Burma Update

SCMP - Monday, May 22, 2006


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Yangon
The country's democrats are optimistic that opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi could be freed from house arrest soon, following her unexpected meeting with a top UN official on Saturday.

"It is quite likely that her detention might not be extended this time," said a member of the National League for Democracy, U Lwin, yesterday.

"If they wanted to keep her longer, the authorities could have extended her detention for one year and not six months," he said, referring to Ms Suu Kyi's house arrest, set to expire on May 27, the 16th anniversary of the election victory. Her detention was extended last November for six months.

Su Su, an NLD member, was also hopeful. "We all hope that something positive and good will happen," she said, adding that she was optimistic that Ms Suu Kyi would be freed "very soon".

The UN's undersecretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, met Ms Suu Kyi on Saturday for about 45 minutes, becoming the first foreigner allowed to see her in more than two years.

"This is an improvement on the part of the authorities," said Mr U Lwin. "I think this is progress."

Another party spokesman, Nyan Win, called the meeting "a significant development and an improvement", in apparent reference to previous foreign officials who were unable to meet Ms Suu Kyi or other opposition figures.

Dr Gambari told diplomats before leaving Yangon on Saturday that Ms Suu Kyi "looked well", but he did not disclose any details of their meeting, saying he would first have to report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, has spent about 10 of the past 17 years in detention, mostly under house arrest. She is in virtual solitary confinement at her residence in Yangon, allowed no outside visitors except occasional checks by her personal doctor, and no telephone contact.

The ruling military junta took power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy movement.

But another NLD member had his doubts. "I don't think expectations should be too high because of just one meeting. We should wait and see the developments before drawing any positive conclusions," said Win Myint.

Several foreign diplomats were also cautious, believing the government had allowed the meeting to ease pressure on the junta from the international community, which has been pushing for democratic reforms and for Ms Suu Kyi's release. They insisted on anonymity, for fear their comments would offend their host government.

scmp - Sunday, May 21, 2006


AGENCIES in Yangon
Senior UN official Ibrahim Gambari met detained Myanmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi for an hour in a Yangon guest house yesterday - her first contact with an outsider in two years.

"She is well, but of course she is still under restriction," Mr Gambari said at Bangkok's airport after his three-day mission to the country.

"She feels she has a contribution to make and I hope she will be allowed to make it."

An Asian diplomat said Mr Gambari did not disclose contents of their talk, saying he would first have to report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The diplomat quoted Mr Gambari as saying "the meeting went well, businesslike and very informative".

A spokesman for Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Lwin, declined to comment on the expected extension of her house arrest this week, but called the meeting "a great success".

"This is an improvement on the part of the authorities. I think this is progress," he said.

The last foreign visitor to see Ms Suu Kyi was Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar, who met her in March 2004. He resigned shortly after the visit, expressing frustration at not being able to bring Ms Suu Kyi and the ruling generals together in a dialogue or to secure her release.

A diplomatic source in Yangon said Mr Gambari was believed to have asked Senior General Than Shwe's permission to see Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest.

The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of elections won by Ms Suu Kyi's NLD.

The Nobel peace laureate, 60, has been in prison or under house arrest for the last three years, her telephone disconnected and all visitors barred apart from her housemaid and doctor.

Yesterday's meeting followed an audience between Mr Gambari and General Than Shwe.

The Asian diplomat said the general had agreed to "try to find common ground with the NLD on political issues". The envoy said General Than Shwe also told Mr Gambari Yangon would explore ways to give humanitarian UN missions and aid groups better access to the country.

There is little to suggest, however, that the junta is about to kiss and make up with the NLD.

Last month, it accused the NLD of having ties to "terrorists and destructive groups" and said there were grounds to have it banned. Since then, the NLD has been hit by a spate of resignations, which it blames on military pressure.

Toe Zaw Latt, a Myanmese political analyst in Thailand, said the junta orchestrated the meeting to create "a better image" amid growing international criticism of the regime's human rights abuses. "The junta used this occasion to [present a] better image to the world. For the UN, at least they can say they've met Aung San Suu Kyi."

Aung Naing Oo, another Myanmese political analyst in Thailand, said reclusive General Than Shwe had agreed to see Mr Gambari in a bid to rebuff critics. "The government expects that more international criticism can come after they extend Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest" this week, he said.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press

SCMP - Thursday, May 18, 2006


CORRESPONDENT in New Delhi
Attempts by India-based pro-democracy activists to take a four-year-old out of Myanmar failed when military agents guarding the child intercepted them after they secretly entered the country.

Because her father was a pro-democracy activist and supporter of 1991 Nobel prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi, Ei Po Po in January became the youngest prisoner in military ruled Myanmar when she was picked up by security forces while visiting her grandparents in the country's north. Her father has been sentenced to death and her mother handed a five-year jail term for "anti-national" activities.

"Born in India and living with her parents, Ei attended a nursery school in Manipur. But in Myanmar it is impossible for her impoverished grandparents to take her to another nursery school. [Myanmese] authorities did not even allow her aunt to bring the child back to India where she could return to her old school. It is ruthless," said Burma Solidarity Organisation activist Dr Thura, who has one name.

Ma Cho - Ei's aunt, living as a refugee in northeast India's Manipur state - visited Myanmar last month to take her niece back to India, but was unable to meet the child, who was under the constant watch of security agents. "I could not even enter [her village of] Yan Lem Phai. From friends in a nearby village, I knew that outsiders visiting the house [of Ei's grandparents] needed permission from the local military authority. Fearing for my own security I returned to India," she said.

Dr Thura said: "The four-year-old child is under virtual house arrest. Burmese agents are keeping a constant watch on her. She is not free to move. She cannot even go out of Yan Lem Phai, let alone out of Myanmar."

An attempt to rescue the child this month failed when an activist from the group was intercepted by agents inside Myanmar. The activist escaped and returned safely to India.

"We had a plan to present Ei in front of the international media in India or Thailand. Somehow, Burmese military intelligence got to know about our plan and took the decision not to let the child out of Burma," Dr Thura said. "This is the simple reason why they have thrown the ring of security around the child now."

Mrs Cho said: "It is impossible to bring the child back to her school in India now. We pray that she gets back her mother after five years. But again there is a possibility that the mother and child will not be allowed to leave Burma then. The child is facing a bleak uncertainty."

SCMP - Thursday, May 18, 2006


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Bangkok
Updated at 11.21am:
Myanmar troops, who have already driven an estimated 15,000 Karen villagers from their homes, are marshaling at least 27 battalions to widen their offensive against the ethnic minority, a Karen group said in a statement seen on Thursday.

The Karen Human Rights Group said the troops were poised to destroy hundreds of villages in the Papun hills of eastern Myanmar, which would lead to another mass displacement of civilians.

"This is not an offensive against Karen resistance forces, and there has been very little combat," the activist group said on Tuesday. "These are attacks against undefended villages with the objective of flushing villagers out of the hills to bring them under direct military control so they can be used to support the [army] with food and forced labour."

Myanmar's ruling military has acknowledged that its army is waging an offensive, calling the action a necessary move to suppress bombings and other attacks by anti-government guerrillas from the Karen National Union, which has been fighting for autonomy for nearly six decades.

The junta, which rarely comments on military activities, was apparently responding to growing international criticism that the offensive has uprooted thousands of ethnic Karen civilians and is causing a humanitarian crisis due to their lack of shelter and food.

Sharp criticism has been voiced in recent days by UN officials, US Congressmen and members of the British Parliament.

The offensive, which began last November, has been concentrated in the Toungoo and Nyaunglebin districts of Karen State, but the group said operations were now spreading into Papun district where more than 1,000 people have already been displaced.

"The only combat which has occurred is when Karen Army forces try to keep [junta] troops away from killing displaced villagers in their hiding places," the statement said. It estimated that some 4,000 to 5,000 troops were preparing to launch a major push in Papun.

Attacks in the district, the statement said, began to escalate last month.

"Several villages have already been burned, rice supplies systematically destroyed, and villagers shot on sight," it said.

The campaign in Karen State has forced more than 2,500 refugees to flee to or across the border with neighbouring Thailand.

A number interviewed last week by The Associated Press inside Myanmar confirmed widespread earlier reports of executions, looting and torching of villages by the Myanmar troops.

The offensive is the largest since 1997 against the Karen, the largest of a half dozen insurgency groups fighting the central government.

Former junta member General Khin Nyunt had negotiated cease-fires with 17 ethnic insurgent groups and was working on a peace deal with the Karen National Union when he was ousted by rival generals in 2004.

The Karen rose up shortly after Myanmar, then known as Burma, gained independence from Great Britain after World War II, claiming that the Burman majority were out to suppress the ethnic peoples. The military took over the country in 1962 and has since then been unable to end the bloodshed.

SCMP - Thursday, May 18, 2006


AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Yangon
Updated at 12.46pm:
A top United Nations envoy was due to arrive in military-ruled Myanmar on Thursday, in the highest-level mission here in more than two years to press the junta on democratic reforms.

Ibrahim Gambari, the highest-ranking UN official for political affairs, was expected to meet with senior government officials, members of civil society, and the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

His three-day mission comes as the junta is pursuing a military campaign against ethnic rebels while stepping up pressure on the NLD, which is led by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Gambari, the UN under-secretary general for political affairs, has asked to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric in New York.

NLD spokesman Myint Thein in Yangon said the party did not believe the military would approve a meeting between Mr Gambari and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest is expected to be extended next week.

But Stephane Dujarric said that Mr Gambari would press for her release as part of efforts to push the country toward democracy.

"The position of the secretary general on Aung San Suu Kyis detention is very clear," Mr Dujarric said.

"He has consistently urged her release from detention. Under secretary general Gambari will certainly reinforce that message while in Myanmar."

The military rulers have shunned a series of UN envoys for years, which Mr Mr Dujarric said made this mission "an overdue and potentially important opportunity to assess developments in the country firsthand and to see what more can be done" to move the country toward democracy.

"Gambari will convey a clear message that Myanmar's prospects for improved relations with the international community will depend on tangible progress in restoring democratic freedoms and full respect for human rights," he said.

Six UN human rights experts on Tuesday called on the military to end its offensive against ethnic Karen rebels and its brutal impact on thousands of civilians. Some 11,000 people are believed to have fled their homes because of the violence.

Myanmar's reclusive junta supremo, Senior General Than Shwe, has not hesitated to turn away other envoys in recent years.

Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, who stepped down earlier this year after six years as the UN's rights envoy to Myanmar, was last allowed into the country in 2003.

Malaysia's Razali Ismail, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar, stepped down in January after being denied entry for two years.

A third UN envoy, Indonesia's Ali Alatas, was allowed to visit in August but only for a trip purportedly about UN reforms.

Than Shwe and other top junta members are meeting this week in their new administrative capital Naypyidaw, which they built in secret outside the central town of Pyinmana.

Many government and military offices began working there in February, but officials would not say whether Mr Gambari would visit the jungle compound.

SCMP - Monday, May 15, 2006


ASSOCIATED PRESS in Thabyenyunt
Myanmar's ruling military has acknowledged that its army is waging an offensive against ethnic Karen minorities, calling the action a necessary move to suppress bombings and other attacks by anti-government guerillas.

The acknowledgment came during a weekend media trip arranged by the government to a remote part of the Karen area in eastern Myanmar that has been affected by the fighting. It is rare for the country's government to comment on its military operations.

The trip was apparently arranged to counter growing international criticism that the government offensive has uprooted thousands of ethnic Karen civilians and is causing a humanitarian crisis due to their lack of shelter and food.

"Troops have been carrying out clearing-up operations in areas where hardcore KNU members are believed to be hiding," Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said, referring to the Karen National Union, a rebel group that has been fighting for autonomy for nearly six decades.

"We have to launch military offensives against the KNU because since early this year, the KNU stepped up its destructive acts, such as exploding a series of bombs and laying mines on rail lines," the brigadier-general said, speaking in remote Thabyenyunt village in Kayin state, also known as Karen state. The media trip, which ended yesterday, also included several members of the foreign diplomatic community.

The Myanmese junta says the accounts of refugee suffering are a propaganda ploy by anti-government groups.

However, reporters last week visited a makeshift settlement of 700 to 900 displaced Karen civilians, and confirmed that they were living in poor conditions with no way to sustain themselves.

British lawmakers on Thursday called for urgent aid to the Karen refugees, joining growing calls for the United Nations Security Council to act swiftly to halt a brutal offensive that has uprooted more than 11,000 members of the ethnic minority. United States congressmen, the European Union and human rights groups have launched similar appeals.

Protests are planned for tomorrow outside Myanmese embassies in 12 countries across Asia, Europe and North America.

Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan said accounts of refugee problems were largely propaganda concocted by the rebels.

"By giving the limelight to the fabricated stories of refugees, they intend to accuse Myanmar of becoming a threat to the region, in order to instigate the UN Security Council to take action against Myanmar," he said.

He alleged that "the so-called refugees" were actually hardcore members of the KNU, or the families of members, who intentionally moved to areas near the border with neighbouring Thailand.

He said the KNU had also forcibly driven out some Karen civilians from their homes to the border with Thailand to prevent them from helping government forces.

AsiaTimes 5.5.06
By Larry Jagan


BANGKOK - Myanmar's military rulers have launched a major new crackdown on the country's main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, fueling widespread speculation that the hardline State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) intends to eliminate its harassed and beleaguered rival completely within the next 12 months.


According to Burmese-language notes from a January meeting between Myanmar's police chief Major-General Khin Yi and top commanders across the country reviewed by Asia Times Online, the national police corps was specifically instructed to undermine the NLD using stealth and intelligence rather than their traditional
use of brute force.


That message hasn't completely trickled down, however. Young NLD activists and students have been detained and questioned, while others have even been sentenced to several years' imprisonment on trumped-up charges. Some key leaders of the student movement have also been attacked and one recently died from the injuries sustained during a particularly brutal battering.


In the past, Myanmar's police have been accused of planting drugs, especially heroin, on young activists and students, then arresting them and sentencing them to several years of imprisonment. These tactics are being complemented with a more subtle strategy aimed at crippling the NLD's ability to operate and recruit, according to the recent police meeting notes.


The junta has recently stepped up its pressure on the NLD, harassing more than 50 members into resigning from the party, including a senior member of the Mandalay branch. "The authorities have put immense pressure on them to resign, and they have succumbed to it," a senior NLD party member said in an interview. "It is one of the key ways the SPDC is trying to weaken the party."


Information Minister Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan last month warned the NLD that it could be "outlawed" on charges of cooperating with so-called terrorist organizations. "The government has strong evidence that the NLD was involved with anti-government groups as well as terrorist organizations that would justify it being declared illegal," he recently told a press conference.


A Western diplomat based in Yangon said, "This threat in intended to keep up the pressure on the NLD's leaders." For now, the diplomat said, "it suits the SPDC to have the NLD registered, but impotent".


Myanmar-watchers contend that the junta's long-term aim is to marginalize charismatic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently under house arrest, and move to eliminate her party as part of its so-called "national reconciliation" process. To some degree, the junta has successfully portrayed Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent approach to political confrontation, as part of the problem because of her unwillingness to compromise in some diplomatic quarters.


The SPDC-led National Convention, which the NLD has boycotted and the junta has stacked with pliant representatives from the country's many ethnic-minority groups, is set to resume drawing up principles for a new constitution in November. The junta is expected to hand power to a civilian incarnation of itself after the constitution is finally promulgated.


Foreign Minister Nyan Win told his counterparts at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) retreat in Bali last month that Myanmar's new constitution should be completed by the end of next year.


"[Senior General] Than Shwe's strategy is clear, before the constitution is drafted and put to a referendum, all the pro-democracy parties and ethnic groups - both those with ceasefires and those who haven't - will be targeted and eliminated, or at the very least made impotent," said Win Min, an independent Myanmar analyst based in Thailand.


If so, it's not an altogether new tack. Two years ago, SPDC leader Than Shwe ordered the junta's Union Solitary Development Association (USDA) - the junta's national grassroots organization, which is tipped to become the SPDC's political arm after the new constitution comes into force - to harass NLD members violently across the country.


In a confidential government document obtained by Asia Times Online, Than Shwe ordered the USDA to "eliminate the activities of the opposition; destroy the opposition's business so that they lose their property and market; create splits among opposition family members; get opposition members to sever their relationship with the group; and frighten and intimidate the most stubborn members of the opposition to flee from its membership".


That hard-knocks plan was hatched soon after the savage May 2003 attack on Suu Kyi's traveling caravan, where USDA thugs killed scores, if not hundreds, of her supporters. The NLD leader had been traveling in the northern region of the country to reinvigorate her party, and massive crowds had gathered to hear her speak.


Aung Lynn Htut, Myanmar's ambassador to Washington, defected to the US this year. He has since spoken out about Than Shwe's plan to obliterate the NLD by the end of the year. After his defection, the former top SPDC diplomat told opposition scholars based in the United States and the United Kingdom that he had received reliable information that the junta had ordered the "routing" of NLD members and their families.


Analysts say the increased harassment and intimidation of the NLD are being driven by both internal and external factors. "Than Shwe has become increasingly concerned over the last months of the possibility of pro-democracy demonstrations erupting, especially in Rangoon [Yangon]," Win Min said. "That's one of the reasons for retreating to the new capital, Pyinmana."


Sources close to the SPDC's top leadership say that Than Shwe has apprehensively monitored recent international and regional news from his fortified bunker in Pyinmana, including the street rallies that last month drove Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to abandon his political post, and Nepalese King Gyanendra's recent acquiescence to more violent street protests where demonstrators called for a return to democracy.


These events have "rocked the old man, who now more than ever fears a repeat of the mass pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988 which forced Ne Win to stand down", said a close confidant of Than Shwe. In response, the SPDC leader has reportedly ordered police to crack down on even the faintest signs of political ferment.


Than Shwe, whom the confidant said surfs the Internet every morning in his military headquarters, had been particularly piqued by the NLD's new initiatives and renewed assertiveness. The NLD has increased its political activities coinciding with SPDC Prime Minister General Soe Win recent telling Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Alber that Suu Kyi was now "irrelevant" to Myanmar's political future.


According to NLD leaders, the party has recently come around to the idea that Myanmar's often splintered pro-democracy groups need to present a much more united front against the SPDC. As such, they have recently made overtures to other democratic groups, including student- and ethnic-minority-led political parties that operate along the country's war-torn border areas, according to diplomatic sources in Yangon.


In recent months, the NLD has held a series of grassroots meetings across the country and the party's senior provincial officials recently traveled to Yangon for high-level consultations. One new move: policy review committees were recently established as the NLD looks for ways to press its agenda more effectively while highlighting the SPDC's many policy failures.


"Our latest policy is focusing on how to solve the country's humanitarian crisis through dialogue and compromise," NLD spokesman Myint Thein said in an interview.


Indeed, the NLD in February offered the SPDC a sort of olive branch through a press statement released to coincide with Union Day, which offered to recognize the military regime as Myanmar's "de facto" government on the condition that the junta eventually allowed a "people's parliament" to convene.


"The SPDC would be in charge of the transitional period until a government was formed by the parliament made up of the representatives elected in the national elections held on May 27, 1990," the statement said. The NLD won more than 80% of the vote in that election, which the junta declared null and void.


Typically, the SPDC at first ignored the NLD's compromise. Last month, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan flat out rejected the fig leaf, saying that the SPDC would not hold any dialogue with the NLD outside of the national convention, which the NLD has boycotted as undemocratic. "The NLD no longer enjoys the support of the people and it does not represent them anymore," Kyaw Hsan said.


The NLD's new drive to reassert itself has reportedly enraged Than Shwe, who has sanctioned an all-out campaign to crush the party. "There is a definite trend here: when the NLD confronts the junta and reminds them that they are in effect the only legitimate government, the SPDC reaction is to pressure and further weaken the NLD," said political analyst Win Min.


He sees parallels to when the SPDC cracked down on the NLD in 1999 and 2000 after the opposition party established the Committee Representing the People's Parliament and moved to convene the body on the authority of the SPDC-annulled 1990 election results.


Then, many NLD members of parliament and senior members were arrested or forced to resign their positions in the party, and many fled the country. NLD offices were raided and shuttered, with SPDC officials seizing the party's internal documents.


"We expect worse to follow as the military authorities go all-out to eliminate us by the end of the year," said a senior NLD official on condition of anonymity because of his fear of reprisals for speaking to the foreign media.


For the international community, any attempt to de-register and abolish the NLD would be widely condemned, even by the SPDC's erstwhile allies in China and Thailand. The SPDC's recent statements insisting that the NLD and Suu Kyi were irrelevant to the country's political future have gone over like a lead balloon inside the 10-member ASEAN.


More important, among Myanmar's people, judging by the increasingly disfranchised chatter of its population, the battered and bruised NLD remains the country's only legitimate political entity and real hope for democratic change. As the SPDC moves to eliminate the NLD forcibly, the ruling junta could cause itself more problems than it solves.


Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the BBC. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.