BurmaNet News, June 10, 2010

[Editor]

June 10, 2010, Issue #3980


INSIDE BURMA
DVB: PM’s party appoints Chinese businessman
Mizzima News: 20,000 trees planted for Suu Kyi, 65

ON THE BORDER
AFP: US fears for Myanmar refugees ahead of polls

BUSINESS / TRADE
New Light of Myanmar: Sending natural gas through Yadana-Yangon 24-inch
diameter offshore natural gas pipeline launched

INTERNATIONAL
UN News Centre: Top UN official travels to Asia for talks on Myanmar
DVB: Burma elections ‘on 10 October’
Mizzima News: Commission of inquiry inches closer to realization

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: Keeping Burma out of the nuclear silo – Kelley Currie
Open Democracy (UK): Burma’s authoritarian upgrade: 1990-2010 – David
Scott Mathieson
Irrawaddy: Thai-Burma relations through the Thaksin prism – Simon Roughneen



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

June 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
PM’s party appoints Chinese businessman – Khin Nnin Htet

The party headed by Burma’s current prime minister, Thein Sein, has
appointed a Chinese businessman with close ties to the ruling junta as an
election candidate in the country’s northern Kachin state.

The man, known only as Yawmo, is from China’s southern Yunnan province
and, according to a local in Kachin state’s Bhamo, is “business partners”
with the Burmese government. He will run for the Union Solidarity and
Development Party (USDP) in Momauk town, about 30 kilometres from the
China border.

“He is Miao [ethnic Chinese minority group] from Yunnan province,” said
the local. “He came and settled in Momauk in 1990 and later moved to
Hpakant [a jade mining town] where his brothers-in-law already live.”

Election laws announced in February ban foreigners, and spouses of
foreigners, from participating. This factor played a key role in forcing
the party of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was married to
UK-born Michael Aris, to boycott the polls.

But numbers of influential Chinese businessmen close to the government are
known to buy Burmese passports and ID cards. Burma has become heavily
reliant on China as one of the junta’s principal economic allies; a visit
to Naypyidaw by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao last week saw the two countries
sign some 15 trade deals.

Burma’s economy has also undergone a significant revamp in recent months,
with the government selling off swathes of previously state-owned industry
to private businesses, many of whom have close ties to the Burmese junta.
It is unclear to what extent Chinese businesses have benefitted from this,
but analysts believe that Chinese investment in Burma, at both an
entrepreneurial and state level, will continue to rise as Burma’s markets
open up.

Many of Burma’s wealthy Chinese elites, including Yawmo, made their
fortunes in the country’s lucrative jade mining industry, which is
predominantly focused in the north, before moving to Mandalay in central
Burma. Now Burma’s second city has an estimated Chinese population of up
to 40 percent.

Another USDP candidate in Kachin state has been named as Htun Htun, a
Burmese-born entrepreneur who also became rich through jade mining. The
choice of candidates by the USDP, which is widely tipped to win what
critics deride as a sham election, appears to validate suggestions that
businessmen with close ties to the ruling junta will play key roles in the
post-election government.

Moreover, the USDP has begun unofficially campaigning in several states
and divisions around Burma while the 35 or so other registered parties
must wait for official approval from the government before they can begin
canvassing.

Ward officials in towns around Kachin and Chin state have reportedly been
told by the USDP, which is believed to be an offshoot of the
government-proxy organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development
Association (USDA), to recruit at least 10 percent of voters as party
members.

“They are persuading people that they will get privileges for businesses
and travelling – they will be prioritised when buying train, buses and air
tickets,” said the Kachin local. “They said that even if a party member
breaks the law and gets into trouble, senior authorities can speak in his
or her favour and soften [the punishment].”

____________________________________

June 10, Mizzima News
20,000 trees planted for Suu Kyi, 65 – Phanida

Chiang Mai – National League for Democracy party young members have
started planting more than 20,000 saplings today in states and divisions
in honour of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday on June
19.

In tribute to their leader, NLD Youth members plan to grow 66 saplings in
each of the 318 townships across the country, except in Kayah State, which
has no NLD branch offices. Burmese traditionally plant saplings on
birthdays for each year of life up to their age for the coming year: thus
the 66 trees for Suu Kyi’s 65th anniversary.

NLD central committee member Phyu Phyu Thin said the campaign to plant
20,998 saplings on June 19 was also a conservation awareness campaign.

Members today planted the shady tree varieties, Padauk, Gangaw, Khayay,
rain tree, and Bandar (Indian almond), at their offices, in monastery
compounds, on personal land holdings or at pagodas in South Dagon, Hlaing
Tharyar and South Okkalapa townships in Rangoon Division.

Suu Kyi will be again forced by the ruling Burmese junta to celebrate her
birthday under house arrest as her current 18-month sentence for
entertaining uninvited guest, US citizen John Yettaw, is scheduled to end
in November.

The remainder of the sentence would be waived if she “stays at her home in
discipline”, the government announced recently.

NLD Pegu Township chairman Myat Hla said members would plant 66 gold mohur
saplings in Pegu on June 19.

Rangoon-based Forest Resource Environment and Development Association
(Freda) vice-chairman U Ohn said the trees should be grown in forests, on
mountains and on barren hilltops in a “sweeping manner”, so the trees’
roots can play their part in preserving topsoil.

“Growing trees is good but conservation of standing forests and trees is
better,” he said. “Felling a tree and replanting a new tree 
 can [still]
damage the environment.”

“Forests absorb all [most of] the rainfall, which can make the climate
comfortable. Depletion of forest leads to erosion, which can make climate
change.”

Freda started its tree-growing activities in 1999 and since Cyclone Nargis
hit the Irrawaddy Delta its groves reportedly cover 3,000 acres (1,214
hectares).

In 1975, forest covered 60 per cent of Burma’s total area of 656,577
square kilometres. That cover was now just 41 per cent, the United Nations
Food and Agricultural Organisation reported last month.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

June 10, Agence France Presse
US fears for Myanmar refugees ahead of polls

Bangkok — A top US official said Thursday he was "particularly concerned"
about the plight of 140,000 vulnerable Myanmar refugees in camps along the
Thai border in light of the junta's upcoming polls.

Eric P. Schwartz, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population,
Refugees, and Migration, raised his worries in Bangkok after meeting Thai
officials and activists ahead of a trip to the border camps on Friday.

The refugees have fled Myanmar's six-decade conflict between the
mainly-Buddhist country's junta and the Christian Karen, one of the few
ethnic insurgent groups yet to sign a peace deal with the ruling generals.

"I'm particularly concerned about the continued situation of vulnerable
Burmese in Thailand, about 140,000 of whom are in camps in the border
area," Schwartz said at a press briefing. Burma is Myanmar's former name.

Schwartz said that "continued repression and restrictions" in Myanmar's
electoral process, as it had unfolded so far, suggested the polls later
this year will "offer little change of conditions within Burma".

"If that does happen, elections will not alter the need of Burmese who
fear persecution to have access to a protection outside of Burma and in
Thailand and it will be critical for authorities here to continue to
permit such refuge," he added.

The United States, which has settled more than 60,000 Myanmar refugees
since 2005, has already criticised the regime for effectively forcing the
dissolution of the main opposition party led by democracy icon Aung San
Suu Kyi.

Schwartz said he was "very gratified" that the Thai officials he met
"seemed to recognise that it will be conditions on the ground and not the
conducting of elections in and of themselves... that will be the key
factor in determining whether it's safe for people to return".

In December Thailand defied the United States, European Union and United
Nations by forcibly repatriating about 4,500 Hmong people from camps in
the country's north back to Laos, despite concerns of persecution on their
return.

Schwartz was due to visit Laos after Thailand and discuss the conditions
of the returned Hmong.

He said he would also discuss the rights of returnees to leave, especially
a group of 158 recognised refugees who were sent back despite firm offers
of resettlement in third countries, including the United States.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

June 10, New Light of Myanmar
Sending natural gas through Yadana-Yangon 24-inch diameter offshore
natural gas pipeline launched

Nay Pyi Taw - Minister for Energy U Lun Thi attended the ceremony to
transport natural gas through Yadana-Yangon 24-inch diameter offshore
pipeline on the platform of Yadana Offshore Natural Gas Exploration of
Mottama Offshore yesterday.

Officials of Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise and Total E&P Myanmar Co,
reported on successful connection of Yadana-Yangon 24-inch diameter
offshore natural gas pipeline and programme for sending natural gas from
Yadana Offshore Natural Gas Region.

In his speech, the minister said that thanks to concerted efforts of the
Ministry of Energy and the company, the laying of 24-inch diameter
offshore natural gas pipeline was completed successfully. He urged all to
strive for systematic transporting of natural gas from Yadana gas field
through 24-inch diameter offshore pipeline.

At 9 am, the minister launched the operation of the 24-inch diameter
offshore natural gas pipeline.

The minister and party viewed installation of globe valve that controls
the gas flow, gas metering devices and measurement works.

On arrival at 24-inch diameter offshore natural gas pipeline center camp
(Daw Nyein) near Daw Nyein Village of Ahmar Township, Pyapon District,
officials of MOGE reported on progress in building the pipeline center
(Daw Nyein Camp).

The minister stressed the need to control the flow of gas through new
24-inch diameter gas pipeline at the pipeline center of inland region and
supervise to send the gas to Gas Distribution Station (Ywama).

The minister and party looked into functions of natural gas measurement
and distribution at Pipeline Centre.

With a view to satisfying demands of domestic gas consumption, a total of
85.43 miles long onshore and 94.52 miles long offshore 24-inch diameter
natural flow of gas pipeline have been laid between the Yadana Natural Gas
Region of Mottama Offshore and the Gas Distribution Station (Ywama) of
Yangon.

Now, the test-run of sending gas has been completed successfully.
Beginning 8 June morning, natural gas from Yadana Natural Gas Region is
being sent from Yadana Natural Gas Region of Mottama Offshore to Gas
Distribution Station (Ywama) of Yangon through new 24-inch diameter
pipeline. Therefore, natural gas will be added for the local consumption
from the Ywama Station. - MNA

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

June 10, UN News Centre
Top UN official travels to Asia for talks on Myanmar

A senior United Nations official arrived in Singapore today for talks with
the country’s authorities about the situation in Myanmar.

Vijay Nambiar, who serves as UN Chef de Cabinet, is visiting Asian nations
in his capacity as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on
Myanmar.

He arrived in Singapore from New Delhi, where he held talks with Indian
officials, having met with Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and National
Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon.

Mr. Nambiar will travel to Beijing on Friday for further discussions with
Chinese authorities.

Earlier this year, the Secretary-General called for “fair, transparent and
credible elections” in Myanmar in which all citizens – including Nobel
Peace Prize laureate and prominent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi –
can take part freely.

The polls are the first to be held in the country in two decades as part
of a Government-designed timetable towards greater democratization.

Mr. Ban has also voiced concern over new electoral laws in Myanmar which
do not meet UN expectations of what is required for an inclusive political
process.

According to media reports, the new laws relate to the registration of
political parties and prohibit anyone with a criminal conviction from
being a member of an official party.

____________________________________

June 10, Democratic Voice of Burma
Burma elections ‘on 10 October’ – Francis Wade

US senator Jim Webb has said he expects elections in Burma this year to be
held on 10 October and said that people should vote in order to “build the
future a step at a time”.

Webb has long been an advocate for engagement with the Burmese junta, a
stance that has riled the factions within the old guard of Burma’s
pro-democracy movement. A fortnight ago, a senior member of the
now-disbanded National League for Democracy (NLD) party warned that Webb
would not be welcomed on a diplomatic visit to Burma.

The NLD announced they would boycott the elections in light of laws that
ban leader Aung San Suu Kyi from participating, but other details
surrounding the election date have remained typically vague.

“What I’m hearing is that they will take place
on 10-10-10,” Webb told the
Asia Society. If true, the date would be in keeping with successive
Burmese generals’ fixation on numerology, which has dictated key decisions
in the past: Ne Win, Burma’s first dictator, ordered that the Burmese
currency be issued in denominations of 45 and 90, which are divisible by
nine, his lucky number.

He also initially set the date of his resignation for 8 August 1988, which
triggered the bloody student protests known as the ‘8888 uprising’, an
auspicious figure in Burmese numerology.

The government is yet to confirm the date for the elections, although
senior ministers have set they will be held in the latter half of 2010.
Leaked details from a meeting in January this year between Burma’s
agriculture minister, Htay Oo, and the head of Japan’s Nippon Foundation,
Yohei Sasakawa, suggested that Htay Oo had told Sasakawa elections would
be in October.

International opinion on the elections has been mixed: while the Obama
administration and other Western leaders officially support the NLD’s
decision, and Webb has acknowledged that the polls are designed to
preserve the military regime, he told reporters yesterday that he did not
support a boycott.

“In East Asia, in Southeast Asia, you have to build the future a step at a
time,” he said. “When’s the last time China had an election? When’s the
last time Vietnam had an election?

“It doesn’t mean we don’t talk to them, and it doesn’t mean we don’t try
to advance the notions of a fairer society.”
____________________________________

June 10, Mizzima News
Commission of inquiry inches closer to realization

The formation of a United Nations commission of inquiry into alleged
crimes against humanity committed in Burma during the course of the
country’s decades long civil war and political standoff has gained a
further advocate.

During a June 8, 2010, debate of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,
Slovakia became the fourth government to support such an inquiry, joining
the ranks of Australia, the Czech Republic and United Kingdom.

Rosha Fedor, the Slovak representative, in justifying Bratislava’s
decision, told the congress, “[T]he first national elections in Myanmar
[Burma] could have served as a window to national reconciliation, respect
for human rights, and democracy, but on the contrary, the new electoral
law fell far below international standards, seriously undermined the
rights of expression, assembly and association, and discriminated on the
basis of political opinions.”

Either the Human Rights Council or Security Council may initiate a
commission of inquiry, though it is generally assumed China and Russia
would automatically oppose any such undertaking at the Security Council
level.

On the basis of historical precedence, it can be assumed that a commission
of inquiry into matters in Burma would include an investigation into
violations of international and human rights law, the determination of
whether or not acts of genocide have occurred, the identification of
perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and a means of ensuring that
those responsible for violations are held accountable.

A commission of inquiry would not, however, have prosecutorial authority,
which would instead likely lie with the International Criminal Court
following UN recommendation.

Human Rights Watch, advocating for the creation of such a commission,
believes a UN commission of inquiry “would potentially have a positive
effect in bringing various parties to the negotiations, and potentially
spur multilateral peace talks in Burma.”

Supporters of the motion further contend Burma’s generals fear
accountability, and that a commission of inquiry would awaken those in
authority of the immediate need for action in light of facing criminal
prosecution.

However, there is also concern that a commission of inquiry would only
serve to push an already highly xenophobic ruling clique into a further
state of isolationism, making dialogue and an eventual solution to the
crisis that much more difficult to initiate.

In 2004, a commission of inquiry was established to investigate the
possibility of crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
While the commission did not support allegations of genocide, it did find
evidence of systemic violations of human rights and international law.

Meanwhile, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe of the United States, during the
same session of the Human Rights Council, gave notice that Washington was
also considering adding its name to those countries in favor of a
commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity committed in Burma.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

June 10, Wall Street Journal
Keeping Burma out of the nuclear silo – Kelley Currie

Endless negotiations and appeasement won't work. Look at what happened
with North Korea.

Recent reports about the Burmese junta's efforts to secure nuclear
weapons—including allegations of illicit nuclear cooperation with North
Korea in a leaked United Nations report—have renewed international
attention on this perennial Southeast Asian backwater. The good news is
that these new reports are causing policy makers to take notice. But while
the junta's bad behavior and nasty bedfellows deserve attention as a
significant threat to regional and global security, those concerned about
a potentially nuclear Burma should resist the impulse to narrowly focus
their policy responses on the nuclear issue while overlooking the
political crisis that spawned it.

With their brutal style of misrule, penchant for numerology, and almost
comically anachronistic propaganda, the thuggish generals who run Burma
are not widely considered to be the most sophisticated bunch. However the
junta has shown a remarkable capacity for learning when it comes to
maintaining its power. Unfortunately, the lessons they seem to be studying
most closely these days are those being taught by North Korea. Kim Jong Il
seems to be their role model for regime preservation and international
relations, as he has successfully used the threat of nuclear weapons to
wring a measure of respect from the international community.

And why shouldn't the generals view Kim with admiration? Once North Korea
got serious about seeking nuclear weapons, the U.S. and other countries
adopted a pattern of policy responses driven by nonproliferation
imperatives rather than addressing the underlying source of these
dangerous nuclear ambitions: a corrupt, illegitimate regime that believed
it needed nuclear weapons to preserve its monopoly on power. Instead of
using all available means to support internal opposition to the North
Korean regime and cut off its external support, U.S. policy narrowed to
the point it was held hostage to increasingly futile efforts to stop North
Korea's progress toward a nuclear weapon.

Today, Kim Jong Il's nuclear program serves as a powerful deterrent to any
serious effort to rid the North Korean people of their parasitic ruler,
just as he hoped it would. America's non-proliferation approach has
demonstrably failed in its primary goal of stopping North Korea from going
nuclear, and has done nothing to improve the quality of its governance at
home or general behavior abroad. If anything, Kim has become steadily more
repressive and obstreperous the closer he gets to his nuclear goals.
Former National Security Council counterproliferation official Jamie Fly
recently suggested that the Burmese-North Korean nexus is itself further
evidence of the complete failure of the narrow, process-oriented U.S.
approach.

Likewise, efforts at engaging the Burmese regime—both historically and
more recently—have shown the woeful inadequacy of traditional diplomacy in
dealing with a determined atavistic dictatorship. This is true whether the
subject is elections or humanitarian assistance or nuclear weapons,
because everything comes back to regime preservation.

The Burmese junta faces no external threats that can be used as a stalking
horse to justify its pursuit of nuclear weaponry. The regime's only
enemies are within, and nuclear weapons are not a useful tactical weapon
against renegade ethnic groups or an irreversible legitimacy deficit.

While opportunities to undermine North Korea's regime have narrowed as its
nuclear program has advanced, in Burma there are still viable options
beyond the nuclear non-proliferation policy silo. If the latest reports
are accurate, there is time to stop Burma's nuclear progress cold by
undermining the junta's unaccountable, irresponsible grip on power. And
unlike North Korea, in Burma there is an existing, legitimate democratic
option that stands ready and waiting to work with the international
community to establish a Burmese government that rejects nuclear
brinksmanship in favor of cooperation, sustainable development and
competent governance.

Make no mistake: The prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of the
Burmese military is truly horrific. Regional governments with the most to
lose from this scenario—namely India and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations—need to take this threat seriously, and abandon their
head-in-the-sand approach in favor of tough, swift multilateral and
bilateral action. China too faces a stark choice in responding to the
behavior of two of its most troublesome clients. The U.S. and other
governments that have genuine concerns about the junta's nuclear ambitions
should remain focused on what can be done in the near and medium term to
produce a genuine transition to an accountable, responsible government in
Burma and, as a Burmese activist recently suggested, "start throwing the
kitchen sink" at this problem.

Back when the junta was merely brutalizing its own people, its Asian
neighbors felt they could afford to look away and western democracies
could content themselves with symbolic moralizing. Now that the larger
consequences of tolerating the junta are becoming painfully clear, the
region and the world have a choice: Allow the junta to follow its North
Korean friends down the nuclear path, or find a way to deprive them of the
power to keep making bad decisions on behalf of the Burmese people.

Ms. Currie is a senior fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, a
Washington-based think tank.

____________________________________

June 10, Open Democracy (UK)
Burma’s authoritarian upgrade: 1990-2010 – David Scott Mathieson

The Burmese junta’s sophisticated and ruthless project of reinvention -
“SPDC 2.0” - is preparing the way for an extension of its rule in civilian
guise, says David Scott Mathieson.

The twentieth anniversary of Burma’s last elections on 27 May 1990 was
recalled by many Burmese inside and outside the country as a defining date
in the country’s political history. It is also an opportunity to measure
the prospects for the elections scheduled by the country’s military rulers
to take place sometime (perhaps 10 October) in 2010.

It is worth recalling the scale and impact of the events of 1990. The
election took place two years after the Burmese military in August 1988
massacred more than 3,000 protesters, part of a huge popular uprising that
called for an end to military rule and a transition to democracy. In this
context the election itself was a surprisingly free and fair process which
delivered a resounding defeat for the military regime, as the opposition
National League for Democracy (NLD) won more than 60% of the popular vote
and 80% of parliamentary seats. Yet the stunned regime recovered its
balance, refused to hand over power, and restored its security; in the
process it reinvented itself from the State Law and Order Restoration
Council (Slorc) to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

In the 2000s, the regime started carefully to draft a new constitution and
prepare the ground for the next elections. But this time, Burma’s military
junta is not steering any sort of democratic transition; it is upgrading
to a more sophisticated authoritarian model - SPDC Version 2.0. The
generals learnt a valuable lesson in 1990: elections must not be left to
the people’s free choice, for we may not get the result we want (see
Joakim Kreutz, “Burma: sources of political change”, 27 August 2008).
The military’s reinvention

The elections may produce a more user-friendly civilian parliament, one
that other countries may feel more comfortable engaging with (which indeed
is part of their purpose). But the new parliament will remain tightly
controlled by the same military that has turned Burma into a political and
economic abomination. There is little hope that the so-called “roadmap to
disciplined democracy” will produce any semblance of a genuinely open
society, or even begin to address the dire ills of contemporary Burma: a
major health and poverty crisis, a wrecked education system, and continued
social divisions based on wealth, ethnicity and to a lesser extent
religion. Burma has been a divided society for decades, and the military
has exploited and profited from such divisions in order to justify its
oppressive rule (see “Burma: A Disastrous Taste of Democracy”, Bangkok
Post, 2 May 2010).

The Burmese military, or Tatmadaw, has spent the past twenty years
preparing for this upgrade through marginalising the political opposition;
rewriting the constitution; drafting electoral laws that leave nothing to
chance; and exploiting the economy to redistribute assets in favour of the
officer-corps. Some observers contend that this upgrade will benefit the
country if Burma becomes more like Vietnam, China, or even Singapore - all
authoritarian states with thriving economies.

The military leadership and their close business associates control key
sectors of the economy and have benefited from recent government
“privatisations” of state assets. For instance, in February 2010, the
junta began to sell off a network of government-controlled gas-stations,
shipping-ports, factories, cinemas and other assets. It is suspected such
sales may in part provide a source of electioneering finance for the
Tatmadaw’s friends and allies who contest the elections.

Burma’s military government also controls nearly $5 billion in foreign
reserves, accumulated thanks to lucrative natural-gas sales and the use of
an accounting trick: for domestic purposes, gas revenues are recorded at
the official exchange rate ($1 to 6 Burmese Kyat) but actual payments are
made in US dollars (worth $1 to 800-1,000 Burmese Kyat at the market
rate), the difference being deposited (it is suspected) in offshore
bank-accounts.

At the same time, thousands of military officers are taking off their
uniforms in order to take positions of authority in the civilian
government. These former officers will want to be compensated for the loss
of rank and privileges; the result could be the emergence of a new, more
sophisticated patronage system.

The new parliament will ensure this patronage system functions
effectively. More than thirty political parties, many with links to the
military, have already applied to Burma’s electoral commission to be
registered. In late April 2010, prime minister Thein Sein and more than
twenty other senior generals resigned from their military posts and - in a
move was long expected as part of the authoritarian-upgrade script -
registered the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). This could
make the party supremely powerful, for it will utilise the Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a mass-based social-welfare
organisation created by the regime in 1993, which currently has more than
26 million members, and offices and economic interests throughout Burma.

The 2008 constitution reserves one-quarter of lower-house seats to serving
military officers, and one-third of upper-house seats. The most important
ministerial portfolios reserved for the military include defence (control
over their budget and military justice), home affairs (domestic
repression), and border affairs (cross-border trade, access to illicit
rackets such as drugs, logging and smuggling, and license to conduct
ongoing offensives against ethnic minorities). In other words, the
military’s interests will continue to be safeguarded without civilian
oversight, and free from the drudgery of everyday governance.
The prospect of power

The release of long-awaited electoral laws in March 2010 has set the
ground-rules for the elections. The laws exclude serving prisoners from
being members of political parties or electoral candidates: a cruel
provision that neuters more than 2,100 political prisoners, including
dissidents and people who won seats in the last election in 1990. Many of
the prisoners, such as famous student leaders Min Ko Naing and Htay Kwe,
and leaders of ethnic-Shan political parties, have been detained because
their peaceful, popular and conciliatory style poses a challenge to the
military government.

An estimated 428 members of the main opposition party, the National League
for Democracy are in detention. The laws prescribe that the party, if it
chose to re-register with the electoral commission, would then have to
expel these individuals - including the NLD’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi,
who remains under house-arrest. On 29 March, the NLD decided that these
legal provisions were unjust and announced it would not contest the
elections.

Some of the already registered parties competed in the 1990 elections;
they include ethnic-based parties (such as the Pa-O National Organisation)
and new configurations of elites. An optimistic view (to which some
analysts subscribe) is that the election may be part of a slow but
inevitable process of change - not a mere SPDC 2.0 upgrade, but a new SPDC
2010. They expect the new version to bring about real democratic progress,
if not overnight but in the years ahead. The coming months will reveal
more about the machinations of the process, but the optimism seems sadly
unwarranted. The basic configurations of power in Burma are unlikely to
change, regardless of the electoral results. It is hard to imagine the
military is devoting all this effort only to transfer its inheritance to
civilians it has long repressed. The next two decades may well be the same
as the past two, but with the disguise of a less overt and
near-caricatural regime.

The prospect, then, is that the authoritarian upgrade ushers in a new era
of military rule in Burma with a civilian face. The best way to avoid this
fate is for the international community to speak with one voice and refuse
to endorse the flawed process in any way, either through election
monitoring or cynical paeans of progress just because polls are being
held.

The next step would be to strengthen the targeted financial sanctions
against senior members of the military government; and combine this with
principled diplomacy that calls for the release of political prisoners, an
inclusive political process, and more humanitarian assistance directly to
Burmese communities.

These are the vital ways to exert pressure on the SPDC. Only if they are
followed will there be hope that the military’s more outwardly
sophisticated control of the country can be exchanged for a genuinely
democratic package.

David Scott Mathieson is Burma researcher for Human Rights Watch
____________________________________

June 10, Irrawaddy
Thai-Burma relations through the Thaksin prism – Simon Roughneen

Bangkok — After the crackdown on the two-month-long Redshirt protest in
Bangkok, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra remains a controversial and
polarizing figure in Thai politics. Listed by the Thai courts as a
“terrorist” and still running from a 2008 corruption conviction, the
former prime minister might be on the wrong side of the law, but he
remains on the right side of his millions of supporters.

Adored by Redshirts for his pro-poor economic redistribution, he is seen
by some as the man who changed Thai politics and tried to take power from
the traditional elites. Opponents dismiss him as a populist in the style
of Hugo Chavez, who bought votes with social spending and centralized
power around himself, overriding Thailand's 1997 Constitution and playing
fast and loose with human rights. Others say he represented and
personified a brash nouveau-riche elite who sought to undermine the old
school networks at the top of Thailand's political and economic tree.

A mask of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, red rose and
banners are left by anti-government Redshirt protesters after crackdown of
security forces in central Bangkok in May. (Photo: Reuters)
Thaksin tried to have an impact on the world stage too, and still does, as
he flits from Cambodia to Dubai to Montenegro and beyond. Despite
dismissing the UN as “not my father” while in office, he and Redshirt
leaders called for UN intervention during the recent anti-government
rally. Launching his new book “Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His
Foreign Policy” on Wednesday, Thai academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun said
that Thaksin extended the market-oriented foreign policy of previous PM
Gen Chatichai Choonhavan (1988-91), undermining the sway of the Democrat
Party-oriented old school diplomatic elite, whom he dismissed as
“dinosaurs.”

While describing many of Thaksin's foreign policy initiatives as “bold,”
Pavin added that these were often “hollow.” Pavin is a former Thai foreign
service officer who served under Thaksin and is now a research fellow at
Singapore's Institute for Southeast Asian Studies.

Thaksin launched a number of new foreign policy initiatives, famously
telling foreign diplomats to act as “CEO Ambassadors,” and pulling
Thailand closer to China while dismissing the US “War on Terror.” Pavin
says, however, that many of Thaksin's foreign relations gambits were “for
personal gain as much as national self-interest,” and noted that Thaksin
changed his tune on terrorism after 2004 at the onset of the Malay Muslim
rebellion in Thailand's deep south. Pavin summed up Thaksin's foreign
relations as an extension of his domestic policy, seeking to piggyback on
globalization “to find and open new markets for his grassroots
supporters,” and directing ambassadors to focus on trade and investment
over democratization and human rights.

Thaksin had a major impact on Thai-Burmese relations upon assuming office,
seeing engagement with the junta as a commercial venture first and
foremost. Surakiart Sathirathai served as foreign minister during the
Thaksin administrations. Speaking at a seminar on Thai foreign relations
in February, he said that during the Thai Rak Thai administration, the
government “worked to bring Myanmar in from the cold” with Thai diplomacy
a key factor in cajoling the Burmese junta into a 2003 announcement that
it would draft a new constitution as part of the so-called “seven-step
road map to democracy.” However, Burma's 2008 Constitution has been
widely-dismissed as a sham, designed to put a civilian facade on continued
military rule.

Thaksin's somewhat cavalier, faux-entrepreneurial style of diplomacy as
seen elsewhere, came across as little more than unprincipled opportunism
in Burma. Thailand fostered new trade and investment links with the junta
during Thaksin's rule, with Thaksin opponents saying that these, like many
of his foreign policy and trade initiatives, were as much about personal
or business interests as anything else. Thaksin's Burma visits led to Shin
Corp, the telecoms company once owned by Thaksin’s family, signing a deal
with Bagan Cybertech, an Internet service provider run by the son of
former prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. That deal was a factor in the
February decision by the Thai courts to seize US $1.4 billion of Thaksin's
assets. Khin Nyunt was prime minister of Burma in 2003-04, before being
ousted in a purge led by ruling strongman Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Khin Nyunt
was seen as close to Thaksin and slightly more open to dealing with the
West than others in the junta.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy, Zoya Phan, the International Coordinator of the
Burma Campaign UK, summed up Thaksin's role in Burma as “in favor of
supporting military dictatorship for economic reasons rather than
promoting human rights and democracy.”

Sharing a 2,400-km border, Thailand and Burma have had a close if somewhat
ambivalent relationship down through the years. The Burmese sacking of the
old Siamese capital of Ayutthaya in 1767 is remembered as a tragedy in
Bangkok, but is celebrated by the Burmese—or at least by the ruling junta
in Naypyidaw, which is fond of building statues and monuments to Burmese
military icons from the past, cementing its own self-image as the
historically rooted guardian of the Burmese nation.

Thai political and military elites might view all this with some
bemusement, keen to recall that more recently, Thailand emerged the sole
Southeast Asian country to resist Western imperialism as the British and
French encroached on either side. In the 1970s, when Burma's military
rulers took to socialism, Thailand's US-aligned governments looked on with
alarm during the Cold War, fears exacerbated as Communist Vietnam invaded
Cambodia, while Laos veered to the left as well.

The junta for its part has at times resented what it perceives as de facto
Thai support for ethnic minority insurgents in Burma, though this analysis
must be tempered by Thailand's haphazard policy of clamping down on
cross-border drug trafficking, which benefits some of the ethnic militias
financially. Border skirmishes and cross-border attacks by both country's
armies took place in 2002.

However, Thaksin's attempts to replace Indonesia's Suharto and Malaysia's
Mahathir as a de facto regional figurehead for Southeast Asia might have
backfired. The junta may have taken his references to the ancient
“Suvarnabhumi” region as code for Thai political dominance of mainland
Southeast Asia, or at least reinforcing views elsewhere that Thailand sees
itself as superior to its less well-off neighbors.

Puanthong Pawakapan, an international relations teacher at Chulalongkorn
University, said that Thailand does not really have a coherent Burma
policy. She said that while the current Abhisit government requests the
release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of Burma's political prisoners,
and seeks free and fair elections in 2010, it tempers these requests with
claims that “engagement” with the junta is the only way forward, stating
that “Thailand will not interfere in domestic policy.”

Business and trade links are growing, and likely motivate the Democrat-led
government's unwillingness to take a tougher line with the junta, despite
tough talk during the party's time in opposition when it lambasted Thaksin
for his close ties to the Burmese generals.

According to the Asian Development Bank, Burmese exports to Thailand have
more than tripled since 2003 to $3.3 billion in 2008 due mainly to natural
gas. Thailand buys about 30 percent of its gas from Burma. About
two-thirds of Thailand’s electricity comes from domestic gas supplies and
those from its neighbor. Thailand is thought to be the top investor in
Burma, according to some analyses. According to the junta, Thailand ranked
first among country investors into Burma in the 10 years up to 2008, ahead
of Britain and Singapore who apparently take second and third place.

Wassana Mututanond, who is an investment adviser at Thailand’s Board of
Investment, said Thailand had invested $7.41 billion in Burma between 1988
and 2009, making it the top investor in Burma in terms of investment
value, according to a report on the Thai News Agency website on Friday. A
new Thai-Myanmar Business Council was recently established to embellish
growing commercial ties.

Might all this be somewhat shortsighted on the part of the Bangkok
government? The usual line by successive Thai Governments—both
Thaksin-linked and Democrat—is that what happens in Burma is a domestic
Burmese issue. However, the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Causus, a
network of Asean parliamentarians who advocate democratic reform in Burma,
has published papers outlining the regional security threat posed by
Burma, and its divisive internal politics.

That was before last week's revelations carried by the exiled Burmese news
agency Democratic Voice of Burma and based on the testimony of a Tatmadaw
defector, that the junta is seeking nuclear weapons and is collaborating
with North Korea on this and on conventional weaponry development.

Some members of the ruling Democrat Party take the junta threat more
seriously. Speaking before Christmas, Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand
Paribatra said that Burmese military spending could fuel a regional arms
race. He added that the lack of national reconciliation in Burma would
mean continued violence and instability, especially in the borderlands
where ethnic minorities live. This would lead to more displacement, and,
inevitably, Thailand would receive additional refugees.

Zoya Phan, a young Karen woman who fled across the border to Thailand
during the 1990s after her home was attacked by Burmese government forces,
told The Irrawaddy in an email: “Over the past 25 years, Thailand has
earned the respect of the international community by giving shelter to
refugees fleeing abuses in Burma. I was one of them fleeing from my home
and getting sanctuary in a refugee camp in Thailand.”

But rather than proceed as if the nature of military rule in Burma has no
impact beyond Burmese borders, Zoya Phan suggested to The Irrawaddy that
if Thailand “wants to see cessation of refugees and migrant workers coming
from Burma, what it needs to do is to tackle the root causes of the
problem, which is a dictatorship that is responsible for human rights
violations against civilians.”