BurmaNet News, June 18, 2008

[Editor]

June 18, 2008 Issue #3494


INSIDE BURMA
Mizzima News: NLD calls for parliament to be convened
DVB: Burmese authorities arrest three political activists
AFP: Volunteers help Myanmar cyclone victims still without foreign aid
Irrawaddy: Regime steps up crackdown on private cyclone relief efforts
AP: Myanmar bloggers help build 'budget huts' in delta
Associated Press: Myanmar blasts spread of disaster rumors
New York Times: Burmese endure in spite of junta, aid workers say

BUSINESS / TRADE
AP: Burma farmers fret over harvest
DVB: Authorities obstruct farmers from getting tractors
DVB: Flights suspended as tourism in Burma falls

ASEAN
DPA: 'A new Asean'

INTERNATIONAL
Reuters: FAO appeals for $83 million in Myanmar cyclone aid
DPA: Myanmar's monks call on EU to bring junta chief to court
AKI: Burmese trade unionist accuses military of crimes against humanity

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Is cyclone aftermath creating a Burmese civil society?
BBC News: Unseen Burma: An aid worker's story

STATEMENT
WLB: WLB renews call for immediate release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
KWU: New hydropower dam for Burma¹s military capital to displace thousands
ABMA: UN Security Council and the Council of the European Union Should
Take Responsibility to Protect the People of Burma When They Meet on June
19 in New York and Brussels, on the 63rd Birthday of the Imprisoned Nobel
Peace Prize Recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 18, Mizzima News
NLD calls for parliament to be convened – Solomon

The National League for Democracy, Burma's main opposition political party
urged the military junta yet again to convene Parliament to solve the
political dilemma the country is facing.

The statement issued by the NLD said the country is facing a national
crisis in the aftermath of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis. And
it needs to be tackled at the earliest.

"The Parliament legally exists. When we talk about national crisis, it
means not only economic crisis but also the legitimacy of the
constitution. We need the Parliament to solve this environment of crisis
in a legal manner," Thein Nyunt of the party's information department
said.

"We want international aid to effectively tackle the devastation caused by
Cyclone Nargis and to reach succour to the victims," he added.

The statement said that the damage caused by the cyclone is far too big
and needs the help of international experts. Aid is needed because Burma
alone cannot handle the reconstruction.

Severe inflation and the run away increase in prices of essential
commodities are interlaced with the political crisis and no country in the
world can ignore this, it said.

____________________________________

June 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burmese authorities arrest three political activists

Three members of the 88 Generation Students group who are helping the
victims of Cyclone Nargis were arrested by the authorities last Friday 13
June.

According to sources close to their families, Ko Myat Thu, Ma Yin Waing,
and Ma Tin Tin Cho, were arrested by authorities in civilian clothing
while they were sitting in Shwe teashop in Myenigon Hledan of Rangoon.

Last weekend, soon after their arrest, authorities raided and searched
their homes.

The three had been carrying out relief work for the victims of Cyclone
Nargis in the name of the 88 Generation Students.

DVB independently investigated the matter, gaining information from a
female investigation officer of the Police Special Branch stationed in
Insein Prison, who did not wish to be identified.

She said that Ma Ni Mon Hlaing, female youth leader of the National League
for Democracy, and two other female detainees were being interrogated in
Insein Prison.

The police officer refused to confirm if the other female detainees she
mentioned were Ma Yin Waing and Ma Tin Tin Cho.

This is the first time the arrest of Ma Ni Mon Hlaing is reported.

The authorities had been searching for her since she went into hiding
after the Saffron Revolution last September.

____________________________________

June 18, Agence France Presse
Volunteers help Myanmar cyclone victims still without foreign aid

Cyclone Nargis almost destroyed the remote village of Kyon Ka Nan, but
residents are now rebuilding their homes and their food stocks, aided by a
resilient group of Myanmar volunteers.

In this village of 300 homes, only six houses were left after the cyclone
hit nearly seven weeks ago. Residents say 114 people died, many of their
bodies washed into the freshwater ponds once used for drinking water.

Residents in Kyon Ka Nan say they have yet to receive any international
aid, and official assistance has been meagre.

But they are slowly piecing together their shattered lives with the help
of a resourceful network of local volunteers, who have delivered enormous
amounts of aid despite their meagre resources and restrictions imposed by
the military regime.

The latest shipment filled a cargo ship and a small boat, carrying 22
tonnes of rice, 100,000 tins of fish, and a team of doctors.

As the boat docked, men from the village helped unload 500 bags of rice,
each weighing 100 kilos (225 pounds), and carried them to the Buddhist
temple, which has become the focal point of the relief effort.

Many of the surviving villagers are living with the monks, as they rebuild
their homes with bamboo and whatever they can salvage from the wreckage.

Villages like this one in the Irrawaddy delta bore the brunt of the
cyclone's power, with more than 133,000 dead and 2.4 million in need of
humanitarian aid.

Myanmar's regime has limited the scope of the international aid operation,
and the UN says one million people have yet to receive any foreign
assistance.

Even local volunteers -- often of modest means themselves -- struggle to
skirt military roadblocks, and two prominent leaders of the aid movement
have been arrested.

Despite the obstacles, Lae Lae, a 39-year-old helping to deliver the aid
to Kyon Ka Nan, said they have reached more than 40 villages in this area
southwest of Yangon.

"The donations came from several different sources -- monks, private
companies or our friends working overseas," she said.

"They donated money through us and we have tried to reach villages where
not much aid has arrived."

This is the group's fourth visit to Kyon Ka Nan. The volunteers hope to
leave them with a month's supply of food, so the villagers can focus on
reviving their rice fields.

The volunteers have organised themselves by specialty.

Five young volunteer doctors set up a temporary clinic at the monastery to
treat people with injuries from the storm, as well as minor illnesses and
in some cases trauma among people who watched their loved ones die.

A second group headed to the freshwater ponds that were once used for
drinking, but were filled with debris and rotting corpses.

The bodies have already been cremated and the wreckage cleared, but
residents are too afraid to drink from the ponds and have relied on
rainwater instead.

The volunteers assure them they will take samples back to the main city of
Yangon for testing, to see if the water is safe. But they will likely need
to find a pump to empty the ponds and let the monsoon rains refill them.

A third group begins distributing the food, including rice, fish, cooking
oil, beans and onions. The villager's leader had already made a roster of
the families, and called out each family to receive their share.

"Ever since Nargis, we have lived on food donated from local groups.
Otherwise we wouldn't have survived," said Win, one of the women lining up
for food.

In the six weeks since the storm, Win says the only official aid she has
received was 13 cups of rice and a few potatoes, plus a tarpaulin sheet
from the local Red Cross Association.

Like most families in the delta, Win and her husband make their living by
fishing and working as tenant farmers in the rice paddies.

She said the villagers already know how to supplement their diets with
fish and wild vegetables, but she said their own supplies of rice were
washed away.

"We mainly need rice. Fish and vegetables can be found easily," Win said.

The volunteers say they hope that if the village's most basic needs are
cared for, the residents will be able to focus on farming

"We think that if they have enough food, then they can get back to work,"
said one of the volunteers. "So we are thinking about donating farming and
fishing equipment next time."

____________________________________

June 18, Irrawaddy
Regime steps up crackdown on private cyclone relief efforts – Saw Yan Naing

Despite assurances of free access by private donors to cyclone-devastated
areas of Burma, the military government continues to arrest individuals
taking aid to survivors of the May 2-3 storm.

Ten donors have been arrested since the beginning of this month, according
to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
(AAPP).

The arrested aid workers were identified as Zarganar, Zaw Thet Htwe, Ein
Khine Oo, Myat Thu, Yin Yin Wine, Tin Tin Cho, Ko Zaw, Tin Maung Oo, Ni Mo
Hlaing and Toe Kyaw Hlaing. Zarganar is Burma’s most popular satirist and
an outspoken critic of the regime.

Toe Kyaw Hlaing, a former 88 Generation Students leader, was the latest
donor to be arrested. He was detained on Tuesday after returning to
Rangoon from the Irrawaddy Delta.

AAPP Secretary Tate Naing said: “The arrests are now increasing,
especially of people actively helping cyclone survivors. We don’t know the
reasons for the arrests.”

Tate Naing said family members were not being informed of the arrests.

Six of those arrested—Myat Thu, Yin Yin Wine, Tin Tin Cho, Ko Zaw, Tin
Maung Oo and Ni Mo Hlaing—are being held by the police special branch in
Rangoon’s Sanchaung Township. They were detained on June 12.

Zaw Thet Htwe, a journalist and private aid worker, and Ein Khine Oo were
arrested last weekend.

Zarganar ran a group of voluntary relief workers, but one of them said
they had suspended their aid efforts because of the regime crackdown.

Since the cyclone, the regime mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, has
been carrying a slogan on its back page stating: “Everybody may make
donations freely. Everybody may make donations to any person or any area.”

____________________________________

June 18, Associated Press
Myanmar bloggers help build 'budget huts' in delta

Bloggers may find their messages blocked by Myanmar's military regime, but
that hasn't stopped Nyi Lynn Seck from raising tens of thousands of
dollars for cyclone survivors through his website.

Now, the 29-year-old IT specialist and his friends are getting their hands
dirty and putting the donations to work by helping to build "Budget Huts"
in the Irrawaddy delta, a region still reeling from the May 2-3 killer
storm.

Days after Cyclone Nargis hit, the Yangon resident traveled to the delta
to document the survivors' stories. He posted their accounts and his
photographs on his Web journal.

"I have been blogging for quite a long time and many overseas Myanmar
citizens read it. They wanted me to go to the delta and help out," he
said.

Nyi Lynn Seck quit his job as a manager at a software solutions company to
lead six volunteers, including four other bloggers, on a mission to aid
villages around Labutta. They have been here since May 9.

He is just one example of a grass-roots movement that has emerged in
Myanmar. Many of those doing private relief work are highly critical of
the government effort that followed the storm.

Private efforts have filled a lot of gaps in the relief effort, especially
in the early weeks after the storm, when the junta turned back most
foreign relief workers. After pleas from the U.N., the junta agreed to
international aid, but it still limits foreigners' activities.

Nyi Lynn Seck said most of the $30,000 received by the group came from
Myanmar expatriates in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia but money also was
sent from as far away as Europe.

Myanmar's military government, which strictly controls all media including
the Internet, blocks most blogging sites. However, they are sometimes
accessible by using a server that masks the site's true origin.

Bloggers played a major role in ensuring the free flow of information
during anti-government protests in Myanmar last fall and the violent
crackdown that followed. At least one blogger, Nay Phone Latt, remains in
prison.

Nyi Lynn Seck's blog has in the past included personal observations,
advice for would-be bloggers and news items. It has not been seen as
anti-government.

Nyi Lynn Seck said he became an aid worker because he felt the junta's
response to the storm — which killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 more
missing — was inefficient.

"The government doesn't rely much on a system or technology and they don't
know what to do. They work only on paper, so the help was really delayed,"
he said.

Nyi Lynn Seck picked up his black leather laptop bag and pulled out a
stack of slides he shows to would-be donors. He also has two models of
wood-and-blue plastic shelters, dubbed "Budget Huts."

The group, which calls itself "Handy Myanmar Youths" because it wants to
lend a hand to survivors, has put up 88 huts in delta villages.

Such volunteerism is not always welcomed by the junta. A popular comedian
was taken from his Yangon home by police this month after going to the
delta to help survivors.

Many Myanmar volunteers and the local staff of foreign aid agencies pack
their vehicles with food, water and other supplies when heading into the
delta; several have reported being harassed by police or having their
vehicles impounded.

Nyi Lynn Seck said the government approved his group's project after they
detailed their plans to authorities in Labutta and declared that no
foreigners were directly involved.

The group makes five- to six-hour boat rides to coastal villages to
deliver materials and tools to build the huts and then supervision of the
construction, which is done mostly by the survivors.

Due to tides, the volunteers are unable to return to Labutta on the same
day, so they usually spend at least one night sleeping on the bare ground
without shelter from mosquitoes. Several have fallen ill.

The blogger said the group's most pressing concerns were about sustaining
the project despite the high price of materials and transportation.

"Now the biggest problem is that we're having trouble finding wood in
Labutta, and the wood is also getting very expensive," Nyi Lynn Seck said.

"As long as there are funds and donors, hopefully we can keep this up for
another two to three months here," he said. "But I'm not so sure about the
future."

____________________________________

June 18, Associated Press
Myanmar blasts spread of disaster rumors

Myanmar's military government is warning that "destructive elements" are
seeking to create panic by spreading rumors that more natural disasters
will hit the country after last month's deadly cyclone.

A commentary published Wednesday in the state-run New Light of Myanmar
newspaper said the unnamed group of rumor mongers is made up of people
unhappy with the achievement of the country under the military's
leadership.

It said some of the rumors predict floods, earthquakes and other
calamities, and reported that some well-known astrologers are actually
making upbeat predictions for the nation's future.

____________________________________

June 18, New York Times
Burmese endure in spite of junta, aid workers say

More than six weeks have passed since Cyclone Nargis swept through the
Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar, leaving a trail of flattened villages
and broken lives and arousing international sympathy that turned to
anguish as the military government obstructed foreign aid.

Now doctors and aid workers returning from remote areas of the delta are
offering a less pessimistic picture of the human cost of the delay in
reaching survivors.

They say they have seen no signs of starvation or widespread outbreaks of
disease. While it is estimated that the cyclone may have killed 130,000
people, the number of lives lost specifically because of the junta’s slow
response to the disaster appears to have been smaller than expected.

Relief workers here continue to criticize the government’s secretive
posture and obsession with security, its restrictions on foreign aid
experts and the weeks of dawdling that left bloated bodies befouling
waterways and survivors marooned with little food. But the specific
character of the cyclone, the hardiness of villagers and aid from private
citizens helped prevent further death and sickness, aid workers say.

Most of the people killed by the cyclone, which struck on May 2-3,
drowned. But those who survived were not likely to need urgent medical
attention, doctors say.

“We saw very, very few serious injuries,” said Frank Smithuis, manager of
the substantial mission of Doctors Without Borders in Myanmar. “You were
dead or you were in O.K. shape.”

The cyclone swept away bamboo huts throughout the delta; in the
hardest-hit villages, it left almost no trace of habitation. Some
survivors carried away by floods found themselves many miles from home
when the waters receded.

But those who survived were not likely to be injured in the aftermath by
falling rocks or collapsing buildings, as often happens during natural
disasters, like the earthquake in China.

That appears to be the primary reason villagers were able to stay alive
for weeks without aid. As they waited, the survivors, most of whom were
fishermen and farmers, lived off of coconuts, rotten rice and fish.

“The Burmese people are used to getting nothing,” said Shari Villarosa,
the highest-ranking United States diplomat in Myanmar, formerly Burma.
“I’m not getting the sense that there have been a lot of deaths as a
result of the delay.”

The United States has accused the military government of “criminal
neglect” in its handling of the disaster caused by the cyclone. Privately,
many aid workers have, too. The junta, widely disliked among Myanmar’s
citizens, did not have the means to lead a sustained relief campaign, they
say.

But relief workers say the debate over access for foreigners and the
refusal of the government to allow in military helicopters and ships from
the United States, France and Britain overshadowed a substantial relief
operation carried out mainly by Burmese citizens and monks.

They organized convoys of trucks filled with drinking water, clothing,
food and construction materials that poured into the delta.

“It’s been overwhelmingly impressive what local organizations, medical
groups and some businessmen have done,” said Ruth Bradley Jones, second
secretary in the British Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. “They
are the true heroes of the relief effort.”

Aid workers emphasize that of the estimated 2.4 million Burmese strongly
affected by the storm, thousands remain vulnerable to sickness and many
are still without adequate food, shelter and supplies.

But their ailments are — for now — minor. Medical logs from Doctors
Without Borders show that of the 30,000 people the group’s workers treated
in the six weeks after the cyclone, most had flesh wounds, diarrhea or
respiratory infections. The latter two afflictions are common in rural
Southeast Asia even in normal times. Diarrhea can be especially dangerous
for infants and young children, but doctors say that, while they have
treated thousands of cases, the illness has not reached critical levels.

“I can’t say it was an outbreak,” said May Myad Win, a general
practitioner who works for Doctors Without Borders and spent 25 days in
the delta treating an average of 25 patients a day. “It was not as severe
as we feared.”

The number of people in need of serious medical aid was judged to be low
enough that officials at a British medical group canceled plans to bring
in a team of surgeons in the days after the storm, said Paula Sansom, the
manager of the emergency response team for the group, Merlin.

For several weeks after the disaster, the government prevented all but a
small number of foreigners from entering the delta. Now a more
comprehensive picture of the damage is being assembled by a team of 250
officials led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The officials
plan to release their findings next week.

The number of people killed in the storm may never be known. The
government has not updated its toll since May 16, when it said 77,738
people were killed and 55,917 were missing.

In a country that has not had a full census in decades, it is not even
certain how many people had been living in the area before the storm.
Itinerants who worked in the salt marshes and shrimp farms were probably
not counted among the dead, aid workers say.

But it is clear that in many villages, women and children died in
disproportionate numbers, said Osamu Kunii, chief of the health and
nutrition section of Unicef in Myanmar.

“Only people who could endure the tidal surge and high winds could
survive,” Mr. Kunii said. In one village of 700, all children under the
age of 7 died, he said.

With only minimal food supplies in villages, aid workers say, delta
residents will require aid until at least the end of the year. The United
Nations, after weeks of haggling with Myanmar’s government for permission
to provide assistance, is now using 10 helicopters to deliver supplies to
hard-to-reach places and alerting relief experts at the earliest sign of
disease outbreaks.

Still, the military government continues to make it difficult for aid
agencies to operate.

Last week, the government issued a directive that accused foreign aid
agencies and the United Nations of having “deviated from the normal
procedures.” The government imposed an extra layer of approvals for travel
into the delta, effectively requiring that all foreigners be accompanied
by government officials.

“They’re changing the goal posts,” said Chris Kaye, the director of
operations in Myanmar for the United Nations World Food Program. “We have
a whole set of new procedures.”

Myanmar’s government says it issued 815 visas for foreign aid workers and
medical personnel in the month after the cyclone. But some aid workers
were never allowed in, including the disaster response team from the
United States Agency for International Development.

Local news media reported over the weekend that the government planned to
build 500 cyclone shelters in the delta. These structures are used in
neighboring Bangladesh, which has a relatively widespread early warning
system.

When Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh in November, the winds reached an
intensity similar to the 155-mile-an-hour gusts that blew through the
Irrawaddy Delta last month.

Tellingly, the number of people killed by Cyclone Sidr — about 3,500 — was
a small fraction of those killed in last month’s cyclone here.


____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

June 18, Associated Press
Burma farmers fret over harvest

Farmer Zaw Naing was puzzled as he stared at the brand new, unassembled
tilling machine, equipment not seen in most of Burma's rice belt before
the deadly cyclone.

more stories like thisThousands of the tillers, donated by international
and private aid donors, have been brought in to replace the water buffalo
that once plowed the rice paddies but were killed by Cyclone Nargis on May
2-3.

The plan is for farmers in the devastated Irrawaddy delta to rebuild their
livelihoods and begin producing the rice that feeds this impoverished
country.

But time is running out.

The rice planting season should have started by early June, when farmers
typically plow their fields with water buffalo and prepare to plant new
seeds for the October harvest. The delta produces most of Burma's rice,
and without immediate help, food security will be seriously threatened,
international specialists have warned.

The Agriculture Ministry has said 13,600 power tillers are needed to
replace more than 280,000 cattle that died in the storm.

Some farmers say they have been lucky enough to receive the new machines
but need to reassemble them since the tillers were shipped in several
pieces.

"We don't know how to put it together. We have to wait for a mechanic to
come," Zaw Naing said on a recent afternoon in the delta village of Kyaung
Gwin as he unwrapped the plastic cover of the Chinese-made machine's red
engine.

Most farmers in the delta have not managed to get a mechanical tiller. But
once they do, they face further challenges: Farmers can't afford the
diesel fuel to power the machines and don't know how to operate them.

"I don't know how to use this machine. We only used buffalo in the past,"
said Zaw Naing, who lost his home in the cyclone as well as the 10 water
buffalo that plowed his fields.

He has been told by local authorities to share the tiller with five other
farmers in his village, which is south of the town of Labutta in one of
the hardest hit areas.

The US Department of Agriculture said in an assessment last week that the
delta normally produces about 60 percent of Burma's rice and the outlook
for this year's crop is "very uncertain" after the storm flooded paddy
fields with sea water, damaged irrigation systems, and destroyed seed
supplies.

Burma's Agriculture Ministry says it is sending specialists to train
farmers and will send 140,000 baskets of salt-resistant rice seed - the
equivalent of 2,900 tons - to the delta, a fraction of what is needed.

Once the world's top producer, Burma has seen rice exports drop from
nearly 4 million tons to about 40,000 tons last year, after four decades
of military rule and disastrous economic policies.

UN undersecretary general Noeleen Heyzer issued an urgent plea Friday for
donations of 1 million gallons of diesel fuel to help farmers run the
tillers.

Burma's agriculture minister, Major General Htay Oo, told Heyzer that the
fuel is needed to run some 5,000 tillers donated by Thailand, China, and
other countries.

Private donors and aid agencies have contributed additional machines

____________________________________

June 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Authorities obstruct farmers from getting tractors – Aye Nai

Farmers in Bogalay are still waiting to receive hand tractors after being
sent to different places around the township and being asked to pay
several admin fees to process their applications.

A farmer from Bogalay said the local agricultural bank had given them
approval letters so they could collect the hand tractors.

"Local authorities began approving contracts with farmers to provide hand
tractors on 29 May,” the farmer said.

“On 14 June, the local agricultural bank handed out approval letters to us
to receive permission slips for the tractors from the relief supply
management office," he went on.

"We went to the management office with the approval letters but we were
told by the office's deputy director that he couldn't complete the
paperwork for us as he was busy at that time."

On the morning of 15 June, the farmers returned to the office and were
told that each farmer had to submit 20 copies of the tractor application
form.

The farmers were charged 100 kyat for each form, which meant that each
farmer had to pay 2000 kyat for their application.

"After finishing the paperwork we went to the garage set up in the
township park where they kept the tractors. When we got there we were told
by the garage's supervisor to register on a waiting list," the farmer
said.

"Then we waited in the pouring rain until 5pm that afternoon when they
took photos of us with the tractors, but after that they told us there was
no time left and we should come again at 8am the next morning."

But when they return the park the next day, they were told by an official
– apparently a district coordinator – that they would not receive the
tractors in the order they had registered due to a new directive from the
military strategic command.

"They said the strategic command had told them to give out the tractors in
a lucky draw system – everyone would get different type of tractor
depending on what they won," the farmer said.

"They said those who didn't win didn't have to worry because there was
another tractor garage in a milling factory in the area where we could
also apply for tractors," he said.

"We spent half the day at the park and then when we didn't win anything in
the lucky draw we headed on to the milling factory."

At the factory, the farmers were told there were only 53 hand tractors
available and they were made to pay for and fill out new application
forms.

"We told them we had already paid money for application forms but the
officials told us they were no use any more," the farmer said.

"We had to buy new contracts for 1000 kyat each – and each farmer needed
four contracts," he said.

"After that, we went to the garage to get our tractors and they told us
there were no more left."

The farmers went to the strategic commander’s office yesterday to complain
but he would not see them.

"We were sent here and there for three days in this horrible rain and the
weather in the hope of getting those tractors. But we did not get
anything," the farmer said.

The farmers said it took 3-4 gallons of diesel fuel to prepare an acre of
farmland but they had only been provided with one gallon per acre by the
government.

The official price of diesel fuel from the government is 3000 kyat per
gallon but it costs 6400 kyat in the black market.

The farmer said an argument broke out between government officials and the
farmers on Monday after the farmers found out that two out of six
one-gallon diesel fuel bottles only had water in them.

____________________________________

June 18, Democratic Voice of Burma
Flights suspended as tourism in Burma falls – Naw Say Phaw

Following last September's uprising and the destruction of Cyclone Nargis,
there has been a significant decline in tourism within Burma and the
industry is beginning to suffer.

Workers in Burma's hotel and travel industry have said that some private
airlines have suspended flights to Burma due to the decline in tourism.

Air Bagan have suspended flights between Rangoon and Bangkok from 15 June
to 15 September which an airline employee said was due to high fuel
prices.

Air Mandalay, which used to have two flights every week between Rangoon
and Chiang Mai, on Sundays and Thursday, have also suspended these
services from 7 June to 7 August.

Another employee of Air Mandalay blamed the cancellations on the lack of
tourists in the area.

"It's also because it's low season, and there are not many people
travelling around this time," he said.

A hotel employee in Mandalay said that the whole travel industry in the
country has almost ground to a halt, and there have been cancellations of
flights, hotel bookings and tours until September.

According to the employee it is unclear how long these problems will
continue, and it is not just the smaller businesses that are suffering.

"We can't say anything precisely yet. Even some grand hotels don't have
any gas now. Also, they have started laying off staff due to slow
business," he said.

"The hotels and guesthouses are also reducing their rates to draw in more
customers and have started serving food. They are now struggling to pay
their employees' salaries".

The employee added that the decline in tourism started in September last
year.


____________________________________
ASEAN

June 18, Deutsche Presse Agentur
'A new Asean'

The Cyclone Nargis disaster in Burma showed the world that a revitalised
Association of Southeast Asian Nations can "rise to the occasion," Asean
Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said on Wednesday.

According to Mr Surin a new Asean has emerged from its achievements. "We
are being baptised by Cyclone Nargis," he told the 5th Asean Leadership
Forum in Singapore.

It has been more than six weeks since the cyclone hit, leaving a trail of
devastation followed by three weeks of international outrage as the
military junta obstructed foreign aid and volunteers.

Recalling the frustration and anguish of the World Bank and many Western
countries which sent ships and planes packed with relief supplies, Surin
said he was repeatedly asked, "Can Asean do something?"

"With 2.4 million people teetering between survival and death," Asean
became the mechanism for getting aid to the worst-hit areas such as the
Irrawaddy Delta in the south, helping sort out objections to helicopters
and sending in nearly 300,000 volunteers, Surin told government and
business leaders in addition to civil society groups.

"The teams have been given full support and reached the areas where they
wanted to go," Surin said. "That's a new Asean ready to take on
responsibility."

Aid workers said thousands of survivors of the storm are yet vulnerable to
sickness and many are without adequate food and supplies.

A meeting of Asean volunteers will be held July 24 to collect information
from their experiences "for the future," Surin said. "We have achieved a
certain degree of competence."

Amid the concerns of the international community, "We have made progress,"
he said.

Asean, which groups Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma, has long been
labelled as ineffective by critics.

SUrin expressed confidence that the Asean Charter could be approved by all
members by the time of the Bangkok summit at the end of the year.
Thailand, Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia have yet to approve the
document designed to unite the countries into an economic bloc, set
democracy as a goal and create a human rights body.

Asean "must continue to work as a cohesive body and integrate quickly, so
as to provide member countries with the ability to respond to external
challenges with greater resilience and unity," said Lee Yi Shyan,
Singapore's minister of state for trade and industry.

He cited rising oil prices, increased food costs, global warming and
worsening pollution as some of the long-term challenges facing the region.

"In addition, we continue to face ongoing security threats in the form of
terrorism and pandemic flu," Lee said. "If we are not prepared, we risk
our countries becoming disoriented from the resulting shocks."


____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 18, Reuters
FAO appeals for $83 million in Myanmar cyclone aid

More than 50,000 farmers in cyclone-hit Myanmar will be unable to plant a
new rice crop by August unless they receive immediate aid, the U.N. Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday.

In the first major assessment of the damage wrought by the May 2 cyclone
on Myanmar's rice bowl, the FAO said 570,000 hectares of land was
submerged in 11 badly-affected townships surveyed by the U.N. agency and
government officials.

"We are talking about 52,000 farmers which, if they are not supported,
will not be in a position to come back for the cultivation of paddy
monsoon crop in 2008," FAO specialist Albert Lieberg told a news
conference.

That translated into a potential loss of 183,000 hectares of rice paddy,
equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of rice or 2 percent of the country's total
output, he said.

The FAO launched a fresh appeal for $83 million in emergency and long-term
agricultural assistance nearly seven weeks after the storm left 134,000
dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

Some $32 million will go to meet the immediate needs of farming families,
such as providing rice seed, ploughing animals and other materials to help
them plant a new crop.

The storm surge wiped out up to 85 percent of rice seed stockpiled by
farmers and killed 120,000 draught animals. The FAO said it hoped to find
5,000 new animals within Myanmar.

"If the programmes are implemented there is a possibility that these
people might make it," Lieberg said. (Reporting by Darren Schuettler;
Editing by Ed Cropley and Valerie Lee)

____________________________________

June 18, Deutsche Presse Agentur
Myanmar's monks call on EU to bring junta chief to court

The Council of the European Union should use their meeting in Brussels
Thursday to back a call to bring Myanmar's junta chief to be tried in the
international court for crimes against humanity, Myanmar's activist monks
said in a statement Wednesday.

'We request the EU to bring Than Shwe, leader of Burmese military junta,
before the International Criminal Court to be tried for his crimes against
humanity, as recommended by the European Parliament,' said the All Burma
Monks' Alliance, one of the driving forces behind the monk-led anti-regime
demonstrations held in Yangon last September.

The alliance also appealed to the 27 Heads of State from the EU Council
'to assist Burma's democracy movement led by detained leader Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi.'

Thursday, the day the EU council gathers in Brussels, also marked Suu
Kyi's 63rd birthday.

She will celebrate her birthday in her Yangon family compound where she
has been kept under house detention in near complete isolation for the
past five years.

Myanmar's military regime on May 27 extended Suu Kyi's house arrest for at
least another year.

The junta, headed by Senior Geenral Than Shwe, drew international fury for
its brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks last September and more recently
for its callousness in handling disaster relief for some 2.4 million
people affected by Cyclone Nargis, that smashed in to the country's
central coastal region on May 2-3 leaving at least 133,000 people dead or
missing.

Although Myanmar has accepted international aid, during the first two
weeks of the cyclone catastrophe, authorities placed tight restrictions on
granting visas for foreign relief experts, apparently concerned that an
inflow of foreigners might affect their national referendum held on May 10
and 25 to endorse a new constitution that institutionalizes military rule
in the country.

'The Burmese military junta has used the devastated situation of the
people of Burma after the attack of Cyclone Nargis to consolidate its grip
on power, and to exploit the generosity of the international community for
its own benefit,' said the All Burma Monks' Alliance.

'Some international actors assume that this is the time to save the lives,
not to talk about the politics. Some even think that any harsh words or
actions against the generals will jeopardize their humanitarian effort,'
the alliance said.

'This is totally wrong, morally, principally and practically. The Burmese
military junta and their policies are responsible for all bad things
happening in Burma, all the crises overloading the shoulders of the people
of Burma,' it added in its message to the EU Council.

____________________________________

June 18, Adnkronos International Italia
Burmese trade unionist accuses military of crimes against humanity

Burma's political opposition wants to take the country's ruling military
junta to the International Court of Justice on charges of crimes against
humanity, according to a top Burmese trade unionist and opposition figure,
Maung Maung.

He claims Burma's new constitution only reinforces the military's grip on
power.

"The constitution approved in a farcical referendum only strengthens the
military's presence on the political scene," Maung said.

He made the remark during a visit on Wednesday to the Rome headquarters of
the Giuseppe Marra Communications (GMC) media group, where its Adnkronos
International (AKI) news agency is located.

During his visit, Maung (photo) met GMC's president and Knight of Labour,
Giuseppe Marra. Maung also signalled that the Burmese opposition intends
to take the military junta to the ICJ at the Hague.

"We have enough documents to prove that the junta made many Burmese do
forced labour, a practice recognised as a crime against humanity by the
International Labour Organisation," Maung stated.

In Italy to attend a democracy conference on Wednesday and Thursday, Maung
was also due on Friday to meet the European Union's representative on
Burma, Piero Fassino.

Maung on Tuesday gave a press conference to mark the launch of a new
friendship association between Italian parliamentarians and Burma.


____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 18, Irrawaddy
Is cyclone aftermath creating a Burmese civil society? – Wai Moe

The aftermath of Cyclone Nargis has produced a number of local private
relief groups in a country where civil society is under strict scrutiny by
the authorities—giving rise to the question: could this phenomenon grow
into some kind of social structure?

Shortly after the cyclone struck, a Laputta Township youth group,
previously involved in offering funeral services for poor people, set up a
cyclone relief team, together with local monks.

They collected funds and rice from better-off people and rice merchants in
the township and opened emergency relief centers at monasteries and
schools in Laputta, one of the worst hit areas,

On day one of the cyclone, the young people and the monks made rice soup
for hundreds of survivors, at a time when no aid had reached the area from
state authorities or international relief agencies.

“The local relief workers in Laputta are also themselves cyclone victims,”
Aye Kyu, a Laputta physician told The Irrawaddy in early May. “In this
disaster, nobody, such as government agencies and others, could help us.
So victims needed to stand up by themselves, and help each other as well
as save themselves,”

Local relief efforts weren’t confined to Laputta and the Irrawaddy
Delta—the desire to help spread across the country.

“Our group started with five people,” said a young Rangoon doctor. “We
didn’t collect money, food and other supplies, but just told our relatives
and friends that we would go to the Irrawaddy Delta to help people there.
Then people who know us donated cash, rice and other relief items for the
survivors.”

Some local relief initiatives grew to scores of volunteer workers.

“These civic groups born in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis are unlike
civil society in western countries,” said Khin Zaw Win, a Burmese
researcher in Rangoon. “They are rooted in goodwill, replacing the
irresponsible people.”

One large relief group, the Free Funeral Services Society, led by Burmese
actor Kyaw Thu, has 150 volunteers and 50 staffers, according to its
official website. The group visited more than 100 Irrawaddy Delta villages
with aid.

The Nargis Action Group Myanmar, a sister organization of an education
company, Myanmar E-gress, led by Nay Win Maung, a Burmese journalist with
good connections to the military elite, has 100 volunteer workers in four
townships in the Delta, according to its Web site.

Burmese émigrés add their weight to relief efforts, using their access to
blogs and Web sites.

One group, the Myanmar-Burma Emergency Aid Network, based in Burma,
Singapore and Britain, started up with 70 volunteers, who took relief
supplies to 44 cyclone-hit villages.

“It’s been overwhelmingly impressive what local organizations, medical
groups and some businessmen have done,” Ruth Bradley Jones, second
secretary in the British Embassy in Rangoon, told The New York Times.
“They are the true heroes of the relief effort.”

Such praise doesn’t impress the Burmese regime, which puts difficulties in
the way of civic groups, many of which are denied official registration
and lack legal basis.

While registered and well-connected groups, such as Myanmar E-gree, are
officially approved the activities of a relief group of 400 volunteers led
by Burmese satirist Zarganar have been restricted by the authorities, and
on June 4 Zarganar was arrested.

His detention was followed by the arrest of more than a dozen other local
relief workers. “From this step, it is too early to talk about the growth
of a Burmese civil society,” said Khin Zaw Win.

____________________________________

June 18, BBC News
Unseen Burma: An aid worker's story – Dr Chris van Tulleken

I couldn't believe it.  Finally we were on our way. I looked out the
helicopter window and reflected on the last three weeks working in
Rangoon.

Three weeks of helping to co-ordinate Merlin's emergency response, while
our medical teams in the Irrawaddy Delta worked round the clock in the
heart of the devastation.

Three weeks of being told my permit to join our teams on the ground would
arrive "tomorrow" - always "tomorrow".

Now we were not only being allowed into the delta, we were being helped by
the government to run a pilot needs assessment of the entire region.

'Don't come here'

I was struck at how little devastation there seemed to be below me;
palm-thatched roofs on houses; trees still standing.

In Laputta, one of the largest towns in the delta, co-operative government
officials hired us a boat and local guides.

We steamed south on the large antique fishing boat to the coast of Pinsalu
island, where our assessment would be based.

Pinsalu translates roughly as "don't come here" and going on satellite
maps and the rumour mill, it seemed indeed to be one of the worst-affected
areas in the delta.

Tidal surge

I asked our guides about what had happened in Laputta and the surrounding
towns during Nargis.

I was again struck by how little destruction there seemed to be.

One fisherman told me that in a small village to the south, four out of
500 people had been killed.

I started to wonder if reports in our own press had been hugely exaggerated.

But as the boat journeyed past villages standing barely above the level of
the river, the destruction became more obvious.

Many of the roofs were now replaced with incongruous bright orange
tarpaulins.

Eventually, as the river widened and we approached the Bay of Bengal where
Cyclone Nargis started, I saw that scattered palms and mangroves on the
banks had been stripped of their leaves and decorated to their tops with
river flotsam.

This was evidence that the tidal surge here had been 2-3m (7-10ft) high
and the winds over 150mph (240kph).

Death of a village

As night fell, we arrived at Pinsalu, a village bearing the same name as
the island, but 3km from the coast.

I could see a dog across a small stream rummaging near a dead buffalo.

It was impossible not to think what other corpses might be concealed.

Pinsalu had been utterly destroyed.

Only the naked wooden frame of the monastery and the brick shell of the
hospital were left standing.

In place of the village of 4,000 was now a tented government and a camp of
500 people run by an aid organisation.

More than half the villagers had died during the cyclone.

Bodies

We spent the night in Pinsalu sleeping on the deck of our boat with rain,
insects and images of the day preventing any real sleep.

I wondered what we would find on the coast.

At first light we started to walk along the desolate beach facing the open
sea toward the village of Aung Hlaing.

I walked away from our small group, to where the tide had deposited bodies
at the top of the beach.

They lay on their backs, mouths open, their skin bleached by the sun and
seawater. Most of them were recognisably women and children; they had been
less able than the men to swim or cling to something solid when the water
surged over their heads.

Rebuilding lives

We waded through chest-deep mud and water and finally entered what
remained of the village.

Before Nargis, 580 people had lived here.

Over 400 had died.

Men - fishermen, monks and rice farmers - gathered round to answer
questions on what they needed now.

I was only able to count three women of reproductive age out of the 100 or
so people who had returned to the village.

Doctors are generally good at asking difficult questions and hearing
difficult answers.

But asking a group of 40 men how their wives and children died a month ago
left me feeling helpless.

Details of their stories brought life to the rumours and speculations of
Rangoon.

A nine-year-old girl showed me the tree she had hidden up during the storm.

A man showed me scars on his back - from when he had been lashed by
torrential rain.

I had only a snapshot of one part of the delta but what will stay with me
more than images or stories of death is the hope and sense of purpose of
the people of Aung Hlaing.

They were already rebuilding their lives and homes and the government was
helping them in partnership with international non-governmental
organisations like Merlin.

While this has so far allowed people to return, and avoided deaths from
epidemic disease or malnutrition, a massive and ongoing international
effort is still required to prevent a second catastrophe.

Watch Chris's report from Burma on Newsnight on Wednesday, 18 June, 2008
at 10.30pm on BBC TWO.


____________________________________
STATEMENT

June 18, All Burma Monks’ Alliance
UN Security Council and the Council of the European Union Should Take
Responsibility to Protect the People of Burma When They Meet on June 19 in
New York and Brussels, on the 63rd Birthday of the Imprisoned Nobel Peace
Prize Recipient Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
(1) Tomorrow, on June 19, 2008, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will again have to
spend her 63rd birthday in detention alone. She and her party members were
attacked by thousands of civilian militias, organized and supported by the
Burmese military junta, on the night of May 30, 2003, at nearby Depayin
Township in central Burma. Although she escaped from the assassination
attempt, scores of her party members were brutally killed, and she was
arrested by the military junta, along with U Tin Oo, Vice Chairman of the
National League for Democracy, and put in detention since then. Recently,
on May 27, 2008, the military junta extended her detention again for the
sixth year.  We wish her all the best and thank her for her leadership and
her unity with the people of Burma. Even though the junta tries to isolate
her from us, she is always with us. However the junta tries to undermine
her, she is still the leader of Burma’s democracy movement. Any political
solution without her involvement will be meaningless and unsustainable.

(2) On her birthday, June 19, 2008, the UN Security Council will hold a
debate on women, peace and security. U.S. Secretary of State Dr.
Condoleezza Rice will chair the debate, as the United States holds the
Presidency of the UN Security Council for June 2008. The debate will focus
on UNSC Resolution 1325, which was passed unanimously on 31 October 2000.
We would like to request Secretary Rice and other members of the Council
to pay attention to the plight of women in Burma. Among the over two
thousands political prisoners in Burma, at least 154 are women activists.
Burmese military troops are raping with impunity ethnic women and girls,
some as young as eight years old. In the frontier areas, the Burmese
military uses women as porters during the day and sex slaves at nights.
Among the 2.5 million populations who were severely affected by the
Cyclone Nargis and ignored by the junta, at least 50% are women and among
them are over 35,000 extremely vulnerable pregnant women. We call for the
UN Security Council to take effective action to stop the humanitarian
crises in Burma, created by the Burmese military junta.

(3) Also on June 19th, 27 Heads of State from the Council of the European
Union will meet in Brussels and discuss the EU’s role in international
affairs. We would like to call for leaders of European Union to continue
to assist Burma’s democracy movement led by detained leader Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi. The Burmese military junta has used the devastated situation of
the people of Burma after the attack of Cyclone Nargis to consolidate its
grip on power, and to exploit the generosity of the international
community for its own benefit. The actions of the junta leave millions of
people to die from starvation and infectious diseases in the delta region,
while blocking relief efforts and assistance offered by the international
community. We request the EU to bring Than Shwe, leader of Burmese
military junta, before the International Criminal Court to be tried for
his crimes against humanity, as recommended by the European Parliament.

(4) Some international actors assume that this is the time to save the
lives, not to talk about the politics. Some even think that any harsh
words or actions against the generals will jeopardize their humanitarian
effort. This is totally wrong, morally, principally and practically. The
Burmese military junta and their policies are responsible for all bad
things happening in Burma, all the crises overloading the shoulders of the
people of Burma. UN Human Rights Commissioner Ms. Louise Arbor said on
June 2, 2008 “in the case of Myanmar, the obstruction to the deployment of
such assistance illustrates the invidious effects of long-standing
international tolerance for human rights violations that made such
obstruction possible.” She is exactly right. Long-standing tolerance by
the international community of human rights violations in Burma made the
Burmese military junta believe that they have a license to kill and they
have nothing to fear. This is the time for the international community to
stand up and protect the people of Burma, by applying unanimous and
maximum pressure against the Burmese military, including a global arms
embargo and coordinated financial and banking sanctions against the
generals, their families and their crony businessmen.

All Burma Monks’ Alliance
Rangoon, Burma

____________________________________

June 18, Women’s League of Burma
WLB renews call for immediate release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

On 19 June 2008, Burma's democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will once
again spend her birthday under house arrest in Rangoon. She has been under
detention and barred from communicating with the outside world since May
2003, when the military regime attempted to assassinate her.

The SPDC extended her illegal detention for another year last month, not
daring to release her amidst the turmoil following Cyclone Nargis.
However, they are in effect sidelining the one person who represents the
best possible solution for a peaceful transition to democracy and
reconciliation in the country.

The military junta is deliberately ignoring the fact that Aung San Suu
Kyi's determination and unwavering courage to confront the regime serve as
a source of inspiration for all the people in Burma as well as her
supporters from all over the world.

The regime's barbaric suppression of freedom-loving people and forced
adoption of its own constitution will not result in genuine peace and
prosperity, which is what the people of Burma truly desire.

The junta must start stepping in the right direction by releasing Aung San
Suu Kyi and all political prisoners now. This is their only way out.

We wish to thank those governments, including the United States of
America, Canada, Australia and the European Union, who have maintained
sanctions against the SPDC at this critical time. These sanctions have
targeted SPDC leader Than Shwe and his clique, including his business
cronies, the Union Solidarity and Development Association and other
entities of the regime. These sanctions must be maintained until genuine
steps to democracy are taken.

It is time for the brutal generals to make the right choice and release
Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's democratic leader, and start meaningful
dialogue, or face being charged at an international court for crimes
against humanity. Such crimes include the killing of monks last September
and the ongoing blocking of aid to cyclone victims, which is causing
further unnecessary suffering and death, particularly of women and
children.

Some groups have already started exploring the possibilities of bringing
the top leadership of the SPDC to international justice. This includes the
International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, which can deal
with crimes against humanity:

If Than Shwe and his cronies continue to commit brutal crimes against
Burma's people, it is sure that they will one day be brought to justice.

Today, on Aung San Suu Kyi's 63rd birthday, we urge the people of Burma to
call collectively for her freedom.

Let Aung San Suu Kyi be free.
Let the people of Burma be free.

Contacts:
Dwelling                 66 89 4348976
Thin Thin Aung       66 89 8554119
____________________________________

June 18, Kayan Women’s Union
New hydropower dam for Burma¹s military capital to displace thousands

Over 3,500 people, including many ethnic Kayan, will be displaced by a new
dam being built in the Pyinmana Hills that will boost power to Burma¹s
military leaders.

³Drowning the Green Ghosts of Kayanland,² a new report launched today by
the Kayan Women¹s Union reveals how the Upper Paunglaung Dam, being built
with Chinese investment,  and slated for completion in December 2009, will
flood a fertile valley 26 miles east of Burma¹s new capital Naypyidaw.

The 99-meter Upper Paunglaung Dam will produce 140 megawatts of
electricity and store water to increase the generating capacity of the
Lower Paunglaung Dam, completed in March 2005, which currently powers
Naypyidaw.

Burma Army troop deployment to provide security for the dam construction
has caused increased forced labour and other abuses for local villagers,
in direct contravention of the ceasefire agreement between the Kayan New
Land Party (KNLP) and the Burmese military regime.

The KNLP was originally formed in 1964 to protest another dam, Burma¹s
first major hydropower project, the Mobye Dam in Karenni State, which
flooded 114 villages, eventually driving many Kayan, including
³long-necked² Padaung, to become refugees in Thailand.

³Forty years ago, we Kayan people lost our sacred lands to provide
electricity to Rangoon. Now again the dwelling places of our guardian
spirits will be submerged to power Naypyidaw,² said Mu Kayan of the Kayan
Women¹s Union.

The Upper Paunglaung Dam, being built by the Yunnan Machinery and Export
Co. Ltd (YMEC), is one of 24 major hydropower dams being planned or built
by Chinese companies in Burma.

The full report can be viewed at www.salweenwatch.org For more information
please contact Contact person: Aung Ngyeh
Phone: +66 84 363 6603
Email: kayanwu at yahoo.com