Suu Kyi to Meet Campbell in Rangoon Hotel
Drugs, guns and war in Myanmar
China oil company starts work on Myanmar pipeline
U.S. diplomats land in Myanmar for meetings
U.S. Officials Engage Burma in Major Policy Shift
Myanmar, Lao foreign ministries meet in Bagan
US Mission to Burma Heralds Obama’s New Diplomatic Tack
US diplomats seek facts in Burma
Myanmar, Japan economic cooperation committees meet in Yangon
U.S. official arrives in Myanmar new capital for continuing dialogue
U.S. delegation in Myanmar for rare junta talks
Former Thai PM to Visit His ‘Brother’ Than Shwe
US envoys set for rare Burma visit
Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung
Junta chief makes rare delta visit
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Suu Kyi to Meet Campbell in Rangoon Hotel
By WAI MOE       Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The US delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell is scheduled to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at Rangoon’s Inya Lake Hotel on Wednesday morning.

The meeting was confirmed by an official with the US embassy in Rangoon. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the embassy had been responsible for arranging the meeting at the hotel.
A Burmese woman in Australia wears a badge of Aung San Suu Kyi to show her support for the release of the pro-democracy leader on October 27. (Photo: Getty Images)

Following the meeting with Suu Kyi, Campbell will hold talks with opposition and ethnic leaders, the official said.

Campbell will hold a press conference on Wednesday at Rangoon International Airport before leaving Burma, the official announced. The State Department official will also report to the press on his Tuesday talks with senior regime officials in Naypyidaw.

Journalists in Rangoon report that Burma’s Ministry of Information is allowing photographers access to the US delegation and Suu Kyi when they meet on Wednesday.

“We are permitted by the authorities to take photos of the meeting between the US officials and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but only a photo opportunity,” said one Rangoon journalist. “The authorities told us ‘no questions’.”

Ahead of Campbell’s trip to Burma, Suu Kyi told her lawyer last week that she is “keenly monitoring” the State Department officials’ two-day visit to Burma.

Some observers remain skeptical about the visit and its chances of success. “We are not that excited,” said a senior Rangoon correspondent, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have seen this kind of cosmetic [by the junta] in the past.”

“The real question is whether they [the military regime] have genuine political will,” the journalist said. “People have given them the benefit of a doubt, but whatever they do we treat it with a pinch of salt.”

A week before Campbell’s visit, the junta arrested more a dozen relief workers who helped Cyclone Nargis victims, including eight journalists, according to human rights groups.

Campbell’s visit follows the launch of a new Burma policy by the Obama administration in Washington. US officials led by Campbell met with a Burmese delegation headed by U Thaung, the Minister of Science and Technology who is a former Burmese ambassador to the US, in New York on Sept. 29.

On Oct. 9, the Burmese junta acceded to a request by Suu Kyi for a meeting with diplomats from the US, Britain and Australia to talk about the effectiveness of sanctions.

The meeting prompted speculation that Suu Kyi had shifted her stance on sanctions.

“I think most outside observers are misjudging Suu Kyi’s stance,” said Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who is author of many books on Burma. “She has not changed her minds about sanctions as such. Sanctions are not an end in themselves but they are there to achieve a goal.”

Lintner told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that if the regime is not willing to compromise, then, of course, she would like to see sanctions remain in force until those goals are met.

“By making that statement, Suu Kyi has once again become an active player in the Burmese imbroglio,” he added. “Now, no one can ignore her. She has showed that she is flexible and reasonable.”

Along with the US efforts for democratization in Burma, a key issue in US-Burma relations is cooperation in the fight to defeat the drug trade.

“There are a number of areas in which we might be able improve cooperation to our mutual benefit, such as counter-narcotics, health, environmental protection, and the recovery of the remains of World War II-era missing Americans,” Campbell told the US Congress on Oct.21.

Shortly before Campbell’s arrival in Burma, Prime Minter Gen Thein Sein travelled to the Kokang town of Laogai in northeastern Burma on Saturday to attend the incineration of seized narcotic drugs and precursor chemicals.

“This is a kind of signal by the junta to the US,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former communist fighter who observes the Burma situation from China’s Yunnan Province.      “But an open secret here is that the ruling generals have been involved in and ignored drug trading in the country for at least two decades,”
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 17128
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Nov 4, 2009       Asia Times Online
Drugs, guns and war in Myanmar
By Brian McCartan

BANGKOK – Mounting tensions between Myanmar’s military government and ethnic groups with which it has ceasefire agreements in the country’s northern regions have spurred a surge in drug trafficking. Driven by militias’ growing demand for weapons to counter anticipated government offensives, a narcotics fire-sale is raising concerns of greater instability along the borders of several neighboring countries, including China.

Myanmar’s military regime has demanded that the insurgent groups with which it agreed ceasefires in the late 1980s and early 1990s hand over their arms to government control. A deadline set for the end of October has been allowed to pass and discussions between the military and two main ethnic armies, the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the National Democratic Alliance Army (Eastern Shan State) (NDAA), are reportedly continuing.

Neither side appears willing to back down, prompting speculation that new fighting may be imminent. Under the government’s proposed Border Guard Force plan, ethnic armies would be downsized into several battalions consisting of 326 men. Each would have a contingent of Myanmar army and non-commissioned officers and operate under the central command of the Myanmar Army. The junta has said it will provide weapons, equipment, uniforms and even salaries to the proposed units.

The generals have indicated that a handover of weapons, either through the border guard scheme or through forced surrender, is key to their plan to achieve national reconciliation by holding general elections next year. The political stakes for that plan are high. The junta has demonstrated a willingness to risk the ire of ally China through an assault in August on the Kokang ceasefire group, which caused a flood of refugees to stream across the border into neighboring China.

Both the Myanmar army and the Kokang have since reinforced their troops and appear to be preparing for further hostilities that security analysts predict could spill over into other insurgent-controlle d territories. It’s still unclear if Myanmar will risk its relations with Beijing by attacking the remaining and better armed ceasefire groups along the Myanmar-China border, a battle plan that has the potential to significantly destabilize southern China.

Under the government’s plan, the ceasefire groups’ political wings will be allowed to transform into political parties to contest the general elections. Ethnic leaders, however, say that handing over their armed forces to government control would entail relinquishing their bargaining power vis-a-vis a regime that frequently uses military force to press its demands. It would also mean handing over much of the apparatus that protects, produces and transports their narcotics trafficking operations.

Since a 1989 mutiny that broke up the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) and spawned several ethnic armies in the north – including the UWSA, NDAA and the Kokang group – the drug trade has steadily expanded in the region. The military government has both permitted and profited from the groups’ drug production and trafficking, despite official claims to lead an internationally assisted counter narcotics campaign and disingenuous pledges by several of the insurgent groups to be drug-free.

The ceasefire groups have plowed their profits into places such as Panghsang and Mong La along the Myanmar-China border, transforming them into boom towns. They have also invested in more legitimate businesses in central Myanmar, as well as in neighboring China and Thailand. For example, the UWSA’s financial controller, Wei Xuegang, who is wanted for narcotics trafficking in the United States and Thailand, has built an extensive business empire in Myanmar around his Hong Pang Group.

Without firm autonomy agreements with the Myanmar government, a substantial portion of ceasefire groups’ profits have gone towards the upkeep of their armies and the procurement of new weapons. According to security analysts, the UWSA has since its 1989 ceasefire agreement grown into the largest and best armed fighting force in Myanmar outside the government’s army. The narco-trafficking militia consists of between 15,000 and 20,000 heavily armed foot soldiers.

Should negotiations over the border guard plan collapse and a renewed civil war break out in northern Myanmar, ethnic insurgents risk losing access to their extensive drug-financed business operations. According to Sai Khuensai Jaiyen of the Shan Herald Agency for News, an exile-run media organization that closely tracks the drug trade in Shan State, there are reports that Wei has started to sell parts of his business holdings and has suspended some of Hong Pang Group’s operations in apparent preparation for hostilities. The company is involved, among other things, in lumber, agriculture, gas stations and department stores in the towns of Lashio, Mandalay and Yangon.

Security analysts and counter-narcotics officials in Thailand believe that, without access to funds from their business interests, insurgent groups like the UWSA will be forced to step up their narcotics production and trafficking activities. As nationalist Chinese Kuomintang general Duan Xiwen said in 1967 about fighting in Shan State: ” … to fight you must have an army, and an army must have guns, and to buy guns you must have money. In these mountains the only money is opium” – and now methamphetamines.

Insurgent patron
China has been the main patron of the ceasefire groups along its border since the CPB mutiny in 1989. The relationship, from Beijing’s perspective, is a pragmatic one that ensures that China has leverage against Myanmar’s generals with which to protect its large and growing economic and strategic interests in the country. China has provided development and economic assistance to the ceasefire groups, as well as advanced weapons and even some training in their usage. This has included 120mm and 130mm artillery and hand-held surface-to-air missiles.

China’s goodwill towards the ceasefire groups has been partly contingent on their agreement to curtail drug smuggling into and through China. Pressure from Chinese officials has been placed on ethnic insurgent leaders to prohibit the smuggling of narcotics into China. Much of the drug trade to China consists of opium and heroin, which is becoming a growing problem seen in rising addiction rates in the country.

The ability of the UWSA, NDAA and other ceasefire groups to fight will be partially dependant on whether China permits them to maintain their known cross-border businesses and investments, as well as access to weapons and ammunition. Without the ability to generate income through these operations, ethnic insurgent leaders will be faced with the choice of either surrendering once their stocks of ammunition are depleted – as happened to the Kokang in August – or stepping up narcotics production and trafficking to raise funds and purchase arms and ammunition from dealers in Thailand and China.

The insurgent groups’ main market for narcotics is Thailand. While heroin is still exported to the outside world via well-established and well-protected trafficking routes in Thailand, most of the methamphetamines produced are destined for Thai consumption. China, too, could soon be faced with an upsurge in narcotics smuggling, both to its growing addict population and through well-documented routes across its southern region out to Shanghai and Hong Kong. Myanmar remains China’s main source of heroin.
Thai counter-narcotics officials are already claiming that the UWSA is engaged in a fire sale by cutting prices to quickly move its stores of narcotics to buy more weapons before hostilities with government forces begin in the approaching cool season. In August, the Thai army quietly revived an elite counter-narcotics force previously known as Task Force 399 and renamed as 151st Special Warfare Company.

Task Force 399, which was tasked with interdiction at the border and supported by US Special Forces personnel, was known previously for taking a proactive approach to interdicting drug traffickers including, some analysts of the drug trade say, pursuit across the border into Myanmar territory.

Over the past five months, there have been frequent reports in the Thai media about arrests of drug traffickers, disruption of smuggling gangs and seizures of large quantities of narcotics. The New York Times in an October 1 article cited Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) figures that 1,268 kilograms of heroin had been seized between January and August this year, a huge increase on the 57 kilograms seized in the region last year.

Last week, the government announced plans for a new drug suppression force to combat trafficking in border provinces next to Myanmar. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban linked the creation of the new force to an increase in drug trafficking from Myanmar, according to media reports. The plan still needs government approval, but if enacted the new unit will by coordinated by the army’s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC).

Regional reach
While the bulk of the drug trafficking ceasefire armies are stationed along the Myanmar-China border, the UWSA has also built up a substantial area along the Thai border, contiguous with Thailand’s northern Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces, through which much of its heroin and amphetamine trade now passes. Because the Myanmar army controls territory between the main UWSA units, each is largely self-sustaining through their narcotics trafficking. Maintaining the security of this area will be key for access to the Thai market.

Another key narcotics trade point is across the Mekong River into Laos. The NDAA operates at least one major trade point jointly with the UWSA at Sop Lwe on the Myanmar side of the river near the small Lao town of Xieng Kok in the northern Luang Nam Tha province, says a researcher familiar with the trade who recently visited the site. This route, stretching across the width of UWSA and NDAA-held territory along the China-Myanmar border, avoids the necessity of sending narcotics shipments south across government-held territory to reach the Thai border.

Observers of the regional drug trade have claimed that the UWSA and NDAA have established methamphetamine laboratories in Laos, an accusation that Lao officials have consistently denied. Trafficking routes, however, are much harder to deny. Thai counter-narcotics officials claim methamphetamines and heroin are smuggled through Laos to less well-patrolled points in northeastern Thailand, including Nong Khai, Mukdahan and Ubon Ratchathani provinces.

The ONCB reckons between three million and five million methamphetamine pills are smuggled into northeastern Thailand from Laos each year. In a sting operation in July, Thai police arrested two Lao men and a Thai woman in northeastern Udon Thani province with 160,000 methamphetamine tablets worth as much as US$1.4 million when sold in Bangkok. Police allege one of the Lao men was an important trafficker in Laos with direct contact to Myanmar-linked drug labs.

An increase in production and trafficking in Myanmar could have far-reaching regional implications. In Vietnam, there has been in recent years an upsurge in trafficking of methamphetamines and other synthetic drugs smuggled through Laos and traced back to northeastern Myanmar. The drugs are known to be smuggled to the northern cities of Hanoi and Haiphong and down the length of country to Ho Chi Minh City, feeding a growing addiction problem. Demand has increased in Vietnam as its large population becomes more affluent. Cambodia and Malaysia have also seen an increase in narcotics trafficked from Myanmar.

The production and trafficking of narcotics has fueled a succession of insurgent groups in Myanmar’s northeastern region since the 1950’s and will continue to do so should fighting with the government resume. Better communications and more efficient trafficking routes and methods, as well as more easily produced synthetic drugs in mobile laboratories, have financed the growth of certain Myanmar insurgent groups. And as they prepare for new hostilities against the government, the region’s narcotics problem seems set to grow.

Brian McCartan is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast. net.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing. ) http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Southeast_ Asia/KK04Ae02. html
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China oil company starts work on Myanmar pipeline
November 3, 2009 4:36 AM ET

Associated PressAll Associated Press news

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) – State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. said Tuesday it has begun construction of a pipeline across neighboring Myanmar to speed delivery of Middle East oil shipped through the Indian Ocean.

Construction of the 771 kilometer (481 mile) pipeline comes as China boosts investment in Myanmar and tries to gain greater access to foreign oil and gas supplies to fuel its booming economy.

The pipeline will connect Myanmar’s port of Maday Island on the Indian Ocean via Mandalay in central Myanmar to Ruili in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, CNPC said on its Web site. It gave no indication when the pipeline would be ready for use but said it will be capable of carrying 84 million barrels of oil per year.

The pipeline would speed delivery of Middle East oil to China and eliminate the need for tankers to pass through the crowded Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia.

China is Myanmar’s biggest foreign investor and the closest ally of its military regime, which is shunned by the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

Critics complain that oil and gas projects in Myanmar are helping to keep the military in power and could harm the environment and local residents.

“Past experience has shown that pipeline construction and maintenance in Burma involves forced labor, forced relocation, land confiscations and a host of abuses by soldiers,” said a group based in Thailand, the Shwe Gas Movement, in a report this year.

CNPC owns PetroChina Ltd., Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

CNPC and another Chinese state-owned oil producer, China National Offshore Oil Co., have exploration projects in Myanmar and are expected to be key customers for natural gas from a newly developed offshore field.

China also has built an oil pipeline connecting its northwest with fields in Kazakhstan in Central Asia and is constructing another pipeline to obtain crude from Russian fields in Siberia.  http://news. moneycentral. msn.com/provider /providerarticle .aspx?feed= AP&date=20091103&id=10626958
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U.S. diplomats land in Myanmar for meetings
November 3, 2009 — Updated 0825 GMT (1625 HKT)

(CNN) — Two U.S. diplomats arrived in Myanmar Tuesday and will meet with imprisoned pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and deputy Scot Marciel plan to meet with Suu Kyi Wednesday, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar said.

The visit is part of a new shift in U.S. policy toward Myanmar.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in September that the United States will try to directly engage with the military leaders of Myanmar, also known as Burma, without abandoning its existing sanctions on the southeast Asian country.

Suu Kyi’s detention has been a key component in America’s political tangle with Myanmar. Critics of the country’s ruling junta have accused the regime of convicting Suu Kyi, 64, to keep her from participating in 2010 elections.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been confined in her house for about 14 of the past 20 years. She was sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest after John Yettaw, an American man, swam uninvited to her home in Yangon where she has been confined.

Suu Kyi has accepted the new shift in U.S. policy toward Myanmar, her spokesman said.

It was unclear if the two diplomats would meet with members of Myanmar’s military junta.

In August, U.S. Senator Jim Webb became the first American official to meet with Myanmar’s junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, when he went there to secure Yettaw’s release.  http://edition. cnn.com/2009/ WORLD/asiapcf/ 11/03/myanmar. us.visit/ index.html
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U.S. Officials Engage Burma in Major Policy Shift

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

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RANGOON, Burma —  The United States embarked on a new policy of engagement with Burma on Tuesday, sending two senior diplomats for the highest-level visit in more than a decade.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, and his deputy, Scot Marciel, were scheduled to meet senior Burma junta officials as well as detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday and Wednesday, embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

The two-day trip is part of a new U.S. policy that reverses the Bush administration’ s isolation of Burma in favor of direct, high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.

“Mr. Campbell’s visit is the beginning of new U.S engagement policy toward Burma. This is the first step of the engagement but we have to see what comes out of the new engagement policy,” said Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.

Campbell will be the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Burma since a September 1995 trip by then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright.

The American diplomats flew Tuesday from Bangkok, in neighboring Thailand, to Burma’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw in a U.S. Air Force plane, Mei said.

The embassy spokesman said Campbell will be continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Burma officials, the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade.

Burma government sources said Campbell was due to meet Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein early Wednesday. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, said the diplomats would hold talks with several Cabinet ministers and other officials Tuesday.

Nyan Win said Campbell will meet NLD leaders at party headquarters in Yangon after he holds talks with Suu Kyi on Wednesday.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Suu Kyi was recently convicted and sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. She is one of an estimated 2,100 detained political prisoners.

The United States has traditionally relied heavily on sanctions meant to force Burma’s generals to respect human rights, release imprisoned political activists and make democratic reforms.

Washington has said it will maintain its tough political and economic sanctions against the regime until talks with Burma’s general’s result in change.

Campbell said last month if Burma doesn’t address U.S. worries, “we will reserve the option of tightening sanctions on the regime and its supporters as appropriate.”
http://www.foxnews. com/story/ 0,2933,571265, 00.html?test= latestnews
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Myanmar, Lao foreign ministries meet in Bagan
www.chinaview. cn 2009-11-03 11:16:32

YANGON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — Foreign ministries of Myanmar and Laos have held a consultation meeting in Myanmar’s ancient city of Bagan, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Tuesday.

The 5th Bilateral Consultation Meeting between foreign ministries of the two countries last weekend was attended by Myanmar delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister U Maung Myint and Lao delegation, headed by Vice Foreign Minister Bounkeut Sangsomsak.

The two sides discussed matters relating to further strengthening of friendly relations and cooperation between the two countries as well as enhancing mutual cooperation in regional and international forums, the report said.

In February this year, regional border committee of the two countries at deputy foreign minister level met for the first time in Myanmar’s border town of Tachilek in eastern Shan state to step up bilateral cooperation in dealing with border affairs

That meeting covered the issue of security along the border of the two countries, promotion of border trade and exchange of visits of peoples of the two countries.

In May this year, Myanmar and Laos reached a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Nay Pyi Taw on establishing sister cities between Myanmar’s ancient city of Bagan and Laos’ Luang Prabang.

The plan for establishment of Bagan and Luang Prabang sister cities to boost tourism was initiated during a trip to Laos in November 2007 by Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein.

During Thein Sein’s 2007 trip, matters of building the Mekong Bridge, use of more checkpoints in Wanpon and Mong Maw border regions, visa exemption for those holding ordinary passports, cooperation among CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) and the Greater Mekong Subregion as well as ASEAN charter were also touched upon.

In January 2007, Myanmar and Laos upgraded the two countries’ respective border check points of Wan Pong in Tachilek of Myanmar’s eastern Shan state and Ban Muang Mom on the Lao side to meet international standard to boost arrivals of world tourists and those from the third countries visiting the two border areas.

The Mekong River flows between the two towns as a border line.

Meanwhile, Myanmar and Laos have also been placing emphasis on cooperating in drug control and preventing trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances.
Editor: Deng Shasha
http://news. xinhuanet. com/english/ 2009-11/03/ content_12375796 .htm
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US Mission to Burma Heralds Obama’s New Diplomatic Tack
By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR /IPS WRITER      Tuesday, November 3, 2009

BANGKOK — A mission by senior United States government officials to military- ruled Burma points to Washington’s commitment that engaging with oppressive regimes—than spurning them—is the way forward for change.

The two-day visit by Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Scot Marciel, deputy assistant secretary, is being seen as a clear sign of the new diplomatic policy US President Barak Obama wants to unveil in the South-east Asian nation, which is also called Myanmar.
This combo of file photos shows Kurt Campbell (L), assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and the US ambassdor for ASEAN affairs, Scot Marciel (R). (Photo: Getty Images)

This US mission, from Nov. 3 to 4, marks a break from the tough line that the former US administration, under George W Bush, pursued. Campbell and Marciel, furthermore, will be the highest-ranking US officials visiting Burma after 14 years. The last to do so, in 1995, was Madeline Albright, then US ambassador to the United Nations.

The reactions among Burmese to the Obama administration’ s policy shift are mixed. It stems from years of enduring a junta that has refused to cave in to outside pressure and chosen to isolate the country from world affairs. Burma’s impoverished millions have also had to endure decades of life under the iron grip of a secretive and paranoid regime that has fattened itself off the country’s immense natural resources, from natural gas to rubies.

“Generally, the people inside Burma, the more politically active, are encouraged by the policy shift of the Obama administration,” said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst living in exile in Thailand. “But the Burmese political activists in exile are not sure; they are cautiously optimistic.”

This mission, for one, will be a “learning curve” for both parties, he told IPS. “The Americans need to understand the Burmese military and how they operate, and the military regime will have to understand where the Americans are coming from.”

How Burma’s strongman, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, treats the US visitors, and who in the military and political chain of command they meet, will serve as pointers of this diplomatic adventure. Than Shwe, after all, is notorious for coughing up excuses to avoid foreign visitors on a whim. UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon is among those deprived of the welcome mat.

“The test to measure how successful Campbell’s visit is is to see if he gets a meeting with Gen Than Shwe,” said Win Min, a Burmese national security expert lecturing at a Payap University in northern Thailand. “He is known to avoid foreign visitors if it is not to his advantage.”

But there are signs coming from within the military government that “welcome the change in US policy,” Win Min revealed during an interview. “They see this new approach as an opportunity to work with the Obama administration in order to improve Burma’s image within the international community.”

Pressure is also growing on Campbell for a meeting with the National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma’s beleaguered opposition party, in the latter’s run-down headquarters in Rangoon, the former capital. “This will be safer for the NLD leaders to talk freely and without fear of their views being secretly recorded than if the meeting was held in a government guesthouse,” said a source close to the party on the condition of anonymity.

According to US media reports, Campbell and Marciel are due to meet NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent over 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest. The Nobel Peace laureate, who is cut away from her party supporters, is reported to have told her lawyer that “she is keenly monitoring Mr. Campbell’s upcoming visit and is interested in when he will come and what he will do in Burma,” according to a report in The Irrawaddy, a magazine produced by Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand.

Washington’s approach towards a country that suffers from a lack of human rights, the rule of law and democracy was spelled out recently by a ranking member of the US State Department to Burmese political activists. “The US official said that they would use pressure to coax the Burmese regime to come out of isolation,” a participant at that closed-door meeting in Thailand told IPS. “It will be different from the hard-line pressure before.”

“They are very realistic about how progress should be measured,” the participant added. “They know success will not come early. They are stressing patience and the need for a long-term strategy.”

Even on the touchy issue of sanctions there are hints of new thinking unlike previous US administrations, which had backed the imposition of sanctions since the mid-1990s, and also called for a freeze in new US investments in the country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already gone on the record saying the sanctions on Burma have not worked in prodding the regime towards political reform. Clinton’s statements were one among a series that have been made since she visited Indonesia in February, where she announced that a “policy review” on Washington’s position towards Burma was needed. “Clearly, sanctions haven’t worked,” she added.

Since then the Obama administration has reached out to the Burmese regime in a way the former Bush administration did not. In July, Marciel used a meeting of South-east Asian leaders in Thailand to conduct a 90-minute dialogue with Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win. And last month, senior US officials met with senior Burmese officials at the UN headquarters in New York.

“The outcome of this US mission should help to clarify what is really going on inside Burma and if the junta is serious about change,” said Bangkok- based Zin Linn, information director for the National Coalition Government for the Union of Burma, the democratically elected government forced into exile. “But that depends on how many stakeholders they meet, from the junta and the NLD to leaders of ethnic minorities.”

“Without knowing the ground situation, the new Burma policy of the US will go nowhere,” he told IPS. “That was the mistake of the others who tried before.”
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 17121
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29 GMT, Tuesday, 3 November 2009
US diplomats seek facts in Burma

Two senior US officials have begun a fact-finding visit to Burma.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and deputy Scot Marciel hope to hold talks with the ruling junta and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, is the highest ranking US official to visit Burma since 1995.

The visit is being seen as the latest move by President Barack Obama’s administration to find ways to engage with the military regime.

The US diplomats are unlikely to see the reclusive chief of the junta, Than Shwe, but will instead meet Prime Minister Thein Sein in the remote jungle capital of Naypyidaw on Tuesday, according to Burmese officials.

They will then travel to Rangoon on Wednesday to meet Nobel Peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended by 18 months this year, provoking international outrage.

Softly softly

This visit follows talks held in New York in September between US and Burmese officials, which were the highest level of contact in more than a decade.

The US has said it wants to find out if there is space for a new dialogue with the military, but has acknowledged they expect this to be a long and painful process.

The charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Rangoon, Larry Dinger, said in an interview with the semi-official Myanmar Times newspaper published this week that Washington wanted to make progress on “important issues” but would maintain sanctions “until concrete progress is made”.

Other Rangoon-based diplomats stressed the need for caution, and a moderation of expectations.
Supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in Seoul, South Korea
Ms Suu Kyi is under renewed house arrest in Rangoon

“We see this visit as the start of direct engagement between the US and Burma government,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD), told AFP news agency.

“But we do not expect the exact and big change from this meeting. This visit is just a first stage.”

Engaging?

The junta extended Ms Suu Kyi’s house arrest after she was convicted in August over an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside house.

But critics say the charges were trumped up to keep her out of the way during elections in 2010.

The month before, US Senator Jim Webb visited Burma and had an unprecedented meeting with junta leader Than Shwe which helped secure the release of John Yettaw, a maverick American whose escapade in swimming to Ms Suu Kyi’s Rangoon home led to her extended imprisonment.

Mr Webb has been a leading advocate of engaging the junta.

Burmaese Foreign Minister Thein Sein told Asian leaders at a summit in Thailand last month that the junta sees a role for Ms Suu Kyi in fostering reconciliation – but only if she displayed the “right attitude”.

Asian leaders, who have proven unwilling to confront their neighbour, grasped at the comments as signifying some hope of change although some analysts said there was no reason to be optimistic.

The last senior US diplomat to visit Burma was Madeleine Albright who went as the US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 under the administration of President Bill Clinton.

The junta has kept Ms Suu Kyi under house arrest for most of the past two decades after her National League for Democracy swept elections in 1990 but was barred from taking power.   http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/asia- pacific/8339333. stm
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Myanmar, Japan economic cooperation committees meet in Yangon
www.chinaview. cn 2009-11-03 11:37:28

YANGON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — The Economic Cooperation Committees of Union of Myanmar Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) and the Japan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) have met here to seek ways of boosting trade and investment between the two countries, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Tuesday.

The 7th joint meeting of the economic cooperation committees of the UMFCCI and JCCI discussed economies of Myanmar and Japan, and further cooperation between the two business organizations.

The UMFCCI was headed by its chairman U Win Myint, while the JCCI by its president Sumitaka Fujita who is leading an economic delegation on a current visit to Myanmar.

Myanmar and Japan have been cooperating in a number of sectors and Japan traditionally stands as Myanmar’s biggest donor country.

Japan’s investment in Myanmar, according to figures, so far amounted to 216.76 million U.S. dollars in 23 projects since 1988.

The bilateral trade between Myanmar and Japan stood 341.8 million dollars in the 2008-09 fiscal year, of which Myanmar’s export to Japan amounted to 179.6 million dollars with Japan ranking the 6th in Myanmar’s exporting countries line-up. Myanmar’s import from Japan took 162.2 million dollars.
Editor: Deng Shasha http://news. xinhuanet. com/english/ 2009-11/03/ content_12375865 .htm
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U.S. official arrives in Myanmar new capital for continuing dialogue
www.chinaview. cn 2009-11-03 12:11:06

YANGON, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia of the United States Kurt Campbell arrived in Nay Pyi Taw Tuesday on a two-day mission to Myanmar to continue dialogue with the country, official sources from the new capital said.

Campbell’s Nay Pyi Taw trip is marked as the highest-level one to Myanmar of the U.S. in 14 years since 1995.

Campbell, a U.S. official visiting Myanmar after U.S. Senator Jim Webb, will meet on the same day, according to the agenda, Information Minister Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan, Science and Technology Minister U Thaung, Chief Justice U Aung Toe who is also Chairman of both the Commission for Drafting State Constitution and for Holding Nationwide Referendum as well as ethnic peace groups, diplomatic sources said.

Strongly advocating engagement with Myanmar, Jim Webb, who is also Chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited the country in August as the first ever one of a member of the U.S. Congress in over a decade, during which he met separately with Myanmar top leader Senior-General Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the NLD (National League for Democracy).

Describing Webb’s trip as successful, Myanmar official media expected his visit would help promote constructive views on bilateral relations.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in September that Washington would shift its policy towards Myanmar by direct engagement with it while keeping sanctions in place.

As a symbolic move towards Myanmar, the U.S. granted Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win to visit Myanmar Embassy in Washington in September before he joined Myanmar Prime Minister General Thein Sein at the 64th United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Thein Sein demanded an end to economic sanctions in his address at the UN gathering.

On the margins of the UN meeting, Campbell met for the first time with a Myanmar high-ranking delegation, headed by Science and Technoliogy Minister U Thaung and Myanmar Ambassador to the U.N. UThan Swe.

On the occasion, Webb also met with Thein Sein in New York.

In the latest development, a Yangon-based U.S. diplomat, along with two others from Britain and Australia, were allowed by the government to meet Aung San Suu Kyi on Sept. 9 in Yangon on exploring ways to remove Western sanctions against Myanmar.

The meeting was arranged at the request of Aung San Suu Kyi to the government.

The U.S. government has imposed sanctions against Myanmar since1997 and renewed for one year by U.S. President Barack Obama in May.

These sanctions include suspension of economic aid, withdrawal of Myanmar from the General System of Preference and Overseas Private Investment Programs, implementation of arms embargo, blocking of assistance from international financial institutions, downgrading of U.S. representation in Myanmar from the level of ambassador to charge d’ affaires, imposition of visa restriction on senior government officials and a ban on new investment in the country by U.S. citizens.
Editor: Deng Shasha   http://news. xinhuanet. com/english/ 2009-11/03/ content_12375897 .htm
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U.S. delegation in Myanmar for rare junta talks
By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) – A delegation of senior U.S. officials arrived in Myanmar Tuesday for Washington’s highest-level talks with the reclusive military regime in 14 years.

The Obama administration’ s move to engage the junta appears focused on pushing for free and fair elections next year, although analysts say the rapprochement is as much about geopolitics and the growing regional influence of China.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell leads the delegation meeting the junta in its new capital Naypyidaw before traveling to Yangon for talks with detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The United States has said little ahead of the two-day visit, widely seen as exploratory dialogue to see how sincere the notoriously distrustful generals are about democratic reforms.

“The U.S. wants to suss out whether or not they have a genuine dialogue partner,” said Sean Turnell, a Myanmar analyst at Australia’s Macquarie University.

“The overtures toward warming ties with the U.S. have come from officials lower down and the U.S. is trying to get a feel for how committed the generals are.”

Campbell met Myanmar’s minister of science, technology and labor in New York in September after Washington announced it would pursue deeper engagement to try to spur democratic reform.

SANCTIONS TO STAY

Campbell has rejected calls by critics to ease restrictions on trade and investment in the former Burma, insisting dialogue would “supplement rather than replace the sanctions regime.”

A government source in Naypyidaw said Campbell, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Myanmar since Madeleine Albright in 1995, was expected to meet with government ministers and senior junta figures, including Prime Minister Thein Sein.

“But he’s not likely to meet the senior general,” said the source, referring to Than Shwe, the junta supremo who has led the country for the last 17 years.

Critics of the regime say it could be using the U.S. visit for its own gain, to try to give legitimacy to its democratic “road map” and show key ally China, its economic lifeline, that it is not its only friend.

Than Shwe’s snub is being seen as an indicator of the generals’ commitment toward reforms and a sign of whether the U.S. engagement can really be effective.

“Avoiding Campbell means the senior general is not ready to compromise. I think he will fall short of the expectations of the new U.S. administration,” said a retired civil servant in Yangon.

Thakhin Chan Tun, a retired diplomat, added: “We can’t expect any tangible immediate results…Than Shwe is the one who makes all the decisions on all important policy issues.”

Some analysts say that with ties strained between China and

Myanmar – over instability along their border – the generals are keen to reduce their reliance on Beijing and have sought to shore up ties with India, Russia and their Southeast Asian allies.

“Burma’s ties with China may have been exaggerated and it might want to show that it can function independently,” said Christopher Roberts at the University of Canberra.

Campbell is due to meet Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the last 20 years in some form of detention, Wednesday. The junta last month allowed her to meet Western diplomats to discuss sanctions on the country.

(Writing and additional reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Ron Popeski)    http://news. yahoo.com/ s/nm/20091103/ pl_nm/us_ myanmar_usa

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Former Thai PM to Visit His ‘Brother’ Than Shwe
By LAWI WENG     Monday, November 2, 2009

The chairman of Thailand’s opposition Puea Thai Party, Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, is to visit Burma this month amid warnings from the Democrat-led Bangkok government not to do anything that would complicate relations with Naypyidaw.

Chavalit’s visit to Burma follows a controversial trip he made recently to Cambodia, where Prime Minister Hun Sen told him Thailand’s fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra would be welcome to live there, safe from extradition.
Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh (Source: nationmultimedia. com)

The Bangkok English language daily Bangkok Post quoted Chavalit as saying he would meet junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, both of whom he admired. “”Gen Than Shwe and I are like brothers to each other,” he was quoted as saying. “As for Gen Thein Sein, we are each other’s fans.”

Chavalit is a former Thai Prime Minister who worked to end Burma’s isolation in the international community after the violent suppression of the uprising in Burma in 1988. He was involved in business deals with the Burmese junta in timber, fishing and hotel construction.

On his second visit to Burma in 1989 Chavalit agreed to repatriate student activists who fled to Thailand after the crackdown.

In another controversial move recently, Chavalit said the current Thai government was wrong to condemn the Burmese junta over opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest.

The Puea Thai Party said Chavalit would be going to Burma and, later on, to Malaysia “to mend fences with neighboring countries.”

Democrat Party spokesman Buranat Samutarak warned Gen Chavalit, however, to avoid taking any steps which could complicate Thailand’s relations with two of its closest neighbors.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee, a senior reporter with the Bangkok English language daily The Nation, told The Irrawaddy on Monday: “Perhaps he [Chavalit] just simply wants on this trip to discredit the Thai government for its failure to solve any problem in Burma.” Chavalit couldn’t solve Burma’s problems, either, Supalak said.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 17117
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US envoys set for rare Burma visit

* Published: 3/11/2009 at 10:03 AM
* Online news: Asia

Two senior US envoys are due to arrive in Burma Tuesday for talks with the ruling junta and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, on the most high profile American visit to the country in 14 years.

Demonstrators are reflected in the framed portrait of detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in the Philippine capital, Manila. Two senior US envoys are due to arrive in the secretive military-ruled state for talks with the country’s junta as well as Suu Kyi, on the most high profile American visit to the country in 14 years.

The visit by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell and his deputy Scot Marciel is the latest move by President Barack Obama’s administration to engage the military regime.

The US pair are unlikely to see the reclusive chief of the junta, Than Shwe, but will instead meet Prime Minister Thein Sein in the remote jungle capital of Naypyidaw on Tuesday, Burma officials said.

They will then travel to Rangoon on Wednesday to meet Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, whose plight sparked international outrage earlier this year when her house arrest was extended by 18 months, they said.

Campbell is the highest ranking US official to travel to Burma — formerly known as Burma — since Madeleine Albright went as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 under the administration of President Bill Clinton.

“We see this visit as the start of direct engagement between the US and Burma government,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD), told AFP.

“But we do not expect the exact and big change from this meeting. This visit is just a first stage.”

He said the NLD had been told that the US envoys would meet the party’s central executive committee at their headquarters on Wednesday and would meet Suu Kyi the same day.

The Obama administration recently shifted US policy because its longstanding approach of isolating Burma had failed to bear fruit, but has said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.

The junta extended Suu Kyi’s house arrest after she was convicted in August over an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside house but critics say the charges were trumped up to keep her off the scene for elections in 2010.

The visit by Campbell and Marciel is a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between US and Burma officials, which marked the highest-level American contact with the regime in nearly a decade.

In August, Than Shwe held an unprecedented meeting with visiting US senator Jim Webb, a leading advocate of engaging the junta. The visit also secured the release of John Yettaw — the American swimmer in the Suu Kyi case.

Thein Sein told Asian leaders at a summit in Thailand last month that the junta sees a role for Suu Kyi in fostering reconciliation ahead of the promised elections but it was not clear what form this would take.

The charge d?affaires at the US embassy in Rangoon, Larry Dinger, said in an interview with the semi-official Burma Times newspaper published this week that Washington wanted to make progress on “important issues” but would maintain sanctions “until concrete progress is made”.

A foreign diplomat in Rangoon said the visit was “important but at the same time without immediate consequence”.

“It is necessary to be cautious. Everyone knows there is a risk of relations going cold again in two months,” the diplomat said.

The NLD won Burma’s last elections in 1990 by a landslide, which the junta refused to acknowledge, and has since faced a campaign of oppression.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention. But last month the generals granted her two rare meetings with a junta minister and allowed her to see Western diplomats.

The talks followed a letter she wrote to Than Shwe in late September, offering her co-operation in getting Western sanctions lifted after years of favoring harsh measures against the ruling generals.  http://www.bangkokp ost.com/news/ asia/158920/ us-envoys- set-for-rare- burma-visit
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Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung

Washington sends confusing signals to the people who could bring change from within.

By MICHAEL J. GREEN

Since taking office President Barack Obama has used strong words to describe the importance he places on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In July, he told China’s high-powered delegation to the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that “support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America” and that the “religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds.” In his September 24 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he promised “that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights.” As the president prepares to travel to Asia this month, should anyone in the region doubt the United States’ commitment to these values?

Unfortunately, there is doubt. Despite Mr. Obama’s statements, the administration’ s specific actions on issues ranging from Burma to Tibet are creating the impression that Washington has a growing list of concerns that trump human rights and democracy. The president and his team deserve support for attempting new approaches to intractable problems. It makes sense to talk directly to the junta in Burma and to broaden the agenda for cooperation with China. The problem is that the administration’ s emphasis on engagement is leading the region’s autocrats and dictators to see an opening for further repression at home.

The most obvious case is Tibet. The Dalai Lama has met with the American president at the White House during every visit to Washington since 1991. Initially, the Obama administration signaled it would continue this tradition during the Tibetan spiritual leader’s planned visit in October, but later changed its mind. The White House may have hoped a subtler approach to the Tibet problem would pave the way for a successful presidential visit to China and yield quiet results for Tibet. Fair enough—but the opposite is happening. The Chinese are raising the ante on the Tibetans, demanding that the Dalai Lama cease all foreign travel and meetings with other international leaders as a precondition for resuming stalled Sino-Tibetan talks. Beijing is also putting pressure on other nations to follow the U.S. example, including India, which politely gave Beijing a firm “no” to its demand that Delhi stop the Dalai Lama from visiting his followers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh.

Rather than viewing gestures on Tibet as evidence of goodwill to be rewarded, the Chinese reaction has been to pocket the concessions and demand more—steadily asserting its position that regime behavior and internal affairs are not the business of the international community. In the long run, this will only complicate efforts to encourage China to use its increasing power as a responsible stakeholder.

There are also confusing signals on Burma. After a “Burma policy review,” the administration reasonably concluded that neither sanctions nor engagement alone were likely to change the behavior of the regime and announced that the U.S. was going to try a new approach that employed both. In September Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell testified to the Senate that the U.S. would not ease sanctions without meaningful steps by the junta and reserved the right to strengthen sanctions if there is not progress. This was the right basis for beginning the dialogue. But the administration has also stated that engagement will be a sustained and long-term process, implying it would not necessarily hinge on the regime’s short-term behavior.

In response, Burma’s prime minister, General Thein Sein, announced in late October that the U.S. had “softened its approach.” The junta also symbolically allowed international diplomats to have access to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the junta has concurrently increased its internal suppression of ethnic minorities and democracy activists since the administration’ s policy review and engagement strategy began. In June the Burmese military drove 5,000 members of the Karen minority across the border into Thailand, the largest exodus of Karen in a decade. In August the junta sentenced Ms. Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house imprisonment. In August and September the junta began a major military offensive against the Kokang people in northern Burma, driving over 30,000 refugees into China. Just last week the regime arrested 50 students, journalists and political activists, even as the U.S. prepared to send its first senior-level delegation to Burma this week for high-level talks with the junta.

Tibet and Burma illustrate the administration’ s serious dilemma: how to prevent its commitment to engagement from being perceived as a sign of shifting U.S. priorities and a greater tolerance for repression. It is damaging enough that Beijing and Naypyidaw are receiving this signal, but even minor adjustments in U.S. policy have a major ripple effect among friendly states also grappling with how to encourage greater democracy and human rights in the region. The European Union was poised to activate stronger sanctions against Burma but is now hesitating. Members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations were engaging in a painful but important internal debate about how to implement the human-rights and democracy principles in their new charter with respect to Burma, but at their most recent summit in Thailand the focus was entirely on what the U.S. would do to help solve the problem.

The president should use his visit to Asia to correct the confusing signals Washington is sending about the U.S. commitment to human rights and democracy. The administration does not need to abandon its aim of seeking results through direct dialogue with Burma’s leadership nor curtail its ambitious agenda for cooperation with China. But the administration should not be afraid that a clear stand on human rights and democracy will jeopardize those goals.

President Obama can begin by announcing his clear intention to meet with the Dalai Lama early next year and pressing Chinese President Hu Jintao to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama’s representatives without preconditions. Mr. Obama can use the trip to clarify, in his meetings with Southeast Asian leaders on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, that the U.S. will increase targeted financial sanctions on Burma if repression continues to escalate. The U.S. should also re-engage Burma’s neighbors to pressure the regime for change by stating that the U.S. will continue its new approach only if Ms. Suu Kyi is released and there are real opportunities for the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities to participate in a fair political process.

Finally, he should use his public addresses to single out and demonstrate support for those dissidents and prisoners of conscience who will someday emerge as the future Kim Dae-jungs and Vaclav Havels of Asia. For it is they who face the greatest uncertainty if America’s intentions remain unclear.

Mr. Green is senior advisor and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and associate professor at Georgetown University. This is the first article in an occasional series on the Obama administration’ s human-rights record.   http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748 7039329045745101 92259822258. html?mod= googlenews_ wsj
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Junta chief makes rare delta visit

Nov 3, 2009 (DVB)–The head of Burma’s ruling junta yesterday made a rare visit to the country’s southern Irrawaddy delta 18 months after being the target of international outrage for his lax response to cyclone Nargis.

Senior General Than Shwe led a delegation to the delta area, visiting two towns that were hit hard by the cyclone in May last year which left some 140,000 people dead and an estimated 2.4 million destitute.

The government was heavily criticised by the international community for initially blocking overseas aid from being channeled into the delta. Foreign journalists were also barred from entering Burma.

The delegation visited a number of sites still under reconstruction, including cyclone shelters, a hospital and a town hall, according to the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

“The Senior General…[called] for rapid development of agricultural and fishing farms for improving the living conditions of local people [and] systematic rehabilitation of storm-hit villages,” the newspaper said.

The visit came a day before the most senior-level United States delegation to visit Burma in 14 years arrived in Rangoon.

The US is to begin dialogue with the Burmese generals after years of sanctions and isolation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged in February that Washington’s approach to Burma had failed to pressure the ruling junta to improve its human rights record.

Nowhere was the junta’s fear of foreign meddling in the country more apparent than in the delta region following the cyclone.

US warships stationed off Burma’s southern coast were blocked from delivering aid to survivors, while relief supplies carried by American military planes landing in the country were rejected.

State-run media in Burma had warned that the aid came “with strings attached” that were not “acceptable to” Burmese people.

Burma analyst Larry Jagan said however that the crisis was ongoing in the delta, and that “there is no question that it’s being underreported” .

“Part of [the govenrment’s] concern is how this might impact on the election,” he said. “They felt that they had done a very good job with running the aid programmes that the UN funded and that people would vote for them as a result.”

But, he said, with a real lack of microcredit initiatives in the delta, the people there “are facing a pretty uncertain future in the next 12 months”.

Reporting by Francis Wade http://english. dvb.no/news. php?id=3011