BurmaNet News, March 24-26, 2007

[Editor]

March 24-26, 2007 Issue # 3169


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar uses rare press conference to deny rights abuses
Mizzima: Three die, over a 1,000 flee fresh army offensive in Karen districts
AFP: Myanmar says Suu Kyi planned on 'devastating' the nation
AFP: Myanmar says hospitalised PM 'in good health'

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Kidnapped Thai officers released by Karen rebel army

DRUGS
Xinhua: Poppy cultivation in Myanmar falls 34 percent in 2006: UNODC

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: China gains ground in Burma gas grab
Xinhua: China-Myanmar oil pipeline construction to begin this year,
extends to Chongqing

ASEAN:
Narinjara News: Burma regional catastrophe: ASEAN Parliamentarians

INTERNATIONAL
Sunday Telegraph: 'Awkward' South Africa accused of playing politics with
human rights

OPINION / OTHER
The Nation: Burma's horrors continue unabated

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

March 26, Agence France Presse
Myanmar uses rare press conference to deny rights abuses - Charlotte
McDonald-Gibson

Naypyidaw: Myanmar's junta used its first major press conference in its
new capital Monday to insist there were no racial conflicts, severe human
rights abuses or ethnic cleansing in the country.

Tens of thousands of people are believed to have fled a military offensive
along Myanmar's border with Thailand, prompting human rights groups to
accuse the regime of deliberately driving them away.

"Myanmar has no ethnic cleansing, racial conflicts, or severe human rights
violations," information minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan told
reporters.

The comments were made at Myanmar's first press conference for
international media in its new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where the
government and military moved their offices a year ago.

Human Rights Watch estimates that 27,000 of the minority ethnic Karen fled
their homes after the military launched its major offensive against them
in February 2006. They joined an estimated 100,000 already hiding near the
Thai border.

Analysts have said the offensive was designed in part to create a sweeping
security cordon around the new capital in central Myanmar, where junta
leader Senior General Than Shwe and other top officials now live.

Kyaw Hsan insisted that military operations along the border were limited
to clearing landmines, and accused the rebel Karen National Union of
forcing villagers to leave their homes.

"In this way, the so-called refugee camps emerged here and there along the
border," he said.
"It is a plot to obtain cash and kind assistance from the international
community by showing them as refugees and to put the blame on the
government," he added.

Kyaw Hsan's remarks came at the start of the hours-long press conference
that included lengthy denials of the litany of abuses that rights groups
accuse the military of inflicting on the nation.

Myanmar's police chief, Major General Khin Yi, rejected accusations of
torture and ill-treatment inside the nation's prisons, where Red Cross
workers have been denied visits for more than one year.

He said the Prisons Department was putting "to good use the idle labour of
prisoners in productive programmes."

The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has not been allowed
to visit Myanmar's prisons since December 2005, and that its other work in
the country has practically ground to a halt.

Rights groups like Amnesty International have repeatedly accused the junta
of torture and harsh conditions in its prisons, saying inmates have been
brutalised during interrogations and were sometimes punished by being
forced into cages meant for military dogs.

The junta also stands accused of engaging in forced labour, allowing
rampant drug trafficking, denying religious freedom and using child
soldiers.

The regime is under US and European sanctions for failing to make promised
democratic reforms and for its continued detention of pro-democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.

Foreign journalists were allowed to visit Naypyidaw this week to observe a
military parade Tuesday to mark Armed Forces Day, the most important
holiday to the junta.

Tens of thousands of troops are expected to march through a new parade
ground, in the shadow of enormous statues of ancient Burmese kings.

Than Shwe, 73, is also expected to address the troops and try to dispel
worries about his health after he spent nearly two weeks in Singapore for
medical checks.

____________________________________

March 26, Mizzima News
Three die, over a 1,000 flee fresh army offensive in Karen districts - Nem
Davies

Three villagers were killed and over 1,000 ethnic Karen civilians fled
from three districts of northern Karen State following a fresh offensive
by the Burmese Army, according to the Free Burma Rangers.

Repeated attacks by Burmese troops since the end of February till March
20, have forced villagers from Tha Da Der and Hta Kaw To Baw in Phapun
Districts, South of Bawgali Gyi, Toungoo district and Nyaung Lay Pin
districts to flee and hide in the jungles, the FBR said in a report
released on March 24.

Burmese Army troops launched attacks in March in Papun district from the
Maw Pu and Yetagun army camps killing three villagers and injuring one.
The attacks were directed at the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA),
the armed wing of the Karen National Union which is fighting the Burmese
junta for self-determination.

Burmese troops have been extending their network of roads and camps in
northern Karen State by attacking villagers and patrolling the project
construction sites.

Pado Man Sha, General Secretary of the Karen National Union said, "These
attacks cannot lead to national reconciliation and genuine peace talks.
They are suppressing cease fire groups and dividing them. It is only
leading to the military getting stronger."

Since the beginning of 2006, more than 80 civilians have been killed, the
FBR said.

Led by LIB 377 villagers are forced to carry loads of material to the
army's project construction sites while LIB 376 is in charge of security
for road construction. LIB 375 is in charge of procuring forced labour for
the projects, said the report.

"More than 100 villages have been destroyed and over 20,000 internally
displaced people (IDP) were forced to leave their villages since February
and March 2006," Pado Man Sha added.

____________________________________

March 26, Agence France Presse
Myanmar says Suu Kyi planned on 'devastating' the nation

Naypyidaw: Myanmar on Monday accused Nobel peace laureate and democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi of planning to "devastate" the country, and said
there was no impending date for her release.

"It will be according to the law to release her, it depends on her," said
information minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan.

Aung San Suu Kyi was first arrested in 1989, just months after she helped
form the National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the wake of a
vicious government crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising one year earlier.

The Nobel peace laureate has twice been freed, only to be thrown back into
house arrest. Her latest detention began in 2003, after a pro-government
mob staged a bloody attack on her convoy while she was touring northern
Myanmar.

Kyaw Hsan accused Aung San Suu Kyi of "turning back to confrontation" each
time that the government has released her.

"We treated her in a patient way, but she intended to devastate the
country," he said, without elaborating.

"That is why the government restricted her the third time," he said,
referring to her arrest in 2003.

Kyaw Hsan, speaking at the first press conference for foreign media in
country's new administrative capital which lasted some six hours, also
accused the NLD of hampering the advent of democracy in Myanmar.

"We tried for cooperation with the NLD in the past, as we have the same
intention to implement democracy and an open market economy," he said.

"We will take action against whoever harms the nation and the
implementation of democracy," he added.
The NLD won elections in 1990 in a landslide victory, but the military has
never allowed the party to take office.

____________________________________

March 26, Agence France Presse
Myanmar says hospitalised PM 'in good health'

Naypyidaw: Myanmar's Prime Minister Soe Win is in good health despite
being hospitalised in Singapore, the military-ruled nation's information
minister said Monday.

"We are over-50s or over-60s, so we need regular medical check-ups," said
Kyaw Hsan. "Our prime minister is undergoing a medical check-up abroad in
Singapore, so his health is good."

Soe Win has been in the Singapore General Hospital for more than a week,
according to the Myanmar embassy in the city-state, but the secretive
military government has refused to say exactly why he is there.
Kyaw Hsan was speaking in the new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where
he held the government's first briefing for foreign media in the new city.

Soe Win, a lieutenant general, is thought to be aged about 58, and
replaced the disgraced Khin Nyunt as prime minister in October 2004.

He had risen swiftly in the leadership after allegedly plotting an attack
on the motorcade of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003.

After the attack she was imprisoned and then placed under house arrest,
where she remains.

The clash between supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) and a pro-junta group left up to 80 people dead, according
to dissidents. The government said four people were killed and 50 injured.

Soe Win, a tall and stern man, is considered to be among the leadership
hardliners. His role as prime minister is largely symbolic, as most power
in the government rests with junta leader Senior General Than Shwe.

Concerns about Than Shwe's health have also risen this year, after he
spent nearly two weeks in January in Singapore in undergoing medical
checks.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

March 26, Irrawaddy
Kidnapped Thai officers released by Karen rebel army - Shah Paung and Sai
Silp

Two kidnapped Thai border patrol policemen were released Monday by the
Democratic Buddhist Karen Army after being detained for five days.

Sources say the kidnappings were probably related to a dispute between the
DBKA and the KNU army.

According to Kwekalu, a Karen online news Web site, a senior KNU official
on the border who asked not to be identified said the DKBA detained the
two border policemen because it wanted to exchange them for three Karen
National Liberation Army officers who work in the DKBA-controlled area.

Police Sub-Lt Chavalit Rattanaphan and Lance Cpl Prayongyuth Panthang were
kidnapped by the DBKA on Thursday.

The general secretary of the Karen National Union, Mahn Sha, told The
Irrawaddy that the kidnapping incident was related to illicit drugs,
logging and human trafficking.

Thai Third Army commander Lt-Gen Jiradet Kocharat told a press conference
on Monday in Pitsanuloke Province the kidnapped officers arrived home
safely through the coordinated efforts of Thai security forces and local
administrative officials of the Township Border Committee of Mae Sot
District and Myawaddy Township of Burma.

Jiradet said the two policemen were invited to Burma by DKBA officials on
Thursday and did not return to their base in Ban Jakae in the Sangkhlaburi
District of Kanchanaburi Province. The officers were reported as
kidnapped.

Some border sources had earlier claimed the DBKA kidnapping was an
elaborate deal to put pressure on the KNU. The rival groups have
frequently clashed since the DKBA broke with the KNU and joined with the
Burmese military government in 1995.

On March 8, there was fighting between KNU Battalion 201 and DKBA
battalions 907 and 906.

DKBA sources said commander Hnoke Khan Hmwe has been summoned to
headquarters in Myaing Gyi Ngu, Karen State, regarding the latest incident
and recent clashes with the KNU.

Security remains tight in the area with numerous border checkpoints
remained closed on Monday.

Officials said the Thai First Army and the Surasi Task Force, the
policemen's unit, are investigating.

____________________________________
DRUGS

March 26, Xinhua General News Service
Poppy cultivation in Myanmar falls 34 percent in 2006: UNODC

Yangon: Myanmar's poppy cultivation fell 34 percent to 21,500 hectares in
2006, representing a dramatic 83 percent drop from 130,300 hectares in
1998, all state-run newspapers quoted an annual report of the United
Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) as saying Monday.

In its report 2007, the UNODC said it launched community support projects
in Myanmar in 2006, introducing drug demand reduction initiatives and
providing treatment and rehabilitation for the country's opium addicts.

The community support projects included a major irrigation project of the
Nantu Canal in Ho Tao township, while the drug demand reduction program
comprised treatment and detoxification for drug addicts in Mong Pawk and
Wein Kao townships, benefiting more than 1,000 such addicts and providing
counseling sessions to families during the past three years.

The report also said the UNODC strengthened links with United Nations
agencies and non-governmental organizations in 2006, working on anti-human
trafficking efforts in Myanmar, sponsoring a national seminar in Yangon
and recommending development of a national plan of action to include the
protection of victims and assistance in the return of trafficked victims
from abroad.

According to the report, the UNODC-supported Border Liaison Office was set
up to increase cooperation on drug control between local authorities, the
UNODC's regional center in Bangkok, UNODC Myanmar and the UN Inter-Agency
Project in Human Trafficking in the Mekong Subregion.

The report also said the UNODC and the Myanmar drug control agency
undertook a study to determine the role of the law enforcement sector in
the response to HIV/AIDS, and opened two new centers in Hsenwi and
Tachilek in Shan state to provide  comprehensive drug services, including
treatment and  detoxification, counseling and support, healthcare,
education and  training.

The report added that the UNODC's HIV/AIDS prevention project also covered
trainings for Myanmar police force and anti-narcotic  task forces as well
as armed medical services of the Defense  Services.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been implementing a 15-year plan (1999- 2014) to
totally eradicate poppy in three phases, each running for five years, and
it is now in the second five-year phase which  began in 2004.

Myanmar declared three regions of Mongla, Kokang and Wa as  poppy-free
zones in 1997, 2003 and 2005 respectively.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

March 26, Irrawaddy
China gains ground in Burma gas grab - William Boot

As anti-Burmese regime campaigners staged a “No More Guns for Gas” day of
global protest, much of the Asian energy industry is waiting to hear who
will be the winner of an unprecedented bidding competition for one of the
region’s biggest gas reserves—in Burmese offshore waters.

While the Naypyidaw regime has remained silent, rumors have circulated
around the region about the outcome of the long-running international bid
for trillions of cubic feet (about 200 billion cubic meters) of
recoverable gas confirmed to be in just two sections of the big Shwe
fields beneath the Bay of Bengal, off Burma’s Arakan coast.

Press reports in both India and South Korea claim the Burmese generals
have decided to sell the bulk, if not all, of the gas to China, and will
allow the Chinese state oil and gas conglomerate PetroChina to build a
pipeline through Burma from the port of Sittwe to Kunming, capital of
Yunnan Province.

China is one of at least six or seven countries bidding for the Shwe gas,
including India, South Korea, Japan and Thailand.

India, which is co-developing the Shwe fields with South Korea’s Daewoo
International, and which also wants to build a pipeline, was considered by
energy analysts until recently to be the favorite.

Daewoo and the state-run Korea Gas are meanwhile liaising with Japanese
companies, including Marubeni Gas, in a bid to convert recovered deposits
to liquid form for shipment home.

Speculation intensified at the end of last week following a series of high
level business and government delegations visiting Burma from India,
China, South Korea and Japan.

At the weekend, Daewoo, which has a 60 percent development and production
stake in the two rich Shwe blocks A-1 and A-3, issued a statement denying
that Naypyidaw had made a decision. Daewoo again today repeated its
assertion that any decision by the Burmese regime on the sale of the Shwe
gas will be made only in consultation with Daewoo’s senior board, which
has so far invested the most in developing the field.

Daewoo, as well as China and India, are accused by human rights activists
of wooing Burma’s ruling junta with weapons and military technology. More
than 20 Daewoo executives still face trial for allegedly contravening
South Korean law by shipping arms technology to Burma.

Like the Burmese military leadership, Beijing has so far remained quiet on
the outcome of the Shwe gas sale.

And with Burmese regime leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe seemingly preoccoupied
sending “felicitations” to Bangladesh on the neighboring country’s
national day, and Prime Minister Soe Win apparently still languishing in a
Singapore hospital with an unspecified illness, the guessing game only
intensified today.

“The Burmese generals are known for being indecisive as well as amazingly
superstitious,” said Bangkok commodities analyst Collin Reynolds. “It’s
well known they rarely make any major decisions without consulting fortune
tellers and looking for an auspicious day to make an announcement.

“There is the added complication that Daewoo and India’s state ONGC Videsh
and the Gas Authority of India Limited are both bidders and developers and
producers of the two Shwe blocks in question. But there does seem to be
some sign of some decisions on the issue at last.”

Whoever wins the gas in the two Shwe blocks, the proceeds have been
estimated to be worth US$ 12 billion to Burma over 20 years.

Meanwhile, the Shwe Gas Movement, a coalition of anti-junta groups, is
spending today promoting a global publicity campaign seeking to embarrass
the gas bidders with a “No More Guns for Gas” campaign to raise public
awareness of what is happening to a major resource in which the Burmese
people have no say.

The group, with offices in Thailand and Bangladesh, said in a statement:
“These profits [from the Shwe gas] would arm the military regime with the
means to continue abuses against the people of Burma and increase already
unreasonably high military expenditures.”

Ahead of the anti-sale campaign, Human Rights Watch in New York at the
weekend urged foreign companies with interests in oil and gas in Burma to
halt further activity “until they can credibly demonstrate that their
projects can be carried out without abusing human rights.”

HRW’s director of business with human rights, Arvind Ganesan, said: “The
Burmese army is notorious for using violence and coercion to secure areas
slated for major investment projects and commonly demands forced labor to
build associated infrastructure. The construction of more gas pipelines
across Burma is likely to line the pockets of the country's leaders while
causing suffering for thousands of people.”

But the global scramble for energy resources has recently led a succession
of foreign companies to Burma. Within the last six months about ten
offshore and onshore exploration and development contracts have been
awarded by the state Mynanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise to companies from
Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as South Korea and
China.

Only last week, two little known Singapore-registered businesses—Silver
Wave Sputnik Petroleum and Silver Wave Energy—with links to the obscure
Russian Caspian Sea republic of Kalmykia, were awarded an onshore oil
prospecting contract.


March 26, Xinhua Financial Network News
China-Myanmar oil pipeline construction to begin this year, extends to
Chongqing

Beijing: Construction of the China-Myanmar oil pipeline is expected to
start this year, the China Oil News reported.

Huang Qifan, vice mayor of Chongqiing, was quoted as saying that China
National Petroleum Corp has chosen Chongqing as the destination for the
pipeline, which has capacity of 10 mln tons.

"According to the schedule, construction of the pipeline will start this
year," Huang said.

Huang also noted that Chongqing will build a 10 mln ton capacity refinery
to process imported crude, which is due to come onstream three years
later.

In January, CNPC signed production sharing contracts with Myanmar's
Ministry of Energy covering crude oil and natural gas exploration projects
in three deep-sea blocks off western Myanmar.

Myanmar has proven recoverable reserves of 510 bln cubic meters of natural
gas and 3.2 bln barrels of crude oil, the official Xinhua news agency
previously reported.

____________________________________
ASEAN

March 26, Narinjara News
Burma regional catastrophe: ASEAN Parliamentarians

ASEAN legislators yesterday urged their governments to take a stronger
stand and recognize the seriousness of the human security problems being
caused by the Myanmar regime, according to a press release from the ASEAN
Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus issued on 24 March.

The call for attention came out during a press conference of ASEAN
parliamentarians that was held yesterday in the town of Mae Sot on the
Thai-Myanmar border.

In the press conference, many parliamentarians from Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Singapore attended, including: MP Mr. Charles Chong of Singapore; MP
Ms. Ann Mu'awanah of Indonesia; MP Mr. Djoko Susilo of Indonesia; MP Mr.
Jeffrey Johanes Massie of Indonesia; Senator Dato' Yip Kum Fook of
Malaysia; MP Teresa Kok of Malayisa; MP Datin Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan
Ismail of Malaysia; and Observer - former Ambassador to the UN Mr. Asda
Jayanama of Thailand.

Participating parliamentarians at the press conference stressed that ASEAN
governments should realize the urgency of the situation caused by the
Myanmar junta's brutal human rights violations and grave economic
mismanagement.

Moreover, the parliamentarians mentioned their belief that the regime's
lack of democratic rule continues to negatively affect its neighboring
countries and ASEAN as a whole.

"Over the past ten years the Myanmar authorities have been assuring us
that there are ceasefires and roadmaps to democracy but the number of
refugees fleeing has increased! About 50 percent more refugees are
arriving from Burma in Thailand. In Malaysia, the numbers have gone up 300
percent. This is a human security catastrophe!" declared Dr. Wan Azizah,
Member of Parliament from Malaysia, during the press conference.

The press conference was held in Mae Sot during a visit of the members of
the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus to the Thai-Burma border to
speak with recent arrivals from Burma, as well as with those who have been
there for many years now, and to witness for themselves the situation of
Burmese refugees.

The team of parliamentarians also visited a refugee camp and the Mae Tao
Clinic run by Magsaysay awardee Dr. Cynthia Maung. They met with various
Burmese and non-Burmese organizations that work on various issues - such
as health, education, environment, and migrants - which related to the
struggle of Burma's people.

The parliamentarians were reminded of their need to speak up for the
people of Burma in the reports of continued torture, oppression of women,
rape, forced labor, displacement, flooding of villages for dam building,
and the many other human rights violations occurring in Burma.

"This visit has given us an opportunity to see the human face of the
Myanmar problem. It has certainly strengthened our resolve to keep up our
efforts for genuine reforms in Myanmar," said MP Charles Chong of
Singapore.

The visiting parliamentarians also acknowledged the need for ASEAN
governments to protect refugees and migrant workers in their respective
countries and ensure these vulnerable groups of people are accorded all
their rights as governed by international standards and laws. "This is the
21st century, this tragedy must not be tolerated anymore. ASEAN must take
strong steps at a regional and international level to stop the abuses that
are forcing people out of their own country. I sincerely hope that my
country, Indonesia, will use its seat on the UN Security Council to
resolve this serious security problem," said MP Djoko Susilo from
Indonesia.

"In the meantime, our governments should also take responsibility for the
protection of these refugees. After all, ASEAN is partly to be blamed for
allowing the situation in Myanmar to drag on for decades. Regimes like the
Myanmar junta rightfully should not exist in this day and age," he added.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees report "2005
Global Trends", among others, Burma is the world's third larges source of
refugees after Afghanistan and Iraq. By the end of 2005, at least 700,000
Burmese refugees had fled their country.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

March 25, The Sunday Telegraph
'Awkward' South Africa accused of playing politics with human rights -
Philip Sherwell in New York and Stephen Bevan in Pretoria

South Africa has been branded a member of the "awkward squad'' of
anti-Western states because of its behaviour at the United Nations - and
elsewhere - over Burma, Iran and Zimbabwe.

The country, which at present holds the rotating chair of the UN Security
Council, spent much of last week attempting to scupper a new package of UN
sanctions against Iran over Teheran's nuclear programme, only preparing to
climb down as the vote loomed late last night. The measures were then
unanimously approved. Pretoria failed also in an earlier effort to roll
back existing sanctions to which even China and Russia had agreed.

The British ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, dismissed this call for a 90-day
"time out'' on sanctions as it would be "totally perverse'' to "reward
Iran's non-compliance''.

Thabo Mbeki's ruling African National Congress is meanwhile continuing to
bankroll its old guerrilla liberation ally Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe,
despite his regime's bloody suppression of the democratic opposition. It
has opposed a Security Council debate on the situation there.

The government also recently voted against a Security Council resolution
condemning human rights abuses in Burma. In a striking reversal of policy,
the same ANC leaders who long pleaded for UN support during the apartheid
era now argued that the Security Council has no right to intervene in
"domestic politics''. Pretoria claims that the Security Council is being
abused by the US and Britain to impose their agenda on the world. But in
taking its "principled'' stand at the UN, critics claim it is playing
politics with human rights and nuclear threats and could make itself an
international pariah.

The Burma vote shocked even many ANC supporters as the parallels with
their own past suffering seemed so clear. While Nelson Mandela was
eventually freed to lead a democratic South Africa, his fellow Nobel
laureate and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under
house arrest.

The backlash in South Africa was fuelled by the fact that Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, another hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, was co-author
of a report arguing that Burma's appalling human rights record was a
Security Council issue. South Africa's vote, the archbishop said, was a
"betrayal of our own noble past'' and "inexplicable''.

In New York last week, the South African ambassador to the UN, Dumisani
Kumalo, made clear that the proposed amendments on Iran were intended
largely as a protest against the negotiating power of the veto-wielding
permanent five members of the Security Council - America, Britain, France,
Russia and China.
Western diplomats argue that Pretoria's decision to indulge in political
posturing over such important issues demonstrated that South Africa was
now going out of its way to be awkward.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

March 25, The Nation
Burma's horrors continue unabated

The junta in Burma has settled into a long-standing pattern of defiance
these days. Creditable international organisations with a presence in the
country have closed down one by one. Such was the case recently when the
International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) withdrew from the country
in March. ICRC's decision came after it was clear that the junta was
imposing restrictions on the organisation's activities.

The reason for these restrictions is simple: the junta does not want
independent international and humanitarian organisations that have the
capacity and the access to pry on their society and subsequently help
their citizens. Their efforts to shut out international watchers include
the United Nations, which has been restricted by new regulations put in
place in November of last year. Some of the organisations operating in
Burma tolerate these newly improvised regulations because they want to
protect their presence in the country and channel in humanitarian aid.
Since there is no unity among the UN, other international groups and
non-governmental agencies, Burmese military leaders have been able to
successfully employ a divide-and-conquer strategy.

After the failure of the UN Security Council, headed by the US and Western
countries, to pass a non-binding resolution against them, the junta's
confidence has grown by leaps and bounds. Those in the top echelon in
Burma know that if they stick together, no international coalition or
sanction will be able to hurt them. Indeed, examples abound of pariah
states that are able to withstand international pressure if they can stay
in power long enough. Apparently, the Burmese junta is confident that this
strategy will work, albeit amid the growing oppression inside the country
and the misconduct of their low-paid armed forces.

Reports of these practices, such as systematic rape, continue unabated.
The latest report by the Women's League of Chinland (WTC) is a case in
point. It is the first report to provide detailed evidence of the rapes
being committed by the military regime's troops in western Burma. The
report documents 38 cases of sexual violence committed with impunity
throughout Chin state mostly during the past five years. Almost half of
these cases were gang rapes, and at least a third of them were committed
by officers. They are used as a means to humiliate female minorities.

With the continued oppression inside Burma, international pressure must
continue and strengthen to ensure that that the military junta will not
get away scot-free. Both China and India, the two Asian giants, must
fulfill their international obligations to promote peace and stability in
the region. They could, if they acted in a concerted manner, influence the
military junta in a positive way.

Asean also needs to do its part. Since the last summit in Cebu, the
Philippines, Asean leaders have decided to soften their approach towards
Burma, hoping that the regime would be responsive and open up a bit. At
that time, the junta released some political prisoners, although there are
still over 1,000 in jail. As the debates and the discussion heat up over
the Asean Charter's drafting process, it has become clear to everyone that
Burma is trying to dilute the attempts to make Asean more democratic and
friendly towards civil society organisations.

It is fortunate that the government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont
has not given in despite some soft stands towards Burma in its first six
months in office.

Now Thailand is keeping to a "no contact, no change" policy with the
regime there. Thailand's strong call for a more people-oriented Asean
during the charter-drafting process has troubled Burma. Bangkok's call for
the establishment of an Asean human-rights commission to be included in
the draft charter has also met with fierce objections from Burma.

The international community must not give up on Burma. With so many crises
looming in various parts of the world, members of the international
community might be suffering from crisis fatigue. Regardless, they must
not give the military junta the benefit of assuming that the international
community is ceasing to put on the pressure.