The European Union has imposed more sanctions on Burma.

The new sanctions, adopted at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, include an embargo on the import of timber, gems and metals from Burma.

They also extend a list of Burmese leaders and their relatives subject to a travel ban and assets freeze.

The EU foreign ministers urged Burma's military government to enter into a "meaningful dialogue" that will lead to democracy. They also called for the lifting of all restrictions on detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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Students defy Myanmar protest ban at Asean summit

SINGAPORE - A SMALL group of international students at Singapore universities sought to defy a ban on protest in the city-state on Monday, calling for democracy in Myanmar at a summit of Southeast Asian nations.

Singapore has banned all outdoor protest at the Asean summit and rejected an opposition party's request to stage a Myanmar protest. It has also designated the summit venue as a 'protected areas", giving police the authority to search or detain anyone in the area or ask them to leave.

The students said they plan to move in groups smaller than four in other to get around police restrictions. Under Singapore laws, any public gathering of more than four people requires a police
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APPB Update on ASEAN Meeting

Dear Friends,

With regards to the 13th ASEAN Summit opening today in Singapore and the proposed adoption of the ASEAN Charter, the 88 Generation Students Group, has sent the second letter to the Asean leaders, following an earlier one dated September 17 today, November 19. The group has urged ASEAN to take action against the ongoing grave human rights abuses in Burma and to reject the SPDC's sponsored "roadmap to democracy" and increase pressure on SPDC to engage in genuine dialogue for national reconciliation. Please find the letter attached and also on APPPB blog.

There has been a lot of Burma solidarity actions have been taking place in Singapore during the time of Asean Summit. As updated you on Nov 17, hundreds of Burmese pro-democracy activists gathered at a forum. Yesterday on 18th, Human  Rights for Singaporeans organized another forum where Burma was a major focus of the forum, led by Dr. Chee Soon Juan of Singapore.

Starting today Nov 19 until 21, Solidarity for Asian People's Advocacies (SAPA) Working Group on ASEAN is bringing key members of the WG to going to hold a media blitz (series of media conference) in Singapore in line with the 13th Asean Summit on the outcome of the 3rd Asean + Civil Society Conference [ACSC3]held on Nov 2-4 and the ASEAN Charter to put forward the perspectives of civil society, as well as the two statements of the 3rd ACSC, to the Singapore media and international media.

Daily press conferences will be held at 3pm - 4pm at the SCWO/Singapore Council of Women's Organizations. The civil society networks found that the Charter is a disappointment as it is a document that falls short of what is needed to establish a "people-centered" and "people-empowered" ASEAN.

Meanwhile, Asean yesterday rejected the U.S. Senate's unanimous call to suspend Burma, saying the military-ruled country is like a troubled child who must be disciplined with dialogue. Southeast Asian leaders gathered Sunday for their annual summit with their bloc's credibility at stake as they grapple with Burma, as the SPDC has earned global scorn for its bloody crackdown on dissent. Ministers and officials from across the region held meetings under tight security ahead of Tuesday's formal summit, at which leaders are to sign a landmark charter and a blueprint for the creation of a free trade zone by 2015. As many analysts and civil society groups say the charter -- meant to promote human rights and democracy -- is meaningless if Myanmar cannot be held accountable for its alleged widespread abuses.

However, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said the leaders would have "critical" talks at an informal dinner today on Nov 19, at which General Thein Sein would be asked to explain the junta's brutal response to the mass protests.

On Wednesday, Nov 21, UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari will brief ASEAN leaders and their counterparts from six other Asian nations including China and India. Singapore FM said, "If we can arrive at a common position, that will be very helpful for the process of national reconciliation in Myanmar -- it will mean that we are all lined up behind Ibrahim Gambari." It was reported that SPDC was mounting a last-minute campaign to block the UN envoy's briefing.

China on Nov 17 called on the Burmese junta to speed up with democratic reforms -- a move seen unusual for China which has traditionally refrained from criticizing the Burmese regime. The China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi made this call during his two-day meeting with the junta on 15-16 Nov and also expressed support for UN efforts for national reconciliation.

However, SPDC showed its lack of political will towards genuine national reconciliation process. Senior General Than Shwe announced on Nov 17 that his regime would proceed with its "roadmap to democracy", a non-inclusive undemocratic process which has left out key actors concerned to resolve the political crisis.

His words suggest that any discussions about political reform with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will have to take place within the framework of its existing plan, which is now at stage three -- writing a new constitution.

Burmese stakeholders of the national reconciliation process have dismissed the convention and its output as a blueprint for the army legitimising its grip on power after 45 years of unbroken military rule, as under the new constitution orchestrated by the regime, the head of the army will be the most powerful person in the country, with the ability to appoint key cabinet positions and suspend the constitution in the event of an emergency that he defines.

This is all for now, friends.

In Solidarity,
The APPPB Secretariat
----------------------------------------------------

Nov 6th, 2007
San Francisco Burma Resolution: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/badamember/pending/Burma.pdf?view=1&msg=3030&part=2
SF UN Day March Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/butensky/sets/72157602792301738/show/
Human Rights Watch, "Sold to Be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma:": http://hrw.org/reports/2007/burma1007/
A Karen youth Zoya Phan spoke at Conservative Party Conference 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW4fd8pUblM
San Francisco UN Day petition can be viewed and signed at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/the-UN-is-failing-Burma
Senate hearing on protest in Burma: http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/archives/2007/archive100307p.ram
National Geographic Video: Monks "Vanish" at Myanmar Monasteries: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071011-monks-video.html
Aljazeera: Exclusive footage of Myanmar crackdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPFPJ9c_E4
CNN Video of beating protesters: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/myanmar.video/
Black Friday Massacre - Burma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUbWD29-GM
Frontline Burma: State of Fear: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/video_index.html
House Subcommittee Hearing: Crisis in Burma: Can the U.S. Bring about a Peaceful Resolution? http://www.hcfa.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=909
AP Slideshow of recent protests:  http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/myanmar_protests/index.html
Daw Mar Mar Aye Appeal/Music Video: 1  2 and song 1
------------------------------------------------------

Dear All,

"We hope that they ensure that their financial institutions are not being used as sanctuary for Burmese officials," said Silverberg, who is responsible for U.S. liaison with groups such as the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN).

Despite Washington's assertion that Myanmar's generals park their cash in banks in Singapore -- also their favoured destination for shopping and medical treatment -- Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong insists the financial system is clean.

"We don't play dirty money. We don't condone money-laundering," he told CNN recently.
----------------------------------------------

The proposed date of protest is Tue, Nov 20, which is when the actual summit will take place.

They also sell arms to Burma often as middle man. Those who call for Arms Embargo, be very careful about Singapore, their door could be wide open to Burma for purchasing arms.

Recently Singapore made some positive statements on Burma and allow Burmese to protest in a hotel and the monastery (They paid for the rental ect..). Don't be so excited about it, I think there are two reasons that they did allow it:

 1. They know the global public anger and outrage against crackdowns in Burma especially killing the Monks. So, only when the anger is mounting, they will be willing. Not as a policy, but to absorb anger.

 2. Burmese in Singapore, who are not allowed to protest, are getting behind Dr. Chee Soon Juan and protested when he protested against Burmese embassy. (Dr. Chee is the Singapore opposition/activist whom the government hated so much). They really do not what to see that Burmese activists in Singapore are getting closer to Dr. Chee. That's why they arrange for them to protest some how. The goodwill may not last very long.

And Singapore has yet to allow the Burmese to protest at the summit. So, we must keep the pressure on these governments. Otherwise, they will have a very short memory of what happened in Burma, and the true desire of the people of Burma. We have seen it enough!

Please also read very good work on new approach/tactics to Burma.

Thanks,
Nyunt Than
-----------

News Articles:

• Reuters: Myanmar tycoon says sanctions will not hurt regime
• SF Chronicles: Time for new tactics with Burma
• Foreign Affairs Meg: Asia's Forgotten Crisis, A New Approach to Burma
  
  http://www.13thaseansummit.org.sg/asean/index.php/web/programme/summit_programme
  ASEAN Summit Programme        
  -------------------------------------------------------   
  
  Sun, 18 Nov 2007     Day One
        ASEAN Standing Committee Preparatory Meeting
        
  Mon,19 Nov 2007     Day Two
        Presentation to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers on the ASEAN Charter by the High Level Task Force
        
        ASEAN HOS/Gs Informal Working Dinner
        
        Dinner hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers
        Dinner hosted by H.E. Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the ASEAN Economic Ministers
        
  Tues, 20 Nov 2007     Day Three
        13th ASEAN Summit (Plenary and Retreat)
        
        ASEAN HOS/G Working Lunch with ASEAN Business Advisory Council Leaders (Presentation of ASEAN-BIS Summit Report)
        
        Lunch hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Members of the Eminent Persons Group and High Level Taskforce
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 13th ASEAN Summit
        
        11th ASEAN Plus Three Summit
        
        Special Ceremony in commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of ASEAN Plus Three Cooperation
        
        11th ASEAN-China Summit
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 11th ASEAN-China Summit
        
        Gala Dinner hosted by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Mrs Lee
        
  Wed, 21 Nov 2007     Day Four
        11th ASEAN-Japan Summit
        
        11th ASEAN-ROK Summit
        
        Signing Ceremony of the 11th ASEAN-ROK Summit
        
        6th ASEAN-India Summit
        
        Working Lunch of the East Asia Summit (EAS) HOS/G
        
        Lunch hosted by H.E. George Yeo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the EAS Foreign Ministers
        Lunch hosted by H.E. Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the EAS Economic Ministers
        
        Third East Asia Summit (Plenary and Retreat)
        
        Signing Ceremony of the Third East Asia Summit
        
        Press Conference by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Chairman of the 13th ASEAN Summit
        
        Reception and Tour of Nalanda Exhibition hosted by H.E. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Mrs Lee
        
        Dinner hosted by H.E. SR Nathan, President of Singapore and Mrs Nathan
        Dinner hosted by H.E. George Yeo Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the EAS Foreign Ministers and EU representatives
        Dinner hosted by H.E Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, for the ASEAN Economic Ministers and the EU Trade
  
  Commissioner
  --------------------------------------------------------------

Reuters: Myanmar tycoon says sanctions will not hurt regime

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar business tycoon Tay Za has slammed U.S. sanctions against his airline and other businesses with reputed links to the ruling junta, saying only the people of the former Burma would suffer.

"I condemn the sanctions which will hurt the general public and have little effect on the government," Tay Za told employees and officials gathered at a Yangon hotel on Monday to mark Air Bagan's third anniversary.

Air Bagan, owned by Tay Za's Htoo Trading conglomerate, is among seven Myanmar firms targeted by U.S. sanctions last month after the September crackdown on monk-led democracy protests in which at least 10 people were killed.

A Singapore newspaper reported last week that Air Bagan, which was struggling with declining passenger numbers after the crackdown, was suspending flights to the city state after Singapore banks decided to "stop dealing with" it.

"Air Bagan Ltd is a legally constituted company with funds earned through 100-percent legitimate means" and no government official or party outside the Htoo group held shares in the airline, Tay Za said.

Washington has imposed economic and trade sanctions on Myanmar for years, but last month it took aim at individuals and companies reputed to have close ties to the regime.

The Treasury Department blacklisted Tay Za, his wife and son, Air Bagan and other companies within the Htoo group on October 19. It also named Myanmar tycoons Htay Myint and Khin Shwe and their companies.

Experts say tightening the screws on the junta will only work if Myanmar's regional neighbours do so too.

A top U.S. diplomat told Singapore and its banks on Monday to sever financial links with the junta, widely believed to use the city-state as its main off-shore banking centre.

"We believe that there are regime officials with accounts in Singapore," senior State Department official Kristen Silverberg told reporters in Thailand during a regional tour to drum up support for a tougher Asian stance against the regime.

"We hope that they ensure that their financial institutions are not being used as sanctuary for Burmese officials," said Silverberg, who is responsible for U.S. liaison with groups such as the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN).

Despite Washington's assertion that Myanmar's generals park their cash in banks in Singapore -- also their favoured destination for shopping and medical treatment -- Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong insists the financial system is clean.

"We don't play dirty money. We don't condone money-laundering," he told CNN recently.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Asia's Forgotten Crisis
A New Approach to Burma
By Michael Green and Derek Mitchell

From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2007

Michael Green is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Derek Mitchell is a Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Strategy at CSIS.

U.S. policy toward Burma is stuck. Since September 1988, the country has been run by a corrupt and repressive military junta (which renamed the country Myanmar). Soon after taking power, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), as the junta was then called, placed Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition party the National League for Democracy, under house arrest. In 1990, it allowed national elections but then ignored the National League for Democracy's landslide victory and clung to power. Then, in the mid-1990s, amid a cresting wave of post-Cold War democratization and in response to international pressure, the SLORC released Suu Kyi. At the time, there was a sense within the country and abroad that change in Burma might be possible.

But this proved to be a false promise, and the international community could not agree on what to do next. Many Western governments, legislatures, and human rights organizations advocated applying pressure through diplomatic isolation and punitive economic sanctions. Burma's neighbors, on the other hand, adopted a form of constructive engagement in the hope of enticing the SLORC to reform. The result was an uncoordinated array of often contradictory approaches. The United States limited its diplomatic contact with the SLORC and eventually imposed mandatory trade and investment restrictions on the regime. Europe became a vocal advocate for political reform. But most Asian states moved to expand trade, aid, and diplomatic engagement with the junta, most notably by granting Burma full membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1997.

A decade later, the verdict is in: neither sanctions nor constructive engagement has worked. If anything, Burma has evolved from being an antidemocratic embarrassment and humanitarian disaster to being a serious threat to the security of its neighbors. But despite the mounting danger, many in the United States and the international community are still mired in the old sanctions-versus-engagement battle. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed the former Nigerian diplomat and UN official Ibrahim Gambari to continue the organization's heretofore fruitless dialogue with the junta about reform. The U.S. State Department and the U.S. Congress have fought over control of U.S. Burma policy, leading to bitterness and polarization on both sides. Although the UN Security Council now does talk openly about Burma as a threat to international peace and security, China and Russia have vetoed attempts to impose international sanctions. And while key members of the international community continue to undermine one another, the junta, which renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997, continues its brutal and dangerous rule.

Regimes like the SPDC do not improve with age; therefore, the Burma problem must be addressed urgently. All parties with a stake in its resolution need to adjust their positions and start coordinating their approach to the problem. Although this may seem like an unlikely proposition, it has more potential today than ever before. Burma's neighbors are beginning to recognize that unconditional engagement has failed. All that is needed now is for the United States to acknowledge that merely reinforcing its strategy of isolation and the existing sanctions regime will not achieve the desired results either. Such a reappraisal would then allow all concerned parties to build an international consensus with the dual aim of creating new incentives for the SPDC to reform and increasing the price it will pay if it fails to change its ways.

BURMESE WAYS

After General Than Shwe became chair of the junta in 1992, repression grew more brazen. Thousands of democracy activists and ordinary citizens have been sent to prison, and Suu Kyi has been repeatedly confined to house arrest, where she remains today. Since 1996, when the Burmese army launched its "four cuts" strategy against armed rebels -- an effort to cut off their access to food, funds, intelligence, and recruits among the population -- 2,500 villages have been destroyed and over one million people, mostly Karen and Shan minorities, have been displaced. Hundreds of thousands live in hiding or in open exile in Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. In 2004, the reformist prime minister Khin Nyunt was arrested. Two years ago, Than Shwe even moved the seat of government from Rangoon (which the junta calls Yangon), the traditional capital, to Pyinmana, a small logging town some 250 miles north -- reportedly on the advice of a soothsayer and for fear of possible U.S. air raids. And this past summer, the government cracked down brutally on scores of Burmese citizens who had taken to the streets to protest state-ordered hikes in fuel prices.

Burma's neighbors are struggling to respond to the spillover effects of worsening living conditions in the country. The narcotics trade, human trafficking, and HIV/AIDS are all spreading through Southeast Asia thanks in part to Burmese drug traffickers who regularly distribute heroin with HIV-tainted needles in China, India, and Thailand. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Burma accounts for 80 percent of all heroin produced in Southeast Asia, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has drawn a direct connection between the drug routes running from Burma and the marked increase in HIV/AIDS in the border regions of neighboring countries. Perversely, the SPDC has been playing on its neighbors' concerns over the drugs, disease, and instability that Burma generates to blackmail them into providing it with political, economic, and even military assistance.

Worse, the SPDC appears to have been taking an even more threatening turn recently. Western intelligence officials have suspected for several years that the regime has had an interest in following the model of North Korea and achieving military autarky by developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Last spring, the junta normalized relations and initiated conventional weapons trade with North Korea in violation of UN sanctions against Pyongyang. And despite Burma's ample reserves of oil and gas, it signed an agreement with Russia to develop what it says will be peaceful nuclear capabilities. For these reasons, despite urgent problems elsewhere in the world, all responsible members of the international community should be concerned about the course Burma is taking.

FRUSTRATED NEIGHBORS

ASEAN may be the most important component of any international Burma policy. The organization invited Burma to join it in 1997 partly on the theory that integration would enhance ASEAN's influence over the junta more than would isolation (and partly out of concern over China's growing influence in the country). More recently, however, the ten-member organization has come to recognize that Burma is not only a stain on its international reputation but also a drain on its diplomatic resources and a threat to peace and stability in Asia. In 2005, ASEAN members began to pressure the SPDC to give up its turn to take over the group's rotating leadership, which was scheduled for 2007; they breathed a collective sigh of relief when Than Shwe allowed the Philippines to take Burma's spot. But particularly after Than Shwe's bizarre decision to move the capital and his rebuff of all international efforts, including by the Malaysian foreign minister, to persuade him to improve the junta's behavior, ASEAN states have only grown more concerned about Burma's direction.

Political liberalization in Indonesia and growing activism in Malaysia and the Philippines have also led ASEAN to redefine its mandate and apply greater pressure for change in Burma. When ASEAN was created four decades ago, its five founding states undertook not to interfere in each other's internal affairs as a way both to distance themselves from their colonial pasts and to avoid conflict in the future. But last January, ASEAN members prepared a new charter for the twenty-first century that champions democracy promotion and human rights as universal values, and they have established a human rights commission despite the SPDC's strong objections. With ASEAN's underlying principles under revision, leadership by Southeast Asian nations will become an even more essential component of any new international approach to the junta.

Japan will be another important force for reform. Tokyo and Washington perennially disagreed over their policies toward Burma in the 1980s and 1990s, but there has been a promising shift in Japan's attitude recently. Now that Tokyo has to contend with the slowdown in Japan's economic power and the rise in China's, it is articulating its foreign policy objectives and diplomacy in different terms. In November 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso made a speech promoting an "arc of freedom and prosperity" from the Baltics to the Pacific and touting Tokyo's commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. His speech conspicuously omitted any mention of Burma, but there is no question that Japan's Burma policy has been shifting significantly. In September 2006, Tokyo finally agreed to support a discussion on Burma in the UN Security Council. Members of the Diet have created the Association for the Promotion of Values-Based Diplomacy, which seeks to infuse Japanese foreign policy in Asia with a renewed emphasis on promoting democracy. And last May, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi joined 43 other former heads of state in an open letter calling on the SPDC to unconditionally release Suu Kyi.

Securing Japan's cooperation will be especially important. The Burmese people generally have a positive memory of Japan's assistance in helping the country throw off British colonial rule in the 1940s. Both the junta and the democratic opposition see opportunities for Japanese aid to help rebuild the country (although they disagree on the conditions under which that aid would be welcome). Furthermore, Burma presents a unique opportunity for Japan to demonstrate its bona fides on promoting democracy, protecting human rights, and advancing regional security -- especially at a time when the rhetoric and policies of China, the other Asian giant, continue to focus on outdated mercantilist principles.

UNHEALTHY COMPETITION

If ASEAN and Japan are critical components of any international approach to Burma, China and India could be the greatest obstacles to efforts to induce reform in the country. China has many interests in Burma. Over the past 15 years, it has developed deep political and economic relations with Burma, largely through billions of dollars in trade and investment and more than a billion dollars' worth of weapons sales. It enjoys important military benefits, including access to ports and listening posts, which allow its armed forces to monitor naval and other military activities around the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea. To feed its insatiable appetite for energy, it also seeks preferential deals for access to Burma's oil and gas reserves.

Beijing's engagement with the SPDC has been essential to the regime's survival. China has provided it with moral and financial support -- including funds and materiel to pay off Burmese military elites -- thus increasing its leverage at home and abroad. By throwing China's weight behind the SPDC, Beijing has complicated the strategic calculations of those of Burma's neighbors that are concerned about the direction the country is moving in, thus enabling the junta to pursue a classic divide-and-conquer approach.

In its own defense, China continues to assert its fealty to the principle of noninterference. In early 2007, China and Russia cast their first joint veto in the UN Security Council in 35 years to block a measure that would have sanctioned the SPDC. The move was consistent with both states' historical objections to any attempts by the Security Council to sanction a country for human rights violations. It also aligned with Beijing's overall strategic goals of the past few years: to secure the resources, markets, and investment destinations to fuel China's remarkable economic development; to shun risky international moves that might destabilize its neighborhood and distract the Chinese leadership from urgent domestic challenges; and to promote noninterference as an alternative model for international diplomacy -- all interests that will make it difficult to induce China to change its Burma policy.

But China's position could shift, particularly as Beijing considers its longer-term interests. China, like many other states on Burma's border, must be concerned about the effects of its neighbor's tortured development on its own security. In fact, Chinese officials in Beijing and the governor of Yunnan Province, which borders Burma, are reported to have been putting pressure on the SPDC to reform and urgently address drug trafficking and health issues. This quiet shift could track the recent change in Beijing's approach to another wayward neighbor: North Korea. As soon as Beijing realized that being hands-off did not prevent Pyongyang from testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles over its objections -- thus damaging China's reputation and threatening its security -- it agreed to UN Security Council sanctions to try to bring Pyongyang under control. The same could happen with Burma, and all the more readily because it occupies a less strategic position for China than does North Korea (China's northeastern border has historically been an area of strategic vulnerability and competition).

Another possible source of change is growing pressure from ASEAN nations, which have been suspicious of China's dealings with Burma over the last 15 years. Once Beijing comes to recognize that its current approach to Burma undermines its professed desire to be a responsible international actor, it will have good reason to redefine its real interests in Burma. The key will be for the United States and others to prioritize Burma in their diplomatic efforts with China in order to get Beijing to reach this conclusion.

It will also be a challenge getting India on board. Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's trumpeting of democratic values, India has actually become more reticent when it comes to Burma in recent years. This is particularly regrettable considering that Congress was one of the Burmese democratic opposition's strongest supporters during much of the 1990s and that Suu Kyi continues to cite Mohandas Gandhi as a model for nonviolent resistance. The change occurred during the past decade, after New Delhi detected that China's political and military influence in Burma was filling the void left by the international community's deliberate isolation of the junta. Like China, India is hungry for natural gas and other resources and is eager to build a road network through Burma that would expand its trade with ASEAN. As a result, it has attempted to match China step for step as an economic and military partner of the SPDC, providing tanks, light artillery, reconnaissance and patrol aircraft, and small arms; India is now Burma's fourth-largest trading partner. Singh's government has also fallen for the junta's blackmail over cross-border drug and arms trafficking and has preferred to give it military and economic assistance rather than let Burma become a safe haven for insurgents active in India's troubled northeastern region.

Yet this shortsighted policy is clearly not in India's interests. Persistent repression and turmoil in Burma will continue to threaten India's security along its border. Internal political reform leading to a more open and reconciled Burma would be far more beneficial for India than anything that would result from India's current tactical accommodations. Of course, India is eager to counter Chinese influence and strengthen its linkages to ASEAN through Burma. But its efforts to become more integrated into East Asia would be better served by following the example of like-minded democracies such as Indonesia, which has spearheaded efforts to change ASEAN's positions on democratization and human rights, than by parroting outdated rhetoric advocating noninterference or pursuing pure mercantilism.

COORDINATED ENGAGEMENT

Given the differing perspectives and interests of these nations, a new multilateral initiative on Burma cannot be based on a single, uniform approach. Sanctions policies will need to coexist with various forms of engagement, and it will be necessary to coordinate all of these measures toward the common end of encouraging reform, reconciliation, and ultimately the return of democracy. To succeed, the region's major players will need to work together.

Bringing them together will require the United States' leadership. One way to proceed would be for Washington to lead the five key parties -- ASEAN, China, India, Japan, and the United States -- in developing a coordinated international initiative and putting forth a public statement of the principles that underlie their vision for a stable and secure Burma. The five partners should develop a road map with concrete goalposts that lays out both the benefits that the SPDC would enjoy if it pursued true political reform and national reconciliation and the costs it would suffer if it continued to be intransigent. The road map should present the SPDC with an international consensus on how Burma's situation affects international stability and the common principles on which the international community will judge progress in the country. One purpose of such a road map would be to reassure the SPDC of regional support for Burma's territorial integrity and security and demonstrate the five parties' commitment to provide, under the appropriate conditions, the assistance necessary to ensure a better future for the country. This would be an important guarantee given the Burmese military's traditional paranoia.

Clearly, any process of reform and national reconciliation in Burma will have to begin with the immediate release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, including other members of the National League for Democracy and ethnic leaders, and involve their full participation in the institution of democracy. The guidelines for a new constitution that were announced in September, ostensibly as a "road map to democracy," do not come close in this regard. Than Shwe and the SPDC despise Suu Kyi, of course, which is why some U.S. supporters of engagement with Burma argue that it would be imprudent to peg the international community's treatment of the SPDC on the junta's treatment of Suu Kyi. However, her party's success in the 1990 elections and the fact that Burmese society continues to venerate her mean that any legitimate and credible approach to reform in Burma will have to take her perspectives into account.

Potential chinks are also appearing in the SPDC's armor. Than Shwe's erratic behavior, his decision to imprison former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt and thousands of Khin Nyunt's military associates, and his efforts to create a Kim Il Sung-like cult of personality are signs of brittleness and division within the junta. If the SPDC were faced with an offer of new economic and political opportunities from other states in the region -- or greater international pressure and isolation should it fail to reform -- some of its members might eventually feel compelled to seek a different course for themselves and their country.

The five parties should not be expected to agree on everything or even on a single, uniform approach to the SPDC. Rather, the objective of such discussions would be to encourage a degree of compromise among the participants and coordination among their respective policies so that they may be channeled toward a common end. The current approach -- with each party pursuing its individual policy with an eye as much toward competing with the others for its own advantage as toward promoting change in Burma -- has clearly played into the junta's hands. It has allowed the Burmese government to avoid united international action while still gaining the resources necessary to hold on to power.

The participation of China and India, currently the SPDC's greatest enablers, will be critical. The United States could begin to influence both nations' thinking by making Burma a higher priority in bilateral dialogues. In discussions with Beijing, Washington could make China's Burma policy another test of its readiness to be a "responsible stakeholder," much as it has already done in regard to Darfur. With New Delhi, Washington could make India's Burma policy an important component of the two governments' evolving strategic dialogue and nascent partnership on international issues, including democracy promotion and regional stability. Even more important, the U.S. government should initiate a new approach with ASEAN, Japan, and actors outside of Asia, such as the European Union, which has had a long-standing interest in political reform in Burma. ASEAN alone does not have the cohesion or the clout to shape China's or India's policy toward Burma. But with help from the United States and others, it could take a leading role in spearheading a new coordinated, multilateral approach that neither Beijing nor New Delhi would be able to ignore. China was reluctant to host the six-party talks on North Korea at first, but it eventually preferred to take on that role rather than leave the job of dealing with Pyongyang's nuclear activities to the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Once a new multilateral approach to Burma begins to take shape, China will not want to be viewed as obstructing progress on an issue of importance to its neighbors.

In order to participate fully and effectively, the U.S. government, for its part, will need to relax its strict prohibition on official high-level contact with the SPDC. This will require close consultation between the White House, the State Department, and Congress; Congress should grant the administration diplomatic flexibility in exchange for appropriate oversight. The president should appoint a special adviser to serve as the coordinator of U.S. policy on Burma and as the United States' lead contact in its international outreach (and eventually as the U.S. envoy to the Burmese regime itself). In the meantime, U.S. sanctions regarding trade and investment should remain in place, both to avoid too sudden a shift in posture and to keep in reserve potential carrots that could later be offered to the SPDC to encourage reform. The United States should also continue to push for UN Security Council action on Burma in order to keep the issue at the top of its agenda with China.

The international community needs to act now to begin a process of concentrated and coordinated engagement for the benefit of the Burmese people and of broader peace and stability in Asia. As with the six-party talks on North Korea, a multilateral approach will require some compromise by all participants. The United States will need to reconsider its restrictions on engaging the SPDC; ASEAN, China, and India will need to reevaluate their historical commitment to noninterference; Japan will need to consider whether its economics-based approach to Burma undermines its new commitment to values-based diplomacy. But all parties have good reasons to make concessions. None of them can afford to watch Burma descend further into isolation and desperation and wait to act until another generation of its people is lost. In addition to humanitarian principles, there are strategic grounds for stepping up diplomatic efforts on Burma: it is now the most serious remaining challenge to the security and unity of Southeast Asia. Of course, change will eventually come to Burma. But without the coordinated engagement of the major interested powers today, that change will come at a great cost: to the stability of Southeast Asia, to the conscience of the international community, and, most important, to the long-suffering Burmese people, who languish in the shadows as the rest of the world concentrates its energies elsewhere.

To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.

At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.

The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region -- and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.

For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region -- a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make.

Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power -- political, economic, and military -- could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran -- and especially the Iranian people -- what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance -- which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.

REVITALIZING THE MILITARY

To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas.

We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.

We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.

Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.

We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.

HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world -- the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.

As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium -- some of it poorly secured -- sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons -- all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.

As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years -- the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.

This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest -- above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security.

As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build -- or come to the brink of building -- a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.

finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy -- the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.

COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM

To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally.

We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the central front in our war against al Qaeda -- so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.

I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.

Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.

Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation.

To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.

finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists -- one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, "the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes." It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones.

In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity -- access to education and health care, trade and investment -- and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can -- and will -- win this struggle.

REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS

To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.

Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.

Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities.

And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power -- to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.

In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers -- including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel -- but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.

Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.

As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip -- by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil -- by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels.

Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.

BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.

People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.

As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner -- a partner mindful of his own imperfections.

Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy.

There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST

Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course.

Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success -- unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people's trust -- if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility -- then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again.

I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep.

It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free.

We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people -- and all people -- in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.

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NOV 3RD.

Burma Updates: Burmese Monks inside/outside of Burma stepping up pressure

Dear All,

Some important developments occurred in the past week: 

On Oct 31, incredible show of courage and determination, the Burmese monks in Pakokku took to the streets again. Why did they risk their lives and every thing they have yet again? Because they are determined to help save the country, the people and, most importantly for them, the Buddhism itself. Now in Pakokku , monks are being warned to not take to the street again. Pakokky is the city where insult against the monks occurred on Sept. 5th angering the entire monk population in Burma, and eventually leading to the Saffron Revolution.

Few days earlier on Oct 28 in Los Angele the exiled Burmese monks have established an International Burmese Monks Organization with the mandate given by the monks inside Burma. Their primary goal is, again, to save the Buddhism in Burma. Should this dictatorship be allowed to go on, not only the country and the people, along with them, the Buddhism itself will soon become the casualty.

We all knew that, after crushing the 8888 uprising, which was lead by the university students, the regime dismantled many established universities in Rangoon to deter future student-led protests. Now, the saffron revolution is being led by the monks and, as always, this regime will not let anything standing in their way. That's why  the monks are so concerned that they are  taking the leadership and forming this organization in exile.

Besides, the new organization is being led by two well respected and proven monks leaders: Masoeyin Sayadaw and Penang Sayadaw and was joined in by the monks from Europe, Asia and North America.  Monks in Rangoon, Mandalay, Myin Chan, and Pakokku, along with exiled  artists supported it right away. They are leading us in the much needed time, and we must follow them. Therefore, let's welcome and support this new organization in any way we can.

In other news:

The regime kicked out the top UN official for urging to heed the voices of protesters just ahead of Mr. Gambari's visit.

In today Washington Post, there is an editorial (Unbowed in Burma) shedding great light on China and India, the nations with the most influence in Burma, outdo each other in appeasing the regime. So, we must keep the pressure on them. And also find below the news on the plight of Burmese Child soldiers called Nasty, brutish and short -- thanks to a Human Rights Watch report.

Last, but not least, please support the USCB action call to help passed  the Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007 authored by Congressman Tom Lantos in the congress.

In solidarity,
Nyunt Than
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1. DVB: International monk's organization established by Exiled Burmese Monks
2. NY Times: Myanmar Junta Orders Top U.N. Official in the Country to Leave
3. Washington Post Editorial: Unbowed in Burma
4. DVB: Monks warned against protesting in Pakokku
5. Reuters: Monks take to streets as Burma anger flares again
6. NewsStatesman: Nasty, brutish and short (Child soldiers of Burma)
7. Express-News: Myanmar temple is focal point of 'saffron uprising'
8. USCB: Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007: Get Your Representative to Co-Sponsor!

International monk's organization established

Oct 30, 2007 (DVB) Burmese monks living in exile around the world have formed an organization to raise international awareness of Burma's situation and lobby international governments.

The director of the new group is U Kaweida, a monk lecturer from Masoeyein monastery in Mandalay who was detained by the Burmese government after the 1988 uprising and now lives in New York.

The monks had originally planned to meet on Sunday to celebrate U Pyinya Wuntha,s 80th birthday and 50 years of his work promoting Buddhism around the world.

U Pyinya Wuntha said that the organization was formed as a response to the harassment, detention and ill-treatment of monks in Burma by the regime.

We are going to raise awareness about the issues inside Burma with the relevant governments, U Pyinya Wuntha said.

Burmese monks in Sri Lanka released a statement yesterday offering their enthusiastic cooperation to the new group and expressing their belief that it will be able to help find a solution to the political and social issues inside Burma.

Four Burmese artists living in exile also expressed their support for the newly formed organization.

We vow to follow the monk�s orders and accept whatever duties are given to us by the monks,� the artists� group said.

Myanmar Junta Orders Top U.N. Official in the Country to Leave

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Washington Post Editorial: Unbowed in Burma

The resistance continues, but it needs help.
Saturday, November 3, 2007; A18

BURMA'S RULING generals yesterday ordered the expulsion of a senior United Nations official, again demonstrating their contempt for international opinion. The official had expressed mild criticism of the regime, which was too much for the paranoid leaders of the Southeast Asian nation. That does not mean, however, that they are impervious to influence.

A few weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of Burmese, led by Buddhist monks, were peacefully demonstrating in favor of democracy. The junta lashed out in response: shutting down Internet access, raiding monasteries, rounding up thousands in nighttime raids. No one outside the regime knows how many protesters it murdered.

Amazingly, internal resistance has not ended. A few hundred monks resumed the protest Tuesday. Others have taken to the jungle to regroup. But the response from outside Burma has been less heartening. The special envoy of the U.N. secretary general has shuttled among Asian capitals in time-wasting busywork. The envoy, who is scheduled to reenter Burma today, needs to push hard the U.N. Security Council's call to the regime to free political prisoners and enter into dialogue with them. Meanwhile, China and India, the nations with the most influence in Burma, outdo each other in appeasing the regime. Does China not worry about hosting the Olympics as the protector of one of the world's most odious regimes? Does India care nothing for its reputation as the world's largest democracy? So far, apparently not.

The Security Council should tighten sanctions, particularly by enforcing an arms embargo. But the sanctions likeliest to persuade the regime to negotiate with democratic forces are banking restrictions imposed on top officials, their relatives and the corrupt businessmen close to them. The Bush administration led the way with such sanctions; Australia stoutly followed. The question -- and it could be dispositive -- is whether Europe has the spine to join in.
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Monks warned against protesting

Nov 1, 2007 (DVB)–Following yesterday’s peaceful demonstration in Pakokku, local authorities have urged monks not to go ahead with any further protests, according to a local monk.

The monks themselves were not invited to attend the meeting.

The local authorities did not say if any action would be taken against the monks if they continued to demonstrate.

Security forces did not intervene in yesterday’s demonstration, and those involved have not so far faced any repercussions from the authorities.

“We did not have much time to organize the protest as we did not actually plan for it, so there weren’t a lot of monks. But there will be bigger and more organized protests soon,” the monk said.

Monks take to streets as Burma anger flares again

BUDDHIST monks in Burma staged a protest march yesterday, their first since soldiers crushed a pro-democracy uprising a month ago, as UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared a return visit to the troubled country.

A Rangoon-based Asian diplomat said Mr Gambari, who first visited shortly after the army crackdown, would arrive on Saturday on a second mission to coax the generals into talks with the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The latest march by monks in the central town of Pakokku, 370 miles north-west of Rangoon, suggests the crackdown merely managed to stifle, not eradicate, widespread anger at 45 years of military rule and deepening poverty.

The town has been a flashpoint since soldiers fired over the heads of monks in early September, transforming small, localised protests against shock rises in fuel prices into the biggest anti-junta uprising in two decades.

A witness said about 200 monks chanted prayers as they walked three abreast through the centre of the town.

"We walked around the town and chanted ... We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," one monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway.

"Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all the political prisoners," he said.

"We are not afraid of getting arrested or tortured," another monk was quoted as saying.

He said they had little time to organise the march so it was small, but "there will be more organised and bigger protests soon." There were no reports of trouble.

Official media say ten people, including a Japanese video journalist, were killed when soldiers were sent in to clear the streets last month, although western governments said the real toll was likely to be far higher.

Mr Gambari has been on a six-country Asian diplomatic tour to press neighbours - especially India and China - to take a tougher line against the generals, one of the world's most isolated regimes.

"We think he is going to be busier during this visit than his previous one," the Asian diplomat said. After Mr Gambari's first trip, the junta appointed retired General Aung Kyi as a go-between for Ms Suu Kyi and the junta chief Than Shwe, who is widely known to loathe the 62-year-old Nobel laureate.

Gen Aung Kyi held a 75-minute meeting with Ms Suu Kyi last week, although it is not known what they discussed.

After talks with China in Beijing yesterday, Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, repeated his idea of offering incentives for the people of Burma if the government launches a political dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi and their talks make progress.

JUNTA 'SIGNS UP BOY SOLDIERS'

BURMA'S military junta is recruiting children as young as ten into its armed forces, a human rights group claimed yesterday.

Human Rights Watch, of New York, accused the junta of targeting children due to "continued army expansion, high desertion rates and a lack of willing volunteers". Its report said: "Military recruiters and civilian brokers receive cash payments and other incentives for each new recruit, even if the recruit clearly violates minimum age or health standards."

It cited the case of a boy who said he was forcibly recruited at 11, though he was only 4ft 3in tall and weighed less than 5st.

YANGON, Myanmar — A few long, wispy hairs dangled from the chin of the old, brown-robed monk. The skin on his hands was polished like dark parchment. Wearing a brown conical peaked cap, he looked like he was from an earlier age.

Roy Hamric/Special to the Express-News Monks are eager to answer questions about the Shwedagon temple complex. If You Go Getting there: All incoming flights must enter via Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon). Daily flights depart from Bangkok, Thailand. Lodging: Low-cost guesthouses and upper-end hotels and resorts abound in Yangon, ranging from $10 to $500 or more a day. Transportation: Several Myanmar airlines offer daily flights to Mandalay and to Bagan, the home of the largest collection of historical temples in Asia and a must-see destination for most tourists. Many tourists also travel via trains, buses or by riverboats that ply the Irrawaddy River from Yangon to Mandalay and farther north. Visa: Four-week tourist visas are easily obtained by applying at Myanmar embassies; see an embassy Web site for information, requirements and applications. The Strand: 92 Strand Road; rooms from $450 to $900. The hotel's bar, grill and restaurant attract an eclectic crowd. www.ghmhotels.com. Country protocol: Foreigners seldom have serious problems, but exercise common caution. Myanmar is a very conservative country, without the nightlife found in many Asian cities.   More Coverage Myanmar temple is focal point of 'saffron uprising'

He gently nudged me to the left, two steps, and there it was — a brilliant white flash: the 4,351 diamonds at the topmost orb of the Shwedagon stupa.

Only a few tourist and locals were at the temple on this late evening. Some places diminish in stature when you take away the crowds, but this religious site, one of Myanmar's holiest, becomes more impressive.

On a prominent hill overlooking Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon), the temple complex dominates the city. In the 1400s, a queen, Shinsawbu, donated her weight in gold (about 90 pounds) to the temple. The gold was beaten into gold leaf to gild the first stupa, setting off a series of gildings that continue to the present day, with more than 50 metric tons of gold now covering the stupa.

Shwedagon Temple, one of the holiest sites for Buddhists in Myanmar, found itself at the center of the violent pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted throughout the nation in late September.

Saffron-robed monks gathered at the temple complex to pray before starting their marches through the streets to protest the generals who have held power since they nullified a free, democratic election in 1988.

On the streets surrounding the temple, the monks were repeatedly threatened by security forces, who fired tear gas, shot their guns into the air and beat monks with truncheons.

Throughout the demonstrations, the monks chanted the "Metta Sutta," the Buddha's words on loving-kindness:

Let everyone be free from harm

Let everyone be free from anger

Let everyone be free from hardship

Before the protests ended, 1,000 monks had been arrested and imprisoned. An estimated 450 monks remained in prison in late October, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The generals who rule Myanmar in effect own the riches of the nation, once one of the most prosperous in Asia — symbolized perhaps by the jewels embedded in the main stupa at the temple complex.

Hope for a better life

At mid-afternoon on the day I visited the temple nearly a year ago, the spiritual reverence had been palpable. Streams of pilgrims, both men and women wearing the traditional longyi cloth wrap, supplicated themselves before the golden stupa and the smaller temples and shrines, some of which are said to house symbolic Nats, or spirits. Families put down mats and set out steamed chicken, fried bananas and cups of sweet milky brown tea, preparing to spend the day. The air was permeated with a feeling of spiritual devotion.

But it was the light surrounding the stupa that casts the most poignant spell. To say the stupa is golden misses it entirely. The air around the stupa is golden. The air pervading the complex is golden and sparkling, the brilliance subtly enhanced perhaps by the other 1,383 gemstones embedded in the large stupa's surface at various points and especially by a single, radiant 76-carat diamond at the very top of the diamond orb, which I fancied I could actually see while standing at that exact spot where the old monk had placed me.

"It's nice look," he said, his teeth dark yellow from tea and betel nut. Earlier, the monk had walked me around the temple complex. People paid him reverence and gave him space. He was a Jathei (hermit) monk, a lineage of solitary wanderers, highly respected for their use of herbs and potients to treat people's physical and psychological ailments.

Jathei monks are homeless, roaming through rural Myanmar. Sometimes they can be spotted at their forest retreats by the small, round huts they build from twigs and large leaves. His last retreat was in the forest near Taungbygone, 20 miles north of Mandalay. He'd started walking toward Yangon two months earlier. This would be his last visit to the temple, he said, because he planned to move deeper into the forest.

A few steps removed from the diamond's sparkle was a shrine to Thanga Min, the king of the Nat spirits. Nat worship is the belief that spirits can exercise a good or evil power over a person or a place, such as homes, trees, hills or lakes. There's a saying that the Burmese people play it safe: They practice Buddhism for the future life and give gift offerings to Nats for problems in this life. A moment later when I turned back toward the monk, he was gone. I had wanted to ask him more about his life. I searched through the crowd, but he had disappeared.

A country of extremes

From the temple, I hailed a taxi, a little 1956 Toyota. I had promised myself a dinner at the Strand Hotel, one of the legendary hotels of the East. The driver, named Htin Swe, was another one of those Myanmar citizens you frequently meet who describe themselves as university students. They are typically in their late 30s or 40s. They explain their studies are incomplete, through no fault of their own. Myanmar universities are usually closed more semesters than they are open, a sign of the fear the ruling military junta has of students and the people. In 1988, the junta, now known as the State Peace and Development Council, gunned down more than 2,000 students, men, women, children and monks during a demonstration in Yangon.

I asked Htin Swe what he studied.

"I am an English major," he said. "Ahnoma topeeah."

"Onomatopoeia? " I said.

"Yes. The Highway Man," he said. "Fenimore Cooper. American. Shakespeare very different. Robert Frost. Two ways to go."

Like most of Myanmar's ordinary citizens, Htin Swe was a poignant mixture of sincerity and arrested development, emblematic of a people and a country with enormous potential that's been trapped in a time-warp closer to the '50s than today's world.

When the concierge swung open the high wooden doors of the Strand Hotel, built in 1901 by two Armenians, the Starkie brothers, I entered a world light years away from everyday Myanmar life. Recently remodeled, the hotel had retained its distinctive colonial-Asian charm and elegance with a shiny, black grand piano dominating the lobby. The natural oak and rattan furniture featured white cushions. In the nearly empty dinning room, leather-bound menus and heavy white parchment paper were stamped with the Burmese lion emblem. Delicate purple flowers sat in crystal vases on each table, and a young woman played a lilting folk melody on a xylophone.

The menu listed barramundi over glass noodles, Myanmar venison, seared Myanmar River prawns in green curry, sesame coated tuna rolls, golden crab cakes, peanut biscuits and more.

Looking through the window at the boulevard that ran parallel to the Irrawaddy River, I saw fenderless trucks sputtering along, belching black smoke, stacked with freshly cut teak trees still oozing oil from their base. Men with bulging calf muscles strained at rickety trishaw pedals, trying to dodge potholes. Students in red skirts and white blouses walked home carrying plastic book satchels.

The stark contrast between the refined Western inner world of the Strand's elegance and the outside world of daily Yangon street life still seemed very colonial British.

Clearly, Myanmar is a country of extremes — of haves and have-nots. Average citizens have very little and have been repressed for decades. However, the country is opening up to tourists and traveling within the country is easier. The feelings you take away from a trip to Myanmar are unusually deep, running an emotional gantlet from awe to sorrow.

As I left the Strand, I thought of the old monk at the temple. I had tried to take his picture, but he wouldn't allow it.

"I will remember you," he said. "You will remember me."

He was right.

Roy Hamric writes about Southeast Asia for newspapers and magazines worldwide.

The brutality and bluster of Burma's military leaders conceal the reality of an army increasingly reliant on forcibly conscripted child soldiers

Beyond the brutality of the military against protesting monks, and belying the bluster of senior army officers during their grand parades in the new martial capital at their jungle redoubt in Naypyidaw, is a reality that Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) does its best to conceal: many of its soldiers are mere children.

Human Rights Watch research this summer showed that boys as young as 10 continue to be forcibly enlisted into Burma’s army by a network of predatory recruiters, often soldiers themselves, who lurk at train stations and outside cinemas and tea shops looking for vulnerable young males to coerce into the Burmese military, or Tatmadaw.

Once forced into the army they are not permitted to contact their families, their ages are fabricated on enlistment material, and they receive harsh training before being deployed to bleak and dangerous outposts throughout Burma’s hinterland.

Boys are used to fight ethnic insurgents, mete out punishment to civilians, and as porters to support frontline troops. One young soldier I interviewed expressed the terror of his first experience of combat. When he tried to run away, his officer threatened to shoot him. He was 13. It is hard to imagine the psychological trauma and damage these experiences are inflicting on children.

The problem of child soldiers is hidden from the eyes of many international observers and Burmese citizens in towns and cities. Child soldiering usually takes place in the conflict zones of the borderlands where they are deployed. Once impressed into the army, child soldiers often eke out a desperate existence fishing and hunting for food and stealing from villagers, surrounded by malarial forests, landmines and ethnic insurgents.

Their plight is so desperate that many of their victims I have spoken to express their pity for them, despite the fact that these boys belong to an army which burns ethnic civilian villages, destroys their crops, and forces them into hiding or across borders as refugees in counterinsurgency campaigns almost medieval in their plodding atrocities.

Despite strong official regulations within the Tatmadaw prohibiting the use of child soldiers and frequent promises to the United Nations that the SPDC is serious about curbing the practice, former child soldiers Human Rights Watch interviewed testified that the practice remains rampant. It is almost impossible to place a figure on how many children under 18 are in the Tatmadaw, but there are certainly thousands.

It hasn’t always been this way. Before 1988, Burma’s army of 180,000 soldiers was a battle hardened and largely professional organization. The Tatmadaw fought large-scale conventional wars and brutal counter-insurgency operations against Communist and ethnic insurgents who were well armed and motivated. Almost all the soldiers and officers were volunteers, and child soldiers were rare. They were common, however, in ethnic opposition forces, and over 30 non-state armed groups in Burma still use children in combat.

Since 1988, when the army put down mass street protests, a major expansion of the armed forces has seen the military grow to an estimated 400,000 or more personnel, many of them children. Large arms purchases in the past 19 years -- ships, planes and helicopters from China, tanks and fighter planes from Russia and the Ukraine, artillery pieces from India -- all need soldiers to use them. Nevertheless, many army battalions are seriously under strength, with operational numbers of 200 soldiers, far below the optimum level of 800 personnel.

Internal army documents seen by Human Rights Watch point to high levels of desertions and seriously low morale due to poor living conditions and abuses by senior NCOs and officers against the ranks. Children are swept up in the need to replenish the ranks.

Recruitment of minors into the military mirrors Burma’s deteriorating social and economic conditions. Unemployment is high, corruption is endemic, poverty is the norm, and inflation, raging at over 30 percent, places even basic food items beyond the reach of many people.

It is this desperation that feeds the mercenary behavior of recruiters, who prey on large pools of destitute and vulnerable men and boys who are easy prey for press-ganged labor. While the world rightly watches political developments in Burma in the aftermath of the brutal repression of street protesters in September and October, governments such as the United Kingdom and other Security Council members should act at their upcoming meeting on child soldiers to protect a generation of boys from the rapacious Tatmadaw.

The place to start is an arms embargo and financial sanctions that will starve the military of the hardware and funds it needs to keep plundering Burma’s most important treasure, its children.
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Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007:
Get Your Representative to Co-Sponsor!

Dear ?,

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) introduced new sanctions to cut off major revenue from Burma's military junta. The Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti- Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007 has the power to force the regime to negotiate with Burma's democracy leaders and Ethnic nationalities. We must show the people of Burma that the U.S. is taking action to support their calls for freedom, democracy and human rights.  Call and write to your Representative today asking them to support the Block Burmese JADE Act! Organize your community to call in as well. Find your Representative and their contact info here - http://www.house.gov/writerep .

What the Act Does:

The regime makes hundreds of millions of dollars each year of the sale of gems.  More than 90 percent of the world's rubies and fine-quality jade comes from Burma.  The new sanctions will crack down on the regime's practice of avoiding U.S. sanctions by laundering gemstones through third countries before they are sold.

This Act also freezes the assets of Burmese political and military leaders, prevents Burma from using U.S. financial institutions via third countries to launder the funds of those leaders or their immediate families, and prohibits Burmese officials involved in the violent suppression of protesters from receiving visas to the United States.

 "This legislation will turn off a huge cash spigot for the thuggish Burmese regime," Lantos said. "If my colleagues come together and act quickly to pass these new sanctions, we can put an end to huge profits for the junta and its unscrupulous middle-men. We must ensure that the sale of some of the Earth's most beautiful natural resources does not continue to enable the horrors inflicted upon the people of Burma."

Burma also uses third countries to access the U.S. banking system.  These overseas banks process accounts in and through the United States for Burma's rulers, providing the regime with much-needed hard currency.  The regime uses these funds to purchase weapons and luxury goods, while the bulk of Burma's population lives in poverty.

Lantos' legislation tightens existing sanctions to prevent Burma's military rulers from profiting from sales to the United States, and blocks access to the U.S. financial system not just for Burmese human rights violators but also to those who provide the regime with banking services.

The Block Burmese JADE (Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007, if passed, would be the strongest action yet that the U.S. takes to pressure Burma's military regime to negotiate with Burma's democracy leaders and ethnic nationalities.

Contact information:

Contact information on your individual representative can be found easily by accessing the House website, www.house.gov/writerep . Once there, enter your zip code in the "Find your representative" box in the top left corner of the screen. This will give you a link to his House site, with all the relevant contact information.

Contact your representative's staffer. If he is not there leave a message and ask him to call you back. Call today and call every day until you get an answer!

To add their name as a cosponsor

Let them know that to co-sponsor they should contact Eric Richardson at the Committee on Foreign Affairs office at eric.richardson@mail.house.gov or 225-5021.

Talking Points for Staffer:

- Tell the staffer you want your representative to co-sponsor the Block Burmese JADE Act of 2007

- Give her/him proof that this policy works. It cuts off hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime and will specifically target the top generals' finances. 

- Mention that the military junta still deserves sanctions. On top of brutally crushing thousands of peaceful demonstrators, including monks, the military regime has destroyed more than 3,000 villages. It has forcibly displaced more than half a million people inside Burma as well as causing a million refugees to flee across the border to neighboring countries and has made no efforts to move toward democracy.

- Let her/him know it is important to send a strong signal to the regime that the US government will continue to keep American money out the hands of the junta.

- This is not the only action being taken against Burma. On top of many diplomatic efforts, the EU has imposed new sanctions, as well as Australia, and even Japan has decreased aid to Burma. 

- Finally ask the staffer to call you back when your representative has co-sponsored the Block Burmese JADE Act. Important: Leave your phone number!

Let him/her know that his/her constituents care about Burma!

Please let me know when you have contacted your Representative and how it went - thelma@uscampaignforburma.org.  These new sanctions will hit the regime where it hurts.

Oct 30, 2007
----------------------------------------

Dear All,

Many of you must have heard about the meeting between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the SPDC's appointed minister. She has been calling for dialog since 88 uprising, and this is not the first time such meeting has taken place in Burma -- but yet to produce any positive results in the past 19 years. Why? Because the regime has no political will to compromise. Rather, they must keep pressuring her to give in (Recall what Dictator Than Shwe has demeaned her for a meeting with him). Not only they have been lying to us for forty five-years, they use such meeting only to divert international attention. We want a peaceful resolution in Burma, but based on the track record, we doubt this is the sign of a new beginning in Burma. It will definitely not be, unless we keep the pressure on. 

We know for sure that the international pressure accumulated so far is directly responsible for such tiny little positive sign in Rangoon. That's why we keep saying this regime understand only the language of force (or pressure), and, again, we must keep working towards more international pressure for the regime to behave.

We must also not forget about what's happening to the people there. The New York Times continues to run Burma news (often on the Front Page). I have collected there recent articles that paint the picture of  people's current plight in Burma. They are as usual at the mercy of  Burma's brutal thugs and are being punished and killed for taking to the streets. For the regime, the business is as usual -- keep killing its own people, even monks, to hold on to power.

It has been a month now, since the Sept. 27, the fist day of intense crackdown in Rangoon. That day, amid the killings in Rangoon, some major news paper in the US: LA Times, Washington Post and the New York Times, run editorial/opinion piece about the helpless plight of people and monks under brutal crackdowns; and how the world was responding with words, not with deeds -- including China and Russia blocking strong measures form UN. Please read them again below. They are really good. 

However long and hard our struggle may be, we must not loose hope though. As painful and costly as it is, with the recent protests, the brave people of Burma have waken up the world again. Their struggle and images aired all over the world have touched so many lives and have changed the attitude of many governments. Around the world, we now have many new friends who have just become big supporters and willing to help free Burma. Again, it is not only about how great our suffering is; it is also about how great our advocacy is. Therefore, we must help every concerned citizen of the world help Burma. And the freedom for Burma is much closer then ever now.

Towards Free Burma!
Nyunt Than

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Community Leaders Protest Situation in Myanmar
NY Times: Mission to Burma
LA Times: Saffron repression: The crackdown in Myanmar has begun, and the world responds -- with words, not deeds.
Washington Post: Save Burma: Will China and Russia give a green light to a slaughter of the monks?

NY Times: Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar
NY Times: On Quiet Streets of Myanmar Fear Is a Constant Companion
NY Times: A Monk’s Tale of Protest and Escape From Myanmar
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Community Leaders Protest Situation in Myanmar

San Francisco- On October 24, community leaders gathered in San Francisco’s United Nations Plaza to

LA Times: Saffron repression

Uneasy Days for Monks in Myanmar

The New York Times

One of the few monks left at Chaukhtatgyi Temple in Yangon meditated recently. Many fled monasteries there after military raids.

MANDALAY, Myanmar — As the lunch gong chimed through a tree-shaded monastery, several hundred monks in burgundy robes lined up on a mid-October day, all holding alms bowls.

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India Agrees to Help Sides Reconcile in Myanmar (October 24, 2007)

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The New York Times

Monks carrying alms bowls returned to Mahagandhayon Monastery in Mandalay recently after seeking donations.

It is a common scene in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where one out of every 100 people, many of them children, are monks. But the lunch line at the Mahagandhayon Monastery, the country’s largest, used to be much longer.

“We usually have 1,400 monks here,” said a senior monk. “Because of the situation, parents took 1,000 of them home.”

For decades, two powerful institutions have shaped Burmese life: the 500,000-member Buddhist clergy, which commands a moral authority over the population, and Senior Gen. Than Shwe’s junta, whose 450,000-strong military controls the population through intimidation.

Their uneasy coexistence has shattered. After scattered demonstrations erupted against sharp increases in fuel prices in August, thousands of monks protested the junta’s economic mismanagement and political repression. The military responded with batons and bullets.

The guns have prevailed over mantras, at least for now.

As of Oct. 6, the government said it had detained 533 monks, of whom 398 were released after sorting out what it called “real monks” from “bogus ones.” Monks and dissidents contend that many more were detained.

“They took away truckloads of monks and laypeople,” said the deputy leader of a monastery in Yangon, the country’s most populous city. “They had the monks kneel down, with their hands on the back of their heads. Anyone who raised his head was beaten.”

He said at Ngwe Kyayan, Yangon’s largest monastery, soldiers took food and donation boxes, and beat the abbot and vandalized images of Buddha, as some of its 300 monks fought back.

The monks, he said, began demonstrating against the economic deprivation of the Burmese. “It’s a terrible situation,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity, like others interviewed, because he feared government reprisals. “Monks took to the streets to draw attention to this problem, pleading for loving kindness. But our government is worse than Hitler’s Nazis. They have no respect for religion.” When it was over, The New Light of Myanmar, a state-run English-language newspaper, said, monks had been “defrocked” during interrogation so that they could be questioned as laypeople, then “ordained” and sent “back to their monasteries.” Monks denounced the process.

The junta also used divide-and-rule tactics, by persuading the state-sanctioned Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, which oversees the clergy, to take its donations and to order monks to stop protesting or face punishment.

“Some of these senior monks are bribed by the regime,” said an editor at a Yangon magazine. “They have accepted so many good things in life — cars, televisions, big houses, telephones and mobile phones — that they simply have to listen to the regime.”

At the Mahagandhayon Monastery here in Mandalay, soldiers had pulled back by mid-October after cordoning off the temple for weeks. But their trucks continued to lurk in alleys nearby, as rumors circulated that, if the monks rose up again, it would probably be in this city, the nation’s second most populous. About 20,000 of its million residents are monks, one of the highest concentrations in the country.

Young men from across the country train here as monks, and they have grown more passionate about the poverty and injustice their nation has suffered under the military government.

The fear was still palpable at Mahagandhayon, where monks chanted mantras over their last meal of the day, a late-morning lunch of vegetable soup, eggplants, rice and a treat from a donor — instant noodles. But they were still reluctant to discuss the military’s crushing of the demonstrations in late September.

“They are afraid of guns!” a senior monk said before vanishing into the dining hall.

Long before the protests, monks were aware of people’s suffering. When they went to receive alms, said the senior monk in Yangon, they saw “no happiness in people’s faces, people whose minds are preoccupied with finding food and surviving one day at a time.”

But the military’s use of force against the monks has unsettled fundamental Burmese values.

“To Burmese, monks are like sons of the Buddha,” said Maung Aye, a taxi driver, as he drove around Yangon’s Sule Pagoda, which is said to enshrine a hair of the Buddha and was a focal point of the protests.

A shop owner in Yangon said his 5-year-old son, who had been reared with Buddhist beliefs in karma, had cried out: “I don’t want to become a soldier. If I have to kill a monk, the worst thing will happen to me in my next life.”

At a Yangon temple, sitting before a golden Buddha figure, two middle-aged monks spoke with resignation and anger.

“We learned a lesson from 1988,” one monk said of the large pro-democracy uprising that the military put down, leaving hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead. “If it changes nothing and only gets worse, why risk our lives?” The other monk said: “We would like to love our government. We tried but couldn’t. We want to like to go out and demonstrate again, but we know they are out there with their guns.”

During the Buddhist Lent, which lasts three months, into late October, monks focus on studying scripture and refrain from leaving their monasteries, except for early outings to collect alms. The fact that monks ventured out in protest during this period was widely seen here as a sign of just how angry they were. But by mid-October, many monasteries in Yangon were deserted, after military raids had driven thousands of monks to flee.

In towns across Myanmar, monks have traditionally filed down streets at dawn seeking alms, and laypeople have gained merit by donating rice and other food. Families take pride in what is often seen as adopting monks, providing them with food, clothing, books and other goods for a few months or years.

As poverty has worsened in Myanmar, however, the alms processions have increasingly turned into a sad exchange of apologies for having to beg and for being unable to give. Now, with the monks scattered, the alms lines have dwindled in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay.

For centuries, whoever seized power in this country sought legitimacy by lavishing money on pagodas and monasteries. When the democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called for a “second struggle for national independence” in 1988, she chose Yangon’s gold-spired Shwedagon Pagoda as the site to deliver her watershed speech. So when monks marched in September to the home where she is under house arrest, the act was a moral reproof to the government.

But the monks are not immune to criticism. Although senior clerics are elected by monks and revered by laypeople, “they form a small, closed society which doesn’t know anything about the community at large,” the magazine editor said. “Some of them do not know how poor people live in a small village.”

Other laypeople defended the aging clerics who have taken gifts from the government. Those monks, they said, are under a moral obligation to accept donations, and fear that confrontation could cost more lives.

Still, witnesses said piles of rice donated by the government were left uncollected at the gates of some monasteries, a rebuff of the government’s effort to placate the clergy.

In mid-October at Mahagandhayon, the monks were going about their daily routine. The senior monk said he hoped that the rest of the students would return in a month or so. One young monk who had remained said, “Please go out and tell the world exactly what really has happened in this country.”

He added, “I am scared just talking to you about this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/asia/26monk.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

On Quiet Streets of Myanmar Fear Is a Constant Companion

A Monk’s Tale of Protest and Escape From Myanmar

MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct. 25 — A 24-year-old Buddhist monk who says he was one of the leaders of the recent protests in Myanmar and escaped last week painted a picture on Thursday of a bare-bones group of young monks planning and organizing what became a nationwide uprising.

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Thomas Fuller/The International Herald Tribune

Ashin Kovida, a Buddhist monk, said he was a leader of recent protests in Yangon, Myanmar, and fled to Thailand last week.

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Courtesy of Ashin Kovinda

Mr. Kovida led monks through the streets of Yangon on September 19.

During a six-hour interview in this border town, the monk, Ashin Kovida, said he had been elected the leader of a group of 15 of his fellows and led daily protests in Yangon from Sept. 18 through Sept. 27, the day after the authorities began raiding monasteries.

He said he was inspired by the popular uprisings in Yugoslavia against the government of Slobodan Milosevic, videos of which were circulated by dissident groups in Myanmar.

Eight members of his organizing committee are “missing” and six others are hiding in Yangon, he said. He described escaping to Thailand by using a false identification card, dyeing his hair blond and wearing a crucifix.

Many details of Mr. Kovida’s account could not be independently confirmed, but his role as an organizer was well known among nongovernmental organizations in Myanmar, formerly Burma, and Western human rights groups.

Hlaing Moe Than, 37, a leading organizer of students in the September demonstrations who also fled to Thailand, was shown a picture of Mr. Kovida on Thursday and confirmed his identity.

“He is one of the famous leaders among the Buddhist monks during the protests,” Hlaing Moe Than said.

Mr. Kovida’s group received financial help from three well-known Burmese dissidents — an actor, a comedian and a poet — but it did not receive foreign aid during the protests, he said.

One of his main preoccupations, he said, was providing food for the thousands of monks who came to Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, to join the protests. He said he also worried about what he called “fake monks,” whom he suspected the military government had planted.

The spark for the demonstrations came on Sept. 5, when the police fired warning shots at protesting monks in Pakokku, in central Myanmar, Mr. Kovida said.

“The first time I heard the information, I was speechless,” he said. “It was an unbelievable thing.”

Older monks and abbots urged the monks to protest in the monasteries, but the younger monks thought protesting in their cloistered world would do no good, he said.

He reached out to students he had met during alms collections and began to plan marches in Yangon.

“We realized that there was no leadership — a train must have a locomotive,” he said.

He said he helped supervise the printing of hundreds of pamphlets, titled, “The Monks Will Come Out Onto the Streets.”

“We delivered to all the monasteries.” in Yangon, he said. “We tried to distribute to other regions as much as possible.”

On Sept. 18, he led the first column of monks through the streets in Yangon, he said.

On Sept. 19, about 2,000 protesters, including 500 monks, sat on the tiled floor in Sule Pagoda, a focal point of the protests. “To continue demonstrations in a peaceful way we must have leadership,” Mr. Kovida said he told them. “I call on 10 monks to come join me in the front.”

Fifteen monks came forward, he said, to form what they called the Sangga Kosahlal Apahwe, the Monks Representative Group.

“In this country at present we are facing hardships,” he said he told the crowd, after he was elected chairman of the group. “People are starving; prices are rising. Under this military government there are so many human rights abuses. I call on people to come to join together with us. We will continue these protests peacefully every day until we win. If there are no human rights, there is no value of a human.”

He said that, for a week, he met with his group of organizers in the morning and led marches at noon. He said he heard reports on the Burmese-language service of the BBC about other monks who had organized themselves but he had never met them.

Then, on Sept. 26, the government began a violent crackdown. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, blocked their path and arrested hundreds.

“The police pulled the monks’ robes and beat them,” Mr. Kovida said. “Nuns were stripped of their sarongs.”

He said he escaped by climbing over a brick wall.

The next day, as the crackdown intensified, he said he changed out of his robes and fled to a village about 40 miles away where, with the help of relatives and friends, he hid in an abandoned wooden hut.

He was so afraid of attracting the attention of neighbors that he suppressed his coughs and never left the dark hut for two weeks, he said. He relieved himself using a plastic bucket, he said, and friends occasionally dropped off food.

On Oct. 12, his adoptive mother, whom he called Daw Thin Thin Khaing, was detained, news that was immediately relayed to him. He fled into the night, barefoot.

“I ran down a large road,” he said. “Whenever a car came I hid in the bushes.”

He headed back to Yangon, he said, where he dyed his hair blond. He bought a crucifix in a local market and, several days later, boarded a bus heading toward the Thai border.

Using a false identity card, he passed about eight checkpoints and reached Myawadi, a border town, on Oct. 17. The next morning, he said, he crossed the Moei River to Thailand in a boat, bypassing the official border post.

An Oct. 18 article in The New Light of Myanmar, the state-run newspaper, accused him of hiding “48 yellowish high-explosive TNT cartridges” in his monastery.

Now, facing almost certain detention in Myanmar, Mr. Kovida said he would request refugee status in Thailand.

“I have been in the monkhood since I was so young,” he said. “My whole life, I have been studying only Buddhism and peaceful things.”

Pornnapa Wongakanit contributed reporting.

---------------------------------------------

Dear All,

More pressure from US: Senator John McCAIN introduced a legislation that is very very significant. Among other things, it will ban the Chevron operation in Burma. Chevron is allowed to remain in Burma due to a loophole in the 1997 banning of US investment by President Clinton - that allowed exiting investment to stay. But this act explicitly closes that loophole. This is an another sign that US is really getting tough. If approved, the SPDC lifeline, revenue from Yadana Pipeline, will be affected.

This will also affect countries such as Thailand and Singapore that are selling world class furniture and jewelries out of cheap (and looted) Burmese wood and gems. For those countries, SPDC is their ideal partner in making easy money out of people's enormous suffering. Shame on them! Let's reach out to our senators so that it will be successful in Senate.

In another news, the UN warns that one in ten Burmese --- five millions, are going to bed hungry daily. In old days, we used to proudly say "No one dies from starvations in Burma."  Thanks to Burma's generals and selfish and immoral neighbors: China, India, Thailand, and Singapore, which are only eager to loot our cheap natural rsources. Shame on all of them again.

Lastly,  8888 Generation Student Leaders who have not yet been captured, Tun Myint Aung, Nilar Thein, and Soe Htun send a letter to UNSG Ban Kimoon pleading for the UN intervention. We do admire them greatly for their courage and determination. Thanks to them, our victory is much closer than ever. But we have to keep working at it. And every effort counts.

SENATOR McCAIN INTRODUCES SAFFRON REVOLUTION SUPPORT ACT OF 2007
Burma's 'new life' camps evoke memories of Pol Pot
Five million Burmese are going hungry, warns UN
New York Sun: Burmese Activists Plead With Ban To Intervene
White House dismissed Myanmar Government Lifting of Curfew as cosmetic

October 17, 2007

SENATOR McCAIN INTRODUCES SAFFRON REVOLUTION SUPPORT ACT OF 2007

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduces the Saffron Revolution Support Act of 2007:

“The world has reacted with horror and revulsion at the Burmese junta’s brutal crackdown against peaceful demonstrators,” Senator McCain stated.  “In crushing the Saffron Revolution, killing hundreds and jailing thousands - including countless Buddhist monks - the junta has left no doubt about its blatant disregard for basic human decency.  We, as Americans, stand on the side of freedom, not fear; of peace, not violence; and of the millions in Burma who aspire to a better life, not those who would keep them isolated and oppressed.” 

Senator McCain continued, “Our response must go beyond statements of condemnation, and the time to act is now.  That is why today I am introducing the Saffron Revolution Support Act of 2007 in the United States Senate.  This legislation imposes meaningful and effective punitive action against the cruel, thuggish, and illegitimate Burmese government.  We must not sit idly by while the junta continues to deprive the Burmese people of their fundamental human rights.” 

The legislation would impose targeted sanctions against Burmese officials who played a direct role in the violent repression of peaceful political dissent, and also against those who provide, or have provided, substantial political and economic support for the junta.  These individuals would be subject to a visa ban and a ban on business dealings with any United States entity or person.  This legislation would also close a loophole that exists in current U.S. import policy that allows imports of Burmese gems and hardwoods, which together add tens of millions of dollars to the junta’s coffers.  It would eliminate the remaining U.S. energy investment in Burma’s gas sector and significantly increase U.S. Government support for democracy in Burma.

Specifically, the Saffron Revolution Support Act of 2007:

• States that it is the policy of the United States to condemn the Burmese junta’s continued repression, support the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people, provide support to aid a democratic transition in Burma, and hold accountable those individuals responsible for the ongoing repression;
• Imposes targeted financial sanctions against Burmese officials who have played a direct role in the violent repression of peaceful political dissent, against the junta government itself, and also against those who provide, or have provided, substantial political and economic support for the junta;
• Imposes a visa ban on these individuals;
• Prohibits the importation of Burmese gems and hardwoods, including materials that are mined or harvested in Burma but shaped, cut, or assembled in other countries not subject to current U.S. sanctions;
• Prohibits investment in Burma by U.S. companies, including investment agreements reached prior to the imposition of the May 20, 1997 sanctions;
• Permits the President to terminate sanctions once the Government of Burma has:
  • unconditionally released all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy;
  • entered into a substantive dialogue with democratic forces on a transition to democratic government under the rule of law;
  • allowed humanitarian access to populations affected by armed conflict in all regions of Burma;
• Authorizes $20 million for FY 2008 and FY 2009 in aid to democracy activists in Burma, for the expansion of radio and television broadcasting into Burma, and for support to individuals and groups compiling evidence of the junta’s crimes;
• Expresses the sense of Congress that the Director of National Intelligence should target intelligence resources to identify those responsible for the crackdown and for other human rights abuses;
• Authorizes the Secretary of State to fund the establishment of an independent, searchable, Internet database that would compile evidence of human rights abuses in Burma, permitting increased international research aimed at holding human rights abusers accountable;
• Requires a report by the Secretary of State on international sources of military aid to the Burmese regime.

“The next phase of political life in Burma has begun,” said McCain.  “The junta's thugs cannot forever postpone the blossoming of freedom and democracy.   By enacting the Saffron Revolution Support Act of 2007, the Congress can help ensure that they do not.”

Burma's 'new life' camps evoke memories of Pol Pot

By Kim Sengupta
Published: 20 October 2007

Burma is a "land of prisons" with thousands of human rights activists being sent off to brutal "new life" camps after being arrested during night raids and convicted in secret trials, a senior British diplomatic source has said.

Monks who led the pro-democracy campaign are among the disappeared. Some are believed to have been beaten close to death in custody, while the fate of many others remain unknown. Roads to the monasteries have been cut and very few monks are now seen in public.

The account of retribution which has followed last month's violence came from the official who is closely acquainted with the unfolding situation in Burma. The "new life" camps, echoes of "re-education centres" set up by Pol Pot in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, are away from the capital, Rangoon, and surrounded by tales of savage punishment, he said.

Those considered by the regime to be leaders of the protest are believed to have received sentences of up to 20 years imprisonment.

And tales have begun to emerge of mistreatment in the jails and "new life" camps, with the monks in particular being targeted for severe abuse. They are being held in rooms where there are no toilets and where the walls are covered in excrement. They have been routinely beaten and soaked in ice cold water, with the interrogators often stripping robes from the clerics because this supposedly expiates them of any sins over what they had done.

The diplomat said yesterday that the regime is trying to portray a scene of normality, but "very serious abuses" are going on behind the scenes. "There are huge night-time sweeps. They have scooped up hundreds of people. There is heavy security in the parts of town where many of the dissidents come from. A hundred activists have been tried this week in closed courts in Mandalay, while another thousand have been brought before special courts in Rangoon."

Figures released by the regime regarding the number of dead and incarcerated cannot be believed, the official said. According to official numbers, of the 3,000 people arrested during the protests only 500 remain in custody, but the real total of those in detention was likely to be up to 2,500. The official death toll is 10; the real figure, was "many, many multiples" of that, the diplomat added.

Living conditions for the population continue to be dire in a part of Asia which is going through an economic boom. Fifty per cent of children do not have access to primary school education, while 30 per cent live below the poverty line. Communication with the outside world has been curtailed by closing down of internet services and sheer practical difficulties in a country where a mobile phone costs $2,000 (£975).

While British officials do not believe there is any immediate prospect of a repeat of last month's mass protests, the diplomat said signs of unrest have continued. There have been reports of rocks and bricks being thrown at police, while in Rangoon there has been booing at what was supposed to be a pro-government rally, even though the crowd had been surrounded by armed police.

There was deep outrage, said the diplomat, at the way the monks had been treated, which even extended to parts of the army and the government.

"The population is traumatised and for the moment, they are licking their wounds, but they are determined to carry on showing their resistance," the official said.

Five million Burmese are going hungry, warns UN

Five million Burmese are going hungry, warns UN
White House dismissed Myanmar Government Lifting of Curfew

By Peter Popham

Published: 19 October 2007

White House dismissed Myanmar Government Lifting of Curfew

Bush Imposes More Sanctions Against Myanmar

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — President Bush imposed a new round of financial sanctions against Myanmar today, targeting eleven additional members of the military-run government responsible for a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

The new sanctions included restrictions against a dozen other individuals and entities associated with the regime, which has continued its repression of the opposition movement, despite condemnation of its use of troops to put down the demonstrations last month, Mr. Bush said.

But in a sign of how limited Washington's leverage is against the Burmese government, which has long been the target of American sanctions, Mr. Bush made a pointed call on India, China and Myanmar's other neighbors to intensify their pressure on the regime.

"Burma's rulers continue to defy the world's just demands to stop their vicious persecution." Mr. Bush said. "The people of Burma are showing great courage in the face of immense repression. They are appealing for our help. We must not turn a deaf ear to their cries."

The latest White House action followed weeks of mostly unsuccessful international pressure on Myanmar's government to open a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained pro-democracy activist.

It was the second round of sanctions against Myanmar imposed by Mr. Bush since last month, when security forces clubbed and shot at demonstrators, raided monasteries and arrested Buddhist monks who led the protests. The uprising began in August when the government doubled some fuel prices. The official media said 10 people were killed, though outside analysts said the death toll was probably far higher.

Among the 14 officials whose assets in the United States were targeted in the initial sanctions were the junta leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, and Deputy Senior Gen. Maung Aye, the second ranking leader. Those named today include the ministers of finance, commerce, construction, industry, science and technology, electric power and health.

The White House said the Commerce Department would also tighten export controls to prevent computers and other goods with military uses from being sold to Myanmar. Mr. Bush also signed an executive order giving the Treasury Department the authority to freeze assets of "individuals and entities who provide material or financial support to designated individuals or to the government of Burma."

Five Burmese businessmen and seven companies were targeted on Friday under that authority.

Mr. Bush applauded Australia, Indonesia the European Union , Japan, the Philippines and Singapore, which have taken steps against Myanmar or condemned the crackdown. But administration officials said persuading China and Myanmar's other major economic partners to cut off lending, investment and trade into the country is vital to putting effective pressure on the regime.

The 27-member European Union announced earlier this week that it was planning to tighten its existing embargo on arms sales and visa restrictions and may extend a ban on imports from Myanmar as well as block new investment in the country.

First Lady Laura Bush, who joined Mr. Bush at the White House announcements, has been one of the administration's most forceful critics of the junta. Mr. Bush called on the regime to give humanitarian groups access to political prisoners and for Aung San Suu Kyi to be allowed to communicate with other pro-democracy leaders. He added that Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations envoy to Myanmar, should be given access to the country.

Economic sanctions against Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, were first imposed in 1997 by the Clinton administration.

Commentary October 19, 2007, 7:11AM EST text size: TT
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India's Role in Burma's Crisis

New Delhi has sympathy for the troubled nation, but energy needs and relations with China are complicating the equation

by Manjeet Kripalani

For the last two months, Burma has been in a crisis. The long-ruling military regime has been crushing a people's movement that arose over the removal of fuel subsidies and a 500% hike in fuel costs for an already impoverished populace. Global supporters of democracy have been vocal about the repression. The West wants to impose more sanctions and is urging China—Burma's largest trading partner—to pressure the Burmese junta.

But what of India, the democracy closest to Burma? The world wants India, which also has an economic interest in Burma, to lend its democratic voice to the cause and put pressure on the generals to stop the killing. In early October the European Union issued a démarche to India, urging it to use its good offices with the junta and reconcile with the democrats. The world has been disappointed.

For those who have been following India's foreign policy, India's bumbling is not surprising. The nation has long clamored for a place on the international high table, citing its democratic traditions, size, and strategic geopolitical importance. In reality, however, its foreign policy is still immature. The problem of Burma (renamed Myanmar by the junta) has suddenly thrust an unprepared India into the field along with the professionals.

Staunch Support

India's interests in Burma are indeed vital. The country is encircled by hostile neighbors under military or autocratic rule. For years, India supported Aung San Suu Kyi's democracy movement. Officially, India hosts about 70,000 Burmese refugees; unofficially, the number is twice that. Nearly 60% of top Burmese dissidents are based in India, and they receive active and staunch support from several Indian politicians such as George Fernandes, a fiery labor leader who was Defense Minister from 1998 to 2004. Burmese students often gather at his Samata Party office in New Delhi, and he often takes up Burma's cause in Parliament.

The country's ties with Suu Kyi run deep and long. She spent her early years in New Delhi, when her mother was a diplomat posted to India, and she went to college in India's capital city. In 1995, while under house arrest, Suu Kyi was the recipient of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding—the highest honor of its kind in India.

But by supporting democracy all those years, say the hawks in New Delhi, India left the door wide open for China to enter and establish itself in Burma with the junta. "From 1988 to 1998, India burned its interests in Burma by isolating the junta and supporting democracy," says Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research. "By then, China had already come in. India does not want to repeat that mistake."

"In 10 Years, Burma Will Be China's"

Indeed, China is at center stage in Burma. In Rangoon and Mandalay, Chinese merchants, traders, and contractors live lavish lives, and some pursue drug dealing, human trafficking, and bribery of junta officials, says Mungpi, assistant editor of Mizzima News, a Burmese news agency operating out of India. Burma-China bilateral trade is $1.5 billion, making China the largest partner for Burma; and China is Burma's largest arms provider. "In 10 years, Burma will be China's just like Tibet is," predicts M.D. Nalapat, professor of geopolitics at Manipal University, Karnataka.

However India has grown from a nation of poverty to an emerging economic giant. The country's economy has expanded, and so have its energy needs. For the last four years, India has been engaged in fierce competition with China over securing its energy requirements from Africa, Russia, and Burma. Human values and democratic tradition have given way to realpolitik, and Burma has become a battleground for India and China for energy and regional dominance. The field is uneven: China dominates with the lion's share of commercial and political influence. China also gets most of the country's energy resources.

India has other interests in Burma. New Delhi would like to use the country as a trade link to the fast-growing ASEAN region, so the Indians are building ports and roads, including a 165km "India-Myanmar friendship highway" linking Manipur in India's northeast to central Burma and continuing to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. India is also spending $100 million to fund a deal linking Burma's Sittwe port with an Indian one, perhaps Calcutta. In return, India gets a little gas from Burma and a production-sharing agreement for three deep-water exploration blocks, according to Nimmi Kurien from the Center for Policy Research. And Burma's army empties the camps that India's insurgents from the northeast routinely set up in Burma.

Doing Business With the Generals

Foreign Ministry officials in New Delhi stridently say their relationship with Burma is one of "pragmatic engagement." According to them, India's strategic interests lie on the side of the generals. Yes, Indians sympathize with ordinary Burmese, and Indian officials say they are using diplomatic channels to urge the generals to release Suu Kyi.

Yet India, they say, is in desperate need of natural resources, so doing business with the generals to get part of Burma's vast natural gas reserves is vital. Intelligence officials also credit the Burmese junta for helping destroy camps of anti-Indian insurgents fighting in the northeastern Indian states of Manipur and Assam. "The Burmese generals are very nice to us," says an intelligence officer in New Delhi.

Human rights groups, however, point out that the Burmese military has received $200 million in military aid from India. "India's security concerns are misplaced," says Suhas Chakma of the Asian Center for Human Rights. "In fact, the Burmese army and Indian insurgents cooperate." They also point out that India's economic interests in Burma are limited. India's lack of influence was shown up when China won the rights to explore for natural gas in western Burma earlier this year. Experts say that Beijing's ability to use its Security Council veto to keep Burma's human rights record off of the U.N. agenda is more important to the junta than any economic incentives India could offer.

Asian Diplomatic Initiative Needed

But the current Burmese crisis presents New Delhi with a chance to stake its claim in global affairs by offering an alternate solution to Burma's problems. For starters, says Uday Bhaskar, a securities analyst in New Delhi, India can use its Buddhist card. "We have a repository of Buddhist leaders with credibility in Southeast Asia," he says. "We should have been taking a Buddhist initiative, like a non-government-run convention of Buddhist leaders in the region."

But, he says, the Foreign Ministry dominates the issue of Burma and does not encourage civil society groups like the People's Union for Civil Liberties to interact with the Burmese in India. India's Communist Party, surprisingly, supports India's strategic shift on Burma in favor of the junta. But Nilotpal Basu, the sole Communist representative in the upper house of India's Parliament, says the government should be working more closely with neighbors. "We would like to see India and China cooperate," he says. "We would like to see an Asian diplomatic initiative on Burma—there is none so far."

India's time—and credibility—may be running out. Meenakshi Ganguly, top South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, worries that if India does not take the initiative with Burma now, it could lose its sheen as a champion of freedom and democracy in Asia. India already has a disappointed and resentful Tibetan community, she points out, that is now a second generation of refugees feeling hurt and let down by India's new realpolitik towards China. The Burmese are first-generation refugees, and many are still crossing the borders into India.

Long Term Approach For now, their resentment is not evident. But Mizzima News' Mungpi notes that the Indian government "says it supports democracy" but "has a double standard with the Burmese junta." He adds: "This is the beginning of the end of the military junta. The people are willing to carry on." More important, explains Roberto Herrera-Lim of consulting firm Eurasia Group, the junta is running out of money despite the support from India and China: "They're running up against their own reserves and are virtually bankrupt." Tourism is down sharply, and the regime cannot get access to Burmese Army-related bank accounts in the U.S. Governments are pressuring other countries to cut off access too.

India must think more long-term about Burma. New Delhi would do well to trade in its friendship with the regime's generals in return for global goodwill and support for a much-coveted seat on the U.N. Security Council. If the generals are broke, there's no point throwing good money after bad. Better for the Indian government to support a new Burmese regime and secure India's interest early on this time around.

Kripalani is BusinessWeek's Mumbai bureau chief
 

 

Burma's Monks: 'Already a Success'

 

By DAVID VAN BIEMA/NEW YORK CITYSat Oct 13, 2:20 PM ET

The monk sat cross-legged in the Manhattan hotel room in augbergine robes on an aubergine prayer mat, a thermos of tea, his reading glasses and a book, Mindfulness in the Marketplace, arranged neatly by his side. Thich Nhat Hanh took time out from a U.S. tour to speak briefly with TIME about the monastic uprising in Burma. (See video)

Nhat Hanh has a long history as one of Buddhism's truly international spokespeople. ["Thich" is a name adopted by all Vietnamese monks and nuns upon ordination.] He first came to global attention in the early 1960s, when he led fellow monks in his native Vietnam to oppose the prosecution of the war there by either side - a position that eventually led to the deaths of several of his followers and his own exile. He continued his opposition from the United States, where his counsel was influential in convincing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to announce his own opposition to the conflict. King subsequently nominated Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. He continued speaking and writing (in a variety of languages - he is a polyglot), working out a theory of "engaged buddhism," exploring the commonalities between his philosophy and other world faiths, attaining a popularity (and book sales) in the U.S. second only to that of the Dalai Lama, and lending his opposition to a series of world conflicts, including America's involvement in Iraq. He now lives in a monastic community he founded in France.

Buddhism has three major branches: Theravada, historically the simplest, which is now practiced primarily in South Asia and is the faith of the Burmese monks; Mahayana, of which Hanh's own Zen discipline is part; and the Dalai Lama's Tibetan branch, which is labeled Vajrayana. In conversation, however, Hanh stressed the unity of the three and their solidarity with the embattled Burmese. "They also practice mindfulness and concentration inside like us," he said.

He said the Burmese monks had "done their job. It is already a success because if monks are imprisoned or have died, they have offered their spiritual leadership. And it is up to the people in Burma and the world to continue." Pressed on the question of martyrdom, he replied: "We nourish the awareness that monks are being persecuted and continue to suffer in order to support the people in Burma for the sake of democracy."

Perhaps the most striking gesture made by his Burmese bretheen before they were attacked was the symbolic act of turning their begging bowls upside down. In a Western culture where almsgiving happens in the confines of a church or synagogue, this may have seemed odd. But Nhat Hanh pointed out that it was a powerful statement of denial to the regime leaders. "In Buddhist culture," he explained, "offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spiritualilty then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness." Their supreme act of condemnation: giving the regime no chance to do good. The importance of monks in Burma was also suggested, in a grisly way, by reports that hundreds of Burmese soldiers had been arrested for refusing to shoot at them.

In the U.S., the connection between Buddhism and social action is not readily understood. Many Americans perceive Buddhism as a philosophy that regards this world as transitory and unimportant; in this country, the most widely disseminated kind of Buddhism is a stripped-down version of Theravada practice with a strong emphasis on ritual supplemented by meditations on meta, or loving-kindness. Said Nhat Hanh: "Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act. The Buddha, after enlightenment, went out to help people. Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong."

After a brisk interview about Burma, Nhat Hanh gave some sense of the topics that were most on his mind that afternoon: he talked first about global warming and then about eating low on the food chain. He told a Buddhist story of a couple who were forced to cross a desert with their young son and, running out of food, killed and ate the child, whose diminishing corpse they carried with them, constantly apologizing to it. "After the Buddha told that story, he asked the monks, 'Do you think the couple enjoyed eating the flesh of their own son?'" Nhat Hanh recounted. "The monks said 'no, impossible.' The Buddha said, let us eat in such a way that will retain compassion in our heart. Otherwise we will be eating the flesh of our son and grandson." It was a stark and stern reminder of the steel beneath the flowing robe, gentle smile and peaceful demeanor.

View this article on Time.com

OCT 16

San Francisco UN Day petition can be viewed and signed at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/the-UN-is-failing-Burma
House Subcommittee Hearing: Crisis in Burma: Can the U.S. Bring about a Peaceful Resolution?
http://www.hcfa.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=909
AP Slideshow of recent protests:  http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/myanmar_protests/index.html

House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment
AFP: World should step up pressure on Myanmar: US
The Christian Science Monitor: With more sanctions, Burmese chafe under further isolation
Irrawaddy: Fears Grow for Fate of Detained Activists
AFP: Singaporean activist resumes Myanmar protest
Washington Post Obituaries of Soe Win, Burmese Prime Minister

World should step up pressure on Myanmar: US

12 hours ago

ROGERS, United States (AFP) — The United States on Monday urged the international community to step up pressure on Myanmar's military rulers as it unveiled financial support for activists striving for democracy in the Southeast Asian state.

"What was needed was "enormous international pressure, to make it clear to the generals that they will be completely isolated and not accepted into the international community of nations," President George W. Bush said.

"Sanctions don't mean anything if we are the only sanctioner," the US president added as Washington blasted the military junta for blatantly disregarding calls to end a crackdown on dissent.

Bush's remarks in Rogers, Arkansas came just days after the UN Security Council condemned the junta for its crackdown against pro-democracy protests, and urged the regime to open talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The international body also deplored the repression and called for the release of political prisoners, amid concern for nearly 1,000 demonstrators still being held.

The US State Department announced Monday that Washington was preparing a "democracy assistance package" to help Myanmar's pro-democracy campaigners.

The package was "to provide aid to the brave activists inside the country" as well as civil society groups, said Jonathan Farrar, the assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights.

The State Department notified Congress last week of its plan to spend 600,000 dollars from a human rights and democracy fund for a "special Burma fund," he said, using Myanmar's previous name.

"This is the first time we have used these funds for Burma," he said.

The department is also working to release 2.5 million dollars in funding this week for the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit body financed by Congress to promote democracy worldwide, Farrar said at a public forum.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International, which at the weekend exposed further crackdown by the Myanmar junta of pro-democracy activists, said Monday that Washington needed to do more to help project what it called the deteriorating rights situation in Myanmar.

"President Bush should meet Myanmar's exiled human rights and democracy leaders in the United States to underline his seriousness in bringing about improvements in Myanmar," T. Kumar, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific advocacy director in Washington, told the forum.

The State Department condemned the junta's weekend arrests in Yangon, Myanmar's main city, which Amnesty said flies in the face of the military regime's promises last week to cooperate with the United Nations.

The arrests were part of an ongoing crackdown by the authorities following the army's violent end to September's protests, which left at least 13 people dead.

"By unjustly imprisoning organizers of peaceful demonstrations, Burma?s ruling generals continue to blatantly disregard the international community?s deep concern and calls for a halt to its crackdown," said Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman.

"The continuing repression and persistent refusal to fully cooperate with the international community make clear the need for the international community to maintain strong pressure on the Burmese regime," Casey said.

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who is on a regional tour to push Asian nations to pressure the junta, demanded Monday that the military immediately stop arresting pro-democracy activists.

He called the crackdown "extremely disturbing."

The move came as European Union foreign ministers approved new sanctions against the junta, including an embargo on the export of wood, gems and metals, and threatened further penalties.

Meanwhile, two top Democratic senators urged Europe to join the United States in establishing targeted sanctions against the military junta's offshore bank accounts, and called for a "concerted diplomatic effort" involving the United Nations, China, India, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Targeted banking sanctions "would freeze the offshore accounts of the Burmese government, its top leaders, their families, and the business people and entities who work with them, while blocking the movement of their money through the global financial system," said senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar.

US officials have indicated that more sanctions could be slapped on the military-ruled nation. Washington has already imposed import and investment bans on the Southeast Asian nation.

With more sanctions, Burmese chafe under further isolation

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari has described as "extremely disturbing" new arrests in Burma, calling on the ruling junta to stop detaining democracy activists.

EU foreign ministers later agreed to broaden existing sanctions against the junta, to target Burma's key timber, metals and gem exports.

Several prominent Burmese student leaders were arrested over the weekend.

Mr Gambari said the detentions ran "counter to the spirit of mutual engagement" between the UN and Burma.

Washington Post Obituaries of Soe Win
Burmese Prime Minister

Obituaries

Tuesday, October 16, 2007; Page B08

Soe Win Burmese Prime Minister

Prime Minister Soe Win, 59, reviled for his role in a bloody attack on Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers in 2003, died Oct. 12 in Yangon, Burma, after a long illness, relatives and state media said. He was said to have had leukemia.

The fourth-ranking member of the military junta, Gen. Soe Win was nicknamed "the Butcher of Depayin" for his role in the 2003 attack on Suu Kyi and her followers in that northern town. Gen. Soe Win was seen as masterminding the attack, according to diplomats, rights groups and government critics.

He first achieved notoriety as one of the officers who brutally suppressed a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, commanding troops around Rangoon University, a center for demonstrations, and giving orders to open fire on a crowd of protesters in front of Rangoon General Hospital. Rangoon is the old name for Yangon, Burma's largest city.

Singaporean activist resumes Myanmar protest
AFP - Monday, October 15

SINGAPORE, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - A pro-democracy activist staged a one-man protest on Monday over Singapore's ties with Myanmar, one week after he and others were arrested for a similar demonstration.
ADVERTISEMENT

Chee Soon Juan, 45, stood close to the presidential palace holding a placard that read: "No arms no deals with the junta."

Chee is one of a few people in Singapore, where protests are rare, to have spoken out against the ruling People's Action Party. He is secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, which does not hold a seat in parliament.

Chee and three other SDP officials, along with their cameraman, were arrested in the same spot on October 8 during a protest. Police said the group had gathered in an area where assemblies are forbidden for security reasons.

Chee vowed to continue his one-man protest until Friday in a bid to get the government to clarify whether government-linked firms do business in Myanmar.

"We want them to tell us. What is going where? How much?" Chee said while police filmed him from a distance.

Chee said he and his party colleagues have also given palace police a petition with more than 1,100 signatures, asking Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to clarify Singapore's relationship with Myanmar.

Lee has expressed "revulsion" at the Myanmar junta's crackdown on anti-government protesters that began last month and killed at least 13 people.

Singapore also strongly denies allegations that it allows banks based in the city-state to keep illicit funds on behalf of Myanmar's secretive generals.

But human rights activists and other Myanmar experts say companies from Singapore still do business in the Southeast Asian nation.
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Oct 15 2007

Dear All,

As Reuter stated, relentless and ruthless response to last month's pro-democracy uprising showed no signs of easing. Student leader Ko Htay Kywe has been arrested along with few other student leaders. Due to this arrest, Amnesty calls for more international pressure. Human Rights Watch already called for Arm embargo. The regime rejected UN called for dialog and staged a fake rally in Rangoon support of its so called Road map by rounding up people from Factories and government offices. (Imagine how would the people inside feel to see or hear these amid the killings.) This means we must continue work harder to bring about a real change in Burma.

Student leader Ko Htay Kywe was our newly discovered leader and hero during recent protests (Washington Post Photo of him here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/NewsSearch?sb=-1&st=Burma&). Remember that the regime has already arrested most of the student leaders -- including Min Ko Naing, on August 21, few days after the fuel hike protests started; but Ko Htay Kywe barely escaped his arrest. Since then he has become the prominent voice throughout the recent protests. We pulled a lot of energy from his speeches and interviews even though he was virtually unknown to many of us before. Also note these student leaders have been in prison since the crackdown over 1988 uprising until their release about  two years ago. Their will is unbreakable. No doubt torture (of those arrested earlier) must have lead to their hiding places. We know Ko Win Shew was tortured to death few days back. Let's prey for few reaming student/leaders at large Ma Nilar Thein, Ma Su Su Nway for their continued escape.

In the stories below, you must read the APPPB update by our colleague in Thailand. That is a great summary.

Moreover, the Butcher of Depayin, PM Soe Win has died. Watch the "Black Friday Massacre - Burma" video below to understand the extent of his cruelty.

Burmese are resilience people: since they can not go out protesting, they let the dogs protest for them by hanging the pictures of Generals to their necks. (Irrawaddy story below.)

Also read the story on Laura Bush below and you would realize how important the awareness is. She only heard about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 2002, but now she is doing above and beyond what the US First Lady would do for Burma. She has become the champion of Burma advocacy today and every one is praising her.

Therefore, help us realize an another successful march in San Francisco on UN Day, Wednesday Oct 24. If we become quite, the dictators and their allies will be having their happy hours; Dictator dismantling the peaceful resistance with arrest, tortures, killing; while robbers (China, India, Thailand, Russia, Chevron, Daewoo) robbing our natural resources.

Last, but not least, our protest Last Friday went well despite the heavy rain in earlier hours. We met with the consular and submitted the petitions to Indian Prime Minister. Our colleagues from "Friends of South Asia" and one other group delivered their message f displeasure over Indian's government policies on Burma in strongest terms. Thanks to them. Here are the photos: http://butensky.com/bada/press/071012/
 
Thanks,
Nyunt Than

National Geographic Video: Monks "Vanish" at Myanmar Monasteries:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071011-monks-video.html
Aljazeera: Exclusive footage of Myanmar crackdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPFPJ9c_E4
Heart Breaking Song by Daw Mar Mar Aye 1 2
Protester Beating: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/07/myanmar.video/
Black Friday Massacre - Burma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUbWD29-GM
Frontline Burma: State of Fear: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/burma601/video_index.html
Senate hearing on protest in Burma: http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/archives/2007/archive100307p.ram

1. Amnesty calls for more action over latest Burma arrests

2. APPPB Update: '88 Student Leader Htay Kywe & 5 More Arrested

3. Myanmar junta arrests top dissident

4. Myanmar Rejects UN Call for Negotiations

5. UN Security Council Resolution Not Strong Enough, Say Activists

6. Outrage becomes Laura Bush

7. Thailand Says Will Not Take Action Against Myanmar

8. Burma’s Prime Minister, “Butcher of Depayin,” Dies after Long Illness

9. Authorities accept nothing for detained CRPP member

10. Protesting Dogs Are Now on the Regime’s Wanted List

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Amnesty calls for more action over latest Burma arrests

Posted 43 minutes ago

Amnesty International has called for more international pressure on Burma after the arrest of more activists there this weekend.

Four people, including the prominent dissident Htay Kywe, have been taken into custody in the wake of last month's anti-Government protests.

The arrests have come despite a call from the UN Security Council for the release of all detainees and political prisoners.

Spokeswoman for Amnesty, Catherine Baber, says the arrests should be met with more international condemnation.

"The international community must insist on concrete action from the Myanmar authorities to end the arrests and to guarantee the safety of all those detained, including access to the detainees by independent observers - and of course for the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience," she said.

"Because these detentions fly in the face of promises made by the Myanmar authorities to cooperate with the United Nations."

- Reuters
----------------------------------------

APPPB Update: '88 Student Leader Htay Kywe & 5 More Arrrested

Dear Friends,

Another distressing news from Burma. Five key activists including the '88 Generation Student leader Ko Htay Kywe, and a local, were arrested today. According to eyewitness report, about 70 members of SPDC security forces raided the hide-out early this morning.

Together with Ko Htya Kywe, (4) other members of the '88 Group and the house owner were arrested.

1) Ko Htay Kywe
2) Ko Aung Thu
3) Ma Thin Thin Aye (a) Mee Mee
4) Ko Ko
5) Hein Htet (a) Aung Gyi
6) House owner name unknown yet.

Dr. Ma Thida, a former political prisoner and a recipient of Reebok Human Rights Award, was also arrested last night.

As I'm sure you are aware, the UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement on October 11. It was the first time ever that the Security Council has issued a formal statement on Burma. As an immediate step, the UN Special Envoy, Mr. Gambari, has already taken trip back to the region to visit key countries before his next trip to Burma. His first visit in the region will be with the Government of Thailand on Monday.

However, the Burmese junta yesterday (12/10/07) issued a statement in response to the UNSC statement in which it said that the UNSC statement should be in line with people's desire and that no matter what the regime will proceed to implement the Roadmap together with people, which plan has been already supported by the Asean and neighboring countries.

The statement also said the UN Security Council was "totally disregarding the fact that the situation in Myanmar does not represent a threat to regional and international peace and security," and "the basic principle of the foreign policy of the Union of Myanmar is to maintain friendly relations with other countries in the region and in the world, and to have close cooperation with the United Nations."

But it made no acknowledgement of the UN call for the release of political prisoners nor for the regime to engage in dialogue with detained pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Sincerely,

Khin Ohmar
APPPB Coordinator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myanmar junta arrests top dissident

By Aung Hla Tun
Reuters
Saturday, October 13, 2007; 4:02 PM

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta staged a massive pro-government rally in its main city on Saturday and arrested a top dissident as its relentless and ruthless response to last month's pro-democracy uprising showed no signs of easing.

Htay Kywe, a prominent student activist from an uprising in 1988, was detained overnight with three other people in one of the many raids still being conducted by police more than two weeks after soldiers were sent in to crush demonstrations.

The 39-year-old, a leading light in the so-called "88 Generation Students Group," had managed to remain at large since 13 of his comrades were arrested in a series of midnight swoops on August 21.

"They had felt the net closing in for several days," a close friend, now in exile, told Reuters in Bangkok.

Despite some concessions to the international outrage at the crackdown, in which at least 10 people died, the former Burma's ruling generals are cranking up the pressure on the domestic front.

After three weeks of provincial pro-government "rallies" -- turgid, stage-managed affairs at which attendance is compulsory -- the junta brought its roadshow to a sports ground in Yangon, the main city and former capital.

Tens of thousands of people from government organizations, private factories and nearby suburbs sat through drizzle to voice choreographed support for the junta's "roadmap to democracy" and a constitution-drafting National Convention.

"The delegates just read out everything written by the authorities," one attendee told Reuters. "It was the usual stuff -- support the National Convention and condemn the so-called 'destructive elements'."

In junta-speak, 'destructive elements' means anybody wanting to bring an end to 45 years of military rule and economic stagnation in a country that ranked as one of Asia's brightest prospects shortly after independence from Britain in 1948.

UN ENVOY RETURNS

United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari is flying back to Asia this weekend to brief regional governments, and hopes to wind up his trip with another visit to Myanmar before the end of the month.

On his last trip, Gambari was given a rare audience with Senior General Than Shwe as well as two short meetings with detained opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The junta has also appointed a big-hitting minister to act as a go-between with Suu Kyi -- whom Than Shwe is widely know to loathe -- raising hopes that the generals might be contemplating serious talks and possible democratic reform.

However, the tone of its response to an unprecedented rebuke this week from the U.N. Security Council, which "strongly deplored" the military crackdown against Buddhist monks and civilians, suggests otherwise.

Official media described the council's statement as "regrettable" and said it was "totally disregarding the fact that the situation in Myanmar does not represent a threat to the regional and international peace and security."

Despite the strong words at the U.N., veto-wielder China has made it clear it will not allow any formal action such as sanctions to be taken against Myanmar, where Beijing is lining up deals to buy huge reserves of natural gas.

India, another energy-hungry regional giant, is equally reluctant to act, and the army-appointed government in Thailand, which buys $2 billion of Myanmar gas each year -- also said it would not be taking any concrete measures against its neighbor.

"As a Buddhist country, we disagreed with the violence dealt out by the Myanmar government, especially against the monks," Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said in a weekly television address on Saturday.

"But if we do anything that will cause bad feelings with our neighbor, that will be problematic for the new elected government," he said. "I think we could pressure them more if we are not an appointed government."

---------------------------------------
Myanmar Rejects UN Call for Negotiations

Friday, October 12, 2007

(10-12) 08:52 PDT YANGON, Myanmar (AP) --

Myanmar's military junta rejected a U.N. statement calling for negotiations with the opposition, insisting Friday that it would follow its own plan to bring democracy to the country.

The impoverished country's main opposition party, however, urged the ruling generals to comply with U.N. demands for negotiations with pro-democracy forces and ethnic minorities, and the release of political prisoners.

State-run TV and radio issued a statement Friday arguing that conditions inside Myanmar — a reference to the anti-government protests that were violently suppressed by troops on Sept. 26 and 27 — were not the concern of the outside world.

"Myanmar's current situation does not affect regional and international stability," said the statement, attributed to Col. Thant Shin. "However, we deeply regret that the U.N. Security Council has issued a statement contrary to the people's desires."

"The government of Myanmar will continue to implement the seven-step roadmap together with the people," the statement said, referring to the junta's plan that promises a new constitution and an eventual transition to democratic rule.

The process is supposed to culminate in a general election at an unspecified date in the future. But so far only the first stage — drawing up guidelines for a new constitution — has been completed, and critics say the convention that drafted them was stage-managed by the military.

Top opposition party the National League for Democracy — led by the detained activist Aung San Suu Kyi — endorsed the Security Council statement.

"Since Myanmar is a member country of the United Nations and as the government has declared it would work with the U.N., we earnestly underscore the need to urgently implement the demands made by the Security Council," the NLD said.

The 15-member Security Council issued its first statement on Myanmar on Thursday in an attempt to pressure the military rulers — in charge of the isolated country since 1988 — to negotiate with the opposition and move toward democracy.

The fourth-ranking member of the junta, Prime Minister Gen. Soe Win, 59, died Friday in a military hospital after a long illness, relatives and state media said. Soe Win reputedly oversaw a 2003 attack on Suu Kyi from which she escaped unscathed.

His death, however, was unlikely to cause a ripple in the regime's grip on power. Soe Win had little if any influence in policy-making as prime minister.

The U.N.'s special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, was due in the region this weekend "with a view to returning to Myanmar shortly thereafter," U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. She gave no date for his trip to Yangon.

"Given the continuing abuses of the junta in Burma, we urge U.N. special advisor Gambari to return to Burma as soon as possible" said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Gambari met with the junta's leaders earlier this month during a four-day trip to Myanmar after troops opened fire on peaceful protests in Yangon. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after Gambari's visit that he could not call the trip "a success."

Myanmar's military junta has said 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested in last month's demonstrations, with 700 later released. Diplomats and dissidents say the death toll is likely much higher and up to 6,000 people were seized, including thousands of monks who led the rallies.

At least a dozen freed prisoners described brutal treatment at detention centers, including one who said "dozens" of detainees were killed, the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and Web site run by dissident journalists, said in a report Thursday.

There was no way to independently confirm the reports attributed to freed prisoners.

In an interview with The Associated Press, another released prisoner, Zaw Myint, 45, said he was arrested Sept. 26 on a Yangon street after a soldier bashed his face with the butt of his gun, leaving a bloody gash across his cheek.

Zaw Myint said he was denied treatment for three days then stitched up by a doctor at Yangon's notorious Insein prison, after the physician had treated several other wounded prisoners.

"He used the same needle to treat all patients. And I saw him give injections to wounded people using the same syringe," said Zaw Myint, who was released after a week in custody. He said was "extremely worried" about having contracted HIV as a result of the treatment. Rights groups say Myanmar's prisons have soaring rates of HIV-AIDS.

Human rights groups have long accused the military government of abuse and torture of prisoners. The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, comprised of around 100 former inmates, has put out a report describing homosexual rape, electric shocks to the genitals, near drowning, burning with hot wax and other abuse.

Also Friday, Thai police said a bomb exploded in a guesthouse just across the border inside Myanmar, injuring two people. Col. Photsawat Tangchui, a police chief in the border district of Mae Sot in Tak province, said the blast hit the Shwebyisaya hotel, about 30 yards from the border.
-------------------------------------------

UN Security Council Resolution Not Strong Enough, Say Activists

The UN Security Council resolution passed on Thursday offers some hope but should have been much stronger, Burmese dissidents told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

The resolution, also called a presidential statement, was the first official resolution to receive the full support of the 15-member security council, including China and Russia.

A spokesperson for Burma's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, said it welcomed the council's non-binding resolution and considers it a positive sign, but it did not go far enough.

“The Burmese people only get a non-binding resolution...because China and Russia blocked the attempt for a binding resolution on Burma,” said spokesman Han Thar Myint, referring to the two countries' veto of a tougher Burma resolution before the council that was backed by the US, Britain and France.

On the plus side, the resolution will support the efforts of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, as they work to improve conditions inside Burma, he said, and the statement signifies the council supports Burma's democracy movement.

“This time the Chinese and Russian governments are participating and finding common ground in the security council because they also realize that the situation in Burma is becoming worse,” he said.

But even as the security council passed the resolution, the junta was arresting, imprisoning and torturing non-violent protestors, said Han Thar Myint. 

Aung Htoo of the Burma Lawyers Council, based in Thailand, said the junta has committed crimes against the people with “impunity” and the council should have addressed that issue.

“The UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, did not say anything about state-backed crimes in Burma," he said. “The security council must take more effective actions on Burma if they really want to help the people and resolve the problems.”

Aung Htoo said that in 2003, the junta committed crimes against non-violent protesters, and the international community did not take any effective action against the junta. In September, while the world watched, the junta again committed crimes against civilians, he said.

Soe Tun, a leader of the 88 Generation Students group, said the security council resolution doesn't offer the Burmese people any legal protection against state-backed violence and people are very afraid of the junta.

“Even though the 88 students welcome the international support for Burma’s democracy movement, we are still disappointed with the ineffective actions of the security council,” he said.

“Dissidents, including monks, are brutally tortured at detention centers and even the International Committee of the Red Cross cannot visit them," he said.

The UN Special envoy to Burma is scheduled to return to Asia next week for consultations with key governments. He will meet with officials in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Japan and then return to Burma, according to The Associated Press.   

Meanwhile, raids and arrests by security forces continue in Burma.  one activist, Naw Ohn Hla, was arrested in Rangoon on Friday morning, according to reports, and the home of another activist, Lin Lin, in Rangoon was raided and searched by soldiers overnight on Thursday.

Rumors are circulating in Rangoon that some female detainees, including nuns, have been raped by soldiers at detention centers. 

“We heard there are not enough female guards at detention centers, where women are detained," said Soe Tun. "There is real concern for the situation of these women detainees.”

-------------------------------------------
 

Outrage becomes Laura Bush

Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group

Friday, October 12, 2007

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/12/ED3PSOGLS.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Thailand Says Will Not Take Action Against Myanmar

-------------------------------------------------

The police in Rangoon cracking down on protestor became seriously due to authorities use the family member of dissidents as hostage when they cannot arrest the protesters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Protesting Dogs Are Now on the Regime’s Wanted List
By Saw Yan Naing
October 12, 2007

The Burmese authorities have a new enemy to hunt down—dogs which are roaming Rangoon with pictures of Than Shwe and other regime leaders around their necks.

A resident of Shwegondine, Bahan Township, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that she saw a group of four dogs with pictures of the regime’s top generals around their necks.

Sightings were also reported in four other Rangoon townships—Tharkayta, Dawbon, Hlaing Tharyar and South Okkalapa.

Some sources said the canine protest had started at least a week ago, and was keeping the authorities busy trying to catch the offending dogs. “They seem quite good at avoiding arrest,” laughed one resident.

Associating anybody with a dog is a very serious insult in Burma.

Spray-painters are also at work, daubing trains with the words “Killer Than Shwe” and other slogans.

Burma’s Prime Minister, “Butcher of Depayin,” Dies after Long Illness

Burma’s Prime Minister Gen Soe Win, who had been blamed with overseeing a 2003 attack against pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, died Friday after a long illness. He was 59.

Soe Win

The fourth-ranking member of the junta, he had been ailing for months with what relatives said was acute leukemia. His death was announced by state media.

He had returned September 30 from extended hospitalization in Singapore and had been warded at Mingaladon Military Hospital on the outskirts of northern Rangoon, relatives said.

Soe Win's death on Friday came as the junta continued its crackdown on democracy advocates, following more than a month of street protests in the tightly controlled country.

His departure was unlikely to cause a ripple in the regime's grip on power. Soe Win had little if any policy-making role as prime minister, and was largely considered a figurehead for the junta.

Lt-Gen Thein Sein, who has been serving as acting prime minister since at least May, was expected to succeed Soe Win. Thein Sein is known as a fierce loyalist of Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the junta's chief.

Soe Win was nicknamed the “Butcher of Depayin” for his role in the 2003 attack on Suu Kyi and her followers in the northern town of Depayin.

Details of the attack remain murky, but several dozen of Suu Kyi's supporters were believed killed when a mob of government supporters ambushed her motorcade. Soe Win is considered the mastermind behind the attack, according to diplomats, rights groups and government critics.

He first achieved notoriety as one of the officers who brutally suppressed a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, commanding troops around Rangoon University—a center for demonstrations—and giving orders to open fire on a crowd of protesters in front of Rangoon General Hospital.

Soe Win was also an air defense chief and a commander for the northwestern military region of the country. He joined the junta's inner circle as Secretary-2 in February 2003, and was promoted to Secretary-1 in an August 2003 Cabinet shake-up. He became prime minister in October 2004, replacing then premier and intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt, who was removed on corruption and other charges and is currently under house arrest.

He is survived by his wife, and their son and daughter. Soe Win's twin brother died on September 19.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Latest News and Analysis on Burma's - Oct 12th, 2007

Dear All,

Actions: AVVAZ.org is requesting signatures before EU decision on Oct 15. Sign it and also pass it on (below). They are big.

We will be in front of Indian in SF Consulate today from 2-5 pm. We are also gearing towards big action on Oct 25, UN Day in SF. Help us!!

News & analysis: Two editorials form Washington Post and Cincinnati Post on Burma situation: we need more than talk for a change in Burma. Also read how senate is weighing on actions such as six parties talks or having US special envoy to Burma. It is highly recommended along with recent senate hearing.

Also very good Q&As by BBC on Protests answering questions such as why the monks involve?

Lastly, Security council condemned the regime. China seems to be feeling the heat, but we need a lot more from those greedy and irresponsible powers. They just don't care until you make them hurt in some way. (Threat of 2008 olympic boycott)

Video:  New National Geographic Video of monks vanishing from Monasteries in Burma.

If you think the recent brutality in Rangoon is the first or worse of it, you would be wrong. See Journeyman Picture video of how Daw Aung San Suu Kiy escaped with her life in 2003 due to the quick actions by her driver. More than a hundreds were beaten to death.

Also in late 2006, but still very relevance, a Frontline video of Burma: State of fear.

Thanks,
Nyunt Than

Avaaz.org Action: EU: SQUEEZE THE BURMESE JUNTA
Reuters: Senate panel studies new ways to press Myanmar
Washington Post Editorial: More Than Talk for Burma
The Cincinnati Post: The bullies in Burma
AP: Myanmar Guards Accused of Detainee Abuse
Washington Post: Security Council Issues Its First Official Censure of Burmese Junta
Reuters: China calls on Myanmar to solve its own problems
BBC Q&A: Protests in Burma
BBC Burma: Your questions answered
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EU: SQUEEZE THE BURMESE JUNTA

The European Union will decide this Monday, October 15, whether to adopt stronger sanctions and incentives to press the repressive Burmese military junta into dialogue with the opposition. Avaaz.org is mobilizing citizens of every EU country to send messages to their foreign ministers urging them to take action. These sanctions won't hurt ordinary people--but they will strengthen the democracy movement in Burma.

Click here to send a message to your own leader: www.avaaz.org/en/eu_squeeze_the_junta/tf.php?cl_tf_sign=1

Senate panel studies new ways to press Myanmar

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
Reuters
Thursday, October 11, 2007; 5:54 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate committee is weighing measures to press for democratic change in Myanmar, including an arms embargo and prosecuting its leaders in an international criminal court, a senior aide said on Thursday.

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will soon present draft legislation, after the former Burma crushed pro-democracy protests last month, said Keith Luse, a senior committee staff member.

"There's a thought to encourage the equivalent of a six-party process within the region to include Burma, China, India, Russia, Japan, ASEAN and perhaps other countries, understanding that the Burmese leaders might initially boycott," he said, drawing a parallel to the six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea.

ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that includes Myanmar as a member.

"Leaders of a country friendly to Burma could enter the scene to serve as broker to negotiate safe passage and arrange exile for the generals out of the country while the U.N. would provide a stabilizing presence as Burma transitions to a civilian democratic government," Luse said.

Other proposals being studied were an arms embargo, more U.S. sanctions targeting Myanmar's leaders, their families and business partners and appointing a special U.S. envoy.

Luce told a forum conducted by the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Washington think tank, that senior U.S. Senators including Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar were strongly committed to action on Myanmar.

U.S. experts said the junta had discredited itself at home and around the world by shooting Buddhist monks.

But one analyst warned that a country impoverished and ruined by 45 years of military rule was ill-prepared for democracy.

"It will still be many years that there will be a military government in some form or another," said Priscilla Clapp, a retired diplomat who served as top U.S. envoy in Myanmar from 1999-2002.

With the army as Myanmar's only cohesive institution, she said, the country would not see an ideal transition to full-blown democracy.

Bridget Welsh, Southeast Asia expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said experience in other countries indicated that it was important to "split the military as an institution."

"When you use targeted sanctions, you don't treat the military as a complete monolithic institution; you actually focus on specific individuals, as opposed to others" to foster jealousy and schisms among generals, she said.

Since then, we haven't seen much in the way of intensification. The Security Council did issue a unanimous statement yesterday that "strongly deplores" the regime's violence. But it's still not known how many monks and others have been killed and how many arrested; the regime claimed to have released more than 2,000, without disclosing how many had been swept up in the first place. There's been talk of sanctions, of an arms embargo, of the need for united action, of sending the special envoy back -- but so far talk is all it's been. First lady Laura Bush has spoken out, but we haven't heard much from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Burma's dictator, Than Shwe, named an underling to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, who -- by virtue of a landslide victory in a 1990 election that the regime refused to honor -- is Burma's rightful leader. But no meeting has taken place.

The strangest statement at that U.N. meeting a week ago came from China's ambassador, who noted with satisfaction that the situation in Burma was "calming down thanks to the joint efforts of all parties." If by "joint efforts" he meant the decision by one side to shoot and bludgeon, and by the other to submit to shooting and bludgeoning, that was true. But even stranger, perhaps, has been the silence emanating from India, the world's largest democracy and the birthplace of Buddhism. As long as India and Southeast Asian democracies put commercial interests ahead of principle, progress will be slow.

The Nobel Peace Prize is due to be announced today, 16 years after Aung San Suu Kyi herself was the recipient. In all those years, spent mostly under house arrest, she has remained true to the ideals of democracy, reconciliation and nonviolence. Perhaps, in the midst of celebrating this year's winner, global leaders will pause to think about whether they could do a bit more to support her and her unspeakably courageous comrades.

The bullies in Burma

Under military dictatorship, Burma has gone from the richest nation in southeast Asia to one of the poorest. In the process, the regime now running the country that wants to be called Myanmar has become one of the world's most brutal.

The generals know their hold on power is tenuous. In 1990 they risked a free election and lost decisively to Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of a famous patriot. They did not let that election cost them their hold on power; Suu Kyi, now 62, has been under house arrest most of the time since. It is safe to say that only the world's attention and her Nobel Peace Prize have stopped the regime from killing her.

Periodic outbursts of popular discontent with military rule, most notably in 1988, have been brutally suppressed. (Then, by most accounts, the government killed more than 3,000 of its people.)

The grim cycle is now repeating itself. Demonstrations that began in August after the regime imposed a 500 percent hike in fuel prices have spread to include Buddhist monks and ordinary Burmese - and their demands have broadened to include free elections.

The generals' response was predictable - killings, beatings, mass incarcerations coupled with patently insincere offers to meet with student leaders and Suu Kyi. What's different this time is the intensity of world outrage, stoked by the Internet and video technology. Country after country has denounced the repression. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has called it "repulsive."

Curiously, in that he is not much given to championing such causes, one of the most powerful voices on behalf of the Burmese people has been that of Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate. For years he has pushed for stronger sanctions against the Burmese junta, and since the latest demonstrations began has daily issued statements of support for the demonstrators - including a taped message with his ideological opposite, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the liberal California Democrat, declaring "the world is watching and we are cheering you.''

Those words can be but faint solace to the men, women and children caught up in the post-demonstration crackdown by Burmese military leaders. The junta has asserted that only 10 people have died and 2,100 were arrested during the demonstrations and 700 later released. But diplomats and dissidents say the number of arrests is closer to 6,000. And Thursday brought new reports of horrific beatings and torture - with monks, women and even girls among the victims.

In what is, in its way, a sign of progress, the United Nations Security Council approved a statement Thursday emphasizing "the importance of the early release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees.''

That wasn't the robust condemnation that McConnell and other world leaders had hoped for. But it was significant because China, Burma's most important ally, was among the 15 Security Council members that approved the statement. The generals rely on China for economic and diplomatic support. China has been notoriously tolerant of odious regimes, perhaps for fear of drawing attention to its own methods of dealing with internal dissent.

China finally realized that it was in its own best interests to intervene to halt North Korea's nuclear program. We must persuade China that a firm hand with the Burmese generals is also in its interests.

But it doesn't stop there.

McConnell last week called on India, the world's largest democracy, to "be wary of coddling the junta in Burma,'' and accused the U.S. ally of being in league with China and Russia in its tolerance of the military rulers' methods.

All three of those nations are beginning to assert proper positions on the world stage commensurate with their growing economic clout. That's as it should be. But with that comes the responsibility - including the responsibility to act when they can to curb human rights abuses.

Myanmar Guards Accused of Detainee Abuse

Security Council Issues Its First Official Censure of Burmese Junta

By Colum Lynch and Nora Boustany
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 12, 2007; Page A13

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 11 -- The U.N. Security Council on Thursday issued its first formal censure of Burma's military rulers, saying it "strongly deplores" the junta's recent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators who flooded into the streets of Rangoon and other cities last month in a protest over fuel prices that became a pro-democracy movement.

The move came as U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari announced he would travel to the region Monday to begin meetings with Burma's neighbors and key political and commercial partners. The visit will prepare the way for Gambari to return to Burma in the weeks ahead to prod the country's rulers to begin talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and leaders of Burma's numerous ethnic groups.

The Security Council statement, which called on Burma's rulers to release all political prisoners, was mild compared with expressions of international outrage that followed the junta's bloody crackdown on protesters. But it represented a significant departure for the 15-nation council, which had been blocked from weighing in on the country's political crisis by China, Russia and South Africa.

China and Russia, which have the power to veto Security Council actions, said they agreed to support Thursday's censure because it adds diplomatic muscle to Gambari's mediation efforts and outlines a road map for a peaceful political solution to Burma's crisis. The statement also calls on the government and its critics to take steps to ease tensions.

U.S. and European officials as well as pro-democracy campaigners said they had hoped for a tougher statement. But they said they were satisfied that the council had finally decided to take the government to task. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States would press for an even tougher response if Burma fails to comply with the council's requests. "We will not forget. We will not relent. We will persist until the situation is put on the right trajectory," he said.

While the council was meeting in New York, scholars, diplomats and exiled Burmese activists were gathered at a forum in Washington, and they described Burma's recent unrest as the beginning of a phase of change in the closed and totalitarian Southeast Asian nation.

"Events of August and September are the beginning of transition. The breakthrough has come. I do think that the tectonic plates have shifted," said Priscilla A. Clapp, who served as the top U.S. diplomat in Burma from 1999 to 2002.

During Thursday's event, organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, various speakers agreed that any transitional Burmese government would have to include members of the military junta.

"It would be extremely difficult to have any kind of successful transition that did not include the military," Clapp said in an interview Thursday. "Some members must remain because they have had a major role in the last 45 years in holding Burma together. Any solution in the transition phase has to include them, with the hope that the turnover will produce leaders who are more enlightened."

Clapp said that most of the junta members' personal funds are stashed in banks in Singapore, which has tighter bank secrecy laws than Switzerland, and that some assets are probably in Hong Kong. She said the top 14 junta leaders and their families were on a list of individuals who would have their accounts monitored.

On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to impose and enforce a mandatory arms embargo on Burma.

"It is time for the Security Council to end all sales and transfers of arms to a government that uses repression and fear to hang on to power," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. India appears to be one of the two main suppliers of advanced weaponry to the Burmese military, Human Rights Watch said. The other is China.

India is preparing to send aircraft, artillery, tanks, ships, armored personnel carriers and small arms to Burma and has offered to sell it advanced light helicopters, which could be used against demonstrations.

Boustany reported from Washington.

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1. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Burma: Security Council Should Impose Arms Embargo

2. Full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks revealed

3. Burma activist dies under interrogation, a rights group has said.

4. Secret cremations hide Burma killings

5. Laura Bush finds her voice in Myanmar crisis

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Burma: Security Council Should Impose Arms Embargo

Weapons Sales by India, China and Russia Fuel Abuses, Strengthen Military Rule

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Secret cremations hide Burma killings
Our staff correspondent, Rangoon

THE Burmese army has burnt an undetermined number of bodies at a crematorium sealed off by armed guards northeast of Rangoon over the past seven days, ensuring that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known.

The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys.

They say they have watched soldiers in steel helmets blocking off roads to the municipal crematorium and threatening people who poke their heads out of windows overlooking the roads after the 10pm curfew.

Their accounts have been volunteered to international officials and aid workers in Rangoon, Burma’s main city. The consensus in the foreign community is that the consistency of the stories makes them credible.
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* Burma general offers to meet Aung San Suu Kyi

“There has been no attempt to identify the dead, to return the bodies to their families or to give them even the minimum Buddhist religious rites,” said a foreign official who has collated information on the toll of dead and injured from a wide variety of sources.

Horrifying rumours are sweeping the city that some of those cremated were severely injured people thrust into the ovens alive, but these have been treated with extreme caution by independent observers and have not been verified.

However, it is widely accepted that the cremations began on the night of Friday, September 28, more than 24 hours after soldiers opened fire on unarmed Buddhist monks and civilians demonstrating on the streets of Rangoon.

They have continued at intervals right up to the end of last week, according to local people. Taxi drivers refused to take a foreigner to the area, saying they were too frightened and that the army moved bodies after the shoot-on-sight curfew.

The best estimate among foreign diplomats here is that between 100 and 200 people lost their lives in the Rangoon disturbances. The number of Buddhist monks arrested is put at about 1,000, while about 3,000 civilians have also been detained. The regime’s own statement is that 2,093 people are in custody.

The Chinese army carried out a similar practice of anonymous cremations in Beijing after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when many unidentified bodies were disposed of at the city’s Babaoshan crematorium. The true number of dead has never been established.

A more disturbing aspect of the Burmese regime’s conduct is the apparently continuous stream of deaths days after the guns fell silent.

“We have first-hand evidence from respected Burmese doctors that hospitals and clinics were ordered not to give any treatment to the wounded,” said a foreign medical expert, “so it’s not possible to assess the victims by those treated in public hospitals.

“We do know that some injured people were treated in hiding in people’s homes. We assume that beaten, injured or wounded people taken into custody have got no treatment and may have died.”

This evidence has given rise to grave concern for the wellbeing of elderly monks and very young novices rounded up, by all accounts, with brutality.

There has been a drumbeat of allegations that soldiers and militiamen unleashed crazed violence against these holy men when they crashed into monasteries in the small hours of the night over the past week. Blood-stained robes, shattered statues and defaced holy pictures have been caught on digital images smuggled out of the country.

Some of the worst violence appears to have occurred at the Mwe Kya Jan monastery in northwest Rangoon. According to graphic testimony published in yesterday’s Thai newspapers, the soldiers lined the monks up against a wall and smashed each of their shaven heads against the wall in succession. The monks were roughed up and thrown into trucks, but the abbot was so severely beaten that he died on the spot, the reports claimed.

It was not possible to corroborate these reports yesterday owing to a heavy security presence at the monastery. But two boy monks asking for alms on a street in a nearby area appealed for help in their limited English.

“We are very frightened,” said the elder, who was about 14, while the younger, about 10, said: “I want to go home to see my mother and father again.”

Foreign observers experienced in monitoring human rights here say the stories of beatings, abuse and starvation in custody are likely to be accurate.

The regime has refused to grant access for the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect the conditions of those in detention. Humanitarian workers said they hoped the British, French and American governments would take the lead in pressing the case for access at the UN security council and in private talks with the Burmese leaders and with China.

An attempt to observe an alleged detention centre at the Rangoon Institute of Technology was halted by soldiers who waved away a car at gunpoint. Through sheets of monsoon rain, trucks could be seen parked outside what appeared to be an administration block, but there was no sign of activity.

The United Nations special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, said on Friday in New York that he feared “mass relocations” of monks and protesters had taken place.

The systematic arrests have continued at night – a convoy of lorries and other vehicles rumbled past my hotel windows long after midnight – initially puzzling diplomats and activists, who wondered how military intelligence drew up its lists of those to be arrested.

The answer, it seems, was a grimly paradoxical use of the internet, whose liberating role in disseminating images and sound of the protests was prematurely celebrated by many as marking the world’s first globalised on-line revolt, instantly dubbed the Saffron revolution.

It is now clear that the regime was techno-savvy, patient and thorough. It kept the internet open long enough to allow its own cyber-operatives to down-load the images and recordings of street protests to identify the protesters. The internet is now shut down.

“Every Burmese street has a block registration with photographs of each resident on the wall of the local administration office,” said an international aid official, whose agency used the system to help track recipients of aid. Burmese have given accounts of soldiers and plain-clothes men arriving to make arrests with computer-generated photographs of their targets pulled off the internet.

On Friday government security agents raided the offices of Japan’s international aid agency, attempting to seize e-mail records and computers, several foreign sources said. After protests, the agents backed off. The news caused staff at other aid agencies to take steps to secure their own computer records.

The one ray of optimism in Rangoon this weekend has come on the political front. On Friday night a Burmese crowd in a teashop gasped to see the first pictures for many years of Aung San Suu Kyi on television.

The news programme showed the world’s most famous political prisoner meeting Gambari at her home at 54 University Avenue.

The junta’s leader, Than Shwe, told Gambari he would meet her under certain conditions, an offer that was reported to have been rejected but which, in local political terms, was remarkable.

But among the deeply superstitious Burmese there was a murmuring of hope after another piece of inauspicious news for the generals. There was delight in the teashops at the reported death from cancer of Soe Win, the junta’s “prime minister”.

Unlike his fellow countrymen, Soe Win had benefited from the best therapy that local doctors, aided by specialists in Singa-pore, could provide. The “tea-shop telegraph” also flashed the news that Soe Win’s brother had died in a failed attempt to donate marrow to fight the illness.

In a land where portents, stars and horoscopes are revered, it was a dreadful omen.
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Full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks revealed

By ANI

Thursday October 11, 02:02 PM

London, Oct.11 (ANI): The military junta in Myanmar is pursuing a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror with the objective of crushing the pro-democracy movement irrevocably.

According to The Independent, this repression comes out clearly when you hear reports of monks being confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night in Rangoon, the centre of the protests against the regime.

The first-hand accounts describe a campaign hidden from view, but even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown in which the regime's soldiers turned their bullets and batons on unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon, killing at least 13.

According to the paper, the hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal.

One 24-year-old monk said that about 400 of them were placed in one room. They had no access to toilets, no buckets, no water for washing. No beds, no blankets, no soap. The young man, too frightened to be named, was one of 185 monks taken in a raid on a monastery in the Yankin district of Rangoon on 28 September, two days after government soldiers began attacking street protesters.

On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.

Most of the detained monks, the low-level clergy, were eventually freed without charge as were the children among them.

Another Rangoon resident told the aid worker: "We all hear screams at night as they [the police] arrive to drag off a neighbour. We are torn between going to help them and hiding behind our doors. We hide behind our doors. We are ashamed. We are frightened."

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday threatened unspecified new sanctions against Burma and called for an investigation into the death of Win Shwe.

At the weekend, the Myanmarese Government said it has released more than half of the 2,171 people arrested, but exile groups estimate the number of detentions between 6,000 and 10,000.

In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets. (ANI)

Burma activist 'dies in custody'
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Burma activist dies under interrogation, says rights group

Win Shwe was arrested on 26 September near Mandalay, as the government began its bloody crackdown on the protesters.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) member died during questioning, the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said.

His death raises fresh concerns for the hundreds of people still in custody.

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Laura Bush finds her voice in Myanmar crisis

2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — First Lady Laura Bush, who once maintained a low profile when it came to international affairs, has stepped into the diplomatic spotlight by becoming a top US critic of Myanmar's military junta.

Ditching her meek, schoolteacher-librarian image, the president's wife has become increasingly outspoken against Myanmar's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and delivered mounting calls for the regime to step aside.

The new role is a marked change for the 60-year-old mother of twins, who has typically stayed with issues such as encouraging young Americans to read books, stay away from drugs and avoid early sexual activity.

With fresh authority in her voice in a series of interviews with major US newspapers this week, the first lady blasted Myanmar military rulers as "friendless," and said the junta had "only days to act" before President George W. Bush's administration ordered fresh sanctions.

The Myanmar regime has sparked international outcry by cracking down on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks in Yangon, as armed security forces wielding guns and batons attacked civilians and killed at least 13 people.

"Today, people everywhere know about the regime's atrocities. They are disgusted by the junta's abuses of human rights," she told the Wall Street Journal.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that the first lady's involvement with what the administration still calls Burma, is not new, recalling that she hosted a roundtable talk on the issue at last year's UN General Assembly session in New York.

"Hearing her voice, I think it inspires people to think about what's happening in Burma and to join us in taking some action," Perino said.

The first lady is not solely interested in Myanmar, Perino added. She has also spoken on behalf of women in Afghanistan, fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, and is planning a trip to raise awareness of breast cancer in the Middle East.

"The president, of course, sees Mrs. Bush as a tremendous asset and a very good spokesperson on some of these issues," Perino said, adding that the couple is "united on this issue."

Carl Sferrazza Anthony, who has written several books on first ladies, said Laura Bush's foreign role has expanded over the past few years.

"If you look at the arc of her interests, speeches and activities on an international front, particularly with developing nations, this is not a left curve," he said.

"Struggling democracies and developing nations have been of general interest to her and that has increased with international trips" she has taken alongside the president.

The first lady admitted in an interview with USA Today that she thought her focus would "be totally domestic," when her husband took office, but has since realized she has leverage to bring awareness to matters in other countries.

"My influence is really in being able to shine a spotlight on human rights situations that I want the American people to look at, and I want the people in those countries to know that the American people are with them," she said.

Her contribution has been hailed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who "couldn't be more pleased with the role that the first lady has chosen to take," department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Bush's interest in Myanmar was sparked in 2002 by a cousin of her husband, Elsie Walker, said the first lady's spokeswoman Sally McDonough.

"Elsie told her about Aung San Suu Kyi and shared her book wih her, and that is where she first became aware" of the story of the democracy icon under house arrest by the regime.

She began following the story in the press, and since 2006 has repeatedly consulted with UN chief Ban Ki-moon and UN ambassadors, urging the world body to take action.

"It is not like Laura Bush is way out on a limb with her advocacy," said Bruce Gilley, assistant professor at Canada's Queens University and an expert on Myanmar.

"She is basically a voice reflecting a general consensus, at least in the West."

However, he acknowledged that high-profile voices leading international opposition to a regime "can have an effect, an indirect effect, in how that outcry affects the behavior of other countries in Asia and their policies toward Myanmar."

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Resistance to Myanmar Soldiers Continues

The Associated Press
Monday, October 8, 2007; 7:03 AM

YANGON, Myanmar -- Residents of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, are keeping up a low-key resistance against the country's military regime, harassing soldiers by tossing rocks at them at night, student activists said Monday.

Security forces have responded to the activities, which have taken place over the past two to three days, by detaining the rock throwers they catch after curfew, they said.

Demonstrators protest against Myanmar's military regime in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007. People around the world planned to march Saturday to protest Myanmar's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists, as the military regime admitted hundreds of Buddhist monks were detained after troops turned their guns on last week's peaceful uprising. (AP Photo/Michael Sawyer) (Michael Sawyer - AP)

In some cases, members of the families of those detained _ including children _ have also been detained, the activists said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.

No figures were available on the number of people engaging in such activities or how many may have been detained. The reports came as the government has announced numbers of those detained in connection with the anti-regime protests of the past few weeks.

Myanmar authorities also said weapons had been seized from Buddhist monasteries and announced dozens of new arrests, despite global outrage over the junta's violent repression of protesters who sought an end to 45 years of military dictatorship.

Recent raids on monasteries turned up 18 knives, one ax, slingshots and one 9mm bullet, though it was not yet clear to whom they belonged, according to state-run The New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Monday. The government threatened to punish any monks that violate the law, stepping up pressure on clerics who led the protests.

In a commentary, the newspaper stressed that those arrested during the unrest would be treated as criminals rather than political prisoners.

"Supporters of the protest who claim themselves pro-democracy activists will not be pardoned if they break the law, as no man is above the law," the paper said on its comments page. "Those who are found guilty of breaking the law will be imprisoned."

State media including The New Light of Myanmar newspaper are only propaganda organs and not taken seriously in Myanmar, said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the National Council of the Union of Burma, a coalition of opposition groups based in neighboring Thailand.

"The government newspaper is not read by most people. It is used for wrapping paper," he said in a telephone interview.

Security has eased in the largest city of Yangon more than a week after soldiers and police opened fire on demonstrators. Some roadblocks were removed and visitors began trickling back to the heavily guarded Shwedagon and Sule pagodas, the starting and finishing points of protests that began in mid-August over a sharp fuel price increase.

The junta says at least 10 people were killed in a crackdown Sept. 26-27 _ though independent sources say the toll was likely much higher _ and that some 1,000 remain in detention centers.

At least 135 monks are being held, according to The New Light of Myanmar.

In addition, 78 more people suspected of involvement in the rallies were being questioned by investigators, it said.

Inspired by the participation of monks, who are revered in the country, thousands of people turned out for the protests last month, the biggest in nearly two decades against brutal military rule. The junta's bloody crackdown sparked international condemnation _ including from its Southeast Asian neighbors.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962. The current junta came to power after routing a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, killing at least 3,000 people.
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Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the move was necessary if Burma was to avoid stronger international pressure.

Burmese state media reported military leader Gen Than Shwe had agreed to meet Ms Suu Kyi, but only if she ended calls for international sanctions on Burma.

Malaysia and regional grouping Asean also oppose sanctions, which are being called for by the US, UK and France.

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Washington Post Editorial: Burma's Bloody Silence
BBC News: UN envoy describes Burma 'abuse'
The Age: Burma's cry for freedom silenced by army terror
Reuters: Myanmar opposition dismisses junta offer to talk
Herald Sun: US envoy heads for talks with Burma junta
ABC News: China speak out against international action in Burma
ABC News: Sands shifting under Burma's brutal regime
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Burma's Bloody Silence
While the regime crushes popular protests, the U.N. Security Council prepares to . . . listen to a report.

Friday, October 5, 2007; Page A20

THE SITUATION in Burma seems to be returning to normal. That is to say, the harsh repression that has prevailed since military rule began in 1962 has been restored, after a brief wave of protests that had offered the first hope for change since the crushing of a similar uprising in 1988 and the subsequent cancellation of a 1990 election won by the democratic opposition. Troops wielding guns, clubs and tear gas have cleared the streets of Rangoon and other cities of the courageous Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens who had taken them over for the past several weeks, chanting a simple, modest demand: "dialogue."

But Burma's generals do not talk with their people. They prefer to subdue them, or occasionally to shout threats, such as the chilling words blasted from sound trucks that circulated in Rangoon on Wednesday night: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests." This Orwellian pronouncement was apparently aimed at people who had tried to block a military raid on a pagoda earlier in the week. At last count, media reports said 2,100 people had been arrested, two-thirds of whom were still in custody, and the government acknowledged 10 deaths -- though both figures are probably considerably understated.

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Burma's strongman, Gen. Than Shwe, finished crushing the "Saffron Revolution" while a United Nations envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was cooling his heels for three days, waiting for a dialogue of his own with the general. After he finally consented to listen to Mr. Gambari's expressions of deep concern, Gen. Shwe made an offer to speak with Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader, but only if she gives up her "confrontational" position first. Such are the fruits of the international community's engagement with the regime so far.

There will be more talk at the U.N. Security Council today as Mr. Gambari delivers his report, four unhurried days after leaving Rangoon. But it's unlikely that the council will agree on sanctions or even an unambiguous condemnation of the regime; for that, thank veto-wielding China, Burma's chief economic and political patron. The response of the Bush administration and European countries has been relatively tough: The U.S. Embassy has been authorized to provide honest reports on the crackdown to the outside world, and Europe is working on a tightening of its visa restrictions and other sanctions against the junta.

The United States and Europe say they want to engage China on the issue, but it remains to be seen whether the West is willing to provoke a serious fight with Beijing. China could be offered a choice between ending its defense of the regime on the Security Council and spoiling its own intended debut as an emerging superpower at the 2008 Olympics. That would be appropriate enough: After all, shouldn't the world reject a would-be superpower that insists on shielding the world's most criminal regimes from U.N. sanction? In the absence of such an initiative, the United States, Britain and other governments that claim to care deeply about Burma will be reduced to listening to reports from Mr. Gambari.

Ibrahim Gambari warned Burma's military rulers their actions could have "serious international repercussions".

He was speaking after a four-day visit to Burma, where he met senior generals and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Burmese state TV reportedly broadcast an image of Ms Suu Kyi on Friday for the first time in years.

Burma's cry for freedom silenced by army terror

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Myanmar opposition dismisses junta offer to talk
Aung Hla Tun
Fri, Oct 05, 2007
Reuters

YANGON (Reuters) - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party dismissed the Myanmar junta's offer of talks as unreal on Friday, while China said the ruthless suppression of pro-democracy protests did not require international action.

Senior General Than Shwe, who outraged the world by sending in soldiers to crush peaceful monk-led demonstrations, was asking Suu Kyi to abandon the campaign for democracy that has kept her in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, a spokesman said.

"They are asking her to confess to offences that she has not committed," said Nyan Win, spokesman for the Nobel peace laureate's National League for Democracy (NLD), whose landslide election victory in 1990 was ignored by the generals.

Than Shwe, head of the latest junta in 45 unbroken years of military rule of the former Burma, set out his conditions for direct talks at a meeting with special U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Tuesday, state-run television said.

It announced the terms on the eve of Gambari's report on his mission to the U.N. Security Council, saying Suu Kyi must abandon "confrontation", give up "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions and "utter devastation", a phrase it did not explain.

Nyan Win demanded "The Lady", as Suu Kyi is known in Myanmar, be allowed to respond in public.

That is unlikely. The only time Suu Kyi has been seen in public since she was last detained in May 2003 was during one monk-led demonstration when protesters were inexplicably allowed through the barricades sealing off her street.

She appeared for 15 minutes at the gate of the home to which she is confined without a telephone and requiring official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.

The barricades were reinforced afterwards and not opened again. There have been no demonstrations in Yangon since a small one on Sunday and security on the unusually quiet streets remains heavy with people cowed by continuing arrests.

The United States called on the junta to talk to Suu Kyi without conditions and said U.S. charge d'affaires Shari Villarosa would visit the new capital, Naypyidaw, to urge them to begin a "meaningful dialogue" with opposition groups.

An embassy official in Yangon dismissed reports Villarosa would meet Than Shwe and a diplomatic source said she was to see Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint, who is not a policymaker.

GAMBARI REPORT

The U.N. Security Council dispatched Gambari to Myanmar, where he had to wait two days to see Than Shwe, in hopes of ending a crackdown involving soldiers shooting into crowds and mass arrests, and getting talks with Suu Kyi started.

Gambari was to present his report to the council on Friday, but veto-wielding China said it opposed international action.

"There are problems there in Myanmar, but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal," China's U.N. Ambassador, Wang Guangya, told reporters.

"No international-imposed solution can help the situation," Wang said. "We want the government there to handle this issue."

To many in Yangon and other cities who demonstrated en masse or applauded from the sidewalk, the government is the issue in the resource-rich country of increasingly impoverished people.

But with China, the closest thing the junta has to an ally, blocking action at the United Nations, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- one of the few international groupings of which Myanmar is a member -- unwilling to change its policy, experts say little is likely to happen.

Singapore, its current chairman, said ASEAN would continue its policy of engagement with Myanmar, one which has shown no more signs of influencing the generals than Western sanctions, to try to "help it move forward".

"We have to be mindful of the realities," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told his country's Straits Times newspaper. "Sanctions against a regime that is ready to isolate itself are more likely to be counter-productive than effective."

Singapore is a leading investor in Myanmar, one of the world's most isolated countries.

Activists hope to crank up the pressure on governments on Saturday with a "Global Day of Action" involving marches and rallies in 41 cities across Asia, Europe and North America.

The junta says all is back to normal after "the least possible force" was used to end demonstrations which began with small marches against huge fuel price rises in August and escalated after troops fired over the heads of protesting monks.

It says 10 people were killed in the crackdown on the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years, although Western governments say the toll is likely to be far higher.

Yangon's five million people appear to have been intimidated by middle-of-the-night arrests, residents and Western diplomats say.

State television said on Thursday about 1,400 people were still being detained after the release of 692 of the 2,093 people arrested since the crackdown began last week.

A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in.

"They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment -- maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand in 1988 as the army crushed an uprising at the cost of around 3,000 lives.

Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said.

(Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins in BANGKOK)
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China speak out against international action in Burma

Posted 4 hours 36 minutes ago

The United Nations (UN) Security Council have decided to hear UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari's report on Burma at a public meeting, but China says it is opposed to any action by the 15-member body claiming the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners was an internal affair.

Mr Gambari met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after a four-day visit to Burma in which he secured an agreement with the junta to meet pro-democracy figure Aung San Suu Kyi but under certain circumstances.

Other speakers invited to address the council included Ban, a delegate from Burma and one from Singapore, representing the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Burma.

Beijing's UN ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters: "There are problems there in Burma but these problems still, we believe, are basically internal."

"No international-imposed solution can help the situation," Wang said. "We want the Government there to handle this issue."

Both China and Russia say the Security Council's mandate is limited to threats to international peace and security and Burma does not fall into this category.

Western nations have urged sanctions against Burma, whose security forces continued on Thursday to round up and interrogate protesters after last week's huge demonstrations led by Buddhist monks against military rule.

China, which neighbours Myanmar and is one of the country's few allies and major trading partners, has called for restraint but opposes any UN Security Council resolution, maintaining Myanmar does not threaten the region or the world.

China and Russia in January vetoed a US-drafted Security Council resolution that demanded an end to political repression and human rights violations on grounds that the Myanmar crisis was not a threat to international peace and security, the council's mandate.

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Sands shifting under Burma's brutal regime

By Mary O'Kane

Posted 9 hours 45 minutes ago
Updated 9 hours 28 minutes ago

A monk is lifted in the air by a crowd chanting anti-government slogans in Rangoon city centre, September 28, 2007. (Reuters)

Each night Australians sit in their lounge rooms and witness dreadful violence on the streets of Burma.

Each morning, when they pick up their daily newspaper they are confronted with pictures of dead monks, shocking beatings and great bravery from the thousands of people who have taken to the streets, protesting against a brutal government that thinks nothing of spilling the blood of its own citizens.

The Australian Government has also watched these news bulletins, read these newspapers, and seen these pictures. There is no avoiding it.

So what is the Australian Government and its international counterparts going to do to help the people who so bravely have taken to the streets in Burma, after decades of being repressed at home and dumped in the 'too hard' basket by countries that should, and could, do more?

While there are limits to what the Australian Government and other governments can actually do, there is undoubtedly power that they have and it is now time to exercise it.

While crises like the one we have seen unfold in the past month highlight the limits of international action, they oblige us to innovate, to push, and to support the people who need it.

External pressure

Pincer-like pressure needs to be sustained on the military junta.

Strong calls are being made for the Australian Government to use its good relations with ASEAN, China and India to maintain external pressure on the regime to enter tripartite dialogue and release Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners.

The political frontline that is overlooked here, however, is direct support for Burma's democracy movement. The Australian Government can address this in three ways.

First we must publicly recognise and support the central role of Burma's democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. It is hypocritical to say we support the Burmese people and then reject their chosen representatives.

Unequivocally, the Burmese people demonstrated that Aung San Suu Kyi remains their leader.

Even the junta recognises this. Aung San Suu Kyi was re-detained in May 1993 because of her capacity to instantly mobilise thousands of people throughout the country.

Then again, the day after 1,000 monks connected with 'the lady' outside her house on 22 September, protests exploded overnight from 20,000 to 100,000 in Rangoon alone. The regime's crackdown commenced the next day.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League of Democracy, continues to survive under harrowing political pressure and retain widespread popular support. Australia has the opportunity to strengthen existing political alternatives rather than dismiss them.

Support dissidents

Second, Australia can support the work of border-based dissidents living in Thailand and India who have tirelessly contributed to rebuilding grassroots organisation and political mobilisation inside Burma since the last horrific bloodshed in 1988.

Significantly, it is Burma's border-based alternative media organisations that are responsible for capturing the images and news from the streets, transmitting them to global media agencies, thus mobilising our support.

This is not normal international news coverage. Under extreme censorship conditions it is the brave underground journalism of the Burmese that enables us to see this regime brutality on city streets for the first time.

Rather than redirecting aid away from the people living on the border, Australia should be funding projects both in Burma and on its borders.

These projects should have two primary focuses - health and democratic capacity building.

The US, Norway, Denmark and Canada all have a policy of doing this. Humanitarian aid should not be an either or choice, but in making this choice, the Australian Government undercut the democracy movement.

With a surplus of more than $17 billion, it is not as though Peter Costello and Alexander Downer can't afford it.

At the same time, the Australian Government must also stop allowing Burmese military officials to attend military, counter-terrorism and intelligence training programs it hosts and funds in the region.

It is shameful and internationally embarrassing that the Australian Government empower the military capacity of the junta that shoots and beats monks and other peaceful protestors.

Govt in exile

Third, the Australian Government can recognise and support Burma's government in exile.

It can undertake initiatives such as inviting Burma's government in exile to visit Australia and host events that foster its recognition in the region.

This would reinforce moves within ASEAN such as consideration to accord Burma's MPs-elect observer status in the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Caucus.

Given its position of authority in the Asia Pacific region the Australian Government can support Burma's exiled democracy movement far more vocally than they have.

These moves alone do not necessarily isolate the regime, but they do support and legitimise Burma's democracy movement.

Over time, the powerful support of Australia will help shift the sands that are already moving under this brutal military regime.

Mary O'Kane teaches a course on Burma Studies at the Australian National University and is a member of the Australia Burma Network.

Tags: foreign-affairs, world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, australia, burma
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• Guardian: UN bid to resolve Burma crisis 'has failed'
• NLD: 4 OCTOBER 2007 PROCLAMATION OF NLD
• MSN News: Soldiers hunting down dissidents in Burma
• Chronicles: Chevron's links to Burma stir critics to demand it pull out
• NDTV: The US expectations from India on the issue of Burma seem to be building up with each passing day.
• APPPB Update: Flower Baskets in Honor of Heroic Spirits Continued in Rangoon

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4 OCTOBER 2007
PROCLAMATION OF NLD

National League for Democracy
No. 97/B, West Shwe Gondine Street
Bahan Township, Rangoon
2nd October 2007
6th Waning day of Tazaungdine, 1369 BE
Proclamation 16/10/07

We learnt that the armed personnel are now raiding monasteries and monk learning Institutes in some townships of Rangoon, Mandalay and Kachin States and Divisions at midnight and took away the monks after beating them. Moreover we heard that they vandalized some property of these monasteries and institutes and some were carried away by these armed personnel.

Similarly we learnt that these armed personnel visited, searched, arrested and took away NLD party members and the people from their homes in the pretext of taken away for being questioned. The local authority and armed forces patrolled the local area and made announcement by loudspeakers at midnight saying that they would arrest those who participated in the recent protests by checking against the photo evidence in their possession.

Though there have been many monks and people arrested so far, their families still don't have any information on their whereabouts, how they are being treated and why they were arrested. Meanwhile some families were informed by the concerned authority after 1-2 days of the arrests, of the death of their kiths and kin though they have no fatal injuries and diseases at the time of their arrests. Thus the people are living under fear as the night falls.

NLD HQ hereby announce that if the families concerned contact and inform about the persons arrested to Township Liaison Offices or this NLD HQ Office situated at 97/B, Shwe Gondine Street, Bahan Township, the NLD HQ will provide our utmost assistance to these families.
By meeting resolution of NLD CEC meeting held on 1st October 2007

Central Executive Committee
National League for Democracy
Rangoon
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Soldiers hunting down dissidents in Burma

Updated Wed. Oct. 3 2007 11:02 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

In what appeared to be an attempt to quash the remains of massive pro-democracy demonstrations, Burmese soldiers announced Wednesday they were hunting down protesters in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, scores of Burma's revered monks, who led many of the demonstrations, were said to be trying to flee the country.

In the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, military vehicles were patrolling the streets using loudspeakers to blast the warning: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"

Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Burma, told The Associated Press that military police were pulling people from their homes in the middle of the night and citizens of Burma's largest city were terrified.

"From what we understand, military police ... are travelling around the city in the middle of the night, going into homes and picking up people," she said.

CTV's Paul Workman, reporting from neighbouring Thailand since journalists are now banned from entering the country, said several young monks had made the escape across the border, telling horrific stories of the violent crackdown.

"They witnessed of course people being beaten up and arrested and had come across the border for safety, although they say they do want to go back," Workman told CTV Newsnet.

"But they had certainly come because they wanted to get out of Burma for at least a period of time and were being given some refuge in that part of Thailand."

There were reports that scores of monks were at the Rangoon railway station attempting to leave Wednesday, and bus drivers were refusing to take passengers out of town for fear they would be denied fuel.

Unlike in past conflicts in Burma that often triggered a large exodus of refugees to Thailand, Workman said it appears as though refugees were being prevented from reaching the border.

"We're not seeing in fact anybody coming over the bridge, any refugees, either from Rangoon or from other places," Workman said.

"Perhaps it is very difficult for them to get to that location. It is hard to know. There are roadblocks along the way, army checkpoints, but so far there is no wave of refugees coming seeking safety in Thailand with the exception of three young monks who passed over the border a couple of days ago."

Villarosa also said embassy staff had visited some monasteries this week and found them completely abandoned, while others had been barricaded by the military and were off limits to outsiders.

"There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?" Villarosa said.

There are reports that hundreds of monks have been detained -- including about two dozen taken overnight -- and will be sent to prisons in the far north of the country.

Authorities have said 10 people were killed during the demonstrations, though diplomats and activists claim that number is much higher, and many protesters are missing and unaccounted for.

Included among the dead was a Japanese photographer whose body was returned home on Wednesday.

Canadians call for action

In Canada, New Democrat MP Paul Dewar joined others to call on the government to help bring an end to the conflict, saying "someone needs to catch those who are being pushed back by a brutal regime."

Tim Maung Htoo, of the group Canadian Friends of Burma, called the situation in Burma "appalling" and demanded the government take action.
 

"It's very, very clear that even after international pressures and even after international outreaches and outcry, the military is still arresting and beating thousands of monks across the country, especially in Rangoon," he said at the Ottawa news conference.

"We are here to express our concerns about the appalling situation in Burma, and at the same time we want to ask the Canadian government to do more and to take a stronger and firmer position against the military Junta."

He said his group is calling on the government to impose trade and economic sanctions on the Burmese military junta, and to begin intense diplomatic action.

Meanwhile, some degree of normalcy began to return to the streets of Rangoon Wednesday. Some shops opened and light traffic was visible on roads. However, Villarosa said deep-rooted issues were still unresolved.

"People are terrified, and the underlying forces of discontent have not been addressed," she said. "People have been unhappy for a long time ... Since the events of last week, there's now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear."

With files from The Associated Press

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Chevron Corp. of San Ramon is drawing harsh criticism for its business ties to Burma, the Asian nation conducting a brutal military crackdown.

The company owns part of a natural gas project in Burma, where soldiers crushed pro-democracy protests last week and killed at least 10 people.

U.S. sanctions prevent most U.S. companies from working in Burma, but Chevron's investment there existed before the sanctions were imposed and continues under a grandfather clause. As a result, the company is one of the few large Western companies left in the country.

Now Chevron faces pressure to pull out.

Human rights activists are calling on the company to either leave Burma or persuade the country's military rulers to stop killing demonstrators. Bloggers are encouraging people to flood Chevron's phone and fax lines in protest. Some are calling for a boycott.

"There's no question that the money from the pipeline project helps prop up the military government," said Marco Simons, U.S. legal director for EarthRights International. "If Chevron can stop people from getting killed by using its influence, we'd certainly like to see that. In the long run, we don't think anyone should be doing business with this government."

But Chevron doesn't intend to leave.

"Chevron is maintaining its interest in the ... project," said spokesman Alex Yelland.

The company has been trying to build up its portfolio of oil and natural gas projects in Asia, where energy demand is growing fast. Chevron also has a history of working under difficult political circumstances. In some cases, that history involved countries with questionable human rights records or nations that ran afoul of the U.S. government. In other cases, the company's own actions have been called into question.

Chevron has been the focus of repeated protests in Nigeria, for example, where soldiers paid by the company have been accused of shooting villagers and burning homes. And the company continues to work in Venezuela, despite constant sniping between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush administration.

Chevron has denied any part in any human rights abuses. Its executives argue that staying in troubled countries - even pariahs such as Burma - does more good than harm by employing locals and funding health and education programs.

"I'm convinced that hundreds of thousands of people in Burma have benefited," said Chevron Vice Chairman Peter Robertson, who pointed to the community doctors and teachers his company has paid for. "They benefit from us being there."

There's also the question of whether pulling out would work.

Chevron owns a minority stake in the Yadana natural gas field and pipeline, a little more than 28 percent. Both China and India have been eager to do business with Burma, hoping to secure some of the fuel supplies that their surging economies need. If Chevron left, one country or another would try to take its place, Robertson said.

"It's pretty clear that this is a very attractive asset, and other people would be interested," he said.

Frank Verrastro, head of the energy program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank, said Burmese law also would force Chevron to fork over much of the company's capital gains on the project if it sold its stake. That could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the sale price. The project cost roughly $1 billion to build in the mid-1990s and is doubtless worth far more today.

"That goes straight to the Burmese government," Verrastro said. "The biggest conundrum right now is how to deal with bad actors who have a resource that the world needs. And we haven't come to grips with that in any way, shape or form."

Chevron's involvement in Burma - called Myanmar by the military junta that rules it - already has a complicated and controversial history.

It started with Unocal Corp., one of Chevron's historic rivals. Unocal invested in the Yadana project in the 1990s along with three other companies: France's Total, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the Petroleum Authority of Thailand. When Washington decided to impose sanctions on Burma's military junta in 1997, Unocal was allowed to stay under a grandfather clause.

Chevron acquired the stake when it bought Unocal in 2005. By then, however, the Yadana project had become a public relations disaster for Unocal. Burmese exiles sued the company in a U.S. court, saying the pipeline's construction had involved forced labor and other human rights abuses committed by the military. Unocal denied the accusations but settled the case out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Burma isn't the only place where Chevron has faced questions about human rights.

The company's operations in Nigeria have triggered frequent protests by poor Nigerians who say they see little of the money flowing from the nation's rich oil fields. Some have sued Chevron, saying that soldiers paid by the company have killed protesters and villagers.

And in Ecuador, Chevron is fighting a long-running lawsuit concerning oil-field pollution that residents say has contributed to a wave of illnesses in part of the Amazon jungle. The suit alleges that Texaco, which operated an oil-field in Ecuador years before Chevron bought the company, left pools of petroleum and hazardous chemicals scattered around the field, eventually covering them with thin layers of soil rather than removing them.

In both countries, Chevron has denied the allegations, both inside and outside court.

In Burma, Chevron acts mainly as an investor. The company does not operate the Yadana field. That role falls to Total, which has the biggest stake in the project, at 31 percent.

Despite its strategic location for Chevron, Yadana has its limits. The U.S. sanctions prevent Chevron from expanding its investment, even as the company pours money into exploring for oil and natural gas off neighboring Thailand. And the existing operations are small compared to many of the company's projects worldwide.

Even so, Yadana represents a key source of cash for Burma's government.

Human Rights Watch, one of the groups trying to pressure Chevron, says natural gas sales are the government's single largest source of income, although economic data from Burma are unreliable. Gas sales to Thailand brought the government $2.16 billion in 2006, according to Human Rights Watch. Most all of the Yadana project's gas flows to Thailand.

"President Bush should order Chevron to cease operations in Burma immediately," said Nyunt Than, president of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance. "That would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from this military. It would create great pressure on them to come to the table."

A White House spokesman referred questions about Chevron's presence in Burma to the National Security Council, which did not respond to a query.

Chevron pays for social programs in communities along the Yadana pipeline's route, funding teachers, libraries and doctors. The company reports significant declines in local deaths from malaria and tuberculosis since the programs began.

But exerting political pressure on Burma's government is another question entirely. Chevron has typically resisted calls for that kind of involvement.

Chief Executive Officer David O'Reilly defended that position in a Chronicle interview last year.

"You have to be apolitical and try to remember what you're doing. What we do well is we invest in oil and gas exploration, refining and whatnot," he said. "We were in Angola during years and years of civil war and years when there were clearly people in the United States who felt that Angola was an inappropriate place to invest. And yet Angola's civil war is over. We've had a very positive influence there. We've created a lot of jobs."

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

Today Highlights:
---------------------------
Washington Post: China Rejects Attempt to Link Developments in Burma to Beijing Olympics
SF Chronicle: Editorial: Mission in Burma
ALDE: European Parliament pleads for European sanctions against Burma
VOA: Japan Considers Serious Measures Against Burma
VOA: Japan Presses Burma Over Shooting Death of Japanese Journalist
BBC: Lessons from the Burmese uprising
AP: Stallone and crew saw Myanmar aftermath
Bangkok Post Breaking News: Talks, no progress in Burma
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Washington Post: China Rejects Attempt to Link Developments in Burma to Beijing Olympics

[ We now know they are sensitive to this because it will hurt their economy. Let's keep working until they support the strong measures from UNSG if dictator does not behave. We must forced China to Act. The world must forced dictators to come to the table. Enough is enough!!! Now is the time for Action. Thanks, Nyunt Than]

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 2, 2007; A10

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy said yesterday that his government is working hard to stem the violence in Burma and argued against efforts by activists to link participation in the Beijing-based 2008 Summer Olympics to China's handling of Burma.

Linking the two is "totally irresponsible," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy, said at a hastily called news conference. He said that the Olympicmovement is based on "non-politicalization," and that China's "consistent stance is that irrelevant issues should not be linked to the Beijing Olympic games."

China proved sensitive to an earlier attempt by activists in the fight against genocide in Sudan's Darfur region to organize a campaign to boycott the Olympics. It responded by appointing a special envoy on Darfur and became more actively involved in seeking a settlement between the government and rebels.

China's sensitivity about similar calls to link developments in Burma to the Olympics was reflected by the embassy's decision to hold the news conference on a Chinese national holiday. Beijing has deep trade and business ties with the military junta that controls Burma, also known as Myanmar, and earlier this year joined Russia in vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have pushed Burma to ease repression and release political prisoners.

China, when it vetoed the U.N. resolution, pointed to the generally neutral stance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Burma is a member. But the association has turned against Burma, declaring last week its "revulsion" over the bloody government crackdown on demonstrators.

Wang said China helped to get a special U.N. envoy into Burma, and he described meetings on the crisis involving Chinese officials last week. He insisted that "in the last couple of days, the situation there appears to have some signs of relaxation."

[The U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, met today with Burma's senior general, Than Shwe, to discuss the crackdown, the Associated Press reported, citing a foreign diplomat who requested anonymity.]

In response to a question about whether China wanted Burma to reach out to detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Wang said: "We encourage the national reconciliation among the various parties of the country through peaceful means, and, of course, dialogue included."

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win said his government is the victim of an international neocolonial effort to derail Burma's goal of establishing a "disciplined democracy."

"When protesters ignored their warnings," he said, government forces "had to take action to restore the situation. Normalcy has now returned to Myanmar."

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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Editorial: Mission in Burma

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/02/EDU9SHRFS.DTL
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Japan Presses Burma Over Shooting Death of Japanese Journalist
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Listen to Martig report (mp3)

A Japanese envoy visiting Burma has demanded the military government provide answers about the death of a Japanese video-journalist, who was killed by security forces last week in Rangoon. Officials in Tokyo are considering stern measures against Burma to protest the shooting incident and the crackdown against democracy activists. Naomi Martig reports from VOA's Asia News Center in Hong Kong.
 

Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka, Rangoon, 30 Sep 2007

During meetings Monday with several top officials in Burma's new capital, Naypyitaw, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka demanded that Burmese officials open a full investigation into the death of video-journalist Kenji Nagai.  

Nagai was one of at least 10 people killed last week when security forces in Rangoon opened fire on pro- democracy demonstrators. Officials in Burma, which is also called Myanmar, insist his death was accidental - that Nagai was shot by a stray bullet. Video footage smuggled out of the country, however, appears to show a soldier shooting Nagai from about a meter away.

Assistant press secretary for Japan's foreign ministry, Kazuyuki Yamazaki, says Tokyo hopes the video footage will shed light on what happened.

 

Photo released by Democratic Voice of Burma  showing Japanese journalist as he lays in the street after being shot in Rangoon, 27 Sep 2007

"We are also referring that scene to the Myanmar government and we would like to receive their official account of why the Japanese journalist had to be killed," he said.

During the meetings, Yabunaka requested authorities return a small video camera Nagai was clutching as he died. The camera was missing from items returned by Burmese authorities.

Yamazaki said the Japanese envoy also called for Burma's military government to stop its violent crackdown and release the arrested demonstrators.

Japanese officials have said Japan may take strong steps against Burma. But Yamazaki says Tokyo has not yet come to a decision about imposing sanctions.

"In order to decide our response, we are taking account of the Myanmar sides' reaction to the request made by our government, especially through Mr. Yobunaka, as well their response to the international society including the United Nations' envoy to Myanmar," he said.

Burma's Foreign Minister U Nyan Win (File)

Burma's government has defended the crackdown against protesters. In an address Monday to the U.N. General Assembly, Burma's Foreign Minister Nyan Win said the military action was necessary to restore law and order. He criticized moves by some countries, including the United States, to impose or increase sanctions against it. 

Japan is a top aid donor to Burma, providing about $26 million annually in recent years.

House Editorial: Bringing light to Burma

Posted on October 1, 2007

Halfway across the world, a tragedy is bringing to light the irresponsibility of a nation’s ideology.

In the country of Myanmar (commonly known as Burma) last Thursday, a 50-year-old freelance journalist named Kenji Nagai was gunned down by soldiers while recording video of anti-government demonstrations while working for the Japanese news agency APF News.

The Myanmar state media reports that eight other people were killed, though actual numbers could be much higher. The government has also attempted to play off the incident with a “stray bullet” explanation.

What could initially be interpreted as an unfortunate accident quickly reveals its true colors when you view any of the abundant images or videos circulating the Internet. Nagai was approached, shoved and shot at point-blank range in one swift deliberate motion.

Admirably, as Nagai lay wounded, he attempted several times to raise his camera toward the soldier as he walked away, still making an effort to inform the public.

Almost as disturbing as the event itself is the manner in which the government is handling the dissemination of information. According to the Burma Media Association and the Committee to Protect Journalists, instead of allowing journalists to conduct their business, the government synchronized a total block of the Internet and cut cell phone service to prevent the transmission of stories and photographs. It was already too late.

In response to what the LA Times called an “instantaneous multimedia campaign,” the government has now begun to shut down blogs and other information related to the event.

The Burmese protestors want to better their existence. They had been opposing a military junta, ironically calling itself the State Peace and Development Council, that has ruled since seizing power in 1988.

Attempting to maintain strict control, the government of Myanmar told its citizens to stay home and not to participate in protests. Yet according to some sources, 70,000 people took to the streets before blood was shed.

Despite the attempts of the government to block what had happened, the now iconic image of the wounded Nagai holding his camera up to the soldier with his gun still trained on him appeared on the front page of The New York Times the day after the incident.

The life and death of Nagai, as both a human and a journalist, should not be forgotten. The public always has a right to know the truth, however painful it is to the ruling body.
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