Despair, then death: The Rohingya riddle

The deaths of two teenagers held for seven months at Ranong detention centre highlight the inadequacies of government policies and facilities to deal with boat people

by: Piyaporn Wongruang

(Bangkok Post) -They say that despair can kill a man, and so it did with two teenage Rohingya held in the Ranong detention centre for seven months. Two doctors who treated the detainees at the centre said the pair basically starved themselves to death after becoming dispirited and refusing to eat or exercise. The official reason for the two teenagers' deaths is "natural causes" caused by cardiac arrest.

WAITING: Rohingya refugees at the immigration detention centre in Bangkok.

"Their minds were just so sick that they lost enthusiasm for everything," said one of the doctors based at the centre who preferred to remain anonymous. "They refused to take food and they refused to move around. They told me that they were desperate and didn't know what to do with their lives any more. They told me that it's better to kill them than to detain them like this."

The deaths go to the heart of Thailand's problems dealing with illegal immigrants and refugees, and the inadequacy of current policies and facilities to deal with the growing number of cases.

Abdul Salam, 18, died on June 30 on the way to Ranong Hospital. Hammatula, 15, was found dead in the detention centre at 4am on Aug 13, a day after a medical check by one of the doctors. The two were among 78 ethnic Muslim Rohingya boat people fleeing Burma who were intercepted by the navy near Surin Island on Jan 26, and sent to the centre a few days later.

Abdul's and Hammatula's bodies were covered in wounds, after allegedly being tortured by the Burmese military during their boat trip, according to the doctor at the centre. The medical team treated the teenagers' wounds in the first few months of their detention, but the pair were overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. According to the same doctor, they gradually became fatigued, hardly moving and sitting or lying down most of the time.

READ MORE---> Despair, then death: The Rohingya riddle...

They died from hopelessness

By: Voranai Vanijaka

(Bangkok Post) -Time heals all wounds, as the saying goes. Not only that, time also makes you forget and helps you to move on. In one particular case, it seems time has made Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the people of Thailand forget about the Rohingya refugees.

Before the Songkran riot, before Sondhi Limthongkul's attempted assassination, before the Thaksin phone-ins and before the controversy over appointing the new police chief, the Rohingya was the issue that rocked the young prime minister's newly appointed government.

In January, Rohingya refugees arrived on the shores of Thailand. The story made headlines across the world due to alleged abuses by Thai security forces - abuses that included accusations of systematic torture and shipping them back out to sea with no food or water, to die. PM Abhisit went on CNN and other western media outlets, promising to investigate the matter and to rectify the Rohingya problem.

The media submitted photos and video clips of the alleged torture to the authorities. An internal government investigation found the evidence inconclusive, and then everyone forgot about the Rohingya.

We all moved on until this past week's reports that two Rohingya refugees, or illegal immigrants, died in the detention centre in Ranong. According to human rights activists, Abdul Salam, 18, died two months ago after vomiting blood several times. Last week Hammatula, 15, died without any signs of distress. However, Thongchai Keeratihatthayakorn, a doctor in Ranong, said the two had died of sudden inflammation of the heart.

An 18-year-old and a 15-year-old died from heart attacks? That's suspicious. Some reports speculate that they died from starvation. That's more likely, but yet they were fed regularly at the detention centre. Did they starve themselves to death on purpose? But then, to what purpose?

Read also: Despair, then death: the Rohingya riddle

No, heart attack or starvation may have been the nail in the coffin, but the true cause of their death was hopelessness. According to a source who's a doctor at the detention centre, the detainees received food and medical care in the Ranong detention centre. Which obviously wasn't five-star service, but nor was it death-inducing.

What the two Rohingya lacked, according to the source, was hope, a future.

Why were they hopeless?

Seven months of detention and counting, over 70 refugees (each has been fined 2,000 baht by the Ranong Court for entering Thailand illegally) cramped in a single room in a two-storey building. These aren't hardened criminals or prisoners of war. These are simply third world villagers and peasants. People who have suffered through poverty and oppression in their homeland, then braved the sea to find new hope and opportunity, only to be allegedly abused by Thai security forces and thrown into prison. Sitting cramped and idle for seven months and counting, not knowing what's to become of them.

The world has forgotten about them. They don't know how long they will remain there. Nobody tells them anything. They may not have been mistreated in the detention centre, but they have been neglected and mistreated all their lives and, for the past seven months, by the Thai authorities and all those concerned at the policy level.

Neglected and mistreated because the authorities did not have the care, the time or the inclination to solve the Rohingya problem. No direction, no policy and no solution. For seven months the two Rohingya who died sat cramped and idle.

Without hope and without a future, they simply became withdrawn, stopped eating and stopped caring. They had lost the will to live. Whether it's a sudden heart attack, vomiting to death, or simply lying down and dying - it's all one and the same. They died from hopelessness. If things do not change, Abdul Salam and Hammatula are simply the first two to go.

Meanwhile, another 10 or so have fallen sick due to fatigue and malnutrition from their long detention. The remaining Rohingya have been transferred to the detention centre at Suan Phlu, in Bangkok.

It has been seven months since the Rohingya story first broke. From then until now, the only change for these Rohingya has been from one detention centre to another. Meanwhile, the prime minister, the media, the people of Thailand and the world have moved on to what we see as "bigger problems" - and of course, the red versus yellow and the economy are issues that affect our lives directly. What happens to 78 (minus two) Rohingya won't change our lives any.

Deputy Immigration Bureau chief Phitak Jarusombuti said the bureau would not reveal how long the Rohingya would be detained. That's exactly the problem. How long will they have to endure until more of them simply lose all hope, lay down and wither away?

For the world at large, time may change, time may heal, time may make us forget and move on. But for the two dead Rohingya, nothing did change for seven months. They simply sat in the same place, looked at the same walls, cramped and idle, with nothing to do but see and remember their sufferings, locked in a prison in body and mind, unable to move on. Hopelessness.

Email: voranaiv@bangkokpost.co.th

READ MORE---> They died from hopelessness...

Shock and Ore

(SMH) -Secret agents are shadowing Australian executives as the Communist Party's hardliners gain the upper hand. Now Rio Tinto must play by China's rules, writes John Garnaut in Beijing.

When China tracks the conversations and email traffic of foreign executives, it normally does so covertly. These days, with Rio Tinto, surveillance can take the form of overt intimidation.

Three weeks ago, Rio's global strategy chief, Doug Ritchie, checked into Shanghai's downtown Four Seasons Hotel to find the entire floor had been cleared of other guests. His only companion was Ian Bauert, Rio's global head of iron ore marketing, who had arrived before him. Plain-clothed officers proceeded to shadow their every move across the town.

For Ritchie, the treatment might have smacked of revenge. He was the architect, negotiator and driver of Rio's $US19.5 billion ($24.3 billion) Chinalco investment deal which collapsed in June, staining the business reputations of Rio Tinto and Australia in China. China's Chinalco bid was a response to Australia's iron ore duopoly and an effort to ease China's resource constraints by playing by global rules. It didn't work, so now Rio would be asked to play by China's rules.

For Bauert, it was personal. Bauert is the low-profile, Chinese-speaking power behind Rio's iron ore sales and negotiating team. He opened Rio's China office in the 1970s. It is his men - Stern Hu, Liu Caikui, Wang Yong and Ge Minqiang - who are in a Shanghai jail. He caught a plane to China the moment he learnt his team had failed to turn up to work on Monday, July 6, and has been there ever since.

Efforts by Bauert and Ritchie to see their employees in Shanghai were obstructed at every turn. And if Hu, Liu, Wang and Ge were detained for alleged serious crimes on behalf of their company, then there was an outside chance that their bosses might be told to join them.

A statement on an official Government website said the Shanghai State Security Bureau had found Hu and his colleagues had stolen and obtained secrets by "bribing internal staff of Chinese steel companies". "This has caused huge loss to China's national economic security and interests,'' it said.

China's Ministry of State Security does not concern itself with ordinary crimes, such as bribery or theft. Its tens of thousands of analysts and intelligence operatives have the job of protecting the Communist Party from perceived threats to its existence, such as Tibetan or Xinjiang ethnic separatists, foreign spies, political dissidents and activist lawyers.

According to some analysts, that executives at the world's third-largest mining company were being treated as threats to China's national security signalled that conservative, hard-line and less economically literate forces were getting the upper hand in Beijing.

The detentions were endorsed by the Communist Party's Standing Committee, chaired by the President, Hu Jintao, according to sources in a Chinese security agency.

Stern Hu and his three Chinese colleagues have now been charged with receiving bribes and commercial secrets. People close to the case note the opportunities for bribery that can present themselves in a climate of iron ore shortage and large price differences between contract and spot market purchases. Many say the Chinese Government is unlikely to have gone as far as it has without what it considers to be sound evidence that is prepared to publicly present. A trial is likely to proceed by early next year.

But the Chinese Government's initial framing of the case as one of "national security" suggests Rio and Australia may also have been caught up in a larger struggle for influence over China's 540 private and state-owned companies, which together produce more steel than the rest of the world put together. Steel, with its central, visceral place in China's modernisation and national mythology, can provide a proxy battleground for the path of Chinese development.

"This is about: do you let the market determine prices domestically and internationally or do you insist on political intervention? " David Goodman, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Sydney, says. "How do you allocate resources, politically or economically? Within the leadership you can imagine the arguments going on between those calling for a more open political and economic system and others saying, 'You must not rock the boat.' ''

The stakes at play in China's steel industry were illustrated in an investigative story this week about how the new manager at the Tonggang steel factory in north-eastern China was recently beaten and thrown from a building to his death. The manager had been appointed by China's richest steel entrepreneur, Zhang Zhixiang, who had been attempting to take over the inefficient state-owned company in line with a provincial government reform drive. But the old guard managers and their local supporters fought back. Would the disgruntled managers of a local state-owned company resort to murder in order to keep their jobs?

Rio Tinto's immediate problems began with BHP Billiton's takeover bid in November 2007. The event immediately steeled Chinese leaders to push back against what they saw as an Australian iron ore monopoly. And Rio responded to BHP's aggression with new aggressive marketing strategies, including diverting iron ore from long-term contracts to the more lucrative spot market.

Chinese steel mills were furious. Rio itself was divided on the long-term wisdom of hurting its considerable standing in China. ''We acted in accordance with the letter of the contracts, but not the spirit,'' Stern Hu conceded in conversation with BusinessDay at the time.

The incarceration of Hu suggests Rio and the Australia Government may have under-estimated the humiliation and legitimate economic anxieties that could be generated in a country that is so dependent on steel.

If there was a single turning point, it probably occurred at a conference room at Baosteel's sprawling factory and corporate headquarters in north-eastern Shanghai, on June 23 last year. It was there that the lead negotiator, Will Malaney, and his negotiating assistant and translator, Stern Hu - with Bauert giving instructions from backstage - secured a jaw-dropping 79 per cent price rise for iron ore ''fines'' and 96.5 per cent rise for ''lump''.

At 6pm, after four months of deadlocked negotiations and a tense four-hour stand-off in that room, Malaney and Hu jumped up and clasped hands with Baosteel's Ding Shouhu and the three members of Ding's team. They cracked a bottle of fine champagne.

For Ding, the spontaneous joy was borne of relief that his torture was finally over, seven days before the majority of China's iron ore contracts would technically expire. But Baosteel's public and political standing had crumbled because the costs of Chinese steel production, the nation's inflation problem and its nationalistic sensitivities had all been raised.

The initial relief and exhilaration at Baosteel headquarters subsided as one of the four Baosteel representatives in the room phoned both the China Iron & Steel Association and the Ministry of Commerce to get final authorisation. News leaked out between the cracks of China's political bureaucracy before Rio had a chance to tell the stock exchange.

It was an ominous interregnum that hinted at the turf wars to follow. Steel officials saw the opportunity to secure new political patrons and try to balance Australia's iron ore "monopoly" by marshalling China's buying power - something that Japan had done successfully in the past, if not in such heavy-handed terms.

It is not just the Ministry of State Security that has intruded in this year's iron ore wars. A new super-ministry of industry and information technology has supplanted the Ministry of Commerce. And Baosteel, the innovative national champion that understands how both politics and markets work, has been pushed out by the retired steel mill officials and bureaucrats who run the China Iron & Steel Association (CISA).

Steel executives and industry analysts enjoy nothing better than belittling association officials behind their backs. But influential Chinese analysts, such as the steel consultant and academic Xu Zhongbo, are now prepared to do it publicly. This is his appraisal of the association's secretary-general, Shan Shanghua, its deputy president, Luo Bingsheng, and its director of iron ore, Chen Xianwen:

"Shan was a director of steel planning initiatives in the past, when he was part of the Ministry of Metallurgy [now disbanded]. He has good experience for planning economics but not for international co-operation and business," Xu says.

"Luo is also a very stupid guy. If someone has a higher position than him, then he will always follow that position. And he can change his position very quickly. He did very poor work when chairman of Shougang [Capital Steel].

''And Chen Xianwen was director of iron ore purchasing at Wisco [Wuhan Iron & Steel Company]. But iron ore purchasing was an easy task five years ago; every iron ore miner wanted to make friends with him."

These three men, masters of a different era, have been endorsed this year to harness China's hugely fragmented steel industry and leverage their buying power. So far, the experiment has not worked.

Malaney, Hu and their boss, Ian Bauert, were no doubt bemused at the association's negotiating tactics. Rio would refer to what was happening in the underlying data about profits and production in the Chinese steel and iron ore mining industries. But negotiators across the table, including Chen Xianwen, would reply with political diatribes.

CISA seemed to think that asserting steel production would slip would ensure that iron ore prices would also fall. These days Rio thinks China will produce about 570 million tonnes of steel this year, based on Chinese steel production and iron ore imports rising to new records almost every month.

But CISA has gone out of its way to ignore official public information - including the People's Bank of China's estimate that GDP grew 4 percentage points between the March and June quarters - to forecast 2009 production at just 500 million tonnes. CISA persists in arguing that this time, unlike every other year, it will be able to "control" the steel industry in accordance with Government directives by closing down small and allegedly inefficient mills and preventing new capacity from being installed.

In May the association missed its chance to follow Nippon Steel in agreeing to a 33 per cent cut in the benchmark contract price. The June 30 negotiating deadline came and went, and spot market prices soared higher.

Ironically, on July 6 the steel association held an internal meeting where it agreed to accept the Nippon Steel benchmark price subject to face-saving clauses that would allow them to renegotiate later if spot prices fell, according to senior Chinese journalists who spoke with the association's president, Shan Shanghua, that evening.

But news of the detention of Rio's Stern Hu broke the following day, July 7, before the association had an opportunity to inform the Anglo-Australian miner of its change of heart. Shan must have known about the Ministry of State Security's ongoing investigation - Rio's iron ore tendering results were being covertly supplied to CISA - but he evidently had no idea that Mr Hu and his colleagues had been detained.

If the detention of Rio's China iron ore team on national security grounds was a sign that China was drifting back towards central planning and tighter political control, then the downgrading of the Rio charges to stealing commercial secrets and receiving bribes may indicate the tide has since turned the other way.

China's leadership appeared to form the view that heavy-handed attempts to impose its will on the country's iron ore market was not working and not worth the costs to its international reputation.

Zhang Peihong, the lawyer for Rio Tinto's Wang Yong,said this week that China's top intelligence agency has handed the case to criminal authorities.

"The Ministry of State Security has handed the case to the Public Security Bureau," he said.

The politics of the Stern Hu case have largely been defused ahead of what may turn out to be relatively transparent legal proceedings. Rio Tinto's chief executive, Tom Albanese, said yesterday that "the grounds for [Hu and the others'] arrest do not seem to be as serious as first reported".

But Fortescue's Andrew Forrest gambled this week that the political winds continue to favour the steel association and its attempts to control the market.

"CISA was once viewed as a dog with a lot of bark. I think it is now viewed across China as a dog with a lot of bark and bite," Forrest told Australian journalists in China, after agreeing to a slightly larger price cut of 35 per cent on the condition of up to $US6 billion ($7 billion) in finance from an as yet undetermined Chinese institution.

Forrest said CISA has the political leverage to enforce the Fortescue price as the new benchmark price for all imported iron ore.

"There have been hundreds of other contacts and actions taken where there is a discipline being asked of steel companies to cease short-term profit-taking and encourage long-term price stability and move towards a uniform price," Forrest said.

"China's actions have gone way, way beyond Stern Hu."

But so far the big miners, led publicly by Rio, have ignored the Fortescue settlement and continued selling ore into China at the slightly higher price set with Nippon Steel.

This year's price negotiations are being seen as a costly debacle in Chinese industry circles, with the steel association wearing most of the blame. The drumbeat of discontent is getting louder.

A report this week by a Shanghai steel consultancy, Umetal.com, slammed the association's inability to comprehend economics. It pointed out that its 2 percentage point face-saving price deal with Fortescue would save China $US35 million, based on Fortescue's 10 per cent import market share, and contrasted this with the $US6 billion that the association had agreed to arrange to pump into Fortescue.

"The iron ore negotiations turned into a political struggle which China must win and cannot lose," the report said. "It is about the credibility of [CISA] in the whole industry. This is no longer about the simple issue of dozens of steel mills signs agreements with miners when prices are acceptable."

The Umetal report said that the Fortescue deal was an irrelevant face-saving deal for the association, as the big miners and Chinese steel mills were buying ore at the Nippon Steel price regardless.

"What is not important is that China gets the final say," it said.

Xu Zhongbo, the steel consultant, supports efforts to resist Australia's dominant market power. But he also believes the association has dealt itself out of play.

"This year CISA has lost power, it took too long to reach an agreement," he says. "Maybe next year Baosteel will have the power again."

Some reports say the decision has already been made to restore Baosteel's role as China's lead negotiator and boot aside CISA.

But CISA fought back this week and revealed the existence of "the State Council's No. 6 document", by which the cabinet-like body had empowered it to "prevent" speculative iron ore trading and "reasonably unify the price".

"It's not true that Baosteel will lead negotiations," a senior association source said yesterday. "Like this year, Baosteel will represent China to talk, under the lead of CISA, also with a group of China's 16 largest steel mills formed to make decisions."

But the iron ore wars are far from over and CISA is sticking to its guns.

READ MORE---> Shock and Ore...

In this Chinese fable the chicken upsets the fox in his lair

The Powerful Right of Sovereignty, Business plus Values
a lesson for Burma

Illustration: Rocco Fazzari
By Peter Hartcher

(SMH) -Kevin Rudd studied China's most famous political prisoner, Wei Jingsheng, for his university thesis. Today Wei Jingsheng studies Kevin Rudd.

"The Chinese Government is putting the Australian Government through a trial with the arrest of Stern Hu," Wei said this week through an interpreter.

Wei has a bit of experience with the Chinese justice system - he spent 18 years in jail and now lives in exile in the US. Stern Hu, an iron ore negotiator for Rio Tinto, was arrested for allegedly stealing state secrets. So was Wei, an electrician at the Beijing Zoo at the time.

"I was locked up because I offended Deng Xiaoping [China's leader at the time]. But of course they fabricated a charge that I stole state secrets - this is the approach the Chinese Government likes to take with people to put them down."

And under the Chinese Communist Party the state can classify anything it likes as a "state secret", even the most innocuous information, at any time and on any whim.

"It's obvious now the Chinese Government is attempting to put down the Australian Government, not Stern Hu. And it's quite evident that it is putting down the Australian Government as a precedent for other governments around the world."

Wei, who is visiting Australia, embraces the metaphor in the old Chinese folk saying - kill the chicken to frighten the monkey. Australia is the chicken. Who is the monkey?

"The first monkey is Europe," targeted after Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France and chair of the European Union at the time, decided to meet the Dalai Lama last year. China reacted with the fury it always employs when heads of government recognise the exiled leader of the Tibetan campaign for autonomy from China.

"And the biggest monkey is the US."

But if China wants to make an example of someone, why choose Australia? Wei lists three reasons: "Australia has a prime minister who thinks he knows a lot about China, when actually he doesn't. Because Kevin Rudd has many relationships with China, the Chinese Government is hoping that because of these ties he will not make a strong reaction.

"Second, historically, Australia is one of the weakest countries in dealing with China. Third, Australia is just a small place."

Wei wants Australia to understand that it is engaged in a high-stakes struggle. "The chicken and the fox" - his animal metaphor for China because it is cunning and invasive - "have co-existed peacefully for years, but now the situation has changed. I think the chicken is in shock. It's still deciding whether it wants to put up a fight. If it doesn't fight it will be killed. But it may not realise it has a sharp beak and it can fight back."

Wei is wrong on these assertions. Rudd and his senior ministers set out very deliberately to change Australia's policy in dealing with China. The Rudd Government understands very well that it is the target of Chinese anger. And the Government is keenly aware that Australia has serious leverage in the relationship - it knows it has a sharp beak.

But Wei's misapprehension is quite understandable. Rudd has never articulated an overall Australian approach. The Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, really only started to speak about the dispute openly this week.

What has changed?

John Howard had an early clash with China. It was inadvertent, not intentional. And it shook him.

As Howard took office in 1996, China was in an angry confrontation with Taiwan. The US deployed two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Straits in a clear warning to China.

Within days Australia made a strong but lonely public statement of support for the US deployment. Four months later the Howard Government announced the ''reinvigoration'' of the Australian security alliance with the US.

"China feels that the new Government in Australia last year shifted to the US," said a leading Chinese strategic thinker, Dr Yan Xuetong, head of the Centre for China's Foreign Policy Studies, at the time.

"The Chinese interpretation was that Australia had decided to join a US policy of containing China.''

Beijing put Australia into deep diplomatic freeze for almost a year. Howard got the message. He changed China policy dramatically. This is how he phrased it in 1997: "Australia and China are very different societies, our histories have been very different, our political systems have been very different, but our relationship has always been at its very best. Each of us has fully understood the depth of those differences yet resolved to work together to capitalise on the areas of mutual benefit and common interest. It is always important in a relationship between two very different societies that you put aside those differences and you focus on those areas of common agreement."

It became a briskly "business first'' approach. Sometimes it verged on being "business only." Howard put human rights issues into a tank called a human rights dialogue, a lower-level dialogue of the deaf, from which they never emerged.

Rudd made a dramatic departure from this policy. On his first visit to China as prime minister, he addressed Chinese students in Beijing University in their own language. On Chinese soil, and very deliberately, he said the unspeakable. In April last year he said that while Australia recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, "we also believe it is necessary to recognise there are significant human rights problems in Tibet".

He called for dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama to broker a long-term solution to the administration of Tibet. China protested. Rudd stood firm: ''I think this relationship is broad enough to tolerate disagreement, and on these questions I'll be putting my views forthrightly."

Instead of "business first" or "business only", Australia's policy shifted to being "business plus values". It became very clear that this was not a one-off when Smith defied China and granted a visa to the exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.

Smith told Parliament quite forthrightly this week: "The Chinese authorities at a range of levels, including my counterpart, Foreign Minister Yang, made very strong representations to Australia about the proposed visit to Australia of Rebiya Kadeer and made representations to us that we should prevent her visit. I considered those representations and came to the conclusion that there was no basis for denying her entry to Australia."

China accuses her of being a "separatist terrorist". Smith said that "exhaustive" research showed she was not a terrorist but merely someone with whom China's government disagreed. China protested by cancelling a ministerial visit to Australia.

Smith added: "I vaguely remember the Leader of the Opposition saying to the Government some time ago that we should stand up to China. We did on the Rebiya Kadeer issue."

It was a clear message to China - we will not allow you to veto our sovereign right to set immigration policy. Smith also gave a spirited defence of the principle of freedom of speech. The chicken has decided to put up a fight.

Senior officials in the Australian Government believe that Beijing has four principal grievances against Australia at the moment. First was Rudd's speech on Tibet.

Second was the collapse of the bid by China's state-owned Chinalco to buy a bigger stake in Rio Tinto. It was a rebuff to China's ambitions, and it stung.

Stern Hu was duly arrested. Since then, Beijing has downgraded the charge against him from stealing state secrets to stealing trade secrets. That reduces the potential punishment from the death penalty to a seven-year jail term. But the vengeful anger smoulders still.

Third was Australia's defence white paper, which nominated China as potentially the biggest source of instability in the Asia-Pacific.

Fourth was the visa for Rebiya Kadeer. Taken together, it's enough for Chinese state-controlled media to denounce the "sinophobic government" of Kevin Rudd, as it did this week.

Yet despite the rage in Beijing, the economic relationship is thriving, utterly untouched by the diplomatic storm. This week's gas deal was stunning. China invited the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, for the ceremonial signing of the biggest business deal in Australian history, the $50 billion, 20-year deal to buy liquefied natural gas from the Gorgon field. Ferguson also met a senior Chinese minister, Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.

At the same time, China's Commerce Minister, Chen Deming, has agreed to a new round of negotiations for a free trade agreement with Australia. In talks with the Trade Minister, Simon Crean, Chen even proposed a new formula for making progress in the stalled talks.

This is Australia's leverage. For China's successful rise it needs ever-growing quantities of food and fuel in a world that will be increasingly short of both. The chicken has a sharp beak and strong claws.

The Rudd policy of "business plus values" is drawing a lot of noise from Beijing but no real price. Not yet, at least. The next big test will be the Dalai Lama's proposed visit to Australia in November.

As for Wei Jingsheng, asked whether he planned to meet Rudd during his visit to Australia, he said: "I am close to Kevin Rudd, but given his position now I will not make trouble for him." The Dalai Lama will make trouble enough. Wei laughed: "The Dalai Lama and Rebiya Kadeer are good friends of mine. We take it in turns to visit to make trouble." The fox will not be amused. More tests lie ahead.

Peter Hartcher is the Herald's international editor.

READ MORE---> In this Chinese fable the chicken upsets the fox in his lair...

A message to Mr. John Yettaw

Friday, 21 August 2009
by Mizzima News

Dear Mr. John Yettaw,

How are you doing? I hope you are better and ready for a good rest at your home, sweet home. I am glad you were released.

You may not have heard yet about the many speculations of your trial - which ranges from a story that you intentionally collaborated in this because Daw Aung San Suu Kyi did not accept your first uninvited attempt to visit in November 2008. Or you were innocent at first and then systematically put into the act of conspiracy.

Many wonder at the way you got the visa from the country where your name is believed to be listed in police records due to suspicions over your first trip. You told Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that you swam across the lake in the dark in order to avoid anyone from seeing you. It is a huge lake and not easy to negotiate especially in the dark.

To neutralize these rumours, I would love to read if you or any of your associates can write a true story about both your trips, or just the second one. It would be very interesting and helpful if you could tell us how many people you met and got help throughout your trip from the very beginning, before you left your country. That may help everyone understand things a little better.

The country is being ruled by the regime since 1962 and we have been brutally treated till now. Thanks to internet technology now a days, we have received close attention from the outside world. Your individual action or cooperation with the regime will not create any misunderstanding between the Burmese people and the Americans or anybody.

I congratulate Mr. Jim Webb for being able to point out how Mr. Veto China is sucking neighbouring Burma’s economic blood so greedily. He saved you from being used or abused by the regime. However, Mr. Jim Webb's mission to save you should not be given credit in the same way as that of Mr. Bill Clinton last month with North Korea for two American journalists.

I should let you know that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi stands as a good mother for our country. She has been, and will guide us to better lives. She must be released from house arrest as soon as possible so Burma has a chance to listen to her valuable speeches and advices, before it is too late. Do not forget that she won a landslide victory in the 1990 elections.

However, the regime is putting the same wine in a new bottle. She would have been hidden from the public one way or the other even if you did not visit. That’s what the regime has been doing to her. Her life was at risk in Depayin.

Mr. John Yettaw, if you too “really want to use your liberty to promote ours”, please share your experience with us.

Regards,

Karuṇāv

READ MORE---> A message to Mr. John Yettaw...

Domestic journals can quote NLD spokesman

by Nem Davies

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burma’s Censor Board has relaxed its stringent rules and allowed two Rangoon based weekly journals to quote the spokesman of the main opposition party the 'National League for Democracy' (NLD).

The latest issues of 'The Voice' and '7 Days' could cover the news of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who is serving a suspended one and-a-half year prison sentence at her home by quoting party spokesman Nyan Win.

"Previously leave alone quoting him, we could not mention even his name in our publications. It is significant to see the censor board allowing us to cover news by quoting the NLD spokesman," an editor of a weekly journal told Mizzima.

The '7 Days' weekly journal in its latest issue carried an interview by her lawyer and party spokesman Nyan Win after he visited her house a day after the special court pronounced the verdict on her trial.

"I bought and gave two journal copies to her. We could give them to her now. She can also receive guests. So we talked with her today for about an hour, Suu Kyi's lawyer Nyan Win said," the journal reported.

Similarly 'The Voice' covered the same news with the headline 'Despite of arriving back at her home, ongoing house renovation allowed' by quoting Nyan Win.

The inside pages had news of the verdict, news of the renovation of her house, action taken against security personnel deployed at her residence for security lapses and Suu Kyi's release by 2011.

The junta allowed the journalists to visit the court and allowed them to cover the trial but did not allow it to be printed in their publications. One of the censored news, '75-minutes long court pronouncement of judgment' has been published in 'The Voice' now.

But journalists do not view this leniency as the beginning of a free press in Burma just because the Censor Board has allowed the journals to print news by quoting Suu Kyi’s lawyer Nyan Win.

"Sometimes they permit some to be printed. And then they tighten the screw again. So we can't say this is the beginning of press freedom in our country. It's very difficult to comprehend the Censor Board," a reporter from Burma told Mizzima.

The junta has put the Burmese media on a leash and banned mention of the names of pro-democracy activists, politicians and their movements.

21 August 2009

READ MORE---> Domestic journals can quote NLD spokesman...

Webb’s Tangled Message

The Irrawaddy Editorial

When former US President Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea earlier this month to win the release of two imprisoned American journalists, he probably didn’t realize that he was setting a trend. But less than two weeks after his high-profile visit to Pyongyang, another US politician had embarked on a similar—but even more ambitious—mission.

Unlike Clinton, Senator Jim Webb was not acting as an official emissary of the Obama administration when he went to Burma last week. This meant that he was free to set his own agenda, which went far beyond extracting an American citizen from a foreign prison. Although the release of John Yettaw enabled him to declare his visit a “success,” it was, in fact, only incidental to his mission, the real purpose of which was to set the stage for US engagement with Burma’s pariah regime.

Webb, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is a prominent critic of US sanctions on Burma who has long argued that they are counterproductive to political progress in the country and not conducive to American interests. It came as no surprise, then, that the Burmese junta welcomed him with open arms.

Although Webb’s objective was clear, the message sent by his visit was not. Coming soon after a junta-controlled court sentenced Yettaw to seven years imprisonment for illegally entering the home of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Webb’s visit blurred the line between “engaging” the regime and rewarding it for egregious behavior.

Certainly, the regime came away from this as the big winner. Webb’s visit and Yettaw’s subsequent release gave the junta an undeserved opportunity to crow about its respect for “the rule of law, as well as humanitarianism and human rights,” at a time when its crackdown on opposition groups continues unabated. It also provided a convenient way to dispose of a pawn that had served its purpose—to prevent Suu Kyi’s participation in next year’s elections.

However, the real danger of Webb’s mixed message is not that it provides fodder for the regime’s propaganda machine, but that the generals themselves may actually see his visit as a vindication of their perverse notions of justice. Since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested in July that the US might be ready to relax sanctions in exchange for Suu Kyi’s release, the generals have been carefully gauging US reactions to their behavior to see how much, or how little, they will have to concede to improve bilateral relations. At this stage, they probably believe that it will take very little to make Washington happy.

It also doesn’t help that Webb, who was allowed a rare meeting with Suu Kyi, got her message wrong, too. Although he claimed that she agreed with him that Burma needed to “interact” more with the West, her lawyer said that her real emphasis was on the need for interaction among Burmese—in other words, she reiterated her longstanding call for dialogue between the opposition and the regime.

If Webb wants to help Burma, he needs to send an unequivocal message to the regime that Washington will not be satisfied with anything less than the release of the country’s 2,100 political prisoners, including Suu Kyi. If he’s not prepared to make that demand, he should congratulate himself on the “success” of his mission, and leave it at that.

21 August 2009

READ MORE---> Webb’s Tangled Message...

Elections could take Burma ‘in unexpected directions’

(DVB)–The elections in Burma next year will herald a complete transformation of the country’s political landscape, with an opportunity to influence Burma’s future direction, says a think tank report.

While many Burma observers have criticised the looming elections as a means to entrench military rule, an International Crisis Group (ICG) report, Myanmar: Toward the elections, says the outcome is unpredictable.

The elections, scheduled for March next year, are “significant because the controversial constitution on which they are based involves a complete reconfiguration of the political structure”, says the report.

The introduction of a presidential system and fourteen regional governments constitutes the “most wide-ranging shake-up in a generation”, it says.

The constitution, ratified in May 2008 only weeks after cyclone Nargis hit Burma, appears to guarantee 25 per cent of parliamentary seats to the military even prior to voting.

The government claimed that 92 per cent of the Burmese population backed the constitution, although reports of voter intimidation and vote rigging have been documented.

“The change will not inevitably be for the better, but it offers an opportunity to influence the future direction of the country,” says ICG.

“Ultimately, even assuming that the intention of the regime is to consolidate military rule rather than begin a transition away from it, such processes often lead in unexpected directions.”

Last week’s sentencing of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 18 months under house arrest means she will not be able to participate in the elections, with many seeing her trial as a ploy to ensure this.

The sentencing “further undermined what little credibility the [elections] may have had,” said the report, adding however that “All stakeholders should be alert to opportunities that may arise to push the new government toward reform and reconciliation”.

Senior officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) today agreed to urge regional foreign ministers to appeal to the Burmese junta for the release of Suu Kyi, marking a break with its policy of non-interference in internal affairs of member countries.

Reporting by Francis Wade

READ MORE---> Elections could take Burma ‘in unexpected directions’...

30 More Karens Flee Hlinebwe

By LAWI WENG
The Irrawaddy News

Some 30 Karen people from Hlinebwe District in Pa-an Township have fled to the Thai-Burmese border recently to escape forced recruitment and other abuses by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), according to the refugee camp leader in Nu Po on the Thai side of the border.

Camp leader Saw Ta Su Mya told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the 30 new arrivals makes a total of 517 Karens that have fled from that area in the last two months and are now sheltering at Mae Salit, a village near Nu Po.

“Sometimes two or three people arrive a day. Other times, the women and children flee first and are followed by their male relatives later,” he said. “They are careful to keep out of sight of the DKBA on the way,” he added.

The DKBA has reportedly been forcing Karen villagers to work as porters and on other duties since a joint force of its troops and the Burmese army attacked and subsequently took over the rebel Karen National Liberation Army headquarters (Brigade 7) in June.

The pro-junta Karen army ordered headmen in local villages to conscript workers and threatened them if they didn’t comply, according to a source close to the DKBA.

The source said that the group extorts money—often more than 50,000 kyat (US $50)—from anyone who refuses to comply.

According to the sources, the Thai border authorities have been reluctant to allow the displaced Karens to stay in Mae Salit and are encouraging them to return home.

In the meantime, several relief teams from Mae Sot are providing emergency aid to the new arrivals, Saw Ta Su Mya said. “But they [the 517 Karens] may be pressured to return to Karen State soon,” he added.

Since the attacks by the Burmese army and the DKBA on the KNLA in June, some 4,000 villagers from northern Karen state have fled to the Thai-Burmese border.

Many people are worried that the joint force will resume its offensive in northern Karen State in September after the rainy season.

The Karen sources said they believed that if another offensive breaks out, thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in northern Karen State and the more than 4,000 Karen refugees in Ei Tu Hta, a temporary camp on the Salween River, will be forced to flee to Thai soil.

Meanwhile, Karen monks in Thaton Township in Mon State have sent an open letter to the monk who formed the DKBA, U Thuzana, calling on him to instruct the Buddhist Karen army to cease fighting their Karen brothers, the KNLA, as the refugee crisis is escalating.

READ MORE---> 30 More Karens Flee Hlinebwe...

The Story of a Child Soldier

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

PAPUN, Karen State—Sixteen-year-old Htun Htun Oo, looked relieved and happy when he learned he would be leaving the conflict zone controlled by the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) soldiers on the Burmese bank of the Salween River, opposite Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province.

The prospect of going to study instead of facing more military duties gave him new hope.

Told he could leave, Htun Htun Oo quickly packed his clothes in a sling bag, put on a watch, applied some Thanaka (Burmese traditional makeup) to his cheeks and said goodbye to the Karen soldiers who had temporarily taken care of him.
A young soldier with the Burmese army (Not Htun Htun Oo)

Speaking quietly against a background of birdsong and eddying water in the fast flowing Salween River, he told us his story before he left.

Htun Htun Oo escaped from the Burmese Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 341 in Papun District in northern Karen State in July, making his way through the forest eastwards, even though he was not sure whether he would be killed when he reached KNLA-controlled territory.

Before he escaped, senior officers had regularly warned the troops that they would be tortured and killed if they surrendered to Karen rebels.

“Whether I lived or died didn’t matter anymore,” Htun Htun Oo said, “All I wanted to do was escape. I was ready for anything so long as I didn’t have to stay another day in that battalion.”

He said that he had to sleep rough in the jungle for three days before he reached the KNLA area.

“When I arrived on the Burmese side of the Salween River, I started to swim across,” he said, pointing to the waters swollen with monsoon rain streaming by.

“The water was too fast and I was drifting downstream, trying to swim,” he said, “Luckily a boat came along and picked me up.

“The Burmese officers would continually punish us and order us to do additional duties—we were no better than slaves,” he said.

“They didn’t give us enough food, and when we were too exhausted to follow orders, they liked to beat us. I was beaten three times for falling asleep when I was on guard duty at night.

“Every morning we had to get up at five and do military exercises,” Htun Htun Oo said. “Around three in the afternoon we would be ordered into the jungle to cut bamboo and collect leaves to make temporary shelters.

“We didn’t get enough time to sleep as we had guard duty at night. I couldn’t take it any more and decided to run away,” he said.

Htun Htun Oo earned 21,000 kyat [US $19] a month, but said he only got about 7,000 kyat [$6.40] after senior officers made deductions.

Htun Htun Oo said he saw child soldiers in other Burmese battalions, and he knew of eight other child soldiers in LIB 341 alone.

During military training, he said he spoke with a younger comrade called Ye Thew, who told him he had been sexually abused by higher ranking officers on several occasions.

Htun Htun Oo was seized by the Burmese army at a railway station in June 2007 while he was on his way to visit his uncle, who was a policeman in Rangoon,.

“A Burmese soldier asked me for my ID card, but I didn’t have one because I hadn’t applied for one by then. So they took me away,” he said.

Htun Htun Oo’s case is not untypical. The recruitment of child soldiers in Burma is still widely practiced by the Burmese army, according to Aye Myint, a leader of Guiding Star, a Burma-based social and labor rights group.

In the last three months, more than 20 children who say they were forced by Burmese officials to serve as soldiers were helped by Aye Myint’s group and the International Labour Organization to return to their families.

Commenting in early August on reports that the Burmese government had released some children from the military, the UN’s special representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, was quoted by Reuters as saying: “We still are not sure how comprehensive that is and the extent of it. And so I am dispatching a team [to Burma] at the end of this month.”

The team would hold talks with the Burmese regime and rebel groups, said Coomaraswamy.
In a report in June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused the Burmese military government and “ethnic rebel militias” of recruiting children to serve as fighters, saying that there had been “grave violations” against children in Burma.

According to a 2002 report by the Washington-based Human Rights Watch, there is no precise figure of the number of child soldiers serving in the Burmese army, but it was estimated that 35-45 percent of new recruits were children, some as young as 11, who were forcibly conscripted and brutally treated during training.

The report estimated that as many as 70,000 recruits were under the age of 18.
Htun Htun Oo said, “I have only one message for the youth of Burma—don’t even think about joining the Burmese army. It is like being in a living hell. You will go so far from home that you will forget it even exists.”

Asked about the Burmese regime’s announcement that the military did not recruit child soldiers, he said, “They are lying.”

READ MORE---> The Story of a Child Soldier...

Yettaw: The Swimmer Speaks

John Yettaw, the American whose release from a Burmese prison was negotiated by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, arrives at a military airbase in Thailand on August 16, 2009.

John Yettaw, just back from his Burmese prison odyssey, explains how he unwittingly created an international diplomatic crisis.

By Tony Dokoupil | Newsweek Web Exclusive

How was a retired bus driver from Missouri able to make a flipper-clad, two-kilometer swim to the heavily guarded house of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, one of the world's most famous dissidents? While John Yettaw languished in Burmese jail during his trial for "illegal swimming," all we could do is speculate. But now, in an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK, Yettaw has offered an explanation: Burmese security officials let him. "I don't know why they didn't stop me," he says. "The man with the AK-47 shook my hand and let me in."

In his first full-length interview, conducted by telephone from his home in central Missouri, Yettaw addressed the rationale for his undiplomatic dip, responding to critics and speaking at length about his commitment to Burma. "I want to free Myanmar. I want to stop the suffering there. I am anti-junta. I will never be at peace, emotionally or psychologically, until that woman is free, until that nation is free," he said.

Yettaw burst onto the front pages of the world's papers in May, when he had made an uninvited two-day visit to the home of Suu Kyi. "The Lady," as locals call her, trounced opponents in the country's last open election in 1990, but the junta refused to recognize the results and has kept her under arrest for 14 of the past 20 years for trying to topple the regime. She was due to be released on May 27, just weeks after Yettaw showed up, well ahead of next year's landmark national elections—the first in two decades. But earlier this month, Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18 more months of home confinement. On Sunday, Yettaw was freed from seven years of hard labor when U.S. Sen. Jim Webb negotiated for his release; he was deported back to the United States.

A quixotic man who didn't have a passport until last year, Yettaw is an unlikely protagonist on the international political stage. The junta has said it believes that anti-government activists used Yettaw to embarrass its leaders, while Suu Kyi's supporters say that the government used the American as a pretense for keeping their best-known critic under house arrest rather than risk igniting the opposition ahead of the 2010 elections. Yettaw's family, for its part, doesn't know what to believe. After years of questions that have gone unanswered and behavior that doesn't quite add up, they have come to accept Yettaw the way he is—bighearted but unsteady—without asking too many follow-ups.

Late Thursday night, the 53-year-old Missourian remained an enigmatic figure, failing to clarify lingering questions and offering rambling and occasionally contradictory responses. "I have to be careful what I say or it will hurt the people of Myanmar," he explained, using Burma's other name. Echoing his court testimony, he says he traveled to Burma hoping to visit the Nobelist Suu Kyi—and to warn her that he'd learned, in a divine vision, terrorists were planning to assassinate her. He denied that the military junta ruling the country had put him up to the visit. "I've been accused of being CIA, of being on the books of the junta. The idea is just ridiculous," he said.

Still, the question remains: why didn't guards stop Yettaw as he made his way across the lake to the home of the country's most famous prisoner? Yettaw had made a similar aquatic bid for the Suu Kyi house in November 2008, but he was turned away by her on-site companions. He told family that he had been captured by guards at gunpoint on his way back from her house. The guards, he says, apparently unaware of his first attempted visit to Suu Kyi's house, bought his story that he had fallen into the lake while fishing and let him go.

It's not clear why authorities took a harder line this time, putting Yettaw on trial and ultimately sentencing him to jail. He says he doesn't know, but indicates that authorities did not seem too concerned about stopping him: instead, a group of guards languidly threw rocks at him as he paddled along. "I told [the judge at trial], Haul them in here and ask them for yourself." He added: "Maybe they were just lazy, or untrained or so cocky that they didn't think anyone would try to swim by them," Yettaw said. "Maybe they are so used to people being scared that they didn't expect anyone to do something so courageous."

Yettaw declined to say where he initially got the idea to visit Suu Kyi by crossing the lake. But according to one Western diplomat, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, intelligence reports show that senior Burmese officials were told to come up with a way to keep the Lady incarcerated, as her May 27 release date loomed. Around a week before Yettaw's second swim, this person says, two men posing as members of the reform-minded National League for Democracy allegedly approached Yettaw in Mae Sot, an untidy border town in Thailand, and told him that the Lady was ready to receive him. (The Burmese government did not respond to requests for comment.)

Yettaw won't say what he and Suu Kyi discussed once he made it to her house. "It is so personal that I have no right to discuss our conversation with anyone, not with my wife and not with my children," he said, adding that he is "brokenhearted" that she is under house arrest once more. Still, he doesn't see his actions as the cause of her predicament. "I didn't put her there. I didn't imprison that woman."

Actually, he says, his visit may have even saved Suu Kyi from the terrorists he believes were out to get her. He is not a hero, though: "I don't like titles. You can call me John." He bristles at the suggestion that he is unstable and possibly mentally ill, as some people, including one of his three ex-wives, has suggested. "I am not crazy. I am not insane. I am not bipolar."

Since touching down in Springfield, Mo., on Wednesday, Yettaw has kept a low profile—ducking out of an airport side door without picking up his luggage in order to avoid the waiting scrum of reporters and photographers. "I was really worried that he would be different or changed," Yettaw's 21-year-old daughter Carley, says. "But he wasn't. It was just like seeing my dad regular. It wasn't a big deal." His wife Betty has also downplayed the homecoming, focusing instead on the financial burden of her husband's long trip. Although Webb helped secure his release, Yettaw had to pay his own travel expenses and foot the bill for a nurse assigned to monitor his health. "They are breaking us," says Betty, who is also keen to deflect criticism of John. "Yeah, [Suu Kyi is] back under house arrest, but people who didn't know where the heck Burma was, who couldn't find it on the map for all their life, now know."

For now, Yettaw is taking his return to America "one day at a time." Later this month, he plans to pick up his three youngest children—he has five surviving kids in all—in California, where they stay with their mother every summer. He also intends to spend some time working on his two book projects: a "dissertation" about forgiveness (although he is not enrolled in an academic program) and a book "about a higher power, about recognizing the bitter and the sweet."

Would he go back to Burma? "Not without my family," he said, "and not without an invitation."

With Lennox Samuels In Thailand
Aug 21, 2009

READ MORE---> Yettaw: The Swimmer Speaks...

Campaigners call for commission of inquiry into junta crimes

by Mungpi

New Delhi (Mizzima) - Campaigners say now is the time for the international community, particularly the United Nations, to call on the Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Burma’s military rulers.

With the recent sentencing of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the continued cleansing of minorities in remote areas of the country, Burma’s military rulers have clearly demonstrated their ruthlessness and stubbornness in ignoring calls for reform, three campaign group said on Wednesday.

Debbie Stothard, coordinator for the Alternative Asean Network on Burma (Altsean Burma), one of the three groups that has called on the Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry, said the international community, while offering condemnation through rhetoric, has done little practical to push the junta to implement changes in Burma.

“It is high time that the international community stop accepting the junta’s actions and stand up,” Stothard told Mizzima on Thursday.

Altsean Burma, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Burma Lawyers Council (BLC) in their statement on Wednesday called on the European Union, which tightened economic sanctions on the junta in the wake of the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi, to support their call in setting up a commission of inquiry.

The statement said the new sanctions imposed by the EU are totally inadequate in the face of the worsening human rights situation and ongoing atrocities against ethnic nationalities in Burma.

“These sanctions reflect the political unwillingness of the EU to take a firm stance on this issue and increase dangerously the risk that the regime will consider this as a green light to continue committing international crimes,” said Souhayr Belhassen, President of FIDH, in the statement.

On August 11, a special court in Rangoon’s Insein Prison announced the verdict of the over two-month trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, finding her guilty and sentencing her to three years of prison with hard labor.

But the country’s military Supremo, Senior General Than Shwe, intervened the court session via a special order and commuted the sentence by half, contingent upon good moral behavior, while also allowing her to serve her time at her lakeside home.

Following the sentencing several countries have issued statements condemning the junta, though a few have hailed the junta for its apparent leniency in commuting Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence.

“The EU must not be fooled by the SPDC’s [Burma’s military government] phony attempt to show leniency on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The SPDC has fulfilled its strategy to keep Daw Aung San Suu Kyi out of the picture while, at the same time, the SPDC tells the world that Burma is on the path to democracy. How can the SPDC’s planned elections be given any credence when war still rages in Eastern Burma?” Stothard questioned.

Stothard said several thousand ethnic citizens in eastern Burma are currently being displaced as a result of fresh atrocities committed by the junta’s soldiers.

“If the junta is sincere in their plans and want to implement changes, the junta must stop killing the ethnics. Burma’s politics is not just about Aung San Suu Kyi and the regime but it is also the issue of ethnic nationalities,” Stothard emphasized.

Stothard added that the international community, particularly the United Nations, has not been taking effective measures to force the junta to cease their behavior.

“The UN has very little or no pressure at all on the SPDC. And the SPDC knows that they can continue playing around with international politics,” she said, referring to the junta’s official name of State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

Meanwhile, the US-based Global Justice Centre (GJC), in a press statement, denounced UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for his reaction over the Burmese junta’s sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi, the only detained Nobel Peace Laureate.

The GJC said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks on the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi are totally at odds with his mandate under the UN Charter.

“As a Representative of the UN, and given these circumstances, international law requires Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for an end to impunity, not convey his ‘disappointment’ and call for ‘reconciliation’,” argued the GJC in their statement.

The GJC said instead of calling the verdict “disappointing” and “deplorable”, Ban should refer the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court, concluding that Ban’s remarks “undermine the rule of law.”

READ MORE---> Campaigners call for commission of inquiry into junta crimes...

Webb visit challenges opposition assumptions

JEG's: THE OPPOSITION WAS NEVER RELYING ON WEBB'S RESULTS
QUITE THE OPPOSITE, "THEY WERE ON GUARD..."

by Joseph Ball

Mizzima News - The fallout from U.S. Senator Jim Webb’s recent visit to Burma sheds light on inherent fissures and miscommunication both internal to Burma’s leading pro-democracy alliance and between the opposition and at least one of its primary international backers. If the country’s pro-democracy opposition, in its existing constitution, is to maximize its chances of success – these cracks in the foundation demand immediate attention.

In short, Burma’s democratic opposition has crippled itself by relying far too heavily on two assumptions: 1) – that it necessarily understands and acts in accordance with the strategic thinking of National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and 2) – concluding that the interests of the United States intrinsically align themselves with those of the democratic opposition.

Taking the second point first, the interests of the United States in Burma have not changed in 20 years and ideologically have their roots in the first half of the 20th century. The Obama administration’s approach to Burma, put succinctly, is a continuation of well-established U.S. policy to the region. The primary goal remains unaltered – containment of possible rival powers on the greater Eurasian landmass.

It should not be lost on interested parties, despite modest success toward Indian national interest, the importance of New Delhi in failing to significantly dent Chinese influence in Burma – for example, two years previously with the inability of India to secure contracts relating to the shipment of natural gas from Burma’s Shwe gas field. Such a counter by a democratic/military U.S. ally to Beijing’s growing clout was viewed by Washington as a critical development, despite New Delhi’s lukewarm support for Burma’s own democracy movement.

What has changed regarding U.S. foreign policy to Burma is the acceptable approaches to achieving America’s overriding goal. While rhetoric relating to “democracy” and “human rights” has been and will remain en vogue – and sanctions are by no means to disappear overnight, the truth is far less idealistic and far more abrasive: the United States is concerned first and foremost with the national interests of the United States, to which democracy and human rights, as with elections, are tools to be used when convenient to confer legitimacy upon a favored policy and/or personality in pursuit of an American agenda.

If Burma’s democratic opposition is solely concerned with the final outcome, then there remains little to differentiate their and U.S. interests. But, for considerable and influential portions of the aforementioned opposition bloc, the means to the end has come to be held just as sacrosanct as the end itself. This is wherein lies the present tension between Burma’s pro-democracy opposition and the United States.

While the Bush administration for eight years – a stretch of time which dominates the recent post-’88 history of involvement by Washington in Burmese affairs and was in accord with the dominant hardline voice of Burma’s democratic opposition – stood content with cries of ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’ and publicly sought the immediate overthrow of Burma’s ruling generals as a means of countering Chinese – and to a lesser extent Russian – influence and presence in Burma, the Obama administration, while promoting the same goals, appears at least willing to explore alternative currents in support of American priorities.

Senator Webb himself is said to have drawn attention, during his tête-è-tête with Aung San Suu Kyi, as to his – and what can reasonably be said to be his country’s – fear of growing Chinese dominance inside Burma. It was a succinct and brutally honest appraisal of U.S. interest in Burma, sounded by a ranking member of the Washington establishment and delivered to Burma’s opposition leader.

Significantly, the affront was reportedly brushed aside by Burma’s democracy icon, who expressed the opinion that there was nothing to fear from China and that the regional hegemon remained vital to the future of Burma and should, accordingly, not be vilified.

The response effectively signals that Suu Kyi is out of step with Washington’s paramount interest in her country – though she may very well have spoken appropriately as a Burmese citizen and to the best interests of her motherland.

This leads to the second critical misstep of Burma’s democratic opposition: convincing itself that it can speak for Aung San Suu Kyi.

Though recent months have seen a slight uptick in opposition interest to positively engage China, the by far dominant message to be taken from opposition activists and organizations during Suu Kyi’s lengthy detention has been one of unabated condemnation and ridicule of Beijing and its policies.

It then follows that the attention, time and money directed at demonizing China has been used counter to the wishes of Burma’s democracy icon and, accordingly, against what she perceives as in the best long-term interests of Burma. This is not to say that Burmese and Chinese interests are one and the same, but that the sowing of an antagonistic relationship between Rangoon/Naypyitaw and Beijing is counterproductive to the interests of the Burmese people.

China, as with the United States, is concerned with Chinese interests. By outwardly threatening Chinese investment and interests in Burma, the country’s democratic opposition has served to diminish its own leverage.

Not of coincidence, the strong vitriol directed against Beijing by Burmese opposition parties does serve the stated interests of one country in particular – the United States. This is a fact not lost in the halls of Beijing or Naypyitaw, assisting – rightly or not – in painting the opposition as an arm of U.S. foreign policy and thereby an enemy to Burmese nationalism, the principle purview of Burma’s men in arms.

Perhaps even more telling than the exchange regarding China, however, was the revelation at a press conference in Bangkok by Senator Webb following his visit, during which he inferred Suu Kyi may be accepting to the loosening of the sanctions noose. This sentiment sent shock waves through the opposition community as sanctions remain the cornerstone of their policy in confronting the junta.

It is unlikely that Senator Webb attempted to falsely misrepresent Suu Kyi on the issue of sanctions. What is far more likely is that opposition elements sought immediate word to the contrary from The Lady herself in order to patch over a potential momentous gap in the opposition’s foundation.

Yet, tellingly, Suu Kyi’s apparently unequivocal rebuttal of Senator Webb’s assessment of China was again evidently accompanied by language of nuanced ambiguity as to the issue of sanctions – a choice of words then regurgitated and spun by the international media as proof that she stands firmly behind a sanctions regime.

The truth, as is usually the case, is not so simple.

As related via second-hand quotes, her sentiment that sanctions cannot be addressed until the regime first interacts “inside the country” can easily be interpreted as either accepting of an inevitable softening in sanctions as political reconciliation progresses or as steadfast support for an ongoing sanctions policy until opposition victory is relatively assured.

Both Webb and the democratic opposition took from Suu Kyi’s musings what they wanted, the former as a convenience to providing flexibility in United States policy and the latter as necessitated by its already having invested so much in upholding an unbending sanctions policy attributed to be in agreement with the thinking of Suu Kyi.

Barring the advent of the acceptable means to the end of Burma’s political deadlock as envisioned by Burma’s pro-democracy opposition, is the community capable of reorienting itself to alternative strategies to secure the same end result if both its assumptions of internal leadership and external relationships prove compromised? Will the legacy of Aung San Suu Kyi be formed by The Lady herself or held hostage to those, as well-intentioned as may be the case, purporting to speak and act in her name? Can tough decisions be made in the name of and prioritizing national interest and realpolitik as opposed to “international norms” and moral absolutes?

In suggesting that Senator Webb’s visit was ill-founded due to the “imperfect” nature of the 2008 Burma Constitution, the letter by three opposition groups directed to Webb and questioning his decision to visit Burma held but the latest indications of an opposition anchored to an irreconcilable, absolutist project. Constitutional perfection, as remarked upon by Thomas Jefferson, is a project in futility – which is far from saying that the constitutional process is not just that, an evolutionary cycle demanding of regular reassessment in the construction of a better constitution than the last.

What is urgently needed from Burma’s opposition community is a substantive policy and strategic review, reflective of international relations and power politics as practiced, respective of existing avenues of communication and sensitive to the fact that the means to the end demands flexibility in order to maximize the chance of success.

Austere adherence to doctrinal rigidity – especially that premised on dubious assumptions – is ultimately a sign of weakness, not strength.

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Opposition Leader On Continued Sanctions

The Opposition NEVER had any interest in Webb's visit:
Possibly reflecting a similar wariness, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy said the party "has no interest in Jim Webb because he is not known to have any interest in Myanmar affairs."

READ MORE---> Webb visit challenges opposition assumptions...

Burma urges West to lift sanctions

(DVB)–Burma has urged Western countries to remove the economic blockade on the country that it says has curbed development and blocked the path towards democracy.

An article published today in the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that the goal of democracy was being “[diverted] from its route” through sanctions exercised by “anti-government groups”.

Likely pointing to the recent visit to Burma by US senator Jim Webb, who is outspoken in his criticism of sanctions on the country, the comment praised “visionary” members of the US government who don’t support the boycott.

It urged "all political forces to give up the tactic of economic sanctions and collectively open the golden door to a modern, developed and peaceful democratic nation".

The article follows a recent comment by Webb, who met with Aung San Suu Kyi last week, that the Burma opposition leader could be revising her pro-sanctions stance.

He told reporters earlier this week that “it was my clear impression from her that she is not opposed to lifting some sanctions."

She also apparently indicated that tourism in Burma should be encouraged, in contrast to years spent dissuading tourists from visiting the country.

However, according to her lawyer Nyan Win, who met with her yesterday, she denied mentioning the tourism boycott to Webb.

“She said she made a remark about the issue back in 2007 that it isn’t her responsibility to lift the sanctions as she was not the one who imposed them [on Burma.],” he said.

He added that Suu Kyi said sanctions should be lifted if they were indeed hurting the nations, and that there should be more interaction between Burma and the international community “only if it’s started from inside Burma”.

Webb was the first senior US official to visit Burma in over a decade, and the first time a US politician has met with the junta leader Than Shwe.

Burmese state media hailed the trip as a success after Webb secured the release of John Yettaw, the US citizen whose visit to Suu Kyi’s compound in May triggered a seven-year prison sentence for him and her extended detention under house arrest.

Reporting by Francis Wade and Htet Aung Kyaw

READ MORE---> Burma urges West to lift sanctions...

Refugees of the Maepa Rubbish Dump

By ARKAR MOE
The Irrawaddy News

MAE SOT, Thailand — Burmese refugee families have lived for years around a trash dump in Mae Sot, but with free medical care and free education for their children, it’s not all bad.

Many families have tried to return to Burma, but most came back to Mae Sot because the life was better. Still, they struggle daily, their wages are miniscule and their humble homes are periodically torn down by Thai authorities.

Burmese refugees sort through rubbish at the Maepa trash dump in Mae Sot. (Photo: Arkar Moe/ The Irrawaddy)

"I had decent pay before,” said 28-year-old Soe Win, as he washed a frayed jacket he found in the rubbish dump. “But now it’s hard to survive.”

An illegal migrant worker, he has worked around the trash dump for three years, ever since he came from Shwe Kyin Township in Burma to find a job in Thailand.

The Irrawaddy interviewed Burmese refugees who live around the Maepa trash dump in Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak Province, only a few kilometers inside the Burmese-Thai border.

"There are 287 people here on the resident list. I came here eight years ago. In the past, I earned more than 100 baht per day. Most of people here get only 50 or 65 baht per day,” said Myint Aye, who works in the rubbish dump.

“This recycling factory was opened in May 2009, and there are about 26 workers,” he said. “We get only 2 baht for one kilogram.”

Myint Aye said the residents around the dump have problems with the Thai police who come into the area to remove homes in the spring of each year.

“Now, we all are worrying about it,” he said. “Thai authorities won’t even allow people to build huts here.”
Even so, there are about 70 houses and 290 people live around the rubbish dump, most Burmese or ethnic Karen, he said.

A 42-year-old woman, Than Myint, said: “I came here from Magwe Township two years ago. There are nine members in my family. Only three people work, but, we can survive here. Now I get at least 50 or 60 baht a day because the plastic recycling factory set up near us.” She said her makeshift hut was destroyed last year by authorities, and her bicycle confiscated.

She tried to return to work in Burma, she said, but faced more difficulties and went into debt. She returned, and things are better here, she said.

Makeshift dwellings around the trash dump are razed by Thai authorities annually. (Photo: Arkar Moe/ The Irrawaddy)

“We can get free health care and an education for our children,” she said. “We only need to pay a 50 baht school fee per year.”

The School Clinic or the Mae Tao Clinic, founded and directed by Dr. Cynthia Maung, provides free health care for refugees, migrant workers and other individuals who cross the border from Burma.

The dump ground community has a small school, built with the help of the Thai government and donor agencies.

Aung Zaw Oo, the headmaster of Moo (6) School, said: “Our school started in 2005 with the help of the World Education Center (WEC) and the Ministry of Education. Now, there are seven teachers and 92 students from kindergarten to grade five. We plan to expand to grade seven. We teach subjects about Myanmar, science, geography, English and mathematics. The Thai language is taught three times a week.”

A nongovernmental group, “Children on the Edge—New Zealand” helps to support the school with material and funding. The humanitarian agency was founded in 2006 to work on behalf of marginalized and vulnerable children from Burma.

Nan Aye Phyu, a Karen teacher, said, “I think our students get a better education here than children inside Burma.”

READ MORE---> Refugees of the Maepa Rubbish Dump...

Regime Goal: The Strongest Army in Southeast Asia

By MIN LWIN
The Irrawaddy News

The Burmese military regime is well on its way to modernizing its military services, including a self-manufacturing infrastructure for the army, navy and air force.

Many of the changes have occurred under the direction of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who became chairman of the ruling council in 1992.

The Defense Industry (DI) ministry, Burma’s main military industry agency, operates 22 manufacturing or procurement facilities, many located on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River west of the Pegu mountain range.

Lt-Gen Tin Aye, a trusted Than Shwe ally, is chief of the Defense Industry ministry.

Htay Aung, a Thailand-based military researcher, said that since the military took control of the country in 1988, Burma has steadily expanded its military services and modernized armament production and procurement.

“In Southeast Asia, Burma has the second largest military after Vietnam,” Htay Aung told The Irrawaddy.

“The primary reason for military expansion is that the generals fear that Burma could face an invasion, since it is located between two giant neighbors [India and China].”

The regime also may be trying to acquire nuclear weapons, said Htay Aung.

Late in the1950s, the Defense Industry, or Ka Pa Sa, maintained arms and ammunition production facilities under contract with the Federal Republic of Germany’s state-owned Fritz Werner.

Since then, the Defense Industry network has expanded its infrastructure and today manufactures small arms, ammunitions, land mines and other military hardware. Analysts said the Defense Industry also produces surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs), and may be in the process of exploring ways to build or acquire nuclear weapons.

One facility, the No (2) Defense Industry, located in Upper Min Hla Township in Magwe Division, was built by Singapore, say analysts. The facility is said to produce 60 mm, 81 mm, 105 mm and 120 mm mortars. Singapore is a major source of arms technology for Burma, according to analysts.

The Korean Daewoo Company signed a deal with the government in May 2002 to build an arms factory valued at US $133 million near Prome in Pegu Division. The factory may build or assemble missiles.

No (10) Defense Industry was built in 1993 near Kongyi village in Upper-Min Hla Township in Magwe Division to manufacture surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), air-to-air missiles (AAMs) and rocket launchers. Parts and other material at the No (10) Defense Industry facility are believed to be supplied by South Korea, Russia and China.

Defense analysts say the junta may have started a guided missile development program with the help of firms in Singapore.

In the face of an arms embargo by Western countries, the regime now relies on China, South Korea, North Korea and Russia for help in upgrading its military hardware.

The junta’s desire to acquire some form of nuclear weapons has received extensive exposure in the media in recent months, including in The Irrawaddy.

A Rangoon-based company, Soe Min Htaik Co. Ltd, plays a central role in weapons procurement from China, South Korea, North Korea and Russia.

Soe Min Htaik Co. Ltd is a private company that was formed by Burma’s Defense Industry in the early 1990.

Analysts say Soe Min Htaik Co. procured surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) from China and North Korea.

The Burmese military also has created two military-managed economic organizations: the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Limited (UMEHL), established in 1989 and 1990 respectively.

The mission of the two commercial enterprises is to make the military services self-sufficient. Heavy weapons, ammunition and other defense technology are acquired with profits from MEC and UMEHL.

The UMEHL has numerous subsidiary and affiliated firms engaged in trading with Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, China, South Korea and India. Cooking oil, fuel oil and automobiles are important imports while exports include cigarettes, beans and pulses, gems, garment products and gas.

UMEHL also has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from the Daewoo Company which has a contract to export natural gas.

Defense analysts have said that Than Shwe has a goal to acquire nuclear weapon capability by 2025.

READ MORE---> Regime Goal: The Strongest Army in Southeast Asia...

Eastern Burma: Another Darfur?

By SAW YAN NAING
The Irrawaddy News

You could say it runs in the family—45-year-old Saw Lubermoo’s grandmother and grandfather were IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), his parents were IDPs, and now he is an IDP.

The ethnic Karen says he has been constantly on the move and hiding in the jungle since he was four years of age.

He is among hundreds of thousands of ethnic Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan civilians who have been displaced in eastern Burma for decades.

According to a 2008 report by the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, an umbrella group of donors and humanitarian organizations, the total number of IDPs in eastern Burma is likely to be well over half a million with at least 451,000 people estimated to have been displaced in rural areas alone. The group also says that many IDP cases in eastern Burma go unreported.

According to Shan and Karen relief groups, there are currently about 20,000 IDPs in hiding in the jungles of central Shan State and northern Karen State.

A separate group of some 4,000 Karen villagers fled during the joint Burmese army– Democratic Karen Buddhist Army offensive against the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) in June and are presently being sheltered on Thai soil.

Shan community-based rights groups, including the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN), reported on August 13 that in the previous two weeks, the Burmese army had burned down more than 500 houses and forced about 40 villages to relocate, mostly in Laikha Township in Shan State.

On Wednesday, a top US administration official expressed anxiety over the displacement of thousands of civilians in northeastern parts of Burma due to the Burmese army’s military activities.

“We have been deeply concerned by very recent reports of large-scale displacement, perhaps as many or more than 10,000 civilians,” the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, Eric Schwartz, told reporters on Wednesday at a special briefing at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the US State Department.

Observers and human rights advocacy groups have said that the conditions under which villagers are forced to become IDPs in eastern Burma is conducive with the criteria regarded by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as “crimes against humanity.”

Aung Htoo, the general-secretary of the exiled Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC), said, “We can say with certainty that crimes against humanity and war crimes are being committed in Burma.

Charm Tong, a spokesperson for SWAN, said, “The regime brazenly committed these crimes even as the whole world was watching them during the trial of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Several activists have said that crimes committed by soldiers of the Burmese regime include murder, rape, torture, looting, forced relocations and displacement. Many compare the situation in eastern Burma to the Darfur crisis in western Sudan where about 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced.

The ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan.

Since 1997, the Burmese regime has destroyed over 3,000 villages and displaced over half a million civilians in eastern Burma. Karen sources report that there have been many unreported displacements and destroyed villages in Karen State alone since 1949 when the Karen armed revolution began.

International and regional rights groups, such as the International Federation for Human Rights, Altsean-Burma and Burma Lawyers’ Council, have urged the European Union to support the establishment of a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma.

Regional activist, Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of Altsean-Burma, said, “How can the SPDC’s planned elections be given any credence when war still rages in eastern Burma?”

A Karen rebel commander with the KNLA for more than two decades said he decided to join the fight against the Burmese army after he witnessed the bloodthirsty murder of children by Burmese soldiers.

He could not control his emotions as he told the story. “In one village, I saw the Burmese army kill women and infants. This event motivated me to pick up a gun and protect my Karen people,” he said.

“I have asked myself many times why Burmese soldiers are killing civilians. But, I have never found an answer.”

A Karen girl, Taw Oo Paw, 13, said, “I pray every night before I go to bed that I can be reunited with my mother and my sisters, and return to my village and live in peace.”

Her father was killed by the Burmese army and she has been separated from her mother and sisters for two years. She said that she hopes for a family reunion, one day.

Washington-based The Irrawaddy correspondent Lalit K Jha also contributed into this article.

READ MORE---> Eastern Burma: Another Darfur?...