BurmaNet News, July 19, 2006

[Editor]

July 19, 2006 Issue # 3007

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Burma marks Martyrs’ day
AFP: Myanmar bans Aung San Suu Kyi from ceremony

ON THE BORDER
AP: Army: Indian rebels attack at Myanmar border, wounding one soldier
BBC: KNU orders troops to report about ceasefire mediators

BUSINESS / TRADE
Xinhua: BIMSTEC to propose new date for FTA

HEALTH / AIDS
DVB: Dengue fever outbreak in Rangoon Division

REGIONAL
AP: Philippine foreign secretary to visit Myanmar next month; meeting with
Suu Kyi up to hosts

INTERNATIONAL
Mizzima: British MP urges Bangladesh to improve Rohingya conditions

OPINION / OTHER
Nation: Burma on Asean's agenda again in KL
Asia Times: Myanmar and North Korea share a tunnel vision

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 19, Irrawaddy
Burma marks Martyrs’ day - Yeni

Hundreds of National League for Democracy party members, supporters and
about a dozen foreign diplomats gathered at the NLD headquarters to
commemorate Martyrs’ Day on Wednesday under the watchful eye of
plainclothes police and other security officials.

July 19 commemorates nine fallen national heroes who were gunned down in
1947. They include General Aung San, father of detained opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.

An NLD anniversary statement called for the release of Suu Kyi, who has
been under house arrest for most of the last 17 years, and other detained
political leaders.

More than 30 former student leaders, including Min Ko Naing, attempted to
visit Martyrs’ Mausoleum to pay tribute to the slain leaders, along with
dozens of NLD supporters. But observers said security forces barred the
mausoleum visitors because they were wearing Burmese traditional coats and
T-shirts with images of Suu Kyi and her father.

The military government expanded the road block outside Suu Kyi’s house
and increased security elsewhere in Rangoon. Last week the government’s
newspapers accused the NLD and other dissidents of plotting with
"terrorists" to disrupt the annual event.

Meanwhile, culture minister Maj-Gen Khin Aung Myint and national police
chief Brig-Gen Khin Yi led the official ceremony on Wednesday morning.
They laid wreaths at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum. Suu Kyi’s elder brother, Aung
San Oo, represented his family.

Martyrs’ Day is a national holiday, but since 1990s the occasion has been
gradually downgraded. Official media have abandoned an earlier tradition
of carrying biographies of Aung San and his comrades.

“It’s a shame. It shows a lack of political maturity,” said veteran
politician Amyotheryei Win Naing. “Even if they have an aversion to a
daughter, we shouldn’t throw away her father’s biography.”

____________________________________

July 19, Agence France Presse
Myanmar bans Aung San Suu Kyi from ceremony

Myanmar's military junta barred pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from
honoring her father Wednesday at annual ceremonies paying tribute to him
and other slain independence leaders.

The junta left the detained 61-year-old Nobel peace laureate, who has
spent 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest, locked in her home. She
was also barred last year but had attended previously.

The regime also stopped members of her National League for Democracy (NLD)
party from attending the ceremonies in Yangon.

Instead, national police chief Khin Yee and the culture minister,
Lieutenant General Khin Aung Myint, laid wreaths at a mausoleum in an
official ceremony.

Aung San Suu Kyi's older brother, Aung San Oo, attended to represent the
family. Unlike his sister, he has steered clear of politics.

The NLD held its own ceremony at party headquarters with some 500 people,
including western diplomats.

Some 200 members of the NLD's youth wing then tried to bring flowers to
the mausoleum but were stopped by police at a roadblock.

In a statement, the party renewed its calls for the release of Aung San
Suu Kyi and the 1,100 other political prisoners believed held by Myanmar.

"The NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi is always working together with the
people to find a solution through dialogue and national reconciliation,
leading to the establishment of a union with a democratic system," it
said.

A heavy security presence and numerous checkpoints were scattered across
Yangon after the government last week accused the NLD and other dissidents
of plotting with "terrorists" to disrupt the annual event.

The ceremony marks the 1947 killing of General Aung San, a nationalist
hero, and members of his cabinet.

The general and eight others were shot in a plot attributed to U Saw, a
pre-World War II political leader.

Myanmar, then known as Burma, achieved independence from Britain in
January 1948 and has been ruled by the military since 1962.

Its junta has been heavily criticized for its autocratic rule and the
detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.


____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

July 19, Associated Press
Army: Indian rebels attack at Myanmar border, wounding one soldier

Indian separatist rebels on Wednesday fired rockets and mortar shells at a
military base in northeastern India from neighboring Myanmar, and set off
a roadside bomb that wounded one soldier, the army said.

The rockets and shells fell in the border town of Moreh, next to the base,
but no injuries were reported, said army spokesman Col. S.D. Goswami,
blaming the attack on United National Liberation Front insurgents.

The soldier wounded by the roadside bomb blast in Moreh, in Manipur state,
was being treated at a hospital, he said.

The UNLF is one of the strongest of the 17 active separatist groups in
Manipur. It is fighting for a separate homeland for Meitis, the state's
largest ethnic group.

India's northeast has poor infrastructure, widespread unemployment and a
bitterness that has nurtured dozens of militant groups in the region
wedged between Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China.

Many of the insurgents are fighting for homelands for the region's myriad
ethnic groups, most of whom are ethnically closer to Myanmar and China
than to the rest of India.

The UNLF fights from bases just over the border in Myanmar, although there
was no mention of the attack in that country's state media.

____________________________________

July 19, BBC Burmese Service
KNU orders troops to report about ceasefire mediators

KNU has ordered its troops to report possible contacts of Saw Timothy and
Dr. Simon Tha on ceasefire negotiations with SPDC.

KNU Central Committee has assigned Col Soe Soe to talk with the Burmese
military and it should go through this process said Saw David Taw of KNU.

One of the peace negotiators Saw Timothy told BBC that KNU Central
Committee should allow peace negotiations and restrictions could lead to
disunity.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 19, Xinhua General News Service
BIMSTEC to propose new date for FTA

Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic
cooperation (BIMSTEC), an economic bloc consisting seven South and
Southeast Asian countries, is resuming trade negotiations next week in
order to finalize the bloc's free trade agreement (FTA) and propose a new
date for its enforcement.

"Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) has announced to convene a meeting from
July 25 in Colombo," an official at Nepali Ministry of Industry, Commerce
and Supplies (MoICS) told reporters here on Wednesday.

Though the members had earlier planned the Colombo meet for May, it was
canceled due to internal problems in Sri Lanka and political upheaval in
Thailand.

The cancellation had forced the bloc to miss the FTA implementation
deadline of July 1.

"Owing to the pressing situation, the meeting will mainly revolve around
outstanding issues of free trade accord on trade in goods," the official
said on condition of anonymity.

The issues related to free trade accord on trade in services will be dealt
on a sideline, he added.

During the meeting, technical experts will contest on key trading
arrangements such as rules of origin, negative list for tariff reduction
and list of items to be opened under the fast track of trade
liberalization program.

Technical experts from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka,
Thailand and Myanmar will also negotiate on a separate framework of
dispute-settlement mechanism.

"The TNC will also work out a new date for implementing the FTA on trade
in goods," the source said. It is most likely to be fixed for January 1,
2007, he added.

The TNC will propose the new date to Economic and Trade Official 's
Meeting, a body of BIMSTEC's foreign secretaries, scheduled to convene in
Dhaka within a month for consideration.

"The new date will then have to be endorsed by the Bangkok Working Group,
the highest technical body of the bloc, for it to become official," he
said.

As for the FTA on trade in goods, they have agreed to open trade under
"fast track" and "normal track" of trade liberalization.

Under the fast track, the members have agreed to bring down tariffs to a
range of zero to 5 percent by June 2009 for developing countries and by
June 2011 for least developed countries (LDCs).

Under the normal track, however, they will follow a gradual tariff
liberalization program. The developing countries will have to reduce
tariff for each other by June 2010 and with LDCs by 2012.

While the compliance deadline for developing countries is June 30, 2015,
for LDCs, it is July 2017.

"The members are still to discuss how the missing of July 1 enforcement
target will impact other deadlines," the official said.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

July 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Dengue fever outbreak in Rangoon Division

Due to a severe outbreak of dengue fever this raining season, hospitals
within Rangoon Division are filled with ill children and there were some
fatalities.

The outbreak is said to be caused by a type of striped mosquitoes which
bite their victims during the day and the situations are said to be worse
at crowded and rundown wards inhabited by poor day labourers. The
situations are particularly very bad at suburban areas in Thaketa, North
Okkalapa and Dagon New Town Townships, according to local residents.

“Yes, there have been many cases recently,” a doctor on duty in North
Okkalapa General Hospital told DVB when asked about the situation there.
“There were some patients who died from dengue fever
not that many though.
Only 2-3 people who were hospitalised died in total.”

He said that most of the patients who died came to the hospital when it
was too late for them and that patients are graded according to the levels
of severity, for treatments.

Moreover, children have been suffering from respiratory illnesses and eye
infections due to the extreme weather conditions and changes, according to
doctors from Insein and Dagon New Town.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

July 19, Associated Press
Philippine foreign secretary to visit Myanmar next month; meeting with Suu
Kyi up to hosts

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo will visit Myanmar next month,
but it was uncertain whether he could meet with pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi, an official said Wednesday.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Erlinda Basilio said Manila will not insist
on a meeting between Romulo and Suu Kyi, who has spent 10 of the past 17
years in confinement under Myanmar's ruling military junta.

"We defer to the hosts. The host will arrange our program and we are
guests of the hosts," said Basilio, who called Romulo's trip a "courtesy
visit."

"It's like you and me. I come to your home, I cannot say I want to meet
your father-in-law if he is not available or he is not in town," she said.

The two countries are partners in the 10-member Association of Southeast
Asian Nations.

Basilio said Romulo will discuss bilateral and regional issues and the
ASEAN summit, to be held in the Philippines in December.

"Myanmar is a member of ASEAN. We continue to engage Myanmar in a very
positive way," Basilio said.

The Philippines will take over the chairmanship of ASEAN from Malaysia
later this month.

Romulo last year urged Myanmar's ruling junta to implement promised
democratic reforms, release Suu Kyi and craft a new constitution.

Myanmar's junta took power in 1988 after crushing pro-democracy
demonstrations. In 1990, it refused to hand over power after Suu Kyi's
party won a landslide election victory.

The junta leaders have virtually blocked Suu Kyi's contact with the
outside world, but allowed a rare visit by a U.N. official in May. Later
that month, they extended her house arrest for another year.

The 1991 Nobel Prize laureate celebrated her 61st birthday June 19 under
house arrest.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

July 19, Mizzima News
British MP urges Bangladesh to improve Rohingya conditions -Siddique Islam

Conservative British member of parliament Andrew Mitchell urged Bangladesh
on Tuesday to help improve living conditions for Rohingya refugees in
Cox's Bazaar.

"We are very concerned about the plight of these people who have been
driven out of Burma . . . I urge the Foreign Minister to help lift them
out of poverty," Mitchell told reporters in Dhaka after meeting
Bangladesh's foreign minister, M Morshed Khan.

Mitchell said thousands of Rohingya refugees lived in serious poverty and
inadequate conditions in Bangladesh and that Khan was sympathetic to their
plight.


>From November 1991 to June 1992, more than 250,000 Rohingya refugees from

Burma's Arakan State had been officially registered with Bangladeshi
officials. Since July last year, more than 236,000 have been repatriated.

Of the remaining 21,000 refugees living in the Kutupalong and Nayapara
camps in the Cox's Bazaar district, more than 8700 have been cleared for
repatriation by the Burmese government.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 19, Nation
Burma on Asean's agenda again in KL- Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will next week make
another attempt to push Burma towards democracy and national
reconciliation.

Foreign ministers of the 10 member states will gather in Kuala Lumpur for
their annual meeting and they are looking for ways to try to speed up
political reform in military run Burma.

Rangoon's seven step "road map" towards democracy and national
reconciliation is moving at a snail's pace. But Asean's previous moves to
spur the junta into action have yielded little.

The Kuala Lumpur meeting is not expected to produce any break through on
the political deadlock, a Foreign Ministry official said.

Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon will propose the group enhance the
role of Asean chairman to allow more engagement with Rangoon and effort to
persuade the junta to democratize, Asean Affairs Department director
Nopadol Gunavibool said.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, the current chairman of the
group, failed to make any progress on his visit to Burma in March. The
junta rejected his idea that they meet all stake holders in Burmese
politics, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Asean needed to put more effort in maintaining contact with the junta,
Nopadol said, because Burma was about to shut down channels of engagement
with the group.

"The international community has seen that our regional approach toward
Burma does not work, so we need to prove it can work," he told reporters.
"If the Asean is able to maintain its role in engaging with Burma, it
would help boost creditability of the group, as well as the junta's
capacity to engage with the international community."

Many Asean members have different ideas over the political deadlock in
Burma. Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines want to see
Asean take a tougher approach toward the junta and are happy to see the
issue of Burma discussed by the United Nations Security Council.

But newer members including Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are happy to see a
more lenient stance.

Thailand, Nopadol said, did not want to see a rift among Asean members
over Burma and would prefer to see the group adopt a united stance on
handling the issue.

____________________________________

July 19, Asia Times
Myanmar and North Korea share a tunnel vision - Bertil Lintner

Bangkok - Under perceived threats from the US, Myanmar and North Korea are
strengthening their strategic ties in a military-to-military exchange that
includes weapons sales, technology transfer and underground tunneling
expertise.

Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development Council last year abruptly
moved the country's capital to a secluded location near the mountainous
town of Pyinmana, 400 kilometers north of Yangon, where the SPDC has built
an entirely new city in the jungle.
Ordinary citizens do not have the right to enter the new capital, Nay Pyi
Daw, which is populated entirely by soldiers and government officials.
During the March 27 Armed Forces Day celebrations held there, civilian
diplomats were barred from attending and only foreign defense attaches
were invited.

North Koreans, however, are allowed unfettered access to the secluded new
capital. Last month, Asian intelligence agencies intercepted a message
from Nay Pyi Daw confirming the arrival of a group of North Korean
tunneling experts at the site. Nay Pyi Daw is in the foothills of
Myanmar's eastern mountains, and it has long been suspected by
Yangon-based diplomats that the most sensitive military installations in
the new capital would be relocated underground.

The SPDC's apparent fear of a preemptive US invasion or being the target
of US air strikes was seen as a major motivation behind the junta's
decision to move the capital to what they perceive to be a safer
mountainous location. The administration of US President George W Bush has
publicly lumped Myanmar with what it considers rogue regimes, and US
officials have recently referred to Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny".

That perceived threat has drawn Myanmar and North Korea closer together in
recent months. One key component of those growing strategic ties is North
Korea's expertise in tunneling. Pyongyang is known to have dug extensive
tunnels under the demarcation line with South Korea as part of contingency
invasion plans.

Most of Pyongyang's own defense industries, including its chemical- and
biological-weapons programs, and many other military installations are
underground. This includes known factories at Ganggye and Sakchu, where
thousands of technicians and workers labor in a maze of tunnels dug into
and under mountains. The United States suspects there could be hundreds of
underground military-oriented sites scattered across North Korea.

Curious connection

Myanmar's curious North Korean connection has been the subject of much
strategic speculation ever since it was first disclosed in the Far Eastern
Economic Review in 2003. Preliminary reports were met with skepticism
because Myanmar (then known as Burma) had severed diplomatic relations
with North Korea in 1983 after three secret agents planted a bomb at
Yangon's Martyrs' Mausoleum and killed 18 visiting South Korean officials,
including then-deputy prime minister So Suk-chun and three other
government ministers.

One of the North Korean agents, Kim Chi-o, was killed by Burmese security
forces in the ensuing gun battle, while the others, Zin Mo and Kang
Min-chul, were captured. Two years later, Zin, a North Korean army major,
was hanged at Insein jail on the outskirts of the then-capital Rangoon
(Yangon), while Kang was spared because he cooperated with the
prosecution. Kang still languishes in Insein, but is reported to be
staying in the so-called "Villa Wing" - a small private house with a tiny
garden surrounded by high barbed-wire fences.

Reports about renewed ties between the two pariah nations gradually began
to emerge - and it seems that Kang, unwittingly, was the reason the
relationship was restored. In the early 1990s, secret meetings were held
in Bangkok between North Korea's and Myanmar's ambassadors to Thailand.
Pyongyang negotiated for Myanmar to extradite Kang, presumably because it
wanted to punish him for betraying the "fatherland".

But the two sides soon discovered that they actually had much more in
common than their unfortunate history. Both authoritarian countries were
coming under unprecedented international condemnation, especially by the
US. Moreover, Myanmar needed more military hardware to battle ethnic
insurgent groups and North Korea was willing to accept barter deals for
the armaments, an arrangement that suited the cash-strapped generals in
Yangon.

The bilateral relationship has reportedly intensified in recent years as
both countries come under heavy US pressure.

"They have both drawn their wagons into a circle ready to defend
themselves," a Bangkok-based Western diplomat said in reference to
Myanmar-North Korean ties, adding that Myanmar's generals "admire the
North Koreans for standing up to the United States and wish they could do
the same. But they haven't got the same bargaining power as the North
Koreans."

Recent regional media reports about North Korea possibly providing nuclear
know-how to Myanmar's generals are probably off the mark - at least for
now. That said, North Korea has definitely been an important source of
military hardware for Myanmar. According to Myanmar expert Andrew Selth,
of Australia, the state in late 1998 purchased between 12 and 16
130-millimeter M-46 field guns from North Korea.

"While based on a 1950s Russian design, these weapons were battle-tested
and reliable," Selth stated in "Myanmar's North Korean Gambit: A Challenge
to Regional Security?" - a working paper he published with the Australian
National University in 2004. "They significantly increased Myanmar's
long-range artillery capabilities, which were then very weak."

Secret visits

According to South Korean intelligence sources, a delegation from Myanmar
made a secret visit to Pyongyang in November 2000, where the two sides
held talks with high-ranking officials of North Korea's Ministry of the
People's Armed Forces. In June 2001, a high-level North Korean delegation
led by Vice Foreign Minister Park Kil-yon paid a return visit to Yangon,
where it met Myanmar's Deputy Defense Minister Khin Maung Win and
reportedly discussed defense-industry cooperation.

The two sides reportedly did not discuss the reopening of official ties,
still severed since the 1983 bombing incident. The cooperation has instead
been kept low-key and purposefully not officially announced.

"It's a marriage of convenience," said an Asian diplomat who is tracking
the expanding ties. "They share common interests and a common mindset. But
[Myanmar] doesn't want to be seen as having forgiven North Korea for the
[Yangon] bombing, or to antagonize South Korea, which has become an
important trade partner."

North Korea and Myanmar are apparently only pursuing conventional arms
sales and technology transfers, rather than high-tech weapons sales such
as long-range missiles. To date, the most advanced weaponry that North
Korea has delivered, or may be considering delivering, are
surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) for Myanmar's naval vessels. Myanmar
currently has six Houxin guided-missile patrol boats, which were bought
from China in the mid-1990s, according to Selth.

Based at Myanmar's main naval facility at Monkey Point in Yangon, each
vessel is armed with four C-801 "Eagle Strike" anti-ship cruise missiles.
Selth speculates that similar SSMs will be mounted on the three new
corvettes that have recently been built at Yangon's Sinmalaik shipyard, or
on to the navy's four new Myanmar-class patrol boats, which have likewise
recently been built in local shipyards.

In July 2003, between 15 and 20 North Korean technicians were seen by
intelligence sources at Monkey Point and later at a secluded Defense
Ministry guesthouse in a northern suburb of the then-capital. North Korean
technicians have since been spotted near the central Myanmar town of
Natmauk - which led to the assumption they were involved in Myanmar's
nuclear program because of its proximity to the site where Russia had
planned to build a nuclear research reactor starting in 2000.

There is no evidence to indicate that Russia ever delivered the reactor,
however. Myanmar's cash-strapped generals reportedly could not afford the
ticket price, and unlike North Korea, Russia was not willing to accept the
barter deal Myanmar had proposed. Nevertheless, several hundred Myanmar
residents have gone to Russia for training in nuclear technology over the
past five years, a strong suggestion that Myanmar has not entirely
abandoned its nuclear ambitions.

The North Koreans now situated in central Myanmar are most likely there to
help the SPDC protect its military hardware and other sensitive material
from perceived US threats. In 2003, Myanmar's generals built a massive
bunker near the central town of Taungdwingyi with North Korean assistance.
The recent arrival of North Korean tunneling experts at Nay Pyi Daw lends
credence to the suggestion that they are construction engineers with
expertise in tunneling rather than nuclear physicists.

Still, the regional strategic implications of a North Korea-Myanmar
defense relationship are similar. Rather than making Myanmar more secure
and cash-strapped North Korea richer, news of the two sides growing
strategic ties will likely lead to further international condemnation of
both regimes.

Furthermore, Myanmar is a member to the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, and fellow members such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are
not likely to accept passively any sort of North Korean military presence
within the geographical bloc. There have recently been calls to expel
Myanmar from ASEAN for its abysmal human-rights record and lack of
progress toward democracy.

By forging an alliance with Pyongyang, according to Selth, Myanmar's
generals may in fact be encouraging the very development that it fears the
most: active outside intervention in what they consider to be their
"internal affairs".

Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North
Korea under the Kim Clan. He has also written many books on Myanmar
politics and culture and is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media
Services.