BurmaNet News, July 10 - 12, 2010

[Editor]

July 10 – 12, 2010 Issue #3998


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar troops seize vulnerable boys for tough army life
NLM: Population statistics to be applied in adopting plans for education,
health and job opportunities with aim of developing human resources

ON THE BORDER
DPA: Thai-Myanmar cross-border operations face uncertain future
Mizzima: Dengue, cholera spread Thai border refugee camp

BUSINESS / TRADE
Nation (Thailand): Thai businesses eyeing investments in Burma

HEALTH
Irrawaddy: Burmese authorities deny plague reports

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Refugees unlikely to return soon after election: EU

OPINION / OTHER
Sydney Morning Herald: Burma's democrats will not cave in to dictatorship
– U Win Tin
Independent (UK): Burma's paranoid dictator plots his dignified exit
TIME: Is Burma's junta trying to join the nuclear club? – Christopher Shay
Irrawaddy: Getting under the generals' thick skins – Withaya Huanok



____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 12, Agence France Presse
Myanmar troops seize vulnerable boys for tough army life – Rachel O'Brien

Mae Sot, Thailand — The spiky-haired teenager said he clearly recalls the
day when Myanmar state troops whisked him from the streets of Mandalay,
accused him of stealing and forced him to become a child soldier.

"They said if you don't want to go to jail, you must join the army. I said
I didn't want to join but whenever I said it they beat me again and again.
When I agreed to join they stopped beating me," Win Sein told AFP.

He said he was homeless and aged about 15 -- although he doesn't know his
birthday -- when he was recruited less than two years ago, joining
thousands of under-18s believed to be in Myanmar's state army and ethnic
armed groups.

After four months of boot camp, involving a gruelling fitness regime,
weapons training and corporal punishment, the youngster said he was sent
to the frontline of civil war against ethnic rebels in remote jungle
regions.

A year later, Win Sein fled his post and eventually escaped from the
military-ruled country, arriving in the Thai border town Mae Sot in March.

"The main reason was not the fighting, but because the sergeants were
really, really brutal. They always insulted and beat the child soldiers,"
he said. "So I decided to run away, whatever happened to me."

While it is difficult to verify former child soldiers' backgrounds,
Myanmar analyst David Mathieson of Human Rights Watch said Win Sein's
story was "sadly typical, in terms of training times, locations and the
workload".

Win Sein, whose name AFP has changed to protect him and his family, is now
in the care of Mae Sot-based aid group Social Action for Women (SAW),
where he was initially reluctant to discuss his harrowing experience.

"After he arrived, he would lose control. He broke bottles and used the
glass to cut his arm," said SAW's director Aye Aye Mar. "He didn't talk.
He didn't answer any questions we asked. He didn't trust anyone."

Such psychological damage is typical in youngsters who have spent time in
the army, added the director, who has looked after around 20 former child
soldiers from Myanmar.

Win Sein said the children at his boot camp were forced to tell the
lieutenant they had signed up voluntarily, and "because they were afraid
of the sergeants who recruited them, they lied about their age".

Such underage enlistment, which is banned by law in Myanmar, is a result
of regimental efforts to keep numbers up in the vast army rather than a
central junta directive, according to Mathieson of Human Rights Watch.

"It's basically free market recruitment," he said.

"It's certainly not official -- there's no paper trail saying it's coming
from the war office in (the capital city) Naypyidaw."

Mathieson said there are likely to be thousands of child soldiers in the
state military, which is thought to be up to 400,000 strong.

And the problem is not confined to the official force in Myanmar, a nation
ruled by the military since 1962 and embroiled in civil war in ethnic
minority areas since gaining independence in 1948.

A United Nations report released in May named nine of the country's ethnic
armed groups, as well as the government army, for recruiting and using
children in conflict, noting "extremely limited access" to monitor such
forces.

Win Sein, who before his recruitment had run away from home to escape
abuse by his step-father, said street children were a particularly easy
target for state troops who get paid or rewarded for filling military
personnel quotas.

He said he met numerous fellow child soldiers with a similarly penurious
background to his own.

"Soldiers dressed in plain clothes go to children who live on the street
and say, 'Hey little brother, do you want a snack? I will get you one'.

"These street children are hungry and have no food, so they are happy
someone is buying something for them and they follow the men," Win Sein
said.

Steve Marshall, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) liaison
officer in Myanmar, agreed the children preyed upon "tend to be those in a
vulnerable situation", such as boys on their own at railway stations and
markets.

He said the youngest boy known to be signed up was aged just 11.

With the junta's agreement, the ILO has a process for families to complain
about underage recruitment cases, which if verified are submitted to the
government to get the children released and their recruiters disciplined.

Since 2007 more than 100 victims have been discharged and numerous army
personnel reprimanded for their part in such cases, including three who
were jailed, and there has been training by the military to raise
awareness of recruitment law.

But "there is no firm evidence suggesting that the situation has markedly
improved," Marshall said.

The youngsters roped into battle can face destroyed childhoods, uncertain
futures and -- for deserters such as Win Sein -- a lingering fear of
retribution.

"I would like to see my mother and sister again but I dare not contact
them because I don't want to get them in trouble," he said. "I also don't
want them to know what I have been through."

____________________________________

July 11, New Light of Myanmar
Population statistics to be applied in adopting plans for education,
health and job opportunities with aim of developing human resources

Nay Pyi Taw –The Ministry of Immigration and Population marked the 22nd
World Population Day 2010 at its hall, here, this morning.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Immigration and Population U Maung
Oo said that the global countries observe the World Population Day
commemorative ceremonies whenever 11th July comes with the aim of
understanding more about the correlation between the population problems
and development.

Myanmar also holds the World Population Day annually as a member of global
family. The motto “Everyone counts” was designated for this year’s World
Population Day with a view to enabling the people to understand the
individual role and organizing them to cooperate in collecting the correct
and accurate statistics to be used in adopting the population and
development programmes and plans.

He said that both natural resources and human resources are essential for
building a modern and developed nation.

Socio-economic plans and programmes are to be adopted to have human
resources. The results of the plans depend on correct and accurate facts
of population development.

In conducting socio-economic research, the choice of facts to be collected
is playing a crucial role in insterests of strata of population
particularly women, teens and the groups with lack of abilities . It
contributes to drawing the work plans.

He noted that the State Peace and Development Council is undertaking
all-round development tasks to build a peaceful, modern and developed
nation. In this regard, the population statistics will be applied in
adopting the plans on education, health and job opportunities with the aim
of developing the human resources. After that, he stressed the need to lay
down the strategies and tactics for the defence and development of the
State.

In Myanmar, he said that the Population Department with the assistance of
UNFPA conducted collection of appraisals representing the whole nation to
have the correct and accurate data on population. The appraisal on changes
of population and birth was collected in 1991 and the appraisals on birth
and reproductive health in 1997, 2001 and 2006. Afterwards, the reports
and research papers were compiled by conducting research on facts and
figures of individual persons the birthing and reproductive health of the
women between 15 and 49 aged who had married.

According to the statistics gathered by the Population Department, about
70 per cent of population is residing in the rural area of Myanmar and
most of them are engaged in agriculture. Indeed, the agriculture sector
secures a large potion of the State’s economy. At present, the Settlement
and Land Record Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and
Irrigation is making preparations for collection of agricultural census in
2010 with the assistance of FAO, he said.

The minister thanked UNFPA, WHO, UNDP, UNICEF, FAO, WFP, Myanmar Women’s
Affairs Federation, Myanmar Maternal and Children Association and NGOs and
INGOs for their contributions to availability of correct statistics. In
conclusion, the minister urged all global families to build the healthy
and happy world.

Resident Representative Mr Mohamed S Abdel Ahad of UNFPA read the message
for 2010 World Population Day sent by Executive Director Ms Thoraya Obaid
of UNFPA. The minister presented prizes to the winners in the article and
colour photo contests to mark the 2010 World Population Day. Deputy
Minister U Win Sein also awarded the winners in the university, college
and higher education level essay contest.

Resident Representative of UNFPA Mr Mohamed S Abdel Ahad, the
Director-General of Immigration and National Registration Department and
the Director-General of Population Department presented prizes to the
winners in the middle school level essay and poster contests.

After posing for documentary photo, the minister and guests viewed the
photo and poster shows in commemoration of the 2010 World Population Day.

Also present on the occasion were Deputy Minister for Education U Aung Myo
Min, Deputy Minister for Health Dr Mya Oo, Deputy Minister for Hotels and
Tourism U Aye Myint Kyu, Deputy Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and
Resettlement U Kyaw Myint, Deputy Minister for Labour U Tin Tun Aung,
Chief of Myanmar Police Force Brig-Gen Khin Yi, departmental heads,
diplomats, resident representatives of UN agencies, responsible persons of
INGOs, officials and guests.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

July 12, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Thai-Myanmar cross-border operations face uncertain future – Peter Janssen

Mae Sot, Thailand - When Cynthia Maung stumbled across the Thai-Myanmar
border into Mae Sot in 1988 after a 10-day jungle trek to flee a military
crackdown in Yangon, she planned to stay a few months at most.

Twenty-two years later, Dr Maung's Mae Tao clinic is a border institution,
employing a staff of 634 who provide treatment to more than 2,000 patients
a day suffering from malaria to amputated limbs.

Maung's pioneering health work for Burmese refugees and migrant workers
has not gone unnoticed. She has won a dozen international awards,
including the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2003, and a Nobel Peace Prize
nomination in 2005.

The clinic, founded by Maung in 1989, has grown from a makeshift shack
where she sterilized thermometers in a rice cooker to a sprawling, albeit
still makeshift, community hospital with 150 beds, a laboratory, pharmacy,
prosthetics centre, first-aid training programmes and a school.

Nearly half the patients are migrant workers and their families living in
around Mae Sot, where an estimated 200,000 Burmese survive in a semi-legal
limbo.

The rest of her patients come from across the border.

"Every day we see more and more people seeking help," Maung said. "Our
most severe cases come from inside Burma."

Not all are fleeing fighting and landmines. Some are simply escaping
Myanmar's notoriously poor medical system.

War Yar Htuu, a 15-year-old from Myawadi, across the Moei River from Mae
Sot, came to get treatment for a leg infection.

 "I had no money to go to a Myanmar hospital," said Htuu. "The hospitals
in Myanmar are okay but they only accept you if you have money."

After 48 years of military rule, Myanmar has gone from being one of the
richest countries in South-East Asia to one of the poorest, with among the
worst health and education systems in the region.

"The system itself does not work, not even in central Burma," Maung said.
"Only people with money can use the health service."

Because of Myanmar's pariah status as a brutally run military state, it
ranks among the world's lowest recipients of foreign aid, receiving less
than 2 dollars per person each year.

Operations such as Mae Tao clinic, on the other hand, survive on foreign
largesse. Maung estimates that 95 per cent of her annual operating budget
of about 3 million dollars comes from foreign donors, the rest is met by a
token 1-dollar registration fee per patient.

With her patient load increasing 5-10 per cent annually, the clinic is
facing a budget shortfall this year, which is managed by cutbacks on free
food and postponing improvements.

The long term, especially with an election promised by Myanmar's junta
some time this year, is more worrying. Although few expect the polls to be
free or fair, the outcome is likely to increase aid going into Myanmar,
and less to cross-border operations.

"Definitely, most donors want to do more inside and less cross-border, and
I think that trend will continue after the election," said one
Bangkok-based European diplomat.

Donations to political groups in exile, based along the border, are
already drying up, and are expected to end after the polls as these groups
look increasingly ineffective, sources said.

More worrisome is the potential impact on cross-border operations such as
health services, the more than 60 schools catering to Burmese migrant
children and labour protection groups. There are some 130 Myanmar-related
non-governmental organizations in Mae Sot alone.

 "That's the big concern," said David Mathieson, Myanmar expert for Human
Rights Watch. "Because after the election it's not like the root problems
are going to change. It's not as if all the Burmese refugees and migrant
workers are going to go home after the polls, even if that's what the
Thai government wants to happen."

Thailand has yet to clarify its post-election policy towards the estimated
2 million Burmese refugees and migrant workers on its soil.

Like most governments, Bangkok is waiting to see what the polls bring, but
most observers anticipate a sham election that will install a pro-military
government.

 "After the election things will become clearer for the international
community," said Mahn Mahn, executive director of the Back Pack Health
Workers Team, that works with the Mae Tao clinic totrain health workers
inside Myanmar. "It will be clear what the election hasn't achieved."

____________________________________

July 12, Mizzima News
Dengue, cholera spread Thai border refugee camp – Salai Tun

New Delhi – A massive dengue outbreak is spreading through Mae La refugee
camp on the Thai-Burma border, and 500 refugees are receiving treatment
for the mosquito-borne fever, according to staff at the camp yesterday.

The camp that is home to almost 40,000 refugees in Thailand’s Tak province
is 35 miles (57 kilometres) from Mae Sot, the main gateway between the
countries on the Moei River opposite Burma’s Myawaddy Township. Most of
its residents are Karen.

“Last year, just about 15 people per month suffered dengue fever but
prevention was not carried out systematically, so it has not been
eradicated,” camp hospital manager Saw Nay San told Mizzima. “Early this
year, the number of dengue cases increased and about 500 people are
suffering from the fever.”

Two children and three adults at the camp had died from the fever this
year. But, prevention systems remained ineffective, Saw Nay San said.

“We don’t have enough nurses, money or medicine. We don’t have enough
mosquito repellent. During the monsoon, the mosquito population increases
so every home needs to use mosquito-repellent spray. Bushes need to be
pruned and we need to eliminate areas of standing water in the camp,” Saw
Nay San added.

“I think the patients will recover after they have received medical
treatment for about a week”, the hospital chief said.

maelah-refugee-campMoreover, cholera, passed to humans through
contaminated drinking water or food, had also been spreading through the
camp from late May, and 302 residents had received treatment, a camp
health department volunteer told Mizzima.

“Many people are suffering from the disease so we’ve got a heavy workload
that is beyond our capacity,” the volunteer said.

The water system was unable to provide adequate supply for the recently
increased number of refugees, so they have had to depend on their own
wells for drinking water, which could be contaminated as toilets were
infested with flies, the volunteer said.

“People are experiencing very low standards of living and also have
difficulties in accessing clean foods 
 which is while the cholera is
spreading,” the volunteer said.

According to the spokesman from the camp’s clinic, most of the patients
suffering dengue fever or cholera were between 1 and 60 years old.

The camp is divided into zones A, B and C and there are five quarters in
each. Most of the houses are thatched cottages. Mae La is the biggest
refugee camp among the 10 camps managed by the NGO alliance called the
Thailand Burma Border Consortium along the border. The other refugee camps
are Tham Hin, Ba Don Yang, Nu Po, Umpiem Mai, Mae La Oon, Mae Ra Ma Luang,
Ban Mae Surin, Ban Mai Nai Soi and Wieng Hang.

In Mae La camp, most of the refugees are Karen, who had since 1984 fled
Burmese Army offensives, destruction of their villages, forced
displacement and forced labour.

Around 4,000 Karen villagers escaped to Thailand in June last year when
the regime stepped up its campaign against the Karen rebels.

The Karen National Union, the country’s biggest rebel group, has been
fighting for independence in the hills of eastern Burma for the past 60
years in one of the world’s longest running insurgencies.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 12, The Nation (Thailand)
Thai businesses eyeing investments in Burma

Investors from many Thai sectors are looking to Burma, with its low
operating costs, abundant natural resources and large market, according to
the Thai-Myanmar Business Council.
Representatives of Burma's private sector visited the council in recent
weeks to lobby Thai industries to establish manufacturing plants in the
country, whose official name is Myanmar, said Thai-Myanmar Business
Council Santi Vilassakdanont. Promising sectors in Burma include food
processing, agriculture-related industries, consumer products and
garments, he said.

Burma will hold a general election at the end of this year. It is expected
that the new Burmese government will establish investment incentives aimed
at foreign businesses.

"Burma has been opening its country to foreign investment since member
nations agreed to implement the Asean Economic Community by 2015. Asean
will become a single market under this agreement, and Burma does not want
to be left behind. We're cooperating closely with the private sector in
Burma," Santi said.

Moreover, Burmese authorities want to create jobs. At present, many
Burmese labourers work in Thai manufacturing plants on the countries'
border. It makes sense for the Burmese to encourage these people to work
in their home country, he said.

The Thai-Myanmar Business Council plans to take a delegation, including
about 20 Thai businesspeople, to Burma next month, Santi said. During the
visit, the two countries will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
securing the supply of certain Burmese agricultural products to the Thai
food-processing industry, as well as garment exports from Thailand to
Burma.

Thai manufacturers will also be given opportunities to meet and establish
relationships with Burmese businesspeople.

Santi said he had also received expressions of interest from
representatives of firms in such heavy-industry sectors such as steel and
cement, as well as from the energy industry, about investing in Burma.

Other countries, including China and Singapore, are also looking for
investment opportunities in Burma. Santi said Thailand needs to take
advantage of its geographical proximity to Burma and its historical ties
with the country's people.

"Thai industries should pay more attention to investing in Burma as the
operating costs in that country, such as labour and land costs, are lower
than in Thailand. Besides, the investment regulations in Burma are less
stringent than in our country right now. We don't know yet when the
Southern Seaboard project will be ready for new investment," he said.

The Thai-Myanmar Business Council was set up in February this year as
collaboration between the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), the Thai
Chamber of Commerce and the Thai Bankers Association. Santi, who is a
former chairman of the FTI, is the first chairman of the council.

____________________________________
HEALTH

July 12, Irrawaddy
Burmese authorities deny plague reports – Wai Moe

Burmese authorities denied on Saturday that there has been an outbreak of
the plague in areas east of the Pegu mountain range, saying that the
National Health Department has found no evidence of the disease in dead
rats taken from areas considered at risk.

An announcement published in the Burmese-language Myanmar Ahlin and Kyemon
newspapers on Saturday said that while some areas were affected by an
infestation of rats in late June, the situation is now under control
following the creation of rat eradication task forces and measures to
educate the public.

The announcement did not appear in The New Light of Myanmar, the Burmese
regime's English-language mouthpiece.

Observers in Rangoon said the announcement contrasted with earlier
official statements over the past two weeks warning of a possible plague
outbreak.

At the same time as it issued reassurances that there is no danger of an
outbreak of the plague, the Burmese junta imposed strict censorship of
reports relating to the discovery of dead rats suspected of carrying the
disease near the capital, Naypyidaw.

“Some private journals attempted to publish stories about the dead rats
and the plague, but they were all rejected by the censorship board, except
for one in The Voice Weekly,” said an editor with a weekly journal in
Rangoon who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“If the government keeps real information from the public, the situation
could get worse and result in an unnecessary loss of lives,” the editor
added.

According to The Voice Weekly, an unnamed official at the Ministry of
Health told the journal that patients affected by the plague have been
effectively treated.

The Ministry of Health first expressed concerns about a possible outbreak
of the plague in early July, after dead rats were found in Napyidaw and
other places along the eastern edge of the Pegu mountains in late June.

Local people and travelers reported that thousands of rats were being
killed as they crossed the highway linking Burma's two largest cities,
Rangoon and Mandalay, possibly in an effort to escape from an area
affected by the plague.

An epidemiologist at the ministry told The Irrawaddy that some local
people had been diagnosed as having the plague but had recovered after
receiving treatment.

Reuters also reported this week that government offices in Naypyidaw
received warnings about concerns of rat-borne plague after infected dead
rodents were found in a government office compound in the capital.

The Burmese regime typically bans publication of information relating to
deadly natural disasters or outbreaks of disease.

In the days following Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, the state-run media
covered the disaster, but focused mainly on the role of the ruling
generals in providing relief.

____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

July 12, Irrawaddy
Refugees unlikely to return soon after election: EU – Lawi Weng

The European Union (EU) is not anticipating a quick return of Burmese
refugees from Thailand following Burma's planned election this year, said
an EU official in a written response to a request by The Irrawaddy for
clarification on the EU position towards Burmese refugees and migrants in
Thailand.

The request for clarification was sent by email following a news report by
the Bangkok Post on June 24 that quoted Thai Foreign Minister Kasit
Piromya as saying: “As the Burmese government is holding elections later
this year, we should help those who live outside their country to return
home and resume their lives in Burma.”

“The EU does not expect that the elections in Myanmar [Burma] in 2010 will
create conditions conducive to an immediate return of the predominantly
Karen to eastern Burma, particularly since a ceasefire between SPDC [the
Burmese government] and the Karen leadership seems unlikely to materialize
and armed conflict persists to this day,” the EU official said.

He said the EU welcomes steps taken by the Royal Thai Government since
2005 to provide the Burmese refugees “improved access to education and
training and the recognition of the right of children born in Thailand to
be granted a regular birth certificate.”

While noting that resettlement to third countries will only be a solution
for a fraction of the Burmese refugee population in Thailand, he said:
“Any forcible repatriation without a proper and transparent screening
would constitute a serious violation of the principle of non-refoulement,”
referring to an international refugee law concerning the protection of
refugees from being returned to places where their lives or freedoms could
be threatened.

The EU offical noted that though the Thai government is not a member to
the 1951 Refugee Convention, it has in the past “upheld high humanitarian
and legal standards.”

An estimated 140,000 Burmese refugees live at nine refugee camps along the
Thai-Burmese border, where many of them have been confined for many years
before getting a chance to resettle to third countries with the help of
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Most of the refugees are
ethnic Karen who fled their villages in the conflict zones of Karen State.

The refugees become totally dependent on aid as they are confined in the
camps, and they are in need of work opportunities and should be allowed
employment opportunities outside as well as inside the camps, said Sally
Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium
(TBBC),  an organization which works closely with Burmese refugees.

“There needs to be a shift in policy on refugees so they can actually do
more to contribute to the local economy here in Thailand,” she said. “It
is recognized that it could be some time before they can return to Burma.
They want to go back only if there is peace in their homeland following a
solution to the political problems.

“We hope the refugees will be able to return in the future, but we can't
predict the outcome of the election. There is ongoing conflict in eastern
Burma and the election is unlikely to solve the ethnic issue. Therefore, a
return in the near future is unlikely,” she said.

The EU is the largest donor to the Burmese refugee camps along the
Thai-Burmese border and the EU Commission's support to the refugee camps
is gradually shifting towards activities of a more developmental nature in
the coming years, acording to the EU official.

“We feel responsible to help addressing the protracted refugee situation
and to develop a long-term strategy,” he said. “The refugees need to be
enabled to support themselves and given the chance to actively contribute
to Thailand's growing economy through their skills and labour. As
everybody else, they are entitled to a self-determined future and to
realising their human potential.”

Eric Schwartz, the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration, visited refugee camps along
Thai-Burmese border in June and raised US concerns about the plight of
Burmese refugees in camps in the light of Burma's upcoming polls, but he
noted that
the third-country resettlement for the majority of the refugees is
unrealistic.

The Burmese regime has not announced the date of the election planned to
be held this year.

Critics say that without the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi and more than 2000 political prisoners in Burma, the election lacks
credibility and legitimacy.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 9, Sydney Morning Herald
Burma's democrats will not cave in to dictatorship – U Win Tin

Last month many pro-democracy advocates inside and outside Burma paused to
commemorate the 65th birthday of our leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Many too,
will take the opportunity to ponder the savage undermining of the
democratic process that has occurred since she led the National League for
Democracy to win the national elections in 1990.

Now, Burma's main political opposition has decided to disband rather than
be co-opted into a sham electoral shadow-play being enacted by the
military leaders. This decision has been based on a deep understanding of
the tactics of dictators.

Some of our supporters do not understand our decision. However, while we
as democrats respect the right of all to hold views contrary to our own,
we also expect our critics to be well appraised of the issue. It is clear
many are not.
Advertisement: Story continues below

The first point of departure for all those analysing the planned election
this year in Burma is the constitution under which it will be held. The
2008 basic law seeks to establish a range of encumbrances to the
democratic process, which make it impossible to see it as anything other
than a clumsy attempt to dress rotten wood with the polish and veneer of
democracy and progress.

Picture a fine piece of Burmese teak, smooth and presentable to the eye,
but eaten away underneath.

Most obviously, the constitution ensures a 25 per cent quota for members
of the military in any parliament. The military is seeking an additional
majority quota by fielding a disguised military political party in the
election.

So, at best the military is offering three-quarters of a democracy, or
less, to the people of Burma.

This constitution, under which the elections this year are held, carries a
range of assaults on democracy.

For instance, this election will not choose a government. It will select
those who will fill the legislature and who will then be given the
responsibility of selecting the heads of government.

The constitution is unclear how this process will work in detail, only
that the envisaged presidential Electoral College (the Parliament
including the military) will decide upon a new president. If it can be
assumed that a basic majority of the parliament be required, then the 25
per cent military representation ensures that considerably less than a
majority of the elected members is required to name the new president, who
will then in turn fill ministerial and other governmental posts by fiat.

It is, in effect, a recipe for a rump parliament.

That such a crucial component of the election process is clearly
undemocratic is untenable. It sets the tone for the whole electoral
process and ensures that participation by pro-democracy parties and
individuals will lead nowhere in democratic terms.

Other constitutional issues abound. Among them is the difficulty and
unwieldy expense of registering and running a campaign. For instance, the
roughly $US500 required for each candidate to run will not be refunded
post-election and estimates for funding a campaign across all 498 national
constituencies run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, a fortune in
one of the world's poorest countries.

Moreover, some have argued that the requirement to name all party members
to qualify for formal recognition is simply a means of finding where
dissent may be so that a post-election purge may be carried out.

Finally, significant ethnic groups are denied access to the political
process. This ensures that large portions of the Burmese national
constituency is denied their democratic rights.

As a party of democrats, founded on the highest principles of freedom and
equality, the National League for Democracy cannot participate in a system
that not only denies us our due rights-as the winners of the 1990
elections, for instance – but denies fellow Burmese political forces
appropriate input to the political process.

Surely no self-respectable democrat could countenance such a cave-in to
the forces of dictatorship.

Ultimately, the NLD is a social movement as much as a political party. Our
goal is to maintain our political party and our social role despite the
many overtures from the ruling military to sell-out and to be a party to
their ruinous dictatorial regime.

Our participation in any election process remains conditional upon the
four principles formulated in the NLD's Shwegondaing Declaration of April
2009: release all political prisoners; open dialogue with Aung San Suu
Kyi; recognise the 1990 election results and; review the 2008
constitution.

Only with these conditions can democracy find room to flourish in Burma.

U Win Tin is co-founder of Burma's National League for Democracy and was
imprisoned by the military for 19 years.

____________________________________

July 12, Independent (UK)
Burma's paranoid dictator plots his dignified exit

Senior-General Than Shwe is giving his regime a makeover as he calculates
the safest way to step down. Peter Popham reports

In the run-up to a long promised but still unscheduled general election,
the first for 20 years, Burma's military dictator, Senior-General Than
Shwe, has taken a step full of peril: he has ordered his uniformed cabinet
ministers to resign from the army.

Those faceless generals who adorn the front page of the New Light of
Myanmar, the regime's daily paper, inspecting fish-packing factories and
barrages, will still be running the country, and anything resembling
democratic governance will be as far away as ever.

But the look of things will have changed. The ministers will wear longyi,
the traditional Burmese sarong-like garment. And crucially for them, they
will no longer enjoy the status and respect which, in a country ruled with
an iron fist by the military for half a century, is the army's
prerogative.

Irrawaddy, the expatriate Burmese news website, predicts trouble.
"Senior-General Than Shwe is facing a mutiny among his subordinates," it
claimed last week. "There are growing signs of discontent among his
cabinet ministers... They have been betrayed by their boss.

"Like it or not, army uniforms are a symbol of authority in Burma," it
went on. "Those who wear them always get priority over those who don't.
They are respected and can expect easy co-operation from others. Suddenly
they will lose that privilege."

Leaving the army also means that those ministers will not be included in
the 25 per cent quota that the army has reserved for itself in the planned
new parliament. "Now they are on their own," Irrawaddy columnist Bamargyi
pointed out. "Unless Than Shwe supports them with some dirty deals from
behind the scenes, they are sure to lose. Once this happens, they are down
the drain."

In trying to rebrand his military dictatorship as a civilian
administration, the 77-year-old soldier who has been the boss of his
nation of 50 million people for the past 18 years, and who was recently
named by the journal Foreign Affairs as the world's third-worst dictator
after Kim Jong-il and Robert Mugabe, thus faces a major challenge.

And in trying to withdraw from the scene while remaining in control, he
faces an even tougher test: how, as King Lear deludedly put it, to "shake
all cares and business from our age,/ Conferring them on younger
strengths, while we/ Unburden'd crawl towards death"? How to do that
without getting the Goneril and Regan treatment - or much worse?

How, in other words, to live out the rest of his days enjoying the
billions he has plundered from the state, without ending up like his late
boss Ne Win, Burma's dictator from 1962 to 1988, who, on Than Shwe's
orders, ended his life locked in his lakeside villa in Rangoon under house
arrest while his sons languished in jail under sentence of death?

How to avoid the fate of Khin Nyunt, the military intelligence chief and
for many years Than Shwe's number two, who is also under house arrest with
no prospect of release (while some of his underlings were tortured to
death) after China hailed him as "Burma's Deng Xiaoping"?

According to Ben Rogers, author of the first-ever biography, Than Shwe:
Unmasking Burma's Tyrant, which is launched in London next week, acute
anxiety about his security is behind the fact that, two years after
announcing elections, the senior general has yet to say when they will be
held.

"He wants to make sure that everything is sewn up perfectly and that he
can continue to govern from behind the scenes," said Rogers, a human
rights advocate with Christian Solidarity Worldwide. "He will hold off
naming the date until he's certain he's got all his ducks in a row. He
doesn't want to give the candidates any room for campaigning."

A similarly secretive, paranoid approach dictated the most extraordinary
decision of Than Shwe's career, and the one which, for good or ill, will
assure him immortality of a sort: the removal of Burma's capital from
Rangoon to a hot, malaria-infested, seismically sensitive wasteland in the
centre of the country.

The idea of moving the army's HQ out of Rangoon had been in the air for a
number of years, and may have been mentioned by Than Shwe to Aung San Suu
Kyi in one of the fruitless meetings they held in 1994, while the
opposition leader was under her first spell of house arrest. Rangoon is in
the far south; for an army engaged in multiple counter-insurgency
operations in the north and east, a base in the centre made strategic
sense.

But unbeknownst to the outside world, Than Shwe nursed a far more drastic
plan. "At precisely 6.37 am on 6 November 2005," writes Rogers, "hundreds
of government servants left Rangoon in trucks shouting, "We are leaving!
We are leaving!" ... Five days later, a second convoy of 1,100 military
trucks carrying 11 military battalions and 11 ministries left Rangoon.
Perhaps influenced by astrologers, Than Shwe had decided to move the
country's capital. He had given government officials just two days'
notice."

So Naypyitaw, which translates as "Seat of Kings" and is dominated by
oversize statues of Than Shwe's favourite royal forerunners, will be this
man's monument. "It's the most awful place you've ever been to," said Mark
Canning, a former British ambassador to Burma. "It's a collection of
buildings scattered over scrubland. But they are all just dispersed, and
there are two or three kilometres between each building. One can only
presume it's so they don't get bombed or something, to spread out the
targets." As a resident of Naypyitaw told one foreign journalist,
"Although [Than Shwe] is a king, he is afraid of many things. He thinks
that here he will be safe."

Naypyitaw thus incarnates what Suu Kyi once said about fear. "It is not
power that corrupts, but fear," she noted in 1990 when she was already
under house arrest. "Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and
fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it... Fear
slowly stifles and destroys all sense of right and wrong."

Only in a system dominated by fear could a man like Than Shwe rise to the
top and stay there, because throughout his career he has given the
impression of being so unimpeachably mediocre as to be without ambition or
hope of success. He was a man incapable of provoking fear until suddenly
he was at the top of the tree, and now he has held his nation in thrall
for nearly two decades.

The comments of those who have had dealings with him are uniformly
unflattering. "Short and fat with not a strong voice," says one.
"Relatively boring," says another. "No evident personality." "Our leader
is a very uneducated man." "There were many intelligent soldiers but he
was not one of them...a bit of a thug." "You feel that he's got there by
accident..." The closest Than Shwe gets to being complimented is in the
description of a former World Bank official: "He is such an old fox!"

Born in 1933 in the central Burmese town of Kyaukse, Than Shwe quietly
rose through the ranks despite having no striking military successes,
until he was appointed deputy defence minister in July 1988 in the midst
of the biggest revolt since the military takeover, the regime's moment of
greatest danger.

In 1990 he was there alongside the erratic, sometimes deranged General Saw
Maung, head of the new State Law and Order Restoration Council, who once
drew his pistol on fellow generals during a game of golf and was
eventually deposed. Then it was a contest between Than Shwe and military
intelligence chief Khin Nyunt - who crucially had no experience as a
commander in the field, and thus no chance of being accepted as chief by
the army. Eventually Khin Nyunt, too, was flung from the battlements, a
denouement waiting to happen. "Every single chief of military intelligence
in Burma has been disgraced," said a former ambassador. "It's rather like
being the drummer in Spinal Tap - you end up disappearing."

Than Shwe's mediocrity may have had its effect on Western attitudes
towards him: he is easily under- estimated. As Rogers points out, he "has
demonstrated time and again his skill at offering just enough of a
concession to hold the international community at bay whenever pressure
intensifies...Each time the pressure eases, Than Shwe quietly abandons his
promises."

Meanwhile at home he has continued on the path set by his former superior
Ne Win decades back: hugely expanding the size of the army, which now
includes tens of thousands of children in its ranks, and continuing the
campaigns of quasi-genocidal terrorism against the Karen and other ethnic
minorities.

According to Sergio Pinheiro, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in
Burma from 2000 to 2008, writing in 2009, "Over the past 15 years the
Burmese Army has destroyed over 3,300 villages in a systematic and
widespread campaign to subjugate ethnic groups." At the same time he has
kept Burma's civilian population in poverty and hopelessness. The only
"reforms" he has pushed for have had the aim of perpetuating military rule
under a disguise that fools nobody.

It is safe to predict that sooner or later Than Shwe will get his
come-uppance. It may come from his immediate subordinates, furious at
being kicked out, and an army that has never held him in esteem. The civil
servants of Naypyitaw, incandescent at being exiled from the civilised
comforts of Rangoon, may play their part. The monks, whom he arrogantly
and foolishly refused to appease in 2007, could have a role.

But however certain his eventual downfall, you would have to be a very
brave optimist to predict that he will be replaced by someone
significantly better.

The general in brief

Born in 1933, Than Shwe joined the army at 20. He became Burma's top
military leader in 1992 - four years after thousands of protesters had
been massacred in Rangoon. The reclusive 77-year-old is thought to be
superstitious, often consulting astrologers. In 2007, his new Burmese
constitution effectively barred opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from
office. Some credit the general with negotiating ceasefires with ethnic
rebel armies, although he has also been accused of brutally suppressing
minorities. He has been linked with high-level government purges,
including that of Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt in 2004.

____________________________________

July 10, TIME
Is Burma's junta trying to join the nuclear club? – Christopher Shay

It may seem counterintuitive, but Burma has a lot going for it. Blessed
with abundant natural resources, the nation is home to the last of the
world's ancient teak forests; it produces tens of thousands of tons of
jade every year; it's at the center of the global ruby trade; and most
important, it has natural gas. Lots of it. Burmese gas already powers half
of Bangkok, and it will soon start flowing to China, making billions of
dollars of profit. For many though, it's how the money is being spent
that's worrying.

Up until a few years ago, Burma's military government, cut off from trade
with the West, led a "hand-to-mouth existence," says Sean Turnell, an
economics professor at Macquarie University in Australia. Now, thanks in
no small part to its resource-hungry neighbors, the pariah state has $6
billion in cash reserves, according to Turnell. As cash is flowing in, the
military junta that has run the country since 1962 is spending lavishly.
With about a third of the country in poverty, the junta could invest in
health, education or job creation, but instead, new evidence suggests
Burma is spending billions on outlandish military projects, including,
perhaps, a secretive nuclear weapons program. Turnell says the junta is
"absolutely paranoid about international interference in the country."(See
pictures of Burma's slowly shifting landscape.)

A documentary released last month by the Norway-based NGO Democratic Voice
of Burma (DVB) purports to detail the beginnings of a Burmese nuclear
program. Though much of the documentary's evidence comes from a single
defector living in hiding, the NGO contends that hundreds of color
photographs lend support to the rumors swirling for the past few years
that Burma has been pursuing the bomb. The Burmese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs calls DVB's accusations "baseless," but Robert Kelley, a former
director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and weapons scientist
at Los Alamos National Lab, concluded from the DVB evidence that the
technology in the photos "is only for nuclear weapons and not civilian use
or nuclear power."

The documentary's primary source, a former Burmese army major named Sai
Thein Win, is a Russian-trained missile expert — not a nuclear engineer
—who says he was second in command at a top-secret military factory that
made parts for Burma's nuclear weapons program. The photographs that Sai
Thein Win supplied to DVB dovetail with other evidence that suggests Burma
is undertaking a massive nuclear project. Dictator Watch, a U.S.-based
opposition watchdog group, provided TIME with a list of some 660 Burmese
students studying engineering and military-related fields in Russia, more
than 65 of whom are studying nuclear-related subjects. According to Roland
Watson of Dictator Watch, the list is just a batch from 2009; he claims he
has heard from multiple independent sources that there are more than 3,000
Burmese military researchers who have studied in Russia over the past
decade. In the film, Sai Thein Win estimates that the number could be as
high as 10,000. In fact, Sai Thein Win says he was in the first group of
Burmese students sent to Russia, in 2001, where he studied missile
technology at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, once the primary
training ground for Soviet nuclear weapons experts. (See pictures of
Burma's decades-long battle for democracy.)

Even if DVB is right about Burma's nuclear ambitions, the country is
likely years away from any kind of bomb. Kelley told TIME that Burma's
apparent attempt to enrich uranium using laser isotope separation — a
complex and expensive method that has stumped many richer nations — was
"kind of dumb." That may be news to the junta leader Than Shwe, according
to the Irrawaddy, a Burmese newsmagazine in exile based in Thailand, which
reported that Than Shwe was furious at his officials after learning that
Kelley's report for the DVB said a nuclear weapon "may be beyond Burma's
reach" at this time.

Read about the rush for Burma's resources.
Meanwhile, the people in Burma continue to suffer. In a 2000 World Health
Organization ranking, Burma had the second worst health system in the
world, sandwiched between the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.
This shouldn't be a surprise, given that only 1.8% of Burma's total public
expenditure is on health, also the second lowest in the world, according
to the United Nations Development Program. "This is not a modern,
developmentally focused government like China or Vietnam," Turnell says,
adding that the country's irrational military spending "is the great
scandal. Its poor have so many needs." (See TIME's special on the battle
for global health.)

If this sounds similar to another Asian pariah state, it should; Burma is
trying to follow the North Korean model, according to Khin Maung Win. Than
Shwe reportedly admires Kim Jong Il for standing up to the international
community, and ever since the countries formalized relations in 2007, the
two states have deepened their military connections, say DVB sources.
Relations between the two countries, however, have not always been so
amicable. In 1983, North Korean operatives attempted to assassinate the
South Korean President in a Rangoon bomb attack that killed 21, and Burma
severed official diplomatic relations for more than two decades. Recently,
though, the countries seem to have bonded as joint pariah states, with the
junta's No. 3 general, Shwe Mann, visiting North Korea in 2008. Nowadays,
Khin Maung Win says there are North Korean military experts who sneak into
Burma through China and act as advisers to key parts of Burma's defense
industry.

There is no evidence that the North Koreans are directly helping with
Burma's alleged nuclear weapons program, but analysts worry this might not
always be the case. Burma has cash, and North Korea needs it —
desperately. Defectors say Burma wants a bomb; U.S. intelligence says
North Korea already tried helping build a nuclear reactor for Syria before
Israel bombed it. "A couple years ago, I would've pooh-poohed the whole
thing," says Turnell of Burma's nuclear weapons program. But now, he says,
"The whole story is a perfect fit."

____________________________________

July 10, Irrawaddy
Getting under the generals' thick skins – Withaya Huanok

Running late, I hailed a cab to my meeting in downtown Rangoon.

“Two thousand kyat,” beamed the driver with a wide, betel-stained smile,
holding up two fingers. I nodded and tried the passenger door. It was
stuck, so he sheepishly gestured for me to go around and use the passenger
door on the other side of the vehicle.

The cab, a Toyota sedan, was nearing its fourth decade of existence. The
interior upholstery was long gone, worn down to a bare metal frame. All
other attached parts, such as door handles, armrests and window cranks,
had long since fallen off. The lock on the recalcitrant passenger door had
sprung out of its socket and hung at an odd angle. The dashboard was
filled with gaping holes, spaces once occupied by a radio and air
conditioning controls and vents, revealing jumbles of wires. I moved my
foot to cover a hole that had been worn through the floor, the passing
road visible underneath. As the vehicle jounced over Rangoon’s uneven
streets, the driver liberally using the hoarse horn, I glanced at the
speedometer. The needle was not moving and the instrument was mostly
covered by a picture of the Buddha.

It has become a tradition to meet up with U Min Naing, a retired engineer,
every time I am in Rangoon, although the setting today was somewhat
non-traditional: an outlet of J’Donut, Burma’s most popular donut shop
chain. Entering the glass doors, the setting could have been any Dunkin'
Donuts, from the interior décor to the sign above the entrance, done in
bright pink letters on an orange background. Rows of donuts and other
pastries were arranged in metal trays behind the counter, while above, the
menu offerings were listed in Burmese. A bank of air conditioners lining
one side of the store mercifully staved off the Rangoon heat and humidity.
U Min Naing was already seated at one of the brightly colored tables by
the window, and beckoned me to join him. Soon, two cups of coffee, with
sugar and creamer packed neatly in an accompanying, sealed plastic bag,
arrived at our table, along with two small pieces of cake, adorned with
fluorescent green and pink icing. Despite the drastic departure from our
usual meeting place, a street-side Burmese teashop, the loud background
buzz of teashop conversations was present at J’Donut, fueled similarly by
the unlimited amounts of plain tea available for customers.

“If they did not have that, no Burmese would come,” chortled U Min Naing,
as he filled my cup with tea. The establishment was packed, with most
customers also leaving laden with bags containing boxes of donuts. Most of
the metal trays behind the sales counter were already empty this
afternoon. “That and the air-conditioning!”

“This place is owned by families of the generals,” he added, as he sipped
from his steaming cup of tea. “They sell very well but don’t really make
much money; this is small income for them.”

As cars passed by along the busy road, the day’s conversation topic soon
moved to automobiles.

“Cars here are very expensive, which is why the ones on the street are so
old,” U Min Naing explained. “It is not the price of the car, it is mainly
for the import fees and license. Even a small, old car can cost US $20,000
or $30,000. Sometimes, people drive their old car to the border, to
Myawaddy, and exchange it for another car. They just change the license
plate. Or they take out old parts and replace them with parts from other
cars. Sometimes they replace half the car! Then they drive back to
Rangoon. If there is an inspection, the registration and the chassis
number often do not match. But they pay the authorities and it is OK.” He
shook his head in disapproval.

He gestured towards a passing shiny SUV. “A car like that—a Toyota Surf,
brand new—is maybe $200-300,000. The only car we can assemble here is the
small one, the Suzuki. Like that one,” he said, pointing at a small,
box-shaped car stopped at a nearby intersection. “A new one is over
$30,000.”

He paused, taking another sip from his cup of tea.

“You know, it is crazy; we can’t even make a proper car. Yet they spend so
much money and think they can make a rocket and go nuclear. You need
precision for that!” he said in exasperation, although in more quiet
tones. “And then they build Naypyidaw. I just passed it three days ago, on
the Mandalay to Rangoon road. Roads there are very good, wide. But not
many people use it. It is the same with the buildings there. There are
many buildings, spread out, but there are no buses. You need a car or
motorbike. Most of the rooms in the buildings are empty. At night you can
see that they are dark.

“When I drove back, it was raining hard. I couldn't see anything, because
there were no lights on the highway. I had to pull over and wait until the
rain stopped. It is very dangerous on that road; a few weeks ago, the baby
grandson of the mayor, Brig-Gen Aung Thein Lin, died in an accident there;
his son and daughter-in-law were injured and went to the military hospital
for treatment.”

He added in a whisper: “I heard they are now in Singapore for more
treatment; they could not treat them here.”

U Min Naing stopped to sip a little more before continuing in his regular
voice. “And now, they are also building tunnels all over. They spend so
much money, but we do not even have enough electricity, medicine, water,
food. Our people are starving.”

He gestured at a large pothole on the street, just next to the sidewalk.
It was filled with trash; plastic bags, wrappers, food containers, and
fruit peels were visible just below two flimsy boards of wood someone had
partially covered it with.

“They can’t—they won’t—even repair holes on the street.”

He refilled our cups of tea before resuming.

“I used to not understand why they do this. But now I know. We are under
military rule and they make military decisions. They want to be able to
control, to command


“This year, there was a very bad drought in Pegu. There was no water, so
they had to bring water from the city to help the people. Community
organizations helped to do this. When the soldiers saw this, they got on
the cars delivering the water and then said that they were the ones
donating the water and had their pictures taken for the news.” He shook
his head.

“In Burmese, we say this is thick skinned. It is shameless.”