BurmaNet News, April 26, 2006

[Editor]

April 26, 2006 Issue # 2949


INSIDE BURMA
Reuters: Myanmar troops attack rebel villages, thousands flee
Xinhua: Myanmar gov't media urges service personnel to be loyal to state
in wake of salary increase
DVB: Murdered Thet Naing Oo's mother urges junta leader to tell the truth

DRUGS
SHAN: Wa commander buys in

BUSINESS / TRADE
Christian Science Monitor: India looks to Burma to slake growing thirst
for gas
Mizzima: Chinese authorities call timber workers out of Burma
Cihan News Agency (Turkey): Turkey-Myanmar sign trade deal

REGIONAL
Mizzima: NCGUB calls for Nepalese-style people power
AFP: Rice confirmed to attend Southeast Asia security meet
AFP: Indonesia seeks to confirm status of stranded Myanmar Muslims

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: China's chance to change Burma - Ian Holliday

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 26, Reuters
Myanmar troops attack rebel villages, thousands flee

Bangkok: Myanmar troops have attacked ethnic rebel villages near the Thai
border in the biggest government offensive in years, burning homes and
forcing thousands to flee, a rebel leader said on Wednesday.

Government forces began raiding villages in Ton Oo and Yong Lay Phin
townships earlier this month, displacing 2,000 civilians so far, Tummala
Naw, vice president of the Karen National Union (KNU), told Reuters by
telephone.

It was the most serious fighting since the KNU, the biggest rebel group in
the former Burma, and the military junta reached an informal ceasefire in
2003, he said.

"Myanmar is playing a two-faced game now. On one hand, they say they want
peace talks with us. But on the other hand, they keep attacking us,"
Tummala said.

"This attack obviously means Myanmar does not want peace."

The military, which has ruled the Southeast Asian nation in various guises
since 1962, has previously denied launching major offensives in rebel-held
areas.

Aid workers say the latest clashes could be part of a junta effort to
establish control over the region since it moved to a new jungle capital
about 400 km (250 miles) north of Yangon.

The Free Burma Rangers, a group that says it helps displaced people in
Myanmar, said on Wednesday army operations in western and northern Karen
State had forced more than 9,000 people to flee their homes.

"The Burma Army gave orders that they would shoot on sight any villager
they found in their old villages after the April 25th deadline to
relocate," the Rangers said in a statement, citing accounts from displaced
villagers.

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a non-governmental organization that
tracks refugees from Myanmar, said 1,500 displaced people had arrived in
Thailand from northern Karen state since December.

TBBC executive director Jack Dunford said they told stories of increased
government troop activity, "widespread destruction of villages and crops
and human rights abuses".

"TBBC is concerned that reports of large new numbers of new internally
displaced could result in many more people crossing into Thailand as
refugees in the coming months," he said.

After seizing power in 1988 from another set of generals, Myanmar's
current military rulers signed ceasefires or peace pacts with around two
dozen ethnic guerrilla groups in the country's jungle hinterlands.

Most of the ethnic armies were allowed to keep their weapons, but after
former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was ousted in October 2004, Yangon
ordered them to give up their arms -- a move that prompted several rebel
groups to unite against the government.

____________________________________

April 26, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar gov't media urges service personnel to be loyal to state in wake
of salary increase

Yangon: The official newspaper New Light of Myanmar urged on Wednesday the
country's all state service personnel enjoying the monthly salaries
provided by the government to be loyal to the state and serve the nation's
interest with extra momentum.

The call in an article came a few days before the end of this month when
increased monthly salaries for the government employees will formally
start to be issued for the ended month according to March 24 government
order.

The order of the Ministry of Finance and Revenue stated that the monthly
salaries of government employees will be increased with effect from April
1 by a range from nearly six times to 12.5 times depending on their
respective rank status.

"Adding zeal and physical and intellectual efforts to the service will
speed up the national development pace. The more the nation achieve
progress, the higher monthly salaries will the service personnel enjoy,"
the article said.

However, the article criticized that the attempts by some merchants to
raise commodity prices, citing the salary increase as an excuse, is an
undesirable act, pointing out that "Consumers are suffering much from
rapacious traders' attempts to raise commodity prices, with market
oriented economy which has no restrictions in prices and other
limitations, as the cause."

The article charged some merchants with making huge profits out of price
hike resulting from rumors to weather, world situation and Myanmar's
domestic conditions.






____________________________________

April 25, Democratic Voice of Burma
Murdered Thet Naing Oo's mother urges junta leader to tell the truth

San Yi, the mother of former political prisoner Thet Naing Oo who was
brutally beaten to death by municipal and fire brigade members, wrote a
letter to Burma’s ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) chairman Gen. Than Shwe, urging him to help find out the
truth about the murder of her son.

The letter was sent to Than Shwe in early April and it described in
details how Thet Naing Oo was murdered. It also stated that the brutal
murder committed by lower level authorities, is an act of the violation of
law and order. San Yi also said that as a mother she finds it impossible
to take comfort in the fact that her son died slowly from the wounds.
Therefore, she pleaded the SPDC chairman to ‘unearth’ the real culprits
and take action against them.

Copies of the letter were also sent to other top SPDC leaders including
vie-chairman Gen. Maung Aye and Gen. Thura Shwe Mann. It is not known how
they would react to the letter. In the past, some people were detained for
writing directly to the top military leaders.

Thet Naing Oo died on 18 March after he was brutally beaten up by the
police, fire brigade and municipal members of Rangoon Kyimyintaing
(Kemmendine) Township. The authorities reportedly have been detaining only
some trishaw drivers for trial and the real culprits are still at large.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

April 25, Frontline/The World
Myanmar's hidden AIDS epidemic - Orlando de Guzman

[Editor's Note: the following is a written article based on the recent
radio program by Orlando de Guzman available here:
www.theworld.org/worldfeature/Myanmar ]

The doctor opens a thick photo album containing pictures of his patients
and slowly flips through its sticky, mold-covered pages. The album is a
macabre portfolio of tropical maladies: skin lesions that have gone
septic, meningitis, TB, tumors left to grow to the size of grapefruits. In
one photograph, a man with a gangrenous infection lies unconscious. His
leg is chained to a bed.

"This man is a political prisoner," the doctor says. "The authorities
waited until the last moment to take him to the hospital. He's now dead.
He was chained like this, like an animal, even though he was dying."

The doctor, sensing my queasiness, skips a few pages and goes straight to
pages that he'd bookmarked for me to see.

He shows me snapshots of AIDS patients he has treated in Myanmar [formerly
known as Burma]. Many are in advanced stages of the disease. Their bodies
are covered in fungal infections and untreatable sores. They quickly
succumb to TB, hepatitis and diarrhea infections, he explains, because
they don't have anti-retroviral drugs or even basic antiseptic drugs. Most
of these patients are poor, abandoned by their families and left in the
care of the country's crumbling health-care system.
What made the doctor speak out are the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
"The words really encourage me: 'The ultimate tragedy is not the
oppression and brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good
people.' So I feel I am responsible to talk the truth."

The hospital where he practices is on the frontline in the battle against
HIV AIDS in Myanmar. But it lacks the most basic supplies. Patients and
their families must bring their own soap, bandages, sheets and even
drinking water.

After a few nervous meetings with me over the course of a couple of
months, the doctor agrees to break his silence, with the condition that I
don't identify him or his town. He risks being locked up in Myanmar's many
gulags for speaking with a journalist without prior government approval.

What made him decide to speak, he says, are the words of Martin Luther
King Jr. "The words really encourage me: 'The ultimate tragedy is not the
oppression and brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good
people.' So I feel I am responsible to talk the truth."

The truth, he says, is that he treats hundreds of AIDS patients, yet he's
forbidden to speak about them. "We can't say there are HIV patients ...
that they need help. They don't know where to die, you know?"

The doctor says he has to make the painful decision to dismiss the sickest
-- to free up their beds for new AIDS patients who continue to flood the
hospital. "The hospitals need beds. So if they [the patients] can walk,
they hire trishaws or other transport, and they are dropped off somewhere
else. By the roadside. So that's how they end up."

Close to tears he tells me, "These people should have a proper place to
die. They didn't have anyone. I talk for them. On behalf of them. So that
they have a proper treatment, proper care, a proper funeral. So that they
have their rights."

Talking about rights in Myanmar is extremely dangerous. Many have gone to
prison for it. And this secret encounter with the doctor has made me
realize that the story of AIDS in Myanmar is as much about human rights as
it is about health.
Swedagon Temple in Yangon.

The Shwedagon Temple in Yangon is a sacred place for Buddhists. Its stupa
is guilded with more than eight tons of gold.

It's an observation shared by many health experts, among them, Dr. Chris
Beyrer. He's an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University's School of
Public Health in Baltimore. He has been studying Myanmar's AIDS epidemic
for more than a decade, and what he sees is extremely worrying. "You
essentially have the perfect storm. The perfect set of conditions for an
explosive and sustained HIV epidemic," says Beyrer.

Myanmar's military junta, which has ruled the country since 1962, has
created the fertile conditions for the spread of the virus, says Beyrer.
"The lack of freedom, the lack of scientific information, freedom of
speech, freedom of assembly, these very fundamental rights that have been
denied the Burmese people, have made the spread of HIV more likely and
more grave."

The true toll of HIV AIDS in Myanmar may never be known. The country's
AIDS epidemic is the least studied in the world, according to health
experts. The most reliable data available, from a 2000 World Health
Organization study, estimated that some 300,000 people were infected and
some 48,000 people had died the previous year from AIDS. But for that same
year, the military government reported only 850 deaths.

The first outbreaks were detected in the late 1980s among heroin addicts
sharing dirty needles. Around the same time, neighboring Thailand had its
first outbreak. But unlike Thailand, which launched a massive and
successful public health campaign in the early 1990s, the Myanmar junta
didn't even acknowledge there was a problem until 2001.

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV AIDS estimates the infection rate
to be at 1.3 percent of the population. Other surveys put the infection
rate at double that.

Myanmar is the second-largest global supplier of heroin, after
Afghanistan. Official complicity in the drug trade has made opium
impossible to eradicate, and it has become clear that the AIDS epidemic in
Myanmar is most acute wherever there is an abundance of heroin. In the
hills in the state of Shan, northeast of Yangon, I met with opium poppy
farmers who say that local military officers tax them for every pound of
opium they produce.
In the state of Shan, one survey of a town found that a staggering 96
percent of injection drug users are HIV positive. And the epidemic is no
longer confined to sex workers and heroin addicts.

One survey of a town in Shan found that a staggering 96 percent of
injection drug users are HIV positive. And the epidemic is no longer
confined to sex workers and heroin addicts.

"I have to say that the epidemic is getting worse," says another doctor,
who practices near the old capital of Yangon [formerly known as Rangoon].
"There are new and fresh cases every day." She says her patients now
include married women and children, people who do not engage in risky
behaviors. And she says the military junta's public awareness campaign
since the beginning has been ridiculously inadequate.

"It's only done by giving pamphlets to the public that say 'Stop AIDS' in
English! Just imagine -- how many of us can read in English? That's the
earliest public awareness, and it lasted five to six years."

Like everyone I met, a former Burmese military doctor, who worked in one
of Myanmar's hospitals for army conscripts, agreed to speak only if he
wasn't identified. His job was to do blood tests on soldiers suspected of
having HIV, then immediately dismiss them from the service if they tested
positive.

What continually shocked him, he says, is how little people knew about
their disease. "Most of the cases, once they found out they are HIV, they
seem very happy, because they will be dismissed from the army and be able
to go back to their village and make a plantation and spend the rest of
their lives. They don't know HIV has no cure. They don't know what HIV
means."

I ask him if he feels compelled to explain to his patients what HIV is and
what it means to them and their families.

But he is under strict orders to say nothing more. "If you are a military
doctor, you must know your duty. Your duty is, you have to do whatever the
superior commands you. To do otherwise, he says, is "very dangerous for
your survival."

On the surface, Myanmar looks like an exotic holiday spot, and when you
visit its shining golden temples and beautiful, green countryside, it's
easy to forget that you are in one of the world's most entrenched military
dictatorships. Here, suspected activists are watched and followed. Phone
lines are tapped. Meetings with foreigners are closely scrutinized.
Dissidents are jailed, often in remote areas where their families cannot
visit.

There is an acute fear of the state.

"In Burma, even the walls have ears," notes author Emma Larkin, in her
book Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop.

This Orwellian military government uses an intricate network of informants
and intelligence agents to spy on its people. Ironically, many of these
intelligence officers are coming down with HIV, a former military doctor
told me, who has diagnosed many of them. "They are the officers that
mingle in civilian society, and sex workers have to give them free
services in exchange for their protection," he says.

Perhaps because of the HIV problem within its own ranks, the military
government has begun to acknowledge the situation. "HIV, if ignored, will
destroy entire races," once announced Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt. The
former chief of Myanmar's military intelligence was purged in an internal
power struggle in October 2004.

And Myanmar's Ministry of Health now lists AIDS as one of its three
top-priority diseases, along with TB and malaria.

Burmese I met said they've learned to expect nothing from their nonelected
leaders. They've also come to expect little from the international
community, which is locked in a bitter debate over how to best help this
country.

Yet in 2004, the military junta allocated only US$22,000 for its entire
AIDS prevention program -- for a country of more than 50 million people.
And it has stopped collecting reliable data on the epidemic, in spite of
growing evidence that the virus is spreading to the general population.

Burmese I met expressed that they've learned to expect nothing from their
nonelected leaders. They've also come to expect little from the
international community, which is locked in a bitter debate over how to
best help this country.

Many rights activists, claiming to speak on behalf of Burmese, do not want
humanitarian aid to go to Burma. They say that any aid will only help prop
up the regime and that the best way to effect change is to pressure the
regime by playing hardball. They applauded when the Global Fund to Fight
Malaria, Tuberculosis and AIDS pulled out its $98 million grant to Myanmar
last year. The pullout was the result of the military government's
canceling the organization's travel permits to check on projects around
the country.

But those infected with HIV and those at risk of the disease can no longer
wait for the politics to change. Doctors and those living with HIV are
using what they have. In one of Yangon's slums, a doctor has mashed
together a pungent local remedy from roots and tree bark. She doles it out
to her AIDS patients from a rusty tin can. And she admits it's futile.
"They don't live long," she says. "Their lifespan is only three to six
months."

In another town, I met a woman who had formed a secret society of AIDS
widows. "We have to do things secretly," she says, "because it's the best
way to help others here. If the authorities found out, it will only bring
us trouble."

Her husband died five years ago, but not before giving her HIV. She has no
access to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and has given up hope trying
to get them. "I heard that some international aid agencies have
distributed some anti-retroviral drugs to the district authorities," she
says, "but up to now, we haven't seen any of them."

Rather than wait for foreign aid, she and her friends -- AIDS widows like
her -- pay monthly dues into their secret organization from their meager
earnings. The group's savings are used for hospital bills if one of their
members needs treatment.

"The only thing that keeps me strong are the teachings of the Buddha," she
says. "He said that we must live for others."

Orlando de Guzman currently lives in Thailand and is a freelance radio
reporter covering Southeast Asia. He is a regular correspondent for Public
Radio International's The World. De Guzman has also contributed to
FRONTLINE/World. His broadcast story "Philippines: Islands Under Siege"
aired in June 2003 and is available in streaming video on this Web site.

____________________________________
DRUGS

April 25, Shan Herald Agency for News
Wa commander buys in

As Thailand's drug enforcement chief Krisna Pol-anand prepares his trip to
witness Burma's latest drug bonfire in Kengtung tomorrow, a Wa commander
has dispatched 250-fresh troops to the scene of the battle that took place
Friday, 21 April, just 1 km north of the Chiangrai border, according to
Thai and Shan sources.

Wa troops of the 814th and 101st battalions, both from drug fugitive Wei
Hsuehkang's 171st Military Region that covers areas stretching from
Tachilek to Homong, opposite Chiangrai, Chiangmai and Maehongson
provinces, have arrived in Maejok, where a three-hour shootout took place
between a Burma Army column and a Shan patrol.

Observers and participants are divided over the actual cause of the event
that has so far taken away at least 4 lives:

    * One side believes that the Burma Army column, made up of troops from
Light Infantry Battalions 311 and 526 as well as members of the Punako
militia, was attempting to transfer 200 kg of heroin coming from the
Ah Mae refinery under the protection of Punako.

The turn-up of the Wa troops on the scene followed a meeting in Maejok on
Saturday between Jalaw Bo, one of Wei's deputy commanders, and Burmese
officers there, according to Thai and Shan reports.

Punako militia chief Ja-ngoi, 45, has long been known as one of the major
producers of heroin and yaba (methamphetamine) right under the eyes of two
Burma Army battalions nearby, 553rd and 554th in Mongtoom. (For more
information on the two units, see Show Business second edition, P.50)

In addition, Jalaw Bo and Ja-ngoi are reputed as business partners.

Others however believe that the information received by the Shan State
Army and drug busters in Thailand could have been a calculated
disinformation to catch the SSA red-handed with the incriminating
evidence. "It could have been a real coup for the Burma Army at the
Kengtung bonfire," says a Thai security source. Another pointed out that
with Maejok becoming infamous, especially after the attack by the SSA on 8
February 2002 that netted 50,000 yaba pills on the premises, it would be
foolhardy for anyone to attempt to smuggle drugs across the border there.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 26, Christian Science Monitor
India looks to Burma to slake growing thirst for gas - Sunil Jagtiani

Critics say India's economic engagement will help prop up Burma's military
junta.

Bombay: Burma's military junta is widely lambasted for allegedly
sponsoring rape, torture, and forced labor of its opponents, yet India -
the world's most populous democracy - is forging closer links with its
notorious but gas-rich northeastern neighbor as Indian thirst for energy
grows.

India's policy has triggered sometimes searing criticism, including a
protest last week in the capital, New Delhi, by scores of demonstrators
opposed to cooperation with Burma, also called Myanmar.

A number of countries, including the US, have imposed sanctions on Burma
(Myanmar) to signal their disapproval of its autocratic rulers, who
continue to detain the iconic democracy advocate and Nobel laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi.

But India's very different approach highlights the debate between those
who say engagement with Burma could edge it toward change, and critics who
decry any collaboration with the oppressive military junta.

"India's engagement is purely self- interested," says David Steinberg,
professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University. "But, along with the
engagement of the rest of the world, it could help to change things in
Burma, though it will take a long time. Sanctions and isolationism just
mean that the military backs into itself and gets xenophobic."

India signed a long-term deal to draw supplies from Burma's Shwe gas field
during the visit of Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam to the troubled
country last month.

State-controlled Indian utilities had previously acquired a share in the
giant gas field, though South Korean firm Daewoo is the biggest
stakeholder. A $1 billion to $1.5 billion pipeline is set to be
constructed to send to the gas to India, with another slated to link the
field to China.

Activists say the Burmese junta could earn as much as $3 billion annually
from gas sales, strengthening its grip on power. They criticize the Indian
government, which officially wants democracy in Burma, for being publicly
soft on the junta.

"What's been astonishing about India's policy toward Burma is the complete
lack of any moral aspect to it," charges Mark Farmaner, a representative
of the Burma Campaign, a London-based human rights group. "In the early
1990s, it was a lone voice calling for action. Now it's the lone
uncritical voice. India's aims are just to counter Chinese influence and
get gas."

Mr. Farmaner says the junta's revenues from the Shwe field will be
"particularly damaging because the regime will be even less dependent on
its people." Rumors of forced labor in the field's development are
emerging too, he adds.

Saurabh Bhattacharjee, a New Delhi-based volunteer activist for the Shwe
Gas Pipeline Campaign Committee (India), argues that engagement and
investment in Burma over the past decade have failed to trigger any
democratic reforms.

"There hasn't been any visible change," he says. "In fact, increased
militarization has followed increased investment. Wherever you have a new
gas pipeline, for instance, you have new military camps and abuses of the
local population."

Yet others see positive long-term consequences from India's energy
diplomacy with Burma, which analysts say is part of a broader "Look East"
policy to forge tighter links with East Asia, including greater
coordination with Burma to improve cross-border security, infrastructure,
and trade.

Mr. Steinberg says a percentage of the funds invested in Burma could be
earmarked for humanitarian aid, which would help the local population -
though he stresses that the junta's record on health and education
spending thus far is "inexcusably bad."

P.S. Bami, president of the New Delhi-based India Energy Forum, says
international energy deals can boost economic development, cross-border
relations, and regional stability.

"International pipelines can be a win-win proposition," Mr. Bami says.
"And we have to engage people. Nobody is going to bring about a change of
government in Burma by ignoring the country."

The cheapest and shortest, 530 to 590-mile routes for the Burma-to-India
pipeline, for instance, run through adjoining but impoverished Bangladesh,
which is bargaining hard for multimillion-dollar transit fees and trade
concessions.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh has a prickly relationship with India over the
latter's concerns about illegal immigration and cross- border militancy,
but analysts say relations would improve if the pipeline is to run through
Bangladeshi territory. The two countries have yet to agree to a deal.

Experts say an alternative route skirts Bangladesh but could benefit
India's insurgent, lawless, and underdeveloped northeastern states, which
border Burma and Bangladesh.

"A lot of disaffection in India's northeast is [caused by] a relative lack
of economic opportunity," says Sudha Mahalingam, a New Delhi-based senior
fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. "So if you do bring that
pipeline, and a focused development policy, then there could be increased
stability."

India is also looking at building two pipelines that would cross into its
territory from Pakistan, one originating in Iran, the other in
Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan. These projects, like the proposed
Burmese link, are controversial, but some experts feel they too offer the
potential for greater regional stability - by sparking development and
aligning economic interests in a fractious part of the world.

____________________________________

April 25, Mizzima News
Chinese authorities call timber workers out of Burma - Mungpi

Chinese authorities have called on all Chinese workers to leave Burma in
an attempt to contain illegal logging, a Burmese journalist on the
China-Burma border told Mizzima.

“There were notices placed everywhere in the Laiza area, calling for all
Chinese workers in Burma to return home. The notices also indicated that
the Chinese authorities would not take any responsibility for those who
did not return,” the journalist said on condition of anonymity.

Since the start of the year, several reports have emerged of Burmese
authorities arresting Chinese timber workers.

There are believed to be more than 100 Chinese timber workers in Burma’s
prisons.

Despite Burmese authorities’ claims of having banned logging in several
areas, government officials are widely considered to be implicated in
illegal logging scams.

“Bribing the officials to get permission to cut down timbers is common
here. And to get a one time pass, businessmen has to give at least eight
million to 100 million kyats and sometimes businessmen even has to bribe a
chain of officials and spend billions of kyats to get a permit,” the
journalist said.

The reporter also said more than 100 Chinese business men were believed to
be involved in illegal logging on the China-Burma border.

“But lately most Chinese businessmen have moved out of Burma and there are
only a few left who are still working secretly.”

____________________________________

April 25, Cihan News Agency
Turkey-Myanmar sign trade deal

Turkey and Myanmar (Burma) signed a ''Trade and Economic Cooperation
Agreement'' in recent days, the Turkish Foreign Trade Undersecretariat
declared in a statement issued on Tuesday.

According to the statement, the agreement follows a visit by the Turkish
Foreign Trade Undersecretary Tuncer Kayalar and an accompanying delegation
to Myanmar on 20-22 April.

During his visit, Undersecretary Kayalar had talks with Deputy Prime
Minister and National Planning and Economic Development Minister U Soe
Tha, with Industry and Trade Chamber Chairman Win Aung, as well as with
other public and private sector representatives in Myanmar.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

April 25, Mizzima News
NCGUB calls for Nepalese-style people power - Mungpi

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma said today Burma’s
political stalemate could only be solved by a Nepalese-style people’s
movement.

Dr Tint Swe, of the NCGUB prime minister’s office, said while the
political situation in Burma was not identical to that of Nepal, people
power would be required if Burma was to have democracy.

“It might not be exactly the same as Nepal's case, but I believe that
democracy can be achieved only if there is the peoples’ participation. But
I do not mean that the people must necessarily walk the street in protest,
there are different ways of doing it,” Dr Tint Swe said.

After nearly three weeks of protests and violence, Nepal’s King Gyanendra,
announced yesterday he was willing to reinstate the country’s parliament.

Following the announcement, thousands of Nepalese, who were initially
planning protests, held a victory rally in the streets of Kathmandu.

King Gyanendra, who declared himself head of state in February 2005 after
dissolving parliament, imprisoned political activists, student leaders,
and human rights defenders and imposed a state of emergency.

Rajan Bhattarai, a Nepalese activist told Mizzima political parties played
a crucial role in promoting peace by finding a common agenda with Maoist
rebels, who had long opposed the country’s government.

“[The political parties] were able to bridge the gap with the Maoist
rebels
 And as the political parties have strong influence over the
people, it was easier to mobilise when they [the groups] have a common
agenda,” said Bhattarai.

Comparing the political situation in Nepal to the situation in Burma,
Suhas Chakma, director of the Asian Center for Human Rights, said Burma’s
political, ethnic and armed groups needed to find a common platform.

“I think the best way for the Burmese democracy movement to move forward
is to have an agreement similar with what the Nepalese political parties
had with the Maoist rebels,” said Chakma.

____________________________________

April 26, Agence France Presse
Rice confirmed to attend Southeast Asia security meet

Kuala Lumpur: US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has confirmed she will
attend Southeast Asia's annual security meeting here in July, Malaysian
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Wednesday.

Syed Hamid said that Bangladesh would also make its first appearance as an
observer at the regional meeting, where discussions will focus on issues
including global terrorism and energy prices.

"I spoke to Condoleeza twice. She confirmed that she will be coming and is
looking forward to attending the meeting. There will be full attendance by
all the participants," the minister told reporters.

"There will also be a new member attending the ARF, that is Bangladesh,"
he said of the ASEAN Regional Forum which brings together the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations and its key partners including China, Russia
and Japan.

Rice shunned the ARF meeting in Laos last year, instead sending her deputy
in what was seen as an attempt to pressure ASEAN into pushing its
recalcitrant member Myanmar to introduce democratic reforms.

Under pressure from the international community, ASEAN at its annual
summit last December signalled its impatience with Myanmar and sent Syed
Hamid on an inspection visit there as its envoy.

Syed Hamid said this year's meeting will look at security and economic
issues, as well as efforts to create a sense of regional unity among
nations with different cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds.

"Especially the question of energy will be discussed at great length
because of the soaring prices of fuel, how it impacts the economies of
ASEAN as well as our dialogue partners," he said.

"There is a desire on the part of ASEAN to be seen as cohesive and united.
Of course the problem of Myanmar is there but I think this should not in
any way impair ASEAN progress."

____________________________________

April 26, Agence France Presse
Indonesia seeks to confirm status of stranded Myanmar Muslims

Jakarta: Indonesian officials said Wednesday they were checking whether 77
Myanmar Muslims who became stranded on their way to Malaysia wanted to be
considered as refugees.

The boatpeople, who landed on Rondo island off northern Sumatra last
Saturday after their boat ran out of fuel, were being questioned at the
navy headquarters on nearby Sabang island, said Muhammad Indra of the
immigration directorate-general's office.

All are men and ethnic Muslim Rohingyas from Myanmar's Arakan state, aged
between 20 to 35, officials have said.

Immigration officials had discussed the "delicate nature of this problem"
with representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Jakarta, he said.

"We are still waiting for further reports from the field to determine our
next moves. We have talked to them but they refused to give us sufficient
information," Indra told AFP.

"We would like to find out if they want to file for refugee status or
something else."

He said the case "must be handled carefully" to prevent irking Malaysia
should the Myanmarese insist on being allowed to continue their trip, and
also to discourage more boatpeople from fleeing the military-run country.

Sabang's navy chief Colonel Aswoto Saranang said Tuesday that the men had
told officers that they left Myanmar for economic reasons and were not
fleeing persecution.

In 1992, more than 200,000 Rohingyas, about a third of their population,
fled over Myanmar's border into Bangladesh, accusing the Yangon military
regime of persecution.

About 20,000 remain in two refugee camps while others are living illegally
in the surrounding area.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 26, Wall Street Journal
China's chance to change Burma - Ian Holliday


>From North Korea to Iran, Chinese President Hu Jintao made many of the

right noises during his visit to Washington last week. One of the biggest
gestures was Mr. Hu's offer to put aside longstanding friendships with
Pyongyang and Tehran and help curb their nuclear ambitions. But when it
comes to Burma, China's policy has yet to make a similar shift and use its
influence as a force for change.

Burma's military junta has rejected one olive branch after another from
the country's opposition party, the National League for Democracy. Just
last week, the NLD -- led by Aung San Suu Kyi -- issued a special
statement urging the junta to work together with the opposition to address
the country's growing humanitarian crisis.

Authoritarian rule, it seems, hasn't been kind to Burma: According to the
United Nations, millions of Burmese are at risk from famine, and one in
three children are chronically malnourished or physically stunted.

The NLD's latest initiative followed a February offer to recognize the
unelected junta, which illegally seized power in 1988 after the military
massacred thousands of prodemocracy protestors. All the NLD asked in
return for this remarkable concession was that the junta allow the
parliament, that was elected in 1990, finally to convene.

Without outside pressure, there is no prospect of the junta responding to
these initiatives. Instead, the generals have been hardening their stance.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was refused permission even to
meet with Ms. Suu Kyi when he visited Rangoon last month as an envoy of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The junta told the foreign
minister that she was no longer politically relevant. That followed last
November's forced relocation of government ministries out of Rangoon to
the country's new capital of Pyinmana, a remote town surrounded by jungle.
A year earlier, the relatively moderate Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was
purged and sentenced to a lengthy term of house arrest.

Only China is in a position to exercise the sort of influence that might
make military leaders see sense. In recent years, Beijing has become one
of the junta's biggest backers. Although there are no official figures,
China is widely believed to be the biggest foreign investor in Burma. On
one 2003 visit alone to Beijing by Sen. Gen. Than Shwe, who heads what is
officially known as the State Peace and Development Council, China offered
$200 million in economic assistance.

Beijing could choose to sit back and let the junta retreat still further
into its shell. That would not only lead to instability on its southern
border, but undermine the more responsible international image that Mr. Hu
was trying to promote in Washington. A more sensible policy would be to
use the leverage provided by its investments and economic assistance to
persuade Burma's military rulers to think more seriously about national
reconciliation.

The NLD has made a courageous offer to chart the way out of the present
political impasse. In the long run, the best chance for a more stable --
and freer -- future for Burma is to pressure the junta to respond in kind.

Mr. Holliday is dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at
the City University of Hong Kong.