BurmaNet News, May 2, 2007

[Editor]

May 2, 2007 Issue # 3195

INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: May Day event participants arrested in Rangoon

ON THE BORDER
Kaowao: Exodus of migrants increases despite tight border control

BUSINESS / TRADE
Irrawaddy: Workers clash with Chinese-run oil company in Western Burma
DPA: New Myanmar well to produce 3.2 million cubic feet of natural gas
Kachin News Group: Te Za starts jade mining in Phakant
Myanmar Times via BBC monitoring: Expert says China, India keen to invest
to develop border regions

REGIONAL
Narinjara: 7 Bangladeshis sentenced to 5 years with 48 Burmese

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: US-EU agree to increase pressure on Burmese junta
The New Zealand Herald: Burmese activist says tourists bankroll terror
Mizzima: Burma second to bottom in press freedom

OPINION / OTHER
Mizzima: India's friendly neighbour - Manwati Arya

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

May 2, Irrawaddy
May Day event participants arrested in Rangoon - Yeni

Organizers of a planned May Day workshop at the American Center in Rangoon
were arrested on Tuesday by local authorities.

Rangoon-based activists told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that members of
Burma’s Military Affairs Security detained about 30 people who were
planning to attend the workshop, which was to have been held in an
auditorium at the center.

Most of the detained were later released from an interrogation center at
the Kyaikkasan sports complex, but six of the organizers of the event
remain in custody.

May Day—originally a commemoration of a labor strike in St. Louis,
Missouri—is an international celebration of the social and economic
achievements of working-class and labor movements worldwide. It is an
official holiday in Burma, though the country lacks both trade unions and
worker’s rights.

During his May Day address, Burmese junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe said
that the country’s workers are “enjoying rights to participate in
deliberations of the National Convention.”

Than Shwe also warned: “Neo-colonialists are disguising the members of
destructive groups under their control as workers and forming
organizations which exist only in name to interfere in the affairs of
international organizations.”

Labor advocacy groups, particularly the UN’s International Labour
Organization, have long accused Burma of violating international protocols
that prohibit forced labor. In late 2006, the Geneva-based ILO threatened
to put Burma before the International Court of Justice if the ruling junta
failed to abolish the practice.

A subsequent agreement was reached to stop forced labor and curb the
harassment of people filling claims against the government with the
organization.

According to official statistics, Burma’s workforce as grown in the
current year to more than 34.7 million. But growing economic
instability—inflation, rising commodity prices and unemployment—have
caused many Burmese to leave home for border areas inside Thailand, China,
India and Bangladesh.

Yesterday, several labor activist groups staged a demonstration in Bangkok
against restrictions on Burmese migrant workers imposed by Thai provincial
authorities, while hundreds of Thai workers gathered at Parliament,
calling to improve the working environment, implement a more
worker-friendly labor act and curb all privatization of state enterprise.

____________________________________

May 1, Religious Intelligence
Burmese relief worker 'executed' - Nick Mackenzie.

A Christian human rights organisation has claimed that the Burmese army
has executed a relief worker there.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide claimed today that Saw Lee Reh Kyaw, who
was a relief worker with the Free Burma Rangers, was executed on April 10,
two days after being captured by Burmese (Myanmar) forces.

The agency said that Lee Reh was providing humanitarian relief to
villagers in the Karenni state. On his capture he was taken to army
headquarters where, they claim, he was tortured and interrogated before
being shot.

Two others from the village were also captured, but their wherabouts are
unknown. CSW said today that the latest execution followed a month of
similar attacks against villagers in the northern Karen state. More than
1,000 people fled the attacks and are now reported to be in hiding.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s National Director, Stuart Windsor, said:
“The tragic and brutal death of Saw Lee Reh Kyaw, who was providing much
needed assistance to the Karenni people, illustrates the brutality of the
Burmese regime. Their total disregard for the lives and needs of the
Burmese people is horrifying.

“The international community, and particularly Burma’s neighboring
governments, must send a clear signal to the ruling military junta that
these violations of human rights cannot be tolerated.”

The Burmese claim the Karen state as their own and have continued to clamp
down on any dissent there.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

May 1, Kaowao News
Exodus of migrants increases despite tight border control

The exodus continues unabated and Burmese migrant workers have been
entering the kingdom of Thailand before the onset of the rainy season
despite tighter control on the Three Pagodas Pass on the Thai-Burma
border. And the migration has increased.

Nai Ong, a local resident in the border town said that even though the
Burmese authorities have closed the border, following the arrest of two
Thai border policemen by the DKBA group, migrant workers are crossing the
border to undertake their journey ahead of the monsoons.

"It's difficult to tell how many people are coming, but the border police
at Nam Kate arrested about 200 people and sent them back in a week," said
a village headman from Gu Bao.

On April 21, about 30 people were arrested by the Border Patrol Police
(BPP) when they were trekking in the bush to avoid the Sangkalia gate near
Sangkhalaburi town.

Many migrant workers returned to Burma during Songkran holiday. They came
back with friends and relatives.

A town resident, Nai Ein told a Kaowao reporter that migrants wait along
the border to enter the kingdom, where they negotiate with local
traffickers who work in cahoots with Thais, to get them across the border
and into Thailand without being detected by the Thai police.

A Mon social worker from the Mae Sot border town said that over a thousand
people go over the border from different crossings near the town every day
after the New Year.

Thousands of Mon and Burmese migrants work for survival wages in the
construction, tourism, and agriculture industries and some others work on
large rubber plantations in Hadyai, Surat and Phuket Provinces.  There are
no official estimates, but Burmese migrants leaving Burma over the past
decade number in the millions. Many have chosen to stay in Thailand and
neighbouring countries in order to lead a secure life.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

May 2, Irrawaddy
Workers clash with Chinese-run oil company in Western Burma - Shah Paung

Local Burmese authorities have question about 10 residents from Ye Nan
Taung in Kyaukpyu Township in western Arakan State following a dispute
over working conditions at a Chinese-run oil company, according to a human
rights group.

The Shwe Gas Movement, a collation of anti-junta groups, said a
disagreement started last weekend between workers and the local oil
company staff. A group of workers later gathered and threw stones at the
company's office in a village near Ye Nan Taung.

The argument apparently started after workers claimed the company paid
them too little in wages for the hours they worked.

The Global Coordinator of the Shwe Gas Movement, Wong Aung, said that
since the China National Offshore Oil Corporation started working in the
area it has confiscated some of the villagers' oil wells and treated
former oil well owners as if they were the company's employees.

Wong Aung said that as long as companies continue to cooperate with the
Burmese government, workers will experience persecution, injustice and
inequality.

“It is not easy to solve these kinds of problems in this unlawful
country," Wong Aung said.

CNOOC, China's state offshore and overseas oil company, signed a
production-sharing contract with Burma's government oil company Myanmar
Oil and Gas Enterprise, China Huangui Contracting and Engineering Corp and
the Singaporean firm Golden Aaron to explore a area covering 7,760 square
kilomenters in Kyaukpyu in October, 2004.

In 2006, CNOOC agreed to a deal to provide drilling services at three
sites in Arakan State of Burma.

____________________________________

May 2, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
New Myanmar well to produce 3.2 million cubic feet of natural gas

Myanmar Energy New Myanmar well to produce 3.2 million cubic feet of
natural gas Yangon.
A recently spudded well in Myanmar's Ayeyawady division is expected to
produce 3.2 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, media reports said
Wednesday.

Myanmar Minister for Energy Brigadier General Lun Thi visited onshore gas
field in Maubin, Ayeyawady division, about 60 kilometres west of Yangon,
said The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece.

Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise officials said the first successful well
showed a potential to produce 3.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per
day.

The Ayeyawady division has coastlines with the Bay of Bengal on its west
and the Andaman Sea to the south.

Vast reserves of natural gas have been found in fields offshore from the
Ayeyawady but thus far few reserves have been discovered onshore. Myanmar
is already a major exporter of natural gas to neighbouring Thailand.

____________________________________

May 1, Kachin News Group
Te Za starts jade mining in Phakant

A Rangoon-based Burmese tycoon Te Za's Htoo Trading Company has started
jade mining operations in areas they had confiscated with the help of
Burma's military junta in Phakant in October last year.

The company's mining activities started a month ago in Kawng San and Ting
Kaw Mines in Phakant in Kachin State of northern Burma, said local jade
business sources.

To commence jade mining activities in Kawng San and Ting Kaw, the company
forcibly displaced over 30 households in each mine area with the help of
the Phakant-based junta's Strategic Command No.3, according to residents
of Phakant.

Each displaced household in Kawng San and Ting Kaw mines, got up to one
million Kyat as compensation for their lost houses and land, said
residents of Phakant.

Last year, Te Za's Htoo Trading Company directly bought two jade mines
from Burma junta's Ministry of Mines. The tycoon is known to be close to
the junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

Te Za currently controls teak logging business in Kachin State and now, he
is heading towards controlling jade mines in Phakant, according to local
jade businessmen.

Before 1994, when Burma 's military junta and the Kachin Independence
Organization/Army (KIO/A) signed a ceasefire agreement, the Phakant jade
mining areas were controlled by KIO/A.

____________________________________

May 2, Myanmar Times via BBC monitoring
Burma: Expert says China, India keen to invest to develop border regions

[Report by Thet Khaing from "Local News" section: "Investment from China
likely to rise: expert"]
Myanmar can expect more investment from China and India to promote
economic development in their respective border regions, a senior
Bangladeshi academic predicted last week.

Professor Mustafizur Rahman said Myanmar, as well as Bangladesh, stood to
gain from China's interest in developing transport infrastructure in areas
adjoining Yunnan province, while India was keen to do the same in its
northeast.

Mr Rahman, the research director of a Dhaka think-tank, the Centre for
Policy Dialogue, was speaking after a meeting in the Bangladeshi capital
of senior officials from the Regional Economic Cooperation among
Bangladesh-China-IndiaA\­ Myanmar (BCIM) grouping. The two-day meeting
ended on April 1.

"They realise that they have relatively underdeveloped sub-A\­regions,
development of which is critically dependent on closer economic
cooperation with Myanmar and Bangladesh as they give access and outlets to
seaports and provide investment opportunities," Mr Rahman said in an email
to The Myanmar Times on April 4.

"China and also India have shown keen interest and readiness to invest in
the other two countries to facilitate trade, transit and investment," he
said.

China is known to be seeking to build a container terminal near the Kachin
State town of Bhamo, Myanmar's nearest port on the Ayeyarwady River to
Yunnan province.

Meanwhile, Myanmar and New Delhi have agreed to establish a trading route
along the Kaladan River to India's northeastern Mizoram state.

India will pay for 90 per cent of the $100 million project and remaining
10pc will be provided to Myanmar under a preferential loan.

The project includes upgrading port facilities in the Rakhine State
capital, Sittwe, where the Kaladan River enters the sea.

Myanmar was represented at the meeting by Deputy Foreign Minister U Mating
Myint. It was the seventh meeting of the grouping since it was formed in
1999 to strengthen cooperation among the four countries in trade,
transport, tourism and energy security.

"We believe that through preferential tariff ... 'putting in place transit
facilities and greater connectivity, promoting trade facilitation
infrastructure development, border and customs point facilitation and
fostering intra-BCIM investment, through easy regulations,
fiscal-financial incentives, the BCIM countries could develop the
relatively underdeveloped sub-regions northeast India, southern
ChinaA\­-Yunnan province, Bangladesh and Myanmar," Mr Rahman said.

He said cooperation between China and India would be key for the success
of projects planned by BCIM.

U Maung Myint told the opening session of the meeting that Myanmar was
keen to work towards stronger regional cooperation.

"There is no alternative to regional cooperation for improvement of the
economy in this region," he was quoted as saying by Dhaka's Financial
Express daily.

U Maung Myint said the cooperation of donor agencies would also be
important in implementing infrastructure projects.

The grouping agreed to improve facilities at border crossings to promote
the swift movement of vehicles, goods and passengers, a statement issued
after the meeting said.

The meeting also reached agreement on a plan for a road linking the four
countries.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

May 2, Narinjara
7 Bangladeshis sentenced to 5 years with 48 Burmese


Seven Bangladesh nationals and 48 Burmese Muslims were recently sentenced
by the Maungdaw district court to five years in prison, three months after
they first faced charges in the court, says a family member of one.

According to the source, they were sentenced to five years in prison for
illegally heading to Malaysia via boat during December 2006.

On 20 December, 2006, the Burmese border security force, Nasaka, arrested
55 Muslim people on a boat that was headed to Malaysia. Seven of the 55
arrestees are from Bangladesh, he said.

According to a local source, the 55 had left for Malaysia on a machine
boat from Teknaf, a border town of Bangladesh opposite Maungdaw, around 2
a.m. on 13 December. A day later the boat's engine failed just northwest
of Akyab, the capital of Arakan State.

After the engine failure, the boat floated at sea for five days. On 19
December, two fishing boats from Akyab spotted the troubled boat and towed
it to the coastal area of Maungdaw at the request of the stranded
passengers.

At that time, the Nasaka patrol team spotted the boat being towed by the
two fishing boats, and seized it, arresting the passengers and crew.

The 55 individuals sentenced have been sent to Buthidaung jail to serve
the five year sentence handed down to them by the judge in Maungdaw.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

May 2, Irrawaddy
US-EU agree to increase pressure on Burmese junta - Aung Lwin Oo

US and European Union leaders agreed to step up pressure on Burma’s
military junta during a one-day summit meeting in Washington on Monday.

White House officials said the summit has successfully adopted strategic
partnership work “to promote peace, human rights, democracy and the rule
of law worldwide.” The summit was attended by US President George Bush and
a number of European government leaders, including Angela Merkel,
Chancellor of Germany, which currently holds the presidency of the
European Council.

The summit press secretary’s office said in a written statement that the
US and EU had “successfully cosponsored” resolutions on human rights and
social affairs in Burma,” along with North Korea, which re-established
diplomatic ties with the Naypyidaw regime last week.

“We continue intense exchanges on Burma at all levels,” said the
statement. “We are convinced that the effectiveness of our efforts is
amplified by delivering the same political messages and coordinating
possible actions.”

The statement also said the EU, which extended diplomatic and economic
sanctions against Burma last week, had used the Asia-Europe Meeting, or
ASEM, “to press the Burmese regime to adopt a more inclusive political
process and introduce a timetable for democratic reform.”

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg last Tuesday reiterated their
call for national reconciliation in Burma and expressed concern over human
rights abuses and restrictions on the work of domestic and international
human rights organizations in Burma.

____________________________________

May 2, The New Zealand Herald
Burmese activist says tourists bankroll terror

A Burmese democracy activist forced to live like a dog for six months
wants tourists to boycott Burma because their dollars fund the military
regime that jailed him.

Naing Ko Ko, 35, was given residence in New Zealand in December after
Council of Trade Unions leader Ross Wilson asked Prime Minister Helen
Clark for a letter to rescue him from detention in Thailand.

He will speak at three screenings of a film about forced labour in Burma
at the Human Rights Film Festival, which opens in Auckland today.

He was forced to live like a dog after he was jailed in Rangoon's infamous
Insein Prison in 1992 because of involvement in the student-based
democracy movement when he was at university.

"Every political prisoner has to behave as a dog," he said. "When the
guards talk to you, you have to bark and say, 'Woof, woof.' You can't
reply 'Yes' and 'No', you have to say, 'Woof, woof."'

His food was placed on the floor and he had to go down on his hands and
knees and eat it like a dog, without using his hands or utensils.

When he was finally released in 1998, he and his mother had to sign bonds
stating he would not take part in political activities. But he escaped to
Thailand and joined other exiled activists.

He will speak this week at screenings of Total Denial, a film by Bulgarian
director Milena Kaneva about a natural gas pipeline built with forced
labour by French oil company Total and US company Unocal from Burma to
Thailand, which led to a legal challenge in the US courts.

Fifteen villagers forced to work on the project without pay were awarded
US$28 million ($37.7 million) in compensation - US$10 million for
themselves and the rest for development in the affected area.

As international campaign secretary for the exiled Federation of Trade
Unions of Burma, Mr Naing said all multinationals operating in the
country, and tourists visiting there, effectively funded guns for the
military Government.

Even a New Zealand Aid project spending $500,000 over three years to
provide small-scale irrigation was helping the regime.

____________________________________

May 2, Mizzima News
Burma second to bottom in press freedom- Christopher Smith

Burma remains rooted as one of the worst places in the world for press
freedom, beaten only by newly embraced North Korea.

The 2007 annual survey, conducted by Freedom House, ranks 195 countries
from around the world. The report concludes that global press freedom is
on the decline and attributes this trend largely to the prevalence of
coups, the suppression of political opposition groups and Internet
regulation.

The report identifies several aspects of the press environment inside
Burma that contribute toward the country's consistently low ranking,
including extensive government ownership of media outlets and the
regulation and censorship of Internet activity.

Regarding the Internet, Freedom House specifically calls on the military
regime to cease in banning access to external news sources and personal
email services. The regime is additionally urged to desist from
criminalizing the possession of unregistered technology.

The report denounces regulations contained in the 1962 Printers and
Publishers Act and the authority of the Press Scrutiny and Registration
Division, established in 1995 within the Ministry of Information. Both of
these tools are used by the regime to monitor and censor information
released by the press.

Additional concern is shown toward the rumored crackdown, launched this
past February, against individuals purportedly supplying information to
media sources run by exiled Burmese journalists in neighboring countries.

Freedom House believes the institution of a free press is inevitably
linked with the attainment of democratic values and ideals.

"The fact that press freedom is in retreat is a deeply troubling sign that
democracy itself will come under further assault in critical parts of the
world," stated Executive Director of Freedom House Jennifer Windsor.

Joining Burma in a tie for the second to last position are Cuba, Libya and
Turkmenistan.

Also scoring poorly in the survey are neighbors China (181) and Laos
(176), while the recent coup in Thailand has contributed to that country's
ranking falling to 126.

In total, 62 other countries join Burma as meriting Freedom House's 'Not
Free' label.

The release of the annual report comes prior to World Press Freedom Day,
celebrated on the third of May.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

May 2, Mizzima News
India's friendly neighbour - Manwati Arya

The facts of history regarding Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian
National Army (I.N.A.) struggling for the liberation of India had been
kept in the dark by the British Raj in India, during World War II. But
ultimately at the end of the war, the I.N.A. trials held at the Red Fort
in Delhi brought to light the activities and the sacrifices of the I.N.A.
and its Supreme Commander Netaji at the Burma front not only in India but
also all over the world. The armed struggle by Netaji and his army had
ended in a debacle but it brought about an amazing political success, as
Netaji had envisaged, by arousing a revolutionary spirit and anti-British
patriotic fervour causing a great stir all over the country. The I.N.A.
led by Netaji with the help of Japan had its base in Burma (now Myanmar).
It enjoyed the hospitality and cooperation of the Burmese people and the
then government headed by Adhipati Dr. Ba Maw, and it could freely make
the country a spring-board to attack the British Army from the Burma
border for the liberation of India.

During the I.N.A. trials towards the end of 1945, the Indian people in
general, the Indian National Congress in particular and other political
organisations of India as well as Indian soldiers of all the three wings
of the British military forces in India, expressed their anti-British
sentiments simultaneously in various forms of protests, demonstrations,
strikes, speeches and uprisings all over the country which shook the very
foundation of the British Raj in India. As very frankly admitted by Lord
Clement Atlee, the then Prime Minister of Britain, on his visit to India
later in 1956, that the British Raj in India could no longer rely on its
Indian military forces, on the strength of which it has been ruling India.
So it had to quit India earlier than it would otherwise have done. It is
now an admitted fact that the impact of INA, which fought for India's
freedom from the friendly country of Burma led to the achievement of India
's liberation.

Despite the fact that, in the 19th century, India was made a spring-board
to attack Burma and Indian mercenary soldiers of the British Army were
hoodwinked to become scapegoats for enslaving Burma, the Burmese people
and their government, then headed by Adhipati Dr. Ba Maw, had helped the
Indian National Army of Netaji, during World War II, to fight for India's
freedom.

Now when the patriotic Burmese Freedom Fighters have taken refuge in India
to struggle against the atrocious Military Junta of their motherland, for
restoring a Democratic Government under their leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
it is the moral duty of the Indian people in general and the government of
India in particular to extend all possible help in their struggle.

The alliance of our Indian Government with the Military Junta of Burma, in
any form, will evince ingratitude ungratefulness of India towards the
friendly and helpful Burmese people and will betray the deviation of our
government from democratic spirit while we are boasting of being the
largest democratic nation in the world. We have been continuously
co-operating with the Tibetan refugees by giving them political asylum in
India for the last few decades and by helping them in their struggle for
the restoration of democracy who are sailing in the same boat in India?

The Netaji Subhas Foundation in Kolkata has recently evinced India's good
gesture of friendship and good-will towards the people of Burma and its
democratic leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by honouring her with the Netaji
Subhas Award 2007. It is just a small reciprocation of the friendly
support extended by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's late father, Gen. Aung San to
our Netaji and his I.N.A. in Burma to fight the Anglo-American forces for
the liberation of India during World War II. The democracy loving people
of India and its government must, by all means, extend their help and
co-operation to the Freedom Fighters of Burma, our nearest and friendly
neighbours, in their struggle for the establishment of a democratic
government in their country.

The Noble Peace Prize awarded to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the past, the
recent statement of Mr. Kjell Magne Bondevik, the former Prime Minister of
Norway and the recent appeal of the South African Noble Peace Prize
Laureate Desmond Tutu to the Government of India for helping secure the
release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, all in unison support the sacred cause of
reviving democracy in Burma.

Lt. Manwati Arya (Ex-INA Member)

(The writer Manwati Arya alias Daw Nwet was born in Meikthila, Mandalay
Division in Central Burma, on October 30, 1920 to an Indian family and was
brought up in Burma and lived there till the end of October 1946. She had
actively participated in the student's movement, led by Thakhin Nu and Bo
Aung San in 1936, from Myingyan and had worked in Netaji's Provisional
Government of Azad Hind in Burma as an Indian Freedom Fighter. She loves
Burma as her dear 'land of birth' and still remembers her days in Burma
with a wave of nostalgia.)