BurmaNet News, March 3-5, 2007

[Editor]

March 3-5, 2007 Issue # 3154


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: 88 students’ Open Heart campaign ends
Mizzima: Over 380 houses compelled to relocate for Tamanthi dam
DVB: Pegu NLD leader dies at 84

ON THE BORDER
Bangkok Post: Thai businessman killed in Burmese mine blast

HEALTH / AIDS
Washington Times: Burma junta forces health workers underground

DRUGS
SHAN: One million methamphetamine pills to arrive on Thai border

BUSINESS / TRADE
Narinjara News: Bangladesh again turns eye to three nations pipeline

REGIONAL
The Globe and Mail (Canada): Gifts generals love
The Straits Times (Singapore): Jakarta going about its UN role with zeal

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 5, Democratic Voice of Burma
88 students’ Open Heart campaign ends

The 88 Generation Students’ Open Heart letter campaign ended yesterday
after a highly successful two-month run.

The campaign, launched on Independence Day on January 4, aimed to
encourage Burmese citizens to write letters to senior general Than Shwe
and other members of the State Peace and Development Council, listing
their grievances with military rule.

People from around the country were invited to send the letters via the 88
Students Group, in an attempt to prevent the authorities from punishing
participants. Former student leader Ko Ko Gyi told DVB yesterday the group
had received more than 20,000 letters.

“When we started, we initially aimed at 4 February for a month. But since
it is difficult to communicate with people from some areas of the country,
we extended the campaign to March 4,” Ko Ko Gyi said.

“At the moment, we are filing all the letters into similar topics and we
will forward them to the authorities concerned systematically,” he said.

The Open Heart campaign has received praise and support from Burmese
people living both inside and outside the country. The 88 Generation
Students said yesterday, the public could expect to see more peaceful
political campaigns led by the group in the near future.

____________________________________

March 5, Mizzima News
Over 380 houses compelled to relocate for Tamanthi dam - Mungpi

Several hundred villagers have been coerced to evacuate in upper Sagaing
division, Northwestern Burma, with the military junta starting
construction of the proposed Tamanthi Dam project on the Chindwin River.

About 380 households from Leivomjang and Tazong villages, located between
Tamanthi and Homalin towns in Chindwin basin, have been forced to leave
their homes and relocate to new places, said an ethnic Kuki woman, whose
family members were compelled to relocate from Leivomjang village.

Speaking to Mizzima, the Kuki woman, on condition of anonymity for the
safety of her family in Burma, said the Burmese Army had started
destroying houses in the two villages and forced the villagers to relocate
to a new village named 'Laung Min' on the eastern bank of Chindwin River.

However, as the new village site is barren and is situated in a remote
area away from the communication network, villagers have refused to stay
in the new place, she said.

"Most of them refused to go to the new site and some went into the jungle
to hide. Some are temporarily staying in farm huts. No one dares to remain
in their village," she added.

Calling it a 'development project', the Burmese junta with the help of
India's National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), is building a
hydroelectric project on the Chindwin River, which flows from the Hukawn
valley of Kachin state in northern Burma and runs through Sagaing Division
to join the Irrawaddy river.

The proposed hydroelectric project will generate 1,200 megawatts of
electricity. Campaigners said while about 20 percent of the electricity
will be used locally, mainly by Burmese junta officials, 80 percent will
be transmitted to India.

Anti-Tamanthi Dam Campaign Committee, a group of activists campaigning
against the junta's project, said the junta had forcibly seized about
17,000 acres of agricultural land from villagers for the proposed dam
site.

Campaigners said the Tamanthi dam project, which is under construction
without an iota of environmental assessment, will adversely affect the
existing biodiversity, ecological balance and climatic conditions in the
region.

"There has been accelerated human rights violation such as forced labour
and forced relocation for the dam project," said Lu Lun, coordinator of
the ATDCC in New Delhi adding that over 61 Kuki inhabitant villages will
be forced to relocate as these villages are in the junta's target area for
the dam project.

The Chindwin River basin in upper Sagaing, which is famous for gold and
jade mining, is home to several ethnic nationalities including the Kuki,
Naga and Shan.

However, with the junta's 'development projects' many villagers in the
basin will have to find new habitat, Lu Lun said.

____________________________________

March 5, Democratic Voice of Burma
Pegu NLD leader dies at 84

Chairman of Pegu Division’s Paukkhaung Township National League for
Democracy U Saw Nedoon died of cancer last Friday, according to the
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma.

The 84-year-old former political prisoner, who died at his home in
Paukkhaung, was a veteran politician. He was arrested by the Burmese
authorities for his involvement in the birth of the National Coalition
Government of the Union of Burma in 1991 and was sentenced to 20 years in
prison.

He was released from Tharawaddy jail in July 2005. Head of the NCGUB and
Burma’s prime minister in exile Dr Sein Win on Saturday expressed his
regret over U Saw Nedoon’s death.

“I feel very saddened by the news. In the 1990 election, Saw Nedoon and I
were the leaders of the [National League for Democracy] . . . He was a
respectable person. He had dignity and was like a real leader,” Dr Sein
Win said.

“The [State Peace and Development Council] put him in prison for a long
time out of spite,” he said.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 4, Bangkok Post
Thai businessman killed in Burmese mine blast

A Thai businessman, whose company operates an antimony mine in Burma, was
killed and a worker seriously injured when their pick-up truck ran over a
land mine in Burma, some 3km from the border province of Mae Hong Son
yesterday [3 March]. According to the 7th Infantry Battalion that
supervises border areas in the northern province, the Toyota pick-up
carrying Pradit Hongto, 50, and his employee Somboon Hongnimit, a Mae Hong
Son native, ran over a land mine on a border road opposite Ban Nam Phiang
Din village of Mae Hong Son.

Pradit was killed instantly and Somboon, in his 20s, was rushed to the Mae
Hong Son provincial hospital from where he was later moved to the Chiang
Mai provincial hospital.

Suthas Jarumanee, the battalion commander, said Pradit was the elder
brother of Sanoh Hongto, co-owner of the mining company. With a concession
from the Burmese government, the company has been operating its antimony
mine for three years now.

The mine is in an economic development zone the Burmese government has
assigned the KNPLS [as carried; presumably Karenni Nationalities People's
Liberation Front, KNPLF] Karenni ethnic group to supervise.

Despite officially being under the control of the pro-government ethnic
force, at least two other anti-government ethnic groups are known to be
active in the economic development zone, mainly along the border area.

Col Suthas said the situation had been relatively calm there in the last
three years until yesterday's incident.

Following the mine blast, Thai soldiers near the border immediately
contacted their Burmese counterparts for help, who have allowed the Thai
officials to access the blast site.

Thai authorities, including police, are expected to inspect the scene of
the blast today.

____________________________________
HEALTH/AIDS

March 3, The Washington Times
Burma junta forces health workers underground

With an empty plastic bag in her hand and a purse on her shoulder, she
crosses into Burma every morning among the stream of Indian traders. To
officials on both sides of the border, she's just an ordinary
businesswoman hurrying to shop in the popular Chinese markets in
Namphalong, Burma.

But as soon as the 35-year-old tribal woman is beyond the sight of Burmese
immigration officials, she neatly folds the vinyl bag and puts it in her
handbag, before turning into one of the nearby villages to start her day's
work as a community health worker.

"Every day I meet intravenous heroin users, prostitutes and ordinary
villagers to explain how they can prevent infectious diseases like HIV or
hepatitis," said the Burmese woman who lives in Moreh, a border town in
the northeast Indian state of Manipur. Concerned about her safety, she did
not want to be photographed or identified by name.

"I also advise people on how to get medical help in Burma or India in case
they get the diseases."

As a growing number of international charities suspend operations in Burma
because of increasing pressure from Burma's military junta, community
health workers like this woman do their best to provide basic medical care
to some of Asia's most vulnerable people.

AIDS, malaria rife

In a country where HIV/AIDS and malaria are rife, the activities of any
health worker are overwhelming. UNAIDS, the United Nations agency
coordinating the global fight against the disease, estimates that about
620,000 people in Burma 15 to 49 years of age are infected with HIV. But
on the border, where the junta casts its shadow over every section of
society, health workers face the additional burden of risking their lives
daily when they go to help the ill.

"Sometimes in the villages, I also distribute essential medicines supplied
by NHEC," the woman said, referring to the National Health and Education
Committee, organized by Burmese pro-democracy activists in exile.
"Although I'm doing exactly what a community health worker does elsewhere
in the world, I often have to work undercover to save myself from being
troubled by the military."

To maintain her false identity as a trader in the eyes of the Burmese
border police, she carries cheap clothes or consumer goods from markets in
Tamu, south of Namphalong, every evening for some shops in Moreh.

Junta cracks down

Lamlhing Touthang, a Namphalong-based health worker, recently returned
home after participating in a monthlong HIV-care training camp in Manipur.
On her return, she was interrogated for more than five hours by Burmese
military intelligence officials, who suspected her of having a role in
"anti-national" activities, suggesting that she doubled as a political
agent for the pro-democracy activists in exile.

"From my bag [Burmese intelligence officers] got nothing except some NHEC
pamphlets on awareness about AIDS and malaria," she said.

"Yet they ordered me not to go out of the country again for 'so long' in
the future. They also told me not to maintain any communications with the
NHEC."

Now Ms. Touthang and her Burmese colleagues have officially become
volunteers at a small Burma-based health nongovernmental organization -- a
new role that helps keep intelligence officers at bay.

"Just to avoid trouble in the field, our health workers flaunt the
identity cards of some Burmese NGOs," said Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo, India-based
chairman of NHEC's western region. "But NGOs operating under many
restrictions imposed by the military regime have no access to the
developed world in which they could obtain modern care and treatment for
HIV victims in Burma.

"Except for a few hospitals in cities, there are no trained government
doctors to handle HIV victims. As many as 85 percent of HIV carriers live
in rural areas. If the junta allowed international medical aid groups to
function freely inside Burma, the problem would have not have become so
acute."

Charities forced out

Under pressure from the junta, many international medical charities are
winding up their operations in Burma. In 2005, Global Fund for HIV/AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria canceled its $37.5 million program in Burma,
citing government restrictions on its movements that made functioning
nearly impossible. Doctors Without Borders pulled out of Karen and Mon
states last year for similar reasons.

In October, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was
ordered to close all its offices outside Rangoon after it reported rampant
infection of HIV and other infectious diseases among prison inmates in the
country.

Then in December, after the shutdown was criticized by many international
agencies, Burma hinted it could allow the reopening of ICRC field offices,
but would not allow the organization to make prison visits or give them
access to detainees.

According to UNAIDS, the western part of the country is most neglected as
far as HIV and AIDS treatment is concerned. The agency reported recently
that not a single AIDS patient received free anti-retroviral drugs from
the government.

"If the rule book is followed, all HIV-infected children should be given
ART [anti-retroviral treatment]. But not one of the estimated 8,000 to
10,000 children in Sagaing division and Chin state have access to these
vital medicines. It's a horrible example of indifference meted out to its
HIV-positive children by a government," said another Manipur-based NHEC
executive, who asked to be identified only as Dr. Thura.

Quacks spread HIV

"Many quacks are still spreading HIV dangerously in rural areas, and many
villagers -- to get common medicines injected -- are still receiving help
from intravenous heroin users who make injections with used needles and
charge half of what it would cost at a doctor's clinic," she said.

"In terms of awareness, most HIV-affected areas [in Burma] today are in
the same phase that neighboring Thailand or India were in 15 years ago. At
least on humanitarian grounds, urgent intervention is necessary."

Early last year, two workers of the Burmese Solidarity Organization -- a
pro-democracy group working with NHEC -- were abducted by Burmese
commandos from Moreh. NHEC officials shut down their medical sites and
moved to Indian villages farther from the border.

In early February, the Indian army shut a temporary NHEC medical camp at
an Indian border village in Mizoram, where India-based NHEC doctors were
training Burmese health workers who secretly provide medical care in
Burma. India-based Burmese health activists charged that the Indian army
forced the closure of the medical camp and harassed Burmese doctors and
other health workers to please their Burmese counterparts.

But despite such threats, the NHEC has started to build homes where
orphans of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Indian border districts of Manipur
and Mizoram will have refuge once they leave Burma. The orphanages will
also function as hospitals where trained doctors will be on hand.


Epidemic 'worsening'

"With the logistical help of friends in India and some Western countries,
we are going to start these orphanage-hospitals where we hope to be able
to provide anti-retroviral therapy [ART] on a regular basis as well," said
Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo. "In the absence of ART, the epidemic in Burma is
worsening."

Dr. Thura said that in the past three months, NHEC workers received more
than 2,000 requests from gravely ill Burmese AIDS victims in Chin and
Sagaing.

"Since the numbers of such poor people seeking free ART are constantly on
the increase [in western Burma] and it's impossible for us to help such a
huge population settle in India, we have also sent proposals to our
friends seeking help in starting ART relief centers in border districts
close to Burma," Dr. Thura said.

She said 80 percent or more of suspected HIV carriers in Burma do not know
they are carrying the virus, and sex workers do not carry condoms because
it is considered proof of prostitution.

Funding no problem

Shalom, another Manipur-based medical NGO trying to combat HIV and AIDS,
is setting up two hospices in the border towns of Moreh and Champhai.

Its director, Dr. Vanlalmuana Pachhuau, said funding often is not a
problem for such projects when they were targeted to serve the people
inside Burma. "The miseries of HIV and AIDS victims in Burma are
well-known around the world. A number of funding agencies are ready to
fund our projects and by the middle of next year we hope to open
hospices."

But Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo fears the planned HIV relief projects run by NHEC in
Indian border states run the risk of being targeted by the Burmese junta.

"When the SPDC [ruling junta] cannot allow an organization as apolitical
as the ICRC to serve the Burmese people freely, it can never tolerate us
because it thinks we are spies and a part of a Western network engaged in
attempts to overthrow the military government," Dr. Aung Kyaw Oo said.

"Since it will not be able to order the closure of our projects, because
they're not based in Burma, [SPDC] could go to the extent of placing a ban
on patients seeking any relief from us or any agency outside the country."

Writer-photographer's name withheld for safety.

____________________________________
DRUGS

March 3, Shan Herald Agency for News
One million methamphetamine pills to arrive on Thai border
Come the water festival in April, about a million methamphetamine tablets
will be available on the Thai-Burma border. It has arrived in Phoongpakhem
town from Panghsang, according to sources on the border.

Captain Kaling (43) of military region 171 of United Wa State Army and
Chinese businessman Lor Wu have transported about a million
methamphetamine pills from Panghsang, eastern Shan State. It arrived in
Phoongpakhem town on February 24, sources said.

Drugs can be traded freely without hindrance in Phoongpakhem, a local
resident said.

The million methamphetamine pills to be sold on the Thai-Burma border
belong to by Kaling and Lor Wu. There are other millions of tablets in the
possession of UWSA and other Chinese businessmen, according to the source.

Methamphetamine pills transported by Kaling include WY-Tiger 1 (T.1) and
WY-Tiger 2 (T.2). A tablet costs about 30 baht at wholesale rates,
according to sources.

The military region 171 of the UWSA, which reached a ceasefire agreement
with the Burmese military junta, is currently under the command of drug
lord Wei Hsuehkang.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

March 5, Narinjara News
Bangladesh again turns eye to three nations pipeline

Bangladesh is reportedly planning discussions with the Indian government
on the three-nation gas pipeline involving India, Burma, and Bangladesh,
in New Delhi this week during a visit of Bangladesh's advisor to the power
and energy ministries, reports a Bangladesh newspaper.

Bangladesh Power and Energy Advisor Tapan Chowdhury will discuss the issue
with Indian officials while he is in New Delhi, the report said.

Tapan Chowdhury is scheduled to leave for India on 7 March.

The report said that Tapan Chowdhury would discuss with high ranking
Indian officials other bilateral business issues aside from the
three-nations gas pipeline.

The present Bangladesh caretaker government is keen to finalize the gas
pipeline issue with Indian authorities before the SAARC meeting, which
will be held in April 2007, said the report.

Bangladesh's previous government had discussed several times with its
neighbors India and Burma the issue of taking part in the three-nation gas
pipeline by allowing Bangladesh's territory to be used for a section of
pipeline connecting Burma and India.

No final agreement on the pipeline has been reached, after the Bangladesh
government demanded India allow three conditions - the reduction of the
trade imbalance between Bangladesh and India, provision of a corridor for
Nepalese goods to access Bangladeshi ports, and access for Bangladesh to
hydroelectric power from Nepal and Bhutan.

In 1997, the Mohona Holdings Limited of Bangladesh initiated the
tri-nation pipeline project. A draft memorandum of understanding was
signed by the three participating countries in February 2005, for
construction of the proposed pipeline to carry Burmese gas to India
through Bangladesh. Representatives of the three nations signed the draft
memorandum of understanding at the techno-commercial meeting in Yangon in
February 2005.

Under the proposal, the 950-kilometer pipeline is set to run through
Arakan State in Burma, via the Indian states of Mizoram and Tripura,
before crossing into Bangladesh on its way to Kolkata.

Bangladesh may earn $125 million annually in transit fees from both Burma
and India.

Sources say there are gas reserves of around 5 - 6 trillion cubic feet in
the block under discussion in Burma, from which gas will be transported to
India.

India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd., GAIL India Ltd., and Burma
altogether hold 60 percent of the gas field, while the Korean Daewoo
Company holds a 40 percent stake.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

March 3, The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Gifts generals love - Umarah Jamali

If military-run Myanmar is such a leper, why are two regional powers
tripping over each other to make nice?

New Delhi: Ruled with ruthless efficiency by a brutal military junta,
Myanmar is supposed to be a pariah state, long the target of U.S. and
European Union sanctions, including a strict arms embargo.

And yet in December, the junta's third-highest-ranking member, General
Thura Shwe Mann, asked the government of India to supply Myanmar with a
range of military gear.

The following month, India's foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, visited
Myanmar and told junta vice-chairman General Maung Aye the request would
receive a "favourable response." According to media sources, the shopping
list includes field guns, helicopters, submarines, mortars,
submarine-detecting sonar equipment, surveillance aircraft, and spare
parts for MiG fighter planes.

In fact, the Indian army's vice-chief, Lieutenant-General S.
Pattabhiraman, says New Delhi has already supplied a host of military
hardware, including field guns and howitzers.

And last year the Indian navy gave Myanmar two BN-2 "Defender" Islander
maritime surveillance aircraft, deck-based air-defence guns and
surveillance equipment.

And anti-government groups in Myanmar accuse India of shipping weaponry
since in 2003, saying they have watched 139 truckloads enter the country
through the northeast Indian border town of Moreh, and more has arrrived
by sea.

Given what the international community thinks of the regime in Rangoon,
why would India do this?

Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar fear the junta will use the equipment to
suppress opposition and slow any progress toward free and open elections.
They say the government has its sights set on political activists and
ethnic minorities.

That may be a consquence of the shipments but it is certainly not what is
prompting them. Rather than isolate Rangoon, New Delhi has taken the
opposite tack - it hopes Myanmar's rulers will crack down on insurgents,
especially those operating in the northeast Indian states of Manipur and
oil- and tea-rich Assam.

As well as encouraging foreign forces to attack its own citizens, India is
courting Myanmar in an attempt to counter China's expanding influence in
the region.

The Indian rebels are vulnerable to attack because they operate from
jungle bases on the Myanmar side of the border. About a dozen secessionist
bands use this technique, and in January, one group, the United Liberation
Front of Assam or ULFA, killed 70 migrant labourers from Bihar in its
campaign to drive outsiders from Assam. Also, 24 Indian soldiers were
killed last month in ambushes by the United National Liberation Front in
Manipur.

"Our crackdown on the groups was never successful in the past - every
time, the guerillas fled across the border," Foreign Minister Mukherjee
said upon his return from Myanmar.

So last month India sent another high-level delegation to ask the generals
to dismantle the rebel camps. A week later, army troops attacked Naga
tribal rebels, killing 14 members of the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland and destroying a key base. For more than 50 years, NSCN factions
have been demanding to have a separate homeland carved out of
Naga-dominated areas in India and Myanmar.

Even so, there are doubts that India's hired-gun strategy will work in the
long run.

"In 1995, Myanmar took part in India's Operation Golden Bird, promising to
flush out the Indian insurgents from Myanmar's territory. But most of the
insurgents still roam freely in western Myanmar. Some of them are
sometimes arrested by the Myanmese authorities, only to be released a few
days later," says Soe Minn, a Delhi-based Myanmese journalist.

"Last month the Burmese soldiers attacked only the Naga guerillas because
NSCN poses a threat even to Myanmar. They have never launched any serious
offensive against ULFA or UNLF."

As well, in remote parts of Myanmar, many army commanders enjoy free rein,
and have been accused of receiving regular cuts from the Indian insurgents
who moonlight as smugglers.

Neneo Haokip, a former member of Manipur's Kuki National Army, says that
"the insurgents who fund themselves by smuggling arms and narcotics are in
fact sheltered by corrupt military officers, and these rogue army
commanders would never want the anti-India rebels to be driven away.

"The guerillas use arms and ammunitions borrowed or supplied by Myanmese
troops and sometimes those guerillas are used in attacks on the Myanmese
democracy activists in Indian border towns, as they did last year."

He was referring to a January, 2006, incident in which two Myanmese
pro-democracy activists were abducted by Burmese commandos from the Indian
border town of Moreh, with the help of Indian UNLF rebels based in
Myanmar.

"There are hundreds of instances of intimacy between anti-India insurgents
and Burmese military officers," he added. "We strongly believe the Indian
arms and ammunitions are going to be used to crush ethnic minorities, like
the Karens, and pro-democracy activists."

The Myanmese journalist says that his country's troops also would never
drive out the guerillas because they're needed to keep track of activities
by Myanmese pro-democracy activists living in India.

In 1988, after the military crackdown on Myanmar's pro-democracy movement,
India became a vocal supporter of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But
that support ended in 1993, when New Delhi performed a U-turn and began to
mend fences with the generals.

And it's not Rangoon's only outside friend. "China," says New Delhi-based
security analyst Rahul Bedi, "is modernizing at least six naval bases in
Myanmar. The Indian navy fears this could support Chinese submarine
operations in the region as part of Beijing's 'string of pearls' strategy
of clinching regional defence and security agreements to secure its
mounting fuel requirements and enhance its military profile in the Indian
Ocean." India faces an uphill task in trying to neutralize China's
influence.

"For more than two decades, China has helped Myanmar develop its military
infrastructure. It recently bailed Myanmar out of trouble by vetoing a
Washington-backed UN resolution against the military regime," says Indian
analyst Shyamal Sarkar. "Friendship with a permanent member of the
Security Council is far more valuable for the junta than that with India."

Pro-democracy activists say it's simply in the junta's interests to move
on the rebels or to distance itself from China.

"With Myanmar forcing India and China into a cold war and both neighbours
striving hard to keep the military regime pleased," says Tint Swe of Aung
San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, "hopes of democratization of
Myanmar are getting grimmer."

Umarah Jamali is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi.

_____________________________________

March 3, The Straits Times (Singapore)
Jakarta going about its UN role with zeal - Azhar Ghan

Jakarta: Two months after becoming a non-permanent member of the United
Nations' Security Council, Indonesia is already flexing its diplomatic
muscles on several high-profile international issues.

On Wednesday, The Jakarta Post quoted an unnamed government source as
saying that Indonesia will not support a Western-sponsored initiative for
the Council to impose fresh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear plans.

The report said Jakarta would either vote against the move or abstain.

Iran has always claimed that its nuclear programme is not for weapon
development.

And, Indonesia, which has plans to go nuclear in meeting its own power
needs, has always supported the development of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes.

Jakarta's stand, if it plays out as reported, would reflect what it had
earlier described as its planned multifaceted balancing role in the
Council.

It had cited its position as a developing moderate Muslim democracy,
involved in the non-aligned movement, as the reason it was well-placed for
such a function.

Outside of the business of the Council, Indonesia has also been recently
making several stabs at playing potential facilitator for a few
high-profile international situations.

Two weeks ago, Jakarta hosted officials from Myanmar for talks not just
aimed at enhancing bilateral ties, but also to push the nation towards
democratisation.

Last week, Indonesia said it had invited Hamas and Western representatives
to talks in Jakarta this month in a bid to persuade the militant group to
moderate its position and help end a crippling economic blockade of the
Palestinian government.

Jakarta's keenness to play a bigger role internationally predates its
induction into the Security Council.

Last year, it had offered to mediate between the Muslim world and the West
in both the Iranian nuclear issue and the Palestinian problem.

Back then, Indonesia, which has historical ties with North Korea, had even
offered to help ease the nuclear tension on the Korean peninsula.

Although these moves are in line with the ideological and
constitutionally- mandated non-aligned activism of Indonesia, observers
have cautioned Jakarta against being over-zealous.

They have noted that Indonesia should not bite off more than it can chew,
given the many problems it faces at home.

Many have also reminded the government to always place national interests
first when pursuing international goals.

At a recent public discussion on Indonesia's role in the Security Council,
veteran diplomat S. Wiryono said that the government owes it to the
Indonesians to do so.

'Foreign policy is only an extension of domestic politics.

'The decisions should be in line with our national priorities in the
political and economic fields,' he said.