BurmaNet News, September 28, 2006

[Editor]

September 28, 2006 Issue # 3055


INSIDE BURMA
The New Republic: Rules of engagement
Irrawaddy: Junta halts peace talks with KNU
AFP: Hope and fear for activists detained by Myanmar junta

HEALTH / AIDS
Irrawaddy: Burma postpones measles campaign

DRUGS
AFP: Asian amphetamine abuse said worst in world
The Age: Drug report reveals up to 12 million Chinese addicted

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Democracy roadmap faces too many obstacles, says Pinheiro
Vancouver Sun: British Columbia to be new home for 200 Burmese from camp
on the border with Thailand

OPINION / OTHER
International Herald Tribune & Boston Globe: An agenda for Burma

PRESS RELEASE
AIPMC: UNSC resolution on Myanmar / Burma and detention of pro-democracy
activists

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 26, The New Republic
Rules of engagement - Joel Whitney

How conservationists prop up Burma's military regime

Last year, Sylvester Stallone was looking for just the right location to
film Rambo IV. As he told Entertainment Weekly recently, ''I called
Soldier of Fortune magazine and said, 'What is the most critical
man-doing-inhumanity-to-man situation right now in the world? Where is
it?'" The actor was pointed not to Sudan, North Korea, or the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, but to Burma, whose military dictators have
committed virtually every human rights violation imaginable. In July, the
Senate voted overwhelmingly to renew sanctions against the regime, which
took power in a 1962 coup and goes by the dubious title of State Peace and
Development Council ( SPDC). In a fiery plea, echoed by senators from both
parties, Senator Mitch McConnell decried the junta's many political
prisoners (including Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's rightful president), its
abuse of minorities, and its use of rape as a weapon of war. Others would
add extreme secrecy, forced labor, and even genocide to the list. "The
allies of the Burmese people," McConnell railed, "have a moral obligation
to continue to stand against the SPDC."

But Alan Rabinowitz, director of science and exploration at the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS), has other priorities. Based in New York, WCS
has been working in Burma since 1993 as part of its overall mission to
save wildlife and wild lands around the globe. In that time, Rabinowitz
has posted a number of conservation successes-- establishing the world's
largest tiger reserve, for example, and discovering a new, rare species of
deer. The splashy headlines, however, have come at a price. WCS's work in
Burma has provided the regime with money, information, and political cover
for its abuse of ethnic groups, all while downplaying its human right
violations. WCS has stood not against the regime but with it.

The current U.S. sanctions against Burma, first adopted in 1997, are
designed to keep money from the regime. Burmese officials are banned from
using U.S. financial services, and U.S. companies are prohibited from
importing Burmese goods or, with few exceptions, investing in the country
(a grandfather clause let some companies stay). As Edith Mirante, an
author and activist working on Burma issues for over 20 years, puts it,
the sanctions "were never designed to bring the junta to its knees, but to
prevent them from getting rich." NGOs like WCS can work in Burma for
humanitarian activities if they fill out a licensing application, and
Rabinowitz denies that any WCS money goes directly to the junta. But, over
the years, his organization has poured thousands of dollars into the
coffers of the forest ministry, which is very closely tied to the
military.

Rabinowitz's earliest work in Burma is detailed in his 2001 memoir, Beyond
the Last Village. After befriending the forestry minister, General Chit
Swe, Rabinowitz was given almost free rein to pursue his conservation
goals in Burma. In 1996, he obtained permission to explore the remote
northernmost region of Burma, around Hkakabo Razi Mountain.
He spent $16,000 outfitting the survey expedition for its two months in
country, and, after injuries and weariness caught up with his team, he
hired a military helicopter to lift them out. The initial amount requested
by the military was a staggering $50,000. The amount paid, $1,500, may
seem like a bargain in comparison, but in poor, starving, and overly
militarized Burma, it is also enough to hire a handful of soldiers and pay
them for a year.

On the expedition, which took place in 1997, Rabinowitz discovered that
the Hkakabo Razi region hosted many species either previously unknown to
the area or unknown to science altogether. He drew up boundaries for a new
national park and recommended that WCS spend at least $20,000 more on its
infrastructure--barracks, educational centers, and stipends for forest
department staff. His proposal was eventually embraced by the generals,
and, when it was created, funding for the park came from both the Burmese
government and from WCS.

Using the Hkakabo Razi project as its model, WCS has continued to
collaborate with Burma's dictators to establish other parks (five in all),
including the blue-chip Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, created in 2004. In
each case, WCS has spent money on park infrastructure and even, in the
case of the tiger reserve, provided housing and incentives for a park
police force. And more money is on the way. This summer, WCS announced its
Tigers Forever initiative, which earmarks $10 million for Asian tigers
over the next ten years. Rabinowitz confirmed the Burmese forest ministry
will certainly be a recipient.

Rabinowitz's work supports the junta in other ways as well. For one, the
regime clearly uses conservation to gain some measure of acceptance from
the international community. Once, instead of the personal meeting with
General Chit Swe he had expected, Rabinowitz found himself side by side
with him in front of TV cameras at a press conference. (He and the general
joked good-naturedly like old friends.) The parks also solidify the
regime's control over natural resources like timber and gold (the mining
of which, ironically, causes considerable pollution).

Setting up the parks has also given the regime strategic advantage over
Burma's battered ethnic groups--allowing it to monitor them more closely,
force rebel factions to the negotiating table, or possibly even wipe them
out. Rabinowitz admits that one of the regime's motivations for creating
the Hukaung Valley park was to use conservation to lure ethnic Kachin, who
control parts of the valley, into discussions with the junta. And, on his
1997 survey of Hkakabo Razi, his group included a retinue of civil
servants and minders who, Rabinowitz writes in his memoir, gathered
"information on the people we met and their activities." WCS, in other
words, sent a fact-finding excursion into the most remote corners of
Burma, not only with forest officials and university lecturers who had
legitimate conservation aims, but also people working for military
intelligence.

It's true that Rabinowitz is not the only one to try engagement with
Burma. In 1997, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations adopted
so-called "constructive engagement" to justify doing business with the
regime. "This was a really bad idea, as they only engaged economically,"
says Aye Chan Naing of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a nonprofit media
organization based in Norway. "When it comes to politics, they disengage
themselves from Burma, saying that this is an internal affair." Rabinowitz
takes the same approach: "Politics has got no place in conservation," he
says.

But Rabinowitz has gone beyond willful ignorance of Burmese atrocities; he
has actually been an active apologist for the junta. In Nature last year,
Rabinowitz said, "[H]aving worked in the country for ten years, traveling
to the most remote areas, I think [the human rights violations have] been
blown out of proportion." When he was questioned about human rights
violations at a 2002 slideshow at the Smithsonian to promote Beyond the
Last Village (with a Burmese diplomat in the audience), Rabinowitz
responded, "I personally never saw any of that. I don't know how to
address it any other way. I didn't see anything."

Even so, Rabinowitz seems to realize that the SPDC is up to no good. He
acknowledges that General Chit Swe "did not reach his position without
breaking eggs" and that, as the overseer of "perhaps the most lucrative
sector of the government, there was no shortage of rumors regarding timber
deals ... and personal wealth he'd acquired." He also alludes at least
twice in his memoir to the regime's use of forced labor: In anticipation
of a visit to a survey area by one of the highest generals, he writes that
"a new dirt road had just been opened to the village using 'voluntary
labor,'" and he also reports not being allowed into certain zones where
there were "problems." He does not wonder what those might be.

Yet, for all his euphemisms, Rabinowitz makes no apologies for his cozy
relationship with the junta. General Chit Swe's cooperation, he writes,
"was the key to ... accomplishing anything for conservation." (Chit Swe
was forced to retire in 1997, but Rabinowitz has continued to work closely
with his replacement.) At the end of the day, only results counted. "I
came to realize that the most important rule about setting up [parks] ...
can be expressed in one sentence: Take whatever you can get, under
whatever conditions are mandated, and do whatever you have to to make it
work."

 Few would argue that Burma has excelled at conservation. The world's
tiger population has declined from possibly as many as 100,000 a century
ago to fewer than 5,000 today. So, on the surface, the WCS's tiger
reserve is commendable. And it's clear that there are many sincere staff
members in the Burmese forest department who want to preserve nature.

But concern for wildlife should not trump concern for human beings, and
conservation should not proceed with blind disregard for human costs.

Susanne Kempel of Global Witness, an NGO that deals with the link between
conflict, corruption, and the exploitation of natural resources, says,
"There is a middle ground in terms of reaching conservation aims but
including local people." Global Witness, like

WCS, looks carefully at the forests and collects data on logging and the
treatment of ethnic groups--sometimes even meeting with members of the
junta as part of its work. But Kempel adds a caveat that is obviously
foreign to Rabinowitz: "It's a mistake to pretend you're working in a
political vacuum."

Joel Whitney is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, N.Y.

____________________________________

September 28, Irrawaddy
Junta halts peace talks with KNU

Scheduled talks between Burma’s military government and delegates from the
Karen National Union were cancelled after government officials objected to
certain delegates from the KNU, according to sources close to the ethnic
opposition group. The six-member delegation was scheduled to travel to
Myawaddy and from there to the new capital in Naypyidaw for ceasefire
negations today, but those plans have been cancelled because of government
complaints over the chosen delegates. “They [delegates] had planned to
leave today,” David Taw, head of the KNU’s foreign affairs committee, told
The Irrawaddy on Thursday. “We had agreed to the junta’s previous offer
[of talks] and chose six delegates ready to discuss peace.” The aborted
talks follow reports of growing rifts within the KNU’s civilian and
military leadership. Ceasefire talks have been conducted between Burma’s
military government and the KNU several times since 1993, but with little
success. The last meeting between the two sides took place in May 2005.

____________________________________

September 28, Agence France Presse
Hope and fear for activists detained by Myanmar junta

Yangon: Pro-democracy activists and family members on Thursday expressed
concern for three former student leaders detained by Myanmar's junta, and
said they anxiously awaited further news of their fate.

Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Htay Kywe were taken away by the authorities
early Wednesday ahead of a ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of
detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party.

No reason was given for the detention of the three pro-democracy
activists, all in their 40s, who led a bloody student uprising in August
1988 to demand an end to the military dictatorship.

"He didn't come back yet. We worry for him. We have been hoping since
yesterday," a family member of Min Ko Naing told AFP on Thursday morning.

A colleague of Ko Ko Gyi said the authorities came on Wednesday night and
took the activists' clothing and toothbrushes.

"Family members and colleagues might do something. There will be a result,
but now we are still waiting," he said. Activists frequently send letters
to the authorities appealing for the release of their jailed colleagues.

Lwin, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy
(NLD) party, said he had not heard anything about the release of the three
men, all of whom have spent at least a decade in prison in the past for
their protests against the military government.

"We have walked for 18 years through this difficult situation," Lwin told
AFP.

"We have to be survivors if we want to do politics in this situation," he
added.

A government official on Wednesday told family members not to worry for
the three activists and promised to release them after they had met with
the authorities, a student activist told AFP.

The August 1988 student uprising ended when troops opened fire on the
protesters, possibly killing thou-sands according to some estimates.

The three former student leaders were on Wednesday scheduled to attend a
ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the formation of the NLD party
at its Yangon headquarters.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a 61-year-old Nobel peace laureate, has spent 10 of the
last 17 years under house arrest, locked in her home in Yangon.

The United Nations has estimated there are some 1,100 political prisoners
in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.

____________________________________
HEALTH / AIDS

September 28, Irrawaddy
Burma postpones measles campaign

Burmese authorities have postponed a national measles campaign aimed at
vaccinating a planned 13 million children, the UN Children’s Fund said.
The campaign had been planned over two to three weeks at the end of
November, allowing families to bring their children to centers across the
country to receive vaccinations funded by UNICEF and delivered by Burmese
authorities. Television and radio spots were planned to advertise the
campaign, which was designed to offer children who missed routine
vaccination at nine months of age the chance to be immunized against
measles. The program would also offer children already immunized the
chance of a second injection, which guarantees lifelong protection against
measles. Claire Hajaj, UNICEF Communications advisor on health, told The
Irrawaddy that this program was suspended last week and a new date has
still not been set. “Obviously from the perspective of children’s health,
we would want the campaign to happen as soon as possible,” Hajaj said.

Although the UN has received no official word as to why the program was
delayed, authorities have said unofficially that there is concern that
Burma is unprepared in the event of adverse reactions—a tiny percentage of
children that receive measles injections go into shock, which can be fatal
if adrenaline is not administered quickly. Such cases are extremely rare,
experts say. The program was designed to make up for the shortfall in the
number of Burmese children vaccinated against measles, one of the main
causes of death for the 10.7 percent of Burmese children who currently die
before their fifth birthday. In 2004, Burma immunized 78 percent of
children under one year old against measles. As part of the Millennium
Development Goals, the international community is aiming to reach a 90
percent level of immunization against all “preventable” diseases by 2010.

____________________________________
DRUGS

September 28, Agence France Presse
Asian amphetamine abuse said worst in world

Sydney: The levels of amphetamine abuse in the Asia-Pacific region are the
worst in the world, an Australian-hosted conference on drugs was told
Thursday.

Eight of the 13 countries that listed amphetamines as their most abused
drug were in the Asia-Pacific region, officials at the inaugural
Australasian Amphetamine Conference said.

The regional director of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime,
Jeremy Douglas, said abuse of drugs such as ecstasy and methamphetamines,
also known as "ice," was an increasing problem in the region.

"A problem threatening Asia that is this big, is a problem for Australia,"
Douglas said.
"The health of these countries is important to Australia as is the
security of Australia in terms of drug supply coming here."

He said 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories had been
uncovered in the Philippines past 12 months, and 15.8 million
methamphetamine pills were seized in Thailand last year, along with 4.7
million in Laos and 2.7 in Myanmar.

Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) expert Robert Ali described
the amphetamine problem facing the region as "daunting."

He said increasing economic prosperity meant more people were abusing
amphetamines.
"It's no longer just those who are socially disaffected that are using
drugs but also a middle class that are aspiring to greater wealth and
prosperity and, along with that, aspiring to the lifestyle and customs of
devel-oped-world countries," he said.

"When China can manufacture ecstasy tablets for under eight cents and
they're producing in quantities way beyond demand ... it means the drugs
are moving and they're moving quite rapidly through the region."

An ANCD report launched at the conference said Australian police were
working with their counterparts throughout the region to combat the
problem.

_____________________________________

September 27, The Age (Australia)
Drug report reveals up to 12 million Chinese addicted - Mary-Anne Toy

Beijing: China has become the most important trafficking route for illegal
drugs in the Asia-Pacific region and may have as many as 12 million drug
addicts.

A report, due to be released tomorrow in Sydney, says Burma is the
region's main producer of opium, heroin and amphetamine-type drugs and
most heroin produced there is trafficked through China rather than through
Thailand as previously.

The report, commissioned by the Australian National Council on Drugs, says
the Burma-China route has been joined by new routes from Afghanistan (the
world's biggest opium producer) into western China, particularly through
the Xinjiang autonomous region.

Burma's ruling military junta remains shunned by most other countries, but
China is one of its closest supporters. The report says Burma, one of the
world's biggest producers of amphetamines, gets most of its precursor
chemicals from China, which along with India is the biggest supplier of
these ingredients.

China, which can produce an ecstasy tablet for less than eight cents, has
also become a major supplier of amphetamines for many Asian and Pacific
rim countries.

As of late 2003, China had more than 1 million registered drug users — a
15-fold increase since 1990 — with heroin being the drug of choice, as it
is throughout most of Asia. The Chinese Government, however, acknowledges
that the actual number of drug users ranges from 6 to 12 million.

China also has by far the biggest number of injecting drug users — up to
3.5 million.

The report says the vast scale of illicit drug production and use in the
region is challenging for developed nations such as Australia, let alone
poor nations. Indonesia, Thailand, Laos and the Philippines all have drug
user populations of 2 million or more, which given their relative
populations indicates as severe a problem as China. The most common users
are people aged 20 to 35.

The report, Situational Analysis of Illicit Drug Issues and Responses in
the Asia-Pacific Region, says while most of the 13 countries surveyed had
seen big improvements in life expectancy and other development indicators,
rapid economic growth had also widened the gap between rich and poor.

The gap between the new rich and the poor was fuelling drug use among two
extremes: young people with money and those with nothing. Ethnic
minorities in border areas of countries including China, Thailand, Burma,
Vietnam and Papua, were most at risk. At the other extreme, the report
says amphetamine-type drugs are "making substantial inroads into rapidly
growing and economically powerful youth cultures in many countries",
especially among the children of the political leadership.

The report, along with a separate United Nations report on drugs and
crime, will be released tomorrow at Australia's first conference on
amphetamines.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 28, Irrawaddy
Democracy roadmap faces too many obstacles, says Pinheiro - Clive Parker

Sergio Pinheiro, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Burma, in
his first report to the new Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Wednesday
said that the country’s “Roadmap to Democracy” faced too many obstacles to
bring about a “genuine transition.”

Citing the continued persecution of political parties and human rights
defenders in Burma as the main reason for his lack of optimisms, Pinheiro
said the constitution-drafting National Convention had failed to develop
an inclusive process.

“The stability of the country was not well served by the arrest and
detention of several political leaders, or by the severe and sustained
restrictions on fundamental freedoms,” he said.

The Burmese ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Nyunt Maung Shein, said in
response that 75 percent of the constitution had already been drafted. The
process would ultimately lead to “free and fair elections,” he added. The
constitution-drafting body held its first session in 1993.

Pinheiro’s observations to the UN ‘s new human rights body—which updated a
report made in February—came the same day that three prominent former
student leaders, Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Htay Kywe, were detained in
Rangoon and two weeks before the National Convention is set to resume.

Despite his grievances, Pinheiro welcomed the reconvening of the process,
which is scheduled to happen before October 10. The main opposition
National League for Democracy is not attending the NC sessions while its
leader Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest, a situation to which
Pinhiero again drew attention.

Many of the findings in the special rapporteur’s report date back to
February, and have only now been formally submitted due to delays caused
by the transition of the former human rights commission to the new
council. Pinheiro, however, maintained the main themes of his original
report, again drawing attention to the fact that Burma’s economic woes lay
at the heart of many of the country’s problems.

The Burmese ambassador contested that his government had inherited an
economy “in a state of alarming decline,” adding that the ruling State
Peace and Development Council had “implemented plans to halt the economic
downturn and to stabilize the economy.” The military has ruled Burma in
various guises for 44 years.

During the ensuing interactive dialogue with member states, China defended
Burma, saying the regime had invited UN Under Secretary-General Ibrahim
Gambari to visit in May, and had cooperated with the International Labour
Organization, which “was evidence of its international engagement.” India
also agreed that Burma had been “cooperating positively” with the UN.

But the EU and US remained unconvinced. “The situation [in Burma], as
stated by the special rapporteur, had deteriorated,” US representative
Warren Tichenor said.

____________________________________

September 28, The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
Weather and illness delay arrival of Asian refugees: British Columbia to
be new home for 200 Burmese from camp on the border with Thailand -
Michael Scott

Monsoon weather and a virulent strain of pink eye will delay the arrival
of 200 Burmese refugees in the Lower Mainland by at least a month.

Under a new system of processing refugee applications, the Canadian
government agreed earlier this year to take 810 ethnic Karen people from
the Mae La Oon camp on the Thai-Burmese border. About 200 of those will be
resettled in British Columbia and were expected to begin arriving in
Vancouver on Wednesday.

That has been postponed until late October, said Chris Friesen, director
of settlement services with the Immigrant Services Society of British
Columbia, which is coordinating the resettlement.

"We had an e-mail ... that said there have been some delays in the
arrival," he said.

"Apparently there is a severe form of pink eye in the camp that will
prevent them from travelling," Friesen said, "along with heavy seasonal
rains."

The first contingent of Karen refugees arrived in Canada in August,
settling in Winnipeg and Saskatoon. Some of those refugees had spent more
than a decade in the Thai camp with a population of more than 13,000.

"We're going to be providing as much help as we can," said Friesen. "But
because these people have been in camps for many years, for decades in
some cases, we will definitely be needing to recruit community volunteers
to help with this."

The Karen -- one of eight ethnic minorities in Burma -- account for about
seven per cent of the country's 48 million citizens. Burma ranks as one of
the world's 10 poorest countries.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, more than 140,000
Burmese nationals -- included many Karen -- have fled the country for
temporary camps along the Thai border.

According to the International Organization for Migration, "the Karen are
... a hunted and persecuted people, forever on guard against marauding
government troops who rape, burn, and force old and young into build-ing
roads and acting as porters for army troops."

This is not the first time that B.C.'s Immigrant Services Society has
settled large groups of refugees. In 1999 it coordinated efforts on behalf
of more than 100 people from Kosovo and in 2004 it was responsible for the
resettlement of 150 Acehnese refugees from Indonesia.

"One of our big challenges is going to be dealing with [Karen] youth who
have lived their whole life in refugee camps, and have gone without any
formal educational training," said Friesen.

Friesen said that Immigrant Services Society is actively recruiting
members of the general public for its Host Program, which pairs volunteers
with incoming refugees on the basis of shared interests, family size, age
and occupation. (Call 604-684-7498 or e-mail hostprogram at issbc.org for
details.)

____________________________________

September 28, The New York Times
Terror laws cut resettlement of refugees - Rachel L. Swarns

Washington: The number of refugees admitted to the United States fell 23
percent this year because of pro-visions in two antiterrorism laws that
have sharply reduced the number of resettled refugees, State Depart-ment
officials said Wednesday.

The laws, the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, deny entry to anyone
who belongs to or has provided material support to armed rebel groups,
even if that support was coerced and even if the armed groups fought
alongside American troops or opposed authoritarian governments criticized
by the Bush administra-tion.

The provisions have derailed the resettlement of thousands of refugees
fleeing the authoritarian government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma;
hundreds of refugees from Vietnam and Laos who fought alongside American
troops in the Vietnam War; and dozens of Cubans who supported armed groups
opposed to Fidel Castro in the 60's, according to the State Department and
the United Nations refugee agency.

Many of the refugees were barred from the United States because, under the
new laws, they are deemed supporters of terrorist groups, even though the
organizations that they support do not appear on the State Department list
of designated terrorist groups.

The statutes have broadened the definition of terrorist groups to include
any group of two or more people who take up arms against a state, even if
the group supports the aims of American foreign policy.

A result, State Department officials say, is that administration officials
will resettle 41,200 of the 54,000 refu-gees whom they had expected to
admit by the end of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. That
figure is the lowest since refugee admissions plunged for nearly two years
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The State Department can grant waivers for specific populations that have
supported armed groups, if they pose no threat to the United States. In
May and August, the department issued waivers for Burmese refu-gees who
have supported the Karen National Union, a group that opposes the
government in Myanmar.

But the laws do not allow waivers for refugees who were combatants,
received military training from groups deemed to be terrorist
organizations or were members of such groups. State Department officials
say a change in the law is required to address those populations. In
recent weeks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has met with lawmakers
in the House and Senate to discuss such changes.

Ellen R. Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of state, told senators on
Wednesday that the antiterrorism provi-sions had prevented the United
States from resettling 9,500 Burmese this fiscal year. Of that group,
1,500 are expected to enter by Sept. 30 under issued waivers.

''We had anticipated bringing the majority, if not all of those, to the
United States,'' Ms. Sauerbrey said at a hearing of the Immigration
Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She said the limited waivers meant that the resettlement of many refugees
had been indefinitely delayed. In addition to the Burmese, Ms. Sauerbrey
pointed to the Cubans and Vietnamese Montagnards.

''We are eagerly looking forward to expanding resettlement,'' she said,
''to the degree that we can resolve some of these difficulties.''

Refugee advocacy groups, including Human Rights First and Human Rights
Watch, and conservative groups like Concerned Women for America, the
National Association of Evangelicals and American Values, say officials
are not moving swiftly enough.

Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania, has proposed
legislation that would bar only members and supporters of groups
designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department.

But State Department officials say they do not expect any movement on such
legislation before Nov. 7.

Many refugee advocates fear that administration officials and members of
Congress are delaying action be-cause they do not want to be viewed as
easing up on terrorism during an election year.

Michael J. Horowitz, a neoconservative who worked in the White House of
President Ronald Reagan and testified at the hearing on Wednesday, said in
a statement that it was ''inexcusable that for more than two years the
administration has dragged its feet'' in finding a solution for the
refugees who fought alongside Americans in Vietnam.

The antiterrorism provisions have also affected 500 asylum seekers in the
United States, whose cases have been delayed and has prevented 700 people,
who have already been deemed refugees or granted asylum, from becoming
permanent residents here for the time being.

Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, urged the administration to
redouble its efforts on behalf of the Burmese refugees and others who
desperately need to resettle. ''I know we have a lot security concerns to
watch for,'' Mr. Brownback said at the hearing. ''But there are huge
populations that are absolutely persecuted and have no other option.''

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 26, International Herald Tribune & Boston Globe
An agenda for Burma

Having placed the case of Burma's military junta on the formal agenda of
the Security Council earlier this month, the United Nations now has an
opportunity to show that it can be something more than an impotent
debating club. If in the waning days of his tenure UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan exercises the right combination of firmness and finesse with
Burma's military dictators, he can help protect human rights, democracy,
and regional security in Asia.

Unlike the coercive measures contemplated to cope with Iran's pursuit of
nuclear weapons or genocide in Darfur, the UN is not being asked to
dispatch armed peacekeepers to Burma or to impose risky economic sanctions
on the narco-dictatorship there. Rather, moral suasion and diplomatic
pressure are the means for dealing with the junta's violations of human
rights and its threats to regional peace and security -- threats manifest
in the export of heroin, methamphetamine, HIV/AIDS, and the hundreds of
thousands of refugees who have fled the military's brutal assaults on
ethnic minorities.

Annan must be careful, however, in the way he exerts the UN's soft power.

Last May, he sent UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim
Gambari, to Burma, where he met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu
Kyi as well as junta leaders. At the time, Gambari said he thought the
junta bosses were ``ready to turn a new page." But Gambari and Annan
looked gullible soon after, when the junta extended Suu Kyi's house arrest
for another year and intensified its campaign of ethnic cleansing, rape,
and murder in the region inhabited by 2 million people of the Karen ethnic
group.

Annan shouldn't allow Gambari to undertake a return trip to Burma without
a Security Council resolution that spells out clear and reasonable demands
for the true turning of a new page. That should include the release of all
1,100 political prisoners in Burma, including Suu Kyi and fellow leaders
of the National League for Democracy, the party that won 82 percent of
Parliamentary seats in a 1990 election that the junta has refused to honor
ever since.

The NLD, which commemorates the anniversary of its 1988 founding on Sept.
27, must be invited along with other parties and representatives of
Burma's ethnic nationalities to participate in a genuine political
dialogue. The resolution Gambari takes to Burma should specify that such a
dialogue means working out terms for an agreement on a return to
democracy. That resolution should also require the junta to end its
attacks on ethnic minorities and to permit international aid organizations
to have unimpeded access to all those in need within Burma. Nearly all the
people of Burma need the world's help.

_____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

September 28, ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC)
UNSC resolution on Myanmar / Burma and detention of pro-democracy activists

The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), an organization of
Parliamentarians from countries in the Southeast Asian region, welcomes
the move of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to include
Myanmar/Burma in its permanent agenda and calls for the timely passing of
a substantial resolution that would see the restoration of democracy in
the military-ruled country.

AIPMC lauds the courage and conviction of the UNSC member states that
voted to place Burma on its agenda and encourages these countries not to
back down from its stand to see reforms in the conflict-stricken country.

As respect for basic rights and political freedoms in Burma continue to
diminish - especially in light of the unwarranted detentions of
pro-democracy activists Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Htay Kywe (reportedly
on 27 September 2006 in Rangoon) - we strongly urge UNSC members to
expediently adopt a comprehensive resolution that will ensure such
blatantly unjustifiable acts by the junta no longer occur.

In being aware of the reluctance of some nations to support a UNSC
resolution on Burma we ask that the permanent members of the UNSC refrain
from using its veto power to prevent the much needed intervention into
Burma’s political and humanitarian situation.

AIPMC also urges all other member countries of the UN to condemn the
junta’s violations of human rights against its people and to support all
peaceful efforts that would see a democratically elected government lead
Burma.

It has been established in the ‘Threat to the Peace’ report, commissioned
by former Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, that the Security Council has in the past acted on
countries where the situation was less severe and not as apparent than it
is in Burma today. Why then, should there be any further delay in the UNSC
acting on Burma.

AIPMC led an international Parliamentarians signature campaign, in June
this year, calling for Burma to be place on the UNSC agenda and for a
resolution to be adopted. On behalf of the over 500 Parliamentarians from
over 30 countries around the world, who supported the campaign, we would
like to remind UNSC member states, current and future, that it has only
fulfilled one half of its obligation to ensure regional and international
security is protected.

The UNSC must perform its duty – in its entirety – by now adopting a
peaceful and binding resolution requiring the restoration of democracy to
Burma/Myanmar.

ENDS

For further inquires/media contact, please call Roshan Jason (AIPMC
Executive Secretary) at:  +6012 - 375 0974 (mobile) or at the contact
details above.

For a copy of the ‘UNSC Parliamentarian Signature Campaign’ letter, please
log on to www.aseanmp.org and click on ‘UN APPEAL LETTER’.