BurmaNet News, January 4, 2007

[Editor]

January 4, 2007 Issue # 3114


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy and AP: Freed political prisoners remain defiant
Irrawaddy: Burma’s opposition groups honor Independence Day in Rangoon
South China Morning Post: On the march to a better future

BUSINESS / TRADE
Narinjara: Bangladesh to set up petrochemical zone near Burma

ASEAN
BusinessWorld: All systems go for summit

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: UNSC president Russia still opposed to action on Burma

OPINION / OTHER
Asia Times: The case for royalty in Myanmar - Michael Vatikiotis

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

January 4, The Irrawaddy and AP
Freed political prisoners remain defiant

Political prisoners released under an Independence Day amnesty by Burma’s
military government remain defiant, vowing Thursday to continue fighting
for democracy and expressing concern for colleagues still behind bars.

Former political prisoners released in Wednesday’s amnesty join in
Independence Day anniversary celebrations in Rangoon.

According to the state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar, the
military government on Wednesday granted amnesty to 2,831 prisoners to
mark the 59th anniversary of the country’s independence from Britain,
which falls on January 4.

A spokesman of the main opposition party National League for Democracy,
Nyan Win told The Irrawaddy from the party’s headquarters in Rangoon that
43 political prisoners were among those released and 17 of them were NLD
members.

“I will not surrender, I will continue with my duties,” said NLD member
Than Htay, 60,  who was released from a prison in northern Burma where he
was serving a five-year sentence, along with his son, Than Tun Oo.

Than Htay and his son were both sentenced to five years imprisonment on a
charge of violating import-export regulations, a common accusation leveled
against political activists. Than Htay said he hoped his son might be
released soon.

Than Htay spoke by telephone from Mandalay, where he was attending a small
Independence Day celebration organized by the NLD.

Another released political prisoner and NLD member, Zaw Win, said:
“Although I have been released, I am not happy because my colleagues
remain detained under wretched prison conditions. Many of them are in poor
health, some are very old and several have been in prison for nearly two
decades."

Zaw Win, 47, was sentenced in 1999 to 10 years imprisonment. He traveled
120 km south from Tharawaddy prison to Rangoon to attend celebrations at
the NLD headquarters.

Another political prisoner, Zaw Min, who was freed on Wednesday from
Thayet prison in central Burma, also traveled to Rangoon to attend the NLD
celebrations there. He said that most of those released had almost served
their sentences. He told The Irrawaddy: “I will continue my political
activities.”

At the celebrations, the NLD called for the release of its party leader
Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners. Suu Kyi, the winner of
the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent 11 of the past 17 years under house
arrest and a number of senior members of her party are still among the
estimated 1,200 political prisoners languishing in the junta’s prisons.

NLD Chairman Aung Shwe said Suu Kyi and NLD Vice Chairman Tin Oo should be
immediately and unconditionally freed in order to create “a fair political
climate for dialogue toward national reconciliation and democratic
transformation.”

Several other released prisoners were among the 500 people who attended
the Rangoon celebrations.

In his official Independence Day message, carried by The New Light of
Myanmar, junta chairman Snr-Gen Than Shwe called on citizens “to safeguard
the independence and sovereignty of the motherland through the might of
unity and harmony.

“Today, certain powerful countries are interfering in the internal affairs
of other countries to dominate them in the political, economic and social
aspects. That is indeed neocolonialism.”

The junta frequently accuses the United States and other western nations
of trying to destabilize the regime.

The junta seized power after a bloody 1988 crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators led by Suu Kyi. In 1990, it refused to step down when Suu
Kyi's party won a landslide election.

“I pray for the release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu
Kyi, and I will work for their freedom,” vowed Aung Naing, a 36-year-old
activist who had been serving an eight-year sentence. “It will be
disastrous if the Red Cross pulls out of the country. Prisoners are now
facing health problems because of shortage of medicine and prompt medical
care.”

Since December 2005 the junta has barred the International Committee of
the Red Cross from visiting its extensive network of prisons and labor
camps. The ICRC has not threatened to pull out but some activists fear it
may do so since its activities in the country have been severely curtailed
over the past few years.

____________________________________

January 4, Irrawaddy
Burma’s opposition groups honor Independence Day in Rangoon - Shah Paung

Members of Burma’s pro-democracy opposition groups attended ceremonies in
Rangoon on Thursday to mark the 59th anniversary of independence from
British colonial rule.

“Burma has been independent for 59 years, but until now the Burmese have
not had a chance to enjoy the fruits of independence, and we are still far
away from freedom,” Nyan Win, spokesperson for the National League for
Democracy, said on Thursday.

Among those attending numerous ceremonies were activists, veteran
politicians, members of the 88 Generation Students group and political
prisoners released from prison on Wednesday.

More than 500 people attended an event held at NLD headquarters, while
some 700 gathered at a ceremony honoring former military veterans who
fought for the country’s independence.

The 88 Generation Students issued a statement to coincide with
Independence Day, saying that Burma lacks the basic elements of a
developed and free nation, such as human rights, freedom of religion and
freedom of expression. It added that Burma has been independent for nearly
60 years—more than enough time to recover from past oppression and
flourish as a free nation.

“The absence of foreign dominance and colonial rule does not make us truly
free and independent,” the statement read. “We need to be free from any
system that deprives us of enjoying life in its fullness and aspiring
according to one’s own abilities.”

Burma gained its independence from Britain in 1948 and experimented with
democracy until 1962, when the military first seized power, and to which
it has since clung.

The current regime emerged in 1988 after countrywide demonstrations for
democracy. It held general elections in 1990 but refused to honor the
results—a landslide victory for the pro-democracy NLD, led by Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

According to residents in Pyinmana, Burma’s military regime commemorated
Independence Day in the new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where the
local commander, Brig-Gen Wai Lwin, read a statement from junta leader
Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who did not make a public appearance and is reportedly
receiving medical treatment at a hospital in Singapore.

During its independence celebration, the NLD called for the immediate
release of all political prisoners, including party leader Suu Kyi, her
deputy Tin Oo and several ethnic Shan leaders. The group also demanded
that the regime stop forcing its members to quit the party and allow the
reopening of NLD offices throughout the country.

____________________________________

January 4, South China Morning Post
On the march to a better future - Nick Walker

The new administrative capital of Naypyidaw is taking shape and will be
'evergreen and crime-free' 59th anniversary of the union of myanmar
independence day

Naypyidaw: An entirely new city, became the world's youngest capital when
Myanmar's government ministries were officially moved - lock, stock, and
filing cabinet - on November 6, 2005, from the existing capital and port
city Yangon (previously known as Rangoon) to an upcountry site near the
town of Pyinmana in Mandalay State.

Moving a capital city to a purpose-built new site is by no means
unprecedented - Nigeria undertook such a move in 1991 with Abuja, and
Australia did the same in 1927 with Canberra, as have many other nations
across the globe and over the centuries.

Nevertheless, the symbolism and costs involved in such an initiative means
Myanmar's capital relocation represents an extraordinary development. On
March 27 last year, more than 12,000 soldiers marched in Naypyidaw,
marking the new capital's first public event: a military pageant to mark
Myanmar's Armed Forces Day.

Over the parade ground loomed three enormous statues, depicting the kings
Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya, considered to be the most important
monarchs in the nation's history.

Two of them, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya, left military legacies in wars
against, and conquest over, Siam (present-day Thailand). But the third,
Anawrahta, left the most significant legacy of all.

In this land of monks and soldiers and a society characterised by an
endless duality - religious devotion and faith in the power of armies - it
was Anawrahta, the first Burman ruler of a united nation, who brought
Theravada Buddhism to Myanmar.

The choice of locating the new capital near Pyinmana has enormous
significance. It was from bases around here that the anti-colonial Burma
Independence Army waged its war of national liberation against the British
and the Japanese.

One feature of the new capital, and one that makes it different from
teeming, chaotic Yangon, is that Naypyidaw is judiciously zoned into three
distinct segments: administrative, military and residential. For security
reasons, mobile phone usage is curtailed in Naypyidaw.

"Naypyidaw is the administrative capital and Yangon is, in effect, the
commercial and economic capital," Myanmar Consul-General Ye Myint Aung
said. "Yangon is getting overcrowded. So in this respect the relocation
makes sense."

Certainly a decentralisation has been an issue for many years, with
Myanmar's centre of gravity being in the far south of the nation.

Others see a more complex picture. Yoichi Shimatsu, a Bangkok-based
Myanmar-watcher, regional political commentator for the mainland's CCTV
channel and former editor of The Japan Times Weekly, identifies three
rationales for the relocation. His first concurs with Mr Aung's reasoning.

"There's an increasing need to separate the government and military
functions from the commercial and economic, due to the burgeoning
activities of the business community".

Secondly, Shimatsu cited "concern within the government that the nation
might find itself squeezed between its traditional historical adversary
Thailand and an India emboldened by explosive economic growth. The
government is the military - it naturally thinks and operates in a
defensive-strategic paradigm".

Thirdly, "in what is one of Asia's most superstitious societies,
astrologers close to government circles have apparently predicted 'a
looming cataclysm'. With Iraq and the Middle East ablaze, Asean blindsided
by an unexpected Thai military coup, and new wars igniting across the
Indian Ocean in the Horn of Africa, perhaps Myanmar's rulers are paying
more heed than ever to the stargazers".

Naypyidaw also enjoys greater access and proximity to Myanmar's most
restive states, Shan, Karen and Chin, and commentators in Thailand and the
west have speculated that a closer military and governmental presence will
enable the government to more easily bring stability and economic
development to these regions.

Two new hotels have just opened to accommodate the businessmen and
diplomats who arrive there in greater numbers every day to get better
acquainted with the relocated officialdom.

Construction is even under way, reportedly, of a replica of Yangon's
Shwedagon pagoda - the nation's most identifiable icon, landmark and
heritage site.

Given the advantages of starting from scratch, expectations and standards
are high for the new capital. "Our leadership laid down three requirements
for Naypyidaw: to be evergreen, crime-free, and pollution-free," national
police chief Brigadier-General Khin Yee told visiting reporters last
month.

The government has offered embassies and UN agencies in Yangon space in
Naypyidaw, and they are being encouraged to consider relocating as the
relocation process gathers pace.

While new buildings rise boldly out of the jungle foliage to allow the
city to take its place among the pantheon of national capitals, Yangon's
destiny now seems to point to a return to its traditional identity, that
of a dreamy backwater.

Yangon's development took on a brisker pace after Myanmar joined Asean in
1997, but today's Yangon still has a tropical languor about it. And unlike
Hong Kong, its landmarks can be counted on to remain where they are. The
Sule Paya pagoda, a dazzlingly golden structure, lies at the centre of
Yangon's downtown grid, and is the best place to orientate oneself and,
amid the swirling human traffic, observe Yangon's many faces. The most
eye-catching of these have gold dust on their cheeks - actually ground
thanakha tree bark, a natural sunscreen used by beauty-conscious women
throughout Myanmar.

Around the corner from Sule Paya, live sparrows are sold from tiny bamboo
cages. You buy their freedom and they flutter into the jungle foliage that
is never far away.

This freedom is illusive. The birds are trained to return after their
liberator has wandered on.

Yangon's street life is colourful. Crimson-robed monks and merchants in
longyis sit side by side sipping tea outside shophouses while asthmatic
old buses pass by. Outside temples, vendors sell holy texts printed in the
distinctive curlicue script of Myanmar.

Theravada Buddhism dominates life in Myanmar to an enormous extent. The
country even has a Ministry of Religious Affairs whose role is to promote
and protect the national faith, and to extend learning opportunities to
visitors. And this ministry, like the others, has a new home in Naypyidaw.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

January 4, Narinjara News
Bangladesh to set up petrochemical zone near Burma

Bangladesh plans to have a petrochemical zone near the Bangladesh-Burma
border to ensure optimum use of natural gas, said an official report.

"It will be set up on the border town Teknaf, located on the banks of the
Naff River, opposite Burma's western town of Maungdaw," the report stated.

An official in the Energy Ministry said that work on the petrochemical
zone will be undertaken by a committee headed by the chairman of
Bangladesh Petrobangla, Mr Mosharrol Hossein Bhuiyan, and that they are
working on it as part of their long-term
plans relating to deep-sea gas.

The Bangladesh government is also planning to set up a small complex in
another location in Bangladesh, which would separate the raw gas from the
extracted material. Bangladesh has a few condensate plans and has taken up
proposals to construct an LNG plant, he added.

It was learnt that Bangladesh sent a team in the early 1980's to the
former Soviet Union, Germany, Yugoslavia, and a few other East European
countries to study ways and means of establishing this kind of gas
complex.

____________________________________
ASEAN

January 4, BusinessWorld
All systems go for summit - Josefa Labay Cagoco and Reuters

Barring another weather disturbance, the government is primed for the 12th
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit next week in Cebu
originally scheduled in December but cancelled because of a typhoon that
hit Visayas.

"All systems go," said Executive Secretary Eduardo R. Ermita yesterday.

The ASEAN standing committee would be holding a dinner on Jan. 9 while
meetings would officially kick off the next day.

Senior ministers will meet on Jan. 10 to 11 preceding the meetings of the
ASEAN leaders on Jan. 12 to 15.
Heads of states from the 10-member ASEAN and six dialogue partners have
confirmed their attendance said national organizing committee
secretary-general Marciano Paynor, Jr.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam,
the Philippines, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, while the dialogue partners
are China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

Mr. Ermita assured that the Philippine National Police, Armed Forces and
anti-terrorism task force are prepared to ensure the safety of the leaders
of participating countries, members of the various delegations and other
visitors.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ermita said Jan. 12 (Friday) and Jan. 15 (Monday) would be
declared as holidays in Cebu to reduce congestion and make the city easier
to secure. Though the proposal has not been signed by the President yet,
he said this is as good as approved.

Meanwhile, the military said they saw no security threat to the gathering.

"On the ground, there is no threat, there is no validated threat,"
spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Vicente O. Bacarro told reporters.

He said about 5,500 soldiers and 7,000 policemen would be on duty on Cebu
during the meeting.

"The Armed Forces of the Philippines component, in coordination with the
Philippine National Police, will be able to provide security to the
dignitaries who are arriving," he said.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

January 4, Irrawaddy
UNSC president Russia still opposed to action on Burma - Clive Parker

Russia on Wednesday said it remained opposed to addressing Burma at the UN
Security Council despite US intentions to push for a resolution in 2007.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, the incoming president of the
Security Council for January, told reporters in New York that Moscow still
felt that Burma’s case was not the responsibility of the UN’s most
powerful body.

“Along with some other Security Council members, we voted against the
inclusion of that issue [Burma] in the agenda of the Security Council for
the simple reason
we do believe the situation in that country does not
pose any threat to international peace and security,” he said. “We are not
the only ones that feel that way.”

Russia along with China, Qatar and the Congo were the only four countries
to oppose the ultimately successful attempt to place Burma on the Security
Council’s formal agenda in September last year.

Announcing the council’s schedule for this month, Churkin said its 15
members would hold a debate on Monday on “threats to international peace
and security” in the presence of the new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The session is likely to reassess what issues fall under the authority of
the UN’s most powerful body, a debate which has been fuelled by
disagreement on whether Burma should be addressed at the council. Churkin
on Wednesday said that issues including human rights “need to be addressed
in the proper fora,” adding that “there is tendency sometimes from the
Security Council to take too much on its plate.”

Last Thursday, a US State Department statement said that Washington
“remains committed to pursuing this [Burma] resolution as soon as possible
in the new year.”

However, on Wednesday Churkin said he had not received a request to
address Burma formally during the Russian presidency of the Council in
January, only that there had been “informal exchanges” on the issue.

Meanwhile, state-run The New Light of Myanmar reported that Russia was
among the countries to congratulate Burma on its official Independence Day
on Thursday. In a message to the head of the junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was sure that traditionally close
ties between the two countries would further develop “in the interest of
peace and security in Asia and in the whole world.”

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

January 4, Asia Times
The case for royalty in Myanmar - Michael Vatikiotis

The forlorn hope of progressive political change in Myanmar using all
modern means suggests that reaching back in time and resurrecting the
long-dismantled monarchy could provide a prescription to cure the ills of
one of the world's most isolated countries, which on Thursday honored the
59-year anniversary of its independence from colonial rule.

There was a popular uprising against military rule in 1988 which failed,
followed by nearly a decade of international economic sanctions which have
failed as well. Regional engagement conferred legitimacy on Myanmar's
military junta as an Association of Southeast Asian Nations member, and
there have been a string of special envoys from the United Nations
promising aid in return for democratic progress. These carrots were
ignored and brushed aside by the current ruling junta, known as the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Myanmar seems destined to drift through the first decade of the 21st
century much as it has for the past 60 years: teetering on the brink of
economic collapse, cut off from the wider world and led by a bombastic
clique of military officers convinced they are the only true defenders of
ethnic Burman nationalism. All this suggests there is a much deeper
malaise afflicting Myanmar's society, one that is only partially explained
by the faulty logic of military rule and perhaps rooted deep in the
country's traumatic history.

To be sure, it's hard to visit Myanmar today without sensing a society
that long ago lost its bearings. A once proud and assertive culture now
languishes listlessly among the scant and dusty remnants of a glorious
pre-colonial past. There are few material remains of the Konbaung
dynasty's determined and victorious armies, or the meticulously kept royal
courts of Ava and later Mandalay.

By far the most important fulcrum of Myanmar's history was the sudden and
undignified removal of Thibaw, the last king of what was then called Burma
after the fall of Mandalay to British forces in 1885. Never restoring the
monarchy, something the British colonial rulers considered but casually
rejected, created a cultural vacuum that condemned Burmese society to its
modern fate.

"Burma without a king," writes Thant Myint U in a new history of the
country "would be a Burma entirely different from anything before, a break
with the ideas and institutions that had underpinned society in the
Irrawaddy valley since before medieval times".

The significance of The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant's rather personal
and passionately written history, is that it helps us understand that the
roots of Myanmar's malaise lie in a deeply wounded historical psyche.

Burma after 1885, he writes, was adrift, "suddenly pushed into the modern
world without an anchor to the past, rummaging around for new
inspirations, sustained by a more sour nationalist sentiment". With these
elegantly expressed words, Thant, who is former UN secretary general U
Thant's grandson, drives at the heart of modern Myanmar's problem, which
is the fruitless search for missing pieces of history.

Historical isolation
Too often Myanmar is considered in isolation to other mainland Southeast
Asian states like Thailand and Cambodia, a sad legacy of the fact that the
British ruled what was then called Burma as a part of British India. In
fact, the traditions and cultures governing the organization of these
societies spring from the same root. Mainland Southeast Asian Buddhist
societies are anchored in a blend of animistic and Buddhist beliefs
layered and ordered by rituals of kingship derived from Brahmanical
Hinduism. And neither element on its own provides quite enough social
stability and direction.

Just ask the Thais. Thailand at the end of the 18th century was
disoriented following the sacking of their glorious capital of Ayudhya by
the Burmese army in 1767. For decades the countryside was plagued with
banditry as rice production broke down and people preyed on one another to
survive. These were dark chaotic years barely remembered in Thai history
because they were succeeded by the establishment of a new royal line, the
current Chakri dynasty, which built a shiny new capital on the banks of
the Chao Phraya River, restoring the old ritual and order of the kingdom
and even using bricks from the ruined capital of Ayudhya.

Fast forward to 1990 and the end of the long civil war in Cambodia; who
knows what the final death toll was after the 1975-1979 period of
tyrannical Khmer Rouge rule. Two million people may have perished in the
Khmer Rouge's killing fields, as a brutal self-styled peasant government
moved to erase Cambodian history through its ill-conceived utopian "Year
Zero" policy and moved everyone out of the towns and cities and put them
to work on the land, weeding out intellectuals and professionals for
execution.

Significantly, despite such a wrenching and bloody break with the past,
there was little hesitation about restoring Cambodia's ancient
Hindu-Buddhist monarchy when the resulting civil war was finally settled.
Like a talisman, the monarchy, though powerless, has helped repair and
store a center of gravity to Cambodian culture, with its religious rituals
and exquisite royal ballet somehow masking the inexplicable Khmer Rouge
past but also tempering the monopoly of power cleverly exercised by Prime
Minister Hun Sen.

Myanmar had no such luck. At one point in River of Lost Footsteps Thant
wistfully wonders if King Thibaw had lived longer whether he might have
become king again after the British left. He relates several forgotten
half-hearted attempts by minor princes to restore some of the former
Konbaung dynasty glory, all to no avail. Independence, when it finally
came in 1948, was driven by young army officers imbued with strident
Japanese martial values and politicians fired up by socialist principles.

More importantly, as Thant points out, the nature of British rule
emasculated Burmese pride and culture. Burma was made an adjunct of
British India, never a colony in its own right; Indian workers were
brought in to fill all the coveted new jobs in the civil service. "What
had been urban and cosmopolitan in old Burma had vanished. And what was
modern in the new Burma was alien."

So, unlike Thailand, with its unbroken tradition of bureaucracy serving
the monarchy, or Indonesia with its Dutch-trained civil service, or for
that matter Malaysia with its pampered but socially dominant Malay rulers,
modern Burma was pretty much at sea without a captain or cultural anchor.
The result is a country dominated by a 400,000-strong army (the
15th-largest in the world) and no institution of comparable strength or
reputation to balance its power.

Resurrecting royalty

Could re-established monarchy help restore equilibrium to modern Myanmar?
Would it help repair the strong sense of alienation felt by those in power
and endow them with a sense of cultural confidence? Would it help relieve
the army of its self-assigned burden of saving the country and averting
disintegration and chaos?

In one practical and rather modern respect, the monarchy as an institution
might help ease the military out of power. The monarchy in Thailand has
long balanced the civil and military wings of the Thai bureaucracy, making
sure that neither dominates the power structure by playing one off the
other.

In much the same way, were a Myanmar general to ascend to a restored
throne, he would logically seek to limit the army's power by creating his
own bureaucratic counter balance. Not, grant you, the most efficient path
to civilian rule, but one which would nonetheless achieve that same goal
using arcane methods.

"Unity" and "discipline" was the great Burmese nationalist leader Aung
San's twin slogans, later echoed by his daughter and current opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi during the 1988 popular uprising in Yangon against
the army, which was brutally crushed. During Thursday's Independence Day
celebrations, the SPDC's aging leader General Than Shwe called on the
nation to unify to uphold "sovereignty" and "independence", which he
contended are still under foreign threat.

A restored monarchy in Myanmar could arguably help to achieve unity, at
least if it rose above the bitter and protracted armed struggles with the
country's various ethnic minorities that the military has fought since
1948. Fanciful as it sounds, consider the latest moves by Than Shwe to
rekindle some of the old royal symbols of Burmese unity, including the
recent relocation of the capital from colonial Yangon to the central
heartland in Pyinmana, once the original base of the pro-axis Burma
Independence Army led by Aung San.

The new capital, now renamed Naypyidaw, which translates from the Burmese
to "Royal Palace City of the Kingdom", is home to an ornate state room
tiled with jade, where Than Shwe now receives guests. It is said that
locals are made to kneel in his presence because there are usually no
chairs for them to sit on.

It's not uncommon in Southeast Asian history for successful soldiers to
establish new royal dynasties. For instance, that's how the modern Chakri
dynasty was founded and after a period of decay resurrected in the 1940s
in Thailand. The problem is that no one seems to think that Myanmar's
contemporary military strong man is up to the task. And well into his
mid-1970s with frequent reports of health problems, he probably doesn't
have the time to prove that he is. Perhaps Than Shwe has the right idea,
but is simply the wrong man for the job.

What is certain is that something different needs to be done. For as Thant
concludes in his River of Lost Footsteps: "In Burma, it's not just getting
the military out of the business of government. It's creating the state
institutions that can replace the military state that exists." In other
words, Burma needs to start over again and some of those missing pieces of
history might help.

Michael Vatikiotis is the former editor of the Far Eastern Economic
Review. He is currently regional representative for the Henry Dunant
Center for Humanitarian Dialogue based in Singapore.