should only be expected to understand that it stands to lose in the
long term, in the broader strategic picture, by continuing the policy it
has been pursuing since 1989. China should be expected only to contribute
where it can to regional and international efforts to bring about positive
change in Burma. We believe that simply to be more forceful in persuading
the SPDC to move forward, China would gain a great deal more than it would
otherwise. And in doing so, China should urge the SPDC to resolve
political and ethnic conflicts within the country, stop being a liability
to Southeast Asia and work with its friends in the region and beyond.

This is a recipe that would give China's image in Southeast Asia a big
face-lift. Burma should not be allowed to continue to be one of China's
liabilities, one that cramps its style as an aspiring world power.

Vinit Vithidharm is a Bangkok-based academic.

____________________________________

February 6, Bangkok Post
Political gridlock tightens in Rangoon - Aung Zaw

As expected, Burma's military leaders adjourned the latest round of
constitutional talks at the National Convention last week. The move has
prompted observers in Rangoon to suggest that Senior-Gen Than Shwe pulled
the plug.

An informed source in Rangoon said the most likely reason for this delay
in proceedings is the "old man" is not prepared to see the convention
through to a formal conclusion.

Burma has conducted the National Convention since 1993, in an
on-again-off-again fashion that moves at a snail's pace. Some regional
governments were hopeful that this year would be different after Burmese
Foreign Minister Nyan Win told a news conference that 2006 would be a
critical year for the constitution-drafting National Convention, a chief
element in the country's professed road map to democracy.

Rangoon-based political observers suggest that Gen Than Shwe's focus is
not on the convention, but rather on military affairs and the relocation
of government ministries to Pyinmana in central Burma, the country's new
administrative city. Government engineers and private contractors are
reportedly under pressure to finish work on a military parade ground there
before the next Armed Forces Day in late March. The order to complete the
parade ground was believed to have come from Gen Than Shwe. Armed Forces
Days have traditionally been marked by a grand military parade in Rangoon
attended by the ruling junta.

This latest postponement of the National Convention has caused
disappointment among ethnic delegates at the convention, but such feelings
are not unfamiliar.

The message from Gen Than Shwe is clear. Constitutional talks will drag on
well into 2007. No one knows when or if they will ever formally conclude.
And the road leading to democracy gets longer and more treacherous.

Gen Than Shwe, head of the ruling State Peace and Development Council
(SPDC), is known to be the chief political strategist among Burma's top
military leaders. Dubbed the "secret mover", he rarely reveals his next
plans to subordinates, let alone to the nation. Some analysts in Rangoon
have suggested that last week's recess might have something to do with the
ongoing reshuffle of military commanders, which has led to speculation of
a growing power struggle at the highest levels of the country's armed
forces.

It has long been rumoured that Gen Than Shwe wants to oversee the
completion of the administrative city in Pyinmana and the relocation of
the junta's War Office, and is at loggerheads with the junta number two,
Deputy Senior-Gen Maung Aye, who is also vice-chairman of the SPDC, deputy
commander of Defence Services and army commander.

Some observers believe Gen Maung Aye will be sent to Pyinmana, while Gen
Than Shwe and his faithful officers remain in Rangoon. This would allow
Gen Maung Aye to guide the day-to-day affairs of the War Office, but under
the watchful eyes of a staff loyal to Than Shwe.

Sources say that while Gen Maung Aye has no political ambitions and thus
poses no threat, Gen Than Shwe wants to keep him contained.

A source close to the Burmese army said that Gen Than Shwe doesn't want
Gen Maung Aye to come and knock on his door. However, Gen Maung Aye will
not make a move against Gen Than Shwe unless he is approached by some
senior army leaders. Some military watchers in Rangoon suggest that
although there is deep-seated mistrust between the two powerful military
men, they are working together fairly normally at the moment.

Rumours persist that Gen Than Shwe, 75, will retire soon. But he has shown
no sign of slowing down, and so will need to tend carefully to his future
and that of his family. Before he lets go of the reins of power, he wants
to install a trustworthy replacement to lead the country's armed forces.
Junta number three, Gen Shwe Mann, is considered a prime contender. With
Gen Maung Aye lodged firmly between the two, the country - and, indee d,
the world - must await Gen Than Shwe's next grand move.

Aside from Gen Shwe Mann, last week saw Rangoon regional commander Lt-Gen
Myint Swe, Gen Than Shwe's protege, promoted as head of the Bureau of
Special Operations and will oversee the BSO Rangoon division.

Lt-Gen Myint Swe, who is also chief of military affairs security, would
become a member of the SPDC. Observers said that the latest reshuffle will
further sideline Gen Maung Aye.

In addition to a looming power struggle, Gen Than Shwe faces another
serious issue. Several mid-ranking military officers have expressed
increasing dissatisfaction with delays in the completion of the National
Convention and slow pace of political transition and economic
difficulties.

For now, though, the "old man" still calls the shots, and will make
certain his next steps are safe. This can only mean any future political
transition will be further stalled, and Burma could be deadlocked for
years to come.