BurmaNet News, June 9, 2006

[Editor]

June 9, 2006 Issue # 2980


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar's dissident Aung San Suu Kyi hospitalized: US
Reuters: Myanmar confirms Suu Kyi detention extended a year
DVB: Farmlands grabbed from Burmese farmers
DVB: Journalists and diplomats taken to Karen State by Burma junta
DVB: Journalist Sein Win says the ban on him by Burma junta is not true,
strictly speaking
BBC Burmese Service: Salai Tun Than's passport declared null and void
Narinjara: Children of armed forces personnel in Arakan to get education
stipend

ON THE BORDER
Asia Times: The real 'long war' is in Myanmar

DRUGS
Mizzima: Palaung group claims opium farming is on the rise - Nga Ngai

ASEAN
Financial Times: More cooperation urged between Asean and Pan Pearl River

REGIONAL
Myanmar TV via BBC Monitoring: Burma, China discuss defence training
cooperation

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: Myanmar denounces US push for UN action
DPA: Myanmar opposition sends UN's Kofi Annan a letter

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 9, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's dissident Aung San Suu Kyi hospitalized: US

Washington: Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been
hospitalized in the military-ruled Southeast Asian state, the US State
Department said Friday.

"I can confirm it," department spokesman Sean McCormack said, adding that
Washington was "very concerned" by reports that the 60-year-old dissident
had been hospitalized.

____________________________________

June 9, Reuters
Myanmar confirms Suu Kyi detention extended a year

Pa-an, Myanmar: Military-ruled Myanmar confirmed on Friday that democracy
icon Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest had been extended for one year.

Police general Khin Yi confirmed the May 27 extension order during a press
conference with reporters on a government tour of Karen state.

Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, who also addressed the conference, said
there had been talks between Suu Kyi and the junta before her detention
was extended.

"Yes, there were," Kyaw Hsan said without giving details of the discussions.

A government source said last month a military official had met the Nobel
Peace laureate and discussed conditions for her release, presumably
restrictions on her freedom of movement.

"As far as we know, the plan to lift her house arrest became abortive when
the talks between the regime representative and her failed," the source
said.

Western governments and rights groups have condemned the extended house
arrest of Suu Kyi, who was detained in May 2003 after a clash between her
supporters and junta backers.

She has been under some form of detention for 10 of the last 17 years.

The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to put pressure on the
former Burma to change its policies.

However the U.S. initiative is likely to be strongly opposed by
veto-wielding permanent council members China and Russia, as well as by
Japan, an elected member that lacks veto power.

Kyaw Hsan said Yangon would oppose the U.S. campaign with the help of
"friendly nations", but he did not identify them.

"Myanmar does not pose any threat to the international community or to any
neighbour," he said.

____________________________________

June 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Farmlands grabbed from Burmese farmers

Military authorities at Myaungmya Township in Burma’s delta region of
Irrawaddy Division grabbed more than 1000 acres of farmlands from local
farmers causing them untold miseries.

The lands were confiscated for cashew nut and rubber plantation projects
and the affected villages are said to be Theinla, Khwaylaygyi,
Moekyoepyit, Thanbyukonekyaungsu and Shiteintang.

The unfortunate farmers have to buy back their farmlands from land
surveying officials, and the farmlands and orchards of those who could not
afford to do so have been sold to rich Chinese living in Myaungmya.

____________________________________

June 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Journalists and diplomats taken to Karen State by Burma junta

Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw San (Hsan) is taking journalists and
foreign diplomats a guided tour of Karen State in the east of the country
starting from today.

The tour will last at least 2-3 days and it is likely a tour to show
development projects carried out by the junta within the state, according
to some journalists.

At the end of the tour, a news conference will be held at the state
capital Pa-an, according to journalists speaking on condition of
anonymity.
____________________________________

June 8, Democratic Voice of Burma
Journalist Sein Win says the ban on him by Burma junta is not true,
strictly speaking

Some news agency reports and international news said that Burma's military
government, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has banned
domestic publications from printing articles by a veteran journalist Ludhu
Sein Win who wrote an article about Burma in the International Herald
Tribune recently.

But Sein Win told DVB that its is not true that he was banned, but only
‘suspended’.

“It is not true. My articles were printed in the whole previous week. I
didn’t say anything. On this Monday, my articles were not included in the
weeklies and the like. The reason is they were suspended. The Press
Scrutiny Board (PSB) didn’t ban drafts of my works. They said they are
suspending them because they haven’t received a policy/response from the
top. I am continuing to submit drafts of my works. It is not a ban, I
don’t think there is a reason for the ban, I think. I didn’t write
anything that hurts anyone. The people at the PSB might be afraid. They
are suspending them because they haven’t received a response from above. I
don’t blame them for being afraid. For them, if they make a mistake, their
‘rice pot will be broken’. As for us, nothing will happen if an article of
mine got rejected. Previously, not a small number of (army) majors (PSB
officials) lost their jobs, did they? I do not find fault with people from
the PSB for banning or suspending me. The main thing is the system.”

DVB: They didn’t say how long the suspension would be?

“No, they didn’t. They will be submitting it every week, they said. I
might get it (the permission) this week. Just continue to submit all the
drafts of my works, they said.”

DVB: You mean you will continue to write?

“As for me, I will continue to write. They might be included next week, on
Monday.”

DVB: What you mean is you believe that there is no reason to ban your works?

“As for me, I believe that I believe that there is no reason for the ban.
The article I wrote in the IHT (International Herald Tribune) didn’t
include words that strongly lash out at the government. If I have to say
about this article, I wrote it as a newspaperman. It will include things
the government doesn’t like and things the NLD doesn’t like.”

DVB: A newspaperman has to write and say what should be written and spoken


“Yes. As a newspaperman I have to write what should be written. I can’t
just look at anyone’s face (partial). Here, some people don’t like this.”

DVB: Whatever is said, you are continuing to write and submit them?

“I will continue to write and submit them.”

DVB: If the suspended period drags on, how will you feel?

“Only then would I assume that there is a ban on me.”

DVB: Then what would you feel?

“As for me, there is a saying of Sayagyi (Great Teacher) Thakhin Kodaw
Maing (famous Burmese nationalist and peace advocate); in order to have a
mouthful of rice (survive), I can be a firewood chopper. If I chopped
firewood, I could afford to eat rice (survive).

65-year-old Ludhu Sein Win was writing for a dozen publications in Burma
and helped found the opposition National League of Democracy (NLD) with
Aung San Suu Kyi. The NLD, which won elections in 1990 but was never
allowed to take office.

He began his career as a reporter at the left-wing Ludu newspaper, but
former dictator General Ne Win shut down the publication in 1967 and Sein
Win was sentenced to 13 years in prison and has been under military
surveillance since his release in 1980.

He is also known to be a keen football (soccer) fan and pundit who rightly
predicted that Greece would win the Euro 2004 tournament. He joking told
DVB that Brazil would win this world cup, England will win a Thai
kick-boxing tournament and the German will win the referee competition.

____________________________________

June 9, BBC Burmese Service
Salai Tun Than's passport declared null and void

The passport of Salai Tun Than, a retired professor, was declared null and
void by the Burmese authorities on Wednesday.

Salai Tun Than, who is now in Thailand, is planning to go back to Burma
and carry out a solitary peaceful demonstration against the military
government on June 19 which marks Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's birthday.

Salai Tun Than has called on fellow Burmese to topple the military junta
through peaceful and non-violence methods.

____________________________________

June 9, Narinjara News
Children of armed forces personnel in Arakan to get education stipend

The armed forces in Arakan have come forward to provide stipends for their
children’s education given the spiralling cost of education. For this they
are dipping into their funds, quite a bit of which have come from forcible
collection from the people.

In Arakan State, many children, especially in rural areas, have been
unable to attend primary school this year because of steep school
admission fees and high prices of textbooks, said a teacher from Maungdaw.

As school admission fees and cost of textbooks have gone up this year,
many police personnel and Nasaka agents are unable to send their children
to school, not only at the primary but middle and secondary levels as
well.

Therefore, the police department and Nasaka have recently decided to
assist their agents financially by granting stipends to subsidize fees for
their children's education this year.

The Arakan State police department will grant each student at the primary
level a stipend of Kyat 2500 per month, while middle school students will
receive Kyat 3000 and high school students will get Kyat 5000 per month.
University level students have been allocated Kyat 8000 per month and
students at the post-graduate or professional level, including medical
students, will receive Kyat 10,000 per month.

Nasaka border security force headquarters also issued a statement that it
will grant Kyat 8000 for primary level students each month, Kyat 11,000
for middle school students and Kyat 15,000 for high school students each
month in 2006.

A source close to the police said that all the money for their children's
education will be drawn from the police welfare fund and that the police
department in Arakan State is holding large sums of money.

Nasaka also has special funds in banks built from money that was forcibly
collected from the public.

In Arakan State, all armed forces, including the police, army, and Nasaka,
have saved large sums of money in Myanmar Holdings Bank Ltd. for their
respective welfare funds.

Army battalions stationed in Arakan State are also drawing large sums from
their battalion funds to support their children's education this year.

Last year, such enforcement agencies in Arakan State also paid out large
sums towards the education of officers' and agents' dependents but the
amount was far less than this year's stipends

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 10, Asia Times
The real 'long war' is in Myanmar - Michael Black and Roland Fields

Loi Taileng, Shan state, Myanmar: Colonel Yawd Serk, leader of the
10,000-strong Shan State Army (SSA), recently observed the 48th
anniversary of Shan armed resistance against Myanmar's government from his
fortified mountain headquarters at Loi Taileng along the Thai-Myanmar
border. "All of us want freedom, and each one knows there is only one way
to achieve freedom and that is through unity," he said.

Yawd Serk, 49, was speaking primarily of unity of the country's Shan
ethnic group. But the divide-and-rule military tactics of Myanmar's ruling
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) are taking a growing toll on
the Southeast Asian country's remaining ethnic armies, including the Karen
National Union (KNU) and (SSA), which have battled central authorities in
the world's longest-running armed conflict. The latest indications are
that the conflict, which had wound down in recent years, is set to
intensify again in the coming months.

Security analysts are now busy assessing whether SPDC-backed
ethnic-on-ethnic struggles have weakened the KNU's and SSA's defenses
enough to allow the national army to take control of their territories in
a major new offensive the central government launched in February and that
has extended into the monsoon season. The ruling junta, which recently
moved the national capital to Pyinmana in central Myanmar, is reportedly
spooked that ethnic insurgents might launch attacks on the city.

As many as 16,000 Karen civilians have fled their villages in the recent
fighting, with the Taungoo, Nyaunglaybin, Papun and Thaton areas hit
hardest. Thousands have crossed the Thai border, while many others have
been stranded at insecure camps for internally displaced persons. The
United Nations has publicly condemned the renewed violence, and the
junta's brutal policies in the ethnic territories, including razing whole
villages and forced mass resettlements, could soon garner global attention
if the United States is successful in its current drive to get Myanmar's
political situation on to the UN Security Council's agenda.

Significantly, the renewed fighting brought to a violent end the so-called
"gentlemen's ceasefire" brokered between the KNU stalwart General Bo Mya
and former prime minister and intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt, who
was removed and criminally charged by the army in an October 2004 purge.
The SPDC has publicly claimed that recent fighting in Karen areas stems
from an internal rift within the KNU. Independent sources along the
Thai-Myanmar border contradict that assessment, claiming that the army's
66th and 99th divisions were directly involved in the major new offensive
launched in the area in February.

Ethnic divides
That three-month military campaign represents the largest SPDC assault on
Karen targets since the major battles in 1997, which eventually dislodged
the KNU from territories it had long held and pinned the rebels directly
up against the Thai border. The army's latest offensive is being aided by
the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which broke ranks with the
predominantly Christian KNU on religious lines in 1994. Both the DKBA and
KNU claim to represent the interests of the Karen, but their infighting
over the years has worsened the security situation for Karen civilians.

Since its breakaway, the DKBA has served as a Yangon proxy force in
KNU-held territories. The degree of cooperation with armed forces loyal to
the junta in the ongoing campaign is not clear, but the SPDC have
definitely launched their own attacks against the KNU. One well-placed
border watcher says the DKBA has also been involved in armed disputes with
the KNU's armed military wing, known as the Karen National Liberation Army
(KNLA), over rights to logging areas.

Meanwhile, the relationship between the two largest ethnic armies in the
Shan state is just as fractious as the KNU-DKBA rivalry in Karen
territories. Over the past 15 years, the semi-autonomous United Wa State
Army (UWSA), the world's largest drug-trafficking armed militia, with more
than 20,000 soldiers, has frequently acted as a proxy force for the SPDC
in dry-season offensives against the SSA.

The UWSA played a key role in the 1994 defeat of opium drug lord and Mong
Tai Army leader Khun Sa. The SSA represents a splinter group from the
former Mong Tai Army, which agreed to a ceasefire. For its military
assistance, the generals granted the UWSA control over large swaths of
Thai-Myanmar border territory, which was perfectly situated for
trafficking heroin and methamphetamines, and later pirated music and video
discs, into Thailand.

According to a ranking SSA official, the UWSA is reluctant to engage the
SSA as part of a proposed wider onslaught on ethnic insurgents because of
the heavy casualties it suffered during last year's dry-season offensive
on Loi Taileng. The Myanmar army's artillery rounds repeatedly missed
their mark and hit UWSA troops who were mounting an uphill offensive on
the Shan headquarters.

Furthermore, the UWSA's northern leadership in the town of Phangsang has
decided against sending troops to reinforce the UWSA South's 171 Brigade
led by the notorious drug trafficker Wei Hsu Kang, who has been indicted
by a US court and is now fighting the SSA on the junta's behalf. Speaking
to Asia Times Online, Colonel Yawd Serk claimed the reason Wei Hsu Kang's
branch of the UWSA participated in last year's attack against SSA
headquarters was that SSA troops had raided and razed his drug factories.

Thailand's army is known to have contacts with the SSA, and Bangkok has
identified the drug trade emanating from UWSA-controlled territories as a
threat to its national security. A US-supported task force based in Chiang
Mai, Thailand, known as Task Force 399, had previously trained Shan in
drug-interdiction techniques. The special covert unit has since been
closed down.

The junta's decision to attack KNU strongholds, as opposed to SSA
positions, lends insight into its current military capabilities and its
security concerns. The KNU control and maneuver in a territory that is
geographically close to the new jungle capital recently established at
Pyinmana. Ethnic military officials believe that the generals have
Karen-controlled territories directly in their sights to preempt possible
insurgent threats to the new capital, which was strategically forged from
a mountainous, jungle-covered area.

SSA leaders believe that Yangon is strategically preparing for a future
large-scale offensive against their positions by taking control of KNU
territories from which it could launch a two-front offensive. The SPDC has
recently started to move reinforcements into former KNU strongholds, which
they have recently overtaken. Judging by the ongoing fighting, it's
unclear whether that strategy will play out as they plan. However, what is
clear is that Myanmar's ethnic territories are in for more war and
violence.

Michael Black and Roland Fields are freelance journalists based in Chiang
Mai, Thailand.

____________________________________
DRUGS

June 9, Mizzima News
Palaung group claims opium farming is on the rise - Nga Ngai

The Bangkok-based Palaung Women’s Organization has said opium cultivation
rates are increasing in northern Shan State and has accused the Burmese
military of being complicit in the drug trade.

In a 68-page report—‘Poisoned Flowers: The Impacts of Spiraling Drug
Addiction on Palaung Women in Burma’—released today, the group said the
Burmese military allowed drug lords to continue planting opium poppies in
exchange for a share of the profits.

“The [State Peace and Development Council] authorities have indirectly
involved in planting of opium by taking tax from the farmers,” said Lway
Aye Nang, one of the report’s authors and secretary of the PWO.

The PWO report also said anti-rebel militia led by ethnic Chinese leader
Pan Say Kyaw Myint, a close associate of lieutenant general Myint Hlaing,
controlled drug operations in and south of Namkham.

“Despite Kyaw Myint’s notoriety as a drug producer, his network remained
completely untouched,” the report said.

Based on interviews with 88 wives or mothers of drug addicts, the report
said more than 13 villages, including Namkham, Kutkai, Lashio, Kyaukme,
Mogok were involved in opium cultivation, with increasing numbers of
farmers turning to poppy growing to increase their incomes.

A young Palaung man told Mizzima traditional tea planters in particular
were turning to opium cultivation.

“The inflation is steadily increasing and but tea price are not getting
the enough profit and to escape this drama, you must involve in drugs or
go Pharkant (a mining area in Kachin state),” he said.

Lway Aye Nang also told Mizzima PWO was concerned that levels of domestic
violence against women were rising alongside increasing opium addiction
rates.

“Because of drug addicted family members, they give bad effects to not
only their family but also to the whole community . . . for example, some
drug addicted man sold their daughters to China for getting money . . . it
increases human trafficking . . .” Lway Aye Nang said.

Seventy percent of 63 of the women interview said their husbands had been
addicted to opium in the past five years. Many also said they had been
beaten by their spouse.

“Once, three months after I’d given birth, my husband beat me for asking
him to look after his children,” one interviewee was quoted as saying in
the report.

____________________________________
ASEAN

June 9, Financial Times
More cooperation urged between ASEAN and Pan Pearl River

Delta Trade officials from member states of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) say ASEAN and the Pan Pearl River Delta Region
should cooperate more to achieve a sustainable growth and common
prosperity in regional economic and social development. At a meeting held
on Tuesday between administrative leaders of the Pan Pearl River Delta
Region and ASEAN trade officials, Somkid Jatusripitak, deputy prime
minister of Thailand, said ASEAN and the Pan Pearl River Delta Region
could achieve rapid development through cooperation. He proposed the
staging of an annual forum on cooperation between the Pan Pearl River
Delta Region and ASEAN and the building of an exchange network between the
two regions.

Sugi Haryu, chief of the department for State-owned enterprises in
Indonesia, promised Indonesia would step up cooperation with China in
fields ranging from pharmaceuticals to textiles. Greater efforts should be
made to increase mutual investments and to tap potential for cooperation,
said the Indonesian official. Brig-Gen Aung Tun, deputy commerce minister
of Myanmar, said they need to know more about Pan Pearl River Delta
Region's policies on investment and trade to advance economic and trade
cooperation with the vast Chinese region. Siaosauath Savengsuksa, deputy
trade minister of the Laos, said there was a great potential for Chinese
and Laotian companies to cooperate in fields such as energy. The Laotian
government has worked out a range of preferential policies to encourage
economic and trade cooperation with China. Pan Pearl River Delta Region
consists of Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Hainan, Sichuan, Guizhou,
Yunnan provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as Hong
Kong and Macao special administrative regions, which have one fifth of the
country's territory, and one third of China's population. China has
proposed the establishment of a China-ASEAN Free Trade Area and relevant
negotiations are expected to be finished before the end of the year. The
nine Chinese mainland areas of Pan Pearl River Delta Region did 46.24
billion US dollars worth of trade with ASEAN --- namely Vietnam, Thailand,
Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and the
Philippines -- last year, a rise of 14 percent. In accordance with an
agreement concerning Sino-ASEAN Preferential Treatment, tariffs totaling
59.93 million US dollars were exempted from levy over 516 million US
dollars worth of commodities imported from ASEAN last year.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 9, Agence France Presse
Myanmar denounces US push for UN action

Myanmar on Friday denounced the United States for urging UN action against
the country, insisting that democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest
was not a human rights violation.

"This is all done according to prevailing laws. We are extending or
releasing people strictly according to law," the information minister,
Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told reporters during a trip to two eastern
states.

He acknowledged that the military government held political prisoners
aside from the Nobel peace laureate, whose house arrest was extended by
another year in late May.

"You cannot say this is a violation of human rights, because we are doing
it according to law," the minister said in Paan, the capital of Karen
state.

The national police chief, Major General Khin Yi said that Aung San Suu
Kyi was being detained because she was a threat to the state.

"We have extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by one year under a
state protection act," he said.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 1990 elections in a
landslide, but was never allowed to govern. The 60-year-old has spent more
than a decade in and out of detention.

Washington wants to introduce an unprecedented resolution at the UN
Security Council calling on Myanmar's generals to change their repressive
policies, including pressuring them to free Aung San Suu Kyi.

Kyaw Hsan denounced the US diplomatic effort, saying "the whole thing is
totally unacceptable."

"What is happening in our country does not in any way threaten
international security and peace, nor does it threaten regional security,
and we are not threatening our neighbor's peace and security," he said.

"All their accusations are fabricated and untrue," he added.

The two generals spoke on the sidelines of a trip through eastern Myanmar,
where they were traveling with diplomats and reporters.

The US drive at the UN Security Council reportedly faces opposition from
Russia, China and particularly the Japanese, who argue the regime poses no
threat to regional peace.

Amnesty International estimates that Myanmar holds some 1,100 political
prisoners in addition to Aung San Suu Kyi.

The United States also accuses Myanmar of links with international drugs
and human trafficking syndicates, forced dislocation of ethnic minorities,
and destabilizing policies toward neighboring countries.

____________________________________

June 9, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Myanmar opposition sends UN's Kofi Annan a letter

Myanmar's (Burma's) National League for Democracy (NLD) - the lead
opposition party - has sent United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan a
letter rejecting a UN proposal that it rejoin the national convention
process, a senior NLD member said on Friday.

"From our side we want to have a dialogue rather than the National
Convention," said U Lwin, NLD secretary, in a telephone interview  with
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari met with
the NLD executive committee during his visit to Myanmar on May 17 to 20.
At their meeting Gambari reportedly proposed that the opposition party
rejoin the military regime's National Convention process while
using the forum to raise current political problems.

"This national convention started in 1992, so we already have had a lot of
experience with it," said U Lwin. "What we would like to have now is a
negotiator, so that we can start a meaningful dialogue with the military."

U Lwin said the NLD's letter to Annan called on the UN chief to help find
a suitable "statesman" to act as a negotiator between Myanmar's ruling
junta and the opposition party.

The NLD letter was sent to Annan shortly after Myanmar's junta snubbed the
UN chief's personal appeal that they release opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi on May 27, when her three-year house arrest came up for
reappraisal.

Despite Annan's appeal, the junta sentenced Suu Kyi, the NLD's general
secretary, to another year of confinement to her Yangon home.

The NLD, after years of UN efforts to "faciliate" a political solution in
Myanmar, does not want the UN to act as a negotiator in the future.

"They are too bureaucratic. We want a statesman like (former Indonesian
Foreign Minister) Ali Alatas or (former Philippines President) Fidel
Ramos," said U Lwin.
The NLD has for the past decade refused to participate in the 
military-backed national convention process to draft a new  constitution
for the country and devise a power-sharing mechanism  prior to holding a
new round of elections.

The national convention forum was hatched by the military in the  wake of
the 1990 general election, which the NLD won by a landslide. Their
electoral victory was rejected by the military on the grounds that
Myanmar, still threatened by various insurgencies, would not be ready for
civilian rule until a new constitution was drafted to deal with the
"minorities" problem.

The NLD walked out on the national convention process in 1996, dubbing is
a "sham" designed to keep the military in power. A decade thereafter the
military is still promoting the convention as the
first step in their glacial progress towards introducing democracy to the
country, which has been under military rule since 1962.

The NLD has long maintained that it is essential to open a dialogue with
the regime before it will re-enter the national convention process, to set
the ground rules for the forum.