BurmaNet News, May 4, 2006

[Editor]

May 4, 2006 Issue # 2955


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Killing them softly & painfully: Another Burmese political prisoner
dies in detention
AFP: Myanmar makes new "terrorist" claims against rivals
Irrawaddy: Medicines run out in Burma’s prisons
SHAN: Junta army looks at gift horses in the mouth
AFP: Cyclone Mala death toll in Myanmar rises to 21
Asia Times: Myanmar's junta goes for the kill

ON THE BORDER
Kaowao: Twenty migrants die in border crossing

BUSINESS / TRADE
Mizzima: ADB under pressure over alleged indirect Burma funding

ASEAN
AFP: ASEAN peace force proposal dogged by suspicion: Malaysia

REGIONAL
AFP: Malaysia says Myanmar must not jeopardise hopes for democracy
AP: Asia's totalitarian regimes still dominate; press still shackled,
media watchdog says

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Burma remains on religious freedom blacklist

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 3, Democratic Voice of Burma
Killing them softly & painfully: Another Burmese political prisoner dies
in detention

Myint Than, one of the Shan leaders who have been imprisoned in the same
case as Shan National League for Democracy (SNLD) chairman Khun Htun Oo,
had died at the Thandwe (Sandoway) hospital on 2 May.

56-year old Myint Than who had been detained at Thandwe Jail in Burma’s
western Arakan State was suffering from severe stroke and pains in his
chest when he was hospitalised, and he died at around 8pm local time while
receiving treatments for his illness.

“He has been in Thandwe hospital for one month and five days,” Myint
Than’s lawyer Aung Thein told DVB. “It was said he suffered from chest
pains and stroke. For his chest pains, they operated on him three times.
Despite the three operations, his wound didn’t get better and he died at
8.20 on the eve of 2 (May). His son went down to Thadwe from Rangoon by
car yesterday.”

Myint Than was arrested on the 9th of February 2005 by the ruling military
government’s agents and he was sentenced to 79 years in jail under several
charges including forming a Shan advisory group and insurrection. The
health condition of Myint Than which was always good prior to his arrest,
deteriorated when he was transferred to Thandwe Jail.

Aung Thein also added that he is very concerned for the health conditions
of other detained old Shan leaders such as Htun Oo who is currently
detained at Puta-O, SNLD secretary Sai Nyunt Lwin at Kalemyo Jail, Sai Hla
Uang at Kyaukphyu Jail and Shan State National Army’s patron
Gen Hso Ten at Khamti, and other younger Shan prisoners.

____________________________________

May 4, Agence France Presse
Myanmar makes new "terrorist" claims against rivals

Bangkok: Myanmar's military rulers stepped up the pressure on political
rivals and rebels Thursday, making new accusations of "terrorist" plots by
pro-democracy dissidents and insurgents.

Official media accused what it termed an alliance of ethnic rebels, former
student leaders and exiled dissidents of sending more than 20 bombers into
the country with plans to blow up targets in Yangon, the central city of
Mandalay and the eastern town of Mawlamyine.

"The bombers are planning to commit terrorist acts in harmony with the
above-ground politicians," the official New Light of Myanmar said.

Junta leaders often refer to the pro-democracy National League for
Democracy, led by detained Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, as
"above-ground politicians".

"Terrorists are commiting destructive acts in various means with the
sinister intention of disturbing peace and stability of the nation and the
rule of law, inflicting death and injury to innocent people," the paper
added.

The official newspaper published names and descriptions of 22 people
accused of plotting the attacks, claiming they belonged to an exiled group
of student leaders and pro-democracy dissidents, as well as ethnic Karen
and Shan rebels.

The latest claims came one week after the junta said it had compiled
evidence linking Aung San Suu Kyi's party to terrorist groups, and as the
military pursued a months-long offensive against Karen rebels in the east.

Colonel Nerdah Mya, a leader of the Karen National Union, said Myanmar
forces had advanced to within one kilometer (half-mile) from one of their
bases near the Thai border, just across from the Mae La refugee camp.

Some 1,000 people had arrived at the border, but Nerdah Mya estimated that
2,000 more are displaced inside the country. Other groups have estimated
the number of displaced as high as 10,000.

More than 140,000 refugees live in nine refugee camps on the Thai side of
the border, set up since Myanmar's troops overran most traditional ethnic
minority lands in the eastern mountainous region in the 1980s.

The KNU, which is waging one of the world's longest-running insurgencies,
called for ceasefire talks on Wednesday. Nerdah Mya said that officially,
both sides are open for talks, but the junta has made no moves to resume
ceasefire negotiations that fell apart two years ago.

"The door on both sides is open, but no body answers. You can't really
count on a ceasefire agreement," he told AFP by telephone.

Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Myanmar observer in Thailand, said the fighting
and the latest terrorist claims were part of a broad crackdown by the
military on all of its rivals.

"The military thinks it's strong and that it can get all these groups," he
told AFP in Bangkok.

"We can see the whole pattern, covering not only armed opposition groups,
but also NLD. It's more a general crackdown."

The NLD on Tuesday accused the junta of trying to intimidate dozens of its
members into resigning.

The NLD, which denounces violence, won a landslide victory in elections in
1990 but the military-led government has never allowed it to govern.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for more than 10 of the last
17 years.

____________________________________

May 4, Irrawaddy
Medicines run out in Burma’s prisons - Aung Lwin Oo

Political prisoners in Burma face deteriorating health problems as the
country’s prisons have been inaccessible to the International Committee of
the Red Cross for nearly four months.

The Geneva-based relief agency has been unable to supply medicines for
political prisoners since it prison visits were halted late last year,
according to Fiona Terry, spokesperson for the ICRC.

iends and family of political prisoners report that medicines for various
diseases, including malaria, heart problems and diabetes, are running out
in Burma’s prisons. Even drugs for common ailments such as skin diseases
are out of stock.

“Drugs for malaria are unavailable even in remote prisons like Khamti and
Myitkyina in Kachin State, where the disease is rampant,” said Khun Sai, a
former political prisoner, who recently fled to Thailand. “Most families
have to pay medical expenses for their relatives by themselves,” added
Khun Sai, who contracted tuberculosis during his detention in Shwebo
prison from 1998 to 2004.

ICRC had previously supplied medicines for prisons and labor camps in
Burma until the agency faced a standoff with the junta-affiliated Union
Solidarity Development Association, which insisted on accompanying the
organization on their visits. The ICRC rejected the demand because it
violated the agency’s protocols, which require their visits to be entirely
independent and unsupervised.

ICRC, however, remains hopeful about resuming their operations and
continues to provide assistance—including financial—to families of
political prisoners.

State-run The New Light of Myanmar reported today that political prisoner
Myint Than died of epilepsy “despite intensive care of physicians” in
Thandwe prison, Arakan State.

“It has been a common occurrence that proper treatment is never received
in time,” said a former political prisoner in Rangoon. “But when ICRC was
able to visit prisons, they can push the prison officials to refer
patients to hospitals.”

“The prison department’s medical supplies have never been sufficient,”
said the 88 Generation Students group, which comprises former political
prisoners, including student leader Min Ko Naing. “So, ICRC’s assistance
has been a great relief,” the group told The Irrawaddy today.

Including the latest death, 118 political prisoners have so far died in
prisons and detention camps, according to the Thailand-based Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, UN
human rights special rapporteur on Burma, reported in February that more
than 1,100 political prisoners remain in Burma’s prisons.

____________________________________

May 4, Shan Herald Agency for News
Junta army looks at gift horses in the mouth - Hawkeye

A homely girl, who was among the seven women forced to "comfort" a
60-member patrol from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 514 based in
Mongkerng, a township 148 miles northeast of the state capital of
Taunggyi, was beaten to death by angry soldiers last month, according to
sources coming to the border.

Sources, who were reluctant to identify the girl, a native of Look-kang
village, Zonglao village tract, west of the Loizang range and near the
headwaters of the Namteng, said the soldiers left her battered remains
outside the village. The incident occurred on April 3.

"The village headman is forced to select female members of his village to
sleep with the soldiers every time they turn up there," a woman stated,
while others named Infantry Battalion (IB) 64 (Laikha), LIB 515 (Laikha)
and LIB 518 (Mongnai) as regular perpetrators.

In late March, 11 women, six from Hwe Hsem and five from Mark Khinok, both
from Tonglao village tract, were raped by soldiers from IB 515. When the
headman of Mark Khinok reported to Captain San Hlaing of Indaw-based IB
292 in Tonglao, he was said to have replied, "There's nothing I can do, as
we are not from the same unit."

The girls from Mark Khinok were identified as Nang Noan (25), Nang Zom
(18) Nang Pueng (19) Nang Goi (20) and Nang Awng (22). All are married.

Elders of Tonglao later reported to the district peace and development
council chairman Win Tint in Loilem, 81 miles east of Taunggyi, which was
said to have angered the local military authorities.

With regards to the excesses of the Burma Army soldiers, a visiting
colonel at the IB 243 command post in Namlan, north of Mongkerng, was
reported to have told the soldiers in mid-March: "Do anything you like
whether it be stealing, robbing, raping or dealing in drugs. The only
thing you have to be careful is it doesn't come out on one of the foreign
radios."
____________________________________

May 4, Agence France Presse
Cyclone Mala death toll in Myanmar rises to 21

Yangon: Twenty-one people were killed and another 14 are still missing
after Cyclone Mala struck Myanmar's west coast last weekend, state media
said Thursday.

The death toll increased from three after 18 people drowned in flash
floods from heavy rain that hit villages as the storm passed through
Irrawaddy region and Rakhine state, media said.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted local government officials as
saying eight women were among the 14 missing.

"There have been strong winds and torrential rains along coastal regions
and the southern part of Rakhine state, causing rivers to flood," the
newspaper said.

"The sudden flow of water left 18 people drowned and 14 missing."

Some 30 people were also injured in Gwa township of western Arakan state,
where the category four storm damaged several hotels in the coastal resort
towns of Chaungtha and Ngwe Hsaung and knocked the roofs off 400 homes.

The storm lost intensity as it made landfall and moved inland through
Arakan, a weather official said.

____________________________________

May 5, Asia Times
Myanmar's junta goes for the kill - Larry Jagan

Bangkok: Myanmar's military rulers have launched a major new crackdown on
the country's main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party,
fueling widespread speculation that the hardline State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) intends to eliminate its harassed and
beleaguered rival completely within the next 12 months.

According to Burmese-language notes from a January meeting between
Myanmar's police chief Major-General Khin Yi and top commanders across the
country reviewed by Asia Times Online, the national police corps was
specifically instructed to undermine the NLD using stealth and
intelligence rather than their traditional use of brute force.

That message hasn't completely trickled down, however. Young NLD activists
and students have been detained and questioned, while others have even
been sentenced to several years' imprisonment on trumped-up charges. Some
key leaders of the student movement have also been attacked and one
recently died from the injuries sustained during a particularly brutal
battering.

In the past, Myanmar's police have been accused of planting drugs,
especially heroin, on young activists and students, then arresting them
and sentencing them to several years of imprisonment. These tactics are
being complemented with a more subtle strategy aimed at crippling the
NLD's ability to operate and recruit, according to the recent police
meeting notes.

The junta has recently stepped up its pressure on the NLD, harassing more
than 50 members into resigning from the party, including a senior member
of the Mandalay branch. "The authorities have put immense pressure on them
to resign, and they have succumbed to it," a senior NLD party member said
in an interview. "It is one of the key ways the SPDC is trying to weaken
the party."

Information Minister Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan last month warned the NLD
that it could be "outlawed" on charges of cooperating with so-called
terrorist organizations. "The government has strong evidence that the NLD
was involved with anti-government groups as well as terrorist
organizations that would justify it being declared illegal," he recently
told a press conference.

A Western diplomat based in Yangon said, "This threat in intended to keep
up the pressure on the NLD's leaders." For now, the diplomat said, "it
suits the SPDC to have the NLD registered, but impotent".

Myanmar-watchers contend that the junta's long-term aim is to marginalize
charismatic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently under
house arrest, and move to eliminate her party as part of its so-called
"national reconciliation" process. To some degree, the junta has
successfully portrayed Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her
non-violent approach to political confrontation, as part of the problem
because of her unwillingness to compromise in some diplomatic quarters.

The SPDC-led National Convention, which the NLD has boycotted and the
junta has stacked with pliant representatives from the country's many
ethnic-minority groups, is set to resume drawing up principles for a new
constitution in November. The junta is expected to hand power to a
civilian incarnation of itself after the constitution is finally
promulgated.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told his counterparts at the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) retreat in Bali last month that Myanmar's
new constitution should be completed by the end of next year.

"[Senior General] Than Shwe's strategy is clear, before the constitution
is drafted and put to a referendum, all the pro-democracy parties and
ethnic groups - both those with ceasefires and those who haven't - will be
targeted and eliminated, or at the very least made impotent," said Win
Min, an independent Myanmar analyst based in Thailand.

If so, it's not an altogether new tack. Two years ago, SPDC leader Than
Shwe ordered the junta's Union Solitary Development Association (USDA) -
the junta's national grassroots organization, which is tipped to become
the SPDC's political arm after the new constitution comes into force - to
harass NLD members violently across the country.

In a confidential government document obtained by Asia Times Online, Than
Shwe ordered the USDA to "eliminate the activities of the opposition;
destroy the opposition's business so that they lose their property and
market; create splits among opposition family members; get opposition
members to sever their relationship with the group; and frighten and
intimidate the most stubborn members of the opposition to flee from its
membership".

That hard-knocks plan was hatched soon after the savage May 2003 attack on
Suu Kyi's traveling caravan, where USDA thugs killed scores, if not
hundreds, of her supporters. The NLD leader had been traveling in the
northern region of the country to reinvigorate her party, and massive
crowds had gathered to hear her speak.

Aung Lynn Htut, Myanmar's ambassador to Washington, defected to the US
this year. He has since spoken out about Than Shwe's plan to obliterate
the NLD by the end of the year. After his defection, the former top SPDC
diplomat told opposition scholars based in the United States and the
United Kingdom that he had received reliable information that the junta
had ordered the "routing" of NLD members and their families.

Analysts say the increased harassment and intimidation of the NLD are
being driven by both internal and external factors. "Than Shwe has become
increasingly concerned over the last months of the possibility of
pro-democracy demonstrations erupting, especially in Rangoon [Yangon],"
Win Min said. "That's one of the reasons for retreating to the new
capital, Pyinmana."

Sources close to the SPDC's top leadership say that Than Shwe has
apprehensively monitored recent international and regional news from his
fortified bunker in Pyinmana, including the street rallies that last month
drove Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to abandon his political
post, and Nepalese King Gyanendra's recent acquiescence to more violent
street protests where demonstrators called for a return to democracy.

These events have "rocked the old man, who now more than ever fears a
repeat of the mass pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988 which forced Ne
Win to stand down", said a close confidant of Than Shwe. In response, the
SPDC leader has reportedly ordered police to crack down on even the
faintest signs of political ferment.

Than Shwe, whom the confidant said surfs the Internet every morning in his
military headquarters, had been particularly piqued by the NLD's new
initiatives and renewed assertiveness. The NLD has increased its political
activities coinciding with SPDC Prime Minister General Soe Win recent
telling Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Alber that Suu Kyi was now
"irrelevant" to Myanmar's political future.

According to NLD leaders, the party has recently come around to the idea
that Myanmar's often splintered pro-democracy groups need to present a
much more united front against the SPDC. As such, they have recently made
overtures to other democratic groups, including student- and
ethnic-minority-led political parties that operate along the country's
war-torn border areas, according to diplomatic sources in Yangon.

In recent months, the NLD has held a series of grassroots meetings across
the country and the party's senior provincial officials recently traveled
to Yangon for high-level consultations. One new move: policy review
committees were recently established as the NLD looks for ways to press
its agenda more effectively while highlighting the SPDC's many policy
failures.

"Our latest policy is focusing on how to solve the country's humanitarian
crisis through dialogue and compromise," NLD spokesman Myint Thein said in
an interview.

Indeed, the NLD in February offered the SPDC a sort of olive branch
through a press statement released to coincide with Union Day, which
offered to recognize the military regime as Myanmar's "de facto"
government on the condition that the junta eventually allowed a "people's
parliament" to convene.

"The SPDC would be in charge of the transitional period until a government
was formed by the parliament made up of the representatives elected in the
national elections held on May 27, 1990," the statement said. The NLD won
more than 80% of the vote in that election, which the junta declared null
and void.

Typically, the SPDC at first ignored the NLD's compromise. Last month,
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan flat out rejected the fig leaf, saying that
the SPDC would not hold any dialogue with the NLD outside of the national
convention, which the NLD has boycotted as undemocratic. "The NLD no
longer enjoys the support of the people and it does not represent them
anymore," Kyaw Hsan said.

The NLD's new drive to reassert itself has reportedly enraged Than Shwe,
who has sanctioned an all-out campaign to crush the party. "There is a
definite trend here: when the NLD confronts the junta and reminds them
that they are in effect the only legitimate government, the SPDC reaction
is to pressure and further weaken the NLD," said political analyst Win
Min.

He sees parallels to when the SPDC cracked down on the NLD in 1999 and
2000 after the opposition party established the Committee Representing the
People's Parliament and moved to convene the body on the authority of the
SPDC-annulled 1990 election results.

Then, many NLD members of parliament and senior members were arrested or
forced to resign their positions in the party, and many fled the country.
NLD offices were raided and shuttered, with SPDC officials seizing the
party's internal documents.

"We expect worse to follow as the military authorities go all-out to
eliminate us by the end of the year," said a senior NLD official on
condition of anonymity because of his fear of reprisals for speaking to
the foreign media.

For the international community, any attempt to de-register and abolish
the NLD would be widely condemned, even by the SPDC's erstwhile allies in
China and Thailand. The SPDC's recent statements insisting that the NLD
and Suu Kyi were irrelevant to the country's political future have gone
over like a lead balloon inside the 10-member ASEAN.

More important, among Myanmar's people, judging by the increasingly
disfranchised chatter of its population, the battered and bruised NLD
remains the country's only legitimate political entity and real hope for
democratic change. As the SPDC moves to eliminate the NLD forcibly, the
ruling junta could cause itself more problems than it solves.

Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the BBC. He is
currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 2, Kaowao News
Twenty migrants die in border crossing

Trying to escape from the Thai Navy, 20 migrant workers form southern
Burma drowned while they were crossing the river from an island near
Ranong in southern Thailand.

The migrant workers came from Lamine city of southern Mon State and they
were caught in the rising tide when they tried to escape from the Thai
Navy at about 10 p.m.

The victims who recently left their homes to work in Thailand were ferried
by a boat from the southern most city in Burma, Kawthaung. Nai Win Aung
the boat owner dropped them off, when he noticed that the Thai Navy was on
patrol duty. He let the passengers walk through the shallow water to the
mainland. The migrant workers were caught in the water when the tide rose.
The 20 who died included three children, according to a local eye witness
who talked to Kaowao on condition of anonymity.

Seventeen other people were rescued by the Thai search team that later
monitored the incident by helicopter. Those who rescued have been charged
with illegal entry.

“It is tragic but it happens all the time. Human traffickers and migrants
are unprepared and they just try their luck to work in Thailand,” Nai
Myaing a resident of Ranong said.

Hundreds of Mons escaping abject poverty and human rights abuses gathered
at Thanbyu Zayat city in central Mon State waiting to enter Thailand
before the beginning of the rainy season. Many migrants are heading to
Thailand where many thousands work for survival in the fishing,
construction, tourism, and agriculture industries.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 4, Mizzima News
ADB under pressure over alleged indirect Burma funding - Nem Davies

As more than 1500 activists joined the Asia Development Bank's 39th annual
board of governors meeting in Hyderabad, India to protest the bank's
development programs, Burmese activists repeated calls for the bank to end
indirect assistance to Burma.

Activists from a variety of countries including Cambodia, Sri Lanka and
India have attended the three-day meeting, which started yesterday, to
protest the bank's financing of development programs many consider to have
degraded the environment or resulted in human rights abuses.

Burmese activists said they wanted the bank to stop indirectly financing
projects in Burma through its Greater Mekong regional development program.
While the ADB has not dealt directly with Burma since 1986 activists said
the bank was giving the country indirect aid.

According to Earth Rights International, the ADB will give Burmese
authorities US $5.74 million worth of technical assistance between 2005
and 2008.

Toe Zaw Latt, a Burmese researcher and analyst based on the Thai-Burma
border told Mizzima, "We demand to stop any development aid to Burma by
the ADB".

Staff at the bank were unavailable for comment today.

Naing Htoo, ERI's Burma project coordinator, said more than 200,000 people
had been forcibly relocated from the site of the Ta Sang dam in Shan
State—a project activists say received funding from the bank.

Naing Htoo said many of the victims of such development projects were
women, children and villagers forced to work on the projects for free.

"But there is no compensation for the forced relocation people and forced
labor in the work site," he said.

Activists said development projects in Burma often harmed the local
population while the profits went to the military.

Toe Zaw Latt said while he understood Burma was an integral part of the
region and was therefore vital to ADB projects he thought the bank should
carefully consider the environmental impact of projects involving the
country.

A five-member delegation from Burma is attending the annual board of
governors meeting including minister of finance and revenue major general
Hla Tun.

Government workers, banking sector representatives, NGOs and media workers
from a variety of countries are also attending.

____________________________________
ASEAN

May 4, Agence France Presse
ASEAN peace force proposal dogged by suspicion: Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur: A proposal that Southeast Asia sets up a regional
peacekeeping force has run into problems over suspicions that member
countries may use it to intervene in conflicts, Malaysia said Thursday.

"Whenever you are introducing a new dynamic into our relationship, then
there is always the fear of what is it leading to," Syed Hamid said on the
sidelines of an ASEAN and United Nations seminar on conflict prevention.

"I think people are worried this is creating a mechanism for interference
or intervention, whether in an inter-state or intra-state conflict," he
said of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proposal.

"That's why we need to build that sense of comfort very cautiously,
creating the understanding that will enable us to have more trust," he
said.

"We need to build confidence among ourselves that the military is not
intended to, or will not be used as, an intervention mechanism."

Indonesia in 2004 proposed the formation of a Southeast Asian peacekeeping
force which could one day help settle disputes such as those in Aceh and
the southern Philippines.

Syed Hamid said that although one unnamed ASEAN member had proposed to
have the force up and running by 2012, he believed the proposal was a
long-term initiative that could not be rushed into.

"Some ASEAN member countries are of the view that the proposal is
premature as ASEAN is not a security or defence organisation," he told
delegates at the seminar.

"I also cannot discount the concern of at least one ASEAN member which
takes the view that regional peacekeeping may be used as a pretext for
intervention," he said.

"Simply put, though ASEAN sees such a regional peacekeeping force as a
long-term possibility, the present comfort level is insufficient to allow
for member countries to undertake this initiative at this point in time."

ASEAN comprises 10 member states -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 4, Agence France Presse
Malaysia says Myanmar must not jeopardise hopes for democracy

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia said Thursday that Myanmar must not do anything to
jeopardise hopes for democracy amid fears the ruling junta is moving to
outlaw the political party of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"They have to take very careful steps because anything that is seen as
retrogressing or going backward will be looked at negatively," warned
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar.

Syed Hamid visited Myanmar in March as an envoy of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) amid increasing concern over the ASEAN
member's refusal to introduce reforms, but was denied a meeting with Aung
San Suu Kyi.

He urged the ruling generals to work with the Nobel peace laureate's
National League for Democracy (NLD) which won 1990 elections in a
landslide but was never allowed to rule.

"We believe that the party has got membership, the support of the people,
and it's good for them to be engaged with, rather than to just abolish
them or deregister them," Syed Hamid told reporters.

Myanmar's military junta said last month that it had been gathering
evidence of the NLD's links with "terrorist groups". Analysts said this
was a warning it could eventually move to ban the party, the main
pro-democracy voice.

When asked if the situation in Myanmar was worsening, Syed Hamid said: "We
would like to see more progress... but the process is seen not to be
moving in the way that the international community expects them to move.

"Any action they take, like closing down the NLD or not releasing Aung San
Suu Kyi, these are all impediemnts and obstacles to creating visible signs
of credibility in terms of the movement towards democracy."

Syed Hamid said ASEAN wanted to play a role in Myanmar's development
because it was part of the regional "family", but the bloc could not allow
its recalcitrant member to harm its reputation.

"We must make sure that ASEAN is not dragged into negative perceptions
because of what is perceived to be happening in Myanmar," he said.

Syed Hamid said ASEAN foreign ministers who discussed the issue at their
retreat in Bali last month wanted to see more "visible signs" of change in
Myanmar.

"We want them to take actions, we would like to see the release of Aung
San Suu Kyi and even though we do not want to interfere in their affairs,
they are not helping us in creating that necessary confidence," he said.

The junta launched a "road map" to democracy two years ago but has yet to
make any tangible progress towards ending 44 years of military rule in the
impoverished country.

____________________________________

May 4, Associated Press
Asia's totalitarian regimes still dominate; press still shackled, media
watchdog says - En-Lai Yeoh

Kuala Lumpur: From impoverished Nepal to ultramodern Singapore, Asian
governments have shackled media by arresting journalists, censoring news
and stifling independent opinion, a media watchdog says.

Asia is still "struggling with the old demons of totalitarianism,"
Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in releasing its
latest World Press Freedom Index.

"Big gaps have opened up in Asia when it comes to press freedom," RSF's
head of Asia Vincent Brossel said in the report, released Wednesday.

Asian nations dominated the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders index.
A higher number denotes less freedom.

North Korea was last at 167, while Iran was three rungs higher at 164.
Myanmar was ranked 163rd, behind Nepal (160), China (159) and Vietnam
(158).

"China, a burgeoning power, keeps its journalists in a state of servitude
to bias," Brossel added. "Despite promises to the contrary, foreign
correspondents are still tightly controlled when they raise sensitive
issues. Police have manhandled at least 16 of them."

The 16 were investigating issues deemed sensitive to the Communist
government, RSF said, adding there were at least 32 journalists imprisoned
by Beijing at the start of 2006.

Two of them New York Times contributor Zhao Yan and Singapore Straits
Times correspondent Ching Cheong face charges of divulging state secrets
and espionage respectively, RSF said.

There were numerous examples of a lack of press freedom elsewhere in Asia,
RSF said.

In Nepal, RSF counted 567 instances in which independent reports were
censored, while 145 journalists were physically attacked or harassed
following King Gyanendra's seizure of power in February last year.

In Pakistan, journalists have to deal with threats from tribal warlords
while undergoing intense scrutiny from the military. Two reporters have
died, while another is still missing after he reported on the death of an
alleged al-Qaida leader that contradicted the official government version.

In neighboring Afghanistan, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of the "Women's
Rights" magazine, was sentenced to two years in jail after a series of
articles that slammed archaic practices still common in the country, such
as stoning. The articles were deemed blasphemous toward Islam.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan was ranked 125th on the RSF index which was ahead
of Singapore, by far the lowest-ranked developed country on the index at
140, slightly better than its 147th place last year.

The report says there is a "complete absence" of an independent local
media in Singapore, the most developed and richest nation in Southeast
Asia.

"The government threatens journalists, foreign media and opposition with
defamation suits seeking dizzying amounts in damages," RSF's report said
of Singapore. "Despite statements in support of an 'open' society, the
ruling party still does not brook any criticism."

Foreign news organizations including The Economist, The International
Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Asian
Wall Street Journal have paid large fines or had their circulation
restricted in lawsuits brought by Singapore's ruling party stalwarts.

Singapore's leaders did not immediately respond to the RSF report, but
have said they sue to defend their reputations. Information Minister Lee
Boon Yang has said there were "special circumstances" surrounding press
freedom in the city-state, with local media more focused on
nation-building.

RSF said the Philippines, despite having a freewheeling press, remained
after Iraq the most dangerous place for journalists to work. Seven were
killed there last year.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 4, Irrawaddy
Burma remains on religious freedom blacklist - Clive Parker

A US religious freedom watchdog on Thursday kept Burma on a list of
countries considered the worst violators of religious freedom in the
world, saying the junta was still responsible for “widespread” and
“systematic” violations.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom based in Washington
suggested in its annual report that the US State Department should keep
Burma on a list of countries of particular concern which also includes
Vietnam and North Korea.

The US has initiated sanctions on Burma because of its intransigence on
the issue, which ban the sale of arms to the regime.

“The [Burmese] government imposes restrictions on certain religious
practices, controls and censors all religious publications, has supported,
allowed, or instigated violence against religious minorities, and, in some
areas of the country, has forcefully promoted Buddhism over other
religions,” the report concludes. “Ethnic minority Christians and Muslims
have encountered the most difficulties in recent years.”

Allegations continue that the regime has forced Christians and Muslims to
destroy their places of worship continue, the report says, also citing an
incident in Chin in January where the military forced Christians to build
a Buddhist shrine in the place of a fifty-foot cross destroyed by
government troops.

Buddhists are also not completely safe from persecutions by the regime, it
adds, drawing attention to the estimated 300 monks in Burma’s prisons and
the ban on monks joining political parties.

The document reports a continuation of serious abuses against Arakanese
Muslims or Rohingyas including severe restrictions on marriage since 1988,
a period in which the junta has permitted only three marriages per year
per village in Muslim areas of Arakan. Exile Arakanese media organizations
Kaladan and Narinjara based in Bangladesh have reported that some marriage
applications take years to process.

Many Arakanese Muslims are not permitted Burmese citizenship because
Rangoon does not consider them to be Bangladeshi, not Burmese, and thus
refuses to acknowledge the Rohingyas are an ethnic group.

“There aren’t any Rohingyas,” the Burmese ambassador to Bangladesh, Thane
Myint, told The Irrawaddy in Dhaka in April.

Pointing out the language and cultural difference between Muslim and
Buddhist Arakanese, he added: “Do they look like us?”

The exact number of Rohingya refugees that have fled religious persecution
in Arakan is not known, but there are 20,000 registered with the UN
refugee agency on Bangladesh’s border with Burma and a further 14,000 in
an unregistered camp in the same area.

While the US has recently indicated it would waive legislation labeling
Karen refugees as terrorists and plans to accept Karen refugees from
Thailand, there are still no plans for the US to do the same with Muslim
Arakanese refugees in Bangladesh.

The report suggests the US should, however, consider Rohingya Muslims for
relocation due to their current status as a group “who have no realistic
hope of imminent integration into countries of first asylum or safe and
voluntary repatriation to Burma.”