BurmaNet News, April 29, 2009

[Editor]

April 29, 2009, Issue #3700


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Villagers still struggle year after storm
DVB: Solo demonstrator sentenced to one year
Irrawaddy: Small-scale livestock farmers struggling in Delta
IMNA: Military destroys plantations to upgrade coastal road

ON THE BORDER
The Nation (Thailand): Thai army protests after Burma's mortar shells
injured two soldiers
DVB: Burma to accept Bangladesh prisoners
Narinjara: 68 released Burmese prisoners return home

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Foreign investment in Burma ‘costly for companies’

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: US to keep Myanmar sanctions in review: official

OPINION / OTHER
New York Times: A year after storm, subtle changes in Myanmar
Irrawaddy: Crossing the great divide – Aung Zaw

STATEMENT
NLD: Shwegondaing Declaration




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

April 29, Associated Press
Villagers still struggle year after storm

The boat's owner points to a palm-covered bend in the river where dozens
of bamboo huts perched on spindly stilts—until Cyclone Nargis devastated
this remote region a year ago.

"There were many, many bodies," Tin Maung Thein, 57, says through an
interpreter, gesturing toward a lush expanse of green where bloated
corpses once gently nudged the high tide mark.

Nature has concealed the scars in this tangle of narrow waterways in the
Irrawaddy Delta, where most of the more than 138,000 victims drowned when
the storm roared through during the night last May 2. But behind the lush
growth, tens of thousands of survivors still struggle to eke out a life.

Many lack clean drinking water. Rice fields remain bare, even as food
handouts wind down. More than 2,000 schools have reopened, but some are
short of teachers. A half million people live in rudimentary shelters.

International relief agencies have embarked on a three-year recovery plan,
but response to a global appeal for $691 million in funding has been slow,
the groups say.

"Finding that money to help get people back on their feet is the biggest
challenge that we face at the moment," says Andrew Kirkwood, the country
director of Save the Children Fund.

Worst off are those in remote areas, such as Tin Maung Thein's village of
Oak-kyiut.

Sea water inundated drinking water wells throughout the delta and turned
almost 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of Burma's most fertile rice
paddies into salt-contaminated wastelands.

Aid coordinators say 240,000 people in remote villages still rely on
drinking water delivered in large rubber bladders by boat. In some places,
diesel-powered filtration plants work around the clock turning brackish
estuary water into drinkable water.

People in Oak-kyiut, a village of 2,000 two hours up the Toe River from
the regional hub of Bogalay, augment the local supply by buying water from
vendors. A single muddy pond is its main source of drinking water, its two
former reservoirs now holding only puddles of brackish rain water.

"Drinking water is our largest problem," Tin Maung Thein says through lips
red from chewing betel nut and leaf, a locally grown mild stimulant.

With the rainy season approaching, Save the Children's Kirkwood expects
the most pressing crisis will shift from water to a shortfall of 130,000
waterproof houses. About 450,000 homes were destroyed by the cyclone and
350,000 others sustained damage.

"We've got about 500,000 people currently living in makeshift shelters
like tarpaulins that have been deteriorating in the sun for the past
year," says Kirkwood, a Canadian native who also holds British
citizenship.

The xenophobic military regime that rules Burma was widely condemned for
denying foreign aid agencies access for the first weeks after the
disaster, almost certainly adding to the death toll.

The government is now working with the international community through the
Tripartite Core Group, made up of the military junta, the United Nations
and the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

A UN report in December said a survey of a few thousand people spread
among 100 delta communities found chronic food shortages and
malnourishment, with many people still living in temporary shelters with
plastic sheeting.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who toured the area several weeks after
the storm to demand better access for aid workers, says he is open to
returning. But first the international community wants to see progress
toward "full democratization," including the release of democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi and other political detainees.

Thousands of registered aid workers now have access, though aid groups
worry the government may arbitrarily evict them at any moment, says aid
worker Matt MacCalla of the Santa Barbara, California-based medical aid
charity Direct Relief International.

"It would be a political decision on when there was no longer a need for
humanitarian aid and a response to Cyclone Nargis," says MacCalla, who
visited the disaster area in April.

The pace of reconstruction is frenetic in Bogalay, a bustling community of
more than 60,000 people. The cyclone destroyed 95 percent of the houses
and killed 10,000 residents.

Awba Ta, a Buddhist monk in the town, is familiar with the hardships in
outlying villages. "The people need 10 times more rice" than aid groups
are providing, Awba Ta says.

Oak-kyiut's paddy fields are bare, but village chief Aye Maung Gyi says
aid workers told him the April delivery of donated rice was the village's
last monthly shipment.

The World Food Program initially provided food for more than 1 million
cyclone survivors. While phasing out food donations proved impossible in
the original six-month timeframe, the number of recipients has been
falling, to 250,000.

Chris Kaye, the UN World Food Program's representative in Burma, concedes
that remote villages such as Oak-kyiut struggled to receive their share of
aid because of difficulties in reaching them. But he insists aid is
getting to those who need it.

He says the current poor rice harvest is mostly the result of farmers'
inability to borrow money to buy seeds. "The problem is much more to do
with the availability of credit than it is a problem with salt-affected
land," says Kaye, a Briton.

The fishing industry, the delta's second most important source of income
and food after rice, also still struggles.

More than 40 percent of fishing boats and 70 percent of fishing gear were
destroyed. The most recent review available, done in November, found that
less than 10 percent of the more than 100,000 boats lost had been
replaced.

The top UN representative in Burma, Bishow Parajuli, says more than 2,000
schools have reopened, though many are in temporary structures and
teachers are needed.

The only teacher in the village of Gadonkani, who gave her name only as
Yaung Ngo, says she struggles to cope with 200 students.

Ma Myo, a woman in the neighboring village of Koenginta who lost her
husband and two daughters in the cyclone, says she cannot afford the fees
to send her 8-year-old son to school.

Kirkwood says foreign governments have been reluctant to fund education,
because it is regarded as the government's responsibility.

"By not doing so, the international community is basically saying to
hundreds of thousands of children that they're not going to get an
education any time soon," he says.

Despite the shortage of clean water, feared outbreaks of dengue and
cholera never happened. One reason may be that Burmese have endured harsh
conditions for generations.

"They're tough, their immune systems are relatively strong, having been
drinking not the best water, eating not the best food and not having the
best health care. So after the last couple of generations, it's the strong
that make it," MacCalla says after visiting villages beyond Bogalay.

Though many died in Oak-kyiut, Aye Maung says the population has actually
grown from 1,500 before the cyclone to 2,000 today, as survivors drifted
in from abandoned nearby settlements.

"People came here because they are scared to live alone," Aye Maung says.
Overhead, clouds gather, heralding perhaps the approaching cyclone season.

____________________________________

April 29, Democratic Voice of Burma
Solo demonstrator sentenced to one year – Aye Nai

A tutor who was arrested in March for staging a solo demonstration calling
for the release of political prisoners has been sentenced to a year in
prison.

Aung Pe was arrested on National Armed Forces day (also known as
Resistance Day) on 27 March this year after protesting near the opposition
party National League for Democracy’s office in Twante township, Rangoon.

“He was given a year’s imprisonment by judge Win Ko for violations against
his movement restriction order,” said a colleague.

“The place where he did the protest is still in the range of his movement
limits and he clearly didn’t violate the restriction order.”

As well as calling for the release of political prisoners, Aung Pe
demanded the right to reopen NLD branches across the country.

His restriction order was implemented following his arrest on Burmese
independence day on 4 January for staging a similar solo protest.

According to NLD spokesperson Nyan Win, he had tied his hands together and
saluted the Independence monument.

____________________________________

April 29, Irrawaddy
Small-scale livestock farmers struggling in Delta – Min Khet Maung

Thein Thein, 43, still can’t restart her small-scale livestock business,
which once supported her six-member family, almost one year after Cyclone
Nargis.

She lost her prize flock of four dozen ducks and three pigs, valued at
more than US $300, when Cyclone Nargis pummeled Rangoon and the Irrawaddy
delta in May 2008, leaving close to 140,000 people dead or missing and
more than 2 million people destitute.

 “I just have this small pig that I bought on credit from my neighbor,”
the mother of five children said, pointing at a pig sleeping in a pigsty
beside an empty duck coop.

As a single parent, she had never found it hard to earn household income
until the cyclone struck. Now she crimps to get enough money for rice.

Since her life has changed, Thein Thein and her eldest son, age 16, now
moonlight as day laborers for rice farmers in her village, Naungtawgyi, in
Pyapon Township, one of the hardest hit areas.

“We want to resume our old business,” she said. “But how can we, without
any assistance?”

Thein Thein said people in her area have yet to receive any aid in terms
of restoring poultry and livestock animals.

Like Thein Thein, there are thousands of small-scale farmers in the
cyclone-affected townships of Rangoon and Irrawaddy Division who are
unable to rebuild their livelihoods.

Backyard poultry-raising and livestock play an important economic role in
the households of small villages.

Poultry—chicken and ducks—are raised for eggs and meat, providing a
nutritious variety in people’s diets, plus earning extra income. Pigs are
also raised and sold for income and on special occasions such as weddings
and festivals. Pigs, which can be raised in a confined space, are
particularly important for the landless.

Water buffaloes and cattle require more land and are important draught
animals, necessary for land cultivation and transportation.

In the aftermath of the cyclone, vast numbers of poultry and livestock
died along with cyclone victims, causing major long-term income loss to
the survivors who are still trying to rebuild their lives.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than
525,000 ducks (52 perfect of the population), 1.5 million chickens (45
percent), 68,000 pigs (28 percent), 7,500 goats (30 percent) and 227,000
draught animals (51 percent of water buffaloes and 23 percent of cattle)
were died in the cyclone.

In an effort to replace the lost animals, the military government, UN
agencies and international organizations have donated poultry and
livestock animals to small-scale farmers in many townships of Rangoon and
Irrawaddy Division.

“Our distribution targets the poor, the land-less, and female-headed
families, who are unable to restore their livelihoods by themselves,” an
FAO official said.

Assisting small-scale livestock farmers is one of the most urgent tasks of
humanitarian agencies, he said, because the farmers rely on backyard
farming as an essential income provider.

The FAO official said that despite the assistance, only a small percentage
of the lost poultry and livestock has been provided so far.

According to FAO statistics, 12 percent of pigs, 3 percent of cattle and
buffaloes, 1 percent of chickens and 20 percent of ducks have been
replaced.

“We need more international assistance in order to fully restore their
livelihoods,” said the official. “But, so far we have received only a
small amount of funding.”

____________________________________

April 29, Independent Mon News Agency
Military destroys plantations to upgrade coastal road – Rai Maraoh

Rubber plantation owners in Thanbyuzayat Township, Mon State have lost
parts of their land and had other parts destroyed to make way for an
ongoing road upgrading project along the coastal route between Kyaikami
and Set Sae village undertaken by the military. None have so far received
any compensation for loss or damage.

According to local sources, the military government project includes
straightening of some road sections, which means driving construction
through several acres of rubber plantation. Trees that obscure coast views
have also been cleared.

One villager whose plantation was destroyed said, “The new road passes
many rubber plantations. The authorities haven’t paid anything to the
owners for their land or for the damage and we are too afraid to request
compensation. Some plantations have been completely destroyed and some are
half ruined. There are many of them but we don’t know how many acres
exactly.

“ As well as this, when the soldiers came with bulldozers to clear the
land, the plantation owners had to act as security for the military
drivers.”

Villagers have also been forced to provide for the military workforce.

“ It’s not only that our plantations were destroyed – we also had to
provide food for the soldiers. The headman collected money from us to pay
for it,” said another plantation owner.

The road passes through the villages of Ka Yin Dawn and A Nan San
according to a resident. The road is long 14 mile according to government
newspaper, the New light of Myanmar, which was published on January 30th.

Local residents rely on their plantations to make a living and were
already experiencing difficulties due to the recent low price of rubber.
Now many face severe problems earning enough to support their families due
to the destruction of their land.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

April 29, The Nation (Thailand)
Thai army protests after Burma's mortar shells injured two soldiers

Thai army in Tak province protested against Burma on Wednesday after
Burmese soldiers fired the 81-mm mortars into the Thai soil during their
clashes with Karen National Union army.

As chairman of Thai-Burma Border Committee, Col Padung Yingpaiboonsuk,
chief of infantry unit in Tak's Mae Sot distric, submitted the protest
note to his JBC counterpart; Maj Tunli Ong.

The note said Thailand wanted to protest against Burma after Burmese
soldiers fired the 81-mm mortars into Baan Padee village in Tak's Pobpra
district on April 27.

Shells of the mortars injured Private Mag Lanang and Private Kampanart
Ruafongfu. The incident happened as the Burmese army clashed with the KNU
soldiers opposite Baan Padee village.

After the incident, the Thai side evacuated local villagers from the area
to take shelters at a temple. Until April 29 (Wednesday), the villagers
could not return to their houses as the clashes still continued, the note
said.

____________________________________

April 29, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma to accept Bangladesh prisoners

Burma has agreed to take back 68 Burmese nationals who have been
imprisoned in Bangladesh following a meeting between the Burmese
government and a Bangladeshi paramilitary border force.

Officials from Burma’s Department of Border Trade and Bangladesh’s
paramilitary border control, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), met yesterday in
Cox’s Bazar district on the Bangladesh side of the border.

Bangladesh is now set to release 68 Burmese nationals, 65 civilians of
which are and three of which are army deserters. The army deserters were
detained by BDR troops in Bandarban, near the border, on 20 March this
year.

A total of 133 Burmese nationals are due to be released from Bangladeshi
prisons, although the Burmese junta are reluctant to accept them all.

Three other meetings between Burmese army officials BDR officials were
held in Bandarban yesterday, during which Burmese officials made a
promised to move the planned construction of the border fence 150 yards
further inside Burma.

Bangladesh has voiced concern that the planned border fence, aimed at
stemming the flow of illegal migrants into Burma, ran too close to the
border.

____________________________________

April 29, Narinjara
68 released Burmese prisoners return home

68 Burmese nationals were able to return home yesterday from Bangladesh
after languishing in Bangladesh prisons for many years.

A witness said, "They arrived at Maungdaw from Bangladesh at 6 pm by ferry
and now they are staying at a primary school near the football grounds in
Maungdaw."

Among the release prisoners are 20 people from Maungdaw and nine from
Buthidaung. The remaining prisoners are from Sittwe, Paletwa in Chin State
and Mawlamyin in Mon State.

"I saw only one woman among them and she is from Paletwa Township. She
served many years in Bangladesh," the witness said.

The prisoners were transferred by Bangladesh authorities to Burma during a
flag meeting that was held in Teknaf in Bangladesh, opposite Burma's
Maungdaw, yesterday.

At the flag meeting, a 16-member Burmese team was led by the Nasaka sector
6 commander while a seven-member Bangladesh team was led by Bangladesh
Rifles Battalion 42's commander.

According to a Bangladesh source, there are over 130 Burmese prisoners due
to be released from custody, but Burmese authorities have so far only
agreed to accept the 68.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

April 29, Democratic Voice of Burma
Foreign investment in Burma ‘costly for companies’ – Rosalie Smith

Foreign investments in Burma’s oil and gas sector pose a risk to companies
and lead directly to human rights abuses against civilians, including rape
and torture, says a human rights watchdog.

Speaking at a conference in Jakarta, Inodnesia, attended by leading
figures from the region’s oil industry, EarthRights International said
that foreign businesses partnering with Burmese companies carried
significant risks.

“Due to the reputation and material risks posed by doing business in
Burma’s extractive sectors, it may actually cost a company more to go into
Burma than to stay away from it,” said Matthew Smith, Project Coordinator
at ERI’s Burma Project.

Furthermore, incidences such as French oil company Total’s investment in
the Yadana pipeline in the 1990’s implicates them in severe human rights
abuses.

“Documented abuses connected to the Yadana project include land
confiscation, forced labour, rape, torture, and killings,” say ERI.

Yesterday the EU announced it would be renewing its package of sanctions
against the ruling State Peace and Development Council.

The EU sanctions package does not however include a ban on European
companies investing in Burma vast oil and natural gas reserves.

A number of domestic and international human rights groups have called for
a complete stop to foreign business investments in Burma.

Stephen Frost, director of Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia,
suggested however that targeted investments in Burma should be considered
in light of the failure of sanctions.

“For every Western firm pressured to divest, or forced not to invest in
the first place, there are numerous others in Asia that are under no such
pressure,” he said.

“Talking of lifting sanctions is tantamount to support for the generals in
some circles, but it's not as if European Union companies don't invest in
places with bad human rights records.”

Dr Khin Mg Kyi, a Singapore-based Burmese economist, argued that banning
foreign investment from certain countries and not others leads to
monopolization.

“We are committed to a superpower like China; it’s a very powerful
country,” he said.

“We are giving them all our resources. Why should we let China monopolize
us?”

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

April 29, Agence France Presse
US to keep Myanmar sanctions in review: official – Shaun Tandon

The United States plans to keep sanctions in place on Myanmar even as it
charts a new course with the military regime, a senior White House
official said in a letter seen on Tuesday.

US President Barack Obama's administration has launched a review of policy
on Myanmar, also known as Burma, and has pledged to coordinate more
closely with Asian nations.

But a senior official reassured that sanctions would stay in place, in a
reply to congressman who supports strong pressure on the junta to free
democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The sanctions that the United States and other countries maintain against
the regime are an important part of our efforts to support change in
Burma," Richard Verma, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs at
the State Department, told Representative Peter King in the letter seen by
AFP.

State Department official Stephen Blake last month paid the first visit by
a senior US envoy to Myanmar in more than seven years, quietly holding
talks both with the junta and the opposition.

Verma, who handles relations between the State Department and Congress,
said reports that Blake floated the possibility of lifting sanctions on
Myanmar were "incorrect."

Obama has reached out to US adversaries such as Iran and Cuba, although he
has insisted he will not lift sanctions if the nations do not take action
on human rights and other concerns.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that she wants to find a
"better way" to sway Myanmar's military leaders.

King and 16 other members of Congress wrote a letter to Clinton in early
April to voice concern about any lifting of sanctions.

"While we are currently reviewing our Burma policy, we can assure you that
we remain committed to delivering a firm message on the need for real
reform, including the initiation of a credible and inclusive dialogue with
the democratic opposition and the release of political prisoners," Verma
said in the reply.

The junta has kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for nearly 20
years. The Nobel laureate led her party to victory in 1990 but the junta
never allowed the election to stand.

European Union foreign ministers on Monday extended the bloc's own
sanctions against Myanmar for another year, calling for the release of all
political prisoners and a peaceful transition to civilian rule.

But the EU foreign ministers also said they were ready to ease sanctions
and hold talks if there was democratic progress.

Unlike the United States and European Union, nearly all Asian nations
maintain full relations and trade with Myanmar.

China is the key commercial and military partner of the junta, which
crushed 2007 protests led by Buddhist monks.

Jim Webb, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Asia,
recently called for the United States to provide incentives to Myanmar to
pave the way for an eventual lifting of sanctions.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

April 29, New York Times
A year after storm, subtle changes in Myanmar

The grass, one year on, has finally taken hold in the salty soil of the
cemeteries. The bodies, nearly 85,000 of them, have been fished from the
rivers, dug from the mud, cleared from the ponds, put to rest. The graves,
finally, are greening up.

Another 54,000 people are still listed as missing, but everyone in the
Burmese delta who survived Cyclone Nargis knows full well that “missing,”
by now, means “dead.”

The cyclone, which struck on the night of May 2 last year, was one of the
deadliest storms in recorded history, 75 times more murderous than
Hurricane Katrina. It blew away 700,000 homes in the delta. It killed
three-fourths of the livestock, sank half the fishing fleet and salted
more than a million acres of rice paddies with its seawater surges.

In many ways, just a year beyond these horrors, life in the Irrawaddy
Delta has settled back into some of its familiar rhythms, the push of the
planting and the pull of the harvest. It’s a manageable if hardscrabble
life, one that the weather controls and the farmers expect.

But something unexpected has happened, too, according to U.N. officials,
aid workers and foreign diplomats in Myanmar. The storm — and a following
surge of humanitarian aid — might have opened a breach in the hard
political wall around Myanmar, including perhaps a new and softer line by
the United States.

The geopolitics, of course, matter little to the farmers here in the
delta, where even mourning has become a luxury. They are still in need of
slab foundations and sturdier roofs, new tillers (or new water buffaloes),
money for seeds, fertilizer and school fees.

“The people in the delta aren’t defeated, but they are lost,” said a
Western diplomat who recently visited the area but was not authorized by
his government to speak on the record. “They’re desperate. They didn’t
have much before, and now they have next to nothing. They just don’t see
how to climb out.”
Salty fields, wells and reservoirs; a dependence on food handouts;
strangled local credit; flimsy thatched huts; another monsoon season
approaching — so much to worry over. Plus the ghosts.
The ghosts of the dead and the missing usually come during no-moon nights,
the delta people say, especially when the wind kicks up. They say they can
hear the ghosts along the riverbanks, or moving slowly through stands of
bamboo.

“Some of them cry out, and they sound sad, and some of them sound angry,”
said Moe Seh, 50, a farmer whose deep-in-the-delta hamlet was obliterated
by the storm. “They frighten my children. I have to admit, they frighten
me.”

Mr. Moe Seh’s wife and seven children all survived the cyclone, but he
thinks some of his missing friends and neighbors are out there in the
dark, along the rivers, in the bamboo.
“They’re lost,” he said. “They’re in the dark. They’ve lost their way.”

The same could be said for Mr. Moe Seh. His rice paddies, swamped with
seawater, have not come back — and may never return to full fertility, at
least not in his lifetime. He borrowed money for seeds and planted a crop
after the cyclone, he said, but the harvest was only a tenth of its normal
size — not even enough to repay the interest on his loan. He and one of
his sons now go from town to town, on foot, trying to pick up odd jobs and
farm work.

In the days after the cyclone, the hard-line generals who run Myanmar did
not know what, quite literally, had hit them. The scale of the disaster
was beyond their imagining — and then beyond their acknowledging. French
and U.S. naval ships carrying aid supplies waited just offshore for more
than two weeks while the generals dithered. Finally, lacking permission to
deliver the aid, the ships withdrew — to a chorus of “megaphone diplomacy”
and international condemnation of the junta.

“The generals thought it was just another typical cyclone, where the army
would hand out some rice and a few tarps and that would be it,” said a
senior U.N. program director who spoke anonymously for fear of angering
the government. “The regime made some shocking mistakes early on, really
horrible, when they blocked the aid. But these were decisions driven by
national pride. They thought, ‘We can handle this on our own.’

“With all the international furor, they finally realized, ‘This is way,
way too big for us.’ And after that, they did a lot. A huge national
response occurred.”

The secretive and xenophobic junta — still fearing a seaborne invasion by
Western powers — now readily accepts air shipments of foreign aid, even
from the West. Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, especially Indonesia and Singapore, have been widely credited
with helping the junta to assume a somewhat more relaxed posture.

“The overall response of the government has been remarkable,” said
Lilianne Fan, a former policy adviser in Myanmar with the relief group
Oxfam. “They are ‘getting it’ more and more each day that they are
involved in the recovery process.”

Health care experts also cite the government’s efforts in actively
addressing a range of public health issues, especially with bird flu and
H.I.V./AIDS. And while foreigners still cannot enter the delta without
official permission, the number of international aid groups allowed to
work in Myanmar has doubled in the past year.

“You can work here very well, and to say that you can’t is a lie,” said
Frank Smithuis, a physician and the longtime country director for Médecins
Sans Frontières (Netherlands). “Look, the human rights record is shaky,
yes, and it’s politically nice to beat up Burma, but the military has
actually been quite helpful to us.”

Dr. Smithuis said the delta had recovered well enough — and that enough
other agencies were working there — that he had deployed his staffers to
poorer, needier parts of the country.
Another longtime aid director said the junta, which has pledged to hold
democratic elections next year, was “very conscious that the eyes of the
world are on them.”

Exact election procedures have yet to be announced, but on Monday the
European Union, apparently anticipating a rigged voting process, extended
its sanctions against the regime, including an arms embargo, a travel ban
on Myanmar’s leaders and a freezing of their assets in Europe.

“The new Constitution leaves a lot to be desired, but just having an
election will change the flavor here,” said the aid director, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. “Even if the election is a farce, it’s a small
step in an evolutionary process.”

The junta is widely and globally vilified. It controls the media, the
judiciary, most of the economy and even access to the Internet. It
imprisons political opponents, Buddhist monks and a Nobel Peace Prize
laureate alike, and without apology. When the country’s most famous
comedian, Zarganar, or the “Tweezers,” rebuked the government over its
slow response to Cyclone Nargis, he was arrested and sentenced to 59 years
in prison, later reduced to 35.

The political stench on the regime has kept major donors away, including
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. A new recovery plan says the delta
will need $690 million in aid over the next three years, although that
much money could be hard to raise: A yearlong U.N. appeal just ended $162
million underfunded, one-third short of its goal.

“Shockingly, some exiled Burmese political and lobby organizations are
actively campaigning against further donor funding for the delta, based on
very poor knowledge of the situation on the ground,” said Richard Horsey,
former senior adviser on Burma to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. “Aid money is drying up.”

Reports by exile groups about the Burmese military forcibly conscripting
children orphaned by Nargis are politically loaded and wrong, according to
the U.N. program director, whose portfolio includes child-labor issues.

“There’s been absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever,” said the
official. “If it had happened, I would know.”

The United States has a wide range of tough economic sanctions in place
against the generals and their cronies, but Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton recently ordered a wholesale review of American policy
toward Myanmar.

Diplomats suggest that Washington might start by officially calling the
country Myanmar rather than its former name, Burma. (The generals changed
the name 20 years ago, after they crushed a pro-democracy uprising, but
exile groups have never recognized the new name.) Also, Myanmar could be
upgraded to full diplomatic status with the appointment of a U.S.
ambassador. Currently, the top American diplomat in Myanmar is Larry M.
Dinger, whose title is chargé d’affaires, a rung below ambassador.

“I hope they have the guts to do it,” said Dr. Smithuis. “The U.S. could
reduce the isolation of a country that has already isolated itself.”

____________________________________

April 29, Irrawaddy
Crossing the great divide – Aung Zaw

Last week, I was at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) to
attend a panel discussion organized by the BBC Burmese Service to mark the
one-year anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, Burma’s worst recorded natural
disaster.

My first question to Tin Htar Swe, the head of the BBC Burmese Service in
London, was why there were no Burmese NGO workers or monks on the panel.
Both groups are widely recognized as key participants in the post-Nargis
relief effort.

She replied that local aid workers and monks were initially invited to
speak, but they all turned down the invitation when they learned that the
discussion would be videotaped and aired.

After hearing this response, a Burmese colleague joked that it looked like
Burma’s humanitarian workers were sharing the fate of the country’s
political activists, who have long been forced to carry out most of their
activities “underground.”

But two of the panelists—Chris Kaye, the World Food Program’s country
director for Burma, and Dr Frank Smithius, the country representative for
MSF (Holland)—disagreed with the suggestion that the Burmese regime was
impeding relief efforts.

They said that aid could be delivered to the needy without interference
from the junta. But they also emphasized that much more work needed to be
done to improve the lives of cyclone survivors. The recovery process in
the delta would take time and more assistance was needed, they said. No
one disagreed with them.

The third panelist, Britain’s ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, also had
a message that few people could disagree with. He said that Burma remained
one of the most repressive places on earth, and insisted that real
political progress could only begin after the regime released all of the
country’s political prisoners.

At the same time, however, he stressed that while searching for a solution
to Burma’s political problems, the basic needs of the Burmese people could
not be ignored.

But meeting these needs continues to be a serious challenge for all
involved. Although more international NGOs have entered Burma since
Cyclone Nargis and large numbers of ordinary Burmese have joined the
relief effort, it remains unclear how far the regime will go in allowing a
larger “humanitarian space” to open in the country.

While many observers outside the country remain skeptical about the
international aid agencies’ claims of being able to work freely (“What
else do you expect them to say?” asked one cynical senior journalist at
the FCCT), the regime itself is as suspicious as ever of these outsiders.

According to official sources in Naypyidaw, top leaders have shown little
interest in humanitarian relief efforts in the delta, but are paying close
attention to what’s going on there, as they remain ever watchful of signs
of anything that could undermine their grip on power.

Indeed, when the microphones were off, some aid workers admitted that the
junta has often been less than helpful, confirming comments from some
Burmese observers who attended the FCCT event, who said that the real
situation in the delta was very different from the picture being painted
by the international aid groups.

Some foreign NGO workers also expressed doubts about the three-year
recovery project receiving the $700 million it is estimated to
need—something that will hinge largely on their ability to convince
foreign donors that the regime is not hindering their efforts.

Last week, Koos Richelle, the director general of the European
Commission’s EuropeAid Cooperation Office, told reporters in Manila that
Burma must open up to dialogue with donors if it wants to receive
much-needed development assistance. He added, however, that there has been
little progress in providing aid to Burma because the military regime
refuses to discuss development programs.

Although the regime has extended the mandate of the relief-coordinating
body, the Tripartite Core Group—consisting of representatives of the UN,
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the junta—for
another year, Naypyidaw appears to be reluctant to allow more foreign aid
workers into the country.

This is a disappointment for aid workers who say that they have been able
to collaborate effectively with officials committed to helping their
fellow Burmese citizens through cooperation with international relief
groups and UN agencies.

One panelist even said that his organization was able to work inside Burma
without sacrificing any of its core principles. But a foreign aid worker
with in-depth knowledge of Burma was dismissive of this claim. The only
organization in Burma that has strictly adhered to its principles is the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said. Although the
ICRC stopped its activities, including prison visits, in Burma after the
regime imposed restrictions, it has maintained its office in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, some aid workers active inside Burma are countering such
recriminations by arguing that advocacy groups and activists outside the
country are attempting to paint an overly bleak picture of the
difficulties of working with the junta.

Recently, 21 international NGOs involved in Nargis-related relief and
recovery work slammed a joint report by the Center for Public Health and
Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and
the Thailand-based Emergency Assistance Team (EAT) which was highly
critical of the relief effort in the delta.

In a joint letter, the NGO group said that the report, titled “After the
Storm: Voices from the Delta,” published on February 27, was “both
inaccurate and does a disservice to the courageous and resilient survivors
of Cyclone Nargis.”

The report focused on human rights violations in the wake of Cyclone Nargis.

The response letter said, “We found a number of shortcomings in the
report, including its premise, methodology and most of its findings.”

Defending the relief effort, the letter said: “Dozens of international and
local relief agencies along with foreign embassies are continually
examining humanitarian and delivery from inside Burma. They are able to do
so independently and first-hand.

“The international humanitarian assistance delivered to date has been
life-saving and life sustaining for millions of cyclone survivors. It has
reached them without significant interference,” the letter claimed.

The letter also claimed that misleading reports could undermine further
aid to cyclone survivors.

Although others have also questioned the Johns Hopkins/EAT report’s
methodology, most observers agree that it has succeeded in initiating a
healthy debate. Some researchers who advocate increased aid defended the
report, saying that it helps to raise awareness of the need for
transparency and accountability in the distribution of aid and use of
funds.

As the relief effort approaches the one-year mark, this would be a good
time for the aid community inside and outside Burma to open a dialogue,
instead of undermining the missions inside and along the border.

Burmese aid workers on both sides of this artificial divide have many
shared concerns. One is that the fight over aid money could obscure more
important issues and even intensify divisions between Burmese inside and
outside of the country.

A year ago, there was unprecedented cooperation between Burmese living in
exile and those still inside the country, as both struggled to find a way
to come to the assistance of their fellow citizens. Now, however, many
fear that a dispute among foreign aid groups could weaken their shared
resolve, with consequences that can only add to the tragedy of Cyclone
Nargis.

____________________________________
STATEMENT

April 29, National League for Democracy
Shwegondaing declaration

We, the members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) including the
Central Executive Committee, representatives of State and Division
organizational committees, the Members of Parliament—elect still standing
with the NLD, Representatives of the Central Women’s Affairs Committee,
representatives of the Youth Affaires Implementation Committee gathered on
the 28th and 29th of April 2009 in the meeting hall of the Head Quarter of
the NLD on West Shwegondaing Street and held discussions on the political
and organizational situations and the analytical report regarding the
Constitution with the aim to resolve all the political impasse in striving
to build up the Union of Burma as the democratic state in accordance with
the inspiration of all the people

This Shwegondaing Declaration is issued to inform the people as the
agreement of the majority was obtained through these discussions for the
plan to create a fair climate for the evolvement of a dialogue which is
the best means for resolving the above impasse.

The NLD believes that the current political problems facing the country
such as the immediate and unconditional release of all the political
prisoners including U Tin Oo, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; review of the
Constitution; establishment of a genuine Union based on the principle of
equality for all the ethnic nationalities; recognition in some ways of the
result of the 1990 general election; are the main issues to be resolved
immediately for the benefit of the country and the people.

The stands of the League are:-

(a)    Unconditional Release of All the Political Prisoners including U
Tin Oo and Daw Aung San Su Kyi

(b)    Review of the Draft Constitution (2008)

A State Constitution based on the democratic principles is required to
establish a democratic state.  The not yet in force Constitution (2008) of
the State Peace and Development Council contains provisions which are not
accord with democratic principles.  Therefore the emergence of the
Constitution which is acceptable to all the people including the ethnic
nationalities is urgently required.

(c)  Organization

            In this Union of Burma where all the ethnic nationalities live
together, a unity based on the principles of equal opportunity
and mutual good will must be established.  Genuine democracy
can flourish only on such a fertile ground.  Furthermore, all
the political parties must have the freedom to organize. 
Therefore, the offices of the State/ Divisional and Township
Organization Committees which were closed and sealed since May
31, 2003, said to be a temporary measure, should be reopened
immediately together with those of the parties of ethnic
nationalities.

(c)    Recognition of the result of the Multi Party Democracy General
Election (1990)

At the present, recognition in some way of the People’s Parliament, which
is the outcome of the 1990 election, is urgently needed in accordance with
the Section 3 of the People’s Parliament Election law.  Only then the
democratic traditions can be maintained.  Otherwise the State Peace and
Development would seem to be breaching their own laws and regulations
enacted by themselves.

(d)   Political Dialogue

The NLD has been constantly striving for finding solution through
political dialogue since 1988.  Daw Aung San Su Kyi, the General Secretary
of the NLD has candidly stated the fact that she can work with flexible
approach according to the political necessity as follows:-

“We have repeatedly stated that the NLD would negotiate flexibly to get
beneficial outcomes for the people of Burma.  Nevertheless such dialogues
should not aim for the good of the NLD nor should they aim for the benefit
of the authorities.   Only the interest of the people of Burma should be
targeted.”

Therefore, the NLD request again with pure intention that the dialogues
that can resolve all the problems be carried out without fail.  The agenda
of the dialogue envisaged by the League is as follows:-

(1)    Unconditional dialogue participated by the decision markers should
be commenced immediately based on the principles of mutual respects and
national reconciliation.

(2)    During the dialogues the issues of provision of equal opportunities
for the ethnic nationalities; the unconditional release of all political
prisoners including U Tin Oo and Daw Aung San Su Kyi; review of the
Constitution (2008); recognition in some way of the People’s Parliament
with is the result of 1990 election; issues of the elections of the
future; development of the living condition of the people etc shall be
considered.

(3)    To arrange to recognize the result of the 1990 elections by
approving the result of the dialogues at the People’s Parliament which is
to be formed according to the People’s Parliament Election Law.

(4)    All the stake holders to follow unitedly the political course for
the future delineated by the agreements of the dialogue as adopted by the
People’s Parliament.

(e)    Attitude towards the Possible Future Elections

The NLD firmly believes that enduring political stability and the
development of the country could be achieved only by resolving the
fundamental problems mentioned above.

The people shall be informed what will be its stand if the State Peace and
Development Council unilaterally hold upcoming election at their own
arrangement, without considering to resolve through dialogue.

The League accepts that elections are the landmarks to be passed in the
journey to democracy.  The NLD will not abandon the struggle for
democracy.  The League will stand by the people in all circumstances.

Therefore if the State Peace and Development Council unilaterally hold
possible upcoming election with their own plan and if:-

(1)    All the political prisoners including the leaders of the NLD were
unconditionally released,

(2)    The provisions of the (2008) Constitution which are not in accord
with the democratic principles were amended,

(3)    All inclusive free and fair general election were held under
international supervision,

The National League for Democracy, through this Shwegondaing Declaration,
states that, anticipating for the realization of the benefit of the whole
people, it intends to participate in the elections only after gravely
considering as a special case and after studying the coming Party
Registration Act and the Laws relating to the Elections.

As per the resolution made at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee

Held on 29-4-09


C.E.C
N.L.D