From editor at burmanet.org Fri Jan 22 14:38:00 2010 From: editor at burmanet.org (Editor) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:38:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: BurmaNet News, January 22, 2010 Message-ID: <11087.63.173.78.131.1264189080.squirrel@webmail2.pair.com> January 22, 2010, Issue #3881 INSIDE BURMA AP: Myanmar verdict on American man expected next week AP: Myanmar Air Force jet crashes near Yangon airport DVB: Burma praised for anti-trafficking progress ON THE BORDER The Nation (Thailand): No taxes for workers: Burma BUSINESS / TRADE Irrawaddy: Junta puts more state-owned properties up for sale REGIONAL AFP: Burma junta worse than Cyclone Nargis: IPU official INTERNATIONAL Irrawaddy: We can't dance alone: US to Burma Mizzima News: U.S. policy grants China greater influence in Burma OPINION / OTHER Foreign Policy: Did Ban Ki-moon really save half a million lives in Burma? ? Colum Lynch ____________________________________ INSIDE BURMA January 22, Associated Press Myanmar verdict on American man expected next week Yangon ? A Myanmar court will hand down its verdict next week on an American charged with forgery and currency infractions after being accused of trying to foment rebellion against the country's military rulers. Nyan Win, the lawyer for Myanmar-born Kyaw Zaw Lwin, said final arguments in his case were made Friday at the court inside Yangon's notorious Insein prison, and a verdict is expected Wednesday. Kyaw Zaw Win was arrested on Sept. 3 and initially accused of trying to stir up unrest which he has denied. Prosecutors later asked the court to charge him with forgery and violating the foreign currency exchange act. He was put on trial in October and faces up to 12 years in prison. Kyaw Zaw Lwin's mother is serving a five-year prison term for political activities and his sister was sentenced to 65 years in prison for her role in 2007 pro-democracy protests, which government forces brutally suppressed, activist groups and family members say. Kyaw Zaw Lwin staged a 12-day hunger strike in December to protest conditions of political prisoners in Myanmar, according to human rights groups. Myanmar has one of the most repressive governments in the world and has been controlled by the military since 1962. Rights groups and dissidents say the junta has jailed thousands of political prisoners, including pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Suu Kyi whose political party won 1990 elections that the military refused to recognize has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest. ____________________________________ January 22, Associated Press Myanmar Air Force jet crashes near Yangon airport Yangon ? A Myanmar Air Force fighter plane crashed on Friday morning while attempting to land at Yangon airport, killing its pilot, an airport official said. An official at Yangon International Airport said the Chinese-made F-7 jet crashed while on a training flight. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Air Force base is adjacent to the civilian airport and uses the same runways. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank, Myanmar purchased at least 36 F-7 jets from China in the 1990s. ____________________________________ January 22, Democratic Voice of Burma Burma praised for anti-trafficking progress ? Joseph Allchin and Naw Say Phaw A senior UN official in Burma has congratulated the ruling junta on steps it has taken to tackle human trafficking, during a meeting yesterday of six Mekong states in Bagan. It is the seventh year that the meeting, the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking (COMMIT), has taken place. It is billed as a UN effort to get the governments of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China, Vietnam and Burma to discuss the problem of human trafficking, and included an ensemble of international NGOs, UN agencies and regional observers. ?The purpose is to reaffirm the commitment to eradicating all forms of human trafficking in the region, share and evaluate progress in 2009 and lay the foundations for future strengthened cooperation in counter trafficking,? a UN press statement said. Despite a US report last year that found Burma?s human trafficking problem to be ?significant?, the UN?s resident coordinator in Burma, Bishow Parajuli, said yesterday that the Southeast Asian state had made good progress in the past six years. ?Myanmar [Burma] was the first country in the Mekong region to pass a comprehensive anti-human trafficking law in line with international standards,? he said. ?It was also one of the first countries to establish a specialist anti-trafficking police unit, widely regarded as best practice, and has passed a five-year National Plan of Action in areas like prevention, law enforcement and protection.? According to Ohnmar Ei Ei Chaw, liaison officer for the UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP), the meeting also included discussions on ?collecting databases [of human trafficking statistics] and conducting surveys and research to learn about trafficker networks and the needs of trafficking victims?. Parajuli followed that ?it is imperative that we continue to address the root causes? of human trafficking in Burma, such as unemployment, poverty and abuse. However, according to a Chin community leader and head of a Burmese refugees centre in Kuala Lumpur, the problems of remaining in Burma can outweigh the maltreatment of trafficked persons. ?To you they are traffickers; to us they are travel agents,? he said. Meanwhile, the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper today quoted Burma?s home minister, Major Maung Oo, as telling the conference that Burma ?is no longer a safe haven? for traffickers. Indeed according to many workers who have paid traffickers, it is no longer a safe haven for workers either, following decades of economic mismanagement and a political climate that denies labour rights and fuels high levels of forced labour. ____________________________________ ON THE BORDER January 22, The Nation (Thailand) No taxes for workers: Burma The Burmese government will not be collecting tax from immigrant workers and their families once their nationality has been identified, the Employment Department's deputy director-general said yesterday. The identification of Burmese workers has been extended by another two years and should be completed by 2012, Supat Gukun said. The Burmese government confirmed that no tax would be collected from immigrant workers, he said, adding that random checks on workers returning after registering their nationality in Burma found that everyone had returned to Thailand safely. He also urged all immigrant workers, especially those from Laos, Cambodia and Burma, to register their nationality because this way they can have a year's work permit by February 28 and be entitled to the same welfare and protection as their Thai counterparts. ____________________________________ BUSINESS / TRADE January 22, Irrawaddy Junta puts more state-owned properties up for sale ? Wai Moe and Ba Kaung Burma?s government privatization commission has announced that it is selling more than 100 state-owned buildings and factories as part of the latest wave of privatizations in the military-ruled country. An announcement in the state-run Myanmar Ahlin newspaper on Friday said that the properties for sale include some buildings owned by the Supreme Court and the Inspector General's Office in downtown Rangoon, as well as five cinemas in various parts of the city. The announcement added that only 14 of the properties would be sold unconditionally. Other properties would be subject to various restrictions, including a requirement that new owners use factories for their original purpose. ?This condition will apply only for a certain period, such as 20 or 30 years,? said an official from the government privatization commission when contacted by The Irrawaddy. ?The new owners will not, however, be required to continue to employ workers of the state enterprise,? the official added. ?They can if they wish, but if not, the workers will remain state employees.? Since 1989, the current regime has periodically sold off state-owned properties as part of its so-called ?open-door? economic policy, reversing decades of nationalization under the socialist government of former dictator Ne Win. The junta?s 1989 economic reforms encouraged foreign investment and joint-venture enterprises in a wide range of industries, from agriculture to mining and health care. However, most observers say that the junta's reforms over the past two decades have done little to liberalize the economy. ?Their [the junta?s] track record is not good. Many state enterprises in the past have simply become private monopolies,? said Sean Turnell, an economist at Australia?s Macquarie University whose research focuses on Burma. Turnell also expressed skepticism about the latest wave of privatizations. ?The great danger when states sell their assets is that they may sell them at 'fire sale' prices to their cronies. This danger is very real in Burma,? he said. According to the ?2010 Index of Economic Freedom,? a report prepared by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, Burma ranks 174th out of 179 countries in the world in terms of economic freedom. Only North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Eritrea are considered less free. In Asia, the military-ruled country comes second to last. The report identifies a number of factors contributing to Burma's low ranking, including government interference in economic activities; structural problems such as fiscal deficits; continuing losses by state-owned enterprises; and underdeveloped legal and regulatory frameworks and poor government service. On property rights in Burma, the index said: ?Private real property and intellectual property are not protected. Private and foreign companies are at a disadvantage in disputes with governmental and quasi-governmental organizations.? Analysts say the lack of competition in Burma is another reason the country?s economic reforms have failed to take hold. ?If a government sells a government business that is a monopoly, and does not allow new competitors, then all that happens is that a private monopoly replaces a state one,? said Turnell. ?In other words, the people of Burma would still be exploited?by a regime crony perhaps, rather than the state itself.? In 2009, the Burmese junta increased its privatization of state properties. According to official statistics, 260 state-owned buildings, factories and land plots were privatized last year, including 137 properties that were put on auction in December alone. One of the biggest purchasers of state-owned properties last year was Tay Za, a well-known crony of the Burmese junta who has been targeted by Western sanctions. Besides buying valuable properties in Rangoon and other urban centers, in December he won a contract to run hydro-power projects. Earlier this month, he bought a police compound in downtown Mandalay. ?The only way you can buy buildings and factories on auction is if you have the right connections. If you are not connected to the ruling generals, you don't stand a chance,? said a business reporter with a private journal in Rangoon. The recent spate of privatizations may also have something to do with the junta's plans to hold an election, according to some observers. ?The generals may think this sort of tactic will sway voters in their favor,? said a Burmese economist based in Thailand. ?Perhaps they think it will make people believe they are creating some economic space, however limited, for small- and medium-sized businesses.? Another reason for stepping up the pace of privatization may be a desire to secure control of important resources before the 2008 Constitution comes into effect following the election. Under the Constitution, some state-owned properties, including mines and hydro-power plants, will come under the partial control of state and division governments. By transferring ownership of these properties to private individuals, including junta members and their cronies, the generals will avoid losing control of them to local authorities after the election. ?They are doing this as a precaution, to protect themselves after the election. No matter which group comes into power, it won't have the capacity to do anything because key resources will remain in the hands of the military officers and their cronies,? said a businessman in Rangoon who spoke on condition of anonymity. ____________________________________ REGIONAL January 22, Agence France Presse Burma junta worse than Cyclone Nargis: IPU official Rights violations by Burma's junta has caused more damage than Cyclone Nargis, a Philippines senator and top member of the world's leading body of parliamentarians said on Thursday. "In the year 2008 Burma was hit by a terrible catastrophe, by typhoon Nargis, and because there was so much devastation people thought that was the worst thing that could happen to Burma," said Aquilino Pimentel, president of the Inter Parliamentary Union's (IPU) human rights committee. "But actually... not. It was rather the deprivation of the rights of the people by a ruling junta," he added. More than 138,000 people died when cyclone Nargis devastated Burma's Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008. The cost of repairing the damage was estimated at over four billion dollars. Pimentel and the committee called for pro-democracy icon Aug San Suu Kyi and 13 opposition parliamentarians elected in 1990 to be freed, underlining they had been detained without trial while some were subjected to "severe torture." "Nothing much seems to be happening in terms of advancing the cause of democracy in Burma," he told journalists. The committee's resolution called on Burma's powerful neighbours India and China, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), to back moves to urgently free the 13. ____________________________________ INTERNATIONAL January 22, Irrawaddy We can't dance alone: US to Burma ? Lalit K Jha A top US official said engagement with Burma can't be a one-way process and indicated the US is not getting an adequate response from the Burmese military junta. Showing signs of frustration, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell told senators at a Congressional briefing on Thursday: ?We are attempting to take that first step...but I do want to underscore that one can't dance on the dance floor alone.? In his testimony, Campbell said the US is in the first phase of a strategy to begin direct discussions with Burmese officials. ?It's too early to give a report card on that effort, but we recognize that this is a critical period, 2010, with the intention of the government to hold elections at some point later this year,? he said. ?There is also a desire, when it comes to global or regional issues of democratization and human rights, to raise these matters, not just in a bilateral setting but to raise them in regional fora,? he said. ?So, for instance, Secretary Clinton raised issues of concern, particularly in Burma but not just in Burma in a regional context, and to our satisfaction we have seen a number of other countries like Indonesia [and] the Philippines increasingly talk about values and shared interests in a way that we think is very reinforcing. Of course, those general tenets and beliefs are the foundation of our strong and deep partnerships with countries like Japan and South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and others,? he said. ?The truth is, unlike some countries, at best Burma is ambivalent about the United States,? Campbell said. ?I think there are some very substantial concerns about how its leadership views the people, the quality of life of the people, issues associated with ethnic minorities, the treatment of legitimate politically elected groups, and on top of that attitudes towards the United States and concerns about proliferation.? Campbell also said the administration?s formal review of US policy towards Burma reaffirmed its fundamental goals: a democratic government that respects the rights of its people and is at peace with its neighbors. ?A policy of pragmatic engagement with the Burmese authorities holds the best hope for advancing our goals. Under this approach, US sanctions will remain in place until Burmese authorities demonstrate that they are prepared to make meaningful progress on US core concerns,? he said. ?The leaders of Burma?s democratic opposition have confirmed to us their support for this approach. The policy review also confirmed that we need additional tools to augment those that we have been using in pursuit of our objectives. ?A central element of this approach is a direct, senior-level dialogue with representatives of the Burmese leadership. I visited Burma Nov. 3 and 4 for meetings with Burmese officials, including Prime Minister Thein Sein, leaders of the democracy movement, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and representatives of the largest ethnic minorities. In my meetings, I stressed the importance of all stakeholders engaging in a dialogue on reform and emphasized that the release of political prisoners is essential if the elections planned for 2010 are to have any credibility,? Campbell said. ____________________________________ January 22, Mizzima News U.S. policy grants China greater influence in Burma ? Mungpi The inconsistent foreign policy of the United States towards Asian countries has gifted an opportunity to China to enhance its influence over regional countries including military-ruled Burma, Senator Jim Webb said on Thursday during a hearing of which he chaired. Webb, in his remarks at the Senate?s Foreign Relations Subcommittee Hearing on Washington?s engagement in Asia, said, ?American sanctions and other policy restrictions have not only increased Chinese political and economic influence in Southeast Asia, they ironically serve as a double reward for China because all the while American interaction in East Asia has been declining.? Webb said in recent years China has become the only country in the world to which the United States is vulnerable, strategically and economically. ?And nowhere is this more obvious than in Burma, where Chinese influence has grown steadily at a time when the United States has cut off virtually all economic and diplomatic relations. Since then, Chinese arms sales and other military aid has exceeded $3 billion,? added the Virginian Senator. Webb, who in August 2009 travelled to Burma and met with high-ranking junta officials, including Senior General Than Shwe, as well as detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is a strong advocate of engagement with the Burmese junta, in power since 1988. Webb said in the absence of United States engagement with the junta, China has taken over and greatly influenced the Burmese regime to the extent of creating ?an intrinsic suspicion of U.S. motives in the region.? ?And as only one example of China?s enormous investment reach,? he added, in reference to a future pipeline to run through Burma, ?within the next decade or sooner, Beijing is on track to exclusively transfer to its waiting refineries both incoming oil and locally tapped natural gas via a 2,380-kilometer pipeline, a $30 billion deal.? The Senator said Washington should maintain consistency in its foreign policy towards Asia, as ?inconsistencies inherent in our policies toward different governments tend to create confusion, cynicism, and allegations of situational ethics.? The hearing on Thursday also took the testimony of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Dr. Robert Sutter of Georgetown University and Dr. Robert Herman of Freedom House. ____________________________________ OPINION / OTHER January 12, Foreign Policy Did Ban Ki-moon really save half a million lives in Burma? ? Colum Lynch Faced with criticism of his leadership style last summer, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly defended his tenure by claiming credit for opening the door to international aid workers in Burma following Cyclone Nargis and saving more than 500,000 lives. "I have been able to speak and save about half a million civilian population from this typhoon," he told Charlie Rose last June, though he later shared the credit with the international community (the quote is 25:39 seconds into the recording). The claim, which has gone largely unchallenged, runs contrary to the findings of the U.N.'s own emergency relief agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the most authoritative voice on the U.N.'s response to disasters. The agency's little- noticed December 2008, report -- titled the "Inter Agency Real Time Evaluation of the Response to Cyclone Nargis" -- concluded that "most of the live-saving activities after cyclone Nargis were carried out by national actors prior to the arrival of international agencies." The report credits local Burmese civilians, including actors, musicians, religious groups, businessmen, and, according to a source familiar with the assessment, at least one organized crime figure, with rushing to the scene of the some of the worst destruction in the days after the cyclone struck the Irrawaddy Delta. The U.N. mounted a "relatively good overall humanitarian response" to the cyclone, the report concluded. It notes that the U.N. and its partners avoided the pitfalls of the Tsunami relief effort, where massive numbers of foreign aid organizations supplanted local relief groups, contributing to an often chaotic process of delivering assistance. As for Ban, he has generally received high marks from international leaders for persuading Burma's military leader, senior general Than Shwe, to allow greater levels of foreign assistance into the country. But the report provides little evidence to support Ban's claim and credits the Association of South East Asian Nations, which includes Burma, with negotiating a vital supply bridge for food and medicines flowing in from Thailand.