The official, who asked not to be named, said Min Ko Naing, one of the leaders of a failed student uprising in 1988 against the military junta that ruled Myanmar at the time, would be moved.

U Gambira, a monk jailed for his role in cleric-led protests in 2007 known as the “Saffron Revolution”, is also to be transferred, the official said.

“Some political prisoners will be moved to prisons where their family members easily can access to them,” he told AFP.

Min Ko Naing, who is serving a 65-year prison sentence for his part in the 2007 protests, saw in his 49th birthday in Kyaing Tong prison in Shan State, northeast Myanmar, last month.

Human rights campaign group Amnesty International said last month that U Gambira, serving a 63-year term, was seriously ill as a result of torture he suffered in custody.

The move comes as ministers at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Indonesian island of Bali recommended that military-dominated Myanmar should be handed the rotating chairmanship of the bloc in 2014.

Hopes for change in Myanmar have grown recently following a series of reformist gestures as the country appears keen to end its international isolation, but pressure remains for it to release all political detainees.

The government freed some 200 dissidents last month but caused disappointment by leaving many figures behind bars, and another mass release expected for Monday has been delayed for reasons that remain unclear.

But any investments must be gradual with Japan not ready to resume full-fledged trade and aid, said Kimihiro Ishikane, deputy director-general of Japan’s Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

“We are cautiously observing and following the positive developments which are now taking place in Myanmar,” he told reporters on the Indonesian resort island of Bali during a regional summit. “(We) are definitely ready to support the current path the Myanmar government is taking in many ways.”

Myanmar, one of Asia’s most isolated and oppressive nations, has embarked on what many diplomats see as its most significant reforms in decades, raising the prospect of an eventual lifting of sanctions in the former British colony also known as Burma.

The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is expected this weekend to approve Myanmar’s bid to take the regional bloc’s rotating presidency in 2014, giving the new government some long-sought recognition despite reservations from Washington that more reforms are needed.

Recent overtures by its government have included calls for peace with ethnic minority groups, tolerance of criticism, an easing of media controls, the suspension of Chinese-funded dam project and the legalisation of labour unions.

Since the army nominally handed power to a civilian parliament in March after the first elections in two decades, President Thein Sein has also defied sceptics by reaching out to Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

GRADUAL RETURN OF AID

Japanese aid guidelines to Myanmar were relaxed after Suu Kyi was freed from 15 years of house arrest last year, Ishikane added, clearing the way for Japanese involvement in some small infrastructure projects.

“We’d like to do something but we should go gradually,” Ishikane said. “We are not at the stage to resume full-fledged cooperation with Myanmar.”

While some multinational companies have expressed interest in its natural gas reserves and China has poured billions of dollars into developing energy resources, Ishikane said Myanmar’s strategic location also made it attractive.

The country, as big as France and Britain combined, sits between booming India and China with ports on the Indian Ocean and Andaman Sea that, if developed with proposed rail and pipeline projects, would allow cargo ships to bypass the Straits of Malacca.

That would open the way for faster delivery of cargo from the Middle East and Africa to China and other countries in the region straddling the Mekong River such as Thailand.

“This will connect ASEAN and especially the Mekong with India,” said Ishikane. “This will give an outlet for avoiding the Malacca Strait … it is a very important part of connectivity which is currently lacking or missing.”

China, for instance, now ships 80 percent of its imported oil through the Straits of Malacca, a congested sea lane shared by Singapore and Malaysia just a few nautical km (miles) wide in places.

Security analysts have long feared a trade-crippling attack there.

Land access to the Indian Ocean through Myanmar would allow Beijing to diversify oil-shipment sources with a quicker route to its western provinces.

Backed by Chinese money, Myanmar is building a new, multi-billion-dollar port through which oil can reach a 790-km (490-mile) pipeline now under construction – with Chinese investments and workers – that will be cut across Myanmar and link refineries in western China.

Another parallel pipeline will pump Myanmar’s offshore natural gas to China.

But the recent suspension of the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam being built and financed by Chinese companies in northern Myanmar has caused tension in the relationship.

Chinese pledged investment in Myanmar reached above $14 billion in the 2010/11 (April-March) fiscal year, causing total foreign direct investment promises to soar to $20 billion from just $300 million a year before, official data showed.

But it is still too early to say if the country which had been under military dictatorship until early this year is firmly on the road to democracy.

Suu Kyi, who won a national election in 1990 but was never allowed to take power, also said it was too early for Western governments, including the United States and the European Union member states, to lift economic sanctions.

“There has been some progress within the past year, but not enough yet,” she said. “A crucial issue is the rule of law, without which we cannot make progress in the issues of human rights, the release of political prisoners, domestic peace efforts or social and economic development in our country.”

Suu Kyi was speaking to reporters at the headquarters of her party, the National League for Democracy, on the anniversary of her release from house arrest.

She also held out an olive branch to the army whose senior junta leaders retired in order to set up a civilian political party and which won a national election last year.

“All the army members are also the country’s citizens. So are all of us. If all of us are the same public, then I wish to ask why we can’t work together. We must be able to do,” she said.

Her comments reflect those she made in a rare face-to-face interview with a foreign news service last month. In an interview with the BBC she said Myanmar may be inching toward democracy but Western countries should remain vigilant that nascent reforms are genuine.

“There are signs that President Thein Sein, a former senior military ruler, wants reform but it’s early days, she said.

“I think I’d like to see a few more turns before I decide whether or not the wheels are moving along. We are beginning to see the beginning of change. I believe that the president wants to institute reforms but how far these reforms will go and how effective these will be, that still needs to be seen.”

After a national election in November 2010, the new government took office in January, although many Western countries called the process and result fraudulent.

A major issue for Western countries was the exclusion of Suu Kyi from running in the election.

She was released from house arrest Nov. 13 after seven years but, because of her criminal record, according to laws enacted by the junta, she was ineligible to run for Parliament. In protest, her party, the National League for Democracy, didn’t register for the election although around 40 small parties entered the race.

This week the NLD said its senior members will meet this week to decide the party’s future. Because it failed to register for the election, the party has no legal status.

The decision to boycott the November election had deeply divided the NLD, the Myanmar Times newspaper reported.

But members of the NLD central executive committee appear to support registration now to make it a legal organization.

A member of the party’s youth section said she would accept any decision of Suu Kyi and other senior members but believed registration is the right option even if the NLD doesn’t want to participate in any by-election (special election), the report said. She said registration would allow the NLD to “become legal and … conduct our activities legally.”

One of the country’s most sensitive issues has been the continuing imprisonment of what the United Nations has called “prisoners of conscience,” meaning political dissidents thrown in jail by the junta.

Around 200 were released under a general amnesty affecting more than 6,000 prisoners, signed by President Thein Sein, a former Junta leader, in October. But more remain in jail, according to the United Nations, as well as the country’s fledgling, and untested, Human Rights Commission.

Last week the commission — set up by the government earlier this year — urged Sein to grant amnesty to more “prisoners of conscience.” The commission made the request in an “open letter” to Sein published in the government-owned and controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

Foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations “all recognize the important and significant developments taking place in Myanmar,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters yesterday in Bali. “The idea of Myanmar chairing Asean in 2014 for many represents part of that momentum building.”

Asean’s leaders will make the final decision when they meet tomorrow, he said. U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are set to join them this week for the 18- country East Asia Summit.

The move represents a turnaround from 2005, when Myanmar forfeited the rotating chairmanship after western nations that maintain sanctions against the country threatened to boycott Asean’s meetings. The U.S. and Europe are now reviewing punitive measures against Myanmar after it held an election last year, eased censorship and freed several hundred political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Asean has always found Myanmar difficult, so now there is a sense of relief,” said Tin Maung Maung Than, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

“The State Department might welcome it because it proves their case that it’s right to engage.”

Economic Community

Asean’s chairman, which rotates annually in alphabetical order among its 10 countries, hosts summits that bring together leaders from Asia’s biggest powers and other nations, including the U.S., China, India and Russia. The bloc of 591 million people, rich in energy resources and situated around sea lanes vital to world trade, aims to form an economic community modeled on the European Union without a common currency by 2015.

“What is more important than the chairmanship of Asean is that the lives of the people of our country should improve visibly,” Suu Kyi told reporters in Yangon yesterday, according to an audio recording of the press conference posted on the Burma Today news website. “We are looking at the opening to the road to democracy,” she added.

Myanmar’s 60 million people are the poorest in Asia, earning about $1.15 per day on average, about a tenth of per capita income in neighboring Thailand, according to Asean statistics. In recent years, China, India and Thailand have invested in Myanmar’s ports, railways and oil and gas pipelines to gain access to natural resources.

Sea Port

Italian-Thai Development Pcl, Thailand’s biggest construction company, signed a contract worth $8.6 billion last year with Myanmar’s government to build a deep-sea port and industrial estate. China National Petroleum Corp. started building oil and gas pipelines across the country, and India approved plans for Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and GAIL India Ltd. to invest $1.3 billion in a natural gas project.

Myanmar has sought advice from the International Monetary Fund to end its multiple exchange rate system and is modernizing its banking system, central bank governor U Hla Tun said Sept. 23. President Thein Sein has released hundreds of political prisoners, legalized unions and stopped censoring media outlets like the BBC since taking power nine months ago in an election that ended rule by a series of military regimes since 1962.

“We do feel today the situation is far more conducive than before,” Natalegawa said.

Increasing Visits

Officials from the U.S. and Europe, which impose financial and economic sanctions on Myanmar that are renewed annually, have made more visits to the country in recent months. Derek Mitchell, a special envoy to Myanmar, completed his third visit to the country in three months on Nov. 4.

Myanmar is showing “the first stirrings of change in decades,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on Nov. 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii. “Should the government pursue genuine and lasting reform for the benefits of its citizens, it will find a partner in the United States.”

U.S. sanctions ban new investment, imports from Myanmar and transfer of funds into the country. Europe’s restrictive measures are less severe, including bans on weapons sales and mining investments.

On Nov. 5, Thein Sein changed a law on political parties that allowed them to criticize the constitution, contest in only one parliamentary seat and include prisoners as members, opposition news agency Mizzima reported. Suu Kyi’s party, which won a 1990 election that was nullified by the ruling junta, will meet on Nov. 18 to decide whether to formally register and stand in by-elections after boycotting last year’s vote.

Suu Kyi’s Release

Myanmar authorities released Suu Kyi last year, a week after Thein Sein’s Union Solidarity and Development Party, backed by the former ruling junta, won about 80 percent of seats in the election. The military retains a quarter of seats in the two houses of Parliament, according to the constitution.

Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of the past 22 years in confinement, called for the government to release 525 political prisoners who are still locked up. She has met several times with Thein Sein and praised him when speaking to reporters on Nov. 14, saying “he’s very genuine in his desire for the process of democratization.”

“There is consensus on Myanmar’s chairmanship of ASEAN in 2014,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said after a meeting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministers on the resort island of Bali.

“The ASEAN foreign ministers will recommend to our leaders,” he told reporters.

The leaders’ approval is considered a formality, and Natalegawa said Myanmar’s role in 2014 would be outlined in a statement released at the end of the 10-member group’s summit on Thursday.

Myanmar, considered an international pariah under decades of military rule, was forced to renounce ASEAN’s rotating presidency for 2006 in the face of intense criticism over its human rights record.

The ASEAN announcement comes after Myanmar’s new nominally civilian government, appointed after landmark elections a year ago, made a series of surprising reform gestures.

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have said that Myanmar’s military-backed government deserves the diplomatic prize as a reward for a series of reform gestures since holding elections a year ago.

But critics say that allowing Myanmar to host the bloc’s summit and the wider East Asia Summit in 2014 could remove the incentive for more fundamental change in a nation still accused of major rights abuses.

The United States, which under the arrangement would be expected to send its president to attend the 2014 summit, has already cast doubt over its participation.

“Our understanding of Asean practice is that it is not normal to name a host three years in advance, and we think it would be premature to select Burma (Myanmar) given its record on a range of issues,” a senior administration official said on Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

Myanmar, a longtime international pariah under military rule, was forced to renounce Asean’s rotating presidency for 2006 in the face of intense criticism over its human rights record.

But after Asean talks on the Indonesian resort island of Bali also on Tuesday, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said that the 10-member bloc had agreed to hand Myanmar the post in 2014.

“They have taken positive steps toward democratization. We should encourage them more by letting them host the meeting,” he said.

The ministers’ recommendation was expected to be announced on Wednesday, with the region’s leaders making a formal decision later this week.

Myanmar’s nominally civilian administration, which is led by a former member of the junta that has ruled for decades, has made some conciliatory moves since elections that was boycotted by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Just eight months after being sworn in, the government has held direct talks with Suu Kyi, frozen work on an unpopular mega-dam and passed a law giving workers the right to strike.

It freed some 200 dissidents from prison last month but caused disappointment by leaving many figures behind bars, and another mass release expected to be announced on Monday has been delayed.

Campaign groups said that Myanmar had not done enough to win the right to helm Asean and receive the accompanying air of international legitimacy.

“In principle we see Burma is not ready to chair Asean,” said Agung Putri Astrid, executive director of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus.

“Necessary conditions” remained unfulfilled, she added, including the release of all political prisoners and legal guarantees of freedom of expression.

Elaine Pearson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said that further benchmarks that should be attached to Myanmar’s chairmanship included ending abuses in ethnic minority areas.

Political prisoners should not be treated as “bargaining chips to appease the international community,” she added.

Washington has made clear the Asia-Pacific region’s importance to the 21st century and its dedication to an enduring U.S. presence there.

For its part, Myanmar has weathered numerous revolutions without regime change, including the “first wave,” after the fall of the Berlin Wall; the Saffron revolution in 2007; and multi-party elections in November 2010. The political situation in Myanmar cannot be compared with the uprisings in the Middle East because Myanmar itself overcame uprisings like those changing the Arab world.

Myanmar’s path is intricately tied to the needs of our country. Washington and the West need to understand that our president is a strong political reformer and that our proposal for Myanmar to assume the chairmanship of ASEAN in 2014 would accelerate the process. This is my president’s political road map for the international community. The United States must recognize that Myanmar’s politics will transform in steps. Every change must be based on reality, stability and systematic process. Myanmar must focus on overhauling the old system while building the society the international community has long hoped for. This is the political drama in Southeast Asia.

President Thein Sein is the hope of our entire nation, including ethnic minorities, people in the grass roots and the middle class. Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview with local journalists that she believes President Thein Sein “is very genuine in his desire for the process of democratization.” But he needs strong support from the international community to usher in a new era. Washington and others must change their dual-track policy toward Myanmar if they want it to become a democratic country as measured by their values and norms.

In the short term, Myanmar needs aid and trade, direct foreign investment and business opportunities. Financial sanctions must be lifted and upgrades made to public education and the health-care sector. Efforts must be made to develop the overall economy. If Myanmar does not overcome these battles, it cannot evolve in ways that would be a win for our people and the outside world.

What the West must realize is that in today’s geopolitical situation, particularly given the rise of China, it needs Myanmar. Washington and others must help facilitate Myanmar’s connection to the outside world at this critical juncture. My president’s cancellation of the Beijing-backed Myitsone Dam signaled to the world what he stands for. If the United States
neglects this opportunity, Washington will part ways with the new order in the Indochina region.

When President Thein Sein came to power in March, he declared an unprecedented reform agenda, including clean government, good governance, poverty reduction, national reconciliation, development and industrialization. His commitment to drive the reform process has impressed people in and outside our country. When Sen. John McCain visited Myanmar in June,our government made it clear that it intends to walk away from its pursuit of nuclear power, even though Myanmar has many research and development needs to which nuclear technology could be applied. The new government decided after the incident at Japan’s Fukushima site this spring not to pursue the nuclear path.

President Thein Sein has made extraordinary progress over the past eight months. Facing many challenges, he is trying to implement democratic processes. The U.S. government must understand his political situation — for every one step forward, there is a more difficult step back. The West should encourage him, not simply apply pressure without any give in its own positions. Don’t push him into a corner.

Many observers believe Myanmar is approaching a new beginning. People are starting to feel they can express openly what they want, that they can ask questions of the government and make demands on lawmakers. These are tangible results of the 2010 elections.

U.S. attempts to further isolate Myanmar at this juncture would be a disaster. As this country opens its doors to the outside world, Washington must cross the threshold. Obama and Congress must strongly support President Thein Sein and democratization in Myanmar. The White House must officially build the diplomatic bridge to our country at the Bali summit by supporting Myanmar’s bid to assume the ASEAN chair in 2014. A message from Obama that this move would assist the advancement of peace, stability and development in Myanmar would reinforce hopes across our country.

Some have expressed doubts about Myanmar’s state capacity, the population’s confidence in the leadership and the political implications of Myanmar holding the chairmanship. Would this be a step toward international sanctions being lifted?

First, taking on this role would give Myanmar the status with which the nation should be viewed on the international stage. The key point is pride for Myanmar’s people, not for the president and his administration.

Second, Myanmar has been closed to the outside world for decades. Many in the region and elsewhere pressure Myanmar or treat it with doubts and questions. Our country was historically a regional powerhouse and should regain its rightful position.

Political development in Myanmar is home-grown. Our country has taken steps other nations in the region have not yet accomplished. We implemented a new constitution late last year and its effects are taking hold.

China ascended to the world stage with the Beijing Olympics. The ASEAN chair is Myanmar’s opportunity to step forward. This issue must be raised, and not postponed, at this week’s summit.

President Thein Sein looks forward to trying to lead ASEAN much as he has guided Myanmar — maintaining his commitment to improve political, social and economic
development, without outside pressure or influence. This country has shown it can stand on its own. It is time the international community and the people of Myanmar turned to a new chapter.

The writer is director of the office of the president of Myanmar.

The protesters called off their action at a monastery in the country’s second-largest city of Mandalay  after up to 700 people, most of them monks, gathered to hear an hour-long speech by the main demonstrator.

The rally was thought to be the first since mass protests led by monks in 2007 – known as the “Saffron Revolution” – were brutally quashed, with the deaths of at least 31 people and the arrest of hundreds of monks.

The two-day protest came as ministers at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Indonesian island of Bali recommended that Myanmar should be handed the rotating chairmanship of the bloc in 2014.

Hopes for change in Myanmar have grown recently following a series of reformist gestures as the country appears keen to end its international isolation, but pressure is still on for the release of all political detainees.

This was a key demand of the monks, who unfurled banners in English and Burmese reading: “Free all political prisoners” and “Stop civil war now” – a reference to the decades-long conflict between the army and ethnic minority rebels.

Their third demand is freedom of speech for monks.

They had earlier vowed to keep up their protest until Friday, but called it off early after senior religious clerics at Masoeyein monastery asked them not to continue, protest leader Ashin Sopaka told AFP.

He said the rally had been “very satisfying” and insisted this was not the end of the road.

“We will continue working for peace. If our three demands are not fulfilled we must push on with them,” he said.

The five demonstrators drew hundreds of people, including many monks and dozens of plain-clothes police, when they started their protest on Tuesday after an expected amnesty for political detainees failed to materialise.

Myanmar’s nominally civilian government that replaced a military junta in March has surprised critics by holding direct talks with opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi and freezing work on an unpopular mega-dam.

But the release of all of the country’s political prisoners, whose exact numbers remain unclear, remains one of the major demands of Western nations which have imposed sanctions on Myanmar.

Activists have criticised the plan to hand the ASEAN chair to Myanmar in 2014, saying it could remove the incentive for more fundamental change in a nation still accused of serious rights abuses.

Authorities had been expected to free some political detainees on Monday before President Thein Sein attends the ASEAN meeting later this week.

But officials said the move was put off at short notice for reasons that remain unclear.

The Mandalay protest came after police in September prevented a planned rally by some 200 pro-democracy activists on the fourth anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the 2007 monk-led uprising.

Another monk who took part in Wednesday’s action said: “We would like to say to the president: implement our demands as soon as possible.”

At the ASEAN summit Wednesday, Japanese Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Kimihiro Ishikane said his country is providing Burma with official development assistance for basic human needs, following the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  And, he said Japan is hopeful that further political reforms will yield increased investment and assistance.

“We are not at the stage to resume our full fledge cooperation with Myanmmar [Burma].  So we are cautiously observing and following the positive development which is now taking place in Myanmar,” Ishikane noted. “But we are definitely ready to support the current path the Myanmar government is taking in many ways.”

The Japanese deputy minister’s words of encouragement for Burma followed support from Southeast Asian foreign ministers for Burma to take the rotating chairmanship of the 10-member ASEAN organization in 2014.

Ishikane says it is in the economic interests of Burma, the region and the world for Burma to release political prisoners and allow opposition parties to fully participate in the political system.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says the overall Southeast Asia region is experiencing strong economic growth and is attracting trade and investment opportunities from Japan, the United States and European countries.

“Our economic development is robust and the mass of the current global financial turmoil will continue to show [our] resilience we are confident of reaching between 5.7 to 6.4 percent growth this year. Complemented by an enormous market, a stable exchange rate and peaceful regional situation. ASEAN remains an attractive place for business and investment,” Yudhoyono said.

Ishikane says one of the vulnerabilities of ASEAN is the lack of infrastructure. In the case of Burma, he says the poor conditions and economic isolation are preventing the Mekong region from opening a direct trade route to India.

“There are a lot of roads and ports but they are not really usable for the outlet of the commodities which are produced in other parts of Mekong. If this missing part [could] be completed, this connect, this ASEAN and especially Mekong with India and this will will give an outlet via avoiding the Malacca strait, it goes straight ahead to the Indian [Ocean].” Ishikan stated.

He says Japan provides ASEAN with almost $20 billion in development loans for infrastructure projects and would like to direct more of that money to Burma, if it embraces significant and sustained democratic reforms.

The country has released some political prisoners, relaxed media controls and pushed through some pro-democratic political reforms in the past year. But western nations have called on the government to make more concrete steps toward political reforms.