BurmaNet News, September 25, 2009

[Editor]

September 25, 2009 Issue #3805


INSIDE BURMA
VOA: Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi reaches out to military leaders

ON THE BORDER
Reuters: China raps Myanmar after recent border unrest
DVB: Burma orders 10,000 Chinese to leave

REGIONAL
Mizzima News: ICRC should revisit Burmese jails: AHRC

INTERNATIONAL
AFP: US protests to Myanmar over detained American: embassy
Irrawaddy: Campbell to lead US Burma engagement

OPINION / OTHER
Irrawaddy: Engaging Naypyidaw – Aung Zaw

PRESS RELEASE
Amnesty International: Amnesty International urges Secretary Clinton to
act on behalf of U.S. citizen arrested and tortured in Burma




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

September 25, Voice of America
Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi reaches out to military leaders

Burma's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has written a letter
to the country's military leader, General Than Shwe, saying she is
prepared to work with the military government to get international
sanctions lifted.

Her spokesman and lawyer, Nyan Win, told VOA the letter will be delivered
within days.

Aung San Suu Kyi has mentioned her willingness to help with lifting
sanctions since 2007, but her direct offer to Burma's military rulers
comes after the United States announced a policy shift towards the
military-run government.

Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer says she welcomes U.S. plans to engage
diplomatically with the military rulers to promote democratic reform. But
she says U.S. officials must also speak with the opposition.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of the Obama
administration's new approach with Burma's military rulers on Wednesday.

Clinton said the U.S. government will still use sanctions against Burma to
try to influence its government.  But she said sanctions alone have not
produced the results the United States wants.

Rights activists say dialogue with Burma's military leaders will only be
effective if the United States stays firm on its demands for democratic
change.

Burma has been under military rule since 1962.   Aung San Suu Kyi's party,
the opposition National League for Democracy, won the last elections in
1990, but the military government refused to recognize the results and
cede power to civilian authorities.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in some form of detention for 14 of the past 20
years.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

September 25, Reuters
China raps Myanmar after recent border unrest – Ben Blanchard

Beijing - China rapped erstwhile ally Myanmar on Friday over violence
along the border that pushed tens of thousands of refugees into China last
month, as state media reported Myanmar had ordered Chinese citizens to
leave the area.

In August, Myanmar's army overran Kokang, a territory that lies along the
border with the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan and was controlled
for years by an ethnic Chinese militia that paid little heed to the
central government.

Many of the refugees were ethnic Chinese, some of whom were Chinese
citizens, and complained their houses and businesses had been sacked and
looted during the violence.

Earlier this week, Wei Wei, the head of China's foreign ministry's
consular affairs department, summoned a Myanmar diplomat to complain about
the treatment of Chinese citizens in the area during the clashes, the
Foreign Ministry said.

Wei "made representations about harm caused to the rights of Chinese
citizens in Myanmar, restated China's position, demanded Myanmar rapidly
investigate, punish law-breakers and report the results to China," the
ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

Myanmar should "take prompt measures, earnestly protect the legal rights
of Chinese citizens in Myanmar, and make sure similar incidents do not
happen again," it added.

Separately, Chinese state media reported Myanmar has asked Chinese
citizens to leave the part of the border where August's fighting erupted.

Myanmar has ordered at least 10,000 Chinese citizens who are in the Kokang
enclave but have no legal credentials to leave by Monday, the Global Times
said, citing local sources.

Rumours spread among Chinese in the border area that fighting could
restart soon in areas hit by unrest, the report added.

China's foreign ministry declined immediate comment on the latest reports,
but on Thursday it had issued a statement warning its citizens about the
dangers of Kokang.

"The Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy in Myanmar remind Chinese
citizens and companies who are already in Northern Myanmar to pay
attention to security risks," said the statement, also posted on the
ministry's website.

The statement suggested Chinese citizens planning to go to the norther
part of the former Burma should suspend their trips.

(Additional reporting by Yu Le and Emma Graham-Harrison)
____________________________________

September 25, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma orders 10,000 Chinese to leave – Joseph Allchin

Up to 10,000 Chinese nationals have been ordered by the Burmese government
to leave the Kokang enclave in northeastern Burma, which was last month
the scene of heavy fighting.

Rumours have spread throughout the region that fighting could again erupt
between the Burmese army and a Kokang armed group, Reuters reported today.

A Burmese military analyst based in the China-Burma border could not
confirm the reports, although the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday
advised its citizens not to travel to the region, and for Chinese
businessmen in the region to exercise caution.

"The Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy in Myanmar [Burma] remind
Chinese citizens and companies who are already in Northern Myanmar to pay
attention to security risks," a statement on the foreign ministry website
said.

The news coincides with reports that China is setting up new refugee camps
close to its border with Burma, in anticipation of a fresh influx of
refugees.

According to the Kachin News Group, the orders and funding to build the
camps came directly from Beijing.

The three camps are around the Salween River that flows from China into
Burma and are said to be able to accommodate around 15,000 people.

Around 37,000 civilians in the Kokang region in Shan state fled into China
last month after the eruption of fighting. Chinese authorities reportedly
provided food and shelter to the refugees, the majority of whom have since
returned.

The influx of refugees pushed China into issuing a rare rebuke to the
Burmese government, urging it to “properly deal with its domestic issue to
safeguard the regional stability in the China-Myanmar border area”.

A report released by International Crisis Group last month said that the
problem didn’t stop at conflict between the government and ethnic groups.

“Myanmar’s borders continue to leak all sorts of problems – not just
insurgency, but also drugs, HIV/AIDS and, recently, tens of thousands of
refugees,” it said.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

Septemer 25, Mizzima News
ICRC should revisit Burmese jails: AHRC – Salai Pi Pi

New Delhi - The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has urged the
international community to mount pressure on Burma’s ruling junta to allow
the International Committee of the Red Cross to resume visits to detention
centres, where widespread torture and abuses have been reported.

The Hong Kong-based, Rights group, in a statement on Thursday said maximum
efforts are needed to renew the mandate of the ICRC in getting access to
detention centres across Burma without delay, as some detainees have been
tortured during interrogation.

“The physical and mental injuries caused in this period were either not
adequately treated or not treated at all during the detainees'
incarceration, causing some of them lifelong damage,” AHRC said.

AHRC’s call came following the release of about 120 political prisoners,
as part of the Burmese military regime’s amnesty granted to 7,114
prisoners, on humanitarian grounds. The AHRC’s statement was supported by
several political prisoners, who are among those released.

Myo Yan Naung Thein, a student activist, who was arrested in September
2007 and released as part of the amnesty told Mizzima he was severely
beaten while questioning and was insulted.

“I was blind folded and was taken somewhere. As soon as I reached the
interrogation centre, they all started kicking me,” he said.

A former Rangoon Technological Institute (RIT) student, Myo Yan Naung
Thein, was released from Sittwe Prison, and is currently unable to walk
properly as a result of lack of adequate treatment in prison.

“I was kept in a closed dark room. Sometimes, the prison authorities
slapped and tortured me without asking any questions. But sometimes they
questioned me the whole night without giving me any food,” he recalle.

He said, he was often tied behind and was given electric shocks.

Similarly, Katty Aung, a pregnant woman arrested for her husband Tun Tun’s
involvement in September 2007 protests and sentenced to 25 years in
prison, said she suffered a miscarriage after being detained and suffered
heart attacks, but did not receive adequate treatment.

“When I was arrested, I was pregnant. But because of low blood pressure
and insufficient food, I had a miscarriage,” she said.

AHRC said cases of ill-treatment and torture in the prisons across Burma
are rampant but the situation has deteriorated after a halt to ICRC’s
prison visits in 2005.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma
(AAPP-B), there are at least 2200 political prisoners including Nobel
Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma.

AHRC said the renewal of ICRC’s prison visits, would be “a practical and
quickly-implementable step to reduce the incidence of abuse and ameliorate
some of its worst consequences.”

“If then this much cannot be done, what good can be said of the release of
a few thousand shattered bodies, while tens of thousands more continue to
have the same type of abuses heaped upon them daily?,” asked the group.

The ICRC carried out regular visits to detainees in prisons and labour
camps from 1999 to the end of 2005 but suspended it when members of the
junta-backed civil organisation –the Union Solidarity and Development
Association - insisted on accompanying them in their prison visits, which
is against the ICRC’s internationally-recognized conditions.

At present, the ICRC continues to support family visits to detainees and
works to enhance the effectiveness of the Myanmar Red Cross Society.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

September 25, Agence France Presse
US protests to Myanmar over detained American: embassy

Bangkok — The United States has protested to Myanmar's military government
over the alleged mistreatment of an American citizen held on suspicion of
inciting unrest, the US embassy in Yangon said Friday.

Myanmar-born Kyaw Zaw Lwin, alias Nyi Nyi Aung, was detained on arrival at
Yangon airport on September 3 but his arrest was only confirmed this week.

Myanmar state media accused him on Thursday of plotting to stir up
protests by Buddhist monks and of having links to groups behind a series
of bombings in the country.

US embassy spokesman Drake Weisert said that a consular official had been
allowed to visit Kyaw Zaw Lwin on Saturday at Yangon's notorious Insein
prison, where many political detainees are held.

"During this visit he made a claim of mistreatment to the officer,"
Weisert said.

"Subsequently the embassy submitted an official message to the government
of Burma protesting this alleged mistreatment of an American citizen," he
said, using the country's former name. He gave no further details.

The protest comes just after the administration of US President Barack
Obama said it would pursue a new policy of engaging Myanmar's junta,
possibly leading to an eventual easing or lifting of sanctions.

The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a junta mouthpiece, said Kyaw Zaw Lwin
sent money, satellite telephones and other equipment to various activists
during and after massive 2007 protests led by Buddhist monks.

At least 31 people were killed when the junta suppressed the demonstrations.

The newspaper further accused him of having links to dissident groups
allegedly behind a series of recent bombings, including seven blasts in
Yangon this month.

Myanmar dissident groups have said Kyaw Zaw Lwin is a democracy activist
and that some of his relatives, including his mother, were arrested during
the junta's crackdown on the 2007 protests.

____________________________________

September 25, Irrawaddy
Campbell to lead US Burma engagement – Lalit K Jha

Washington – The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, Kurt Campbell, will be leading US policy for Burma as of now, and
more interlocutors would be announced in the coming days to engage with
the military junta and Burmese people, Ian Kelly, the spokesman for the US
State Department, said on Thursday.

“Right now, it’s Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell [leading the Burma
policy],” said Kelly. “I think that there will be other interlocutors who
will be named soon as well.”
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell answers questions during a
press conference in Tokyo. (Photo: GettyImages)

The new Burma Policy, which was previewed by the US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton before the 14-member UN Secretary General’s Friends on
Burma at the UN headquarters in New York, entails both sanctions and
engagement simultaneously.

The details of the policy are expected to be announced by Campbell on Friday.

“The end goal for our policy has not changed. Our goal is credible
democratic reform in Burma,” Kelly said.

“We want a government that responds to the needs of its people; a
government that frees political prisoners unconditionally, including Aung
San Suu Kyi; and the start of a dialogue, of a constructive dialogue, with
the political opposition there,” he said.

Reiterating that sanctions would continue to be part of the new policy,
Kelly said: “But sanctions or isolation has not, in and of themselves,
produced the kind of result that we’ve been looking for.”

Referring to the statement made by Clinton at the UN on Wednesday, Kelly
said: “We believe this dichotomy, this sanctions versus engagement, is a
false dichotomy, that we shouldn’t have to choose between one or the
other.”

The US administration, Kelly said, wants to employ both pressure and
engagement dealing with the Burmese government.

“As I said before, what we want is what the international community wants,
and that’s genuine democratic reform in Burma,” he said.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

September 25, Irrawaddy
Engaging Naypyidaw – Aung Zaw

If the United States believes engaging the repressive regime in Burma will
change the behavior of the generals, I would just like to say, “Good luck,
but I’m afraid that leopards don’t change their spots!”

In fact, the “new” US policy on Burma comes not so long after the Tom
Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act 2008, the US’s attempt at a strong-arm
policy on the generals.

The 2008 act has three aims: to impose new financial sanctions and travel
restrictions on the leaders of the junta and their associates; to tighten
the economic sanctions imposed in 2003 by outlawing the importation of
Burmese gems to the US; and to create a new position of special
representative and policy coordinator for Burma.

The proposed US special envoy would have the task of working with Burma’s
neighbors and other interested countries, such as those within the EU and
Asean.

The envoy’s mission would also involve developing a comprehensive approach
to the Burma crisis, including pressure, dialogue and support for
nongovernmental organizations providing humanitarian relief to the Burmese
people.

It remains to be seen if the Obama administration is going to appoint the
special US envoy to Burma anytime in the near future.

Burmese dissidents and observers by and large think that the generals in
Naypyidaw may be more receptive to a US envoy than someone from the UN or
EU—after all, we all witnessed how generously Snr-Gen Than Shwe treated US
Senator Jim Webb in August.

In any case, the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act was a mixture of
sanctions and engagement. Unsurprisingly, the new US policy on Burma is a
mixed bag of sticks and carrots.

In her most recent statement, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said,
“Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice in our opinion.

“Going forward we will be employing both of those tools,” Clinton said,
but added that lifting sanctions would send the wrong signal.

On the surface, the substance of the policy is to encourage credible,
democratic reforms and the immediate release of all political prisoners,
including Aung San Suu Kyi, and serious dialogue with opposition and
ethnic minority groups.

Speaking on behalf of detained democracy leader Suu Kyi, party spokesman
Nyan Win said that she accepted the concept of engagement by the new US
administration.

In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s message to the US is clear and
well-calculated.

“She said she has always espoused engagement,” Nyan Win said. “However,
[she] suggested that engagement has to be done with both sides—the
government as well as the democratic forces.”

The statement forces the US to ponder whether it can be seen to betray or
abandon the pro-democracy camp in Burma and the issue of human rights.

In any case, several pundits and scholars have voiced their opinions on
the “new US policy”; however, I think it is important to listen to Burmese
who continue to live under the regime.

I believe the main skeptics of the new US policy are the oppressed Burmese
citizens, and political dissidents and Buddhist monks who remain in
prison.

On the international front, the generals’ powerful allies China, India and
Russia will be carefully eyeing the US’s new approach.

I believe an extra dimension to the Obama government’s new engagement
policy is the issue of China.

China remains the junta’s major arms supplier and trading partner. It
offers security guarantees at the United Nations Security Council,
investment and trade links, as well as development assistance.

However, Beijing was displeased by the instability on its border when the
Burmese government forces attacked ethnic Chinese and the Kokang ethnic
rebel group recently.

China’s repeated requests to solve the issue peacefully went ignored.
Beijing must have seen this as a breach of their fraternal relationship
and time to reassess its own Burma policy.

In a rare move by China, the foreign ministry spoke out urging Burma to
“properly handle domestic problems and maintain stability in the
China-Burma border region” and to “protect the security and legal rights"
of China’s citizens in the country.

“The insular and nationalistic generals do not take orders from anyone,
including Beijing,” said Robert Templer, International Crisis Group’s Asia
Program Director.

Regarding China-Burma relations, Templer warned: “By continuing to simply
expect China to take the lead in solving the problem, a workable
international approach to Myanmar [Burma] will remain elusive.”

The ICG also said that the West should emphasize to China the
unsustainable nature of its current policies and continue to apply
pressure in the Security Council and other fora.

The joke among Burmese dissidents is that Beijing has been left
broken-hearted after seeing Washington’s move on Naypyidaw.

China definitely doesn’t want to be left out in the cold, but,
simultaneously, it should feel some form of victory as it has for years
pushed the US and its allies not to punish or isolate the Burmese regime.

Common ground between the US and China would appear to lie in their
approach to the 2010 election in Burma.

“The Burmese election should not be dismissed at this time,” said Clinton
in New York. “At the same time, we should continue discussions with the
Burmese authorities to emphasize that the international community will
only recognize the planned 2010 elections as a positive step to the extent
that the Burmese authorities allow full participation by members of
Burma's opposition and ethnic minority groups.”

To sum up, the US and China may both be repositioning and trying out new
policies with Burma. And both will know that while they may not have
suffered a defeat, they most certainly have had to make concessions.

The intransigent, stubborn, brutal regime in Naypyidaw, however, maintains
its grip on power and does not need to make a concession to anyone.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

September 25, Amnesty International
Amnesty International urges Secretary Clinton to act on behalf of U.S.
citizen arrested and tortured in Burma

Washington – Amnesty International reported today that activist Kyaw Zaw
Lwin, who was arrested on September 3, has suffered torture and other
ill-treatment while in detention in Insein Prison in Yangon, Burma.
According to reliable sources, he has been denied medical treatment for
the injuries he sustained from the torture he endured during
interrogation. Amnesty International has grave concerns about his health.

Burma's state newspaper, New Light of Myanmar, recently reported that Kyaw
Zaw Lwin had entered Burma to “create unrests within the country." The
newspaper reported details of the activities that Kyaw Zaw Lwin and other
Burmese pro-democracy exiles allegedly undertook in collaboration with
"internal anti-government elements" in Myanmar.

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should immediately take steps to stop
the torture and ill-treatment of a U.S. citizen arrested in Burma,” said
T. Kumar, Amnesty International USA advocacy director for international
issues. "In addition to his injuries and lack of treatment, Kyaw Zaw Lwin
has also been deprived food for seven days."

Secretary Clinton announced yesterday that the United States will begin to
engage with high-level Burmese leaders to bring democracy to the nation
and the release of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. San Suu Kyi, a
Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has been declared a prisoner of conscience by
Amnesty International.

"This is the first test for the United States' new policy of engagement,”
said Kumar. "Amnesty International hopes that this new engagement also
covers protecting human rights in Burma. If Secretary Clinton fails to
act, there will be many questions about the United States’ latest strategy
to end the oppression of the Burmese people."

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist
organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and
volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights
worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and
mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom, truth and dignity are denied.