Burma Update

scmp - Thursday, October 13, 2005


REUTERS
The outgoing US envoy to Singapore criticised the city state's limits on political expression, saying governments will pay an increasing price for failing to give citizens freedom of choice and expression.

US Ambassador Franklin Lavin said it was surprising to find what he called constraints on discussions given Singapore's strong international links.

"In this era of weblogs and webcams, how much sense does it make to limit political expression?" Mr Lavin told an audience at his farewell dinner on Tuesday. The speech was made available on the US embassy's website.

In August, police ordered a 36-year-old filmmaker to surrender equipment used to make a documentary on opposition figure Chee Soon Juan. A student on a state scholarship shut down his personal website in May after a government agency threatened a libel suit for his online comments.

Then, last Friday, Singapore jailed two men for posting racist comments aimed at the country's Malay community, who are mainly Muslim, on the internet.

"Singapore has flourished over the past 40 years, but is a 20th-century model adequate for the 21st century?" Mr Lavin asked.

"Remaking [Singapore's] economy is, in a sense, the easy decision. Shaping a political system to reflect the needs and aspirations of its citizens is more difficult and more sensitive."

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week ruled out adopting a western liberal democracy with a multiparty system in the next 20 years, saying it was unsuitable for the country.

Mr Lavin, whose four-year tenure saw the conclusion of a US-Singapore free-trade agreement and a strengthening of security ties, takes up a new post in Washington as undersecretary for international trade at the US Department of Commerce.

He will be replaced by Patricia Herbold, a lawyer and Republican fund-raiser.

A parliamentary republic with elections held at regular, constitutionally mandated intervals, Singapore has been dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965.

Opposition politicians, who hold only two of the 84 seats in Parliament, have long complained that frequent defamation suits by PAP officials have stifled dissent - a view echoed by a 2004 US State Department report on Singapore.

scmp - Thursday, October 13, 2005


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Kuala Lumpur
The UN special envoy to Myanmar yesterday rejected claims by the ruling junta that speeding up democratic reforms could throw the country into Iraq-like disarray.

Razali Ismail, a former Malaysian diplomat, urged Myanmar's military leaders to move toward national reconciliation "in the soonest possible time" and release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

"I don't see any parallels between Myanmar and Iraq," Mr Razali said. "Iraq is a very bad case where unilateralism was allowed to happen. Nobody is talking about taking unilateral action" against Myanmar.

During a two-day visit, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Myanmar's top leaders expressed concerns that bringing democracy could create social instability. "They said they want to avoid a situation like Iraq which is gripped by violence."

scmp - Monday, October 10, 2005


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Yangon
Khin Swe Oo dreams of becoming a teacher, but instead scrapes a living as a greengrocer in Myanmar's capital, where mysteriously soaring prices have left her and most of Yangon's residents in a financial crunch.

"Selling fruits and vegetables as a greengrocer provides no long-term security for my life. But I have to do it to support my family. What I earn here lets me give 50,000 kyats per month to my family," the 23-year-old said with a soft voice.

That money, less than US$290, gets her family in a village in northern Myanmar far less than it did six weeks ago.

Since late August, diesel prices have risen 50 per cent, medicine prices have increased by at least 30 per cent, and even a cup of tea costs 20 per cent more.

High world oil prices have helped power the price increases, but because the secretive government provides little economic data, politicians and economists are still trying to understand why prices have gone up so quickly.

The country's economy has been reeling under decades of mismanagement by the military. European Union and US sanctions that have been tightened since the detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in May 2003 are also biting.

The crippling inflation in Myanmar's already tattered economy has robbed Khin Swe Oo not only of purchasing power, but of her dream of a university education to guarantee her family's well-being.

"I'm very tired because I have to wake up before dawn and start to work and keep selling until night. Now I have to work harder because everything costs more in the capital," she said as she stacked fruits and vegetables on her small tray in the Kyit Myin Daing night bazaar.

Prices for almost everything continue to rise even as the kyat has plummeted. The local currency traded on the black market last week at 1,360 to one US dollar, having lost half its value since January.

A man selling medicine said prices would keep rising for imported goods as long as the kyat kept on weakening.

"We estimate that medicine prices have gone up about 30 per cent on average, compared with August," he said.

Diesel prices have soared by 50 per cent to about 900 kyat per litre, forcing a corresponding increase in bus fares.

"We have to ask for a little more than before for the ride. We sympathise with the passengers, But we have no choice because the diesel and petrol prices keep rising," taxi driver Thein Zaw said.

One of the few items that have held relatively steady is rice. The Atmahta rice used by most people has increased 7 per cent.

Myanmar's military rulers, keenly aware that the last dictatorship fell because of protests sparked by soaring rice prices, has struggled to keep prices down by cutting back on exports to ensure domestic supply.

But the head of the Myanmar Rice and Paddy Traders Association told the Myanmar Times newspaper last month that prices were about 50 per cent lower than prices on the international market, and that growers might cut back production because they were operating at a loss.