BurmaNet News, August 8 - 10, 2009

[Editor]

August 8 – 10, 2009 Issue #3772


INSIDE BURMA
Times of London: Junta warns off protesters ahead of verdict on Aung San
Suu Kyi
New York Times: Verdict expected in Burmese leader’s case
Irrawaddy: Regime reportedly divided over Suu Kyi sentence
AFP: American in Myanmar Suu Kyi trial leaves hospital
SHAN: Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Indian Coast Guard detains North Korean ship
Irrawaddy: Kokang thwart Burma army drug raid

ASEAN
Philippine Daily Inquirer: ‘Suu Kyi trial burdens Asean’

INTERNATIONAL
Wall Street Journal: Suu Kyi supporters consider new tactics

OPINION / OTHER
Washington Post: In Burma, carefully sowing resistance; Fragile opposition
wary of confrontation
Foreign Policy: The Lady lives
Bangkok Post: What to do with The Lady – Larry Jagan
Irrawaddy: US focus on Pyongyang risks overlooking Burma – Simon Roughneen

INTERVIEW
New Light of Myanmar: Questions and answers in press conference




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

August 10, Times of London
Junta warns off protesters ahead of verdict on Aung San Suu Kyi – Leo Lewis

Burma’s military government appeared to be bracing itself last night for a
wave of pro-democracy protests – possibly even rioting – in advance of a
verdict due this week in the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Signs that the junta may be preparing a significant crackdown emerged
through the state-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper over the
weekend.

In a clear warning to would-be demonstrators, an editorial condemned
“power craving opportunists” and warned anyone fitting that description to
abandon any plans to incite riots under the pretext of Ms Suu Kyi’s trial.

Security has been tightened on the streets of the capital and the junta’s
concerns look justified. The outcome of Suu Kyi’s trial is likely to
coincide with the 21st anniversary of the rebellion that propelled her to
fame as a champion of democracy.That uprising was met with a military
crackdown which ultimately claimed 3,000 lives.

Ms Suu Kyi remained last night in Rangoon’s Insein prison waiting for the
result of a hearing that has brought worldwide condemnation as a political
charade. The verdict has already been delayed, and there were signs last
night that it may be postponed yet again.

Ms Suu Kyi is charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest — where
she has been held for 14 of the last 20 years — after a 56-year-old
American, John Yettaw, swam across a lake to her home in May.

The repeated delays to the progress of her trial are widely viewed as an
attempt by the junta to ensure that its biggest threat is safely under
lock and key for next year’s election.

The expected postponement this week may be due to Mr Yettaw’s failing
health. He has reportedly been suffering from epileptic seizures and was
moved from prison to a hospital last week. Although reports yesterday
suggested that his condition may now be improving, he has fasted for days
on end during his captivity and diplomatic sources said that the
uncertainty could provide the excuse for another week’s delay.

Diplomats speculate, though, that there may be an upper limit to the
Burmese regime’s ability to delay the verdict much longer. Ban Ki-moon,
the Secretary General of the United Nations, became the latest figure in
recent weeks to call for the release of Burma’s thousands of political
prisoners. Some believe that the junta may feel under pressure to at least
complete Ms Suu Kyi’s legal ordeal before the UN’s General Assembly in
early September.

____________________________________

August 10, New York Times
Verdict expected in Burmese leader’s case – Seth Mydans

After a series of delays, a verdict is expected Tuesday in the case of Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader who faces up to five
years in prison on a charge of violating the terms of the house arrest
under which she has been held for 14 of the past 20 years.

Her lawyer, U Nyan Win, said Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, was “prepared for
the worst” and had collected a supply of reading matter and medications to
sustain her if she is convicted.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is charged in connection with the bizarre intrusion
of an American, John Yettaw, who swam across a lake in early May and spent
two nights in her compound claiming that he had come to save her from
assassins.

Mr. Yettaw was reported last week to have suffered a series of epileptic
seizures, and Mr. Nyan Win said that although he had heard that Mr.
Yettaw’s health had improved, it was possible that the verdict could be
delayed again.

“From my point of view she is innocent and she should be acquitted,” Mr.
Nyan Win said, speaking by telephone from Yangon, the main city in
Myanmar. She did not invite Mr. Yettaw and broke no law, he said.

“But this is a political case and the authorities will decide it from a
political point of view,” he said, adding, “I have never known of an
acquittal in a political case.”

In response to widespread condemnation from around the world, some
analysts say the court could convict Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi but return her
to house arrest rather than keep her in prison. In what the analysts said
could be a sign of indecision, the court delayed reading a verdict on July
31, citing technical legal issues.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial has been a set back for the emerging
possibility of improved relations between Myanmar and Western nations,
particularly the United States, which had said it was reviewing its policy
of economic sanctions and political confrontation.

But in a statement last week the State Department appeared to stand by
that possibility, saying, “The door remains open for the regime to respect
the wishes of the Burmese people and international community, and to step
toward the path of engagement after so many years of isolation.”

As a “welcome first step,” it called for the release of Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi along with all 2,100 political prisoners said to be detained by the
military regime.

Some analysts have called the arrest of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi a ploy to
keep her in detention at least through a parliamentary election scheduled
for next year. Her latest six-year term of house arrest expired in
mid-May.

The election could put a civilian face on the military rule that has
isolated and impoverished the former Burma since a coup in 1962. It will
be the first nationwide election since 1990, which the military annulled
after Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won
by a landslide.

The government newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, has insisted that the
trial of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, like those of the other prisoners, is not
political but is based on pure criminal conduct.

Since her arrest on May 14, Mr. Nyan Win said, she has been held in an
individual dormitory in Insein Prison, where the trial is being held. He
said she lives on the second floor together with two female housekeepers
who were arrested and charged with her. Five prison matrons live on the
ground floor, he said.

Among the books she had collected to read, he said, were history books in
French, including a biography of Charles De Gaulle, and “many, many books
on Buddhist teachings.”

The two housekeepers, who had been her only companions under house arrest,
face the same charges and potential prison terms as Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr. Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Mo., faces at least five years in prison as an
accomplice in violating Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest as well as
for immigration violations and violation of a local ordinance that bars
swimming across the lake.

During the trial, which began May 18, Mr. Nyan Win said Mrs. Aung San Suu
Kyi declared her innocence and asserted that she was being charged for
political reasons.

“She said to the court that this is a biased prosecution because the main
responsibility belongs to the security personnel” who allowed Mr. Yettaw
to enter her compound, the lawyer said.

At a news conference last week in Yangon, the national police chief, Brig.
Gen. Khin Yi, said that 20 police officers had been demoted, and that some
had been given jail terms, for allowing Mr. Yettaw to breach security.

____________________________________

August 10, Irrawaddy
Regime reportedly divided over Suu Kyi sentence – Min Lwin

The delays in the court proceeding against Aung San Suu Kyi are caused by
disagreements within the military regime over how severely to punish her,
according to Burmese army sources.

Some generals—notably Gen Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Secretary 1 of
the ruling military council—are said to want to see her imprisoned. Others
are reportedly in favor of a more lenient sentence for the Nobel Peace
Prize laureate, who was being held in house detention until the start of
her trial in May.

Among those who appear to be reluctant to commit Suu Kyi to prison is Gen
Thura Shwe Mann, Coordinator of Special Operations, Army, Navy and Air
Force, according to the army source—who told The Irrawaddy he wanted to
see Suu Kyi sentenced “within the framework of the law.”

Htay Aung, a Burmese military researcher based in Thailand, also said that
some senior military generals are divided over the trial, with one faction
keen to see Suu Kyi sentenced to a term of imprisonment, isolating her
from the general election planned for 2010, and others wanting to apply
the due process of law.

“The trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was postponed because some military
generals wanted to consider it from a legal point of view,” said Htay
Aung. He thought international pressure on the regime also played a part
in the postponements.

Tin Aung Myint Oo is close to paramount leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who
promoted the battle-hardened hardliner to the rank of four-star general in
late March.

The general is also close to Aung Thaung, minister for Industry (1), an
extreme nationalist believed to be one of the masterminds of the Depayin
massacre in May 2003, when Suu Kyi’s motorcade was ambushed in central
Burma. He is said to harbor a deep hatred of Suu Kyi.

Military sources suggest the rise of Tin Aung Myint Oo has intimidated a
faction headed by the regime’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, who has been groomed
to succeed Than Shwe.  Lately, the general has been in charge of national
security and the coordination of army, navy and air force.

Shwe Mann so far is loyal to Than Shwe but rivals are closely watching his
relationship with business tycoons and some Burmese scholars, army sources
told The Irrawaddy. The sources also disclosed that Information Minister
Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, a close ally of Shwe Mann, has been sidelined in the
power struggle with the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction. But so far Shwe Mann
has saved the information minister from the sack.

Observers inside Burma say Aung Thaung and Tin Aung Myint Oo are working
together with the police and ministry of interior to influence the outcome
of Suu Kyi’s trial.

Police Chief Gen Khin Yi and Minister of Home Affairs Maung Oo are close
to the Tin Aung Myint Oo faction, and Khin Yi had been holding press
briefings on Suu Kyi. It is believed that hardliners have instructed the
police chief to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.

Last Friday, Gen Khin Yi claimed in comments to reporters that John
William Yettaw, the American whose intrusion into Suu Kyi’s home initiated
the case against her, had connections with Burmese exiled groups.

The police chief also denied media reports that the regime had plotted
with Yettaw. Speculation continues to circulate in Rangoon that Yettaw had
received a large sum of money from regime leaders to intrude into Suu
Kyi’s home in May. It’s also speculated that Aung Thaung collaborated with
Than Shwe and Tin Aung Myint Oo to concoct the case against Suu Kyi.
____________________________________

August 10, Agence France Presse
American in Myanmar Suu Kyi trial leaves hospital

The U.S. man on trial in Myanmar alongside Aung San Suu Kyi was Monday
night discharged from the hospital where he had been recovering from
epileptic seizures, an official source said.

American John Yettaw's departure from Yangon General Hospital, where he
spent a week undergoing treatment, means a verdict in Suu Kyi's court case
could now go ahead on Tuesday morning as scheduled at Insein prison's
court.

Diplomats and officials had said a judgment could be postponed once again
if her co-defendant Yettaw - who sparked the case by swimming to her
lakeside home in May - had remained hospitalized after suffering repeated
epileptic fits.

But an official source confirmed to AFP on Monday night, on condition of
anonymity, that Yettaw had been discharged from the city hospital, having
been taken there from the prison a week ago.

Myanmar officials, also speaking anonymously, had said at the weekend that
Yettaw's health was improving slightly and that he was "eating well" after
fasting for weeks.

If a verdict is delivered by judges tomorrow, it will be the final episode
in a nearly three-month-long legal imbroglio that has sparked
international outrage.

Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail if convicted of
violating her house arrest. She has already been in detention for 14 of
the last 20 years.

Yettaw faces charges of abetting Suu Kyi's breach of security laws,
immigration violations and a municipal charge of illegal swimming.

A verdict had been expected on July 31 but judges postponed their
pronouncement to Aug. 11, saying they needed time to review the case.

____________________________________

August 7, Shan Herald Agency for New
Gang-rape follows Four-Cuts – Hseng Khio Fah

Latest reports of the Burma Army’s four-cut campaign said that a Shan
woman from Shan State South’s Laikha township was gang raped in front of
her husband  by the Burma Army that has been waging a four-cut campaign
since late July.

The couple was identified as Sai Awta, 23, and her wife Nang Noom, 20 (not
their real names), from the 31 household Wan Nawngpoke village, Tarkmawk
village tract, Laikha Township, said a source.

The incident occurred only a half of mile south of the village on August 2
at 5 pm, when three privates led by Sergeant Tin Aye from Mongkeung based
Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) #514 was on patrol and found the said
couple while they were working in their farm. The group detained them
after accusing of being members of the SSA-South.

Some soldiers separated Sai Awta from his wife, tied him with a rope to a
post of the hut and beaten him while others raped her wife in front of him
in turn including the Sergeant until midnight.  After that, the couple was
warned not to spread news of the rape, said Sai Awta’s friend who declined
to be named.

“They [soldiers] threatened them not to tell anybody; otherwise their
family and both of them would be killed,” he said.

On that day, a 25 strong patrol from the battalion together with 14 men of
pro-junta Mongzeun militia group (formally Brigade 758 of the Shan State
Army (SSA) ‘South’ that surrendered in July 2006) arrived at the village.

It was led by Lt Myint Than and the militia group was led by Sai Yoong
whose leader Mongzeun was killed in an attack by the SSA on 25 May.

“Villagers were given a deadline to leave their houses, if not all houses
would be burnt down,” said a local source who wishes to remain in
anonymity.

A clash between LIB#515 and SSA fighters on 15 July in Laikha township has
led hundreds of villagers in Laikha, Kehsi and Mongkeung townships suffer
from several human rights violations.

“License to Rape,” a report by the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN),
which was published in 2002, detailing 173 incidents of rape and involving
625 women and girls, had shaken the international community.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

August 10, Irrawaddy
Indian Coast Guard detains North Korean ship – Nirmala George

India's coast guard detained a "suspicious" North Korean cargo ship after
a six-hour chase off the country's southeastern coast, a coast guard
official said Saturday, but a preliminary search of the vessel revealed it
was carrying sugar and not illicit cargo.

The MV Mu San was pursued by coast guards who opened fire above the vessel
after it attempted to flee from an island in the Andaman and Nicobar group
where it had dropped anchor without permission Wednesday, said Cmdr. Vijay
Singh, a spokesman for the Indian coast guard.

The incident comes in the wake of a UN resolution passed in June that
allows other countries to request boarding and inspection of North Korean
ships suspected of transporting illicit cargo—though the vessels do not
have to give permission. The resolution was passed to punish the North for
its recent nuclear and missile tests.

The ship was escorted to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and
Nicobar islands, and Indian officials were questioning the 39 North
Koreans on board, Singh told The Associated Press by phone.

The vessel picked up its cargo at a port in Thailand, and was also thought
to have made a stop in Singapore.

"What also made us suspicious was that their passports were not stamped in
Singapore and they were not very clear about their destination," he said.

North Korean ships have in the past been accused of clandestinely ferrying
nuclear materials, missile parts and arms to trouble spots across the
world.

The US Navy tracked a North Korean cargo vessel, the Kang Nam 1, in June.
The ship, which was believed destined for Myanmar, suddenly turned back on
June 28.

North Korea is believed to earn money from selling missile technology and
weapons.
____________________________________

August 10, Irrawaddy
Kokang thwart Burma army drug raid – Lawi Weng

Tension is high between the Burmese military and the Myanmar National
Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a Kokang ceasefire group, following an
attempted drug raid by some 70 Burmese troops on the house of the Kokang
group’s chairman on Saturday, according to sources in the area.

Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Burmese analyst based at the Sino-Burmese border, told
The Irrawaddy that the Burmese army stood down after a standoff that
lasted five and a half hours.

The MNDAA chairman, Peng Jiasheng [Burmese: Phon Kyar Shin], reportedly
ordered 300 of his soldiers to block the route in anticipation of the
Burmese army attempting a raid. The Burmese were encircled by Kokang
insurgents while negotiations took place, said Aung Kyaw Zaw.

Peng reportedly told the Burmese army that they could search his home if
they entered unarmed. Otherwise, he reportedly said he would order his
troops to open fire on them. With no solution in sight, the Burmese army
retreated.

Meanwhile, about 10,000 Kokang residents in Laogai Township fled to the
Chinese border on Saturday in fear of clashes between the two armies,
according to the sources.

Tensions escalated further on Sunday when Peng Jiasheng refused to meet
Maj-Gen Aung Than Htut, the northeastern regional commander, according to
the border sources.

The Burmese regional commander allegedly wanted to meet his Kokang
counterpart regarding the Kokang ceasefire group’s recent rejection of a
Burmese military proposal to transform the MNDAA battalions into border
guard forces.

Mai Aik Phone, who is close to several ceasefire groups in the area, told
The Irrawaddy on Monday that more Burmese troops have been deployed in the
region following the MNDAA’s rejection of the proposal.

“It is obvious they [the Burmese army] are threatening the Kokang people
and their army by dispatching more troops into the area,” he said.

However, the two analysts estimated that the Burmese military will not
take strong action against the Kokang group at the moment because of Aung
San Suu Kyi’s ongoing trial and the fact that the country is due to hold
general elections next year.

According to various sources at the Sino-Burmese border, the Burmese
military has established a Regional Operations Command (ROC) with seven
infantry battalions in Kokang territory in recent months.

The ethnic Kokang army was originally assigned status as an autonomous
region of northern Shan State after the Kokang and the Wa army defected
from the Communist Party of Burma in 1989.

Along with the Wa, the Kokang are believed to be involved in the drug
trade, according to international anti-narcotic agencies. However, Kokang
leaders have claimed their territory has been drug-free since 2003.

Meanwhile, the Burmese military has reportedly deployed more troops around
ethnic armed ceasefire groups’ areas in the wake of the groups’ refusals
to transform to border guard duties.

In recent months, the junta has pressured Burma’s ceasefire groups to
participate in the forthcoming election in 2010. The junta has reportedly
encouraged them to give up their arms in the post-election period.

____________________________________
ASEAN

August 10, Philippine Daily Inquirer
‘Suu Kyi trial burdens Asean’ – Nikko Dizon

As the day the verdict is set to be handed down on Burmese opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi nears, Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(Asean) Secretary General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan has expressed hope the
judgment would lead to “stability, reconciliation and calm.”

At a press conference here as part of Asean’s 42nd anniversary celebration
last Saturday, Surin virtually admitted how the issue of Suu Kyi’s trial
by the military junta that runs Burma (Myanmar) has burdened Asean.

“An issue has been with us and has been rather difficult for us all along
but I don’t want to speculate on what the verdict (would be) and (its)
impact (on Asean),” said Surin.

A Burmese court is scheduled to deliver its verdict on Tuesday after
postponing it earlier this month.

Suu Kyi, 64, has been charged with harboring an American for two days in
her lakeside home after the man swam there.

The Nobel Peace laureate has been under house arrest 14 of the last 20
years, since winning in national elections that would have swept the
military out of power in the country.

A guilty verdict means a five-year prison term. The American, John Yettaw,
was also charged.

But diplomats and officials said the verdict could be postponed once again
as Yettaw—who sparked the case by swimming to the lakeside home in
May—remained in hospital after suffering repeated epileptic seizures.

“If Yettaw’s health does not improve or deteriorates we are heading toward
a postponement. We will know more on Monday,” said a Western diplomat,
asking not to be named.

Surin said the verdict should be respected.

He said the international community’s concern over Suu Kyi’s trial has
been made known to the military junta in every way possible.

“We’ve been using every opportunity, every forum, every meeting to pass on
that message and bilateral channels are being used from capitals of Asean
to Myanmar expressing support and concern and the wish that the issue be
resolved and lead to genuine national reconciliation so that we could move
on to other fronts with our dialogue partners all over the world,” Surin
said. With an Agence France-Presse report

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

August 10, Wall Street Journal
Suu Kyi supporters consider new tactics

With Myanmar's military government expected to sentence famed dissident
Aung San Suu Kyi to further detention as early as Tuesday, some of her
exiled supporters are considering new tactics to break a decades-old
political stalemate in the troubled Southeast Asian nation.

Ms. Suu Kyi faces up to five years in prison for allegedly violating the
terms of a government-imposed house arrest in May, when she allowed an
uninvited American well-wisher to visit her lakeside home without state
approval.

Myanmar officials have said a verdict will come Tuesday, though some
analysts believe the decision may be delayed due to the poor health of
John Yettaw, the American visitor, who is also on trial and has reportedly
suffered from epileptic seizures recently. The verdict was delayed once
before, after authorities in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, said they
needed more time to review the facts in the case.

Whatever happens Tuesday, analysts and exiles expect the court to
eventually find Ms. Suu Kyi guilty, resulting in further detention for the
64-year-old Nobel laureate after she already spent nearly 14 of the past
20 years under arrest. Such an outcome, combined with Myanmar's miserable
economic conditions and the likelihood that Ms. Suu Kyi won't be able to
participate in elections the government is planning for 2010, are prodding
exile groups to contemplate new strategies, including seeking negotiations
with Myanmar's military regime and possibly dropping some earlier demands
that have blocked rapprochement in the past.

Ms. Suu Kyi's supporters have traditionally taken a hard-line approach
towards talking with the junta, unless the regime agrees to free hundreds
of political prisoners and recognize the results of a 1990 election won
overwhelmingly by Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party. The
military ignored that vote and subsequently tightened its grip on the
country, locking away opponents and drawing widespread condemnation for
its alleged human rights abuses.

Last week, a group of senior opposition leaders including Sein Win, head
of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which
describes itself as Myanmar's government-in-exile, announced plans for a
new "proposal for national reconciliation" that involves negotiations with
the regime. The proposal reiterates older goals such as the release of
political prisoners and a review of the country's constitution, but
acknowledges the need for dialogue with the military to make those goals a
reality.

Other dissidents are pressing exile leaders to go farther and possibly
drop calls for the military to honor the 1990 vote, if it helps advance
the dissidents' other agendas, such as getting Ms. Suu Kyi freed. A wide
array of exile groups including members of the NLD and the
government-in-exile are holding a convention in Jakarta -- a rare
gathering of its kind -- on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss further
details.

"We're not only thinking about what we want, but what the regime can and
cannot accept. It's a move back to the center," said Nyo Ohn Myint, a
senior opposition figure who has been in exile in Thailand and the U.S.
for 20 years. He said a majority of senior NLD leaders now support some
form of compromise with Myanmar's military government, including possibly
writing off the 1990 vote.

Mr. Nyo Ohn Myint said he believes Ms. Suu Kyi is also willing to
compromise, including accepting some kind of role for the military in
government, though it is difficult to confirm Ms. Suu Kyi's feelings so
long as she is under arrest.

Many dissidents are focusing special attention on the regime's elections
planned for next year. Initially, opposition groups vowed to boycott the
election because they believed that no vote overseen by the military could
be free and fair. But some dissidents have softened their positions in the
belief that participating in a flawed election may be better than sitting
out entirely.

"There is the danger that the main political activists or stakeholders
like the NLD and major ethnic groups will be sidelined" if they don't in
some way participate in the election, says Thaung Htun, the
government-in-exile's representative to the United Nations. "We need to
publicly propose an alternative."

Some analysts are skeptical that any new approaches from exiles will yield
results. Dialogue requires participation on both sides, and the junta has
given little indication in the past that it wants to negotiate, though
some dissidents believe that may change if the regime is given face-saving
options that allow it to claim the 2010 election is legitimate. The regime
rarely speaks to the foreign media, Western diplomats or high-ranking
dissidents, making it difficult to divine its intentions.

Myanmar's myriad exile groups have struggled to reach consensus in the
past, and the latest discussions could easily break down over the details
of how far to go with any national reconciliation plan. Many hard-liners
still view any form of rapprochement as totally unacceptable, and they
worry that any participation in the 2010 election could legitimize a
government widely viewed as a military dictatorship.

"The Burmese are too divided to suddenly put all their history behind
them," said retired Rutgers University professor and Myanmar expert Josef
Silverstein in an email message.

Still, some analysts who follow Myanmar say the new approach at least
offers hope of a fresh start after more than two decades of worsening
economic and social conditions in the country. Many leading dissidents are
now in their 70s and 80s, and a new generation of intellectuals, including
some based in Myanmar, have been highly critical of their elders' refusal
to negotiate with the regime in the past.

The Jakarta conference was planned in part "to stay relevant to meet the
criticism" that older dissident groups are too inflexible, said Sean
Turnell, a Myanmar expert at Macquarie University in Sydney. Dissidents
are considering new approaches "probably because things are looking so
dire" in the country, with little change in recent years, forcing exiles
to look "for a new way," said Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert at the
University of Canberra in Australia. "I'm pleased it's happening," she
said.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

August 10, Washington Post
In Burma, carefully sowing resistance; Fragile opposition wary of
confrontation

Dreams of revolution die hard in the silences of this city's
monsoon-soaked streets.

Under cover of night, on a wet, deserted strip of jetty, a young
opposition activist gazed toward the ragged lights on the opposite bank of
the Rangoon River and talked into the wind that blew through a pair of
coconut trees.

"I am not afraid, but I do not want to be arrested, not at this time,"
said the activist, 27, who had fled Rangoon days earlier, trailed by an
intelligence agent.

A flickering neon bar sign caught the contours of his disguise -- a baggy
anorak, a pair of glasses, a hairnet to mask his thick, dark mane. "If I'm
arrested, I cannot take part in demonstrations or campaigns."

On the run or under watch, Burma's semi-clandestine opposition activists
have struggled to rouse action while their leader, Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in Rangoon's Insein Prison. She is
being tried on charges that she broke the terms of her house arrest when a
U.S. citizen swam across a lake in May to visit her in the compound where
she has been confined for 14 of the past 20 years.

For an issue as emotive as the fate of the leader whom Burmese refer to in
whispers simply as the Lady, the general inaction has in many ways
revealed the fragility of long-cherished visions of toppling the junta
from the streets, born of memories from the mass pro-democracy protests of
1988. Some, such as the young activist, have ventured from remote village
hideouts back into the cities to launch protests.

In the past two months, dozens have defied barriers and a heavy police
presence to hold a vigil outside Insein Prison, where Suu Kyi is being
held. Others have distributed pamphlets or photos of her, and some have
tried to trigger spontaneous marches with what they call "flash strikes"
-- unfurling banners in crowded markets in the hope that people will
follow.

But the disparate networks of the opposition have tried in vain to forge a
united strategy, and their attempts to prompt a mass movement have fizzled
in a society frozen by decades of oppression and poverty.

Although Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections
in a landslide in 1990, the ruling military junta invalidated the results,
imprisoned opposition leaders and solidified its grip on power.

Two decades later, faith in the NLD's ability to bring the country closer
to democracy has waned under its octogenarian caretakers. A few smaller
groups have emerged from among groups of Buddhist monks, students or the
aging leaders of the 1988 protests, with a shared goal of bringing change
through nonviolent resistance to the one of the world's most repressive
governments. But with many of their leaders arrested after the failed,
monk-steered uprising in September 2007, the remaining activists operate
illegally and from the shadows.

"All the organizations, they should be united. Some want to make strikes,
some do not," said the deputy of a leading opposition network, a former
political detainee who faces retaliation from authorities if his name is
published. "We need more people; 100 to 200 people is not enough to make
the whole country strike."

Wearing a starched shirt and longyi, the cloth wrap that substitutes for
trousers, the leader sat in a downtown coffee shop, digging into a plate
of fries. "I have so many different identity cards," he said with a grin.
"Sometimes I am a teacher. Sometimes I am a student. Today, I am a
teacher."

In the past year, 338 dissidents have been handed multi-decade sentences
and have been scattered across Burma's network of prisons and detention
camps, according to the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political
Prisoners, which monitors the Burmese detention system. Many were
celebrated figures in the 2007 protests.

Still, some remain undeterred. With his torn jeans, red-streaked hair and
silver jewelry, Moe Thway, 28, blends easily into the crowd of young
people sipping iced lattes at a Rangoon cafe. Thway is a founder of
Generation Wave, one of the most shadowy of the country's underground
opposition networks.

The trial of Suu Kyi prompted him to risk his first trip back to Burma
from Thailand since security forces raided his house in March 2008. He
stayed only a few days to meet with his members. Even his mother did not
know he was in town, because he was afraid he would endanger her.

"We cannot push the people. We cannot pull. We must lead if we want
success," he said.

His trip back to Rangoon in June, at the height of Suu Kyi's trial, proved
disillusioning.

"I see the depression. The eyes -- they are hopeless," he said.

Since fleeing, Moe Thway has largely run the group's operations out of Mae
Sot, a Thai border town. Two of his co-founders are behind bars. Another
is in exile. Members still in Burma are subject to arrest at any moment.
Authorities raided Thway's house in March 2008, arresting his younger
brother and sentencing him to six months for charges that included illegal
possession of "Rambo IV," a film that depicts Sylvester Stallone mowing
down Burmese soldiers.

But working from Mae Sot allows Thway to coordinate operations in ways
impossible inside Burma, also called Myanmar, where potential informers
swarm, news is heavily curtailed and Internet cafes are ridden with spy
software. Even with the widespread use of proxy servers to bypass censors,
electricity regularly cuts out or the government shuts down the country's
main Internet server as a tool of control. Land-line telephones are often
tapped, and cellphones are used to track activists' movements.

Many opposition leaders say they see themselves as urban intellectuals
with a duty to educate the wider population about civic engagement,
particularly ahead of 2010 elections. The elections are nominally intended
to implement a new constitution, but many critics have dismissed them as a
sham. The opposition leader who poses as both teacher and student talked
of his members melting into villages and factories, dressed as laborers
and workers. "We talk to them about democracy. We talk to them about
globalization, about human rights," he said.

Members of Generation Wave have encouraged friends and neighbors to head
to workshops held on the Thai border that address issues such as human
rights. The workshops, sponsored by foreign human rights groups or Burmese
exiles, have yielded 1,000 graduates in the past five years, Moe Thway
said. The challenge, he said, is getting graduates to overcome their fear
and act back home on the lessons learned.
Patience Growing Thin

One night two weeks before he fled the city, the young activist on the
jetty met with another activist in their usual spot -- a cubicle-size,
lockable back room at a nightclub plastered with fluorescent planets.

The elder activist, 48, said he had spent the better part of 20 years
posing as a fish farmer or rice-paddy laborer. All the while, he has been
recruiting opposition activists, spreading ideas about political rights
and, in recent months, encouraging a signature campaign against the junta.

"I go to where the people are oppressed," he said. "It is impossible for
them to express themselves."

Wispy-thin, he sat stiffly in a large red anorak and railed about the need
to educate the rural population.

He was back among the fish farmers when news of Suu Kyi's trial prompted
him to travel 50 miles south to Rangoon. The young activist knew him from
his teenage years as one of several regulars at a tea shop who would lend
him books that eventually converted him into a professional activist.

The older man's patience is now growing thin. In next year's elections, he
said, "we need to use an armed struggle. . . . They use violence, and they
don't care about international pressure."

On another day, the young activist and three others from separate youth
networks talked about sources of inspiration -- Czechoslovakia's Velvet
Revolution, the anti-Slobodan Milosevic student movement in Serbia, South
Africa's Nelson Mandela and India's Mahatma Gandhi. The conversation,
which took place at a restaurant, quieted whenever a waiter hovered.

"To face a very powerful enemy, we need to be clever, we need to be
peaceful and we need international support," said one, who introduced
himself with a pseudonym.

Two weeks later, the activist returned to Rangoon smuggled in the cargo
hold of a truck. He hoped to help coordinate the launch of a "yellow
campaign," which aims to encourage Burmese to wear a color favored by Suu
Kyi.

This time, he said, he was resolved.

"I won't leave," he said. "I will stay here and fight."

____________________________________

August 10, Foreign Policy
The Lady lives

Twenty years after she was first put under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi
is still the inspiration of Burma's would-be opposition.

On my first trip to Burma about a year ago, a young lawyer, in the cramped
safety of an apartment that she shared with her aging parents, handed me a
thumb-sized, silvery mug shot of a youthful Aung San Suu Kyi. "I could be
arrested for carrying this," she said, with a touch with mischief. Then
she buried the photo back into her cloth bag as fast as it had shot out.

Dissidence, visitors to Burma learn quickly, often begins with reverence
for the embattled opposition leader whom Burmese refer to, in whispers,
simply as "the Lady."

Aung San Suu Kyi burst onto the political stage almost by chance in the
midst of 1988's mass student-led pro-democracy protests as the
charismatic, eloquent daughter of Burma's martyred independence hero. In
the years since, she has grown into a lone object of trust among Burmese,
repeatedly credited as the sole figure capable of bridging deep divides --
one fomented since a 1962 coup between the military and the civilian
population, and the another between the Burmese majority and the country's
restive ethnic minorities.

Far from diminishing her star, the military junta's two-decades-old tactic
of repeatedly isolating her from the masses by confining her to house
arrest has only served to amplify her status as a beacon of resistance.

Perhaps, paradoxically, that begins to explain the general inaction in the
streets in response to a protracted trial that is part farce and part
tragedy, a reminder both of the military junta's penchant for Kafkaesque
distortions of justice and its intransigence in the face of widespread
international condemnation. To the outside world, small glimmers of hope
appeared in the rare invitations meted out on a select few days to a
handful of foreign diplomats and well-connected local journalists to sit
in on the proceedings. The verdict was due in late July but instead has
been adjourned to August 11, a decision that comes as little surprise to
Burmese who long ago learned to turn their gaze away from the repeatedly
stalled proceedings in disgust.

Burmese, in short, haven't been fooled.

A small crowd of stalwarts from Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National
League for Democracy (NLD), have braved security forces and the likely
risk of future arrest to hold a silent vigil outside the blackening walls
of Insein prison, where the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has languished on
trial for the past 2½ months. They are the most visible sign of activists
in the ragged and diffuse semi-underground opposition who have otherwise
struggled to foment demonstrations in the streets or spark small campaigns
of symbolic protest. Some have distributed pamphlets or photos of Aung San
Suu Kyi, and some have tried to trigger spontaneous marches with what they
call "flash strikes," unfurling banners in crowded markets in the hopes
that people will follow.

But a visitor would be hard-pressed to find these rare moments of defiance
amid the silent, scarred streets of Burma's cities.

"People won't demonstrate because they are too afraid. But if you ask
people who do they believe? Aung San Suu Kyi," a 27-year-old clandestine
activist, code-named Sun Ray, told me. He had recently returned to Rangoon
from his rural hide-out to launch a "yellow campaign" -- in honor of a
color he said was favored by the Lady -- through his own semi-underground
network. A few months earlier, he had splintered off from the youth branch
of the NLD in part because of his belief that the party lacked force.

The NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 election, but the ruling junta
denied the NLD's right to take power, consolidating its stranglehold on
the country, imprisoning NLD politicians, harassing NLD members and their
families, and banning all other opposition parties. Two decades later,
faith in the NLD's power to effect change has crumbled under the aging
octogenarian caretakers who run the party from their headquarters in
Rangoon. In the past two years, Burmese have watched them fail to take
initiative or react fast during September 2007's failed monk-led protests
and in the aftermath of last year's Cyclone Nargis, which killed an
estimated 140,000 people while the junta dragged its feet.

But Aung San Suu Kyi's staying power manifests in the inspiration she
offers to a new generation of activists who are tired of the stagnant
politics of a rump NLD that in the past 20 years has brought them no
closer to democracy. In her absence from the scene, she has endured as the
rallying point for diffuse networks who have begun to displace dreams of
toppling the junta from the streets with a bid to prepare the population
for a day when the junta falters, through scores of projects in the cities
and rice paddies that tread a fine line between social work and politics.

That sentiment echoed throughout my recent travels across the country,
where the trial has otherwise met with a mixture of anguish and deep
cynicism. The Lady might get five years or another year, Burmese residents
told me, often with a shrug; she might be punished with another period of
house arrest or a prison sentence (where exactly she might be sent if
convicted is the subject of intense speculation in the Rangoon rumor
circuit). They've grown accustomed to expecting the worst.

"The whole country is like a jail," a 60-year-old Buddhist abbot told me
over tea one recent afternoon, as he wiped off the dust from his
spectacles in the dry heat of his Mandalay monastery. "The trial is just
political. We don't know about it." To Burmese, he said, it means very
little.

Scarred by the memories of past street protests that ended in brutal
crackdowns, and empowered last year in the aftermath of the cyclone, when
countless Burmese took it upon themselves to dispatch aid to survivors,
Burmese have come to accept a new pragmatism. Change, when it comes, will
depend on a schism within the military leadership.

And the day the junta falters, "the Lady will lead. But we will lead too.
We will organize at the township level," said a Rangoon doctor who
recently founded an unofficial nonprofit organization that gathers a
shifting crowd of 12 physicians for regular weekend trips to dispatch
medicine and free clinical services in ramshackle villages on the
outskirts of the city.

"For me, I still see her as my leader," added a 28-year-old woman who
works as a teacher for a Rangoon nonprofit that runs courses on civic
engagement and governance, "But I don't believe there is only one leader.
There will be many individuals. I'm not just waiting for her."

Asked for her thoughts on Aung San Suu Kyi, however, she shut her eyes
tightly and said: "Her dedication, her commitment. She left her life for
it. I tried it. One day, to be in her shoes -- I stayed in my room. On her
birthday. It was too difficult."

Amid the shifting caprices of a regime that lacks any legitimacy in the
eyes of its people, Aung San Suu Kyi endures as a constant whose ideas on
nonviolent protest and what she calls "loving kindness" carry weight in a
culture that is deeply intertwined with Buddhist philosophy. Activists,
from the most hard-bitten firebrands to aging intellectuals, long ago
assimilated that lesson.

On a recent afternoon, Sun Ray and three activists from separate youth
networks traded talk about change at a restaurant. They spoke of
inspiration coming from Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution; of Otpor, a
Serbian student movement that opposed Slobodan Milosevic; of Nelson
Mandela and Gandhi. Conversation hushed whenever a waiter hovered.

Ironically, Burmese acknowledge that Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to be tested
beyond the burnishing confines of her prison compound. "If your only
influence depends on you being a prisoner," she once said, in a
conversation with Alan Clements recorded in The Voice of Hope, "then you
have not much to speak of."

I learned of her inspirational power best on a dusty street of mango
vendors in the city of Mandalay, where a physician brought out file after
file filled with the records of patients he had treated through a
nonprofit that has been closely watched by agents since 2004. Inside were
snapshots of patients who might once have been sent to a carnival freak
show -- a baby with an eye the size of a football, a girl with an
overgrown arm, a man lacerated with skin diseases. All were advanced cases
of easily treatable diseases that had been left to run their course too
far, he said, a sign of the degeneration of healthcare and the terrible
poverty of rural Burmese who rarely think to see a doctor until they near
death. The files, which fill an entire room, were the best assurance the
group had to survive, said the doctor.

After a long conversation about the pathological distress of the country
that carefully sidestepped direct political discussion, he walked me to
the gate of his villa, and then stopped suddenly. Across the road, a
sunset-drenched monk stepped gingerly into a crumbling pagoda.

"Have you read anything by Aung San Suu Kyi?" the doctor asked, fixing me
hard. "She says to use your freedom to help the Burmese become free," he
said. His eyes filled with tears. "We do what we can."

The author is a reporter who is working on a book about the struggle for
Burma. She blogs at dawbobopwint.blogspot.com.

____________________________________

August 9, Bangkok Post
What to do with The Lady – Larry Jagan

Delays in the trial of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi have
fuelled the rumour mill about what the secretive junta is really up to as
elections draw closer

The delay in the trial of Burma's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has
fuelled intense speculation about why the military junta is dragging out
the court ruling and what its real agenda is. As Burma's top general Than
Shwe has often told subordinates, international pressure "is like an
elastic band" - when it's pulled tight nothing should be done as it only
makes matters worse. When the elastic band is relaxed "we proceed with our
plans".

There is no doubt that the international pressure is very taut at the
moment, and the delaying tactics appear to fit neatly into Than Shwe's
strategy of dealing with the opposition leader's continued detention. But
he must know that the campaign in support of Aung San Suu Kyi will not
subside.

The democracy icon is poised to learn her fate on Tuesday when the judges
reconvene their secret court inside Insein prison. She is on trial for
allegedly breaking the conditions of her house arrest, when she gave food
and shelter to an uninvited American who swam to her lakeside residence.
If found guilty, she faces a maximum of five years in jail.

The verdict was originally scheduled to be announced more than a week ago,
but the court postponed its decision on the grounds that it needed more
time to consider the legal arguments in relation to the 1974 constitution
- which Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers insist is no longer relevant.

There is no doubt that one of the regime's main concerns is the
possibility of street protests when the verdict is announced. The
state-run media warned the public against protesting for several days
before the scheduled court verdict last week. They particularly wanted to
avoid the Aug 8 anniversary of the mass pro-democracy movement which
toppled the previous military ruler, Ne Win.

Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Bangkok-based Burma researcher,
said the delay could be a tactic to "bait any potential demonstrators or
activists anticipating a guilty verdict to identify themselves, and then
switch the date of the verdict so there is enough time to crack down on
them".

At least 30 National League for Democracy (NLD) activists were arrested in
Rangoon and other towns on the eve of the original verdict hearing,
although many have since been released.

Some Burma watchers say that Aung San Suu Kyi being found guilty is a fait
accompli.

"These charges are a complete and crude fabrication, a pretext to keep Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi in detention," the former UN human rights rapporteur for
Burma, Professor Paulo Pinheiro, told Spectrum.

British ambassador to Burma Mark Canning, who completed his posting there
last month, said: "The trial has been entirely scripted and the end
already decided before hand," he said after a rare occasion when he was
allowed to attend the court hearing.

Public sentiment echoes that of the diplomats. "No one is in any doubt
about the outcome," said Moe Moe, a taxi driver in the country's main
commercial city.

"Those men in green in Naypyidaw [the new capital] know she is the
people's hero and the real leader of this country."

But is it as cut and dried as the diplomats would have us believe, or is
Than Shwe unsure of how to handle the case with one eye on next year's
election and the ongoing problem Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters would
present him with after a transition to his homegrown version of
"democracy"?

Than Shwe plans to announce the formation of an interim government that
will hold administrative power for at least one year, until the elections
are staged, according to senior military sources in Naypyidaw.

For more, please visit:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/investigation/21766/what-to-do-with-the-lady

____________________________________

August 10, Irrawaddy
US focus on Pyongyang risks overlooking Burma – Simon Roughneen

While there is no hard evidence to demonstrate that the Burmese regime in
Naypyidaw has been seeking to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, the
circumstantial evidence is worrying when North Korea's track record is
taken into account.

Recently, the secretary-general of the Association for Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean), Surin Pitsuwan, said that there is still no clear
evidence that Burma has such a nuclear facility, but that if it does
exist, Burma would be forced to leave the regional bloc because all member
states, including Burma, have signed a treaty pledging to maintain Asean
as a nuclear-weapon free zone.

However, Burma's alleged proliferation partner, Pyongyang, is providing
its neighbors and the US with a much more immediate and pressing nuclear
challenge, and one which could lessen the urgency of any international
response to the Burma issue.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy recently, Prof Mely Caballero Anthony of the
National University of Singapore said, “Between the two, DPRK and the
Korean peninsula issues would be more pressing for the US than Burma.”

So far the US has given conflicting signals.

At two US State Department press briefings last week, spokespersons
refused to be drawn on the issue, despite claims published in the
international media that the Burmese junta was trading uranium extracts
for North Korean military hardware and technical expertise.

This reticence came despite US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
warning at an Asean meeting in Phuket in late July about a possible North
Korea-Burma nuclear collaboration.
“We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology” from North Korea to
Burma, Clinton said.

Her words were part of a highly publicized spat with both the junta in
Burma and the Communist regime in Pyongyang, with the latter calling the
US foreign secretary “a schoolgirl.”

Her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, received somewhat better
treatment when he arrived in Pyongyang last Wednesday, on what was
described by the White House as a “private humanitarian mission.”

During the visit, the former president secured the release of two American
journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who worked for former Vice President
Al Gore at his Current TV media company. The women were arrested by North
Korean police after entering the country illegally from China.

Former President Clinton met Kim Jong-il and Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang's
chief nuclear negotiator, hinting that there was more to the mission than
just bringing the two women home safely.

In any case, Kim Jong-il was reportedly delighted to have such a
high-profile emissary, perhaps vindicating his hardball strategy over the
years.

For more, please visit: http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16519
____________________________________
INTERVIEW

August 8, New Light of Myanmar
Questions and answers in press conference

The following are the questions raised by the attendees and answers given
by Chief of the Myanmar Police Force in the press conference on
clarification of measures for State security and the rule of law.


U Aung Hla Tun (Reuters News Agency)
Q: I learn that Mr John William Yettaw is in bed in Yangon General
Hospital. Do you think the trial will be put off if he does not get
better?

A: Now, Mr John William Yettaw is under health care by specialists. His
health condition is according to their remarks. The trial is the concern
of the court, so I don’t need to answer the question.


U Ko Ko (Yangon Times)
Q: I have learnt that the four including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are on trial
according to this press conference and previous one. I would like to know
if action is taken against the security members, and if it is, I would
like to know how they are punished.
A: We have taken action against the security members in accordance with
the police law. It is on 30 November 2008 when Mr Yettaw entered the
compound of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house. Four days after his entry, Dr
Tin Myo Win informed that. Two days after his informing us, on 6 December,
a tribunal team led by a police colonel was formed and it questioned 24
security members. The assumption of the tribunal was that the event took
place on the 3rd Waxing of Nattaw, so it was dim and it was impossible to
see things clearly. Another point is that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house is
a little distant from the edge of the compound, so there were no sound of
his footsteps on the creepers, grass and water hyacinth. And the case was
reported four days after his entry, so the line of footsteps disappeared.
Another point is that if he had shouted, as they said, without doubt the
security members would have heard of his voice. In 1990, security members
misunderstood regarding a case associated with a serviceman, so it was
assumed that the case might be a misunderstanding case. As I said at the
press conference on 25 June, if we had known that Mr Yettaw gave Daw Aun
San Suu Kyi the book “Mormon”, the tribunal would have exposed some
points. So, the tribunal team came to the conclusion that the event was
not certain much, and it might be merely a misunderstanding matter, so
there was not any action taken against the security members.

But, police battalion No (6) that was on duty in the period was replaced
with a new one immediately. In the second time, Mr John William Yettaw was
arrested in Inya Lake on 6 May. Soon after his arrest, legal affairs was
being carried out, and an investigation tribunal led by a police colonel
was formed on 2 June. It interrogated 62 policemen, and we took brief
written evidence on inefficient discharge of duties over eight security
members held responsible. Then, we formed a police court and delivered a
sentence to them. Regarding the November 30 case, an investigation
tribunal was formed and it investigated the case. Another investigation
tribunal was then formed with a police colonel as the leader, and it
interrogated 31 policemen. We took brief written record of the complaints
of 12 members from police battalion No (6) who were held responsible for
the case, and action was taken against them. We investigated the cases
thoroughly and punished 12 members including the battalion commanding
officer in the first case, and eight members including the battalion
commanding officer in accordance with the police law enforcement law. We
interrogated 24 members in the first time, and 62 members in the second
time. Then, the first case resurfaced and we interrogated 32 members. They
each faced a three-month term with hard labour in the police custody.
Then, they were posted to other places. Similarly, police corporals faced
one-step demotion, and they were posted to other places. We came to the
conclusion that the battalion commanding officers commanded their
subordinates improperly, and demoted one step and posted them to other
places. They are now police lieutenant-colonels.


U San Nyein Thaw (Modern Journal)
Q: Which organization was bomber Htay Aung from? I would like to know why
he wanted to detonate bombs during Mr Ban Kimoon’s visit.

A: Locally, bomber Htay Aung is a Thakayta NLD member. According to his
admission, he is from Hsehson Ward in Mawlamyine. He is single. His
educational qualification is 4th standard. He joined Thakayta NLD in July
2006. In September 2008, he had contact with Mone Naing in Maesot who went
underground from Bahan NLD. Mone Naing is a member of NLD-LA that has been
declared an unlawful association.

Then, he proceeded to Maesot. Then, he had contact with terrorist groups
there. Then, he reentered the nation illegally. After that, he left and
reentered the nation time and again, and he organized some young NLD
members in the nation and took them to explosives courses many times. He
is a member of Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors. His plan was to launch
bomb attacks in Yangon during the visit of UN Secretary-General Mr Ban
Ki-moon who would come here on 3 and 4 July.

However, he arrived in Yangon 2 July, and while he was making arrangements
for bomb attacks, we arrested him the same day. So, we could avert
casualties of the people. He admitted that then he would stay in a
sparsely-populated ward in Yangon. He would make his house a gathering
point of terrorists. He would collect arms and ammunition. If opportune,
he would launch armed attacks especially on the vehicles of policemen on
security duty. That is his admission. So, at home, Htay Aung is a Thakayta
NLD member, but outside the nation, he is a bomber. VBSW ranked him bomber
No 999961.

According to his admission, the reason why he chose Mr Ban Kimoon’s visit
was to tarnish the image of the government. To view the case in connection
with the nature of terrorists, he would cause many casualties of policemen
of us, and innocent people, and then he would tarnish the image of the
country.


U Aung Kyaw Min (Thitsar Journal)
Q: I am interested in Htay Aung? I would like to know VBSW masterminding
Htay Aung?

A: The man who masterminded Htay Aung to explode during the trip of Mr Ban
Ki-moon is Leader Ye Thiha (a) Thura (a) San Naing from VBSW. VBSW stands
for Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors. VBSW was formed in July 1999 and
based in Tagoling village in Thai-Myanmar border. It had five members when
formed and have reached to 30 members later. Leader Ye Thiha (a) Thura (a)
San Naing himself is only a terrorist and his native place is Thooze,
Thayawady. He went under ground starting from 1988. He hijacked a flight
of Myanmar Airways in 1989. Similarly, he made a raid on Myanmar Embassy
in Thailand in October 1999 and so did the hospital. VBSW was formed with
the young man who fled to the other country and those from KNU and ABSDF.
VBSW together with God’s Army made a raid on embassy in October 1999.
Likewise, VBSW carried out raid on Rush bury Hospital in January 2000.
VBSW was on the verge of collapse when Government of Thailand cracked down
them.

So, VBSW cooperated with ABSDF then. VBSW committed bomb attacks for 14
times in Yangon from 2005 to 2008. And they committed bomb attacks in the
compound of bus terminal and Panorama Hotel in 2005.

During the year 2009, bomb attacks in USDA offices were the acts of VBSW.
I would like to inform you of all that these are organizations announced
by Myanma Police Force and Interpol as terrorist ones.


U Kyaw Thu (Myanmar Times)
Q: I know that Mr John Willian Yettaw’s case is related with transnational
crime. So, which evidences are there for the case? With which sections
will he be taken action? And will he be taken action against transnational
crime?

A: There are a lot of definitions about transnational crime. The first
point is that if a plan to commit a crime in a certain country is made in
any other country, it can be called a transnational crime.

Mr Yettaw made preparations in Thailand to illegally enter the house of
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. In his statements, he has already admitted to that.
Preparing for the crime to be committed in our country in the other
country can be defined as a transnational crime. So we can say that Mr
Yettaw’s case is a transnational crime. As I had explained previously, if
the crime was not committed by Mr Yettaw alone but committed by a group of
more than three, it can be called a transnational organized crime. He is
now under trial in accord with the existing law of Myanmar. The reason we
did not charge him in accord with the transnational crime was because our
nation is still drawing anti-terrorism law.


Ma Nyein Nyein Naing (Seven Days Journal)
Q: I would like to know about the health of Mr John William Yettaw.

A: He was arrested and detained on 6 May. Two days later, he started to
eat nothing but water. Those caring for him and doctors and authorities
concerned requested him not to do so as it could affect his health. But he
insisted refusing. According to the report of the Correctional Department,
he did not eat any food for 42 days. Later, he did not eat any food either
for 62 days by showing various reasons. However, responsible departments
took care of his health. It was learnt that the chief medical officer of
the jail was always ready for his attention. A practitioner of the
Ministry of Health was always ready to nurse him. He had been under care
by making an hourly record of his health. In addition, D-protein worth
over K 10000 was beside him to give him energy. According to a report of
the Correctional Department, it was found that special medicine worth more
than K 600,000 was used for Mr Yettaw. At about midnight of 3 August, he
was sent to Yangon General Hospital as he went into convulsions.

According to the specialists of the hospital, he suffered epilepsy. A team
comprising seven specialists is closely taking care of his health.
Required medicines for him as well as his demands are being fulfilled. Mr
Yettaw met Mr. Colin P Furst of American Embassy on 5 August. Details
about his health are according to the remarks of specialists concerned.


U Khin Win (Trust Journal)
Q: I heard that the blast that occurred in the back lane of the Traders
Hotel was recorded with a video camera. I would like to know whether the
incident could be exposed or not.

A: According to the investigation, we know who is responsible for this.
But we cannot disclose that as it was the case in which no suspect was
arrested. Please understand us.

U Myat Khaing (Snap Shot Journal)
Q: I would like to know the name of the woman who became friendly with Mr
Yettaw in Myawady and came to Yangon together with him.

A: We did not arrest her. We are only questioning her. We have still
questions to ask her. This is why we will disclose it at an appropriate
time to protect her security and dignity.