BurmaNet News, July 1-3, 2006

[Editor]

July 1-3, 2006 Issue # 2996

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: New attacks in Karen state
DVB: More than 5000 acres of paddy fields confiscated from Burmese farmers
BBC Burmese service: SPDC S-1 urges journalists and writers to counter
external influence
Irrawaddy: Construction to begin on Burmese “Cyber city”
Xinhua: Myanmar to introduce new seed law
DVB: Burma’s Win Tin is going to be 17 years in jail on 4 July
Xinhua: Myanmar to add 80,000 more mobile phones in 2 cities

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Fresh violence further divides Kachin ceasefire groups
DVB: Mater Dolorosa: Another NLD member absconds to Thai-Burmese border

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Fortunes won and lost in Burma’s football fever
AFP: Cash-strapped Myanmar ends biggest gems auction
Narinjara: Shrimps smuggled to Bangladesh fetch higher prices

HEALTH / AIDS
Kaowao: Incidence of malaria on the rise in Three Pagodas Pass

REGIONAL
DVB: Activist returns to Burma from Thailand

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Pinheiro to serve one more year on Burma

OPINION / OTHER
The Nation: Asean changes tack to call for UN debate on Burma

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 03, The Irrawaddy
New attacks in Karen state - Shah Paung

The Burmese army attacked villages in Nyaunglebin District, Karen State on
June 29 with mortar and machine gun fire that displaced hundreds of local
inhabitants, two of whom are still missing and presumed dead, according to
a recent report by the Free Burma Rangers.

The report documents attacks by Burma’s Light Infantry Division 240 in
Hsaw Kah Der and Ka Pa Hta villages in Nyaunglebin’s Mone township, during
which two villagers where shot and hundreds more fled to the jungle to
escape the violence.

Other battalions, including LIB 522, continue to operate in Nyaunglebin
and Taungoo districts, where attacks are thought to be part of a
coordinated plan to clear villages throughout the region.

“At first, the State Peace and Development Council ordered villagers in
Taungoo to relocate as a group,” said Zaw Naung, the Karen National
Union’s administrative head of Taungoo District. “But later, they ordered
villagers to disperse individually and go wherever they could.”

According to the FBR report, at least 28 villages from Papun District and
12 others from Taungoo have been abandoned by inhabitants fearful of more
attacks, leaving hundreds to fend for themselves in the jungle during the
rainy season.

“The most important thing for them now is food, medicine and shelter, all
of which the junta has tried to block them from getting,” said Zaw Naung.

The FBR report also said that the Burmese army is planning to develop
logging and jade mining operations in the area recently under attack.

“They [Burma Army] have invited international companies, as well as local
companies under two businessmen, Maung Khaing and Ma Nan, to begin logging
and developing jade, and have requested an increase in Thai exports to
Burma in return for these rights,” the report states.

An FBR team member told The Irrawaddy on Monday that they will continue to
monitor developments and seek confirmation of companies being offered
logging and mining concessions.

____________________________________

July 03, Democratic Voice of Burma
More than 5000 acres of paddy fields confiscated from Burmese farmers

More than 5000 acres of paddy fields were confiscated from villagers of
Thebyu, Myaukthabyepin which are situated along Pyinmana-Taungngyo
highway, around 15 miles southeast of Taungdwingyi, Magwe Division in
central Burma.

The paddy fields were confiscated in early this year by local Pinma
Arsenal Battalion so that new army bases could be built.

A local farmer told DVB that impoverished and landless farmers tried to
survive by opening no roadside shops outside confiscated areas of lands
but they were told to dismantle their shops on the pain of arrest and
imprisonment by the order of an army officer named Maj. Khin Amung Htay.

____________________________________

July 2, BBC Burmese service
SPDC S-1 urges journalists and writers to counter external influence

The secretary-1 of the ruling junta in Burma, Lt-Gen Thein Sein has called
on the local media to write more to dispel the attempts by foreign media
to destroy the country's successes.

General Thein Sein was speaking at the opening of a conference by Burmese
writers and journalists.

Dr Lwan Swe, who until recently edited a popular monthly magazine in Burma
and now lives in Maesot, Thailand, told the BBC that the junta especially
is annoyed with the Burmese languages broadcasts by foreign radio
stations. Millions of Burmese tune in to these broadcasts daily as they
have more trust in them than the official media.

Dr Lwan Swe said the authorities have used tactics of threats and bribery
to force editors to write in their favour.

____________________________________

July 03, The Irrawaddy
Construction to begin on Burmese “Cyber city” - Clive Parker

Burma will soon begin construction on a new IT park in Mandalay Division
that the state-press has likened to California’s renowned Silicon Valley.

The New Light of Myanmar reported that top junta officials, including the
Minister of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs, Brig-Gen Thein Zaw, held
a ceremony on Friday to mark the start of building work at the site in
Yadanarbon Myothit, a satellite town just outside Maymyo, 40km east of
Mandalay.

The new IT zone will feature a software development center and is also
expected to house IT infrastructure used to maintain and further expand
Burma’s fledgling internet system. The facility will be run by Myanmar
Posts and Telecommunications, a government department, which was not
available for comment on Monday.

An IT manager at the Mandalay office of the Myanmar ICT Development
Corporation—the organization that established Burma’s MICT Park in
Rangoon, the only other project of its type in the country—said the
government was pushing to complete building work in six months. However,
more sober estimates suggest the site is unlikely to be finished until the
end of next year.

The manager said the development will also seek to attract “the investment
of foreign companies, we hope.”

In May, The New Light of Myanmar called the new “Cyber City” an
“international level Silicon Valley plan.” But it is not clear how the
government expects to attract foreign firms to the site given that Maymyo
is a sleepy hill station with no civilian airport. The nearest commercial
airstrip is 70km away in Mandalay and takes two hours to reach by car.

Burma opened a similar project—the MICT Park—in Rangoon in January 2002
aiming to bring in expertise from overseas. However, Grape City of Japan
is currently the only 100-percent foreign-owned company operating there,
while nearly 25 percent of the site remains unoccupied. At a cost of about
US $26,000 for a minimum three-year lease, it offers companies a 24-hour
supply of electricity—a rarity in Burma—and a relatively reliable internet
connection that IT experts say is the best in the country.

____________________________________

July 3, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to introduce new seed law

Myanmar will introduce a new seed law, aimed at governing the use of seeds
to obtain higher yield and better plant quality, the local weekly Myanmar
Times reported Monday.

Expected to come out by this year-end, the new seed law will regulate the
seed production industry and provide for the testing and registering of
imported seeds to ensure that they meet Myanmar standards, an official of
the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation was quoted as saying.

The new law will help control unwanted pests, diseases and genetic flaws
which destroy agricultural plants, he said.

The law will also govern the distribution of imported seeds including
paddy, pea, bean, maize and corn which require endorsement of the National
Seed Committee under the ministry, he added.

Myanmar stands as a country with agriculture as the mainstay of its
economy. The agricultural output value takes 41.2 percent of the gross
domestic product and the agricultural export represents 11 percent of the
total.

Myanmar's agricultural production grew 11.8 percent in the fiscal year
2005-06 which ended in March, official statistics show.

____________________________________

July 2, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma’s Win Tin is going to be 17 years in jail on 4 July

Renowned Burmese journalist and writer Win Tin, currently being detained
at Rangoon Insein Jail, will be spending 17 years of his detention on 4
July.

According to Maung Maung Khin who has been visiting Win Tin every
fortnight told DVB that Win Tin said that it is nearly one year since he
was taken to the gate of the jail for release, only to be continued to be
detained on 6 July 2005. Human rights activists insisted the action was an
act of mental torture.

Maung Maung Khin added that Win Tin is not only well but his health is
also improving.

“He said before he was unable to take shower in the morning. Now he
could,” Maung Maung Khin who went to see Win Tin yesterday said. “The ICRC
(International Committee of the Red Cross) hasn’t come to see him for more
than a year. But the prison doctors came to see him. Sometimes, the
outside specialist doctors came to see him. My health is good, he told me
thus.”

Win Tin, one of the political mentors of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San
Suu Kyi, continues to serve his 20-year prison sentence.

He is regularly offered freedom in exchange for a signed promise to give
up all political activity. But he has always refused to cut such a deal
and break his ties with the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was
cheated out of its landslide victory at the 1990 general elections.

He was convicted of "subversion" and "anti-government propaganda." In
1996, he was held for five months in a dog-kennel at Rangoon’s Insein
prison. He has since had two heart attacks and lost most of his teeth. Now
76+, he has been shuttling back and forth between his cell and the spartan
prisoners’ wing of Rangoon hospital for the past few years.

These days, Burma’s military rulers treat him with a little more respect
and he now has his own cell. But he is still not allowed to write
anything, according Paris-based Reporteurs Sans Frontiers (RSF).

____________________________________

July 3, Xinhua General News Service
Myanmar to add 80,000 more mobile phones in 2 cities

The Myanmar telecommunications authorities will add 80,000 more new GSM
mobile phones in two major cities of the country to facilitate users in a
bid to enhance the development of the telecommunication sector, a local
weekly reported Monday.

The mobile phones will be added in Yangon and Mandalay for the current
fiscal year 2006-07, the Flower News quoted the state-run Myanmar Posts
and Telecommunications (MPT) as saying.

There have been over 140,000 mobile phones in Myanmar as of now since the
1990s when such phones were first introduced.

According to the MPT, GSM phones in Myanmar can auto-roam 21 townships far
up to the border areas also mainly covering Monywa, Mawlamyine, Bagan,
Ngwesaung, Chaungtha, Taunggyi, Kyaingtong, Tachilek, Lashio and Muse in
addition to Yangon and Mandalay.

Official statistics show that the number of various types of telephones in
Myanmar reached 513,301 as of March this year, the end of the previous
fiscal year 2005-06.

Of the total, mobile phones such as GSM, cellular and CDMA accounted for
146,321, while the auto fixed telephones remained at 303,228.

Under the current population in Yangon which stands at 5.2 million now,
there will be one GSM phone per 43 persons in the near future, up from one
GSM phone per 64 persons now.

Mobile phones were first introduced in Myanmar with cellular ones in 1993,
the DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) and CDMA (Code
Division Multiple Access) in 1997 and the GSM (Global System for Mobile)
in 2002.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

July 03, The Irrawaddy
Fresh violence further divides Kachin ceasefire groups - Khun Sam

Tensions between two Kachin ceasefire groups deepened last week following
clashes that killed two members of one of the groups.

Fighting broke out between the Kachin Independence Organization and the
New Democratic Army-Kachin on June 29 in Sadon, about 64 km east of the
Kachin capital Myitkyina. Two members of the KIO were killed, both
ceasefire groups confirmed to The Irrawaddy on Monday.

Zahkung Ting Ying, chairman of the NDA-K, said that his group captured
nine KIO soldiers when they refused to leave NDA-K territory.

“This problem is because their soldiers, in full battle gear, trespassed
in our region and intended to take control of our territory,” Ting Ying
said, adding that his group did not start the conflict among the two
groups.

A KIO official challenged this version of the clash, stating that NDA-K
troops raided three Kachin Independence Army outposts, killed two of their
soldiers and captured several others.

The official added that some 100 KIA soldiers have been sent to Sadon
since yesterday, and Burmese troops have reportedly deployed near the
area.

The tension between the two groups began in late May this year following
an unsuccessful coup, led by NDA-K Secretary General Layawk Zelum, at the
group’s Pang Wah headquarters that briefly unseated Zahkung Ting Ying. KIO
soldiers were alleged to have been part of the coup attempt, which ended
after troop loyal to Zahkung Ting Ying overthrew Layawk Zelum and his
fledgling splinter group.

Gumgrawng Awng Wa, chairperson of the Kachin People's Party and former
leader of the All Kachin Student and Youth Union condemned the fighting
among Kachin ceasefire groups and urged both sides to find a peaceful
solution.

“It is such a shame, this conflict of looting territory. We strongly
condemn such fighting among Kachins. Such fighting among our Kachin groups
would only bring failure to the groups’ revolution,” Gumgrawng Awng Wa
said.

A community-based group, the Kachin Consultative Assembly, is currently
trying to negotiate with both sides to avoid further violence.

____________________________________

July 1, Democratic Voice of Burma
Mater Dolorosa: Another NLD member absconds to Thai-Burmese border

Another ex-political prisoner and a member the National League for
Democracy (NLD) fled Burma due to the increasing oppression on the party
members by the authorities of the country’s ruling military junta, the
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Mi Mi Tun is a member of Kachin State, Mohnyin Township NLD and her
28-year-old son Nay Zaw was arrested on 14 March by anti-narcotics special
police force and died on 2 May from the torture wounds he received in the
hand of the police. She reported the matter to Northern Command commander
Maj-Gen Ohn Myint and fled to the Thai-Burmese border after the police
tried to cause problems for her.

“On 14 March, my son and three friends went out on motorcycles and five
special narcotics members led by Khin Maung Nyi stopped and searched them
with bamboo poles,” Mi Mi Tun told DVB from an unidentified location on
the Thai-Burmese border. “They found nothing (incriminating) on their
bodies or on the cycles. They didn’t release them but beat them up. My son
was treated for his wounds for 23 days at Myikyina. As the medical
treatments were not effective, my son died on 2 May. I feel aggrieved for
my son’s death. Therefore, I went to the commander to report the matter in
the hope that the truth might come out if I reported it to him. I brought
along with me eyewitnesses. The special narcotics and the police members
harassed me upside down so that the matter would not reach the commander.
I had no place to live and nowhere to run; that’s why I came here.”

She vowed to continue carrying out activities so that the killers of her
son are prosecuted.

“I have only one son and he was very ‘leinma’ (good, obedient, disciplined
etc). Now that this happened to my son, I can’t be consoled. I can’t
accept it. Therefore, I will report it to all the international
organisations concerned as much as I could.”

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 3, The Irrawaddy
Fortunes won and lost in Burma’s football fever - Yeni

Billions of kyat—the equivalent of millions of US dollars—are changing
hands as World Cup fever takes hold in Burma in the final days of the
world’s leading football contest. One Rangoon bookmaker told The Irrawaddy
by phone that bets totaling around 20 million kyat (about $15,000) were
being placed with him on each game.

Rangoon’s Chinatown is where most of the action is centered. Despite
official attempts at a crackdown on gambling the undercover bookmakers are
doing a roaring trade, reportedly paying police to look the other way.

The crackdown on gambling appears to be more severe in other cities of
Burma, and in Pegu, 80km (50 miles) north of Rangoon, bars and restaurants
have reportedly been ordered to close at 11 p.m., making it impossible to
watch most of the games. Fear of terrorist attacks has reportedly been
advanced as an argument for the early shut-down.

State-run Myawaddy Television is carrying the games, however, even though
Burma didn’t get a sniff at qualifying. Although the Burmese have been
playing football for more than 100 years—after a Scottish schoolteacher
introduced the game in the late 19th century—the Burma national squad is
an unimpressive 149th in the international football federation FIFA’s
rankings.

Yet it wasn’t always thus. Burma dominated the football field in Asia in
the 1960s and early 1970s, capturing two Asian Games crowns in 1966 and
1970, four Southeast Asian Peninsular Games  titles and sundry other
soccer silverware. Historian John F Cady writes in his book The United
States and Burma that following victories in international matches in
1970–71, “proficiency in soccer became a significant mark of Burmese
identity and prestige.”

Football was introduced to British colonial Burma by Scottish teacher J
George Scott who wrote many books about Burma under the Burmese pen name
Shwe Yoe. He was an enthusiastic player himself and competed in
hard-fought tournaments against the Burmese. They loved the game, he once
wrote, “because it’s just like fighting.”

Appeals to Burma’s footballers and their fans to restore the country’s
“golden age” seem to have fallen on deaf ears. The enthusiasm for the
game, however, is as great as ever, and nowhere more than in the nation’s
stadiums, where fans cheer on their teams and jeer the
opposition—particularly teams from military ranks. “We love to swear
whenever army teams play,” said one young Rangoon fan.

For Min Ko Naing, watching the World Cup contest is “my once in a lifetime
experience.”  He missed out on several previous competitions—confined to a
prison cell for nearly 16 years for daring to criticize not the nation’s
footballers but its government leaders.

____________________________________

July 3, Agence France Presse
Cash-strapped Myanmar ends biggest gems auction

Military-run Myanmar said Monday it had sold over 70 percent of the jade
and precious stones offered at its biggest-ever gem auction, a key source
of income for the cash-strapped junta.

Some 2,300 lots of jade, or 72 percent of the total, had sold during the
13 day auction that ended Sunday in Yangon, the official New Light of
Myanmar newspaper said.

The military government refused to say how much it had earned from the
sale, but deputy mining minister Myint Thein said it was expected to beat
the 53 million euros (63 million dollars) earned at the last auction in
March.

Some 2,300 merchants, including 1,450 foreigners mainly from China and
Thailand attended the auction, with the number of jade buyers double those
at the last sale.

Lots also included rubies and pearls.

Myanmar is one of the world's poorest nations and is subject to US and
European economic sanctions because of human rights abuses and the house
arrest of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened by the eagerness of
neighboring China, India and Thailand to tap Myanmar's vast natural wealth
to fuel their own growing economies.

Myanmar now holds biannual jade auctions in a bid to curb gem smuggling
which deprives the government of much-needed foreign currency, and has
increased the size and frequency of gem sales to several times a year.

Myanmar's natural wealth includes natural gas and minerals, as well as
highly-prized teak which often disappears onto the black market.

The black market is estimated to be at least half the size of the formal
economy.

____________________________________

July 2, Narinjara News
Shrimps smuggled to Bangladesh fetch higher prices

Smuggling shrimps from Burma to Bangladesh is lucrative. As such many
shrimp traders in the border areas of Burma have been illegally exporting
shrimps to Bangladesh as it fetches a much higher price in Bangladesh
markets than in Burmese markets, said a trader.

In Maungdaw Township, there are four shrimp companies, including Shwe Kyi
Daung and Mra Nyi Naung, which are owned by local businessmen.  These
companies have opened shrimp purchasing centres in Maungdaw Township to
buy shrimps from local traders. But the prices they offer are far below
than that in Bangladesh.

In Burma shrimps are divided into three categories based on quality. And
prices are offered accordingly.  High quality shrimps fetch Kyat 5,100 per
kilogram, mid-quality shrimps are Kyat 3,100 per kilogram, and low quality
shrimps fetch Kyat 1,600 per kilogram.

In Bangladesh markets, however, the price for high quality shrimps is
around Kyat 8,500 per kilogram, while middle and low quality shrimps fetch
prices of Kyat 6,000 and Kyat 5,000 per kilogram respectively.

Since the prices are higher in Bangladesh, the shrimp traders have found
ways to export their product to Bangladesh illegally, the trader said.

As shrimp products from Maungdaw Township are quite popular in other areas
of Arakan State, many businessmen and the Nasaka are involved in the local
shrimp industry.

A businessman said that over 1,500 acres of shrimp farms in Maungdaw
Township are owned by Nasaka authorities.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

July 3, Kaowao News
Incidence of malaria on the rise in Three Pagodas Pass

Two thirds of the people along the Sangkhalaburi Thai Burma border are
suffering from malaria this rainy season, according to medical workers.

Many refugees and internally displaced persons including New Mon State
Party leaders have contracted malaria," said a medic from the Halockhanee
Mon resettlement camp.

“About 65 per cent of 700 patients in the Arrowjan Hospital, Wine and
Jaytanar Clinics have malaria.  The PF and PV variety of malaria are
common in this area.  The PF is the most dangerous and is difficult to
recover from.  Patients who suffer from malaria are mostly children and
women,” he added.

Mosquitoes thrive in this region during monsoon. With a large number of
people crossing the border without mosquito nets and proper anti-malarial
drugs, there are more patients this time than in previous years.  When
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) was functioning in this area, treatment for
malaria was much better,” said a social worker from Waeng Ka Mon village.
They could access people inside Burma heading for the border.

Following the withdrawal of the MSF, Mon medical workers working in
refugee camps and rural areas in Tavoy, Yebyu, Ye and Three Pagoda
Townships face difficulties due to lack of support and technical
assistance.  They are worried that they will not have enough medicine to
treat the large number of patients and the incidence of malaria will
increase as a result. The MSF provided treatment for Mon refugees in
southern Burma, but stopped its operation in March this year due to
restrictions imposed by the Burmese authorities. MSF had been working on
the Thai Burma border since 2001.

Warning regarding malaria has been issued to tourists planning to visit
the Burmese-Thai border area near Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak province.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

July 3, Democratic Voice of Burma
Activist returns to Burma from Thailand

Zaw Gyi (a.k.a.) Zaw Myint who had been detained at a special detention
centre (SDC) in Bangkok for nearly three years for staging protests
against the Burmese military junta, flew back to Burma with Myanmar
Airways on 1 July with the help of the Burmese embassy.

Zaw Gyi decided to return to Rangoon after he lost the opportunity to
settle in a third country, the USA and he also doesn’t want to spend any
more time in the Thai jail.

Dr. Naing Aung of Network for Democracy and Development (NDD) told DVB
that it is sure that Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) has invited Zaw Gyi back to Burma in order to
make political capitals out of the opposition groups and exploit their
weaknesses.

“But among us (activists) who are doing (political activities) we must be
thinking ways of helping each other, find ways to straighten and
strengthen one another,” said Naing Aung.

Zaw Gyi was arrested and sentenced to death by the then Burma Socialist
Programme Party (BSPP) government in 1977 for allegedly planting bomb at
Thamada (President) Cinema in Rangoon and released in a general amnesty in
1988. He took part in the 1988 nationwide uprising and he was also a
member of the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF). Although he
was recognised as a refugee to be settled in a third country by the UN
Commissioner for Human Rights, his status was withdrawn in 2004.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

July 03, The Irrawaddy
Pinheiro to serve one more year on Burma

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro,
will continue his role for one more year, the newly-formed Human Rights
Council has said. Before finishing the first two-week session of the body
on Friday, council members voted to extend the mandates of all
rapporteurs, meaning that Pinheiro will now serve until June 2007. He had
previously planned to end his term in April this year, but all rapporteurs
have instead been kept in place “to ensure there is no gap in human rights
protection during the transition from the Commission,” a UN statement
said. Pinheiro will now submit a report on Burma to the second session of
the council before the end of the year, preceded by an update on the
country for the UN General Assembly, which will cover events during the
first six months of 2006. He has not been permitted to visit Burma since
November 2003.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 3, The Nation
Asean changes tack to call for UN debate on Burma

Who would have expected Thailand to have the courage to toughen its
position towards Burma now, especially when there is no sense of foreign
policy direction at all?

Bangkok's desire to send a strong message to the Pyinmana regime that this
eastern neighbour will no longer give carte blanche support unless the
junta leaders heed peer advice and change accordingly grows stronger by
the day. Like Thailand, more and more Asean countries are losing the will
to defend the regime.

Last week, Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon renewed his call - the
second time in a month - for more tangible reforms in Burma. He also
appealed for the United Nations to play a bigger role in ending the
impasse in Burma.

Thailand's international reputation has been battered by its support of
Burma after the Thaksin Shinawatra government came to power. It was able
to muddle through with this policy as other Asean members were also on the
same wavelength regarding the necessity of defending their pariah member.

However, with Asean celebrating its 40th anniversary next year in
Singapore, the grouping wants a fresh start on Burma. After seven years of
tireless effort, Burma has proved one thing to Asean: it does not care a
hoot about the grouping. In fact, Pyinmana pays more attention to China
and India because of their strategic location and trade-off value.

The mission to Burma in March by Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid
Albar demonstrated the regime's disregard for Asean's pleas. As a result,
key Asean members now prefer to seek more engagement from the United
Nations, a far cry from the past policy of defending Burma in the world
body. But a broader consensus has yet to be reached.

Following last year's painstaking diplomatic manoeuvring to place the
Burma issue on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, the
international community has once again got to grips with the real
situation in Burma and the fate of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace
laureate. The extension of her detention at the end of May generated
widespread condemnation and increased support for her release and that of
the junta's other political prisoners. Last week, members of parliament
from 35 countries also weighed in with their concerns and urged the
council to take up the Burma issue.

Since the junta seized power and crushed the pro-democracy movement in
1988, there has never been a time such as this when the combined support
of the international community is so strong. After 15 years of mundane
deliberations in the UN General Assembly, the informal briefing on the
Burma situation in the Security Council last December that followed the
release of the Tutu-Havel report on the situation in the country
effectively pushed the topic up several notches on the UN agenda.

The additional briefing given by Ibrahim Gambari, the UN under-secretary
for political affairs, on the outcome of his visit to Burma and meeting
with Suu Kyi in May also raised the urgency of the matter.

The ongoing effort by the US and its Western allies to put Burma on the
Security Council's agenda is a long-term process to highlight the threat
the country poses to peace and international stability. Unfortunately,
Asean members have not yet highlighted these salient points, simply out of
concern that it might jeopardise their fellow member.

At the moment this collective sympathy for Burma has largely evaporated,
particularly among the grouping's core members. The higher the profile of
the Burma issue in the UN scheme of things, the greater the pressure Burma
has to bear. And the same goes for Asean.

So far, this concerted campaign has generated two positive effects.

First, Asean members are bridging the gap in the perception of the Burma
issue. They want to involve the UN more in finding a solution. Certainly,
this has to do with saving their own reputations at UN platforms, as they
have been embarrassed by Burma's continued intransigence.

Malaysia's latest comment is indicative of the grouping's negative
sentiment. For the first time the Asean chairman has urged the UN Security
Council to debate the issue officially. If there is no positive response
from Burma, this position could slowly turn into an Asean consensus. But
newer Asean members want to give Burma more time and have urged their
colleagues to send another fact-finding mission to Burma.

Second, with Asean now calling for a Security Council debate, China's
current support of Burma will be put under the microscope. For decades,
with the help of Russia, China has vetoed any attempt to debate Burma
officially at the council. Previously, Asean and China saw eye to eye -
that the Burma crisis was an internal and Asian problem that should be
handled and solved by Asians without any internationalisation.

That commonality is wearing thin. As Asean and China go different ways on
the role of the UN in the issue, it will be interesting to see how China
conducts itself. Will Beijing continue to back Burma and block efforts to
debate it at the council level? Or, could Beijing turn into a Good
Samaritan and assume its international role to influence Burma, as it did
with North Korea to revive the six-party talks?

Asean's core members hope that China's growing global status and
responsibility will help and eventually bring it to address the Burma
issue seriously and with the regional interests at heart. In the long run,
China has to show that its Burmese policy is not self-serving. Otherwise,
this could become a source of conflict with Asean as it would weaken the
grouping's calls to the UN and jeopardise Asean-China relations.

Of course, as far as China is concerned, Burma is not yet a do-or-die
issue. But it's obvious that Beijing no longer has the luxury of benign
neglect. If unheeded over the long term, China could end up opposite Asean
over Burma.

Asean's expectations of China are extremely high at this point, as both
sides are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their relations with a
summit meeting in Nanning in October. Realistically or not, they hope
that, when push comes to shove, China will favour their common stance
rather than Burma's. In case of a shift in China's policy, then India will
be the next target.

Kavi Chongkittavorn