BurmaNet News, July 25, 2007

[Editor]

July 25, 2007 Issue # 3253

INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima News: Myanmar Times staff interrogated for hidden advertisement
DVB: Bago officials accused of corruption in letter to Than Shwe
KNG: GSM phone: Not for civilians

BUSINESS / TRADE
NewKerala.com: India built biogas plant completed in Myanmar

DRUGS
SHAN: Four narcotic control policemen shot dead near Mae Khong River

ASEAN
Asia Times: Unhappy anniversary for ASEAN, Myanmar

OPINION / OTHER
Asia Times: Burmese literature off the map - Kyi May Kaung
Daily Times: Why India is selling weapons to Burma - Anuj Chopra

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: British MPs call for direct grants for Burma aid

PRESS RELEASE
USCB: Activists commend U.S. Congress for maintaining tough measures on
Burmese junta
BCUK: Burma Campaign UK welcomes MPs¹ call for more aid to Burma
CSW: House of Commons Committee urges UK government to quadruple aid to Burma

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 25, Mizzima News
Myanmar Times staff interrogated for hidden advertisement

An ostensibly innocuous advertisement in the Myanmar Times, a
semi-official English-language journal in Burma, has raised a storm with
editors and staff members being interrogated by the Special Branch of the
Rangoon police.

At least 10 staff members of the production and marketing department of
the Myanmar Times were interrogated on Tuesday over the advertisement,
which allegedly contained hidden political satire in its latest issue.

The advertisement, which seems like an invitation to Scandinavian tourists
to visit Burma, was placed by a Danish group of artists known as Surrend
group in Monday's edition of the Myanmar Times.

The bottom of the advertisement has a Danish looking word --
"Ewhsnahtrellik". When read backwards, it reads "Killer Than Shwe". The ad
also has a popular poem, when the initial letters are added up --it reads
"Freedom".

Sources close to the journal told Mizzima, that following the
advertisement; Rangoon 's Special Branch police on Tuesday interrogated at
least 10 editors and staff members of the production and marketing
department.

However, no action has been taken, said the source.

Refusing to provide detailed information on the interrogation, an official
at the Myanmar Times told Mizzima, "It is still too early to comment."

Meanwhile, reports said copies of the Myanmar Times, which carried the
advertisement, were rapidly sold out with the price of the journal, in the
black market, rising to Kyat 2,000 (approximately US $ 1.5). And photo
copies of the advertisement were also made available.

____________________________________

July 25, Democratic Voice of Burma
Bago officials accused of corruption in letter to Than Shwe

A group of farmers from Doe Ten village in Bago division’s Daik Oo
township have reportedly sent a letter to senior general Than Shwe
complaining that corrupt local officials had been swindling them out of
cheap cooperative goods.

The farmers told DVB yesterday that village peace and development council
chairman U Nyunt Maung and other junior officials had stolen their
allowance of cheap paraffin from the local cooperative before selling it
on for higher prices to private businesses.

One farmer, U Mya Maung, said that in the letter to Than Shwe the group
had also accused local officials of stealing other items from the local
cooperative such as fertiliser.

“Not only have they stolen these things but they have sold things to us
for more expensive prices than we were supposed to pay,” U Mya Maung said.

Sources from the village also said that on May 29, the township
cooperative and the Union Solidarity and Development Association had
agreed to grant farmers an agricultural loan of 20 million kyat. But days
later, the authorities told the farmers that they would have to a further
five percent of the value of the loan back into the township officials’
pockets and that they would have to pay a fee of 1200 kyat each before
they were able to collect the money.

“A farmer called Pho Maung told them that they weren’t being fair. But
[one official] said that if we didn’t like it we could leave without the
loan. We really needed to money so we had to agree,” U Mya Maung said.

He said that the group sent the letter to Than Shwe last Friday, accusing
the local officials of stealing more than 7.8 million kyat from the
village so far.

____________________________________

July 25, Kachin News Group
GSM phone: Not for civilians

Though authorities are keen on giving GSM mobile permits to residents of
Myitkyina, capital of Kachin State in northern Burma since last week, they
have evinced little interest.

GSM phone permits are granted selectively to leaders of Burma's ruling
junta's Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), military
officers, high ranking multi-government personnel and businessmen who are
familiar with Kachin State Commander Maj-Gen Ohn Myint and his wife Daw Nu
Nu Swe, Chairperson of Kachin State Women Affairs, said a local
businessman.

One thousand Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) will be
distributed in Myitkyina Township but the most important permits for GSM
phones are controlled directly by Commander Maj-Gen Ohn Myint, businessmen
said.

Meanwhile, most people who have been given GSM Phone Permits sell it to
local civilians and businessmen for Kyat 700,000 (about US $ 555) to Kyat
1,000,000 (abut US $ 794) per permit, a businessman told the KNG today.

Again, each GSM phone permit holder has to pay Kyat 1,500,000 Kyat (about
US $ 1,190) for a phone number to the ruling junta through the Myanmar
Economic Bank owned by the government, locals added.

For a GSM mobile phone, the total cost comes to about Kyat 3,000,000
(about US $ 2,380) for the permit, number and the handset, they added.

There are 30,000 GSM mobile phone applicants in Myitkyina Township.
However ordinary civilians have given up hopes using such a phone given
the costs and are no longer interested, said locals.

In military-ruled Burma, within country and overseas telephone
communication and internet are strictly controlled by the regime.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 25, NewKerala.com
India built biogas plant completed in Myanmar

An India built biogas plant in Myanmar has been completed and will be
commissioned soon to electrify a village in northern Mandalay division,
Yangon Times reported Wednesday.

The Pesinngone plant in Mingyan, built by India's Tele Corporation, is
part of the cooperation projects of a sub-regional socio-economic group -
Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic
Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The bloc has India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka,
Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

About 200 households in Kokke village will soon be electrified by the gas
generated from the plant, officials of the Ministry of Energy were quoted
as saying. India presently holds the chairmanship of the group.

There are a total of 13 sectors of cooperation, including trade and
investment, technology, energy, transportation and communication, tourism,
fisheries, poverty alleviation, agriculture, cultural cooperation,
counter-terrorism and crime, environment and disaster management, public
health and people-to-people contact.

Myanmar is to take over the chairmanship of the BIMSTEC from India in 2008
under the rotation system in alphabetical order.

Joined later in 2004 by Bhutan and Nepal, BIMSTEC was formed in 1997 by
the five countries of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand
around the Bay of Bengal with the objective of promoting multi-sectoral
cooperation for economic and social progress of the region, initially
outlining six areas of cooperation in 1999, which were later increased to
13 in 2006.

The first summit of the group was held in Bangkok in 2004, while the
second is scheduled in New Delhi in February 2008.

With a population of over 1.3 billion accounting for 21 percent of the
world population, BIMSTEC registered a gross domestic product of $750
billion and a trade volume of 33 to 59 billion dollars under the BIMSTEC
free trade area scheme.

____________________________________
DRUGS

July 25, Shan Herald Agency for News
Four narcotic control policemen shot dead near Mae Khong River

Four Burmese police personnel involved in controlling narcotics trade were
shot and their bodies set adrift in the Mae Khong River. They were from
the Mueng Phone based, Tarchilake Township in the golden triangle region,
according to border sources.

The policemen in mufti from their base in Mueng Phone base called a
motorboat from Paradise Hotel near Mae Khong River in the golden triangle
region, at 8 a.m. on July 21. While they were patrolling the upper reaches
of the river, about four kilometers away, they were shot dead.
"A day before they were killed, they received information that drugs
smugglers would come down in a boat. On July 22, the body of one policeman
and the damaged boat were found four kilometers from the Paradise Hotel by
the Thai police. They handed over the bodies to Mueng Phone authorities,"
said a local in Mueng Phone.

"They seemed to have been shot by guns fitted with silencers. There were
20 to 30 of bullet holes on the boat. The bodies of three other Burmese
policemen have not been found yet," he added.

Locals believe the murders could be the handiwork of the Naw Kham drug
group which is active in the region.

Of the four shot dead, three were Burmans including an officer and an
Indian who was from Wan Pon police station, Mueng Phone village ward near
Mae Khong River. According to locals, they used to threaten villagers and
took chicken, pig, food stuff and money from them over the last six
months.

Even though the Thai Rak newspaper alleged that the four police personnel
were killed by the SSA, Lt. Col Gung Zeng, a commander of SSA's Loi Kaw
Wan column, told S.H.A.N that the crime was not perpetrated by them.

A Mae Sai based Thai official said that the SPDC suspected drug lord Naw
Kham. "We got the information that a group carrying drugs would come along
the Mae Khong River on July 20. On July 21, four policemen were patrolling
the river. When they got to the river bank, seven people in camouflage
uniforms shot them," he added.

Naw Kham is a former member of Khun Sar led MTA. After the MTA surrendered
to the SPDC in 1996, Naw Kham formed his own militia based in Tarchilake
area. He became an infamous drug lord of the area. During a raid in Naw
Kham's home in Jan 1, 2006, 150 assault rifles were seized. Soon after
that Naw Kham left for the jungles and went into hiding.

The Paradise casino is surrounded by forests.  Rich Thais and Laotians
come to stay and gamble in the hotel.  Burmese authorities never come to
check the hotel because they are bribed.

____________________________________
ASEAN

July 26, Asia Times
Unhappy anniversary for ASEAN, Myanmar - Clive Parker

This week marks the 10th anniversary of Myanmar's accession to the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a controversial act of
engagement that at the time ran counter to the investment sanctions the
United States had leveled against the country's military regime.

A decade later, ASEAN's hope that diplomatic inclusion would nudge
Myanmar's military leaders toward more democracy has

gone unrealized, and the tortuous process of negotiating with the hardline
regime has badly undermined the grouping's regional clout and global
credibility.

Arguably, ASEAN's Myanmar dilemma has now reached a crucial diplomatic
juncture. Myanmar's membership in the 10-nation grouping has frequently
raised European Union hackles, and Brussels has refused to conduct
free-trade negotiations at a regional level with ASEAN because it would
entail de facto dealing with Myanmar.

Meanwhile, US President George W Bush recently canceled a meeting with
ASEAN leaders in Singapore during a scheduled Asia trip. Soon after, US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she too would skip the
ASEAN Regional Forum, a strategic talk shop hosted by the grouping each
year, scheduled for next month in Manila.

The Bush administration has been a strong critic of Myanmar's regime, with
Rice publicly referring to the country as an "outpost of tyranny".

In 1997, many ASEAN members were cautiously optimistic the grouping could
leverage its various government-to-government contacts with the reclusive
regime to promote positive political change.

Former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, who is now tipped to be
ASEAN's next secretary general, in June 1998 advanced the notion that
ASEAN should abandon its tenet of non-interference and adopt a policy of
"constructive intervention" in dealing with Myanmar, which was later
tweaked and became the blueprint for ASEAN's diplomacy toward the junta.

At the same time, there were geostrategic concerns that backing US
sanctions would open the way for China to gain significant influence over
a neighboring country. Although ASEAN was first formed as a five-member
grouping in 1967 to guard against communist expansionism, particularly
from Vietnam, the political reality since the end of the Vietnam War has
been to enhance collectively member states' negotiating leverage and
strategic deterrence with regard to China.

Critics - namely the US and anti-junta campaign groups in exile - have
argued that the military government, which annulled the results of 1990
democratic elections it resoundingly lost, does not deserve the privilege
or political legitimacy of ASEAN membership. However, ASEAN's outreach
toward Myanmar was overshadowed at the time by the deteriorating political
situation in Cambodia.

In July 1997, ASEAN took a moral stand and deferred Cambodia's joining
after a bloody coup orchestrated by Prime Minster Hun Sen, which entailed
the murder of several opposition politicians and a new wave of refugees
into Thailand. ASEAN at the time declined to admit Cambodia until "free,
fair and credible" elections were held. US rights group Human Rights Watch
said at the time that ASEAN's role in Cambodia "has certainly been highly
useful and constructive, and we hope that ASEAN will also become more
active on [Myanmar]".

Trade reliance
ASEAN's moral sway over Myanmar has been negligible. Economically,
however, ASEAN's pro-engagement policy has paved the way for more trade
and investment. Myanmar's trade with ASEAN has risen dramatically since
1997, giving the military regime a desperately needed economic lifeline in
the face of US-led trade and investment sanctions. Myanmar's trade with
ASEAN, measured as a percentage of the country's total trade, increased
from 44% in 2000 to 51.6% in 2005, official statistics show.

Of ASEAN's current 10 members - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar - only Laos
has failed to diversify its trade mix outside of the region less than
Myanmar. While much is made of China's economic influence over Myanmar,
its total bilateral trade of US$1.2 billion in 2005 amounted to only half
the amount ASEAN conducted with the country.

As Myanmar's economy has become more reliant on ASEAN goods and markets,
some political analysts suggest the grouping has more political leverage
over the regime than it has exercised. That economic integration is
expected to increase, as all ASEAN members have committed to reduce
tariffs to below 5% by the end of 2010, as part of the new ASEAN Free
Trade Area agreement.

Beijing's willingness to overlook Myanmar's poor rights record, which
certain ASEAN members have occasionally criticized, is speeding the two
authoritarian countries' economic integration. When ASEAN members
expressed their frustration at the slow pace of change in Myanmar, "the
regime had essentially dumped it in favor of China", said Debbie Stothard
of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.

One big indication that Myanmar is moving to hedge its ASEAN exposure: a
new $1 billion gas pipeline linking Sittway, Myanmar, to Kunming in
southwestern China, set for groundbreaking at the end of this year.
Analysts note that the pipeline deal was sealed shortly after Beijing
vetoed a US-led United Nations Security Council resolution against
Myanmar's rights record in January.

ASEAN, on the other hand, sat on the fence during the resolution's vote -
Indonesia, the only member of the bloc currently a member of the Security
Council, symbolically abstained. Yet in 2006 ASEAN applied
uncharacteristic diplomatic pressure on Myanmar to demonstrate progress on
its so-called "roadmap toward democracy". In March, Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Yangon to follow up and was closely
followed by Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar that month.

In his capacity as an ASEAN representative, Albar was charged with
inspecting Myanmar's "democratization process", but his trip ended in
frustration when he was barred from meeting with members of the opposition
National League for Democracy, which won the annulled 1990 polls.

Albar flew out of Myanmar a day earlier than scheduled and, by some
accounts, ASEAN's already strained relationship with Myanmar hit a new
nadir. Past and current United Nations overtures, including the new round
of outreach by the new UN secretary general's special representative on
Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, meanwhile to date have wholly failed to produce
any democratic progress.

Charter hopes
Now, ASEAN is finally upping the diplomatic ante in a move that will
seemingly make or break its relations with Myanmar. In a significant
departure from the grouping's erstwhile tenet of non-interference, by next
year ASEAN is expected to adopt a framework that will legally bind its
members to a charter that enshrines democratic values, good governance,
and respect for human rights and freedoms.

Roshan Jason, spokesman for the ASEAN inter-parliamentary caucus on
Myanmar, a group of regional parliamentary members aimed at pushing for
political change in that country, said the new charter represents "one
more opportunity to tackle Myanmar, once and for all". ASEAN "must show
the political will to do so", he told Asia Times Online.

Speaking to reporters in Singapore on Tuesday, ASEAN secretary general Ong
Keng Yong said the group charter was aimed at Myanmar, but he
significantly ruled out the possibility of punitive measures for
non-compliance. That would appear to give the junta yet another escape
route - although non-compliance would no doubt open the regime to harsh
criticism among ASEAN members.

Already it seems the junta is in denial about the new charter's actual
commitments. In a May editorial run in the government mouthpiece New Light
of Myanmar, Myat Thu, a member of the Myanmar delegation involved in
charter discussions in Manila, was quoted saying, "The meeting chairman
explained ... the charter would not feature human rights and the
discussions would not focus on matters on termination of charter member
countries."
The next meeting on the ASEAN charter is set for next week in Manila, and
a draft is expected to be submitted for approval to the ASEAN summit in
Singapore this November.

In 1997, ASEAN assured the West that it could cajole the junta on to a
more democratic path. Ten years later, through the new charter initiative,
the grouping appears to be finally following through on that pledge. How
much longer Myanmar decides to remain in the regional club, however, is an
open question.

Clive Parker is a Chiang Mai-based freelance journalist.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

July 25, Irrawaddy
British MPs call for direct grants for Burma aid - Violet Cho

Providing grants to community-based organizations, or CBOs, is an
effective way for Britain to channel aid for Burmese refugees and
internally displaced persons and bypassing the military regime, a
committee of the British Parliament said o­n Wednesday.

Burmese refugees and IDPs receive treatment at very few clinics like Mae
Tao Clinic in Thailand’s border town Mae Sot “Funding CBOs provides donors
with the means to support human rights and democracy work within Burma,”
said the parliamentary International Development Committee in a special
report.

While welcoming the 3D Fund, an EU-supported initiative designed to tackle
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Burma, the report raised doubts
whether it could “reach sufficient numbers of IDPs or other vulnerable
groups living in border and conflict areas.”

The report recommended the British government’s Department for
International Development to fund exiled groups assisting IDPs and other
vulnerable groups.

The report singled out the exiled trade union movement and women's groups
as particularly worthy of support. Providing support for such groups would
have the simultaneous benefit of supporting and raising awareness about
the plight of those displaced by the military regime and of building
capacity for a future democratic transition, the report said.

The exiled Federal Trade Union of Burma welcomed the committee’s
recommendations, saying it hoped they would boost labor rights and help
solve ongoing migrant problems.

FTBU human rights secretary Min Lwin said: “Labor rights are a serious
problem in Burma. Because there are no labor rights in Burma, people are
fleeing to neighboring countries. If we get more support, we can campaign
for labor rights inside Burma and at the same time we can increase
awareness among Burmese migrants about their labor rights.”

The report emphasized that its recommendations for funding aid work in
Burma did not mean “business as usual.” It said: “The risk of funding
reaching an illegal and repressive military junta must be absolutely
minimized.”

Political and humanitarian “space” to carry out the process of poverty
reduction and humanitarian assistance in Burma is highly constrained and
operating conditions for aid agencies in Burma remain very challenging,
the report said.  The military regime’s restrictions on aid agencies meant
that the capacity of partner organizations to spend aid money effectively
was low, it added.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

Jul 26, Asia Times
Burmese literature off the map - Kyi May Kaung

Burma (Myanmar) has become a favorite choice of novelists looking for an
exotic locale with a hint of danger. Daniel Mason's The Piano Tuner is set
in the colonial period in Burma. A ghost, who accompanies a tour of Burma,
narrates Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning.

Karen Connelly's The Lizard Cage is the story of a fictional activist.
Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace describes the last king's court. These
books have placed their authors - some like Tan have been there for a long
time - on the best-seller lists.

All my non-Burmese friends who have read these books have liked them, even
loved them. But I find them pale and unconvincing, maybe because I am
Burmese. In terms of novels by outsiders, I prefer the older generation -
the novels She Was a Queen and Siamese White by Maurice Collis and F
Tennyson Jesse's The Lacquer Lady.

But the real treasures of Burmese literature have yet to be translated and
published in the United States.

The papillons of Burma
In the 1970s, the Burmese government arrested political dissidents and
sent them first to Insein Prison in Rangoon (Yangon), then to the penal
colony of the Coco Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Two notable writers were
among those arrested. One of them was the late great Mya Than Tint, whose
many translations into Burmese included War and Peace, Gone with the Wind
and The Catcher in the Rye.

When he died in 1998, a Burmese radio commentator declared that "Mya Than
Tint could have been a writer of world class standing if he had not been
confined in his subject matter and forced to do translations by the
oppressive politics of Burma".

Mya Than Tint did, however, produce a notable novel: Over Mountains of
Knives, I'll Cross the Ocean of Flames. This novel is affectionately known
as Dah Taung (Knife Mountain) by its large Burmese audience. In Dah Taung,
a socialist hero named Than Chaung (Iron Rod) is caught in a shipwreck and
washed up with his companions on an island.

Mya Than Tint wrote in the preface to the seventh edition that of all the
books he wrote, Dah Taung was the most successful and came to him the
easiest. He wrote it in two weeks and said that he was always happy with
his own writing in Dah Taung. He also wrote that Than Chaung, the hero, is
based on his real life comrade-in-arms on the Coco Islands, Mahn Nyein
Maung, of the Karen ethnic group, who was later to join the armed
guerrilla movement and is now a senior leader of the Karen National Union
(KNU).

As a young man, Mahn Nyein Maung must have been very athletic and strong.
In Dah Taung the character based on him swims and survives the shipwreck,
climbs coconut trees effortlessly, and so on. But Dah Taung has several
defects as a novel - there is not much of a plot, and the hero is
uniformly good and admirable.

Maybe I've also become too much of a "Western reader". From the physical
descriptions of Than Chaung and his rippling muscles, it almost sounds as
if the narrator has a homosexual interest in the hero. This may or may not
be far fetched in the Burmese context. We have yet to see a Burmese work
that addresses homosexuality, though there are several open gays and
lesbians in the overseas democracy movement.

The guerrilla leader Mahn Nyein Maung later used the same material for his
own memoir Against the Storm, Across the Waves. He has been called "the
Papillon of Burma". It's an apt description. The novel opens with the
arrest of the Mahn Nyein Maung character in a teashop and his transport to
Insein, where the notorious military intelligence chief known as Shwe Myet
Hman or Golden Spectacles personally supervises the torture session.

The prisoner is whipped with a flexible blue-green plastic whip imported
from Singapore, notorious for its canings. Then, the prisoner, with skin
shredding on his back, is laid face down on a table, and Golden Spectacles
murmurs in a soft voice, "Please apply medicines to his back." An
assistant rudely splashes the prisoner with a bucketful of salt water.


>From this riveting opening, the autobiographical novel takes readers from

scene to lavish scene by the scruff of their necks. There are idyllic
scenes on the Coco Islands, the prisoners chopping down palm trees to
feast on heart of palm, scavenging for sea turtle eggs, learning how to
make a raft from an article about Kon-Tiki in a magazine in the prison
library, and swimming out to the wreck of an Aristotle Onassis ship to get
metal to make into knives. Somewhere in there, during a rollercoaster ride
of a plot that culminates in a surprise ending, is a fantastic recipe for
a cake baked with 100 sea turtle eggs.

In 2001, I translated the first part of Against the Storm with Mahn Nyein
Maung's permission. For the Burmese edition, run off fast in Thailand in a
very small font, he received only a flat payment of US$2,000, which, he
told me over the phone, wasn't even enough to repay the debts he incurred
while writing and preparing the manuscript.

The back cover shows him sitting at a bamboo table by a stream near the
Burma-Thai border, with his rifle propped up against the house pole of the
thatched hut. He is still in the so-called liberated areas along the
Burma-Thai border.

The KNU has been the longest-running insurgency in the world, though in
2004 it signed a peace treaty with the Burmese State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC). Shortly after, the military junta violated the treaty. As
a result human-rights abuses against the Karen and other Burmese
minorities have continued and even grown more severe. The KNU leadership,
presumably including Mahn Nyein Maung, is reportedly embroiled in a
leadership struggle after the recent death of their legendary leader,
General Saw Bo Mya.

In 2000-01, I tried to persuade Mahn Nyein Maung that his book was of
international-best-seller caliber and deserved a real literary agent and
mainstream publication. But it was very hard to communicate with him
because of his very limited English and lack of e-mail, his being in the
jungle most times when I called (once I heard a cock crowing in the
distance), and my inability to find a suitable person to act as a
go-between.

So I promised him that I would not use the portions I had translated
except in very small excerpts for book reviews or academic presentations,
and I have kept my word. At the same time, I told him that I could not
give him or anyone else the copyright to my translation as a gift. I still
hope one day the conditions will be ripe for me to finish the English
translation and get it published.

A different kind of brutality
Nay Lin, now based in Australia, is a survivor of the 1988 clampdown on
the pro-democracy movement. His book Cemetery of the Living Dead produced
a tremendous buzz among Burmese readers when it was published in the late
1990s. In the quality of writing and the shock and awe it evokes in the
mesmerized reader, it resembles the French ex-convict Jean Genet's play
Deathwatch, in which a prisoner with his back to the audience strangles
another prisoner to death on stage.

In terms of the relative brutality of prison life, Nay Lin's post-1988
experience was vastly different and even more severe than that of Myat
Than Tint, Mahn Nyein Maung, and their fellow inmates in the mid-1970s. In
the 1970s, the remnants of the penal system of the former British colonies
were still in place.

So on the Coco Islands Mahn Nyein Maung and his fellow prisoners still had
a hospital doctor (an Indian) to attend them, a library to read in, and
permission to cook their own food, being provided only with rice. The
situation Nay Lin describes in his beautifully written book is much more
brutal than the Coco Islands in the 1970s and, as corroborated by other
prison accounts, much more typical these days under the SPDC.

Nay Lin's memoir proceeds majestically episode by episode as a series of
searing prose poems or essays. The writer/observer is right there in the
cell, near the door, near the ganhpalar. Having left Burma in 1982 on a
Fulbright scholarship and never gone back, I didn't at first know what a
ganhpalar was. But a democracy co-worker who had also been in prison
explained it is a low ceramic bowl with a dark brown glaze that the
prisoners use as a chamber pot. In Living Dead, a prisoner changes places
on the concrete floor with another prisoner in the middle of the night,
and just by chance ends up dead with his skull cracked in by one of the
bricks used to prop up the ganhpalar .

Nay Lin describes the resident storyteller, who can remember the plots of
all the kung fu movies, recounting them blow by blow to the other
prisoners every evening from an impromptu stage - the top of the septic
tank. Nay Lin relates, in a clear but sympathetic way, "how a heterosexual
becomes a rocket" - that is, a homosexual. At night, the prison warden
approaches his victim in a ward full of men sleeping like sardines on the
floor.

The warden then threatens the man with a sharpened iron rod and rapes him.
Everyone knows exactly when the rape takes place. But to add insult to
injury, some of them, instead of empathizing, or even being embarrassed
and avoiding the subject, tease the victim relentlessly about it in the
morning. Among all these gems of writerly observation, the most searing is
the chapter that describes the justified end of this rapist of a prison
warden.

Several prisoners armed with spades strike down the warden, and he drowns
in inch-deep water. It all unfolds before our eyes like a slow-motion
movie, revealing all the visual detail, with an immediacy matched in
literature perhaps only by the scene in Mo Yan's Red Sorghum in which the
old uncle is skinned alive by Japanese invaders.

In 2003, I was fortunate to run into Nay Lin at a conference in Sydney. I
started to ask him about his time in Burma, but great storyteller that he
is, he held my hand and got caught up in telling me about how he went to
see the monk that Aung San Suu Kyi (the Burmese democracy leader) also
worships, and how he was arrested on his return home. That is how he
became a member of the famous 1988 generation of activists, now in their
early 40s, who had to flee the country after the clampdown that still
continues today.

I asked Nay Lin who was translating his book, and he said he had someone
already, but he was fixated on "extending it further to include women's
experiences in prison". To that end he said he was getting in touch with
former prisoners who were women. I tried to impress on him that Living
Dead was not a human-rights report, that it was perfect already and to add
more would destroy its literary value as well as its structure and
integrity. But I am not sure if Nay Lin heard me or not. Perhaps he is
like Victor Hugo, who worked on Les Miserables for another 10 years after
the publication of the first edition, adding the now largely unreadable
essays interspersed throughout the real story.

Why Burma now?
Soviet samizdat (distribution of government-suppressed literature or other
media in Soviet-bloc countries) and East European novels attracted much
attention from Western intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s. Burmese
literature has not acquired a similar reputation.

One reason is the Eurocentrism that still inhabits literature in the
English language. Also, Burma is a very small country without the vast oil
reserves of Middle Eastern countries. The United States is not embroiled
in a bitter and losing war there (as in Iraq and Afghanistan) or in an
ongoing conflict (as in Iran). There is still relatively little interest
in Southeast Asian literature, and this may be a holdover from the bitter
US experience in Vietnam.

So Burma remains "off the map" for many. The civil war in Burma, which has
been going on for 60 years, has rarely appeared on the radar screen of the
international media. The same Russians and East Europeans who garnered a
following in the West, however, follow the Burmese democracy struggle. In
the mid-1990s, poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was in Philadelphia to promote an
anthology he edited of Soviet-era poets and asked me how Aung San Suu Kyi
was. Czech writer Vaclav Havel has written widely of human-rights abuses.

Survivors such as Nay Lin and Mahn Nyein Maung have been able to come to
terms with their harrowing experiences and write about them. But it takes
time for an idea to reach fruition as a completed and published novel, not
to mention the difficulties of the care and feeding of the novelist. In
this sense the 19 years since 1988 have not been a long time in novel
gestation years.

I know of several Burmese works in progress, or work that has been
self-published, because the writer did not know enough about international
publishing to be able to find an agent. Among these is another "KNU
memoir" in which the short stories are wonderfully interesting - but only
people who know the writer personally may get a copy. Authors of
self-published work cannot compete with mainstream distribution, big
publishing conglomerates and book store chains.

Non-Burmese writers, like Daniel Mason, Amitav Ghosh, Karen Connelly and
Amy Tan, have certainly done their homework and researched their subject
matter - in most cases with visits to the Burma-Thai border or interviews
of 1988 survivors. Many have become interested in writing about the issues
from their concern over the plight of the Burmese. The international
heroine quality of Nobel Peace Prize winning Burmese leader Aung San Suu
Kyi has also generated a great deal of interest in Burma.

But Burmese literature - by Burmese writers - has not yet reached an
international audience. Perhaps the popularity of Amy Tan and Karen
Connelly will attract publishers and readers to the lived and felt
experiences that are contained in the Burmese novels and that await the
translation and international appreciation they deserve.

FPIF contributor Kyi May Kaung is a Burmese dissident, artist, poet and
political analyst living in exile. She holds a doctorate in political
economy from the University of Pennsylvania.
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

____________________________________

July 24, Daily Times
Why India is selling weapons to Burma - Anuj Chopra

The weapon sales to Burma are justified in light of India’s legitimate
security concerns in its restive northeast. Since 1988, the European Union
has had an embargo on selling weapons to Burma. The US has had one since
1993. But that’s not stopping India from selling arms to the southeast
Asia military regime.

Last week, India sparked fresh cries of outrage from human rights groups
when a report surfaced saying that it plans to sell an unknown number of
sophisticated Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) to Burma (also known as
Myanmar). According to a report by Amnesty International and other
international organisations, the helicopters should be covered by the
embargo because they are made with components from at least six EU
countries and the United States.

Indian officials have not confirmed the sale. But they maintain that they
need Burma’s help in fighting a separatist uprising. This and other recent
military sales to Burma are justified in light of India’s legitimate
security concerns in the restive northeast. India and Burma share a
1,020-mile-long unfenced border, allowing militants from India’s
northeastern states to use neighbours, such as Burma, as a haven to carry
out hit-and-run strikes on Indian soldiers.

But human rights groups are not buying that explanation – and are pushing
the European Union to cut all future weapons production deals with India.
“Myanmar is a land of atrocities,” says Mungpi Suantak, who and lives in
exile in New Delhi and is the assistant editor of Mizzima News, a Burmese
news agency. “As done in the past, they [Burma’s military regime] will use
these weapons to kill their own people.” Mr. Suantak left Burma in 1988
when the current Burmese junta crushed a pro-democracy uprising, killing
thousands.

The report, “Indian helicopters for Myanmar: making a mockery of the EU
arms embargo?,” says that the Advanced Light Helicopters include rocket
launchers from Belgium, engines from France, brake systems from Italy,
fuel tanks and gearboxes from Britain. India’s breach of the arms embargo,
the report says, will undercut EU and US pressure on Burma’s military
regime to release pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and restore
democracy in the country.

The report on ALH sales was released after the UN Secretary General’s
special adviser on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, visited New Delhi and Beijing
earlier this month to seek the support of India and China to resolve the
impasse over opening the country up to great political participation of
opposition parties. “It is an ill-timed and ill-thought initiative,” says
Suhas Chakma, the director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in
New Delhi.

“The government of India should be responding to the call of the
international community including ASEAN to [promote democracy] in Burma
and not sell arms to the junta to give it further legitimacy.”

Other Indian weapons sales: This would not be the first time India has
sold weapons to Burma. In August 2006, the Indian Navy transferred two
BN-2 Defender Islander maritime surveillance aircraft and deck-based
air-defence guns. In September, India’s Defence Secretary, Shekhar Dutt,
after a two-day official trip to Burma, announced the sale of 105-mm light
artillery guns and T-55 tanks being phased out by Indian Army.

And in January this year, the Indian naval chief, Admiral Arun Prakash,
visited Yangon in Burma. He announced India’s plans to also sell the junta
two British-built Islander surveillance aircraft. India says it needs
Burma’s help. There are at least 20,000 guerrillas from five major
militant groups in India’s northeast – all fighting the Indian government
for sovereignty or independence – who have training camps in the dense
jungles of Sagaing in northern Burma.

New Delhi has been deliberating with Yangon over plans for a military
offensive against such groups. Counterinsurgency operations in India’s
northeast, says an official from India’s Ministry of Defence under
conditions of anonymity, cannot succeed unless neighbouring countries
refrain from supporting the separatist groups based on their territories.

When India’s foreign minster, Pranab Mukherjee, visited Burma in January
this year, the junta agreed to India’s proposal to institutionalise
cooperation between their armies for operations against insurgent groups
in the northeast. In December 2006, India’s home minister, Shivraj Patil,
and his Burmese counterpart, Maj Gen. Maung Oo, met in New Delhi, and the
Burmese agreed to set up a “police liaison post” at the border. In return,
India agreed to initiate action on Burma’s pending request for the supply
of military equipment.

India is keen, the Indian official says, that “Burma be a partner like
Bhutan,” the only other nation that has helped India fight insurgents in
the northeast. Bhutan launched “Operation All Clear” to flush out
militants active in the state of Assam in 2003. The Royal Bhutan Army
launched military operations in southern Bhutan along the India-Bhutan
border, shutting down as many as 30 camps and reportedly killing nearly
600 insurgents. The other argument for sales to Burma is economic. Good
ties with Burma are seen as part of New Delhi’s “Look East” policy, which
is intended to increase trade between India and southeast Asia and, say
Indian officials, undermine rising Chinese influence in the region.

India-Burma business is brisk: Trade between India and Burma is said to
have expanded from $87.4 million in 1990-91 to $569 million in 2005-06.
The most ambitious of New Delhi’s ventures is a link between ports on
India’s east and Sittwe Port in western Burma. The $100 million Kaladan
Multi-Modal Transport Project is expected to provide an alternate route
for transport of goods to northeast India. It is estimated that Burma has
300 billion cubic meters of gas reserves, and India is engaged in drawing
up pipeline routes to transport this gas to its northeast region.

India’s Gas Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL) and the Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation (ONGC) are presently involved in this process. The authors of
the human rights report cruising the helicopter sale note that a
large-scale Burmese military offensive in northern Karen State during 2006
displaced an estimated 27,000 civilians, and destroyed over 230 villages.
The Burmese Army also destroyed their food supplies and means of
production, according to the International Committee of Red Cross.

The report on the sale recommends that the EU “withdraw all existing
export licence authorizations and refuse any new applications for any
transfers of components or technology that could be used for the ALH” and
also “discontinue all future production cooperation with India that might
lead to transfers of embargoed equipment to Myanmar.” The EU has not yet
responded to the recommendations.

Mr. Chakma is skeptical that India’s overtures to Burma will pay off.
“Like all good businessmen, the [Burmese] junta sells oil to the highest
bidder and not India,” says Chakma. And he notes, that in a bid to
continue extracting favors from India, the Burmese junta might want to
keep the insurgency alive in the northeast. Courtesy the Christian Science
Monitor

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

June 24, U.S. Campaign for Burma
Activists Commend U.S. Congress for for maintaining tough measures on
Burmese military junta

U.S. Campaign for Burma, leading advocacy organization for democracy and
human rights in Burma, today welcomes the unanimous approval of the U.S.
Senate to maintain comprehensive economic sanctions on Burma with a vote
of 93-1. Senate Resolution 16 (House Joint Resolution 44) approves the
renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and
Democracy Act of 2003. This resolution was introduced by Senate Republican
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), along
with over 60 Senators. An identical resolution, House Joint Resolution 44,
introduced by California Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos, who is now
chairing the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, together with Congressman
Peter King (R-NY), was approved unanimously by the House of
Representatives yesterday. President Bush is expected to sign this measure
into law soon.

"This is a strong message from the United States Congress that they are
not happy with Burma’s military junta, which is ruling the country through
force, threat, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing. Burma’s
military junta must know that the international community is outraged at
its murderous behaviors which include using rape as weapon of war and
forcing the country populations to be slave laborers", says Jennifer
Quigley, Advocacy Coordinator of the US Campaign for Burma, who played
important role in organizing members of Congress to support this
resolution.  “Renewal of the sanctions against Burma’s military junta is a
signal to the world that the U.S. Congress is not fooled by Burma’s
generals attempt to legitimize its rule through the blatantly undemocratic
sham national convention.”

In response to the brutal human rights abuses and mass atrocities in
Burma, conducted by Burma’s military junta led by Senior General Than
Shwe, and in support of Burma’s democracy activists, led by the world’s
only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, the U.S.
Congress adopted a set of strong and comprehensive economic sanctions on
Burma in 2003 as stated in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. Measures
include a ban on imports from Burma, a ban of financial transactions
between Burma and U.S. companies and persons, an arms embargo, visa
restrictions against leaders and family members of the Burmese military
regime, its affiliated business organizations and its ‘civilian’-arm the
Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), and a "no" vote on
loan and assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World
Bank and the Asia Development Bank, etc. Among these measures, import
restrictions are required for Congressional review and approval for
extension annually.

The Burmese military junta is one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
It came to power in 1988 after killing as many as ten thousand peaceful
demonstrators in the streets and putting thousands more in prisons. The
United Nations system has adopted 29 resolutions from the UN General
Assembly and the former UN Commission on Human Rights, calling for Burma’s
generals to release all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi,
allow all people to participate freely in shaping the country's future,
permit all political parties to function freely, stop all forms of human
rights abuses and crimes against humanity, lift all measures imposed on
the UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations to be able to
deliver assistance to the people in need, and commence a meaningful
political dialogue with National League for Democracy party and ethnic
representatives for national reconciliation and democratization. Burma’s
military junta has ignored these requests and tried to avoid the
international pressure under the protection of China and Russia, who
supply weapons to the Burmese military in exchange for having natural gas
and other national resources. With China’s and Russia’s protection, the
regime has destroyed more than 3,000 villages in Eastern Burma leaving
more than one million displaced and creating a humanitarian crisis. 
Today, the Burmese military junta sentenced six activists, from 4 to 8
years imprisonment for their attempt to conduct a human rights discussion
in Oakpon Village, Henzada Township, in delta region in Burma.

US Campaign for Burma is organizing stronger international involvement in
Burma to support Burma’s democracy activists, who have called for a
meaningful political dialogue between the military junta, National League
for Democracy party led by detained Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San
Suu Kyi, and leaders of ethnic nationalities to discuss national
reconciliation and democratization in Burma. To achieve increased
international attention on the situation in Burma, USCB organizes
celebrities to join in the campaign, bringing them to the Thai-Burma
border to witness the refugees who are forced to flee the country because
of atrocities conducted by the military. Currently, USCB Campaign Director
Jeremy Woodrum is visiting refugee camps along Thai-Burma border with
Walter Koenig, one of the actors of the Star Trek TV series.

Contact: Aung Din: (202) 234-8022, (301) 602 0077

____________________________________

July 25, Burma Campaign UK
Burma Campaign UK welcomes MPs¹ call for more aid to Burma

The Burma Campaign UK today warmly welcomed a report on British aid to
Burma, published by the International Development Committee. The
cross-party committee of MPs supported all of the proposals put forward by
the Burma Campaign UK.

The report calls for a fundamental change in DFID¹s aid policy, including:

* A quadrupling of aid to Burma by 2013, taking aid from £8.8m to £35.3m a
year.
* Providing cross-border aid in addition to in-country aid, to ensure aid
reaches internally displaced people who cannot be reached through
in-country mechanisms because of restrictions imposed by the regime.
* Funding projects promoting human rights and democracy, including exile
based Burmese women¹s groups and the trade union movement.
* Setting up alternative mechanisms to provide funding for HIV/AIDS,
malaria and TB in parts of the country that the 3D fund can¹t reach
because of restrictions by the regime.
* Conduct a proper assessment of the needs of IDPs in Burma to ensure
adequate delivery of aid.
* Working with UN OCHA to improve co-ordination of aid efforts, which are
currently ³done poorly².

³The Committee is clearly saying that DFID is not doing enough, given the
scale of the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Burma,² said Zoya
Phan, Campaigns Officer at the Burma Campaign UK. ³The British government
must ensure aid reaches those most in need, and if the regime blocks aid
to people because of their ethnicity, then others ways to deliver aid must
be found, such as delivering aid cross-border from neighbouring
countries.²

In December last year the Burma Campaign UK published a report ­ Failing
the people of Burma? ­ highlighting concerns with DFID¹s Burma policy.
DFID has refused to fund cross-border aid, which is the only way to reach
some of the most vulnerable people in Burma, and despite ministers stating
that the regime is responsible for Burma¹s humanitarian crisis, has not
funded projects targeted at promoting human rights and democracy in the
country.

³The report vindicates what we have been saying about the problems with
DFID¹s current aid policy,² said Zoya Phan. ³If DFID implements the
recommendations of the Committee, millions of lives will be saved or
transformed. We hope that this report will shame DFID into action.²

For more information contact Mark Farmaner, Acting Director, on 020 7324
4713, mobile 07941239640, or Zoya Phan on 020 7324 4712, mobile
07738630139.

_______________________________________

July 25, Christian Solidarity Worldwide
House of Commons Committee urges UK government to quadruple aid to Burma

The House of Commons International Development Committee will publish a
report today urging the British Government to quadruple aid to Burma, fund
cross-border humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced people
(IDPs) and support pro-democracy initiatives.

In a hard-hitting report, the Committee criticises the UK’s Department for
International Development (DFID) for failing to provide adequate aid to
Burma. “This crisis-stricken country, which suffers from immense poverty
and pernicious human rights abuses, receives the lowest aid of all Least
Developed Countries,” the Committee argues. “We believe this level of
assistance is unacceptable 
. We believe that UK aid to Burma should be
scaled up substantially.”

The current aid budget for Burma of £8.8 million “represents significant
under-spending compared to countries with similar poverty levels and human
rights records,” the Committee claims. DFID’s budget for Burma, for
example, amounts to just a quarter of its budget for Zimbabwe. The report
notes that in 2004, Burma received just US$2.40 of aid per head, “by far
the lowest per capita aid level” for the world’s poorest countries.
Neighbouring countries such as Cambodia and Laos receive 15-20 times the
amount Burma receives. DFID should quadruple aid to Burma by 2013, the
Committee recommends.

The Committee calls for specific funding for cross-border assistance,
arguing that “it is the only way to reach very vulnerable IDPs”.
Cross-border aid “can provide a cost-efficient and flexible way of
delivering emergency relief”, the Committee argues. “Cross-border
assistance to Burmese IDPs could be extended if more financial resources
were available 
 We believe that, as a high priority, DFID should maximise
relief to IDPs in eastern Burma,” the Committee recommends. It calls on
DFID to “look at the options for starting to fund assistance over the
Indian border” to the Chin people, and “scale up” support for aid on the
China border, as well as providing aid to the IDPs across the Thai border.

The report also suggests that funding for Burmese human rights and
pro-democracy groups working in exile, in particular women’s organisations
and the exiled trade union movement, should be provided by DFID. “Rape is
used as a weapon of war by the Burmese Army 
 DFID should fund women’s
groups working on and across the border who document rape and other human
rights abuses, and provide women’s health and education services.”

The report is the result of an inquiry carried out by the Committee, which
included a visit to the Thai-Burmese border. Christian Solidarity
Worldwide (CSW) provided written and oral evidence to the Committee, and
briefed members of the Committee prior to their visit.

Benedict Rogers, CSW’s Advocacy Officer for Burma, gave evidence at the
committee hearings. He said: “We are absolutely delighted with the
recommendations of the House of Commons International Development
Committee. We have been calling on the UK to provide cross-border aid to
the IDPs and support for Burmese human rights groups for many years, and
we are very pleased that this Committee has added its voice to these
calls. We hope that the Department for International Development will now
implement the Committee’s recommendations.”

For more information, please contact Penny Hollings, Campaigns and Media
Manager at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on 020 8329 0045 / 07823 329
663, email pennyhollings at csw.org.uk or visit www.csw.org.uk.

CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom,
works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and
promotes religious liberty for all.