BEIJING — Despite fresh international criticism of Beijing’s backing for an unpopular regime as the Burmese junta, China sees its alliance with the country’s military as a matter of simple economic expediency and is determined to forge ahead with controversial joint dual oil and gas pipelines that will ensure greater energy security for its robust economy.

This month sees the first digs on the mammoth infrastructure project that will connect China’s northwestern province of Yunnan with Burma’s western coast.

The proposed gas pipeline will transfer gas from the offshore Shwe gas fields in Arakan state all the way to the capital Kunming of Yunnan province and possibly further inland in China. The twin oil pipeline will be used to transfer oil shipped from the Middle East and Africa bypassing the strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait shipping route.

After Burmese activists released a detailed report Monday on the project forecasting it will trigger social unrest and create a public relations fiasco for the Chinese company involved, a state-run newspaper in Beijing rejected the allegations, saying the project was unlikely to be stopped.

The Shwe Gas Movement, a group of Burmese exiles in Bangladesh, India and Thailand, also said the junta’s recent offensive against ethnic rebels near the pipeline route showed that the regime had no concerns about providing stability for investors, which could translate into great security risks for the project undertakers.

“China is not afraid of the threat and criticism,” the ‘Global Times’—a paper published by the state news agency—quoted an anonymous Chinese official familiar with the issue. “When Myanmar (Burma’s official name) was constructing a pipeline to Thailand in the 1990s, Myanmar activists also criticized the government, but the voice is barely heard now.”

Outside observers though believe the new pipeline project carries greater potential risks than the pipeline conveying gas to Thailand, which they described as a “vehicle for a proliferation of human rights abuses” during its construction and after—such as the widespread use of forced labor and forced evictions.

“Such practices, in the likelihood they would re-occur with respect to this latest pipeline, could very well be the spark to set off a broader conflict,” said Sean Turnell, a Burma expert at Macquarie University in Australia. “Of course, exacerbating matters is the fact that Chinese energy firms have a less than stellar record themselves when it comes to the ruthlessness with which they pursue energy deals.”

China’s largest oil and gas producer, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is due to start the construction of the dual pipelines at a total length of nearly 4,000 kilometres in September. The deal is expected to provide the Burmese military, which has ruled the country with an iron grip since a 1962 coup, with at least US$ 29 billion over 30 years.

Although Burma ranks 10th in the world in terms of natural gas reserves, its per capita electricity consumption is less than 5 percent of neighboring Thailand and China, as its government exports most of the country’s energy resources.

The Shwe Gas Movement report, titled ‘Corridor of Power’, charges that gas revenues in the past have been lavishly spent by the junta on building a new capital and satisfying the extravagant wishes of its ruling generals.

“People across Burma are facing severe energy shortages, and this massive energy export will only fuel social unrest,” said Wong Aung, spokesperson of the Shwe Gas Movement. “These resources belong to our people and should be used for the energy needs of our country.”

China—the exclusive buyer of Burma’s Shwe offshore gas reserves—sees the pipelines as one of the pieces in a greater energy domino played by Beijing to secure its energy supplies.

Burma’s pipelines constitute part of CNPC’s four-fold strategy to avoid China’s dependence on imported oil shipped by sea. Since 2004 Beijing has negotiated the construction of overland pipelines in four different directions, connecting Chinese energy buyers with suppliers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Burma.

“The greatest significance of Burma’s pipelines for China lies with the possibility for solving our reliance on the Malacca shipping route,” said Long Changwei, expert at China University of Petroleum. “Once it is built, the pipeline will be a reliable alternative for oil flowing in from the Middle East and Africa. Even if there is a crisis in the Malacca Straits, China’s exposure to it will be greatly minimized.”

In addition, the development of a deep sea port on Burma’s western coast will provide China with access to the Bay of Bengal—a strategic advantage in its attempts to expand its sphere of influence over the Indian Ocean.

Yet there are flip sides to this new energy corridor. The proposed pipelines run through the northeastern Shan State, where as recently as late August, ceasefire ethnic minority armies fought against the regime. The clashes between the Burmese military and the Kokang rebels that sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing across the Chinese border have raised the possibility that there might be more social strife and armed conflicts if the pipelines project gets underway.

CNPC is going to have to be “very careful,” said Macquarie University’s Turnell. “What was once a simple deal to extract cheap gas for China could blow up into a diplomatic crisis should the pipeline aggravate the incipient conflict between ethnic groups long backed by China, and a regime in Burma that was long thought of as likewise a client of China.”

In a longer term, China’s willingness to help an unpopular regime stay in power could turn out to be short-sighted as it encourages latent anti- Chinese sentiment. Chinese communities that have worked very closely with military regimes in South-east Asia and become immensely rich in the process have been targeted before, as evidenced by violent anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia when the Suharto regime fell in 1998.

The Shwe Gas Movement report suggests that China would be in a better position to trade with Burma under a stable government. It also argues that the current military rulers’ political roadmap does not aim at bringing peace and political stability to the country.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org

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China says no involvement in Myanmar’s domestic issues
www.chinaview. cn 2009-09-10 19:57:53

BEIJING, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) — Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Thursday reaffirmed China’s no involvement policy in Myanmar’s internal affairs and called for peaceful solutions.

Jiang made the comments in response to a question whether Myanmar’s action to send troops to Kokang region was based on China’s information.

“China never interferes in Myanmar’s internal affairs and would like to see Myanmar resolve its issues through peaceful consultations,” she said.

Armed conflicts broke out in Myanmar in August after a move-in of the government troops in Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region. The standoff between the two forces have triggered large outflux of border inhabitants into the neighboring Yunnan Province’s Nansan area.
Editor: Li Xianzhi   http://news. xinhuanet. com/english/ 2009-09/10/ content_12031433 .htm
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Three prisoners from 2007 uprising released

Sept 10, 2009 (DVB)–Three people imprisoned after allegedly speaking to foreign media prior to the September 2007 uprising have been released, despite a police crackdown in the lead up to this year’s anniversary.

The men, all from Pakokku town in central Burma’s Magwe division, were arrested on the brink of the monk-led uprising in 2007.

Authorities accused the three of inciting riot after allegedly handing information to foreign media outlets about the looming protests.

Pakkoku became the flashpoint of the uprising which swept the country after police broke up a peaceful demonstration on 5 September, injuring three monks.

Family members of the three men, Nay La, Thar Aung and Sein Linn, said that they were released from Thayet prison on Sunday and are in good health.

Their co-accused, Thant Shin, was given the same two-year term, plus a seven-year sentence under the Emergency Act.

The news comes amidst a government crackdown on suspected activists prior to the two-year anniversary of the uprising.

In recent weeks a number of monks have been intimidated and arrested, with the government fearing a repeat of their role in the protests.

Although by protocol monks are apolitical, the community withdrew religious services for the country’s military generals during the uprising.

The sight of thousands of monks marching through the streets in their saffron robes led to the September 2007 uprising being named the Saffron Revolution.

Some of the estimated 138 fatalities from September 2007 were monks, with eye-witness accounts of troops beating and smashing the heads of monks against walls.

Reporting by Aye Nai http://english. dvb.no/news. php?id=2850
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Article published September 10, 2009
China’s troubles

STRIFE between Uighurs and Han Chinese, refugees pouring in from Myanmar, and heightening tensions with India are examples of problems that face China on its edges.

In Urumqi, in the Xinjiang region, Han Chinese, brought there by Beijing to water down the Muslim, independent- thinking Uighurs, claim that Uighurs are attacking them in the streets with hypodermic needles filled with the AIDS virus, and complain the government isn’t doing enough to protect them. Street disturbances lasted days.

The government of Myanmar, in advance of elections set for next year, allegedly clamped down militarily on separatists in the Kokang region, which borders China. The result was a flood of refugees into China, to the displeasure of Beijing, which has to deal with them. China is otherwise the Myanmar government’s best friend and greatest protector.

Of similar concern is the heating of tensions between China and the other Asian giant, India, in the Tawang region, part of long-standing wrangling between the two giants over their 2,521-mile border zone. Both sides have added to the danger of an outbreak of fighting by building up their military forces in the area.

Two points emerge from this prickly situation. The first is that it is difficult being China. The second is a hope that China and India, both of which will be at the G-20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh, will take that opportunity to soothe relations.  http://www.toledobl ade.com/apps/ pbcs.dll/ article?AID= /20090910/ OPINION02/ 909100309/ -1/OPINION
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Report: Pipeline pumps billions in Myanmar junta’s pockets – Summary
Posted : Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:59:32 GMT
Author : DPA

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Bangkok – Myanmar’s ruling junta is hiding billions of dollars in revenue from natural gas sales in two Singapore banks, a Washington-based human rights group claimed Thursday. EarthRights International (ERI) said international pressure would not work against the military government as long as it has vast sums of easily funds and the world community needs to put pressure on the banks in question.

ERI claims in a report released in Bangkok, “confidential and reliable” sources said Singapore’s Overseas Chinese Development Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group are “offshore repositories of Yadana gas pipeline revenues.”

Since commercial production started on the Yadana gas pipeline in 2000, Myanmar’s government has earned about 4.83 billion dollars from the sale of natural gas to Thailand, ERI said.

Through using an old exchange rate of 6 kyat to the dollar, instead of the current value for Myanmar’s currency of nearly 1,000 kyat to the dollar, only 28 million dollars of that revenue made it into Myanmar’s national budget. The remaining roughly 4.8 billion dollars has been deposited in accounts in the two Singapore banks, the 110-page report said.

The two banks in question have so far declined to comment. A DBS spokesman told the German Press Agency

Copyright, respective author or news agency  http://www.earthtim es.org/articles/ show/285098, report-pipeline- pumps-billions- in-myanmar- juntas-pockets- -summary. html
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Myanmar junta siphons gas revenue offshore-report
Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:01am EDT

BANGKOK, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military has transferred billions of dollars from a gas project into two banks operating in Singapore, contributing to “high-level corruption”, a U.S.-based environmental group said on Thursday.

A report by non-profit Earth Rights International (ERI) said the junta had transferred $4.83 billion since 2000 from a gas pipeline, money that was kept off the national budget and stored in the banks operating in the city-state.

“Rather than contribute to Burma’s economic development, the billion dollar revenues from the project have instead contributed to high-level corruption,” the report said. The money, it said, came from the controversial Yadana gas project involving energy companies Chevron Corp (CVX.N) of the United States, France’s Total (TOTF.PA) and Thailand’s PTTEP (PTTE.BK).

The two banks and the Singaporean government were informed of the group’s findings last week, ERI said. All had yet to respond.

“As long as Myanmar’s regime has easy access to these funds we feel it will have little incentive to change,” Matthew Smith, one of the report’s authors, told a news conference.

“We urge the international community to use this as leverage to help the people of (Myanmar). We fully expect the Singapore government and the banks to do the right thing.”

Despite a broad range of sanctions placed on Myanmar by the United States and the European Union because of political repression, its vast reserves of natural gas have been a financial lifeline for the regime. (For a factbox on sanctions on Myanmar click on [ID:nLD673386] )

ERI estimated the military government had received 75 percent of the revenue generated by the Yadana pipeline, which runs from the Andaman Sea to western Thailand.

ERI said the junta managed to keep the $4.83 billion off its national budget accounts by using a 30-year-old exchange rate from dollars to the local kyat currency, which produced a sum in kyat far smaller than the real amount generated.

“Singapore has very tight laws regarding corruption and misappropriation of public funds,” Smith said. “These accounts should be red-flagged until the banks have the opportunity to cooperate with the authorities.”

China’s largest oil and gas producer, the China National Petroleum Corporation, is due to start construction of nearly 4,000 km (2,485 miles) of dual pipelines from Myanmar’s western Arakan State to China’s Yunnan province next month. [ID:nBKK40759] .

The deal is expected to provide the government, which has ruled the country since a 1962 coup, with at least $29 billion over 30 years. (Reporting by Bangkok Newsroom; Editing by Alan Raybould and Nick Macfie)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved http://www.reuters. com/article/ fundsFundsNews/ idUSBKK356607200 90910?rpc= 401 &
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China tip-off ’sparked’ fighting

Myanmar said information about the arms cache came during a meeting on transnational crime [Reuters]

A senior Myanmar official has said that last month’s clashes in the northeast of the country were sparked after a Beijing tipped them off about the location of an illegal arms factory.

Up to 30,000 people fled across the border from Kokang into northern China during the fighting which followed the raid on the arms factory in the mainly ethnic Chinese region.

An estimated 37,000 refugees streamed across the border from Myanmar into China’s Yunnan province, but many of them have reportedly returned home in recent days.

Myanmar officials showed a number of diplomats and journalists around the site of the purported factory, which was raided by troops on August 8.

During the visit, Brigadier Phone Swe, Myanmar’s deputy home affairs minister, said that Chinese officials informed them about the factory during a ministerial meeting on combating transnational crime.

Phone Swe’s comments appeared to be an attempt to show that relations with close China remained on a steady keel, after a rare public request from Beijing that Myanmar calm the situation which had led to the influx of refugees.

Economic ties

China has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with Myanmar’s military government, largely estranged from the West, ensuring China’s access to its mineral wealth.

Michael Vatikiotis, the regional director for the centre of humanitarian dialogue, said that the area had become a strategic concerns for China.

“They [China] have made it very clear to the Myanmar authorities that the want to see stability”

Michael Vatikiotis, regional analyst
“One of the reasons for their concern is that they have just signed and prepared for the construction of oil pipelines that run from the coast of Myanmar up to the border and across to Yunnan,” he told Al Jazeera from Singapore.

“They have made it very clear to the Myanmar authorities that the want to see stability.”

However, Vatikiotis said that Beijing was unlikely to throw its weight behind the ethnic Chinese over the border in Myanmar.

“I think that is not very much in character with China which is a great respecter of sovereignty, I think what they have been supporting until now is the status quo.”

Earlier, the Myanmar government had said that the fighting had begun after ethnic Chinese raided a police checkpoint and took 39 police officers hostage.

Full-scale fighting broke out after 15 of the hostages were killed, and according to state media in Myanmar the clash left 11 soldiers and eight ethnic Chinese rebels dead.

Myanmar officials have claimed that calm has been restored in Kokang but many refugees remain unconvinced.

Election agreement

Meanwhile, the new leader of an ethnic Chinese political group said he would participate in general elections next year, the first in nearly two decades.

The issue of whether to take part in elections has been a point of contention among ethnic groups, which are being asked to put down their weapons and join the government-controll ed border guards.

Fighting has forced some 30,000 refugees to flee across the border into China [AFP]
Phe Sauk Chen, the head of the new Kokang Region Provisional Leading Committee, which was formed after other local leaders fled, told reporters during Tuesday’s trip that his group also agreed to join the government’s border security guards.

So far the larger ethnic groups, including the Kachin and the Wa, which has a militia estimated at more than 20,000 fighters, have refused to take part in elections.

But the issue caused division and led to the resignation of five senior leaders from the Kachin Independence Organisation earlier this month.

Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma [the country's former name], said the leaders planned to take part in the polls.

Critics have called the scheduled elections a sham designed to cement the military’s grip on power. The Kokang were the first among 17 armed ethnic groups to reach a peace agreement with the government in March 1989.  http://english. aljazeera. net/news/ asia-pacific/ 2009/09/20099106 237748444. html
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Junta Gas Profits Stashed in Singapore Banks: ERI
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN       Thursday, September 10, 2009

At a Bangkok press conference on Thursday, Earthrights International (ERI) launched two reports alleging that oil giants Total and Chevron are linked to “forced labor, killings, high-level corruption and authoritarianism” in Burma.

The reports, titled “Total Impact” and “Getting it Wrong,” examine how revenue from the Yadana gas project sustains military rule in Burma and undermines Western sanctions.

The NGO also said that two Singapore-based banks—Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and DBS Group—function as “offshore repositories” for junta revenues accruing from the Yadana gas project.
Security guards gesture to photographers to stop taking photos of the DBS Group bank in Singapore in April. The bank is accused of laundering the Burmese junta’s siphoned gas profits. (Photo: Reuters)

The report said that Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council has earned almost US $5 billion from the gas pipeline project.

By using an outdated exchange rate, the junta declares a fraction of the revenues to the State budget, enabling it to siphon the rest off. The junta calculates revenue at just 6 kyat to the dollar when the de facto rate is closer to 1,000.

According to a confidential International Monetary Fund (IMF) report obtained by ERI, revenue “contributed less than 1 percent of total budget revenue in 2007/08, but would have contributed about 57 percent if valued at the market exchange rate.”

The report says these rates allow the regime to list a mere $29 million of the Yadana earnings, leaving around $4.8 billion unaccounted for, which ERI believes to be lodged in the Singapore banks.

ERI’s Matthew Smith said that the information about offshore accounts in Singapore comes “from confidential and reliable sources,” but could not go into more detail.

“We expect the Singapore government and banks to do the right thing based on Singaporean law relating to money laundering, which prohibits any such transactions and requires banks to report these,” he added.

According to Smith, the two banks were informed in writing during the past week about the content of the reports, but ERI has yet to receive a response.

ERI is an environmental NGO based in the US, but was founded by Ka Hsaw Wa, an ethnic Karen and former Burmese student activist in exile since his involvement in the 1988 demonstrations against military rule.

ERI says that Total, Chevron and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand Export and Production (PTTEP)—the other non-Burmese company involved in Yadana—have earned a combined $1.3 billion since commercial production started in 2000.

The gas is piped into Thailand where it generates electricity for the Bangkok area, and in total makes up 60 percent of Burma’s gas exports to Thailand. Total has been a major investor in the Yadana project since 1992, holding a 31.24 percent stake, with Chevron on 28 percent.

In a recent Newsweek interview, Total CEO Christophe de Margerie said that critics of the company’s operations in Burma can “go to hell,” adding that the gas imports into Thailand have helped reduce air pollution in Bangkok.

In a June 26 letter to ERI published in the “Total Impact” report, Vice-President Jean-Francois Lasalle refused to answer a number of questions sent to Total by ERI. According to the letter, this was because ERI “presents allegations as facts,” and is “more interested in harassing our companies, in line with a divestment agenda, than in a real dialogue about how to improve people’s lives.”

Total has cited its socioeconomic work in the pipeline area, and the “overall improvement in living conditions for the 50,000 people” who live in the pipeline area. Total refers ERI to a report by US-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, which gave the findings of a 20-day impact assessment of the oil company’s operations related to the Yadana project.

However, the positive CDA report was dismissed as a whitewash by ERI, with report author Naing Htoo saying CDA’s methodology was deeply flawed, given that CDA lacked autonomy after being hired by Total to do the impact assessment.

ERI accuses Total and Chevron of complicity in human rights abuses throughout the history of the project. While the oil companies claim abuses have ceased, Naing Htoo says that this is “simply untrue.”

The authors quote locals living in the pipeline area, and the report’s authors say that “forced labor, killings and other abuses are being committed by Total and Chevron’s security forces while the companies mislead and lie to the international community about their impacts.”

ERI said it believes that the impact of the CDA assessments is troubling, as these could be taken at face value by other oil companies and policymakers, in turn potentially having an impact on the issue of sanctions and engagement with the Burmese junta, based on false or flawed premises.

ERI said that the gas revenue windfall insulates the country’s military rulers from the impact of international sanctions, which were tightened after the August 11 verdict returning Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest.

Total and Chevron have operations in Burma that pre-date the introduction of US and EU sanctions, so are not bound by those. In any case, EU sanctions against Burma currently only cover arms exports, wood, minerals, gems and metals, thereby exempting Total.

Elf, a former French oil company now part of Total, was complicit in numerous corruption scandals involving shady deals with African petro-states, before three senior Elf executives were jailed and the company merged with Total.

“As long as the regime has access to such vast revenue it has little incentive to reform or change,” Smith said. “The elites are hiding billions of dollars of the people’s revenue in Singapore, while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending in Asia.”

As well as long-standing rumors about Burma’s resource revenue being stashed in Singapore, the ill-gotten gains of elites in North Korea and Zimbabwe are also thought to be held in the city-state.

US financial giant Merrill Lynch estimates a third of Singapore’s 60,000-odd millionaires are Indonesian, whereby Jakarta’s wealthy beneficiaries of corruption and cronyism have moved their holdings away from the anti-corruption efforts undertaken by President Yudhoyono.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
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Junta Media Highlights North Korean Anniversary
By WAI MOE       Thursday, September 10, 2009

Burma’s state-controlled media reported on North Korea’s 61st anniversary celebration on the front page of The New Light of Myanmar on Thursday, reflecting the junta’s close relationship with Pyongyang.

The paper reported that Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the chief of Military Ordnance and head of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, attended the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held in a hotel in Rangoon on Wednesday.

Rangoon Mayor Brig-Gen Aung Thein Lin also attended the North Korean party. Both Tin Aye and Aung Thein Lin have traveled to the Communist country for arms deals between two states.

North Korea and Burma officially reestablished diplomatic ties in April 2007. Burma cut relations with North Korea in 1983 following a bomb attack by North Korean agents on a visiting South Korean delegation led by then President Chun Doo Hwan. Chun Doo Hwan narrowly escaped death or injury, but four South Korean cabinet ministers and 13 other officials were killed by the blast.

Renewed North Korea-Burma ties have been highlighted in international media recently because of reports that said North Korea has provided arms and technology to the Burmese military.

The state-run newspaper ran the North Korean anniversary story on the front page. The Korean Central News Agency did not report on the Rangoon event.

Burma and North Korea both give priority to the role of the military in their country’s affairs.

Since 1994, the North Korean People’s Army was granted the “supreme repository of power.”  Since 1962, the Burmese army has played the leading role in governing the Union of Burma.
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Danok Pagoda’s Fate is Unknown
By AUNG THET WINE        Thursday, September 10, 2009

RANGOON — Local authorities of Dalla Township in Rangoon have made no efforts to reconstruct Danok pagoda which collapsed in May.

The authorities have not allowed local residents to collect donations to rebuild the pagoda, said pagoda trustee members and villagers of Danok Model Village. “They haven’t done anything to rebuild the pagoda,” said a resident close to the committee.

The pagoda was visited by Kyaing Kyaing (wife of Snr-Gen Than Shwe), who donated an ornament and in a ceremony on May 7 witnessed its placement on the top of the 170-foot (52-meter) pagoda.
A rescue worker stands on top of the rubble of the collapsed Danok pagoda in Dalla township outside Rangoon. (Photo: Getty Images)

Residents said the authorities have used bricks from the pagoda to pave roads in Danok village, but many people are unwilling to travel on the roads and avoid them, residents say.

“The villagers dare not to step on them. They keep away from the road,” said a villager.

An official of Dalla Township said it has received no instructions from the Religious Affairs Ministry and Rangoon Division PDC on what to do about the pagoda.

“I can’t say anything. I am not sure whether the pagoda will be rebuilt or not,” he said.

Burmese government’s official TV reported that the accident was due to poor quality workmanship as well as structural flaws. It said another reason for the accident was that construction work had been done in haste because some of the people who donated for the repairs wanted the project completed before seasonal heavy rains.

However, the collapse of the temple was widely seen as something more significant than shoddy construction work in superstitious Burma. Many local residents claim the pagoda has miraculous powers and its collapse was related to people’s displeasure with the military regime.

Many residents reportedly witnessed weird events, such as total darkness, red-fireballs and other phenomena after the pagoda collapsed. Astrologers speculated that the junta could be vulnerable of collapse.

After the collapse of Danok Pagoda, Snr-Gen Than Shwe and his family went to Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon to donate pagoda-shaped flowers in what many believed was an effort to avoid bad karma.

Resident claimed that the collapse caused at least 20 deaths and 150 injuries, but authorities said two people died and 34 were injured. Authorities said the pagoda collapsed because of the weight of the structure and faulty renovation methods. Portions of the pagoda had shown signs of collapse in 2006.

The Pagoda Trusteeship Committee said it would take at least five years to rebuild the pagoda.

According to oral history, Danok Pagoda was built some 2,300 years ago. The pagoda was worshiped and renovated by powerful Burmese and Mon kings.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
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US Urges Fair Hearing for Suu Kyi
By LALIT K JHA/ WASHINGTON       Thursday, September 10, 2009

The United States on Wednesday urged the Burmese military government to give Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal a fair hearing.

“We are aware that Aung San Suu Kyi will have an appeal heard in a couple weeks. I don’t have the exact date right now. But we would urge a fair hearing of Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal,” the State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, told reporters at his daily news conference.

“We have made it clear … and also we have sought to highlight in multilateral fora like Asean that Burma needs to open up its political process, and most of all needs to free the more than 2,000 political prisoners that are incarcerated in Burma,” Kelly said.

Noting that the US is not alone in expressing those concerns, he said, “Our allies in Europe have also called for the release of the political prisoners.”

Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the Obama administration to promptly conclude its Burma policy review and adopt initiatives to make its policy on diplomacy, sanctions and humanitarian aid more effective.

“Delays in announcing a new Burma policy could encourage Burmese military leaders to believe the US is weakening its commitment to human rights and pluralism,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Although the situation in Burma seems intractable, an energetic and revitalized approach to Burma from the Obama administration could help bring positive change,” he said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch also urged the Obama administration to appoint its own special envoy to Burma, who would have a direct line to the secretary of state and specific instructions to engage in a principled way with the Burmese government and key bilateral and multilateral actors. “Vigorous diplomacy is specifically needed with China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan,” it said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
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(New York) – The Obama administration should promptly conclude its Burma policy review and adopt initiatives to make its policies on diplomacy, sanctions and humanitarian aid more effective, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton released today.

“Delays in announcing a new Burma policy could encourage Burmese military leaders to believe the US is weakening its commitment to human rights and pluralism,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Although the situation in Burma seems intractable, an energetic and revitalized approach to Burma from the Obama administration could help bring positive change.”

Human Rights Watch recommended that the United States appoint its own special envoy on Burma, who would have a direct line to the secretary of state and specific instructions to engage in a principled way with the Burmese government and key bilateral and multilateral actors. Vigorous diplomacy is specifically needed with China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan.

Human Rights Watch also recommended the establishment of a Burma Contact Group or similar form of multilateral grouping to meet and regularly discuss diplomatic engagement with the Burmese government on a range of issues. This could have the effect of converging the views and policies of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, the European Union, and the United Nations, and gradually minimize the ability of Burma to play states off against each other. There is considerable common ground on a range of issues, including the need for political reform and credible elections involving the political opposition, concern over Burma’s trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and the need for a regional approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Such a grouping would demand that the US remain firm on fundamental human rights principles and not engage in diplomatic horse-trading on core issues of reform.

As the UN has long been the focal point for diplomacy on Burma, Human Rights Watch urged the US to support the continuation of a special envoy of the secretary-general. It is crucial that the secretary-general and the special envoy not accept access or high-level meetings as the goal or a sign of progress in Burma, as they have in the past. The envoy should be an individual with the principles, skills, and backing of the international community to make an impact.

“More high-level diplomacy is welcome, so long as the US stands by its principles to uphold the basic rights of the Burmese people and work for a genuine and credible process of political reform,” said Adams. “But there should be no wishful thinking or illusions that more conciliatory talk from the US and others will somehow cause Burma’s generals to alter their plans.”

Human Rights Watch said that generalized sanctions on Burma that have had little or no impact and have not been targeted on key decision-makers and human rights abusers should be reconsidered and phased out at an appropriate time. At the same time, properly imposed, targeted sanctions – such as financial sanctions on individuals and entities, investment and trade sanctions that are specifically focused on companies or economic sectors of greatest concern, arms embargoes, restrictions on military assistance, and travel bans on individuals -should be tightened, as they can be effective in bringing about improvements in human rights.

Human Rights Watch particularly urged the United States to expand, strengthen, and fully implement financial sanctions. The US should take the lead in coordinating efforts among the US, EU, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada to target key individuals, both military and civilian, who bear responsibility for abuses; their business interests; and the individuals and entities whose considerable financial support of the Burmese government could undermine these sanctions. These individuals are at the apex of the system inside Burma and susceptible to this kind of pressure. More effective coordination could also lead to greater support from other key states, such as Japan and Singapore. EU states have been noticeably slow to implement full financial sanctions; the US should take the lead and then press European countries to follow suit. Slow implementation by the US and poor coordination internationally have undermined financial and other sanctions, and kept them from realizing their potential.

“The US has legal tools it is not yet using – for example, to deny foreign banks access to the US financial system if they are holding targeted Burmese accounts or otherwise undermining US measures, and going after transactions by the oil and gas authority, the key revenue-generating entity in Burma,” said Adams. “This requires the dedication of intelligence resources and continual monitoring and adjustment by US officials.”

Human Rights Watch has long called for increased assistance to deal with acute humanitarian needs in Burma. US and other donor funding should increase, but in a coordinated and realistic manner. The military government spends next to nothing on the welfare of its people. Combined social spending is estimated to be a paltry 0.8 percent of GDP for 2008-2009, making public expenditures on health and education in Burma among the lowest in the world. Huge numbers of Burmese live in grinding poverty, resulting from decades of government economic mismanagement and corruption. Donors will need to stress the importance of transparency and accountability in the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the need for approaches that strengthen civil society rather than existing corrupt power structures and that respond to the views and needs of ordinary people.

“The US and other donors offer to provide more humanitarian aid with appropriate oversight, but they should also insist that their contributions are matched by a genuine commitment from the military government to use its vast revenues from natural resources to help the Burmese people,” said Adams.
http://www.hrw. org/en/news/ 2009/09/09/ burma-us- should-completeq uicken-policy- review
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Casinos in Mongla closed
Thursday, 10 September 2009 12:09 S.H.A.N.

Ever since tensions were on the high between the Burma Army and the ceasefire groups, operators of casinos in Mongla have departed leaving the Wan Hsieo gambling complex south of the city a ghost town, according to reports coming from the border.

Opened in April 2006, gambling houses in Wan Hsieo, 16 km southwest of Mongla, are the result of China’s threat to its authorities in 2005 to suspend its gambling operations that began in 1997. Beijing had been reportedly losing billions of dollars siphoned by government officials.
[Casino on the Mekong at Tonpheung, Bokeo province, Laos (Photo: Manager)]

Casino on the Mekong at Tonpheung, Bokeo province, Laos (Photo: Manager)

But even better than Mongla, Wan Hsieo had provided Chinese gamblers with internet facilities which enable them to do their bettings without having to travel in person to Mongla.

However, since 2007, more casinos have sprung up in the neighboring Laos especially in Boten, opposite China’s Mohan, where Mongla leaders have also made investments.

“There are reports that Sai Leun (leader of Mongla) is also one of the investors at Tonpheung,” said a Thai Burma watcher in Chiangrai.

The giant casino on the Mekong at Tonpheung, Bokeo province, Laos, opposite Chiangsaen of Thailand and Tachilek of Burma, was opened yesterday. Constructed on a 2,067.5 acres of land since last year, it is spending $ 85 million for its first phase developments, reported Thailand’s The Manager Online.
http://www.shanland .org/index. php?option= com_content&view=article&id=2721:casinos- in-mongla- closed&catid=93:general&Itemid=291
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Dhaka disputes maritime boundary claims of India, Myanmar
Irish Sun
Thursday 10th September, 2009
(IANS)

Bangladesh has sent a diplomatic note to the UN against Myanmar’s maritime boundary claim on the extended continental shelf in the Bay of Bengal and will soon register its protest against India’s claim there.

Sandwiched between the two neighbours, Dhaka will send its own claims only by July 2011, a minister told parliament Thursday.

Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad informed parliament about the government’s diplomatic move on behalf of Foreign Minister Dipu Moni who is currently visiting India, Star Online reported.

The contentious issue pending resolution has gained urgency in view of oil and gas finds in the upper reaches of the Bay of Bengal.

Dhaka cleared two proposals earlier this month, awarding blocks to an American and an Irish multinational firm for exploration, but it took care that the blocks were ’safe’ and not liable for dispute by either neighbour.

Myanmar and India made their submissions to the UN Dec 16, 2008, and May 11, 2009, respectively.