BurmaNet News, November 19, 2009

[Editor]

November 19, 2009 Issue #3844


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: Jail term extended for 2007 activist
Narinjara: Burmese junta confiscates public oil wells and refinery for
Chinese company
Mizzima News: Private schools shifted under Ministry of Education

ON THE BORDER
Kachin News Group: Burmese junta collects funds for new border guard force

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Burma to ‘double output’ of gas by 2020

INTERNATIONAL
Japan Economic Newswire: Hatoyama calls for UNHCR to support plan to
accept Myanmar refugees
Mizzima News: ‘Burma VJ’ shortlisted for 2009 Oscars

OPINION / OTHER
The Straits Times (Singapore): Will Myanmar junta chief meet the lady? —
Nirmal Ghosh

PRESS RELEASE
Reporters Sans Frontieres: Burma blogger faces 15-year sentence




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

November 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
Jail term extended for 2007 activist – Khin Hnin Htet

An activist whose group played a key role in sparking the September 2007
monk-led uprising in Burma has had his 10-year prison sentence extended by
eight years, sources close to his family said.

Kan Myint, who spent four years in prison in the early 1990’s, was an
active member of the commodity protester group, Myanmar Development
Committee, whose protests against the sudden hike in fuel prices in
September 2007 triggered the uprising.

He was arrested on 8 December 2008 and later handed a 10-year sentence on
charges of causing a public riot, and breaching the Immigration Act and
Video Act. The leader of the group, Htin Kyaw, is currently serving 12
years and six months in prison.

A source close to Kan Myint’s family said that he was sentenced on 13
November to eight more years in prison on separate under the Unlawful
Association Act (17-1) for having link with an unlawful association, and
Act (17-2) for involvement with an unlawful association.

The Unlawful Association Act is regularly used by the Burmese military
government to imprison opposition activists, journalists and politicians.

“According to his lawyer, he could not be charged with Act 17-1 after he
was already charged with Act 17-2,” said the source, speaking on condition
of anonymity. “However the court gave him maximum sentences for both
charges separately.”

The case mirrors that of another activist, Generation Wave member Nyein
Chan, who last month had an eight-year sentence extended by 10 years. He
had been caught distributing leaflets to mark the one-year anniversary of
the founding of the youth activist group.

Meanwhile, three members of the opposition National League for Democracy
party facing trial in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison special court were
yesterday charged with the Unlawful Associations Act, according to lawyer
Kyaw Ho.

The members are Ma Cho (also known as Myint Myint San), Sein Hlaing and
Shwe Gyo.

Burma currently holds around 2,120 political prisoners, including 244
monks and 270 students, according to the Thailand-based Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners – Burma (AAPP).

____________________________________

November 19, Narinjara
Burmese junta confiscates public oil wells and refinery for Chinese company

Kyukpru: Burmese military authorities have recently seized publicly-owned
oil wells that were dug by hand and a refinery on oil-rich Rambree Island
in western Burma's Arakan State for the benefit of Chinese company,
reports a local resident.

The resident said a special team that was sent from the new Burmese
capital Naypyidaw and local police forces confiscated the hand-dug oil
wells along with a refinery in the areas of Renandaung and Munprun under
Kyaukpru Township on 10 November, 2009.

"Villagers were ordered to vacate all traditional hand-dug oil wells from
their own lands near their villages by a special team led by Brigadier
General Myo Thant and local police officer Hla Tun on November 10. They
were also told by the authority during the confiscation that no one is
allowed to operate drilling in those sites as they have already been
leased to CNOOC Ltd.," he said on condition of anonymity.

The confiscated oil wells are from Kalarba, Chaungfyar, and Chaungwa
Villages in the Renandaung area, as well as from Ngaoak, Kyauksalae, and
Wamyaung Villages in the Munprun area.

The villager said that one refinery from Munprun Village, which was owned
by a local villager named U Nyein Chan Maung, was also confiscated along
with the wells.

"The [authorities] have also ordered the villagers not to dig oil wells on
any lands, and anyone who doesn't follow their orders will face legal
action and be jailed," he said, adding that no villager was compensated
for their confiscated property.

Farmlands around the evicted hand-dug oil wells are also being targeted
for further confiscations by the authorities, the source added.

Most of the residents on Arakan's Rambree Island have been dependent on
their traditional oil wells as a main source of income for ages. Their
livelihoods have been in danger since 2005, when a consortium led by China
National Offshore Oil Company Ltd. arrived to explore for onshore and
offshore oil on their island.

According to a report by environmental and human rights group formed by
Arakanese, Arakan Oil Watch, the Burmese military regime has been seizing
or destroying their lands and traditional oil wells with little or no
compensation for the benefit of Chinese companies.

____________________________________

November 19, Mizzima News
Private schools shifted under Ministry of Education

New Delhi – For the first time, the Burmese ministry of Education has
allowed a school in Rangoon to operate as a private school on November 9,
a Deputy Director of the Basic Education Department said.

The ACA Boarding School in North Okkalapa Township of Rangoon has been
given permission to run as a private school to be recognized by Ministry
of Education.

“The permission was given verbally. We were invited on October 29 to come
to their office and were met with the Minister and Rangoon Regional
Command Commander. We were told at the meeting that ACA is to be allowed
as a private school starting from November 9,” the Deputy Director, who
request anonymity, told Mizzima.

Students from ACA boarding school, which has students from the 5th to 10th
Grades, have to attend enrolled at a regular government school and are
thought subjects on extra-time.

While the new permission puts the ACA under the direct control of the
ministry of education from the township municipal, students still have to
attend the government day-school. But the classrooms of the ACA are
required to renovate.

Currently the private education service providers are operating with the
license from either the Economics and Commerce Ministry or Municipal
bodies, not directly with permission from the Education Ministry.

“The Ministry of Education gives license only to part time tuition classes
without boarding. These private tuition classes are being run by
individuals who are not employees of the ministry,” the deputy director
said.

Boarding schools that has over 1,000 students such as the popular ‘Soe
San’ boarding home in Central Burma’s Pyin Oo Lwin, are running with the
license issued by the Economics and Commerce Ministry.

But smaller boarding homes, that has about 60 to 80 students are running
with the license issued by their respective municipal bodies under the
Guest Houses Act,  the Deputy Director added.

The new permission, however, is not similar to the former private schools
in Burma, which had autonomy in choosing their own curriculums and
syllabuses, and holding promotion examinations independently only with the
exception of standard 8 and 10, which are directly conducted by the
central education board.

“I enquired in the ACA for enrolment in their school for my child. I have
to pay for a whole academic year in advance and they will enrol my child
at the nearby government school. They will be taught in this school with
the government curriculum. The 10th Grade students have to sit for the
government board examination and for the rest of the grades, the students
will have to sit for promotion exams from this school,” a parent in
Rangoon told Mizzima.

Following the military coup on March 2, 1962, Newin’s Burma’s Socialist
Programme Party (BSPP) regime declared nationalisation of all private
schools in 1964 as part of his new socialist system, erasing all private
schools.

The first Private School in Burma was established in 1920, after Rangoon
University students demanded for ‘National School’ from the British
colonial rulers.

A retired Township Education Officer, who had her education from the
former Private Schools, told Mizzima that the new order does not change
anything but said she would like to see private schools running similarly
as the old days before the BSPP regime ruled.

“We welcome private schools as I attended such a school in 1958. These
schools were disciplined, competent with other schools and had good
results in the exams. We did not need to attend other coaching or tuition
classes. They taught us well and there was no discrimination in the
school,” she added.

In the last stages of colonialism and in early independent era, Burma had
one of the best education systems in Southeast Asia, with Rangoon
University directly affiliated with the Calcutta University.

Private Schools, including catholic convents, were popular for their
discipline, and proper teachings that produces outstanding students.

Following the fall of the BSPP regime in 1988 after student-led
pro-democracy uprising, boarding schools such as the ACA have become
popular. And the number of boarding schools has increased to more than
hundreds.

Similarly, private schools affiliated to international schools such as the
International Language and Business Centre (ILBC) and Yangon International
Education Centre (YIEC) are also booming and have now numbered about 30.

However, the Burmese military government have not granted recognition to
these private schools.

The ACA charges Kyat 2 million (US $ 2,000 approximately) for a whole
academic year for a 5th Grader, and Kyat 2.5 million for a 9th Grader and
Kyat 3 million for a 10th Grader.

Reports suggest that like the ACA, the ‘Sar Pan Ein’ in Pyin Oo Lwin and
the Naypyitaw branch of ‘Soe San’ boarding schools were also permitted to
run as private schools.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

November 19, Kachin News Group
Burmese junta collects funds for new border guard force

The business community is being forced to pay a fixed amount of money by
the Burmese military junta in Kachin State in northern Burma as funds for
"forming Border Guard Force". The money will be used to change the Kachin
ceasefire group, the New Democratic Army-Kachin to BGF, local sources
said.

On  the orders of the junta's Northern Command commander Maj-Gen Soe Win,
the appointed army officers and civilian workers have collected 2.5
million Kyat (US$2,370) from each company, especially in the Hpakant jade
mining areas and Myitkyina since June, sources in the companies said.

There are over a hundred jade mining companies in Hpakant jade land, about
80 miles west of Kachin State's capital Myitkyina, according to Hpakant
sources.

The Myitkyina-based Loi Ngu Bum Company Limited owned by former Lasang
Awng Wa Peace Group has already doled out 2.5 million Kyats, said the
company's sources.

So far, the junta has collected hundreds of millions Kyat from the
companies in Kachin State, said sources.

The fund collected, is meant for use in the process of transforming the
New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDA-K) to three battalions of the BGF under
the control of the Burmese Army, said former NDA-K officers.

The NDA-K led by Zahkung Ting Ying accepted the junta-controlled BGF
proposal in June but the official ceremony of conversion was held in the
rebel's headquarters Pangwah near the Sino-Burma border east of Kachin
State on November 8.

Again, soldiers in the newly formed BGF transformed from NDA-K were
welcomed in a special ceremony in the Town Hall in Myitkyina on November
14 by the ruling junta.

The junta has assured that each military personnel in the new BGF will
earn monthly salaries equal to soldiers in the Burmese Army--- between
40,000 Kyat (US$38) and 120,000 Kyat (US$114).

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

November 19, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma to ‘double output’ of gas by 2020 – Joseph Allchin

Burma is to double its output of natural gas in the next 10 years, the
country’s sole operator of oil and gas production told a regional trade
fair in Bangkok yesterday.

Energy experts believe Burma’s offshore Bay of Bengal gas fields could
house Southeast Asia’s largest gas reserves, much of which is now being
pumped to neighbouring countries.

The Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) yesterday told an annual ASEAN
Council on Petroleum (ASCOPE) trade fair that the country would seek to
significantly boost output over the coming decade.

The regional ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) bloc is
comprised of Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

As well as MOGE, the little known Best Luck Co. Ltd was in attendance at
ASCOPE, along with a host of international outfits, many of whom have
operations or dealings with Burma.

The projected increase in gas output will be largely down to the inception
of the Shwe gas pipeline project, being overseen by South Korean company,
Daewoo International, as well as the Zawtika pipeline run by Thailand’s
PTTEP petroleum company.

The Shwe gas pipeline has come under heavy criticism from both
environmental and human rights groups.

Critics view it as the appropriation of the country’s resources by the
military, who are then siphoning it to Burma’s energy-hungry neighbours.

“The management system is completely wrong,” said Wong Aung, of the
anti-pipeline Shwe Gas Campaign. “They are trying to extract and export
everything we have”.

The pipelines are also blamed for destroying livelihoods in fragile tribal
communities heavily dependent on the natural ecosystems that construction
of the pipeline is believed to be jeopardising.

The biggest criticism however is reserved for the apparent
misappropriation by Burma’s military government of the vast funds that can
be made from gas revenues.

“It will have no benefit for the Burmese people
these revenues will only
heighten the regional security threat posed by the Burmese military
regime,” said Wong Aung.

Despite the extraction of gas and oil, the living standards of the average
Burmese person has shown little sign of improvement.

The ruling junta was in September accused by advocacy group EarthRights
International of stashing the revenue from sales of natural energy in
Singaporean banks, and using irregularities between official and
unofficial exchange rates to hide income.

Despite such criticisms, the government continues to be accused of
channeling some 40 percent of its annual budget into the military, which
has seen a massive increase in size and sophistication over the past
decade.

There has long been debate about foreign investment in military-ruled
Burma, with the fossil fuel industry being the most controversial.

Several western companies, including French company TOTAL and America’s
Chevron, have continued operations in the country, despite heavy criticism
and pressure from activists that even resulted in a court case brought
against Chevron in the 1990’s.

The launch of the trade fair yesterday coincided with a report released by
anti-corruption group, Transparency International, which ranked Burma 178
out 180 countries in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

November 19, Japan Economic Newswire
Hatoyama calls for UNHCR to support plan to accept Myanmar refugees

Tokyo – Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Thursday called on the U.N.
refugee agency to support Japan's plan to accept Myanmar refugees from
fiscal 2010, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

During the meeting with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio
Guterres, Hatoyama was quoted as saying that Japan needs the agency's
continued cooperation for it to make a "success" of its acceptance of
Myanmar refugees under a third-country resettlement program starting in
the next fiscal year from April 2010.

Japan is set to accept about 30 refugees, who have fled the suppression of
human rights by Myanmar's military government and currently live in border
camps in Thailand, each year for three years from fiscal 2010 under the
resettlement program, according to ministry officials.

If realized, Japan will be the first Asian country to introduce the
program, which is designed to help people who have fled to nearby states
because of conflict in their home countries but find it hard to settle
there or return home.

In the half-hour meeting at the prime minister's office, Guterres
responded that Japan's foreign policy and the UNHCR's support are heading
toward the same goal and that Japan can expect continued support from the
agency, according to the ministry.

The government will examine the outcome of the program after the three
years and decide whether to continue it, the officials said.

The introduction of the program is apparently aimed at fending off
criticism in the international community that Japan is not doing enough in
the area of refugee support.

____________________________________

November 19, Mizzima News
‘Burma VJ’ shortlisted for 2009 Oscars – Salai Pi Pi

New Delhi – A documentary film on the brutal crackdown on Buddhist
monk-led protests in September 2007 by Burma’s ruling military junta, has
been shortlisted among the nominations for next year’s Academy Awards.

‘Burma VJ’, which painstakingly documented the courageous struggle of the
Burmese people for freedom of expression and democracy, was released in
2009 and has been shortlisted for the 2010 Academy awards, according to
the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Beverly Hills on Wednesday announced that ‘Burma VJ’ directed by Danish
Anders Østergaard, was among the 15 films listed in the ‘Documentary
Feature’ category, which will advance in the voting process for the 82nd
Academy Awards.

Burma VJ, a docu-drama film highlights the risks journalists and
dissidents in military-ruled Burma took during the September 2007
protests, later dubbed the ‘Saffron Revolution’. It has already won about
33 film awards including the ‘World Cinema Documentary Film Editing
Award’, ‘Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award’ and has been nominated
for EFA Documentaire 2009 - Prix Arte.

Toe Zaw Latt, Chief of the Democratic Voice of Burma’s Thailand Bureau,
which contributed around 80 percent of the video clips used in the Burma
VJ, said he is proud that the film has been shortlisted for the Academy
Award.

“Now, the plight of people in Burma is not only highlighted in the
international media but also in film. It also fulfilled our commitment to
increase awareness on the media blacked out country [Burma] at the
international level,” Toe Zaw Latt said.

The film is based on the story of an undercover reporter for the
Oslo-based DVB, Joshua (27). How, equipped with a small handycam he
reports from the streets of Rangoon, former capital of Burma, during the
September 2007 uprising. And how he smuggled out the footage from the
country, which was broadcast back into Burma via satellite by the
international media such as the CNN, BBC and Aljazeera.

“Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of
Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow
of news from their closed country,” said Burma VJ’s website.

Toe Zaw Latt said several DVB’s video journalists were arrested and
detained in jails by Burmese security forces while taking pictures on the
streets during the protest.

The 15 shortlisted films, chosen from eighty-nine films that qualified in
the category, are “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Burma VJ,” “The Cove,” “Every
Little Step,” “Facing Ali,” “Food, Inc.,” “Garbage Dreams,” “Living in
Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,” “The Most Dangerous Man in
America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” “Mugabe and the White
African,” “Sergio,” “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” “Under Our Skin,”
“Valentino The Last Emperor,” and “Which Way Home,”.

Among the shortlisted, Documentary Branch members will select the five
nominees for Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2009.

The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on February 2, 2010
and an award ceremony would be held at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood &
Highland Center in Los Angeles on March 7.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

November 19, Straits Times (Singapore)
Will Myanmar junta chief meet the lady? — Nirmal Ghosh

The question on many people's minds in Yangon these days is whether Senior
General Than Shwe will meet “the lady”, as Aung San Suu Kyi is known
across Myanmar.

She requested a meeting with the regime's supremo in a letter dated Nov 11
to explain how she would cooperate in tasks “beneficial to the country”.

If Than Shwe were to meet her, it could be a turning point in the
political stalemate that began when her National League for Democracy
(NLD) won a 1990 general election whose results were not recognised by the
army.

But analysts are cautious. The senior general is trying to engineer a
potential milestone in modern Myanmar's history — ensuring that
army-backed parties win next year's election without any rigging and that
the outcome is deemed credible by the international community.

At the Asean summit in Thailand last month, Prime Minister Thein Sein
reportedly told other Asean leaders that if Suu Kyi “maintains a good
attitude, it is possible that the Myanmar authorities will relax the
current measures”.

But the decision to release her is almost certainly in the hands of just
one man — the senior general.

Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 20 years in some form of detention —
mostly house arrest in her dilapidated lakeside bungalow. In August, she
was sentenced to another 18 months of house arrest for harbouring an
uninvited American citizen.

An early release may be possible for the Nobel laureate, but such a move
may well be just a gesture to appease international opinion.

Also, she would at most be allowed only a small degree of participation,
if any at all, in active politics.

If Than Shwe were to release her, then a critical factor would be timing
the move so that she will have minimal or no impact on his plans.

Meanwhile on Sunday, at the first US-Asean summit in Singapore, United
States President Barack Obama told Thein Sein that Suu Kyi should be
released.

The message was not new but the messenger and how it was delivered to the
Myanmar leadership were unprecedented. It was the first time in years that
a Myanmar leader had a face-to-face meeting with a US president, and it
took place against a backdrop of Washington's new policy of engaging
Myanmar.

Thein Sein reportedly did not react to the request, but thanked the US for
its new policy of engagement rather than isolation.

But US officials are not under any illusion that Washington can force
change in Myanmar, at least as long as Than Shwe maintains his iron grip.

The new US policy is one of engagement with the regime while maintaining
economic sanctions against it. Obama has held out the promise of lifting
the sanctions if there is some positive signal from the regime.

Raising the issue of Suu Kyi was meant to remind the regime that the US,
even as it engages more with the regime on other fronts, has not watered
down its focus on democracy, said historian Thant Myint U, author of “A
River Of Lost Footsteps”.

But he pointed out that should the US take the “long-term, multi-year
view”, then many things are possible.

If the US depends too much on short-term change, its efforts may go down
the same dark tunnel as had previous attempts to engage the regime, he
said.

Suu Kyi's current sentence will ensure that she remains in detention
through the elections, which are scheduled for the middle of next year,
making it impossible for her to take part in the process.

Most Myanmar analysts, used to occasional signs of progress congealing
into stalemate, are either cautious or pessimistic about the shift in US
policy — and are not sanguine about Suu Kyi's release.

But if the senior general met her, it would reignite hope that she would
be set free.

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

November 19, Reporters Sans Frontieres
Burma blogger faces 15-year sentence

A young blogger, Win Zaw Naing, is facing a possibly 15-year jail sentence
just for posting pictures and reports about the September 2007 protests,
known as the Saffron Revolution. Reporters Without Borders and the Burma
Media Association call for his release and the release of all the other
detained bloggers.

"The international community is so absorbed by diplomatic strategies aimed
at resolving the Burmese crisis that it seems to be neglecting the fact
that the military government is continuing its repression and is still
arresting journalists, bloggers and human rights activists," the two
organisations said.

"The release of prisoners of conscience should continue to be a major
priority for the international community," Reporters Without Borders and
the Burma Media Association added. "Without the freedom to inform others,
next year's elections will be neither free nor fair."

Win Zaw Naing, 24, has been held for the past several weeks by police in
the Rangoon district of Kyauktada, where he has not been allowed to see a
lawyer. He was arrested under article 33 (A) of the Electronic Act, which
provides for sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

Sources have told the organisations that he was arrested for posting
photos of the September 2007 protests on his blog
(http://shwenyarthar.co.cc/). The photos showed protesters, including
Buddhist monks. The blog is still accessible but the police ordered the
withdrawal of the photos and certain articles.

A resident of Hlaing Tharyar district, Win Zaw Naing works as a typist at
a Rangoon publishing house.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association have confirmed
that four journalists were recently arrested. They are Paing Soe Oo, a
freelancer known by the pen-name of Jay Paing; Thant Zin Soe, who works
for Foreign Affairs Journal; Nyi Nyi Htun, a freelancer known by the
pen-name of Mee-doke; and Khant Min Htet, a poet and graphic designer.

Source: Reporters Sans Frontieres press release, Paris, in English 13 Nov 09