Burma Update

scmp - Friday, August 26, 2005


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Bangkok
Rumours of a coup within the ruling military junta in Myanmar were baseless, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday.

"We have received confirmation from all sources that the rumour of a coup is not true. The rumour was spread by some faction, but it is not true," Mr Thaksin said in Bangkok. He did not elaborate.

Rumours of a coup have spread across Myanmar over the past two days, weakening the national currency and pushing up the price of gold, local businessmen said.

Word that ruling junta chairman Senior General Than Shwe had been deposed by his deputy, General Maung Aye, and a group of military leaders spread rapidly after a story on Tuesday night on the BBC's Burmese programme, quoting a resident on the Myanmar-China border.

The person said Than Shwe had been forced to retire by army commander-in-Chief Maung Aye because of "nepotism and corruption".

The government has not denied the rumours, but an official close to one high-ranking military leader said on Wednesday that the "news was absolutely untrue".

"This rumour is still a rumour," Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon, said, adding that he was still planning to visit Myanmar as scheduled next week.

The US dollar rose to 1,170 kyat on the black market yesterday from 1,150 kyat on Tuesday because of the rumours, a black-market money-changer said.

The official exchange rate for the kyat, which is non-convertible, is about 6 kyat per US dollar, but most business transactions and consumer sales are conducted at the black-market rate. The government usually tolerates the unofficial exchange rate as the only realistic way of conducting trade.

A gold-shop owner said the price of the metal went up.

News-starved citizens of Myanmar rely on foreign radio stations for reports on the country's current events. Because information is tightly restricted, rumours are frequent and tend to spread quickly.

Myanmar's junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy uprising. The generals refused to hand over power to Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party after its landslide election victory in 1990.

In April 1992, former junta chairman General Saw Maung was removed from office for "health reasons", after which Than Shwe became chairman of the council.

Former prime minister General Khin Nyunt, also the former military intelligence chief, was ousted last October in a major junta shake-up.

In his press conference, Mr Thaksin said democracy was making little headway in Myanmar and that he would urge its leaders to join the "club of democratic countries".

"It [democracy] is very slow but whenever I meet them I will convince them to expedite the process. But it is really an internal affair," he said.

Mr Thaksin noted that the two countries enjoyed good relations and were co-operating on a number of issues, including suppression of narcotics, a serious problem in the area known as the Golden Triangle, which straddles the borders of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

scmp - Thursday, August 25, 2005


REUTERS in Bangkok
Rumours swirled in army-ruled Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand yesterday that junta strongman Senior General Than Shwe has been removed by the powerful army commander.

Reports suggested Than Shwe, head of a military junta which has ruled the former Burma in various forms since 1962, had been ousted by No2 General Maung Aye, although Yangon was calm and people said there was no extra security on the streets.

A Thai intelligence official said his organisation was trying to determine the truth of the rumours in the absence of official comment from the Myanmese government.

"We've heard Maung Aye has seized power from Than Shwe, citing allegations of corruption and his involvement in illegal trade of weapons," he said.

He said Thura Shwe Man, the No 3 general in the ruling State Peace and Development Council, was rumoured to have been assigned to investigate Than Shwe's alleged crimes.

But Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon said: "So far, everything is just a rumour. I am still sticking to my plan to visit Myanmar late this month."

Soe Myint, editor of the pro-democracy Mizzima News website, which is based in New Delhi, said there had been tension among the generals for some time.

"From what I have heard, a five-member group of generals led by General Maung Aye staged the coup during a weekly cabinet meeting on Monday," he said.

"The group accused Than Shwe of nepotism and said he was incapable of running the country. Ever since, there has been a total blackout and there has been no news from the cabinet meeting."

Than Shwe has not been seen on state television since last Saturday when he met a UN envoy.

Diplomats in Yangon said they believed he was on a provincial tour.

"We understand he is out of town and this rumour did not start in Yangon, but outside the country," a Southeast Asian diplomat said.

The opposition National League for Democracy also played down the rumours.

Yangon says it is moving towards democracy along a seven-stage roadmap it unveiled in August 2003.

However, few take its rulers seriously, especially with Aung San Suu Kyi languishing under house arrest and her party effectively excluded from discussions to draw up a new constitution.

IPS - Aug 23, 2005

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK - The surprise visit by former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas to Myanmar last week has turned the spotlight on the Southeast Asian statesman considered best qualified to bring political change to the military-ruled country.

Senior General Than Shwe, chairman of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), met Alatas on Friday morning at the parliament building in Yangon. So far, neither has disclosed the details of their meetings.

A decision by Yangon's junta to permit Alatas to fly into Myanmar in his capacity as a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is significant, especially when such accommodation included a meeting with Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win on Thursday when the envoy arrived at the start of his three-day visit.

Yangon has had poor relations with other UN special envoys in recent years. Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN special envoy for political reform in Myanmar, has been denied entry since March 2004, while Brazil's Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, last visited Yangon in November 2003. Neither one is not allowed to visit Yangon again.

Just how bitter Yangon feels towards these UN envoys was visible during the ministerial meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiene, the capital of Laos, where Nyan Win snubbed Razali.

Still, Alatas was the second UN official visiting Myanmar this year after chief of the UN World Food Program James Morris, who came earlier this month to review and discuss ways of carrying out the organization's humanitarian operations in Myanmar.

And in April, Than Shwe met with Annan in Indonesia on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Afro-Asian summit, during which Than Shwe officially extended an invitation to Annan to visit Myanmar.

Observers expected that Alatas's present trip was designed in part to coordinate with the Myanmar side for Annan's forthcoming Yangon trip.

Meanwhile, outwardly at least, Alatas is giving the impression that his first visit to Myanmar was to discuss reforms in the world body due to be taken up in September at the UN general assembly in New York.

But Myanmar watchers are hoping that Alatas, who last came to Myanmar in September 2003, but as a special envoy of then Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri, would also broach pressing issues such as political reform in the country.

"Many quarters are hoping that Alatas will take the opportunity to informally address issues of political reform, democracy and human rights in Myanmar with the military leaders," said Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Myanmar, a regional human-rights lobby.

As important, she said, is for Alatas to convince the military regime about the merits of engaging in a dialogue with the international community on Myanmar issues. "The international community has always sought a dialogue with the regime, but the regime has not been interested in dialogue and only opts for making statements. Hopefully, Alatas can break this barrier."

Yangon has over the past year been increasingly averse to engaging with the international community, given the pressure exerted on the junta from many quarters, including the UN, to loosen its iron grip on power. Annan has increased the tempo on the Myanmar generals to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from continued isolation and house arrest.

The SPDC is also facing economic heat from an unprecedented decision by members of the International Labor Organization to impose punitive sanctions on Myanmar for continued use of forced labor.

The Myanmar government will be more receptive to Alatas because of his stature in the region as an elder statesman, said Withaya Sucharithanarugse, an Indonesian expert at the Bangkok-based Institute of Asian Studies. "There is no one in Thailand or the Philippines to match him and I think Malaysia has antagonized the SPDC with criticism about lack of political reform."

During an interview in which he referred to the culture of Java, which dominates political life in Indonesia, Withaya said: "Alatas once said the best way of bringing reform in Myanmar is the Javanese way - slowly and surely. He is not for applying too much pressure."

Other Myanmar watchers say Alatas will be able to speak the same political language that Yangon does, since the Myanmar regime has tried to model itself after Indonesia when it was ruled by the military dictator General Suharto. Alatas began his stint as Indonesian foreign minister during the Suharto era, which spanned three decades.

"Alatas will be familiar with ideas the Burmese regime is advocating, such as keeping the lion's share of political and economic power with the military government," said one Myanmar analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He will know what a dictatorship looks like from within and what needs to be done to change it."

The stalemate over reforms in Myanmar has been compounded by the SPDC pushing ahead with a seven-point political agenda, including the drafting of a new constitution, without the involvement of Suu Kyi or the party she leads, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

In 1990, in the only parliamentary elections held in Myanmar since the military came to power through a coup in 1962, the NLD trounced the political party sympathetic to the junta. It won 81% of the seats in the 485-member National Assembly, but was prevented from forming a government by the junta.

"Alatas is the ideal candidate to see such political abuse end because he may succeed in getting the junta to listen to him where other UN envoys have failed," said the Myanmar analyst.

(Inter Press Service)

Asia Times - Aug 17, 2005

By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - Even as counter-insurgency cooperation between the armies of India and Myanmar has grown in recent years, collaboration between the navies of Myanmar and China - India's rival - on issues impinging on India's national security interests is moving far more rapidly, and now a Sino-Myanmar joint intelligence operation is underway near India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Last month, reports suggested that India and Myanmar were considering upgrading their counter-insurgency cooperation from coordination to joint operations. With the Myanmar army seemingly unable to use military equipment supplied by India to fight anti-India rebels taking sanctuary in Myanmar, India apparently asked the Myanmar junta to consider inviting Indian troops to Myanmar to deploy the equipment in operations that the Indian and Myanmar forces would use against the rebels.

Even as India awaits the invitation from the junta, the latter has stepped up its interaction with the Chinese. According to the Public Affairs Magazine, Myanmar's navy "is conducting a survey near the Andamans to set up a patrol base and a small port, but officials and diplomats suspect an intelligence operation is underway both to map the Andaman Sea at the behest of China and to study deep-water movement of big ships". Given the undemarcated sea boundaries between India and Myanmar, encroachments - accidental and deliberate - into each other's waters do take place. But this time it seems intentional. According to the the report, "The present activity appeared inspired by Chinese intelligence requirements in respect of the Andamans and the surrounding waters."

Myanmar-China cooperation in the waters around the Andamans is not new. It has been an issue of concern for India for several years now and was, in fact, among the main reasons why India decided in the mid-1990s to correct its pro-democracy tilt in Myanmar and court the generals instead.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are scattered across 750 kilometers north to south in the Bay of Bengal. This chain of islands separates the Bay of Bengal from the Malacca Strait. While it is more than 1,200 kilometers from India, it is just 90 kilometers from Indonesia and 50 kilometers from Myanmar. Its strategic significance to India lies, among other things, in its proximity to the Malacca Strait. Besides, Myanmar's Coco Islands lie about 45 kilometers to the north of the Andaman Islands.

Myanmar's military government leased the Coco Islands to the Chinese in 1994. China has a maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence station on the Great Coco Island and is building a base on Small Coco Island. The significance of these facilities for China stems from the fact that the Coco Islands are located at a crucial point in traffic routes between the Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Strait and lie very close to India. India's first joint services command, the Joint Andaman and Nicobar Strategic Defense Command, is headquartered in Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

The Coco islands are an ideal location for monitoring Indian naval facilities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and also movements of the Indian navy and other navies throughout the eastern Indian Ocean. India believes that the Chinese are using the Coco Islands to keep an eye on India's missile-testing facilities at Chandipur-on-Sea located in the eastern coastal state of Orissa.

According to Indian defense analyst Rahul Bedi, "China is reportedly training Myanmar's naval intelligence officials and helping Yangon execute surveys of its coastline contiguous to India." Drawing attention to the "burgeoning naval cooperation" between the two countries, he writes that China is helping Myanmar modernize its naval bases at Hianggyi, Coco, Akyab, Zadetkyi Kyun, Mergui and Khaukphyu. It has provided help in building radar, refit and refuel facilities that are expected to support Chinese submarine operations in the region.

"China's interest in the region is part of its Offshore Defense Strategy," said Lawrence Prabhakar, associate professor at the Madras Christian College and research fellow at the maritime security program at the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. The offshore active defense strategy envisages the setting up and operating out of a number of island chains. It is believed that the Chinese navy - the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will expand its operations to bases in Myanmar. These bases will provide the PLAN with direct access to the Malacca Strait and the Bay of Bengal.

The Chinese, points out Prabhakar, are keen to secure the sea lanes of communication (SLOCs), which are pivotal to China's maritime trade and energy flows from the Persian Gulf to southwest Asia. "They are interested in developing naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean region and with this in mind are developing access and basing facilities in Gwadar [Pakistan] and Mergui, Hianggyi, Coco, Akyab, Zadetkyi Kyun, Mergui and Khaukphyu Yangon and other ports in Myanmar as that would open the Irrawady River for Chinese inland commerce through Myanmar, with its sea access to the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. This is an effort to develop an alternate route complementing the sea access via the Malacca Strait," he told Asia Times Online.

Bedi points out that China is working hard at securing a corridor to the Indian Ocean from southern China via Myanmar, in addition to the established route via the Malacca Strait. "As a first step in this direction China has already constructed a highway from Kunming, capital of its Yunan province to Shewli on the Myanmar border. According to a proposal that is being reviewed by Myanmar's military junta, Beijing wants to extend that road link to Sinkiang for access to the Irrawady River flowing through to Yangon, and into the Andaman Sea. Once completed, Chinese barges would transport Chinese goods down the Irrawady to Yangon and transfer them onto waiting Chinese ships."

India's interest in the Bay of Bengal stems from the fact that this is its backyard. The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is vital for India's outreach and defense, points out Prabhakar. Piracy, maritime poaching, gun-running and narcotics trafficking in the waters here threaten India's interests. Besides, India has to secure its SLOCs in its Eastern seaboard to Southeast Asia via the Malacca Strait and also its strategic nuclear and missile installations along its east coast that are vulnerable to Chinese surveillance.

To protect its interests in the region against China's rapidly growing presence here, India has increased naval-air surveillance of Chinese ship movements. "It has also conducted joint exercises with Southeast Asian navies in the Andaman Sea, especially with the Royal Malaysian Navy and the Republic of Singapore Navy. They are meant to enhance India's cooperative maritime security with Southeast Asia - China's backyard," said Prabhakar.

While India and China seek to enhance their security by stepping up their presence in the Bay of Bengal and wooing countries like Myanmar, the latter is gaining by cooperating with both its big-power neighbors, bargaining with them and getting itself a good deal in the process. In return for Chinese investment in its economy and massive arms transfers and training to its armed forces, Myanmar is making gains with China in the naval-maritime front. With India, Myanmar is getting technical assistance and investment in infrastructure development as well as securing its border with India. In return, it is helping the Indian army fight insurgency in its troubled northeast.

While taking what it can from its powerful neighbors, Myanmar has sought to use them to counter the other from gaining an excessive hold over its economy, polity and society. The India-China battle for influence in the region has provided Myanmar with a win-win situation.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.